Harmony of Heroes: Ultimate Multiverse Explorers

by Lucar

Rating: teen
Tags: Scootaloo, Adventure, Violence, Crossover, Death, Human, Sweetie Belle, Gore, Apple Bloom, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Super Smash Brothers, Other, Science Fiction, Comedy
Length: 793027

Several months after her adventures on Popstar, Sweetie Belle decides it's time to start new adventures in new universes

This story is also a sequel to The Phantom Filly and Apple Bloom's Mansion 4; The Castle of Death.

Disclaimer: the story gets dark on some parts, but due to the blue tag limit I can’t include the tag. Read at your own caution.

Starting from chapter 145, the story is a collaboration and some of the chapters are written by Justalad 45. Starting from chapter 158, some of the chapters are written by Cyrus Colter

Several months passed since Sweetie Belle fought Kirby and became the Alicorn of the Void. The filly is thirsty for new adventures, discovering new universes, making new friends, fighting new bad guys. Feeling that she is ready, she opens a portal, and starts her new life.

Not knowing that many universes will rapidly be threatened by a mysterious army, and that she will have to fight Light and Darkness to save everything she cares.

Published 2020-12-25 19:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2025-02-03 04:22:32 UTC

Chapter 3: First Pokémon Battle

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 4: Gathering Information

Sweetie Belle briefly returned to the lab with the excuse of asking the prof if he had a map of the region that he could give, which he gladly did. It was actually more a pamphlet that seemed to hold a lot of information about the region that Sweetie Belle couldn't wait to read. Of course, to read, she quickly took the knowledge out of the prof's mind, as well as the speech so she will be able to understand the humans without needing the translator (but she will still use it to understand the Pokémon). She only took this, however. She didn't want to take every single info out of someone's mind. Language, both speech and text, was the only exception she allowed.

Judging by the small headache she got, it was better this way. Her still mortal mind wasn't adapted to receive so much info at once. By the way, she will have to find a way to stock all these info she will collect as she explores more and more universes, because she won't be able to remember everything.

Also, she noted down to ask Magolor is he could create a text translator. Heck, she will ask him if there wasn't a way to directly transplant the speech translator and text translator in her so she won't have to learn new languages at all, leaving more place in her brain for other useful info.

And of course, create more for her friends so they will be able to understand when they will join her.

She had the feeling that the Ancient technology will be very useful in the near future. Too bad most of it worked only in the presence of Matters, although there were Matter generators like the one inside the Lor Starcutter that solved the problem.

Well, first, they had to rediscover how to build one, and even Magolor didn't know yet. It will take some years studying the generator inside the Lor (which was the only one still working so far that they've found. There were generators inside NOVA and the Access Ark, but... And of course, Haltmann, who had uncovered how to build one since he built the Access Ark, wasn't here anymore) before they would see more of them start to pop up everywhere.

Sweetie Belle wondered if building many generators will have some effects in her universe. Like, turning it into a Dream Universe bis, with food popping up everywhere, the possibility to breathe underwater and in space, and so on.

Anyway, with the knowledge of the local language in mind, and a pamphlet of the region in hand, Sweetie Belle exited the lab for the second time and went to sit on a nearby bench to read the paper.

The map inside showed that the region was named Kanto, and that there were only ten cities and towns. All the places of interest had a number, and in another page, the numbers were listed with the names of the places and some info. For example, it was indicated that Pallet Town was where the laboratory of the famous Professor Oak was situated, and it was also from this town that the ex-Champions Red and Blue originated.

Funny enough, all the cities, and even some other places, were named after colors, or in Pallet Town's case, something related to colors. It reminded her of her adventures against Drawcia and Claycia.

Obviously, it showed where the eight Gyms were, with the presence of a ninth, unofficial Gym, a fighting dojo, in Saffron City. For each Gym, it was indicated who was the current Gym Leader, and their specificities such as which type they specialised. About this, the Viridian Gym was apparently specialised in Ground-type, but when the previous Gym Leader, Giovanni, left, Blue took over and the Gym became one of the rare Gyms in the world to not specialise in a specific type.

Gyms weren't the only places of interest, however. There were many other interesting locations, like the Indigo Plateau which was the siege of the Pokemon League of Kanto AND Johto, a neighboring region in the West; the Lavender Radio Tower which was apparently originally where Pokémon were buried, but after an attack of Team Rocket to loot the graves, they were moved to a safer location and the tower was reconverted into a radio tower; Mt. Moon which was where you could find a rare stone named Moon Stone that came from meteorites regularly falling on the mountain for some reason, and it was also there that fossils of prehistoric Pokémon could be more often found; the Silph Co. in Saffron City that manufactured many technologies related to Pokémon such as the Poké Balls; and it continued!

The pamphlet also indicated what were the best locations to capture Pokémon. For example, Mt. Moon was a nice place to find wild Clefairy. Sadly, apparently, a lot of locations were recently lost. The Pokémon Tower had been home to many Ghost Pokémon before it was repurposed, and many Electric Pokémon had moved into the Power Plant when it was abandoned, only to move away when it was refurbished. The Safari Park, where it was possible to find many rare Pokémon, also recently closed.

The pamphlet itself now advised that you had better chances to find Ghost Pokémon in other regions than in Kanto. There were just no place in Kanto anymore that had the perfect conditions to be the home of wild Ghost Pokémon, not even the newly built House of Memories that was the new home of the graves from the tower. A little note indicated that the Pokémon League was thinking of doing something about this after complaints from the trainers.

Not that Sweetie Belle minded. If she wanted to capture a Ghost Pokémon, then she would just fly to Johto and search there.

Done with the pamphlet, Sweetie put it inside her backpack and left Pallet Town to return to Viridian City where she intended to discover more about Pokémon and the Pokémon League around which almost everything seemed to revolve.

On the way, she left Squirtle out of its Poké Ball, wanting to talk to it.

Hey. I guess it's time we have a talk.

Uh... I guess.

Since we're gonna be partners for a long time, then I will be straight. I'm not a Pokémon, contrary to what everyone thinks, even if I look like one.

Squirtle stared at her in shock. Really?! Then what are you?

Sweetie Belle smirked. An alien from another universe.

Squirtle's jaw dropped before he was filled with horror.

Sweetie Belle giggled. What? Scared that I'm gonna do experiments on you? Well... I must admit that some members of my species wouldn't be against it, too curious for their own good, but I'm not like that. And I'm not a scout for an alien invasion. I just want to make friends, live adventures, and have fun. And you will see, my homeworld isn't bad. You will love it. The others won't be able to understand you and talk to you in your mind however, I'm a special case. Anyway, what's your gender?

This came so out of nowhere that Squirtle couldn't help but shout "What?"

Your gender. You know, if you are a boy or a girl. I remarked that the humans use a neuter pronoun to speak about Pokémon as if they were simple animals, but you are clearly intelligent, so I would rather avoid using it, but I don't know what is your gender.

Squirtle stared at Sweetie Belle for a few seconds before he answered I'm a male.

Okay. And do you have a name? Beside Squirtle, of course, but since Squirtle is the name of your species...

Pokémon don't really bother with names, so we don't mind if the humans give us one.

Really? Alright then. But I don't know what to name you Sweetie Belle then took the Pokédex and turned it on. "Let's see if I can find some info about you that could help me... So... Squirtle... Okay... Okay... Oh? Pokémon grow up by evolving? Something I will have to look up. So... Wartortle? Nice! And it evolves again! So... What the buck?! Are these freaking cannons coming out of its shell?!"

Sweetie's expression made Squirtle laugh before he said "Yeah. That's our final evolution, Blastoise. A real watertank on legs. And again, I heard that our Mega-evolution is even more epic."

"Mega-evolution?"

"I don't know much, but I heard that it's an extra, temporary, very powerful evolution that some Pokémon possess. I don't know how it works however. Maybe this machine can tell you?"

"Mmh..." Sweetie Belle began searching again and eventually found an image that made her splutter. "That's... one big cannon... Wait... Gigantamax Blastoise? What is..." With a press of a button, another image replaced the one of Mega-Blastoise. "EEEEEEEEEEEHHHHH?!?!!"

"What is it?! What is it?!" shouted Squirtle as he bounced, wanting to look at the image.

Sweetie Belle let him see, making his jaw drop again as she said "It's not a tank anymore. It's a freaking war fortress! What is Gigantamax?"

"No idea. I think I heard the prof say the word a couple of times, but he never said what it was."

"Definitively something else I will have to look up." Coming out of her shock, she returned to look at the entries of Squirtle, Wartortle, and Blastoise. "Mmh... I may have the perfect name for you, but the problem is that it's already taken by the tortoise of a friend. Bah, no matter, I will still give it to you. What do you think of Tank?"

"I like it!"

Sweetie Belle smiled. "Let's go for Tank, then. Mmh?" She remarked something in the tall grass that was turned threateningly toward them. It was one of these purple and white rodent-like Pokémon that she saw at several reprises. "Someone wants a fight it seems. Alright, Tank! Let's add a new member to our team!"

"Yeah!"

Tank positioned himself in front of the rodent. After a quick scan with the Pokédex so she didn't have to search in the list of known Pokémon, Sweetie Belle discovered that it was called a Rattata, a Normal-type. In the entry of the Rattata was a list of moves that it may know, which wasn't much apparently. Only Normal-type moves and Dark-type moves.

The Rattata started the fight with a Tackle.

Let's do like against the Bulbasaur. Turn around!

Tank understood and turned so that the Rattata hit the shell. The Rattata wasn't as big and strong as the Bulbasaur, so it just pushed Tank a little while the rat got stunned badly.

Now, Tackle it. And Tackle it again once it lands.

Tank did so, and the Rattata was sent flying by the hit. When it landed, Tank Tackled it again, sending it flying a second time. When it landed, it was almost knocked out. Sweetie Belle used the occasion to throw one of the empty Poké Balls at it. The ball hit, opened, and turned the Pokémon into red energy that entered it before it closed. After a few seconds of struggle, the ball stopped moving, and the Rattata was definitively caught.

"Yes!" yelled Sweetie Belle in victory before she gave a small high five to Tank. She then took the ball and opened it, releasing the Rattata who was obviously still hurt, but much less aggressive.

"Ugh... you got me..."

"Hello! Wait a second, I'll heal you," said Sweetie Belle before she put a hand on Rattata's head and used her powers to heal it, to the Pokémon's amazement. Once she was done, she petted it. "There. Welcome to the team. What are your moves? You can talk, I will understand you."

The Rattata looked at her in wonder before it answered. "Uh... Tackle, Tail Whip, and Quick Attack. But... What..."

Tank whispered to it "She's an alien. But don't worry, she's nice."

The Rattata looked at him as if he was crazy in return, much to Sweetie's amusement. "I will explain to you while we move to Viridian City. But, first, what is your gender?"

"What?"

Sweetie Belle, Tank, and the newly named Ratzo (who was a male who said that it was visible because females had shorter whiskers and lighter fur) entered Viridian City. Sweetie Belle quickly asked someone if there was a library, and the person gave her the directions to a building. In there, she passed the following hours learning about the Pokémon and the Pokémon League, only getting out to have a meal with her Pokémon (she had to win a battle against another trainer to get enough money).

She learned about all the types, their strong points and weaknesses. Thanks to it, she knew that she had a big advantage over Brock, the Gym Leader of Pewter City who was a Rock-type specialist, and Water was very effective against Rock. But obviously, she would have a big disadvantage against Watta, the Gym Leader of Vermilion City who was an Electric-type specialist (because Electric is effective against Water, duh!). Ratzo could be useful against Watta because Normal-type was neither strong nor weak against the Electric-type, but it would be better if she could get her hooves/hands on a Ground-type who were totally immune to Electric-moves. A visit to the Diglett's Cave to capture a Diglett (a pure Ground-type Pokémon) may be in order.

She learned about Mega-Evolutions and Gigantamax, which led to learning about Dynamax. Mega-Evolutions were like Tank explained, a temporary evolution that was very powerful, but possible only when the trainer possessed a Key Stone while the Pokémon hold a corresponding Mega Stone (for example, a Blastoisinite for Blastoise). However, both the Key Stone and the Mega Stones were rare and hard to obtain. As for the Dynamax, it was a phenomenon only present in some spots of the Galar region caused by Eternatus' defeat which caused its energy to leak as it slumbered. To be clear, as awesome as it would be to use the Dynamax, it was not possible outside of Galar.

Unless Sweetie Belle learned to copy this energy to use it at will.

Note to self: visit the Galar region.

She also learned about the existence of the Z-Moves, but if they were really related to those Ultra Wormholes like it was speculated, then she may have to visit the Alola region too to copy the corresponding energy to use them outside of it. Also, thanks to these Ultra Wormholes, she apparently wasn't the first extra-dimensional being visiting this world. And apparently, alien Pokémon were rather common.

As for the Pokémon League, Sweetie Belle had already guessed most of it thanks to Blue and the prof. It was an organisation that organized Pokémon competitions all over the world in the form of regional leagues such as the Indigo Plateau, and it was this organisation that established the rules and regulations relating to Pokémon that everyone was forced to follow, even the ones not participating in the competitions. As such, a trainer couldn't hold more than six Pokémon at once, and if they captured a new Pokémon, then the Pokémon will be transformed into data and sent into a storage system where they will live in an artificial environment. There was no way around it, all the Poké Balls were built with this. So nobody could have more than six Pokémon unless they managed to create their own Poké Balls. And to access the Pokémon stored, the trainers had to use PCs present in specialised buildings such as Pokémon Centers (which were the equivalent of hospitals for Pokémon). Well, that was before. Recently, they invented what was called the Pokémon Box Link which allowed trainers to access the storage from everywhere, but it was still fairly recent, and so, wasn't present yet in all regions.

And since the Pokémon had such an important place, then the Pokemon League had a lot of pull in the world and was very powerful, easily the most powerful entity, especially now that some of the Champions had in their teams many Legendaries, including some of the most powerful ones.

Speaking of powerful Legendaries, this universe, or multiverse because of the whole Ultra Wormhole stuff, was created by such a Pokémon. A real God named Arceus. And she learned that the little pink cat-like Pokémon she became friend with, named Mew, was none other than the ancestor of all the Pokémon of this world excepted most of the Legendaries (and excluding the alien ones and the ones created by humans like Porygon, of course), nothing else, and was considered extinct.

What were the chances then of encountering Mew almost immediately after entering this world? Mew must have been very interested in her to approach her like that. From what little information there was on it, Mew was very shy and only showed itself to a select few, and even then, never really approached. If she had known, she would have taken a photo and showed it to the prof! His face would have been priceless!

And now, she wondered if she will encounter this Arceus. Becoming friend with another God would be nice.

From there, she learned everything she could about the Pokémon, their moves, and their types (both the Pokémon and the moves) until the library closed. She then had a dinner in a restaurant after battling a few trainers to get their money (Very convenient!), then battled a few more trainers to help Tank and Ratzo become stronger and learn new moves (and gain more money, she already gained more money in this world that she was ever given back in Equestria) before she went to sleep in the Pokémon Center of Viridian City where a Jigglypuff helped her falling asleep by using Sing (in battle, it was a move where the Pokémon sang a lullaby to make their opponent fall asleep and make them vulnerable, but here, it was a simple way to help people find sleep).

Before she lost consciousness, Sweetie Belle thought to herself that it would be nice to have a Jigglypuff so they could Sing together.

Chapter 5: Finding New Friends And a New Battle

Sweetie Belle woke up the next morning with already a to-do list in her mind. So, as she and her Pokémon took the breakfast offered by the Pokémon Center, she took a paper, a pen, and began to write what she will do helped by the Pokédex.

First, she wanted to complete her Pokémon team, starting with a Pichu. From the moment she saw one on the shoulder of a trainer the previous day, she wanted to have one. It was absolutely adorable. Well, she saw on the Pokédex that there were many adorable Pokémon, but Pichu came first in mind, and shouldn't be hard to find. Pichu could be found in the Viridian Forest, although they apparently generally remained out of the way of trainers. She may have to turn herself back into her pony-form to gain their trust more easily. And Pichu being children Pokémon, she didn't intend to get one the normal way. It would be too cruel. She will just ask around if a Pichu will accept to follow her. Hopefully, one will accept.

Then, she would search for a Jigglypuff. A Pokémon that loved to sing was obviously made for her. And thankfully, it shouldn't be hard to find either as they could be found a little everywhere in Kanto, mainly around Mt. Moon and Saffron City.

Then, a Dragonite, because dragon, and also because it seamed to be the less threatening-looking of the Dragon-types. The problem was that it was extremely difficult to find one in the wild, so the better choice will be to find a Dratini or a Dragonair and make it evolve. The problem was that, in Kanto, they could be found only in the water of the Safari Zone, but since the Safari didn't exist anymore... No choice, she will have to go to Dragon's Den, in Johto.

Which was good because she also needed to go to Johto to find a Ghost Pokémon. Really, having a ghost in her team along with a dragon, how cool will it be? And it will be perfect for Nightmare Night. Finding a Gastly should be very easy, although she could also go to Mt. Silver to find a Misdreavus. But she will have to be careful. She read some Pokédex entries about various Ghost Pokémon and... Well, Ghost-types weren't just feared because most of them looked scary. Many of them were really dangerous, even the most innocent-looking like Drifloon.

She would have liked capturing more Pokémon but she wanted to bring all of them to Equestria, and because of that whole "capturing a Pokémon beyond six will send said Pokémon inside a computer", she couldn't. Not before she found a way to deactivate whatever caused the Poké Balls to be transferred into a PC with the Pokémon inside. She may have to ask Magolor and Susie about that.

Anyway, once her team will be complete, she will battle Red, deciding that she wanted to get this over with before she would return to Equestria. But not knowing where Red was, and not wanting to search him, she decided that she would simply go ask Blue if he had a way to contact him.

Then, if there was some time remaining, she will simply move around and do some more battles and exploration.

And thus was the planning for the whole day.

But first, before entering Viridian Forest, she used the remaining of her money and some more obtained after a few battles to buy more Poké Balls as well as a few Potions, Antidotes, Paralyze Heals, and so on, for potential battles against trainers as she searched for her chosen Pokémon.

Once she was ready, she went North and exited Viridian City, traversed Route 2 (where she went into a few more battles against eager young trainers), and entered Viridian Forest.

The forest was home to a large number of Bug-type Pokémon, but Tank and Ratzo were already trained enough to face them without problems. She also encountered a few Bug-type specialist trainers and a few others that wanted a fight, but she easily defeated them, already getting back the money she spent earlier.

Not wanting to lose too much time battling trainers, she eventually turned herself back into her pony-form, making sure to leave the belt with the Poké Balls and to turn her backpack with all the stuff she bough into a saddlebag. In this smaller form, she was much less visible, so she could easily sneak around the humans, and if any wild Pokémon searched a fight with her, she easily made them regret with a powerful beam on the face.

Eventually, she managed to find a small den with a family of Pikachu and Pichu inside. She made sure to look as non-threatening as possible as she looked at them from the entrance, the parents already getting ready to defend their little ones.

"Hello, I'm not searching a fight, I just want to ask something," she said with a small voice, attempting to appease the couple of Pikachu.

This worked as the Pikachu relaxed a little, but remained ready to attack. "What do you want?" asked who Sweetie supposed was the father.

"I'm searching for a Pichu who would want to come with me on adventures and all that stuff. If you refuse, then I will accept your decision and go search elsewhere. I will not forcefully take one away. I promise."

At that, both Pikachu raised an eyebrow before they exchanged a look. The mother then looked at the Pichu behind her and asked "Any of you want to go with her?"

The Pichu all answered with a shake of their head, refusing.

Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow in wonder. "You were ready to accept to let one leave with me? Just like that?"

The father smiled at her. "You are a trainer? You aren't human, but you seem to have the material," he asked. Receiving a nod from Sweetie Belle, he continued. "It was a great occasion for one of our Pichu to leave the den. All Pokémon know that there is no better opportunity to grow than to go with a human, or whatever you are. Normally, we wouldn't let our Pichu leave the den until they are ready, but since you didn't try to fight us, then we thought that maybe we could let one go. You seem very nice."

"Thanks. I like to fight, but I would never separate a child from their parents like that. Well then, I will go search elsewhere. Bye!" At this, the filly left.

But then, as she walked away, one of the Pikachu, the father again, left the den shouting "Wait!" to stop her and gain her attention. When she looked at him, he pointed at a direction in the right. "Over there, in this direction, is another den. They have a Pichu who is impatient to leave and discover the world. I'm sure she will accept to come with you."

Sweetie Belle nodded. "Alright. Thank you for telling me."

So she walked in the direction pointed by the Pikachu and, after a few minutes, found the den. Inside, she found another family of Pikachu and Pichu.

Before the parents could react to her, she said "Hello! I was told that there's a Pichu here who can't wait to go on adventures! That's great! I love to go on adventures, and I'm searching some companions to come with me!"

One of the Pichu got stars in its eyes at this, and began to wave a paw to gain her attention. "That's me! That's me!"

"Who are you?" asked the mother with some mistrust. "And what kind of Pokemon are you? Last I heard, there are no Pokémon who are also Pokémon trainers."

"My name is Sweetie Belle, Pokémon trainer beginner. And I'm not a Pokémon or a human. I'm a pony who comes from another world."

The stars in the eyes of the Pichu became bigger. "From another world?! You're an alien?!"

"Yup! And if you come with me, you are gonna see worlds beyond your imagination, battle foes that no Pokémon ever fought before, and make countless friends of all kinds!"

The Pichu seemed ready to explode, and even some of her siblings seemed eager to join.

"You can come, of course, if your parents accept," continued Sweetie Belle as she looked at said parents.

The Pichu immediately went in front of her parents and began to beg them. "Please please please pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplmmh!"

Amused, the mother put a paw on the Pichu's mouth to stop her. She then looked at the father who looked back at her. The father then returned to stare at Sweetie Belle crossing his fore paws.

"What if we refuse?" he asked, making the Pichu pleadingly look at him.

"Then I will go ask another family," answered the filly. "I will not forcefully take her away. But if you accept, then I assure you that she will be well taken care of and that I will protect her with everything I have. And of course, I will help her grow to become a great Pikachu, and maybe even a Raichu. Well, that is if she doesn't drown under the pile of hugs she will certainly receive back in my home world." Speaking of, I should warn everypony to be careful if they don't want to get a shock, especially if she has Static.

The father smiled, then looked at the mother and nodded. And so, the mother nodded to the Pichu. "You can go."

The Pichu exploded. "YYYEEESSS!!!" she yelled in joy before she hugged her parents. "Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!" Then, in the blink of an eye, she ran toward Sweetie Belle and tackle-hugged her, unconsciously liberating some electricity in her joy.

Not even flinching at the electricity, Sweetie Belle put a leg around the Pichu to return the hug as she giggled. "Welcome to the team, Volta."

Hearing the name, the Pichu stared at her, not believing it.

"You like it?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"I love it!" answered Volta.

It was then that Sweetie Belle remarked that Volta had a particularity: the color of her fur was a darker shade of yellow than usually. A shiny? Those were really rare. This will make it easier to recognize her.

Sweetie Belle then stepped back from the entrance of the den and put Volta on her back, much to the Pichu's joy again. Volta's family then came out of the den, and after exchanging goodbyes, Sweetie Belle walked away, Volta giggling on her back.

Sweetie Belle walked out of the forest and went toward Pewter City, still in her pony-form with Volta on her back. A few humans spotted her but didn't dare to try to capture her. They certainly heard about her easily defeating a powerful trainer and thought, rightly, that they wouldn't stand a chance against her.

So she rapidly reached Pewter City and entered Route 3 where Jigglypuff could be found. She rapidly found one, or rather, heard it as it was singing, and she just had to follow the sound while resisting the sleeping effect of it. She quickly put Volta inside a Poké Ball when she saw that the Pichu was falling asleep. Eventually, she found the singing Jigglypuff on a stone facing three Spearow, all asleep.

Seeing the three birds sleeping, the pink, spherical Pokémon stopped, giggling, pleased with itself, before it saw Sweetie Belle approaching. It then began to Sing again, only for Sweetie Belle to Sing too in perfect harmony. Despite its shock, the Jigglypuff continued to Sing, but this time, not to make Sweetie fall asleep, but for the pleasure of singing with someone else that wasn't a Jigglypuff.

Before long, they both stopped singing, and Sweetie Belle smiled at the Jigglypuff, showing it a Poké Ball. "Want to come with me?"

"I would love to," answered the Jigglypuff.

Thus, the female Jigglypuff Lulla joined the team.

Direction Johto now. Rather than going by hooves, she flew, making it much faster (she had to levitate the saddlebags because they impeded her wings). She passed above the Indigo Plateau, went through the mountain range separating Kanto from Johto (getting a close view of Mt. Silver), and arrived at Blackthorn City where the entrance to Dragon's Den was situated.

Seeing that the entrance was guarded, she teleported behind the man before she moved down the ladders to the main room of the cave where there was a shrine surrounded by an underground lake. Some trainers were present and, apparently not knowing what she was, attacked her with Dragon-type Pokémon that she very easily defeated with some powerful Ice Beams.

After that, she jumped in the lake in search of a Dratini or a Dragonair.

She rapidly found a Dratini who confronted her, and knowing that it was probably more powerful than any of her Pokémon currently, she decided to fight it herself, underwater. Well, fight... She avoided a Dragon Rush, grabbed the Dratini, flew out of the lake to the ceiling of the cave with it, and plunged back into the lake like a meteor. She then slammed the Dratini at the bottom, knocking it out before capturing it inside a Great Ball.

With the deed done, she teleported out of the cave.

And so she got Drako, the male Dratini.

After healing Drako, Sweetie Belle found herself with a tiny bitty problem concerning Gastly: both in Bell Tower and in Sprout Tower, as well as in the few Routes where they could be found, they only appeared in the night. During the day, they remained hidden.

A fellow trainer told her about it inside the Bell Tower as she had been searching for a Gastly.

Well then, since she couldn't wait for the night, this meant she had to play hide and seek with a ghost, with her as the seeker. Great!

Thankfully, she had a great method to make a ghost come out of its hiding place when they didn't want to see the light.

She went to a part of the tower where there was nobody (because the tower was full of trainers, obviously) and plunged said part into total darkness. It was only a matter of seconds before a Gastly came and attempted something on her, only for her to shape the darkness into tentacles of shadows that wrapped around the ghost, trapping it. She then tightened the tentacles until she judged that the Gastly was weakened enough to capture it with a Great Ball.

And now, with the arrival of Smily (male Gastly), she had her full team.

A quick healing later, she teleported to a secluded place in a random Route, under the shadow of a tree (for Smily), and let out her six Pokémon.

Tank the Squirtle (who she was certain was almost ready to evolve), Ratzo the Rattata, Volta the Pichu, Lulla the Jigglypuff, Drako the Dratini, and Smily the Gastly.

She was feeling so proud! And so happy!

Drako and Smily, however, looked at her as if she was Giratina. Yeah... She could understand them after the show of power she demonstrated against them... And she hadn't explained what she was to them.

So she turned into her pony-form and sat in front of them, Volta quickly coming to sit at her left, snuggling against her.

"So, the team is complete. Now, how about we pass some time getting to know each others? I am Sweetie Belle. I'm a dimensional traveler who came from the land of Equestria on planet Equus, and I'm what we call an alicorn pony, and to be more exact, the Alicorn of the Void. To put it simply, I'm very powerful, and I can pretty much use every moves existing, excepted maybe a few very powerful moves that only godly legendaries can use."

"No kidding..." said Smily.

"As a dimensional traveler, I explore dimensions. I just started, and you will be happy to learn that your world is the first that I'm exploring. For what reason? Easy! To live adventures, make friends, and have fun. To discover new incredible things, and kick some evil butts if I encounter some. And probably make Discord proud by unconsciously spreading chaos like I tend to do. And with me being taken for a legendary Pokémon by the humans, I think it already started.

Anyway, outside of that, when I'm not exploring worlds, I go to school with my friends. I help my sister sometimes with her dresses, modeling for her. I protect Equestria from any villain attempting to conquer it, although this hasn't happened since I defeated the most powerful dark mage of my world. And I visit other friends I have in another universe where I lived for over a year. Oh yeah, in said universe, I'm the queen of a kingdom, but it doesn't matter right now because I don't start my duties until I am an adult. And in the far future, I'm fated to become a Goddess, but again, it doesn't matter right now.

It's really nice to have all of you with me. The more the merrier like we say. I'm sure we will live some great and very crazy adventures together. Any question?"

Silence. The Pokémon just looked at her in shock as she said the full extend of what she was. Excepted Volta who just looked at her with stars in her eyes, probably already imagining all the adventures she will have with someone like Sweetie Belle as her trainer.

Then, Tank raised a foreleg. "Uh... What was the part about you becoming a Goddess?"

"I said it didn't matter. But if you want to know, right now, I'm pretty much a half-goddess, and once I will have fully matured, I will become a Goddess. But it won't be before a century or two, so don't think about it."

"How did you become so strong?!" Volta suddenly shouted at her side.

"Uh... It's a really long story and I don't think I have time to tell it. I'm planning to return to Equestria tonight, you see, and there's a trainer I want to battle before. But the short story is that I got transported accidentally to another universe where I trained a lot and fought many powerful villains."

"So, if I train, I can become as strong as you?" asked Volta.

"Uuuuh... You will become strong, and I can even train you to use things other than moves, but... You see, a good part of how powerful I am is related to me being the Alicorn of the Void. Alicorns are very powerful beings in Equestria, the equivalent of legendary Pokémon, and like legendary Pokémon, you don't become one just like that."

Volta looked down with a disappointed "Aww..." at this before she got excited again. "But I will still get very strong?"

"The strongest Pikachu, or even Raichu, of the world," Sweetie confirmed with a nod. "Same for all of you," she said to all the others. "You will not be legendaries, but I will make you as strong as one. It won't be easy, however."

"Don't worry!" Tank said, determined. "I can take whatever you throw at me!"

"I don't think so. I don't think you would survive to taking a punch that could crack a planet in two."

Drako sweated profusely at this. "You... You are joking, right?"

Sweetie Belle giggled. "Nope! Totally serious! What I used against you was not even 0,1% of my full power."

Drako fainted.

"Uh. I will have to think about this. This could be a funny way to win a Pokémon battle."

Sweetie Belle, back in her human form, entered the Viridian Gym for the second time in two days. Now that her team was complete, it was time to fight Red. After a quick lunch during which her Pokémon got to know each others around a good meal, she teleported all the way back to Viridian City, making sure to appear on a roof where she was certain nobody would be there.

Blue was present in his usual place, waiting for challengers, and was surprised to see her coming.

"Sweetie Belle? What are you doing here? I thought you said you wouldn't start the League right away."

"And I'm still not planning to, especially starting with you after you said that you only take challengers with seven badges. I'm here just to ask you something. Do you have contact with Red?"

"Uh, yeah. I have his phone number," Blue answered, wondering what the filly had in mind.

Sweetie Belle wasn't sure what was a phone, but she already had an idea of its use. "Then can you ask him to find me wherever you think would be the best place to fight him without causing collateral damage, please?"

"Oh! So you want to fight him now, uh? Alright, wait a second," Blue said. He then took a device, pressed some buttons, and put it beside his ear. After a few seconds, he then began to talk. "Yo, Red. You know that new legendary Pokémon that you want to fight? Yeah, well she is just in front of me and told me... Yes, told me, that she will await you at the summit of Mt. Silver. She's interested to fight you. Yeah. You're welcome. Smell ya." He then turned the phone off before saying "Alright, so he should reach the top of Mt. Silver in a few minutes. It's the most out-of-the-way place I could think of."

"Great! Thank you! I should be able to teleport there, I flew not far of it today when I went to Johto."

"You went to Johto?"

"Yup," Sweetie answered as she showed her belt. "To get some Pokémon. I now have a full team."

"Already? That was quick! I can't wait to see what you have cooked up."

Blue then visibly thought about something, said, "Wait a second," and walked into a room in the back. He quickly came back, holding six Poké Balls.

"Before you go to Mt. Silver, I would like to have a battle against you with my strongest team, my Champion team. Since you said you can teleport to Mt. Silver, then I'm sure you will be able to reach it before Red gets there. That should leave enough time for me to see how strong you are. I don't doubt you will crush me, but I want to witness this power that you will use against Red."

Sweetie Belle immediately accepted and quickly took off her backpack and her belt with all her Poké Balls. She then let the Pokémon out so they could see the show.. "Hey guys! I'm gonna battle an ex-Pokémon Champion! It would be sad if you couldn't see this! So, go on the stands and watch!"

"Oh my gosh! Yes! I'm not missing it!" shouted Volta before she ran to the stands, followed by the others.

Blue looked at them for a few moments before he said "Nice team you got. Alright! Now, get ready!"

Sweetie Belle nodded and walked on her side of the arena before turning into a pony.

"Ready!" she shouted

Blue smirked as he took his first Poké Ball. "Here I come!"

The ball opened, and out of it came a Sandslash, one of these scaled mammals which Sweetie wasn't sure how it was called. This one had claws that looked like they could cut anything to shreds.

Sweetie knew that it was a Ground-type, and so, flew up, already turning ineffective a good part of its moves.

"Mpf... Of course..." muttered Blue before he yelled "Use Poison Sting!"

The Sandslash sent several purple, poisonous darts at Sweetie Belle who teleported out of the way and appeared beside it.

"Iron Tail!" shouted Blue.

The tail of the Sandslash became metallic and it attempted to slap Sweetie Belle with it only for the filly to teleport behind it. Expecting a physical attack, it quickly curled into a ball, its quills ready to protect it. But it turned out that it expected wrongly as Sweetie Belle didn't attack with a punch or whatever. Instead, she fired a powerful stream of water that sent the Sandslash to crash at the bottom of the stands. She then immediately followed it by a beam of ice that totally froze the Pokémon, leaving it unable to continue the fight.

So Blue called it back and sent an Alakazam, a yellow and brow bypedal, humanoid Psychic Pokémon.

"Use Calm Mind! Then Psychic!"

Sweetie Belle used the time it took the Alakazam to use Calm Mind to teleport in front of it to stop it from using Psychic with a punch.

But instead... "Use Thunder Punch and Ice Punch!" shouted Blue.

The right hand of the Alakazam got covered in electricity, and the other in ice, and he attempted to punch the filly with both of them. Only for Sweetie Belle to use Sucker Punch, sending the Alakazam flying.

"Use Recover!" shouted Blue.

Darn! This move! thought Sweetie Belle as the Alakazam healed itself.

She then got an idea and began to use Poltergeist on the Alakazam's spoons, making them float out of its hands before attacking it violently. Alakazam eventually managed to grab back the spoon, but when it looked back at Sweetie Belle, its eyes widened in terror.

To it, Sweetie Belle now looked like a horrifying monster made of shadows with bloody red eyes and a big maw full of fangs. The shadows seemed to move around her, forming silhouettes of shapeless beings staring into its soul, laughing. The Alakazam was petrified with terror as the filly approached.

"Move, Alakazam!" shouted Blue, hoping to get his Pokémon out of whatever nightmarish vision was making it this terrified, but it didn't work.

Sweetie Belle then suddenly charged at the Alakazam, two claws of shadows forming on her front hooves before she attacked Alakazam with them. The Pokémon fainted after that.

Next to come out was an Exeggutor, but before Blue could yell the first order, Sweetie Belle attacked it with a huge stream of fire that circled the Pokémon to form a powerful fire tornado. When the tornado disappeared, the Pokémon was barely conscious.

"Giga Drain!" shouted Blue.

A beam came out of the Exeggutor and went toward Sweetie Belle who teleported out of the way before counterattacking with Pin Missile, sending countless pins from her horn at the Pokémon who fainted.

Blue then sent a Cloyster, a pearl-like black Pokémon inside a big shell. Water and Ice-type. This one may be a little tougher to knock out.

"Ice Beam!"

Sweetie Belle avoided the beam with a side jump and sent electricity in return. She then teleported in front of the Pokémon and readied to give it a powerful Brick Break.

"Iron Defense!" quickly shouted Blue.

Thanks to it, the Cloyster's defense was raised, and the attack did less damage than it should have.

"Tackle!" Blue immediately shouted.

The Cloyster suddenly charged, ramming Sweetie with its hard shell. She used electricity again, paralyzing the Pokémon. She used the occasion to materialize several boulders that she sent at the Cloyster, hurting it more.

"Self-Destruct!"

"What?!" shouted Sweetie Belle in surprise before she quickly turned her body into metal while covering herself under a shield of stone. Even with all his, the explosion still managed to hurt her, but only slightly.

Blue then sent a Ninetales, a gorgeous fox Pokémon with nine tails. A Fire-type.

So... Water! Sweetie Belle dodged an Inferno and sent a huge wave of water at the Ninetales, sweeping it off the floor. Seeing that it wasn't enough to knock it out she quickly sent more water in the form of a big shuriken, finishing it.

This left Blue with only one Pokémon: his Jolteon.

"Rain Dance!"

"Uh?"

The Jolteon summoned a big storm cloud, and the next instant, it began to rain on the arena, drenching both fighters.

Now, the electric attacks will be more effective against her!

Blue smirked. "Quick Attack!"

To Sweetie's surprise, instead of directly attacking her, the Jolteon used the Quick Attack to very rapidly run around her, waiting the opportune moment to strike!

"Thunder!"

But it was Sweetie's turn to smirk as, just as Jolteon used Thunder, she transformed into a Sandslash, becoming a pure Ground-type. As a result, the Thunder had no effect on her.

Both Blue's, Jolteon's and the other Pokémon's jaws dropped, making Sweetie giggle.

"What? I can turn into a human, so I can turn into any Pokémon too."

She then used Dig, successfully hitting the Jolteon with it. She immediately followed it with a series of Metal Claws, and then an Iron Tail, before she jumped, curled into a ball, and dropped back on Jolteon, knocking it out.

With the fight over, she turned back into a pony. "Thanks, Blue! It was a nice warming up! Now, I should go! Red must be almost at Mt. Silver, if not already here! Can you take care of my Pokémon while I'm gone, please? Thanks! See you later!"

And then, she was gone, leaving everyone gawking.

Blue turned to look at the Pokémon on the stands. "You got one heck of a trainer, you know that?"

They all nodded.

Sweetie Belle appeared not far of Mt. Silver. After a quick look at it, she teleported again, this time near the summit.

She landed on it.

Just in time as she saw a silhouette approaching in the falling snow.

Once it came close enough, Sweetie Belle could finally see the man. Red cap with a white part at the front, a white shirt with red sleeves and a red 96, a blue jean with the man's hands currently in the pockets, and red and white shoes. On his shoulder was a Pikachu.

Red looked up at her, smiled, and climbed the stairs that still separated him from her. Once at her level, he just stared at her, still smiling, but saying nothing.

"..."

Then, he got his right hand out of his pocket, holding a Poké Ball, and opened it, sending a Dragonite.

A Dragonite as his first Pokémon... Something tells me this battle won't be as easy as against Blue.

Chapter 6: Versus Red Part 1

The wind was howling at the summit of Mt Silver, the snow it carried reducing the vision. It was extremely cold, and the mountain was so tall that it was hard the breathe without help.

It was a wonder, then, to see a human seemingly not hindered by any of that. And the guy was wearing light clothes! Nothing warm!

This showed Sweetie Belle that Red was above the others.

And she didn't doubt that it was also the case of his Pokémon, like the Dragonite that was now facing her, the light orange dragon-Pokémon looking down at her, ready to attack anytime.

Then, without warning, the Dragonite's tail began to glow before it used it to hit her! Not expecting the Pokémon to attack directly, it was only Sweetie's quick reflexes that let her teleport out of the way in time!

It attacked without Red even giving an order? she thought in shock.

She didn't have time to think about this as the Dragonite spotted her and immediately attacked again, this time using Extreme Speed. This time, she was ready, and she avoided the charge by jumping just above the Dragonite before she used Iron Tail right on its head, slamming it on the ground. The Dragonite didn't seem much affected by this, however, as it Mega Punched the ground to propel itself in the air, thus quickly recovering and forcing Sweetie Belle to move out of the way. It then opened its mouth wide and prepared a Hyper Beam. She did the same from her horn.

They fired their Hyper Beam almost at the same time, and the two collided, resulting in a huge explosion that Sweetie Belle used as cover to teleport behind the Dragonite, only for the Pokémon to turn around with extreme speed before hitting her with Iron Head. He followed it with Iron Tail, but Sweetie Belle managed to grab it before using it to throw the Dragonite hard toward the ground. She went after it just after throwing it, and just after it crashed, she gave it a powerful kick in the stomach before she barely avoided a Thunder Punch followed by an Ice Beam. She countered it with her own Ice Beam followed by a Draining Kiss (on the cheek, the kiss), healing the damage she got from the Iron Head.

Only to find the Dragonite also healing using Rest!

"WAKE UUUUUUP!!!!!!" she yelled using Uproar, forcefully waking the Dragonite up while dealing some damage to its eardrums (as well as to Red's and Pikachu's). She used so much power in it that she made the top of the mountain shake, causing boulders to fall! No doubt she had been heard from very far away both in Kanto and in Johto!

But the Dragonite made her regret it because, as it was holding its ears in pain, it rolled on its belly with her still on it, ending up crushing her under it. So she fired a point blank Hyper Beam that sent the Dragonite flying, followed by another Ice Beam. It still wasn't enough to knock it out, but it was terribly weakened as it landed on a knee, breathing heavily.

The Dragonite then roared before smashing the ground, using Earthquake that forced the filly to fly up only for the dragon to use Hyper Beam. She dogded it with an aileron roll before she dashed toward the Pokémon who then attempted to Mega Punch her, but she avoided the punch too with another aileron roll before she Mega Punched it on the head, slamming it on the ground. The Dragonite wasn't done yet, but before it could get up, Sweetie Belle flew high into the sky before dropping back toward it, another Mega Punch ready. The Dragonite quickly put its arms to protect its head, but the filly targeted instead its belly.

The resulting impact knocked the breath out of the Dragonite and caused a good part of Mt Silver to crack in two.

Sweetie Belle landed beside the dragon just as its head hit the ground, the Pokémon finally out. Red immediately called it back in its Poké Ball, impressed, before he smiled again, took an Ultra Ball, and opened it, releasing a giant bird Pokémon that reminded Sweetie Belle of a phoenix: Moltres, one of the legendary birds. Fire and Flying-type possessing the Pressure ability.

And Sweetie could feel it. She felt like there was a weight on her whole body. Any action in the presence of this bird will be more tiring.

But she didn't mind. She still had a lot in reserve.

But it wasn't the only thing she could feel from Moltes. Its body was radiating intense heat that caused the snow around to melt.

And then, it went and used Sunny Day, clearing in a few seconds the clouds that covered the sky, the air now feeling like in a desert.

But Moltes wasn't the only one who could change the weather.

Sweetie Belle countered with a Sandstorm, turning tonnes of stones into sand before sending it at the Pokémon, totally ruining its Sunny Day while also hurting it a little. Moltes was visibly annoyed before it used Sunny Day again, forcing the Sandstorm to stop. But Sweetie Belle had seen it coming and immediately restarted the Sandstorm, only for Moltes to maintain its Sunny Day.

And so, this resulted in the Sandstorm continuously raging and causing small damage while the sun still managed to pierce it to the point of almost blinding Sweetie Belle, until she just materialised Spinni's sunglasses and put them on.

And it was in this sunny and sandy weather that the fight truly began with Moltes using Heat Wave. Sweetie Belle avoided it by flying up while she levitated several giant boulders that she threw one after another at the bird. Moltes was able to avoid most of them, and it very rapidly recovered from the few that hit, looking as if the boulders didn't affect it much despite the Pokémon's extreme weakness to Rock-type moves. But the boulder DID hurt it, the wounds they caused were visible, the bird was just very good at resisting them.

While avoiding the boulders that continued to come without stopping, Moltes unleashed the flames of its body all around before it used Hurricane. The winds created by the moves carried the flames, sending a real firestorm at Sweetie Belle, the winds cutting and the flames melting the boulders on the way.

Lucky her she could teleport, so she easily avoided the powerful attack by teleporting behind Moltes. She then used Diamond Storm, materializing countless small diamonds that she sent into the Sandstorm, making it cause much more damage to Moltes as the diamonds continuously cut it severely all over its body along with the grains of sand.

But suddenly, in an instant, Moltes turned around and unleashed a Solar Beam, the bird not having to charge it thanks to Sunny Day. Having not seen it coming, Sweetie Belle wasn't able to teleport before she was hit by it, the beam sending her away. But she rapidly flew out of it only for Moltes to spam Heat Wave while also using Hurricane to do like earlier. Sweetie Belle avoided them as best as she could while this time using long-ranged electric attacks, the electricity passing through the flames without problems, unlike the boulders.

So the two began to fly around each other while attacking and avoiding the other's attacks, the temperature rising as the sandstorm was heated by the intense sun and by the many powerful fire attacks, beginning to burn Sweetie Belle, and many of the grains of sand were turned into glass that cut both Moltes and Sweetie Belle, contrary to the diamonds which targeted only Moltes.

So Sweetie stopped using Sandstorm and used instead Rain Dance, summoning clouds from which it began to rain. Because of the clash it caused with Sunny Day that Moltes was still using without stopping, the sky was only partially covered, but the intense light had the effect of evaporating the water of the rain, turning it into a fog that enveloped the battlefield, totally hiding the sun. As a result, the effects of both moves became null. No boosted Fire-moves, but no boosted Water-moves either.

But, too bad for Moltes, its body was like a lighthouse in this fog, and Sweetie Belle had no problems keeping track of it contrary to the bird who totally lost the filly.

And she gladly took advantage of it! By unleashing powerful Water-moves quickly followed by Electric-moves before the water could evaporate from Moltes' very warm body. The combo was extremely effective, and Moltes could do not much to avoid them as it had no idea from where Sweetie Belle attacked.

So it did the only thing it could do; it stopped using Sunny Day, leaving Rain Dance as the only weather move. Then, it created strong winds that cleared the fog, letting it see Sweetie Belle again.

But now, thanks to Rain Dance, her Water-moves were boosted while Moltes' Fire-moves were weakened, and the filly didn't lose time to use this advantage.

But then, Moltes flew high into the sky, wings closed, before its body fully burst into flames as it dived down before it was enveloped in a blue aura.

It was using Brave Bird.

Sweetie waited for the last second, and then, teleported out of the way, letting Moltes crash into the mountain below, leaving a big crater.

When the dust cleared, Sweetie Belle could see that, because of the resulting recoil, Moltes was KO.

Well, it tried. The bird at least fought to the end even when it seemed to be a lost cause.

Red called back Moltes before taking another Ultra Ball, calling this time Articuno, the Ice/Flying-type of the legendary birds, also possessing Pressure.

And almost immediately, Sweetie's Rain Dance was turned into a hailstorm, the pellets of ice falling hard on her, hurting her.

So she quickly levitated a boulder to use as a shield against the hail.

To make it worst, Articuno used Blizzard, sending icy winds filled with snowflakes at her to freeze her, the cold biting her body.

So she used Moltes' strategy and used Sunny Day, forcing the sun to show itself through the clouds, the intense warmth of its rays melting the hail back into rain and warming up Sweetie's body. However, because of Hail, the temperature wasn't enough to turn the rain into fog like earlier. So the result of Hail and Sunny Day was Rain Dance, meaning, again, that no type received a boost or were weakened, the rain countering the sun and vice versa.

Not needing the boulder anymore, she slammed it against Articuno, partially crushing it between the boulder and the mountain, only for Sweetie to take an Avalanche in return, burying her under a pile of slowly melting snow. The bird used the occasion to destroy the boulder before flying away, staring at the pile of snow, ready to attack as soon as the filly flew out of it.

Only for Sweetie Belle to teleport behind Articuno, taking it by surprise, before she used Flame Wheel on its back. Articuno immediately turned to face Sweetie Belle before unleashing Sheer Cold, sending a powerful blue blast of absolute-zero cold that Sweetie Belle thankfully avoided with a quick move to the side. She absolutely had to avoid being hit by this move as it was so powerful that it was an instant win for Articuno if it hit.

But Articuno immediately fired another Sheer Cold, and Sweetie materialized a boulder to shield herself from it. The boulder was frozen, and she threw it to hit Articuno on the head, stopping it from firing Sheer Cold. Sweetie then used a combination of Quick Attack and Fire Charge to rapidly ram the bird again and again while being cloaked in fire.

Only to eventually be slapped by one of the wings, sending her crashing into the mountain. Articuno followed this by another Sheer Cold, hoping to get the filly before she could recover from the crash. But again, Sweetie Belle avoided it by running away using Quick Attack. Articuno followed her with Sheer Cold, and the two circled the mountain that was more and more covered in ice as a result.

Which had for effect to weaken the rocks of the mountain, making it crack until it caused several landslides. Sweetie Belle then teleported right behind Articuno and used a point blank Hyper Beam to send it right into one of the landslides, the bird ending up buried under tons of rocks. It quickly freed itself in an explosion of rock and ice, charging at Sweetie Belle with Giga Impact, only to be stopped by a powerful Thunder, which was finally too much for the legendary.

It lose consciousness and began to fall. Sweetie Belle had to catch it and levitate it back to the top of the mountain for Red to be able to call it back into its Poké Ball.

A third Ultra Ball was then opened, and out of it came Zapdos, the third of the legendary birds. Electric and Flying-type, and like the two others, it had Pressure.

And the clouds above were immediately charged in electricity while Zapdos immediately used Rain Dance. With Sweetie Belle's Sunny Day still here, it caused a fog again, but this time, the filly didn't gain any advantage from it. Zapdos wasn't a moving lighthouse like Moltes, and so, was difficult to spot in the fog unless it let electricity coursing its body, which it didn't. Of course, Zapdos had the same problem.

Only for Sweetie to still be hit by a Thunder.

"Ngh! What?"

She then had to avoid a second Thunder, followed by a third, before she understood what was happening.

There was electricity coursing between the water particles of the fog. She could feel her fur stand on end because of it. And Zapdos certainly used it to pinpoint her position.

This left her no choice but to stop Sunny Day to get rid of the fog, leaving only Rain Dance.

Sandstorm and Hail wouldn't do too. Sandstorm would turn into a death trap for both Zapdos and her because of the rain compacting the sand into pellets, and she didn't have any physical defense against Hail unless she turned into an Ice-type Pokémon.

Which she could because Zapdos was weak against Ice, but it would leave her limited, and Zapdos could still know some moves effective against Ice.

So she just decided to let Rain Dance alone and to fight in these conditions knowing that she was disadvantaged in it.

Beside, contrary to Moltes and Articuno, Zapdos only had two weaknesses: Rock and Ice; and none of them was a double weakness like it was the case with Rock for the two other birds.

Which meant that Zapdos was the hardest to defeat among the three birds.

Sweetie Belle may have to get a little more serious.

So she levitated around her dozens of boulders before she flew between them while firing dozens of Ice Beams and sending dozens of Glacial Lances at Zapdos (which it easily avoided most of them). Whenever Zapdos attacked with Thunder or any other long-ranged moves, Sweetie Belle used the boulders as shields. Whenever Zapdos attempted a more direct attack, she threw the boulders at it. However, like for Moltes, Zapdos immediately recovered from the boulders thrown at it and generally continued its charges at Sweetie Belle, forcing her to move or teleport out of the way.

However, Zapdos began to spam Light Screen, boosting more and more its defense against special-type moves, which were most of what Sweetie used to attack the thunderbird. So, eventually, for Zapdos, things like Ice Beam weren't better than simple bug bites. And it already wasn't easy to hit it!

So she turned most of the boulders into smaller rocks and used Rock Blast, using her levitation to control the rocks so they homed in. But then, Zapdos used Steel Wing to destroy many of them before it charged at her, also destroying the boulders on the way with this move. Of course, Sweetie Belle teleported again out of the way, only for Zapdos to send dozens of Thunders in all directions from all over its body, one of them hitting Sweetie where she reappeared. But then, she used Rock Tomb, sending the remaining boulders to hinder Zapdos and forcing it to destroy them first.

Sweetie Belle took the occasion to teleport beside the claws of Zapdos before she grabbed them and threw Zapdos to crash into the mountain. When Zapdos recovered from the crash and opened its eyes, it had the nasty surprise of seeing hundreds of rocks and boulders levitating in the air above it.

"Well... Bummer..."

The next instant, the rocks and boulders rained all over the area, burying Zapdos under them. Once it was over, Sweetie Belle dig the now unconscious bird out, letting Red call it back into its Poké Ball.

The trainer then nodded at his Pikachu, and the little Pokémon jumped from his shoulder.

Sweetie Belle really wasn't sure what to expect from this Pikachu. The yellow mouse was far from being as powerful as the legendary birds, and yet, Red waited until said birds were defeated to send it.

the Pikachu was slowly walking toward her...

And then...

Quick Attack!

Using this move, Pikachu began to zip and zap around Sweetie Belle at a speed she had rarely seen, not unlike electricity. After a few seconds, it then stopped above the filly, tail enveloped in iron. Sweetie Belle immediately intercepted its Iron Tail with her own Iron Tail, resulting in a great clash between the two.

"Darn. You could rival even legendaries with this speed. No wonder Red sends you only now."

Pikachu smirked. "As Red's first Pokémon, it would be disappointing if I wasn't."

"Well, we can be two playing like this."

Sweetie Belle jumped away and used Quick attack to do like Pikachu. The two then began to zip and zap around before they clashed again. But this time, Pikachu jumped up and sent a Thunder that Sweetie avoided with a jump to the side before she charged at Pikachu who readied its Iron Tail to defend itself. But then, at the last second, Sweetie Belle teleported behind it, grabbed it, and used Submission.

Pikachu punished her with electricity, helped by Static, forcing her to move away. Pikachu then restarted to use Quick Attack, only for Sweetie to smash the ground to use Earthquake, forcing Pikachu to jump high to avoid it, only for Sweetie to use Telekinesis to smash it into into the ground. But Pikachu hit the ground with Iron Tail first, stopping itself from crashing too hard before it used Dig so it wouldn't repeat. Sweetie Belle used Dig too to join it underground.

Whatever happened next underground, it resulted in a huge quantity of electricity to come out of the holes, followed by an earthquake. Sweetie Belle then came out of the ground and flew into the air, punched in the gut by Pikachu with a Thunder Punch, followed by a Brick Break that sent her back crashing. But before, she managed to wrap her tail around one of Pikachu's legs, causing it to crash alongside her before she recovered and slammed it on the ground a couple of times, still with her tail wrapped around the leg. She was stopped by Pikachu sending a Thunder at her.

Pikachu then went full frontal with Sweetie Belle, using Mega Punch, Mega Kick, and Iron Tail, forcing the filly to call her martial arts training to counter it, all the while they regularly used Quick Attack to move around, and Pikachu wasn't shy in using Thunder from point blank in the middle of a Mega Punch/Mega Kick combo..

To put it simply, Pikachu wasn't as powerful as the legendary birds, or even as the Dragonite, but its fighting skills were unparalleled, and it was the one that gave Sweetie the most problems until now, much to her pleasure. Of course, she was still limiting herself to not end the fight too quickly with unfair attacks, and she wanted to keep as much energy as possible for the last Pokémon.

Because there was no doubt that this fight against Pikachu will be nothing compared to the one against the last Pokémon.

And despite all its speed, the filly still managed to hit the Pikachu every now and then, and Pikachu weren't known for their durability. So, eventually, a last Mega Punch on the cheek managed to send the mouse on the ground, not moving anymore.

As Red called Pikachu back into its Poké Ball, the filly recovered her breath, readying herself for the last fight.

Then, she saw Red grab a purple ball with a M on it.

One of the legendary Master Balls. A very rare ball that was said that it could never miss its catch. It was said that Arceus itself couldn't escape this ball.

This wasn't a ball that was used on a simple Magicarp or Rattata. That was a ball made to catch the most powerful among the legendaries.

Sweetie Belle immediately understood that whatever Pokémon was in there will be a real challenge that will force her to use everything she had (within reason to not accidentally destroy the planet).

The Master Ball then opened.

And out of it came a Pokémon that looked like... a bipedal humanoid gray creature with feline features such as the muzzle, but with something that looked like blunt horns instead of ears, and there was something that looked like a tube coming out of the back of its skull before entering the top of its spine. It also possessed a long purple tail.

The legendary, infamous artificial Pokémon created by the Team Rocket to use as a tool to control everything. A clone of Mew itself. One of the most powerful legendary Pokémon of the world who could almost rival with Arceus itself.

Mewtwo.

Sweetie Belle then remarked that Red was putting on some bracelet with a knowing smile.

Oh boy...

Author's Note

Chapter 7: Versus Red Part 2

Mewtwo looked down at Sweetie Belle, probably judging if she was just a bug or a worthy opponent. Sweetie Belle didn't need to do that. She knew that Mewtwo was powerful. Very powerful. It was giving that "don't mess with me" aura that would make anybody else run for their life.

It was also probably attempting to read her mind, but, with the help of Twilight and Luna, she had managed to place a mental wall strong enough so that it managed to resist even it. But Mewtwo also had such a wall, so there was no way for her to do the same to it.

At least, it meant that this won't turn into one of these fights where they will try to out-read each other's mind.

Buuut... Heck, she still decided to let it enter just to give it an idea of what it was up against.

It only took a few seconds before Mewtwo took a fighting position, which actually managed to shock Red.

Mewtwo never took a fight seriously.

"So you are not a Pokémon," it then said to Sweetie Belle.

The filly took off the still magically intact sunglasses as she smirked. "Nope. I'm Sweetie Belle." She then sent the sunglasses back wherever she kept them while she put back her mental wall, forcing Mewtwo out of her mind. "Nice to face you!"

It was at this moment that Red pressed a colorful stone in the bracelet he just put up, and a similar stone in a ring on one of Mewtwo's fingers began to glow. The next instant, Mewtwo's whole body glowed too, and it visibly transformed.

It was becoming smaller. Its tail disappearing, only to seemingly come out of the back of its head. The horns turned shap and curved, not unlike Sombra's horn, and a half-ring structure connecting to the base of said horns appeared, crossing over the new appendage. The breastplate structure morphed into bumpy ridge, and its digits became more bulbous as the whole body gained a smoother appearance.

And the glow disappeared, revealing Mega-Mewtwo Y in its full glory, showing that its previously purple eyes were now red, and the digits were now purple, like the new appendage at the back of the head.

Physically more frail, but mentally phenomenal. Now it could rival Arceus.

Mmh... She may have to stop playing around with the Pokémon moves.

So, anyway, without warning, she charged at the Pokémon.

But Mewtwo had already prepared a Future Sight, letting it see what Sweetie was about to do, so it avoided her punch as well as the point blank beam she fired from her horn by moving to the side before it used Brick Break that was countered by the filly's own punch. Mewtwo then teleported away and cast Light Screen and Reflect and maintained them before it sent Aura Sphere that Sweetie Belle deflected using a mirror. But then, a rainbow colored ball came from nowhere, result of the earlier Future Sight, but the filly also deflected it. She fired back some beams that were however deflected too by Mirror Coat (although it still took some damage), and she had to avoid.

It's the fight against Kirby all over again, Sweetie Belle thought at this moment before she teleported beside Mewtwo, hoof enveloped in dark energy, only for Mewtwo to use this time Counter: the attack hit and Mewtwo received damage, but Sweetie Belle felt a pain spreading from her hoof to her whole body, resulting in her receiving even more damage. Thankfully she could heal.

And Mewtwo too as it used Recover.

"Seems like this fight will last a moment," commented the filly.

"Until one of us runs out of energy," confirmed Mewtwo.

"Well, lucky me, then!" She accumulated a huge quantity of energy from the universe around and used it to create hundreds of dark beams that she kept in the air around her. "I can save a lot of my energy by using it simply to gather and control the energies around. I won't tire out before a LOOONG time."

She then sent all the beams at Mewtwo who moved to avoid them, only for the beams to follow it, forcing it to teleport. It reappeared behind Sweetie Belle and used Psycho Cut, blades of psychic energy appearing on its arms. Sweetie Belle countered them by doing the same, only for Mewtwo's eyes to glow blue, and Sweetie found herself surrounded in a blue light, not able to move anymore. With a move of its arm, Mewtwo then sent Sweetie Belle to crash on the mountain, but the filly managed to get out of it by teleporting.

Mewtwo immediately turned around and caught one of Sweetie's hooves in its right hand as she had been about to punch it on the back of the head. It then used Psychic to send a powerful telekinetic force that sent Sweetie Belle flying right into another mountain. And for good measure, it sent another telekinetic force after her that blew up a huge part of the side of said mountain where Sweetie crashed into.

But Mewtwo was taken off guard by Sweetie Belle coming from the sky in a speed exceeding the one of sound and crashing into it. They then both crashed back on Mt Silver where Sweetie Belle grabbed the end of the purple appendage from Mewtwo's back of the head and used it to slam the Pokémon on the ground repetitively until it used Psystrike, sending a wave of psychic energy that exploded upon contact with Sweetie Belle. An explosion powerful enough that it could have blown up a small manor. Mewtwo took the occasion that Sweetie was propelled by the explosion to go after her, grab her by the head, and use an electric move to send continuously electricity coursing through the filly's body.

Until it was punched by a giant fist made of energy. A second punch from a second fist sent it to crash on Mt Silver again, and Sweetie Belle teleported beside it with a leg covered in darkness forming a big claw. With the claw, she grabbed Mewtwo's head, slammed it once, and dragged it very quickly face against the ground all over the surface of the mountain, circling it several times until she was slapped by an Iron Tail from the purple appendage.

Mewtwo immediately used Recover to heal most of the damage it took. It also boosted itself with Agility, Bulk Up, and Calm Mind, making its speed, attack, and defense (both physic and special) raise.

It then flew after Sweetie Belle as she recovered and used Psychic again and again to send forces and blasts of telekinesis that leveled huge parts of the mountains around, and the filly answered with giant beams of energy. Shadow Balls and Aura Spheres were answered by balls of energy. The weather constantly shifted between rain, hail, sunny, and sandstorm, and elemental attacks were exchanged as a result, depending of which ones were boosted and weakened in the current weather. And both opponents constantly healed themselves

Mewtwo managed to avoid a black hole thanks to a Teleport, and then used Counter as Sweetie Belle punched it with an iron hoof. Not minding the pain caused by the Counter, the filly immediately began a series of rapid strikes until she was immobilised by Telekinesis, resulting in her receiving a Brick Break in the belly before Mewtwo used Psychic to make her crash on Mt Silver for the nth time since the beginning of the fight. It then used Psychic again, this time to slam her several times before it was itself crushed by a giant boulder suddenly dropping on it. The boulder blew up the next instant.

Only for Mewtwo to fall on a knee as it was finally reaching its limit. It still used Recover to heal, but it was now breathing and sweating heavily, almost out of energy.

Sweetie Belle had been right. Thanks to her control of the energies of the universe, she was barely feeling winded as she didn't spend that much of her own energy. Mewtwo, however, didn't have the same luxury.

The next thing Mewtwo knew, Sweetie Belle was just in front of it, and she punched it in the stomach. despite having the wind knocked out, Mewtwo used Psychic to immobilise her, only for her to fire a giant beam on its face, interrupting it and sending it on its back.

Before it could get up as it used another Recover, Sweetie Belle appeared above its head, turned into metal, and dropped on it, half-burying its head with her weight.

"We should stop there. You fought well, but it's clear that you have lost," she then said when she saw that Mewtwo was still conscious, but that its Recover wasn't working as well anymore. she walked from its head and sat beside it, waiting to see what the Pokémon will do or say.

"No," it said as it started to slowly get up. "A battle doesn't end until one of the opponents is unconscious."

Sweetie Belle sighed. "Even though you clearly can't continue?"

"Yes."

The filly shrugged. "Alright then. Let's end it quickly." She then teleported just in front of Mewtwo's face, horn against its forehead...

And she absorbed the totality of its remaining energy until almost nothing remained, to the point that Mewtwo couldn't remain standing anymore. Weakened as it was, it could do nothing to stop her.

She then punched it in the gut again as it began to fall, and this time, it knocked it out.

Now unconscious, Mewtwo returned to its basic form.

"You really are one of the most powerful Pokémon of this world. You could, probably, give Kirby some troubles in a fight. I hope I will see you again."

Sweetie Belle then absorbed energy from the universe around, regaining what she spent in the fight.

Because she could do it. Having control over the energies included this. She could absorb them and just never get tired.

To put it simply, unless she was somehow stopped from absorbing energies, she was pretty much impossible to defeat. The Pokémon never stood a chance.

She then teleported herself and Mewtwo back to Red, who had sat down to admire the firework while waiting for it to end.

When they appeared, he got back up, a small look of shock appearing on his face before he took the Master Ball and called back the unconscious Pokémon.

Sweetie Belle then flew to him and extended a hoof. "It really was a great battle. I wasn't expecting to have such a challenging fight so rapidly. Your Pokémon were incredible."

Red smiled at her before he shook her hoof. "Thank you. You were incredible too. I knew I wouldn't regret facing you."

"So, shall I teleport us back to Viridian City, or just walk down the mountain?"

"I won't mind a walk."

"Alright."

So they just began to walk side by side as they started their small journey to leave Mt Silver and return to Viridian city.

"So, you are not a Pokémon."

"You guessed?"

"These weren't Pokémon moves you used, unless you have dozens of moves that only you possess."

The trek down Mt Silver surprisingly wasn't long, and after that, it only took some minutes with a bicycle (that Red had in some small Poké Ball-like container inside his back) to reach Viridian City.

Along the way, the two talked about each other and their respective adventures. Thanks to this, Sweetie learned how Red disbanded the Team Rocket and became Champion of Kanto, only to leave in a quest to become stronger and find new challenges, which ended up with him becoming a hermit in Mt Silver until he was defeated by Gold. After that, he stopped this stupid quest and just decided to live his life, regularly participating in Pokémon tournaments or that kind of stuff both in Kanto and in other regions. Apparently, last year, he participated in the Battle Tree of the Alola region where he fought the local Champion, a young boy who promptly defeated him with a really powerful team of legendaries. Well, Red had his 'usual' team back then, so he rapidly returned to Alola with his best team and fought the Champion again, only to still be defeated.

Apparently, the Alolan Champion had, among his legendaries, a very, VERY powerful one. Now, Sweetie Belle wanted to see this Ultra-Necrozma.

But it wasn't for now. She had a few hours left before she would return to Equestria.

As they returned to Viridian City, Sweetie Belle made sure to take her human appearance. Then, they reached the gym that Sweetie Belle entered with panache while shouting "I'm baaack!"

She found her Pokémon simply sitting (or floating) on the stands around the arena, awaiting her return as they talked to each others and even with Blue's Pokémon who had recovered.

Upon hearing her, the Pokémon stopped chatting and moved toward her, followed by Blue who greeted Red by putting two fingers against his temple.

"We could see the fight all the way from here!" shouted Tank.

"Or, at least, we could see the screwed up weather and the mountains partially blowing up left and right," said Smily.

"So, who won?" asked Blue as he reached them.

He was answered by Red casually pointing at Sweetie Belle, and Blue whistled.

"So she managed to defeat even Mewtwo despite having to fight the legendary birds before? No wonder she so easily destroyed my team. She's what? Arceus' daughter?"

Sweetie Belle levitated her Pokédex from her bag still on the stands, and pressed a few buttons. After examining in detail an image of Arceus, she said "Uh... I don't see any family resemblance."

"Like it would matter for the Pokémon who is said to have created everything."

"True enough."

"Anyway," Blue said as he put an arm over Red's shoulders before they both moved toward the room in the back. "Tell me about this battle. It seemed pretty epic from there. You partially changed the landscape around Mt Silver."

"Yes! Tell us!" Volta shouted excitedly to Sweetie Belle.

"I will tell you later," she replied before she shouted to Blue and Red, "See you next time you two! I'm going! Thanks again for everything!"

"You're welcome! Until next time!" shouted back Blue before he and Red passed the back door.

And so, Sweetie Belle teleported out of the gym with all her Pokémon and her equipment and appeared on a cliff that gave a good view of Viridian City and the Indigo Plateau. There, in calm, she passed the next instants recounting her battle against Red to her Pokémon while admiring the view, the few wild Pokémon that were around, and the nice day.

And then, a shadow came from behind and blocked the sun to them. When they looked around to see the origin of said shadow, they had the surprise of discovering a rather tall, equine-like white Pokémon with some grey parts like the underside of its body, of its tail, or its mane, and all over its face. It also had some gold coloration on its hooves and a little streak on its head, as well as a golden cross-like wheel attached to its body by its abdomen. Not unlike Celestia and Luna, the mane and tail seemed to float without wind. However, they seemed to be directly a part of the Pokémon's body instead of being made of hair (or magic in Celestia and Luna's case).

Well, this day was certainly full of surprises. First, she had a nice fight against Mewtwo itself, and now, Arceus the God Creator of this universe itself was coming to apparently have a chat with her.

Maybe her earlier battle with Mewtwo gained its attention. Or maybe it had been watching her since she entered this universe after feeling her portal opening.

"Hello, your diviness!"

Arceus chuckled. "No need to call me that. Just call me Arceus," it then said before it lied down beside her. "I was really curious when Palkia came to me and told me that they felt a portal that wasn't an Ultra-Wormhole opening. This is certainly an unusual, and potentially very dangerous occurrence."

Sweetie nodded in understanding. "Who knows what can come from out there. So you watched me?"

"Yes."

"So, what is your... Judgment?" Sweetie Belle said with a giggle at her pun, because Arceus had a move called Judgment that was unique to the godly Pokémon.

Arceus understood the joke, but it was hard to say if it was smiling at it or not, what with not having any visible mouth.

"You are definitively a dangerous being. You clearly demonstrated your power earlier, and I could tell you weren't even using everything you have. But... You also showed that you didn't want any harm to this world and its inhabitants. So I guess that I will not try to banish you out of this realm."

Sweetie Belle could clearly hear some humor in its voice at this last part.

"Thanks. If you had wanted me to get out, I would have accepted. You're the boss here after all, it wouldn't have been nice to go against your authority. And I understand that some may be a little wary about how powerful I am."

"You have my gratitude."

"So you won't mind if I come back with some friends? I'm not sure when yet. I don't even know yet how much time passed in Equestria compared to here."

"If it can help you, I can ask Dialga to make it so that only a few seconds passed in your home universe," proposed Arceus.

"Really?! Uh... Ahem. It would be nice. It would give time for me to show around my world to Tank and the others before I have to go to school. It was only the beginning of the week-end back home."

Arceus nodded. "Very well then."

"By the way! I happen to be friend with another God Creator. I'm sure Void wouldn't mind to know you. You could have a nice little get together between Gods to talk about universal creation, universal management, and that kind of stuff. I wouldn't mind to be a part of this to get some advice since I'm fated to become a God."

"Oh? You are? No wonder you are so powerful. I will think about it."

After that, Arceus bid her farewell and flew away, leaving Sweetie Belle and her Pokémon to take some good time before she opened a portal to return to Equestria.

Author's Note

Sweetie Belle wouldn't mind a school of Gods.

Chapter 8: Presentations

It was quite the surprise for everypony who had been present at Sweetie Belle's departure to see a portal open just a few seconds after the one that Sweetie Belle had entered had closed. Some were just starting to move away! And out of this portal came Sweetie Belle, now wearing a belt with six small red and white balls and possessing saddlebags.

"Already back?" asked Rarity.

"Yup! The local God Creator was nice and asked the local God of Time to make it so only a few seconds passed here while two days passed for me. I don't know how much time here would have passed if that hadn't happened."

Two fillies and one lavender alicorn mare then gathered in front of Sweetie Belle, said mare materializing some parchments and a feather, before the three of them shouted excitedly "TELL US EVERYTHING!" much to the amusement of the other ponies present.

"Mmmmmh... Nah. Not yet," replied Sweetie Belle after a few seconds of pretending to think about her answer, making Twilight, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo groan. "I will wait for Pinkie and Fluttershy to be with us. Pinkie wouldn't want to miss this, and Fluttershy will absolutely love what I have to say."

It was only then that Pinkie's presence was remarked, the pink mare sitting beside Twilight looking as excited. Twilight jumped in surprise at her sudden presence beside her.

"Well, Pinkie is here. This leaves Fluttershy," said Sweetie Belle.

"I'll get her," said Rainbow Dash before she took of and flew toward the yellow mare's cottage.

A few minutes later, Rainbow came back with Fluttershy.

"Alright, everypony is here," said Twilight as she prepared to take note again. "So, how was this world?"

"Before I say anything, let me show you something," replied Sweetie Belle before she levitated the six Poké Balls out of her belt and opened them. The mares and fillies present were amazed by the red energy coming out of the balls, and even more when they saw six creatures materializing from the energy. Sweetie Belle made sure to release the Pokémon a little away so that everypony could have a good view of them (and so Smily wouldn't scare Fluttershy too much by being too close). The Pokémon remained silent like Sweetie Belle had instructed them to do before she passed through the portal, although Volta still climbed on the filly's head, looking excitedly at the ponies.

"The world where I was is an amazing place full of creatures like these called Pokémon, and as you can see, they are very diversified. Let me present them to you."

She then pointed at Volta who waved at the ponies, sparks showing on her cheeks. "This is Volta. She's what is called a Pichu. Be careful, she's very young and doesn't know yet how to properly keep electricity charged in her cheeks, so she tends to discharge when she has strong emotions, like when she's very excited, as you can see. So, no bear hugs!" she warned as she looked at Fluttershy who seemed ready to give the Pichu the mother of all hugs. "Thanks to this natural ability to use electricity, she's classified as an Electric-type."

"Electric-type? So there are other... species of Pokémon using electricity like her?" asked Twilight.

"Dozens," confirmed Sweetie Belle with a nod. "Of all shapes. I will come back to these types later. First, let me present the others." She then pointed at Tank. "This is Tank the Squirtle."

"Seriously?" deadpanned Rainbow Dash.

"I know, but I couldn't find a better name for him. Just wait to see him when he will reach maturity, and you will see that there was really nothing better. Anyway, Tank can spit strong streams of water from his mouth. As such, he's classified as a Water-type." To prove her point, Tank fired a small water jet from his mouth.

She then pointed at Ratzo. "This is Ratzo the Rattata, a Normal-type. Normal-type means that, physically, he doesn't have a specific element or whatever that could classify him as any of the other types."

She pointed at Smily. "Smily the Gastly, a Ghost and Poison-type Pokémon."

"Ghost?" asked Fluttershy with fear.

"Don't worry. He may look scary, but he's very nice. I think I don't need to specify why he's classified as a Ghost-type, but if it can help you being less scared by him, then just think of him as a floating ball of gas with a face. This is literally what he is, hence the name of his species. Living ball of gas are less scary than ghosts."

"Geeze. Thanks," deadpanned Smily.

Twilight raised a hoof, only to be interrupted by Sweetie Belle. "No, Twilight, I have no idea how his species works. Is he an actual ghost of a deceased Pokémon? Not that I know. Then how do they come to the world? No idea."

"How about you just ask me?" proposed Smily with a deadpan look. "No, we aren't ghosts of deceased Pokémon, we simply appear wherever death has a huge place like in cemeteries or in old battlefields."

Sweetie Belle translated what he said to the ponies, and Twilight nodded, letting the filly pass to the next Pokémon.

"This is Drako the Dratini, a Dragon-type."

"Dragon? He doesn't look like a dragon," said Applejack.

"Like for all the other types, dragons come in many shapes and forms among the Pokémon. He may not look like a dragon as we are used to, but he IS a dragon. Just wait until he reaches maturity too."

Finally, she pointed at Lulla. "Finally, this is Lulla the Jigglypuff. She has the particularity to be a dual-type, Normal and Fairy type to be exact. To put it simply, she's primarily... Well... Normal, like Ratzo, but she also has a look and some capacities that are related to Fairy in the Pokémon world. So, generally cute and girly stuff. Her speciality is to sing lullabies to make others fall asleep."

"The Cakes would need one like her," said Pinkie with a giggle.

"There is so much to say about the Pokémon," continued Sweetie Belle. "They don't grow the same way than us. They grow by evolving, which they can do primarily by battling each others, but some need special conditions to evolve, and there are some species that don't have any evolution at all but they still need to battle to reach maturity."

"So... Instantaneous evolution?" asked Twilight.

"Yup. I haven't seen yet how they evolve, but I know that this is really fast, not like the evolution as we know it which takes millions of years. The problem is that it is extremely complicated in the wild for Pokémon to evolve, especially for the ones who have special conditions. And this is where humans come."

"Humans? So this world too has humans?"

"Yes, they are the civilized species of this world. Anyway, the humans in this world have developed a... special relationship with the Pokémon. Since the Pokémon need to battle or to accomplish other stuff to reach maturity, then the humans have made them a big part of their society. Among humans, you can find Pokémon simply as pets, or helping in various tasks. Strong Pokémon, mainly Fighting-types, participate a lot in constructions for example. So the humans get help from the Pokémon, and in return, the Pokémon grow stronger and in maturity.

But where things get interesting is that the humans developed what is called Pokémon battles, and a huge part of their society turns around it. We have hoofball, they have Pokémon battles. To put it simply, at least two humans possessing Pokémon can make them battle each others. The human whose team has been entirely defeated loses and gives some money to the winner. From this, the humans developed a whole system. Shops that sell only stuff to capture, heal, or boost the Pokémon. Centers specialised in healing them in just a few seconds. Rules such as no more than six Pokémon per trainers. And also competitions, including the Pokémon League.

If you are in a region that has the Pokémon League, then it is very easy to participate in it. You must explore the region from city to city to defeat what are called the Gym Leaders, eight very powerful trainers who give you a badge if you manage to defeat them. Get all eight badges, and you can enter the League to defy the Elite 4 and the Pokémon Champion themselves. If you win against the five of them, then you become the new Champion of the region."

"Woah... That sounds very nice! Now I want to participate in this League!" shouted Rainbow Dash.

"Isn't it... wrong, to use the Pokémon like that?" asked Fluttershy.

Sweetie Belle shrugged. "Thanks to the battles, the Pokémon grow, and the humans get some entertainment and a very great source of income. It's win-win for everyone. However, I said that it's easy to participate in the Pokémon League, but the battles themselves are very complex. First, there are the types. Each types have strengths and weaknesses. For example, a Water-type is strong against a Fire-type for obvious reason, but is also weak to Electric-type for also obvious reason. So this means that I wouldn't put Tank against Volta if I could avoid it. This asks for any good trainers to perfectly know the strengths and weaknesses of each types so they don't foolishly send a Dragon-type against an Ice-type."

"Wait, you mean that Ice is effective against Dragon?" asked Twilight. "Uh... I guess that's obvious, if Dragon Pokémon are cold-blooded like our dragons."

"Trust me, not everyone knows about this fact," said Sweetie Belle. "But types aren't all. There're also the moves. A good trainer must know all the moves that a Pokémon can learn, naturally, but also with other means. Not only it is to avoid a situation where you remain five minutes like an idiot trying to remember what moves your Pokémon know, but it is also to know stuff such as the fact that, hey! The Water-type Pokémon foe may possibly know a Ground-type move which would be very effective against my Electric-type Pokémon! Because, yes, Pokémon can learn moves of other types, and to not be taken off guard, it's important to know which ones. So even if your Pokémon has a type advantage, it doesn't mean victory if the Pokémon foe knows some moves that are effective."

Rainbow Dash winced. "Ow... I'm already getting a headache just thinking about this."

"And add the fact that not all moves are offensive. Some moves have for effect to boost your Pokémon or to weaken the Pokémon foe. Some moves can change the weather which is very important! If it rains, for example, Water-type moves are boosted, and fire-type moves are weakened! There are also healing moves. Moves that can cause a Pokémon to be paralysed, burned, poisoned, and so on. Physical moves. Special moves. Moves that take a moment to be ready. Moves that place traps. And this continues... So yeah, battles aren't just you shouting 'Use Tackle!' to knock out the foe. They are very strategic, especially against the most professional trainers such as the Gym Leaders, the Elite 4, and the Champions. And that's not all!"

"There's more?" groaned Rainbow Dash.

"The abilities. Each Pokémon can have one ability that has a passive effect. The effect in question depends of the ability however. For example, Volta has the ability named Static, meaning that if a Pokémon attacks her physically, then the Pokémon has a chance of being paralysed. Normally, it's only during battles, but like I said, Volta doesn't know yet how to avoid discharging electricity, so Static tends to take effect when she gets excited or scared. Anyway, trainers must learn about which abilities each Pokémon can have if they don't want to have a nasty surprise. And it's also another way to prepare strategies. Thanks to Static, for example, Pokémon foes will avoid physically attacking Volta and will rather use Special moves, so I may use moves that could either lower the special attack of the foe or boost the special defense of Volta."

"No wonder the humans seem to like it. This seems very exciting," said Scootaloo. "So, does this means we could..." She pointed her hoof alternatively between herself and Apple Bloom.

"I hope to! We could challenge the Pokémon League together!" said Sweetie Belle excitedly before she calmed down. "But this will probably have to wait until the next holidays period. Obtaining the eight badges doesn't happen in one day. And let's not forget about the whole finding and capturing Pokémon, and then training them to be ready to face the teams of the Gym Leaders, and then of the Elite 4."

"Couldn't ya ask this God of Time to bring us back only a few seconds after we leave Equestria, like they did with ya?" asked Apple Bloom.

"Well, the problem is that I don't know where is this God of Time, who is named Dialga by the way. Arceus, the God Creator of the Pokémon universe, is the one who went to ask him, but nothing says that Arceus will contact me again next time I return in the Pokémon world, and I don't know where to find them either. They could be anywhere."

"Aww..." said both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom in disappointment before the pegasus added "Well, lucky us that the next holidays period is only a few weeks away."

"Eeyup."

Sweetie Belle then levitated out of her saddlebags the Pokédex as well as an empty Poké Ball.

"This device is the Pokédex. It contains all the information on all known Pokémon in the world. Sizes, weight, gender ratios, habitats, types, moves, abilities, and so on. You can have it Twilight, for now."

Twilight looked as if she just received the best Heart Warming gift of her life.

"And as you probably guessed, this ball is what is used to capture and transport Pokémon. It's called a Poké Ball, and there exist many types with diverse capacities, like the Net Ball that makes capturing Water-type and Bug-type Pokémon easier. This one is empty, so you can take it to study its technology, Twilight. It's probably one of the most advanced pieces of technology that the humans of this world made. And don't worry, the Pokémon don't mind being kept in these balls. They are especially made to be homes for the Pokémon, with all the comfort, and the Pokémon can get out of them anytime they want. They aren't prisons."

This reassured the ponies, especially Fluttershy.

"While there are some jerks who abuse the Pokémon, most humans really respect them, so they don't treat them like slaves and do everything to help them." Sweetie Belle then took the translator and gave it to Twilight. "There. Thanks to it, you will be able to understand the Pokémon and talk to them. I will ask Magolor to make more for everyone. Speaking of, I should go visit him right now so they can be finished as early as possible." She turned to her Pokémon and put Volta on the ground. "I'm leaving you here to discover Ponyville. I should not be gone long. Be nice to everyone." The Pokémon all nodded. "And, Twilight, please, don't overwhelm them too much with your Twilighting."

This made the ponies giggle, to Twilight's annoyance. "I'm not like that!"

"You totally are," said Rainbow Dash, making the alicorn huff.

"Don't worry! I will keep an eye on her!" said Pinkie.

"Sorry to say this, darling, but you can be very overwhelming too," said Rarity.

"Eeyup. Ah'll be the one keeping an eye on Twilight," said Applejack before she whispered to Pinkie "While ya prepare the Pokémon's surprise welcome party."

Pinkie silently smiled and nodded at the orange mare.

"Thanks! See you all quickly!" Sweetie Belle then said before she trotted away, toward her ship, the Lor Starcutter.

The Lor Starcutter was at its place, on the platform built beside Twilight's castle.

When Sweetie Belle approached it, the entrance opened and the ramp appeared, letting her climb in the ship.

"WELCOME, SWEETIE BELLE," a feminine robotic voice said to her once she was inside.

"Hello, Lory, I'm back. Let's prepare to take off for the Dream Universe, New Halcandra. I need to see Magolor."

"VERY WELL."

Hearing the Lor Starcutter speak was still a novelty for Sweetie Belle. It was only a couple of months ago that it was discovered that the reason why the ship didn't speak was because it was missing a way to. Until then, it could only communicate through the screen. After this discovery, the Lor spent several days on New Halcandra to be upgraded.

Sweetie Belle first went to hug the Sweetie Bot Armor that was standing beside the wall, at the left of the entrance. She still couldn't believe that she was here. She really was forever in Galacta Knight's, Magolor's, and Susie's dept.

"Can we look?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"Not yet," answered Magolor.

They waited a few more seconds the eyes closed.

"Poyo?" asked Kirby.

"Not yet," answered Susie.

A few more seconds passed when, suddenly, they heard two things drop on the ground in front of them?

"You can look!" said Magolor.

And they looked.

And Sweetie Belle squealed in pure joy before she went to hug the kinda-sister she thought she had lost forever. Kirby did the same to his Robobot Armor who was standing beside the Sweetie Bot.

"Galacta found them floating in space as he was searching for friends to give the Friend Hearts, and he brought them back to New Halcandra. It took us several months to repair them, and now, here they are!" recounted Magolor.

Both he and Susie were then hugged by a teary-eyed Sweetie Belle who repeated "Thank you!" over and over again.

She will never forget that day, and Sweetie Belle remained in front of the armor a few more seconds before she moved away.

As the filly sat on a chair that materialized in front of the screen, a strange headpiece device materialized out of the ceiling and went above the head of the filly. "SHALL I DO WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT?"

"Yes, go on, download the information about the new universes."

The headpiece then placed itself on Sweetie's head while a list of known universes appeared in the screen:

Dream Universe

Newborn Universe

Equus Universe

Human Equus Universe

To this list, two new universes were added:

Universe With Giant Mecha Spider-Things That Burn Scary Aliens

Pokémon Universe

Beside the name of each universe were the coordinates of said universe.

"DOWNLOAD COMPLETED."

The headpiece disappeared back in the ceiling.

"Good. Now, let's go to New Halcandra."

So the Lor starcutter took off from the platform. It then opened a star-shaped portal toward New Halcandra.

The thing with the Lor was that it wasn't really sentient. The Ancients had great technology, but they didn't manage to give sentience to their machines, or didn't bother to. Star Dream, one of the greatest AI developed by the Ancients, wasn't sentient until it absorbed Haltmann's soul, and NOVA, the best of the best that the Ancients offered, wasn't sentient too because it just followed its program.

The Lor Starcutter, while having some independence, still was very limited. Sweetie Belle actually hoped that, like the robots of Shiver Star, it will eventually develop a soul of its own. She still wasn't certain, however, how it happened for the robots. Was this her telling them to simply live their life now that they didn't have masters anymore? But then, wouldn't they have simply... emulated life to follow her instructions? Maybe it was all these centuries spent waiting and repeating the same things that gave them a little spark. But then, wouldn't the Lor have that spark too, with how old it was? But maybe it didn't get it because it spent most of that time shutdown.

She really didn't know, and so, wasn't sure where to start with the Lor. So she simply told it her adventures, hoping that it would cause a reaction, a spark, something. That was why she was going to New Halcandra with the Lor instead of using one of her own portals or the one that had been built in Ponyville.

Meanwhile, they approached New Halcandra.

The inhabitants of the portal world still had a long way to go to fully repair it, but they advanced well. More and more groups of descendants of the Ancients and of other creatures joined them, and now, they had rebuilt the equivalent of at least ten Manehattan. That wasn't much compared to the whole planet, but that was still something. The arrival of the many members of Hyness' cult boosted the rebuilding a lot.

The Lor landed on a platform in the spatioport. Sweetie exited the ship and flew to the nearest New Halcandrain to ask them where Magolor was (he participated a lot in the rebuilding, so it was very rare to find him in his home). After finding out where he was, the filly then flew to his position where he helped transporting objects to high places (since he floated, it was no problem for him).

Sweetie Belle flew to the egg-shaped mage and waved at him to gain his attention. "Hello, Magolor! I need your help!"

"Hello, Sweetie Belle!" Magolor finished with his current task and faced Sweetie Belle. "Already back from your first adventure? So, how was it?"

"Great! I already made many new friends and even fought someone that could give Kirby some troubles. However, I may need more of these translators you made."

"So it worked?"

"Perfectly. But it would be nice if these translators could also translate texts. I had to get the knowledge out of someone's mind."

Magolor facepalmed. "Why didn't I think of this? I will try to create one, but I don't know how long it will take me."

"I was also thinking of transplanting a translator in me to avoid getting it in the way or losing it."

Magolor thought about this. "That's a nice idea, but it is more Susie's domain. How about you come back when I'm done with the translator, and we will discuss together, you, me, and Susie, about this?"

"Alright."

"Also, if you will need a lot of translators for others, then I may need to open a production line of them, which will take even more time, a few months at least."

"Of course. Just a warning, the translators will need to fit anything. And I really mean anything. One of the friends I brought back with me in Equestria is literally a living ball of gas that can pass through walls, and who knows what other crazy species I will encounter in my adventures."

"I'm... sure this can be done." He rubbed his 'chin', having an idea. "And I may know how. We will simply use your transplant idea." he then took a notepad and began to write on it. "Yes... A chip... Or something even smaller if possible. Something simple, small, and easy to transplant into anything without leaving any mark. Oh! I know! A nanobot! It will just need to be swallowed, and it will go plant itself in the brain or whatever equivalent! Mmh... But what if the being doesn't have a mouth? Well, I suppose that any orifice could work. At worst, it could be injected. Yes, yes. That's perfect. Then-"

Sweetie Belle mimed clearing her throat to regain Magolor's attention. "It's very great that you already have an idea of what you will do, but I also need your help for something else." She then levitated a dozen Poké Balls as well as some Great Balls out of the saddlebags. "Those are Poké Balls. They are used to turn things, including living beings, into energy to keep them in them. The balls then can be turned into data with their content to be stocked inside a computer. It automatically happens when a certain condition is reached. Could you find whatever causes this to happen and get rid of it, please? It's really annoying."

Magolor took the balls, staring at them in awe. "Wow... That's very high tech! You were in a technologically advanced world?"

"That's... complicated. They didn't have spaceships or that kind of stuff. I didn't see a single robot. Cars didn't fly. And yet, they have these balls, cloning technology (limited, but existing), and even machines to bring fossils back to life. Let's just say that they technologically prioritized some stuff to the point of neglecting almost all the rest."

"I see. I will see what I can do. But I feel that I and Susie will love studying these little jewels. I don't think that even the Ancients managed to do something like that, turning living beings into data."

Sweetie Belle returned in Ponyville with the Lor Starcutter, and went to search the Pokémon.

Without surprise, she found them in Sugarcube Corner, in the middle of a party with her friends and many other ponies. Spike, now wearing the translator, was talking with Drako. The foals and Volta were running around laughing as they tried to avoid Tank's water jets. Ratzo was with Fluttershy. And Smily and Lulla were playing Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Pony.

"Hey! Finally back!" shouted Pinkie as she was spinning a blindfolded Lulla holding a fake ponytail. "Great! You're next!"

"Not before I eat something!" shouted back the filly before she walked toward the table filled with food, joining the party.

Rarity would rapidly complain about Sweetie Belle being able to eat a whole cake without gaining a single gram.

It was not her fault if Sweetie could now get herself rid of the extra weight and took advantage of it.

Chapter 9: The Legend of Sweetie Belle

The party was a huge success in helping the Pokémon integrating Ponyville, even Smily despite still scaring the more fearful ponies (like a certain trio of sisters). Sweetie Belle left them out of their Poké Balls all the time, letting them interacting with the ponies and go wherever they wanted as long as they behaved.

Tank loved helping at the farm. He wasn't as strong as the Apples, far from it, but his water moves were very appreciated, and thanks to him, Apple Bloom had more free time to spend with her friends or her granny while Applejack and Big Mac still had their chores to do (most of them being too hard for the Squirtle).

Ratzo passed most of his time at Fluttershy's cottage, or rather, around it, where it tended to be calm, far from the rambunctious ponies. He mostly remained by himself, but he still regularly helped Fluttershy by keeping an eye on the animals and reporting to her if something happened.

Volta remained with Sweetie Belle whenever she was out of school. While she was in school, she simply played around or observed the ponies with all the wonders of a child. She seemingly got Sweetie Belle's sweet tooth because she also went regularly in Sugarcube Corner where the Cakes couldn't stop themselves from giving her a treat. They just couldn't resist her eyes. However, they remained careful whenever she was around the twins, having heard about, and seen, her little electric problems.

Lulla spent most of her time inside the Carousel Boutique where she loved admiring the dresses. Seeing this, Rarity made a couple of dresses for her, making the Jigglypuff ecstatic. Her singing, however, quickly became feared in the town. Whenever she was feeling like it, Lulla would burst into a song, making anyone within hearing range fall asleep, even the animals. She just couldn't help herself. However, her songs were very useful in the hospital to make the patients fall asleep.

Drako spent all his time in the river traversing Ponyville or in the lake not far. He regularly played (or pranked) with the fillies and colts getting too close of the water, splashing them with his tail or making them falling in it, generally resulting in water battles. Outside of this, he mostly remained underwater, only coming out to look at passing ponies when he felt like it.

Finally, Smily, being a Ghost-type, remained in dark places and rarely came out, taking pleasure jumpscaring ponies (in good fun). Although Pinkie always seemed to know when he was nearby. And at least, he left the ponies alone in their homes the night.

As for Sweetie Belle, she mostly passed the days normally while waiting for the week-end again, going to school, helping her friends finding their Cutie Marks, helping her sister, and training others into using their inner energy. The Sunday after her return, she did a quick test where she used two stopwatches, left one to Apple Bloom, kept the other on her, and went into the Pokémon Universe. There, she remained ten seconds before returning in her universe. Thanks to this, she was able to determine that ten seconds in the Pokémon Universe were equal to forty-seven seconds in Equestria, more or less a few hundredth.

Which meant that she would have been late for school without the help of Arceus and Dialga.

If only she could keep Dialga with her, she wouldn't have that problem while exploring other universes. Too bad her control of time wasn't yet that good.

But, eventually, the week-end came again, meaning another occasion for Sweetie Belle to explore a new universe. She was thinking about exploring that universe with the giant mecha spider-things, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to enter what seemed to be a war between two alien species yet. And she just didn't have time, unless this universe's time was faster than Equestria's time.

She will think about it another time. Right now, she wanted to explore.

She asked her Pokémon if they wanted to come with her, and they all agreed. So she called them back in their Poké Balls which she then put in a small pocket dimension with some supplies before she opened a portal and passed it.

Sweetie Belle landed on stone, eager to see what this new universe had in store for her, but just as she started to have a look at where she was, there was a sudden blood-curdling screech!

"AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!"

The screech somehow had the effect of totally stunning Sweetie Belle, not letting her move even her eyes. She, however, still was able to use her powers, and materialized one of her beam swords out of her pocket dimension before swinging it randomly at the direction the screech came from. Eventually, she cut something that dropped on the ground. A couple of seconds later, she was able to move again and she turned to look at what screeched.

It revealed to be some kind of humanoid zombie that looked starved to the point that it only had its skin on its bones, and the bones could be seen through the skin! It didn't have any clothes, but it was wearing some wooden mask that only showed its teeth.

She had managed to cut it by the torso, slicing by the same occasion the arms.

Looking around, she spotted more of these things approaching her, and she quickly sent her sword to behead one that was coming too close.

She also saw that she had appeared in a totally destroyed town, beside a broken fountain. As she looked around, she saw that all the buildings were in ruin, a dark castle could be seen in the distance, there was a volcano surrounded by a ring of fiery clouds that seemed ready to erupt, and the sky was entirely covered by dark clouds, not letting a single ray of the sun pass.

"So... A place conquered by an evil overlord... And of course, I appear right in the middle of a town infested of weird zombies that can stun with a scream. Thank you very much!" she said with an annoyed look before she beheaded another approaching zombie before it could screech. "Well then... Since I'm here, I should as well clean the place and deal with this overlord. Should be fun."

A young man wearing a green tunic and a green hat came out of the temple at the edge of the town and looked around in horror at the state of the town and of the world in general. The destroyed buildings, the dead trees, the covered sky, the volcano in the distance...

A little ball of blue light with wings then came from behind the man. "Oh... Link... That's horrible! Look at the state of Hyrule!"

The named Link grit his teeth. "Don't worry, Navi, we will fix this, and Ganondorf will pay."

Navi then remarked a commotion in the main place of the destroyed town. "Hey! What is it?" She flew closer to have a better look. "ReDeads! A lot of them! And they're attacking... Huh... A little white horse levitating a sword of light? What?"

Link immediately took his sword and his shield and ran down the path to the place to deal with the undead creatures and help the equine, not asking any question about said equine. There was someone attacked by monsters, that was all he needed to know.

Although the little horse seemed to have no problem defeating the ReDeads. Thanks to the levitating sword of light it used, the monsters were killed before they could come close enough to use their stunning screams. They could use their scream from far away, but their minds couldn't register it as, for them, using the scream too far wouldn't give them enough time to reach their victim, and so, they waited until they were close enough. If it wasn't for that, then they could use their screams one after another to keep the victim stunned until they reached it.

But they were zombie-like monsters, so you couldn't expect them to be smart.

And Link was thankful for this as he approached the nearest ReDead from behind and pierced it.

Sweetie Belle hadn't been expecting help, so she was very surprised to see a man in green come and attack the zombies. but she didn't complain, excepted for one thing: the man couldn't levitate his sword, forcing him to get close and personal with the monsters. and of course, what was bound to happen happened.

"AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!"

A zombie that he was approaching screeched at him, stunning not only him but also Sweetie Belle. But thanks to her magic, she still could attack, but as she still was using her sword to slice a zombie approaching her, she had to fire a beam at the zombie that was about to reach the man. The beam disintegrated the head of the zombie, saving the man who nodded at Sweetie Belle in thanks. He then charged at another zombie, this time from behind as the zombie was approaching Sweetie Belle, and attacked it. The filly immediately crushed with her magic the heads of two zombies that were turning toward the man.

The few remaining zombies were quickly killed by the two of them.

With all the monsters defeated, but remaining on guard, Sweetie Belle approached the man, remarking that, while he looked human, he had the particularity of having pointy ears. He was a blond-haired guy, rather handsome in human standard, barely out of his teens. Beside his green tunic and hat, he was also wearing boots, gauntlets, and what seemed to be a white shirt and pant under the tunic. The tunic had a belt with some pouches, and the man also possessed a scabbard on his back for his sword.

Which was weird because, even thought Sweetie wasn't a specialist especially when it came to humans, she could swear that it would be much more practical to have the scabbard at the hip rather than on the back. But if the guy preferred it this way...

Speaking of the sword, Sweetie Belle could feel a great power coming from it. A power made to destroy evil. The blade emitted a glow, with something engraved on its base, and the blue crossguard had a design that reminded of wings. As for the shield, it was also blue, and it possessed the same emblem as the one engraved on the blade of the sword, three golden triangles forming together a bigger triangle. The triangles were above what looked like a red bird that had its wings spread at the sides.

"Thanks," said the filly once she was close enough.

The man stared down at Sweetie Belle, insure. "Huh... You are welcome."

Sweetie Belle suddenly threw her sword toward an alley, impaling a zombie that was getting out of it.

"I think that we should come out of this place before more of these things come," she proposed. "Hopefully, there won't be more of them outside of the town."

The man nodded, and they both ran toward the exit of the town which, apparently, was through a wall surrounding it. There was a destroyed drawbridge that forced the man to swim in the moat surrounding the wall while Sweetie simply flew above it. After that, they moved a little more away from the town before they stopped when they saw that no monster was in sight around them.

They were now on a large field from which they could see further away some buildings on top of a small cliff that didn't seem destroyed. At their left was a river that finished into the moat, with a small stone bridge. A small wall in the middle of nowhere for some reason could also be seen further at the left of the buildings.

Big, empty, perfect to settle and discuss. The man agreed with this as he put his sword back in its scabbard and put the shield on it. Sweetie Belle did the same, although she put the beam sword back in her pocket dimension.

"So... I'm Sweetie Belle. Who are you?" the filly then asked.

"I'm Link," answered the man.

"And I'm Navi!" then answered a little ball of blue light with wings that Sweetie hadn't remarked until now. Said ball of light then began to fly around Sweetie Belle. "Mmh... I don't think I have heard of a creature like you before. And yet, I know a lot of things! You look like a horse, or rather, some kind of pony, but you possess a horn like the legendary unicorns, and also a pair of wings, and you can talk. What are you?"

"I'm an alicorn. And it's normal that you don't know what I am, I'm from another dimension.

Sweetie Belle couldn't see her expression, but judging by the little thing's reaction and the tingling, she could tell that she was shocked. "What?!"

Link then suddenly knelt in front of Sweetie Belle with a child-like look of wonder. "Really?!"

Sweetie Belle hadn't expected such a child-like reaction from a man that had looked so serious until now. "Uh... Yeah. I just arrived and appeared right in the middle of this place full of those weird zombies. Talk about an entrance..."

"Those things are called ReDeads," informed Navi. "Be careful to not let them bite you, or they will suck the life out of you."

"Noted."

"But what is a being from another dimension doing here?"

"Just exploring. I opened a portal to a random world, and the portal led me here. That's all," answered Sweetie Belle before she looked back at the town they left. "So, let me guess, an evil overlord is running this place..." She then eyed Link's sword. "And you are on your way to deal with him with this sword?"

"You guessed it right," answered Navi. "Well, not right away for the 'deal with him' part. We have to save the sages from the temples all over Hyrule so they can help us defeat Ganondorf."

"The guy is that powerful?"

"Very, especially now that he is in possession of the Triforce. He is pretty much immortal. Only a few weapons like Link's Master Sword can really defeat him, and even then, the help of the sages will be invaluable."

"Mmh... I'm missing a lot of context there, so can you start from the beginning, please?"

So both Link and Navi proceeded to explain everything that happened until now.

Link apparently grew up in a forest Southwest of here, in a people of eternal children named the Kokiris, under the protection of the Guardian of the forest, the Great Deku Tree. But then, Ganondorf came and began to attempt to steal the keys to open the Sacred Realm where an omnipotent artefact, the Triforce, was kept. The Great Deku Tree was the keeper of one of the keys and refused to let Ganondorf take it, and so, the man sent a curse that slowly killed the tree. By the time Link managed to destroy the cause of the curse, it was too late, and the Great Deku Tree died after revealing to Link everything, that he was actually a Hylian, about Ganondorf, the keys, the Triforce, and so on. The tree also gave the key he was keeping, an emerald.

And so, Link left the forest in a quest to stop Ganondorf from taking the Triforce. He managed to find two other keys, a ruby kept by the Gorons in the volcano (named Death Mountain... Nice!), and a sapphire kept by the Zoras at the other end of the river. With the three stones in his possession, Link went to the Temple of Time only to find the town on fire just as Zelda, the princess of Hyrule, escaped, chased by Ganondorf himself. In her escape, Zelda threw at Link the Ocarina of Time, another key to open the Sacred Realm.

So Link went in the Temple, placed the three stones at their place, and played with the Ocarina the Song of Time to open the gates to the Sacred Realm, where Link found the Master Sword. However, because Link was destined to be the Hero of Time but was too young, he was put into a sleep of seven years. Ganondorf, who had followed Link into the Temple, took the occasion to enter the now open Sacred Realm and get his hands on the Triforce.

With it, Ganondorf conquered Hyrule, and seven years later, here they were.

Well, that suck.

Also, no wonder Link had acted like a child earlier. He was pretty much a child in an adult body, and for a child, a being from another dimension was SO COOOOL!!!

Even if that being was an adorable little filly not even reaching Link's knees.

Oh, and Navi was a fairy. She certainly looked very different from the fairies of Ripple Star.

As of right now, their first objective was the sage of the forest, who may be a childhood friend of Link. However, they first had to go to Kakariko Village, at the base of Death Mountain, where they will apparently find a way to reach and save the Forest Sage.

To put it simply, ADVENTURE TIME!

"Can I join you?!" asked Sweetie Belle excitedly.

Link shrugged. "I don't see why not."

"Yay! Uh, wait a minute, please."

Sweetie Belle materialized a paper and a pen and wrote something on it.

Rarity was busy sewing a new dress when a paper appeared just in front of her, slowly floating down. Using her magic, she grabbed it and began to read.

Dear Rarity

Gone on an adventure to save a world from an evil overlord. May be gone several days. Say sorry to Miss Cheerilee from me. Bye!

Sweetie Belle

Rarity groaned and rubbed her face.

Before going to Kakariko Village, Link decided to pass by the Lon Lon Ranch, the buildings that were visible further on the field. Link thought that, since they will be constantly traversing Hyrule Field left and right, it would be better to have a mount than to do it on feet. And the Ranch had some horses that he could use, including one that he befriended seven years ago. He hoped that the horse was still alive and he was very worried about her.

Upon entering the Ranch, they quickly discovered that it had also been affected by Ganondorf's conquest despite everything looking okay from outside. When they reached the paddock where the horses were exercising, they encountered Ingo, a man who had been previously a worker. But, somehow, he managed to become the boss, and he forced the previous boss, Talon, out of the Ranch. And now, he was attempting to gain the favor of Ganondorf by attempting to raise a horse that would be perfect for him.

That coward opportunist...

But, even thought she wanted to punch the guy, Sweetie Belle controlled herself. Ingo proposed to Link to ride one of 'his' horses in exchange of ten rupees, the local money (which were precious gems of various colors), and Link accepted. Link then entered the paddock, ignored the horse proposed by Ingo (probably the one that he intended to give to Ganondorf), and used the Ocarina to play a song, and the next instant, a horse approached him.

A horse that looked strangely like Sweetie Belle when Sword Kirby had been on her back.

And now that she thought about it, Link's green hat was very similar to Sword Kirby's hat.

She facehoofed. Seriously?! Okay, good one, but really, Writer, I so want to hit you right now.

As Link was busy riding the horse and having fun, Sweetie Belle then looked around at the Ranch, but there wasn't much to see. A house, a barn, and a tower behind the paddock, and there were some chickens around. Cows could also be heard from the barn, and Sweetie Belle could see a red-haired girl looking from behind the corner of the barn at Link riding the horse with fondness.

Ingo, impressed by Link's talent at riding the horse, then proposed to him, in exchange of fifty rupees, to race him, and Link accepted. So they raced around the paddock (Ingo using his best horse), and Link defeated him easily, much to his shock. Wanting to correct this humiliation, Ingo proposed another race, and this time, if Link won then he would be able to keep the horse he was riding.

And he won again.

"What's up with that horse?! Is that Epona? How did you tame that wild horse right under my nose?!" yelled Ingo from the back of his horse, not believing what happened. "I was going to present that horse to the great Ganondorf... But I bet it on the race and lost! Shooot!"

Oh, so it was actually Epona that it wanted to give, not the other horse. Oh well.

But then, Ingo calmed down, let out a small laugh, and jumped from his horse before he ran to the portal separating the house and barn to the paddock area.

"As I promised, I'll give the horse to you... However..." There, he began to close the portal. "I'll never let you leave this ranch!"

And thus, he locked them in the paddock area.

Link and Sweetie Belle were unimpressed.

"Allow me," said the filly as she approached the portal, behind which Ingo was looking mockingly at Link.

Then, she bucked the portal, slamming it open and sending by the same occasion Ingo flying. The man landed heavily on his back and lost consciousness.

The red-haired girl then came out from behind the corner of the barn and applauded while laughing. She then pointed at the exit of the ranch. "Quick! Before he wakes up!"

Link nodded, and they moved to the exit. As they passed beside the girl, she said, "Take care of Epona, please." Link nodded, and they were out of the ranch.

Now, direction Kakariko Village.

Author's Note

If there's somebody good in maths, I ask what would one day in the Pokémon World would equal to in Equestria with what I gave.

And yes, Sweetie Belle didn't recognise the Cuccos. I mean, they look like chickens, so it would be hard even for her to recognise them.

Chapter 10: To The Forest Temple

It didn't take long to reach Kakariko Village. Sweetie Belle and Link just had to traverse the stone bridge and climb some stairs between two cliffs, and the village was there.

Link had to leave Epona at a wooden wall at the entrance of the village before they entered the settlement.

It was a really small village, with a few houses made of stones or bricks, that had for main landmark a windmill in front of a dried up well. It looked very peaceful despite Ganondorf, but that peace was spoiled by the clear threat of Death Mountain looming above. The village had been apparently a village of Sheikah, a people who served the Royal Family of Hyrule, but now, most of the Sheikah were gone, leaving the village almost abandoned until Impa, one of the last Sheikah, opened it for the other inhabitants of Hyrule who couldn't live in Hyrule Castle Town. Now, the village apparently served as refuge for some survivors of Hyrule Castle Town because Link recognized some of them, and some shops had been relocalised here.

Sweetie Belle and Link had no idea what to search here. Link had been told to come here by Sheik, another Sheikah who met him just after he woke up, because he would apparently find something here that would help him reach the Forest Temple, but that was all he knew. No idea what was that thing and where to find it!

So they both began to look around while talking to the villagers, hoping to find something, even just a clue.

Sweetie Belle gathered some attention, but she just had to say that she was coming from somewhere out of Hyrule to satisfy their curiosity. Apparently, the inhabitants of Hyrule didn't know much about the world outside of their kingdom, not unlike the ponies of Equestria not that long ago.

However, nobody knew anything, although some of the inhabitants talked about some legends and rumors and other info about the village. Like, apparently, there was once a house at the current emplacement of the well, and something that the proprietor once possessed may be now hidden at the bottom.

Thinking that it was what they searched, they both went in the well, only to discover a collapsed tunnel, and Sweetie Belle could feel a seal behind the boulders.

"So... Do we blow our way through these boulders?" asked the filly.

"Uuuh... Let's avoid it. I wouldn't want to accidentally cause part of Kakarico Village to collapse. Let's continue our search," said Navi.

When they asked an old man what happened at the well, he informed that Impa apparently sealed a powerful dark spirit in there before making the tunnel collapse. This resulted in the well drying up, but at least, the dark spirit couldn't hurt anyone anymore. And at least, the river wasn't far to compensate. When asked if there was another way to enter the tunnel, he assured that there wasn't as far as he knew, and it was better this way.

So Sweetie Belle and Link continued their search, eventually entering the windmill where they encountered a bard man with a small beard who was playing a very enchanting song with his strange mechanised instrument that Sweetie wasn't sure of the name.

"Uh. Hello there," he greeted them.

"Hello. We are in search of an object that could help us, but we don't know what it is or where it is. Do you know anything that could help us?" asked Link.

"Sorry, no. Well, maybe there's something. Seven years ago, a kid in green with an ocarina came and played a song. The next instant, clouds appeared out of nowhere and it began to rain inside the windmill, totally messing it! It was very annoying, not only for me who had to repair the windmill, but also for the inhabitants of the village because it caused the well to fully drain. Well, it may be a little my fault. I was asking for a song inspired by the windmill, and the song that the kid used was very good, but the clouds were too much."

"Is the song the one you're playing right now?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"Why, yes it is! Even though the song caused all these problems, it is what I searched! And I like it!"

Link seemed to be thinking for a moment before he took out his ocarina.

"Wait a minute! This ocarina!" shouted the guy.

"Uh, Link? What are you doing?" asked sweetie Belle.

Link didn't answer and began to play the song. The song, played by the ocarina, passed from figuratively enchanting to literally enchanting as, the next instant, clouds appeared and it began to rain. INSIDE the building! Resulting in the windmill accelerating.

"Oh, COME OOOON!!!" yelled the guy.

But Link didn't mind him as he looked at his ocarina. "I wonder if this song will be useful."

"Seriously, Link?!" shouted Sweetie Belle. "You couldn't have waited to be OUTSIDE the windmill before doing this song?!"

"That's Link for you..." said Navi with a sigh.

"So that was you!" shouted angrily the guy. "Out! OUT!"

And they ran out of the windmill, Sweetie Belle shouting "Sorry!" before exiting the building.

They ran all the way to the well before they stopped to look at the now rapidly spinning wind-wheel. The two then exchanged a look before they both burst into laughter.

"Okay, that was funny. But I'm still annoyed at you!" said the filly once she calmed down.

Link looked at her sheepishly in return.

"At least, we learned something from this disaster," said Navi. "Somehow, Link will manage to return to the past to play this song in the windmill to drain the well, probably to reach the tunnel at the bottom."

"Tunnel that probably hasn't collapsed yet at the time," said Link. "But how do I return back to the past?"

"The Song of Time, maybe?" proposed Sweetie Belle.

"Maybe Sheik knows. I will ask him next time I see him," Link said. "I guess this leaves us the graveyard."

"Time to hit some ghosts, I guess," said Sweetie Belle with a giggle.

So they went to the graveyard, the entrance being just in front of the staircase leading to the windmill.

It was your typical graveyard. Tombs lining beside the paths. There was also a small wooden hut at the entrance, probably belonging to the guardian or gravedigger.

Link looked around, hand under his chin in thought. "Mmh... I don't see where... Wait." His eyes settled on a tomb at the left, near the corner of the graveyard, and he walked toward it. "This tomb wasn't there seven years ago."

"How can you tell?" asked Navi. "I don't remember all the tombs!"

"I counted," simply answered Link.

"Isn't it normal? Peoples die in seven years. It's normal for new tombs to appear with time," said Sweetie Belle.

"Some tombs hide tunnels with treasures or other stuff. Maybe this is the case for this one," informed Link.

Sweetie Belle stared at Link. "So... The Hero of Time is a grave robber?"

"As morally questionable as it sounds, we did found some useful stuff under these tombs, like the shield Link is currently using," said Navi.

"Better than paying eighty rupees," agreed Link before he read what was engraved on the tomb. "Here lies Dampé... Oh..."

"The old grave digger?" asked Navi.

Link nodded. Then, his eyes widened as he thought of something, and he entered the hut where he grabbed a book before reading it. "Could it be this?"

"What is 'this'?" asked Sweetie Belle from the entrance of the hut.

"Dampé wrote in it about how he found some 'treasure that stretches and shrinks'. Maybe it is what we search. Wait, there's a new entry."

"'New entry'? Are you telling me this is a diary? Link, the more I discover about you, the more you surprise me," said the filly with a grin.

Link chuckled while reading before he said, "Well, that's interesting. The ghost of our good old grave digger is challenging whoever reads this diary to enter his grave so he could give them his keepsake."

"Let me guess. We will answer the call?"

"Of course!" replied Link before he moved back toward Dampé's grave, followed by Sweetie Belle. "You can remain out if you are scared of ghosts."

Sweetie Belle huffed indignantly. "Me? Scared of ghosts?" She suddenly punched right through some ghost in a purple and white cloak with a lantern that approached her from her right, sending it to the afterlife as the ghost disappeared in fire. "In the contrary. It's the ghosts who should be scared of me."

"Eh?! You killed a Poe with your bare han-Huh... Hoof?!" shouted Navi.

"Yes, I did. Now, let's hurry and get this object."

Link nodded and pulled the tombstone, revealing a hole before jumping in it, followed by the fairy and the filly. Despite the fall, they lightly landed on their legs without pain.

Just in front of them, the ghost of Dampé was present and challenged them to race him, or at least, to keep up with him. Clearly, there was no way for Link to win the race. Dampé was just too fast since he floated, but it was no problem for Sweetie Belle. However, the tomb quickly revealed to be a maze of tunnels, and no way to know where to go, leaving them with no choice but to follow Dampé who knew where to go. But the ghost was quite the mischievous one as he playfully sent fireballs from his lantern to put fire on their path and hinder them, so as they ran after him, Sweetie Belle materialized a Poké Ball and called Tank out of it. Tank materialized on her back and immediately put his arms around her neck to not fall.

"Sorry for this, Tank! We're in the middle of a race! Can you use your water to put out those fireballs, please?"

Tank nodded. "Okay!" And he fired small streams of water at the fireballs, extinguishing them before they could reach the floor so Sweetie Belle and Link didn't have to worry about them, although Link briefly looked in wonder at the blue turtle on the filly's back. Sweetie Belle just gave him a grin in return.

They eventually reached the finishing line after a circling cliff above a seemingly bottomless pit. There, Dampé congratulated them for keeping up with him and decided to reward them with his treasure called the Hookshot. He then proposed to them to come again one day so they could race again before he disappeared and a big chest appeared in his place. Link opened it, taking the Hookshot, which was pretty much like a grapple with an arrow head linked by a retractable chain to a handle.

"So that's what we were searching?" asked Sweetie Belle as she put Tank back in his Poké Ball.

"Certainly," answered Link with a nod before they moved to the following room, hoping to find an easier-to-reach exit than the one they came from. They didn't want to go through the maze.

But the next room only had two giant cubes on top of each other with the royal crest graved on them.

"Drat," said Sweetie Belle.

"Wait, I have a feeling. Link, use the Song of Time on these cubes," instructed Navi.

Link nodded and took his ocarina before he played the Song of Time.

And gosh! Sweetie could feel the huge power behind this song! It was so... mystical! Divine! Timeless!

The next instant, a light materialized around the cubes and engulfed them before they just disappeared, letting Sweetie Belle and Link enter a hole in the wall that had been hidden behind. They then climbed a staircase...

Which led them right into the upper level of the windmill, to their surprise as they began to hear the familiar song while they climbed. They jumped from the upper level and landed just in front of the man who jumped in fright at their sudden arrival.

"What the...?! You? Where do you come from?!"

"Uh... Your windmill is apparently linked to Dampé's tomb," said Sweetie Belle.

"Say what now? Are you talking about this passage with the staircase at the upper level? But it was blocked!"

"We unblocked it."

The guy put a hand on his face and groaned loudly. "Now I will have to ask someone to do something about this! The last thing I want is for a ghost to come here!"

"Sorry, we didn't know it would lead here." Sweetie Belle then flew back to the passage and blocked it by making the entrance disappear. "Will this be okay?"

"Perfect! Thank you!"

After that, they left the village with Link back on Epona and Sweetie Belle landing behind him, and they took the direction of the forest South of there.

"Hey, I wanna try something," said Sweetie Belle on the way.

"What is it?" asked Link.

Sweetie Belle cleared her throat before she began to sing the dubbed Song of Storms, and to Link and Navi's astonishment, clouds appeared in the sky (the dark clouds constantly covering it were only above Hyrule Castle Town) before it rained.

"Yes! I did it!" shouted the filly when she saw that she succeeded.

The next instant, Navi was right in front of her face, to the point that Sweetie could almost distinguish her head through the blue light. "HOW?!"

Sweetie Belle smirked at her. "I'm a filly full of surprises."

"That's not an answer!"

Link laughed before he stopped Epona, took his ocarina, and played another song. The next instant, the clouds dispersed and the sun appeared in its full glory high in the sky when it had been about to set a few seconds earlier.

Sweetie Belle stared at Link. "You have a song to command the Sun? I will SO use it once I'm back home! Do you have one for the Moon too or does this song works for both the Sun and the Moon?"

Link left Epona in front of the tunnel that served as the entrance to the forest before they entered it, Link feeling nostalgic. After crossing a wooden bridge, they traversed another tunnel before they entered the village of the Kokiris.

Only to be almost immediately attacked by a carnivorous plant that was promptly put on fire by Sweetie Belle.

Meanwhile, Link and Navi looked around at the seemingly deserted village, seeing more monsters here and there in the obscurity.

"This is as I feared..." said Navi. "Without the Great Deku Tree, the monsters overrun the village. But shouldn't a new Deku Tree sprout be born by now to take his place?"

"Ganondorf," Link simply replied at this. "He did something. I'm certain. I... I hope everyone is okay..."

Sweetie Belle looked around at the monster infested village and said, "How about I clean the place while you go see if your friends are there? Maybe they are simply in their houses where they are safe from the monsters?"

Link nodded and went toward the nearest house, leaving Sweetie Belle to do as she said. She started by doing some pest cleaning by eliminating those things hidden under fake autumn leaves and firing nuts as well as the octopus-like things that hid in water and fired rocks. Once she was done with all of them, she weeded the place, getting rid of the carnivorous plants.

The monsters were so easy to defeat that she sent her Pokémon to help her by spreading them all over the village, and they did a very good job.

She went all the way to... To the corpse of the Great Deku Tree.

Sweetie Belle could immediately see how majestic the tree had been when it was alive. It was immense, with a face like the one of an elder sage. But now, its bark had lost its color, and it missed its leaves. It really was a sad sight.

After remaining a moment to look at the tree, she turned around to return in the village, only to see Link approaching, looking up at the tree. He then stopped beside Sweetie Belle, looked down, and stopped moving, remaining silent as he payed homage.

After about one minute, Sweetie Belle broke the silence to ask, "So, is everyone okay?"

"Yes. They are all alright, just stuck in their homes because of the monsters, like you thought. I haven't seen Mido however, but he's apparently in the Lost Woods. I don't worry about him," answered Link. He then looked back at the tree. "He... He was like a father to me. He is the one who raised me since I was a baby."

"I'm sorry..."

"You have nothing to be sorry about." Link then frowned. "It's Ganondorf who should be."

"Ooh, trust me, he will be very sorry once we're done with him," said Sweetie Belle with a giggle before she looked back at the tree. "Hum... How... How did he manage to raise you? I mean, as Great as he was, it must have been hard without arms."

Link laughed. "Yes, actually, the Kokiris did most of the work. He was just supervising to make sure that they didn't screw up. But he was always there when I needed him and his sage advices." He then turned around. "Let's go. We have a forest to save," he said before he walked away.

Sweetie Belle nodded and followed him after looking a last time at the mighty tree.

They quickly traversed the village, Sweetie Belle calling back her Pokémon, and entered the tunnel to the Lost Woods, which well deserved their name. They had to choose between several paths, and one wrong choice and they would be lost probably forever. It was really creepy because the local folklore said that any Hylian lost in the forest eventually became either Stalfos (living skeletons) for the adults, or Skull Kids (little creatures in garb thankfully friendly to children but fearing adults) for the children. Thankfully, Link having a fairy, he didn't risk this fate if he became lost.

However, a merry tune that Link identified as Saria's Song could be heard coming from one of the paths, helping them finding the right way to Saria who Link thought was the Forest Sage that they had to save. Despite the ambience of the forest, the song easily cheered them up, and it was with smiles that they followed the song until they found their path blocked by a Kokiri who was none other than Mido.

"Uh? What are you? Though you wear Kokirish clothing, you can't fool me! I promised Saria I would never let anybody go through here."

Link just smiled before he took his ocarina and played Saria's Song, to Mido's shock.

"That melody?! Saria plays that song all the time! You... Do you know Saria? That song... Saria taught that song only to her friends..."

Sweetie Belle looked at Mido with a raised eyebrow. "You don't recognize him? Really?"

"Waah! It talks!"

"Of course I talk!" Sweetie Belle then looked at Link. "But really, Link, you didn't change that much in seven years, right? And he passed eleven years with you! How can he not recognize you?!"

"Link?!" shouted Mido.

Link shrugged. "Because he didn't think that I would grow up? He thought that I was a Kokiri, and Kokiris never grow up into adults."

"Wait, what? Time out! Time out! Link?! Is that really you?! But... But... You disappeared! After the Great Deku Tree's death! A-and now you're... huge! How?!"

"That's a long story," said Link.

"The short version is that Link isn't a Kokiri but a Hylian from outside the forest. No time to explain more. We must reach the Forest Temple to help Saria," said Navi.

"Well... I guess that I should let you pass."

Link nodded. "Thank you, Mido. You should return to the village. The Woods aren't safe."

Mido huffed. "Don't tell me what to do. I'm the great Mido! It's not some little monsters like these pathetic Mad Scrubs who scare me! Beside, the village isn't safe either. Nowhere is safe in the forest since the death of the Great Deku Tree."

"We cleaned the village of the monsters," reassured Sweetie Belle.

"You cleaned the village," precised Navi.

"Yeah yeah. I cleaned the village. Not a monster remains."

"Really?! Uh. Well. That's great. But it's only temporary. More will come with time," somberly said Mido.

"We work in ensuring that this stops," said Link as he put a hand on Mido's shoulder before he walked beside him, quickly followed by Sweetie Belle and Navi.

Mido followed them with his eyes as they disappeared into the woods. "Since when did he become so cool?"

Sweetie Belle and Link eventually reached a meadow in the heart of the forest. They however had to go through some narrow passages guarded by Moblins, huge monsters looking like bulldogs that charged at them if they spotted them. No way for Link to attack them from the front without being impaled by their spears. He could only use the Hookshot and his bombs to attack them.

Sweetie Belle didn't have such problem with her many long-ranged attacks. She easily cleaned the passage from all Moblins, including the one that slammed the ground with its club at the end. The path cleared, they climbed the big staircase to the entrance of the temple where there was a large pedestal with the symbol of the Triforce.

Link knew this place as Saria's secret spot where she loved to play her Ocarina on a tree stump, but to their surprise, she wasn't present!

But then, who played the song that guided them? Was it still Saria but from a different place?

Then, a blond man with red eyes in blue outfit with a white clothe possessing a red crying eye symbol and hiding most of his face landed from one of the cliffs surrounding the place and walked toward them.

"The flow of time is always cruel... Its speed seems different for each person, but no one can change it..."

Sweetie Belle decided to not comment on the fact that she did know, or heard of at least one being able to do what he just said, and that she will eventually be able to do it too as easily as she could breath.

"A thing that doesn't change with time is a memory of younger days..." continued Sheik. "In order to come back here again, play the Minuet of Forest." And then, Sheik took a lyre and proceeded to teach Link a song that could apparently teleport him to the pedestal here anytime he played it. Very practical if they needed to come back without having to traverse the forest again.

Once they were done, Link then asked "Is there a way to return back to seven years ago? I may need to to get an object that may be important but that isn't accessible anymore today. Do I need to play the Song of Time?"

"If you wish to return to the time you left, then you simply need to put the Master Sword back in its pedestal in the Temple of Time," answered Sheik. "You will be returned to your younger self, back when evil hadn't yet fully settled in this land. However..." He glanced at Sweetie Belle. "Your companion won't be able to follow you."

Sweetie Belle nodded. "I though so."

Sheik stared at Sweetie Belle a few seconds before he looked back at Link, said, "Link... I'll see you again..." took a few steps back, and threw a Deku Nut at the ground. The Deku Nut let out a flash, and the next thing they knew, Sheik had disappeared.

"What is he? A ninja?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"A what?" asked Link.

"Nothing. Let's just enter the temple."

It turned out that it was here that the Hookshot was needed, as the staircase to the entrance of the temple was destroyed so he had to plant the Hookshot in a branch of a tree above it to reach it. If Sweetie Belle had known, she could have simply levitated Link with her without even needing the object.

But at least, now, they entered the temple.

Author's Note

So, yeah, the Zelda world will probably take some time.

Chapter 11: The Forest Temple

The ambience was immediately different inside the temple. Its mostly ruined state overrun by the vegetation of the forest gave it a mysterious and mystical feeling, but the atmosphere of the place made Sweetie Belle and Link absolutely anxious and uncomfortable with a constant feeling of danger and... wrongness. It was crushing!

In the first room, the grass had totally covered the ground, vines and ivy were everywhere on the walls, and there were two trees. The two heroes barely took a few steps before they were suddenly attacked by two wolf-like creatures that Navi identified as Wolfos. The wolves were easy to defeat, but they weren't dumb beasts; if attacked from the front, they protected themselves with their sharp and solid claws, forcing Link to attack when they had their back turned. Beside that, they used the usual tactic of wolves: walk around the target and strike from their blind spot. Too bad for the wolves that Link wasn't alone, so while Link dealt with one of the wolves, Sweetie Belle dealt with the other.

Or rather, she played with it while Link was fighting the other. She jumped on its head while avoiding its claws and turned the fight into a rodeo. Then, when she saw that Link was done with his Wolfo, she simply broke its neck.

With the Wolfos dead, nothing stopped them from continuing to the next room, but instead, Link went to climb on the vines.

"What are you doing?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"There may be something up those vines," answered Link. "A rule that you must never forget in a dungeon is to look everywhere. You never know where you may find a hidden key or whatever other important treasure."

"Noted. But wait, no need to climb, I can just fly up there to verify."

She did so and found out that there was indeed a small treasure chest at the top of one of the trees which would have forced Link to use the Hookshot to reach it. Inside, she found a small silver key that Link immediately put away in one of his seemingly bottomless pouches on his belt.

They then passed the door, traversed the hallway that followed (killing a giant Skulltula, a spider with its back looking like a skull), and entered what seemed to be the main room of the temple. There, they were witness to four colored flames (red, blue, green, and purple) disappearing before Poes of corresponding colors appeared and exited the room in four different directions. The disappearance of the flames caused a small elevator in the center of the room to move into the ground, becoming unusable.

"Seems like we will need to find and defeat these Poes to use this elevator which probably leads to our objective," concluded Navi.

Link and Sweetie Belle both agreed. It was pretty obvious what they had to do. But the hardest will certainly be to find the Poes.

At least, while the entrance of the temple had been totally overrun by the vegetation, it wasn't the case here. There were still vines on the walls, but not a trace of grass, letting them admire the royal red carpet covering the center of the room (excepted where the elevator disappeared).

Beside where they came from, the room had five other entrances, but most of them were blocked or couldn't be reached in the case of the East door (not without flying, at least) as it was on a ledge without any way to get on it. The West door had chains with a lock, the Northwest door was behind one of these time cubes like in the tomb, and the Northeast door was blocked by bars. For this last one, an interrupter looking like an eye was present on the wall above, and it was easy to understand that they had to fire something at it. Link attempted the Hookshot, but it didn't work. Only the North door, on top of a staircase, was already open.

Of course, thanks to the key they got, they could open the West door. The Song of Time could unlock the Northwest one. Sweetie Belle could fire at the interrupter until it activated, and she could levitate Link to the ledge with the East door.

"So, where do we go?" asked the filly.

"Let's start with the unlocked door," decided Link.

So they climbed the stairs in the North and passed the door, entering another hallway with a flying skull surrounded in blue fire named Blue Bubble.

"What the heck is that name? Why name flying skulls 'Bubbles'? It totally ruins their creepy nature, and they look nothing like bubbles," said Sweetie Belle after they dealt with the skull.

Link shrugged. "No idea."

They then entered a round room, bars appearing on the door behind them, trapping them in it. The next instant, two Stalfos came out of nowhere, equipped with weirdly-shaped orange/red swords and simple round shields. They revealed to be fierce warriors as they easily parried or avoided Link's attacks, but Link was smart and simply waited for them to lower their guard to attack to hit them.

And Sweetie Belle just knocked her target's shield away before slicing it vertically in half. She then simply watched Link dealing with his Stalfos.

When the second was dead, the bars blocking the door disappeared, and a chest with another key appeared in the center of the room.

"Is there even anything challenging to you?" asked Navi to Sweetie Belle.

"Of course. There is always something stronger than you. But definitively not these Stalfos. They were good, but nothing compared to Meta Knight or Galacta Knight. Now these ones are challenging warriors that would kick Link's butt in a few seconds even in a simple sword fight. But I'm sure that Link would be able to fight them with some training, he is a natural with a sword."

"Uh, thanks. How strong are they?" asked Link.

Sweetie Belle grinned. "To give you an idea, their strikes are so fast that they break the sound barrier. By the time you register that you have been hit, they have turned you into little cubes."

".....Wow... Yeah, I will need a LOT of training if I want to face them. But since they certainly live in another dimension, I don't think this will happen."

"Galacta can slice space open to jump through dimensions. He could perfectly come here if he wanted, and if he knew where this universe is in the multiverse. Or I could lead you to them."

Link shook his head. "No thanks."

At this, they returned in the main room, and this time, chose to see what was behind the cube blocking the Northwest path. After making the cube disappear with the Song of Time, they passed the door that was behind and entered some outdoor area with some ruins and a small stream with a bridge.

After slicing one of these carnivorous plants named Big Deku Baba and dealing with an Octoroc (the octopus thing) in the water, they looked around and saw a well at the left as well as a path in the upper level that couldn't be reached (again, not without flying). However, there were some vines covering a wall in the right that Link could climb to reach another passage, but Sweetie had to deal first with a few smaller Skulltulas (named Skullwalltulas, because they needed a different name because they simply walked on the wall) that were on the way.

There was a door in the passage that led to a small room where they had to kill a Blue Bubble to continue. By killing it, they also made a big chest appear, the chest revealing to contain the map of the temple.

"Already?" asked Navi in wonder.

Link shrugged as he looked at the map. "I'm not complaining. This place seems vast. The inside of the Great Deku Tree, the Dodongo's cavern, and the Great Jabu-Jabu were nothing compared to it. I hope we will find the compass quickly too."

"I smell a routine," remarked Sweetie Belle.

"You are right. In all dungeons, there is always three items in common beside the keys: the map, the compass, and the big key to the room where the big bad guy of the dungeon awaits. The compass indicates the position of all the treasures and other important elements inside the dungeon where it is found. So finding the map and the compass early is very useful."

"Seems like we made the right choice taking this path first," said the filly to this before they continued.

They reached another outdoor area that was behind the Northeast door of the main room. They were on a balcony, and at their left, there was another balcony with a target above that screamed "Fire something at me!" Link used the Hookshot at it and he was successfully transported on the other balcony where he stepped on a switch that drained all the water in a well below. While he did this, Sweetie Belle dealt with all the monsters present, Deku Babas (normal and big), Skulltulas, and Octorocs in the water also present here. Link then jumped from the balcony and landed with a roll to not be hurt while Sweetie opened a small chest on a ledge that contained some rupees that she gave to the Hylian.

With the well drained, they guessed that they had to go there next, and so, Sweetie jumped in it while Link used a ladder, arriving in a sewer where they found another small chest with a key.

"That makes three keys," said Sweetie Belle. "Seems like there's nowhere else to go in this part of the temple."

"Let's return in the main hall, then," said Link before he began to climb the vines here to return in the West outdoor area, followed by the filly.

From there, they returned in the main room and used a first key to open the West door. After traversing another hallway with a Skulltula, they entered a room where they had to pull and push two giant colored blocks (one blue and one red) into holes to reach upper levels. Instead of simply levitating Link, they decided to place the blocks so Sweetie Belle wouldn't have to levitate Link each times they returned in this room.

It was really easy. They just had to follow the arrows. And Sweetie Belle even kicked the blocks to make them slide into the holes instead of pushing them. Placing the red block opened the way to a ladder that led to the top level of the room where there was a locked door under an eye-interrupter that was guarded by two Blue Bubbles. After killing the skulls, they unlocked the door with one of the keys.

"Woah!" shouted Sweetie Belle when she saw what was next.

A twisted corridor!

Link scratched his head as he looked at the corridor in wonder. "Well... That's new..."

"No kidding. I went on a lot of adventures, but I never encountered something like this," said Sweetie Belle before she smiled excitedly. "That's exactly why I started to explore other worlds! To discover new wonders like that!"

"I wonder if this will have consequences on other rooms," said Navi. "Can you even continue this way?"

At her question, Link advanced, discovering that he continued to walk on the ground even thought it twisted to become a wall. "Yes, we can, it seems."

So they advanced in the twisted hallway until reaching a weird room with a pillar at the center. There, Navi warned about a monster hanging from the ceiling and Sweetie used one of her cannons to fire a beam right above her without even looking before stepping to the side, killing some disembodied monstrous hand that fell where she had been.

"A Wallmaster! Be careful! If it grabs you, it transports you back at the entrance of the temple!" warned Navi. "More will probably come to take its place. Look at the shadow at your feet or hooves."

"Thanks. Link, step aside," instructed Sweetie Belle before she fired another beam, killing another Wallmaster. Link quickly moved aside to avoid it as it fell from the ceiling. "As nice as it is to kill these abominations of nature, we should continue."

So they jumped on the central pillar, and jumped toward the next door at their right, which was also locked. They quickly unlocked it as Sweetie killed a last Wallmaster.

They entered a room with a staircase and a painting of the red Poe beside it. When they approached the stairs, the red Poe disappeared from the painting with a laugh.

"Oh! It thinks it's smart, hiding in a painting!" said Sweetie Belle as she frowned at the now empty painting. She then cut the painting to shreds with one of her beam swords. As they moved down the stairs, they saw more paintings, and Sweetie fired a beam at the one with the red Poe in it. The painting burned, but the Poe moved to the last painting. With nowhere else to go, the Poe was forced to go out of the painting when Sweetie fired at it. The Poe was then easily sent to the afterlife, freeing the red flame and materializing a small chest with a key.

"One down," said Sweetie Belle.

"Three to go," said Link. "I don't know how I would have done without you."

"You would have probably found something to force it out," said Navi.

"The dungeon's item," said Link. Seeing Sweetie Belle's questioning look, he explained. "In some dungeons, there's an item to be found that helps progressing in the dungeon. Inside the Deku Tree, it was a slingshot. Inside Jabu-Jabu, it was a boomerang. And in here, it seems that it will be something to fire at the eye-interrupters and the paintings."

"So that's something else to find beside the big key and the compass. It shouldn't take long with all these eye-interrupters we saw," the filly said.

They then moved toward the exit door at the bottom level of the room. The next room they entered was a circular room just above the one where they had fought the two Stalfos, but this one had a round hole in its center so they had to watch out, and again, bars blocked the exits.

A Stalfos then came to challenge them only to be quickly defeated. A platform transporting two more Stalfos then came from the ceiling and filled in the hole, and the fight continued. Like before, Sweetie Belle quickly dealt with her Stalfos only to discover that this one reformed after a time. She huffed at this before she used a shield to totally crush the skeleton. For good measure, she then assembled the crushed bones into a pile and sent an explosive ball at it, sending bits of bones in all directions. At the same moment, Link finished with his Stalfos, and a big chest appeared in the middle of the room.

Inside, Link found a bow with a quiver full of arrows.

"Neat! That's exactly what you needed!" said Sweetie Belle. "So, should we retrace our steps to activate the eye-interrupters?"

"We should as well," agreed Link.

"There was one in the main hall and two in the room with the blocks. The one in the hall should be just a shortcut to reach the East outdoor area if needed," said Navi.

Sweetie Belle and Link both nodded before they exited the room by the West door. They returned in the main hall to quickly activate the interrupter, then activated another one in the block room that made a chest containing more arrows drop from nowhere. They then activated the last interrupter above the door to the twisted hallway.

It untwisted the hallway, turning it back to normal. Thanks to this, they were able to enter the room with the Wallmasters with a different angle, letting them reach a very well decorated chest that contained the big key that they were looking for.

"All that remains is the compass," said Sweetie Belle as she fired a beam above her and moved to the side, killing a Wallmaster.

"The compass isn't really needed anymore now that we have the big key," said Link. He then looked at the hole that previously led to the door to the red Poe's room. "I think that we should jump in it. It probably leads somewhere new now."

"Okay, but I'm wondering something. How will we return in the room where we found the bow, now? With the hallway untwisted, it's inaccessible."

"Good point, but I may have an idea. Have you remarked that the interrupter above the door to the hallway was silver while all the others were golden?"

"Oh? Oooohh! You mean that it could be used again?"

"Maybe."

"Nice thinking! Hum... Maybe I should go down the hole first to see if this isn't a trap."

Link agreed, and Sweetie Belle flew down the hole. She discovered that it led to a room with two Blue Bubbles that she quickly killed, unlocking a door. Seeing that there was a path, she flew back up to Link and told him about it. She then carefully levitated the Hylian down the hole into the room where they passed the unlocked door.

The door led back to the West outdoor area, in one of the alcoves on the path in the upper level. Following the path, they dealt with a Big Deku Baba that blocked the way and entered a door in another alcove that led, according to the map, to a room without other exits, meaning that it probably contained a treasure. In there, they had to fight a cousin of the Wallmaster named Floormaster (so it just walked on the floor with its fingers). It wasn't hard to kill, but once it was defeated, it separated into three smaller Floormasters that Sweetie quickly destroyed with beams. This materialized a chest with a key.

They then returned in the outdoor area and passed the last door at the end of the pathway which led back to the room with the blocks, on a ledge that made it inaccessible from this side. They then returned to the top level of the room and used the bow on the silver interrupter, which had for effect to open it again, twisting back the hallway so they were able to return to the room where they found the bow. From there, they passed the East door to continue the exploration of the temple.

The next room was exactly like the room of the red Poe, but this time, the paintings were of the blue Poe. Using his bow, Link helped Sweetie in destroying the paintings one by one until the Poe was forced out, and the heroes quickly dealt with it, freeing the blue flame and materializing a big chest containing the compass.

"About time..." grumbled Link.

They climbed to the upper level of the room and used one of their two keys to unlock the door there, entering a room similar to the one with the Wallmasters. Speaking of, Sweetie Belle immediately killed one above Link. From the angle they were, nothing could be done in this room, so they had no choice but to jump down and climb back up to the only exit at the right leading to the hallway which wasn't twisted. After dealing with two Green Bubbles (same as blue, but with green flames and just flying back and forth in a path without minding the heroes as long as they weren't in the way), they unlocked and passed the door at the end and entered a room that had a pit filled with lava with moving platforms on it.

The goal here was to jump on one of the moving platforms to fire an arrow through the torch on the pillar in the center to melt the ice covering an eye-interrupter and activate it, but Sweetie Belle simply fired a fire beam at it, letting Link fire an arrow without worrying about the rest. As they expected, it twisted the hallway, letting the heroes enter the previous room in the right angle to reach a hole into which they jumped.

They fell in a room with a checkerboard floor that had a staircase leading to the East outdoor area, on a ledge. There was another path South, but it was dangerous as the ceiling dropped on them! There were holes, thankfully, but Skulltulas waited in ambush in some of them, so they had to keep an eye on both the ceiling to see where were the holes and the floor to spot the Skulltulas' shadows. On the way, they had to walk on a switch to unlock the door at the end, and they opened a small chest with more arrows for Link.

Passing the door, they entered the room where the green Poe awaited them in its portrait. Link fired at it with his bow, but instead of forcing the Poe to come out, it caused a bunch of blocks to drop from the ceiling. The blocks formed an image of the green Poe, and they had to push them to reconstitute it. With some teamwork, they managed to do it very rapidly, starting with Sweetie kicking away a blue block that had nothing to do among the others. Once the image was reconstituted, the blocks disappeared in the floor and the green Poe appeared and quickly joined the other two in the afterlife.

"One left," said Link. "But where could the last one be? We explored all that we could access in this part of the temple."

"I only see one possibility: the purple Poe probably appeared in one of the already explored rooms now that the three others are gone," guessed Navi.

"Which leaves us to explore the temple again until we find said room," Sweetie Belle said with a sigh.

Thankfully, they didn't have to go far to find the purple Poe. After passing a door and traversing another hallway with a Skulltula, they returned in the main hall from the East door on the ledge. There, they found the purple Poe in the center of the room, doing they-weren't-sure what.

When it saw them, it then laughed and created three doubles of itself that were actually illusions. It wasn't a problem however as Sweetie fired simultaneously a beam at the four of them, hitting the real one and destroying the illusions, letting Link hit it with an arrow. The Poe disappeared and repeated the process, only to be hit again by Sweetie's beam and Link's arrow. A last beam killed it, freeing the purple flame.

With the four flames back in place, the elevator came out of the ground.

"Finally! Now, we can reach the big bad guy and save your friend!" Sweetie Belle said.

Link nodded. "Let's hurry."

They walked on the elevator, and it led them to the basement of the temple, in a somewhat circular room where they discovered that they could make the wall spin by pushing the 'handles'. They had to do it to open the way to alcoves where they had to walk on switches to rise grids that blocked said alcoves as well as the path to the final room. Three switches for three grids. In one of the alcoves was also a chest guarded by a Skulltula, the chest containing arrows.

Once the way was open, they unlocked the final door with the big key and passed it. In the last room, they climbed stairs to an arena with the Triforce symbol in the center and surrounded by six pictures, and Sweetie Belle had a feeling of how the coming fight will play out.

However, nothing came to attack them. Frowning, Sweetie Belle walked toward the exit of the arena only for the path to be blocked.

"I though so."

Sweetie Belle and Link then heard a sound from behind, and they quickly turned around to see that they weren't alone anymore.

Out of nowhere, a dark-skinned man on a huge black horse had appeared. The man had red hair and a large pointed nose, and was wearing some black and brown leather outfit that didn't seem to be quite an armor but still seemed solid enough. He still had pieces of black armor that covered the shoulders, the knees, and the back of the hands, and he also had armored brown boots. Said black armor pieces even had yellow gems encrusted in it with spikes on the knees. Finally, the guy had a jewel on his forehead. As for a weapon, the man used a three-bladed spear.

Let me guess. It's our unfriendly neighborhood the evil overlord, thought Sweetie Belle. If he isn't, then I'm ready to eat a hat.

Then, after a small chuckle, the man put on some skull mask that let out blue fire from the eyes before they began to glow.

And the horse began to float in the air.

It isn't magic that makes this horse float, remarked the filly then with a frown as she felt the energy used by the guy. The energy actually felt more like the one used by the Poes. Supernatural.

Then, Ganondorf (because it was obviously him) entered one of the pictures with his horse and disappeared in it with a deep, dark cackle. Sweetie Belle and Link immediately placed themselves back to back as they eyed the pictures.

Sweetie Belle saw Ganondorf appear in one of the pictures, his horse galloping down the path in it, and she readied a beam for when he would start to come out. However, to her surprise, the man turned around.

At this instant, Link fired an arrow at another picture, and Sweetie Belle looked and saw that he hit another Ganondorf who had been in the process of exiting the picture. Ganondorf then retreated into the picture and disappeared in it.

She had been facing an illusion. Too bad for him, it could have worked if Link had been alone, which wasn't the case here.

Ganondorf still tried his luck with this, only he used more illusions to trick the two heroes, three this time plus the real one. It still wasn't enough however as Sweetie Belle still managed to fire at the real one as he was exiting one of the pictures. Ganondorf then tried a third time with five illusion, meaning that there was a rider in all the pictures. It was Link's quick acting that let him fire at the real Ganondorf just before he managed to fully exit one of the pictures.

Ganondorf left his horse who disappeared back in the picture, and the man began to float around before he sent an energy ball with his spear that Link managed to smack back toward Ganondorf with his sword. The two then began to play a mortal game of pong with the ball until Galondorf eventually missed and took the ball in the face, stunning him, leaving him open for the heroes' attacks. He didn't remain stunned long however and he immediately began to float again after he recovered.

Ganondorf then raised his spear and both heroes quickly ran as bolts of electricity began to rain behind them. The man eventually sent another energy ball, and Link barely avoided it as he was still running from the raining lightning. However, as Ganondorf cackled again, Sweetie Belle materialized and wrapped her whip around the man's leg before slamming him on the ground, and Link took the occasion to strike him again only to eventually receive a punch on the face from the man as he recovered. Ganondorf then grabbed the whip still wrapped around his leg and tugged to send Sweetie Belle in the air before he attempted to do to her what she did to him with much more force. Thankfully, the filly turned into metal before the impact, and even then, she still felt some pain.

Free from the filly's weapon, Ganondorf floated again and sent a ball this time at the recovering filly who used a mirror to protect herself, but the dark mage avoids this time the deflected ball as well as the arrow fired by Link before he sent several fireballs all over the arena. When he saw the heroes avoid them, he then sent another energy ball at Link who deflected it back at him. Ganondorf avoided the ball again, only for Sweetie to fly on the path of the ball before using her bare hoof to deflect the ball at Ganondorf from behind him, hitting him in the back and stunning him again.

He didn't remain stunned long however and parried both heroes' swords with a swing of his spear before, with a fast move, he thrusted his weapon at Link to impale him while avoiding a swing of Sweetie's sword by lowering himself. Link quickly used his shield to protect himself, but he was still sent flying by the hit. Sweetie Belle managed to pierce him at this moment, but Ganondorf immediately answered by swinging his spear at her, forcing her to move away to avoid it. Link then came back, avoided another thrust of the spear, and pierced Ganondorf too with his sword, followed by Sweetie Belle again.

With a scream of agony, Ganondorf's body began to spasm while blue fire enveloped it, and he slowly began to break down in it.

Then, a portal appeared in the center of the arena, and the burning man slowly began to float toward it as a voice was heard.

"Mmh... This looked a little too easy for you two. I should have put more power in this phantom. At least, you both showed some good skills. Just know that it won't be as easy against the real me!"

"I should have known..." muttered Sweetie Belle.

The fake Ganondorf then began to trash in pain as it began to disappear into the portal. "What a worthless that ghost was! I will banish it to the gap between dimensions!!" shouted the real Ganondorf as the ghost finally disappeared and the portal closed.

And then, everything was silence until a blue light appeared in the center of the arena where the portal had been.

"Yeah, this guy seemed far too weak for being an evil overlord worthy of the title," commented Sweetie Belle. "Just a pale copy. This Ganondorf may actually be a real piece of work, especially if he can open portals to the void just like that. And apparently, he's observing us."

Link nodded before he walked into the blue light, quickly joined by the filly. A crystal then appeared around them and transported them to the Chamber of Sages, in the middle of the Temple of Light in the Sacred Realm.

It was a seemingly endless blue chamber with several blue pillars. They were on one such pillar, on a symbol of the Triforce, surrounded by six pedestals, green, red, blue, orange, purple, and yellow. Each pedestal was emblazoned with a symbol.

Another blue light then appeared on the green pedestal, and out of it came a young green-haired girl in Kokiri clothing.

Seeing how Link looked at her with fondness, it was obvious that the girl was Saria. So Sweetie Belle remained behind as Saria began to talk.

"Thank you... Because of you, I could awaken as a Sage... As the Sage of the Forest Temple..."

"Saria..." muttered Link as he knelt to be at the same height as the girl. "I'm so glad you are alright. I... I missed you."

Saria smiled back at him. "I missed you too. I always believed that you would come back, although this is not to stay like I would hope. This is just not your destiny. And this is not my destiny to remain at your side. We can't live in the same world... But it is nice to see you again."

"I'm sorry..."

"And I'm sorry too. At least... As the Forest Sage, I will help you. Please, take this medallion."

Saria then raised her arms, and in a flash of light, a green medallion appeared above Link, slowly floating down until he took it. The Forest Medallion.

While he took it, Saria looked at Sweetie Belle and said, "Please, take care of him," before the area was plunged in light.

"Saria will always be... your friend..."

The next thing they knew, they were back in front of the Great Deku Tree. Sweetie Belle looked up at Link just in time to see him swiping tears. She put a hoof on his leg.

"This may be a goodbye, but remember, Friendship is eternal, no matter the distances, just as long as you don't forget her."

Link looked down at the filly and smiled before he knelt to pet her in thanks.

It was then that they spotted a little tree sprout now present just in front of them. The next instant, it fully came out of the ground, knocking the both of them on their back as the sprout revealed to be much bigger and possessing a face. When they recovered, they looked at the sprout in astonishment.

"Hi there!" began the sprout. "I'm the Deku Tree sprout! Because you two and Saria broke the curse on the Forest Temple, I can grow and flourish! Thanks a lot!"

"Oh... Hey! We had been talking about you! We were wondering why you hadn't sprouted! That was as we thought, in the end," Sweetie Belle said.

"Indeed. The curse placed by Ganondorf was stopping me, and because of this, I couldn't do my duty. But now, at least, I will be able to protect the Kokiris and keep the monsters away. I am sadly not as powerful yet as my father, so my influence won't spread far."

"At least, the Kokiris will be safe as long as they remain in the village," said Link. "Then, I will defeat Ganondorf, and they will be able to wander the forest like before."

"I know you can do it, especially with the help of your friend. I can feel a great power in her. Ganondorf should be worried." The sprout laughed at this before he proceeded to reveal to Link his origins.

Link knew that he was Hylian, but he didn't know how he ended up in the forest under the care of the Deku Tree and the Kokiris. Apparently, before the King of Hyrule managed to unify the country, there had been a great war. To escape it, a Hylian mother came in the forest with her baby boy. However, the mother was gravely injured and had no choice but to entrust the baby to the Deku Tree before giving her last breath. The Tree accepted, sensing the great destiny of the boy, and so, the child was raised as a Kokiri.

This child was Link, whose destiny was to save Hyrule by breaking the curses on all the temples before defeating the source of the evil: Ganondorf.

The sprout then wished them good luck before they left him to continue their quest, their job in the forest done.

However, it was starting to get pretty late, and they hadn't eaten anything since they respectively arrived in this world and woke up from the seven-year-long sleep. So they decided to pass the night in the village where the thankful Kokiris didn't mind giving them some food (Sweetie made sure to let her Pokémon out so they could eat, to the amazement of the locals). Link still had his home here, but it was rather small now, leaving Link no choice but to sleep on the floor while he left his old bed to Sweetie Belle. The filly at least gave him a sleeping bag that she had in her pocket dimension, making it bigger because it was too small for him.

And so, they both spent the night in peace and comfort.

Chapter 12: Bottom Of The Well

Author's Note

As you probably saw by now, I'm passing the Gold Skulltula quest. It would just be too... annoying.

Also, I put the boss theme during the fight against Phantom Ganon in the previous chapter. And for the ones who haven't seen it, I put links to the songs when they are played by Link for the first time (as well as for the Song of Storms played by Guru Guru in the windmill and the Lost Woods theme).

Chapter 12: Bottom Of The Well

After a good night, Sweetie Belle and Link were fresh for a new day of adventures exploring dungeons and fighting monsters. Under the goodbyes of the Kokiris, they left the village and the forest, finding Epona where they left her at the entrance. After petting her a little, Link climbed on her, followed by Sweetie Belle who sat on the horse's rump.

Navi reminded them that they should return in the Temple of Time so Link could return to the past to search whatever was hidden at the bottom of the well in Kakariko village, so they journeyed toward Hyrule Castle Town. Upon reaching it, the area immediately darkened, reminding them of the state of the town.

They left Epona before the broken drawbridge and traversed the moat to enter the town. When they saw that the ReDeads were back everywhere, Link had the idea of using the Sun's Song, which had for effect to stun all the ReDeads, and Sweetie Belle took the occasion to kill all of them rapidly, opening the path to the Temple of Time.

They entered the building, Sweetie Belle seeing for the first time the inside of it. despite everything outside, the interior still looked like nothing was wrong. Not a single trace of destruction, or even of dust, could be seen on the walls and the checkerboard floor. The stones that were the key to the Sacred Realm were still present on the pedestal for them.

She could feel the divine power in this place. It was probably what protected it from Ganondorf's rampage, for now.

There was also a large pedestal with the symbol of the Triforce like the one in front of the forest Temple in the middle of the room.

When they passed the still open doors leading to the Sacred Realm where the Master Sword's pedestal was, they found Sheik waiting for them.

"You destroyed the wicked creatures that haunted the temple and awakened the Sage..." he began. "But there are other Sages who need your help. In order to awaken all the other Sages, you must become even more powerful. You must travel over mountains... under water... and even through time..."

Link nodded as Navi said "We were just about to place the Master Sword back in the pedestal like you said. We have something to do in the past."

Sheik nodded. "In matter for you to return here quickly, I will teach you this song... The song to return to the Temple of Time... The Prelude of Light..."

Link and Sheik then both took their instrument, and the Sheikah teached the Hylian the song. As they played the song, a light appeared above them, bathing the room in its warmth.

"As long as you hold the Ocarina of Time and the Master Sword, you hold Time itself in your hands..." then said Sheik once they were done. "Now, if you wish to return in your original time, place the Master Sword in the Pedestal of Time. But remember what I said."

Sweetie Belle nodded. "I won't be able to come, I know." She then placed a hoof under her chin. "But I was thinking of some possible solutions. Maybe if I shrink myself and go in his clothes like Navi sometimes do... Or maybe if I sing the Song of Time... while holding him as he plants the sword if I have to..."

Sheik repeated Sweetie's gesture as he thought about it. "Going in his clothes wouldn't work. Navi would return to the past with Link because she also slept seven years with him, but it wasn't your case." He then looked back at the filly. "As for the Song of Time... It can let you go to the past, but it would depend of the Goddess of Time. Maybe she will let you follow Link, or maybe she won't. You can't be certain."

"Oh. So the real power of the Song of Time is to call the Goddess of Time in hope that she will allow to time travel. Darn, here goes my possible time travel solution. Mmh... Now I wonder if it can be used to call Gods of Time in other universes," she thought aloud before she looked at Sheik. "At least, I can try to use the song now and see if the Goddess of Time will let me go to the past with Link. If she doesn't..." She shrugged. "Then I will just wait there or go kill some ReDeads outside."

This made both Link and Sheik chuckle before Link moved to plant the Master Sword in the pedestal. Sweetie Belle went to sit beside him and began to sing the Song of Time just as Link planted the sword. A blue light then surrounded the both of them and everything was plunged in light. When the light disappeared, Sweetie Belle opened her eyes and looked at Link to see if it worked.

And yes, it worked. Link now looked as tall as the Master Sword planted in the pedestal, and his Hylian Shield looked very huge on his back. He also had a more juvenile look.

Yes, it was Link when he was eleven years old. They both successfully traveled seven years back in time.

But then, why was Link looking that tall compared to her? She should be about half his size now, but to her, he still looked almost as tall as he was when he was adult.

Link briefly looked at himself before his eyes turned toward Sweetie Belle and widened a little. Then, he grinned.

"Looks like I'm not the only one who got rejuvenated by this time travel."

"What?" Sweetie said only to remark that her voice was even more high-pitched and squeakier than previously, and her eyes widened in understanding.

Link giggled at her reaction, and Navi began to circle her as she playfully said, "I didn't think that you would become even more dangerous by going to the past. But look at you now, people and monsters will die of heart attack just by looking at you."

To this, the now six-years old filly answered with a pout, and the next instant, Navi dropped to the ground with a "Urk!" making Link laugh even more.

Sweetie Belle giggled too. "Be lucky I didn't rejuvenate all the way back to a newborn foal, or trust me, you wouldn't have lasted one second." She then looked at Link with puppy dog eyes. "Right, Link?"

Link quickly put a hand over his eyes and looked away. "Arg! Don't look at me like that!" He then dramatically put a hand on his heart. "Arg... I'm dying... The Gods will have to find someone else to defeat Ganondorf..." And he dropped on the ground with a "Bleh!"

Sweetie Belle raised her forelegs. "MWAHAHA!!! I killed the Hero of Time! Everyone will fear my cuteness! And I will rule the world as the most adorable overlord of all time!" She retained the pose a few seconds before she dropped in laughter. "No thanks! I'm already queen of a kingdom in another world, that's good enough for me!"

Link and Navi both laughed as they got up from the floor before the Hylian said, "Wait, you're queen?" in shock.

"Yeah, long story. But no need to call me queen, your majesty, or whatever. I don't care about this, and I'm not ruling yet anyway. There's a regent in my place for now. And really, I'm only queen because a king gave me the title after we killed the previous ruler who had become evil."

"I would like to hear this story. Sounds interesting," Link said.

"You have no idea. I will recount it to you while we go to Kakariko Village if you wish."

Link nodded before he equipped himself with a smaller sword and a wooden shield, both of Kokiri origin.

They then left the temple, and Link smiled when he saw the not yet ruined town around. It was slightly damaged by Ganondorf's raid before he got the Master Sword, but it wasn't destroyed yet. The sky was still clear, Death Mountain didn't seem about to erupt, and Hyrule Castle was still present in all its beauty in the place of Ganondorf's Castle.

Of course, he knew that it was only a matter of time before Ganondorf came back and assaulted the town with an army of monsters and the full power of the Triforce.

When they reached the market, it was bursting with activities. People were everywhere, shopping, talking to each others, and there was even a couple who danced. Despite what happened, and what will happen, the citizens of the town still lived without care in that calm before the storm.

Then, a woman spotted Sweetie Belle, and the next thing she knew, she had to escape a crowd of people wanting to snuggle her, and Link was on the floor laughing.

Link obviously didn't have Epona at this time, so they simply walked to Kakariko Village, Sweetie Belle recounting how she became Queen of Floralia on the way. About Sectonia and her fall into madness because of a cursed mirror. Of her foalnapping and how her friends traversed many trials to save her. Of the fight against her brainwashed-self followed by the one against Sectonia to save the world.

To hear that the queen couldn't be saved from her madness was saddening, but Link knew that, despite their best efforts, not everyone could be saved, like he couldn't save the Deku Tree.

He also understood that the filly beside him really had shown only a small fraction of her powers and that the Deku Tree sprout was right, Ganondorf should be worried.

Eventually, they arrived at Kakariko Village.

Seven years ago, the village wasn't yet as big as it was in the future, having not yet taken in the citizens of Hyrule Castle Town who had escaped, although some houses were already being built. And without the threat of Death Mountain nearby, the village was as peaceful as it could be.

And of course, the well wasn't dried yet, as the heroes saw when they walked to it after losing several minutes because of Sweetie Belle being snuggled, petted, and pampered by several people on the way.

Six-years old Sweetie Belle really was too adorable for her own good. It was already limit when she was twelve-years old, but now...

"Well, time to do your show Link," said Sweetie Belle before she pointed at the windmill.

Link nodded. "Wait for me there."

As the Hylian walked away, the filly looked at the windmill and muttered "The poor guy..." When Link entered the building, she couldn't hear him play the Song of Storms, but she could tell when he played it as the wheel began to spin faster and faster a few seconds later. Link then quickly ran out of the building in panic under the screams of the man muffled by the sound of the rain and thunder. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle saw the well being drained.

When Link joined her, Sweetie Belle pointed at the well. "It worked!"

"Great! Let's go then," Link said before he began to go down the ladder inside the well.

Sweetie Belle jumped in it after him and arrived first, noticing that this time the tunnel was clear. No boulders blocked the way.

When Link arrived at the bottom, they both entered the tunnel only to quickly reach what seemed to be a dead end with a very small passage. Too small for an adult to crawl through.

"Seems like even if we had managed to come here in the future, you wouldn't have been able to continue without my help," remarked Sweetie Belle.

"One point for the kid-side," said Link to this.

Link then crawled through the passage, followed by Sweetie Belle who didn't need to crawl. In the other side, they then just had to jump down a small ladder to reach a corridor.

To their horror, the corridor had some dried blood covering the walls, and for a reason that was probably not good, there were chains hanging from the walls and ceiling. As for the floor, it was actually a grid

"What the heck is this place?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"No idea," Link answered. "Navi?"

"I-I don't know, and I don't think I want to know," said the fairy.

"There was a house, right?" reminded Sweetie Belle. "So... This was the house's underground?"

"You are right," agreed Navi. "But then... Was the Sheikah living here a psychopath and this place where he tortured his victims under the nose of everyone?"

"This famous man who could see the truth that the old man talked about?" wondered Sweetie Belle as she thought about how they learned that there was something at the bottom of the well. They had been questioning the citizens of Kakariko Village to find the object needed to enter the Forest Temple and an old man told them about a man who had an eye that could see the truth who lived once where the well was now. They weren't sure if it was a real eye or an object, but if it was an object, then it was probably hidden in the well, and it could be very useful. "If this guy really was a psycho, then it's no wonder that they razed his house and put a well in its place to hide... this. Now I fear to see what is next."

Link, who was now holding his sword, gulped. "Me too."

Despite this, they continued. However, after dealing with a Skulltula, they didn't go far before reaching a dead end with a skeleton lying against the back wall, at the side.

Sweetie Belle eyed the skeleton, daring it to get up and attack them. Seeing that it didn't, she then looked around. "There's probably a hidden passage, or mechanism, or whatever. This can't end here."

"Wait, I hear something," suddenly said Navi before she flew to the skeleton. "I can hear the spirit of this skeleton. He says "Find the Eye of Truth". You were right, this eye that could see the truth is an object."

Link crossed his arms as he thought about this. "Mmh... So... An object that can see the truth..."

"That means that it's an object that can reveal the lies that our eyes can't see," concluded Navi. "Like illusions, or invisible objects."

"Of course! That's obvious!" shouted Sweetie Belle. "And if this is like with the Forest Temple, then this means that this place will be full of illusions and invisible stuff, and we will need this object to reveal them! Like..." She pointed at the wall behind the skeleton. "This wall! Now I'm sure that it's an illusion, or at least part of it!"

Having the same conclusion, Link approached the wall and attempted to touch it with his hand, only for the hand to pass through it as if the wall didn't exist. With a nod to Sweetie Belle, he then passed the wall, followed by the others.

The next part of this seemingly new dungeon was pretty much in the same style than the previous hallway, only the floor was made of stone bricks instead of being a grid. It really looked like a real dungeon, including chains hanging from wooden planks against the walls. Just in front of the entrance was a small pit filled with water coming from two small streams at the left and right. And a big Green Bubble passed before it and followed the right stream before disappearing around a corner.

Sweetie Belle looked at the water. "If this place is as filled of illusions as we think, then I propose that we walk in the water. Like this, we won't risk to fall into a pit."

"I agree. If there is a pit in the water, even if it is camouflaged by an illusion, the water will still pass through the fake floor so we will see it," Navi said. "But now, we must choose a direction. Left or right?"

In the end, they randomly chose right. Following the stream, they followed the same path than the Green Bubble they saw earlier and rounded a corner to the left. Not minding the green Bubble further in front of them, they continued to follow the stream, passed beside a grid without door behind which a Like Like (a cylindrical yellowish gooish monster that could eat objects like shields) could be seen, and rounded another corner to the left where Sweetie Belle finally killed the Green Bubble with a beam while passing in front of a scary picture that apparently said "Danger below".

Link threw a Deku Nut under the picture, and the nut fell through the floor, revealing it to be a pit hidden by an illusion. Meaning that they did well to walk in the water. There really were hidden pits in this dungeon.

Not minding a small passage where Link would have to crawl through, they then reached the origin of the stream, or streams as it also seemed to be the origin of the other stream, meaning that they would have also ended up here if they had taken the left.

So this place had formed a square.

The water was coming out of the mouth of a weird statue head in the wall, and a Triforce symbol with a blue center could be seen under the water.

Link immediately understood what he had to do as he took the ocarina and began to play a song. Then, as if by magic, water stopped to come out of the mouth of the statue, and the water present in the room began to drain, including in the small pit below the statue.

"What was that song?" asked the filly.

"Zelda's Lullaby," answered Link. "It's actually a song transmitted in the Royal Family that Zelda taught me. As you saw, it activates mechanisms and opens paths. So it seems that the King participated in hiding this place."

Sweetie Belle nodded in understanding.

If the water drained here, then it meant that the water in the pit at the entrance was also drained, certainly allowing them to reach an important room. So they returned to the entrance, this time by the left path, passing beside another small pit with metal grating above it. they hesitated to see what was beyond that pit, but they decided to see first what was in the pit in front of the entrance, so they continued. They also saw a door that didn't seem to be able to be opened from this side, unless they had to walk on a switch to open it.

Back at the entrance, they jumped in the now empty pit and found a small chest containing bombs as well as a small passage, again. They went through it, killed another Skulltula, climbed some vines, and passed a metallic door.

The new room was absolutely scary. The ground was littered with bones, more were in the walls, and there were weird pale and long bloody arms with hooked hands rising from the ground, not moving as the hands were open toward the ceiling.

This room was obviously the den of some bloodthirsty terrible creature, but said creature was nowhere to be seen. However, judging by the arms, it was hidden underground, probably waiting for a victim to be caught by one of the arms.

Sweetie Belle sent a sharp wave to cut one of the arms to see if it would make the monster come out, but it didn't work, and a new arm quickly replaced the sliced one.

"Seems like one of us will have to bait that thing out," observed the filly.

Link sighed. "I'll do it."

The boy then approached one of the arms and, faster than he could blink, the arm grabbed his head, and an horrifying pale creature came out of the ground beside him.

The nightmarish creature looked like a fat zombie without legs, with small pink arms without hands, and with a long neck with a lipless bald head that showed to all its dentition, and like the arms coming out of the floor, its body was covered in bloodstains.

As the thing slowly advanced toward Link who was struggling to free himself from the hand grabbing him, it stretched its jaw, readying itself to bite the boy's head.

That was forgetting Sweetie Belle who jumped on the bent neck of the monster, behind the head, and sliced it, beheading it. She then immediately jumped from its neck as the body dropped lifelessly on the ground along with the arms, green blood flowing. A big chest then appeared in the middle of the room.

Sweetie Belle then got goosebumps as she looked at the corpse of the monster. "I have seen some really creepy stuff in my adventures, but that thing easily reaches the top five. What a horrible monster."

"It was a Dead Hand," informed Navi. "Probably one of the most terrifying monsters that can be found. Thankfully, they are very rare."

"Yeah, thankfully. Are you alright, Link?" she asked to the boy.

"Yeah, the hand barely hurt. Thanks for the save," replied Link before he petted the filly. Then, he opened the chest, finding in it some purple object with a lens with the drawing of an eye on it. "That must be what we search, a lens that reveals the truth." He immediately tested it, seeing that it worked as he was able to see an invisible chest in the room. He could even see through the chest, seeing that it contained a golden rupee (worth two hundreds rupees). "I already love this object."

"So, we have this... Lens of Truth. This means that we can now see the illusions. Should we continue to explore this dungeon with it?" asked Sweetie Belle.

Link nodded. "There may be other useful treasures."

So, with the help of the lens, they continued their exploration of the place and indeed found some more treasures, although none as important as the lens itself. Thanks to the lens, they could see the fake walls and floor, discovering secret room. They also explored the secondary passages they had spotted earlier but hadn't minded. Sweetie Belle also flew into one of the pits previously hidden by the fake floor to see where they led and discovered another floor with a pit filled with green poisonous water and several paths.

In the lower floor was a map of the dungeon, and in a small secret room behind bars, they found the compass. They also found some keys here and there that let them reach other treasures. However, they ended up having to fight more monsters including ReDeads, Wallmasters, Gibdos (mummy monsters), the Like Like they had seen earlier, some Fire Keeses (bat monsters in fire), and even a Beamos (a statue with a rotating eye that fired a beam that Link could only destroy with a bomb). By the same occasion, Sweetie Belle discovered the existence of Bomb Flowers, which were plants with bomb-looking fruits that could explode, so they could be used as replacement bombs to save real bombs.

By the time they left the well, they were richer by some rupees, some more ammunition like Deku Nuts for Link, and even a spare Hylian Shield in case a Like Like manages to eat his current one. Link also got a fairy that he put in one of his bottles.

Sweetie Belle wondered about the moral of trapping a fairy in a bottle, but apparently, it was okay. If Link was knocked out, the fairy would come out of the bottle to heal him, saving his life.

With the lens in their possession, they returned to the Temple of Time to return to the future.

Chapter 13: The Fire Temple

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 14: The Ice Cavern

"Let's return in the crater," suddenly said Link before he turned around to reenter the crater of Death Mountain.

"Uh? Why?" asked Sweetie Belle at his side.

"I was never able to explore the crater before, for obvious reason. It's important to explore everywhere, you never know where you may find something useful. A secret grotto with a treasure inside, or even a Fairy Fountain with, with some luck, a Great Fairy."

"Fairies at this place? Are you sure?"

"I was able to come with you into the crater and the temple," said Navi. "We fairies can perfectly survive in this environment."

"Good point."

So they returned in the crater, searched, and did found something. However, it was blocked by solid boulders that couldn't be destroyed even with the bombs. But then, having a hunch, Link used his hammer, managing to destroy the boulders and free the path.

The tunnel behind the boulder led to a Fairy Fountain, a very enchanting place full of fairies with a Triforce symbol at the front. Standing on it, Link played Zelda's Lullaby, invoking a Great Fairy.

She didn't look at all like Sweetie Belle expected... Fairies were generally small and adorable...

Not this one.

The Great Fairy was actually very tall, easily dwarfing Link, had only a light clothe covering her body and two long socks covering her legs, and had a lot of makeup. She didn't even have wings like all the other fairies.

But Sweetie Belle could feel power in her. Lot of power. Despite her bimbo appearance, she wasn't to be underestimated.

As a proof of her power, she enhanced Link's magic reserve. Just like that, Link now had a reserve of magic two times bigger than before.

And before leaving, the fairy gave a last advice. "You are going to the Zora's Domain now, right? I suggest then that you keep a space bottle empty. You will need it. If you don't want to empty the ones you possess right now, then you should return to Hyrule Castle Town. A man here will give you another bottle in exchange of a... favor."

On these words, she disappeared.

Sweetie Belle and Link glanced at each other.

"A man? In that place filled with blood-thirsty zombies?" wondered Sweetie Belle.

Link shrugged. "If the Great Fairy says there is a man... then there is one, somehow. I wouldn't mind getting a fourth bottle."

"Alright then, let's return to Hyrule Castle Town."

So Link played the Prelude of Light to warp to the Temple of Time, gaining time. Sweetie Belle followed him with a teleportation.

Back in Hyrule Castle Town, they left the Temple of Time, quickly killed the ReDeads around, and began to search for that man.

They found him inside the old guardhouse, beside the drawbridge.

The man was very... weird... to say the least. He was cloaked, only had one eye, loved Poes, and even was able to keep spirits in cages.

Then he told them that he would buy any Poe they would bring him, and there were apparently ten large ones haunting the Hyrule Field that he would like to have. If they managed to bring the ten big Poes to him then he would recompense them.

What he forgot to say, that the Great Fairy also didn't think about, was that they needed an empty bottle to keep the Poes trapped, so they still needed to empty one of the ones they had.

Thankfully Sweetie Belle was there. She could perfectly keep a ghost trapped thanks to her powers.

So, with the help of Epona (that Link had to call with her song), they wandered Hyrule Field in search of the Poes, finding them one by one. As soon as they found one, Sweetie Belle trapped it inside a magical cage that she kept levitating beside her. Once they had the ten Poes, they returned to the guardhouse and gave them to the man who gave a bottle in return.

With the bottle in their possession, they then went toward the river and went up it.

The river was full of Octoroks, but thanks to a magical floating plant that Link had apparently planted seven years ago, they passed above most of it before landing not far of the entrance to the Zora's Domain, which was hidden behind a waterfall. Link playing Zelda's Lullaby at the right place parted it, opening the way for them.

They entered the Zora's Domain...

Only to look in horror as they discovered the place entirely frozen, and not a single Zora could be seen.

Link grit his teeth. "Here too..."

Sweetie Belle huffed. "Seems like there really isn't a place on Hyrule that has been spared by Ganondorf. Let's still search to see if we can find the Zoras."

Link nodded, and they began to search. But they didn't find the Zoras anywhere, not even in the houses. The most weird, however, was the presence of some red... ice blocking the entrance to the shop.

Link sighed at this. "Of course..."

"You needed something in here?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"A blue tunic. If the next temple is where I think it is, then I will need this tunic to breathe underwater."

"Right. The next temple is probably under water. But it seems like we will need to melt this ice." Sweetie Belle sent a powerful stream of fire at the red ice at this. While the fire managed to melt some of the ice around, it did nothing to the red ice. "Darn..."

Not sure what else they could do about the red ice, they continued to explore the Domain, eventually going to the King's throne room. There, they found the Zora King himself trapped in more red ice.

"Oh no..." said Sweetie Belle.

Link sighed. "In the end, there's nothing we can do here... No, wait... There may be something."

"Really? What?"

"Follow me."

Link entered a tunnel that was behind the frozen king, followed by the filly. Midway through the tunnel, which was also filled with frozen water, they reached a point where the water wasn't frozen, but very cold. Eventually, they reached the Zora's Fountain, which was the den of the Great Jabu-Jabu, now gone too. The Fountain was only partially frozen however, and it was snowing. A fog also limited their view.

"As I thought..." muttered Link before he looked at Sweetie Belle. "I remember that there is a cavern that I couldn't reach before. Now that the water is partially covered in ice, maybe I will be able to enter it. We may find something in it."

Sweetie Belle nodded in understanding.

So they went on the ice and jumped from ice platform to ice platform, dealing with Octoroks on the way, before reaching the cavern Link talked about, and they entered it.

The cavern was absolutely frozen, filled with stalactites that could fall anytime to impale them, so they made sure to destroy all of them for their security. On the way, they also found more of that red ice, thankfully not blocking the path, just being a small obstacle to circle. They however had to also destroy stalagmites blocking the way.

They then reached a room with the ground covered in slippery ice. Some enemies looking like statues of ice named Freezards were present, sending streams of ice at the heroes and even sliding on the ice to charge at them. The Freezards weren't hard to approach and to destroy once the heroes avoided the streams, but a Blade Trap (a metallic object covered in blades that kind of reminded Sweetie Belle of Gordos) circling the room made the task much more dangerous because it was easy for them, especially Link, to slip into its path.

So, to minimize the risks, Link went in the middle and used Din's Fire, which was very effective and killed almost all of them. Sweetie Belle finished the survivors.

Their destruction made bars blocking a passage between two crystals of red ice to rise, letting the heroes continue.

"Uuh... Is this me or is this cavern actually a dungeon?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"It seems to be," agreed Links. "I frankly didn't think that we would be exploring a dungeon in this cavern, so close to the Zora's Domain."

Following the new passage, they reached a new room with a giant spinning blade and some silver rupees floating here and there. The blade wasn't a big problem as it was high enough that Link could avoid it by duck, and the blade passed above Sweetie's head (it was good to be small!).

It wasn't the first time they saw there silver rupees. Back at the bottom of the well, there were some of them in the bottom floor. They had to take all of them in order to open the path for them to return to the top floor.

If it was the same thing here, then it meant that they had to find all the silver rupees in the room while avoiding being beheaded by the blade. No problem! Although, as they entered the room, some jars acted like the tiles back in the Fire Temple, levitating and charging at them. Sweetie Belle simply destroyed them with her beams.

Three rupees were all over the room, a fourth was hidden in a small alcove behind stalagmites, and a fifth was up in the air. Link could reach it by jumping from a ledge (where an exit of the room was), but Sweetie Belle simply flew to it. With the five silver rupees in their possession, the bars blocking the exit on the ledge disappeared, letting them continue.

Following the path, fighting a Freezard and avoiding more Blade Traps moving back and forth, they reached a third room also with slippery ice floor. There were some more Freezards as well as many Ice Keeses that the heroes quickly dealt with, mainly Sweetie Belle with her beams. More Blade Traps were also present, but they weren't dangerous as long as the heroes followed the path formed by the platforms that they climbed on.

On one of the platforms, they found a blue fire that wasn't natural, like Navi noted. The fairy also said that this fire could probably be used for something.

It wasn't hard to guess what that something was: melting the red ice. Speaking of, there was a crystal of red ice covering a big chest further.

But now, they had to bring the fire to the red ice, and using a Deku Stick didn't work. Link also fired an arrow through it, but no luck either.

Link then got an idea, took his empty bottle, and somehow managed to trap some fire in it.

"So this is why the Great Fairy told us to have an empty bottle..." said Navi.

Sweetie Belle stared at the fire in the bottle in wonder. "Okay... Even for me, this is very far fetched. And I saw many weird stuff in my adventures. Fire in a bottle, really..."

"At least, now, we can melt the red ice," said Link before he moved toward the trapped chest and used the fire to melt the ice. With the ice gone, he was able to open the chest, getting the map of the ice cavern.

"I hope there will be other blue fires in this cavern. Coming back here to get it each times will quickly get annoying," remarked Sweetie Belle.

Link agreed, but he only had one empty bottle. He could empty the others, but he didn't want to release the fairy and to waste the potions he bought.

So he filled the now empty bottle with blue fire again and they returned in the room with the spinning blade where they used the fire to melt some stalagmites of red ice blocking another exit that led to a room that was a dead end. But who said dead end room said possibly a treasure.

So they entered the room and immediately spotted another big chest trapped in red ice. Thankfully, there was a blue fire in the room too, so they destroyed the many stalagmites that were a little everywhere, filled the bottle with the fire, and used the fire on the red ice to open the chest and get the compass in it. Link then filled his bottle again with the fire and they returned in the previous room for the third time, this time using the fire to melt a wall of red ice blocking the last exit.

The passage led to a huge room with a strangely checkered ice floor and a big ice block. Blue fire was present in an alcove too far up to reach it with a jump, silver rupees were around mainly on pillars, and some Ice Keeses too.

Their goal: push the ice block around so they could use it to reach the silver rupees and the blue fire that they needed to melt the red ice covering one of the rupees in another alcove. The problem? Because of the slippery floor, once the block was pushed, it didn't stop sliding until it was either stopped by an obstacle or fell in a pit surrounding the area.

"So... Do you want to do it, or will you go the easy way and let me fly around to get the fire and the rupees?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"Let me try first, looks like fun. Just kill the Keeses for now," answered Link, and the filly nodded.

It wasn't hard in the end. Link managed to push the block toward the alcove with the fire to get it before pushing the block into the pit around. As he thought, a new block appeared at the beginning, and he managed to push it toward the alcove with the rupee trapped in ice. He then pushed the block in the pit again to reset it.

Instead of losing time by pushing the block to the alcove with the fire, he then gave the empty bottle to Sweetie Belle (who was done by then with the Ice Keeses) so she could fly to the fire with it and fill it. Meanwhile, Link pushed the block around to get the four remaining silver rupees (one of them didn't even need the block to be reached), doing a full loop with it before he pushed it toward the ledge on which was the now opened exit.

In the passage, they again had to fight some Freezards before reaching a wall made of several crystals of red ice blocking the way. Link used the blue fire to melt all the crystals in one go and they continued before they passed a door camouflaged in the ice, entering a beautiful room with walls full of little blue lights.

Behind them, bars appeared to block the door.

And suddenly, a White Wolfos appeared.

Easily killed. It wasn't because it was white that it was harder to kill than the normal Wolfos. It was just as easy.

Just after it died, a big chest appeared, containing iron boots for Link.

To put it simply, the boots were so heavy that, while Link won't be able to run while wearing them, he will be able to walk in the bottom of the water without the whole floating part. Useful to explore the seabed, without forgetting that Link will be able to resist strong currents and to step on rusted switches without using the hammer.

And since the next temple was apparently under water, these boots will quickly get many uses.

Then, as the two heroes turned around, they found Sheik now here. They didn't even hear him enter!

"We meet again, Link... Sweetie Belle..."

"Seriously, he's a ninja..." muttered Sweetie Belle.

"If you came here to meet the Zoras, you wasted your time... This is all there is... With one exception, the Zoras are now sealed under this thick ice sheet..."

The two heroes sighed in relief. "So they are safe... in a way," Link said.

"I feared for a moment that it was like for the Gorons," added Sweetie Belle.

Sheik nodded at them before he continued. "I managed to rescue the Zora princess from under the ice, but... she left to head for the Water Temple..."

Link groaned, covering his face with a hand.

"This ice is created by an evil curse..." continued Sheik again. "The monster in the Water Temple is the source of the curse. Unless you shut off the source, this ice will never melt..." He then fully looked at Link. "If you have courage enough to face the danger and save the Zoras, I will teach you the melody that leads to the temple."

Link nodded and prepared his ocarina.

But before, Sheik continued to talk. "Time passes, people move... Like a river's flow, it never ends... A childish mind will turn to noble ambition... Young love will become deep affection... The clear water's surface reflects growth... Now listen to the Serenade of Water to reflect upon yourself..."

At this, he finally took his lyre and taught Link the song.

Between Sheik's words as deep as the sea and the song, Sweetie Belle couldn't help but reflect on her own personal growth since... Since that accident. Time sure passed since then, and Sweetie Belle was now a very different filly than she was back then. It certainly wasn't the Sweetie Belle of back then who could have snapped the neck of a wolf without even giving a second thought. The Sweetie Belle of back then would have frozen in horror at the sight of the Dead Hand. And she knew that these changes will continue as time continued. How different will she be by the time she finally becomes a Goddess? She could only guess. She just knew that, when she will be a Goddess, she will be beyond Time, but did it mean that she will stop changing? Stop growing?

After they were done, Sheik left like he always did, leaving them to continue, both their journey and their reflections.

"He sure knows how to make us think upon our life," commented Sweetie Belle.

Link nodded. "Yeah..."

Continuing, they approached a hole full of water and Link equipped the boots before jumping in it, followed by Sweetie Belle. At the bottom of the hole, Link opened a door that led to a path eventually coming out of water and leading back to the first room where they fought the first Freezards. There, Link took off the boots before they left the cavern.

"Wait!" then shouted Navi. "We need blue fire to unfreeze the King Zora!"

They both groaned. "Give me the bottle," instructed Sweetie Belle. "I will join you at the throne room."

Link nodded and gave her the bottle before she teleported. While she went to fill the bottle with the fire, he returned in the throne room. He entered it just as Sweetie Belle melted the red ice with the fire, freeing the king.

"Oh! I've come back to life!" shouted the regal fat fishman before he looked down at the filly who jumped on the platform facing the king, followed by Link. "Is that you who saved me?"

Sweetie Belle nodded. "Uhuh! We got the blue fire in the cavern behind the Fountain! Uh, speaking of, I should return to get more fire to melt the red ice blocking the shop." She then bowed to the king before teleporting away.

The king then looked at Link. "I think I recognize you. You saved my daughter seven years ago."

Link nodded. "And now, I must go to the Water Temple to save your people trapped under the ice."

"Aah... The Water Temple. You will need to breathe underwater to enter it. There. As an expression of my gratitude, I grant you this tunic. With this, you won't choke underwater."

And so, Link received the blue tunic that he needed.

With it and the boots, he was now ready to enter the Water Temple.

Sweetie Belle then appeared beside him. "It's done. The red ice blocking the shop is gone. The shopkeeper Zora is still in it, so you will be able to buy stuff in it if you want. I also filled the bottle with another flame just in case."

Link nodded. "Thank you Sweetie Belle." He took his ocarina. "Now, let's go to the Water Temple."

And he played the Serenade of Water, warping to the Water Temple.

Sweetie Belle sung the Serenade too, following Link.

They both warped in Lake Hylia, or what remained of it as they then found out.

The lake was almost entirely drained!

"Seems like the Domain isn't the only place that has been affected by this monster," noted Sweetie Belle.

Link nodded before he put on the blue tunic. "Can you breathe underwater?"

"Yeah. Don't worry."

With another nod, Link approached the edge of the island they had warped on, equipped the boots, and jumped, disappearing in the little water that remained. Sweetie Belle followed, deciding to turn into metal to also walk at the bottom without problem.

They landed just in front of the entrance to the temple.

"Alright! You two cleared the first two temples as if they were nothing! I'm sure you will have no problem in it too!" said Navi at this moment.

Sweetie Belle groaned. "You just had to say this..."

Author's Note

The Serenade of Water is probably my favorite of the Warp Songs.

Also, hello Murphy! How are you doing old pal? It has been some time since we saw you!

Chapter 15: The Water Temple

After entering the temple, Sweetie Belle and Link followed the passage, getting out of the water on the way, until it led them to a huge flooded room with a giant central pillar. They were at the top level as more of the room could be seen under the water. Blue Tektites (same as the red ones excepted that they could float on water) were visible here and there, and there were a lot of Hookshot targets.

Exploring the surface, they found a passage at the right that led back underwater only to be a dead end for now, the path being blocked by a grid. There was however a block that they pulled, but once in place, it blocked the passage and couldn't be pushed back where it had been. This meant that to continue here, they will have to find a way to make the grid go away so they could push the block out of the way.

Back in the flooded room, they found a door on a ledge in the opposite side of the room from the entrance. The ledge could be accessed only by using the Hookshot on a target on a dragon statue at the edge. However, the target was too far for Link, so he couldn't reach the door yet. A quick look by Sweetie Belle informed him that it was the door leading to the golden-chained door anyway. A locked door was also present at the left of the entrance, above a platform floating on the water.

So this left them to go underwater, but Link couldn't reach the doors and passages of the middle level of the room because he was bad at swimming, and the boots dropped him straight below to the bottom level.

The bottom level had four passages, but one between two torches particularly attracted their attention, so they went in it first after fighting a few spiked balls simply named Spikes. Following it, they quickly entered a room where they found none other than the Zora princess herself, Ruto.

Obviously, she was surprised to see someone inside the temple. "Oh... You... If I'm right... Link?!" Upon recognizing Link, her expression immediately morphed into joy. "You're Link, aren't you? It's me, your fiancée, Ruto! Princess of the Zoras!"

"What? Fiancée?" half-shouted Sweetie Belle, only bubbles coming out of her mouth however, making no sound.

Link still understood what she wanted to say but couldn't say anything however, not only because he couldn't talk underwater, but also because Ruto suddenly hugged him, which made him very uncomfortable.

"I never forgot the vows we made to each other seven years ago!" she continued before she flicked his nose. "You're a terrible man to have kept me waiting for these seven long years..." she playfully scolded. But then, her expression turned somber as she released Link. "But now is not the time to talk about love..."

Yeah, we must save your people, Sweetie Belle said telepathically, finally managing to gain the attention of the Zora who looked down at her.

The next instant, Sweetie Belle was lifted and trapped in a bear hug by the princess. "Why, aren't you one of the most adorable things I even saw? Who are you, and what are you? I will so keep you!"

Sweetie Belle teleported out of Ruto's arms before saying, I'm Sweetie Belle, an alicorn pony. I'm helping Link in his quest to save Hyrule from Ganondorf. And now, we're trying to free your people from the ice.

Ruto immediately grabbed the filly again to continue to hug her. "So you saw it. I was trapped too until a young man named Sheik got me out... But the others are still in it... Even Father..."

We saved him, said Sweetie Belle at this, deciding to let the princess hug her. We got rid of the red ice that covered him. He's safe. However, we couldn't do anything for the others.

"So Father is safe? Oh, I'm so glad! I can't thank you enough!" shouted the princess in joy as she cuddled the filly. "But the others must still be saved... So you are here to help? To destroy the monster responsible of this?"

Both heroes nodded.

"Very well then! Let me help you! In this temple, there are three points where you can change the water level. One of these points is just above us. Let me guide you to it."

Then, without releasing Sweetie Belle, she swam up followed by Link (who had to take off the boots). They passed in front of a cracked wall that could certainly be destroyed by a bomb (which wouldn't work because it was still underwater) before they arrived to a hole in the ceiling where the water stopped. There, Ruto finally let Sweetie go so she and Link could get out of the water.

Ruto then pointed at a Triforce symbol that was on the wall, on some plate that glowed green. "Play the same song that you use to open the way to the Domain, and you will be able to lower the level of the water all the way to the bottom. It should open you WAAAAAHHH!!!" Ruto was suddenly grabbed by something underwater, and before Link and Sweetie Belle could do anything, she was gone. Sweetie Belle quickly jumped in the water to try to save her, but Ruto had already disappeared.

"Buck!" She got back out of the water. "That thing got her!"

The heroes exchanged worried looks before Navi said, "Don't worry. I'm sure we will save her."

Link nodded determinedly. "We must hurry to complete this temple."

He then took his ocarina and played Zelda's Lullaby in front of the Triforce symbol, successfully lowering the water level all the way to the bottom. After that, they passed the door that was in the room.

In the new room, bars appeared to block the door they just passed, trapping them in it and forcing them to fight a bunch of Spikes, which wasn't hard. Killing the Spikes made a big chest containing the map of the temple appear. After taking it, they returned to the previous room where they jumped in the hole now emptied of water, falling back to the room where they found Ruto.

With the water gone, a torch now had a flame that Link used to light two other torches, unblocking another barred door that led them in a room with three Shell Blades, shells with spikes. The shells were solid, so Link had no choice but to attack them when they had their mouth open. They had to be careful because, as they approached to make them open their mouth, the shells could suddenly turn around and jump toward them to hit them with their spikes. A small chest with a key appeared once all the shells were killed.

Done there, the heroes returned in the big room, now totally empty of water.

Thanks to the map, they saw that the South passage led almost directly to a dead end, so it would be rapid to explore. So they went here first until they reached a dead end with a cracked floor. With a bomb, Link blew it up, revealing a hole with water. They jumped in it and followed the passage (killing a Shell Blade on the way) until they left the water in a long room with a switch on a platform in the middle. Pressing the switch caused the water level in the room to rise a bit, making a dragon statue with a Hookshot target rise too. Climbed on another platform, Link used the Hookshot on the target to reach the ledge on which the statue was. Two Blue Tektites awaited them here, but the heroes made short work of them. They then hit the crystal behind the statue to raise the gate of some kind of cell in the back, letting them reach a small chest with some bombs as well as several jars with various stuff in them.

It wasn't much but Link didn't say no to more bombs as he will be apparently using them a lot in this temple.

Done in this passage, they returned to the main room. Here, they now had to choose between a passage to the West, a passage to the North, and a locked door at the foot of the central pillar.

Deciding to open the locked door last just in case the key could be needed elsewhere, they went to the nearest passage: the West one. It was blocked by a block, but thanks to the floating platform having lowered all the way down with the water, Link was able to reach it and to push it. Sweetie helped him by simply kicking the block to make it slide until it fell unto a hole with water. They jumped in the water after the block and followed the revealed underwater passage until they popped out of the water in a room separated in two by a pit.

Hitting a crystal beside them made a pillar of water raise up. It was so powerful that when Link jumped on it, he was able to walk on it, using it as a platform to reach the other side of the room where Sweetie Belle killed a Blue Tektite with a beam. After passing a door, they then entered a room half-filled with water, the filled part having the statue of a dragon that looked serpentine like Volvagia. The body was coming out of the floor and was entering a wall beside a passage, and the head was coming out of that same wall at the other side.

A crystal was inside the mouth. Link was able to hit it with the Hookshot by standing on the body, opening a gate inside the passage. It didn't remain open long however so Link used the Hookshot again to reach the area behind the gate before it closed, Sweetie Belle having already killed the Shell Blades present here. They then popped out of the water further up in front of a chest with a key. Hitting another crystal here opened the door again for them to retrace their steps. In the room with the pit, Link used the Hookshot to reach the other side, a target being present just below the edge.

"You know, with all these targets, some of them being out of range for your Hookshot, I'm starting to think that you will get a longer one somewhere in this temple," commented Sweetie Belle.

Link agreed. It was logical.

Back in the main room, they then went to explore the last passage, the North one, only to find out that they needed water here.

So this left them with the locked door at the foot of the pillar. Climbing on another platform that could float on water that let them reach the door, they unlocked it and entered the pillar.

They walked on another platform floater at the beginning of a small path with spikes at both sides. Advancing carefully, they then looked around once they reached the end, finding a Hookshot target further up on a platform in a corner.

Above the platform was a Triforce symbol on a red plate, so Link immediately played Zelda's Lullaby, making the water rise to the second level. The platform floater from the beginning raised up with the water, revealing a new passage that was under it. So they went to explore this passage instead of passing the door that was beside them.

The passage led to an entirely underwater room with two grids in the ceiling and a crystal. Hitting the crystal opened one of the grids, dropping several Spikes and Shell Blades. Killing them opened the other grid that led them to a out-of-water dead end with a chest containing a key.

With the new key in their possession, they returned inside the pillar, climbed out of the water in front of the exit door in the second level, and passed it.

With the water raised to the second level in the main room, they had the choice between two new passages (South and East) and a new locked door (West again). But first...

"Hey, now that the water is raised to this level, do you think that you can reach that cracked wall back in the room where we found princess Ruto?" wondered Navi.

"Uh. I almost forgot it," Link said. "Thanks Navi."

"The East passage doesn't lead far too," remarked Sweetie Belle as she looked at the map. "And the South one leads back to the hallway with the block we pulled just after entering the temple. In the end, it doesn't matter where we go first. They each lead to dead ends with probably a chest."

"Let's start with the cracked wall," decided Link.

So they jumped in the water and returned in the room where they found Ruto. They then popped out of the water just in front of the cracked wall, as they though. So Link used a bomb to blow it up, discovering a secret room with a chest containing a key.

Next, they went to the East passage where Link had to carefully use the Hookshot to not hit spikes while getting on a platform. Another shot with the Hookshot and they were in a room with a crystal and a big chest in a pillar of water. Hitting the pillar caused the water to disappear, but not long enough to reach the chest in time by running. The solution would be to hit the crystal with a projectile while being beside the water, but Link simply decided to hit the crystal and to let Sweetie Belle open the chest, getting the compass. While returning to the main room, they watched out to not accidentally jump on the spikes.

Finally, the South path... which was blocked by a gate, and to open it, Link had to hit an eye-interrupter in an alcove just below. However, opening the gate wasn't enough because Link couldn't reach the passage in time before it closed. There was a Hookshot target, but it was too far.

So, for now, the South passage was a no.

This left only the locked door in the West that they unlocked after climbing on the platform floater. In the room behind, they had to hit a crystal to raise up a water pillar to reach the room above. However, the pillar was too far to be on it while hitting the crystal with the sword so it would raise up with them on it, so they Link used his bow while Sweetie Belle killed a Blue Tektite that bounced on them from the hole above. Once in the room above, they passed the only door here.

This led them just in front of the third Triforce symbol, this time on a blue plate, back in a small alcove in the main room in the upper level (with bars blocking the door behind them). Link played Zelda's Lullaby and the water was raised back to its original level. Then, they climbed on the platform floater in the West and unlocked the door here.

After killing two Keeses, they saw that they had entered a huge room with a big waterfall that went into a seemingly bottomless pit. Platform floaters with Hookshot targets were on the waterfall, moving down it and disappearing in the pit only to be replaced by new ones at the top. But first, they had to go down by jumping on two successive platforms, the second one moving up and down back and forth. From the second platform, Link then used the Hookshot to move from platform to platform and climb the waterfall until reaching the top where he used the Hookshot one last time to reach the exit, which was locked.

After unlocking it, they entered a room with a red crystal on a pillar and three statues of dragon head on different platforms. Like in a previous room, hitting the crystal (with a projectile) made the level of the water in the room raise along with the statues. However, there, Link couldn't use all of the statues because the second's target was just above the water, meaning that Link would fall in the water if he used the Hookshot on it and he would have to restart from the beginning. The problem was that the second statue was on a narrow path, so the heroes had to hit the crystal again to lower the water level along with the statues so Link could climb on the head of the second statue and pass it. They then raised the water level and the statues again so Link could Hookshoot the third statue to reach it. They had to lower and raise the water level a last time so Link could climb on the head of the third statue and use it as an elevator to reach the exit. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle killed the many Blue Tektites in the room to gain time, as well as the Like Like at the exit, behind spikes. The killed Like Like let Link the Hookshot a last time to pass the spikes without risk, reaching the exit door.

They passed it, and entered... a strange place.

It seemed to be an infinite ocean disappearing into a fog, with ruins here and there and a small island with a single dead tree in the middle.

Were they still inside the temple? It looked like this as they could see an exit door at the other side, but then, what was this place? A pocket dimension inside the temple?

Whatever it was, this place was giving them a weird feeling.

After recovering of the shock of finding such a place in a temple, they carefully advanced, discovering that they somehow could walk on the water, adding to the unnatural feeling of the place.

The water was perfectly clear, letting them see their reflection and the reflections of the island, tree, and ruins as if it was a mirror.

Advancing toward the exit, they eventually passed the island, only to see that the exit was barred.

Then, they saw that their reflection had disappeared.

And they felt a presence behind them.

They turned around, finding two figures now present on the island: a black, transparent Link with red glowing eyes, and a black, transparent Sweetie Belle with red glowing eyes.

Sweetie Belle looked in horror at her double while both Link and the dubbed Dark Link took their sword, ready to duel.

Then, the dubbed Dark Sweetie Belle began to glow.

Sweetie Belle immediately understood what she was doing. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!" Without losing time, she teleported out of the temple with both Link and Navi just before the Crash Ability engulfed the place.

The next instant, the Water Temple, Lake Hylia and a good amount of land around disappeared in a huge explosion that could be seen from everywhere on Hyrule and even on the lands around.

Nothing was left of the lake but a big crater, and the lands around were totally ravaged.

Din and Nayru, respectively Goddess of Power and Goddess of Wisdom, were glaring at Farore, Goddess of Courage. Both Goddesses had their arms crossed in visible annoyance, and Din was even repeatedly tapping the ground with the front of her foot while the third Goddess was looking at them sheepishly.

"I didn't think she was that powerful!" then said the Goddess of Courage.

"And you didn't think to ask me, the Goddess of Power, to see if creating a double of her was alright," stated Din.

"Or at least to create a pocket dimension for them to fight without risking to destroy Hyrule," added Nayru.

"How was I supposed to know that the double would just... blow up? It could have simply sent some powerful beam or I don't know, which would have only destroyed partially the temple and it would have made itself disappear! But no! It exploded!" shouted Farore in exasperation.

The two other Goddesses just sighed and shook their head at this.

"At least, Era will be able to fix it," muttered Nayru.

"Speaking of, be ready to face her, Farore," Din said. "She will be in a very bad mood now that she has to fix your screw up. This era already makes her prickly, and the intervention of this outsider hasn't helped although she has been nice to her."

Author's Note

So... This happened...

Chapter 16: The Water Temple Part 2

Author's Note

I did a little correction in the previous chapter about the real reason why the South passage in the second level of the main room couldn't be reached.

Chapter 16: The Water Temple Part 2

Link stared dumbly at the giant mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke in the distance. One moment, he had been about to fight some black and transparent doppelganger, and the next, he was back on top of Death Mountain, on a cliff, watching as about a fourth of Hyrule suddenly exploded and most of the rest was ravaged by the force of the explosion.

"What... What happened?" Navi finally asked what was in his mind.

Sweetie Belle didn't answer directly however. The filly was sitting just beside Link, groaning loudly.

"Pretty much what would happen if I decided to go all out without care..." she eventually answered. "That double of me used one of my most powerful attacks, and now, here you go..." She waved at the disaster. "A kingdom even more in ruin than before. The good side? The monster is dead and the Zoras are saved. The bad side? Hyrule now has a giant crater instead of a lake-which will fill up with time to become an even bigger lake-, a big chunk of the forest is destroyed, the Lon Lon Ranch is gone, a good part of Kakariko Village must now be looking like Hyrule Castle Town, and Ruto and a lot of other people must be dead." She groaned again. "Why did there have to be a fight against a double? If I had known, I wouldn't have entered this room! I just wanted to help!"

Link looked sadly at the filly as tears began to show in the corner of her eyes, and he began to pet her to calm her. "It isn't your fault. We just got unlucky to encounter such a challenge."

Then, suddenly, everything flashed and they felt themselves floating as the ground disappeared under them. Not long later, they felt floor again, and the world came back to them.

To their shock, they were back inside the Water Temple, in front of the door leading to the place with the doubles, as if all this disaster never happened.

"It must be the Goddess of Time!" Navi immediately understood. "She brought us back in time! It must have really been bad if she intervened personally."

Link snorted. "You don't say..."

At this moment, they began to hear a divine feminine voice speak to them in their mind. "I personally apologise for what happened," she said, sounding VERY annoyed. "Farore placed this challenge to test the both of you without thinking or taking precautions concerning your power." They quickly understood that she was mainly talking to Sweetie Belle while including Link in the conversation. "I will have a word with her. If you still wish to pass this challenge, then pass this door with the Hero of Time and you will both be transported this time to different pocket dimensions instead of an illusionary room. If you don't, then just let the Hero of Time pass the door alone and wait. May the rest of your quest not have further incidents like this one." And at this, the voice stopped talking to them.

Sweetie Belle sighed in relief. "Thank you, Goddess of Time! And slap Farore for me, please!"

Link rubbed his head. "Huh... So I guess that we can continue our quest. So, will you go fight your double?"

"Weeeell... I guess. Should as well. I need to relieve some anger from this whole incident."

"Alright."

So the two of them passed the door, and Sweetie Belle found herself back on the infinite ocean with ruins and the small island. Only, this time, there was no fog, Link was somehow gone, and the entrance and exit door weren't here.

She walked toward the island, but stopped before fully crossing it. There, she closed her eyes, took a big breathe, and grinned as her horn glowed and a song began to play.

Her grin grew, and she materialized one of her beam swords before she began to advance, her eyes opening, revealing that they were now entirely black, filled with darkness.

"Look, here, is a little pony
Ready to show to this crowd,"

When she stepped back on the water, she immediately remarked that her reflection had disappeared, but she didn't mind it as she continued to advance and to sing, her mane and tail turning into fire while a powerful aura of energy covered her.

"Be ready, because this filly..."

The beam sword then turned into pure darkness as she readied to swing it.

"Is gonna cause you..."

Without warning, she brusquely turned around and gave a large vertical slash with the sword at a speed close to light.

"To be cowed!!!!"

Just with this slash, she sliced in two the explosion caused by the Dark Sweetie Belle using the Crash Ability again...

And the Dark Sweetie Belle...

And the whole pocket dimension in front of her, causing it to start to collapse.

She then turned off the beam sword and sent it back in her own pocket dimension while her eyes, mane, and tail returned to normal. Little by little, the pocket dimension disappeared around her, returning her inside the Water Temple, inside a truly huge room entirely empty. The only particularity was the presence of water covering the floor.

Link wasn't here yet.

Stopping her song, she sat down, waiting for the Hero of Time to be done with his double, feeling much better.

Link appeared a few minutes later, looking visibly tired and hurt. Obviously, the fight against his double didn't go as smoothly as Sweetie's. The Hylian quickly took his healing potion and his magic-replenishing potion before he remarked the filly's presence.

"Looks like you didn't have as much problem against your double as me..." he stated.

Sweetie Belle shrugged. "I have some tricks that she couldn't mimic. I took advantage of this."

Link chuckled at this. "I have a feeling that I don't want to know."

"Yeah, you don't want to know. Now, let's go, the exit is open."

Link nodded, and they advanced toward the previously barred exit door and passed it. At the other side, they ended up in a smaller room with just a big chest and a Time Block. Link opened the chest and got a new Hookshop that was longer, the Longshot.

"Now, I will be able to reach all the targets," said Link.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle sung the Song of Time, making the Time Block disappear and revealing a hole to jump in.

"That's nice! Now we will be able to reach the ledge to the door leading to our target. But before, we still must get the Big Key."

They both jumped in the hole and dropped in a cavern with a river that they had to jump in to continue. Following the current, they had to avoid many vortexes on the way. At the end, to continue, Link had to climb on a small platform and fire an arrow at an eye-interrupter to open a gate. He then used the Longshot on a chest that was behind the gate to rapidly reach it and open it to get a key as Sweetie Belle followed him. Following the path eventually led them back in the room with the statue of a serpentine dragon with a crystal in the mouth. From here, they returned in the main room of the temple.

Now, thanks to the Longshot, they could explore rooms and passages Link couldn't reach before. The fastest to explore was the South passage of the second level that Link couldn't enter because of the gate closing too quickly.

But first, they had to lower the water to the second level so they could reach the eye-interrupter and fire at it with the bow. So they first returned in the room where they found Ruto and lowered the water to the first level. Then, they entered the pillar and climbed until reaching the second level where they raised the water. Thanks to this, they will be able to hit the eye-interrupter thanks to the platform floater now being just in front of it. They then circled the pillar to the South part, went on the platform floater, and Link fired an arrow at the eye-interrupter before using the Longshot on the target behind the opened gate to enter the passage before it would close.

In this passage, they just had to push the block they had pulled at the beginning, letting them reach a room that was behind it. In the room was a chest with a key.

This left the last unexplored passage: the North one in the first level. With the water already raised, all they needed to do was to jump in the water (Link with the boots) and to enter the passage before popping out of the water in the next room. There, they discovered a Longshot target, and Link had to climb on a ledge to reach it and pass above spikes that blocked the way.

Using a first key to unlock the door her, they entered a room where they had to traverse a large pit full of water with strong currents. There were some vortexes, a lot of Blue Tektites, and even rolling boulders at the bottom in case Link had the idea of using the boots to traverse. First, they killed the Tektites, and from there, they carefully swam to the other side where they went to the next room.

It was another room with water, this time in a lower lever. There were some Stingers (small manta-ray-like enemies) that they killed before they could jump out of the water to attack, and they spotted a switch in the water. However, it was one of these switch that were only activated when something remained on it. The heroes remarked that a part of the South wall was cracked, and another part was looking weird (hitting it with the sword confirmed that it could also be destroyed). Destroying the two parts with bombs, they revealed a U-shaped passage with a block. So Sweetie Belle entered the passage by the right to push (or rather kick) the block until a corner. Link then entered the passage by the left and pulled the block until it was out. After that, Sweetie Belle kicked the block again to make it fall into a hole right on the switch. This had for effect to raise the water level for them to reach the exit.

The door was barred behind them after they entered the next room, and the exit was too. It was rather simple to open and reach it however. They just had to step on a switch to make the bars disappear and jump from water pillar to water pillar that had activated through a pit to reach it before the bars returned. There were two Blue tektites at the end, but Sweetie quickly dealt with them.

Passing the door, they were back in the room with the rolling boulders, in one of the alcoves from which the boulders (and the water) came. There, they waited for a boulder to pass before they jumped in the water into an underwater passage that led to a locked door, out of water. In the room behind the door was the fancy chest containing the Big Key. From there, it was easy to return to the main room. However, with the water only raised to the second level, the dragon statue with the Longshot target wasn't raised so they couldn't reach the ledge to the final room. So they first had to go all the way back into the alcove with the blue plate to raise the water to the third level.

With the water raised, Link was able to use the Longshot on the statue and to go on the ledge. They then just had to climb a sloping hallway while avoiding Spike Traps on the way withing sliding back down before reaching the door with the golden lock.

They opened it and entered the last room of the temple.

The room had a large pit filled with water with four platforms in it. Spikes also were on the walls at ground level all around. Navi immediately felt something wrong with the water and warned them that it wasn't natural. So, keeping an eye on the water, they jumped on one of the platforms.

They saw something moving in the water and followed it with their eyes. The thing revealed to be some kind of orb that could not only move freely in the liquid, but that could also control it as it raised some water to form some kind of tentacle with the orb inside. The tentacle then attacked them, but it was easily avoided. It was quickly clear that the orb could only form one tentacle at a time...

"Really? That's all?" wondered Sweetie Belle. "After the fake Ganondorf and Volvagia, it's really disappointing."

Link simply shrugged before they avoided another tentacle. Link then grabbed the Longshot and managed to get the orb out of the water before hitting it with the sword. The orb, however, quickly bounced back in the water.

Sweetie Belle sighed, materialized a Poké Ball, and let Volta out. "Volta, use Thunder Shock in the water. Don't stop, and be careful of the water tentacles."

"Yes, Sweetie Belle!" Volta shouted excitedly before she began to send electricity into the water. The electricity spread in it, electrifying the orb. It attempted to stop her with a tentacle, but the Pichu easily avoided it and Link even used the occasion to Longshot the orb out of the tentacle before slashing it. When the orb returned in the water, Volta immediately resumed her attacks. Sweetie Belle didn't even judge necessary to intervene more.

Between Volta and Link, the orb was quickly destroyed, and the water in the room disappeared into the ceiling before a familiar blue light appeared in the center.

Volta bounced in joy. "I did it! I did it!"

Sweetie Belle petted her and congratulated her before calling her back in her Poké Ball that she put back in her pocket dimension.

"It was supposed to be one of Ganondorf's top monsters?" asked Navi.

"Apparently," said Link. "My double had been harder to fight than that thing."

Stopping thinking about this disappointing monster, the heroes entered the blue light and, like previously, they were transported in a crystal to the Chamber of the Sages. This time, the blue pedestal glowed with the blue light, and Ruto appeared in it.

"Link..." she began. "I would have expected no less from the man I chose to be my husband."

"You have to tell me how this happened by the way," Sweetie Belle said to Link while giving a tap to the back of his leg, making the Hylian blush.

Ruto giggled at the scene before she continued. "Zora's Domain and its people will eventually return to their original state. As a reward... I grant my eternal love to you." She blew a kiss at Link at this, winking, making the Hylian blush even more, to Sweetie Belle's amusement. However, Ruto's expression turned sad. "Well, that's what I want to say, but I don't think I can offer that now. I have to guard the Water Temple as the Sage of Water... And you... You're searching for the princess, Zelda?"

"Uh..."

"Hah! You can't hide anything from me!"

"Waaaait... Do I smell a love triangle?" asked Sweetie Belle as she looked mischievously at Link. "What a ladykiller. I'm frankly not surprised."

Link groaned. "Stop... Please..."

Both Sweetie Belle and Ruto laughed.

"Princess Zelda is alive, I can sense it, so don't be discouraged," reassured Ruto once she calmed down. "I can tell that nothing will stop you in your quest for justice and peace... You must take this medallion... Take it respectfully!"

She then raised her arms, and a blue medallion appeared above Link who took it.

"I guess I won't be able to keep you, Sweetie Belle," then said Ruto to the filly who giggled at this.

Sweetie Belle quickly used her powers to create a plushie looking like her before she gave it to the Zora princess. "You can't keep me, but you can keep her. Take care of her."

Ruto giggled and took the plushie. "I will. Thank you."

It was then that everything was plunged in light.

"If you see Sheik, please give him my thanks. Ok?"

They appeared back on the island in Lake Hylia that was slowly filling back up. There, they found Sheik who was observing the water. They immediately ran to him, and Link passed Ruto's message.

"Ruto wanted to thank me? I see... We have to return peace to Hyrule for her sake too. Don't we?" Sheik waved at the lake as the water finished to raise. "Look at that, Link, Sweetie Belle. Together, you two and Princess Ruto destroyed the evil monster! Once again, the lake is filled with pure water. All is as it was here."

Sweetie Belle looked at the lake. "It's really beautiful."

However, as both Sweetie Belle and Link observed the beauty of the filled lake, Sheik stepped back. When the heroes turned toward him, he was already gone. They however heard someone plunge in the water.

"And he's gone. So, I guess this leaves two temples. But where do we go now?" wondered Sweetie Belle.

"I don't know," answered Link before he approached a pedestal that read "shoot for the morning light." However, it was starting to get late in the afternoon.

After Link read the pedestal for her, Sweetie Belle wondered, "Do we use the Sun's Song, or do we camp and rest here?"

"I wouldn't mind a rest," replied Link. "And I'm hungry. We haven't eaten since this morning. There's a fishing spot not far."

"No thanks. I tasted meat once and it was horrible. I will install the camp while you go fishing."

Link nodded and went to fish.

And so, they spent the night on the island. Link eventually returned with some fishes and, apparently, a 'new' song. He met an old scarecrow friend, and now, thanks to a song, he could invoke another scarecrow in some places that he could use as a Longshot target. He supposed that it was the song he should have played back in the Fire Temple to reach that elevator.

While they ate, Sweetie Belle asked him the story of how Ruto chose him as her husband, and despite the embarrassment, Link told her. They then talked about various stuff before going to sleep early, making sure that they would wake up at the sunrise so Link could do what was written in the pedestal.

Chapter 17: The Shadow Temple

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 18: Crossing The Desert

The heroes left behind Kakariko Village, which the inhabitants already began to rebuild. Thanks to Sheik, the fires had been put out rapidly, the village didn't take too much damage, and nobody died. Kakariko should be back to normal in a few days. Sadly, Sweetie Belle and Link couldn't help them. They had an evil overlord to defeat after all!

After calling Epona, they traversed Hyrule Field to the West where the valley leading to the desert was. After a long journey, the green let place to brown as they arrived in the hot area of the valley. After walking on a wooden plank that let them pass above some water, they finally reached the bridge leading to the fortress of the Gerudos.

Only to discover that the bridge had been destroyed.

"Just our luck..." muttered Link as he looked down at the Zora River far below.

Sweetie Belle pointed at the other side. "I think that you can use the Longshot to reach the other side."

Link nodded. "I could, but..." He looked down at Epona and petted her mane. "You think you can do it, girl?"

"Uh... What?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"Let's do this!" said Link before he led Epona back at the bottom of the wooden plank.

"Wait! You won't do what I think you are about to do, right?"

"I totally will! YAH!" shouted Link, and Epona galloped on the plank as quickly as she could before she ran toward the remains of the bridge.

"Wait! Are you sure?! Wait!"

And Epona jumped, Sweetie Belle shrieking on her back, before she successfully landed at the other side.

Sweetie Belle hit Link on the back of the head. "You are crazy!" She then giggled. "That was fun! Can we do it again?"

Link chuckled. "We had nothing to fear. I knew that Epona could do it. And if she missed, I knew that I could count on you to save us."

"Good point, but warn me next time you decide to do something as crazy as this so I can prepare!"

"No promise," replied Link with a grin at the filly. "I'm not sure this is revenge enough for what you did at the graveyard."

"Oh, come on! I told you this was the perfect plan! There's no problem being a girl for a few minutes! We would have been able to enter the fortress of the Gerudos without fighting!"

"No thanks."

"Did I hear right? You are planning to enter the Gerudo's Fortress?" asked a voice coming from their right.

The two heroes turned to look at the burly old man with a white mustache who just talked as he approached from his tent, and Link nodded. "We do."

"You must be crazy, son, if you expect to win against the Gerudos. They are very skilled warriors, from mother to daughter, and there are dozens of them. And as you probably already know, they don't like men. Especially men barging into their fortress."

"We know, but we have no choice," said Sweetie Belle. "To continue our quest and defeat Ganondorf, we must enter this fortress."

"You want to defeat Ganondorf? You must be fools! Or you really mean it? Well, if you think that you can do it, I have something to ask for you. I am a master craftsman! And I plan to fix this bridge! The Gerudo Thieves destroyed it to not be perturbed, but that's not counting on me! However, my guys are gone. They thought that being craftsmen wasn't cool enough, and so, they went to the fortress to become thieves. You can guess what happened to these idiots. But they may be idiots, they are still my guys. Despite all my skills, I can't hope to fix this bridge by myself. So, if they are still alive, and if you really can face the Gerudos, can you save them? There are four of them."

Both Sweetie Belle and Link nodded. "You can count on us. If they are still alive, we will save them," said Link.

"Thank you! And if you manage to save them, then we will repair that bridge before you know it! Good luck to you!"

And the old man returned in his tent, letting the heroes continue to the fortress.

They eventually reached the stairs leading to it, and left Epona not far of them before they climbed them, getting a good view of the fortress.

It was a large structure of stone with many entrances at several levels. Already, from the outside, the heroes could tell that it was built to be a maze so any trespassers would get lost in it. Many Gerudos armed with naginatas were patrolling a little everywhere, making infiltrating it very difficult.

Well, they weren't intending to infiltrate it anyway. As soon as they climbed the stairs leading to the court in front of the building, they were spotted by the guards here.

"Intruder!" yelled one of the guards.

The Gerudos were like described. They were all women with tan skin and crimson hair tied in a long ponytail in light clothing, not even wearing a single piece of armor. And like the old man said, Sweetie Belle could see that they had skill with their weapons.

But they weren't Meta Knight, so this should be easy for her. For Link, however, it may be harder...

Speaking of, one of the guards, seeing that they weren't surrendering, attacked, only for Link to use his shield before counterattacking. He missed however as the Gerudo dodged backward. Then, another guard attacked him, and this time, Link dodged to the side, grabbed the handle of the naginata, and pulled strongly, making the Gerudo stumble toward him before he used the pommel of the Master Sword on the back of her head to knock her out.

This only caused more Gerudo Guards to come and circle them, weapons ready.

"Still not regretting not following my plan?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"Yes."

All the Gerudos surrounding them then suddenly jumped toward them from all sides, leaving no way to escape. Sweetie Belle stopped all of them with a dome-shaped shield before extending it, sending the Gerudos flying. However, all of them managed to land on their feet excepted the ones who were unlucky to be propelled toward the stairs where they fell down them. Sweetie Belle then flew to the nearest Gerudo and readied her sword. The Gerudo used her naginata to parry, only for Sweetie's sword to slice it. The Gerudo looked at the sliced naginata in astonishment before she was strongly bucked on the face by the filly, sending her flying on her back.

At the same time, Link used the Longshot on another Gerudo, wrapping it around the handle of her naginata and pulling to disarm her. Without her naginata, the Gerudo was vulnerable to Link's following assault, only for another Gerudo to defend her by parrying Link's attack. But Link kicked the second Gerudo on the belly, sending her on the first one and making the two stumble and fall on the ground.

Then, a Gerudo armed with two scimitars came and confronted Link, beginning an intense duel where the both of them parried or dodged each other's attacks. That was until the Gerudo did a jump attack, and Link dodged with a roll to the side before immediately attacking, managing to hit the warrior under the shocked eyes of the observing Gerudo Guards.

Meanwhile, another Gerudo with two scimitars came to attack Sweetie Belle who had been easily knocking out the guards one after another. Materialising a second sword, Sweetie Belle exchanged with the Gerudo for a few seconds before she managed to disarm her by knocking the weapons out of her hands. Sweetie Belle then headbutted her, knocking her out. More of these Gerudos armed of scimitars then came and began to attack the two heroes, helped by the guards who stopped observing.

However, the Gerudos were starting to look at the heroes with respect as they fought them. It seemed that they respected skilled warriors, and Sweetie Belle and Link were clearly proving themselves to be above average. Not killing the Gerudos certainly helped too. But, despite this, they weren't stopping from attacking, even as more and more Gerudos were ending on the floor, even the scimitar-armed ones. Link was starting to get the hang of fighting them, and even though he had some difficulty and received more than a few hits, he was winning fight after fight. But he wasn't on the level of Sweetie Belle, knocked out Gerudos now littering the ground around her with the filly having not taken a single hit.

By now, there weren't many Gerudos left.

"Alright. I think that it's enough," suddenly said a strong feminine voice that imposed obedience and respect, coming from a Gerudo in green clothes who came out of the fortress. Immediately upon hearing her, all the other Gerudos stopped fighting, although some kept an offensive posture, ready to attack.

The new Gerudo stared at the many knocked out women, then at the two heroes who had their weapons ready. "I'm impressed. Not many would be able to face all of us like that. I thought that only the great Ganondorf could do this feat. State your intention! Why did you come to our fortress? It doesn't seem to be to kill us for our relation to Ganondorf..."

Link advanced to face who seemed to be the leader of the Gerudos. "We are here for two reasons. First, we want to save the four men who came here, if they haven't already been killed."

"No, we haven't killed them. They are in cells a little everywhere in the fortress. These fools thought they could become great thieves like us. What is the other reason?"

"We need to cross the desert, and it seems that the only entrance passes by your fortress."

"Mmh... You really have guts. The desert is very dangerous. If you don't know how to cross it, you will get yourself lost and become one of the many dried mummies buried everywhere in the sand before you know it."

"Then we wouldn't mind an advice on how to cross it. I'm sure you know," said Sweetie Belle as she moved beside Link.

The Gerudo just grinned at this. "Well, you two proved your worth. Very well, I agree to let the four fools go and to let you enter the desert. I will even give you this..." She then took some brown paper with what seemed to be the Gerudo Emblem and some words that Sweetie couldn't read on it. There were two of them. "A token that will show to us that you are now a honorary Gerudo, which means that you will be able to enter and explore our fortress as you desire, and even participate in our activities."

The two heroes nodded in thanks as they took the tokens.

"Now, to cross the desert... You don't know it as well as us, but we marked the first part with flags. But you will first have to pass a first trial, the River of Sand. After that, just follow the flags until you reach a stone building. After that... it becomes more complicated. It's the second trial, the Phantom Guide. You will need what is called the Eye of Truth, but it hasn't been seen in a long time."

"We have it!" Sweetie Belle said happily as she took the Lens of Truth and showed it to the amazed Gerudos.

The leader chuckled. "My... In that case, it shouldn't be a problem for you to cross the second part. Just climb on the stone building, use the Eye, and you will see."

"Thank you," said Link with another nod.

"Yes, thank you. And sorry for everyone we knocked out. I can heal them if you want," said Sweetie Belle.

The leader raised an eyebrow at the filly. "Really?"

"Yup! Look!" Sweetie Belle then used her powers to heal in one go all the Gerudos, amazing them even more! She also took the occasion to heal Link. "There!"

Link gave Sweetie Belle a deadpan look. "You mean that I didn't need to bother with the healing potion and the fairies? You could have healed me all this time?"

Sweetie Belle looked innocently at Link with a big grin. "Yup!"

They didn't directly go to the desert. Link decided to explore around to see if he could find something useful, and also to ensure that the four men would be freed and left to go.

They found a training ground where Link pretty much needed to use all the items he found in the dungeons to complete the trials and receive the prize. However, he was missing some items, so he wasn't able to complete all the trials. He eventually understood however that he didn't need to complete all of them to get to the prize. He managed to get just enough keys to reach it.

It was worth it because the prize was none other than an arrow in a blue crystal, giving Link the ability to shoot ice arrows!

Then, they found a shooting range on horseback, and Link immediately decided to try it with Epona.

He broke the Gerudos' record on the first try, getting a bigger quiver to let him transport more arrows!

"By the Goddesses! You are a man of many talents!" commented the leader of the Gerudos when she witnessed this. "And me who thought that all men excepted the great Ganondorf were useless... You could become one of our leaders alongside Nabooru!"

"Nabooru?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"She is the great Ganondorf's second-in-command, and the one who put me in charge of this fortress," explained the leader. "Her headquarters are in the Spirit Temple, at the end of the desert. If you follow what I told you, you will find it."

"Alright."

With nothing more to be done, the two heroes went to the gate leading to the desert. With a nod, the Gerudo beside it opened it, letting them pass.

They quickly understood why they needed all these instructions to cross the desert. It wasn't because it was huge (even if there was no doubt that it was huge), but because there was an eternal sandstorm that made it hard to see very far.

At least, they were able to see the first flags until they reached the famous River of Sand. Like its name indicated, it was a large quicksand that stretched in both directions like a river. Nothing problematic, Link was able to use the Longshot on boxes at the other side, and Sweetie Belle just flew despite the strong winds. Then, they followed the flags like they were told to do until reaching the stone building, not minding the sign on the way.

The stone building had an entrance that just led to two torches that, once lit, made a chest containing a purple rupee appear between them. With nothing else in the building, they climbed on its roof by a ramp along the side. On the roof was a pedestal indicating that only "one with the Eye of Truth shall be guided to the Spirit Temple by an inviting ghost".

So Sweetie Belle took the Lens and used it, letting her see a Poe who then talked to her.

"I'll be your guide on your way,
but coming back I won't play!
I'll show you the only way to go,
so follow me and don't be slow!"

And without waiting, the Poe began to move away.

"Follow me, Link! Quick!" shouted Sweetie Belle before she jumped from the roof of the building to follow the Poe, Link quickly following her.

Following the ghost took some time as it took several detour giving them the impression that they were going in circle. to make it worst, green creatures that Navi called Leevers began to come out of the sand and to harass the heroes, so they had to avoid or kill them while not losing the Poe. Eventually, they reached two flags after which the sandstorm stopped.

Further ahead, they could see a giant colossus of stone carved in a lone mountain.

Before going to it, they began to look around in this new area, finding a crack in a wall leading to a Fairy Fountain with a Great Fairy (who looked exactly like the other one) who gave Link a new spell: Nayru's Love, a crystallised barrier that enveloped Link to protect him from all sides for a time.

Another point of interest they found was a dried oasis in which Link had the idea of playing the Song of Storms to fill it, making fairies come, and Link took the occasion to fill his empty bottles with them just in case.

Finally, there was the now familiar large pedestal with the Triforce symbol that let them warp on it with the right melody, meaning that the colossus was certainly what they searched: the Spirit Temple.

However, all the while, they had to deal with the Leevers who just weren't stopping from coming no matter how many of them they killed!

Finding nothing else they could do, they entered the temple, the entrance being at the base of the colossus.

They were surprised to not see Sheik. They hoped that nothing happened to him.

The entrance room of the temple was pretty much like the one back in the Fire Temple; there was a central staircase leading to a superior level, and nothing else. Two giant snake statues were at both sides of the stairs, and at the top, there were two smaller, strange horned statues with a sword, a shield, and a Goron mark that Link warned were called Armos Statues and that they could actually be creatures called Armos.

After dealing with some floating jars and verifying that the Armos Statues weren't real Armos, they looked at the two passages they could use: one left and one right.

There were two problems however.

The left passage was a hole too small for Link to even crawl through, exactly like in the bottom of the well.

The right passage had a huge block blocking it, too heavy for Link to push or pull.

Sweetie Belle could do something about both problems but she decided not to.

When he read what was written on the snake statues, it was confirmed what the heroes had already understood by now: they had to return to the past. A part of the temple will have to be explored with Link as a child. They will apparently have to retrieve some "power of silver", certainly to move the block.

Well then, they exited the temple.

And there was Sheik finally appearing, landing in front of them and starting another of his monologues.

"Past, present, future... The Master Sword is a ship with which you can sail upstream and downstream through time's river... The port for that ship is in the Temple of Time... To restore the Desert Colossus and enter the Spirit Temple, you must travel back through time's flow..."

Thank you Captain Obvious! thought Sweetie Belle at this.

"Listen to this Requiem of Spirit... This melody will lead a child back to the desert," Sheik finished before he took his lyre and began to teach Link the last warping melody.

A song that really gave Sweetie Belle an ending feeling. It was well named.

Then, when they were done, Sheik disappeared like always, this time the cover of sand blown by a burst of wind.

After that, it was simply a matter of returning to the Temple of Time with the Prelude of Light, placing the Master Sword in its pedestal with Sweetie Belle singing the Song of Time to return seven year to the past, and then play the Requiem of Spirit to return to the Spirit Temple.

Chapter 19: The Spirit Temple

Author's Note

I had to do some corrections in the previous chapters since the beginning of the Ocarina of Time arc. It was never explained to Link that the Triforce separated into three parts and that Ganondorf only kept Power. They thought, and think, that Ganondorf had the full relic.

Chapter 19: The Spirit Temple

They entered the Spirit Temple for the second time and went toward the small hole they could crawl through (destroying the floating jars on the way), only to find a Gerudo in front of it, looking down at it on a knee. When they approached her, she heard them, got up, and turned around. She was obviously surprised to see a child in this place as she stared at Link.

"What is a kid doing in this place? How did you even reach this place?"

Link shrugged. "Long story."

"Whatever. It doesn't matter in the end how you came here, you came just in time. I have a favor to ask you. But first, I have to ask. Are you a follower of Ganondorf?"

With the woman being a Gerudo, the heroes would be tempted to lie and say that they were to avoid a fight. But they easily detected the anger and hate hidden in her voice when she pronounced the name of the Dark Lord, and they immediately understood that this Gerudo didn't seem to have a great respect toward him, contrary to the others.

"No, we aren't," answered both Link and Sweetie Belle at the same time, showing as much hate toward the man in their voice as they could.

The Gerudo eyed the filly upon discovering that she was a sentient being too and not just a pet, but still talked as if it was nothing.

"You have got guts. I think I like you. Very well. First of all, let me introduce myself. I am Nabooru of the Gerudo. I'm a lone-wolf thief."

"Oh, we heard about you! We were told that you were Ganondorf's second-in-command!" said Sweetie Belle. "So... We were expecting to eventually fight you... But it seems like we had nothing to worry about."

Nabooru let out a chuckle at this. "So not only you are not followers of Ganondorf, but you are enemies of him? Uhuhuh. That's perfect. As you guessed, I'm not in his side either. We may be both thieves, but I'm completely different from him. With his followers, he stole from women and children, and he even killed people! Kids like you may not know this, but the Gerudo race only consists of women. Only one man is born every hundred years... Even thought our laws say that lone male Gerudo must become King of the Gerudo, I'll never bow to such an evil man! I'm only his second-in-command because I have no choice!"

"Well then, give us seven years and we will get you rid of him," stated Sweetie Belle with a big grin.

Link nodded with a determined look.

Nabooru eyed the kids a few seconds at this, determining is they were serious. "What are your names?"

"Link."

"Sweetie Belle!"

This time, the Gerudo eyed them with a "Seriously?" expression. "What kind of names are these?!"

"Hey!" shouted both kids.

Nabooru shook her head to recover her focus. "Well... Anyway... Like I said, I want to ask you a favor... Will you go through that tiny hole and get a treasure that's inside? The treasure is the Silver Gauntlets. If you equip them, you can push and pull very heavy things!"

Sweetie Belle and Link exchanged a glance at this. It was exactly what Link needed to pull that big block.

Nabooru recognised their expression however. "No, no, no, kids! Don't even think of taking this treasure for yourself! The Silver Gauntlets won't fit a little kid like you if you try to equip them! So I want you two to be good kids and to give them to me! Ganondorf and his minions are using the Spirit Temple as a hideout. Only the Silver Gauntlet will allow me to sneak deep into the temple. Once there, I'm going to steal all the treasures inside and mess up their plans! So, can I count on you?"

Sweetie Belle glanced at Link and raised an eyebrow at him. Link answered with a shrug before replying "Alright. But let's make a deal. If you somehow fail to mess up their plans, then I want you to come back in front of the entrance in seven years, and once we come back, you will give us the gauntlets so WE can go in the temple and deal with Ganondorf and his minions. You should recognise us easily."

Nabooru let out a small snort. "It would be hard to mistake a young man with a little white winged and horned equine. Very well. But I don't doubt that I will succeed. I am not the second-in-command for nothing. Now, let's give Ganondorf and his followers a big surprise, shall we? If you can successfully get the Silver Gauntlets... I'll do something great for you!"

Both heroes nodded, and Nabooru moved out of the way to let them enter the hole.

So they crawled through it, finally beginning their exploration of the Spirit Temple.

The first room they entered had a small path with a Spike Trap leading to a small curved staircase. However, they didn't have to follow the path as they could just climb on the ledge at the right and reach the main part of the room, where there was another Spike Trap circling an Armos Statue. Some Keeses, normal ones and fire ones, were also flying around. When he saw the Fire Keeses, Link immediately replaced the Deku Shield he was using by the Hylian Shield. The Hylian Shield was too big for him and he could only use it as a back shield, but at least, it won't burn if one of the Fire Keeses or any other fire enemies that may be in the temple managed to land a hit.

But he didn't have to worry as Sweetie Belle quickly killed the Keeses. When the two other doors in the room remained barred, they understood that the Armos Statue was actually a real Armos, and Link threw a bomb at it. The explosion caused the statue to animate, taking on a more monstrous form, before it erratically moved around until it exploded. Then the bars on the doors disappeared.

Now, they had to choose between the two doors, one left and one right, and another hole to crawl through between them. They first decided to crawl through the hole, only to find out that they couldn't go far because they were blocked by a locked door. So they returned in the room and decided to take the left door.

The room behind it was separated in two by a bottomless pit, and they were immediately assaulted by a Stalfos that Link had some more difficulty to kill. Thankfully, he could count on Sweetie Belle's help. Once they dealt with the Stalfos, Sweetie Belle then quickly killed the Green Bubble that was flying above the pit, in front of what seemed to be a grating bridge that could be lowered thanks to a crystal behind it. Link used the boomerang to activate it, and they traversed the pit. At the other side, they destroyed a couple of floating jars before opening a chest that only contained a blue rupee.

Passing the door at the right, they entered the next room, only for the door to be barred behind them. The room itself had a Z-shaped narrow path above a bottomless pit, the exit being just at their right in the bottom of the Z. However, it was barred too. In the middle of the Z, in a round part, with a Spike Trap circling a jar, and behind it was a new enemy named Anubis. Navi warned them that it was only vulnerable to fire, and they also remarked that it repeated Link's every moves and that it sent a fireball each times that Link used his sword to destroy the jars on the way.

Not a problem. Link used Din's Fire at it, and Sweetie Belle used fire beams. The thing was dead before it knew it, opening the way. They could have also hit the crystal at the right to activate a circle of fire at the North end of the Z before tricking the Anubis to move into it, but it was faster with the beams and Fire.

Passing the exit, they entered another room separated in two by a pit, only, this time, a fence fully stopped them from crossing the pit. Navi warned about the presence of Wallmasters, and Sweetie Belle immediately fired above her, killing one that dropped on her before she slapped it to the side. While Sweetie Belle dealt with the Wallmasters, Link quickly killed a Fire Keese before he went to grab the five silver rupees in this part of the room. To get some of them, he had to climb on the fence. When the last rupee was grabbed, the middle part of the fence lowered to become a bridge for them to cross the pit. After killing a few more Keeses that were at the other side, Sweetie Belle and Link then each lit a torch here, making a small chest containing a key appear.

Finally, they passed the last door which led them back in the room where they destroyed the Armos. With the key in their possession, they were able to open the locked door at the other side of the hole, entering a vertical passage with a wall that they could climb. However, they first had to kill a couple of Skullwalltulas.

In the room at the top were two more Skullwalltulas as well as two Lezalfos, the first ones that Sweetie Belle encountered, tall bipedal warrior lizards, not hard to kill thankfully. Activating a crystal on a ledge at the South dropped two chests, one containing a blue rupee and the other some special mouse-shaped bombs named Bombchus.

They weren't sure what to do next as the exit was barred, but there was a sun in the middle of the floor that was very suspicious. They then remarked a part of the wall partially covered by boulders out of which some sunlight was coming. However, the boulders were too high to be destroyed with a normal bomb.

So Link used one of the Bombchus he just got, and Sweetie Belle witnessed a bomb mouse running up a wall by itself for the first time in her life. The Bombchu successfully exploded on the boulders, blowing them up and revealing a big hole through which more sunlight came. The sunlight reached the sun on the ground, which began to glow and... smile very creepily before the exit opened.

"Okay. Let's note this. The weird suns need sunlight," instructed Sweetie Belle.

Link nodded.

Passing the now unbarred door, they entered what seemed to be the main room of the temple. It was very huge, with a big statue of a snake woman looking like the colossus outside. An exploration of the room led them to see that they couldn't do much however.

They came from a door at the West in the middle level of the room. Two sets of stairs were leading to another door just above, but said door was barred. There was a similar path in the East, with an East door in the middle level, two sets of stairs, and another door, this time locked, above. Between the two paths, at the top of a staircase accessed from the bottom level of the room, was another barred room. In the bottom level was also a blue switch that had to be held down to maintain the West door of the upper level open. To do this, they had to push an Armos Statue that was beside the middle level West door on it. Another switch was on a ledge in the upper level, East, but couldn't be reached yet. Finally, at the bottom of the statue, in front of it, were two torches that had to be lit to materialize a big chest containing the map.

With nothing else to do, they returned to the middle level West path by climbing a wall, then climbed the two sets of stairs to the opened door in the upper level. In the following hallway, they rounded the red stairs and entered the next room, the door getting barred behind them.

In this room: three Beamos, three Spike Traps moving back and forth here and there, a window through which sunlight was coming, several torches off, five silver rupees, and four blocks with a sun on one of them. They began by destroying the Beamos. Then, they took the silver rupees, lightening one of the torches. With Link not able to use the bow as a child, he had to use the newly lit torch to light the others with the help of a Deku Stick (and Sweetie Belle using fire powers). Lightening all the torches made a small chest containing a key drop. Finally, they pulled the block with the sun to the sunlight, making the sun glow and smile and unblocking the exit.

After climbing two successive sets of stairs in the next corridor, they unlocked the door at the top and entered a throne room with several pillars at both sides of a carpet leading to the throne. Throne on which an imposing armored figure armed with an axe was sitting without moving. Behind the throne, on the walls at both sides, were crossed pairs of axes, and the exit, barred, was between them.

"Uh oh..." Navi began upon spotting the figure on the throne. "An Iron Knuckle... Those guys are forces of nature. Be careful. Thankfully, their heavy armor makes them very slow. As long as you avoid their weapon, you should be alright. Hit it to wake it up."

Link nodded, carefully approached the throne, and hit the Iron Knuckle with his sword before quickly running back. Now awake, the Iron Knuckle slowly got up before it swung its axe, destroying the throne as if it was nothing before slowly approaching the heroes with heavy steps. Between the heavy armor entirely covering its body and the fact that it was towering above them, the Iron Knuckle was very intimidating, but it didn't stop the heroes from approaching to battle it.

As Navi said, the Iron Knuckle was very slow, so it was very easy for the heroes to avoid its axe before counterattacking. But the battle was a long one because of the heavy armor, and Link's Kokiri Sword didn't do much damage. Still, little by little, hit by hit, the heroes managed to wear it out. Then, with a lucky it, Link was able to knock the armor from its body, which was good and bad. Good because the Iron Knuckle was more vulnerable. Bad because it was now moving faster.

But it didn't change much in the end, the heroes still were able to avoid its arm without problem. Deciding to end the poor thing's suffering, Sweetie Belle eventually sliced the axe, leaving the Iron Knuckle with just the handle to use as a staff. It was proof of the monster's skill that it immediately adapted to its 'new' weapon without even being shocked by the fact that it had been sliced as easily as butter, but it was much less dangerous, and Sweetie Belle continued to cut it piece by piece. Thanks to Sweetie Belle dealing with the weapon, Link had less problem approaching the monster to attack it, only for the Iron Knuckle to suddenly throw what remained of its weapon before grabbing Link by the head. Link immediately reacted by piercing the arm with his sword, forcing the Iron Knuckle to release him before finishing it with a few quick swings.

As it died, the Iron Knuckle didn't even fall on the ground. It just dropped on its knees and stopped moving. To ensure that it wasn't a trick, Sweetie Belle beheaded it.

The death of the Iron Knuckle opened the door behind what remained of the throne.

The filly smiled at her friend. "You really have gone far to be able to fight such a brute despite being a kid. If we encounter another Iron Knuckle once we're back to the future, I'm sure that it will be nothing to you."

"Thanks," Link replied with a smile at the compliment before they passed the door and traversed a passage leading outside of the temple, on the colossus' right hand.

Here, an old acquaintance of Link, none other than a giant talking brown owl that Link told Sweetie Belle about, was awaiting them, much to the boy's surprise. Link hadn't expected to see the owl again. He hadn't seen him in a long time.

"Hey, what's up, Link? Surprised to see me? A long time in this world is almost nothing to you, is it? How mysterious! Even I who thought that the tales of a boy who could travel back and forth through time were merely legends. And now, you are accompanied by a strange little creature who isn't of this world. Sweetie Belle, if I am not mistaking? Hoot!"

Sweetie Belle nodded. "Uhuh! Nice to meet you Master Owl!"

"Hoo hoo hoo hoot! You are so innocent-looking. It is hard even for me to believe that you are hiding such immense power that could rival with the Gods themselves. And yet, you tone it down to let Link follow his destiny and mature as a hero, just following him and helping him in his quest. You have all my respect. I just hope that this power won't eventually blind and corrupt you like it blinded and corrupted so many people."

Sweetie Belle shrugged. "I can count on my friends to make sure that it doesn't happen."

"Yes. We can always count on true friends. It's very sad that many tend to forget it. And now, you can include Link as one." The owl then looked back at Link. "Link, you have fully matured as an adult. From now on, the future of all people in Hyrule is on your shoulders. Maybe it's not my time anymore. Here is my last advice. Two witches inhabit this temple. In order to destroy them, turn their own magic power against them. Hoo hoot! Do you want to hear what I said again?"

"No thanks."

"I will continue to watch you... Hoo hoo hoo hoot!" The owl then took off and flew away into the desert.

"He didn't talk as much as you told me he did," commented Sweetie Belle.

"You got lucky. He can really go on and on when he wants," replied Link.

Just after that, they found a big chest containing the Silver Gauntlets that they searched.

But then, they heard a yell, and they witnessed down in front of the entrance of the temple Nabooru disappearing down a black hole seemingly created by two old witches circling it on their brooms. Before Sweetie could even act, the hole closed, and the witches returned inside the temple.

"They must be the two witches that we must defeat by turning their magic power against them," said Navi. "I don't think we can do anything for Nabooru right now. We must return to the future if we want to save her."

Sweetie Belle growled. "I guess... Or I can just go and save her right now. It wouldn't take me long."

"I think you should avoid. As I see it, Nabooru seems to be the Sage of the Spirit Temple, and so, it is Link's duty to save her," countered Navi.

"Alright..." Sweetie Belle with a resigned sigh.

After petting the filly a little, Link took his ocarina and played the Prelude of Light to warp to the Temple of Time, Sweetie Belle following him with a teleportation. They then returned to the future before Link used the Requiem of Spirit to warp back to the entrance of the Spirit Temple.

Back in the entrance hall, Link equipped the gauntlets and pushed the giant block in the right until it fell in a hole, letting them pass. They then entered a mirror version of the room at the opposite side, excepted that instead of an Armos, there was a Beamos that was easily destroyed. There wasn't a hole to crawl through too, the locked door being directly accessible. Destroying the Beamos, however, didn't open the other doors. Looking around in search of what they missed, they found a crystal in the ceiling that they activated. This time, the doors ere opened.

After a brief look at the map, they went left first, entering a room with a sandy area below in the second half, and a lone platform in the back-left corner. After quickly killing a Wolfos, Link stood on a Triforce Symbol and played Zelda's Lullaby, making a big chest drop from nowhere on the lone platform. Link then Longshoted to it to open it, getting the compass. After returning in the first half of the room by jumping down on the sand and climbing up a wall, they returned in the previous room.

They took the right door this time, entering a bowled, rectangle-shaped room with three rolling boulders where they had to get five silver rupees. To get the first one, Link had to use the winged boots before they separated to get the four others in the cubbies at both sides of the room. Once they got the five rupees, the door at the end opened, and they were able to enter a small room with a chest that they opened after killing a Like Like dropping from the ceiling, getting a key.

They returned in the room where they destroyed the Beamos again and opened the locked door, entering a passage that went up like in the other side of the temple. They had to deal again with a dropping Like Like, as well as some floating jars, before they could climb the wall (Link using the Longshot to gain time). In the room at the top, they heard the distinct sound of something invisible moving, so Sweetie Belle used the Lens of Truth to discover that there was a Floormaster that was promptly killed. Once the Floormaster was gone, they looked around to see what they had to do.

It wasn't hard to guess. There was a window from which came sunlight. In the middle of the room, in the sunlight, with some snake statue with a mirror that deflected the light, the statue possessing two handles to spin it. Finally, on the walls were several suns.

So they pushed the handles to turn the mirror so it would deflect the sunlight into the suns. Suns number one and two burned and each let a small chest drop. The third sun remained, glowed, and smiled, unlocking the door. The fourth also burned, making another Floormaster drop. While Sweetie Belle killed the walking hand, Link went to open the chests only to get some rupees and... a freezing trap trapping him in ice. He was, thankfully, quickly able to escape of the ice by himself.

"So there's that now, trapped chests," said Sweetie Belle at this.

"Seems like it..." groaned Link.

They passed the door, and they were back in the huge room with the big statue, on the East path this time. The East door at the top being locked, they couldn't continue directly. Instead, after dealing with an Armos, Link was able to reach the switch on the East ledge at the top thanks to the winged boots. The switch being rusted, he had to use the hammer to press it, unlocking the door at the top of the stairs between the two paths. Before passing it, however, Link was able to jump on the statue's left hand from the ledge where a Triforce symbol could be seen. He then played Zelda's Lullaby, making a chest drop on the statue's right hand. Thanks to the Longshot, he was able to reach it, getting a key. Another chest had appeared on the ledge with the rusted switch, but this one only contained a blue rupee.

They first went to the South door that they unlocked with the switch, the door leading to what seemed to be a dead end room where they had to push two giant blocks to reach the end. Nothing indicated that there was something interesting here, not even the compass, but they still went here just in case there was some mechanism that needed to be activated. Instead, they found a rusted switch that, once pressed, activated an elevator that was a shortcut between this place and the entrance hall.

They returned in the giant room with the statue, and this time, after using the Longshot to return to the East path, used the key to unlock the top East door. They rounded another red staircase like the one in the West side, this one having a Beamos, and entered a room with narrow pathways above a pit with three Anubis, a Beamos, and a switch that activated a circle of fire. Sweetie Belle quickly destroyed the Beamos with an explosive ball before joining Link in destroying the Anubis with fire. With all of the enemies destroyed, the doors opened excepted one at the right of the entrance that was locked.

Next was a room with four Armos Statues around a blue switch and a Spike Trap moving back and forth at the left, and a sun on the wall not far of a window with sunlight. The switch, like all the blue switches, had to be held down. Pressing it opened the barred door at the right, but not the one at the left. To open the left door, they didn't doubt that they will have to find a way to reflect the light into the sun.

So they went to search a real statue to push on the switch while destroying the ones revealing to be real Armos...

Which revealed to be all of them.

Meaning that they had to bait the last Armos to jump on the switch. However, baiting the Armos on the switch and reaching the door in time before it moved from the switch wasn't easy. So Sweetie Belle decided to bait the Armos while Link remained beside the door. Then, once the Armos stepped on the switch, she teleported to the door and they both quickly passed it. They then climbed the corridor that followed (opening two invisible chests on the way that contained some rupees) and entered another Throne room with an Iron Knuckle.

This time, Sweetie Belle let Link deal with it to see how he would fare. He needed to test himself to face Ganondorf after all. And as she expected, the Hero of Time made short work of the armored foe now that he was an adult and armed with the Master Sword.

They then passed the door that the Iron Knuckle was guarding and, like in the opposite side of the dungeon, entered a passage that led outside of the temple, on the left hand of the colossus. On it, they found another big chest that contained a new shield for Link: a mirror shield! A shield that could deflect light and projectiles of energy!

"Exactly what we needed to reflect the light on the sun," said Sweetie Belle.

They then returned in the temple and went back to the room with the Armos. Here, they quickly destroyed the remaining Armos before Link used the mirror shield to reflect the light on the sun to make it glow and smile, opening the left door. The room behind was a small one with just a chest containing a key that they used back in the room where they destroyed the three Anubis.

The room behind was another climbing passage with two Beamos at the bottom of the wall that could be climbed, and a Skullwalltula on said wall. The wall was actually made of several sections that were moving left or right, each sections having parts that could be climbed and parts that couldn't. At both sides of the wall were spiked walls all the way to the top.

The trap was intimidating...

But Link was able to pass it thanks to the Longshot.

Sometimes, Courage had to let place to Wisdom to make your life easier.

At the top, two more Beamos with a Spike Trap between them were present and promptly destroyed before the heroes passed the door behind them.

They climbed some stairs leading to a barred door with the Triforce symbol just in front. More stairs at the left were leading to another door, this one accessible. But first, Link played Zelda's Lullaby on the symbol and unlocked the first door, letting them enter a room with several Fire Slugs, a fancy chest surrounded in fire, doors all over the walls around, and a floating platform above the chest with a switch. There was also a Longshot target on the ceiling, but it wasn't above the platform.

The doors, as indicated by the maps, were all fake ones, so the heroes destroyed all of them after dealing with the slugs. Behind one of the doors, they found an eye-interrupter that, once activated, made another floating platform appear just under the Longshot target. Thanks to it, Link was able to reach and press the switch, letting Sweetie open the chest and get the Big Key in it.

They then returned in the previous corridor and climbed the stairs to the second door that led to the upper level of a room with four big chains and a giant mirror in the ceiling, above the lower level. There was also a sun on the wall, and a crystal on the bottom level. Activating it (after dealing with the many floating jars here) opened the East door in the upper level. Having nothing more to do in this room for now, they passed this door.

Almost upon entering the next room, they were assaulted by a Lezalfos that was easily killed by Link while Sweetie Belle spotted a sun near the ceiling. Thankfully, sunlight was coming from a mirror in a neighboring room. Once the Lezalfos was dead, Link used the mirror shield to reflect light on the sun, making it burn and revealing a chest that contained bombs.

They then went to the mirror and dealt with some White Bubbles (they were just Bubbles without fire randomly spinning around with brusque moves) before they blew up a cracked wall. They then spun the mirror so it faced the newly revealed room where there was another mirror. When they then went in this third room, another Lizalfos came, only to be speared by Sweetie Belle. With the Lezalfos now a wall decoration, Link spun the second mirror so it faced the bars separating this room from the one with the giant mirror on the ceiling.

They returned in said room, the mirror on the ceiling now reflecting the light to the ground. Here, Link used the mirror shield to reflect the light on the sun on the wall. As a result, this caused the platform in the middle of the floor to be lowered to the room with the giant statue, stopping just in front of the head. Having an hunch, Link then used the mirror shield again to reflect the light on the statue.

This made the statue's head crumble, revealing a secret passage with the door to the witches visible behind a bars. Link then used the Longshot on the bars to join them, and the bars moved out of the way to let them reach the door.

After opening it, they entered a third throne room where they finally encountered the two witches who were facing an Iron Knuckle on the throne.

"Oh oh oh! Looks like someone is here, Koume," began one of the witches who looked above her shoulder at the heroes, revealing to have a blue crystal on her forehead.

The other, Koume, looked too, this one having a red crystal on the forehead. "Hee hee hee! Looks like it, Kotake!"

Wow! They look old! Maybe as old as Celestia! thought Sweetie Belle.

The two witches really were old. They were two Gerudos, with really big crooked nose and big, round, bulging eyes. Their hair were tied in a giant bun. In one word, they were ugly!

"What outrageous fellows they are to intrude so boldly into our temple... Ho ho ho!" said Kotake as the witches took off on their brooms.

"We should teach these outrageous fellows a lesson! Hee hee hee!" finished Koume before they separated and faced the Iron Knuckle, which looked... different than the ones the heroes fought.

"Oh, loyal minion..." began Kotake as they flew to the sides of the armored foe.

"Destroy these intruders on our behalf!" finished Koume before the two witches disappeared.

The Iron Knuckle then rose from its throne and raised its arms... only to see that it didn't have a weapon. It then snapped its fingers, making an axe appear, before it went on the offensive.

Despite everything, the fight was as easy as the previous one against an Iron Knuckle, and even more because, this time, Sweetie Belle helped Link. So the fight was rapidly over as the armor was destroyed, revealing that the Iron Knuckle had been none other than Nabooru mind controlled by some piece of clothing that fell too, freeing her.

Naboory then fell on the floor disoriented. "Unnnh... Where am I...?"

But before the heroes could explain the situation, Kotake appeared. "Well, well... Looks like she's back to normal... Koume..."

Koume then appeared at the opposite side. "She's just a little girl, but she commands a lot of respect among the Gerudo, Kotake..."

"Maybe we should make her work for the great Ganondorf for a little while longer! Ho ho ho!"

"Then we should brainwash her again! Hee hee hee!"

They were then both slammed by a magical shockwave. "Hyaaarg!?"

"How about no?" said Sweetie Belle. "You seem to forget that we are here. Do you really think we will let you brainwash Nabooru again without acting?"

At the same moment, Link ran to Nabooru to protect her, bow ready to fire an arrow. "As she said!"

Nabooru stared at the man protecting her, then at the filly. "Wait... You are..." she began, only to be interrupted by two laughs.

"Hee hee hee hee hee hee!"

"Ho ho ho ho ho ho!"

The two witches recovered from the shockwaves, amused.

"You two think that you can face us?" said Koume.

"Us, the Twinrova sisters? Who are feared among the Gerudo?"

"Very well then. We will allow you to amuse us. Nabooru. Be a nice girl and wait for us here."

"You poor fools don't know that you just made the error of your life."

The two sisters then disappeared like they appeared.

Sweetie Belle and Link immediately went to pass the door at the back to the round, certainly leading to the arena where the sisters where waiting them.

"Wait! Link! Sweetie Belle!" suddenly shouted Nabooru, gaining their attention. "Make them regret to be born for me!"

Both heroes grinned at her, Sweetie Belle saying, "Count on us!"

They then opened the door, traversed the following hallway, and entered a large room with several platforms, including a giant one in the center that certainly served as the arena. They climbed on it...

And they began to hear one of the witches talk from nowhere. "Look at these stupid kids! They came on their own to offer themselves as sacrifices to the great Ganondorf..."

Their laughs then resonated all over the room before two circles of magic, one red and one blue, appeared on two f the four platforms surrounding the big one.

Out of the red circle came Koume who said, "With my flame, I will burn them to the bone!" Then, she flew on her broom and spun before, in a small explosion of heat, her hair turned into pure fire before she laughed mockingly again.

Then, Kotake came out of the Blue circle and said, "With my frost, I will freeze them to the soul!" Then, like her sister, she flew, spun, and turned her hair into ice in a small explosion of ice.

They then circled above the heroes, holding each other's hand, before they flew to opposite sides of the arena.

"Ready your shield, Link. I think that you already understood what to do," instructed Sweetie Belle.

Link nodded and took his shield.

Just at this moment, Koume charged magic and sent a powerful fire beam from her broom at Link. The Hylian intercepted it with his shield and deflected it toward Kotake just as she passed not far, burning her.

"AAAAAAAHH!!! Hothothot! Watch out, Koume! He has the Mirror Shield!" shouted Kotake.

"That little... AAAAAAHH!!!" Koume was suddenly interrupted by an ice beam fired by Sweetie Belle freezing her.

"Grrrrr... And it looks like the filly knows some powerful magic too. This may not be as easy as we thought. Let's up the game, Koume!"

"With pleasure, Kotake!"

At this, both witches circled the arena while raining fire and ice all over it, forcing Link to face upward to deflect them in random direction while Sweetie Belle also used a mirror shield to protect herself. Some of the deflected projectiles managed to hit the witches, ice hurting Koume and fire hurting Kotake, but not as effectively as the beams. Then, while the heroes were occupied defending themselves, Kotake flew behind Link and fired an ice beam from her broom at him. Link immediately turned around and used the shield to deflect the beam. However, Koume had the good idea of flying where Link couldn't reach her with it. Then, as Kotake stopped her beam, she quickly flew out of the way of a fire beam from Sweetie Belle, avoiding it.

When Koume began to charge a fire beam while Kotake sent more ice projectiles, Sweetie Belle and Link exchanged a look of understanding. Link then intercepted Koume's fire beam, but instead of attempting to deflect it toward Kotake who had flown out of range anyway, he sent it toward Sweetie Belle who used her own magical mirror shield to deflect the beam at the ice witch.

"AAAAAAHH!!! And now they use teamwork too!" yelled Kotake.

"But our teamwork is better! We are twins after all! There's nothing better than twins!" yelled back Koume.

Then, both witches began to charge their beam at the same time, but the heroes both deflected one of them, sadly not hitting any of the witches since they remained out of range of the opposite element. The witches then charged their beams again, but this time, targeted the floor, causing large areas to become infernos or ice traps. Then, they made the beams follow the heroes, forcing them to run away to not be caught in the burning or freezing areas. Sweetie Belle eventually forced Koume to stop and fly away by firing an ice beam at her, giving more space for them to avoid the remaining beam until Kotake stopped.

But yet again, the two sisters charged a beam at the same time, Koume targeting Sweetie Belle, and Kotake targeting Link. The heroes then quickly positioned themselves to face each other as they readied their shield, Koume now flying behind Link while Kotake flew behind Sweetie Belle. Then, the witches fired, and the fire beam hit Sweetie's shield while the ice beam hit Link's shield. Both beams were deflected toward the other hero's shield, then were deflected again, the fire beam successfully hitting Kotake while the ice beam hit Koume.

Enraged, the sisters began to rapidly circle the arena.

"Ok, let's get serious now, Kotake!" shouted Koume.

"Oh, ok, Koume," replied the other sister.

They then began to approach each other as they yelled, "Kotake and Koume's Double Dynamite Attack!"

"Seriously? What is this name?" wondered Sweetie Belle.

Suddenly, in an explosion of fire and ice, the sisters merged to become a very beautiful young woman who was also very tall. The crystal on her forehead was much bigger, left side blue and right side red. Her hair was tied into two ponytails, left side of ice and right side of fire. Finally, she was holding the two brooms as if they were now magic scepters (ice one in the left and fire one in the right).

Twinrova floated above the arena, looking down mockingly at Link and Sweetie Belle, before she moved beyond the edge. Then, she fired a big ice ball, and Link caught it with his shield, absorbing it. She immediately followed it by a fireball that Link also absorbed, only for the shield to burst the energy into Link, injuring him. Sweetie Belle sent a fire beam at the witch, but she easily dodged it before she sent a fireball at her. The filly deflected it, but Twinrova dodged it again by flying away.

She then fired fireballs and ice balls at both heroes, and Link didn't do the same error than earlier. Instead of absorbing a fireball, then an ice ball, he only absorbed the fireballs while avoiding the ice ones. After three fireballs, feeling that the shield was about to unleash the energy, Link ran toward Twinrova and pointed the shield at her just in time as it released a powerful stream of fire, not only hurting her but also stunning her, making her drop on one of the four smaller platforms. Link and Sweetie Belle then both jumped on the platform and attacked her until she recovered.

After that, however, Twinrova stopped sending fireballs and ice balls, and instead, she raised both brooms. The next instant, a red magic circle and a blue magic circle appeared below Link and Sweetie Belle, and the heroes quickly ran away as the circles burst into fire and ice. More circles appeared below them, and they had to continue to run. Twinrova didn't stop however. She clearly was planning to continue to use this attack until their death.

But then, Sweetie Belle nodded toward Link as she ran between him and Twinrova. Without other warning, she then fired a very powerful fire beam at Link who quickly raised his shield and deflected it at the witch, hitting her. Twinrova looked at them in shock as she recovered before she raised the brooms again and repeated the attack, only, this time, the magic circles appeared randomly all over the arena. But eventually, Sweetie Belle nodded at Link before she fired a fire beam that he deflected at the witch. Twinrova was prepared this time, so she dodged the beam, only for Sweetie Belle to fire an ice beam immediately after, and Link deflected it too, this time hitting the witch.

With a yell of rage, Twinrova almost immediately recovered and raised the brooms again. Now, instead of bursting, the magic circles created fire tornadoes and ice tornadoes that randomly moved on the arena. And this time, the witch was fully prepared so that no matter how many beams Link deflected from Sweetie Belle, she avoided all of them. Eventually, Sweetie Belle didn't fire a beam at Link, but a series of fireballs that were absorbed by it. Without losing time, Link moved to face Twinrova before the shield unleashed the energy on her, stunning her.

Sweetie Belle then ran behind Link and, like in the fight against Volvagia, bucked him on the butt, sending him flying toward the stunned witch. When Link dropped back toward her, he readied his sword, and sliced her from top to bottom.

Twinrova screeched in agony, her body erratically twitching, before she lost consciousness. She then disappeared into two little balls of energy that turned back into Koume and Kotake.

"Ouch! What fresh kids!" began to yell Koume. "This time we will get serious. Right, Kotake?"

But then, a divine light appeared and enveloped them while a halo appeared above their head and they began to float, the two of them becoming blue.

"What?" shouted Kotaked upon seeing the halo on her sister's head. "Hey, Koume, what is that above your head?"

"I don't know, but you have one over your head too, Kotake!"

It was then that they understood as they looked up at the light and down at their floating, blue body.

"But I'm only 400 years old!" yelled Koume in panic and rage.

"And I'm just 380 years old!" yelled her sister in the same state.

"We're twins! Don't try to lie about your age!" rebuked Koume .

"You must have gone senile!"

"Who are you calling senile?! Is that how you treat your older sister?"

"We are twins! How can you be older?"

"Keeeyaaah! How heartless you are!"

"How can you be so ungrateful?"

"You're heartless!"

"You ungrateful..."

Their bickering was suddenly interrupted by the light glowing stronger as they floated toward it. As they disappeared in it, they yelled a last warning at the heroes. "We'll come back to haunt you!"

And the light disappeared, before the familiar blue light appeared on one of the platforms.

But the heroes were too busy laughing after the scene they just saw. "The two are going to the afterlife, and the last thing they do is bickering! They were sisters alright!" said Sweetie Belle between giggles.

"Is this how are all siblings?" asked Link.

"Absolutely!" answered the filly.

As they calmed down, they jumped on the platform with the light and entered it, and they were transported to the Chamber of the Sages.

There, as they landed, the yellow pedestal began to glow with the blue light, and Nabooru appeared.

"Kids, let me thank you. Heheheh... In the end, I really did fail, and you had to come and save me. You really are impressive warriors, you two." She sighed. "I messed up... I was brainwashed by those old witches and used by Ganondorf to do his evil will... But isn't it funny? That a person like me could turn out to be the Sage of Spirit? And now I'm going to fight them as one of the six Sages! Heh heh... I'm going to pay them back for what they did to me!"

"And it won't be long before you will be able to make them pay. Our next target is Ganondorf's castle," said Link.

Sweetie Belle nodded. "We will need the power of the six Sages to reach Ganondorf."

"Then let me give you this, kids... No... Heroes. Instead of keeping the promise I made back then, I give you this medallion! Take it!"

Then, Nabooru raised her arms, and a yellow medallion appeared above Link.

Sweetie Belle grinned at the woman. "We will totally make Ganondorf regret what he did to you."

"I don't think he even has the ability to regret," replied Nabooru with a chuckle.

The area then plunged in light.

"If only I'd known you would become such a handsome man... I should have kept the promise I made back then..."

They landed back in front of the colossus.

"Geese, Link! You collect them!"

Link blushed, then coughed. "We... We must return to the Temple of Time. I received a vision from Rauru telling me that someone was waiting here."

"Aww... And I wasn't included in the vision?"

Link shrugged with a grin. "Hero of Time privilege." He then took the ocarina and played the Prelude of Light, warping to the Temple of Time. Sweetie Belle followed him with a teleportation.

When they appeared at the usual place in the Temple of Time, on the pedestal with the Triforce symbol, they immediately heard a familiar voice behind them.

"I have been waiting for you, Link."

The two of them turned around to look at the entrance of the temple, finding Sheik here.

"Link, the Hero of Time... You have overcome many hardships and awakened the six Sages. And now, you have a final challenge-a showdown with Ganondorf, the King of Evil... Before that... I have things I want to tell only to you and your companion. Please listen. Another unknown legend of the Triforce passed down by the Shadow Folk, the Sheikah..."

"If you would seek the sacred triangle, listen well... The resting place of the sacred triangle, the Sacred Realm, is a mirror that reflects what is in the heart... the heart of one who enters it... If an evil heart, the Realm will become full of evil; if pure, the Realm will become of paradise.

The Triforce... the sacred triangle... It is a balance that weighs the three forces: Power, Wisdom, and Courage. If the heart of the one who holds the sacred triangle has all three forces in balance, that one will gain the True Force to govern all. But if that one's heart is not in balance, the Triforce will separate into three parts: Power, Wisdom, and Courage. Only one part will remain for the one who touched the Triforce... the part representing the force that one most believes in. If that one seeks the True Force, that one must acquire the two lost parts. Those two parts will be held within others chosen by destiny who will bear the Triforce mark on the backs of their hands."

"Seven years ago, Ganondorf, the King of Thieves, used the door you opened in the Temple of Time and entered the Sacred Realm. But when he led his hands on the Triforce, the legend came true. The Triforce separated into three parts. Only the Triforce of Power remained in Ganondorf's hand. The strength of the Triforce of Power enabled him to become a mighty, evil king, but his dark ambitions were not satisfied. To gain complete mastery of the world, Ganondorf started looking for those chosen by destiny to hold the two other Triforce parts."

Sweetie Belle began to eye Link, seeing where this was coming.

"The one who holds the Triforce of Courage is... you, Link!" announced Sheik at last, confirming Sweetie Belle's suspicion. At this revelation, Link looked at the back of his hand, discovering that he did have the glowing mark of the Triforce of Courage. "And the other, who holds the Triforce of Wisdom..." then continued Sheik. "is the seventh Sage, who is destined to be the leader of them all..."

At this, Sheik showed the back of his hand, revealing the glowing mark of the Triforce, this one the Triforce of Wisdom.

Then, there was a flash.

And where Sheik stood, a totally different being was now standing. A blond woman in a royal purple and white-pink dress, bearing golden pauldrons and a clothing with the symbols of Hyrule, as well as a golden tiara on her head.

"It is I, the Princess of Hyrule, Zelda."

Both heroes stared at the princess with their jaws dropping.

Sweetie Belle then glanced at Link. "See? Even the princess doesn't mind being a boy for who knows how long! How come you did a drama about being a girl for just a few hours?"

Link groaned.

Chapter 20: Ganondorf's Castle

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 21: The Demon King Ganon

The beast was looming before the heroes under the darkness of the clouds, his features barely visible, only his glowing eyes which glared at them with pure malice.

Then, with a roar, Ganon charged at them through the ruins.

Sweetie Belle met his swords with hers, but Ganon's strength was such that he easily knocked them out of the way despite the filly using her ten beam swords at once, five for each of Ganon's swords. She still sent one of her swords to slash at Ganon's torso, but to her shock, it didn't have any effect.

The two heroes then quickly avoided another attack from Ganon, Link rolling to the beast's hooves before he slashed at them, only for the Master Sword to not have any effect either. He then had to run away as Ganon attempted to crush him under his hoof. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle continuously attacked Ganon, but each of her attacks were met with failure to hurt the Demon King.

Had the Triforce of Power given this beast total invincibility? How was that fair? Why could the Triforce of Courage and Triforce of Wisdom not do the same?

"Link! Sweetie Belle!" they heard Zelda shout to gain their attention. "The head and the tail! Try to hit the head and the tail!"

Sweetie Belle looked at the head, then at the tail, seeing that the tail didn't seem to be as solid as the rest of the body. "Of course! Thank you Zelda! Link! Try to use the light arrow on his head!"

Zelda then said, "There's magic in this fire that is stopping me from traversing even with Farore's Wind! Sorry I can't help more!"

Link nodded to both Sweetie Belle and Zelda, jumped back to avoid a swing of Ganon's left sword, and took his bow before firing a light arrow right on the crystal that was part of the crown on Ganon's forehead. It had the effect of stunning the beast, and Sweetie Belle took the occasion to savagely attack both the tail and the head until he recovered only two seconds later and spun with his swords, knocking Sweetie Belle's swords away and forcing the filly to fly out of range.

Ganon then glared at Link and suddenly jumped toward him, smashing the ground. Link avoided him with a roll, ensuring that he was behind Ganon, and quickly attacked the tail once before he ran away to not be hit by the counterattack. But then, Ganon raised his swords, covered them in electricity, and with a vertical swing, sent the electricity at Link in the form of a disk that he barely avoided by jumping to the side.

Sweetie Belle gained back Ganon's attention by ramming his head and planting her ten swords in it. This didn't kill it, far from it, but this angered Ganon to the point that he roared, swung his sword erratically to force Sweetie Belle away, and charged some form of dark energy into his mouth before firing a huge and powerful beam at her. Sweetie Belle avoided it with a teleport, and Ganon just ended up destroying the ruins of the castle even more.

Link took the occasion to attack Ganon's tail again before he had to avoid a backward kick followed by a swing of the swords. Ganon then turned back to face Sweetie Belle as she fired beams of light at his head. While the first beam hit him and stunned him a bit, making him step back, he quickly put an arm on the way to shield his head before he suddenly charged at her at a speed surprising for his size. When the filly got out of the way, he stopped his charge and, instead, followed her while continuously swinging his swords. Sweetie Belle did her best to avoid them while attacking back, ensuring to keep Ganon's attention on her so Link could creep again behind the beast and attack the tail. But then, Ganon suddenly turned around while slashing at the approaching Link, and the Hero of Time had to shield himself only to be knocked away by the hit. Ganon then breathed a ball of fire that went after Link. When Sweetie Belle took the occasion to attack the tail, she was then slapped by said tail, sending her away.

Link used the Mirror Shield to deflect the ball of fire back at Ganon before running toward him. He avoided a slash attack and rolled between Ganon's leg before immediately attacking the tail. When Ganon turned around and attacked him again, Link then rolled away, took his bow, and fired a light arrow, only for the Demon King to lower his head to avoid it before he used a sword as a shield to deflect several beams fired by Sweetie Belle.

With a roar, Ganon jumped toward Sweetie Belle and slashed, then jumped back toward Link who had begun to run and almost crushed him, the Hylian barely rolling out of the way. Link then jumped as Ganon did a slash and used one of the swords to reach the head.

Hitting the head with the Master Sword was the most effective against Ganon. It even stunned the beast to the point of making him kneel, causing the wall of fire to disappear, and Link took the occasion to attack the head again, joined by Sweetie Belle while Zelda entered the arena before the fire returned.

Ganon got up, roared, and sent several disks of electricity at the heroes and at Zelda before he jumped toward the princess who used Farore's Wind to teleport away, and she quickly attacked the head with bursts of magic to blind him before teleporting again.

As Ganon was blinded, a beam of light fired by Sweetie Belle stunned him, but he quickly recovered and deflected the following ones with his sword while he accumulated dark energy in his mouth and fired another powerful beam at the filly who teleported out of the way. Ganon then put an arm on the way of a light arrow fired by Link before he breathed several fireballs that went after the heroes. He then did a couple of jumps, sending more fireballs after each of them, before he charged at Link who barely rolled out of the way. The Hylian then avoided the following slash and rolled between Ganon's legs to attack the tail again.

Ganon, however, really became more difficult to hit as he probably got used to his body. He was deflecting all the beams fired by Sweetie Belle unless he was in the middle of attacking Link and Zelda, and even then, he generally ended up interrupting his attacks to block the beams or move out of the way, same with the light arrows. In return, the heroes used their number to tag-team on him, Zelda attacking the head to blind him, so that Sweetie Belle or Link could reach the head or the tail and attack.

Ganon fired another dark beam from his mouth while spinning, making the beam sweep the floor in hope of hitting either Link or Zelda and stop them from approaching while he used his swords to deflect Sweetie's beams. But then, Sweetie Belle materialized a shield fist from below Ganon and used it to punch his chin and close his mouth while he was still firing his beam. This resulted in an explosion of energy inside his mouth that stunned him, and Link used the occasion again to attack the tail while Sweetie Belle slashed at the head.

Ganon then fell on his knee again, weakened, and Zelda took the occasion to use her most powerful light magic on him.

"I'm using my power to hold the Evil King! You use your sword and deliver the final blow!" she exclaimed before she was left drained. Using this magic took everything she had left.

Link's Master Sword then began to glow, feeling that it was time to end the Evil.

So Link slashed at Ganon's head several time before he planted the sword in through the crystal on the forehead.

Roaring in agony, Ganon stood up and began to slash around wildly.

"Six Sages... Now!" yelled Zelda before she summoned a ball of intense light.

In the Chamber, the Sages used their power to open a vortex to the Sacred Realm.

And Ganon disappeared in it, the Sacred Realm becoming his prison.

Sweetie Belle, Link, and Zelda then found themselves in an infinite expanse of sky in all direction, somehow standing on an invisible floor.

Sweetie Belle didn't question it. With all that holy magic stuff they used, getting transported to a sky realm to have a little post-Evil-Overlord's-defeat chat wasn't a surprise, and the Gods probably had something to do with it.

"Thank you, Link... Thank you, Sweetie Belle... Thanks to you, Ganondorf has been sealed inside the Evil Realm!" began Zelda. "Thus, peace will once again reign in this world... for a time."

"Yeah..." Sweetie Belle began with a frown. "Ganondorf still has the Triforce of Power. I fear that he may eventually break the seal and escape."

"But this won't be before several centuries... I hope," Navi said.

Link sighed. "I suppose that nothing can be done about this..."

Zelda sighed too. "And all of this is my fault..."

"Why do you say that?" Link asked.

"I tried to control the Sacred Realm. I was young, and I couldn't comprehend the consequences. Ganondorf entered the Sacred Realm and took the Triforce of Power, becoming a threat that will plague Hyrule for generations. And I dragged you into it too," Zelda said as she looked at Link.

"It's alright," Sweetie Belle said. "You wanted to do what was right to stop Ganondorf from entering the Realm and taking the Triforce, and you were just a little girl. Nobody holds it against you."

"But at least, I want to make up for my mistake," said Zelda before she looked back at Link. "You must lay the Master Sword to rest and close the Door of Time... However, by doing this, the roads between times will be closed..." She then extended her hand toward him. "Link, give the ocarina to me..."

Link understood what she wanted to do. "You are going to bring me back to seven years ago."

Zelda nodded. "Even a little before, before Ganondorf could enter the Sacred Realm. You will warn my past self and my father of his threat... and all this tragedy will be avoided. And you will be able to live the life that was stolen from you."

Link took the ocarina and stared at it, then at Sweetie Belle.

"So I guess this is goodbye?" asked the filly.

"Unless you find a way to use the Song of Time and go back in time without the help of the Goddess of Time, it seems like it," answered Link with a sad smile as he gave the ocarina to Zelda.

Sweetie Belle then frowned in thought. "Actually, I may not need. If you are able to stop Ganondorf before he could enter the Sacred Realm, then this will create a split timeline, becoming a parallel universe. Then, all I will need to do is to find this universe to find you again. The hard part will be finding the right universe among the infinite parallel versions of this universe... Wait a minute..." She facehoofed. "Of coooourse! Link, bring me with you!"

"What?"

"You see, I come from an absolutely unique universe in the whole multiverse. It would be long to explain, but to put it simply, this universe doesn't even have a past or a future, it only exists in the present. No time travel unless it is to return before the time-split point from which my universe was born. I can't call past or future versions of me to join me because there is only me. Follow me until now?"

"I... think?" said Link with hesitation.

"Yes, I understand," Zelda said with a nod.

"Okay. So if I go back in time with Link, then... Darn, how to word it... Despite the time travel, I will be able to return to my universe and I will know where is his universe. I will not need to search."

"But then, you will return to your universe seven years younger," warned Zelda.

"That's no problem," said Sweetie Belle with a big grin before her age suddenly regressed until she was six years old. "I can change my age at will!"

Link and Zelda's jaw dropped before Link gave her a deadpan look. "Then why did you remain a six-years old when we got back in time?"

"Because it was fun! And it didn't change anything in the end!"

Link facepalmed, and Zelda giggled.

"And you know what this means too?" asked Sweetie Belle as she looked back and forth between Link and Zelda. "That I could bring Link back from his universe to visit you, Zelda, and vice versa!" She then frowned again, this time in annoyance. "I just need to find a way for you to communicate to me through dimensions. I really need to start to think about this if I want to keep contact with all the friends I will make in my adventures."

She was then grabbed by Zelda who hugged her and petted her in thanks (and not just because six-years old Sweetie Belle was adorable). "I am happy to hear this, Sweetie Belle. So this won't be a final goodbye."

Sweetie Belle nodded before she flew out of Zelda's arms and returned to her normal age beside Link who began to pet her too.

Zelda then began to play her lullaby with the ocarina, and the two heroes were enveloped in a blue light as they began to float before everything flashed.

"See you soon..."

They were back in the Temple of Time, in front of the Pedestal of Time. The Master Sword was already back in it, and the column of blue light disappeared.

After looking around a bit, they looked at each other, seeing that they were now seven years younger, that they were back seven years to the past. How long before Ganondorf's attack? They weren't sure.

Then, they exited the Master Sword's room, and since the gems weren't on their pedestal as Link hadn't placed them yet, the doors closed behind them.

"So you gonna warn the royal family about Ganondorf. Then what?" asked Sweetie Belle as she returned her age to normal.

"I need to verify when exactly we are. Depending of this, I may have to go help the Great Deku Tree, help the Gorons, and save Ruto inside Jabu-Jabu again. If we are early enough, then this may not be needed. Then, well... I'm not sure..." Link said with a sigh. "I guess that I will see. But I don't think that I will be able to do as Zelda said, live the life that I would have lived without all these events. I just... can't... Not after all this..."

"Yeah. Going through something like that really changes a person. I went through something similar. After going through adventures and fighting monstrous abominations, I just can't settle on a 'normal' life. Or I wouldn't be here. I guess this is up to you to find out what you will do with your life from now."

Link nodded. "So, will you return to your home now?"

"Yeah, now that it's over. I don't think that you will need me to stop Ganondorf. Without the Triforce of Power, he isn't that dangerous. And also, I have school to go," she finished with a giggle. She then hugged Link, nodded at Navi, and opened a rift. "Goodbye! See you next time!" And she passed it.

The rift dropped Sweetie Belle in her chamber in the Carousel Boutique, and she quickly saw through the window that it was night outside. Silently, she exited the building, took her Poké Balls, and let the Pokémon out to do whatever they wanted. She then verified the date on the calendar and saw that it was the night from Sunday to Monday.

Perfect timing! She didn't miss school!

And a quick check of a nearby clock let her know that it was a little over 3AM.

Well, she may as well go have a quick nap. She couldn't wait to recount her adventure to her friends.

Chapter 22: Songs and Evolutions

What a surprise it was for Rarity to find her sister the next morning as she was preparing breakfast (Sweetie Belle really had gotten better since she finally learned to cook in Dream Land). She really hadn't expected Sweetie to come back before one more day or two at least.

"Sweetie Belle?"

"Hello Rarity! I'm back!" the filly said bubbly.

"I can see that. So your adventure is already over? Unless this is one of these cases where it was a week for you and only a few days for us."

"More of the second. The adventure took me three days, and it was 3AM when I returned here. Anyway, you came just in time. Breakfast is ready." The filly then placed the breakfast on the table where they proceeded to start to eat.

"Thank you Sweetie Belle," Rarity said after she took a first bite. "You are really getting better and better."

"Thanks!"

"So, how did it go?" asked the mare.

"It was really great! And very different from what I was used to in the Dream Universe. Instead of simply going from point A to point B to reach our goal, Link, the local hero, and I had to explore dungeons filled with puzzles, traps, treasures, and monsters. We had to save Sages that were trapped in these dungeons so they could help us defeat the local Evil Overlord."

"I'm surprised you didn't just go defeat this evil overlord by yourself. I'm sure you had the power."

"Yes and no. I could have defeated him very easily, but his lair was protected by a very powerful shield that I'm not sure that I would have been able to destroy without the help of the Sages, even with all my powers. Beside, it was more fun to live the full quest alongside the hero than just going straight to the final boss. I got to explore nice places, encounter a lot of different people, and made several friends. And I also got you this," Sweetie Belle finished as a small mountain of rupees of various colors (mainly green and blue) suddenly dropped beside the table.

"Oh my!" exclaimed Rarity as she went to grab one of the rupees to examine it. "They are beautiful!"

"Believe it or not, they are the local money, very easy to find. Like, REALLY easy. Just cut some grass randomly and you may find one. It actually makes me wonder how this economy works. You can pretty much become rich just by mowing your lawn."

Rarity sighed dramatically. "If only it could be that easy."

Sweetie Belle then told her sister some bites of her adventure while they ate breakfast. Once she finished, she then took her school supplies before teleporting to the Lor Starcutter to download the coordinates of the two new universes: Past Hyrule and Future Hyrule. As she thought, with the time-split, they became two distinct universes. Thinking about this, she should try to find these alternate universes created by Starlight's time travel to see how they were faring.

Then she went to school where she recounted her adventure to her friends during recess.

"And then he planted the sword in Ganon's forehead, like that!" Sweetie Belle mimicked thrusting a sword. "And Ganon was sent to the Sacred Realm thanks to the Sages, finally bringing peace back to Hyrule. And Zelda sent him back in time so he could warn the king about Ganondorf and stop him before he could even start his plan... or just as he started it, at least."

"Aww yeah! That was so epic! And... what happened to the Triforce?" asked Scootaloo.

"Ganondorf kept the Triforce of Power. Zelda still has the Triforce of Wisdom. As for the Triforce of Courage... Uh... Good question actually. Was it sent back in time with Link?" There was so many things that could go wrong for Future Hyrule if that was the case. How will they counter Ganondorf if the Triforce of Courage was gone to another time/universe? She will have to talk to Link or Zelda next time she visits. "Anyway, I got some nice new tricks in this adventure. I will show you after school. But if I'm not mistaken, rain is scheduled tonight, right?"

"Eeyup," confirmed Apple Bloom. "Why?"

Sweetie Belle grinned. "You will see."

"Hey, I have an idea!" began Scootaloo. "I perfectly see myself as Link, because I'm cool and courageous like him! And Sweetie Belle, you are smart and good at magic like Zelda. As for you, Apple Bloom, well... You aren't evil, but you are very strong like Ganondorf. So, how about we play as Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf?"

"I'm in!" shouted Sweetie Belle.

"Errrh... Ah don't think Ah can play Ganondorf. He's strong, yes, but he also has a lot of magical power too," remarked Apple Bloom.

"You can just pretend, with the help of objects if you think it's best. Like you could throw something red and we could imagine it to be a fireball," proposed the pegasus.

"No need for objects. Our imagination can do the work," said Sweetie Belle.

Apple Bloom though about it for a moment before she accepted. "Alright! Be ready to fear the Evil Overlord Appledorf! Or... Uh... Ganon Bloom?"

They couldn't continue to talk about this however as recess ended.

"We will talk more about this after school," said Scootaloo. "Or... tomorrow after school. It won't be raining."

They all agreed.

Then, after school, they went outside of Ponyville, on a hill with a good view of the town. In the sky, pegasi could be seen pushing clouds for the scheduled rain.

"So, what's this trick?" asked Apple Bloom.

Sweetie Belle answered with just a grin before she closed her eyes and began to sing. Suddenly, storm clouds appeared from nowhere in the sky, and in just a few seconds it began to rain. Sweetie Belle made sure to not put too much power so that while it rained all over Ponyville, there wasn't any lightning. It was just a downpour, not a storm.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo's jaws dropped.

"I learned to use the same songs than the ocarina," Sweetie Belle then explained. "I can't use all of them like the Warp Songs or the Song of Time, but the Song of Storms is no problem, same for the Sun's Song."

"You mean that you can now move the Sun and the Moon just by singing?!" asked Scootaloo.

Sweetie Belle nodded with a big grin. "Let's go to the clubhouse. We can talk about your idea here."

Scootalink climbed the long spiral staircase to Ganon Bloom's room, hoping that she wasn't too late to stop her from taking the Triforce of Wisdom from Sweetie Belda. When she reached the double door that was the entrance of the room, she bucked them open and ran in.

"Release Sweetie Belda, Ganon Bloom!" she yelled as she pointed her sword in direction of the Dark Lady threateningly.

This didn't faze Ganon Bloom who remained seated on her throne, chuckling darkly. "Ya're too late," she said. Then she raised her right forehoof and showed the Triforce mark, two of the three triangles composing it now glowing. "Only one left."

Scootalink growled, both in anger at Ganon Bloom and in worry for Sweetie Belda. "What have you done to her, you monster?"

In answer, Ganon Bloom just smirked and, with a flick of her hoof, made a crystal float down from the ceiling, the former bearer of the Triforce of Wisdom trapped in it. "Want her? Very well. Ah'm done with her." The crystal disappeared, and Sweetie Belda was propelled right toward Scootalink who caught her. The pegasus still ended on her back, but at least, the princess was safe.

"Ugh... thanks. I'm sorry, I could do nothing," Sweetie Belda said as she got up.

"Eh. No worry. I will still get her."

"At least, let me help you. We will have better chances if we work together."

Scootalink nodded, and they both faced Ganon Bloom, ready to fight her.

"Sweetie Belle! Here you are!" suddenly shouted a familiar voice, interrupting their game.

The fillies groaned and turned toward the approaching lavender alicorn.

"What is it, Twilight?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"Is it true that you are the one who started the rain yesterday just by singing?" asked the mare. "Wait, what were you doing, you three?" she then asked when she remarked the filly's disguises and the wooden swords.

"Just playing," answered Scootaloo. "I'm the Hero, Sweetie Belle is the Princess, and Apple Bloom is the Dark Lord."

Apple Bloom nodded. "It's based on Sweetie's previous adventures."

"And to answer your first question, yes! It's true! A little trick that I got from this adventure."

"Can you show me?" asked Twilight.

Sweetie Belle thought about it for a few seconds before grinning and smiling. She then sung the Song of Storms, and the next instant it began to rain all over Ponyville.

Twilight gawked. "That's... incredible!"

"I just made it unto a downpour, but if I wanted, I could put more power and turn it into a real storm, and even into a hurricane. And... I suppose that with more control, I could turn this into a snowstorm, I'm not sure," Sweetie Belle informed. "I'm sure that I can teach you to do it. All you need to do is to sing the Song of Storms while putting some magic in your voice, not unlike the Royal Canterlot Voice. Anypony can do it."

Twilight was visibly shaking in excitement now. "Can you sing this Song of Storms again, please?"

"I can do better," replied Sweetie Belle before she materialized a piece of paper and a pen. She wrote the song on the paper and gave it to the mare. "Here you go, the Song of Storms. You just need to sing the beginning to create a storm, but I will let you test if singing more of it is useful. And you don't even need to sing it. Playing it with an instrument works too. Any instrument, excepted maybe some percussion instruments."

Twilight looked down at the paper with the song. "This will revolutionize the weather management!"

Sweetie Belle then grinned even more. "I also got a song to control the cycle of day and night. It may ask more power however."

Twilight eyed the filly at this. "You are not foaling with me, uh?"

"Nope! Want a proof?"

"NOOOO! If you move the sun and the moon now, it may cause panic! I will talk to Celestia and Luna about this, and if they agree, we will test this song tonight."

Sweetie Belle nodded.

Twilight then asked if there were more songs ("Yes, there are, but I don't think they will work in this world.") before she returned to her castle to send a message to Celestia and probably to experiment with the Song of Storms. The rain stopped not long after, and the fillies were able to continue where they stopped.

"Be ready to bite the dust, Ganon Bloom!"

"Then come, Scootalink!"

That evening, Sweetie Belle was on a balcony in Canterlot Castle with Twilight, Celestia, and Luna at her sides. The princesses had agreed to test the Sun's Song and to let Sweetie show it to them, and now, they were gathered here to witness the miracle. Twilight even had some machines installed to read the amount of power needed to sing the song and make it work, to see if anypony could use it.

"Everything is ready, Celestia," said the lavender mare.

Celestia nodded and looked toward Sweetie Belle. "You can do it."

The filly nodded in turn and sung the Sun's Song. Almost immediately, the Sun fully disappeared beyond the horizon, and the Moon rose from the opposite direction and took its place.

The princesses could only look in wonder. Then, Twilight looked at the readings from the machines, and her jaw dropped. "Oh my... Celestia! Look at these readings! I could have used this song while I was still an unicorn! That's still a lot of power needed, but far from the amount you and Luna usually use to move the Sun and the Moon! Any pony with enough power in them could do it! Starlight could do it! Rainbow could do it! Applejack and her brother could do it too!"

Celestia and Luna looked at the readings, then exchanged a glance before they both turned toward Sweetie Belle.

"You must not tell anypony you don't trust about this song. And if you already told somepony about it, you must make them promise to not tell anypony without your agreement. If somepony with bad attentions was to get their hooves on this song..." Celestia said.

"Or, worst, all of Equestria learns about this song and the ponies begin to abuse it, and the cycle of day and night as we know it will cease to exist," Luna said.

Sweetie Belle and Twilight agreed.

"However, the song will be very useful," began Twilight. "If we could find a way to make the song play automatically each mornings and evenings, we would be free of this duty of controlling the Sun and the Moon.

Luna nodded. "An automated instrument powered with a magical crystal that could replenish itself with the ambient magic. This can easily be done in a few days."

"As for the Song of Storms, it will be a boon without doubt, but I fear of the pegasi's reaction," said the Alicorn of the Sun. "I will have to go to Cloudsdale to talk to them and see if we can come to an arrangement."

"I'm glad that my adventures help Equestria. Too bad we can't use yet the Ancient's technology," Sweetie Belle grumbled.

If only they could find a way to bring huge quantities of Matters from the Dream Universe. Sweetie Belle could open a giant rift, but it would be too risky for the two universes. Thanks to the Void Energy, she could create Matters like Void, but it would take forever. No, their best bet was to wait to build Matter generators, and only then they will be able to use the Ancient technology freely.

"It's only a matter of time," assured Twilight. She, Magolor, Susie, and other scientists from both universes were working hard to study the Matter Generator of the Lor Starcutter.

The following days for Sweetie Belle were split between school, playing with her friends or helping them to find their Cutie Marks, and training her Pokémon. She hadn't gotten much occasions to let them out in Hyrule because it had been just too dangerous and they were just not strong enough yet. This needed to change so her Pokémon could follow her no matter what.

So she made them face each others in duels, or made them attack targets such as dummies or rocks.

Tank entered his shell and quickly moved to the side to avoid Volta's Thunder Shock. He then came out and immediately countered with Water Gun followed by a Tackle. Volta avoided the Water Gun with a jump to the side, but didn't see the Tackle until it was too late and was rammed and sent flying in the air. When she crashed, she was KO.

"Yes!" shouted Tank in victory under the applause of the watching ponies (Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and a few classmates) and the other Pokémon.

"Good job Tank!" congratulated Sweetie Belle before she healed Volta who got up after that. "You did well too Volta. You two are becoming very good!"

"Really?!" asked Volta with her big, round eyes looking at Sweetie Belle in joy.

"Yes, you are," said Sweetie Belle while petting the little Pokémon.

It was at this moment that Tank suddenly began to glow before changing shape, to the wonder of the ponies. He visibly became taller, his tail became longer and thicker, and two small wing-like appendages appeared on the sides of his head. The glow then disappeared, revealing the new Wartortle to everypony.

"Ahah! Yes! Yes! I evolved!" he yelled.

Sweetie Belle squealed and hugged him. The spectators then approached to have a better look at the Wartortle, all of them amazed to finally see the evolution of a Pokémon, especially Twilight who was wondering how this worked.

The evolution really boosted Tank's capacities. After that, he won all his fights (excepted against Drako who, despite being just a Dratini, was still much stronger), and he became much more effective in the farm.

It was really then that the ponies understood how right Sweetie Belle had been. The Pokémon needed to fight, and they needed someone to guide them for this.

In the following days, the Pokémon evolved one by one. First, Smily who evolved into a Haunter (he retained his round gaseous head, but his entire body became purple and he gained spiky protrusions and two disembodied hands, making him look more like a ghost), then, Ratzo who evolved into a Raticate (he looked more like an actual rat, chubby-looking with brown fur instead of purple, and he could now stand on his back-legs), and Drako evolved into a Dragonair (looking more elegant, with a horn on his head, wing-like appendages on his head, blue crystal orbs now present under his chin and on his tail, and his snoot was now blue).

Lulla needed a Moonstone to evolve, so she had to wait for Sweetie's next excursion to the Pokémon world. As for Volta, to become a Pikachu, she didn't really need to fight. She needed something else: love and friendship. It was just a matter of waiting until she got enough.

Sweetie's Pokémon team was starting to look great, and it made many of her classmates envious. Many now wanted their own teams of cool Pokémon.

Maybe Twilight and Magolor will start to work on a portal to the Pokémon Universe.

Speaking of Magolor, he finally finished to create a translator like he and Sweetie talked about. One glass of water later to swallow it, and Sweetie could now understand all languages, written and talked. It was quickly tested on the Ancient writing and on the language from Hyrule, and after seeing that it worked, Magolor and Susie began to work to mass-produce it.

The next week-end.

"Okay, time to explore a third universe!" said Sweetie Belle to herself before she opened a rift and passed it.

And she dropped in what seemed to be the middle of a snowy forest. A quick check around indicated several things.

The forest was made of coniferous trees.

There was a wooden structure not far, beside weirdly-shaped lamp.

A small skeleton was behind the structure, staring at Sweetie Belle.

"uh... that's not something i expected to see today," the skeleton said before his left eye began to glow blue and yellow. "and i never expected to see such a high amount of LOVE in a creature. what are you?"

Chapter 24: Puzzles And Dogs

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 25: Spooky Scary Skeletons

Frisk began to walk toward Snowdin Town, but Sweetie Belle remained behind.

"You can go ahead! I wish to go see something!" the filly said.

Frisk looked at her questioningly before she nodded with a "Okay!" and entered the town.

Sweetie Belle then teleported.

And appeared just at the other end of the bridge, behind what looked like a sentient golden flower covering behind one of the wooden supports (which was obviously just a decoration to make the bridge look like a real wooden bridge).

So she did see something who had been observing them since she met Frisk.

The POP of her teleportation startled the flower who quickly turned around. Upon seeing her, the flower gave her a sheepish smile.

"Oh... Seems like I'm found!"

Sweetie Belle giggled. "It's hard to miss a flower in the middle of the snow."

"Golly! You seem to be the only one to have good eyes then, because nobody saw me until now."

"Good point. Maybe it also has to do with me being well trained to spot stuff now."

"I see."

"Anyway, why are you following us? I'm not assuming anything, I'm just very curious."

"Yes... You're curious to know if you will reduce me to ashes or not, depending of my answer. I can... uh... see that you're used to killing. Well, you have nothing to fear from me. I'm just a little flower who is very curious about you two but is also very shy to approach you. So I just settled to... observe from a distance."

Sweetie Belle sighed. "I would have not killed you even if you had told me that you were following us to take Frisk's SOUL."

"Really? How kind of you. As a thank you, let me present myself. I'm Flowey!"

Sweetie Belle let out a small giggle. "Flowey the flower?"

"I know, smart, uh?"

"Yeah, very. As for me, it's Sweetie Belle."

"As if I needed more proof that you are a walking diabetes inducer."

"Lucky you, as a flower, you shouldn't have to worry about it."

"Yes, lucky me."

"So, since you seem interested by me and Frisk, do you want to come with us?" Sweetie Belle finally asked.

"No thanks. As much as I would like to join you in your quest, I would get the monsters' attention on me and I don't feel like it. I will just remain out of the way and continue to admire how you will pass all the obstacles in your way."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, don't worry."

"Alright," Sweetie Belle replied with a shrug. "I hope for you that you really aren't planning anything, or else..." She winked at the flower with a knowing smile before she teleported back to the entrance of the town.

Flowey looked at the other side of the bridge where she had reappeared and grumbled. "Once I get the SOULs... Just you wait..."

Snowdin Town (or just Snowdin) was a really small town entirely made with little houses and other buildings built with wooden planks. It was home to all kinds of monsters, the majority of them possessing thick fur or having high cold resistance, and a lot of them were out in what seemed to be the only street of the town.

Sweetie Belle found Frisk just as she exited a shop near the entrance of the town, after a big banner saying "WELCOME TO SNOWDIN". Said shop was part of a larger building with another entrance that was apparently an inn.

"Hey Frisk! Uh, you bought a bandana?" Sweetie Belle asked upon seeing that the human girl was now wearing a bandana. For some reason, abs were drawn on it...

Frisk took a pose to show it off. "Yeah! It's a manly bandana! And thanks to it, I have a little bit more defense! And I feel like I could punch boulders!"

"Uuuuhh... Okay, I advice not to try it, or you will most of all feel pain. But it gives you a nice look. Papyrus will love it. Very cool."

"Thanks! Uh... so, why did you leave?"

"We're followed. By a flower, of all things."

Frisk gulped at this. "Flowey?"

"Someone you know?"

The human girl nodded. "He's... nasty. He made himself look friendly and began to tell me how to survive in the Underground, but then, he tried to kill me. For him, it's kill or be killed, and... He knows, about my power... He remembers even when I RELOAD. I think that it was him who had the power before I came."

"Yike... A psychopathic flower who had the power to RELOAD the timeline to do everything he wanted?" Sweetie Belle looked around at the monsters of Snowdin, observing as they discussed and played. "I don't want to know what he did with this power... Those poor monsters, how many time did they die because of this? How much did they suffer? Maybe I should do something about this flower finally..."

Frisk shook her head. "No need. As long as I have this power, he can't do anything. I would just RELOAD to undo whatever he would do. And he knows it, or else, he wouldn't be following us."

"So he must be preparing something..."

Frisk nodded. "But I'm not sure what..."

"A mean to regain this power, I suppose. But what... It's based on determination you said, right?"

Frisk nodded again. "So, you got this power because you have more determination than him. This means there's two possibilities for him to regain it. Either you lose determination, or he gains it."

Frisk crossed her arms. "Well, I will certainly not lose determination. I'm VERY determined."

"I don't doubt," Sweetie Belle said with a giggle. "So he will try to gain determination one way or another. Remains to see how. And whatever this how is, he will apparently find it if he continues to follow us. And it is apparently something that he can't have by himself, so he probably expects us to open the way for him."

"Well, we won't let him get it!" Frisk said with determination.

After that, they began to explore the town, passing beside a tunnel that apparently led to the other side of the town. After a decorated fir tree with presents under it, they reached a building made of bricks named Grillby's, which seemed to be some kind of restaurant. However, not feeling hungry, they decided not to enter it.

After Grillby's, it revealed that Snowdin had a secondary street to the left. However, it didn't lead far, quickly ending at a river. Speaking of, they could observe a wolf monster throw giant ice blocks into the river for some reason.

After it was a library... which had its name misspelled "LIBRARBY"...

"So professional..." Sweetie Belle deadpanned.

"That's part of the charm of Snowdin," a passing monster said.

"It is a good occasion to learn more about the monsters and the Underground. Let's go in it."

With a nod, they entered the library. Thanks to it, they learned some interesting stuff about the monsters. That they were made of magic, and that when they died, they turned into dust, which they then spread on the monster's favorite object so their essence will live on in that object. However, monsters being made of magic had positive and negative effect. For starting, they were more attuned to their SOUL, so they had an easier time learning and using magic, but in return, they were weaker than humans, and the monsters' defense weakened if they didn't want to fight. Also, they were more vulnerable if they were hit by someone with cruel intents.

Oh, and SOULs were apparently made of love, hope, and compassion, or at least the monster SOULs, which would explain why they were all so nice despite some of them being more or less jerks.

They didn't learn much more however, or nothing Sweetie already knew like the name of the capital, and most of the books weren't really big, so they quickly left the library to continue their exploration.

Which led them to Sans and Papyrus' house just beside the river, bigger than the others, with two mailboxes beside it, one of which was overflowing with unopened mail (guess who it belonged...). However, the house was locked, so the skeletons were probably not in it right now.

The exit of the tunnel was just next to the house, and next to it was a shed which marked the end of the town.

"Papyrus said he would await us here. He must be a little further," Frisk said.

So they continued, leaving the town just as a snowstorm began (how could a snowstorm happen underground was up for debate). Before long, the children couldn't see much, but they were able to distinguish Papyrus' silhouette as they advanced.

They eventually stopped at a good distance of him, where they had a clearer view of the skeleton.

"HUMAN AND PONY! ALLOW ME TO TELL YOU ABOUT SOME COMPLEX FEELINGS," the skeleton began. "FEELINGS LIKE... THE JOY OF FINDING ANOTHER PASTA LOVER. THE ADMIRATION FOR ANOTHER'S PUZZLE-SOLVING SKILLS. THE DESIRE TO HAVE A COOL, SMART PERSON THINK YOU ARE COOL. THESE FEELINGS... THEY MUST BE WHAT YOU ARE FEELING RIGHT NOW!!!"

...

"Totally," Sweetie Belle said, hiding a giggle.

"I CAN HARDLY IMAGINE WHAT IT MUST BE LIKE TO FEEL THAT WAY. AFTER ALL, I AM VERY GREAT. I DON'T EVER WONDER WHAT HAVING LOTS OF FRIENDS IS LIKE. I PITY YOU... LONELY KIDS... WORRY NOT!!! YOU SHALL BE LONELY NO LONGER! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL BE YOUR..." He suddenly stopped talking, turning his back to Sweetie Belle and Frisk. "NO... NO, THIS IS ALL WRONG! I CAN'T BE YOUR FRIEND!!!" He suddenly faced them again, pointing a finger at Frisk. "I'M NOT SURE ABOUT THE PONY, BUT YOU'RE A HUMAN! I MUST CAPTURE YOU!!! THEN, I CAN FULFILL MY LIFELONG DREAM!!! POWERFUL! POPULAR! PRESTIGIOUS!!! THAT'S PAPYRUS!!! THE NEWEST MEMBER... OF THE ROYAL GUARD!"

Papyrus wasn't fooling the children. They could hear in his voice that he was forcing himself to say this. He obviously cared for them, but didn't want to give up his duty and his dream.

But then, the SOULs of Frisk and Sweetie Belle appeared on their chests, signifying the start of the fight.

Frisk immediately started by CHECKING Papyrus.

PAPYRUS 8 ATK 2 DEF
He likes to say: "Nyeh heh heh!"

As if to prove the voice's point, Papyrus said, "NYEH HEH HEH!"

The skeleton then attacked by sending some bones toward them, the bones being up on the ground and sliding on it. However, the bones weren't that many, and were rather slow, making them very easy to avoid.

Sweetie Belle, however, looked smugly at Papyrus before she put Frisk on her back (managing to lift her without problem despite the human's bigger size) and flew up, passing above the bones, turning them harmless.

"HEY! THAT'S CHEATING!" Papyrus shouted, annoyed. "BUT IT MEANS NOTHING! TASTE MY FABLED BLUE ATTACK!"

The skeleton then sent several blue bones toward them, and Sweetie Belle had to use self-levitation to not move at all.

"I don't know Paps. I'm not a dog, I can't taste bones," the filly said.

But then, suddenly, both Sweetie Belle's and Frisk's SOULs turned blue, and they both dropped back to the ground where a lonely bone suddenly came out of nowhere from behind and hit them.

"MAYBE, BUT YOU ARE BLUE NOW! AND IT TENDS TO MAKE MY BONES TASTE SALTY! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!"

"Darn! Sans didn't tell me that the Blue mode could stop me from flying," Sweetie Belle grumbled, Frisk back on ground behind her.

"SO SANS ALREADY TOLD YOU ABOUT IT."

"Yup! Frisk, be careful. Blue mode means that you can only move toward Papyrus, away from him, or jump," the filly warned.

"I remarked..." Frisk replied as she had attempted to move aside, without success.

"IT ALSO AFFECTS GRAVITY," Papyrus explained. "I CAN MAKE YOU HEAVIER OR LIGHTER. AND AS YOU REMARKED, IT CAN MAKE YOU DROP FROM THE SKY. BUT I PREFER MAKING OTHERS LIGHTER. JUMPING AND REACHING NEW HEIGHTS IS MUCH FUNNIER, AND A PERFECT REPRESENTATION OF MY PHILOSOPHY. ALWAYS STRIVING TO REACH THE TOP!"

Frisk then got an idea. "Wow! Paps! I think that I'm falling for you!"

"Seriously?" Sweetie Belle asked with a deadpan look at the human, holding a laugh.

"THANK YOU! WAIT... WAS THAT A ROMANTIC PUN?! OH NO! MY GREATEST WEAKNESS! AND MOST OF ALL, YOU REVEAL YOUR ULTIMATE FEELINGS! W-WELL! I'M A SKELETON WITH VERY HIGH STANDARDS!!!"

At this, Papyrus attacked again, sending bones of various sizes in line toward Frisk and Sweetie Belle who jumped above them. Some of the bones were coming from behind, so the kids had to be careful and keep an eye in both directions.

"I can make spaghetti!" Frisk shouted.

"OH NO!!! YOU'RE MEETING ALL MY STANDARDS!!!"

Sweetie Belle had to work hard to hold her laughter while jumping above the bones.

"I GUESS THIS MEANS I HAVE TO GO ON A DATE WITH YOU...? LET'S DATE L-LATER!! AFTER I CAPTURE YOU!"

"But if you capture me, then I won't be able to date you because I will be at the capital!"

"NOT IF I DATE YOU BEFORE I SEND YOU TO THE CAPITAL! I KNOW, I KNOW, I'M A GENIUS. NYEH HEH HEH!"

"Well, I tried," Frisk said with a sheepish shrug at Sweetie Belle.

"Maybe if you had given him the puppy dog eyes?" the filly proposed.

"Uh, maybe."

Meanwhile, Papyrus wondered what he would wear for the date while he continued to send bones, some of them extending and shrinking back and forth. There were even bones floating in the air so the kids had to be careful of them while jumping to avoid the other bones. Sweetie Belle had no problems, but she could see that Frisk was struggling a lot, so she helped her with her magic, making her float up and down as the human jumped to avoid the bones.

Darn, with the Blue mode, Papyrus was a surprisingly strong foe!

"HEY! STOP USING YOUR MAGIC TO HELP THE HUMAN! THAT'S NOT FAIR! ACTUALLY, THIS FIGHT WASN'T EVEN FAIR FROM THE START! YOU ARE TWO, AND I'M ONLY ONE! SO YOU CAN USE THE UNBEATABLE POWER OF TEAMWORK AGAINST ME! SANS!!! I KNOW YOU'RE HERE!!! COME!!!"

Everything suddenly blacked, and when everyone could see again, Sans was now present beside Papyrus.

"you called, bro?"

"YES, I NEED YOU TO TURN THIS FIGHT INTO A FAIR TWO VERSUS TWO! THEIR TEAMWORK AGAINST OUR TEAMWORK! SO, FOR ONCE, STOP BEING YOUR LAZY-SELF AND HELP ME! I'M SURE YOU KNOW HOW TO FIGHT. AT LEAST A LITTLE."

"well, of course, i'm a sentry after all. welp, alright, i will help ya bro. i wouldn't want you to feel bonely any longer."

"SANS! THAT'S NOT THE MOMENT! AND I WASN'T FEELING "BONELY" AS YOU SAID! I JUST NEEDED HELP! THE PONY ISN'T STOPPING PROTECTING THE HUMAN WITH HER MAGIC! I CAN'T WORK IN THESE CONDITIONS!"

"then let's split it up."

Sans suddenly put his hands together in front of him before separating them, and Frisk and Sweetie Belle found themselves being separated, the human sliding to the left while the pony slid to the right.

"What?" they both said in surprise.

"blue mode, it's like a swiss knife," Sans explained with a wink. "okay, time for me to start."

Sans then sent a single little bone that advanced very slowly toward Sweetie Belle.

"Uh..."

"SERIOUSLY SANS?! ARE ALL YOUR ATTACKS AS LAZY AS YOU?"

"come on, paps." Sans suddenly raised an arm, and Sweetie Belle found herself floating in the air. Before she could even begin to understand what was going on, Sans then rapidly put his arm back down, and the filly was slammed right on the little bone, hurting her. "i may be lazy, i'm not stupid. and that's good that you called me because i wanted to see what sweetie belle was made of."

While Papyrus stared at Sans in shock after the trick he just pulled off, Sweetie Belle recovered and healed herself. "Nice one... And to answer you, I'm made of bones, organs, bloods, and muscles, mainly. There are also water, minerals, bacteria, and some other stuff."

"thanks. someone went to school at least."

"NYEH HEH HEH! I KNEW I COULD COUNT ON YOU DESPITE EVERYTHING. NOW, I KNOW THAT WE WILL CAPTURE THE HUMAN! NOW!!! PREPARE TO WITNESS THE POWER OF BROTHERLY TEAMWORK!"

The two skeletons then began to send bones at once, Papyrus sending groups of floating bones extending and shrinking, touching the ground at their max length, while Sans sent small, slow bones on the ground.

"I CAN ALMOST TASTE MY FUTURE POPULARITY!"

"and i can almost taste the burger i will get when this is over."

"UGH! YOU'RE IMPOSSIBLE! HOW CAN YOU THINK OF BURGERS AT THIS MOMENT?!"

"because i'm hungry."

Sans then sent platforms floating a little further up before he used his gravity power to make Frisk walk on them upside down, forcing her to jump from platform to platform to avoid Papyrus' bones. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle had to jump through very small gaps between bones, at random heights. Then, as she jumped through the last gap, Sans used his gravity power to slam Sweetie Belle back on the ground just as Papyrus sent some bones. Quickly recovering from the slamming, Sweetie Belle immediately jumped again, barely avoiding the bones.

Then, Sans fell asleep, and Papyrus found himself attacking alone, Frisk returning on the ground.

"SERIOUSLY?! THIS IS NOT THE MOMENT FOR ONE OF YOUR NAPS! SANS! WAKE UP!"

"snore... snore... snore..."

"YOU AREN'T EVEN ASLEEP!!"

"sorry bro, i'm not used to working so much."

"UUUGH!!!" Papyrus groaned before he took a bottle of ketchup from under his chest plate. "WILL THIS DO TO KEEP YOU FOCUSED MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES?"

Sans opened his eyes and looked at the bottle of ketchup with a wider smile. "it may work."

Papyrus then tossed the ketchup at Sans, and the smaller skeleton restarted attacking, sending several small bones at Sweetie Belle, these one much faster. Instead of bothering herself trying to jump above them, Sweetie Belle just jumped once and formed a magical platform under her hooves, the platform floating above the bones. She then gave Sans a smug smile.

"oh oh, seems like i'm not the only one who can create platforms."

"THAT SLIPPERY SNAIL! CHEATING AGAIN!"

"She's not a snail, she's a pony," Frisk said as she jumped above another group of bones while lowering her head to avoid a floating one.

"YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!"

"so you wanna play like this, uh?" Sans asked.

Sweetie Belle just answered with a smug smile and a bring-it-on sign with her hoof.

"alright."

Then, Sweetie Belle found herself surrounded with bones, and Sans used his gravity power to send her toward them, only for Sweetie to create more platforms each time. The bones then disappeared, and Sans sent the filly toward Frisk who was still busy avoiding Papyrus' bones. The human avoided her by jumping backward, and Sweetie Belle landed beside her, on her hooves.

"THIS IS STARTING TO TAKE LONG. I MAY HAVE TO USE MY SPECIAL ATTACK!" Papyrus said.

"i can't wait to see it."

Sans immediately separated Sweetie Belle from Frisk again, only to exchange their places when they didn't expect it as they were avoiding the bones. When this happened, Sweetie Belle quickly pushed Frisk out of the way of a bone with her magic, the pony herself getting hit in return but she immediately healed herself.

"that healing is annoying."

"IT DOESN'T MATTER, SHE ISN'T OUR TARGET. THE HUMAN IS THE ONE WE SHOULD GO AFTER IN PRIORITY. BUT THE PONY STILL PROTECTS HER DESPITE EVERYTHING! NYEEEEEHHHH!!!!!"

Papyrus sent bones after bones very rapidly both at Frisk and at Sweetie Belle, making it very difficult for them to avoid, so Sweetie Belle helped Frisk again despite everything, including Sans still using his own bones and gravity power against her. Blue bones were even included to trick her. Sweetie Belle rapidly used another magical platform to remain in the air and avoid them, but then, Sans sent bones both on the ground and in the air, forming a twisting tunnel made by them, and Sweetie Belle had to carefully move up and down in it.

Sans then turned the tunnel into a dead end, with no visible way for Sweetie Belle to avoid the bone at the end.

But the filly simply moved her platform to the left.

"WHAT?! SHE CAN DO THIS?! BY THE WAY, THAT WAS VERY UNFAIR, SANS."

"eh... seems like it doesn't matter for her if she can't move to the side if she can make whatever she's on move in her place. and sorry, i guess that i let your passion get the better of me. but it seems like i'm of no use in the end... you should use your special attack. at this point, it's our last chance."

"YES, PROBABLY. BEHOLD...! MY SPECIAL ATTACK!"

...

It was then that they discovered the dog from earlier munching on a big bone behind Papyrus and Sans.

"WHAT THE HECK! THAT'S MY SPECIAL ATTACK! HEY! YOU STUPID DOG! DO YOU HEAR ME!? STOP MUNCHING ON THAT BONE!!!" Papyrus yelled, which only had for effect to scare the dog away with the bone. "HEY!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!! COME BACK HERE WITH MY SPECIAL ATTACK!!!"

"well, at least, it loves your special attack, so it must have been good."

"DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEANT, NOW?" Papyrus said to Sweetie Belle. "THIS MUTT IS MY WORST NEMESIS! WELL! NEXT TIME, WE WILL SEE IF IT LOVES EXTRA-SPICY BONES!"

"I advice against it, or this dog will turn into a fire-breathing dog, or dragondog," Sweetie Belle said.

"A DRAGONDOG? EVERYTHING BUT THAT! THEN I WILL HAVE TO FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO GET MY REVENGE."

"But now, you don't have your special attack anymore," Frisk said.

"WELL, I'LL JUST USE A REALLY COOL REGULAR ATTACK, THEN," Papyrus said, disappointed.

"i have your back, bro."

"I COUNT ON YOU, THEN!"

Then, Sans used his gravity power to send Sweetie Belle right into the river. "i wonder why i didn't think of this earlier."

"GOOD JOB, SANS! THEN IT'S MY TURN! MY..." He sighed. "ABSOLUTELY NORMAL ATTACK."

As Papyrus began his attack on Frisk, Sweetie Belle teleported out of the water, only to be sent back in it by Sans before she could do anything, leaving Frisk to fend for herself. The girl quickly ate a bisicle (that she got from the shop at Snowdin) to heal herself before she did her best to avoid the attack, composed of many groups of bones.

Sweetie Belle teleported out of the water again, and this time, copied Sans by sending him in the water before he could act again. Then, she turned toward Frisk and Papyrus just as the human jumped above bones forming "COOL DUDE", making her stifle a giggle. However, she couldn't stifle it when Papyrus then sent a bone with sunglasses on a skateboard.

Her laugh was cut short when Papyrus then sent a real army of bones with a giant one at the back.

No way Frisk could jump above all of them, and especially not above the giant one! So Sweetie Belle prepared herself to use her magic.

Only for Frisk to jump, and to go higher, and higher, AND HIGHER! Until she managed to pass above the giant bone!

"Whaaat?!!" the filly shouted in disbelief.

"heheh... of course..." she then heard Sans, freshly out of the water, say behind her. "you couldn't stop yourself from helping her, uh, papyrus?"

"OF COURSE! 'HUFF'" the little brother answered, out of breathe. "I REFUSE TO SEND 'HUFF' IMPASSABLE OBSTACLES! AND IF THEY'RE IMPASSABLE, THEN I MAKE THEM PASSABLE! AND WATCHING THE HUMAN JUMP ABOVE THAT GIANT BONE WAS WORTH IT!"

Sans then returned back beside Papyrus. "but now, it seems that we're at an impasse. this fight is going nowhere."

"OBVIOUSLY! THEY CAN'T DEFEAT US! BUT THEY CLEARLY ARE DETERMINED TO NOT GIVE UP!"

"so what do we do? we determine this with rock-paper-scissor? uh... sweetie belle may not be able to participate."

"NO! I ONLY SEE ONE SOLUTION! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, ELECT TO GRANT MY FOES PITY! I WILL SPARE THEM! LET'S END THIS NOW."

"are you sure? what about your dream?"

"LIKE YOU SAID, WE ARE AT AN IMPASSE. IT'S CLEAR THAT WE CAN'T CAPTURE THE HUMAN. SO LET'S JUST STOP THIS FIGHT BEFORE SOMEONE SERIOUSLY GETS HURT."

At this, the SOULs disappeared, signifying the end of the fight.

However, Papyrus looked very sad now that he failed to capture a human. Frisk immediately approached the skeleton and patted his leg to gain his attention.

"Are you alright?"

"NOT... REALLY. I FAILED TO CAPTURE YOU. UNDYNE WILL BE DISAPPOINTED IN ME. I'LL NEVER JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD... AND... MY FRIEND QUANTITY WILL REMAIN STAGNANT!"

"Nope! It won't!" Sweetie Belle said as she approached. "You gained two friends!"

"Yeah! We are your friends now! To you and Sans!"

"REALLY!? YOU WANT TO BE FRIENDS, WITH ME??? WELL THEN... I GUESS... I GUESS I CAN MAKE AN ALLOWANCE FOR YOU!"

Behind the kids, near the river, Sans chuckled. "me too."

"WOWIE!! WE HAVEN'T EVEN HAD OUR FIRST DATE..." Papyrus continued as he looked at Frisk. "AND I'VE ALREADY MANAGED TO HIT THE FRIEND ZONE!! WHO KNEW THAT ALL I NEEDED TO MAKE PALS WAS TO GIVE PEOPLE AWFUL PUZZLES AND THEN FIGHT THEM?? YOU TAUGHT ME A LOT! I HEREBY GRANT YOU PERMISSION TO PASS THROUGH! AND I'LL GIVE YOU DIRECTIONS TO THE SURFACE. CONTINUE FORWARD UNTIL YOU REACH THE END OF THE CAVERN. THEN... WHEN YOU REACH THE CAPITAL, CROSS THE BARRIER. THAT'S THE MAGICAL SEAL TRAPPING US ALL UNDERGROUND. ANYTHING CAN ENTER THROUGH IT, BUT NOTHING CAN EXIT... EXCEPT SOMEONE WITH A POWERFUL SOUL... LIKE YOU, HUMAN!!! THAT'S WHY THE KING WANTS TO ACQUIRE A HUMAN. HE WANTS TO OPEN THE BARRIER WITH SOUL POWER. THEN US MONSTERS CAN RETURN TO THE SURFACE! OH, I ALMOST FORGOT TO TELL YOU... TO REACH THE EXIT, YOU WILL HAVE TO PASS... THROUGH THE KING'S CASTLE. THE KING OF ALL MONSTERS... HE IS... WELL..."

Frisk gulped.

"HE'S A BIG FUZZY PUSHOVER!!!"

"What?"

"EVERYBODY LOVES THAT GUY. I AM CERTAIN IF YOU JUST SAY... "EXCUSE ME, MR. DREEMURR... CAN I PLEASE GO HOME?" HE'LL GUIDE YOU RIGHT TO THE BARRIER HIMSELF! ANYWAY!!! THAT'S ENOUGH TALKING!!! I'LL BE AT HOME BEING A COOL FRIEND! FEEL FREE TO COME BY AND HAVE THAT DATE! AND FOR YOU, PONY, TO HANG OUT! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!"

Papyrus then returned in Snowdin, somehow walking in the air, leaving Sweetie Belle and Frisk to continue.

But Sans was still here. "i'm glad this ended well. i hope you won't hold what i did against me, but it is the duty of a brother to help his sibling when they need help. i wasn't serious anyway. i mean, me? going serious? can you imagine? what a joke! well then, you can continue to waterfall, unless you prefer first to have this date with my bro? that's your choice. anyway, see you very soon." Sans then followed Papyrus into Snowdin.

Sweetie Belle gave Frisk a knowing smirk. "Why make him wait? You should go have this date now."

Frisk nodded, and they both returned in Snowdin where they found Papyrus in front of his house.

"YOU ALREADY WANT THIS DATE WITH ME? YOU MUST BE REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT THIS... I'LL HAVE TO TAKE YOU SOMEPLACE VERY SPECIAL... A PLACE I LIKE TO SPEND A LOT OF TIME!!!"

Papyrus then walked away, and Frisk waved at Sweetie Belle who decided to remain behind before she followed him.

At first, it looked like Papyrus was leading Frisk to Grillby's, but then, he turned around, both to Frisk and to Sweetie Belle's wonder. Before long, Papyrus led the human back in front of his house.

"MY HOUSE!!! AND YOU CAN ENTER TOO, PONY!"

Papyrus then entered his house. Behind, the kids glanced at each other before they followed him inside.

The house was very spacious. There was a table immediately at the right of the entrance, with a single rock on it, which was apparently Sans' pet rock, but Papyrus was the one taking care of it because Sans always forgot. In front of the entrance was the kitchen which looked normal... excepted for the very tall sink that went all the way to the ceiling. Papyrus said that he increased its height to store more bones. However, when they opened the door to have a look, they found the dog from earlier, munching on a bone again.

"WHAT!?!?"

The dog then ran away.

"CATCH THAT MEDDLING CANINE!" Papyrus shouted. But by the time he said it, the dog was already gone. "CURSES!!!"

Then, they heard a door open at the floor above, and someone played a trombone.

"SANS! STOP PLAGUING MY LIFE WITH INCIDENTAL MUSIC!!!"

Sans! Darn it! Sweetie Belle thought as she quickly put her hooves on her mouth to hold in her laughter, Frisk doing the same.

As they calmed down, they got out of the kitchen and saw a dirty sock with a series of notes against a wall.

SANS! PLEASE PICK UP YOUR SOCK!

ok.

DON'T PUT IT BACK DOWN! MOVE IT!

ok

YOU MOVED IT TWO INCHES! MOVE IT TO YOUR ROOM!

ok.

AND DON'T BRING IT BACK!

ok.

IT'S STILL HERE!

didn't you just say not to bring it back to my room?

FORGET IT!

This time, both Sweetie Belle and Frisk burst into laughter.

Papyrus sighed. "SANS, HIS SOCKS, AND I... AN ETERNAL DRAMA."

Beside the sock was a television, actually off, in front of a green couch. Then, at the corner of the room, in front of the stairs leading to the second floor, was a small round table with a joke book on it.

Sweetie Belle took the book and opened it, only for the book to contain a quantum book, which contained a joke book, which contained a quantum book...

She put the book back on the table. "This would be a perfect prank for Twilight."

Only two doors were on the second floor, one with a STOP sign, yellow ribbons, and other stuff on it that was Papyrus' room, and the other with nothing on it leading to Sans' room, and both were locked. Between the two doors, on a wall, was a picture of a bone.

Done looking around, Papyrus proposed to Frisk to go in his room for their date.

"Well then, I will wait here," Sweetie Belle said.

"ARE YOU SURE? YOU WILL BE ALONE. AND I DON'T WANT YOU TO FEEL NEGLECTED."

"It's no problem. It's a date between you and Frisk, I don't want to be in the way."

"yeah."

Papyrus was startled by Sans suddenly being behind him, letting out a small scream. "SANS! I TOLD YOU COUNTLESS TIMES TO NOT DO IT! IF I HAD A HEART, I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN A HEART ATTACK!"

Sans just replied with a big smile before he said, "you don't need to worry about Sweetie Belle remaining alone. i'll keep her company. go have fun, you two."

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS WORST. BEING ALONE, OR BEING ALONE WITH YOU."

"Don't worry, I will survive."

"ALRIGHT. COME, HUMAN!" Papyrus said before he climbed the stairs, followed by a giggling Frisk. Soon enough, they both disappeared behind the door, leaving Sweetie Belle alone with Sans.

"So... I guess this is kinda sorta my own date with you."

"you didn't flirt with me, so i don't think this counts. beside, i'm not interested. anyway, should we await them on the couch? we can watch the tv, and i have popcorn."

"I'm not against it, ok."

However, it turned out that there was nothing actually on the TV excepted someone warning that a new program will be coming soon, so Sans turned the TV off and they just sat on the couch eating popcorn.

"since you aren't a bad fella, then i should as well tell you this, be careful in waterfall. it's under the jurisdiction of undyne, the captain of the royal guard, and she is even more passionate than papyrus. convincing her to not capture frisk won't be easy, if not impossible."

"Thanks for the warning. Maybe I should warn you of something in return. You seem like you are the right guy to say this to despite everything, and you may help us. But... Where to start..."

"by the beginning, i guess."

"But I don't know what is the beginning! Mmh... Do you know that Frisk has the power to SAVE and RELOAD timelines?"

"i heard about this power. i'm frankly not surprised she got it. the kid seems very determined. what about it?"

"I encountered a talking flower who was apparently in possession of this power before Frisk, and from what Frisk told me, this flower is not the kind of person you want to have this power. The thing is that this flower is now following us, and he probably intends to get this power back. Do you know of a way he could gain enough determination to regain the power back from Frisk?"

Sans frowned visibly despite his smile. "i think i know, yes. you see, frisk is not the first human to fall down here. asgore, the king, already got his hands on six SOULs... as you know, monsters can absorb SOULs. it's not hard to put two and two together."

"So Flowey wants to absorb the six SOULs. Yeah, now I understand. The SOULs are probably guarded by Asgore who must be very powerful, so Flowey probably expects us to at least distract him long enough to reach them. Darn, clever!"

"well, why not simply go pull out the weed?"

Sweetie Belle shook her head. "I would rather not kill if I can avoid it. Maybe there's something I can do to avoid this outcome. I will only kill if I feel there is no other choice to save lives. And now that I know what Flowey is planning, I can plan to avoid this."

Sans shrugged. "your choice. by the way, i don't think that this flowey is a monster."

"Really? Why?"

"i know all the species of monsters in the underground. yes, there are some plant monsters, but i have never heard of a flower monster. i fear that he may be something else."

"If he is not a monster, then what is he?"

For the first time since Sweetie Belle encountered him, Sans lost his smile. "i only see one possibility. and if it is what i think it is, then it is very bad. i saw you go in the library, so you probably read about what makes a SOUL."

Sweetie Belle nodded. "Love, hope, and compassion."

Sans nodded. "then what do you think would happen if a SOULless object was given life somehow?"

Sweetie Belle thought about it for a few seconds before she understood. "The object given life, not having a SOUL, wouldn't be able to feel love and all that stuff. You think that Flowey is something like that?"

"i'm pretty much certain, yes. as for how it was given life... you may have to go ask dr. alphys. i only see her who could have done this. and this confirms one thing: this weed must NOT get this power back, for the sake of everyone."

"Count on me."

After that, they remained silent as they waited for Frisk and Papyrus to come out of his room.

Author's Note

I couldn't find a song made with Bonetrousle and Sans' theme, which surprised me. Nobody thought of making a fight/theme for a case where the skelebros would be together in a non-genocide run?

Chapter 26: The Good Captain

When Frisk and Papyrus came out of the room, the skeleton had the horror of hearing his worst nightmare.

"why are skeletons so good at chopping down trees?"

"Uh... I don't know."

"that's because they are lumbarjacks!"

Two laughs followed.

"Ok, my turn! But first, do you have water? I'm a little horse!"

"ah! classic! but sorry, i don't have water on me, i'm just made of bones."

Two laughs followed again, and Frisk had to hold one.

"OH NO... PLEASE NO... EVERYTHING BUT THAT..."

"What do you call blueberries playing the guitar?"

"uh... i don't know. what do you call blueberries playing the guitar?"

"A jam session!"

Papyrus ran down the stairs yelling, "STOOOOOOP!!! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ONE MORE JOKE! PLEASE, STOP THIS TORTURE! I KNEW I SHOULDN'T HAVE LEFT YOU TWO ALONE!"

"Come on Papyrus," Frisk began as she giggled. "Don't they tickle your funny bone?"

"NOT YOU TOO!!! FRISK, DON'T BETRAY ME AFTER EVERYTHING WE WENT THROUGH!"

"oh, so you finally learned the human's name. by the way, how did the date go?"

"I got friendzoned," Frisk answered. "But that's okay."

"I SADLY COULDN'T RECIPROCATE HER FEELINGS, BUT WE CAME TO AN UNDERSTANDING."

"And at least, we had fun!"

"QUITE! IT WAS AN ENRICHING EXPERIENCE."

"And he gave me his phone number," Frisk said as she showed her phone.

"THIS WAY, I WILL BE ABLE TO GIVE YOU MY USEFUL ADVICES EVEN IF I'M NOT PRESENT!"

"And what do you advise us to do against Undyne?" Sweetie Belle asked.

.................

"TO RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN!"

"Thanks. It'll be very useful," the filly deadpanned.

"YOU'RE WELCOME!"

"so, now that the date is over, how about we go to grillby's before i return to my post? on the house," Sans proposed.

"I wouldn't mind."

"Me too."

"REALLY YOU TWO? YOU WANT TO GO IN THAT PALACE OF GREASE AND SALT? HOW ABOUT I COOK YOU SOME NICE PASTA INSTEAD? IT'LL BE MUCH BETTER!"

"Uh... As much as I would like more of your spaghetti, I wouldn't mind going into a restaurant. I haven't been in one since forever," Frisk replied.

Papyrus groaned. "AND OF COURSE, THE ONLY RESTAURANT AROUND IS GRILLBY'S, AND ALL THE OTHERS ARE AT THE CAPITAL. THEN I SUPPOSE THAT I CAN'T SAY ANYTHING AGAINST IT."

"technically, grillby's is a pub, but i suppose that it still counts."

They then went to Grillby's, and the following moments were filled with good laughs and bad food. The pub was managed by a monster entirely made of fire, and there was a small number of patrons, including the dogs who were all playing Poker (Lesser Dog playing by himself for some reason). Frisk then found herself sitting on a whoopee cushion that wasn't here five seconds earlier, to Papyrus' annoyance, before they ate some burgers (vegetarian for Sweetie Belle). The meal was filled with anecdotes about the skeletons' life, Sweetie Belle telling some about her life, and a lot of jokes and puns. Once the meal was over, they then joined the dogs and did a few rounds of Poker, Sans helping the children to learn. The smaller skeleton was clearly a master of the game, but he quickly found a rival in Frisk who revealed to have a perfect Poker Face, leading to some intense rounds between the two. Papyrus, however, was a victim, and Sweetie Belle did her best while learning.

Eventually, they left Grillby's, and the skeletons let Frisk and Sweetie Belle continue toward Waterfall.

Waterfall was a different ambiance from Snowdin. As Sweetie Belle and Frisk followed the river again, the snow disappeared, the temperature rose, there were no more trees, and the ground and walls became mainly purple colored. They began to pass beside waterfalls either coming all the way from the ceiling of the Underground or from cliffs, and where Snowdin had been somehow well alight despite being underground, the area here became somber. And to the children's awe, they began to see more and more gems in the walls as well as in the ceiling, the precious stones glowing, illuminating the dark cavern like countless stars.

The result was breathtaking. Absolutely beautiful. And gave a feeling of absolute peace. Sweetie Belle could simply lie down here and watch the 'stars' while listening to the river and the waterfalls for hours.

Eventually, the river turned left, but they had to continue forward in a smaller path. Here, they found Sans behind another sentry station somehow covered in snow, as if it was the sentry station from Snowdin somehow transported here. He wasn't alone here as there were two other monsters. One of them was one they had briefly seen back at Snowdin, a yellow, reptilian, armless monster about as tall as Frisk that had been present beside the decorated fir. The little monster was currently looking at an abyss, at the waterfalls disappearing in it. The other was a red fish-like monster beside a tall blue flower that seemed to be whispering something. The monster explained that the flower was what was called an Echo Flower, a flower that repeated the last sound it had been exposed to like an echo. And indeed, when they listened, the flower repeated what the monster just said again and again.

Sweetie Belle was now thinking of taking some seeds to bring back home.

Frisk rapidly activated a Save Point before they approached Sans.

"You have two stations?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"what? you've never seen a guy with two jobs before?"

"What is surprising us is that you have two jobs," Frisk said.

"oh, but i have a good reason to have two jobs. having two jobs means that i have twice as many legally-required breaks."

"Figure!" both children said with a giggle.

"well, don't mind me. continue your adventure. but be careful. my bro has gone to give his report to undyne, and they should meet further ahead. if you decide to continue now, you may need to hide, unless you want a close encounter with a few dozens spears of energy. i don't want you to be spearited away."

"You know we won't," Sweetie Belle replied.

"true, but isn't it normal for a friend to say that kind of stuff even if there's no reason to worry?"

It was with some giggles that the kids left Sans and continued.

They passed beside a box and reached a river with rushing water, between two waterfalls. They carefully avoided the boulders dragged by the strong water as they traversed it, and they reached a patch of seaweed. Once they entered it, they stopped as they suddenly heard Papyrus' voice from the top of the cliff at their left.

"I'M SORRY, UNDYNE, FOR BEING SO LATE. I WAS SOMEHOW CONVINCED TO ENTER GRILLBY'S AND TO PLAY SOME ROUNDS OF THAT INFERNAL GAME THAT MY BROTHER AND THE DOGS LIKE TO PLAY."

They couldn't hear Undyne's answer.

"SORRY FOR WORRYING YOU. IT WASN'T MY INTENTION."

...

"YES, I FOUGHT THE HUMAN. I HAD TO CALL SANS FOR HELP BECAUSE FRISK WAS HELPED BY THAT PONY I TALKED ABOUT. BUT... WE FAILED."

...

"B-BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO! YOU SEE... YOU SEE..."

...

"... I UNDERSTAND. THEN, I'LL HELP YOU IN ANY WAY I CAN."

After that, everything became silent, so Frisk and Sweetie Belle supposed that Papyrus and Undyne were gone. However, as soon as they moved, causing the grass to rustle, they heard a metallic sound from the top of the cliff, followed by what seemed to be metallic footsteps approaching, so they immediately stopped again. Through the grass, they saw a being entirely clad in armor partially hidden by the shadows come to the edge of the cliff, looking down at the grass. Taking a threatening position, the being in armor, Undyne, then materialized a blue spear made of energy, clearly staring at Frisk.

Buck! I guess I have to act! Sweetie Belle thought before she flew out of the grass.

Taken by surprise, Undyne stepped back, letting the pony land in front of her.

From up close, Sweetie Belle could see more features. The armor looked pretty normal, in various shades of grey, but the helmet looked very scary, possessing a fanged mouth, and because of the shadows, only one eye, glowing through the darkness, was visible. The helmet also had another opening at the back through which a red ponytail was coming, probably Undyne's hair.

"So, you decided to come instead of remaining hidden in that patch of seaweed. You have guts, I must admit. You know, if you had remained in the seaweed, I wouldn't have attacked you. The seaweed is used for scientific study, so I could have done nothing."

Sweetie Belle stared at the knight for a few seconds before facehoofing. "Seriously? Well, drat..." She then looked down at the grass. "Hey, you heard that, Frisk? Remain in the grass and she won't hurt you!"

"I don't need to hurt the human anymore, anyway," Undyne said before she engaged a battle with the filly, making her black SOUL come out. "I can already tell that your SOUL is a special one that may be even more powerful than the one of a human. Taking it will be as much a ticket to our freedom than the human's."

"No need, I intend to destroy the Barrier, so nobody will have to die."

"Don't screw with me!" Undyne shouted. "You? Destroying the Barrier?! As if this can happen! Nobody is THAT powerful!"

"But-"

"Shut up!" Undyne suddenly swung her spear, sending a wave of energy toward Sweetie Belle that had for effect to turn her SOUL green. She then took off her helmet, revealing that she was a humanoid fish-like monster with blue skin, and that she possessed an eye-patch covering her left eye. "No more losing time blablating nonsense! I will take your SOUL and bring it to the king!"

"Oh my God!" someone who wasn't Frisk suddenly shouted from the grass. "Undyne is gonna fight?! I want to see it, but I can't see anything from down here!"

Undyne looked annoyed. "What is that kid doing here? Ugh! No matter! Oh, I almost forgot." A small spear of energy suddenly appeared in front of Sweetie Belle. "You are lucky I'm an honorable warrior! I give you a way to defend yourself!"

"Uh, no thanks. I have my own way of defending myself," Sweetie Belle replied before she materialized her weapon that she divided into the ten parts before materializing the ten double-beam swords.

Undyne's jaw dropped. "Lightsabers? Actual lightsabers? And double-bladed ones! Like that red-skinned guy!" Her expression then morphed into an excited one. "Aww yeah! I will be able to go all out from the start! Take that!"

Dozens of spear then materialized a certain distance around Sweetie Belle and approached her. The filly discovered at this moment that, because of the green SOUL, she couldn't move around anymore, so she was forced to use her swords to parry all the spears, some of which circled the filly to attack her from the opposite direction after a first faint attack.

"Ngh... You seem well trained," Undyne noticed.

"Yeah, I guess that I haven't introduced myself, Undyne, Captain of the Royal Guard. I am Sweetie Belle, formerly second in command of King Dedede from Dream Land, and now Queen of Floralia and, I guess, Alicorn and Princess of the Void!"

"What?! You're telling me that someone as young as you managed to become the right hand of a king before becoming yourself a royal?" Something then clicked. "Wait! I'm currently fighting a magical warrior princess from another dimension?! Ngaaaaahhh!!! Now I'm pumped up!!! I'll give myself at one thousand percent!!! This is the fight I have been waiting for!!!"

The number of spears suddenly tripled, and their speed more than doubled, rapidly overwhelming Sweetie Belle despite her ten weapons, forcing her to teleport.

"And you can teleport?! Now, I KNOW that I can go all out!"

Circles of blue energy appeared on the ground under and around Sweetie Belle, and she teleported again before spears came out of them. She had to continue to teleport as more of these spears continued to come out of the ground wherever she appeared.

"You know, this fight isn't as intense as it could be with you not attacking back!"

"Are you sure this is what you want?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Yes! Give me a true fight!"

"Okay," Sweetie Belle replied with a shrug. Then, with a roar, she forced her SOUL out of the Green mode, sent a powerful shock wave that destroyed all the spears around her, and charged toward Undyne. The Captain readied her spear, but Sweetie Belle sliced it in two with her own weapon before she knocked her on her back. Sweetie Belle then dropped on Undyne's belly, and she crossed two of her swords so that Undyne's neck was between them, and she did the same with all of Undyne's limbs, forcing her to remain immobile. "I win."

"What... The..."

Sweetie Belle then released her as she flew away, landing back on the ledge above the seaweed. "You still want to continue?"

Undyne quickly got up and materialized a new spear in her hands. "I can't stop! For all the monsters' hopes and dreams!" She then charged toward Sweetie Belle who sighed before she only took one of her swords and parried the spear. After easily parrying a few more attacks and jumping above a group of spears coming out of the ground, she then kicked the spear out of Undyne's hands before stopping her sword beside Undyne's neck.

"I win again."

Undyne immediately jumped backward and sent dozens of spears at the filly who destroyed them with beams excepted one that she took with her magic before she teleported in front of the Captain and pointed the stolen spear at her neck. "That's three for me."

Undyne materialized another spear in her hands and used it to knock Sweetie's spear away from her neck. The two then used their spear to fight again. "It seems like Frisk isn't the only one who is determined. You really will fight to the end to get that SOUL, uh?"

"Yeah! I can't give up!"

But eventually, Undyne ran away, only to quickly come back with a huge boulder that she then threw at Sweetie Belle. But the filly punched it, and the boulder was turned into dozens of stone bricks that perfectly fell around her, building a small house.

Sweetie Belle smiled innocently at Undyne through the entrance of the little stone house.

Undyne roared in rage.

Undyne was on her knee, breathing heavily, spear planted on the ground in front of her.

"I can't... give up..."

"As much as I admire your resolve, Undyne, it is clearly a fight that you can't win. Not now that you're out of energy," Sweetie Belle said, the filly sitting just in front of the fish lady. "If it can make you feel better, you lasted very long. How many times did I defeat her?"

"117 times," another Sweetie Belle answered, the second filly holding a notepad with 117 "V" written on it, each "V" representing a victory of Sweetie Belle.

"Thanks. You see? And despite this, you want to continue for your fellow monsters. It's really admirable."

Undyne just gritted her teeth.

"Listen. This is going nowhere. Just let us go, and you will see, once we reach the capital, I will destroy the Barrier."

Undyne growled. "It's not like I have a choice anyway... But as strong as you are, I still can't believe that you could destroy the Barrier."

"Let me try, at least," Sweetie Belle replied.

Undyne didn't answer and, instead, began to get up, but with a lot of difficulty as she used her spear as a support.

"Mmh..." Sweetie Belle looked at Undyne, then walked back toward the ledge. "Hey! Frisk! Call Papyrus! Undyne may need his help to return to her home!"

"Okay!"

"No, I don't!" Undyne shouted at the same time, but to no avail as Frisk called the skeleton.

Meanwhile, the monster kid looked up from the seaweed. "Woah... I couldn't see much, but that seemed intense! You must be very strong if you managed to defeat Undyne! But Undyne still managed to fight that long so she's still incredible! I can't wait to tell this to my friends!"

And the kid ran back to Snowdin. On the way, he tripped and fell on his face, but he got up and continued as if it didn't happen.

Papyrus then came barely one minute later. "HELLO AGAIN! FRISK TOLD ME EVERYTHING! SO YOU TWO HAD A FRIENDLY FIGHT TOO, UH?"

"Yup! And it was very fun! But now, Undyne is too tired to return to her home," Sweetie Belle said.

"I CAN SEE THAT! COMING FROM UNDYNE, I AM NOT SURPRISED. WELL, DON'T YOU WORRY, UNDYNE! WITH MY HELP, YOU'LL BE BACK HOME BEFORE YOU KNOW IT!!! AND YOU WILL TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUR EPIC FIGHT!"

Undyne simply sighed. "Very well..."

As Papyrus put one of Undyne's arms over his shoulders and led her back to her home, Sweetie Belle waved at them before she flew back to Frisk, ready to continue their adventure.

Chapter 27: Traversing Waterfall

"I'm sorry you couldn't see much of the fight. It must have been boring to wait here."

"That's okay. At least, I made a new friend," Frisk replied before she activated a Save Point just beside the seaweed.

"The monster kid?"

"Yes. We talked a lot while we were trying to "admire" the fight. You should have seen him, he was constantly ranting about how awesome Undyne was and why. It was very funny."

The two then continued their journey.

"Reminds me of one of my friends," Sweetie Belle said with a giggle.

They then reached a new puzzle. Not a hard one. There was water blocking the way, and they had to align four plants called Bridge Seeds to make them open and create a bridge. Four of these plants were present just beside the water, so all they had to do was to grab them and throw them in the water. Before long, the bridge was formed and they could traverse.

A similar puzzle followed, but a little more complex. But first, they had to deal with a monster that looked like a buffed sea stallion that came out of the water. The monster, the famous Aaron that Sweetie Belle heard about back when she arrived, then began to show off his muscles, sending by the same occasion drops of sweat toward them which hurt upon contact. Also, he quickly revealed to have the weird habit of constantly winking at them while talking in a flirty tone, which creeped Frisk out.

Sweetie Belle quickly decided to just teleport him to the river beside where they fought Papyrus and Sans.

"It should take some time for that weirdo to come back. Let's hurry to do this puzzle," the filly said, and Frisk agreed with several nods before she took one of the Bridge Seeds here and went to place it in the water.

There wasn't, however, enough space to align four Seeds from one side of the small river blocking the way to the other, so they had to find another solution. It wasn't hard to find, thankfully. While they couldn't place the Seeds "horizontally", they could place them "vertically". They just had to place a first Seed against the waterfall at the end (the Seed remaining at its foot), then align the three remaining ones after it, and it was enough to allow them to traverse.

They then reached a "Wishing Room" with some Echo Flowers, one of them saying that the monsters whispered their wishes to the stars in the sky and that, if they hoped with all their heart, the wishes would come true. But now that they were trapped underground, all they had were the sparkling stones on the ceiling.

A sad reminder of the actual condition of the monsters. It was easy to forget that they were trapped in this place.

Some monsters were in the room, mainly little slimes named Moldsmal that could simply be ignored, but also a Woshua, a strange monster that looked like a living bathtub with a round head, a crank-like tail, and a small bird sitting on the water in the body. The Woshua was a cleaning maniac, and Sweetie Belle and Frisk had to let themselves being cleaned by the monster. For this, they had to move into green colored drops of water while avoiding the others. Once they were clean, the Woshua let them go.

In the end of the room was a telescope that offered a better view of the "stars". From it, a path was leading to a dead end. However, when Frisk went to have a look in the telescope, she discovered upon pointing at a light section of the ceiling a secret message written on one of the lens that said to check the wall with an arrow pointing to the wall at the end of the path. When Sweetie Belle touched it, a hole suddenly opened, letting them continue.

They reached a wooden dock above dark water in which Water Sausages grew. On a wall were several ancient glyphs that they were both able to read, even Frisk, somehow, though she had some difficulty.

The War of Humans and Monsters.

"Oh... They're about the War..." Sweetie Belle said. "Will you be alright reading them?" she asked to Frisk.

The human girl looked very unsure, frowning, but she still nodded. "I need to know what happened."

So they continued to read.

Why did the humans attack? Indeed, it seemed that they had nothing to fear. Humans are unbelievably strong. It would take the SOUL of nearly every monster just to equal the power of a single human SOUL.

"Really. Talk about a power disadvantage. A single human could probably slaughter all the monsters if they wanted," Sweetie Belle commented. "Unless the monsters could overwhelm the human with number."

Frisk made a grimace. "But you saw them. The monsters are so carefree that by the time they would understand that there's a threat, it would be too late. And remember what we read in the library. It would be... very easy... to kill them..."

"I'm starting to have doubts..." Sweetie Belle began. "If they go to the surface, won't they simply be... slaughtered by the humans? Like you said, it would be very easy. It would only take one human getting the wrong idea."

"But... We can't just leave them trapped here. It's not better."

"I know..."

But humans have one weakness. Ironically, it is the strength of their SOUL. Its power allows it to persist outside the human body, even after death.

"Oh... I think that I know where this goes..." Sweetie Belle said.

If a monster defeats a human, they can take its SOUL. A monster with a human SOUL... A horrible beast with unfathomable power.

Following these glyphs was an illustration of such a beast, very unsettling.

However, the glyphs stopped here as they reached the end of the dock.

"This can't end here. There must be more glyphs somewhere else," Sweetie Belle said. "But I think that I already know what is next. The humans declared war on the monsters out of fear because of their ability to absorb human SOULs to become very powerful." She then looked at Frisk. "But then, if the monsters go to the surface, what is stopping History from repeating itself?"

Frisk remained silent a few seconds before she answered, "Nothing..."

They both sighed. They understood that it wasn't an easy situation for the monsters. Either they remained trapped in the Underground, or they risked being slaughtered at the surface, with the possibility for the potential survivors to be trapped again in the end.

It was very possible that, at first, most humans and monsters will get along well. It had been a long time since the War after all. But it was obvious that something was bound to go wrong sooner or later.

It was probably the first time since Sweetie Belle became a hero that she found herself in a situation where beating up someone won't solve anything.

Continuing, they reached a raft that they had to use to reach the next part of their journey. Only one person could go on it however, so Sweetie Belle was forced to fly alongside Frisk as the raft transported her to another dock beside a row of rock pillars.

Frisk's phone then rang, and she answered.

«FRISK! I JUST FINISHED BRINGING UNDYNE BACK TO HER HOME. NOW, SHE'S TAKING A SMALL NAP. BUT KNOWING HER, SHE WILL QUICKLY BE UP, JUST IN TIME FOR MY COOKING LESSON WITH HER.»

"You have cooking lessons with Undyne?" Frisk asked.

«SHE'S THE ONE WHO GAVE ME THE LOVE OF COOKING PASTAS! SHE TRANSMITTED TO ME HER PASSION, ALTHOUGH EVEN I MUST ADMIT THAT SHE IF OFTEN TOO PASSIONATE... TO THE POINT OF GOING OVERKILL. COOKING WITH HER IS LIKE GOING IN A BATTLEFIELD, WITH TOMATO JUICE REDDENING THE WALLS AND SPAGHETTI BEATEN UP UNTIL ONLY PULP REMAINS!»

"A soldier even in the kitchen," Frisk said with a giggle.

«INDEED! BUT I HAVE BEEN THINKING OF TURNING TODAY'S COOKING LESSON INTO AN OCCASION FOR YOU AND UNDYNE TO GET BETTER ACQUAINTED, AND EVEN BECOME FRIENDS! REALLY, WHEN SHE DOESN'T TRY TO KILL YOU, SHE'S NICE TO HANG OUT WITH! WHAT DO YOU THINK?»

"I think that this is a great idea, Papyrus!"

«PERFECT!!! THEN I WILL AWAIT YOU IN FRONT OF HER HOME! YOU WILL RECOGNIZE IT EASILY! IT SHOULDN'T BE FAR FROM YOUR POSITION, BUT A BIG CHASM OF WATER SEPARATES YOU FROM IT. THERE IS A SMALL BIRD THAT CAN TRANSPORT YOU, OR YOU CAN LET SWEETIE BELLE DO IT, BUT SINCE UNDYNE IS SLEEPING RIGHT NOW, I ADVISE YOU INSTEAD TO TAKE THE LONGER PATH AND HAVE A NICE TOUR OF WATERFALL. IT WILL BE WORTH IT, TRUST ME!»

"Alright. Thank you."

«NYEH HEH HEH!»

Papyrus then stopped the call. By this time, they had reached the end of the dock, before another patch of seaweed, much bigger than the first one.

"So, hanging out with Undyne?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Yes."

"Well, it will be interesting. I hope she won't hold a grudge against me. I would like to be her friend too."

After traversing the patch of seaweed, they reached another Save Point beside a cheese trapped in a crystal and an Echo Flower in front of a small hole in a wall that was repeating the squeaky noise of a mouse. Just after, they found Sans beside another telescope and a box.

"i'm thinking about getting into the telescope business. it's normally 50000G to use this premium telescope, but... since i know you, you can use it for free. howzabout it?"

Staring at Sans not sure what he was doing now, Frisk went to look into the telescope, only to see nothing but red.

"Wait..."

Looking at the eyepiece, she saw that the lens and the part around it were covered by red paint. Feeling something around her eye, she put a finger, and when she gave a look, she saw red paint now on it.

She then looked at Sans who chuckled along with Sweetie Belle when they saw her now red eye. "I see what you did there."

"are you seeing red?" Sans asked.

"Depends. Does it gives me a nice look?"

"Well, it makes you look like you went in a fight..." Sweetie Belle commented.

"Nah. I have a red eye, not a black eye."

"want me to put black paint?" Sans asked.

"Shouldn't I wait to be a teen to have my gothic period?"

"why wait?"

"I have nobody to annoy with pessimistic remarks and overly loud metal music."

"you have me and paps."

"You would just find it funny. As for Papyrus... He already is annoyed enough with you."

"good point. but my offer still stands if you change your mind."

Sweetie Belle and Frisk then left Sans by first exploring a passage beside him that led to a room with more glyphs.

It doesn't stop with just one SOUL. It is said that if a monster absorbs seven human SOULs, then it becomes a God, gaining omnipotent power. It never happened as far as we know, and it certainly will never happen.

So, nothing new.

So they left the room, passed beside some strange white monster, and reached the chasm with water that Papyrus had talked about, the water having a strange and beautiful light blue glow with Water Sausages and Waterlilies in it. There were even little glowing particles coming out of it, adding to the beauty. They could see the small bird at the other side, waiting for someone to transport.

Instead, they followed Papyrus' advice and traversed a small bridge at the right that led to an area surrounded by the glowing water where the ground was all black with some grass here and there and some very beautiful trees whose trunk glowed like the water. The contrast between the black ground and the blue glowing water and trees with the particles and the few Echo Flowers visible here and there, without forgetting the glowing gems on the walls and ceiling... There was just no word to describe it.

Nature in all its splendor. They were right to follow Papyrus' advice, it truly was worth it just for this. And it was only the beginning.

After a brief encounter with Aaron and a Woshua where Sweetie Belle teleported Aaron away before they let the Woshua clean them, Sweetie Belle finally decided to ask after some hesitation, "So... You have nobody? Did you mean here in the Underground or..."

Frisk understood what she was asking and looked at the filly for a few seconds with visible sadness and uncertainty before she decided to answer. "I don't know..."

"Uh?"

"I... I have no memories of my life before I woke up in the Ruins."

"Oh... You must have hit your head when you fell..."

But Frisk shook her head. "I wasn't bleeding, and my head didn't hurt. I don't think that's it. Also, I do remember pretty much everything else about the surface, the objects, and all. But when it came to remembering my name, my family, or where I lived, I drew a blank..."

"Then Frisk..."

"Is just a name that I decided to give myself because it sounded right. I have no idea what is my real name. This is why I want to get out of the Underground, to search about my past. But... I admit that I wouldn't have minded remaining with Toriel. It was like having a mom."

Frisk then paused, wanting to say something else but not sure if she should. Sweetie Belle let her decide.

"There is something else however, something very weird. Before I woke up, I had a dream, or maybe a vision, I'm not sure. In it, I was climbing Mt. Ebott and falling into the Underground. What is weird is that, in it, I was wearing a green shirt with a single yellow stripe instead of my current one. And I haven't changed clothes a single time since I woke up!"

"Uh... You're right, that's weird. Maybe you somehow got the memories of one of the other fallen humans?"

"Maybe... I also have this name that came to my mind, Chara, but it made my tummy feel weird so I decided not to use it."

"...I suppose we will learn more in New Home. This is where all the humans ended up after all. So, maybe if we ask the king..."

Frisk agreed with a nod.

She had the feeling that the voice in her head wanted to say something, but it remained silent. Until now, the voice had only narrated, giving small comments about objects and monsters when they fought and whenever she interacted with a Save Point. Frisk had tried to reach out to that voice, but it never answered back, instead remaining distant and detached but giving little touches of humor every now and then. But for the first time, the voice seemed ready to say something out of its narrating duty, and this concerned the name Chara and that weird vision, only to remain shut. The only other times it broke character was when it laughed at Sweetie Belle and the skeletons' hilarious antics. It tried to resist laughing, but it failed several times. It seemed to be particularly weak to puns.

Frisk had a lot of questions about this voice, and more continued to be added as time passed.

If the voice really had its own consciousness, she hoped that it will open up, and soon.

While they talked, they traversed a succession of passages connected by bridges, briefly hearing the whispers of the Echo Flowers they passed by. Before long, they reached more glyphs at what seemed to be the end of the area.

The power to take their SOULs. This is the power that the humans feared.

"Called it!" Sweetie Belle said.

Continuing, they reached a rather big lake with their path traversing it. Here, they had a nice encounter with a giant octopus monster named Onionsan who had been feeling very lonely, resulting in it not stopping talking to them about its life until they left the place. Apparently, the poor thing was the only monster now living in this lake, the others having gone into an aquarium in New Home, and Onionsan itself was feeling cramped in these waters and couldn't wait to see the ocean.

After that, they entered a room where they encountered a fish-like monster named Shyren who well deserved her name as she had her back turned to them. She was apparently tone deaf too, which made her ashamed to sing her "deadly song".

It wasn't hard to guess what they had to do to help her. Both Sweetie Belle and Frisk began to hum a song, and soon enough, this got Shyren out of her shell as she began to sing. However, while singing, she sent deadly music notes toward the children, forcing them to move around to avoid them.

They continued for a little while, getting Shyren more and more confident in her singing as they attracted a crowd. But eventually, they had to put an end to their improvised concert to continue their journey, leaving behind a very happy fish.

Beside Shyren were glyphs that said that the northern room was hiding a great treasure, so they went North only to find a piano and some glyphs that said that they had to play a song. Having no idea what song it was, they left the room and continued East where there were more glyphs describing the history of the War.

This power has no counter. Indeed, a human cannot take a monster's SOUL. When a monster dies, its SOUL disappears. And an incredible power would be needed to take the SOUL of a living monster.

There is only one exception. The SOUL of a special species of monster called a "Boss Monster." A Boss Monster's SOUL is strong enough to persist after death... If only for a few moments. A human could absorb this SOUL. But this has never happened. And now, it never will.

"Who do you think are these Boss Monsters?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Maybe the king?" Frisk wondered. "It would be logic."

No more glyphs followed, but they found instead a lonely statue with water dripping on it from the ceiling. The statue was partially covered in shadows and was also damaged by the water, so they couldn't see many features beside the shape of the body, head with horns, arms, legs, and the fact that it was sitting and seemingly looking down. It... actually looked sad.

Not far after the statue was a bucket full of umbrellas. Frisk took one, but instead of continuing, she backtracked to the statue and placed the umbrella on it, protecting it from the water.

A music box then activated inside the statue.

Sweetie Belle found it beautiful, and for some reason, filled her with a feeling of nostalgia that made her give a sad smile as she listened. Was this statue a memorial? It looked like...

"Do you think this is the song we need to play on the piano?" she then asked to Frisk, only to receive no answer. "Frisk?"

When she turned to look at Frisk, she saw the human with her eyes closed, tears dripping down her cheeks. Slowly, the filly put a hoof on her arm before she repeated her name.

This got Frisk out of whatever thoughts she had. Feeling the tears on her cheeks, she wiped them with the sleeves of her jumper. "Sorry. I'm alright. I don't know why, when I heard this song, I... I suddenly became very sad and it was as if I became lost in memories that I don't have. And I feel like I heard this song before."

And she wasn't the only one who was sad. The voice was crying too, even if it seemed to better control itself. Did the voice know that music?

"Then you probably heard it sometime in your life before you fell to the Underground. I wonder what is this song. Anyway, I was saying that it may be the song that we need to play on the piano."

"Huh. Now that you say this..."

They both returned to the room with the piano and, after a few tries, managed to play the first eight notes of the song on the piano, and a hole appeared in the wall behind.

But then, Frisk's phone rang again.

«UNDYNE JUST WOKE UP!» Papyrus informed.

"Already?!" Frisk asked.

«YES, SHE JUST CALLED ME TO INFORM ME OF THIS, AND THAT SHE WAS READY TO GIVE ME MY COOKING LESSON! I TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE QUICK! I'M STILL IN FRONT OF HER HOUSE, BUT I TOLD HER THAT I WAS BACK IN SNOWDIN. SO THIS SHOULD GIVE YOU ENOUGH TIME TO REACH HER HOME WITHOUT HER GETTING SUSPICIOUS OF MY ABSENCE. BE CAREFUL, HOWEVER, SHE SEEMS TO BE IN A BAD MOOD.»

Frisk stifled a laugh. "Yeah, I suppose that getting their butt kicked again and again does that to someone."

«YES... I'M ACTUALLY SURPRISED SHE HASN'T SIMPLY GONE HUNTING YOU AGAIN. BUT I'M GLAD OF IT!»

"She probably thought that it was no use if it was only to have her butt kicked again. Or maybe she first needed to cool down. Anyway, right now, we're at that room with the piano."

«AH! THE PIANO PUZZLE! DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH IT?»

"Not at all! We actually just solved it!"

«WHAT? REALLY?! BUT NOBODY... AHEM CONGRATULATION! UNDYNE WILL BE HAPPY TO HEAR THAT SOMEONE FINALLY SOLVED THIS PUZZLE! IT WAS HER WHO MADE IT, YOU KNOW?»

"Really?"

«YES. SHE IS NOT FOND OF PUZZLES NORMALLY, SHE IS MORE FAN OF THE MOST DIRECT WAY, IF YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN. BUT JUST THIS ONCE, SHE MADE ONE! AND A GREAT ONE, AT THAT! THAT EVEN I COULDN'T SOLVE! IF THIS ISN'T PROOF OF HER GENIUS... AND HAVE YOU SEEN THE LEGENDARY ARTEFACT?»

"Not yet. We haven't entered the next room yet."

«I SEE! WELL, IF YOU DON'T MIND, COULD YOU WAIT FOR ME TO BE WITH YOU BEFORE ENTERING IT? I WANT TO DISCOVER THIS ARTEFACT WITH YOU! MAYBE AFTER HANGING OUT WITH UNDYNE?»

"You want to be part of this historic moment, uh?" Frisk said with a knowing tone.

«YOU KNOW ME SO WELL!»

"Alright, after hanging out with Undyne then."

«GREAT!»

So they left the piano room and backtracked to the bucket of umbrellas where Frisk took another one before they traversed a waterlogged area where it constantly rained. There were many waterfalls around as well as puddles of perfectly clear water on the path. Further, the path passed beside more of that dark water with Water sausages growing in it, and they could see some Echo Flowers on grounds they couldn't access.

After a moment, they exited the raining place and reached a new area that gave a very nice view of the Underground, the ceiling with the sparkling stones, and in the distance, a city with a big castle: New Home.

Both children were left speechless by the view. The Underground really was full of wonders. And it reminded them of how huge the cavern was.

Then, they entered another small area where it rained, with another bucket of umbrellas to put the one they had in, which they did. Sweetie Belle then had to help Frisk climb a small ledge to continue. Another Save Point was found not long after, as well as more glyphs.

The humans, afraid of our power, declared war on us. They attacked suddenly, and without mercy.

In the end, it could hardly be called a war. United, the humans were too powerful, and us monsters, too weak. Not a single SOUL was taken, and countless monsters were turned to dust...

"In the end, the monsters have more reasons to fear the humans than the humans the monsters," Sweetie Belle said.

Frisk then began to cry, and Sweetie Belle quickly hugged her.

"Don't feel guilty, Frisk! It was a long time ago!"

"I-I know... But I feel so bad... J-just because we were s-stupidly scared!"

Sweetie Belle sighed. "Fear is probably the worst feeling. Maybe even worse than hate. It's not the first time that I hear of tragic events caused by it. But there's nothing we can do about it. Again, don't feel guilty because of what your species did in the past. Instead, think of what you... we can do to make things better."

Frisk sniffled a little before she replied, "Destroying the Barrier... That's a good beginning... And then... I don't know... I think that I can try to help the monsters integrate themselves back among the humans... But I'm not sure... What if..."

Sweetie Belle frowned. "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. We already thought about it. We know that it will be a matter of time before events repeat themselves if nothing is done. Maybe not right now, but sometime in the future. So we need to find a way to prepare the monsters for the possibility of another war against the humans, or to make sure that such a war won't happen. And you can work with them to find this solution. At worst, I can try to find a world where the monsters will be at peace, without humans."

"You could do that?"

"Of course! All you would have to do is to gather the monsters, then I would open a rift to a world where humans don't exist, and the monsters could walk through it. Of course, this means that I would need to keep an eye on this dimension to see if my help will be needed... Darn, I really need to find a way to communicate between dimensions. You know what, to be sure that everything goes smoothly after we destroy the Barrier, I will remain here a few days. You can count on me to protect the monsters from any humans who would want to hurt them."

"...Thank you."

"Now let's go, Papyrus is waiting for us."

All this time, the voice wanted to talk, only to say nothing again.

Frisk nodded, and they left the glyphs, reaching a huge maze-like bridge. It wasn't hard to find the right path however, and eventually, they walked down a staircase leading to a place with a Save Point and several paths that led to some houses, to where the small bird they saw earlier was, to what seemed to be a garbage dump, and to the rest of Waterfall. Near one of the house that looked like the head of a scary-looking fish (or sea-monster), they could see Papyrus who was approaching them.

"YOU FINALLY ARRIVED! ARE YOU READY TO HANG OUT WITH UNDYNE?" he asked.

Instead of getting an answer, he got a hug from Frisk.

"OH... UH... YOU MUST BE VERY EXCITED!"

"I'm sorry... For what the humans did..." Frisk muttered.

"OH..." Papyrus said as he immediately understood. "WERE YOU BORN DURING THE WAR?"

"Uh? Of course not! It was a long time ago!"

"THEN WHAT ARE YOU SORRY FOR? YOU HAVE NOTHING TO REPROACH YOURSELF! YOU HAVE BEEN NOTHING BUT NICE SINCE I ENCOUNTERED YOU! AND IF YOU STILL FEEL DOWN DESPITE WHAT I SAID, THEN I KNOW HOW TO CHEER YOU UP!!!"

"Uh?"

Papyrus suddenly grabbed Frisk and placed her on his shoulders, and the little girl couldn't stop herself from letting out a squeak. "THERE! NOW YOU HAVE NO REASON TO FEEL DOWN NOW THAT YOU'RE UP!"

This made Frisk giggle.

"Nice pun," Sweetie Belle said. "I thought you said you wouldn't let Sans corrupt you anymore."

"JUST THIS ONCE! THAT PUN WAS FOR A GOOD CAUSE! NOW, LET'S NOT MAKE UNDYNE WAIT LONGER! YOU WILL SEE! SHE WILL BEAT ALL THAT NEGATIVITY OUT OF YOU! NOT LITERALLY! I HOPE!"

Author's Note

Yeah, I know the goths don't always wear black and all. Just stereotyping for fun.

Chapter 28: Fishing A New Friend

The trio stood in front of the house looking like a sea-monster head. A piano being (very badly) played could be heard from inside. Papyrus knocked on the door that served as the mouth of the head, and a few seconds later, it revealed Undyne, now out of her armor, revealing to be wearing a black tank top and a jean with boots.

"HELLO AGAIN, UNDYNE! I FINALLY ARRIVED FOR OUR TRAINING!" the skeleton said.

"Great! Let's hurry so I can put behind the..." Undyne stopped as she remarked Sweetie Belle and Frisk slightly behind Papyrus, the two waving at her at this moment. She made a grimace before glancing at Papyrus. "Why did you bring them?"

"I WANTED THEM TO COME TO HAVE OUR TRAINING TOGETHER. ALSO, YOU WILL BE HAPPY TO HEAR THAT THEY SOLVED YOUR PIANO PUZZLE!"

"What? Really?! These punks did it?!"

"THAT'S WHAT THEY TOLD ME!"

"Yup! We activated the music box in the statue by putting a umbrella on it and played the revealed song with the piano!" Sweetie Belle said.

"I got the idea of putting the umbrella on the statue, and Sweetie Belle is the one who thought that the song of the music box was the one that we had to play with the piano," Frisk informed. "We haven't taken the legendary artefact yet however. Papyrus wanted to be with us."

"YES, I DIDN'T WANT TO MISS THIS!!! THE DISCOVERY OF A LEGENDARY ARTEFACT! THIS IS A ONCE IN A LIFETIME EXPERIENCE!"

"Fuhuhuhu!" Undyne laughed proudly. "So it took the minds of a human and of an alien from another dimension to solve my puzzle! Maybe I should make more!"

"I AGREE! JUST MAKE SURE YOU DON'T MAKE THEM OBLIGATORY, OR NOBODY WILL BE ABLE TO TRAVERSE WATERFALL ANYMORE UNLESS THEY HAVE THEIR OWN HUMAN AND ALIEN FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION WITH THEM."

"Of course! Of course! Now, why don't you come in?" Undyne said even if she gave another grimace at Sweetie Belle and Frisk.

She then let them enter.

As seen from outside, the house was rather small, as the room they were in seemed to both serve as the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen. There was a big squared table at the right with a giant sword against the wall, a purple carpet and a piano at the left, and an oven with a stove between two tables, the left one having a sink, and there was a fridge in the right corner. A door, probably leading to the bedroom, was at the left of the table with the sink.

"HERE, UNDYNE. MY FRIENDS BROUGHT A GIFT TO YOU, ON THEIR OWN!" Papyrus then said before he gave a wrapped bone to Undyne.

"Uhhh... Thanks." Undyne obviously didn't believe Papyrus but still took the bone. "I'll, uh, put it with the others." She then went to put the bone in a drawer full of them before she returned to them. "So, are we ready to start?" she asked.

"WHOOPSY DOOPSY! I JUST REMEMBERED! I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!! YOU THREE HAVE FUN!!!" Papyrus suddenly said before he jumped through a window.

Undyne didn't even bat an eye at this.

Smooth, Paps... Sweetie Belle thought.

"...So why are YOU here?" Undyne eventually asked to Sweetie Belle and Frisk.

"To hang out with you," Sweetie Belle answered.

Frisk nodded. "We would like to be your friend."

"And get to know you better," Sweetie Belle added.

"Really? How delightful!!" Undyne shouted in obvious fake joy. "I accept! Let's all frolick in the fields of friendship!" She then looked back at the children in anger. "...NOT! Why would I ever be friends with YOU!? A filly who beat me up again and again, stopping me from doing my duty! And a human whose SOUL should now be in a jar in the king's possession with the six others, ready to be used to free everyone! You two are the enemies of everyone's hopes and dreams! I WILL NEVER BE YOUR FRIEND," she finished with finality, almost growling the words. "Now get out of my house!"

Before the children could react to Undyne's words, Papyrus suddenly reappeared behind the window through which he previously jumped and said, "DANG! WHAT A SHAME... I THOUGHT UNDYNE COULD BE FRIENDS WITH YOU. BUT I GUESS... I OVERESTIMATED HER. SHE'S JUST NOT UP TO THE CHALLENGE." And he was almost immediately gone.

"CHALLENGE!? WHAT!? PAPYRUS! WAIT A SECOND...!" Undyne yelled, to no avail. "Darnit! He thinks I can't be friends with YOU!? Fuhuhu! What a joke! I could make friends with pipsqueaks like you any day! I'll show him!" she shouted with determination.

Sweetie Belle's jaw dropped. Did Papyrus just use reverse psychology to convince her to be our friend?! And with success?! And I thought that I was starting to know him...

"Listen up, you two," Undyne continued, unaware of her guests' shock at understanding that Papyrus could be cunning. "We're not just going to be friends. We're going to be... BESTIES. I'll make you like me so much you won't be able to think of anyone else!!! Fuhuhuhu! It's the PERFECT REVENGE!!"

...Why did they have a foreboding feeling?

Undyne then proposed to them to have a sit, but there wasn't enough chairs for the three of them. So Sweetie Belle created one for herself with her powers.

"Uh... Thanks for the new chair..." Undyne said with a hint of admiration. "I'll get you something to drink." Undyne then opened the fridge and took out a sugar jar, a bottle of soda, a container of hot chocolate, and some teaboxes that she placed on the over and the tables beside it. "All set! What would you like?"

"I would like the hot chocolate, please!" Sweetie Belle answered.

Frisk nodded. "Me too!"

"Very well! Wait, wait, I just remembered... That container is empty. I stopped getting it because it was always a hassle... Asgore kept getting marshmallows stuck in his beard."

"Oh? The king comes here?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Yes, sometime. He may be my king and my boss, he's also and most of all my friend." Undyne glanced aside with a saddened expression. "Friends is what he needs..."

Sweetie Belle and Frisk glanced at each other at this before Frisk said, "Then I wouldn't mind tea. Uh... Not sure why, but I want to have the golden flower one."

"Well, I will take the same," the filly said.

"...tea, huh? Coming right up!"

Undyne then prepared the tea, heating the water on the stove inside a tea-pot. Once it was ready, she poured the water in the cups she had prepared before giving them to her guests and sitting on a chair, warning them that it was hot.

"Thanks!" they both said before Sweetie began to drink. Frisk, however, decided to wait.

Undyne quickly got impatient. "It's not THAT hot!! Just drink it already!"

Frisk obeyed.

"It's really good!" Sweetie Belle praised.

Frisk agreed with a nod.

"Thanks! Nothing but the best for my ABSOLUTELY PRECIOUS FRIENDS!!"

There was then a moment of silence as they enjoyed the delicious tea.

"Hey..." Undyne eventually began. "You know... It's kind of strange you chose THAT tea. Golden flower tea... That's Asgore's favorite kind."

This got their attention. Especially Frisk's.

"Actually, now that I think about it... You kind of remind me of him," Undyne said as she looked at Frisk. "You're both TOTAL weenies!!!... Sort of."

"Am not!" Frisk shouted, cheeks pink.

"Don't think I haven't remarked how you almost always let your friend talk first. And hey! Don't take it bad! It's my specialty to be friends with weenies! It's like I have a soft spot for them!"

After another moment of silence during which Frisk pouted, she continued. "Y'know, I was a pretty hotheaded kid."

"You don't say," Sweetie Belle said with a snicker.

"Shut up you furball! I'm not as bad anymore! Anyway, so, I wanted to prove that I was the strongest, so I tried to fight Asgore. Emphasis on TRIED. I couldn't land a single blow on him! And worse, the whole time, he refused to fight back! I was so humiliated... Afterwards, he apologized and said something goofy... "Excuse me, do you want to know how to beat me?" I said yes, and from then on, he trained me. One day, during practice, I finally knocked him down. I felt... bad. But he was beaming... I had never seen someone more proud to get their butt kicked. Anyway, long story short, he kept training me... And now, I'm the head of the Royal Guard! So I'm the one who gets to train dorks to fight!... Like, uh, Papyrus."

Sweetie Belle giggled. "I can't wait to encounter King Asgore. The more I hear about him, the more I want to. Even Princess Celestia, the ruler of where I live, isn't as approachable, and she's really nice."

"That's because he never goes all mighty on us like most royals do. He remains very close to his people. He plays with the children, doesn't hesitate to help even if it means getting some mud on him, and even gives gifts to all the monsters in the Underground during Gyftmas. He's not just a king, he's a father, to all of us. Speaking of, you said you were the second in command of a king, uh? How was he?"

"Oh boy, where to start. When I first met him, Dedede was very selfish and egotistical. Pretty much the opposite of what you just said about Asgore. He actually self-proclaimed himself as the king of Dream Land, and he went to the point of taking all the food of the kingdom just for himself, because he's also very gluttonous, and lazy too when he felt like it."

"And you worked for such a guy? It must have sucked."

"As surprising as it sounds, not really. Well, it has more to do with the fact that I never had to follow orders such as stealing all the food of the kingdom. When I arrived, Dedede had recently gotten his butt kicked by a newly arrived hero named Kirby, so he was now putting all his energy into trying to defeat him. Soon enough, seeing potential in me, he personally began to train me so I could fight Kirby too. He was strong! He had that big hammer that he could swing around very easily! So I found myself with broken bones more times than I can count! But thankfully, thanks to the food having healing properties, the injuries never lasted and I was ready to continue the training the next day."

Sweetie Belle giggled. "But then, things got complicated when a real villain actually appeared, and this is where I discovered that despite all his faults, Dedede wasn't that bad. He actually tried to fight the villain to protect Dream Land and all its people, and he managed to trap him for a time. Kirby then came and defeated the villain for good. After that, villains continued to come one after another, and little by little, everything changed. Instead of fighting Kirby, I found myself fighting at his side to protect the kingdom and even the world and I became his closest friend. Dedede's hate toward Kirby turned into a more friendly rivalry, and while he remained a jerk most of the times, he became... nicer, and I developed a real complicity with him, and I even began to consider him like a second father. Dedede also joined Kirby on some occasions to defeat villains, and even saved me once, becoming himself a hero. As for me, I quickly grew stronger, to the point that from simple servant, Dedede made me his second in command. And then, one day, I was able to defeat him in an intense duel, and on this day, he became the proudest person in the whole universe. It wasn't long after that that he made me queen of a kingdom after we defeated the local evil corrupted queen, and thus, conquered it. And you know the best part? He didn't even ask my opinion! He just assembled the peoples of Floralia and pretty much told them "Here's your new queen!" before showing me to everyone!"

Undyne burst into laughter, hitting the table a few times with her fist. "He seriously did that?! I can't believe it!"

"Oh but don't worry, I totally made him regret this later! I eventually managed to defeat the leader of a powerful army of mercenaries that was kinda rival to Dedede and his army, and he then asked my help to recruit them into his army. I countered that since he made me queen of my own kingdom, then if I helped him, I would just end up recruiting the mercenaries in my army, and if he insisted, then I would also recruit him and his army, annexing by the same occasion Dream Land. This shut him up."

"Ah!" Undyne laughed again. "You got him right! What about you, human? What can you tell me about the humans, their alien-fighting robots and magical princesses? Wait, maybe you ARE a magical princess too! Are you?"

Frisk found herself at a lost of words at her sudden question.

She was saved by Sweetie Belle. "She's amnesiac. She remembers nothing of her life before she fell in the Underground."

"Uh... Really? Damn... Do you want me to hit you on the head? It could help you recover your memories."

"Uuuuhh... No thanks!" Frisk shouted. "I'm hoping they'll come back eventually on their own!"

"As you wish. By the way, uh, Sweetie Belle, right?"

"Yup!" the filly answered.

"I totally want to hear about your heroic adventures beating up bad guys one day! It's no wonder you're so strong if you managed to defeat some! Because of being trapped in this place, I didn't get the occasion!"

"No problem!"

"Well, I guess that for now, I will content myself with training dorks and giving stars in the eyes of the children. Speaking of, about Papyrus... Well, to be honest... I don't know if... I can ever let him into the Royal Guard... Don't tell him I said that! He's just... Well..."

"He's too innocent," Sweetie Belle said.

"Yeah, exactly. He's actually pretty freaking tough! But you saw him, he just can't hurt a fly. He's too nice. I mean, look, he was SUPPOSED to capture you..." she said as she looked at Frisk. "And he ended up being FRIENDS with you instead! I could NEVER send him into battle! He'd get ripped into little smiling shreds."

Both Sweetie Belle and Frisk nodded in understanding. Even if it was his dream, Papyrus really wasn't made to be a Royal Guard, even if he proved his strength.

"That's part of why..." Undyne continued. "I started teaching him how to cook, you know? So, um, he can do something else with his life."

They nodded again.

"I totally see him opening a restaurant at the surface once the Barrier is destroyed," Sweetie Belle said.

"Yeah... Once it is destroyed..." Undyne mumbled as she glanced at Frisk before she looked back toward Sweetie Belle. "Do you REALLY think you can destroy it?"

"I'm not sure at one hundred percent, but I can at least try. I really wish to help the monsters, and Frisk too."

Undyne nodded before she remarked the empty cups. "Oh, sorry, I'll get you more tea."

She then got up to prepare more tea when she thought about something.

"Wait a second. Papyrus... His cooking lesson... HE WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE THAT RIGHT NOW!!! And if HE's not here to have it... YOU'LL HAVE TO HAVE IT FOR HIM!!!"

"Uh oh..." both Sweetie and Frisk said as they began to sweat in worry, remembering what they were told about her... passionate cooking.

Undyne then jumped on one of the tables beside the oven and kicked off the sugar and the rest.

"That's right!" she then shouted. "NOTHING has brought Papyrus and I closer than cooking! Which means that if I give you this lesson... WE'LL BECOME CLOSER THAN YOU CAN EVER IMAGINE!!!" Seeing Sweetie and Frisk's reaction, she then laughed. "Fuhuhu!! Afraid!? We're gonna be best friends!!!"

"Actually, I'm wo-Eep!" Sweetie Belle began, only to be interrupted by Undyne landing between her and Frisk in one jump before grabbing the both of them and bringing them to the table beside the fridge.

"Let's start with the sauce!!" Undyne yelled before she kicked the ground, causing fruits and vegetables to drop from nowhere.

This prompted the children to look at the ceiling to see if there wasn't a hidden trapdoor.

"Envision these vegetables as your greatest enemy! Now!! Pound them to dust with your fists!! And hooves!!"

Frisk and Sweetie Belle exchanged a glance before the human began to pet the vegetables in an affectionate manner, making Sweetie Belle laugh.

"Is this how you treat your worst enemy?" the filly asked.

"I can't help myself! I don't want to hurt anyone!"

"OH MY GOD!!" Undyne yelled. "STOP PETTING THE ENEMY!!! You! The pony! Show her how it's done! I know you can do it!"

"Uuh... If I attack them as if they were my worst enemy, nothing would remain of them, not even the juice. And I would probably destroy half of your house by the same occasion."

"Fuhuhu! I like your style! But we need sauce so... Just do your best!"

And Sweetie Belle did so. She crushed the fruits and vegetables with a powerful punch, splattering juice everywhere, including on their faces... And she also broke the table.

"Oops!"

"Don't worry! I'll just buy a new one! This is exactly what I asked! But, uhh... I guess that we will scrape this into a bowl later. But for NOW!" Undyne shouted before she kicked the ground again, making a big pot with a big wooden spoon and a box of noodles drop from the ceiling right on the stove.

"Okay, how do you do it?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"I'll tell you another time! Right now, we add the noodles! Homemade noodles are the best! BUT I JUST BUY STORE-BRAND! THEY'RE THE CHEAPEST!!! NGAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" She quickly calmed down when she saw the kids staring at her. "Uhh, just put them in the pot."

They nodded, and Frisk took the box before she began to place the noodles one at a time.

"Now you're doing it on purpose, uh?" Sweetie Belle deadpanned, but a smirk could be seen on her face, and Frisk giggled. "Give me the box. I will put the noodles in."

Frisk nodded and gave the box to Sweetie Belle, and the filly poured the noodles in the pot in one go.

"Good! Alright! Now it's time to stir the pasta! As a general rule of thumb, the more you stir... THE BETTER IT IS! Ready? Let's do it!"

Wait! What about the water? Sweetie Belle thought.

Frisk began to stir under the watchful eyes of Sweetie Belle and Undyne, the filly nodding in approval of how Frisk was doing it despite still having doubts because of the absence of water.

However, Undyne shouted, "Stir harder!"

So Frisk put in more strength.

"HARDER!"

So Frisk put in even more strength.

"HARDER!!!!"

Now, Frisk was stirring as if her life depended on it, making the pot move a little on the stove.

"Ugh, let me do it!" Undyne then shouted before she used a spear, pretty much destroying the pot and turning the noodles into mush. "Fuhuhuhu! That's the stuff!"

Sweetie Belle forcefully resisted the need to facehoof. Even she hadn't been that bad at her worst!

...

Okay, she had been that bad, but at least, she didn't destroy the tools.

"Alright," Undyne continued. "Now for the final step: TURN UP THE HEAT! Let the stovetop symbolize your passion! Let your hopes and dreams turn into a burning fire! READY? Don't hold anything back!!!"

With hesitation, Frisk began to turn up the heat, making fire appear under the partially crushed pot. She eventually stopped, only to be prompted to continue by Undyne who shouted "Hotter! HOTTER, DARNIT! HOTTER!!!!!!!" making the fire growing stronger and stronger.

Sweetie Belle prepared herself to cast a shield.

And then... "Wait, that's too-" And the next thing they knew, the whole house was on fire.

This time, Sweetie Belle couldn't stop herself from facehoofing. She took it back, Undyne WAS WORSE than her!

"Ah. Man, no wonder Papyrus sucks at cooking," Undyne eventually said.

"Let me put off the fire," Sweetie Belle said before she used her powers to stop the fire.

"Thanks. So, what's next? Scrapbooking? Friendship bracelets?"

That was so painful to watch...

"...Oh, Who am I kidding. I really screwed this up, didn't I?"

"But it was fun, at least, even if it was scary," Frisk said.

"But I think that Papyrus isn't the only one who needs cooking lessons," Sweetie Belle added with a giggle.

"I can totally cook! But I guess that I got carried away. And, well, I guess that I can understand if you don't want to be my friends after that. Sometimes, it just doesn't work. And if we can't be friends... That's okay. Because... If we're not friends... IT MEANS I CAN DESTROY YOU WITHOUT REGRET!"

Suddenly, Sweetie Belle and Frisk's SOULs came out as Undyne materialized one of her spears in her hands.

"I've been defeated... My house is in shambles... I even failed to befriend you. That's it. I don't care if you're my guests anymore. One final rematch! All out on both sides!!! IT'S THE ONLY WAY I CAN REGAIN MY LOST PRIDE!!! NOW COME ON! HIT ME WITH ALL YOU'VE GOT! NGAHHHH!!!"

"Uhh, don't you think you're..." Sweetie Belle began only to be stopped by Frisk who put a hand on her head before advancing with a determined look.

She then took her stick and swung at Undyne with all her might...

Only to do almost nothing.

...

"What. That's the best you can manage? Even attacking at full force... You just can't muster any intent to hurt me, huh?... Heh, you know what?" She dropped her spear. "I don't actually want to hurt you either. At first, I hated your stupid saccharine schtick, but... The way you hit me right now, it... Reminded me of someone else I used to train with. Now I know you aren't some wimpy loser. You're a wimpy loser with a big heart!"

This made Frisk hesitate between pouting and giggling. Sweetie Belle didn't hesitate however and laughed.

"Just like him..." Undyne continued. "Listen, uh, Frisk, and Sweetie Belle. I hope that you can pull off what you said. Or else, you would have to fight Asgore, and knowing him, he probably doesn't want to..."

"If I can't destroy the Barrier, then I can find other solutions. We won't fight Asgore," Sweetie Belle said.

"Heh. You... You know, where Frisk reminds me of Asgore, you remind me of myself. Doing everything you can to help and protect others, to give them hopes and dreams... Excepted that you can do much more than me who can only wait for a human to kill. You inspire me! You know what? I will train even harder than before and become stronger! Then... ONCE we reach the surface, I will be ready! Because I know that the surface won't be easy. They will need me!"

Sweetie Belle nodded. "People need someone strong to fight for them."

"Exactly! Now, uh, how about we leave this place? Even if you stopped the fire, the house still took some damage."

So they left the house, only to find Papyrus waiting for them not far.

"HEY! I GUESS THAT THIS WENT WELL! THE HOUSE DIDN'T EXPLODE!"

"Yeah, just a little fire, that was nothing," Sweetie Belle said.

"You missed your cooking lesson, Papyrus!" Undyne shouted. "You can be sure that once we reach your house, we will have it."

"THAT'S FAIR. JUST... AVOID PUTTING THE HOUSE ON FIRE THIS TIME. BUT BEFORE THAT, HOW ABOUT WE GO RECOVER THAT LEGENDARY ARTEFACT?!"

"Hey! Right! There's that! Frankly, I don't know what it is for. I didn't manage to make it work. So I just put it here calling it a "Legendary Artefact." It may actually be a simple fancy stone."

"We can still go look. Maybe I can determine what it is," Sweetie Belle said. "Now, let me teleport all of you to the piano room. Watch out, you may get some sickness."

Then, she did as she said and teleported everyone to the room with the piano.

Surprisingly, or not, Papyrus was the only one not getting sick because of this.

Once they all recovered, they entered the room with the Legendary Artefact, which revealed to be some kind of red spherical stone.

"SO THIS IS THE LEGENDARY ARTEFACT!" Papyrus said in awe.

"Mmh... I can sense magic in it. It definitively is not a simple fancy stone," Sweetie Belle said. "Frisk, maybe you should grab it."

"You sure?" Frisk asked.

The filly nodded and signed her to go on with a wave toward the artefact. Slowly, Frisk advanced toward it, and then, grabbed it.

Almost immediately, she felt it interact with her SOUL, filling her with a power. When she tried to see what it was, she then sent from her hand a ball of pure red magical energy that almost hit her head before exploding against the ceiling.

"Pinch me I must be dreaming..." Undyne said.

"WOWIE! THE LEGENDARY ARTEFACT GAVE FRISK MAGICAL POWERS!"

"More like it helps her using magic more easily. Humans can use magic, or else, the Barrier wouldn't exist," Sweetie Belle said. "So that artefact was made to help humans use magic. That's great for you, Frisk!"

"YES! NOW, I CAN TEACH YOU TO DO YOUR OWN MAGICAL PATTERNS! I WONDER WHAT IT WILL BE... BONES? AFTER ALL, HUMANS ARE SKELETONS WITH SKIN!"

"I don't think it will be that, Papyrus," Undyne said.

Frisk looked down at her hands as she began to think about this magic she now could use. She actually wasn't sure if she should use it. It seemed too risky. But just by curiosity, she began to ponder Papyrus' question. What form would she make her magic take? Everyone used their magic in different ways. Papyrus and Sans' bones. Undyne's spears. Toriel's fire. The Chilldrake's crescents.

For some reason, she wanted to form her magic into a knife, but she immediately resisted this urge. A knife could be useful in a kitchen, but right now... Why did she want to materialize a knife? Some kind of obsession of her past-self? She wasn't sure if she wanted to know...

Instead, she thought of something else, and a few seconds of focus later, she grew an entirely red-colored golden flower on the palm of her hand. Feeling that she was starting to get the hang of it, she made vines, and more flowers, grow out of it and from her SOUL, wrapping her body here and there with them.

"Golden flowers, uh? Why?" Undyne asked.

"They... They're the first thing I saw when I woke up in the Ruins. I found them very beautiful. I guess this is why I also wanted to try the golden flower tea... They make me feel at peace..."

"I THINK THAT THIS ABSOLUTELY SUITS YOU, FRISK!" Papyrus said.

"Yes, that's exactly your style," Sweetie Belle agreed.

"Yeah, not as badass as my spears, but for someone like you, they're perfect," Undyne said.

"Thanks!"

Maybe she will keep it finally. It felt nice.

Chapter 29: Attack Of The Killer Robot!

Papyrus and Undyne left soon after, returning in Snowdin. With Undyne's house being damaged by the fire, she planned to crash at Papyrus' home until it was repaired.

Once they were gone, Sweetie Belle made a necklace from gold and embedded the renamed Magic Orb in it before placing it around Frisk's neck. She made the necklace look like a golden flower with small vines wrapping around each others, the Orb replacing the usually white part of the flower, based on the form Frisk decided to give her magic.

"Thanks! It's beautiful!"

"You're welcome! Now, let's continue our journey."

Sweetie Belle then teleported the two of them back beside the Save Point not far of Undyne's house.

"You. You! YOU!" someone suddenly shouted in crescendo.

And then, a dummy floated down from above in front of them.

"What now?" Sweetie Belle wondered.

"You're that human, right? The one who spooked my cousin out of their dummy when you talked to them!" the dummy said.

"Uhh, uhh, what?" Frisk asked. "The dummy I talked to?"

"Yes! That dummy! What, you thought that it was just a simple dummy? Well, NOT AT ALL! My cousin lived in it, but then, you spooked them out of it with the horrible things you said to them!"

"What? But... I did nothing b-"

"IT DOESN'T MATTER! Not anymore. I thought that it was UNFORGIVABLE what you did to them! And I was planning to avenge them by taking your SOUL! But then. But then! BUT THEN! I saw you hanging out with Undyne! And if you're okay in her book, then I suppose that I can give you a second chance."

"Um... Thanks."

"BUT! Don't think you're off the hook! If you ever do something like that again, this time, I'll kill you!"

The dummy then floated away.

"Uuhhh... What was that?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"that was one of my cousins..." another voice said from behind them.

When they turned around, they saw a ghost approaching.

The ghost looked like your typical stereotype of a ghost. A floating, white, formless being looking as if that was someone hiding under a sheet. However, the ghost looked to have a rather low moral...

Frisk apparently recognized the ghost because she smiled at... him? Them?

"Napstablook! Nice to see you again! So that was another ghost?"

"nice to see you too. and yes. one possessing a dummy... sorry about them... as you saw, they have some... anger issues, but don't worry about them... while living in this dummy, we call them mad dummy. who's your friend?"

"I'm Sweetie Belle! I'm helping Frisk in her journey to the Barrier! Nice to meet you Napstablook!"

"nice to meet you too..."

"I met Napstablook in the Ruins," Frisk informed.

"and she had been very nice to me," the ghost added.

"She's nice to everyone," Sweetie Belle said with a giggle.

"...my house is in this direction," Napstablook said as they waved their head in direction of a weirdly-shaped white house beside a similarly-shaped pink house. "just... in case you want to come... but i understand if you don't. you are probably busy. i just thought of asking... just in case..."

"Well, we have time to spare. right, Frisk?"

The human nodded.

"that's great. i guess..."

So they went toward the house, only for Sweetie Belle to remark a fence not far when she looked at the right before entering. "What is that over here?"

"oh... this is the blook family snail farm. the family business... we raise snails, sell them, and we even have a race for snails that is called thundersnail. i'm currently the only employee."

This seemed to interest Frisk.

"Really? The only employee?" Sweetie Belle asked. "What about your cousins?"

"they are distant cousins, so they aren't part of the blook family, and aren't interested in the business anyway. i do have a closer cousin who used to live in that other house... but they left to accomplish their dream to become a famous entertainer. you may have heard of them. they now call themself mettaton."

"Mettaton... Mettaton..." Sweetie Belle repeated as she tried to recall if she had heard this name. Frisk quickly said that she hadn't heard it until now, but Sweetie Belle felt that it reminded her of something. Then, it clicked. "Mettaton! MTT! I heard this on the TV in Papyrus and Sans' house! I thought this was just a brand."

"the name of mettaton is now a brand, yes, but mettaton themself is the greatest entertainer of the underground, and the only television star. they now mainly live, and work, in hotland. you may encounter them if you go there. they aren't a ghost however. not anymore. they managed to fully incorporate themself into a robot."

"A robot entertainer. Noted."

They then entered Napstablook's home where they discovered that Napstablook mixed musics. So they listened to their "spooky" work which would be perfect for Nightmare Night. The Spookwave one especially gave one heck of an ambience. Napstablook was really good! The ghost eventually offered them some food... Or ghost food, which phased right through Frisk. Sweetie Belle, however, was able to eat it. After that, they spent a few minutes following Napstablook's family tradition: lying on the ground feeling like garbage.

It... really was an unique experience.

They then went to have a look at the snail farm, which raised some very strange snails, and Frisk looked at the more normal ones with visible hunger.

It seemed like she loved snails... on a plate. Sweetie Belle knew that humans were omnivore, but she didn't know that they could eat something as disgustingly-looking as snails. She didn't even want to think what that tasted like!

They did a "quick" snail race too, and they lost.

After that, they waved goodbye to Napstablook and left, returning at the Save Point.

It was then that they remarked that they had forgotten to turn off Napstablook's music, which could be heard all the way to the Save Point. Here, they encountered Aaron and a Woshua, but the music spooked them and they left, Aaron being especially affected.

Sweetie Belle made sure to "record" Napstablook's musics to use them in case they encountered Aaron again.

And so, they took the last path, the one leading to the exit of Waterfall. But first, they stopped by a shop run by an old tortoise-monster wearing an archaeologist attire named Gerson.

From his shop, Frisk bought a tea that apparently had the effect to rise speed, which would be useful during a hard battle. After that, they talked a bit. Frisk was particularly curious about that symbol that was on the wall behind Gerson, a sphere with a pair of wings above three triangles. She had apparently seen it before and wanted to learn more.

They learned quite a bit. The symbol was the emblem of the Kingdom of Monsters called the Delta Rune. The triangles apparently symbolized the monsters while the circle with the wings represented an angel, and there was a whole prophecy behind it about said angel coming from the surface to free the monsters. Most interpreted it as freeing them from the Underground, but some began to interpret it as freeing them from this mortal realm... As in, the angel would exterminate all of them...

Yeah, Sweetie Belle and Frisk preferred the first interpretation.

Also, Gerson called Asgore "King Fluffybuns" for some reason that he couldn't remember for now, but that made the children laugh a lot.

"Oh! Are my eyes playing tricks, or is it really a Magicorb that I see in that necklace around your neck?"

"A Magicorb?"

"Wait, that thing is actually called a Magicorb?" Sweetie Belle exclaimed in shock.

"Yeah, again, it's our good King Fluffybuns who named them. Ahahah! His naming skills are really legendary! Magicorbs were made by monsters back when we lived at the surface. They were created to help humans use magic. Most of them really sucked at it. I thought they had all been destroyed during the War."

"Not this one, it seems," Sweetie Belle said.

"So it really is one! I didn't expect to see one again! Take really good care of it, kid."

They then talked again a little. Gerson had that funny grandfatherly thing that just made them want to continue to talk to him. But, eventually, they had to continue their journey. So they eventually waved goodbye to him, hoping to talk to him again once the Barrier was broken.

The path opposite to Gerson's shop just led to a river, probably the same one than the one passing beside Snowdin, so Sweetie Belle and Frisk continued to the right of the shop.

It wasn't far before they found more glyphs.

Hurt, beaten, and fearful for our lives, we surrendered to the humans. Seven of their greatest magicians sealed us underground with a magic spell. Anything can enter through the seal, but only beings with a powerful SOUL can leave.

There is only one way to reverse this spell. If a huge power, equivalent to seven human SOULs, attacks the barrier... It will be destroyed.

But this cursed place has no entrances or exits. There is no way a human could come here. We will remain trapped down here forever.

And it was over...

Frisk just gave a sad sigh before the sadness was replaced by determination to free the monsters.

"It seems like the hole from which you fell wasn't present back then. It probably resulted from the collapse of the ground here," Sweetie Belle observed.

After that, they continued, reaching a dark area where they had to use glowing mushrooms to find the path in what revealed to be a small maze (thankfully for Sweetie, an easy one). On the way, they encountered a strange monster that looked like a cat but also possessed dog ears in addition to the cat ears. Beside the fur, the monster also possessed hair like humans, and was even wearing a blue shirt. And the monster was constantly vibrating!

Frisk quickly CHECKED it.

TEMMIE - RATED TEM OUTTA TEM
Loves to pet cute humans. But you're allergic!

Then, the Temmie said, "awwAwa cute!!" before attempting to pet Frisk, stretching her limb!

Frisk immediately moved to not be touched. She wouldn't mind being petted if it wasn't for that "you're allergic" part.

Instead, Sweetie Belle petted the Temmie.

"OMG!!! F3lt... SO GOOD!" the Temmie shouted, stopping her attempt to pet Frisk.

Frisk, with hesitation, decided to do the same. This caused her hand to swell and to hurt, but the Temmie was now in heaven.

"OMGfzpoyjqponfxxa!!!!! Human pets me!!! BeSt day EveR!!! (dies)"

And the Temmie fell on her back, becoming so excited that she lost consciousness.

Then...

"want be petted by human too!"

"hOI! Human Pet Temmie Too!"

"Pet! PEt! pEt!"

"HOI! Cute HUman pets me!"

"hoI!"

More and more Temmies came from a path not visible yet and shouted to gain Frisk's attention, wanting to be petted too.

Frisk grabbed Sweetie Belle's head in panic and shouted "Teleport us outta here!"

And Sweetie Belle did so, bringing them back to the Save Point not far of Undyne's and Napstablook's houses.

They eventually returned to the dark area, Frisk now cloaked, and her hand healed. Temmies were now patrolling, intently searching the human to be petted, but they thankfully didn't recognize her under that cloak.

However, they eventually reached a part of the area without mushrooms. Instead, the path was directly visible, but the area little by little darkened until nothing was visible anymore excepted some glowing purple or pink crystals.

Some glyphs on a wall said:

Without candles or magic to guide them Home, the monsters used crystals to navigate.

There were also lamps here and there that could light the whole area, but they didn't last long once activated, so they had to regularly reactivate them.

Sweetie Belle eventually decided to use her magic to light the path.

And on the way, they had an encounter with two Moldsmals, only for one of the Moldsmals revealing to be a Moldbygg when the children got too close, a taller version of Moldsmals seemingly made of several layers of the former monster with a single eye at the top, staring at them. Frisk understood that the Moldbygg didn't like people getting too close and stepped back with Sweetie Belle, and the Moldbygg was grateful for this.

After that, they traversed the maze-like area without problem. Following the path, they passed more echo flowers and found some last glyphs.

However... There is a prophecy. The Angel... The One Who Has Seen The Surface... They will return. And the underground will go empty.

Exactly like Gerson said, and it was up to interpretation how this Angel will empty the Underground.

They traversed then a long bridge above a bottomless pit, very dangerous as the bridge wasn't large and didn't have fences to stop people from falling.

After that was the end of Waterfall. A tunnel passing through a crag, behind which they could see the air becoming red, probably from high temperature, lightening the area. Tall structures could also be seen poking out from behind the crag.

Hotland.

Entering the tunnel in the crag, the path turned into a bridge passing above the river where they could see the ice blocks thrown by the wolf pass.

Then, there was a giant neon sign with red lights forming "WELCOME TO HOTLAND!" scrolling across it from right to left.

Then, they exited the tunnel, entering Hotland.

The area was in total contrast to Waterfall. Where Waterfall had cold colors, lot of darkness, and water everywhere, Hotland had warm colors, ground orange, air hot, and there was a literal sea of magma below. The temperature quickly forced Frisk to let go of the cloak.

And the area looked also much bigger, and very complex. Paths were twisting left and right, at several levels. There were tall towers linking them, probably elevators. And they could see some other structures here and there, including a large one not far.

A sentry station was at their left, with Sans in it, sleeping.

They stared at him.

And Frisk called Papyrus.

«YES?» Papyrus answered.

«Hey! Punk!» Undyne shouted.

"Hello again! Uh, did you know that Sans has a third sentry station?"

«UGH... DON'T MENTION IT! YOU WOULD THINK THAT HE IS A WORKAHOLIC, BUT THAT'S JUST MORE OCCASIONS FOR HIM TO SLACK OFF!»

«So I presume you reached Hotland's entrance?» Undyne wondered.

"Yes, we just did... And Sans is sleeping."

«SLEEPING ON THE JOB? WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED.»

«This is not permitted to continue! If the station wasn't at Hotland, I would run right now to give Sans a piece of my mind! Papyrus, you go do it!»

Papyrus groaned. «OF COURSE! THIS IS MY DUTY, AS HIS BROTHER, TO ENSURE THAT SANS DOESN'T LAZY AROUND! DON'T BOTHER WAITING, FRISK. CONTINUE YOUR JOURNEY TO THE CAPITAL. AND THANK YOU FOR BRINGING SANS' LAZINESS TO MY ATTENTION! AND BE CAREFUL! HOTLAND IS VERY DANGEROUS WITH ALL THAT VERY HOT MAGMA! IT WOULD BE VERY EASY TO FALL IN IT!»

«Speaking of, there are Royal Guards stationed there. Sorry, but I can't tell them to leave you alone! Not only I can't just tell them that I changed my mind, but I saw in these animations that Alphys showed me that humans have mind control powers, so I told them that if I began to defend you, then I would probably be under your control so they should disregard EVERYTHING I say! But I'm sure this shouldn't be a problem for you! Also, you shouldn't be far from Alphys' Lab. Too bad I won't be able to see her reaction when she will see you! She loves humans! I told you about these animations, she has a ton of them! And books! And other stuff!»

"I see," Frisk said with a giggle. "I can't wait to meet her."

She ended the call just as Sweetie Belle finished drawing glasses and a mustache on Sans' head with a marker pen, giggling.

"You couldn't help yourself, uh?" Frisk asked.

The filly just answered with a big smile.

They then left Sans to be annoyed by Papyrus - or Papyrus to be annoyed by Sans - and traversed another long bridge as dangerous as the previous one. After the bridge was a water cooler, and after it, they arrived at a crossroad with a Save Point in the middle. The path at their left was leading to an elevator but was currently blocked by two Royal Guards, one seemingly being a rabbit-monster judging by the long ears poking out of the helmet. It was hard to say however what was the second one.

The guards didn't seem to recognize Frisk as they didn't attack her, so she and Sweetie Belle went to ask them if they could pass.

"Sorry... Undyne, like, told us there was totally a human in the area. So, like, us Royal Guards are blocking off the elevators for now. Ngah! Even if the elevators aren't working anyway, we'll do our best, Ms. Undyne!" the rabbit Royal Guard said with fervor while the other remained silent.

The path at the right led to a river where they could see a small boat with a cloaked being on it. Apparently, it was a ferry to return to Waterfall and Snowdin.

Finally, the last path, in front of where they arrived, led to the lab, a large building entirely metallic.

The door opened when they approached, letting them enter the building.

The inside was plunged in darkness, so Sweetie Belle used her magic to create some light. They then passed beside a big monitor displaying Frisk much to the girl's discomfort as she understood that she had been watched all this time. After it was a messy desk covered with stacks of paper, piles of used bowls, a computer with some notes on it, a couple of figurines, and a mug. It was just beside a filled trash can and a fridge, and beside the fridge was a large purple bag of dog food.

Then, a door opened, and the light was turned on, letting the children see a yellow reptilian monster somewhat hunched over wearing glasses and a lab coat coming out of some other room. The monster eventually spotted them and was very surprised.

"Oh. My god," she said before she began to talk quickly as she panicked. "I didn't expect you to show up so soon! I haven't showered, I'm barely dressed, it's messy, and..." She then stopped fretting as she calmed down and faced them, very anxious.

"Hello! You're Alphys, right?" Sweetie Belle then began, hoping to ease the monster.

"Y-y-yes! That's me! Dr. Alphys, Asgore's royal scientist! I see that Undyne told you about me. I could see that you somehow managed to befriend her despite... her..."

Sweetie Belle and Frisk both glanced at the monitor at this, and the filly said, "We could see that..."

"I-i-i-i'm not a stalker if this is what you think!" Alphys quickly said, blushing. "It's just my duty to keep an eye on you through the many cameras installed in the Underground. Since the moment you stepped out of the Ruins, human, I have been observing you, and I was supposed to report your status to Undyne and the others. But, uh, don't worry, I'm not against you. In the contrary, the more I observed you, the more I grew fond of you. You know, watching someone on a screen really makes you root for them. And then, pony, you appeared, and together, you went through many funny moments, battled, made friendships... It's really hard to remain against you when you're both so nice! And adorable! And then, pony, you revealed to have all these incredible magical powers and fighting skills it was like watching an anime and you're now my new model!" Alphys rambled a little before she calmed down. "S-so, ahhh, I want to help you! Using my knowledge, I can easily guide you through Hotland! I know a way right to Asgore's castle, no problem!"

"It would be really appreciated, Dr. Alphys!" Sweetie Belle said happily.

"Oh, please, just call me Alphys. We're friends after all. R-r-right?"

"Yeah!" both kids affirmed.

"Really? T-thank you! Hotland is full of dangerous puzzles and traps, but you can count on me! Well, umm, there's actually a tiny issue. A long time ago, I made a robot named Mettaton."

Sweetie Belle and Frisk glanced at each other. Wasn't that Napstablook's cousin?

"Originally, I built him to be an entertainment robot. Uh, you know, like a robotic TV star or something. Anyway, recently, I decided to make him more useful. You know, just some small practical adjustments. Like, um... Anti... anti-human combat features? Of c-course, when I saw you coming, I immediately decided... I have to remove these features! Unfortunately, I may have made a teensy mistake while doing so. And, um... Now he's an unstoppable killing machine with a thirst for human blood? Ehehehehe..."

Sweetie Belle and Frisk now frowned at each other. There was something wrong here... Could a ghost now inhabiting a robotic body lose control? Also, Alphys talked of Mettaton as if they... he was just a robot, and not a ghost in a robot.

"Heh. But, ummm, hopefully we won't run into him!"

Three... Two... One... Sweetie Belle counted in her head.

BAM! They suddenly heard something hit the wall at the left!

"Called it..." the filly muttered.

BAM!

"Did you hear something?" Alphys asked before there were more sounds, each making the building shake. "Oh no."

There was then a sudden flash, and the building was plunged in darkness again.

And then...

"OHHHH YES!" a robotic voice shouted. "WELCOME, BEAUTIES..." There was a drum roll coming from nowhere, and a single light in the ceiling turned on like a spotlight, revealing the new arrival: Mettaton, a gray, rectangular robot with a grid of light at the top and four dials at the bottom, as well as two segmented arms finishing in white gloves, one of them holding a mike, and a single leg with a wheel who had come out of the wall after destroying it. "TO TODAY'S SHOW!!!"

And the lights fully turned back on as music played, revealing that there were now a big neon sign with written on it "GAME SHOW" on the wall, two balls in the ceiling with lights of all colors rotating giving a festive ambiance, confetti raining everywhere, and cameras.

"What the heck..." Sweetie Belle said while Frisk got closer, not sure what will happen.

"OH BOY!" Mettaton continued with enthusiasm. "I CAN ALREADY TELL IT'S GONNA BE A GREAT SHOW! EVERYONE GIVES A BIG HAND FOR OUR WONDERFUL CONTESTANTS!" And Mettaton clapped while there was a clapping sound effect playing. "NEVER PLAYED BEFORE, GORGEOUS? NO PROBLEM! IT'S SIMPLE! THERE'S ONLY ONE RULE. ANSWER CORRECTLY... OR YOU DIE!!!" the robot yelled as his grid of lights flashed red.

And Sweetie Belle and Frisk's SOULs came out while Alphys quickly moved behind Mettaton.

Frisk immediately CHECKED.

METTATON - ATK 30 DEF 255
His metal body renders him invulnerable to attack.

"Not that I plan to attack him..." Frisk said to herself.

"Me too, and I could totally destroy him," Sweetie Belle whispered to her.

"LET'S START WITH AN EASY ONE!!" Mettaton began. "WHAT'S THE PRIZE FOR ANSWERING CORRECTLY?" he asked, reading it on a paper.

Then, four answers appeared on the ground.

A: Money

B: Mercy

C: New car

D: More questions

And Mettaton's lights began to count down from 30.

"We have to move on them?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"YES! EXACTLY, DARLING! AND YOU SHOULD HURRY UP!"

Frisk began to move toward the answer B, but Sweetie Belle stopped her and pointed at the D.

"Oh..." Frisk gave a sheepish smile before they both moved to the answer D, not spotting Alphys silently forming a D with her hands.

And it was the right answer, indicated by a sound effect and more confetti raining.

"RIGHT! SOUNDS LIKE YOU GET IT! HERE'S YOUR TERRIFIC PRIZE! WHAT'S THE KING'S FULL NAME?"

A: Lord Fluffybuns

B: Fuzzy Pushover

C: Asgore Dreemurr

D: Dr. Friendship

Sweetie Belle and Frisk laughed at the answers before they moved to the C, again not seeing Alphys forming said letter with her hand.

"CORRECT! WHAT A TERRIFIC ANSWER! ENOUGH ABOUT YOU. LET'S TALK ABOUT ME! WHAT ARE ROBOTS MADE OFF?"

A: Hopes & Dreams

B: Metal & Magic

C: Snips & Snails

D: Sugar & Spice

Again, the answer was obvious in the middle of all these ridiculous wrong answers, and they moved to the B. This time, Sweetie Belle took the time to glance at Alphys, seeing that she was giving the answer. She just gave a thankful smile without saying a word in return.

"TOO EASY FOR YOU, HUH?????????? HERE'S ANOTHER EASY ONE FOR YOU!" And Mettaton began to read what seemed to be a long mathematics problem about two trains departing from two different stations asking how long it would take before they would pass each other after giving the necessary information.

"Uhhhh...." Frisk began to think in her head. Sweetie Belle didn't bother however, briefly glanced at Alphys who was forming a D with her hands, and moved toward the answer D, bringing Frisk with her. This quiz show wasn't as easy as the first few questions suggested.

"WONDERFUL! I'M ASTOUNDED, FOLKS! DON'T 'COUNT' ON YOUR VICTORY... HOW MANY FLIES ARE IN THIS JAR?"

A screen then appeared, showing a jar full of flies.

It was impossible to count them!

And yet, somehow, Alphys immediately had the answer: the A, so Sweetie Belle and Frisk moved to the A.

"CORRECT! YOU'RE SO LUCKY TODAY!!! LET'S PLAY MEMORY GAME. WHAT MONSTER IS THIS?"

The screen then showed what seemed to be a part of the head of a frog-monster, and Frisk began to move toward the answer A which said that it was a Froggit. But Sweetie Belle didn't trust this question, not after the two previous ones, and stopped Frisk before glancing at Alphys who was giving the answer D: Mettaton. So Sweetie Belle moved to the D.

"What? But this is-" Frisk began to say, only to be interrupted by the sound effect indicating that the D was the right answer. "What?"

The screen then showed the full image, revealing it to be actually Mettaton wearing a shirt with a Froggit head on it.

"I'M SO FLATTERED YOU REMEMBERED!"

Sweetie Belle gave a deadpan look at the robot, but couldn't stop an amused smile from showing itself.

"BUT CAN YOU GET THIS ONE??? WOULD YOU SMOOCH A GHOST?"

A: Heck Yeah

B: Heck Yeah

C: Heck Yeah

D: Heck Yeah

Now, both Sweetie Belle and Frisk were giving Mettaton "Seriously?" looks, and even Alphys was giving him a funny look. There wasn't even a timer for this one.

Well then, they just moved to the answer A.

"GREAT ANSWER! I LOVE IT!!!!!!! HERE'S A SIMPLE ONE. HOW MANY LETTERS IN THE NAME METTATONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN" And he continued the n without stopping, earning another deadpan look from Sweetie Belle and an annoyed one from Frisk.

And Alphys was STILL giving the right answer: the C.

"OF COURSE THAT WAS EASY FOR YOU! TIME TO BREAK OUT THE BIG GUNS!! IN THE DATING SIMULATION GAME "MEW MEW KISSY CUTIE" WHAT IS MEW MEW'S FAVORITE FOOD?"

Before the answers could appear, Alphys suddenly couldn't stop herself from yelling the answer excitedly, even explaining the passage of the game where the information was learned and beginning to say why this passage was great before she stopped as she understood what she just did.

"ALPHYS, ALPHYS, ALPHYS. YOU AREN'T HELPING OUR CONTESTANTS, ARE YOU?"

Now, Alphys looked like she was caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

"OOOOOOH!!! YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME. I'LL ASK A QUESTION... YOU'LL BE SURE TO KNOW THE ANSWER TO!"

This made Alphys panic.

"WHO DOES ALPHYS HAVE A CRUSH ON?"

A: Undyne

B: Asgore

C: The human

D: Don't know

And no timer again. Frisk and Sweetie Belle had no choice but to answer.

But they had to think of the answer before.

Asgore? Having a crush on the king wasn't impossible. She was the royal scientist after all.

The human? So, Frisk? Nah, she was too young.

D clearly was a no. It had to be one of the three proposed names.

What about Undyne? It was clear that the two passed a lot of time together, Alphys making her watch animes and read comics.

So it could either be A or B.

Having better knowledge of Alphys' relationship with Undyne than with Asgore, they went to the A.

They didn't have to wait for Alphys' reaction. Her whole face was now red! And she was hiding it behind her hands, embarrassed.

So she really had a crush on Undyne?

"SEE, ALPHYS? I TOLD YOU IT WAS OBVIOUS. EVEN THEM FIGURED IT OUT. YES, SHE SCRAWLS HER NAME IN THE MARGINS OF HER NOTES. SHE NAMES PROGRAMMING VARIABLES AFTER HER. SHE EVEN WRITES STORIES OF THEM TOGETHER... SHARING A DOMESTIC LIFE. PROBABILITY OF CRUSH: 101 PERCENT. MARGIN OF ERROR. ONE PERCENT."

Poor Alphys. She clearly wished now to be the ghost so she could turn invisible. But maybe that it was what had been needed to turn this crush into a real love story! Hoping that Undyne was watching, of course.

However, getting her crush revealed to the whole Underground? Yike...

"WELL WELL WELL. WITH DR. ALPHYS HELPING YOU... THE SHOW HAS NO DRAMATIC TENSION! WE CAN'T GO ON LIKE THIS!! BUT. BUT!!! THIS WAS JUST THE PILOT EPISODE!! NEXT UP, MORE DRAMA! MORE ROMANCE!!! MORE BLOODSHED!!! UNTIL NEXT TIME, DARLINGS...!!!"

Mettaton's limbs then retracted into his body before a reactor activated, propelling him up and right through the ceiling.

"...Well that was certainly something," Alphys commented, trying not to think about what just happened. "Y-you can explore the lab if you want. I... will just remain here and... try to forget that I just got my crush revealed to everyone... It's not your fault! Don't feel guilty! This is just a small price to pay to do what is right."

Sweetie Belle and Frisk took this as their cue to leave her alone for now as the scientist began to mumble to herself. The filly immediately went to check the new hole in the wall through which Mettaton came, discovering that there was a very small room just behind with no entrance or exit visible.

So this meant that Mettaton was here from the beginning, seemingly waiting for the right moment to show up.

"...Let's go to the second floor, Frisk. There's something we need to talk about."

"Uh? Uh, okay."

So they took the escalator leading to the second floor, just beside the door through which Alphys had come from. Passing shelves full of comics, mangas, VHSes and DVDs, and normal science books, they stopped beside a machine that turned sea-grass into a pink goop and beside a table with a chainsaw, an electric screwdriver, and a plan about how to use a phone to turn a SOUL so it could fire projectiles.

"Listen, Frisk, I think that this whole thing is an act."

"Really? Well, it's true that this was weird..."

"Yeah, Alphys who lies about Mettaton's true nature, Mettaton who had been waiting behind that wall for the right moment, and for "a killing machine with a thirst for human blood," Mettaton didn't seem to be that 'bloodthirsty'."

Frisk nodded. "What do you think is going on, then?"

Sweetie Belle thought about this for a few seconds before she answered. "I'm not totally sure, actually. But it seems that it has something to do with Alphys wanting to help us, like she did during the quiz show. She had all the answers, even to the questions that were impossible."

"Well... It feels like... She really wants to help us, so..."

"So she made Mettaton act like that so she could help us. I think I see. In her eyes, we're heroes, like in these animes and mangas. And she wants to participate, to join us in our journey. And Mettaton plays the role of the bad guy."

"Sooo... What do we do?"

"Well, if she wants a chance to be like in her animes, why deny this to her? No harm is done. And the quiz show was actually fun, so I want to see what else Mettaton has prepared for us. What do you think?"

"Mmh... You're right, this may be fun. And I don't want to make Alphys sad. So let's be heroes!"

"The program of today: Frisk and Sweetie Belle Against the Killer Robot Entertainer!" Sweetie Belle proclaimed before they both giggled.

Author's Note

Darn. I love writing Mettaton, but writing his shows will be hell! Especially the news show! A lot of 4th wall breaking that will be hard to modify to put into the story.

Chapter 30: Playing Along

And so, Sweetie Belle and Frisk decided to play along with Alphys and Mettaton's little play. If the scientist wanted to have her "moment of glory," then okay. As long as it didn't hurt anybody.

And once it was over, they may need to have a talk with her.

Before they left the lab, Alphys modified Frisk's phone, modernizing it and adding some features, such as texting, the possibility to open some kind of small pocket dimensional box to store items, two of them even, a key chain to keep keys, and some other stuff judging by the number of unknown buttons now present. Alphys also signed Frisk up for the Underground's No. 1 social network, UnderNet. When Alphys proposed to Sweetie Belle to make her a similar phone, the filly thought for a moment before accepting. She didn't think that she will be able to use it back in Equestria, but this could still work in other worlds with this technology and she could always give it to Twilight to study.

Once Sweetie Belle had her own phone with all the same features, Alphys returned into the room she had previously left when they had entered the lab, which was apparently the bathroom.

After that, the children left the lab to start their journey through Hotland, Frisk looking at her phone as she and Sweetie Belle began to receive requests from monsters to be their friends in the Undernet. And also to keep an eye on the status updates, which Alphys was already doing, and rapidly too.

As they advanced, they could see that Hotland really had a lot of technology here. There were lot of tower-like structures with parts that glowed red, and further in the path, they arrived at a part where the ground was covered by pipes linking conveyor belts going forward and backward. Left and right, in the pits, pipes shouting blue fire were present.

After the conveyor belt, they had an encounter with a volcano-like monster named Vulkin; an innocent, happy-go-lucky monster who thought that his lava could heal Frisk. Even if he was mistaken, the Vulkin was still trying to help, so while avoiding his attacks, Frisk and Sweetie Belle thanked him and assured him that they didn't actually need to be healed. The Vulkin understood and left, but not before receiving a warming hug from the two of them. The monster just asked for one with his personality.

After passing a second conveyor belt, longer and turning left and right, making it slightly more dangerous as it would be easy to accidentally fall into the pit below when it turned, they reached a Save Point that Frisk activated under the wooshing sound of steam and cogs.

And Alphys was apparently about to call either Frisk or Sweetie Belle to help them as she said she would but couldn't bring herself to do it as she hated using the phone.

The poor girl clearly was as good in social interactions as Twilight when she first arrived in Ponyville so they couldn't hold it against her.

The Save Point was at the beginning of an area with some small islands above the magma, each island having steam vents with arrows.

The kids had to use the steam vents to propel themselves from island to island. Getting propelled above boiling magma was very scary for Frisk, but she was reassured by Sweetie Belle telling her that she could catch her if she fell. Thankfully, the vents always were at the right power to propel them to the next island.

Also, on one of the islands, they encountered another monster: Tsunderplane.

A monster that looked exactly like a plane (that was actually the first time that Sweetie saw an actual plane), wearing a pink mob cap with ribbons on it, who acted tough but had apparently a secret crush on Frisk.

There really were weird monsters in this world.

It was even blushing, faintly.

It was funny, and kind of cute, to watch it act hostile toward Frisk to hide its feelings, and then become all flustered when Frisk approached. It reminded Sweetie Belle of some of Rarity's romantic books.

After they left the plane, Sweetie Belle and Frisk arrived to an island where they had to choose between two paths. A quick look from Sweetie Belle showed that one of the paths only led to a dead end where a frying pan could be found, so they took the other path.

Frisk then received a call, probably from Alphys, but the reptilian monster hung up before she could answer.

Further, as they arrived in another area where the ground was covered by pipes and was blocked by orange and blue lasers, Alphys called again, and this time, Frisk could answer.

«Uhh! H-hi, so, the blue lasers... Uhh! I mean, Alphys here! Hi!»

"Hello again!" both Frisk and Sweetie Belle said.

«The blue lasers won't hurt you if you don't move!» Alphys informed, which was actually obvious as the kids were now used to blue attacks, and the lasers were the same blue. «O-orange ones, um... Y-you have to be moving, and they... Um, they won't, um... Move through those ones!... Uhh, bye!»

And she hung up.

She needed to work her speeches...

At least, she gave them a nice info: when they saw something orange, attacks or whatever, they had to move to not be hurt, contrary to the blue ones. Without her, they would have eventually learned it the hard way.

So they walked through the orange lasers, which were immobile, and when they reached blue lasers, which moved back and forth on the path, they remained immobile to let them pass.

And Frisk laughed at one of Alphys' status update. When Sweetie Belle saw it, she laughed too.

It seemed that Undyne was reciprocating Alphys' crush on her, and the scientist had no idea.

Once they reached the end of the path with the lasers, they pressed a switch that deactivated them just in case before continuing. It wasn't long before Alphys called again, just before they reached a steam vent that changed direction so they could go forward, left, or right. However, the forward direction was blocked by a door.

«A-A-Alphys here!!!!» Alphys yelled in the phone, almost turning Frisk deaf.

"C-calm down, Alphys..." Frisk said as she put a finger in her ear.

«S-sorry! I guess I got a little too emotional... So, uh, th... The northern door will stay locked until you... S-solve the puzzles on the right and left! I... I think you sh-should g-g-go to the right first!»

So they followed her instructions and waited for the vent to point to the right before letting it propel them. They passed beside two monsters informing them that the puzzles had apparently been reactivated recently, blocking them here. As a result, they couldn't go to work, but they were glad as they could follow Mettaton's show, being big fans.

So the puzzles had just been reactivated, uh? Knowing what they knew, it didn't take long for Sweetie Belle and Frisk to understand that Alphys was probably responsible of this.

At least, she made these two monsters' day by doing that, but they weren't sure if every monsters were okay with that.

This quickly revealed to be the case as they reached the first puzzle. Here, a monster looking like a fox head complained about the door being closed and stopping him from going to work, and he wasn't able to complete the puzzle so he was stuck here.

And yet, the puzzle wasn't hard. They had a ship, and the goal was to fire at the opposite ship. However, they had a limited number of ammo (two here), and blocks blocked the path between the two ships, so the kids had to move the blocks so that only one remained on the path. Thus, they could use one ammo to destroy the block, and the second ammo to destroy the other ship. The difficulty, however, was that all the blocks moved at once. At least, for this first puzzle, it wasn't problematic. There were just two blocks, one at the top and one at the bottom. All they had to do was to make the bottom one move up, then left or right, or vice-versa for the top one, and they were done.

After that, they went to the left path, only to be blocked by an immobile blue laser. And Alphys called again.

«Alphys! Here! Th-that blue laser seems totally impassable! B-b-but! As the Royal Scientist, I h-have some tricks up my sleeve! I'll h-hack into th-the Hotland laser database and take it out!»

And in an instant, the laser was deactivated.

"... Yup, if she can do that that easily, she's totally the one who reactivated all this," Sweetie Belle said.

Two monster schoolgirls that had been blocked by the laser, a purple one wearing a cap and one that seemed to be of the same species than Grillby's but green, confirmed it. The laser had suddenly reactivated, much to the purple monster's joy as it meant that she could skip school, only to remember that it was the summer vacation anyway. The fire monster, however, was glad that they were finally free.

Then, it was time to solve the second puzzle, and compared to the first one, this one was more difficult. It took a few seconds, but they eventually were able to put all the blocks out of the way excepted one. They then destroyed the block with the ship before destroying the opposite ship.

With the two puzzles solved, the northern door opened, letting them continue.

They received a call from Alphys at this moment, the scientist finally attempting to explain to them how the puzzles worked, but she realized that she was too late and hung up, embarrassed.

Then, after a series of steam vents, they reached a building. When they entered it, it was all dark, and Alphys called.

«H-hey, it's kind of dark in there, isn't it? Don't worry! I'll hack into the light system and brighten it up!»

It was done in less time that it takes to say it, and the lights were turned on, revealing that they were...

In a kitchen.

There was even a window with a fake cloudy sky.

Seeing the cameras present here and there, they immediately understood what it was.

«Oh no.»

And Mettaton rose from behind a table, now wearing a chief hat.

"OHHHH YES!!! WELCOME, BEAUTIES, TO THE UNDERGROUND'S PREMIER COOKING SHOW!!!"

And a giant sign magically appeared with "Cooking with a Killer Robot" written on it before disappearing.

Sweetie Belle blushed. "Mmh... I'm not sure I'm good enough at cooking yet to participate at a cooking show..."

"Me too. I never cooked," Frisk said. "Excepted with Undyne, but..."

"Yeah, let's not talk about it."

While they talked, Mettaton continued his speech. "PRE-HEAT YOUR OVENS, BECAUSE WE'VE GOT A VERY SPECIAL RECIPE FOR YOU TODAY! WE'RE GOING TO BE MAKING... A CAKE! MY LOVELY ASSISTANTS HERE WILL GATHER THE INGREDIENTS. EVERYONE GIVES THEM A BIG HAND!!!" He applauded, a clapping sound effect activating as confetti rained on Frisk and Sweetie Belle. "WE'LL NEED SUGAR, MILK, AND EGGS. GO FOR IT, SWEETHEARTS!"

Sweetie Belle and Frisk glanced at each other before giving a shrug. Something was going to happen, that was obvious, but they should as well enjoy it for now.

The three ingredients were already prepared on a counter, so they took them and put them on the table.

"PERFECT! GREAT JOB, BEAUTIFUL! WE'VE GOT ALL THE INGREDIENTS WE NEED TO BAKE THE CAKE! MILK... SUGAR... EGGS... OH MY! WAIT A MAGNIFICENT MOMENT! HOW COULD I FORGET!!! WE'RE MISSING THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT!"

"Flour?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"NOT AT ALL!" Mettaton's lights then became all red as he took out, of all things, a chainsaw. "A HUMAN SOUL!!!!"

Mettaton then began to advance toward Frisk, chainsaw activated, and the human and the pony grabbed eggs, ready to throw them at the robot and to start a food fight.

Ring...

Mettaton suddenly received a call, and he answered.

"HELLO...? I'M KIND OF IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING HERE."

They then heard Alphys' voice. «W-wait a second!!! Couldn't you make a... Couldn't you use a... Couldn't you make a substitution in the recipe?!»

"... A SUBSTITUTION? YOU MEAN, USE A DIFFERENT, NON-HUMAN INGREDIENT?... WHY?"

«uhh, what if someone's...... Vegan?»

"... VEGAN."

«Uh well I mean-»

"THAT'S A BRILLIANT IDEA, ALPHYS!! ACTUALLY, I HAPPEN TO HAVE AN OPTION RIGHT HERE!!! MTT-BRAND ALWAYS-CONVENIENT HUMAN-SOUL-FLAVOR-SUBSTITUTE! A CAN OF WHICH... IS JUST OVER ON THAT COUNTER!!!" He pointed at a counter with a red can on it just beside the exit of the building. "WELL, DARLINGS? WHY DON'T YOU GO GET IT?"

Sweetie Belle and Frisk gave Mettaton a suspicious glare before they moved toward the counter, Sweetie Belle keeping an eye on the robot. But then, when they approached it, the counter suddenly rose high into the air, turning into a tower.

"What the-?!" Sweetie Belle shouted.

Mettaton approached. "BY THE WAY, OUR SHOW RUNS ON A STRICT SCHEDULE. IF YOU CAN'T GET THE CAN IN THE NEXT ONE MINUTE, WE'LL JUST HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE ORIGINAL PLAN!!! SO... BETTER START CLIMBING, BEAUTIFUL!!!" After that, he then flew up.

And Alphys called. «Oh no!!! There's not enough time to climb up!»

Well, I could simply fly or teleport, but let's see what you have cooked up, Alphys, Sweetie Belle thought.

«... F-f-fortunately, I might have a plan! When I was upgrading your phone, I added a few... features that I also put in your phone, Sweetie Belle. You see that huge button that says... "JETPACK"? Watch this!»

"It was hard to miss it, but could she really turn a phone into a jetpack?" Frisk wondered as she looked at her phone.

"She did manage to put two storage spaces in it," Sweetie Belle reminded.

"Good point." Frisk then pressed the button, and before their eyes, the phone turned into a jetpack that Frisk quickly put on, scared but also excited.

And it still worked as a phone!

«There! You should have just enough fuel to reach the top! Now, get up there!!!»

Without waiting, the two flew up (Sweetie Belle using her wings, not her own jetpack). As they flew, Mettaton came and began to drop eggs, milk, and sugar on them, attempting to slow them down.

Sweetie Belle grabbed some of the ingredients with her magic and threw them back at the robot.

"How about we bake a robot-flavored cake?" the filly asked with humor.

"I FEAR THAT THIS WOULDN'T WORK, DARLING," Mettaton replied as he got himself rid of the eggs, milk, and sugar on his 'face'. "RARE ARE THE MONSTERS WHO CAN BITE INTO METAL. IT WOULD HAVE A LOT OF IRON, VERY GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH, BUT IT WOULD BE A FLOP."

"Too bad."

While Mettaton was busy with Sweetie Belle, Frisk was able to reach the top of the tower without problem.

"MY MY," Mettaton began. "IT SEEMS YOU HAVE BESTED ME. BUT ONLY BECAUSE YOU HAD THE HELP OF THE BRILLIANT DOCTOR ALPHYS! OH, I LOATHE TO THINK OF WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED TO YOU WITHOUT HER!!!"

Oh Celestia... They could see that it was an act from a mile away. Also, Sweetie Belle had dozens of replies in her mind against what Mettaton just said.

"WELL, TOODLES!!" Mettaton then shouted before he left, only to return. "OH YES! ABOUT THE SUBSTITUTION... HAVEN'T YOU EVER SEEN A COOKING SHOW BEFORE? I ALREADY BAKED THE CAKE AHEAD OF TIME!!!!! SO FORGET IT!!!" And he flew away, for good this time.

"Aww, I wouldn't have minded helping baking a cake," Sweetie Belle said.

"Me too. And then, I could learn to bake a snail pie," Frisk said.

"Eww. It will be without me."

They landed back on ground and left the building, and after a congratulating call from Alphys, they continued their journey, wondering when they will meet Mettaton again.

They reached a Save Point from which they had a very good view of an ominous structure in the distance. They had seen it here and there, but not as well as now.

As they were wondering if they should call Alphys to ask her what that structure was, she called them.

«S-see that building in the distance? That's the CORE. The source of all power for the Underground. It converts geothermal energy into magical electricity, by... Uhh, anyway, that's where we're going to go. In the CORE is an elevator directly to Asgore's castle. And from there... You can go home.»

And she hung up.

"So that's our objective," Sweetie Belle commented. From where they were, they could see the path leading to it, further up. And knowing their luck, it will take time. There was an elevator not far, but Sweetie Belle already guessed that it will not lead them to the top floor. "I should ready some cooling spells. I imagine that it will be very hot in there."

"It's already very hot here..." Frisk complained. "But at least, it's manageable."

At this, they approached the elevator, named R1, and entered it.

And Sweetie Belle had been right. Beside the R1 button, only two other buttons worked: L1 and R2. It had already been kind of obvious from outside, seeing the shape of the towers and the paths linking them, but this elevator could not only move up and down, but also in other directions following said paths, which was cool.

So they went for R2, reaching the second floor of Hotland.

They passed beside a fire-monster named Heats Flamesman and reached another sentry station managed by Sans. And he apparently used this one to sell hot dogs judging by the monsters holding said food around.

And like always, there was snow on the roof of the station, as if it was Snowdin's station that had somehow teleported here, never mind the fact that the snow somehow wasn't melting despite the ambient temperature.

Sans also still had the fake glasses and mustache Sweetie had drawn on him, and he was now wearing a top hat to go with them.

"How many job do you have?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"a lot," Sans answered with a wink. "and thanks for the new look. and for bringing paps so i could show it to him."

"What did he think?"

"well..."

"SANS!!! I HAVE TWO WORDS FO... WHY THE HECK DO YOU HAVE A FANCY MUSTACHE AND GLASSES DRAWN ON YOUR FACE?"

"uh, that's fifteen words. and to answer you, i wanted to try a new look. what do you think?"

"I THINK THAT YOU NOW LOOK LAZY, ANNOYING, AND WEIRD."

"thanks! you know, people say that everything is cooler with a moustache."

"REALLY? DOES THIS MEANS THAT I SHOULD GET ONE TOO?"

"yes."

"THEN I SHALL GO AND DRAW ONE ON MY FACE! BUT WITHOUT THE GLASSES!" Papyrus shouted before he left.

"uh, he forgot to yell at me for sleeping on the job. well then, i will just sleep a little more."

Both Sweetie Belle and Frisk were now laughing, imagining Papyrus with a moustache drawn on his face.

"I can't wait to see this!" Sweetie Belle said.

"Me too," Frisk said.

"eh, frankly, me three. i'll be ready to take a photo. anyway, wanna buy a hot dog? it's only 30G."

Frisk accepted and gave 30G.

"thanks, kid. here's your 'dog. yeah. 'dog. apostrophe-dog. it's short for hot-dog."

Upon verification, the sausage was actually a water sausage, resulting in Sans getting a deadpan look from Frisk while Sweetie Belle chuckled.

"what? it's still a sausage. that counts. and it satisfies even the vegans."

Frisk couldn't hold in a giggle at this.

They left Sans and continued.

Eventually, Frisk saw something in her phone and fell on the ground in laughter.

Papyrus had just posted an image of himself flexing in front of the mirror, wearing sunglasses, giant muscular biceps pasted onto his arms, and a mustache drawn above his mouth. And the biceps were also wearing sunglasses and had mustaches drawn on them.

Sweetie Belle joined Frisk on the floor, and even the voice was laughing.

It didn't last long however as a new monster, a Pyrope, came. The Pyrote had a body made of rope with two feet and a burning head with a mischievous smile, and he had the particularity of being the first monster they encountered to use orange attacks. It was a good occasion to get used to them.

After the Pyrope, they reached a fork where the path going to their left led to a dead end with a cute apron that Frisk took as it apparently raised her defense and even healed her. At the same time, Frisk received a friend request from Napstablook, but before she could accept it, Napstablood had already rejected themselves. So Frisk decided to send herself a friend request to them, and Sweetie Belle did the same, and Napstablook accepted.

Taking the other path, they then reached another conveyor belt, the one moving forward passing below three switches, and the path at the other side was blocked by a force field.

Alphys called again.

«H... hi...! It's Dr. Alphys. This p-puzzle is kinda... um... timing based. Y-you see those switches over there? Y-you'll have to press all three of them within 3 seconds. I'll t-try to help you with the rhythm!»

And she hung up.

"Uh, shouldn't she have continued the call to help?" Frisk wondered.

"Yes, she should have. But you saw her. She doesn't seem to have thought things through..." Sweetie Belle answered.

Frisk then went on the conveyor belt and was able to press the first two switches before Alphys suddenly called as she had been about to press the third switch, getting her to jump in surprise as she had been focused. Sweetie Belle quickly corrected this by pressing the third switch in her place.

«OK! Now press the third one!!!»

Frisk glared at her phone with a pout.

Alphys quickly understood what she did wrong. «Uh... Oops.......... Sorry,» she said embarrassed before the force field disappeared. «At least, Sweetie Belle was here to, uh, c-catch up.»

And she quickly hung up.

Only to call again when they reached a scary-looking steam vent-puzzle.

«Uh, h-h-hey! i'm going to the bathroom, so I'll be MIA for a bit. I'm... I'm sure you can handle this puzzle yourself!»

And she hung up.

"And she leaves just when we may actually need her help! This puzzle looks way harder than the rest!" Sweetie Belle complained before she sighed. "Well, no use to wait. Let's try to solve it."

The puzzle consisted of seven pillars of steam vents with floor panels on four of them plus at the starting point, the panels having for effect to change the position of the vents. When they used the vents, they were propelled right on the center of the pillars, where the panels were placed, meaning that they couldn't avoid stepping on them.

Again, this looked scary and complicated, but the solution actually revealed to be very stupid. While doing the U-turn to reach the last pillar containing the only steam vent leading to the exit of this puzzle, once they reached a pillar without a panel, they had to return to the previous pillar that contained a panel, and then continue the U-turn to the last pillar. It took them a few tries to find out about it, but once they understood, they facepalmed hard. They could have also continued to the pillar before the last, which contained a panel, then return to the previous pillar which didn't have one, and then return on the pillar before the last before continuing to the last.

It was really the kind of puzzles that Sweetie Belle didn't like. The complicated-looking ones that had a very easy and stupid solution. They made her feel dumb.

At least, they were able to continue, reaching a Save Point beside a mouse hole and a safe that apparently contained a cheese.

They really loved torturing mice down here...

And while Frisk activated the Save Point, Alphys went on a rant on the UnderNet about an anime named Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 that people loved but she thought was trash.

Not minding it, they continued, only to be stopped by a familiar voice shouting, "Hey! You! Stop!"

It was none other than the Royal Guards from the beginning of Hotland, the rabbit and the other one, that blocked the path to the elevator L1. The two approached them rapidly.

"We've, like, received an anonymous tip about a human wearing a striped shirt accompanied by an equine. They told us they were wandering around Hotland right now..." the rabbit guard said. "I know, sounds scary, huh? Well, just stay chill. We'll bring you two to someplace safe, OK?"

And the two guards began to move away, expecting Frisk and Sweetie Belle. The two exchanged amused glances before doing so, until...

The other Royal Guard suddenly stopped.

"... Huh? What is it, bro?" asked the rabbit.

The other guard murmured something.

"The shirt she's wearing? And the animal beside her?"

"Hey!" Sweetie Belle yelled in indignation.

"... Like, what about them?" the rabbit asked, not minding Sweetie Belle. The two guards then looked intently at them before the rabbit continued. "Bro... are you thinkin... What I'm thinkin?" The guard then turned his back to them embarrassed. "Bummer. This is, like... Mega embarrassing." He then faced them again. "We, like, actually totally have to kill you and stuff."

And start of the encounter, but it was hard to take the guards seriously after what just happened.

The voice in Frisk's head only called the rabbit Royal Guard 01 and the other one Royal Guard 02, and informed that 01 had a shining, polished armor while 02 had a stuffy one. With a closer look, Sweetie Belle and Frisk could see that 02's armor had dirt, and they could also see sweat pouring from it.

This gave them an idea. They weren't sure where this would lead, but that was a good try.

Avoiding the guards' team attacks, they began to clean the armor of RG 02, making it all shiny, but also very hot.

"... Can't... take it... Armor... too... HOT!!!" the second Royal Guard shouted before he took off the chest plate, revealing his muscled scaly torso. "... Much better."

Apparently, RG 02 was a reptile.

And RG 01 now looked bothered as he stared at the other's torso. He was shaking, sweat was coming out of his helmet, and he was stuttering, losing all focus over his attacks.

Sweetie Belle and Frisk understood and glanced at each other, giggling. Sweetie Belle then flew to RG 01 and whispered to him to let out his true feelings.

"I... I..." The guard remained like that, undecided, for a few seconds as he continued to attack, his attacks now being easier to avoid. Then... "D-dude... I can't... I can't take this anymore! Not like this!! Like, 02! I like... I like, LIKE you, bro! The way you fight... The way you talk... I love doing team attacks with you. I love standing here with you, bouncing and waving our weapons in sync... 02... I, like, want to stay like this forever..."

RG 02 looked back at RG 01 in silence, not saying anything and giving no visible reaction.

This made RG 01 nervous again. "Uh... I mean, uh... Whew, bro! That human put me under, uh, mind control! What was I just saying? It's all a blur, dude!! Whoops!"

"... 01," RG 02 eventually said.

"Y-yeah, bro??"

"...... Do you want to... get some ice cream... after this?"

"Sure, dude! Haha!"

And they left, leaving behind a pile of gold in thanks.

"Aww..." both Sweetie Belle and Frisk said.

"These two made my day," Sweetie Belle added.

"Mmhmmh," Frisk agreed with a nod. "But... Who do you think gave them that tip about us?"

"Not sure. I don't think this is Alphys. Contrary to Mettaton, these guards weren't acting, and she wouldn't want to risk our lives like that. Whoever gave them this tip actually wants your SOUL."

They both thought for a moment before Frisk took her phone and called Papyrus.

«YES, FRISK? YOU WANT MY ADVICE ON SOMETHING?»

"Uh, I actually need to talk to Undyne. Can you pass me to her?"

«OF COURSE! UNDYNE!!! FRISK WANTS TO TALK TO YOU!»

«Really now? Give me!» They heard Papyrus giving the phone to Undyne, and then, «Yes? What do you want, punk?»

"We just had an encounter with the two Royal Guards you warned us about. The rabbit and the other..."

«Oh yeah, these two! For your information, 02 is a dragon. So you were able to survive against them?»

"Yeah, we helped them find true love," Frisk said with a giggle. "But uh, the problem is that they said they received an anonymous tip about us. This is how they found us. Do you know any monster who would be that hostile against me?"

«Strange. Trust me when I say that, as far as I know, I was the most hostile monster against you. Nobody wanted you dead more than I! And beside the guards, I really don't see who else would actually attempt to kill you. Well, this may simply be a civil wanting to help us getting your SOUL to destroy the Barrier. Now that most of the Underground knows about your presence, it is not impossible that some monsters would decide to act. And if that's the case, then I can't tell you who it could be. It could be anyone. And of course, I don't personally know all the monsters of the Underground. Whatever the case, be cautious, they may try again.»

"I will be. Thanks, Undyne."

«Anytime, kid! By the way, I saw the shows with you and Mettaton! You two and Alphys sure showed him! I can't wait the next one!»

"Uuhhhh... Speaking of... About what happened during the quiz show..."

«... Yeah, I so want to turn that stupid rectangle into a can! How dares he embarrass Alphys like that?! And in front of the whole Underground! She already has enough insecurities! And don't worry about your role in this. If you had answered wrongly, he may have zapped you. You had no choice. I think. Anyway, I don't hold it against you. Just, let's stop talking about this.»

"Okay."

Undyne then hung up, and Frisk gave Sweetie Belle a shrug. "At least I tried."

"I suppose we will eventually find out who is this anonymous hostile monster. Let's continue."

And so, they advanced, until they reached another darkened area where Alphys called.

«Okay, I'm back! A-another dark room, huh? Don't worry! M-my hacking skills have got things covered!»

And in an instant, the lights were back.

This revealed the presence of a bunch of objects (and a dog) around them, and a large screen where they could see Mettaton as a news reporter inside what seemed to be a news room that also had a screen showing Frisk and Sweetie Belle.

«Are you serious?»

"OHHHHHH YESSS! GOOD EVENING, BEAUTIES AND GENTLEBEAUTIES! THIS IS METTATON, REPORTING LIVE FROM MTT NEWS!"

"Well, this will be interesting..." Sweetie Belle muttered.

"AN INTERESTING SITUATION HAS ARISEN IN EASTERN HOTLAND! FORTUNATELY, OUR CORRESPONDENTS ARE OUT THERE, REPORTING LIVE! BRAVE CORRESPONDENTS! PLEASE FIND SOMETHING NEWSWORTHY TO REPORT! OUR TEN WONDERFUL VIEWERS ARE WAITING FOR YOU!!"

So they had to choose between the six objects (and dog) present around, uh? So there was the dog, a ball, a glass of water, a present, a movie script, and a game. What to choose?

Well, Frisk was already decided as she went for the dog, petting it. Sweetie Belle just shrugged before following the human.

"WHAT A SENSATIONAL OPPORTUNITY FOR A STORY!" Mettaton began to comment. "I CAN SEE THE HEADLINE NOW: "A DOG EXISTS SOMEWHERE." FRANKLY, I'M BLOWN AWAY. SO YOU WANT TO REPORT THIS ONE? AND PLEASE, STOP ATTEMPTING TO MURDER MY VIEWERS WITH OVERCUTENESS."

Frisk nodded, wanting to report the dog.

"ATTENTION, VIEWERS! OUR CORRESPONDENTS HAVE FOUND... A DOG!"

There was then a sound effect of an audience awwing.

"THAT'S RIGHT, FOLKS! IT'S THE FEEL-GOOD STORY OF THE YEAR! LOOK AT ITS LITTLE EARS, TINY PAWS, FLUFFY TAIL...... WAIT A SECOND. THAT'S NOT A TAIL! THAT'S... A FUSE!!!"

And suddenly, the tail of the dog lit!

"What?" both Sweetie Belle and Frisk asked.

"THAT'S RIGHT... THAT DOG... IS A BOMB!!!"

"WHAT?! But how-?!" Sweetie Belle began to ask only to be cut by Mettaton.

"BUT DON'T PANIC! YOU HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN THE REST OF THE ROOM YET!!!"

And suddenly, the giant screen broke apart, revealing that Mettaton had been behind it, and that the news room had been a fake. Also, the movie script and the box of the video game opened to reveal respectively a round, black bomb and a bunch of dynamite.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me..." Sweetie Belle said.

Frisk was not reassured at all as she looked at the bombs.

And Mettaton made it worse. "OH MY! IT SEEMS EVERYTHING IN THIS AREA IS ACTUALLY A BOMB! THAT PRESENT'S A BOMB!" And the present opened to reveal a bomb. "THAT BASKETBALL'S A BOMB!" And part of the ball broke apart to reveal a bomb. "EVEN MY WORDS ARE...!💣💣💣" As he talked, words literally came out of Mettaton from his voice module before they dropped and exploded! "BRAVE CORRESPONDENTS... IF YOU DON'T DEFUSE ALL THE BOMBS..." Mettaton then flew to a giant bomb that HADN'T BEEN HERE EARLIER! "THIS BIG BOMB WILL BLOW YOU TO SMITHEREENS IN TWO MINUTES! THEN YOU WON'T BE REPORTING "LIVE" ANY LONGER! HOW TERRIBLE! HOW DISTURBING! OUR NINE VIEWERS ARE GOING TO LOVE WATCHING THIS! GOOD LUCK, DARLINGS!!" And he flew away.

And the ~~objects~~bombs were now all over the area, moving by themselves.

"I went through some crazy stuff, but here, he's blowing my mind," Sweetie Belle commented.

Alphys then called.

«D-don't worry! I installed a bomb-defusing program on your phone!»

Oh! what a coincidence! Sweetie Belle thought sarcastically.

«Press the 'defuse' button when the bomb is in the defuse zone! N-now, go get 'em!»

Well, at least, they could now work on the bombs, starting with the dog who was now sleeping beside them. Then, they followed Alphys' instructions to defuse the remaining bombs one by one. They went for the game, after a few lasers. Then, next was the movie script on a conveyor belt. The gift came after, on an island accessed by a steam vent. Finally was the basketball, beside the big bomb.

The last one was the glass of water, but it was flying around at a ridiculous speed. Thankfully, Alphys used her talents to make it stop in the center of the area, and it was easy to defuse it from there.

And Mettaton came back.

"WELL DONE, DARLINGS! YOU'VE DEACTIVATED ALL OF THE BOMBS! IF YOU DIDN'T DEACTIVATE THEM, THE BIG BOMB WOULD HAVE EXPLODED IN TWO MINUTES. NOW IT WON'T EXPLODE IN TWO MINUTES! INSTEAD IT'LL EXPLODE IN TWO SECONDS!"

"Oh, come on!!!" Sweetie Belle yelled.

"GOODBYE, DARLINGS!"

Sweetie Belle put a powerful shield around both her and Frisk, waiting for the bomb to explode.

But it didn't.

...

"AH. IT SEEMS THE BOMB ISN'T GOING OFF."

«That's b-because!!! While you were monologuing... I...!!! I f... fix... Um... I ch-change...» Alphys began to say only to not find the words.

"OH NO. YOU DEACTIVATED THE BOMB WITH YOUR HACKING SKILLS."

«Yeah! That's what I did!»

I should have guessed this would happen... Sweetie Belle thought with a facehoof.

"CURSES! IT SEEMS I'VE BEEN FOILED AGAIN! CURSE YOU, HUMAN! CURSE YOU, PONY! CURSE YOU, DR. ALPHYS, FOR HELPING SO MUCH! BUT I DON'T CURSE MY EIGHT WONDERFUL VIEWERS FOR TUNING IN!!!"

"Is it me, or we're losing viewers?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"No, that's not you," Frisk replied with a giggle.

"UNTIL NEXT TIME, DARLINGS!" And at this, Mettaton left.

«W-wow... W-we really showed him, huh?... H-hey, I know I was kind of weird at first... But I really think I'm getting more... Uh, more... M-more confident about guiding you! S-so don't worry about that b-big d-dumb robot... I-I'll protect you from him! A-and if it really c-came down to it, we could just t-turn... Um, nevermind. Later!»

Click!

"Glad to hear that at least all this farce is helping her," Sweetie Belle said.

Frisk nodded. "She needs self-esteem, and by helping us, she's gaining some... Even if she's the one who came up with all this."

After that, they continued, reaching another area with a good view of the CORE, which they were now closer.

Then, they reached the elevator L2, direction L3.

It led to a totally artificial area, a path entirely metallic, surrounded in darkness. Here, they could see many spider webs, and a little further, a spider-monster-girl was selling some pastries made of spiders (fake ones, thankfully)... for 9999G!!!

And she was giving them a really creepy look...

Well, they didn't have enough money to buy anything, so they had no choice but to continue and they could only look in pity at the poor monster who had been... "convinced" to buy one of the pastries, ruining himself.

They then reached a steam vent maze that led to three directions, which was none other than another case of "solve two puzzles to open the door."

Alphys confirmed this as she called, and she affirmed that they could count on her to give the solution of the puzzles if they needed. She proposed then to make them friends in the UnderNet, only to remark that it was already the case since she signed them up, understanding that they (mainly Frisk) have been reading her posts all this time.

«Well! I hope! You agree with me! About Mew Mew 2!»

"Uh, I don't know, I haven't seen Mew Mew Kissy Cutie. Neither the 1 or the 2."

"Me too," Sweetie Belle said.

«Oh my god! I must repair this! At the first occasion, we will binge watch the whole series! And then I will show you an episode or two of the second series so you can see how the first series is the best one!»

And she hung up.

Reaching the puzzles wasn't hard. Solving them was much harder, especially the North one. However, to reach the South one, they had to pass blue lasers while being on a conveyor belt, meaning that to pass the lasers without being hurt, they had to walk in the opposite direction of the conveyor belt to remain immobile the time that the lasers passed.

Once they solved the two puzzles, they passed the now opened door and reached another Save Point at the beginning of another place with lots of cobwebs.

The room after a small passage was especially full of them, and of spiders hanging from threads from the ceiling.

And then, they could hear the spider-girl from earlier giggling and talking as they advanced, sometimes stepping on webs.

"Ahuhuhuhu... Did you hear what they just said? They said a human wearing a striped shirt accompanied by a pony will come through."

"Oh... Drat..." Sweetie Belle said.

Frisk remained close to Sweetie Belle.

"I heard that they hate spiders. I heard that they love to stomp on them. I heard that they like to tear their legs off."

At this point, the floor was filled with webs, and Sweetie Belle began to cut them. However, there were so many that Frisk eventually helped by creating a bridge with vines made with her magic. However, when they arrived in the middle...

"I heard..." The spider-girl then appeared from the darkness while countless spiders surrounded Sweetie Belle and Frisk, stopping them. "... that they're awfully stingy with their money. Ahuhuhuhu... You think your tastes are too refined for our pastries, don't you, dearies?"

"Nope. We just don't have enough money. Sorry miss, but we barely have a few hundreds gold," Sweetie Belle said.

"And how do I know that this isn't an excuse to escape our punishment? 9999G is not that much. Ahuhuhuhu... Also, someone offered me a lot of money for your SOUL. I can't refuse. I need this money to rescue the spiders stuck in the Ruins. Sorry dearies, but at least, you will be happy to know that you will certainly do fine pastries."

And suddenly, the SOULs came out as she began to attack, starting by using a purple liquid from her teapots to turn their SOULs purple and create purple strings for them to be stuck on. So, now, they could only move on the purple strings, and could jump from string to string.

From there, it was mainly a game of dodging the attacking spiders and pastries coming down the strings from the left and the right, the donuts moving diagonally and the croissants having a boomerang effect. Frisk quickly used her magic to destroy some of the attacking pastries to make it easier, but she avoided to hurt the spiders. Sweetie Belle followed her example by destroying the remaining pastries.

But then, Muffet (the spider-girl) sent her pet, a giant muffin-spider that attempted to eat them, forcing them to quickly jump from string to string while avoiding the spiders. The pet eventually stopped following them, but every now and then, Muffet sent it again.

They gave Muffet some of their money in an attempt to appease her, but this only calmed her down a little. a few dozens gold or so was nothing compared to the amount she was promised in exchange of Frisk's SOUL.

But then, eventually, a spider came with a telegram from the spiders of the Ruins informing Muffet about Frisk buying some stuff from them and being very nice.

Understanding that Frisk wasn't the person she thought, Muffet decided to let them go, thinking that the person proposing money to her had been talking about another human in striped shirt.

Sweetie Belle and Frisk quickly left.

Leaving that whole experience with the spiders behind, they then reached a urban area, with a brick wall with a poster on it, about a stage performance of Mettaton that was about to start.

"I don't know what to think about that," Frisk said.

"Let's just think that it will be another occasion to have fun, and that we don't risk anything anyway," Sweetie Belle said.

They then arrived at the stage, at the bottom of a structure.

"OH? THAT HUMAN..." they suddenly heard from above, and they looked at the top of the structure to see Mettaton looking from behind a wall. "COULD IT BE...?" Mettaton then fully showed himself, revealing that he was now wearing a dress. "... MY ONE TRUE LOVE?"

A music began to play, and Mettaton rolled down the stairs to join Frisk and Sweetie Belle.

And once he was near Frisk, he began to sing while moving around her.

"Oh my love,
Please run away.
Monster King
Forbids your stay."

Frisk... was very creeped out, and embarrassed.

And Sweetie Belle was having the time of her life, and she had a hard time holding her laugh to not interrupt.

"Humans must
Live far apart.
Even if
It breaks my heart.

Sweetie Belle wiggled an eyebrow at Frisk before giving her a bouquet of flowers. "Go on, prince charming."

The human glared at her in return, blushing.

"They'll put you
In the dungeon!"

Suddenly, cherry blossom petals began to rain over the stage, adding to the romantic ambience.

"What are you waiting to go dance with him?" Sweetie Belle whispered to Frisk.

She answered by throwing the bouquet of flowers at her face.

"It'll suck
And then you'll die a lot.

"Wait what?" both girls said at this. He knew about Frisk's power?

"Really sad!
You're gonna die!
Cry cry cry!
So sad it's happening."

And the song ended, along with the rain of petals.

"SO SAD. SO SAD THAT YOU'RE GOING TO THE DUNGEON," Mettaton then said.

And he took a remote control with a big red button.

"WELL, TOODLES!"

He pressed the button, and two traps opened exactly under Frisk and Sweetie Belle.

They fell right on a pillar with a conveyor belt that led to...

To the same multicolored tile puzzle than back at Snowdin, excepted that this one was much longer and was already prepared.

Mettaton then flew down. "OH NO! WHATEVER SHALL I DO? MY LOVE HAS BEEN CAST AWAY INTO THE DUNGEON WITH HIS LOYAL STEED. A DUNGEON WITH A PUZZLE SO DASTARDLY, MY PARAMOUR WILL SURELY PERISH! O, HEAVENS HAVE MERCY! THE HORRIBLE COLORED TILE MAZE! EACH COLORED TILE HAS ITS OWN SADISTIC FUNCTION. FOR EXAMPLE, A GREEN TILE SOUNDS A NOISE, AND THEN YOU MUST FIGHT A MONSTER. RED TILES WILL... ACTUALLY, WAIT A SECOND. DIDN'T WE SEE THIS PUZZLE A FEW HOURS AGO? THAT'S RIGHT. YOU REMEMBER ALL THE RULES, DON'T YOU?"

"I have them noted!" Sweetie Belle shouted as she showed the notes, only for Mettaton to burn them with a bolt of electricity from his finger. "Hey!"

"GREAT... THEN I WON'T WASTE YOUR TIME REPEATING THEM!! OH, AND YOU'D BETTER HURRY. BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T GET THROUGH IN 30 SECONDS..." A firewall suddenly appeared at the end of the platform. "YOU'LL BE INCINERATED BY THESE JETS OF FIRE!! AHAHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHA... HA... HA! MY POOR LOVE! I'M SO FILLED WITH GRIEF I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING! GOOD LUCK, DARLINGS!"

And at this, the timer started, and Mettaton began to sing again as Frisk and Sweetie Belle ran on the conveyor belt, the filly looking left and right at the tiles to determinate the path to take. No blue tiles beside yellow tiles... No blue tiles after passing by an orange tile... Unless that was after the purple tiles? No, the orange tiles! However, after orange tiles, they had to pass by a purple tile before going into blue tiles!

But darn it! That was impossible to find the right path in only 30 seconds! They would need, at least, one or two minutes! Just the time to determinate the right path!

And before they knew it, the timer reached 0.

"OOOOH, I'M SO SORRY! LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE OUT OF TIME!!!" Mettaton exclaimed before the firewall at the back approached, as well as another at the front, trapping them. "HERE COME THE FLAMES, DARLINGS!" The walls approached again.

And cue Alphys saving the day again.

The walls then stopped before restarting to advance, but slower, regularly stopping.

"THEY'RE CLOSING IN!"

They approached again, getting rather close...

"GETTING! CLOSER! OH MY!"

Now, the walls were just beside the girls.

"ANY MINUTE NOW!!!"

But the walls stopped approaching.

.............

"......... (ROBOTIC COUGH)"

"*Cough!*"

"*Cough!*"

FINALLY! Alphys called!

«Watch out!! I'll save you!! I'm hacking into the firewall right now!»

And the firewalls disappeared.

"OH NO!!! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN??? FOILED AGAIN BY THE BRILLIANT DOCTOR ALPHYS!!"

............................

"THA-"

«That's right! Come on, Mettaton, give up already! You'll never be able to defeat us... Not as long as we work together! Your puzzle's over... Now go home and leave us alone!»

"PUZZLE? OVER? ALPHYS, DARLING, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT...? DID YOU FORGET WHAT THE GREEN TILES DO? THEY MAKE A SOUND, THEN YOU HAVE TO FIGHT A MONSTER. WELL, DARLINGS... THAT MONSTER... IS ME!!"

And he started an encounter.

"THIS IS IT, DARLINGS! SAY GOODBYE!" But before he could attack, Alphys called again, this time through Frisk's phone. "IS THAT YOUR PHONE? YOU'D BETTER ANSWER IT!"

«H-hey!! Th-this seems bad, but don't worry!! Th-there's one last thing I installed on your phone...! You see that yellow button...? Press it!»

Frisk and Sweetie Belle quickly did so with their respective phones, and the next instant, their SOULs turned upside down and yellow. Having a feeling, they then grabbed them and used them as guns, firing little yellow projectiles at Mettaton.

"OOOH! OOOOOOOH! YOU'VE DEFEATED ME!! HOW CAN THIS BE, YOU WERE STRONGER THAN I THOUGHT, ETC. WHATEVER." And Mettaton left.

By Void, he wasn't even trying at the end...

«L-looks like you beat him! Y-you did a really great job out there.»

"All thanks to you," Frisk said.

«What? Oh no, I mean... You were the ones doing everything cool... I just wrote some silly programs for your phones... Umm, h-hey, this might sound strange, but... c-can I tell you something?... B-before I met you, I d-didn't really... I didn't really like myself very much. For a long time, I f-felt like a total screw-up. L-like I couldn't do a-anything w-without... W-without letting everyone down. B-but...! Guiding you has made me feel... A lot better about myself. So... thanks for letting me help you... Uhh, anyway, we're almost to the CORE. It's just past MTT Resort. Come on! Let's finish this!»

When she hung up, Sweetie Belle and Frisk smiled at each other.

"That was definitively the right thing to do, to play along," Sweetie Belle said.

Frisk nodded. "And Mettaton must really like Alphys to play along too. To play the role of the big bad robot."

"Yeah... Although, I think that he's starting to have a little enough of this."

...

"Wait. Did she say there's a resort?"

Chapter 32: Date And Golden Flowers

Sweetie Belle and Frisk left the CORE and began to traverse the bridge back to MTT Resort when they received a call.

«AH! SEE, UNDYNE? I TOLD YOU THAT I WOULD BE ABLE TO REACH THEM!» they heard Papyrus shout from the other side of the phone.

«What? This doesn't make sense! They should be at New Home now! We shouldn't be able to reach them from here unless they decided to return to Hotland! And they have no reason to!» Undyne replied.

«WELL, WE CAN ASK THEM.»

"We're returning to Alphys' lab," Frisk informed.

«OH, I SEE! YOU WANT TO HANG OUT WITH DOCTOR ALPHYS BEFORE REACHING ASGORE. THAT'S A GREAT IDEA! AND THAT'S A GREAT TIMING BECAUSE UNDYNE WANTED TO ASK YOU SOMETHING ABOUT HER.»

"What is it?" Sweetie Belle asked.

«LET ME PASS THE PHONE. OH! BUT FIRST, LET ME TELL YOU THAT I HAVE ABSOLUTELY LOVED YOUR FIGHT WITH METTATON! IT WAS THE MOST AWESOMEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE!!!»

"Great to hear," Frisk said.

«Give me that! Hey punks! As he said about the fight! To tell you the truth, I can't stand Mettaton, so watching you put him back in his place was very enjoyable! Anyway, uh, you said you wanted to return to Alphys' lab? Well then, could you, before that, come back to Snowdin? I have... something that I want you to give her.»

"Uh, sure!"

«Great! To rapidly return to Snowdin, you can use the River Person's boat, just South of Alphys' lab entrance. You won't miss it. Well, that's if they're stationed in Hotland. They could be in Waterfall now. They're certainly not in Snowdin right now, we looked. If they're not in Hotland but in Waterfall, then you will find them just South of old Gerson's shop, not far of my house.»

"Or, instead of using this boat hoping that it will be there, I can do something else. You're in Papyrus' house, right?" Sweetie Belle asked.

«We're in front of it actually, both Papyrus and I. Why?»

Instead of answering, Sweetie Belle teleported both her and Frisk in front of Papyrus and Sans' house back in Snowdin. They appeared not far of Papyrus and Undyne, making them jump, the captain almost dropping the phone.

"Gah!"

"NYEH!"

Sweetie Belle waved at them, giving them her most innocent smile. "Hey there!"

Meanwhile, Frisk was on her knees beside her, trying not to throw up.

Undyne gave the filly a bemused look. "Right... You can do that."

"APPEARING OUT OF NOWHERE WITHOUT WARNING SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED FOR THE HEALTH OF THE OTHERS! SANS ALREADY DOES THIS ENOUGH! AND FRISK SEEMS TO AGREE WITH ME!"

"Oh don't worry about Frisk. That happens to everyone the first few times, but they eventually get used to it. I'm still trying to find a way to teleport someone without getting them sick. Anyway, what did you want us to give to Alphys?"

At this, Undyne visibly blushed before she grabbed an envelop. "This letter."

"Oooh?" Sweetie Belle gave the captain a knowing look.

"Stop giving me that look!" Undyne yelled, face fully red now. "Now, just go to Hotland and deliver it! And don't read it or I'll KILL you!"

Sweetie Belle giggled before taking the letter. "Okay."

"But why don't you do it? Wouldn't it be easier?" Frisk then asked, having recovered from the teleportation.

Undyne looked very embarrassed then. "W-well... Um... I-it's kind of personal, but we're friends... so... I'll t-tell you... Hotland SUUUUCKS!!! I don't wanna have to go over there!!! So here you go!"

Sweetie Belle nodded in understanding. "Of course. As a fish-monster, Hotland's high temperatures must hit you hard."

"You got it the furball! I can't even go there in armor without getting heatstroke! So I'm glad that I can count on you! You're the best! Thank you very much!"

"You're welcome!" the human and the pony replied.

"Alright, I will teleport us back to Hotland, in front of the lab," Sweetie Belle then warned Frisk.

The human girl gulped and said "Okay" before she fully closed her eyes, hoping to avoid the sickness thanks to this.

Sweetie Belle then teleported them as she said. Now in front of the lab, they went to enter it only to find out that the doors were locked shut. Instead of teleporting inside and possibly startle the poor scientist, they searched for a mail slot only to find none, so they slid the letter under the door before giving it a knock.

In the following seconds, they could hear Alphys' footsteps, and then her voice behind the door, talking to herself.

"O-oh n-no, is that another letter...? I don't want to open it... C-can't I just slide it back out...?"

This made Sweetie Belle and Frisk exchange glances in wonder. What was the problem with the mail?

"N... no... I can't keep doing this. I'll read this one... Um... I-it-s shut k-kind of strongly, isn't it?"

Typical Undyne...

"Wait a second..."

They then heard a weird sound before the door opened.

"Hey, if this is a joke, it's...... Oh My God? Did one of YOU write this letter?"

Oh... Undyne forgot to sign it, isn't it?

Sweetie Belle could definitively NOT let this occasion pass.

Hiding a grin, the filly pointed at Frisk.

The human looked back at her in shock and horror, not believing what she just did.

"O-oh I see... It wasn't signed, so, I had no idea who could have... Oh my god. Oh no. That's adorable... And I h-had no idea you, um, wrote that way! It's surprising too... After all the gross stuff I did..."

Frisk then attempted to correct her, but Sweetie Belle used her magic to keep her mouth closed.

Don't. This may be what we need to put behind what happened and help her, the filly then said to her in her mind, surprising Frisk.

"I don't really deserve to be forgiven," Alphys continued, not aware of what happened. "Much less, um... This? And so passionately, too."

"In the contrary. You deserve a second chance," Sweetie Belle said.

"Y... You think so?"

They both nodded in answer.

"... You know what, okay! I'll do it! It's the least I can do to make it up to you! Y-yeah! Let's go on a date!"

Alphys then returned inside the lab to get herself dressed.

Frisk took the occasion to glare at Sweetie Belle who just replied with a grin.

"Come on. You already did it with Papyrus. You can always tell Alphys the truth after that date. You can even say that it's all my idea and that, this way, we're even."

Frisk gave the filly a pout before she said, "Alright..."

Alphys returned at this moment, now wearing a gorgeous dress.

"H-how do I look?"

"Sublime!" Sweetie Belle answered. "Well then, I will leave you to your date!"

She then teleported away, deciding to wait in Grillby's and play some rounds of Poker with whoever was present (hopefully Sans and the dogs).

After a few rounds...

Sweetie Belle looked at her cards, a six of spade and a king of heart. Then, she looked down at the two cards on the table, a six of heart and a king of diamond.

So, she was already assured a Two Pairs, and if she was lucky, she could get a Full House.

She looked at the other players around the table. Bob the Temmie had folded at the beginning of the round. Dohj, a brown female dog who wanted to become a member of the Canine Unit, did so after the first card had been revealed on the table. This left only two other players: Sans and Mad Mew Mew.

Yes, apparently, Mad Dummy found a life-sized Mew Mew doll more in their taste, so Sweetie Belle decided to call them, or her, Mad Mew Mew.

And seeing her face, she seemed confident in her actual hand.

She wasn't good at hiding her emotions...

Sans however... It was just impossible to read him. He always had that smile, no matter what.

The skeleton then revealed the last card on the table.

A three of heart.

Sweetie Belle internally groaned. Well, here goes the Full House... But at least, a Two Pairs in not that bad.

"Take that. Take that! TAKE THAT! Two Pairs!" Mad Mew Mew shouted in victory, revealing her hand composed of a king and a three.

No wonder she was sure of herself, a pair of kings is rather good. And then, she got a pair of threes.

"welp, i lost," Sans said, revealing a pair of aces in his hands. "lucky you got that three."

"Ah, so, I would've lost if I hadn't gotten it..." Mad Mew Mew said, sweat appearing on her dolly face somehow.

"Actually..." Sweetie Belle began before she revealed her hand. "You still lose."

Even if they both had a pair of kings, Sweetie's pair of sixes was superior to Mad Mew Mew's pair of threes.

"Arg! Damn it!"

"Eheh. Good job kid," Dohj said.

"That was close," Bob said.

"Just you wait! I will win the next round!" Mad Mew Mew said as Sans gathered the cards and mixed them.

But then...

Ring!

"Oh?" Sweetie Belle took her phone and looked at who was calling. "Sorry guys, but I must go." She quickly took the gold coins she won under the groans of Mad Mew Mew. "It was great! I hope to play against you again some day!" She then jumped down from her chair and answered the call as she exited the bar. "Hey Frisk! So your date is over?"

«Yes,» Frisk answered.

"Okay. where are you?"

«At the Save Point not far of Undyne's house.»

"Okay, give me a second," Sweetie Belle said before she teleported to the indicated place, finding the human girl here. "So, how did it go?"

"Uh... It was... weird. She didn't know what to do, she took it like a game, and even brought all kinds of objects to raise my "affection statistic." And the worst was that they were all gift clearly for Undyne, not me. Like a polish for armor."

"Oh my Celestia..." Sweetie Belle said at this, putting a hoof on her head while slowly shaking it with an amused smile.

"Then she brought us to the Garbage Dump."

"Ah, of course... What is a better place for a date than a garbage dump?" Sweetie Belle deadpanned.

"And she saw Undyne coming so she quickly hid behind a trash can. When Undyne was gone, she then revealed to me her love to her but she was too scared to tell her because she feared what Undyne may think of her if she discovered the real Alphys who was hidden behind all the lies. So I began to help her, convincing her to tell Undyne everything and giving her the confidence she needed to do it. We even began to roleplay with me as Undyne! But then, as she was spilling her heart to me about how she wanted Undyne to hold her, Undyne returned and heard this!"

Sweetie Belle burst into laughter at this. "W-woah! She couldn't have chosen a worst timing! Or best timing! Whatever!"

"Well, I guess that it was the best timing because Alphys was able to tell Undyne everything. And then... Everything went weird again."

"How so?"

"Undyne threw Alphys in a trash can..."

"Say what?"

"Then she said that she didn't care about all that and that she loved Alphys because she was passionate and all. So Alphys didn't have any reason to lie to her and anyone else and wanted her to stop. Undyne then said that she will help her become happy with who she was and Papyrus came from nowhere to train her. And finally, when Alphys was gone with Papyrus, Undyne began to have a breakdown about whether or not anime were real and became really scary, but I told her the truth and she accepted it before leaving me."

"See? Everything went well! You didn't have to worry!"

Frisk huffed. "Yes, well, then, before reaching this Save Point, I got a call from Papyrus who told me that Alphys had already finished her training and he sent her to her home. And he advised me to go see her. He sounded a bit strange, by the way."

"I'm not surprised about this outcome. Most nerds don't have a lot of stamina. So, we still go to Alphys' lab?"

"Yeah, but before that, I must tell you something. You see, Alphys brought us in the Garbage Dump all the way to the end. And you know what? There are golden flowers there, growing in the water! So, after the date, I went to smell them and I touched one of them, but then... I don't know, I must have lost consciousness because I got a vision or a dream, I don't know, before waking up lying down on the flowers."

"Really? Weird. What was that vision?"

"It was mainly of someone talking. I couldn't see anything, but whoever it was, it was a child, a boy, I think. And he was talking to... Chara. Uh, if I understood it right, Chara had just fallen down when this boy found, uh... Her? I don't think I ever got this Chara's gender, but I don't know why, something deep in me is telling me that she was a girl. However, I woke up just as the boy was about to give his name."

"Mmh... And you said this happened after you touched one of these golden flowers?"

"Yes... I have no idea why..."

"I will go have a look then. Maybe I can find something."

Frisk nodded, and the two entered the Garbage Dump and went all the way to the end, beside a bottomless pit. And here, indeed, was a patch of golden flowers in the water. When she approached them, Sweetie Belle quickly felt something from them. An energy...

Exactly like the one she felt from Frisk, especially when he used a Save Point. She also felt it from Flowey, and a little bit from Undyne.

Determination.

"These flowers have Determination in them," she said.

"What? How is this possible?" Frisk asked in shock.

Sweetie Belle thought about this for a moment. "I don't know enough about Determination to be certain of an answer. It could very well be natural from these flowers to have Determination in them. Or they could have gotten it somehow, but how... Well, the only explanation I can think of right away is Flowey."

"Flowey?"

"Yeah. When I talked to him, I could feel that he had a lot of Determination in him. Not as much as you, far from it, but still a lot compared to the monsters who have almost no Determination, or even Undyne who has some. So, maybe these flowers come from him? Like, his seeds are filled with his Determination?"

"Maybe... But then, why did it give me that vision?"

"This... I have no idea. Maybe this Determination interacted with yours and resulted in this vision. But then, why a vision of this Chara? And this is not the first time. You told me that you already had one before waking up in the Ruins."

"Right. Mmh, then I wonder if the golden flowers there also had Determination."

"I can go give a look. Give me a minute."

The filly then teleported. Not knowing the layout of the Ruins, nor where the flowers were specifically, she actually teleported back in Snowdin Forest, in front of Sans' first station, and flew to the door to the Ruins from here. Once in front of the door, she teleported behind it and followed the path behind. When she reached a house - Toriel's house she guessed - she teleported out of it. As much as she wanted to talk to Toriel and to tell her news of Frisk and of how her journey was going, she didn't want to make Frisk wait.

Then she rapidly flew through the Ruins from room to room, traversing the whole path from the house to the patch of golden flowers in a few dozens of seconds.

And not only she found the flowers, but also a monster who looked like a bipedal goat wearing a purple robe. The monster was currently knelt, back to the filly, busy taking care of the flowers.

Well, Sweetie Belle certainly hadn't expected to find Toriel here...

Before she could think of what to do, Toriel spotted her from the corner of her eye and she stood up to face her.

Despite having never seen something like Sweetie Belle, Toriel immediately guessed that she wasn't just an animal, seeing intelligence in her eyes. "Oh. Hello little one. Who are you? I... never encountered a creature like you. Can you even talk?"

Sweetie Belle nodded. "Hello, miss Toriel. My name is Sweetie Belle. I'm... just passing by."

"My... Aren't you the most adorable little thing? And polite too. I am curious to know where you come from, and also why you are here, if you wish to tell me."

"I'm from another dimension. As for why I'm here, mainly, to make friends and have exciting adventures. But right now, I just wish to have a look at these flowers, for Frisk," Sweetie Belle decided to answer trustfully as she approached the flowers.

Yup, Determination.

Toriel gasped. "Frisk?! You know her? What can you tell me about her? How is she? Is she hurt? Is she...?"

"She's alright. I have been helping her traversing the Underground. She made a lot of friends, even managed to befriend the Captain of the Royal Guard and the Royal Scientist. Now, we're about to reach New Home. Don't worry, I won't let her die."

Toriel sighed in relief. "Oh... Thank you... I... I was so worried about her. I'm glad to hear that she was able to do all this. She's such a sweet girl, I'm not at all surprised that she befriended even the Captain of the Royal Guard," she said with a small laugh. "But... You said that you're about to reach New Home... This means that you are about to reach Asgore..."

"Yeah, we understood that he was powerful, but I'm not scared. I'm powerful too, and Frisk found one of these orbs that give magic powers. There's no way Asgore will kill her between the two of us. Anyway, what can you tell me about these flowers? I must hurry, Frisk is waiting for me to return."

Toriel looked at her for a moment before she turned her attention to the flowers. "The golden flowers... They... They're from the surface. They were brought into the Underground... later. And if you ask about these flowers specifically, then... They are a mystery even for me. One day, not long ago, they began to grow here, but I never planted any seeds. I don't know how this happened, but I took it as a gift. Not only they have cushioned Frisk so she wasn't hurt after her fall, this place is... It's..."

Sweetie Belle could hear pain in Toriel's voice as the monster began to hesitate. So the filly placed a comforting hoof on her leg to encourage her.

"It's... where someone important to me is buried... I-I don't want to talk about this."

"Alright, as you want. Thank you miss Toriel."

"Just call me Toriel."

Sweetie Belle then sat in front of the flowers and lowered her head to give whoever was buried here her respect. Toriel smiled at this and petted the filly in thanks.

"Please... Once you return to Frisk... Protect her from Asgore... I don't want her to die, like the others."

"I promise. And I also promise to, one way or another, free the monsters. Once we pass Asgore, I will try to destroy the Barrier."

"The Barrier is very powerful. I doubt that you will be able to..."

"I know. I may not succeed even with all my powers. Then I will find something else. I have contingencies."

"My! Really? From a being from another dimension, maybe I shouldn't be surprised," Toriel said with a laugh.

"You shouldn't, yeah," Sweetie Belle replied with her own giggle. "Well, I must go, it was nice to meet you, Toriel."

"It was my pleasure, little one. Thank you for lightening my heart."

The filly gave the monster a last nod before she teleported away. Instead of directly returning to Frisk, she teleported back to the door at the end of the Ruins to think for a moment.

There were still some pieces missing, but a... weird picture was beginning to form in her head from everything she gathered.

If she was right, Flowey made these flowers grow. But then, why? Why... on this grave? And why in the Garbage Dump? For the grave, she could only see one reason: Flowey had at least some respect for whoever was buried here. She wouldn't say loved or cared since Flowey couldn't love or care, but certainly had some form of good relationship.

Frisk got visions in contact of these flowers... Flowers filled with Flowey's Determination. Why? Well, she first fell on the flowers on the grave so this may be a reason. Is this what happens when you put flowers with Determination on a grave? You start to get visions from whoever was buried? Or more than visions since Frisk also got these weird feelings that didn't seem to be hers. When she listened to the song of that statue for example, or when she got Chara's name and gender.

So... was this Chara's grave? So, by falling on the Determined flowers covering it, did Frisk get... a piece of Chara somehow? Could Determination even do that? Too many questions remained.

Speaking of, Sans told her that Alphys may have at least some of the answers, at least about Flowey's origin. This may help a lot in solving this puzzle.

Flowey himself may hold many of the answers, but she wasn't sure that he would accept to give them.

She finally teleported back to Frisk who was still waiting for her beside the Save Point, sporting a very happy smile.

"Why the big smile?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"I found the owner of the key that we got from Bratty and Catty. It was the key to Mettaton's old house, beside Napstablook's!"

"Really?"

"Yeah, I saw Napstablook and Mettaton talking together and I went to say hi! Mettaton then saw the key and identified it as his. He had thrown it into the Garbage Dump after getting his robotic body. But now, he was very happy to find it! He really wants to reconnect with Napstablook."

"Aww, I'm so happy to hear that! I will have to go and give him a hug! So, about the flowers in the Ruins. I confirm it, they also have Determination."

"Oh."

"But that's not all! I encountered Toriel, and she pretty much confirmed to me that it was Flowey that made them grow. Also, the place on which they grew is apparently Chara's grave. I'm still not sure of everything, but it seems that you got at least a piece of Chara by falling on these flowers, which would explain the visions and all. Also, Toriel told me that the flowers grew recently, so I don't think that this happened to any other humans before you."

"Are you telling me that I am haunted by Chara's... Uh... M-maybe the voice I hear..."

"Let's just ask. Hey, is that you in there, Chara?"

...

"Umh... I feel that she wants to talk, but she is hesitating, if that's really her," Frisk said.

Sweetie sighed. "Alright... So you may or may not have a ghost in your head. These all could only be memories from Chara, but since the voice actually laughed, I doubt it."

"How do you know that she laughed?"

"Like I said, I have my tricks. Anyway, Flowey apparently knew Chara, and I don't know what to think of this. Sans told me that Alphys may be able to give us answers about him."

"So, one more reason to return to her lab."

Sweetie Belle nodded. "Let's go."

Frisk, guessing what Sweetie Belle was about to do, rapidly closed her eyes just before the filly teleported them in front of the entrance of the lab.

Then, they entered it, the door now unlocked, only to find Alphys nowhere. Instead, they found a note in front of the door out of which Alphys had come from the first time.

Door that opened when they approached, where it had remained shut until now.

Hey. Thanks for your help back there. You guys... Your support really means a lot to me. But... As difficult as it is to say this... you guys alone can't magically make my own problems go away. I want to be a better person. I don't want to be afraid anymore. And for that to happen, I have to be able to face my own mistakes. I'm going to start doing that now. I want to be clear. This isn't anyone else's problem but mine. But if you don't ever hear from me again... If you want to know "the truth." Enter the door to the north of this note. You all at least deserve to know what I did.

The note ended here.

Sweetie Belle and Frisk exchanged worried glances before they quickly passed the door, entering what revealed to be an elevator.

Only for the elevator to lose power before dropping and crashing.

Chapter 33: Asriel And Chara

Surprisingly, despite the sudden drop, the elevator not only resisted the crash, but the doors also opened, still functioning. The drop took them off guard, but Sweetie Belle recovered her senses in time to use her magic to avoid any possible harm. Thanks to this, they were still standing and conscious.

"Are you alright?" Sweetie Belle still asked just in case.

"Yeah. Thank you," Frisk replied. The poor dear had been so scared that she had tears in her eyes.

Sweetie Belle gave her a quick hug to reassure her before they moved out of the elevator.

Wherever they were now, it was plunged in near total darkness. The power of the place was out, only leaving a few emergency lights that barely showed anything.

Well, right now, there wasn't much to see anyway. The elevator room was totally empty, so they had nothing else to do but to advance in the only hallway out of it.

Then, on a wall, they saw a screen suddenly turning on as they passed beside it, revealing a text, or more specifically, an entry.

ENTRY NUMBER 1
This is it... Time to do what the King has asked me to do. I will create the power to free us all. I will unleash the power of the SOUL.

"So, are we... in a secret lab?" Frisk wondered.

"It seems so. And a very old one it seems too. Look at the cracks in the walls," Sweetie Belle said, pointing at the mentioned cracks visible here and there on the wall. The place was also covered in dust. Clearly Alphys hadn't bothered to clean the place in a while. Place that needed some maintenance. All this and the dark green color scheme of the surfaces were giving this lab a very unsettling atmosphere that was giving shivers to the human girl who remained close to the filly.

This was the kind of place that you would find in one of these survival horror games. But they hoped that, unlike in these video games, the lab was actually empty and that there wasn't a bloodthirsty monster creeping in the darkness, result of some experiment gone wrong.

That was Alphys' (secret) lab after all, there was no way there was such a monster down here.

Right?

"There are more screens over there. Let's look," Frisk pointed out further in the hallway.

And they went to the next screen.

ENTRY NUMBER 2
The barrier is locked by SOUL power... Unfortunately, this power cannot be recreated artificially. SOUL power can only be derived from what was once living. So, to create more, we will have to use what we have now... The SOULs of monsters.

ENTRY NUMBER 3
But extracting a SOUL from a living monster would require incredible power... Besides being impractical, doing so would instantly destroy the SOUL's host. And, unlike the persistent SOULs of humans... The SOULs of most monsters disappear immediately upon death. If only I could make a monster's SOUL last...

"Oh Celestia..." Sweetie Belle had a very bad feeling about this. That was the kind of experiment that resulted in bloodthirsty monsters.

They quickly went to the next screen, the last one in the hallway before it turned left.

ENTRY NUMBER 5

What? Where is the fourth entry?

I've done it.
Using the blueprints, I've extracted it from the human SOULs. I believe this is what gives their SOULs the strength to persist after death. The will to keep living... The resolve to change fate. Let's call this power... "Determination."

"So Alphys knows about Determination?" Frisk wondered.

"And I think that I start to see where this is going... I bet all my money that she injected that Determination into monsters and this went wrong. And if she made Flowey, then I'm certain now that she did it by injecting Determination into a flower for one reason or another."

"You think Alphys made Flowey?" Frisk asked.

"Right, I haven't told you. During your date with Papyrus, I had a chat with Sans about Flowey. He was certain that Flowey was not a monster, but a SOULless being somehow given life, and he implied that Alphys may be the one who did it. Or at least, she may know how this happened."

"But all these flowers had Determination in them, and yet, they didn't come to life," Frisk remarked.

"Yeah, there's probably something else. And I hope to find an entry explaining what that was."

No more screen came as they continued to follow the hallway. Before long, they reached a room with a large metallic double door with four colored LEDs (red, green, yellow, and blue) actually turned off. At the left of the door was a vending machine of all things, and at the right was another screen. Then, at the left of the machine and at the right of the screen were two paths.

There was also a Save Point at their left and Frisk quickly activated it.

A note was also on the floor. They could barely read it, but it indicated that the double door led to the Power Room, so they needed to open it to restore the power to the elevator. The screen at the right of the door confirmed that it was the one to the Power Room.

While looking at the screen, they saw that the right path was also blocked by a metallic double door with a red light turned off, so they had no choice but to take the left path. At the same time, they took from the vendor machine some popato chisps (and not 'potato chips').

In the left path, they found the next entry.

ENTRY NUMBER 6
ASGORE asked everyone outside the city for monsters that had "fallen down." Their bodies came in today. They're still comatose... And soon, they'll all turn into dust. But what happens if I inject "determination" into them? If their SOULS persist after they perish, then... Freedom might be closer than we all thought.

"Aaand called it..."

The room they reached after that, rather foggy, seemed to be the place where the experiment had taken place. There were several operating tables, all covered in a sticky substance. Before the tables was another entry.

ENTRY NUMBER 9
things aren't going well. none of the bodies have turned into dust, so i can't get the SOULs. i told the families that i would give them the dust back for the funerals. people are starting to ask me what's happening. what do i do?

"And this is where things start to go wrong..."

There was a doorway after the tables, before a trio of sinks, that just led to a small room with some kind of switch with a red slot. So they supposed that they had to find some kind of red key. However, as they stood beside the sinks to look into the room with the switch, Sweetie Belle felt something in one of the sinks.

An important concentration of Determination.

She immediately faced the sink from which she could feel it and shouted, "Get behind me, Frisk! There's something in one of these sinks."

Frisk followed her instruction and moved so Sweetie Belle was between her and the sink.

Sweetie Belle then carefully approached the sink, examining it. Finding nothing, she decided to turn it on.

Instead of water, a strange white gooish stuff began to come out of the faucet.

The filly quickly stepped back, readying herself.

Then, the white stuff turned into three... things. They looked like floating heads, but each head looked like an agglomeration of faces with a bone from which protruded some kind of wisp that the heads used to stand. As soon as they formed, they began to make noises like a phone, and they even regularly glitched.

"What the heck are these things?" Sweetie Belle wondered. Darn, even for her who had seen a lot, these things were top tier nightmare fuel.

Frisk CHECKED.

No data available.

"What?" they both shouted.

"I thought you knew everything, voice who may be Chara!" Frisk shouted.

At this moment, the heads began to attack by making dots randomly appear in the air. After a short while, the dots ballooned into wiggling smiling scary faces that hurt upon contact.

"These phone noises..." Frisk muttered before she took out her phone and turned it one.

And bingo! They could hear voices through the receiver!

«Come join the fun,» they were all saying.

"Uuuh... No thanks," Frisk replied.

«That's a shame,» one of the voices replied before the things lost interest and turned back into white goo to move away, leaving behind a red key in the sink.

"Well, uh, looks like they were just really weird and scary monsters," Sweetie Belle said. "Whatever went wrong in this experiment, the monsters seem to have more or less kept their mind. At least, there's that. No bloodthirsty monster, I hope."

Frisk let out a sigh of relief at this. She wasn't sure what she would do if she encountered a monster that couldn't be spared.

They took the key and placed it in the red slot in the switch room. They remarked a note on the floor like the one in front of the door to the Power Room, but all they could read from it was that something had been dropped in the sink, so it would have been a clue to find the key if they hadn't already found out about it.

Now that the red key was in place, they returned to the room with the double door and took this time the right path, the double door blocking it now unlocked. In the hallway behind were more screens.

ENTRY NUMBER 12
nothing is happening. i don't know what to do. i'll just keep injecting everything with "determination." i want this to work.

Sweetie Belle and Frisk sighed.

ENTRY NUMBER 13
one of the bodies opened its eyes.

"So, at least, this experiment saved these monsters' lives," Frisk said.

"Seeing the result, I'm not sure it's really a happy thing."

"They seemed okay, beside being now scary and weird and... everything. But maybe they were always like that."

"I doubt. They didn't seem natural."

After this entry, they entered a large room rather foggy too with nine beds, a dog food bowl, a clock that seemed broken, and some fake plants. One of the beds was unmade. Beside the clock was another screen, in the North part of the room.

Before looking at the new entry, Frisk activated a Save Point in the corner, not wanting at all to restart this encounter with these three scary monsters. And she hoped that there won't be more of them.

ENTRY NUMBER 14
Everyone that had fallen down... has woken up. They're all walking around and talking like nothing is wrong. I thought they were goners...?

Nothing new so, this just confirmed that all the monsters survived thanks to the injected Determination.

Now, they had to choose between two paths: one beside the entry 14, and one at the right of the beds.

The northern path led to another intersection, so they choose the eastern one that led to a long room with mirrors on the left wall and a long table with golden flowers at the right. None of the flowers had Determination in them.

"Okay, this is confirmation that Alphys somehow made Flowey. But weird, these ones don't have Determination," Sweetie Belle commented before they looked at the entries here.

ENTRY NUMBER 7
We'll need a vessel to wield the monster SOULs when the time comes. After all, a monster cannot absorb the SOULs of other monsters. Just as a human cannot absorb a human SOUL... So then. What about something that's neither human nor monster?

"So that's why," Frisk said.

"She didn't seem to expect one of the flowers to take life. Again, injecting Determination in them isn't enough. There was something else that she hasn't taken into account that led to Flowey being created, probably without her knowing," Sweetie Belle analysed.

ENTRY NUMBER 10
experiments on the vessel are a failure. it doesn't seem to be any different from the control cases. whatever. they're a hassle to work with anyway. the seeds just stick to you, and won't let go...

"Oh, those are control cases. That's why they don't have Determination. And I think that we have our explanation for the presence of the flowers in the Garbage Dump," Sweetie Belle said.

"Uh?" Frisk questioned.

"Alphys loves to go to the Garbage Dump. If she had seeds sticking on her from the flower she experimented on, then some probably fell there. So these flowers may be from Flowey's seeds before he gained life."

Frisk nodded in understanding.

They continued in the hallway, and there were no more screens. However, when they passed beside a wall fully covered with mirrors, they remarked something weird with the reflection. And before their eyes, the reflection turned into that white substance that morphed into some kind of bird abomination.

The bird had a very elongated body, and its head was turned to the side so it looked like it only had one eye... Or maybe it really had just one eye... With a closer look, the head reminded them of something...

"Is it me or the head looks like an Astigmatism?" Sweetie Belle said. "Look, the 'beak' is actually the legs!"

This shocked Frisk. "You're right! And look! The 'wings'! They look like the legs of a Final Froggit!"

The bird then talked, but whatever it said was totally incomprehensible, the words being garbled messes as if it was wanting to say several things but couldn't decide so it was saying everything at once. But they could clearly distinguish a Froggit's characteristic croak in this mess of mixed words!

The bird then used its magic to make a strange creature that looked like an anthropomorphic bird embryo with black circles for eyes appear. Then, a swarm of butterflies appeared and attacked the head of the being, causing it to writhe in pain.

They remembered that butterflies were used by monsters like Whimsalot, and the legs of the bird did look like elongated, stretched versions of the legs of a Whimsalot.

They finally understood.

"These things... They're amalgamations of the monsters who had been injected with Determination," Sweetie Belle said in horror. "Their bodies turned into that white sticky substance and they merged together into these beings."

Frisk grimly nodded. "And this one seems to be an amalgamation of a Final Froggit, a Whimsalot, and an Astigmatism. I think that I know how to appease it."

Frisk turned out to be right. Since the bird was an amalgamation of these three monsters, then they needed to do the same things with it that they did back in the CORE when they encountered these monsters. But it wasn't easy because of the now headless being shakily walking toward them, some of the butterflies flying in their direction. Once all the butterflies were gone, the being regenerated its head only to toss it at them before repeating the process.

Even these things' attacks were disturbing.

But eventually, the bird was placated, and the three monsters composing it were able to talk separately, becoming distinguishable.

So Sweetie Belle and Frisk left it, or them, and continued.

"So this is why Alphys is... like this..." Frisk then said.

"Yeah. She felt guilty about what happened to these monsters, lost her self-esteems, and became a recluse..."

They entered a room at the end of the hallway. Another switch room, this one with a blue slot. Like in the other room, there was a note on the floor where they could only understand one word: "Cold..."

So the blue key was probably in some place cold.

"But... It wasn't her fault... She couldn't have known... She just wanted to help and to do what Asgore asked," Frisk said as they left the room and began the walk back to the bedroom.

"I think that a big part of that guilt has to do with actually failing the monsters. Then, she hid this 'shame' and this certainly added more guilt as monsters probably wanted to know what happened to their closed ones but she kept them locked here without revealing anything. She has a lot on her consciousness..." Sweetie Belle then frowned. "Her note showed that, with our help, she gained the courage to face these mistakes to the point of letting us discover about them, but that part about possibly not hearing from her again scares me. She... may not support facing these mistakes and... We must find her. And we must hurry."

Back in the bedroom, they took the other path and found another entry at the intersection.

ENTRY NUMBER 15
Seems like this research was a dead end... But at least we got a happy ending out of it...? I sent the SOULS back to ASGORE, returned the vessel to his garden... And I called all of the families and told them everyone's alive. I'll send everyone back tomorrow. :)

"If only..."

Choosing randomly between left or right, they took the right path, leading to a room heavily clouded by fog, but they still could see that there was a lot of fans in the left wall, and they could distinguish weird white particles floating around.

Also, there was another entry.

ENTRY NUMBER 11
now that mettaton's made it big, he never talks to me anymore... except to ask when i'm going to finish his body. but i'm afraid if i finish his body, he won't need me anymore... then we'll never be friends ever again... not to mention, every time i try to work on it, i just get really sweaty...

Both girls chuckled at the last part. Not a big surprise. Even Sweetie Belle could understand that Mettaton's new body was considered 'hot'. As for Alphys' relationship with him, they simply hoped that now that they had had a talk (among other things) with Mettaton, everything will be better between them. Also, Alphys stopping lying, revealing everything, and recovering from all this should help.

They then traversed the fan room and pressed a switch at the end that activated the fans, making the fog disappear. But then, the white particles converged and formed another of these amalgamations that approached them.

A dog. A really weird, scary large dog. Who had a single black hole instead of a face and six legs that formed the silhouettes of five dogs between them.

An amalgamation of dog monsters, probably related to the dogs they encountered in Snowdin.

And it was now ready to play with them.

Frisk was pretty intimidated by its size, but the girls still treated it like a normal dog and played with it like they played with the Greater Dog, although they ended up with that white sticky substance on them as a result. Before long, the dog left, happy.

In the end, they found nothing in this part of the lab, but activating the fans was a big plus. It was now easier to breathe, and no doubt that the fog covering some of the rooms had now disappeared.

So they returned to the intersection and took the right path, where there was another entry.

ENTRY NUMBER 16
no No NO NO NO NO

Sweetie Belle and Frisk just sighed sadly at this before they continued.

Before long, they reached a doorway leading to a long room with a bathtub covered by a purple curtain at the end. Through the curtain, they could see the silhouette of another of these amalgamations moving back and forth like a tentacle. Hesitantly, the girls advanced and opened the curtain, but the amalgamation had disappeared by then, leaving behind a green key.

At least, no fight this time.

Returning in the hallway, they continued and reached a room with a large and very scary machine that looked a lot like a skull of that deer monster they encountered back in Snowdin Forest. The machine was suspended from the ceiling above a bottomless pit by large pipes, and there were two other pipes going from the 'eyes' to both sides of the 'jaw'. In front of it was a Save Point.

A Save Point that even Sweetie Belle could see...

Yup, a trap, that was actually one of these amalgamations.

Made from a monster like the one that followed Shyren (they never got his name, he had remained silent while happily observing the concert), an arm like Aaron, and a head made from a Moldbygg.

Once the monster was eventually calmed down as it revealed to be, between others, Shyren's sister and Aaron's brother, the girls took the time to look at the machine.

"What do you think this machine is?" the human then asked to Sweetie Belle.

"No idea," the filly answered. "And I don't think I want to know what this scary machine was used for."

At the right of the machine was a doorway leading to a room with a television between two shelves full of VHSes (mostly cartoons), some of them covered in the sticky white substance. There was also a switch at the right with a yellow slot, and an entry at the left. Finally, a note on the ground in front of the switch indicated that the yellow key was hidden under a sheet, probably back in the bedroom.

As for the entry...

ENTRY NUMBER 4
I've been researching humans to see if I can find any info about their SOULS. I ended up snooping around the castle... And found these weird tapes. I don't feel like ASGORE's watched them... I don't think he should.

The girls exchanged worried looks at this and went to examine the TV, finding a VHS player with some tapes picked out beside it labelled in a specific order.

"Should we...?" Sweetie Belle began to ask, only for Frisk to take the first tape and to put it in the player after gulping.

They weren't sure what they were about to see, but apparently, it was nothing good.

The first tape then began to play. The screen remained black, but they heard a familiar voice.

«Pssst. Gorey, wake up.»

"That's Toriel's voice!" Frisk exclaimed happily upon recognizing the voice.

«Mmm? What is it, dear?» a deeper voice, definitively a male, said sleepily. «...Er, and why do you have that video camera?»

"Could this be Asgore?" Sweetie Belle wondered. It seemed to be the case with Toriel calling him "Gorey."

So this meant that Toriel was the queen.

The tape continued to play, with Toriel making some mom puns that got some chuckles out of the girls. Apparently, she was pregnant in this tape.

When the tape ended with Toriel remarking that it was probably too dark to see anything in the video, the good humor it brought also ended as the reality struck.

Toriel was now alone in the Ruins, apparently now hating Asgore. And they never heard of a prince or princess until now.

It was obvious that something very bad had happened that ended up separating the two, and the prince(ss)... not being here anymore probably had something to do with that.

They put the second tape.

Again, the screen was black.

«Okay, Chara, are you ready? Do your creepy face!»

When the name of Chara came, Sweetie Belle was immediately interested in what was happening. Frisk, however, was shocked.

"This voice! That's the voice of the boy in my vision! Also, the voice in my head gasped!" she exclaimed.

Sweetie Belle looked intently at the screen as the tape continued to play. "So... This boy could be the prince?"

When the tape ended, they put in the third one.

Screen black again. It looked like they had a bad habit of making so that nothing could be filmed excepted the sounds.

Now, they listened as the prince and Chara talked. This tape revealed that there had been an accident where they baked a pie but ended up poisoning Asgore because they put buttercups when the recipe asked for cups of butter.

And apparently, Chara laughed it off... Hopefully, that was just her way of coping with almost killing someone (furthermore the king).

Then, Chara asked the prince to turn off the camera as she wanted to say something without being filmed.

So came the fourth tape.

Chara and the prince now had a plan in place to free everyone, but the prince didn't like this where Chara was determined to see it to fruition.

And this involved flowers...

Oh no...

Fifth tape...

«Chara... Can you hear me? We want you to wake up...» they first heard Toriel who was crying.

«Chara! You have to stay determined! You can't give up! You are the future of humans and monsters...» then came Asgore's voice who was on the verge of breaking.

«... Psst... Chara... Please... Wake up... I don't like this plan anymore. I... I... no, I said... I said I'd never doubt you. Six, right? We just have to get six... And we'll do it together, right?»

And the tape ended...

...

There was just one way to say this: that was fucked up!

So, Chara fell into the Underground and was found by the prince who apparently brought her to his family. Asgore and Toriel then seemingly adopted her. But then, one day, Chara and the prince accidentally poisoned Asgore with buttercups, and this gave Chara the idea of poisoning herself with buttercups so the prince could take her SOUL, cross the Barrier, and take six more human SOULs to free the monsters.

But something along the way obviously went wrong because the monsters were still trapped and there were no prince anymore as far as they knew.

No wonder Alphys didn't want Asgore to see these tapes!

They couldn't hold it against Chara to want to free the monsters, but that plan... Yike!

And Frisk was now feeling like someone was compressing her stomach. And she really wanted to cry. Anger also appeared deep within her, surprisingly toward the prince, but she repressed it. Were they the feelings of the voice? If that voice was Chara, then it would be logical. But why the anger? What happened?

They left the room without a word, returned to the bedroom, found the yellow key in one of the beds, and placed it in the yellow slot back in the TV Room.

They then went to look at a screen at the left of the scary machine.

It revealed that the machine was made to extract Determination, currently inactive.

So that was how Alphys extracted Determination.

The passage after the DT Extractor led to another room containing fridges, and there were fans turned on near the ceiling.

They found three entries here.

ENTRY NUMBER 19
the families keep calling me to ask when everyone is coming home. what am i supposed to say? i don't even answer the phone anymore.

ENTRY NUMBER 20
Asgore left me five messages today. four about everyone being angry. one about this cute teacup he found that looks like me. thanks asgore.

ENTRY NUMBER 21
i spend all my time at the garbage dump now. it's my element.

Darn, Alphys really had needed help.

They then checked the fridges, remembering the notes about the blue key being in a cold place.

And the last fridge revealed to be another amalgamation.

This one looked a lot like a member of Snowdrake's species, excepted that the eyes were replaced by the faces of what Frisk called Vegetoids, and the snowflake-like protrusion on the head was replaced by the body of another, unknown monster as proved by the hands at the top part.

This one was in an even worst shape than the others, its body was barely holding together and it could barely talk, weakly repeating the same word again and again: "Snowy." Even its attacks were mostly harmless or very easy to avoid.

Also, contrary to all the other amalgamation who had all several conscious minds, this one seemed to only have one: a female monster, probably the one of Snowdrake's species.

Maybe even his mother...

The reason of all this was obvious for Sweetie Belle. She could feel that the monster didn't have much Determination left. She was losing the will to live.

"Ice to meet you," Frisk then said, having a hunch.

The monster weakly laughed. "Haha... I remem...ber..."

Seeing that it worked and that the monster was better, the two girls began to alternate telling ice puns, each one helping the monster recover more of her strength.

Eventually, she left them, leaving behind the blue key.

If they ever see Snowdrake again, they would give him a big hug.

They then entered the green switch room and inserted the green key in it. This left only the blue key, so they returned to the bedroom and traversed the mirror room again to insert it in the blue switch.

Now, the four keys were in place, so they returned to the room with the big double door.

They opened it, entering another elevator that had no power. It had another exit that they took, traversing a hallway with two screens turned off before they entered the Power Room and finally turned the generator on.

"Finally," Frisk sighed in relief.

"But no trace of Alphys. Where is she?" Sweetie Belle wondered.

But then, they heard a sound behind them, and they saw more of these amalgamations approach them.

Only to be stopped by someone yelling "Hey! Stop!!!"

And in entered Alphys. "I got you guys some food, okay!?"

Hearing this, the amalgamations moved away.

"Alphys! You're alright!" Frisk shouted happily, hugging the reptilian monster.

"You really worried us with that note you left," Sweetie Belle said.

"Sorry about that..." Alphys said to this. "And sorry about them. They get kind of sassy when they don't get fed on time. I think they smelled the potato chips you had, and... Anyway! The power went out, and I've been trying to turn it back on! But it seems like you were one step ahead of me. This was probably just a big inconvenience for you... B-but I appreciate that you came here to back me up! As I said, I was afraid I might... Not come back..."

"We understand..." Sweetie Belle said. "We saw the entries..."

"I thought so... I worried that I would be too afraid... To tell the truth... That I might run away, or do something... Cowardly... Uh... So... Since you saw the entries, I suppose that I don't need to explain much. As you saw, I researched about the nature of SOULs, extracted 'determination', and injected it into dying monsters. However, this failed. You see, unlike humans', monsters' bodies don't have enough... Physical matter to take those concentrations of 'Determination.' Their bodies started to melt, and lost what physicality they had. Pretty soon, all of the test subjects had melted together into... Those. Seeing them like this, I knew... I couldn't tell their families about it. I couldn't tell anyone about it. No matter how much everyone was asking me. And I was too afraid to do anymore work, knowing... everything I'd done so far had been such horrific failure... But now. Now, I've changed my mind about all this. I'm going to tell everyone what I've done."

She was hugged again by Frisk, as well as by Sweetie Belle.

"We are glad. And remember, you can count on us to be behind your back, and Undyne, and Papyrus, and maybe Mettaton now that he isn't blinded by stardom anymore. And don't forget Asgore. We heard a lot about him and we know that he will do everything in his power to help you."

"Thank you... I know that this will be hard. I will probably struggle a lot, being honest, believing in myself... But knowing that I have friends like you to fall back on, I know that this will be easier to stand on my own. By the way... Did you see the tapes too?"

The girls looked gloomier at this, and that was all the answer Alphys needed.

"Could you avoid telling about them to anyone, please? Especially to Asgore? I'm not sure what would happen if the knowledge of the content spreads, but I know that this will be bad. And Asgore would be devastated."

"Don't worry, we won't tell anybody," Frisk said.

"Thank you again. So I suppose that you will go to New Home now... Do you... still want to escape?"

"We want to destroy the Barrier!" Frisk said.

"Yeah, don't worry, this isn't our intention to kill Asgore to cross the Barrier," Sweetie Belle added.

"How?" Alphys asked.

"Well, I'm pretty powerful, so I'm hoping that this will be enough to destroy it," Sweetie Belle explained.

"Sorry to say this, but raw power won't work. This is SOUL power you need. And unless your SOUL as the power equivalent of seven human SOULs put together - which is the equivalent of a God, if you don't already know - you won't even be able to put a scratch to it."

"Oh..." Sweetie Belle now sported a somber look as she understood what this implied. "I... can destroy it. But I will need to do something that... may be very dangerous..."

"What do you mean?" Alphys asked.

To this, Sweetie Belle let her SOUL out, putting the black heart on a hoof. "Let's just say that the last time that I unleashed the full power of this little thing just to defeat someone, it almost destroyed an universe. Within this void is an uncontrolled power that you can't fathom. And if what you say is true, then I will need to use that power."

Frisk and Alphys both gulped at this.

"I'm sure you can do it, Sweetie Belle! You will be able to destroy the Barrier without destroying anything else!" Frisk said.

Sweetie Belle doubted it, but it was worth a try. At worst, Frisk could use her RELOAD power.

"Y-yeah. I'm sure too. You showed that you had a great heart. I know that you will do everything in your power to not harm anyone," Alphys said. "Now, um, I should go," she then continued as she turned to face the amalgamations that had returned in the room. "It's time for everyone to go home." And she left with them, leaving the human and the filly alone.

Only to return. "Oh right! To go to New Home, you can use the elevator that you passed to come here! Good luck, you two."

And she left, for good this time.

Well, they certainly learned more than they expected while coming here...

But they were still left with some questions. Mainly: how did Flowey come to life? They didn't ask Alphys because she didn't seem to know.

They still hoped to find the answer eventually.

As they traversed the hallway back to the elevator, they saw that the screens here were now on, so they were able to see the entries.

ENTRY NUMBER 8
I've chosen a candidate.
I haven't told ASGORE yet, because I want to surprise him with it...
In the center of his garden, there's something special.
The first golden flower, that grew before all the others.
The flower from the outside world.
It appeared just before the queen left.
I wonder...
What happens when something without a SOUL gains the will to live?

So she knew! Darn it!

ENTRY NUMBER 18
the flower's gone.

But it still didn't say how Flowey came to life! Determination wasn't the only factor! How could a SOULless object gain life?!

Well, no point remaining here.

They entered the elevator and pressed the button to New Home.

When they arrived, they followed the path among the grey buildings, not minding the rest.

Until reaching a house.

The house looked exactly like Toriel's back in the Ruins, without the dead tree in front of it, and with the walls entirely grey. After Frisk activated a Save Point in front of it, they entered it.

It wasn't just the exterior that looked like the house in the Ruins. Inside, Sweetie Belle recognised the same staircase she took. However, the path to this one was blocked by a chain with two keyholes.

They could simply pass above or below it, but they wanted to do it right. Beside, Frisk had the strange urge to explore the house. As the human looked around, she was filled with a strange sense of nostalgia.

Probably Chara within her, but she couldn't stop herself.

On the chain was a note from Asgore saying that the keys were in the kitchen and the hallway, so they moved to go search them, starting by going left, entering the living room.

A table, with four chairs including two small ones and a golden flower in a pot. An armchair in front of a fireplace still warm. Gardening tools in the corner. A shelf full of books, including photo albums, scrapbooks, and books on how to make tea.

Frisk was already starting to shake.

Monsters were present in the house, but they didn't attack them.

Instead, they began to tell something.

First were two Froggits.

"A long time ago, a human fell into the Ruins."

"Injured by its fall, it called for help."

Ooh...

Were they about to tell what happened?

The Froggits didn't say more however, so Sweetie Belle and Frisk continued into the kitchen. Another note from Asgore was present on the counter, telling anyone reading it to help themselves if they were hungry.

Gosh... This king was so nice that he was pretty much giving his home to other monsters.

They took the key on the counter and returned in the living room where two Whimsuns continued the tale from the Froggits.

"Asriel, the king's son, heard the human's call."

"He brought the human back to the castle."

And now, they had a name for the prince. Asriel.

They now entered the hallway, and Frisk opened the first door.

They entered a chamber with two beds, some toys, some plushies, a closet full of striped shirts (mainly green ones with yellow stripes), a drawing of a golden flower, and a family photo.

For the first time, they could see Asgore, Asriel, and Chara.

Asgore and Asriel were of the same species as Toriel, Asgore having blond hair and a blond beard. He was wearing a pink sweater that said "Mr. Dad Guy." Asriel, him, was just a child the size and age of Frisk, also wearing a striped shirt.

Chara... looked almost exactly like Frisk. However, her skin wasn't yellow, and her eyes were wide open, full of life. Her hair wasn't exactly the same tint either, being a little lighter.

Frisk carefully placed the photo back at its place, trying not to drop it.

There were also two gifts on the ground, and Frisk went to open them. One contained a heart-shaped locket with graved on it "Best Friends Forever." The other contained a worn dagger, perfect for cutting plants and vines.

Frisk ran out of the room, and Sweetie Belle quickly followed her into the hallway.

"Hey, are you alright?" she asked worriedly as she saw Frisk holding back tears with difficulty, breathing heavily.

"Y-yeah... I'm alright... This is Chara in me who's just..."

"If you need to go outside, then go. We can take all our time.

"I know. Thanks. But no need."

Frisk then continued down the hallway, passing beside more golden flowers in pots, and Sweetie Belle followed her.

They passed beside a door leading to a room that was apparently under renovation. Frisk pointed out that, back in the Ruins, the equivalent to this room was Toriel's chamber.

A little further, three Moldsmals continued the tale.

"Over time, Asriel and the human became like siblings."

"The King and Queen treated the human child as their own."

"The underground was full of hope."

The second key was after them, beside the door that probably led to Asgore's room.

Frisk entered it.

For once, Frisk didn't follow her name by looking around the room. She just gave a quick look before exiting. Whether it was to not breach Asgore's privacy or because of something else, Sweetie Belle wasn't sure.

With the two keys, they unlocked the chain, and they could go down the stairs. From here, they followed the path again, listening to the monsters as they passed beside them.

"Then... One day..."

"The human became very ill."

Here we go... Sweetie Belle thought.

"The sick human had only one request."

"To see the flowers from her village."

"But there was nothing we could do."

"The next day."

"The next day."

"..."

"The human died."

At this point, Frisk lowered her head, shadow covering her eyes. The voice within her was totally silent.

"Asriel, wracked with grief, absorbed the human's SOUL."

"He transformed into a being with incredible power."

"With the human SOUL, Asriel crossed trough the barrier. "

"He carried the human's body into the sunset."

"Back to the village of the humans."

"Asriel reached the center of the village."

"There, he found a bed of golden flowers."

"He carried the human onto it."

"Suddenly, screams rang out."

"The villagers saw Asriel holding the human's body."

"They thought he had killed the child."

"The humans attacked him with everything they had."

"He was struck with blow after blow."

"Asriel had the power to destroy them all."

Sweetie Belle saw where this was coming...

"But..."

"Asriel did not fight back. "

"Clutching the human..."

"Asriel smiled, and walked away."

"Wounded, Asriel stumbled home."

"He entered the castle and collapsed."

"His dust spread across the garden."

And so the prince died... And Sweetie Belle could now see tears streaming on Frisk's cheeks.

"The kingdom fell into despair."

"The King and Queen had lost two children in the same night."

"The humans had once again taken everything from us."

"The king decided it was time to end our suffering."

"Every human who falls down here must die."

"With enough SOULs, we can shatter the barrier."

"Its not long now."

"King Asgore will let us go."

"King Asgore will give us hope."

"King Asgore will save us all."

"You should be smiling too."

"Aren't you excited?"

"Aren't you happy?"

"You're going to be free."

And this ended here. After this last Froggit (which Sweetie wanted to throw away), Frisk and Sweetie Belle entered a large hall with giant columns and large windows with the Delta Rune on them.

Frisk wordlessly activated the Save Point at the beginning before she advanced, and Sweetie Belle wasn't sure what to do. The tale hit Frisk very hard, and she was actually surprised that Chara (whether it was really her or just a shard) in her had such an effect.

And suddenly, Sans was before them. One moment, the hall was empty. The next, the skeleton was standing under the light of a window, showing his usual smile.

However, when he saw Frisk's state, he stopped whatever he had been about to say.

"hey. why looking so down? i hope this isn't the folks' story that put you in this state."

"Sans..." Frisk said weakly. "I... I think that I understand everything..."

"uh? what do you mean?"

"I know now, how Flowey came to life..."

"really? care to share your knowledge?"

"Asriel died in the garden, and his dust spread along with a golden flower seed that stuck to his clothes. Alphys then took one of the flowers, the first one, and injected Determination in it for her experiments. A monster's dust carries their essence, right? So what happens if you give this essence back the will to live?"

Both Sans and Sweetie Belle were dumbstruck at this. The filly hadn't taken time to think about this, but now that Frisk was telling this, this made sense!

So, this meant...

"Flowey is Asriel," she said.

This wasn't even a question.

Judging by the absence of a gasp, the voice reached the same conclusion.

"so the weed is our prince reborn as a shell of his former self incapable of love..." Sans could barely believe it.

Frisk then took a big breath. "HEY! FLOWEY! YOU HEARD THAT?! WE KNOW WHO YOU REALLY ARE! COME OUT! I WANT TO TALK TO YOU!"

...

"Dang. You aren't that big of an idiot if you were able to put two and two together," a familiar pipsqueak voice then said before the living golden flower came out of the ground midway between Frisk, Sweetie Belle, and Sans, making sure to have the three of them in his field of vision. "That's right. I'm Asriel, the prince back from the dead. Oh my god, what a twist! SO WHAT?"

Frisk let out an uncharacteristic chuckle at this. "So what? Well... This means that you can clarify some things... And this also explains other things... Such as why you planted golden flowers where I 'fell'. It was to pay your respect to Chara, right? Or maybe it was a mean to say sorry about betraying her."

"Dililing! And we have a winner! That's right! I felt guilty about being such a weak coward! Because of me, we both died! And for nothing! I betrayed her trust! That's why it's kill or be killed. If you do nothing, then you just end up like me. And never again will I be the killed."

"But now, I wonder something. What happened to Chara's SOUL? Shouldn't it have remained behind after you turned to dust?" Frisk asked.

"That's a good point, excepted that her SOUL was merged to mine, so when my SOUL broke into pieces, hers broke too and the pieces disappeared in the garden."

"In the garden?" Frisk asked. "But, when you died, weren't you holding Chara against you? So, wouldn't the pieces fall on her body? By the way, what was Chara's SOUL's color?"

"Red," Flowey answered. "And now that you said it, you're right. So the pieces are probably buried with her body. But why all these questions about Chara?"

Frisk just answered with another chuckle as her body began to shake again, tears reappearing. "I died once, in the Ruins. Against a group of monsters. When I died, my SOUL broke immediately. Why? Shouldn't it remain behind? I have been wondering that since I learned that human SOULs remained after death. But... What if the SOUL is actually a patched up human/monster SOUL put back together with Determination and, I suppose, a bit of monster essence?"

...

Now Sweetie Belle and Sans were staring at Frisk in shock. Was she really implying...?

"Go on..." Flowey then said, looking very interested.

"The flowers you left... They're filled with your Determination. And I suppose, since they came from you, they also have your essence. And their roots must go all the way to Chara's body. So, what happens when you put Determination and monster essence in a human corpse with SOUL pieces in it?"

Flowey was now smiling widely. "You mean?"

To this, Frisk gave a broken smile.

"It's me, your best friend... Chara..."

...

"In a way..."

Chapter 34: The Barrier

Sweetie Belle stared at Frisk in amazement.

But, all in all, it was a good conclusion from everything they gathered.

They read in the library of Snowdin that the monsters' dust kept their essence, which was why they spread it on the monster's favorite object so the dead monster could still be there in a way.

Asriel died in the royal garden, and his dust spread along with some golden flower seeds. As a result, the golden flowers that grew there were filled with his essence. Actually, since he was holding Chara's body against his chest, some of his dust certainly spread on her too, filling her with some of his essence too.

Then, Alphys took one of the flowers and injected Determination in it. It didn't work directly. Probably there wasn't enough essence in the flower to bring Asriel back. But once the flower was replanted in the garden, the remaining essence there probably gathered thanks to the Determination, and Asriel came back from the dead as a result, now a SOULless flower.

Eventually, Asriel, or Flowey, found Chara's grave in the Ruins and placed some of his seeds on it. The flowers that grew from them were filled with his Determination and a bit of his essence that the roots then injected into Chara's body.

Which meant, as things would have gone, Chara's body would have eventually been brought back to life, but with just Asriel's essence, it would have simply gotten Asriel's personality and memories.

But then, when Asriel died, the SOUL of Chara that he had absorbed broke into pieces that fell all over her body alongside his SOUL's. So, when Determination was injected in her body by the flowers, the pieces eventually reformed into a whole SOUL.

Bringing Chara back to life, as Frisk.

But Sweetie Belle still was speechless at this revelation, and so was Sans.

Flowey, however, was ecstatic. "So it's really you! I had my doubts at first! You looked so similar, but at the same time, you were so different! Actually, you reminded me more of who I was before. A weak. A crybaby. A goody-two-shoes who couldn't harm a fly. A real IDIOT! All the contrary of who you were! But if what you say is true, then you REALLY are back! So we still are inseparable, even after all these years!"

Flowey seemed oblivious to Frisk's state however. The girl seemed on the verge to have a breakdown.

No wonder, discovering that you were someone brought back to life, and thus, not a simple human girl would give anyone one heck of an existential crisis. Not long ago, she still thought that she had an existence at the surface, maybe someone waiting for her, a family, some friends...

But no. Chara lived so long ago that if she still had had anyone close at the surface, they certainly died from old age at least.

But... Sweetie Belle was feeling that it was more complicated than that.

Frisk was different from Chara, and Sweetie Belle had the feeling that it wasn't just because of the amnesia. Actually, why the heck was she physically different? Chara didn't have yellow skin in that photo, and the tint of the hair was different.

Probably an effect of Determination. Flowey certainly looked slightly different from a normal golden flower. Mainly bigger. And no doubt that after all this time, Chara's body should have just been a skeleton. Determination seemed to have some physical effects.

Anyway, it wasn't the physical differences that mattered, but the mental ones.

“You are not Chara.”

Frisk raised her head in shock upon hearing the voice.

“I would know, because I know for a fact that I am Chara,” the voice in Frisk’s head, Chara, said. “I’m sure because I have all my memories, my feelings, everything that makes me me. Except my body, obviously. You… apparently have it. But it doesn’t make you me. Just… I’m not sure actually. But we are two different people. This, I’m sure of it.”

“Hey! What’s going on? Why do you look shocked like that?” Flowey shouted.

“Ssshhhhh! Something important is going on in her head,” Sweetie Belle silenced him.

“So you really were Chara all this time,” Frisk said, surprising both Flowey and Sans at the mention of the princess.

“Wha-”

“Sssshh!”

“Yes. You two were spot on about my identity. Sorry… for not talking earlier. After hearing my story, the full story, I think that you can understand why I wanted… to remain alone.”

“Why narrate, then?” Frisk questioned.

“It was just a way for me to have some fun. There is not much to do while being stuck in your head.”

“S-so… If I’m not you… Then wh-”

“You are you,” Chara interrupted Frisk’s question with the obvious answer. “It doesn’t matter that you were born differently, you still developed your own personality, you went through your own experiences… You are your own person. And apparently some hybrid human monster. The first to ever exist. Personally, I think that it’s cool.”

“Chara is right,” Sweetie Belle suddenly interjected. “You may have some of her memories, they are only a small part of you. They are part of her essence that compose some of your SOUL. But the rest of your SOUL, of your being, is also composed of other essences. For starting, there is Asriel’s essence, from when his dust and SOUL shards fell on Chara’s body. This is probably why your personality is a lot like his as Flowey pointed out earlier. And then, there is the essence that you got from his flowers.”

“Isn’t it the same?” Frisk questioned.

"eh... maybe i should clarify this one, sweetie belle," Sans finally said, having now recovered from his shock. "when two monsters give birth to a new one, the newborn bears the essence of the two parents, only for these essences to turn different as they're transmitted so the newborn isn't just a copy of the parents. Flowey said that he planted the seeds that led to frisk's birth, and what are seeds for a flower?"

Frisk immediately understood. "Oh..."

Sweetie Belle nodded. "As I thought. So this means that you now also have a lot of that new essence given to you by these flowers. You know what this means?"

Sans was now holding back a laugh as he looked at Flowey. "good job bud, you're a father. or mother? or both? flowers are both genders after all."

This led to a VEEEEERY awkward moment where Frisk and Flowey stared at each other.

"or i guess that we could consider chara as the mother," Sans continued.

“EEEEEHHHHH??!!!!!” Chara yelled within Frisk’s head, making her wince.

Flowey got a disgusted expression. "Chara was my sister!"

"it doesn't change the fact that chara had a big role in frisk's birth, it seems. isn't that what happens in normal couples? you planted the seeds, and chara's body was used to create a new life."

…

“I’ll kill him,” Chara said.

"Thank you Smiley Trashbag, I now need bleach to get these images out of my head," Flowey deadpanned. "Also, it's all kinds of wrongs."

"it's still what happened, from what i understood. and, hey, you know what this means, kiddo?" Sans asked as he turned to look at Frisk. "that the king is your grandfather! that's certainly not something i was expecting to find out when i popped here. crazy family reunion in perspective."

"Yeah, go on, tell the king that he now has a granddaughter born from his son turned into a SOULless flower and from the corpse of his dead adopted daughter. This will be one heck of a revelation, that's for sure," Flowey said.

Yeah, Sweetie Belle really couldn't imagine how Asgore will react to this. He will certainly be delighted to learn that he had a granddaughter, but discovering the circumstances of her birth… Judging by Flowey and Chara’s reaction already, it won’t be good.

“I can’t believe that this is happening,” Chara muttered. “I have a daughter… Frisk, can you tell your father that I’m going to kill him?”

Frisk sweated at this, deciding to not tell anything.

“Wait. This means that Frisk is one day old. Happy birthday one day late, Frisk!” Sweetie Belle said.

"Thanks..." Frisk replied. It was now hard to say what she was thinking.

"How... are you feeling?"

"... I don't know... It's... a mess..."

"You don't say. I'm not sure how I would react if I was the one to learn that I was born this way," Flowey said. "But hey, how about you come give a hug to your daddy?"

"You tried to kill me."

"Aww, come on, can't you give me a second chance? I'm not the only one who tried to kill you only to end up being given a second chance and to become your friend."

"You tried to kill me for your amusement where the others wanted to kill me for understandable reasons such as taking my SOUL to break the Barrier. Also, you want to take the six human SOULs in Asgore's possession and you want to use them to bring more suffering to the monsters."

"Hey, is it my fault that I am bored and that I'm desperate to find new forms of amusement? There's really not much to do down here, even with the power of Determination, so can you blame me for wanting to... expand my horizons?"

"With your philosophy of "Kill or be killed?" Yes," Frisk said.

"This is why... we will have to find what to do about you," Sweetie Belle said with a glare at the flower. "You are too dangerous as you are now. If we break the Barrier with you free to wander into the world, it will be a disaster. I'm actually hoping to find a way to bring you back to your former self."

Flowey burst into laughter. "You think you can? How mighty of you to think that you will be able to find a way to create a new SOUL."

"I did say that I hoped to find one. But if this turns out to be impossible, then there are always the two other solutions: imprisonment, or death. And right now..." Without warning, she surrounded Flowey with her magic and plucked him from the ground, roots and all.

"Hey! What are you doing?!"

Sweetie Belle materialized a pot full of dirt and planted Flowey in it. "There, you won't escape this way. And don't think of doing anything, or I will burn you to a crisp. Once we're done with the Barrier, we will return to the lab and talk with Alphys about finding a solution for you."

Flowey seemed ready to attack her, but he controlled himself. He saw her fight against Undyne, he knew that she was way out of his league right now. Instead, he let out a growl as he reluctantly gave up and became Sweetie's prisoner.

"so that's one less nuisance it seems," Sans said then. “but can we now address the elephant in the room? earlier, frisk was talking to someone, and that someone was apparently chara. she is here?”

“That’s right! Were you talking with Chara?” Flowey shouted.

“Uh. Yeah. She is in my head,” Frisk answered.

“mmh… it seems like her consciousness came with the shards of her SOUL now composing yours,” Sans said. “well, glad to have you back in a way, princess.

“Chara! So you really are back!” Flowey said with a big smile. “Don’t worry Chara, I will find a way for you to regain a body, and then we will have a lot of fun together!”

“As if I would let you have your “fun”, bud,” Sweetie Belle reminded, making Flowey grumble.

Sans sighed. "welp, time for me to go. i was originally just here to congrat frisk about not killing anyone and yada yada, also explaining to her the system about EXP being EXecution Points and LOVE being the Level Of ViolencE, but after all these revelations and all that drama, i just want to go to grillby's and eat a good burger filled with ketchup. good luck to you two in your attempt to destroy the barrier. and frisk, know that you have my support, as well as all of your friends. your origins won't change this. it doesn't matter how you came to this world. what matters is who you are, and the choices you make. remember this."

And Sans was gone.

"You heard him, Frisk? Discovering who you were wasn't what we were expecting, but despite everything, you're still you," Sweetie Belle said.

Frisk thought about this for a few moments before she smiled and hugged Sweetie Belle. "Yes… As Chara said, I'm still me... I'm still Frisk... But... It will take some time to..."

"I understand. And like Sans just said, remember that you have your friends to support you. I imagine that it won't be easy to live knowing that your body and SOUL weren't originally yours and that one of your parents is a psychopathic flower-"

"HEY!"

"-but you can count on us to help. And if you decide to tell Asgore and Toriel about this, I'm sure that they will do everything in their power to help you too as your grandparents."

"Oh... Right... Toriel is my grandmother... and I considered her like a mom..."

"Awkwaaaard..." Flowey said.

“Whether you call her mom or grandma, I’m sure that she will be happy,” Chara said.

Sweetie Belle gave a small giggle. "Let's go. Time to meet the King."

Frisk nodded.

So they exited the hall through the doorway at the other end, entering a corridor. Following it, they eventually reached another doorway with another Save Point in front of it.

A panel indicated that beyond was the Throne Room.

Frisk's heart was beating very loudly.

Sweetie Belle was the first to enter, quickly followed by her.

They entered a room that was surprisingly filled with vegetation on the ground, especially a lot of golden flowers at the center. A tall figure was present, back to them, watering the flowers, humming a song.

From the back, they could only see his blond hairs, his hears, his horns, and a purple cloak with two golden shoulder pads, but they had no doubt that it was the king himself: Asgore.

He heard them approaching.

"Oh? Is someone there? Just a moment! I have almost finished watering these flowers," he said. For a few more seconds, he continued to water the flowers before he placed the watering can on the ground. "... Here we are!" Then, he turned to face them, his cape revealing to be a cloak partially hiding a golden armor. "Howdy! How can I..."

He then saw what they were and stepped back in shock.

At this instant, they could see the centuries of pain he lived through.

His people almost getting exterminated and trapped underground.

His children dying.

His wife leaving him, now hating him.

Having to bear the hopes and dreams of his people on his shoulders.

Having to kill innocent ones for his people.

Under that facade of a loving king was a broken man...

They weren't in the mood of bowing...

"Oh."

"Hello, King Asgore..." Sweetie Belle greeted weakly, her eyes filled with pity.

"H-howdy..." Frisk replied by repeating his greeting.

"... I so badly want to say, "would you like a cup of tea?" But... You know how it is."

"We don't have to fight," Sweetie Belle said. "This is not needed."

Asgore looked sadly back at her. "I heard about you. A visitor from another dimension. I guess that you could simply leave the same way you came. But your friend... You probably know by now that if she wants to return to the surface, she will need my SOUL. And I need her SOUL to break the Barrier. This is needed."

Frisk shook her head. "I don't want to return to the surface. Not anymore..."

Asgore got curious. "Really? How curious... All the humans until now desired this. What changed your mind?"

"A big revelation. And, oh boy, you aren't ready," Flowey said with amusement.

"Oh, howdy. I hadn't seen you little, um, talking flower..."

"Name's Flowey! But you may know me under another name. But are you guys really sure that you want to reveal this to him?" Flowey asked Sweetie Belle and Frisk.

“Despite everything, I’m sure that he will understand and welcome you with open arms,” Chara said.

Frisk gulped. That was her decision to take, and she thought that Asgore deserved to know. But... it was hard...

Seeing her hesitation, Sweetie Belle began by something else. "We want to destroy the Barrier, and I have a mean to do it."

This took Asgore off guard. "Do you... really believe it? We tried everything to destroy it, sacrificed a lot, but it never worked... Please little one, don't raise my hope only to crush it... It already happened enough time..."

"I won't crush it. I know that I can destroy it."

"You seem certain... I want to believe you. But I don't dare. Let... Let me guide you to the Barrier."

At this, Asgore walked to the back of the room where there was another doorway.

Sweetie Belle and Frisk followed him, the filly still holding Flowey's pot with her magic. They passed beside the throne, and briefly glanced at another throne placed against the back wall, covered. Frisk then activated the Save Point here before they passed the doorway, Asgore awaiting them in the room behind.

The king then led them through a small hallway to a passage with another Save Point that Frisk also activated despite the previous one not being far.

They then entered the passage, and found themselves face to face with the Barrier.

It was well named. A powerful magical barrier that blocked the whole passage, shimmering with a strange light that filled the room. They could see twilight shining through it.

Asgore was facing it, seven jars coming out of the ground behind him. Six of them contained a human SOUL (light blue, dark blue, orange, purple, green, and yellow), and the seventh one was empty, ready to be filled.

"Here it is, the Barrier..." Asgore began before he turned to look at Sweetie Belle. "Do you still think that you can destroy it?"

Sweetie Belle gulped. It was a lot of power. Almost on par with Void. It was really intimidating.

"Y-yes. I can."

She then looked down at the SOULs in the jars, and she thought about something.

"Say, humans can't absorb other human SOULs, right?"

"That's right. This is why I am not asking your friend to absorb them. It wouldn't work. Sadly..."

"But... I am not a human, right? So what would happen if..."

Everyone's eyes in the room grew as they understood what she meant.

"You think...?" Asgore began to ask, this time really filled with hope.

"Well, we can give it a test, what do you think?"

"... Alright. Do it. But be careful. They're fragile."

"I will," Sweetie Belle reassured before she approached the nearest jar, the one containing the purple SOUL. She opened it and grabbed the SOUL, not sure how to absorb it. Having a hunch, she let her SOUL out and placed the purple one against it. The purple SOUL was then absorbed into hers, and she was suddenly filled with Perseverance and a lot of power. On her flanks, her Cutie Mark grew to cover about less than half of her body.

She could feel that she was now near the power level of Void at his most powerful. A second SOUL...

She opened the next nearest jar with the dark blue SOUL, and she absorbed it, and she was now filled with Integrity. Her mark now covered her whole body excepted her head.

She could now without a doubt destroy the Barrier. But then, she looked at Flowey and at Frisk (and at Chara even if she didn’t have a body technically) and she got another idea, but she would need more power.

She absorbed the light blue SOUL, and she was filled with Patience.

There was a sudden flash, and Sweetie Belle was now a God. She was back to that state she was when she fought Kirby, excepted...

She still had her mind.

And she could also feel the minds of the three humans whose SOULs she absorbed.

Let me borrow your power to help everyone. And then, you will be free.

The three let her do without struggling.

So she approached the Barrier... And punched it.

Cracks spread from the impact point as if the Barrier was a mirror before it collapsed, and the pieces disappeared, turning back into pure magical energy.

But she wasn't done.

She now faced the three other persons in the room, all looking at her with amazement and shock, and approached Flowey. Seeing that she was getting closer, the flower began to shake in fear.

She reassured him by sending a mental image of what she wanted to do, and he calmed down.

Once she was in front of him, she lightly touched him and used her power to successfully recreate a new monster SOUL inside him. There was then another flash followed by the sound of the pot breaking, and suddenly, Flowey was gone, replaced by a young goat monster like the one in the family photo.

Asriel.

When he recovered his senses and saw that he was himself again, he couldn't believe it.

Asgore couldn't believe it too, but when, filled with emotions, he went to hug Asriel, he saw that it was real.

Sweetie Belle brought Asriel back.

"It's... It's really you... Son..." the king said with a lot of difficulty as he was openly crying.

"D-dad... I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." Asriel began to repeat, his voice eventually disappearing between his sobs.

Sweetie Belle left the two to turn toward Frisk. "Your turn."

Frisk understood and smiled, nodding.

This one will be a little harder, but with these godly powers, Sweetie Belle knew that she could do it.

She could do anything. In this state, she was Absolute.

Frisk let out her SOUL to make it easier for her. Sweetie Belle placed a hoof on it and extracted everything that was Chara in it and gathered it in a ball of red energy before she filled back the resulting holes in Frisk's SOUL with the same method she used to recreate Asriel's SOUL, so it was now Frisk's SOUL for good. Now that Frisk was free of Chara's influence (keeping her Determination at least since it was an active part of her), Sweetie Belle then worked to create a new SOUL from the red energy she extracted. Once done, she then created for it a new body.

And so, Chara was reborn, separated from Frisk, and currently unconscious.

"And there," Sweetie Belle finally said now that she was finished before she gave herself a more mortal appearance to not be as intimidating to the others.

She was then hugged from all sides by Frisk, Asriel, and Asgore who all gave her their thanks. It would have been overwhelming to Sweetie Belle, but in her current state, it wasn't at all. She perfectly understood everything they said.

"Hey! Hey! No need to thank me!"

"I insist," Asgore said. "What you did... It is a miracle. I need to repay you in some way."

"Your smile and those happy tears are enough payment. Beside, I still have some work to do. These poor monsters who became Amalgamates need me."

She stopped herself from listing all the problems in this universe that she could fix. As much as she wanted to do this, it would be a full time job and she had a home to return to. And she knew that this wouldn't be a good solution anyway. So she settled to just help the Amalgamates, the monsters who melted and merged together after being injected Determination. They could live as they currently were, but it will be better for everyone involved if the monsters composing the Amalgamates could return to being just themselves.

"I will leave you to your family reunion. And you need to get to know your new granddaughter," she said to Asgore before she disappeared.

"... Granddaughter?" Asgore wondered.

Asriel looked at Frisk. "Erh..."

Frisk gulped and shyly waved at the king with a small "Hi..."

Asgore stared at her, not processing. "What..."

Asriel laughed sheepishly, blushing and rubbing his arm. "That's a long and weird story... But yeah, uh, apparently, uh... Frisk is... Well, uh... And Chara is... Well..."

He didn't need to say more as Asgore alternatively looked between Asriel, Frisk, and the still unconscious Chara. "I see... I wonder how this happened, but first..."

He lost consciousness.

...

"Uh... How will we transport him to the house?" Asriel asked.

Frisk used her magic to make some vines grow under Asgore, using them to move him to the exit in answer.

"Uh. That's handy. Then I will transport Chara. Annnd start freaking out now that I have a SOUL. Brrr, when Chara will wake up, she will kill me."

Author's Note

Bringing in a literal deus ex machina, because it obviously could only end this way, lol. Seriously, nobody saw that coming?

Chapter 35: Peace

Chara woke up, on her bed, back in her room in Asgore's house.

She looked down to examine her body.

Her body.

That crazy filly really did it.

"Chara..." she then heard.

She recognized the voice. She looked to the side, and here she saw Asriel, sitting on the other bed, looking at her with happiness, but also with guilt and trepidation.

“Welcome back,” he said.

"Asriel..." Chara muttered, several emotions passing on her face. Happiness, anger, shame, guilt… In the end, she decided to settle this by hugging him.

Asriel happily returned the hug. “I thought that you would hate me.”

Chara remained silent for a moment after this before she sighed too. "I guess that I should have seen it coming... You're just too nice to hurt anyone. I shouldn't have forced you to follow that plan. Because of this, you died too."

“No, this is my fault. I knew that this was a bad plan, but I still went with it.”

Chara giggled. “Let’s just say that we were both at fault.”

Asriel nodded.

Chara looked around. “So, where are Frisk and Sweetie Belle? And dad?”

“Well, first, on the way to the house, we encountered Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, and Alphys who were coming to stop a potential fight between Frisk, Sweetie Belle, and Asgore. Now, they are out spreading the news about the Barrier. Then, Sweetie Belle went out using her new godly powers to help the monsters who became the Amalgamates. Frisk is currently in dad’s room, watching over him. Dad had the expected reaction after learning that Frisk is his granddaughter, in addition to the Barrier being destroyed and you and me being brought back to life.”

“He fainted.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah.”

…

“I can’t believe she is our daughter,” Chara eventually said.

Asriel groaned. “This will take some getting used to…”

“You don’t say. Ugh! I don’t think I will ever get used to that! I’m not ready to be a mother! I’m still just a kid!”

“Y-yeah… But I’m sure that we will make this work with dad’s help!”

Chara sighed. “Let’s go to dad’s room.”

Asriel nodded.

The two silently left their room and walked toward Asgore’s room. It didn’t take long, and after just a few seconds, they passed the door and entered the room where Frisk was sitting on a chair beside Asgore’s bed, with Asgore still unconscious on it.

Frisk and Chara looked at each other for several seconds before Chara sighed.

“You know, I should have known that something like that was going on,” she said. “You are too much my spitting image, and even your shirt’s colors are the opposite of mine.”

Frisk got up from the chair that had been placed beside the bed and approached Chara. “Hum… Well… It’s nice to properly meet you, Chara.”

“Yeah, nice to properly meet you.”

…

An awkward silence fell in the room.

“If… If you don’t want me as your daughter… I would understand. It’s weird. We… We could be sisters instead, I guess…” Frisk eventually said.

“No.”

“Uh?”

“It would be like rejecting you, and I don’t want to do that,” Chara said. “We are your parents. That’s the fact. No matter how weird the way you were born is. So, we will just have to accept that and deal with it.”

“R-really?”

“Yes. We will make it work, somehow.”

At this moment, the door opened again, only a little bit this time. Sweetie Belle's head poked through the opening to look at the room.

"Oh, good, everyone is here. I have a surprise for you."

She then fully opened the door, revealing Toriel standing behind her.

When she saw Asriel and Chara, she gasped and covered her mouth with a hand. "Asriel? Chara?"

The next instant, when she understood that she wasn't dreaming, she ran and hugged the both of them, tears now streaming, and they hugged back.

Smiling at this heartwarming reunion, Sweetie Belle joined Frisk who had returned to the chair beside Asgore.

"Sorry I took so long. After I was done with the Amalgamates, I freed the six SOULs and told the news about the Barrier to Toriel. I then told her that I had a surprise for her and brought her here."

"That was nice of you," Frisk said with a longing smile as she looked at the three hugging.

"What are you waiting for? Go join in the group hug! You're part of the family too.

“Toriel doesn't know yet… It would be rude for her if I joined. And I'm not even sure that Asriel and Chara have entirely come to term with... that. I don't think I have yet..."

"No kidding..."

Toriel approached Sweetie Belle at this moment, took her in her arms, and hugged her. "Asriel told me that you're the one who brought them back. So, thank you! Thank you very much!"

Sweetie Belle simply smiled back at her before she looked above her shoulder at Asriel and Chara. "So, I guess it's story time for Toriel?"

"Shouldn't we wait for dad to wake up?" Asriel asked.

“Oh. He is awake. He just didn’t want to ruin your reunion.”

Asriel and Chara immediately went to hug Asgore who wrapped them in his arms as he sat up.

“This wasn’t a dream,” he said, tears in his eyes. “Asriel… Chara…”

Toriel glared at him but decided to not do anything.

Asgore looked at Sweetie Belle. “Thank you for bringing them back.”

“It wasn’t all me. You can thank Alphys too. Frisk, how about you start the story?”

Frisk nodded and began to recount everything that happened, starting by her waking up in the Ruins without memories and the vision she got just before of Chara climbing the mountain and falling into the Underground. After that, she explained how she discovered her power of SAVING and LOADING thanks to her Determination, something proper to humans. Then came the moment of her encounter with Sweetie Belle.

"It was totally by random that I appeared there," the filly explained then. "When I travel into a new dimension, I never know where my rifts will drop me. This one dropped me just in front of Sans' station, just before Frisk came, but it could have been anywhere else."

"So you travel dimensions?" Asriel asked.

"Yup! To live great adventures and make new friends!"

From there, Frisk and Sweetie Belle alternated as they recounted the events of Snowdin (especially Sweetie's encounter with a certain flower and the discussion she had about said flower with Sans), then of Waterfall, and finally of Hotland. They briefly mentioned the voice in Frisk’s head.

“Uh… By the way, Chara, in Waterfall, when I got the orb, I wanted to materialize knives before I settled on golden flowers. Was that… from you?”

Chara nodded and materialized a red knife. “That’s my magic. I have a thing with knives.”

"Creepy," Sweetie Belle said.

"Hey! Knives are cool tools that can be used in a lot of ways! Like cooking and gardening! That's not creepy! Not as creepy as guys that are obsessed with ACTUAL weapons!"

"Okay okay! Sheesh! Darn Frisk. You have one heck of a mother. I advise you to not make her angry," the filly whispered to her friend.

The story then continued, and it wasn't long before they passed the fight against Mettaton. Then came the date with Alphys, and more importantly, the vision that Frisk got by touching the golden flowers in the Garbage Dump.

"Another one?" Toriel asked.

"Yeah, of when Asriel found Chara in the Ruins after her fall," Frisk said.

"After Frisk told me about this, I saw the flowers. There, I felt that the flowers were filled with Determination. The exact same Determination that Frisk possesses and uses. I immediately made the connection, and I went to the Ruins to investigate the golden flowers there."

"Oh, so this is why..." Toriel said.

"Yeah. And there I found out that these flowers were filled with Determination, and I also understood that it was certainly Chara's grave."

Asgore was deep in thought. “So there were flowers filled with Determination above Chara’s body. I think that I am starting to see where this is going.”

Sweetie Belle nodded.

“We were actually starting to think that the voice in Frisk’s head was Chara, but she refused to answer to confirm this."

They then continued the story and it went to the events inside the secret lab, and from there, it was one revelation after another (but they made sure to not tell about the tapes).

"Y-you're telling me that that flower... was Asriel?" Toriel asked, not believing it.

"Yeah... It was me..." Asriel answered shyly. "Alphys injected Determination in the flower, and it gave my essence the will to live. And so I was back, as this flower. Because of this Determination, I was the one who had that SAVE and LOAD power that Frisk now possesses, and because of my lack of SOUL, I ended up using it to do... horrible things..."

Toriel began to comfort him, hugging him and saying, "It wasn't you. I know you, you would never hurt anyone. That flower..."

"That flower was me! Because of my lack of compassion, I became the very thing I despised, but it was still ME! Even without caring, I knew that it was wrong, so I could have chosen not to do this! But I did...! And... I don't think that I can ever forgive myself for this..."

"..." Chara moved to put a hand on Asriel's back. "Hey... At least, it's over. You're back to normal. No more "Flowey the psychopathic flower.""

Frisk joined her. "Now we can work for a better future."

Asriel nodded.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle looked at Toriel and Asgore and said, "So you understood that Flowey was Asriel, but we hadn't yet put everything together back then. We still didn't know about Asriel dying in the garden, so we didn't know that the flower had his essence in it. We only learned this once we were in New Home, where some monsters told us the story. It was only then that we understood, Frisk being the first. And it wasn't the only thing that she was able to find out."

"Y-yeah..." Asriel said as he calmed down. "When I died, I was holding Chara against my chest, you remember?"

Toriel and Asgore both nodded before they understood.

"Some of your dust fell on her body," Asgore said.

"And the SOUL broke and the pieces fell on her body too," Toriel said.

Sweetie Belle nodded, not hiding her amused smile. "And then, Asriel, as Flowey, came and planted some of his seeds on Chara's grave, making the golden flowers filled with Determination grow on it. And said flowers also had some monster essence in them."

It wasn't difficult from there for Toriel and Asgore to put two and two together.

Sweetie Belle materialized a recipe book. "So, you take Chara's body, you put in the pieces of the broken, merged SOUL of Chara and Asriel, you add in some monster essence from Asriel and a lot of blank monster essence from the flowers, and finally, you inject a big quantity of Determination..."

"And this is how you end up with a granddaughter..." Asgore concluded. “And that’s why Chara was inside your head.”

Frisk nodded, not daring to look at him or Toriel in the eyes.

“And… this means that Frisk is our daughter, to Chara and me,” Asriel said.

“Which we are totally not ready to have since we are still children, so we are not sure of how this will go, but we will still be Frisk’s parents. We refuse to sweep it under the rug by calling her “sister”,” Chara said.

A long moment of silence followed before Toriel sighed.

“Well, what is done is done. I’m proud of you two for accepting to take responsibility. And I can promise you this.” Toriel then positively beamed as she looked at Frisk. “As her grandmother, I will help take care of her! I will be the one raising her!” Suddenly, in a fraction of a second, she had Frisk in her arms and she was giving her the mother of all hugs.

"W-what about me, Tory?" Asgore hesitantly asked, raising a finger to get her attention.

"Don't "Tory" me! And I'm not sure that I should let you get close to her. You don't have the best history with human children," Toriel said with a glare that could have put Asgore on fire.

This really hit it home to Asriel and Chara that Toriel and Asgore weren't together anymore. And in a way, they were at fault, and this made them feel guilty.

Even if they were back, things will never be the same, and not just because they now had a... daughter.

Gosh, they really had a hard time coming to term with it.

Toriel then huffed. "But I guess that, as her grandpa, I can't stop Frisk from going to you if she desires."

Asgore sighed in relief. "Thank you..."

“You seem very calm about that whole Asriel and I having a daughter. We are siblings and children. This should be… weird,” Chara said.

Toriel just gave a small giggle at this. "You heard the story. This is certainly... strange, but in the end, nothing wrong happened. You are siblings and children, but thanks to circumstances beyond your control, you now have a daughter. All we can do is accept this." She then looked back at Frisk still in her arms with a warm smile before nuzzling her. "And I can certainly accept being now a grandmother despite the unusual way this happened."

Asgore nodded. “I agree that this is strange, but we can live with this. Together, we will raise Frisk properly.”

And with this, both Asriel and Chara finally accepted that they had a daughter, as weird as it was. So they decided to join Frisk and Toriel in a group hug.

Sweetie Belle then decided that it was time to talk about something else.

"So, what will you do now that the Barrier is gone?" she asked the king.

"Uh? Oh, yes. Well, I will begin the process to move the monsters to the surface, starting by making an announcement. I will then send some representatives to the humans to announce our return and start discussions."

Sweetie Belle nodded. "There is a city on the surface, not far from the mountain. It's certainly Chara's village which has developed well since then."

Everybody else in the room got somber looks at this. They all remembered what this village did to Asriel, and Chara also had her memories of before she fell to the Underground.

There was a reason for her to have run away from her village and to not have a high opinion of humanity.

"Hey. The humans who killed Asriel are certainly dead by now. No need to think about this."

Toriel nodded. "You are right. Let's not put the wrongs of their ancestors on the current generation. And it will be easier to talk to them first since they're the closest from the mountain."

Asgore nodded. "I have the hope that they will welcome us into their city, but if we have to, we will simply build a new city somewhere else."

Asriel glanced at Chara at this before he talked. "I think that we should do the second option. Chara... wouldn't feel well among humans."

Chara never told them why she climbed Mt. Ebott, but Asriel understood that Chara really didn't like the humans. She had had no qualms sacrificing a few of them to destroy the Barrier, and when he had absorbed her SOUL, he had felt her intense hatred of them. Even now, he could see in her eyes that putting Chara back in a human city will end very badly.

Asgore didn't know about this, or at least, didn't know about how much Chara disliked the humans, but he nodded. "Very well. Then we will build the city, and if there are monsters who will want to go live among the humans, then they will have the permission. That is, if the humans agree to let monsters come into their city. However, this means that we will have to remain in the Underground a few months longer the time to build it."

"You won't! I will help you build it, and with my powers, it will be much faster!" Sweetie Belle said with a big grin. "And I want to be part of the representatives sent to talk to the humans. I need to learn politics for when I will take my duty as queen."

Four pairs of eyes stared in amazement at her, and four voices half-shouted "You are a queen?!"

Frisk was the only one not to say anything as she already knew.

"Yup. But I won't start until I reach maturity."

"Mmh... Very well. In that case, I will let you be a part of the representatives. I also intend to be among them," Asgore said.

"Then I will also play the role of bodyguard. I have hope that this will go well, but it's very possible that some humans will react badly once you show up. Especially if they still have in memory, even just as a tale, the vision of a monster holding the corpse of a human child." Sweetie Belle glanced at Asriel and Chara at this to make them understand that she was talking about them.

"That's a good point," Asgore agreed. "But try to avoid using violence. I don't want to start another war."

"Of course. If I have to act, I will only use defense. Don't worry. Let's give all of you a better future."

Someone suddenly knocked on the door.

Sweetie Belle grinned. "But before that, there's one last surprise!" She then used her magic to open the door, revealing another Sweetie Belle. The two Sweetie Belles merged back into one before she looked back at the humans and monsters in the room. "Toriel, you should come first."

Looking at Sweetie Belle questioningly, Toriel went to the door and saw something that made her gasp before she put her hands on her mouth. Not believing what she was seeing, she slowly walked out of sight to the right. Everyone then could hear her mutter something, followed by sobs.

Curious, Frisk went to look and saw Toriel, on her knees, being hugged by six human children, three boys and three girls, of various ages. The youngest, a girl with long blond hair going to her waist, looked to only be six years old while the oldest, a boy with very short black hair and glasses, looked to be fourteen years old. The others were an eight years old boy with messy brown hair, a girl the same age with her black hair tied in a ponytail, a twelve years old girl with red hair going to her neck and possessing freckles, and a boy who seemed to have the same age than Frisk, Chara, and Asriel with blond hair.

Frisk's jaw dropped, and she looked at Sweetie Belle. "Are they... the SOULs?"

Sweetie Belle simply nodded.

"Wait, what?!" Asriel half-shouted before he ran to join Frisk, followed by Chara, then by Asgore who walked very slowly, visibly afraid.

When the King saw the humans, his expression turned into shock, tears appearing in his eyes. "It's them..." He looked back at Sweetie Belle. "You brought them back..."

Sweetie Belle nodded again. "Of course. If I brought Chara back, then why not the other children?"

Asgore was at a loss of words. Several emotions fought on his face, joy, guilt, shame, relief... In the end, he looked down so his hair hid most of his face before he said, "Thank you..."

He then was about to walk back toward his bed only to stop when Toriel shouted "Alice! Where are you going?" before he felt someone tug at his cloak. When he looked down, he saw the little blond girl who looked up at him with her big blue eyes and a smile that was both happy and sad.

And she said, "It's nice to see you again, Mr. Asgore!"

Asgore looked at her in wonder. This girl was the SOUL of Patience, the first human he killed barely a few years after Asriel and Chara died. The guards had caught her when she had barely been out of the door to the Ruins and had brought her to him. Being the innocent child that she had been, she had had no idea of what had been going on, and while she had been a bit scared of Asgore because of how big he was compared to her, she hadn't hesitated to start a conversation with him, about how excited she had been to see her parents again who were probably worried because they had been about to have a picnic but she followed a rabbit without warning them and fell down that hole. She had also talked about how the guards had been nice to her and had loved petting the dog one. She had been so polite, and so full of life...

Asgore hadn't been able to stop himself. He had told her more about the Underground, they had discussed stuff like flowers, tea, their life... Then, Asgore had told her with fatality that she was stuck in the Underground because of the Barrier. The poor girl had been crushed by this, but eventually innocently asked why there was a Barrier. Through a series of questions and answers, Asgore had told her everything.

And the girl had simply accepted her fate. If it was to help the monsters, then she was willing to give her SOUL. She had been happy to help. When Asgore had struck her down, she had had her eyes closed, tears streaming from them, and a small smile, waiting for the killing blow.

The pain she felt probably hadn't been as terrible as the pain Asgore felt in his heart when he pierced her with his trident.

The guards who brought her had also been given vacations for an undefined period of time. The event had hit them quite badly too. Some simply never returned to their job.

He made sure to not repeat the same error for the following humans. He made sure to not get himself attached to them.

Hesitantly, Asgore lowered himself on a knee and placed a hand on the girl's hair, giving her a small smile. "It's... nice to see you again too, Alice..."

Alice's smile brightened. "You saw? The Barrier is down! And I helped!"

"Yes, you did," Asgore said before his smile turned more sad. "But I fear that you still won't be able to see your parents..."

Alice looked down in sadness. "I know... They must be gone by now..." She looked back at Asgore, her smile returning, hiding her pain. "But at least, the monsters are free!"

"Yes, they are..." Asgore said before he raised his eyes and saw the other children. They had all approached, some closer than others, and with various expressions on their faces, mostly uncertainty.

The closest was the red-haired girl, the Kindness SOUL, the fifth humans he killed. She managed to reach the castle without hurting anybody. She even went out of her way to help the monsters. When she had reached Asgore and had begun a fight against him, she had clearly been torn between killing Asgore to return to her family to spare them the pain of losing her or giving up to let Asgore take her SOUL. In the end, it didn't matter because Asgore won the fight. Still, she had understood the situation and hadn't held anything against Asgore.

And she showed it again as, when she saw that he was looking at her, she slowly approached before she gave him a hug without saying a word.

While this happened, the boy with the glasses also approached. The SOUL of Perseverance, the fourth human. Despite not being a fighter at all, being more the intellectual type, he still managed to reach the castle too mostly by hiding from the monsters or tricking them. Of course, against Asgore, he didn't last long, but he fought to the last breath in the hope of seeing his family.

Just behind him were the girl with the ponytail and the blond boy, respectively the SOUL of Integrity and the SOUL of Justice, third and sixth humans. Integrity had gone all the way to Waterfall before she had been caught by the previous Captain of the Royal Guard while she had been hiding in a patch of tall grass. Before dying, she tried to convince Asgore to stop the killing, even telling him how cowardly he was acting, that he could simply absorb a SOUL and pass the Barrier to get the rest instead of waiting. Her words had hurt as if he had been stabbed by a knife because he had known that she had been right. Something similar happened with Justice. The boy had tried to hide in the garbage dump but had been caught. Then, while sympathetic to the monsters, he had made sure to tell Asgore how wrong his actions were before the King ended his life.

As for the last boy, the SOUL of Bravery, the second human, he remained alongside Toriel behind the others, simply watching. And he certainly had been a brave little guy. Despite being terrified, he had attempted to go through the Underground. However, when he had faced the first sentry in Snowdin, he had ended up killing them. This had traumatized the poor boy who had then just let himself being caught by the other sentries. Shaking, he still attempted to fight Asgore when he had been brought to him, but he hadn't really been in it and had pretty much let himself being killed. Asgore had really wanted to hug him, but after Alice, he didn't have the heart.

"Asgore..." Perseverance - Asgore noted to himself to learn the names of the other humans - began. "We... We don't think that we will be able to forgive you for what you did."

Asgore looked down dejectedly. "I understand. I don't deserve forgiveness anyway." He looked at Integrity and Justice. "You were right. I could have avoided all that suffering. I could have ended it much earlier. Either by coming back on my words and giving up on the war or by going to take the six remaining SOULs after getting the first one. But in the end, I did neither. I acted like a coward, and everyone suffered for it." He looked at Alice and Kindness. "That two of you are even coming to me like that is more than I deserve."

Perseverance sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "I personally don't hold it against you. You raised everyone's hope after what happened to Asriel and Chara, but once you began to regret what you did, you couldn't back down. You didn't want to kill, but now, you were stuck in this terrible moral dilemma. So you chose the easy path. I... don't know if I would have been able to do better if I had been in your place. But as you said, it doesn't stop the fact that a lot of people suffered because of it."

"To put it simply, you failed as a king," Integrity bluntly said, making Asgore wince. "But I will join Tomma. While I can't forgive you, I can't really hold it against you. I mostly feel... pity that you found yourself in this situation."

"Same..." Justice said. "And it doesn't help that us humans are partially responsible. First the war, then Asriel's death... At least, it's over. And you got your family back." He eyed Toriel. "Well, mostly... But, I'm glad for you." He then looked down sadly. "Most of us won't be as lucky. I only died about twenty years ago, and I'm not even sure if I will see my parents... Many things can happen in twenty years... At best, they are still around now in their fifties."

"I'm sure that the humans will help you find them, even if they moved to the other side of the world," Asgore reassured. "But if they are... gone... then..." He looked at the six children. "If you have nowhere to go, then be reassured that you will have a home among the monsters. I already know that Toriel wouldn't mind taking you in."

"He is right, my children," Toriel said. "I promise, if you have nowhere to go, and if you allow me, I will do my best to take care of all of you."

"Uhm... Nine mouths to feed... Won't it be a little too much?" Tomma asked.

"Not at all, dear. I already know that I could count on all of you to help. But I don't think that this will come to this. While I fear that this will be too late for Alice and for Benji, and maybe even for you Rebecca, there's still some chance for you Tomma, Alex, and Justin."

"Yeah... But by now, my parents must be too old..." Tomma said. "Maybe... My little brother? Boy, it would be weird..."

"Ah've some cousins..." Alex, the red-haired girl, said hesitantly. "But Ah don't know them that well. And... Ah really wouldn't mind remaining with ya, Toriel."

"Me too!" Alice and Benji said.

Toriel smiled warmly at them. "Thank you, my children."

Meanwhile, Asriel asked, "You won't mind?" to Chara.

In return, the girl sighed before she replied. "I guess that I will have to learn to tolerate the humans now that we're returning to the surface, so having human siblings would be a good start. Beside they don't seem bad. They were harsh to dad, but even I can tell that he kind of deserved that." She then whispered the next part to him. "But mom also deserves some harsh words. She did abandon her people to hide when she could have remained to help. Even then, she could have followed the humans out of the Ruins to protect them. We should have a talk with her about her hypocrisy when we will have the occasion."

Asriel reluctantly nodded knowing that she was right. Maybe making their mom face her own wrongs will help her reconciling with their dad.

They sent a word to Mettaton to prepare a show in the next hour for a great announcement from Asgore. Some monsters already knew what it was about. The news spread quickly. And by the next hour, the show confirmed it: the Barrier was broken.

They were now free.

Immediately, the monsters began to prepare to leave, and the next day, Asgore gathered two teams: the team of representatives that will make the first contact with the humans and a team that will scout the area around the mountain to find a place to build the new monster city.

The first team was composed of Asgore, Toriel, Sweetie Belle, Alphys, and Mettaton. Alphys thanks to her knowledge of humans in general, and Mettaton thanks to his charisma and the fact that he was a freaking robot so he was sure to gain some "SO COOOOL!!!" points from the humans.

The other team was made of the majority of the Royal Guard including the Canine Unit, of the sentries (now jobless) and of some volunteers including Frisk, Chara, and Asriel, the last two already having an idea of the area around the mountain even if a lot of time had passed since then. As for the other humans, they remained in the castle.

The first encounter with the humans went... rather well actually. And yet, it started badly. The tale of the War had turned into a legend for them, and they had totally forgotten that the monsters were real and had been sealed in Mt. Ebott. Even the tale of "the monster who attacked the village" was now just a local fairy tale used to scare children.

So they had quite the shock, and scare, when they saw a group of beings that seemed to be monsters approach. But the little winged unicorn and the robot among them also perplexed a lot of them.

But when it seemed that trouble was about to start when members of the local police began to come, Mettaton took his mike and announced who they were with his most dramatic voice, getting the attention of the crowd. Sweetie Belle then advanced and gave the humans her most terrifying weapon: her cuteness. Looking at them with the most adorable puppy dog eyes she could give and using the squeakiest, most innocent voice she could make, she told them that they didn't want to hurt anyone and that they just wanted to talk.

It was a super effective move...

And she disappeared in a crowd of children wanting to pet, hug, and play with her in less time than it took to say it despite the parents attempting to call them back, scared for their safety.

Seeing that the monsters seemed true to their parole and weren't attacking the children assaulting one of them, the fear mostly let place to curiosity, and before long, the monsters were able to talk with the mayor who had a hard time believing that the legends were true.

And he had a harder time believing that the monsters weren't seeking revenge after all this time passed trapped under the mountain because of the humans.

But Asgore assured him that they just wanted to return to a peaceful, free life at the surface, and that a war against the humans would only lead to more unnecessary suffering.

The mayor then promised him that he will contact the president of the country where Mt. Ebott was situated, and the monsters were left to explore the city under the watchful eyes of some guards. Between Asgore's fatherly attitude, Toriel's kindness, Alphys' curiosity about humans making her endearing in the eyes of some, Sweetie Belle's cuteness and playfulness, and Mettaton being... Mettaton, they were able to make a really good impression to the population of the city.

Of course, some humans still feared them and were even outright hostile to them, but nothing was perfect. At least, nobody attacked them... yet.

Eventually, they left, Asgore promising the mayor that they will return the next day. By then, they should have a location for the new monster city to tell them about, and the mayor should have contacted the president.

When the monsters eventually found a good location for Monster City - some things will never change, and the king's (lack of) talent with names is one of them - the construction immediately began. Like she said, Sweetie Belle helped them, and thanks to her powers it only took a few minutes to build a new house. Actually, she could build a house almost all by herself! She just needed to materialize the construction materials such as wood or stone, give them the needed shapes, and assemble them. The only thing she needed help for were the plans of the houses so she had an architect following her all the time she worked here.

The next day, the president personally came to the human city to see the monsters and to discuss with Asgore. Of course, an army of reporters was with him, ready to immortalize this historical event. It wasn't hard to find a middle ground. The monsters just wanted to live in peace at the surface, so they asked nothing. Asgore was even ready to abdicate as a king so the monsters could become citizens of the human country if that was needed.

The president replied that it wasn't needed. Asgore could remain the king of the monsters, as their leading figure. However, the monsters will now have to follow the same laws as the humans. Asgore agreed, and also promised to help the humans to learn back the lost art of magic as a show of their goodwill, and before long, a treaty was signed.

Monsters were now citizens of the country, and were to be treated like any citizens.

The bad news? This promised a lot of paperwork in the following days for all of them, and even more to make Monster City an official city.

Predictably, many humans protested against this, and there were several attempts at a monster's life for one reason or another. Thankfully, the president had seen this coming and had left a huge police force to guard them, including the newly recruited ex-Royal Guards.

And Sweetie Belle also showed to the humans that she wasn't only adorable...

And the monsters showed to the humans that their magic wasn't to be underestimated, making many want to learn to use it.

So it wasn't a surprise to see, eventually, some humans coming to live in Monster City for this reason.

Speaking of, Asgore also talked to the President about the children. He confessed what he did to them, then told him about how they were brought back to life. The President personally saw the children after that who unanimously decided to not send Asgore to trial for their murder.

The King being put on trial was the last thing the monsters needed.

Instead, the President promised them to help in finding their families (or what remained), and until then, he allowed Toriel to be their guardian with confirmation of the Child Services. In the following days, Alice, Benji, and Rebecca were confirmed to not have any close family members left excepted a little sister for Benji who was much too old by now. Benji was surprised to learn that he had now a sister and actually wanted to see her. Said sister had also given him one niece and two nephews, each giving themselves grandnieces and grandnephews. Benji was excited to encounter them, but preferred in the end to remain with Toriel.

Tomma, Alex, and Justin still had close family members left, but things weren't easy for any of them. As Tomma thought, his parents were now too old to take care of him, and his brother had moved to a different country where he founded a family. Tomma didn't want to move to a different country and didn't want to force his brother to move back, so he decided to remain with Toriel too.

Alex was more tragic. Her mother died of grief after her disappearance, and her father killed himself not long afterward. All that remained were her uncle and aunt and their children and grandchildren.

Only Justin was able to return to his family in the end, his parents having remained in the nearby city. However, they were now divorced, so he would mostly remain with his mother while he would regularly visit his father as well as Toriel every now and then.

Even if she couldn't take care of him, Toriel was happy for Justin.

In a matter of weeks, the majority of the monsters were out of the Underground, and most of them went to live in Monster City. Some, however, decided to remain in the Underground, not wanting to leave this home they had always known. Now that the Barrier was gone and that they had the choice to leave, it wasn't so bad. And it would be sad to just abandon everything they had built.

Finally, after about a month...

"Careful... Careful... And... There! Good job Frisk!" Chara said with a congratulating pat on Frisk's hair.

Frisk grabbed the pot in which she had planted her first golden flower as if it was the most precious thing in the world and looked at Chara with a smile full of childish joy. "Yay! Thank you Chara!"

"See? It wasn't that hard. I knew that you could do this," Chara said with pride.

"She is a natural," Asgore said as he grabbed two pots and placed them on a small cart among a few other while Alice placed a third one. "Not a surprise. She has a big connection with them."

"No kidding dad. They're the reason she's here today," Asriel said beside him with a chuckle.

The four of them were in the ancient throne room, back in the Underground. Asgore had wanted to replant the golden flowers here elsewhere, and Frisk, Asriel, Chara, and Alice had decided to help him.

It was a beautiful day outside. Birds were singing. Flowers were blooming. It was a perfect day for such an activity.

Even if said activity was inside a castle underground...

And it was a good occasion for some family bonding.

As Frisk began to work on a second flower, Sweetie Belle came.

"Found you!"

Frisk waved at her. "Sweetie Belle! You came to help us?"

Sweetie Belle looked at what they were doing and nodded. "Alright. I still have some time."

"Some time before what?" Asgore asked.

"Before I return home. This is why I was searching you. I wanted to tell you that I was about to return home, in exactly two hours, thirty one minutes, and... thirty seconds."

As she expected, everyone was saddened by the news. Frisk and Alice even came to give her a hug.

"So you leave us?"

"Hey... You knew it was bound to happen eventually. Everything is alright now, the monsters don't need me anymore. But don't worry. We will see each other again. I am sure. Alphys is working on a portal, and once she's done, you will be able to come visit me in my universe. And one day, I will also come back to visit you, maybe with some other friends to present to you. I'm thinking of bringing Meta Knight so Undyne can spar with him."

Oh, the show it would give them...

And so, after over two hours of gardening placing the golden flowers in pots and then finding new places for them, Sweetie Belle led them to a field outside of Monster City. When the news spread that she was leaving them, many other monsters and some humans came to bid her farewell.

Sweetie Belle made sure to say goodbye to ALL of them, by materializing clones of herself.

"COME BACK QUICKLY! I WILL MISS YOU!" Papyrus said as he hugged the filly.

"I will, you big goof!"

"So you're gonna kick some more bad guy butts?" Undyne asked.

"Probably. I never know what the next adventure will bring."

Mettaton gave her a pile of movies. "HERE ARE ALL THE MOVIES ABOUT ME, ALL AUTOGRAPHED BY YOURS TRULY! YOUR PEOPLE WILL HAVE THE CHANCE TO DISCOVER MY GREATNESS!"

Sweetie Belle laughed as she placed the movies in her pocket dimension. "I'm certain they will love you!"

"I-I will try to finish the portal as quickly as possible!" Alphys assured.

"I'm sure you will. Make sure to link it to the portal back home."

"We will await your return with impatience," Asgore said.

"Be careful little one. There are probably many dangers out there that even you won't be able to fight," Toriel warned.

"I know... There is always more powerful."

"It was fun with you here. It will be a little boring without you around," Chara said.

"Thank you again for everything you did," Asriel said.

Benji approached and gave her a drawing of her and all the children (including Frisk, Chara, and Asriel) with Toriel behind them.

Sweetie Belle took it. "Wow! You made it? It's really good! Thank you!"

"I made it, but it's from everyone," Benji said, and the others nodded.

"Aww. Thank you everyone."

Sans was the last one to talk. "Eh... i can't wait for you to foal around with us again. the guys and i will miss you around the table."

"Keep a chair warm for me! I intend to return to finally beat you and your eternal smily face impossible to read!"

While she talked to Sans, Frisk approached her, teary eyed, and wrapped her in her arms, and the filly returned the gesture. Not a word was exchanged, but none were needed between them. It was only when Frisk let her go that Sweetie Belle said "See you soon."

Right at this moment, a rift appeared behind her.

"Just on time."

Back when she was a God thanks to the SOULs, she used her powers to make it so a rift would appear right there, right then. The rift would bring her back to her universe, right after the moment she left it.

She also distorted the time of this universe so it would be now equal to the time of her universe. So no problems like:

"-Hey! Nice to see you again! I came back like I promised!

-Uh... It has only been one day for us...

-What? Really?! But it has been over one year for me!"

She really needed to find a definitive way to solve this problem. If it hadn't been for her temporary godly powers, she would have returned to her universe, like, forty years in the future (or just about a year if she had returned to her universe just after breaking the Barrier).

Time could go to Tartarus.

Anyways, with a last wave at everyone, Sweetie Belle walked into the rift.

And it closed behind her.

Author's Note

Frisk: *Cries*

Chara: What happened to you?

Frisk: The mean boy hurt me!

Chara: ... *Takes a knife* So he has chosen... *Megalo Strikes Back intensifies* death.

Chapter 36: Back In The Pokémon World

"Hey, Twilight! Catch!"

"Wha- WAAh!!"

Twilight barely caught with her magic a small bag with a note thrown at her by Sweetie Belle who had suddenly appeared behind her as she had been busy reading a book.

She stared at the bag in wonder, and then at Sweetie Belle. "What?"

"Read the note," Sweetie Belle prompted.

Twilight did so and began to read aloud. "Echo Flower Seeds... Flowers that repeat nearby sounds?"

"Yup. They come from the universe where I was. I know that botany isn't really your domain, but you should find them interesting. At worst, I'm sure that you can find somepony else. The note also has the instructions to make them grow."

"Uh, thanks. So, how was this world?" Twilight asked.

"Very interesting. It was a world with humans and monsters, but the monsters were trapped underground by the humans after a war. But the monsters were very nice, so I helped them, freed them, and made sure that another war wouldn't break out between the two peoples."

Twilight nodded. "So, for once, nothing involving fights?"

"Well... There was that little things about the monsters needing seven human SOULs to break the Barrier keeping them trapped, and plot convenience made that I arrived at the same time that a human child fell in the Underground. So I ended up having to protect her from monsters seeking to take her SOUL."

Sweetie Belle then went on to explain about the SOULs and also about Determination before she did a short summary of her adventure with Frisk and of what she did to help the monsters settle at the surface.

Twilight was very fascinated by the powers of the SOULs and Determination. Although SOULs like they were in the other world didn't exist here, Sweetie Belle was still able to demonstrate the SOUL powers she saw with Starlight as the (unwilling) volunteer. The poor mare almost had a heart attack when Sweetie Belle suddenly sent a blue attack at her without warning.

"If you wish to study these powers, you will have to wait. Alphys is working on a portal."

Twilight was disappointed at this but accepted that she had to wait. She could ask Sweetie Belle to open a rift to this other world but she decided to not bother her with this. Sweetie Belle would have to return to this other world with her so she could open another rift for her to return.

Once she was done with Twilight, Sweetie Belle gathered Apple Bloom and Scootaloo to spend the rest of the day with them, recounting her adventure to them and playing with them.

Then...

"Hey! Spring break starts next week! You know what this means?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo gasped, remembering, and they shouted, "VACATION TO THE POKEMON WORLD!!! YAY!!!"

Which gave a good reason to visit Magolor to see how far he had advanced in his study of the Poké Balls, without forgetting that Apple Bloom and Scootaloo needed translators too.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo each drank a glass of water with a nanobot translator.

"Good! Now that it's done, what is your progress on the Poké Balls?" Sweetie Belle asked to Magolor.

"Oh, I made a LOT of progress! I could talk for hours about these little babies and how much their technology is absolutely prodigious!" Magolor said excitedly. "But I guess that you are primarily interested to hear if I was able to do like you asked, and the answer is yes! I found whatever triggered the transformation into data and their transfer into a computer and I was able to produce Poké Balls without it. I have whole boxes full of them in a room for you and your friends.

But this is nothing compared to what we're developing thanks to this technology! Capsules like these Poké Balls to transport heavy charges and even people all over the planet almost instantaneously by transferring their data from computer to computer! Artificial, digital worlds in which we will be able to live! Video games in virtual reality where we will be in the games! It would be possible to use a single ship to transport billions of people and billions of tons of merchandises as data inside the computers in it!"

"Magolor, calm down."

Sweetie Belle had expected Magolor to let his enthusiasm get the better of him, and she did found what he said fascinating, but she wasn't there for that. All that technological development and stuff was better for Twilight. She just wanted infinite access to ALL her Pokémon without having to worry about that limit of six filled balls per person.

"Sorry," Magolor said sheepishly.

"So, we can now understand everything?" Scootaloo asked.

"Yes. You will quickly find out," Magolor asked.

"And you will be able to talk to the Pokémon like me! Our adventure will be even more fun like that!" Sweetie Belle said excitedly.

"We can't wait!" Apple Bloom shouted.

Exploring a whole new world, getting their own Pokémon, participating in that Pokémon League...

Only a few days left and they could start their (hopefully) first great adventure together.

Sweetie Belle had the honor to be among the first ponies present when Celestia and Luna finally activated the Celestial Music Box.

They had finally done it. They had created a magical music box that could play the Sun Song at predetermined times to move the Sun and the Moon.

And it worked.

A couple of days before the beginning of the Spring Break, Celestia had brought Sweetie Belle along with Twilight, Rarity, and the others, as well as Cadance and Shining Armor, to witness the Box.

They could have given it any look, but they decided for an appearance that was both practical for easy transport (just in case) and that showed the importance of the Box. And so, the Box was a simple small music box like any music box that could be found in a house. However, it was made of gold and silver with a lot of gems encrusted, and the front had a special clock. The clock consisted of a dial with a landscape (the top half being the sky, and the bottom half being the ground) with a hand with the Moon at the end of it poking out of a long horizontal hole in the middle, slowly moving to the right. Currently, the hand had almost reached the 'horizon' of the landscape, and the Moon hand was about to disappear in the hole.

Then, when the Moon was about halfway gone, the Box played the Sun Song just as a new hand with a Sun appeared in the left side of the hole and began to traverse the sky of the landscape.

And when the Sun Song was over, the Moon disappeared beyond the horizon, and the Sun took its place.

It was amazing, and historical.

Too bad this Box was a national secret. Nobody could learn about the Sun Song. Only trusted beings like the ones currently present would be able to know about it. The Box will be hidden somewhere and only Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Twilight, and Sweetie Belle will know where.

And Discord, but they didn't need to worry. He could already screw the movements of the celestial bodies just with a thought so this Box won't change anything for him. Fluttershy just had to talk to him to make sure that he won't reveal its existence to anybody.

And all this thanks to her. Sweetie Belle felt proud that she had such a big role in this.

Another good reason to explore other universes.

As for the Song of Storms, the princesses were still talking with the pegasi managing the weather to find a compromise.

Finally, Friday evening came, and with it, the beginning of the Spring Break.

If Sweetie Belle had calculated right, they will be able to spend only two days in the Pokémon World, even a little less, unless she could find Arceus again or Dialga themself to ask them to do that time trick. Then, they would be able to spend as much time in the Pokémon as they would want.

But in the case they did not, then they knew that they probably won't be able to fully participate in the Pokémon League. Getting the eight badges in two days? Impossible. Not only they had to explore the whole region which would already take a long time, they also had to capture and train their Pokémon until they were strong enough to face the Gym Leaders, without forgetting the Elite 4 and the Champion. Sweetie Belle's Pokémon, even after all these weeks, still had a long way to go.

Well, truthfully, Sweetie Belle hadn't spent a lot of time training them. She mainly let them live their life in Ponyville or played with them. They only trained a few hours from time to time.

But at least, it would be a nice beginning. They could at least get one badge, or maybe two. And Sweetie Belle could always transport them to other regions of the Pokémon World to do some tourism.

And she still wanted to have a look at these Z-Moves and Dynamax. And she hoped to find at least a Mega Stone, without forgetting a Key Stone.

The CMC weren't the only ones going to the Pokémon World for the vacation. Rarity and her friends (including Spike) also decided to come, wanting to take the occasion to see this world. So Sweetie Belle first led them to New Halcandra where Magolor gave a translator for each of them. After that, she gathered everypony for a little lesson in being bipedal.

Because, of course, they won't enter the Pokémon World as their pony and dragon-selves. That would be asking for trouble. So she turned them into humans and began to guide them.

Being already a biped, Spike had no problem. He just had to learn to keep his balance without a tail.

Twilight was also okay, having already spent some time as a human in the world behind the mirror, and more than once.

So the lesson was mainly for the others. Pinkie immediately got the gist of it (of course!), soon followed by Fluttershy, and one by one, everypony was able to walk around on two legs.

Once they were done, Sweetie Belle then gave them, with Twilight's help, information about humans in general to ensure that they won't make a fool of themselves in the other world like it happened to Twilight the first time.

And so, they were ready.

And Sweetie Belle opened the rift to the Pokémon World.

They came out of the rift behind a tree a little out of the way of Pallet Town, near the ocean, so nobody saw them.

"Here we are everyone!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed happily as she waved at the world around, at the town not far, at the ocean, at the mountains, at the sky where they could see some avian Pokémon such as Pidgey and Spearow...

It was breathtaking, but in the end, not that different from Equestria beside the fauna.

Sweetie Belle then pointed at professor Oak's laboratory visible not far. "Let's go! Oh, I almost forgot..." Like the first time, she changed the color of her hair and eyes to not be recognized. She didn't need to do the same to the others however.

"Finally!" Scootaloo shouted impatiently. She couldn't wait to get her first Pokémon!

And many of the others had the same thought.

They entered the laboratory, which had not changed since the previous time, and were quickly greeted by the professor himself who had been working while listening to some news in the radio.

"Oh! Hello! Do you all want to get your first Pokémon?"

Sweetie Belle wrapped Apple Bloom and Scootaloo and hugged them to bring the prof's attention to them. "Only these two for now!"

"Oh my! Sweetie Belle? Already back?"

Right. Several weeks passed in Equestia, but it had been barely over one week there.

"Yup! And I present to you my friends: Apple Bloom and Scootaloo! They want a Starter so they could join me in challenging the Pokémon League."

"So you finally want to try your chance?" the prof asked, and he was answered by a nod. "Very well then, I will prepare the three Starters. What about you?" he asked to the others.

"Twilight Sparkle! It's a honor to meet you professor!" Twilight presented herself before she shook the hand of the professor. "And I present to you my friends: Spike, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy."

As Twilight presented them, they each greeted the prof.

"You are all from the... same place, I presume?" Oak asked.

"Yes," Sweetie Belle answered, not sure if Blue had told him about their true nature or if the prof still believed that they were Pokémon disguised as humans coming from some unknown place.

"I'm not personally interested in participating in the League," Twilight informed. "I'm more of a scholar who would like to learn about the Pokémon. I heard from Sweetie Belle that you are the person to go to for this."

"And she is right!" the prof replied proudly. "I'm never against sharing all the knowledge I gathered about the Pokémon to someone else."

"I... wouldn't mind to... learn about them too... If that's alright of course," Fluttershy said hesitantly.

"Like I said, I won't mind," the prof said.

"I want to participate!" Rainbow Dash then almost yelled.

"Me too! Me too!" Pinkie shouted, bouncing in place and waving her arm excitedly.

"If Rainbow does it, then Ah will too," Applejack said with a cocky grin at her rainbow-haired friend. "Ah'll win the League."

Rainbow returned the grin. "This is on! What about you Rarity?"

Rarity shook her head. "I am not interested either. I just want to see the local fashion."

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Of course."

Prof. Oak nodded. "Very well. This will ask for a second batch of Starters however, so you will have to wait that I get them. I only have one batch at once. I will start with the young ones."

"Yay!" said young ones yelled in joy.

Soon enough, the prof placed three Poké Balls on a table, the same one than last time.

"I'm sure that Sweetie Belle already told you everything, so I will just let you pick your Starter."

Scootaloo didn't even take the time to answer. Already, she was in front of the table, looking at the balls. Apple Bloom, at least, nodded at the prof before following her. She arrived just as Scootaloo picked one of the balls.

"I choose this one! Charmander!" she shouted, proudly showing the Poké Ball to everyone.

"I knew it! You always are a hothead!" Sweetie Belle said with a giggle, earning a small smack from her friend.

"Mah turn. And Ah choose... this one. Bulbasaur," Apple Bloom said as she took the corresponding Poké Ball. "Ah know ya're gonna be the best, partner."

Sweetie Belle giggled again, having guessed right for the second time. "That's good you two. We should go. We don't have much time before we have to return home. Let's start to get, at least, two badges."

"Aw, but I wanted to fight Apple Bloom and her Bulbasaur," Scootaloo complained.

"We have all the time in the world to battle each others, but we only have about two days to get the badges. Beside, your Pokémon only know two moves for now. It will be better to wait for them to have more."

"She's right," Apple Bloom said with a shrug. "Let's go."

Scootaloo sighed. "Alright."

Applejack nodded. "Apple Bloom, remain close to Sweetie Belle."

"Ah will!"

"Don't worry, we won't be far behind you!" Rainbow Dash reassured.

"Before you leave, Sweetie Belle, I must tell you that you should go see Blue once you reach Viridian City. He has something for you."

"Alright, thanks!"

At this moment, they heard something from the radio.

«We just received a report that many witnesses from the region of Orre have spotted numerous people wearing the familiar uniform of Team Rocket at several places. However, because of the still unstable political situation of the region following the disappearance of Team Cipher, the investigation of the sightings didn't happen until it was too late. But the investigations did pick up proofs, mainly video recordings from the witnesses, that there were such people. It isn't the first time that we received reports of people saying that they spotted a member or two of Team Rocket a little everywhere in the world, but this is the first time that we have confirmation of their existence. Their logo seems to prove it as it is the infamous R, but this time, rainbow-colored. Already, people worry that a new Team Rocket is rising from the ashes of the first one, and that what happened in Orre was an operation to retrieve something important for whatever they are planning. Many are thinking of Team Cipher's Shadow Pokémon, which the researches may not have been entirely destroyed. The Pokémon League has already been alerted.»

The reporter then proceeded to remind the history of Team Rocket and Team Cipher, focusing a lot on the exploits of Red and Gold who both played a big role in disbanding the first one.

Professor Oak frowned. "So this is confirmed. They're back. As I feared."

"Just our luck," Sweetie Belle said. "And since we don't know where they are, then I can't just go and wipe them out." She gave a shrug. "Oh well, if they get the good idea of showing themselves in front of me, then I will take care of them. But if they got that Shadow Pokémon technology, then this may get bad."

If what the reporter was saying about Team Cipher was true, then Shadow Pokémon were really bad news. And if Team Rocket got their hands on this technology, then...

She shook her head, choosing not to worry about this for now. If Team Rocket decided to act, then she will be there. Or she could count on the Champions and their legendaries to do the cleaning in her place.

"Let's just go, girls. To Viridian City."

Author's Note

And I'm back.

For your info, the world doesn't recognise Team Rainbow Rocket because this is a different world than the one in which Team RR attacked the first time. Remember, at the end, Giovanni uses the Ultra Wormhole technology to go to a different world after being defeated.

Chapter 37: To Pewter City

As soon as the three were outside of Pallet Town, Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo let out their respective Starter. The three Pokémon appeared in front of the girls and the Bulbasaur and the Charmander expectantly looked at their new trainers before they remarked the presence of each others and their old friend Squirtle now a Wartortle. They were amazed at his new appearance, and he proudly showed it off.

Scootaloo then took the Charmander in her arms and grinned excitedly while Apple Bloom petted Bulbasaur.

"I can't believe I finally have my own Pokémon!" Scootaloo exclaimed.

"Howdy little fella. Ah'm Apple Bloom, yer new friend," Apple Bloom introduced herself to Bulbasaur, and indirectly to Charmander.

"And I'm Scootaloo," Scootaloo said. "You and me will be the bestest team!"

"Bestest isn't a word," Sweetie Belle said.

"I don't care, you know what I mean."

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. "Anyway." She looked at the two new Pokémons. "You two already saw me when I took Tank, especially you Bulbasaur since we had a battle, but I'm not sure that you got my name. I'm Sweetie Belle." She then looked at Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. "You should give them names like I did with Tank and the others."

"I already know how I will name him!" Scootaloo shouts as she fixed the Charmander in her arms. "Torch!"

"Um... You're assuming their gender. What if they are female?" Sweetie Belle pointed out.

"I'm not!" the Charmander, Torch, corrected with a glare. "Can't you see?!"

"Sorry. I'm still not used to differentiate males from females among the Pokémon," the alicorn apologized with a giggle.

"Wait, you can understand me?" Torch asked in surprise.

"The three of us can," Sweetie Belle said while pointing at her friends.

Apple Bloom looked back at her Bulbasaur. "What about ya?"

"I'm female," the Pokémon answered.

Apple Bloom nodded, then thought for a bit. "Mmh... How about Ivy?"

"I like it!" Ivy said with joy.

"I'm not sure how to take mine thought," Torch said. "Yeah, my tail can be used as a torch but, seriously? Naming me after it?" he deadpanned.

"Don't be like that. Where we come from, Torch is the name of the most powerful dragon of the world. And I know that you will become the most powerful dragon Pokémon in existence!" Scootaloo said with a big grin.

"Excepted that Charizard is a Fire/Flying-type, not a Dragon-type," Sweetie Belle reminded as she showed the entry of Charizard in the Pokédex to prove her point.

"Which is stupid!" Scootaloo shouted back as she took the Pokédex and pointed at the image of the Charizard in the entry. "He looks like a dragon, so why isn't he a Dragon-type? That would be like saying that a timberwolf isn't a wolf!"

Sweetie Belle shrugged. "At least, he becomes a Fire/Dragon-type as Mega-Charizard X."

"He should be a Fire/Dragon-type from the start!"

Sweetie Belle shrugged again. "You can go complain to whoever was in charge of attributing the types. But right now, the fact is that despite looking like a dragon, Charizard is not a dragon. Deal with it."

"Well, in my eyes, he's a dragon. He's a lizard, he has wings, he can breathe fire, he is TOTALLY a dragon, and screw the types. Now Torch, let's go fight some Pokémon so you can become the best dragon ever!"

It was at this moment that Torch understood that this girl was the trainer of his dreams.

"Wait a minute," Sweetie Belle stopped her. "I have some stuff to give to you and Apple Bloom." Then, she tossed two bags with a Poké Ball symbol at them, which they each managed to catch. "Dimension bags linked to the common storage space where all the Poké Balls that Magolor produced are stocked."

"Nice!" Apple Bloom said as she grabbed a Poké Ball from the bag.

Curious, Scootaloo put the bag upside down, and a constant stream of all kinds of Poké Balls began to come out, quickly creating a pile of balls at her feet. "Woah..."

With a quick roll of her eyes, Apple Bloom stopped her.

Sweetie Belle then tossed two other bags at them, also with Poké Ball symbols on them, but one was in front of an apple and the other was in front of a scooter. Apple Bloom caught the one with the apple and Scootaloo caught the other one.

"These are your personal dimension bags. No common space. Use them to stock the Pokémon you will catch but won't send to fight. Remember, your teams must only have six Pokémon. If people see that you have seven or more on you, they may ask questions."

"Right," both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo said at this.

"They are temporary. Magolor is working on more effective ways to access the Poké Balls and Pokémon. With these bags, you can't see what kind of ball or what Pokémon you're grabbing. Finally..." Sweetie Belle showed two Pokédexes. "Your own Pokédexes, so you won't have to pester me each time you want to know something about a Pokémon, their attacks, and whatever else."

"Thanks. Anything else?" Apple Bloom asked as she took her Pokédex.

"Nope! That's all! Now let's go to Viridian City."

"And on the way, let's fight as many Pokémon as possible," Scootaloo said with a raised fist.

"Without forgetting to capture some," Apple Bloom reminded. Looking down at Ivy, she said, "Ya won't remain alone for long, girl."

It was barely a minute later that the first Pokémon was captured. In her eagerness, Scootaloo didn't lose time to enter battle with a wild Pidgey and captured him, naming him Hurricane.

Sweetie Belle also caught a Pidgey not long after while Apple Bloom caught a Rattata, respectively named Zephyr (female) and Remi (male). Sweetie Belle didn't bother to catch a Rattata herself since she already had Ratzo. Instead, she simply battled the wild Pokémon encountered with Zephyr to train her so she could catch up to the others. Wild Pokémon around here were far from being the strongest.

They also encountered a few beginner trainers, allowing Apple Bloom and Scootaloo to experience their first battles against trainers. They won some, and lost some. In both cases, they loved them, and Sweetie Belle was always here to heal the Pokémon. Some trainers also eagerly challenged her, but her well-trained team promptly rolled on them.

In the end, they spent more time than planed in Route 1. They encountered mainly wild Pidgey and wild Rattata, letting Apple Bloom to capture her own Pidgey (Windy, male) and Scootaloo to capture her own Rattata (Cruncher, also male), but there were also some other Pokémon such as some brown, round Pokémon with a striped tail called Sentret, or round owl-like Pokémon named Hoothoot sleeping in the trees. Speaking of the trees, inspecting them also let them finding many Bug-type Pokémon. Each new Pokémon was immediately captured by one of the girls, if said girl didn't already have the Pokémon in her team.

Eventually, as they were about to reach Viridian City...

"Guess who's here!" suddenly shouted unmistakable bubbly voice of Pinkie Pie as the pink-haired mare-currently-woman appeared out of nowhere between Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo and wrapped them in her arms.

"Hey, Pinkie! Why am I not surprised that you already caught up to us?" Sweetie Belle said.

"Well, we kind of took our time on the way," Apple Bloom remarked. "Where're AJ and Rainbow Dash?"

"Further behind. They shouldn't be long," Pinkie answered before she put a hand beside her mouth and fake whispered, "They're in another of their competitions. The one who wins the most fights. For once, I was not the one going all over the place."

This made the children laugh. Typical Applejack and Rainbow Dash.

"Which Starter did you choose?" Sweetie Belle eventually asked once she calmed down.

Pinkie answered with her usual big smile before she grabbed a Poké Ball and released the Pokémon inside, revealing a Charmander.

"I present to you Charmy!"

The three girls raised an eyebrow at the name.

"Ya do know that Charmy won't remain a Charmander forever, right?" Apple Bloom asked.

"She will remain 'Charmy' for me!" Pinkie Pie answered.

This earned a sigh from the children.

At the same time, Tank patted Charmy on the shoulder with a look of pity.

"You have no idea what you got for a trainer," he said.

"I'm already starting..." Charmy replied after a tired sigh. "She gave me at least five headaches since she took me."

"Just you wait, it's just the beginning," Tank chuckled.

"Hey! I think I see Rainbow!" Scootaloo then pointed at a figure in the distance. It wasn't hard to recognize the rainbow hair.

"And Applejack's with her!" Apple Bloom said when she spotted another figure with a stetson hat. She then waved at them and yelled, "Hey! AJ!"

Applejack and Rainbow Dash waved back as they approached, their Starters at their sides.

Not so surprising, Applejack had done like her sister and had taken the Bulbasaur, leaving Rainbow Dash with the Squirtle.

"So, who won?" Sweetie Belle asked with a smirk.

The annoyed look from Rainbow Dash and the grin from Applejack answered her question. Expressions that were quickly mirrored by Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, much to Sweetie's amusement.

"At least, you two had fun!" Pinkie said.

This brought a smile back to Rainbow Dash, and the smile turned into a smirk as she looked at Applejack. "Next time, I'll win!"

"We'll see," Applejack replied before she looked back at the children and waved at her Bulbasaur. "Ah present to ya Spring."

"And this is Iron Shell!" Rainbow presented her Squirtle.

Once they were done with the greetings, Sweetie Belle said," I can't wait to meet the rest of your teams. I'm sure you all captured a lot of Pokémon."

"Actually, the prof gave us only five Poké Balls to each of us, and we already used all of them," Rainbow Dash said as she showed the balls on her belt.

"Right. You don't have the bags. Did he give you Pokédexes too?"

"Eeyup," Applejack answered as she showed her Pokédex. "One to each of us. Speaking of, he remembered that he forgot to give one to ya two," she then said to Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.

"Yeah, but Sweetie did it instead," Apple Bloom informed as she showed her Pokédex.

"Well, here!" Sweetie Belle said as she then gave the bags and explained what they were. Although she hesitated giving them to Pinkie since she already probably had access to the Poké Balls somehow with her logic-breaking tricks.

"So! Now that everyone is here and has everything, we can go to Viridian City!" Sweetie Belle then shouted happily. "The prof said that Blue wanted to see me, so his gym will be my first stop. It would be a good occasion for you to see a Pokémon Gym, but if you want to continue without me, I won't hold you back."

"No way!" Scootaloo said.

"We'll remain with ya," Apple Bloom added.

"And we will come too! It's in the gyms that we get the badges, right? So we will fight this Blue and get the first one!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but Blue only fights trainers who have already gotten the seven other badges of the region," Sweetie revealed, making Rainbow do a disappointed "Aww..." "The gym where we will get our first badge should be the one of Pewter City, further North, after the forest. If we don't lose too much time on the way, we should reach it before night. But remember, we still need to make sure that our Pokémon will be strong enough to face the Gym Leader's team. I don't think that he or she will go easy on us, even if he or she will use a beginner team since we don't have yet any badge. By the way, I read that Pewter City's gym specialises in Rock-type Pokémon, so you should make sure to have at least one or two Pokémon super effective against them."

"Uh... Which are they again?"

"Well, thankfully, they have a lot of weaknesses, but the Pokémon aren't really the easiest to find in this part of the region. The weaknesses are Water, Grass, Ground, Fight, and Steel. This means that me, Apple Bloom, you, and Applejack are already good." She looked at Scootaloo and Pinkie Pie. "However, you two will have a problem. Fire is weak against Rock. Flying too, so the Pidgey will be a big nono. And Normal-types like the Rattata aren't effective, made worse that Rock-types tend to be solid so they won't do a lot of damage. Finally, while Bug-types are effective against Rock-types, Rock is very effective against Bug. To be clear, pretty much all the Pokémon we caught until now are not recommended to fight the first Gym Leader. Either you will have to go fishing a Water Pokémon, or teach your current Pokémon super effective moves, certainly using TMs that you will have to buy in a local store."

"Darn. The first gym and it's already a headache," Scootaloo muttered.

"For the Water-types, there's that lake in Route 22, not far of here. Mmh... But you will need a fishing rod... Maybe they sell some in a store."

"Then while you three go see Blue, me and Dashie and AJ will search these fishing rods!" Pinkie shouted ecitedly before she grabbed Applejack and Rainbow Dash's arms. "Let's go!"

The next instant, she was gone, dragging the two mares behind her, their Pokémon trying to follow.

Sweetie Belle giggled. "Let's go too."

Sweetie Belle opened the door to Blue's gym, again as visitors so they didn't have to pass the various challenges to reach Blue, and she found him in his usual place where he was waiting for challengers.

"Hello Blue!" she shouted as she waved at him.

Hearing her, Blue turned in her direction. It took him sometime but he eventually recognized her.

"Sweetie Belle? I didn't think I would see you again so soon. Are they your friends?"

"Yup!"

"Howdy! Ah'm Apple Bloom!"

"And I'm Scootaloo!"

"We're planning to challenge the Pokémon League, or at least to get the first badge before we have to go home," Sweetie Belle explained.

"So I assume that you're planning to go to Pewter City, right? Eh. Be careful. Brock is known to be a rookie killer. Whoever among you took the Charmander should try their luck in another gym instead, like Celadon City's gym which specialises in Grass-types."

"Or they can go fish a Water-type in the lake not far."

Blue rubbed his head, insure. "It's a good idea, but the problem is that there's a lot of Magikarp only knowing the move Splash in this lake. You will lose a lot of time before finding a more powerful Water-type such as Poliwag or Goldeen if you're unlucky."

"Darn... Well, if I have to, I can do like I did to get Drako: if the Pokémon won't get to us, I will get to the Pokémon. Or I suppose that I could just send Tank."

"Mankey can also be found in Route 22. They were much more numerous before, but they moved away. Still, one can still be seen from time to time. Or, if you prefer, there are some Grass-types, Seedot and Shroomish, that can easily be found in Viridian Forest if you search well. They aren't much, but they're still a good option against Rock-types. If you're lucky, you can also find Oddish and Bulbasaur, but they are rather rare, especially the last ones."

"And since Viridian Forest is on the path, it could be a better alternative. Anyway, the prof told me that you had something for me. What is it?"

Blue grinned. "Something that you will love very much. Wait here." He then walked toward the back door and passed it. Not long later, he returned, now holding what seemed to be a bracelet. When he reached Sweetie Belle, he showed the bracelet to her, revealing that it possessed a multicolored stone with a DNA symbol.

Sweetie Belle gasped. "A Mega Bracelet! With a Key Stone already in it!"

Blue's grin widened as he then showed in his other hand a big round transparent stone with some blue and brown in a pattern similar to the DNA symbol inside it.

Sweetie Belle was now smiling like Pinkie Pie. "Is that... a Blastoisinite?!"

"You got it right! I used my... position to get them. After your victory over me, and especially over Red last time, I supposed that you deserved one." His grin then turned into a sheepish smile as he looked at Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. "If I had known that you would have been bringing your friends, I would have also gotten two more Bracelets as well as a Charizardite and a Venusaurite."

"Erh... what are these stones already?" Scootaloo asked.

"Ah think these are the stones to Mega Evolve our Pokémon," Apple Bloom answered.

"Well, that's okay. They can wait. They just got their Pokémon, so it will be a long time before they will be ready to use these Mega Stones," Sweetie Belle reassured. "Maybe next time we visit?"

Blue nodded.

"Wait! There are two Mega Evolutions for Charizard, right? I want the one where he becomes a Dragon-type!" Scootaloo shouted.

Blue nodded again. "Mega-Charizard X. Alright. And I understand you very well. I, too, have a preference of X over Y. X looks much more cool."

"Yeah!"

"I think 'hot' would be the better word for a Fire-type, my friend," Sweetie said with a smug smile, getting some groans in return.

They exited the gym not long after, and quickly found the mares not far, each holding two fishing rods.

"With all the money we got from the trainers we defeated, we'd enough to buy one rod for each of us," Applejack said.

Once the rods were given, Sweetie Belle repeated what Blue told them. They decided to still try fishing for a time, even if it was just to get a Magikarp. After all, Magikarp's evolution would be worth the annoyance.

When they reached the lake, after a few more battles, they spent about one hour fishing. As predicted, they all quickly got a Magikarp, but eventually, Apple Bloom was able to fish a Goldeen that she let Scootaloo battle and capture. Rainbow Dash then got a Poliwag, followed by Pinkie who also got one.

Then, after looking around to see if there were any trainers, Sweetie Belle turned back into her pony-self and jumped into the water. A few seconds later, there seemed to be an explosion under the water, and a knocked out Goldeen flew out of it, followed by a knocked out Poliwag. Sweetie Belle then jumped out of the water and promptly captured the two Pokémon.

Once they stopped fishing, they explored around to capture a few more wild Pokémon, Pinkie getting lucky and finding a Ponyta while Apple Bloom found a Mankey, before they returned in Viridian City and resumed their journey to Pewter City. They quickly reached Viridian Forest, Sweetie Belle capturing a Nidoran male on the way, and they entered it.

Once in the forest, they began to search for Grass-types while traversing it, capturing some other Pokémon while they were at it.

They all ended up getting either a Seedot or a Shroomish, or both, and Scootaloo and Applejack both found and captured a Pikachu.

After spending some hours in the forest to train their new Pokémon, they exited it, finally entering Pewter City.

A small city that was at the base of the mountains that constituted the Northwest section of Kanto. Not far East, Mt Moon towered over the city, casting its shadow on it when the sun rose. It was far from being as big as Viridian City, so they had no problems finding the points of interest such as the Pokémon Center, the Pokémon Gym, and even a museum that Twilight would love to explore.

Time to get their first badge.

Author's Note

The Pokémon Universe is probably the hardest for me so far. Constant back and forth in the pages of Bulbapedia, trying to find nice names for the captured Pokémon, working on their personalities... Working on this universe is very time-consuming. More than Kirby, Zelda, and Undertale.

Fun fact, I wanted to name Applejack's Bulbasaur after the green apples, so I searched in Internet what was their name. Only to find out that they are named Granny Smith... Don't judge me, I never bothered to learn the names of the apples.

Chapter 38: Trouble in Mt. Moon

The six gathered in an out-of-the-way place in Pewter City and prepared themselves to battle Brock.

"Remember, Water, Grass, Ground, Fight, and Steel. If you don't have enough Pokémon with these types to make teams of six, then you can use any other types as long as it isn't Fire, Normal, Flying, Bug, Poison, and Ice," Sweetie Belle reminded everyone before she looked at her Pokémon to see which ones to choose. "So, let's see... Tank, obviously..." she started to mumble.

"Heh! Tank has become so strong that I'm sure that he could defeat Brock's Pokémon by himself if what you said is true!" Scootaloo said.

"Better be prepared. I also think that Tank should be enough, but against a Gym Leader, you never know. They aren't like the beginner trainers we fought until now. They're professionals. They must not be underestimated. Even with a beginner team, Brock will certainly have some tricks up his sleeves. Thankfully, at this point, we shouldn't expect TM attacks, only attacks naturally learned by the Pokémon."

"Excepted that we don't know which attacks the Pokémon naturally learn," Rainbow Dash said.

"And we don't even know which Pokémon Brock'll use," Apple Bloom added.

Sweetie looked thoughtfully at Pinkie Pie. "Pinkie, can you do one of your random guesses that end up spot on, please?"

"My what?" Pinkie asked innocently.

"Don't play innocent, you know perfectly what I'm talking about!"

Pinkie giggled at this. "You silly filly. You know by now that they are not random guesses. And it's not up to me to make them."

Sweetie grumbled.

Writer? Can you make Pinkie do one of her 'random guesses', please?

Sweetie remained here, looking at nothing, waiting for something that won't come.

Well, buck you!

She returned to making her team. "I guess that we will just need to be ready for anything. If needed, we can always try to see which attacks are most often used by Rock-types. It will be better than nothing."

Once they were done putting together their teams, the six walked toward the gym. This one was actually a little smaller than the one from Viridian City, and only had one entrance. The reason was the absence of a puzzle-like challenge like in the Viridian Gym, so visitors and staff members didn't need a second entrance to avoid it. From what Sweetie read about the Pewter Gym, it only had a rock garden with a few trainers here and there ready to battle the challengers. And of course, there was the arena at the other side of the garden.

However, before the girls could enter the gym, the door opened, and a rather large group of people, easily over thirty, came out. At the lead was a middle-aged man with short, spiked brown hair and narrowed eyes not unlike Frisk.

Sweetie immediately recognized him as Brock. She had seen photos of the eight Gym Leaders of Kanto as well as of the Elite 4 and the Champion.

Brock quickly spotted the girls, and when his eyes settled on Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie, he became as still as a statue and his face became entirely red.

A blond man beside him groaned and slapped Brock on the back of his head. "Pull yourself together, dude! It's not the moment to fall for the pretty ladies!"

This got Brock out of his state and he immediately turned more serious. "Right, sorry," he said to the man before he turned back to the girls. "Have you come to challenge me? Sorry, but you will have to wait. Something bad is happening at Mt. Moon and my help is needed."

"Uh. What's going on? Maybe we can help," Applejack said.

"To summarize: members of Team Rocket are in Mt. Moon."

Well, this explained the big group of people. It was certainly a ragtag team of trainers gathered urgently to deal with them. There was a good number of policemen among them.

Sweetie Belle silently groaned. She had had the feeling that sooner or later she would run into Team Rocket, but she hadn't expected so soon. She had actually hoped to spend the whole vacation with her friends without running into bad guys.

Applejack and Apple Bloom frowned while Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Scootaloo got excited looks.

"Can we help?!" the rainbow-haired girl asked.

"We aren't against more people joining us," Brock said with a nod. But then, he got a thoughtful expression. "Mmh... how many badges do you have?"

"Uh... None..." Rainbow Dash answered. "But don't worry! We are used to fights!"

"And we caught and trained a lot of Pokémon on the way!" Pinkie added. "I'm sure that the six of us can do something!"

"Woah woah! Six? Ya include Apple Bloom and Scootaloo?" Applejack asked disapprovingly.

"Of course! They have Pokémon that can fight for them! and it's not like we can leave them here by themselves!"

"And if it can reassure you, I will remain at their side," Sweetie Belle said. "Beside, Red had our age when he fought Team Rocket. And he was all alone. There will be over thirty people with them, including you three, me, and a Gym Leader. Everything will be alright."

Applejack grumbled unintelligibly but eventually agreed with a nod. Then, to Apple Bloom, she said, "Ya won't leave Sweetie, understood? Don't go running to play the hero by yerself."

"You too, Scoot," Rainbow Dash said to Scootaloo.

The two fillies nodded determinedly.

Applejack turned to face Brock again. "Welp, ya've six more recruits to kick the butts of these Team Rocket fellas."

"Good. Then let's hurry up. I will explain to you the situation on the way."

It turned out that the situation at Mt. Moon was... bad. Very bad.

Dozens of Team rocket grunts invaded Mt. Moon without warning, literally appearing out of nowhere probably thanks to a massive use of Teleport. They immediately captured all the trainers that were present in the mountain and only one, an eleven years old girl, managed to escape thanks to a wild Clefairy using Metronome resulting in an Explosion. The girl used the diversion to run away, and she ran all the way to Pewter City and told Brock everything. The Gym Leader immediately took action to gather a rescue team to save the captured trainers and possibly capture the Team Rocket grunts. With a phone, he also warned the police all over Kanto as well as the Pokémon League, and by now, Misty from the Pokémon Gym of Cerulean City was probably gathering her own team to attack from the other side of the mountain.

Heck, the Champion himself, Gold, was probably on his way right now. And maybe Red if he heard about this.

Before the girl escaped, she was able to see what the Team Rocket was doing. Some began to use Psychic Pokémon to hypnotize the captured trainers while the others separated all over the caverns inside the mountain to capture as many wild Pokémon as possible, especially the Clefairy. Adding to this, they were also searching for Moon Stones and fossils, beginning a huge drilling operation with lots of Pokémon with moves such as Dig, Rock Smash, or Dynamic Punch.

It seemed that, now that everybody knew that Team Rocket was back, they were becoming bolder. Or they actually expected to not let anyone escape so nobody would hear of their little operation in the mountain until it was too late. Who knew.

They weren't sure how many trainers had been captured, but the number probably wasn't exceeding ten.

Before long, the group reached the entrance to Mt. Moon's caverns, and they barely made a few steps in it that they found themselves surrounded by about fifteen Team Rocket grunts and four hypnotized trainers. It was easy to see that they were hypnotized because their expressions were blank, emotionless, their eyes unfocused. And of course, they were in civil clothing contrary to the Team Rocket grunts who were wearing black uniforms with the rainbow colored R on the chest.

Sweetie Belle was ready to throw her six Poké Balls, the one containing Tank first. Some of her strongest Pokémon were in her current team, like Tank, Smily, and Drako, but there were also some she just captured and barely trained like Calypso the Goldeen, Swirly the Poliwag, and Amanita the Shroomish. She will have to keep an eye on these last three. And on her friends. Their Pokémon were barely better. They were purely and simply beginners.

At least Brock was a real veteran, and hopefully, he wasn't the only one in this group.

And they had the advantage of number, although the grunt countered it by being armed with whips and batons. The allied trainers only had their fists, excepted the policemen among them who also had batons. And there was that woman who had brought a frying pan.

Good choice.

"I fear that your little rescue operation will stop right there," one of the grunts said.

"You won't get further," another said.

Brock visibly frowned. "Give up. Even if you manage to stop us here, more are coming."

"We will be long gone by then," one of the grunts replied to this.

"It's no use talking to these guys!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she readied a Poké Ball. "Let's start the action!"

Brock sighed, but eventually shrugged. "I had to try." Then, he took a Poké Ball and threw it. "Steelix! Go!"

The Poké Ball opened, and out of it came a giant serpentine Pokémon, bigger at the head and smaller at the tail. Its body was made of several rock-like section that were actually metal, maybe even steel judging by the name of the Pokémon. Some of these section even had steel rock-like spikes, and the end of the tail was conical. Like Gyarados, it had the look of a Pokémon that you didn't want to mess with.

Then, Brock revealed a Mega Bracelet, the Key Stone in it beginning to glow, and a Mega Stone on the Steelix's tail began to glow too, followed by the Steelix's whole body. During several seconds, the Pokémon transformed, and when the glow disappeared, the now Mega-Steelix was much bigger than originally. The rock-like spikes and the tail were now crystalline prisms, and between them with black spots with hollow blue hexagons. A real armored titan.

Despite this, none of the Team Rocket grunts seemed intimidated, and they all threw their Poké Balls to release their Pokémon, followed by the hypnotised trainers. Brock's group then did the same, and before long, two small armies of Pokémon of all shapes and sizes were facing each other, and some trainers and grunts were ready to fight personally.

Again, Brock's group had the advantage of number, but the grunts didn't seem bothered by this. And they had some freaking Ultra Beasts among them!

Darn! From what Sweetie learned about them, they were NOT to be underestimated! These aliens were powerhouses that could give even Gym Leaders, and maybe even members of the Elite 4, some serious troubles!

Then, the first orders were yelled, and chaos fell in the caverns. Fire and water and electricity and beams flew in all directions, rocks were thrown, Pokémon charged and jumped. Quickly enough, in the chaos of the battle, the group dispersed along with the grunts, and the battle spread further into the caverns.

Sweetie Belle had quickly warned Apple Bloom and Scootaloo to remain close as she mentally yelled her orders to her Pokémon. Working together, they battled a grunt whose Pokémon revealed to be very strong. The grunt, a woman, had a full team composed of a Conkeldurr, a Zangoose, a Salamence, a Nidoking, a Nidoqueen, and a Mightyena.

It was hard to focus and give proper orders in what was a 18 versus 6 battle where it was impossible to follow all the Pokémon at once, and this resulted in the Pokémon pretty much having to fight by themselves most of the time. The girls still tried their best.

"Tank! Go help Ivy and Calypso against that Mightyena! They need it!" Sweetie Belle shouted. The Mightyena had managed to knock out Apple Bloom's Mankey, Kong, despite the monkey's type advantage. A clear indication of how much stronger the grunt's Pokémon were compared to the girls'. Even at three against one, the grunt was still kicking their butts. Even Tank and Smily weren't faring too well. Only Drako managed to knock out the Salamence, and it was only thanks to Swirly and Scootaloo's Goldeen, Superfish, making diversion with Swirly ending up knocked out. Smily was facing the Conkeldurr, which would be good, but the Conkeldurr had some non-Fighting move that could hit the Ghost, like Rock-type moves such as Rock Throw or Rock Slide. It even had Brutal Swing, a Dark-type move that Ghost-types were weak against, and it knew it.

Thankfully, a trainer saw that they were in difficulty and sent his Snorlax to help them. As in, the Snorlax suddenly jumped and managed to crush the Zangoose under its weight, taking the grunt by surprise.

Even with this help, Sweetie Belle decided to intervene personally. It was just the first grunt and they were already in difficulty. And a quick look around showed that it was the case for many other trainers. There were some that seemed to go toe to toe with the grunts, and a few like Brock who managed to defeat their adversaries, but a big majority of the trainers who came clearly weren't prepared to face such well-trained opponents.

So, as the grunt focused on the Snorlax, Sweetie Belle ran and in the blink of an eye, punched the Conkeldurr in the cheek, sending it flying and crashing headfirst into a wall. The Pokémon was immediately knocked out. Just as the grunt understood that her Pokémon was now half-buried in a wall and not moving anymore, Sweetie Belle ran to her. The grunt saw her coming and used her whip. Sweetie Belle placed her arm so the whip ended up wrapping itself around it, and she violently tugged, sending the grunt toppling in her direction. She then punched her in the gut, and the grunt was out cold. The remaining Pokémon were then dealt one by one, Drako again helping a lot.

Swirly was now out. Apple Bloom lost Kong the Mankey, Acorn the Seedot, and Mimi the Spinarak. Scootaloo lost Torch the Charmander and Speedy the Pikachu.

If Sweetie Belle hadn't intervened, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo probably would have lost their whole teams.

At least, some of the Pokémon also evolved out of this battle. Calypso and Superfish evolved into a Seaking, Amanita evolved into a Breloom along with Fungy who was Apple Bloom's Shroomish, Ivy evolved into an Ivysaur, Remi evolved into a Raticate, Hurricane evolved into a Pidgeot, and Sharp Claw, Scootaloo's Spearow evolved into a Fearow.

Dart, Scootaloo's Beedrill (that she got as a Weedle), was already fully evolved.

They didn't lose time admiring the evolved Pokémon however. The battle was still raging around, and they immediately went to help the trainer who had sent the Snorlax to help them. He was one of the trainers who had managed to fight well against the grunts, but the guy and a girl at his side found themselves in the receiving end of a powerful Thunder from a Raichu of Alola that another grunt cowardly fired from behind them. Thankfully, said grunt was immediately hit in the face by the girl with the frying pan. But now, the grunt that the guy had been facing was preparing his baton to hit him while his Pokémon were too busy to save him.

Sweetie Belle reached him with a high kick in the face that sent him on the floor. Scootaloo was next, jumping before hitting him on the ribs with her elbow. Apple Bloom then finished him with her own kick on the face, leaving the man unconscious. At the same time, their Pokémon came to help too to deal with the grunt's Pokémon.

By now, most of the grunts were out, and the few that were still conscious had lost most of their Pokémon. However, many friendly trainers were also unconscious, and many other were busy using potions to heal humans and Pokémon. Brock had gone ahead with a few other trainers to deal with the Team Rocket members that were certainly further in the caverns.

The girls joined Applejack who finished a grunt with a good kick in the gut while Pinkie used her party cannon to bury a Durant under a pile of party stuff.

Burns were present on Applejack's skin, and Rainbow Dash was half-unconscious and being taken care of by some trainer with a potion.

"Girls! Are y'all alright?" Applejack asked upon seeing them approaching.

"Thanks to Sweetie, yes!" Apple Bloom answered. "Darn, these guys're well above our level!"

"You don't say..." Rainbow muttered from her position. "I miss my wings. If I had them, I would have kicked all their butts to next week."

The trainer healing her gave her a weird look.

"Some of our Pokémon are out," Scootaloo informed.

"Our whole teams are out," Applejack said. "As Bloom said, we weren't ready to fight these guys."

"I think that this is the feeling shared by everyone here," Sweetie Belle said as she looked around. "I don't think that anybody thought that these simple grunts would be so strong. I mean, when Red first fought Team Rocket in these very caverns, he only had one badge. The grunts back then were as weak as beginners. I guess that everybody thought that this would be the case now too."

At this moment, she spotted a Buzzwole knocking out a trainer and she quickly used her powers to make the ceiling of the cavern collapse on it.

Then, there was a huge earthquake that shook the whole mountain, followed by a terrifying roar from where Brock had gone into.

Sweetie Belle turned to Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. "Remain here! I will go help Brock!"

They both nodded, and Sweetie Belle ran in the direction of the roar, passing beside more trainers and grunts battling. Whenever she had the occasion, she helped knocking out the enemies without stopping running.

Eventually, she found Brock kneeling beside his knocked out Steelix.

The next instant, she saw whatever managed to knock out this powerful Pokémon, and she couldn't believe it.

A massive bipedal Pokémon, skin divided into thick red plates with a black underside, black spikes, and black sharp teeth. It had very intimidating grey claws, the Omega symbol was present on its arms, and the lines between its red plates as well as the eyes and the inside of its mouth were glowing yellow. The temperature around it was like inside a volcano, and magma was seen at his feet.

The legendary Pokémon Groudon, in its Primal form.

What the heck was it doing here?! Did the Champion of Hoenn reach this place?

No, instead, Sweetie spotted not far of Primal Groudon a man with red hair and possessing a pair of glasses. He had a red version of the Team Rocket uniform, however, behind the rainbow R was what looked like a volcano, and he didn't have the hat.

Behind Groudon, Sweetie also spotted an orange-haired girl beside a badly burned Lapras. she recognized her as the Gym Leader of Cerulean City, Misty.

So her group also reached the mountain.

There were some other trainers and grunts around, but the stage was clearly taken by the two Champion and whoever they were facing.

And the man yelled, "Groudon! Use Eruption! Let's finish this!"

"Nope!" Sweetie Belle shouted.

The next instant, she transformed back into her filly-self and flew right to Groudon's face. She punched it with all her strength, not minding the burning pain she received in return in her leg, and she sent the titan flying several meters before it landed on its belly, a Team Rocket grunt barely avoiding being crushed under it.

"What the-?!" the man began to shout before he was stopped by Sweetie Belle using her magic to send him crashing on a wall.

She landed beside Brock and asked, "Who is this guy?! I thought that Groudon was possessed by Ruby!"

Brock looked at her in wonder for a few seconds before he was able to answer. "I'm wondering the same thing about Groudon. All I know is that this guy is named Maxie and that he is known as the boss of Team Magma from Hoenn. But I thought that he had turned a new leaf and that his team was now working for the good of the world with Team Aqua."

They were joined by Misty who briefly stared at Sweetie Belle before she turned to face Groudon who was getting up. "I don't understand. If Ruby had lost Groudon, this would have been reported, right?"

"It doesn't matter right now. If we don't defeat it quickly, it will turn Mt. Moon into a volcano. We must hurry," Brock said.

"Leave it to me!" Sweetie Belle said before she flew toward Groudon.

The Pokémon roared back at her before readying its claws. Sweetie Belle easily avoided it before punching Groudon on the cheek again, then on the chin before she fired a beam that sent the Pokémon crashing against a wall, the crash causing the wall and the ceiling to break, burying it in a pile of boulders that quickly melted. Groudon immediately came out of it, enraged.

Sweetie Belle silently cursed Primal Groudon's Ability: Desolate Land. In its Primal form, Groudon had the double type Fire/Ground, giving it a double weakness to Water. However, because of Desolate Land, any attempt to use water was rendered null because the water evaporated. In the end, it left him with only one weakness: Ground-type moves. And she didn't dare to use attacks too powerful in fear of making the mountain fall on their heads. Groudon was already weakening it just by its presence. And her hooves were hurting like Tartarus! It was like punching an overheated oven!

"Ngh... Groudon! Use Precipice Blades on that thing!" Maxie then yelled once he recovered.

Groudon answered with a roar before giant blades of red, hot glowing stone came out of the ground under Sweetie Belle. The filly teleported out of the way and replicated with a barrage of beams that hit the Pokémon all over the body, forcing it to take a step back as it put a claw in front of its face to protect it. Groudon then blindly charged toward despite the beams and almost ram her. Sweetie Belle quickly teleported out of the way before she decided to copy Groudon's move and used Precipice Blades on it. A giant blade of hot stone came out from under Groudon and badly hurt it, even sending it on its back on the ground. Since the move was a Ground-type, it was super effective.

Sweetie Belle using Groudon's signature move took everyone by surprise, but she didn't mind it as she used Precipice Blades a second time while it was still on the ground, and the giant blade sent it flying before it crashed this time on its belly. But then, while still on the ground, Groudon turned its head toward her and sent a Fire Blast that stopped with a shield. However, as she protected herself, Groudon used Precipice Blades again, and the stone blade that came out of the ground managed to hit her this time.

"Good! Use Rest!" Maxie then yelled.

"I won't let you!" Sweetie Belle shouted as Groudon fell asleep and began to heal.

Using her magic, she broke the stone blade that hit her from the ground, levitated it above the sleeping Groudon, and smashed it with it, the blade breaking in pieces with the hit. This awoke Groudon, but before it could react, Sweetie Belle sent a ball of energy that exploded on its face. But Groudon quickly recovered from it and used Fire Blast again and again and again, and Sweetie flew all around it to avoid them before hitting it with another Precipice Blades.

"How is that thing able to fight Groudon like that?" Maxie wondered to himself as the two continued to violently fight.

Suddenly, a powerful Hyper Beam hit Groudon from the side.

"What?!"

The origin of the attack quickly revealed itself to be a tiger-like Pokémon with two long fangs like a saber-toothed cat, a raincloud-like purple mane along its back, and a lighting bolt-like tail.

Raikou.

Riding on its back was a young man whose main recognizable feature was a black and yellow cap worn backward. The Champion of the Indigo Plateau himself, Gold, aka Ethan.

The man then took two other Poké Balls and opened them, letting out the two other members of the legendary Beasts trio: Entei and Suicune.

Just at this moment, Groudon was sent flying by a powerful blast of energy from Sweetie Belle.

"D-damn it... We will have to retreat..." Maxie said to himself.

But then, a grunt ran to him. "Maxie! We found one! The Fairy one! As the Boss thought!"

"About time," Maxie mumbled before he took a communicator. "We found one! Teleport us back quick! The Champion is here and Groudon is being trashed by an unknown creature!"

Once he finished talking, Maxie called back Groudon. The next instant, he disappeared, followed by the totality of the grunts, even the ones who had been knocked out.

Thankfully, the hypnotized trainers were left behind.

Everyone let out a sigh of relief.

This battle, harder than planned, was over. But this new Team Rocket revealed themselves to be extremely dangerous, much more than the original team.

Also, they now needed to have a talk with Ruby, aka Brendan the Champion of Hoenn, and Team Magma.

It looked like the vacation was over...

Chapter 39: Realization of the Threat

Author's Note

I edited chapter 4 to replace Lt. Surge with a new Gym Leader. After all, for the coherence, some of the Gym Leaders shouldn't be the same after over a decade since Heartgold/Soulsilver. Same for the Elite 4.

Chapter 39: Realization of the Threat

When Sweetie Belle had come to the Pokémon World for some vacation with her friends, the last thing she had expected was to battle a legendary such as Groudon, the Pokémon who made the lands. From what she knew, many of the legendaries were now part of the teams of trainers, mainly Champions and ex-Champions, and she certainly hadn't planned to battle one of them anytime soon.

And yet, somehow, she ended up fighting Groudon itself, but not possessed by the Champion of Hoenn, but by the ex-boss of Team Magma who was supposed to be a nice guy now but was now working for Team Rocket.

Just what the heck was going on?

Also, in parallel of capturing wild Clefairy and getting Moonstones and fossils, this operation was also to find something. This "fairy one", whatever this "one" was. It could be many thing, and Sweetie Belle didn't know enough about this world to guess what it could be. The only object she could think of right now was Arceus' Pixie Plate, and she hoped it wasn't that. She hoped instead that it was something like a statuette of a fairy or a tablet...

Although, deep down, she already resigned that it was the Pixie Plate, which would mean that the Rockets were probably searching the others.

The problem was that nobody knew exactly where the Plates were. It was already a miracle that the Rockets found one, if it really was the Pixie Plate. They could be ANYWHERE in the world. And Team Rocket too.

To be clear, impossible to guess where Team Rocket was hiding, and impossible to guess where they will attack next.

This frustrated Sweetie Belle extremely. She almost regretted the time when all she had to do was to travel some lands, sometimes gathering key objects, to kick a bad guy's butt (if they had one).

"Uh... Hey," a voice then interrupted Sweetie's thought, and she turned to find that Gold was now beside her, on a knee to be more at her level although he still towered over her. He looked at her with some curiosity visible in his eyes, and yet, he was really calm.

"Hey," Sweetie Belle replied.

Gold then pulled out his arm toward her. "You're Sweetie Belle, right? Red told me about you."

"Oh? How much did he tell you about me?" Sweetie Belle asked with an eyebrow raised as she shook Gold's hand.

"Everything, I think. About you being a traveler from another dimension and all."

"Well, at least, I won't have to explain anything to you."

Gold chuckled. "But you may have to explain everything to them," he said as he pointed at the Gym Leaders present.

"Yeah... But before that, how about you gather everyone that has been hurt, humans and Pokémon, so I can heal them?"

"Of course!" Gold agreed before he went to talk with the Gym Leaders. Once he finished to give them instructions, he took a phone, probably to tell the other Gym Leaders and anybody else who was coming to Mt. Moon to help that the Rockets were gone.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle was joined by her friends, including Rainbow Dash who had recovered thanks to the potions.

"Seems like you had to fight whatever was here," Scootaloo said.

"Yeah. It was none other than a legendary, Groudon. There was no way my Pokémon could have fought it," the alicorn informed. "Now that it's over, let me heal you."

Sweetie Belle then proceeded to do this as they sat around her and let their hurt Pokémon out.

"A legendary ya said? What in tarnation was it doing here?" Applejack asked.

"I'm wondering the same thing," Sweetie Belle answered before she explained what was wrong.

"Uh. Weird. If that Champion had gotten Groudon stolen, then the news would have spread, right?" Rainbow Dash wondered.

"Exactly. That's why I don't understand how Maxie had it. Also, this worries me. You remember what we heard in the radio, in Oak's lab? About Team Rocket maybe getting their hands on the researches of Team Cipher on Shadow Pokémon?"

"Ya think they'd use it on Groudon?" Applejack asked.

"I'm certain. If Team Rockets got the Shadow Pokémon technology, then I'm 100% sure that they will use it to turn Groudon, and any other legendary they may have gotten, into Shadow versions of themselves. They would become unstoppable, excepted maybe by trainers with the more powerful legendaries like Alola's Champion, or Red."

"That's hoping Team Rocket also didn't get these trainers' legendaries," Apple Bloom remarked.

"I hope not. Mega Mewtwo is already as powerful as Arceus themself, so a Shadow Mega Mewtwo? And let's not talk about a potential Shadow Ultra Necrozma." At least, it wouldn't be close to the level of power of Void.

Still, Team Rocket became a real threat, if not for her then for the many inhabitants of this world. And she hated the fact that there was nothing she could do right now to stop them despite all her powers. Right now, all she could do was wait and see, and help when needed like she was about to do with the healing. And be ready to intervene if the Rockets appeared again somewhere in the world.

If only she had a way to alert her of this so she could intervene immediately when this will happen.

It wasn't long before Gold and the Gym Leaders gathered everyone and Sweetie Belle healed them and their Pokémon. Once she was done, the two groups separated to return to their respective cities. Gold, however, once out of the caverns, let out Ho-Oh, the legendary phoenix-like (without the fire unlike Moltres) bird of the skies, and climbed on its back to fly back to the Indigo Plateau where he planned to have a discussion by video with Ruby to find out what was going on with Groudon. Sweetie Belle decided to follow him while her friends would follow the trainers back to Pewter City to rest in the Pokémon Center and have a dinner.

On the way, they were joined by Red and Blue who were respectively on the back of a Charizard and a Pidgeot.

"Yo! Oh, hey, Sweetie Belle! Sorry we didn't come in time to help against Team Rocket. So, how did it go?" Blue asked

"Rather badly," Sweetie Belle answered. "Their Pokémon were much better trained than we expected. We had to go at two, or even at three to defeat a single grunt. They wiped the floor with many of our Pokémon and they didn't hesitate to intervene personally with their whips and batons. And then, there was Maxie who was there with freaking Primal Groudon. We still managed to get the upper hand but they were able to escape with whatever they were searching along with all they took and captured. At least, we were able to save the captured trainers."

Hearing that Groudon had been there surprised the two ex-Champions, and Blue could only ask, "How...?"

"We have no idea," Gold answered this time. "I'm going to talk with Ruby to get to the bottom of this. You can come with us if you want."

Red and Blue exchanged a look before they both nodded, Blue saying, "We may as well. If it's that bad, then we must know."

Before long, they passed above the mountainous area that surrounded the Indigo Plateau and reached the magnificent, majestic regal red building that decided the fate of the best trainers of two regions.

They landed in front of the large double door of the entrance and opened it.

The entrance hall was huge and of the same regal red than the building outside, giving a feeling of greatness that showed the importance of the place. A red carpet covered several flights of stairs that passed by the center of the room and led to a large doorway at the top level, a Pokémon Center was present at the left, and a Poké Mart was at the right.

Sweetie Belle had already seen a lot of places like this one but was still awed, which amused the other trainers.

"You're a lucky one, you know? The only ones able to see this place normally are trainers who obtained the eight badges from either Kanto or Johto and members of the staff," Blue said.

"My computer is in my apartment, at the top of the building," Gold informed. "We will have to traverse the rooms of the Elite 4 members. I hope you don't mind climbing stairs."

"Pfff! come on! I went through several adventures traversing countries and all! It's not some stairs that scare me!"

So they climbed the stairs to the doorway at the top, passed it, and climbed more stairs before reaching the first room.

The room had yellow tiles and orange walls. After traversing a small passage, they reached the arena of the first Elite 4 member where they could see two giant statues of Raichu at both sides of the exit, their tails crossing above it. Another small passage at the left led to a simple door, probably the Elite 4 member's apartment.

Speaking of, the member in question was present at the opposite side of the arena, waiting for challengers. A middle aged, well-muscled man with short spiky yellow hairs wearing green militaristic clothes.

Lt. Surge. Formerly the Gym Leader of Vermilion City. Sweetie Belle read about him. She actually read about all the Gym Leaders of Kanto as well as the Elite 4 members and the Champions. Surge was well known for his Raichu who was a real beast in battle. They were both from the military, so they had the experience. No wonder he made it here.

"Already back, Gold? Eh. I can't believe you jumped out the window when you heard that Team Rocket was causing trouble."

At his comment, everyone looked at Gold in wonder, making him blush and smile sheepishly.

"I didn't want to lose time climbing down all these stairs. I just jumped and let Ho-Oh out to land on its back."

Surge laughed. "As soon as you were gone, I knew that it was no use for me and the others to go to Mt. Moon! I'm sure that you kicked their asses as soon as you arrived!"

"I didn't, actually. Most grunts were already out by the time I was there, and they teleported away just as I got my Pokémon out to fight their leader."

"Ah!" Surge exclaimed in joy. "That's Kanto for ya! I'm proud of my region! Don't mess with us!" His attention then moved to the ones following the Champion. "Oh! And you brought Red and Blue! And... Is that that legendary I heard about?" He looked back and forth between the members of the group, his demeanor becoming serious. "A Champion, two ex-Champions, and a legendary. What's going on? What did they do?"

"That's what we intend to discover," Red said.

"Then I won't keep you here any longer. And I will pass the word to the others so they don't bother you," Surge said before he opened the exit, took a phone and dialed a number.

Meanwhile, the group passed beside him and climbed the stairs after the exit, eventually reaching the second room.

The room had a similar shape to the first, but was instead colored in various shades of pink. At the arena, there were two giant spoons against the walls at the left and the right, the right one bent. Also, painted on the wall above the exit door was an eye. Finally, there was the door to the Elite 4 member's apartment at the left.

The Elite 4 member here was none other than the feared Sabrina, Psychic specialist formerly Gym Leader of Saffron city. Her eyes partially hidden behind her long black hair could read souls like they were open books, and her Alakazam was the nightmare of many trainers.

She was just finishing talking in her phone when the group arrived. She hung up, nodded silently at the group, and opened the exit, letting them pass.

Then came the third room. This one was covered in grass with the foliage of trees plunging everything in shadows excepted the center of the arena. Said arena was made of stone tiles. A carpet leading to the exit also covered some of the grass, and the door to the apartment was at the left again.

Koga, the Elite 4 member of this room, was also feared but for a whole other reason. He was a ninja master of Poison-type, and he loved to see the suffering that the poisons could cause. His favorite method of battle was to put his enemies to sleep before poisoning them, leaving them no chance. And rumors said that he used his ninja skills and poisons to kill many people in gruesome ways as a spy. But he was still a respected trainer who had a lot of apprentices and made a lot of anti-poisons and other healing potions.

As soon as he saw them, Koga simply opened the exit and let them pass.

Then came the fourth room. Made of golden colors, the room started with two statues of Dratini at the entrance, followed by four fang-shaped statues at both sides of the arena. Then, above the exit was the bust of a giant statue of a Dragonite that shadowed the arena.

It wasn't surprising. Lance, the Elite 4 member of this room, was known for his team possessing no less than three Dragonite, and he even had an Aerodactyl! As one could guess from this, Lance was a Dragon-type specialist, ex-Gym Leader of Blackthorn City in Johto. He was also the most ancient Elite 4 member of the Indigo Plateau, making him the most experienced of all, and he had even been Champion for a time, after Red and before Gold. Heck, he even helped Gold fight Team Rocket in Johto! He was proud, heroic, and very intimidating with his cape. No wonder he had such a huge number of fans. When beginner trainers talked of their idols in Kanto and Johto, Lance's name would often come to mind with Red, Gold, and Blue's.

Lance himself was present beside the exit which was already open. He was actually looking down at his phone from which a voice could be heard.

"News are already spreading," he said as they approached before he raised his eyes from his phone to look at them. "So, Groudon? I suppose you are going to talk to Ruby then?"

"You suppose it right," Gold answered. "Wanna come? Knowing you, you don't want to miss it."

Lance chuckled. "I was just about to say this."

And so, with Lance joining them, they climbed the last stairs to the Champion's room.

Said room was a large hall where the ceiling was actually made of glass letting everyone see the sky. It was also partially filled with water, only a bridge of stone letting them reach the arena. At the left, in the glass ceiling, was a statue of Ho-Oh, and at the right, partially submerged in the water, was a statue of its counterpart, the legendary bird guardian of the seas, Lugia. Both were facing the center of the arena where, painted on the ground, water, fire, and electricity were circling each others (with the Poké Ball symbol at the center like always). Another bridge was leading from the arena to the doorway to the famous Hall of Fame, but instead of taking it, they traversed another bridge at the left leading to the door to the Champion's apartment which they entered.

Despite belonging to a Champion, the apartment was very simple and plain. They entered a living room like you would find in any home. They then passed a door and entered an ordinary chamber where Gold approached a desk with a computer and sat on a chair in front of it. While he turned the computer on, everyone gathered around him and looked at the screen with more or less patience.

Eventually, Gold sent a message to Ruby to warn him that he wanted to talk to him in the computer, and after a few minutes, they could see the Champion of Hoenn.

Brendan, or Ruby as he preferred to be called, looked to be around the same age as Red and Blue, and he had the eyes of someone who lived for challenges, like Red, like Gold, and like Sweetie Belle. However, his seemed to still have the fire of youth contrary to Red and Gold.

"Hey, du-Woah!" Ruby began before he remarked that Gold wasn't alone. However, he probably couldn't see Sweetie Belle because she was sitting on the desk further to the side. "Uh... Did I do something?"

"I don't think so, but there's a mystery that we need to solve and you're the only one who can help right now," Gold said. "Do you still have Groudon?"

"Uh? Of course I still have it! There..." Ruby grabbed an Ultra Ball from his belt and showed it. "I can't let it out to show you become it would destroy everything, but Groudon is definitively still in there! I fed it just half a hour ago! Why?"

"Well, believe it or not, I encountered Groudon not even a hour ago and almost battled it in Mt. Moon."

...

"There's no way... I mean, there's only one Groudon, right?"

"As far as we know, yes," Blue said.

"But that's not all. The one who was using Groudon was none other than Maxie," Gold added.

"Say what?! B-b-bu-Wait a minute!"

Ruby then grabbed his phone and texted something. Not even a minute later, a new video feed was added beside Ruby's, and Maxie was in it... eating some ramen.

"Sorry. You got me in the middle of dinner. Sluuurp! What is it?"

"Apparently, Gold saw you in Mt. Moon with Groudon in your possession," Ruby said.

"And you were working for Team Rocket," Gold quickly added.

The news shocked Maxie as he was in the middle of slurping some pastas, and it caused him to swallow them the wrong way. He violently coughed and spilled his bowl as a result. Once he calmed down, hitting his chest a few time, he yelled, "WHAAT?! What kind of spore were you hit with? I swear that I never went to Mt. Moon! I haven't even left Hoenn since a couple of months ago!"

"That's not him," Sweetie Belle then said. "The Maxie I encountered was less old."

"Hey! I'm not old! Uh, who was it? A little girl?"

To avoid losing too much time talking about Sweetie Belle's nature, Gold grabbed Sweetie Belle and placed her in front of the computer before he said, "An alien from another dimension who helped fight Team Rocket in Mt. Moon."

"Oh. Ok," both Ruby and Maxie said.

"That's all the effect it has on you?!" Sweetie belle yelled.

"One of my Pokémon is an alien," Ruby said.

"And there was the Ultra Wormhole incident in Alola not that long ago," Maxie added.

"With the Ultra Beasts who aren't even native of our dimension," Lance finished.

"Right... I shouldn't be surprised... Dimension stuff is nothing new here."

Gold chuckled as he petted the filly. "Anyway. Now that you say it, I can see the difference between the Maxie we encountered and the one we're talking to. the one in Mt. Moon had less wrinkles and less white hair."

"Hey!"

"How old did he look?" Ruby asked.

"I can show you," Sweetie Belle said before she jumped from the desk and landed on the ground. She walked away from the humans and, using her memories, transformed herself to took the appearance of the Maxie she saw in Mt. Moon. she wasn't certain for the wrinkles, but she did as best as she could. Once she was done, she then showed her face to the camera of the computer.

The humans were impressed, but Ruby and Maxie quickly calmed down and looked intently at the face she was showing.

"Mmh... Looks like you back when you tried to use Groudon to expand the continents," Ruby observed.

"Yeah... Looks like it," Maxie agreed.

The room then fell into silence as everyone thought what it meant.

"So... Anyone has an explanation for this?" Blue asked.

After some more thought, Red began to talk. "So the Maxie you faced was pretty much Maxie if he had won back then, right?"

"Seems like it," Sweetie Belle said. "And, well, I can only think of one explanation for this. Team Rocket somehow managed to bring this Maxie from an alternate dimension where he won and was able to capture Groudon."

Ruby groaned and rubbed his head. "Great..."

"So Team Rocket has some technology that let them summon beings from other dimensions. Probably related to the Ultra Wormholes. The implications of this are actually... scary. If they used this technology to summon Maxie with Groudon, then..."

"Then what is stopping them from summoning other peoples," Red finished grimly. "With other legendaries..."

Maxie paled. "Like Archie with Kyogre if Archie had decided to do like me."

"Legendaries that they could then turn into Shadow Pokémon if they found the researches in Orre," Sweetie Belle added.

More silence followed as everyone understood the full scale of the threat that Team Rocked posed.

"We are SO spreading the news to the whole world," Ruby eventually said.

"Of course, that's a given," Blue said.

"Everyone will have to be ready at all times to intervene. Not only the Champions, but also the Elite 4 and the Gym Leaders. The Rockets can teleport absolutely anywhere. Their plan doesn't seem to stop at just potentially turning legendaries into Shadow Pokémon. They are searching something. I don't know what it is, but whatever they searched in Mt. Moon, they found it, and it's not good news. We must stop them from getting more of these objects they search," Gold instructed.

"And we must also find a way to discover the location of their HQ," Ruby said.

"With their technology, their HQ could be in another dimension," Lance remarked.

"We will have to ask the Aether Foundation and Tommy for help then," Red said to this.

"Tommy... That's the Champion of Alola, right?" Maxie asked.

"Yes. With his Lunala and Necrozma, he can open Ultra Wormholes very easily and use them to explore other worlds."

"Still, searching Team Rocket's HQ in the multiverse would be like searching a needle in a haystack," Gold said. "Our best bet is to use a tracker to see at least where they teleport. Wherever it is, it is at least in this world."

"It shouldn't be hard. I just hope that wherever it is is their HQ instead of just some outpost," Blue said before he groaned. "Uurg... What a mess... Spacetime shenanigans suck."

"If their HQ is in another dimension, then we could ask Dawn for help. Palkia must feel when wormholes are opened," Ruby proposed. "Space is its stuff after all."

"Right. We will tell her to keep an eye once we spread the news," Gold said. "Seems like we have it actually."

"Eh. With the whole League and half the legendaries of this world on their back, Team Rocket won't last long," Ruby said with a big smirk. "We just have to wait for a new group to appear."

"You can add Team Magma. We will help," Maxie said. "And I'm certain that Archie and Team Aqua will also agree to help once we tell them."

Blue smiled. "Nice!"

"Anything else, guys?" Ruby asked.

"Well, I should say this. I suspect that the objects they search are Arceus' plates. I really hope I'm wrong however," Sweetie Belle said.

...

...

"We hope too," everyone else eventually said at once, chill creeping on their back.

"I think that's everything," Gold then said. "Let's not lose time. Time to work."

Everyone nodded.

"I will return to my friends and tell them everything," Sweetie Belle said. "I'm sure they will want to help too."

"Any help is welcomed," Red replied.

"See you, everyone!" the filly then said as she waved goodbye to everyone. Then, she teleported away.

Chapter 40: Encounter

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 41: To Face the Threats

So much for "you need to process all this before you wake up." After her sudden awakening, Sweetie Belle couldn't go back to sleep, so she spent the rest of the night awake and thinking by herself about all that DD told her.

A God of Light and a God of Darkness about to escape their prisons to spread their respective element and engulf countless universes in them.

A mysterious army preparing to face said Gods but making many universes suffer in the process.

And DD themself. A Devourer. An entity powerful beyond imagination, even above Gods, responsible of her ending up in Dream Land and waiting for her to fully ascend to devour her.

All this adding to Team Rainbow Rocket, a group searching to enslave the Gods of a world and to corrupt them to become unrivaled, probably searching to spread their influence to multiple universes.

It was... overwhelming, even for her. Four multiversal threats. Five if the two Gods were counted separately. Although DD could be debated. They were a threat, but right now, to nobody. They will be a threat only to her in a couple of centuries. Right now, they could be considered as an ally since they will help her. But still...

Team Rainbow Rocket was actually the most direct threat, but the army could hit anytime. They had to start preparing to face it now, especially if it was as powerful and as dangerous as DD hinted it to be. And this meant that Sweetie Belle had to leave and search for allies to help her without waiting for Team RR to be dealt with. DD assured her anyway that the Pokémon League could fight them even without her. Still, she was feeling guilty of thinking of leaving them to face the Rockets after telling them that she would be here to help. But she couldn't wait for Team RR to show themselves again which could take days, or even weeks.

She will, however, remain in contact with the Pokémon League in case they did end up needing her help. She wasn't sure how yet however. Maybe she will send Magolor to build a portal, either in prof. Oak's lab or in the Indigo Plateau.

Speaking of, she will have to go warn her friends in the Dream Universe. Obviously, against these threats, they will assemble again, and for this, they will need to prepare, to know what they will be up against.

But first, she had to talk with her friends here, in this world. Once they woke up.

Sweetie Belle's news really worried everyone who heard them, ponies, humans, dragon, and Pokémon. Sweetie Belle had made sure to call Red, Blue, and Gold to tell them alongside Rarity and the others.

As if Team Rainbow Rocket wasn't enough, there were now these new possible threats.

"And that... DD couldn't tell you when that army would hit?" Blue asked in annoyance.

"I was wondering the same thing," Sweetie Belle answered frustrated. "They just told me the bare minimum. The threats exist. They are serious. What they are. But not who they are, where they are, and when they will start. Well... time is complicated since it differs from universe to universe, so I guess it wouldn't have been that simple. Unless there's a measure unit to tell 'time' or whatever for the whole Omniverse? I will have to ask DD if they decide to contact me again."

"You want to talk with them despite them wanting to devour you?" Rainbow asked in incomprehension.

"Well, this problem won't come before a long time, so until then, I should as well try to get as much info about the Omniverse from them as I could. Anyway..." Sweetie Belle looked at the humans. "Because of this, I must go and prepare to face this army, and I won't be able to remain in this world to help against Team Rainbow Rocket. If you want, I can send a friend to build a portal to my world wherever you want so you can contact me."

"And my friends and I will be able to remain a few days," Twilight said. "But not long, sadly. Time passes faster in Equestria, and we have our own duties. Already a little over four days passed in Equestria since we entered this world. We can be absent for a week or two, but not more."

Gold let out a sigh. "We understand. Don't worry, with all its resources, the League should be able to face Team Rainbow Rocket. But we will gladly accept this portal for a worst case scenario."

Sweetie Belle nodded before she looked at Twilight. "By the way, if you remain here, I should turn you back into your normal-selves so you can use your magic and all to directly fight the Rockets if they appear."

"Right."

"And we will train our Pokémon as much as possible so they will be strong enough to face them!" Rainbow Dash added.

"Yeah!" Pinkie Pie shouted. "After my Pinkie Special Training Montage, my Pokémon will blast Team Rocket off until they're just little twinkle stars in the sky!"

"Well said, Pinkie," Applejack said.

Sweetie Belle then looked at Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. "You can remain too if you want. You still have a whole day to spend here before you have to come back for school. And with the grown ups around and your Pokémon, you should be okay."

"Ya won't mind?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Not at all. Why should my absence deprive you from having fun in another world? I won't be jealous, I get my dose every weeks when I go adventuring."

"It's just... At the origin, this vacation was for the three of us... Together..." Scootaloo said.

"I know..." Sweetie Belle replied sadly. "I'm sure that we will get more occasions to explore worlds together. Once Team Rainbow Rocket, the army, and the two Gods are gone."

Once everything was said, Sweetie Belle turned the ponies and Spike back to normal before she hugged her friends, opened a rift, and passed it, returning to Equestria.

There...

"Discord! I need to talk to you!" she yelled.

And the draconequus appeared. "Just in time, I was starting to get bored! What is it?"

"I was contacted by a Devourer."

Discord's expression turned into horror.

"I presume you know what it is," the filly said upon seeing this.

"Of course I know about THE GREATEST THREATS THAT COULD ENTER OUR LITTLE SECTION OF THE OMNIVERSE!!! I guess it's time to change universe before this one gets devoured."

"Don't worry! The Devourer won't devour anything! They told me!"

Discord cocked an eyebrow. "Excuse me if I have a hard time believing it."

"Well, they intend to devour something but... it's me once I fully ascend into godhood. until then, they aren't a threat."

"Oh, they're one of these Devourer. Oh thank goodness... Mmh... I will miss you."

The filly rolled her eyes. "I don't intend to let myself being devoured, but that's for later. Right now, the Devourer warned me of a couple of threats, and they advised me to warn you as quickly as possible so you could help me."

"What kind of threats are we talking about?"

"Multiversal ones. Two Gods and an army. The army should be the first threat."

"Mmhmmh... Battling an army across the Omniverse by yourself... Nope. You will need help."

"I know. I'm planning to start right away by warning Kirby and the others in the Dream Universe, but they may not be enough so I will go explore more universes in search of more allies."

"And you can count on me to help you!" Discord said with a salute. "Give me a day or two."

Sweetie Belle hugged him. "Thank you Discord. Now I must go. Good luck."

She then opened a rift and flew through it to the Dream Universe.

Once the rift was closed, Discord returned to his home in his chaotic dimension and opened a computer to enter the Chaosnet.

Discord:
Search OP partners for an OP Sweetie Belle to save universes.
Best chaotic combinations are preferred.

Discord:
You really need to precise this?
We all know that an OP Sweetie Belle must go with an OP
Apple Bloom and an OP Scootaloo for the best chaotic effect.

Discord:
Of course I know. But it's always good to precise.
And there may be other surprisingly good combinations.

Eris:
Like what?

Twilight Sparkle:
Two words: Pinkie Pie.
Everything is 1000% more chaotic with her in the team,
no matter who she's with.

Eris:
True enough.

Pinkie Pie:
I can attest to this!

Celestia:
A Celestia mode Trollestia also works. :trollestia:
But I know nobody OP enough. Sorry.

Discord:
How OP are we talking about?

Discord:
My OP Sweetie Belle can blow up planets.
THAT OP. Or close enough.

Discord:
Oh, it shouldn't be hard. OP Ponies that can
blow up planets aren't rare in the Multiverse.

Discord:
I know. That's why I ask. So, anybody? It's urgent.

"So, I can count on you?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Everybody in the room either enthusiastically cheered or simply nodded more calmly.

Sweetie Belle had gathered everyone who had been in the hero team that faced Void plus Void himself in a room inside Dedede's castle and she told them everything. By the end, everyone was determined to face this army and these two Gods; to help their friend, save the universe(s), or just to FINALLY have some action (Dark Meta Knight).

"You can be certain that if that army decides to try its luck with Pop Star, it will quickly learn why all attempts of invasion failed!" Dedede shouted, and many agreed with him.

"Thank you everyone! Now, Magolor, can you and a few others from New Halcandra go to the Pokémon World to build a portal?"

"We will need to prepare the materials first. Give us a few hours," the egg-shaped alien said. "And we will also prepare materials to build portals in other worlds."

Meta Knight nodded. "Thanks to them, we will be able to intervene into other worlds without needing Sweetie Belle, Void, or Galacta Knight to open rifts. The more worlds have portals, the better."

"The problem is that as long as we don't exactly know what we're up against, we won't be able to prepare correctly," Daroach said.

"That can't be helped. We will just have to prepare as best as we can and wait for them to show themselves," Sweetie Belle said.

Later, as everyone began to leave, the filly approached Taranza, calling his name.

"Yes?" the spider asked as he stopped to look at Sweetie Belle after her call.

"I have something for you," Sweetie Belle said before she showed a small paper. "I thought that it was time for Floralia to have a new emblem."

Curious, Taranza took the paper and looked at the drawing.

The drawing was of the Dreamstalk. However, the flowers were rainbow-colored, and the roots were coming out of a black heart. Or was it a heart-shaped hole? Hard to say.

"What do you think? I was inspired for the heart by my last adventure. It's my SOUL."

"Your soul?"

"Yeah, it had this form and this color in this world. A SOUL of void."

Taranza looked back at the drawing before he smiled at Sweetie Belle. "I think that it's perfect. I can't wait to have it displayed on the walls of the castle."

"Yay!"

Sweetie Belle spent the following hours doing various activities. She spent some time with Kirby and the others, she sparred with the knights to train, she did a small friendly fight with Void, and once Magolor and the ones he selected were ready, she sent them to the Pokémon World to build the portal.

Finally, she opened a rift to start her search of new allies.

And she arrived inside some building. A very ancient, dilapidated, partially destroyed building. The part where she appeared seemed mostly intact, but further, the room was entirely destroyed to the point that it looked more the inside of a cavern than of a building, any sculpted part having left their place to simple walls, ground, and ceiling of rock. She could see a door beside her with some blue shield on it for some reason. The futuristic kind of shield, transparent and all, which looked really out of place in these ancient ruins.

Some round plants that looked very solid were growing on the stone walls and ceiling of the destroyed part of the room, and at the end of said part, there was a circular passage, the cracked stones around it making it look like it had been forcefully placed here.

And on a wall, there was some creature trapped in ice.

Sweetie Belle could feel that it was still alive.

However, it didn't look very friendly...

But deciding to not judge a book by its cover, Sweetie Belle quickly freed the creature from the ice. It took it some time to recover its senses, but when it did and it spotted Sweetie Belle, it immediately attempted to attack her with a feral savagery.

Sweetie Belle promptly beheaded it with one of her beam swords.

"Should have left you in your ice, ugly," she said out loud before she began to think. So... What do I do now? I probably haven't entered this universe by hazard. DD told me that they will guide me, so they probably made it so my rift led me to this universe, and this means that I will find someone who will become an ally. So, I guess that I have to search. But first..."

Using a similar method that she used with the Pokémon Universe, she determined that time in this new universe was faster than in Equestria. Some quick calculation later, and she found out that it was by six days to one, give or take a few hours.

Perfect. It meant that she could take her time without worrying about being in time to take Apple Bloom and Scootaloo from the Pokémon World for school.

But now, she was wondering what kind of person she will find in these ruins.

If she appeared in these ruins, it meant that the person she was searching wasn't far, right?

And right on cue, she heard the door with the blue shield opening, and she quickly looked in its direction to see someone approaching. An humanoid being.

Whoever they were, they were inside some kind of futuristic armor entirely covering their body, leaving no way for her to see who they were under it. Part of it was orange, mainly on the arms and legs. The rest was a blue-grey color, excepted the top, the chest and the head, which were red with a deep green visor. There was also some kind of device in the center of the chestplate that was glowing blue, and the parts between the plates of armor was traversed by lights of the same color as the visor. Finally, the right arm, starting from the elbow, was replaced by an arm cannon.

Arm cannon that the being immediately pointed at her when they spotted her still beside the beheaded corpse of the creature she killed earlier.

Yeah... Standing beside a fresh kill wasn't giving a good first impression...

Author's Note

Chapter 42: The Filly And The Bounty Hunter

Samus looked down from her ledge at the little alien that looked like an equine in curiosity. It looked so out of place in this mostly dead planet and, frankly, it looked like it couldn't hurt a fly. But Samus knew better. Through her missions, she encountered her fair share of beings that looked innocent only to have a mortal weapon hidden somewhere. Poisons that could kill huge animals in a few seconds. Claws and fangs that could go through metal like through butter. Spores. Fire breathe. Acid spit. She had seen it all.

With this new lifeform, she had to keep her guard up and not assume anything beside what she could already see, like this horn that looked sharp enough to be used to gut someone even thought it was rather small. Thankfully, she may not have to fear it thanks to her Suit. But beside it, the equine could very well hide something, anything. It was standing beside a freshly-beheaded Reptilicus after all. The head wasn't teared off by pure strength, but cut as if by a sharp weapon. So, if the equine was responsible of this kill, then it meant that it had a mean to cut other creatures into pieces.

The equine alien also had wings, curiously. They looked too small to let it fly. Their origin could be from any reason. Mutation (with Phazon around, it could very well be it). Birth defect. Vestigial limbs slowly disappearing from generation to generation by the process of evolution. No matter their origin, it didn't look like Samus would have to worry about the creature flying. But again, no assuming. Bumblebees can perfectly fly despite their wings being too small. And Samus did encounter alien creatures on her missions that could fly despite their wings being too small, or even despite the total lack of such limbs like a certain species of life-sucking nuisances.

However, the creature remained docile, not moving as Samus studied it. It simply stared back at her with eyes that showed intelligence. To what degree, she wasn't sure, but she could read curiosity.

Should she fire before the creature decides to take hostile action, or should she wait? With Phazon present in this planet, everything was potentially hostile. And again, this creature was beside a dead Reptilicus. But with it not brutally attacking her and actually showing intelligence instead of mindless blood thirst like most creature infected by Phazon, it may just be a local fauna not yet infected that just defended itself. Samus knew that Reptilicus these days, known as Bryyonians too, were dangerous, and the Phazon certainly didn't help.

Tragic tale, the Bryyonians... With a lesson that the Chozos made sure to transmit to her.

After a few more seconds of the two simply staring at each other, Samus eventually decided to scan the creature.

Surprisingly, the scan couldn't give a name to the creature. The Suit had a huge database of creatures that the Chozos gathered plus a few others that Samus encountered on her missions like the Ings, but that creature was a total unknown.

However, it had a lot to say from what it could gather.

This creature has a morphology very close to equine animals from Earth, but doesn't compare to any of them. Beside the presence of wings and a horn, its legs, especially, are much more dexterous, able to bend in ways that Earth equines can't. The wings are too small to carry its weight by themselves, and its brain suggests sapience.

Sapience? Uh...

Deeper scan reveals the presence of a network of filaments not unlike the nervous system spreading all the way from a core near its heart to everywhere in its body, more importantly in its legs, wings, flanks, and horn. Unknown energy detected in them. Other unknown energy detected in its flanks, in the mysterious black marks. These black marks are very slowly spreading.

Intriguing. Two unknown energies? And one that was in these strange black marks? Which were growing? Samus wasn't sure what to think of this, but it was even more reasons for her to keep her guard up. A sapient alien creature with unknown energies was potentially bad news for her if it revealed to be hostile like the totality of the creatures she encountered in her missions.

But again, it remained docile. It had the perfect occasion to attack Samus while she was reading the results of the scan, but it remained beside the body of the Reptilicus without moving, simply looking at the Hunter patiently.

While it looks like nothing known, this creature's appearance can be compared to the one of the mythical alicorns from Earth's tales. Thus, for lack of anything better, this creature will be referred as such.
This individual is female and has not reached maturity.

That was all the scan was saying. The rest were minor information about the body of the creature such as the height, the weight, the structure (giving her the exact location of this core, a potential weakness to use if needed), and so on.

And not a single trace of Phazon in her.

In the end, she received a lot of useful information from this scan, but she still didn't know what to do. She was still waiting for the creature to act, but the creature also seemed to wait for her to act. So one of them had to act first.

The problem was that Samus wasn't really the social type, and she didn't even know if the creature could understand her, so she didn't know where or how to start.

Thankfully for her, the creature eventually decided that they lost enough time staring at each other and, after faking a cough to break the moment, talked.

"You can lower your cannon. I'm not going to hurt you, miss."

This took Samus by surprise, but at least, it answered her question about whether or not the creature could understand her.

Wait. How could she tell she was a girl under her Suit? Most people who didn't know about her assumed that she was a guy when she wasn't in her Zero Suit.

Or maybe this creature heard about her. After her exploits on Zebes, her reputation rapidly spread all over the galaxy, so it was possible.

Anyway, Samus decided to not follow the alicorn's words and kept her cannon pointed at her.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I am Sweetie Belle. Nice to meet you. And, uh... If you want to know, this guy over there tried to kill me despite me saving it from the ice, so it left me no choice..."

"Ice?"

Samus focused a bit more in the room and spotted some broken ice a bit everywhere on the ground beside the alicorn and the corpse and some chunk on the wall.

And where there was ice, there was Rundas. He must not be far.

"I see..." she said before she fully focused back on Sweetie Belle. "I'm Samus Aran." Even if the alicorn already knew about her, it was good manner to correctly present yourself when your interlocutor just did so.

"So..." Sweetie Belle began after a few more awkward seconds. "I'm not from around here. Can you tell me where I am, please?"

"You don't know?" Samus asked. At this point, she finally decided to lower her cannon, understanding that the little one really didn't seem to want to harm her.

"Short story, someone very powerful led me here. I literally came out of a rift in this room, like, two minutes before you came. I have no idea where I landed."

A rift? Led by someone very powerful? There was clearly more to this, and Samus was curious to hear the full story, but now was not the time. She still had a mission.

"You are on planet Bryyo, inside an ancient temple of the Bryyonian civilization. If you wonder what is a Bryyonian, you are just beside one." She nodded at the beheaded body at this.

Sweetie Belle looked down at it, having a hard time believing it after the Reptilicus' earlier actions that were more akin to a feral beast. "Reeeally?"

"They weren't always feral like this one. Once upon a time, they were a great civilization. But civil war led to them losing themselves to the point of becoming savages. I guess that the Phazon achieved to turn them into beasts. We now call them Reptilicus."

To be certain of what she was saying, Samus scanned the body. Beside the indication of the frostbites caused by the ice and of the cause of death by beheading (with the wound cauterized, indicating that whatever had been used was very hot), the scan did reveal the possibility of Phazon corruption leading to the total absence of higher thought process. The Bryyonians now really were nothing more than bloodthirsty savage beasts. A sad end to what was once a great civilization.

"Phazon?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Sams sighed. "Hear my words. Get out of this planet as quickly as possible. Phazon is a substance that is very radioactive, extremely mutagenic. If you are exposed to it too long, it will turn you into something like this Reptilicus, if you don't die first. And right now, Phazon is spreading all over the planet, poisoning and corrupting what is left after the civil war. It's a matter of time before you either die or become a mindless beast."

Sweetie Belle gulped, understanding the threat she was exposed to. But then, she began to think, tapping her chin with her hoof as she looked up.

"So, to be clear, this Phazon emits energy?"

"It's one of the most energy-producing substances known in the galaxy," Samus agreed. "Despite all the bad it causes, many try to use it as fuel for spaceships and other stuff." Which she thought was foolish. Even that PED technology, despite its usefulness she can admit, she didn't trust at all.

"Mmmmh... Well, I think that that won't be a problem," Sweetie Belle said. "I can manipulate any energies as I will. I should be able to ensure that Phazon won't hurt me."

...

"You serious?"

"Yep! And now that you talked about this, I can sense a big quantity of an unknown energy here and there, especially in this direction." Sweetie Belle pointed toward where Samus knew the Leviathan was. "And I can sense some from you."

Samus shook her head in disbelief. An actual being that could sense and manipulate energies? All energies? Well, she had seen a lot, so she guessed that it wasn't impossible for such a being to appear in the immensity of the universe.

"Long story. And in this direction is the Phazon seed at the origin of all the Phazon spreading on Bryyo, called a Leviathan."

"Let me guess. You are about to go and destroy this Leviathan?"

Samus nodded. "It's my current mission. Destroying the Leviathan and save Bryyo from the Phazon."

Sweetie Belle smiled brightly. "Great! So I guess this is now my mission too!"

"What?"

"Let me help you! Strength in number, right?"

"Sorry, but I'm more used in working alone."

"Then you will learn to work with someone. Sorry, but now that I know the situation of this planet, I can't just leave. I will tag along whether you want it or not."

Samus groaned. She could see in the way that Sweetie Belle was smiling that she was serious. And that she knew that she was being an annoyance but didn't care, in the contrary. She was clearly amused by this and Samus' reaction.

"Can you even fight?" Samus asked.

To this, Sweetie Belle pointed at the corpse of the Reptilicus without saying a word.

"Right... But this was just a simple beast. There will certainly be Space Pirates heavily armed."

Sweetie Belle gasped. "Space Pirates?! Oh my gosh! Scootaloo will SO be jealous! Don't worry Samus, I can defend myself against some space jerks."

Damn, the filly actually looked eager to fight pirates instead of scared like she hoped she would be.

"I think you aren't realising how dangerous the Space Pirates are..."

Sweetie Belle giggled and said, "I think you aren't realising how dangerous I am."

Then, some cylindrical device appeared out of nowhere in the air beside her, and out of it came a sword made of light. Some green aura was surrounding it as it remained floating in the air, and a similar aura was around the filly's horn. Then, another green aura appeared around the corpse of the Reptilicus and it began to levitate too. The sword then promptly slashed at it faster than Samus could follow.

In not even one second, the Reptilicus was turned into little cubes. And before they could start to fall all over the ground, Sweetie Belle blasted them into ashes with her horn.

Finished giving her demonstration of power, Sweetie Belle looked back at Samus and smiled smugly, cocking an eyebrow waiting for a reaction.

Samus stared at the ashes that were once the Reptilicus and said, "Point taken."

She had been right to not judge the filly by her appearance, the little one had been hiding her game. And she was glad that she was friendly.

At least, she had her answer for how the filly beheaded the Reptilicus.

Without saying another word, Samus jumped down from the ledge, and after traversing the destroyed part of the ground, passing beside Sweetie Belle, she jumped to enter the circular passage at the end.

The filly followed her.

The passage rapidly led them into a small room with another Reptilicus trapped in ice. The two didn't mind it as they turned left to face an opening leading to the exterior, on a bridge entirely made of ice leading to what seemed to be another part of the temple they were in.

Sweetie Belle let out an impressed whistle.

"Between that and the Reptilicus in ice, I'm guessing that we will encounter someone that can manipulate ice."

Samus nodded. "Rundas. He's also part of my mission. He's a bounty hunter, like me, but we lost contact with him a week ago. I must find out what happened to him."

"So you are a bounty hunter?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Yes. And right now, I'm working for the Galactic Federation, assisting them in their conflict against the Space Pirates."

"Woaaaah."

Space pirates. A galactic organisation. That was the jackpot!

She just hoped that the current adventure wasn't just limited to the planet they were on. That she will be able to see more.

They walked on the ice bridge, dealing with some flying insectoid creatures that Samus' scan called Gragnols. Young ones not fully developed yet, but they were clearly victims of Phazon corruption because they were not only very hostile (which seemed normal because their hive was just above the entrance of the next part of the temple at the other side of the bridge), they were firing pulses of Phazon energy.

Any creature using Phazon as a form of attack was condemned. The Gragnols had to be killed.

They also spotted a Reptilicus looking different from the ones they saw trapped in ice until now, standing in a hole in a destroyed part of a wall of the temple at the other side of the bridge, but it quickly disappeared upon being seen.

Once all the Gragnols were killed, Sweetie Belle was able to take the time to have her first look of Bryyo.

There wasn't much to see, sadly. The area they were in was mostly made of rocky cliffs with ruins and, here and there, giant thorny trees and vines that dwarfed even Flowery Sectonia's vines in thickness. The sky was orange-colored and lots of dark clouds covered it.

The only point of interest she could spot was a large mountain almost totally hidden behind the temple, in the distance. The particularity of the mountain was that it had blue glowing parts, and a shield surrounded it. It was from this mountain that Sweetie Belle could feel all that Phazon energy coming.

"So, this mountain over there is the Leviathan?" the filly asked.

"Yes, it is," Samus answered. Some seconds of silence followed as the two looked at the Leviathan before she continued. "I guess that I should tell you what happened, and the full scale of this mission."

"If you don't mind," Sweetie Belle agreed with a nod.

"One month ago, GF Time, I was called along with three other bounty hunters into the G.F.S. Olympus where we were briefed for our new mission. An unknown virus of Space Pirates origin had suddenly appeared and had spread in the Aurora Units networks of the Federation, and we were to help curing it."

"Aurora Units?"

"They are organic supercomputers that look like giant mechanical brains. They are sapient and supervise everything wherever they serve in, be it in spaceships, government facilities, business, and so on. So you understand how catastrophic it would be for the Federation if the AUs were destroyed."

"Isn't it risky to leave everything in the metaphorical hands of sapient computers? More of all computers that are linked? What if they decide to rebel?"

Sweetie Belle saw Samus' left hand tightening into a fist. After a few seconds, she calmed down from whatever she was reminiscing and answered, "After a... similar supercomputer went rogue and caused the quasi-extinction of a whole civilization, I'm certain that the Federation thought of a way to ensure that this would never happen to them. The best I can give right now is that if a AU decided to go rogue, the others would warn the Federation and the rogue AU would be quickly destroyed. But if the whole network decided to go rogue..."

"Well, I hope that you are right about the Federation thinking of a solution."

"Anyway, before we could start our mission, the Space Pirates suddenly unleashed a huge assault on Norion, a planet hosting an important base of the Federation. Me and the others were immediately dispatched to help in the defense of the base. But then, not far of the planet, a wormhole opened and out of it came a Leviathan. With the orbital defense cannon offline because of the pirates, there was no way to stop it from crashing on the planet, so we had to hurry to put it back online, and we ultimately succeeded, destroying the Leviathan in time. However... just before I reactivated the cannon, Dark Samus came, attacked us, and defeated us. I was barely able to activate the cannon before I lost consciousness and entered a coma that lasted a whole month."

"Darn. Who is this Dark Samus? An evil twin who is coincidentally the leader of the Space Pirates?"

"I wish it was that simple, but no. Dark Samus is an entity made of Phazon that used a Suit that I previously had to take my appearance. I encountered her on a planet named Aether, another planet that was victim of a Leviathan. On Aether, she was obsessed with absorbing as much Phazon as possible, and killed everyone that stood in her way, Space Pirates and others."

"But now, she seems to be working with the pirates," Sweetie Belle remarked.

"Yes... and I have no idea of how this happened. Back on Aether, I was able to kill her. She disappeared in particles of Phazon. But it seems that the pirates screwed up and somehow brought her back. And now, they are working together..."

"And somehow, they are able to send Leviathans. But... I understand why the pirates targeted Norion, but why Bryyo? It doesn't seem to have a strategic importance."

"Bryyo has a lot of Fuel Gel, the fuel used for spaceships. This makes the planet one of the main sources for the Federation. If the Federation was to lose Bryyo, it would cripple a part of their armada."

"Ouch... Yeah, not letting Bryyo fall to Phazon."

"Anyway, so I woke up one month later to discover that my body is now self-producing Phazon with no negative effects on me. I was also told that two more Leviathans had crashed on other planets. One here on Bryyo, and one on Elysia, a planet with an important research station of the Federation. The other Hunters had woken up two weeks earlier and were sent to deal with them, excepted Gandrayda who was sent to find the pirates' stronghold, but the Federation lost contact with the three of them one week later. So the Federation fitted me with this Suit possessing the Phazon Enhancement Device technology to be able to use the Phazon in me and sent me to destroy the Leviathans and find out what happened to the other Hunters."

"So I guess this is everything? Destroy the Leviathans, find the lost Hunters, and on the way, possibly deal with the Space Pirates and Dark Samus?"

"Pretty much. Still up for this?"

"You bet I am! No way I will miss a galactic adventure!"

She was answered by a sigh from Samus before the Hunter moved toward the other side of the ice bridge, quickly followed by the filly. They entered the second part of the temple where they found yet another Reptilicus in ice before they had to jump to a lower level. There, Samus used a grapple made of energy to pull a statue and create a platform that they could use to return to the ice bridge. They then approached a door with a blue shield and Samus fired at it, opening it.

"Why put these shields on doors?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"To ensure that the doors wouldn't be opened by creatures or by people simply passing beside them. Original Chozo technology that spread all over the galaxy. Even Space Pirates use them. Practical."

"I see..."

They passed the door that closed behind them, the blue shield returning.

They were now on a platform above a pit surrounded by other parts of the temple. In front of them, in the center of the pit, was a tower-like structure connected to the passage they came from and to another passage at the left by what seemed to be cables, ending into circular nodes that respectively glowed green and orange. On the platform they were, Sweetie Belle and Samus saw a small circular pedestal also glowing green with the symbol of two snake-like creatures facing each other mouth open, one of the creatures being upside down compared to the other.

They had to pass by another platform on the left, Samus revealing that she could do double jumps, to reach the passage with the orange circle which also had a pedestal with a similar symbol in front of it, this one glowing orange. From there, a badly damaged path passing above the pit was leading to a door had the same colored symbols than on the pedestals, only the creatures in them were touching each others.

The passage under the orange node led to a ledge with another shielded door, but the path didn't go far before it ended in a chasm from which they could see a crashed spaceship.

Samus pointed at the ship. "This is my current objective. In this ship, I may find informations on how to destroy that energy shield around the Leviathan."

"I can transport you if you want," Sweetie belle proposed.

"No need," Samus said as she eyed some object with a yellow diamond that glowed above the chasm. "I think that I know what I need to traverse it, and I don't want to pass beside it. Let's continue to search the area."

Sweetie Belle nodded, and they returned to the pit with the tower structure. They continued to the door with the two symbols (the damaged path partly crumbling under them) and, after some jumps, reached a platform on the central tower where there was a small hole leading into the cables to the orange node. It was too small for Samus, but Sweetie Belle could perfectly enter it.

But much to Sweetie's wonder, Samus turned into a ball and was able to enter in the hole. She then followed the path in the cables to the orange node and was able to insert herself in it where she let out some blue light that exploded. The explosion activated the node, and some yellow liquid (which was Fuel Gel) came out from the ledge into small canals that passed around the orange pedestal before flowing into the pit. The pedestal began to turn, and this made the corresponding symbol on the door spin, its two creatures separating from each other. This also lowered several platforms that would obviously be used to reach a higher platform in the central tower that would let Samus reach the green node to do the same.

Instead, as Samus was dealing with groups of small flying creatures called Phazon Nightbarbs that had been disturbed by the moving platforms, Sweetie Belle flew to the platform and entered the small path to the green nod where she unleashed an explosive energy ball that activated it. Like with the orange node, yellow liquid came from under the door they passed to come here and this ended up unlocking the green lock/symbol on the big door. However, this also caused some structure at the right of the green node to rise, unlocking a new platform for them to jump on, and a similar structure broke and fell on the platform at the left, rendering it unusable. Two creatures called Gel Puffers also came out from behind the raised wall, and Sweetie Belle dealt with them as Samus had to deal with more Nightbarbs that came.

Once all hostile fauna was dead, Samus used the unlocked platform to reach the unlocked door while Sweetie Belle simply flew to it.

"How are you still alive?" the filly then asked to the Hunter. "After turning into a ball, you should be just a mess of flesh and broken bones!"

"Chozo technology and genetic modification," Samus simply answered. "I don't know the details, you would have to ask one of the few Chozo survivors. All I know is that Chozo are able to transform into spheres, and I was given this ability when they modified me with Chozo DNA. I can't do it by myself however, so I need my Suit with the Morph Ball upgrade."

"You were genetically modified? Wow. I would like to hear about this."

"Long story. This can wait."

"Alright."

The room behind the unlocked door had another small passage where Samus had to use her Morph Ball to continue. The passage actually separated into two, one going left and the other right, but according to Samus' map of the room that she got upon entering it, the door at the end of the left path was locked or blocked. So they decided to explore the right path first, but not before they got rid of some metal orb blocking it. After the passage, they had to kill two insectoid creatures named Hoppers that moved by jumping, attacking either by using their talons or by firing venom. Real pests that were easily killed.

A Reptilicus in ice was blocking the entrance of a tunnel for Samus' Morph Ball, so they went toward the door that had been behind the Hoppers, entering a small room with what Samus called an Energy Tank to make her armor resist longer and some mural containing data telling about the Golden Age of the Bryyonians before the Civil War.

They then returned in the previous tunnel and, this time, took left toward the locked door which revealed to be blocked by a metallic shield with red parts. After avoiding some Bryyonian Shriekbats that dive-bombed them, Samus fired a missile at the red Blast Shield (thus was called these red metallic shields), destroying it. She then fired at the blue shield to open the door so they could finally continue.

In the following hallway, they had to kill some roaming insects named Shelbugs while avoiding their propelled spines as they jumped onto ledges on the way. At the end of the hallway, the exit was blocked by Phazon vines with blue glowing growths that were invulnerable to all attacks excepted Phazon-based ones. Speaking off, Sweetie Belle felt Phazon in some ice beside them. Also, when she flew to an alcove slightly up, she found something that revealed to be a Missile Expansion so Samus could stock more missiles in her Suit.

Once she came back and gave Samus the Missile Expansion, the Hunter activated the PED and went Hypermode, her Suit, more particularly the device on her chest, beginning to glow blue and to release particles of Phazon. She then fired blue beams of Phazon energy at the growths of the vines to destroy them.

"So this is the PED technology? That's powerful!"

"Yeah... But I still don't trust it. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop."

At this moment, a Hopper came from the unblocked path. Sweetie Belle pointed her horn at it and fired a blue beam that exploded it.

Samus' jaw dropped. "Was that a beam of Phazon energy?!"

Sweetie Belle smirked back at her. "Yup! Told you I can manipulate all forms of energies! So firing beams of Phazon energy without risking negative effects on myself? No problem. I will avoid using it around people however. Actually, reassure me, your Suit protects you from Phazon radiations, right?"

"A-as long as I don't touch them," Samus answered, staring at the filly in awe. "So avoid firing at me with these and we will remain in good term."

"Noted."

They followed the path again, passing a blue shield door leading to a court where, after jumping from a ledge, Samus destroyed some plates with her grapple to reveal a Morph Ball tunnel to return on said ledge. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle stared in awe at the huge destroyed golem that was on the ground in the middle.

But then, as they began to traverse the court, two Reptilicus like the one they had seen earlier from the ice bridge came, one of them literally appearing out of nowhere. Samus quickly scanned one, revealing them to be called Reptilicus Hunters and that they had, thanks to the Phazon corruption, a cloaking field turning them pretty much invisible. Adding to that, they could use energy whips and chakrams. With their two pairs of arms, this made them very dangerous predators. Also, they resisted heat.

Despite this, Samus made short work of the one she targeted with charged beams, and Sweetie Belle killed hers by catching its thrown chakram before throwing it back at it with a lot of strength, horizontally cutting it in two at the waist.

The chakram then embedded in the stone wall behind.

Samus chose to not comment on this as she went toward the exit, Sweetie Belle following her. At the left of the Bryyonian statue, they found suspicious stone plates that Samus scanned, revealing them to be a locking system requiring a specific input to open. So Samus fired at the big plate that glowed red, and three of the smaller ones lit up in a certain order. Following the order, she fired at them, opening them only to reveal another mural behind them.

It talked of the Age of Science where the Bryyonians entered in contact with other civilizations, receiving their technologies and knowledge and giving wisdom in return. However, the titled Lords of Science lost more and more their traditions, not listening to the ones that mourned them. Thus the seeds of the Civil War were planted.

"Here you have it. The reason of the Civil War. The Bryyonians weren't able to find the balance between their future and their past, and this destroyed them. A lesson that the other civilizations must remember if they want to avoid a similar fate," Samus recounted.

"And I will make sure to remember it," Sweetie Belle said seriously.

They then passed the door at the right of the statue and followed the path down the cliffside only to be stopped by another chasm with some Gragnols. No way to pass it at first sight, but they eventually spotted a small tunnel in the wall at the left. Some scans revealed the presence of insects in the tunnel, Snatchers and a Korba. Apparently, the Snatchers swarmed like ants their prey and levitated it to the Korba to be devoured by it. The Korba then expelled what it couldn't digest for the Snatchers to devour.

Great...

But first, they had to find the entrance of the tunnel, which was nowhere to be seen. But another scan revealed a section of the cliffside that, to put it simply, could be destroyed with an explosion.

An explosive ball from Sweetie Belle later and they entered the tunnel.

Some Snatchers and a Korba dead later and they were out with a Missile Expansion.

But again, they found themselves with nowhere to go until Samus scanned a statue with an ornamental panel that could be ripped. So she used her grapple on it and revealed that the statue contained unstable Fuel Gel that she fired at to make it explode.

In the room after the door that had been hidden behind the statue, Samus smiled when she saw what was in it.

"I knew it."

"What is it?" sweetie Belle asked as she stared at the floating capsule.

"An upgrade for my Suit. The upgrade that will let me pass these chasms," Samus answered before she took the capsule and opened it, letting her Suit absorb the upgrade in it. A light then appeared around her left hand, and once it was gone, she showed the back of her hand at the filly. "The Grapple Swing. Remember these yellow glowing diamonds we saw above some chasms and other places? They were targets, and I will now be able to attach my Grapple Beam to them to swing."

"Oooooh. So we explore around and search for upgrades so you can reach new places? Huh. Reminds me of my adventure with Link. And, since you expected this, I understand that this isn't your first dance?"

Samus let out a sigh at this. "Sometime, when I start a new mission, I somehow lose most of my upgrades and I have to find them all over again. And one way or another, I always end up getting them back during said missions."

"Uhuh. Alright, another reason to play along," Sweetie said amused.

"Play along?"

"Yes. If I had wanted, I could have flown around to find whatever creates that shield around the Leviathan and destroy it. Heck, I could probably destroy the shield directly without passing by the generator case or whatever. And the Leviathan would have been memory before you know it. But not only it would have been a lack of respect toward you who is working so hard to accomplish this mission, I would have missed all the fun of adventuring with you to accomplish it. Exploring the world, fighting together, solving puzzles, and now, finding these upgrades to make you whole again."

Samus remained staring silently at Sweetie Belle for a good moment, shocked by what she heard. In the end, she could only say, "That's... nice... Thank you..."

Sweetie Belle giggled. "You're welcome. Now, let's go. We have a mission to complete. I can't wait to kick some Space Pirate butts."

Author's Note

I hope that I didn't screw up with the fact that we can see the Leviathan from the ice bridge. I couldn't find a walkthrough where the player would just stop rushing and look around. I had to do a lot of back and forth because of this. Please, tell me is there is any correction that I need to do.

Chapter 43: Corruption

Sure enough, the Grapple Swing quickly revealed to be very useful to rapidly return to the pit with the tower structure. On the way, they encountered a Reptilicus like the one that Sweetie Belle had killed, smaller than the Reptilicus Hunters with spiny protrusion on its back and with the ability to teleport short distances. Frankly, these ones looked really monstrous. Phazon hadn't been nice to them.

From the pit, after killing two more Reptilicus without minding the normal Nightbarbs that passed, they then passed the door behind the orange node and returned to the chasm that had blocked them earlier. Samus used her grapple to pass it and land on the ship. Sweetie Belle flew after her.

An invincible Blast Shield blocked the entrance to the ship, but they easily spotted a cracked part in the wall that they destroyed to reveal a small entrance for the Morph Ball.

After following a conduit, they landed in a room where they encountered an energy-based, round, flying creature named an Atomic that was quickly destroyed. A quick look around revealed that all the doors were blocked by invincible Blast Shields. There was also a giant blast door that was kept shut by clamp locks that Sweetie Belle and Samus destroyed. Once the door was open, they then had to connect all the power rods behind it, bringing the power back to the ship which turned on the computers and unlocked the doors. A trapdoor in the middle of the room then opened, and a big machine, the Satellite Uplink, rose from under it. Samus activated it with a security lever, and she received the map data of various areas of the planet including the one they currently were in.

One of the new areas was apparently a fiery one which Samus deducted was where the Federation mined the Fuel Gel. The other was a jungle full of these giant thorny trees they had seen.

Then as they were about to go explore the rest of the ship in hope of finding something, Samus was contacted by one of the Aurora Units, the AU 242 from the G.F.S. Olympus.

Sweetie Belle couldn't hear what the AU was saying, so once the supercomputer was done, Samus resumed what she said.

Thanks to the map data, the AU was able to find the location of two sources of energy that were certainly at the origin of the energy shield protecting the Leviathan. The AU then loaded their position into Samus' map before charging her of destroying them. One of the objectives was in the fiery region, and the other was in the jungle.

"Seems like we will have quite the trek," Sweetie Belle commented.

"Not at all. We will use my ship to reach them. Or, from what my map says, there seems to be a path to the jungle after this ship."

"Then let's go for the jungle. That's convenient since we intended to explore the ship."

They passed the door which actually led out of the ship (the ship was actually very small!) and, after killing some Gel Puffers, understood that they couldn't continue. There was a huge chasm with two streams of Fuel Gel but without targets for the grapple.

"Darn!"

"Guess we're going back to my ship after all."

And this meant traversing the ship, then the temple all the way back to where they first met, and continuing beyond the door from which Samus had come. But before, as they came out of the crashed ship, they spotted on an edge of the temple a being that observed them. When it remarked that it was spotted, the being then jumped before landing on ice that it formed directly under its feet. It then made more ice that it used to slid out of sight.

"That was Rundas!" Samus exclaimed.

"I don't know him, but I still saw that he acted really weirdly. That's a bad sign," Sweetie Belle remarked.

"Yeah..."

"At least, he's alive, which is good. But... Do you think he went rogue?"

"I don't think so. From the little I know of Rundas, while he has an ego as big as Bryyo, he really takes his job to heart. He would never betray the Federation. I hope this isn't what I think it is..."

The mood immediately dropped as Sweetie understood what she was thinking.

Phazon. Could Rundas have fallen victim to it?

Sweetie Belle was able to find a Missile Expansion on the roof of the ship while Samus used the grapple to traverse the chasm. Fighting their way through the temple, they quickly returned to the ice bridge only for the doors at both ends to close as two Alpha Hoppers came.

They were like normal Hoppers, excepted that they were red and more resistant. but against Sweetie Belle and Samus, it meant nothing (especially when the filly just had to throw them beyond the bridge into the pit below). More Alpha Hoppers came from the nests as the first ones died, but they suffered the same fate.

Eventually, the Alpha Hoppers stopped coming and the doors opened, letting them continue.

It wasn't long before they finally reached Samus' ship. A simple small ship in her likeness which the wings could apparently turn into feet to land.

Sweetie Belle wasn't really impressed. After the Lor, the Halbert, or even the Access Ark, this ship really was nothing. But she still couldn't wait to enter.

But what really impressed Sweetie Belle were the two planetoid things that were literally chained to Bryyo that could be seen behind the ship. What the heck were they? Were they spaceships? From the Age of Science of the Bryyonians?

"I will have to register your DNA so you can enter my ship. It only accepts me," Samus informed. "Let me enter it first. Then, once the lift returns, enter it and wait for the scan to end. You will then have to wait for me to confirm that your DNA will be allowed before the lift will rise with you."

"Alright."

So Samus went to the lift under the ship and entered it. A few seconds later, the lift came back down and Sweetie Belle entered it. Like Samus said, a scan began and lasted a few seconds. Once it was over, Sweetie Belle waited a few more seconds before the lift finally rose with her, letting her enter the ship.

The inside of the ship wasn't big, but thanks to her small size, Sweetie Belle had no problem finding a place to sit beside Samus' chair.

"Nice cockpit."

"Don't touch anything," Samus warned as she made the ship take off.

As the ship flew, Sweetie Belle was able to get a better view of the planet, especially of the temple they traversed as well as the Leviathan in the distance. She was also able to spot, once high enough, the other areas.

She then remarked that they were going toward the fiery region.

"I thought we would go to the jungle."

"The fiery region is smaller, so I thought to start there first," Samus explained.

"Okay," Sweetie accepted with a shrug.

It only took a few seconds to reach the fiery region, whole rivers and lakes of Fuel Gel replacing the mostly barren cliffs of the region around the temple.

Eventually, they reached a structure among the Fuel Gel with an area where Samus could land her ship. Another ship was parked here, on ice, its hull looking like Rundas' torso.

Rundas was in this region, somewhere.

Sweetie Belle and Samus exited the Hunter's ship and, after getting the coordinates of the generator - at the opposite end of the region - they moved toward the only exit while being careful of not falling into the Fuel Gel under the platform.

The exit led to an hallway with giant discs blocking the path. To pass them, the two had to ignite gel spouts in the discs to make them rotate into the walls.

After two discs, Sweetie flew to reach a Missile Expansion above a stonework head that was actually a deactivated transportation shaft while Samus continued to follow the hallway as it turned right. The filly joined her with the expansion just as she reached the exit door.

They entered a room with a totally different ambience from the hallway they previously were. Status of past emperors indicating that the place may be another ancient temple were replaced here by giant pipes and other machinery clearly of Federation origin, making this room a gel refinery. Ice was also present again, blocking passages for the Morph Ball.

Three doors were present, but two were currently inaccessible. One of them was on a ledge where Sweetie Belle had to fly to take another Missile Expansion, discovering by the same occasion that the door here was blocked by a Blast Shield with a white forcefield. When she reported this to Samus, the Hunter concluded that they needed some ice-related explosive to destroy it.

With the presence of a rogue Hunter specialising in ice not far, it wasn't hard to guess that they will need to deal with Rundas one way or another before they will be able to pass this door.

Or Sweetie could use ice herself, but an ice upgrade would be very useful to Samus to it was out of question to pass beside it.

So they moved toward the only accessible door, at the left of the room. But first, they had to ignite more gel spouts to rotate a valve and create a platform to reach it.

In the following room, there was the entrance to another conduit for the Morph Ball, but before, Samus scanned another mural telling more about the history of Bryyo, more exactly about the Age of Schism, the beginning of the conflict between the Lords of Science and the Primals. Despite the Chozo warning them to seek the balance between old and new ways, the Lords of Science continued to advance, ignoring the Primals who were more and more filled with rage. Then, one of the Lords of Science denounced the Primals and their Traditions, igniting the fuse to the civil war.

Prideful fools.

Sweetie Belle and Samus entered the conduit and reached a cliffside where, with the help of some Snatchers, they were able to find another Missile Expansion before reaching the exit.

The new room had more ice blocking one of the paths, leaving them only one to continue through, with a lift that they had to manually activate by pulling a lever. The rift led them down, and once out of it, they had to destroy a Red Blast Shield before they could continue.

They entered a cavern where some Phazon was present in the ground and the wall. After killing a Hopper and advancing some more, they reached a literal pool of liquid Phazon with Phazon vines blocking the way.

"I would have definitively started to mutate if I had been normal," Sweetie Belle stated as she looked down at the Phazon.

"You would have started to mutate well before," Samus said. "But yes, nobody without protection could approach such a high amount of Phazon without being poisoned."

Samus then activated her PED Suit to fire Phazon beams at the vines to destroy them, quickly helped by the filly.

But then, after destroying a few vines, Samus suddenly stopped firing and pressed her arms against her abdomen before more Phazon than usual began to escape her Suit, roaming it and becoming unstable. Sweetie Belle could feel a huge increase in energy from Samus' body to the point of overflowing it as she could see, the Phazon filling her more and more.

"Samus!" she shouted, worried that her new friend will explode.

Samus, however, quickly recovered from the sudden Phazon overload and began to continuously fire Phazon without stopping for several seconds. She first started by destroying the remaining vine before she randomly fired in front of her. The more she fired, the more Sweetie could feel the quantity of Phazon in Samus diminishing. Understanding what Samus was doing, Sweetie Belle quickly began to help her by placing a hoof on her Suit to absorb the Phazon before releasing it from her horn as a continuous beam.

It took a flew second before the overloading Phazon was entirely expelled, letting Samus return to normal.

They both sighed in relief, but before Sweetie could ask Samus anything, the Hunter stopped her with a sign of the hand as she received a communication from the Aurora Unit.

Once the communication stopped, Samus gave another sigh.

"I guess the other shoe finally dropped..."

"What happened?" Sweetie asked. "I mean, I know what happened, but how did this happen? How did the Phazon start to overflow like that?"

"Well... The Unit said that they will analyse the data they collected from this from my Suit and will contact me again if they find anything. But it's not hard to guess. Somehow, using the Hypermode caused the Phazon in me to overload. Not sure how this happened however, but it's clear that this PED Suit isn't without side effects contrary to what the Federation thought. And I imagine that if I hadn't released all that Phazon in time, I would have become corrupted, and I don't think that I want to know what I would have turned into."

Sweetie Belle thought a moment, her frown becoming a sad one. "It's easy to find out, judging by Rundas' behavior. If this also happened to him..."

"Shit..."

"At least, he was able to resist seven whole days before he lost the battle! If it's the same for you, then it means that we have seven days too before you become corrupted! Maybe even more! That's more time than we need to find a solution to destroy that seed in you!" Sweetie Belle tried to reassure the woman, giving her a Class A Pinkie Pie SmileTM (the "everything will be alright so turn that frown upside down" smile). "You just gotta resist until then. Let's avoid using the Hypermode unless it's necessary."

Samus nodded. The filly's reassurance wasn't necessary as she wasn't intending to let this stop her and she was thinking something similar (notably that maybe that killing Dark Samus will save her since the Phazon entity was at the origin of the seed inside her), but she still acknowledged her effort and, to be frank, she was grateful for this. Her words, the fact that she wasn't alone, made supporting all this easier.

It felt good to have someone.

But she still felt awkward to have someone.

"Thank you. For the help. And, uh, also for... everything."

"You're welcome!"

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Samus eventually turned toward the pool of Phazon and jumped in it to absorb some of it as energy. Then, using the grapple, she reached the other side of the pool followed by Sweetie Belle.

After passing a door, they entered a large square room where they immediately spotted Rundas looking down at them from a ledge at the right before he walked away.

At the other side of the room was some statue with two gel spouts that they guessed they needed to ignite, and behind it, they could see another mural. However, as they approached them, a huge gate rose from the ground and blocked them from reaching the statue, and an invincible blast shield locked the entrance door.

Then, three huge quadrupedal creatures warped in the room.

They looked very menacing. They had a horn, two tusks, spikes lining their bodies including a huge one at the back, many sharp teeth, and powerful front legs. Everything in them screamed "DANGER!" Powerful predators that would put Timberwolves and Manticores to shame.

Samus scanned them and said, "Warp Hounds. Be careful, they can expel thermal energy from their mouth. And they can warp, as you saw."

"Weird the dogs on this planet. Not good boys at all."

Sweetie Belle quickly had to jump aside to avoid energy sent by the nearest hound before she 'grabbed' the energy and gathered it into a very small ball that she sent into the mouth of that same hound. One second later and the hound exploded.

At the same moment, Samus attacked the two other hounds with her beams and missiles, moving around and targeting whichever was the nearest to her. Their warping made this difficult but it wasn't long before she was able to kill one of the hounds at the same time than Sweetie Belle killed the third one with her own beams.

Once the three hounds were dead, the gate and the blast shield disappeared, letting them reach the statue and the mural. Samus first scanned the mural which described the Age of War which could be resumed as each sides sending their worst, machines of destruction and dark curses, under the powerless eyes of the other civilizations from the stars.

Then Sweetie Belle and Samus turned their attention to the statue and ignited the spouts, revealing a slot for the Morph Ball to use a bomb.

The bomb caused a large tower, a Fuel Gel processing tower to be exact from what Samus got from a scan, to rise from the center of the room. This made also some Gragnols come out but they were quickly killed as the two heroines jumped on the tower. On it, they spotted two maintenance rails that they had to pull to connect them to the tower, and once done, Samus jumped to an alcove where she found and activated a pumping station, summoning two Fuel Gel leakages at its sides. Samus and Sweetie Belle then ignited them to rotate the Fuel Gel flow regulator and reveal the entrance of the rail they connected earlier. Entering and following it, they reached a chamber behind a gate with another statue with gel spouts and a slot for Morph Bombs. So they ignited the spouts to activate the slot and Samus used a bomb in it, making the Fuel Gel processing tower rise more.

To leave this chamber, they had to use the rail again. Thankfully, despite the tower's rise, the rail was still connected and led them back to the rotated Fuel Gel flow regulator. After dealing with four Gragnol adults while jumping back on the tower, they then discovered a vat of Fuel Gel that was apparently, from what Samus' scan was saying, about to explode. Sweetie Belle used her whip to remove the valve cap to make the Fuel Gem flow out of it, and Samus ignited it with a charged beam. After igniting a second stream that was revealed after the first one, the vat exploded, starting a series of explosions along the wall at the right that destroyed several panels that had been blocking a network of tunnels for the Morph Ball.

They entered the tunnels from where the vat blew up and followed them, killing some insectoids creatures called Pillbugs, Phazon Pillbugs these ones, on the way and avoiding small streams of flames. The tunnels led them to a ledge with displays of ceremonial armor and another statue with a bomb slot. Like before, they ignited the spouts of Fuel Gel to activate it and used a bomb, making the tower rise one last time where pipes from the ceiling connected to it.

Gel Puffers also came but didn't last long.

The tower high enough, they could now reach the ledge where they had seen Rundas earlier and they finally left this room.

They entered a hall that was half filled with Fuel Gel, some golem fixture installed on the ceiling constantly pouring it from its mouth. After killing three Gel Puffers as well as some kind of ray jumping out of the Fuel Gel named a Gel Ray, Samus ignited it just as it passed beside some vine, causing a stream of fire to come from the golem's nose to burn the vine. This made a platform with a Missile Expansion fall, and Samus could use it to reach the opposite ledge. As she jumped, Sweetie Belle flew into a passage at the left and found another Missile Expansion. There was another passage at the right that led to a door with a White Blast Shield, but Samus couldn't reach it without jumping into the Fuel Gel.

The following room had a station that let Samus recharge ammunition and energy. They then traversed a cavern with strange structures with Fuel Gel growth descending from the ceiling, followed by a longer cavern with many Fuel Gel pools into which falls of Fuel Gel poured. Sweetie Belle and Samus sometime had to wait for the falls to stop to traverse the pools, and a constant fall was blocking a path at the right.

Not minding the blocked path, they continued to follow the cavern until they reached a tunnel full of little insects called Gelbugs which the shells made of crystallized Fuel Gel made them easy to detonate with weapon fire. However, when disrupted, these pests bounced around, making them very hard to target as they approached to attack.

The tunnel was the entrance of another temple, and they quickly reached a large area in open sky built above a lake of Fuel Gel. Surrounded by cliffs, it seemed to be a dead end.

But then, in the sky, a huge spaceship came and started to bomb the temple with big red balls of energy. Smaller ships then started to come out of it and approached.

"Space Pirates!" Samus yelled to warn Sweetie Belle as the smaller ships began to drop very ugly bipedal, armored aliens with large needle-like teeth and eight eyes on a fishlike head. They were monstrous even by Sweetie Belle's standard.

"Ah! Finally! But yike... Talk about faces that scream 'bad guys'..." the filly said as she began to fire beams at the pirates while taking cover behind the large storage crates that were scattered in the area.

"And again, how they look tend to change because of their constant genetic manipulations to make themselves better and adapt to planets."

Since the transport ships tended to leave after dropping the pirates, Samus didn't bother to target them, mainly attacking troopers. Sweetie Belle, however, destroyed one by grabbing it with her magic before slamming it on a group of pirates, the impact damaging it very badly. This show of power made the pirates understand that Samus wasn't the only danger and more of them began to target the filly.

"I'm kinda disappointed," Sweetie Belle eventually said as she destroyed another ship by slicing it in half with one of her swords.

"Why?" asked Samus.

"I hoped that these pirates would be more the "Aaaarr!!! I'll send ya to the space Kraken, ya scallywag!" type. With hooks instead of hands, eye-patches, beards made of plasma, iron, or whatever, and metal legs."

Samus almost let out a laugh. "That's definitively not their type. But thanks for the image," she said before she kicked a pirate that got too close, sending it on its back. At the same time, Sweetie Belle beheaded two pirates, including a very armored one.

One last armored pirate was killed by Samus firing a missile right in its mouth before, suddenly, a pillar of ice came out of the ground in the center of the area. This made the pirates run, only for ice to spread toward them, freezing them right where they stood. Before long, all the pirates were turned into ice statues before the ice pillar split apart to reveal Rundas.

The pirates stopped coming after that, leaving the two heroines to focus on the new arrival, not certain of what to do as he remained immobile.

"Uh... He killed the pirates. Maybe there's some hope..." Sweetie Belle said, not really believing what she was saying but... she really wanted to hope.

However, when Samus began to approach Rundas, he suddenly sent ice toward her, and only her reflexes saved her from finishing like the pirates. Instead, the ice blocked the entrance of the area.

"Guess it answers this..." Samus said with a sigh.

At this moment, Samus saw a ghost-like manifestation of Dark Samus briefly appear over Rundas, and she understood.

This wasn't Rundas.

It was Dark Samus puppeting him thanks to the Phazon in him.

As the ice Hunter made a ice pillar rise from under him, the heroines understood that a fight couldn't be avoided. Several giant spikes of ice also came out around him, probably as a show of power. Samus did say that Rundas had a big ego. Maybe that was also why he froze the pirates, to fight them by himself. Corrupted or not, under Dark Samus' control or not, you can't stop an ego as big as his.

Then, Rundas created some ice on himself to serve as armor to protect his more vulnerable parts before he jumped from the ice pillar to face Samus and Sweetie Belle.

Samus quickly scanned him to see if she could find a weakness while Sweetie Belle put a frontal shield to protect the both of them from the ice sent by their foe. Seeing this, Rundas spread ice to their sides before making spikes of ice sprout from them diagonally to impale them. Samus jumped backward to avoid them, and Sweetie Belle began to fly while firing back with fireballs. Rundas also began to do like when they first saw him in the temple of the cliffs, jumping, creating ice under his feet, and sliding around in the air, using ice pillars and ice spikes as cover.

"Sweetie Belle! Target the ice on his neck! That's his main weakness!" Samus instructed as she began to fire at the ice Hunter.

"Roger!"

At this moment, Rundas charged at Samus with his ice, two ice swords materializing around his hands. Samus had to stop firing to use her cannon to parry one of the swords, then kicked the other sword to deflect it before she punched Rundas on the head. This didn't stop Rundas from attacking, and they exchanged more hits, one with martial arts, the other with ice swords. Sweetie Belle quickly came with one of her own swords and Rundas swung to intercept her. Sweetie Belle easily sliced the ice sword before she headbutted Rundas, making him stagger. Despite this, Rundas was able to create two ice spikes from his feet to force the two girls to move back, only to get a charged beam on the head, stunning him. Samus then used the grapple on the ice on his neck, ripping it off and leaving him vulnerable.

The girls immediately fired at the neck, and Rundas retreated, running around and using the ice as cover to make their job harder. After a few seconds, he was able to recreate ice on his neck and he restarted his assault, now sending small spikes of ice as projectiles as he slid in the air.

Sweetie Belle kicked him off his self made slide to force him back on the ground where Samus could easily target him. Then, the filly landed on his head, turned one of her hooves into claws, and planted them in him before sending electricity through them. Screaming in pain, Rundas spasmed a few seconds before he was able to catch Sweetie Belle and to throw her away, only for Samus to rip the ice on his neck again. Samus then joined him in a jump, put her arm cannon right under his neck, and fired a missile, sending him crashing into an ice pillar.

It still wasn't enough however as he recovered and put ice again on his neck. However, for a few seconds, he seemed to lose control of his movements as his body, especially his limbs, spasmed and he began to speak gibberish.

In that gibberish, Sweetie Belle and Samus perfectly heard two words... "Kill me."

This put tears on the filly's eyes. "He's still fighting the corruption and Dark Samus."

"Rundas..."

But then, Rundas' PED activated, he jumped on a pillar, and created a huge ice battering ram that destroyed all the ice spikes and pillars around before he sent it at Samus who was pushed out of the way by Sweetie Belle. Rundas followed this by sending dozens of ice blasts, and Sweetie Belle teleported the two of them at the opposite side of the arena where which they could fire at Rundas' back. A particularly large explosive ball from Sweetie Belle sent the ice Hunter flying from his pillar and crashing at its base, shattering the ice protecting him. As he recovered from this, Sweetie Belle and Samus took the occasion to attack his neck, but it only took a few seconds before the ice was back.

Still with his PED activated, Rundas unleashed his full power over ice to not only slid in the air but also rain ice spikes and form ice stalagmites all over the arena. Sweetie Belle grabbed chunks of broken ice now littering the area to form a strong shield above Samus and her to protect themselves from the raining ice while the two of them destroyed the stalagmites to make place, Samus having to activate her PED. Avoiding them was hard as they had to remain together, but their constant movement made it so they weren't hit once, and when they could, they fired at Rundas. But their ice shield was quickly destroyed by another ice battering ram that almost crushed them if it hadn't been for Sweetie Belle destroying it with a powerful punch.

Rundas was now sliding close enough that Samus was able to grab one of his legs with her grapple, and Sweetie Belle quickly used her whip to grab his other leg. The two then pulled to make Rundas spin around them, causing the ice Hunter to crash into the many ice pillars, spikes, and stalagmites that now circled them. Once there was nothing for Rundas to crash into anymore, Sweetie Belle and Samus then violently smashed him on the ground, shattering the ice protecting him. Samus then quickly unleashed all the Phazon in her as the Phazon Overload was starting, and Sweetie Belle used her own powers to send beams of Phazon.

They stopped when Samus' Phazon Overload ended, and it seemed that Rundas was done for as he wasn't attempting to get up again. Instead, as he recovered from the onslaught, he simply looked around, seemingly confused.

"Rundas?" Samus asked, hope returning. If Rundas was himself again, maybe he could be saved.

Her call made Rundas look at her and at Sweetie Belle who slowly approached, and he raised an arm toward the Hunter.

But then...

Large stalagmites of ice erupted from the ground under Rundas and impaled him. He just had time to let out a last guttural yell of pain before a stalagmite impaled him through the head, killing him and freezing his body.

Sweetie Belle let out a shocked gasp as she watched this in horror, and Samus screamed, "No!"

The stalagmites and the ice covering Rundas' body then broke, but the body remained floating as a dark, winged, wraith-like entity appeared from behind and floated above it.

The entity was gaseous, but had the silhouette and a visor similar to Samus', excepted that this one was glowing blue.

"That's Dark Samus?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Samus simply nodded as she stared wordlessly at the dark entity who began to absorb Rundas' body.

As the entity finished, Sweetie Belle finally got over her shock and fired a beam of energy that should normally be able to hit such a ghost-like entity. But Dark Samus dodged it, done with Rundas, and flew away into space, leaving behind a capsule with an upgrade for Samus.

Sweetie Belle growled. She wasn't entirely sure of what happened, but it seemed that, as Rundas was regaining control, Dark Samus decided to use his own power to kill him before absorbing him. They were about to save him only for that thing to ruin everything! Once Sweetie Belle will be done with her, nothing will remain!

Samus placed a hand on her head to calm her.

"We will get her," she said. Judging from her voice she also had difficulty controlling herself.

Sweetie Belle nodded determinedly. "Yes."

Now that was personal. You don't kill an innocent in front of her and get away with it.

With Rundas dead, all his ice in the area melted, and an elevator in the center activated. Before that, Samus took the capsule that contained an upgrade of ice missiles as they expected.

It wasn't long before they put them to use as, after taking the elevator, they had to use ice on Fuel Gel to create platforms to traverse a cavern full of it.

The fact that Fuel Gel could be frozen was a new one for the filly.

In the room that followed, they had to activated a pumping station to make streams of Fuel Gel appear so they could freeze them to cross a large chasm.

Finally, they reached the room with the generator.

The first thing they saw was a console and another mural describing the Downfall, how the war destroyed Bryyo and turned it mostly inhabitable. Activating the console only displayed a hologram of the generator so it wasn't useful at all. The generator itself, however, was out of reached, behind a red forcefield. The Leviathan and its shield could be seen at the right.

Samus crossed her arms, thinking of how they could reach the generator.

Sweetie Belle placed a hoof on the forcefield, thinking that she could certainly destroy it, but... "Another upgrade necessary?"

"Maybe."

"Need to explore elsewhere to get it?"

"Certainly."

"Could be useful in other situations?"

"I guess."

"So we will have to come back later?"

"Yes."

They both sighed at this.

The Aurora Unit contacting Samus confirmed it. They needed to find a new weapon.

So they retraced their steps and explored the region with the help of the ice missiles. Sweetie Belle's ice powers were also welcome.

If she had known before that Fuel Gel could be frozen, their life would have been easier.

First, they reached the White Blast Shield and destroyed it, entered a hallway with a large chasm where they had to put targets for the grapple into position by firing into switch so Samus could cross it. This made a shortcut to the gel Refinery Site by the door on the ledge that was previously blocked by a White Blast Shield. Making a pipe collapse then created a way for them to get on that ledge so they won't have to make a detour again.

They then returned to the cavern where a fall of Fuel Gel blocked a path and froze it, letting Samus reach another transportation shaft that transported her back to the first one, activating it by the same occasion. Sweetie Belle joined her with a teleportation.

With nothing else to be done in the region, they returned to the ship where they received another communication of the AU who revealed to Samus the presence of a Federation landing site on Bryyo that could upgrade her ship to give it what could destroy the generator. And apparently, it was back in the first region with the temple on the cliffs.

So they took off and flew toward it.

Chapter 44: The Generators And The Leviathan

The coordinates given by the AU indicated that Sweetie Belle and Samus' objective was not far after the chasm with the streams of Fuel Gel they couldn't pass earlier. With every obstacles already dealt with, all they had to do was to return to the crashed ship where they got the map while fighting their way through the local fauna.

It only took a few minutes and they were back at the chasm. After dealing with the Gel Puffers, they then froze the streams of fuel and used them to cross the chasm.

Their path was however quickly blocked by an inactivated golem and a wall. Thankfully, it was still functional and had a slot for Samus' Morph Ball. So Samus entered it and used a bomb to not only activate it, but also to take control of it. She then used it to destroy the wall behind it, opening the way only to reveal a hole behind it. Still using the golem, Samus looked back at Sweetie Belle and pointed down at the hole. Understanding, Sweetie Belle gave a nod before she jumped on the golem's shoulder, and Samus jumped down into the hole. After landing, she left the golem and the filly jumped from its shoulder before applauding.

"That was impressive! It was like an armor! Too bad you can't keep it."

"It would be too much of a hindrance," Samus replied before she fired an ice missile at a White Blast Shield that blocked the exit door.

Before they left, Sweetie Belle grabbed a Missile Expansion she had spotted in an elevated alcove.

They then entered a big court with a huge restrained war golem currently inactivated. Some Fuel Gel was in the room and could probably be used to burn the vines restraining the golem like they did back in the fiery region, but the vines were out of its reach. They had to find another way.

Killing a couple of Warp Hounds activated a Morph Bomb slot in front of the golem which activated it. The activated golem attempted to advance only to fail because of the vines. Its movements still managed to rip off a plate at the origin of one of the vines, revealing a core supplying said vine with Fuel Gel. An explosive beam was all it took to make it explode and burn the vine.

Another core was found at the end of a small tunnel where they had to freeze a stream of Fuel Gel to reach it. A third vine was burn by igniting a small spout of Gel Fuel up in a wall, and the fourth vine had its core behind a weakened section of wall that was destroyed with a missile.

With the four vines destroyed, the golem was freed. A last bomb reactivated it, and Samus quickly had to leave the control unit as the golem grabbed it and inserted it in a wall behind it. The portion of wall then retracted to leave a U-shaped stonework while a hole with a tunnel to a door was left where the unit had been. The golem then placed itself against a wall at the left and permanently deactivated itself.

Sweetie Belle found it very sad.

Just as they reached the new door, Samus was contacted again by the AU who finally got information about Samus' conditions.

"It's as I thought. The Phazon in me overreacts after a few seconds of use with the PED," Samus told Sweetie Belle once the AU stopped the communication. With a shake of her head, she added, "I knew this was a bad idea... But the PED is apparently the only way to counter Dark Samus."

Sweetie Belle nodded. "If worst comes to worst and we need immediately to get rid of the seed in you, I can use Phazon. Still not sure how to safely destroy that seed in you however..."

She could feel it. She could feel its location inside Samus. She could destroy it. But the risk was to high and she was so inexperienced with that kind of stuff that she feared she would kill Samus if she tried anything. Since the fight with Rundas, she was trying to think of a way.

At least to save the other corrupted Hunters.

Samus gave Sweetie Belle a thankful nod at her words before they passed the door and entered a room with a large hole that was thankfully not deep. To reach the other side, they had to destroy some crystallised Fuel Gel, starting a chain of explosions on a golem that made its raised left arm to fall on an opposite golem. Said arm had a target for the grapple.

But before, Samus explored the hole and was able to find a hidden Energy Tank inside a broken golem arm.

With reaching the other side of the room, Samus could climb on the first golem before using its lowered arm as a bridge. Some platforming later and they had to destroy a pillar by blasting more crystallised Fuel Gel to burn vines to explode more crystals. Samus then used the grapple target under the destroyed pillar to continue her path to the top of the room, Sweetie Belle flying around to take care of the Gragnols bothering them. After destroying some debris blocking the path, they then entered the Federation site, reaching some backup cache of Federation weaponry.

Finally, they entered their destination: the Federation landing site, which was a hangar bay where missile racks to upgrade gunships weaponry were present, part of a central structure. But first, they had to be retracted to allow the ship to land.

However, just as they were about to do so by activating the control terminal beside the landing pad, a security lock-down suddenly began, causing the hatches at the top of the room to close, and also the central structure and the terminal to retract. The reason was the sudden appearance of Reptilicus Hunters with their Warp Hounds.

First came the hounds who warped on the pad, two of them. Samus was the first to kill hers with some ice missiles which were their weakness, Sweetie Belle waited for hers to come close before she fired into its mouth a piercing beam that came out of its skull, killing it instantly.

Then came the Reptilicus Hunters who were four. Sweetie simply grabbed two of them and smashed them together, opening their skull, before she let the Hunter have her fun with the two remaining ones. Samus' combo ice missile plus charged beam revealed to be terribly effective against them, and the Reptilicus were dead before they knew it.

With the Reptilicus and their hounds dead, the security lock-down ended, letting the terminal rose back up, but the hatches were still closed.

There was an elevator that could be used to reach a pair of air conducts big enough for the Morph Ball to enter. However, they led to a control room with no way to open the hatches from here. Instead, Samus removed an energy cell, powering down a shield that blocked the access to an orange-shielded door.

"Let me guess. Orange means that you must use something hot to pass it," Sweetie guessed.

"You are right, but I currently have no such beam. Ghor... Ghor has a plasma beam from what I know," Samus said gloomily.

"Of course..."

Sweetie Belle hoped they will be able to get the upgrade without Ghor dying. Thankfully, he was on another planet so Sweetie still had time to think of a way to avoid the worst.

The switch to open the hatches was in another control room further up. They guessed that they could use the central structure, racks and all, as platforms to reach the control room, but instead of losing time, Sweetie Belle decided to just teleport in the control room to use the switch herself. With the hatches open, Samus could finally call her ship.

Once the ship was here, she then used the terminal to reveal the central structure and activate it to finally upgrade the ship with missiles.

At last, they could destroy the generator in the fiery region.

"Oh, this will be good!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed.

The passage in the fiery region was rather quick. While it was revealed that the transportation shaft didn't work from the hallway with the statues of the emperors, they still could use the shortcut with the broken pillar and the grapple targets to rapidly return to the generator. In their absence, the pirates placed troops to defend the place, and the girls had to fight their way through drones and troopers, but they barely slowed them down. It wasn't some sentinels that will scare them.

However, upon reaching the temple where they fought Rundas, they had the bad surprise of discovering that the pirates were building a cannon and had also built two jamming beacons to prevent remote control of ships. Thankfully, they arrived before the cannon could be finished, but the beacons were defended by some armored aerotroopers very annoying to target. Worst, they also placed a solid clamp that blocked the elevator to the generator.

Instead of directly fighting the annoying pirates, Samus and Sweetie Belle got the idea of deactivating the jamming beacons so Samus could call her ship and test her new toys. The ship came and fired its missiles at the pirates and everything they built, cannon, jamming beacon, and clamp, destroying and killing everything.

"Woooh!!! Take that you stupid pirates! You can't stop us!" Sweetie Belle shouted. "I wonder if I should also install missiles in my ship."

"You have a ship?" Samus asked in surprise.

"Yep! And a smart one! Not sapient, but it can take decisions, like it decided to make me its captain. A really great ship with space distortion so it is bigger inside than outside, so it can serve as a second home. Or a third home, I guess. I'm sure you will see it one day."

"I wouldn't mind taking a look at it. Maybe I could take inspiration from it to improve my ship."

"Well, the cockpit definitively needs more space."

"I never needed more space. But that space distortion technology could be useful to add more systems without compromising the efficiency of its small size. Not even the Chozo had something like that."

"The civilization that built that ship was very, very, VERY advanced. We still have a hard time reverse engineering their stuff despite everything we have, and the only man who managed to do it sadly died taking with him everything he discovered."

Sweetie sounded very upset at this last part.

Samus decided to not press.

They took the elevator and, eventually, after dealing with more drones, reached the room letting them see the generator. And after killing the two pirates in it, Samus called her ship and made it bombard the generator, destroying it. The shield around the Leviathan flickered for a few seconds as a result, but it wasn't enough to put it down.

Still, one generator down, one left to go.

In the jungle.

The path back to the ship was uneventful. Only a well-armored pirate with a frontal handshield in the temple managed to resist more than ten seconds against them.

Samus flew her ship to the only accessible landing pad in the jungle which was like they saw from the cliffside region, a jungle of thorns with giant vines, the weirdest flora Sweetie ever saw until now, and also the most intimidating.

Barely they arrived and passed the first door that they were ambushed by a pirate entering Hypermode, rendering everything non-Phazon less effective.

Beheading it was still very effective.

Another pirate in Hypermode followed only to last just as long.

On the path, in the walls, there were some crystallised Fuel Gel that, detonated, destroyed the rock around them. One such crystal revealed a secret path to the Red Blast Shield that guarded a vault containing an Energy Tank for Samus.

Back in the main path, an energy shield blocked the exit. They had to destroy some crystals to reveal a secret tunnel entrance for the Morph Ball leading to the terminal that powered it. By the same occasion, through a red forcefield like the one back in the fiery region, they saw a jamming beacon at the other side of the door, guarded by some pirates.

Once the shield was down and they passed the door, the pirates didn't last long. They weren't even armored.

And sweetie Belle promptly destroyed the beacon, letting Samus call her ship to destroy a huge gate blocking the way. Three pirates came from behind the destroyed remains. One revealed to be resistant to beams, one to missiles, and there was a huge one heavily armored with Phazite plating.

Sweetie Belle left Samus taking care of the big one while she dealt with the small ones. The big one was pretty much invincible to everything excepted his own Phazon attacks that Samus had to fire at to send them back at him. He was a real beast, not hesitating to throw his own comrades at Samus with such forces that they exploded upon crashing. As the two first small ones were killed, one by Sweetie and one by the titan, more small, normal pirates came as reinforcement only to quickly be killed by the filly or to serve as projectile for the huge berserker. Eventually, the berserker's plating was destroyed, leaving him vulnerable to beams, and Samus was able to kill him.

"This. Is an example of how far the pirates are willing to go to reach their goals. They don't hesitate to turn themselves into near mindless beasts using anything they have, here being the Phazon," Samus explained to Sweetie Belle.

"Yike..."

"They are ruthless even to their own kind. Failure easily means death for them. They experiment without care, exterminate whole populations, take over planets and make them theirs by destroying all traces of previous civilizations they can find when they don't just steal their technology... They are powerful and can be very cunning, even giving the Federation trouble as you could see. They really are the worst scourge of the galaxy, although Dark Samus and the Phazon are getting pretty close. And you haven't met their leaders yet. Real monsters of the worst kind."

Sweetie Belle could only agree. She fought a lot of monsters that could be qualified as horrible, but none of them came close to what Samus was describing, excepted the Dark Matters but it was literally in their nature. And again, the Dark Matters didn't experiment on their own kind without care for their well being to reach their goal (unless that white one on Ripple Star was a result of such experiments? She wasn't sure) How could a whole species get that low?

Well, she couldn't complain. She expected to encounter horrors in her adventures. It came with the job of multiversal explorer.

But still, exterminating whole populations, meaning certainly whole planets, billions and billions of deaths...

She couldn't even start to process the full scale of the horror.

"You talked about Chozo survivors. Were they...?"

"Yes... The pirates exterminated them. Or at least, the ones that inhabited planet Zebes which was just a Chozo colony for researches. Only a few were able to escape, and Zebes became the pirates' main base of operation until I was able to neutralize them. I have no idea if there are other Chozo colonies still thriving. Each time that I find traces of Chozo civilization, I only find ruins. However, I don't know exactly where the Chozo survivors went. Even the ones who had been made prisoner on Zebes and that I rescued with two comrades went into hiding without telling anyone where they were going, wanting to keep the attention of everyone away from themselves. I heard however several reports of sightings."

"I would like to encounter one of these Chozo. You have no contact with any of them?"

Samus shook her head. "Not even with Old Bird, the one who raised me. I know he escaped Zebes, but I have no idea where he is. I hope to see him again someday before he dies of natural cause. He was very old last time I saw him."

"Maybe when the pirates will be gone for good."

"Yes, maybe..."

"Wait, you were raised by the Chozo? You were not just part of... like, some kind of program to create the ultimate warrior to face the pirates?"

This made Samus chuckle. "Yes and no. The Chozo raised me, and they took the occasion to make me, as you call it, "the ultimate warrior."" Her voice turned somber. "Because, despite the prosperity of the Milky Way Galactic Federation, violence and calamity continued to run rampant, and I knew that better than anyone."

...

"Your... home-people was also exterminated by the pirates? Your family? Your friends?" asked Sweetie Belle, understanding.

Samus remained silent, and it was all she needed to answer her question.

Wordlessly, the Hunter advanced, not minding the look of pity Sweetie Belle was now giving her.

Two homes. She had two homes, two peoples, and the pirates destroyed and took everything. And despite all this, she was still fighting. Sweetie Belle gained a lot of respect for Samus. The filly wasn't even sure what she would do if the same happened to her.

As she flew to grab a Missile Expansion she spotted, Sweetie Belle internally promised Samus to make the pirates regret even existing.

After traversing a walkway with some walking space pirate drones called Crawltanks, they entered a field with two falls of Fuel Gel where two aerotroopers attempted to stop them. While Samus attacked one with her ice missiles (which homed in the target making it easy despite the aerotrooper's speed), Sweetie Belle grabbed the other by his leg with her magic. The pirate attempted to escape by using all the power of his jetpack. Unknowingly, Sweetie Belle slowly turned him to he faced a wall before she suddenly released him, and the pirate ended up flying head first right into the wall, killing him right there.

Then, a huge insectoid creature with long back legs, blade-like and bent fore-limbs, a horn on the head, two other horns on the jaw, Phazite plating on the skull, and a pirate riding it came and attacked them. The pirate himself was armed with a spear that could fire continuous beams of Phazon energy.

The creature, called a Korakk Beast which served as cavalry for the pirates, quickly revealed to have a strong shell that protected it from beams and missiles, so this meant that Sweetie Belle had to use more powerful attacks than usual to hurt it. Her swords worked well, and she quickly killed the rider. Samus, meanwhile, targeted the mouth which was more vulnerable. When she had the occasion, she turned into a Morph Ball and rolled under the Korakk where she used bombs to attack its underbelly, which was its weakness. The Korakk was apparently mutated by the Phazon because it could use Phazon-based attacks that were, as a result, very dangerous. At a moment, it tried to wrap its tongue around Sweetie Belle, but the filly sliced it with one of her swords, making the bug screech in pain and leaving it open for more bombs from Samus. This time, it made him extend his tail which Samus pulled with the grapple to force the Korakk to rear onto its backlegs in pain, leaving its underbelly exposed. Sweetie Belle took the occasion to finish the beast with her some powerful beams of Phazon.

The shield blocking the exit deactivated, and two more pirates came only to quickly die.

"You know, if I had been bigger, you could have climbed on my back and we would have turned this fight into a joust," Sweetie Belle joked, wanting to lighten the mood after the earlier discussion.

"I would have missed a lance."

"I could easily create you one. And now that I think of this, I can grow in size."

"Is there anything you can't do?"

"good question."

Samus chuckled. "I will think about this next time we encounter a Korakk."

At this, they passed the exit door and entered a walkway that served as a junction between the field they just left, a station like in the fiery region where Samus could recharge energy and ammunition, and the room where the second shield generator apparently awaited them.

So, after dealing with some flying drones and using the station, they passed the door to the generator room which looked very similar to its counterpart from the fiery region, excepted that there was one of these walls with numerous targets like they encountered once behind which was hidden another mural that recounted how the Primals seemingly won the war and hunted the Lords of Science until only one of them survived. The last Lord of Science, the one who created this mural and all the previous ones, then finally took the old advice of the Chozo and allied Magic and Science (old and new) to create some mighty special-Mogenars (Mogenar being apparently the name of the various golems they encountered) to protect himself. The mural depicted the silhouette of one such golem.

In front of the mural, there was also a Missile Expansion that Samus took.

However, as they advanced to finally see the second generator, they discovered a bad news: the generator was protected by two cannons that stopped any attempt to destroy it with Samus' ship. And of course, the Aurora Unit decided to call to state the obvious: the cannons needed to be destroyed so the ship could have a clear shot on the generator.

"Thank you Captain Obvious," sweetie Belle muttered.

However, the paths to the two cannons, at the left and at the right, were blocked by closed hatches.

Thinking that they needed to backtrack to find a way to open them, Sweetie Belle and Samus were about to leave when an Invincible Blast Shield blocked the exit, and the hatches opened to let enter two armored pirate troopers that were promptly killed.

The hatches remained open.

The pirate troopers weren't smart at all, uh? They could have just left the hatches closed to make the cannons impossible to reach.

"Should we separate so we each destroy a cannon?" Sweetie Belle proposed.

"Do as you want."

"Alright, then I take the left path and you take the right."

Samus accepted and moved to the right door while the filly went to the left one.

It turned out that the left path would have been a dead end for Samus. The room had two levels, and the second level was too high to reach with a jump and had no access to it. But it was no problem for Sweetie Belle who simply flew while dealing with a drone and a pirate present here. In a conduit, she spotted a Missile Expansion for Samus that she took before she passed the exit door which was of a different design, certainly space pirate.

Walking down a hallway with a short elevator, she reached the cannon. An aerotrooper spotted her and shouted to another who was pulling a lever, "It's the Hunter's pet!" The other finished to pull the lever, activating a clamp to lock a cylinder under the cannon, and went to pull another only for Sweetie Belle to fire at his jetpack. The jetpack exploded with the pirate as a result, but more aerotroopers came to finish the job and pull the remaining levers while the one who first spotted her attacked her directly to serve as a distraction.

A distraction that didn't last long.

But it was enough time gained for the pirates to pull the levers and activate two more clamps on the cylinder, making it a total of three clamps. Done with their task to protect the cannon's weakness, the pirates all began to fire at her.

No matter how many she killed, more came, the pirates NOT wanting her to destroy the cannon. Rolling her eyes, Sweetie belle decided to stop playing around and simply pulled the three levers at once with her magic, deactivating the three clamps and retracting the cylinder, exposing another clamp under the cannon that could be pulled. Once pulled, the clamp made three tanks of Fuel Gel come out of the base of the cannon.

It wasn't hard to make them explode, short-circuiting the cannon's system and making it explode as a result.

Seeing that they failed, the remaining aerotroopers attempted to fly away, but Sweetie Belle stopped them with her magic, leaving them no chance.

She knew that letting them escape was a bad idea. They would just come back another time or go to do untold horrors on another world. Space pirates had to be permanently neutralized at the first occasion given.

Once she dealt with them, she wondered what to do next. She could return to the generator room, but she could see another path that she could explore, and Samus wasn't done with her cannon yet.

She decided to explore the unknown path, discovering fungus of Phazon that spread the corruption ever more.

She destroyed them.

She then passed a door and followed the path, destroying shielded drones. At a moment, she discovered a Reptilicus corpse embedded with shrapnel not far of a round device on the ground. Firing a beam at it revealed that it was a pirate proximity mine, the first one she ever saw although she heard of such weapons from Susie.

Just after she destroyed the mine and just as she fought more shielded drones, she heard a big explosion from the direction of the second cannon, indicating that Samus was finally done. So Sweetie Belle quickly destroyed the remaining drones and flew to join her friend.

She reached her just as she finished a last armored pirate trooper beside the remains of the second cannon.

By the same occasion, she saw that the path she had been exploring was leading to a small building behind the generator, and a similar path started from the second cannon, so if Sweetie had continued to explore, she would have still eventually joined Samus.

"Hey, Samus!" the filly began as she landed beside the Hunter. "This path over here leads to a building, and then loops back to the generator room passing by the cannon I destroyed. I haven't explored the building yet, so we should do it and see if there's something interesting for you before we destroy the generator. Also, here's a Missile Expansion for you."

"Thanks, and I agree."

The building revealed to contain a expansion for the ship's missiles, meaning that Samus will be able to call the ship for bombing more without having to recharge its ammunition.

While returning to the generator room, as they passed by the remains of the cannon that Sweetie destroyed, Samus pointed at a generator at the Northeastern part of the area and said, "There's a secret path in this way which is the path that would lead back to the cliffside region. But it seems that we will need to move that generator."

"How?"

"Not sure, but we will certainly find a way."

At this, they finally returned to the generator room and Samus was able to call her ship, destroying their target and taking with it the shield protecting the Leviathan.

At last, the path to the Leviathan was open, as the Aurora Unit stated in her following communication.

So they returned to the ship back at the landing pad, having to fight their way through more pirate troopers and drones, including the surviving crew of a small crashed ship that had apparently been caught in the explosion of the shield generator, and they took off, direction the Leviathan.

From up close, the Leviathan was truly huge, but without the shield, they had no problem entering it.

Sweetie Belle could feel the powerful energy of Phazon everywhere around her. It was almost overwhelming.

"Here we go, the first Leviathan," she said.

"Prepare yourself. There will probably be a powerful guardian protecting the core," Samus warned.

"Of course there will be one," Sweetie Belle replied with a roll of her head. It would have been to easy too have directly access to the core.

Samus was able to find a place to land her ship, and they started their exploration of the depth of the Leviathan, starting by jumping on a series of organic structures that they used as platforms to reach a ledge, without minding the giant parasitic fungus using the Seed for sustenance, the many Scorchbugs (insects feeding on Fuel Gel that exploded when shot) that crawled around, and the big glands that generated Phazon.

The core was the only thing that mattered to them.

They reached an organic door made of bone plates that was able to generate a blue shield like normal doors. How it was possible, they weren't sure, but it looked like Dark Samus - if she's at the origin of these Leviathans - ensured that the Leviathans could naturally copy some technologies.

Passing the door, they entered a narrow passageway partially made up of an almost transparent material made of Phazon that let them see more of the inside of the Seed. The passage itself had some organic masses blocking the way, which the girls had to fire at the core to destroy them.

They then passed a last door and entered the room of the core.

And immediately spotted the huge golem at the center, bathing in a fall of liquid Phazon. The fall was coming from the Seed's core itself, just above.

For Sweetie Belle, the golem was easily the size of a building, and it had a reptilian appearance (like all the golems). Its body was constituted of several plates between which they could see Phazon energy. From where they were, facing the front of the golem, they could see three round slots, one on each shoulders and one on the belly. Finally, the last remarkable feature was that this golem possessed three eyes.

Sweetie Belle and Samus jumped down from the ledge they were which triggered the golem's activation to defend the core. At the same time, four red orbs appeared on pedestals all around the room, and the golem projected immaterial green hands to grab them and place them into the slots. Seeing there were four orbs but only three visible slots, it probably meant that there was another slot at the back of the golem which reminded Sweetie of Void's titanic form.

In its movements, the golem really seemed sentient. It even roared.

Samus scanned it, but it wasn't hard to guess what this golem was.

It was one of these special-Mogenar golems that the last Lord of Science created using magic and technology to protect himself from the Primals.

Twilight would go nuts at such a marvel, too bad Sweetie and Samus had to destroy it.

Samus' scan revealed, although it could have easily been guessed, that the red orbs were energy sources, and thus, were the golem's weakness. However, the scan revealed that, where the orbs' outer shells could be destroyed normally, the insides made of Phazon energy were invincible to everything but Phazon, so Samus will have to enter Hypermode to destroy them.

The slots closed as the Mogenar jumped, creating a shockwave of Phazon upon landing that Sweetie Belle and Samus had to avoid by jumping. The slots opened just at it landed, only to close again as the golem then raised a foot, gathered energy, and stomped the ground, sending Phazon in a straight line which was avoided with a side jump. Again, the slots opened just after its stomp (and it even laughed at them!).

"The slots close when it is attacking," Samus concluded.

"Then we wait for it to finish its attacks and fire at the orbs."

Easier said than done. The golem attacked very often, leaving rather short openings for the girls to fire at the orbs. It loved jumping to create shockwaves, and to their surprise, it could even switch the front orbs between the slots (indicated by green energies departing from the slots and entering other slots). But still, between the two of them, it wasn't long before the first orb's shell was destroyed. Samus then passed into Hypermode and the two fired Phazon beams to destroy it for good.

This turned the golem serious as it then created Phazon crystals on its feet which generated some shield all over its body. These platings revealed to be only vulnerable to things like Samus' Morph Bombs. Thankfully, these shield-generative crystals seemed to limit the golem's attacks only to its jumping one and to a ramming charge. Waiting for it to charge was the best way to have a clear shot at the crystals (if they first dodged, of course), and before long, they were destroyed, and the girls resumed firing at the orbs.

They took a little more time destroying the Phazon energy of the second orb, and after a few jumps and a stomp, the golem sent its immaterial hands to grab two new orbs from the pedestals. Since the slot of the first orb was on fire and certainly unusable as a result, it was probably to regenerate the damaged one, so Sweetie and Samus fired at them. The new orbs were easily destroyed as they only had the red shell, and the damaged orb quickly followed. Again, the golem created Phazon crystals at its feet for protection, but like before, they were rapidly destroyed although the golem jumped more often.

The third orb was much harder to destroy. The golem used new attacks, starting by violently punching the ground in front of it to make Phazon rocks fall all over the room, the rocks creating small shockwaves upon impact. Sweetie Belle immediately took to destroy them with Phazon beam before they could crash, making it easier for them. After this, it began to send the green energy that it used previously to make its immaterial hands, probably the Primals' magic, as energy balls or as hands to attack them. They could be destroyed, so Sweetie Belle took this job so Samus could focus on targeting the last frontal orb. However, the slot closed more often, even when the golem wasn't attacking, which made the whole process even longer. At least, when they had the occasion, they also attacked the orb at the back.

But then, the golem fired from its mouth a laser of Phazon. Samus saw a chance and fired an ice missile at it, frozing the mouth, stunning the Mogenar, and leaving the orb vulnerable. They both took the occasion to finally destroy the red shell, and once only the Phazon energy remained, Sweetie Belle immediately began to fire Phazon beams at it before the slot closed.

The Mogenar suddenly jumped toward them. Sweetie Belle had to teleport while Samus used her Morph Ball to rapidly move out of the way before she morphed back to normal and jumped to avoid the shockwave. The Hunter then had to do a backflip to avoid the golem's fist as it tried to punch her while it sent several magic balls at Sweetie Belle. When the slot opened after that series of attacks, Samus turned into Hypermode again and destroyed the third orb, only leaving the fourth one at the back.

After another phase where they had to destroy Phazon crystals at the feet, the girls then proceeded to destroy the back orb which they had already damaged. By now, the Mogenar seemed to have lost so much energy that it could now mostly attack only with charges and jumps, but it still could use the other attacks from time to time, but not as often as before. Thanks to this, the fourth orb was rapidly destroyed, red shell and Phazon energy.

The Mogenar almost immediately began to glow blue, its body breaking down and the Phazon escaping, before it began to explode. This expelled a huge quantity of Phazon, some of which ended up absorbed by Sweetie Belle and Samus. While this did nothing to Sweetie Belle who immediately got rid of it and any bad effect it caused on her, Samus didn't have that chance. Samus began to glow blue, and Sweetie Belle could feel the Seed within her grow a little. When the glow faded as the Mogenar finally exploded, Samus' Suit had changed a bit, its orange parts taking a darker shade, its visor turning blue while keeping some green, and glowing veins of Phazon with Phazon energy coursing them appeared in the joints.

Samus fell on her knees and Sweetie Belle ran to her screaming, "Samus! Are you alright? Are you still yourself? Do you need me to destroy the Seed in you?"

Samus silenced her with a stopping sign with her hand before she made the helmet of her Suit disappear, revealing her face, her long blond hair held in a ponytail excepted for two fringes at the sides and her blue eyes, to the filly for the first time. Then, after taking some big breathes, she vomited some Phazon. Even knowing that it would do nothing because of the Suit, Sweetie Belle put a hoof on her back as a show of support as she waited.

When she stopped throwing up, Samus took some more big breathes before she looked at the filly. Seeing her worried expression, she gave a reassuring smile and said, "Don't worry, I'm alright."

"Are you sure?"

"I will need to run a diagnostic once I return to my ship, but despite everything, I don't feel any effect of Phazon poisoning or corruption. I'm still myself. I don't think that the destruction of the Seed in me is needed yet."

"If you say so..." Sweetie Belle wasn't entirely convinced, wanting to wait for this diagnostic to settle her worry.

Samus gave the filly a pat before she put back her helmet and turned to look at a new upgrade that the Mogenar left behind after it exploded, one for the Morph Ball apparently and that concerned the Hypermode. A scan of it called it the Hyper Ball.

She took it.

Samus immediately demonstrated what it did as little growths sprouted a little everywhere on the ground, Sweetie Belle flying away to avoid being hit. The Hyper Ball caused Samus to release Phazon as arcs of electricity that seeked targets at a small distance around her. All it took her was to roll around a bit and all the growths were destroyed.

The growths apparently served as locks that caused the appearance of a stream of Phazon that gushed into the Phazon core in the ceiling, summoning the creature that was the Phazon core itself out of it. It was nothing more than an insectoid-looking grey mass with mandibles around the mouth, a single big blue eye, feelers beside said eye, blotches of Phazon here and there on its body, and two antennae which, along with a large tube, went into the hole out of which it came.

"Ugh... That thing wins the prize of ugliest thing ever," Sweetie Belle commented.

Still in Hypermode, Samus began to float before she released to the core all the extra Phazon energy inside her. This overloaded the core, and as Samus began to leave, followed by Sweetie Belle who continued to watch, the core fell lifelessly to the ground before exploding.

They returned to the ship and flew away, letting the corpse of the Leviathan explode and collapse behind them as they left Bryyo.

First part of the mission completed.

Chapter 45: SkyTown

Samus flew away from Bryyo a bit before she stopped the ship, letting Sweetie Belle have a good view of the planet from space, seeing for the first time strange threads of... gas? Seemingly escaping the planet at the lest and the right without visible reason.

"Too bad the planet is mostly wastelands now. I'm sure that it was beautiful back in its prime," the filly commented from the window of the cockpit. "So, one Leviathan down and one planet saved. Next up is Elysia, right?"

"Yes," Samus simply answered as she looked at her hand.

"Are you sure you are alright?"

"Let me do a body-scan first, and then I will answer you."

She didn't get the occasion however. The hologram of some mechanical thing looking like a brain appeared before her before it began to talk in a feminine, monotone voice.

Sweetie Belle assumed that it was the Aurora Unit who contacted Samus. She never heard it, but it wasn't hard to guess given the description Samus gave previously. The filly placed herself at the right of the Hunter to better focus on what the supercompurer was saying.

"Bryyo is now saved from further Phazon corruption. Thank you, Samus."

Samus gave a nod to this.

"Your next objective will be Elysia," the AU continued as the hologram shifted to show the planet in question and some information about it. "Though Ghor is stationed there, the Leviathan's Phazon contamination is still spreading."

It wasn't hard to guess why...

"The impact point is hidden deep within the storm clouds of this planet. You will not be able to reach its location." The hologram shifted back to the AU. "Instead, you may land near an automated research facility floating high above the surface, where GF Aurora Unit 217 is stationed. Unit 217 has been infected by the corruption virus and is currently offline. I have uploaded a program to your suit that will purge any traces of corruption in the AU and restore its functionality." As the AU talked, the hologram shifted to show Samus' Suit before shifting back to the AU. "Once Unit 217 has been restored, it will help us find a way to destroy the Leviathan."

Or Sweetie could simply fly through the clouds, but where would be the fun in this? Beside, the AU needed to be saved, and they needed to find Ghor.

Speaking of Ghor, the hologram shifted to show the Hunter in question as the AU began to talk about him.

"We are concerned about Ghor ever since he lost contact with us. We hope he is safe..."

"Actually!" Sweetie Belle interrupted as she jumped on Samus' lap to face the hologram as it shifted back to the AU. "Sorry. I'm Sweetie Belle. I'm helping Samus in dealing with the Leviathans and the pirates. And, well... It seems that you haven't seen what happened with Rundas. He fell victim to the corruption of the Phazon within him. Probably his Phazon overloaded like happened with Samus and he eventually wasn't able to stop it from turning him against us. But the thing is that we found him and we had to fight him, and it turned out that he became a puppet of Dark Samus who controlled him. Then, when we won the fight and almost knocked him out, he seemed to recover his senses only for Dark Samus to kill him before absorbing him. I fear that something similar happened to Ghor and... Gandrayda, was it? I don't think they are dead yet, but Dark Samus must now be using them to do whatever. And unless we find a way to get them rid of the Phazon Seed in them, they are as good as dead."

"This is very bad news that you are giving us, Sweetie Belle. We will try to find a solution. Losing Rundas is already a tragedy, we will do everything to avoid that this repeats with Ghor and Gandrayda, and also you, Samus. If this happened to Rundas, Ghor, and Gandrayda, this could also happen to you. This must not happen."

"You will have to hurry up. When we defeated the Guardian of the Bryyo Seed, it released a huge quantity of Phazon, some of which got absorbed by Samus. It caused a bad reaction within her, and if this repeats with the Guardian protecting the Elysian Seed, then I fear that it will be only a matter of days, if not hours, before Samus ends like the others."

Following this, the AU remained silent a few seconds before it said, "Readings confirm that Samus' Phazon level rose to 25% where it was just 10% before, and the seed seems to have grown a little. Removing the seed becomes a priority, but the mission can't be postponed. We will have to wait until the mission is over before we will be able to try to surgically remove the seed, hoping that it won't be too late by then. There may be a solution, but this is just a theory. The seeds within you, Samus, and the others coming from Dark Samus, it may be possible that killing her will destroy them and remove the corruption. It has indeed been observed that each time that we destroy a source of Phazon, then all the Phazon originating from said source eventually disappears. Phazon is like a tree, spreading into smaller and smaller branches. Cut a big branch, and all the smaller branches coming from it fall with it. Dark Samus is currently one of these big branches."

"Wait a minute. If we use that figure, then that tree must have a trunk, right? Then what if we find that trunk... and destroy it?" Samus proposed.

"Then all Phazon in the universe will disappear," Sweetie Belle concluded excitedly. "But we will need to find that source first, and it will be like searching a needle in a haystack."

"Actually, it will be possible to find the epicenter of the Leviathan attacks given enough time. While it is a possibility that this won't be the source of all Phazon in the universe, it is very probable that this is where you will find Dark Samus, and destroying it will rid us of our current Phazon problem. Many will certainly be upset at the disappearance of Phazon, including at the top of the Federation. Phazon revealed to be a great source of energy that could help the Federation reach new horizons as proven with the PED technology. But Phazon is too dangerous to remain, it has caused too much damage, so for the better of the Federation, and the galaxy, and the universe, it must disappear once and for all."

Sweetie Belle and Samus both nodded, the filly saying, "We all agree on this. Oh, one last thing. Once this is over, I would like to talk with the leader of the Federation if this is possible."

"I will transmit your demand. Good luck, you two."

The hologram disappeared.

Samus looked down at the filly still on her lap. "Why do you want to see the chairman? To integrate your people to the Federation? Wouldn't it be better to send a diplomat?"

Sweetie Belle gave Samus a knowing smile. "I have a very good relationship with many leaders of my homeworld and they trust me to make a good first impression." Her expression then turned more serious. "But no, I'm not here to make my people join the Federation. I'm more of a messenger, bearer of bad news."

"What bad news?"

"One thing at a time. I will tell everything once we have dealt with Dark Samus, the Space Pirates, and the Phazon, at the chairman's office. You should come, you will want to hear this."

"Very well," Samus said with a sigh.

From space, Elysia's colors were the same than Bryyo's orange and brown. The difference here was that where on Bryyo, the colors were the ones of the surface, the wastelands, Elysia's were the ones of the clouds that covered the surface. Elysia, indeed, had a very dense atmosphere with storm clouds that would make hurricanes look like simple downpours in comparison, all over the planet. That was why Samus couldn't hope to reach the surface just like that with her ship, it would be suicidal. Her ship, as advanced as it was, wouldn't resist long in such intense storms with winds going at several hundreds of miles per hour and lightning striking from all directions at all moments. At least, the upper atmosphere where their destination was was less intense than the part right above the surface, so they could enter it.

Upon entering the atmosphere, it didn't take long to find the Leviathan. Its size made it protrude from the clouds, and like the one of Bryyo, it had a shield, and in that mess of clouds, no doubt that finding the generators will be another story than on Bryyo. At least, the shield was keeping the clouds away from it, making it look like the Leviathan was at the eye of a storm which made it even more visible.

Not far of the Leviathan was their destination, the floating city and research center named SkyTown. Samus revealed to Sweetie Belle that SkyTown was originally built by the Chozo to research deep-space. At some point, the Chozo left, leaving behind the sapient robots they had created to maintain the station, the Elysians. Then, fifteen years ago, the Federation found the station and, after doing a treaty with the Elysians, made the station part of it, using it to do researches with the help of the Elysian. However, because of the atmosphere too harsh for the humans that comprised most of the Federation, they installed an Aurora Unit and left.

SkyTown itself was a network of floating pods. Nothing more, nothing less.

Sweetie Belle was still amazed by it.

Already, she could see supply drones flying around, transporting crates to the various areas of the station.

"You know, Samus, I went through lots of adventures and explored many areas, from grasslands to volcanoes passing by deserts, futuristic cities, and even space, but this is the first time that I will explore a city floating above clouds, even if that city is just a vast research station. It's beautiful. I can't wait to meet the Elysians. You know, I am friend with a whole people of sapient robots."

"Also made by that advanced civilization you told me about?" Samus asked as she landed her ship on a landing pad, just in front of a giant statue of the head of a Chozo that had glowing green eyes.

"Not at all. they were made by another, much less advanced civilization. Heck, the robots weren't even sapient at first. They were just maintenance robots. They developed sapience after decades of loneliness after their creators left the planet because of a nuclear winter, and even then, when I discovered them, I had to give them a new life purpose than waiting for masters that would never return while cleaning up their abandoned houses," Sweetie Belle recounted as she and Samus left the later's ship. "And now that you bring it up, I never actually encountered a sapient machine created by that advanced civilization. My ship isn't sapient. The most powerful supercomputer they ever made wasn't sapient until it absorbed the soul of its user..."

"What?"

By this point, Sweetie Belle was lost in her thoughts.

"And even the planet-sized, reality-bending, wish-granting machines, their greatest creations, weren't really sapient."

"What?!"

"Maybe that guard robot? Nah, it was very smart, like the Lor, but not sapient at all. It just guarded the city following its protocol. No, I really never encountered any actual sapient machine made by the Ancients. That's very strange, for such an advanced civilization. Maybe they never bothered? Or maybe they created sapient machines but something went wrong and they stopped, like the machines deciding to revolt?"

Samus snapped her fingers in front of Sweetie Belle. "Elysia to Sweetie Belle! Come back to us!"

This brought the filly out of her thoughts. "Oh! Sorry. You made me think of something about the Ancients that I never thought about until now."

"The Ancients... That's the name of that civilization?"

"Yep. Or that's the one we have given to them. If the Ancients had an actual name, it has been lost to time. Their civilization ended long, long, long ago. And as you may have guessed, I developed some kind of passion for them. They indirectly played a big role in my life, you see. My ship, the Lor Starcutter, is only one example."

"You talked about planet-sized, reality-bending, wish-granting machines. Were they THAT advanced?"

"Oh, you have no idea. If they had wanted, they could have conquered countless universes. I'm not joking. They could travel to other universes and they even created one with the help of a real God."

"But something went wrong..." Samus guessed. Or else, that civilization wouldn't be gone as Sweetie Belle said.

"Something pretty similar to what happened to the Bryyonians actually. A civil war between the techno clan and the magic clan. Following an incident, the techno clan began to distrust the magic clan and the God I told you about, and things went from bad to worse until war began. And the result... Well... You saw what happened to Bryyo, and it was by a civilization that had just developed space-travel. So imagine this but at the scale of a civilization that developed dimensional-travel and reality-warping machines."

Samus flinched thinking about this.

"Yeah..." continued Sweetie Belle upon seeing her reaction. "It wasn't pretty. The techno clan won, but countless worlds were destroyed, probably trillions of lives were lost, their home universe became a chaotic mess, and the God who had not intervened in the war absorbed the negativity and became a Destructor. The magic clan then came back with the then evil God for round two, and this time, there were no winners. The two clans were utterly annihilated leaving almost no survivors who dispersed into the four corners of the universe they created, and the evil God destroyed even more worlds, created abominations that spread even more suffering, and corrupted some powerful artefacts of the Ancients before he was sealed. And the amount of suffering these abominations and corrupted artefacts spread in the millennia that followed the sealing of the God..." Sweetie Belle couldn't stop some very painful memories from returning as she said that last sentence, making her stop herself in her reminiscence before she shook her head and put them back in the back of her mind. "At least, me and some friends destroyed all of them, so this is over. Well, I hope we destroyed all of them... Void would have told us if there was something left, I think."

The more Sweetie Belle revealed, the more Samus was curious to know more. The filly clearly went through a lot. The two may have more in common than the Hunter thought at first.

"Were you the victim of some of that suffering they spread?" she asked, thinking that it may help the filly to talk about it. If she wanted of course.

"Not much personally. I didn't lose any friend or family members because of them if this is what you think. The only really bad moment I went through was when one of these abominations, named Zero, invaded the world I was on and I ended up possessed by one of his minions who forced me to hurt innocents. I didn't kill anybody, thanks Void, but hurting my friends and not being able to stop myself was the worst feeling I ever experienced. And then I killed Zero. He was my first kill. I was so filled with rage against him that I just stopped thinking and I ended him without hesitation, not by heroism because it was the right thing, but by vengeance because I wanted to make him suffer after what he made me go through."

"And I will not hold it against you," Samus said after a sigh. "When I faced the one responsible of the death of my biological parents, I would lie if I say that I didn't feel some great personal satisfaction as I watched him burn following our fight. It's natural to feel that way after they caused such events. More of all since you are just a child."

Sweetie Belle nodded. "I know. It wasn't the last time that I ended up fighting someone while filled with anger. I got betrayed a couple of times, you see. I accepted that not all fights are just by duty because we aren't robots, but I still try to avoid anger and hate from totally guiding me in them. Although, I must admit, after you told me what the pirates did, I really had to stop myself from simply crushing their heads in cold blood back when we were destroying these cannons. I still killed all of them, even the ones who tried to escape, but it was more because it was better to kill them now than wait for them to return or to give them the chance to kill some innocents later. Didn't stop their death from being satisfactory."

"You did good. A good pirate is a dead pirate. A pirate behind bars is good enough too as long as they are under heavy watch."

"I agree," Sweetie Belle said with an amused smile. "Speaking of, must we expect Space Pirates here?"

"With the Unit turned off, probably. Unless the Elysians managed to fight them off, but I doubt it."

Sweetie Belle became worried at this. "I hope the pirates didn't exterminate them if that's the case. We should go."

Samus nodded.

As they approached the exit of the landing pad just under the giant statue, Aurora Unit 242 contacted Samus again and gave her the coordinates of Aurora Unit 217. However, they didn't have a map of the place yet, so they will have to find the path by themselves.

As they entered the structure, entering a corridor, they passed beside repair drones who were busy maintaining the station. Not long later, they found a Databot that, once fired at, let Samus scan a datadoc with historic information written by a dying Elysian describing how the Chozo built SkyTown 1500 years ago and why.

They then passed a blue-shielded door, one of the first of its kind, and entered a small room with a chozo statue behind some forcefields which only had a small hole big enough to let the Morph Ball pass. The statue had its arm outstretched as if to accept an offering, and its hand was just at the other side of the hole. However, many Phazon vines were present around the statue.

"Darn. Phazon is here," Sweetie Belle said.

Samus used her Morph Ball to pass the hole and land on the hand, lowering the forcefields. Entering Hypermode, she then used the Hyper Ball to destroy all the vines. This not only freed the statue so it could retract into the floor, but it also lowered the backwall, opening the way to the rest of the room. Sweetie Belle still had to destroy a couple of ornamental frames so Samus could simply use the grapple to pass the hole here and reach the exit door.

They were back outside, at the opposite side of the pod from where they landed.

They had a good view to the rest of the station from here, dozens and dozens of pods, maybe hundreds (and maybe even more if the data log was right and the station was really spanning all over the planet), floating among the clouds, as far as the eyes could see. It really was immense. And breathtaking.

A zipline rail system connected their pod to the following one, and from what they could see, also connected many other pods between each others. Samus had to use the Grapple Beam to use it, and had to fire on gates on the way to open them. Sweetie Belle flew ahead and opened the gates for her, making it easier for her to reach the end.

Inside the pod, they quickly encountered a couple of bipedal security bots called Tinbots. For some reason, the bots took them for hostiles and attacked them. Whether it was because the pirates reprogrammed them or because of the Phazon corrupting them, they weren't sure.

It didn't matter in the end. Sweetie Belle and Samus were forced to destroy them. Hopefully, they weren't part of the sapient population of SkyTown.

Following a narrow path after a jump, they reached a part at the exterior of the pod where they encountered three more Tinbots. A communication satellite could be seen from here, but was out of reach for Samus as they first needed to activate a cannon but Samus lacked the power up needed.

Following the path, they returned inside of the pod where they found a battery unit that needed repairs. It was connected to holographic projectors all around the room that displayed an image of Ghor.

A Databot was also present and, once fired at, let Samus scan a new data log that described how the Chozo created the first Elysians, called the First, and gave them self-awareness after they needed help to maintain the station.

After passing a Blue Door, they entered a curved hallway where they found more holographic projectors and repair drones as well as two piston structures that supplied energy to the pod's engines to ensure that it won't fall to the planet's surface.

If battles happened in these hallways, Sweetie Belle and Samus will have to make absolutely sure to not accidentally destroy these pistons.

They also encountered briefly a floating robot with some red cape, but it quickly disappeared before the girls could do anything.

Another Blue Door later and they were back outside, before another cannon, this one activated. Samus simply had to enter her Morph Ball mode to use it so it could fire her at the next pod. A safety shield at the targeted area caught her, ensuring that she wouldn't fall off the platform.

Sweetie belle rapidly joined her with a teleport, then flew around to keep an eye while Samus had to use a conduit to reach the next platform, a roof structure, getting a Missile Expansion on the way.

On the roof structure, they found a security lock on some module projecting down beams where they had to fire at five targets at once to unlock it. Another power up that Samus will need to find.

A simple jump to another platform let Samus reach the beginning of another zipline as well as a cannon that she couldn't use because it was blocked by metal slags that could be destroyed by something of high temperature, certainly the Plasma Beam.

So this left the zipline, and like before, doors had to be fired at to open them and let Samus pass. A bot also came and left behind dangerous energy bubbles that thankfully could be destroyed. Sweetie Belle quickly destroyed the bot for Samus before taking care of the doors, and the Hunter was able to reach the next pod without too much problems.

Inside the pod, they encountered again the floating robot with the red cape, but like before, it disappeared as they approached it. This time, however, Samus was able to scan it, revealing it to be a Steamlord. A robot that commanded and repaired the worker drones they encountered until now (including not yet encountered robots named Steambots).

It probably meant that the Steamlord was one of the self-aware robots, and its behavior made them worry. It was like it was observing them, like Rundas did before they fought him.

Also, the reason why it could disappear was simply thanks to a cloaking field, and it could generate EMP fields which was bad news for Samus and her visor system.

After the Steamlord was a laser security grid moving back and fort which Samus was able to pass thanks of the Morph Ball (getting by the way another Missile Expansion in a small alcove). Behind it was a Blue Door that led to a small room with a lift that Samus had to activate with a Hand Scanner.

After taking the lift down, the path was blocked by giant gears, forcing them to enter a conduit where they had to watch out to not be crushed by a piston. After destroying several obstruction, they exited the conduit, Sweetie Belle finding a Missile Expansion in a dead end out of reach of the Hunter.

They entered a large room full of recharge chambers for Steambots as well as a much bigger chamber in the center.

As they were about to leave the room, two metal gates slammed shut, keeping them locked.

Sweetie Belle groaned. "Here comes the trouble."

Behind them, the large chamber in the center opened and a smaller pod floated out of it. The pod then opened, releasing a Steamlord, before the other chambers opened to reveal their Steambots which were pretty much Tinbots but better armored and heavier.

And worst of all, as previously revealed by the scan of the Steamlord, if they were damaged, the Steamlord could repair them (if they were not beyond repair). And right now, the Steamlord clearly was hostile.

They did have a weakness to high temperature weapons however, and Sweetie Belle intended to use it so the Steamlord won't be able to repair them no matter what. She didn't want to face the annoyance of destroying enemies only for them to be rebuilt.

"Leave the Steambots to me. I will turn them into molten pieces of scraps while you take on the lord."

Samus nodded and pointed her cannon to the floating robot, internally feeling sorrowful at being forced to kill it. Clearly, something went wrong for the robots to turn hostile against her despite her Suit being partially made of Chozo technology. And she had the feeling that Ghor (and so, Dark Samus) was responsible of it, seeing all the projectors constantly displaying his image.

However, she barely fired at the Steamlord that he cloaked himself, turning invisible, and she had to wait for it to reveal itself. So, while keeping an eye around in case the lord reappeared, she turned to face the Steambots, only to see that they were all already melted pieces of scraps around a certain filly as she finished dusting herself off.

"Too easy. Above you Samus. Five degrees to your left."

Samus immediately faced the direction given and sent her Grapple Beam, successfully catching something invisible. She then pulled down hard and slammed the invisible thing on the ground. The Steamlord turned visible as a result as it attempted to recover, but before it could, Sweetie Belle pinned it down with her magic, letting Samus destroy it with a few charged beams. As it exploded, the Steamlord left behind an Energy Tank that Samus took.

The five smaller chambers all around the room opened, revealing in three of them valves.

Sweetie Belle looked down saddened at the remains of the Steamlord. If it really was one of the self-aware robots of Elysia...

Well, she hoped that they won't be forced to destroy too many of them. Whatever the pirates or Ghor (Dark Samus) did, it turned them into killing machines, unless it was the Phazon (but the scan would have indicated if that was the case, right?), and she hoped that something will be able to be done to turn them back to normal.

And, uh, maybe the Steamlord could be rebuilt.

Samus sighed. "Let's go."

They destroyed the three valves, opening the way to the exit of the room, and left.

A Databot was present in the next room, and Samus fired at it to reveal the log in it before scanning it. Like always, she read aloud for the filly.

""The Chozo were watchers, studying the depths of space tirelessly to quench their thirst for knowledge. From this facility they launched observation satellites, firing them into the heavens toward distant worlds. These satellites returned information that allowed them to analyze the various phenomena occurring across the cosmos. Through this process they were able to satisfy their intellectual appetite, one planet at a time. One day, a Chozo Searcher happened upon a very rare discovery. A once-thought-lost satellite delivered information on a distant world. It was incredibly far away, even by Chozo reckoning. Study of the stellar object revealed that it was, in many ways, a planet - and yet also sentient." Wait, what?!"

Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow. "Really? A real sentient planet?"

"That's what it says. But the information collected were apparently lost before they could discover more."

"Darn," the filly mumbled. But this didn't stop her from getting excited. "I hope to learn more about this planet! I mean, a planet that is alive! You imagine? I can't wait to tell my friends about it! This will blow their minds!"

"Maybe we will find out more in other logs," Samus finished as she activated a lift with a Hand Scanner.

Sweetie Belle laughed and said to herself, "Oh! Twilight's reaction will be golden! I will have to bring a camera!"

Before taking the lift, they opened a Blue Door at the end of the hallway, only to reach a balcony outside of the pod that was a dead end. There were several floating platforms that formed a path to another pod, but they were too far for Samus to reach.

So they returned inside the pod and took the lift up. Once the lift stopped, they opened another Blue Door and reached the start of another zepline. As she used it, several machines attempted to make her fall but were easily destroyed. At the end, a cannon was present, but a safety cap with a lock system like they encountered earlier, where all the targets had to be shot at the same time, prevented its use.

From what the map said, the pod they had landed on was the one containing the chamber of Aurora Unit 217. One lift down in the following hallway later (discovering a recharge station behind a door with a White Blast Shield), not minding the wall of metal that clearly needed the Plasma Beam to be destroyed, they entered the Unit's chamber.

And discovered small pools of Phazon with vegetation growing in them dotting the hallway behind the door.

"Damn. I hope that the AU hasn't been corrupted by the Phazon," Samus said.

Their worry grew when they reached a part of the hallway that let them see the chamber of the Unit itself and saw Phazon present on the glass wall of its container.

Samus immediately scanned it.

Aurora Unit 217 offline. Phazon corruption present. Administer vaccine to repair.

She sighed in relief. "It can still be saved."

"So this is an Aurora Unit?" Sweetie Belle asked in awe upon seeing the huge floating mechanical brain-thing. She had only seen a hologram until now, and it didn't do them justice.

Before Samus could answer, she received a communication from AU 242 that revealed that AU 217's chamber was sealed off by a Kinetic Lock (as they could see) and that they needed to continue to explore SkyTown to find whatever could help them open the gate.

Once the AU finished, Samus sighed before relaying what she said to the filly who sighed too.

"It would have been too easy..."

Chapter 46: Ghor

Author's Note

Swearing ahead!

Chapter 46: Ghor

Sweetie Belle and Samus left the chamber (or rather the hallway in front of the chamber by the door at the opposite side from where they entered. They then rapidly traversed the curved hallway (constituted of two ledges separated by a large gulf for some reason) that followed, dealing with some biological lifeforms that looked like floating metallic balls called Sky Puffers on the way, before they exited the Aurora's pod.

One cannon later and they reached another pod that was very different from the ones they traversed until now. This one was larger and was constituted of two parts (top and bottom) separated by a single circular open area that served as a crossroad between the Aurora Unit's pod and two other pods. In the center of the area was a big suit of mechanical surrounded by some repair drones, flying ones and ground ones, that tended to it. The suit's grey-green metal had a blue tint that Sweetie Belle recognized was caused by Phazon, and it had blood-red lights.

"That's Ghor's armorsuit," Samus revealed to Sweetie Belle. "It also serves as his gunship. Ghor, thanks to his cybernetic body, can merge with it and uses it to fight and traverse space."

"Mmh... So, should we, you know, destroy it before Ghor uses it to fight us?"

Samus frowned thoughtfully under her helmet before she shook her head. "We should avoid this. Without this armor, Ghor is extremely weak. Dark Samus would probably consider that Ghor has lost his usefulness and kill him."

This upsetted Sweetie Belle who had been ready to throw a big bomb into the cockpit of the armor. "Darn! You're right!" She made the bomb disappear. "And I thought I would finally get to weaken an enemy before a fight. This armor won't make saving him any easier."

"Yeah..." Samus said with a sigh.

"So, which direction should we explore first?" the filly asked then.

Before answering, Samus went to look at the two destinations that could be reached from this pod without counting where they came from. The left direction seemed to lead to the rest of the station, many pods visible beyond, while the right direction only led to a few pods. Actually, the first pod they could reach from here in this direction seemed to be the pod they couldn't reach previously from the one where they fought that Steamlord (because the path was made of floating platforms too far apart to reach with jumps).

Samus pointed in this direction.

"I think that we should start there. There's only a few pods, it should be rapid to explore."

Sweetie Belle nodded and took off before Samus used the zipline here to reach the next pod.

Contrary to the ziplines until now, this ones was really short and straightforward without any obstacle appearing, so Samus reached the pod without problem.

They entered a circular corridor. At their left upon entering, the path was blocked by debris, a hole big enough for the Morph Ball the only way to pass. Not wanting to bother with it, they door the right path, passed by a Blue Door that certainly led to that path of floating platforms, and reached a White Blast Shield guarded by four Tinbots that were easily destroyed. Beyond the White Blast Shield was another Blue Door.

Since the White blast Shield was first, they started by it. Samus destroyed it with an Ice Missile and they passed the door, exiting the pod.

They were now on a long bridge connecting the current pod to the next one they could see further in front of them. As soon as they came out of the door, a Steamlord appeared before them only to fly away before disappearing again. Not minding it, the two approached a dilapidated gate that was easily ripped off with the grapple. However, this caused the arrival of new enemies, "Dragoon" Battle Drones, which fired rockets by two and were more resilient than the robots encountered until now (excepted the Steamlord). They still were easily destroyed by ripping off their thruster controls with Sweetie's whip and Samus' grapple.

Once all drones were destroyed, before reaching a second gate, Samus remarked a hole in a pillar and found in it a Missile Expansion. While she took it, Sweetie Belle decided to go ahead and destroyed the second gate, which had for effect to weaken the next part of the bridge. They ran on it, Sweetie Belle pushing beyond the edge with her magic the Steambots that the Steamlord from earlier rebuilt on the way so they fell into the clouds below. The destruction of a third gate at the end finally made the whole section they just ran on collapse, the Steamlord escaping.

"Ah! It thought that it could make us fall with the bridge! Didn't it see my wings?" Sweetie Belle mocked.

"You could have flown, but I would have fell," Samus remarked.

"Pfff. Not at all. I would have caught you with my magic. You won't fall to your death as long as I'm around."

At this, they crossed the last part of the bridge, destroying more "Dragoon" drones on the way, and reached the pod.

Another curved room was after the Blue Door leading inside, but this one consisted of platforms suspended above a long abyss with some repair drones flying around. The Blue Door at the end led back outside. Here, a lift system was supposed to help Samus reached the next part as her Morph Ball form, but it was currently inactivated because of a lack of power. This forced them instead to take a path made of floating platforms (these one close enough to reach by jumps) before they reached a structure with Grapple Points at the bottom separated by big metal panels.

Destroying a clamp revealed an entrance to a tunnel inside the structure. Samus entered it as a ball and used bombs in slots to release the panels, opening the way for her. Back outside, she then used the grapple to reached the other side of the structure, Sweetie Belle keeping an eye and finding a Missile Expansion on the structure.

After a small bridge that could only be crossed as a ball, they then reached another floating structure, this one two circular platforms connected by a large central pillar. To reach the top platform, Samus had to enter another tunnel and climb it, having to use a steam jet on the way. While Samus climbed the structure, Sweetie Belle took care of more "Dragoon" drones that were ready to ambush the Hunter. Once on the top platform, Samus then used a Hand Scanner to move another tunnel-bridge to finally reach where the inactivated lift was supposed to take them. After dealing with a last drones, they opened the Blue Door here and returned inside the pod.

In the curved hallway behind, Samus activated a lift and fired at a Databot before scanning it.

The log was heavy in information. It explained that, in reason of a lack of sufficient supply despite the creation of smaller mechanoids to process fuel from the atmosphere, the Elysians were forced to enter a state of slumber for many centuries. In their slumber, thanks to the fuel processed by the small bots, the station was able to continue to collect data that was then sent to the hibernating Elysians as dreams. Thus, the Elysians witnessed many events in their sleep, including the Chozo finding a new planet to call home only for said home, Tallon IV, to be struck by a disaster from space that exterminated them and forced the survivors to flee and disappear into the unknown. It was the last time the Elysians ever saw their creators.

Samus explained to Sweetie Belle that she had been present on Tallon IV and personally saw that disaster. It was none other than a Leviathan that had struct the planet a few decades ago. By the same occasion, it was Samus' first contact with Phazon. By the time she had arrived, despite the Chozo having built a temple to contain it, the Phazon had spread all over the planet, exterminating and corrupting many lifeforms, the temple only taking the brunt of it. She wasn't sure how many more years it would have taken before it would have been over. Thankfully, she was able to stop this from happening and saved Tallon IV from a terrible fate.

Strangely, there hadn't been a Core, just a Guardian that she had needed to kill to stop the Phazon. Samus suspected that the Guardian had devoured the Core which was supported by it being able to produce Phazon by itself.

"I thought a Guardian was supposed to protect the Core! Not devour it!" Sweetie Belle said.

"The Guardian in question was a creature called a Metroid. These creatures have an insatiable hunger. I wouldn't be surprised if the Metroid didn't settle for the Phazon that the Core produced and went straight to the Core itself. Still wondering how that Metroid ended up there in the first place..." Samus muttered that last part.

"Mmmh... And then you had another encounter with Phazon, right? Where you fought Dark Samus for the first time? On a planet named Aether?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Samus groaned. "Aether... It was hell. Like Tallon IV, the planet had been hit by a Leviathan some decades ago. I think that it was about the same time actually. However, Aether had a special light energy that interacted with the Phazon and caused a dimensional catastrophe that split the planet in two. So there was a 'light' dimension, ours, where the actual Aether was, and a 'dark' dimension with a dark version of Aether which was the one that the Leviathan crashed on. As a result, Phazon only spread on Dark Aether, but it didn't mean that Aether was left unscathed, especially because of creatures born on Dark Aether called Ings who could enter the 'light' dimension by possessing other creatures. Long story short, there was a war between the two versions of the planet because they shared the same limited energy and were unstable, and the Ings were winning. It wasn't helped that the atmosphere of Dark Aether, filled with Phazon, was mortal for anyone without protections originating from the 'light' dimension excepted Dark Samus, and where the Ings could enter the 'light' dimension at will, the Luminoth had to create portals to enter the 'dark' dimension."

Sweetie Belle winced. No wonder the Ings were winning with such advantages.

"At least, you were able to fix this by destroying the Leviathan, right?"

"Well... Not really. While the Leviathan was supposed to be on Dark Aether, I found no trace of it beside the crater it left behind and all the Phazon. But when I killed the Emperor Ing and removed the remaining planetary energy, all of Dark Aether was destroyed with everything still on it. The Leviathan should have disappeared too as a result, and yet, all the Phazon that the Space Pirates had collected and brought back to Aether remained. This is certainly how the Federation and the pirates were able to obtain the Phazon for their PED technology."

"Huh, that's strange. The Phazon should have disappeared along with the Leviathan, right? It's... as if Dark Aether hasn't really been destroyed but just... moved away from this dimension. So the Leviathan would still be alive, but... not here anymore."

Samus simply shrugged. "I have no idea, and frankly, I don't care. Dark Aether is gone, Aether is safe. All that matters is that Phazon somehow remained behind in the pirates' crates, and Dark Samus somehow came back to life to somehow create this whole mess with the help of the pirates."

"You know, with Dark Samus appearing for the first time on Dark Aether, maybe she somehow was the Leviathan? I mean, she can produce Phazon, and so far, only Leviathans and that Metroid Prime could do that."

"I don't think she was the Leviathan. While she could produce Phazon, on Dark Aether, she spent most of her time absorbing it, killing everyone on her way. A Leviathan doesn't absorb Phazon. Beside, this wouldn't explain how she got one of my Suits with my DNA and everything. Wait a minute..." Samus suddenly seemed to have a revelation. "Only the Leviathans and the Metr... And the Metroid took..." She facepalmed. "Oh... You have got to be fucking KIDDING me!"

"Seems like you understood something."

"You can say that. Before dying, the Metroid Prime did take one of my Suits. The Phazon Suit to be exact."

"Ooooh! So you mean that Dark Samus may be the Metroid Prime reborn thanks to the Phazon Suit?"

"This would explain why, back on Dark Aether, Dark Samus went out of her way to free the Metroids contained by the pirates. That fucking Metroid..."

"Talk about a twist... That's one heck of a way to gain a nemesis."

"I already have a nemesis, I don't need another one, and especially not a Metroid copying me of all things!"

"You already have a nemesis?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if you meet him later on. Well, the last time I saw him, he was falling to his death into the core of planet Norion before Dark Samus put me in a coma so I hope that he stayed dead this time. But I learned to not hope much with him."

"... Darn. And you think he may come back from this? Well, if this happens, then I can't wait to meet him. Don't tell me more, I want the surprise. I want to discover by myself what could survive a fall to the core of a planet."

"You are in for a treat..." Samus said with a sigh before she moved to the lift muttering, "Fucking Metroid that can't stay dead either..." while destroying some crates in the hallway to recuperate ammunition and energy.

This amused Sweetie Belle.

The lift led them to the floor below, another curved hallway with more crates and a single Blue Door. After the door was another hallway, this one leading straight to a small room with a capsule containing an upgrade on a pillar.

A scan revealed the upgrade to be the Boost Ball, just what they needed.

However, as soon as Samus approached to take it, the pillar retracted into the ground with the capsule before bars came out all around them and tapped them. The part of the floor they were trapped on then moved down, revealing to be a semi-spherical lift that led them to a much bigger room...

With a very big bipedal, dome-topped, tank-like drone with three antennas on the top and a large cannon at the bottom.

A Defense Drone, which they had to open to expose its Control Unit. Samus started by firing at the antennas, which would apparently overload its optic array and make it vulnerable. Sweetie Belle followed her example. Despite the drone firing at them with homing plasma bombs and missiles while jumping to create electric shockwaves upon landing, the antennas quickly were destroyed, exposing its optic array. Samus then used the grapple on it, making it spin erratically and causing the drones' top shell to open (like a beetle's wings), exposing the Control Unit.

they fired at it at will, and the drone reacted by jumping on a high ledge before firing homing mine balls as distraction. It didn't work, Sweetie Belle destroying the mines which let Samus fire at the unit without problem. The shell eventually closed however, and the antennas were recreated, meaning that they had to destroy them again. The whole thing was repeated until the drone was destroyed, its attempt at impairing them by emitting a deep fog near the end not working.

The pillar with the capsule containing the Boost Ball upgrade then came back out in the center of the room.

Sweetie Belle giggled. "Phiew! I hadn't had a good fight against a giant robot in a while!"

"Used to them?"

"More or less. They are rather rare, but how they go boom at the end is always worth the wait." She then scowled. "There was that time where the robot didn't explode at the end, and it was really disappointing. The fight was epic, but the lack of boom at the end totally ruined it."

Samus chuckled and shook her head. "Children..."

The Hunter then took the capsule and integrated the Boost Ball upgrade to her Suit. After that, a device called a Spinner activated for her to use the Boost Ball. This made her enter a circular tunnel in the lift that took them in the room, and continuously using the Boost Ball while in it activated it, transporting them back to the previous room.

With the Boost Ball in their possession, they just had to backtrack all the way to the chamber of AU 217. It was even easier despite the increased number of "Dragoon" drones. When they exited the pod, instead of having to use the path of floating platforms and structures like before, a tunnel simply led them back to where the still inactivated lift was.

The destroyed bridge wasn't a problem either. another Spinner activated a cannon that fired Samus all the way to the other side. In the circular corridor, they quickly went to see the fourth door that they hadn't opened and discovered that it led back outside, to a zepline, but there was a gate low on energy blocking the way. So they returned in the circular corridor and returned to the first door which was guarded by a bunch of Tinbots. After destroying all of them, they exited the pod, took the zepline back to the large pod with the circular open area (Ghors' armorsuit still being here), and then took the cannon back to the Aurora Unit's pod (well, Samus took them. Sweetie Belle just flew).

They returned to the Unit's chamber, and Samus finally used the Boost Ball to open the gate to said chamber. Opening the gate made a staircase and three terminals come out of the ground in front of the Aurora Unit. Samus climbed the stairs and put her hand on the central terminal, on a symbol of the Unit.

A robotic feminine voice then said, "The Aurora Unit is corrupted and requires repair. Opening maintenance level hatch."

And a hatch opened beside the container of the Aurora Unit, letting Samus and Sweetie Belle enter a tunnel that led to the maintenance room just under the chamber. As they entered the room, however, several Tinbots in stasis inside small chambers activated, and the girls were forced to destroy all of them so the forcefields covering said chambers could disappear and let them reach the terminal where Samus could upload the vaccine to save the Aurora Unit in one of them.

Once the vaccine was uploading, Samus received a confirmation that all corruption was gone from the Unit and she indicated it to Sweetie Belle with a thumb up, making the filly cheer in victory.

But their victory was cut short by a cybernetic being suddenly appearing from behind the central pillar made of the big cables connecting the Aurora Unit to the whole station's network.

"Ghor!" Samus shouted, recognising the being.

"This turn of event is insignificant," Ghor began, ignoring Samus' call. "I'll show you what I mean. Observe!"

As he shouted the last word, Ghor activated his plasma cannon, emitting a continuous beam of plasma that he then swept the room with, forcing Samus to duck. However, by doing this, he damaged several circuit boards that were without a doubt important. Samus and Sweetie Belle immediately retaliated, firing at the cybernetic Hunter. Just a few well placed hits sent him to the ground.

This worried the girls who prepared themselves to see Dark Samus appear to absorb Ghor.

But this didn't happen. Instead, Ghor got up with some difficulty, saying, "The network's been severed. You have no chance of destroying the Seed, unless you restore the Aurora Unit." While he talked, he opened a hatch (probably the one he used to enter) and passed it. The hatch then closed after he said the last words, with no way for Samus and Sweetie Belle to open it (at least, without the filly destroying it).

...

"You weren't kidding when you said he was very weak. I barely put anything in these beams and they were enough to send him flying. He got me worried for a moment."

"I must admit that this took me off guard too. I expected to just weaken him to the point that he would be forced to drop on his knee. Whoever built his cybernetic body should be fired."

Sweetie Belle looked around at the damaged circuit boards. "I'm not a specialist of that stuff, but I can easily guess that these things damaged is bad news."

"Yeah. We will need to repair them. Let's see the Aurora Unit."

Thanks to a piston at the end of the tunnel from which they came, they were able to return to the chamber. Once here, like before, Samus climbed the stairs and activated the terminal, allowing the Aurora Unit to talk to them in a male voice.

"What a terrible dream we were having. Thank you for purging our Phazon corruption and allowing us to awaken. There is much to do. We have communed with AU 242 on Olympus, and learned that a Leviathan impacted Elysia and began spreading corruption. We must destroy this Leviathan and stem the tide of corruption as soon as possible. We have a plan, but Ghor's attack severed key communication cables, disrupting our access to SkyTown's primary network. This prevents us from controlling SkyTown and executing our plan to destroy the Leviathan. Ghor's plasma cannon should be able to fuse together the severed cables. We must ask you to hunt him down. We know that you search to save him from his corruption, but be prepared to do what must be done if you have to. Good luck."

"Hum..." Sweetie Belle began to gain the Unit's attention as she flew to be better visible (the terminals partially hiding her). "On the way, we were attacked by Steamlords and were forced to destroy one... Do you know how to... take care of them without permanently destroying them?"

"We are grieved to learn that something happened to the Elysians for them to attack you like that. Because of the severed communication cables, we can't access the data that would let us learn of the how. Don't feel guilty for the Steamlord you had to destroy. Once the Seed is destroyed, we will see if we can repair it. As for the others, if you encounter more, you can tear out their CPU so they can be easily fixed afterward. We will upload the schematics into Samus' suit so she will know where the CPUs are and will inform you."

"Thank you," Sweetie Belle said with a final thankful bow.

So Samus received the schematics and she gave the filly a nod once it was done.

After this, they left the chamber, beginning their search of Ghor. Thinking that they will find him in the circular open area where his armorsuit had been left, they exited the pod and Samus used the cannon to fire herself at their destination. It was only to find out that not only the armorsuit was gone, but there was no trace of Ghor.

Samus then received an alert from her ship...

...

"Shit! He's trying to destroy my ship!" the Hunter shouted before she quickly turned around and used the cannon to return to the Aurora Unit's pod. They then quickly traversed the pod and entered the one where they fought the Steamlord only to be met with a problem...

There was no way to return to the top floor of the pod from here.

But Samus spotted a circular kinetic energy converter in the far wall and used her Boos Ball in it. This raised a metal device in the center of the room that made a U-shaped structure. Using the Boost Ball again and again on it made Samus gain more and more momentum until she was able to reach the place just behind the gears that had blocked the path when they first passed here. She then interacted with a control terminal here that made the gears retract, opening the way. From here, they were able to return to the lift leading back to the first entrance of the pod.

The use of the Boost Ball at the exit platform activated a cannon that fired Samus all the way back to the first pod after the one with the landing pad, gaining a lot of time. Many Tinbots and some "Dragoon" drones were present in the pod to stop them, but they were all destroyed without problem. But Samus receiving another alert from the ship warning her that it was receiving damages.

Then there was the last (or rather, the first) zipline where Samus had to deal with not only the gates blocking the way, but also with these machines attempting to make them fall and another of these drones dropping energy bubbles (that Sweetie Belle rapidly destroyed).

When they entered the pod with the landing pad, they had to deal with more "Dragoon" drones, and Samus received another alert telling her that the ship's armor damage was critical and that the integrity of the hull was compromised.

To put it simply, they needed to hurry.

Sweetie Belle said, "Buck it!" and teleported the two of them on the landing pad.

Here was Ghor, in his armor, attacking Samus' ship.

When he saw them (his head was the only part not covered by the armor), the cybernetic Hunter stopped attacking the ship and said, "Just in time." He then jumped from the ship, grabbed it, and threw it at them with a "Catch!"

Sweetie Belle caught the ship with her magic, avoiding it from taking more damage (Fuel Gel was leaking from it!). Samus then commanded it to fly away so it won't be in the crossfire.

As the ship flew away, Ghor said, "Don't you feel the power? Soon everything will be corrupted. Including you," before he laughed and activated an energy frontal shield.

He then charged at them, and they quickly moved out of the way (Samus using the Morph Ball).

Sweetie Belle wondered for a moment what to do, but it quickly became clear that they had no choice but to fight back. They were in a situation where their victory, no matter how, would certainly mean that Dark Samus will come to kill Ghor. Keeping him immobile with her magic will be no better than destroying his armor. If they didn't find a way to destroy the Seed in Ghor, it was over for him no matter what.

Hopefully, a way will appear to them during the fight...

Samus scanned Ghor and revealed that his weakness was the generator at the back. Wanting to take her time hoping that a solution will come to them, Sweetie Belle fired at it when she could with her weakest beams. Meanwhile, Ghor continued to charge at them, randomly targeting Samus and Sweetie Belle. At a moment, Samus had the idea of firing an Ice Missile on a puddle of Fuel Gel left behind by the damaged ship in Ghor's path in the middle of one of his charges, freezing the puddle and making Ghor lose control and crash into the wall. This left his generator open to fire for a long time.

The generator was eventually damaged enough, causing him to spin around and to lose his shield as the armor was stunned. This left his main CPU exposed to fire. However, Ghor didn't idle and began to attack them with everything he had, missiles, bursts of plasma, a large plasma beam, and spin attacks with his armor's claws. Eventually, the generator on the back seemingly repaired itself enough to let Ghor reactivate the frontal shield.

Come on Sweetie Belle! Think! Think! How to destroy that Seed? How to save Ghor? There must be a way! Sweetie Belle thought as she fired again at the generator while Ghor was facing Samus. I can feel the Seed! I know exactly where it is! A well placed beam could destroy it! But with him moving around like that, it's too risky! But as soon as he's immobilised, Dark Samus will come to kill him!

Ghor charged at her then, and Sweetie Belle yelled, "Raaahh!!! Damn it!" before she braced herself and put her front hooves forward, catching Ghor by the shield. to Ghor's shock, despite her small size compared to his armor, she was able to stop him after a few meters. He then tried to move away, but Sweetie Belle had then turned her hooves into claws that managed to pierce his shield so she somehow kept a hold of it. And since the shield was connected to the armor, then he couldn't move without first deactivating it. And he just couldn't make Sweetie Belle move no matter how much he tried. "Will! You! Stop! Moving! I'm trying to save yoooou!" the filly then yelled as she suddenly pulled and made the armor crash on the ground on its left side.

Sweetie Belle tried to use the occasion to carefully target the Seed within Ghor, focusing, but the cybernetic Hunter deactivated the shield and jumped away.

Only for Samus to fire at his generator and damage it enough to stun his armor.

This time, they were able to damage the CPU enough that the shield became permanently disabled.

The armor then vented out energy, vaporizing the puddles of Fuel Gel and making a small reactor drop down from the undercarriage. The faceplate was then covered before Ghor started again to use the giant plasma beam while stationary. When Samus turned into her Morph Ball to attack the reactor, Ghor attempted to use hookshot launched from the arm to grab her. Sweetie Belle caught it however, giving Samus the opening to reach and attack the reactor. This caused Ghor's faceplate to be uncovered, leaving the CPU vulnerable again.

Sweetie Belle was still holding the hookshot and immediately used it to spin the armor around, slamming it against the wall multiple times before she pulled to make the armor go up, and pulled again to this time make it crash CPU first. The armor was badly damaged as a result, losing its frontal armor, but Ghor immediately recovered before he entered Hypermode and went all out.

That was it, the last chance they had to save him.

If only Ghor wasn't merged to the armor, Sweetie Belle could have simply pulled him off after opening the cockpit!

But the armor was critically damaged now, and a few more hit at the CPU could easily make it explode with Ghor!

They had to convince Ghor to get out of it!

And for this...

Sweetie Belle charged at Ghor. The cybernetic Hunter saw this and readied his right claw to intercept her.

The next thing he knew, the whole right forearm of the armor was sliced off, and the filly was behind him, a beam sword in her hooves. By the time he turned around however, the filly was gone, and the armor dropped on the floor. When Ghor looked at the cause, he saw that the two legs were now separated from the rest.

Suddenly, a shield shaped like a fist came and violently hit the back of the armor definitively destroying the generator here. Another fist-shield came and damaged the left shoulder, destroying the missile launcher here. A third hit what remained of the left leg, and the armor suddenly had a new cut on the right side.

And a storm of fist-shields came, pounding the armor from all sides while Sweetie Belle continued to cut it. The left arm was eventually sliced off, the missile launcher of the right shoulder was destroyed, even the plasma cannon on the chest became unusable.

It came to the point where the armor was too damaged to even take its gunship form.

And yet, Sweetie Belle made sure to not hit the CPU so it won't explode.

And this worked. Ghor understood that his armor was done for and he left it, dropping on the floor. Seeing this, Sweetie Belle stopped attacking the armor and tossed it aside, making it crash one last time against the wall.

But before she could pin down Ghor to finally destroy that bucking Seed, Dark Samus in her wraith-like form appeared above him!

"Oh no, you don't!" yelled the filly, her mane and tail now on fire, before she teleported above Dark Samus and landed on her head. "I WON'T LET YOU ABSORB HIM! YOU HEAR ME?!"

She punched Dark Samus with so much force that the wraith-like entity was propelled several meters away, with Sweetie Belle still on her head. The punch was quickly followed by more of them, each one sending Dark Samus in a direction until the wraith-like entity was eventually above the clouds. Dark Samus attempted to grab her with one of her... hands(?) only for Sweetie Belle to bite it, making the dark doppelganger screech. The filly then began to pull on the 'wings', making Dark Samus lose control and almost making the both of them crash on the pod's wall, before she flew to face Dark Samus' head and blasted her with her horn.

When Dark Samus recovered, she had the horror of seeing Sweetie Belle now with her ten cannons pointed at her. The next seconds, she flew away under heavy fire, trying (and failing) to avoid hundreds of beams per seconds.

Just as Dark Samus disappeared into the clouds, Sweetie Belle surrounded her horn with her ten cannons and charged energy.

"AND! DON'T! COME! BAAACK!!!"

She fired the most powerful Ultimate Doom Laser she ever fired, easily dwarfing her body. The kind of laser that could destroy a star and still continue its path.

The clouds were blown away, leaving a huge hole in the atmosphere.

There was no trace of Dark Samus once the laser ended.

Sweetie Belle felt that she managed to escape by warping away.

She huffed and flew back to the bay, landing beside Ghor who was pinned down by Samus sitting on his back.

"She's gone. She won't try anything anytime soon," she said to the Hunter who silently stared at her. "I can now try to destroy the Seed inside Ghor."

Samus still stared silently, not moving.

...

...

Eventually, Sweetie Belle asked innocently, "What?"

Chapter 47: The Screw Attack

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 48: Bombing

Following the drone in the tunnel, Sweetie Belle and Samus reached a second part of the room with another Blue Door. Behind it was a curved hallway where they caught up with the drone from earlier which was still flying away. The hallway led to a big circular room with a large central platform that served as a pillar under a huge device that emitted some yellow energy on it. A wall at the right of the entrance turned the lower part of the room into a broken circle that will force Samus to walk all around the central platform to go to the other side. The top of the platform itself was surrounded by three walkways, two of which connected to other entrances in the upper level.

Out of these entrances came pirates. Some of them were the militia ones, the ones that barely had any armor, but there were also a few well armored ones, their armor protecting them from the simplest beams so Samus had to use charged beams and missiles against them.

Thanks to her flight, Sweetie Belle was able to deal with the pirates no matter where they were in the room, while Samus had to deal with the ones that directly faced here as she circled the central platform. On the way, she found out that there was an inactive elevator under the central platform, and the wall separating the lower section of the room actually was a tunnel (a big one, not one for the Morph Ball) out of which an armored pirate came before the entrance door closed behind him. After the pirate was killed, Samus saw that the door in question could only be opened from inside the tunnel.

Beside this door was the entrance of another curved hallway where an armored pirate ran away from Samus, closing behind him security doors. Too bad for him, the doors were so old that Samus easily destroyed them with a charged beam. Seeing this, the pirate took a lift to the upper level and closed one more security door before he reached one of the walkways to the central platforms. Almost immediately, the pirate was shredded, armor and flesh, by a fur ball suddenly hitting him while surrounded by sharp waves of energy like Samus' Screw Attack. The fur ball then rapidly moved away from him to another pirate, the first one dropping dead with half of his body turned into bloody pieces.

No more pirates came.

"This is what you were talking about when you said that my Screw Attack inspired you?" Samus asked to the fur ball.

Sweetie Belle uncurled herself before answering, "Yup! And it's very effective! I went Zoom! Zoom! Zoooom! and they were all dead before I knew it!" The filly then looked around at what remained of the pirates and frowned. "However, the result is quite messy... I think that I will avoid using it in front of people not... ready."

"I agree," Samus replied with a chuckle as she advanced.

The Hunter scanned in passing the huge device above the platform and discovered that it was a containment unit containing a nuclear substance.

Easy to guess that it will probably serve for the bomb. However, three locks were present to keep it here, and each of them had to be disengaged by firing at four targets simultaneously. Like on that roof structure at the exterior of the third pod back in the first part of SkyTown, or the cannon outside of the Aurora Unit's pod.

Both Samus and Sweetie Belle then went through the second entrance of the upper level, entering another curved hallway. This one had three pirate turrets, and two security doors closed and locked them in the hallway so they couldn't escape. Of course, the turrets were easily destroyed, and the doors quickly followed. A Blue Door waited for them at the end of the hallway.

According to Samus' map, there were more door in the room, either further up (a door with a White Blast Shield) or in the level the inactivated elevator led to (an Orange Door and another Blue Door). So this Blue Door was their only current choice.

The room after it was another hallway, a straight one this time, with a green surface for Wall Jump at the end. However, they were at the top of the green surface, not at the bottom, meaning that there was a lower section. They quickly discovered the mean to reach this lower section: by opening a security grating blocking a hole in the floor, in front of the green surface. Also, they spotted a Missile Expansion at the other side of a broken glass window.

After opening the grate by using a bomb in a slot, they fell on a second grate that they had to open the same way. At the bottom, they found an opening in the wall that led to the exterior where they had to destroy a Space Pirate Armored Tactical Carrier, a transport ship like the ones that dropped troops back where they fought Rundas (Sweetie Belle destroying a second passing in the background with a single powerful beam). They spotted a Spider Ball rail, certainly leading to the Missile Expansion, but Sweetie Belle simply flew to the expansion so they won't have to lose time coming back here to get it.

The exit door was here, leading to another curved hallway, this one consisting of two ledge separated by a gap Samus had to cross with the grapple. On the other ledge was a single Space Pirate that Sweetie Belle pushed into the gap with her magic.

The pirate had been guarding the entrance to another circular room that didn't have a roof. Holograms of many planets were in the walls at the top, slots for the Morph Ball below them, some of them accessed by Spider Ball rails. The statue of a Chozo like the one in the bay where they first landed was present, and most of the floor was made of glass. There was a lower section that could be accessed from the left side. Finally, a balcony could be seen further up, at the left. Two Aerotroopers more armored than the usual ones welcomed them.

Sweetie Belle quickly dealt with her Aerotrooper by destroying his jetpack before launching him far into the sky above, the pirate disappearing in the clouds to fall back who knew where. Then, she grabbed the other pirate by the leg to maintain him in place so Samus could target him with her Ice Missiles.

With the pirates dead, Samus was able to scan around to discover more about this interesting room, revealing it to be the Observatory from which the Chozo Searcher (certainly the one the statue here represented) from the logs launched satellites to research the planets. What revealed to be satellites were ready to be launched, awaiting a planetary target. In the center of the room was the holographic projector used to chose said targets to launch the satellites, but it was currently offline. On it was a hook.

It was clear that they will have to come back, but right now, there was nothing they could do. So they went to the lower section where they found an elevator that Samus activated with a Hand Scanner. In this lower section, they also found a Morph Ball slot that was control system for the projector, also offline because the unit needed repair, and a panel of Phazite under the projector, recently placed probably by the pirates for some reason.

They took the elevator, going down to the beginning on a corridor. At the end of this corridor was a Blue Door to a room with another, bigger elevator inactivated because of a damaged circuit board. Once the board repaired, the elevator led them to an upper section where they quickly destroyed two mines before reaching the exit door.

Now outside of the pod, giant gears visible between it and the pod that seemed to be their destination, the only way to continue for Samus was to use the Screw Attack to reach a platform, and use it again to reach the entrance of the other pod (after destroying their first Swarmbots, little drones that attacked in big groups). On the way, they remarked the Missile Expansion inside one of the gears, and Sweetie Belle teleported in it to grab it. She also destroyed another ATC that attempted to target Samus as she was doing the Screw Attack.

In the new pod, they entered yet another curved hallway, this one with a broken elevator that was attempting to move down but couldn't. Here they found the drone they encountered earlier which had now joined its comrades. Six of them were now attacking the girls but they were rapidly destroyed, letting them pass an reach the next door.

They followed another, narrower hallway with a pirate turret. At the end, instead of a door, they found a glasswork destroyed by a simple charged beam. At the other side was a huge transport module, another component for the bomb, that was currently spinning. It was held by two electromagnetic cradle arms that they had to retract by destroying power nods. The module thus stopped spinning and opened, allowing them to reach a platform at the other side from which they destroyed another glasswork leading to a Blue Door.

Another curved hallway composed of two ledges separated by a large gap followed. This one had a Databot that recounted how the Elysians got out of their hibernation as the defense systems had detected invaders, only to discover that these invaders were the Galactic Federation who had come in peace. Negotiations followed, becoming the Treaty of Elysia leading to the rebirth of SkyTown. That was fifteen years ago.

There were no Grapple Points this time to traverse the gap, so Samus had to use the Screw Attack, being careful because Samus couldn't turn while doing it so she had to watch out so her course won't end on a wall above the gap.

The door at the other side of the gap led to a bridge not unlike the one that led to the pod where they found the Boost Ball, excepted that this one wasn't as large and didn't fall apart under them. Many Timbots were on it, in a single line because of the lack of place. Grinning, Samus turned into her Morph Ball and used the Boost Ball, sending the bots flying like pins hit by a bowling ball while being careful to not fall off the bridge.

When they entered the pod at the end, they had to cross another gap, first having to destroy two panels on the way before Samus could use her Screw Attack.

And finally, they reached their objective, the Federation Landing Site.

Before taking the lift to it, however, Sweetie Belle shot a Databot for a new log which recounted the aftermath of the Treat of Elysia, the Federation giving the Elysians supplies, fuel, and parts while being allowed in return to use the station. The log ended with the researchers having to leave because of the harsh atmospheric conditions and proposing to be replaced by an Aurora Unit.

They then took the lift down to the Landing Site, and like on the previous one, a Chozebo blocked any attempt for the ship to land. And like before, Aurora Unit 217 and Samus removed it, allowing the Hunter to call her ship. Once it landed, Samus nodded at Sweetie Belle who then pressed a hoof on the terminal to start the process of upgrading the ship, giving it its own grapple.

Now, the ship will be able to transport heavy charges, like the components of the bomb.

Aurora Unit 217 confirmed it and gave Samus the coordinates of the three components. As they had guessed, two of these components are the transportation module and the huge device emitting nuclear energy, and the third one was that module emitting beams on that roof structure outside of the third pod at the start of SkyTown (with the multi-targets lock).

But first, they had to find that power up that will allow them to destroy these multi-targets locks.

So they backtracked.

But now, the pirates were sending more to stop them.

Back on the bridge, an ATC attacked them. Then, in the curved hallway with the gap, it was the turn of walker drones. Another ATC came where there were the giant gears, but instead of attacking them, the ship destroyed the platform between the two pods and the gears themselves. Thankfully, with the gears not in the way another, Samus could use the Screw Attack to reach the other pod without passing by the platform.

Before long, they were back in the Observatory, no pirate coming this time.

Now that the ship had its grapple, they could now attempt something here. Samus called the ship and hooked the holographic projector to it so it could lift it. Many spider-like elysian drones came from under it and walked away without attempting anything against the girls. With the projector out of the way, they could see its power core with a damaged circuit board. Samus didn't lose time repairing it before she commanded her ship to put the projector back in its place. She then used a bomb in the Morph Ball slot to activate it, making a section of it rise before it began to project the hologram of a planet.

Perfect, they could now use that raised section to reach the upper part of the room, including the Morph Ball tunnel leadin to the slots under the holograms of the planets, and the balcony. Sadly for the slots, many of them were inactivated, and like remarked earlier, some of the activated ones were accessible only with the Spider Ball. But right now, three slots could be reached, each causing a satellite to be launched.

The first slot gave Samus map data on the current area of SkyTown (the map data they had gotten from AU 217 only covering the first area of the station.

The two other slots gave Samus the emplacements of the Suit expansions on Bryyo and Norion, meaning that she now knew the emplacements of stuff like the Missile Expansions and the Energy Tanks left on these planets.

"So it means that we won't have to randomly search these planets to find everything?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Yup. It will really make our life easier. I hope that one of these other activated slots will do the same for Elysia once I get the Spider Ball."

Done for now with the holograms in this room, Sweetie Belle and Samus then went on the balcony at the top where there was a corridor leading to an Orange Door.

The new room behind revealed to be filled with plants that grew a bit out of control, some botanic research center certainly. Not after at the entrance, at the left, was a corridor partially blocked with plants leading to a recharge station (which was a dead end). To continue in this room, Samus had to pull two containers that previously stored nutrients for plants to use as platforms to reach the upper level. On the way, they had to deal with Sky Puffers constantly coming out of air holes, and Sweetie Belle flew to collect a Missile Expansion in an alcove above the entrance while Samus destoyed a White Blast Shield blocking the exit door.

They thus returned in the curved hallway with the broken elevator, in the top section this time, where they found another Databot. Its log recounted the installation of the Aurora Unit and its benefices to the Elysians, how they could now access the information in the Federation database and help them in their researches in return. With the Elysins' help, the Federation was able to end many threats and to prevent many disasters.

No wonder the pirates targeted this planet.

Sweetie Belle really hoped that what remained of the Elysians could be saved.

After the broken elevator, they passed a Blue Door and returned in the room with the third component for the bomb, at the top level this time. It was a circular chamber without a roof and with hatches in the center that covered the component in place. Only the top of the component, with a hook for the ship grapple, poked out from a hole in the middle of the hatches. There were four Spinners around them keeping clamps in place, and Phazon fungus were present on the walls.

When Sweetie Belle and Samus stepped on the platform, an energy shield appeared behind them, blocking the exit. Then, a huge Space Pirate, a behemoth version of the already behemoth Berserker Knight they encountered on Bryyo, heavily armored and absolutely filled with Phazon - Sweetie Belle could feel it, it was everywhere in him - landed. Phazite plating covered his head, and he transported a big reserve of Phazon on his back.

Sweetie Belle could only stare in horror at this abomination. Samus told her that the pirates could go far with experiments on their own species in their quest for domination of the galaxy, but THAT was too far! Such a high amount of Phazon, such a high level of corruption it certainly created, there must be (almost) nothing left of the pirate's mind!

"Damn it! A Berserker Lord!" Samus shouted. "Be careful Sweetie Belle! If it fires blue projectiles, you can deflect them back at him by firing at them! However, if the projectiles are red, don't try to fire at them, dodge!"

"Understood," Sweetie Belle said, recovering from her horror after hearing Samus' instructions. "Wait, a Berserker Lord? There are more of these... things?"

Samus fired at the Berserker Lord's shoulders while they both jumped above a stream of Phazon that he fired from his mouth.

"Yeah. I already fought one during the pirate assault on Norion one month ago, and I don't doubt that there are more wherever their HQ is."

"They really have no limit to their cruelty and madness, uh...?"

"None," Samus simply answered as she fired at a blue projectile, sending it back at the Phazite plating on the Berserker Lord's head, damaging it a bit.

The Berserker then went after Sweetie Belle who still hadn't attacked yet, thinking that she was easy prey. He approached her with a jump and attacked her with his pincer (which was something that Samus was apparently more used to see on the pirates than the three-fingered claws that most of the ones Sweetie Belle encountered until now possessed), only for the filly to stop it by catching it with her bar hooves. Sweetie Belle then pulled, tearing the arm off, and pierced the Berserker on the chest with it like a spear, killing him almost instantly.

Sweetie Belle judged that it was mercy to kill the Berserker Lord as fast as possible.

Samus judged that the pirates should just stop trying if the filly could kill even a Berserker Lord that easily.

The Hunter used the four Spinners to release the clamps keeping the hatches locked before she used a lock to open them, freeing the component and activating energy shields all around it to ensure that nobody will fall. She then called her ship and hooked the component to it before it flew away. The lock's terminal then turned to reveal a drop shaft for Samus' Morph Ball to access a Blue Door. They then traversed another curved hallway, destroying two Crawltanks (the pirate walker drones) on the way, before they entered a room with gears on the wall and a large gap.

Samus had to use the Screw Attack to reach the other side of the gap. However, an energy shield was constantly appearing and disappearing at the end, and if Samus timed her Screw Attack wrong, then she would hit the shield and fall into the gap.

After watching the shield a few seconds to judge the timing, Samus jumped and used he Screw Attack, successfully reaching the other side. Sweetie Belle simply teleported beside her. They then had to wait the energy shield blocking the exit to disappear before they could pass and reach the Blue Door at the end of the corridor here.

Judging from Samus' map, they were back in the room with the second bomb component, in the level below the inactivated elevator in the center. This level consisted of a simple straight hallway between the door they came out of and an Orange Door, with the elevator at the center. At the left and right upon entering, there were circuit board, the left one damaged. Samus immediately repaired it. At the other end, before the Orange Door, were two other circuit boards with one damaged.

"Damn it Ghor. You really did a number to this place before we came," Samus mumbled as she repaired it.

This reactivated the elevator, creating a short cut to return to the main level of the room. But instead of taking it, they passed the Orange Door and entered yet another curved hallway made of two ledges separated by a large gap, this one having big chains dangling from the walls. This time, no way to reach the other ledge with the Screw Attack. Instead, she had to jump to reach a small ledge further up leading to a Morph Ball tunnel.

The Blue Door at the end led outside of the pod, at a zipline, which the girls had been beginning to think weren't present in this part of SkyTown. However, the zipline was at a higher level which couldn't be reached from here. Instead, Samus had to use the Screw Attack to jump from platform to platform to reach the other side. While she did that, being careful of one of the platforms spinning to not hit its fence-like structure and fall into the clouds below, Sweetie Belle dealt with one of these armored Aerotroopers like they fought in the Observatory (she simply destroyed his jetpack and let him fall into the clouds) and an ATC (she teared off the cockpit and threw the pilot into the clouds before letting the ship drop).

When they reached the entrance of the lower level of the next pod, Samus opened the Blue Door here only to have a bad surprise when they discovered a pirate corpse leaning against the door at the other side. Beside the original surprise of the presence of a pirate corpse, what really unsettled them was that the body was a greyish, statue-like brittle husk stuck in an expression of agony and fear that almost immediately fell apart into ash. It had clearly been attempting to escape something, but failed.

Sweetie Belle looked down at the ash, horrified, and couldn't stop herself from stepping back.

"What...? What...?"

Silently, Samus passed the door and looked around, quickly followed by the filly.

There were more pirate corpses, several, all in the same state. Greyish, statue-like, stuck with expressions of struggle, fear, and agony.

A scene that will remain stuck in Sweetie Belle's mind for a long time.

Samus gripped her cannon, saying only one word, "Metroids."

"Metroids?" Sweetie Belle asked. "Metroids are responsible of this?"

"Yes. This is what is left of their victims after the Metroids drained them of all their life energy."

Sweetie Belle slowly approached the nearest corpse, a pirate mostly on the floor, head against the wall, and touched it. The corpse immediately fell apart into ash like the other, and she watched in horrified fascination.

"So, Metroids drain life energy?"

"And pretty much all forms of energy, like Phazon for instance. So ever robots aren't safe from them. And like I said, they have an insatiable appetite so they will never stop. Drop a bunch of Metroids in the middle of a city, and the city will be entirely drained in less than a day."

Sweetie Belle understood what Samus implied and covered her mouth. "This is what the pirates do?"

"Yes... The pirates use the Metroids as bioweapons to easily eradicate their targets with a minimal risk for their troops. A friend saw the aftermath of such an attack... It wasn't petty, from what he told me..."

Sweetie Belle shivered just imagining said aftermath.

Samus sighed. "This means that we will certainly deal with Metroids in the near future, so let me tell you what you must know before facing them. The Metroids are highly resistant to all forms of weapons excepted anything related to cold because they are weak to it, so use ice beams or whatever other ice stuff you have in priority. As soon as they see you, the Metroids will charge at you to latch onto you to drain your energy. If you have nothing on you that they will be forced to drain first before they can drain your life energy, like my Energy Tanks, then your death will come after several long, very painful seconds. They drain energy very rapidly, even my Suit won't last long despite all the Energy Tanks we collected, so if they latch onto you, do everything you can to get them off as soon as possible. The only way I personally found to do this is to turn into my Morph Ball and use bombs. Oh, and they somehow fly so they are very fast, and their small size makes them hard to hit. And finally, be sure to kill every single ones of them. If even one survives, then the pirates could recover it and use Beta-Rays to make it split itself into several individuals, rendering our efforts vain."

"What? They can multiply by splitting themselves?"

"Yes, meaning that the pirates can get themselves an army of Metroids from a single individual in a matter of days. Add to this that they can easily mutate thanks to radiations to create new, stronger Metroids, and you can see why they are a Space Pirate Favorite."

Sweetie Belle groaned. "Yeah, I can see... Thanks."

After this, they advanced among the Space Pirate husks, some of them falling apart as they touched them. On the way, they found a path at the right leading to a room with another recharge station where Samus made sure to recharge to have all her Ice Missiles. They then continued among the husks, reaching the other end of the room where Phazon fungus and plants were present before a Blue Door.

The hallway that followed had more pirate husks and Phazon everywhere. At the other end was a multi-targets lock mechanism blocking a door, so they had no choice but to take another Blue Door at the right in the middle of the hallway which led to a lift that Samus had to activate first with a Hand Scanner.

Through some glass window behind the lift, the skeleton of some big creature could be seen.

"Looks like the Parasite Queen... I hope that we won't encounter one here," Samus said.

"Let me guess, you encountered one before?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Yeah and it was a pain in the ass to fight."

"Don't worry. If we encounter one, I can easily deal with it."

Another skeleton of the same creature was behind another glass window at the top of the lift, but they didn't mind it. In the top level, they passed beside two containment units reinforced with barriers, one of which contained an Energy Tank.

Then, after a Blue Door, they entered a hallway lined with more containment units.

Inside many of these containment units were little floating creatures that consisted of a red mass of nuclei almost looking like a brain enclosed in a translucent membrane - a bone-like ridge splitting it in two halves - with two pairs of large fangs underneath, one bigger than another. No eyes, no wings, no limbs or tail or... anything. Just a mouth surrounded by smaller fangs between the four bigger ones. How was it floating?

"That! Is a Metroid!" Samus said as she pointed at the first Metroid.

"That's a Metroid? Celestia, they look like nothing I have ever seen!" Sweetie Belle said.

"Yeah... And these ones look different from the ones I know. Let me scan it......... Well... Fuck..."

"What?"

"Phazon-mutated Metroids originating from the ones that were on Tallon IV. These ones can apparently emit bursts of Phazon energy and phase its body to ignore solid matter."

"You mean it can turn ghost-like and pass through walls and other stuff? As if it wasn't already a pain to kill from what you told me..."

"Yeah, I already hate them."

They continued along the containment units until a multi-targets lock blocked their path, forcing them to take a detour by the left. On the way, they reached a small room with the exit blocked by a door that Samus had to lower with the Boost Ball in a Spinner. While using the Spinner lowered the door, it made another raise and block the path they came from. No more such doors followed before they reached the next Blue Door.

They entered another lift room with more containment units containing Phazon Metroids. This room, however, didn't have the skeletons like in the other.

They then continued through more hallways lined with containment units and invaded by Phazon. a multi-targets lock blocking the way however forced them to use a Morph Ball tunnel to reach the other side. Another, shorter tunnel at the end of the hallway led to another one with, at the end, a last containment unit containing the upgrade they searched to destroy the multi-targets locks: the Seeker Missiles. Keeping an eye on the Steamspiders that were here, Sweetie Belle and Samus searched for a way to open the containment unit.

They found a way after ripping off a panel: an Energy Cell. Retiring it would cut all the power here, removing the shields protecting the containment units which would let them get the upgrade.

Buuut this would also unleash the Phazon Metroids so...

Buuut they needed to destroy the Metroids anyway so...

With some hesitation, Samus removed the Energy Cell, and everything went as planned. The shield on the containment unit disappeared, letting them break the glass and get the Seeker Missile upgrade. At the same time, this caused a door with a multi-targets lock to rise behind them, locking them in the small room they were in.

So Samus immediately put the Seeker Missiles to test and was able to fire five missiles at once, each missile destroying one of the five targets of the lock at the same time, opening the door.

"Well, time to face the music," Samus said.

Backtracking, it wasn't long before they reached broken containment units. Already, they could see Metroids move in tunnels below the floor, behind glasses panels.

And then, as they approached the first multi-targets lock, their first Phazon Metroid ambushed them, and by pure reflex, both Samus and Sweetie Belle fired respectively an Ice Missile and an ice beam at it, hitting it in the middle of its charge. This froze it right in the air, the Metroid somehow still floating. It was easily killed afterward. Samus then destroyed the multi-targets lock and they continued.

"It wasn't so bad," Sweetie Belle said.

"We got it by surprise. It didn't even have time to phase. We won't always be as lucky."

And indeed, before reaching the Blue Door, another Metroid came before them, and this time, it was able to phase, avoiding Samus' Ice Missile. Sweetie Belle's ice beam still got it, energy not traversing it, forcing it back to normal as it was frozen solid.

More Metroids were encountered as the girls backtracked through the lift rooms and the hallways, destroying the second multi-targets lock on the way. Sweetie Belle did most of the work as Samus' Ice Missiles hit the Metroids only when they were too busy charging at them to phase. The last hallway before the second lift room was especially bad as several Metroids phased through the walls, floor, and ceiling to attack them in number. Sweetie Belle had to punch one that got too close, the force of her punch making it explode.

"Yup. I hate them," Samus commented.

In the second lift room, they made sure to grab the Energy Tank on the way now that it wasn't protected by a shield.

Back in the room that led to all this, Samus destroyed the multi-targets lock here, gaining access to another lift. Surprisingly, in the hallway it led to, they didn't encounter any Metroid but a single pirate trooper. A few seconds later and they were out of the pod at the top level where Samus could reach the zipline.

Phazon Metroids phased through the floor here but were quickly killed, and Samus took the zipline only for more Metroids to come on the way. Sweetie Belle killed all of them, protecting her friend, and also killed the two ones that Phazed through the wall of the pod at the end as Samus landed.

"They are already spreading everywhere!" Sweetie Belle said.

"That's what I feared with their phasing ability... At least, they will take care of some of the pirates for us."

"Killing all of them like you said will be difficult however."

"Priority for now is the Leviathan. We will see later what to do about the Metroids. Maybe we will end up killing all of them while we work on the bomb."

At this, they entered the pod. Now in another curved hallway, all they found here were some crates and a Databot.

The log it contained revealed to have information extremely important.

Five months ago, the Elysians detected a Leviathan hit a planet far away. In the months that followed, the Elysians did all they could to uncover its origin and, eventually, they were able to find out that the Leviathan not only came from a very distant planet, but that said planet was the sentient planet the Chozo Searcher had discovered all these years ago! A sentient planet was at the origin of all their current Phazon problems! However, the Elysians failed to transmit their discovery to the Federation because it was then that the Aurora Unit was struck by the Phazon-virus.

They had been so close!

"So our enemy is that sentient planet," Sweetie Belle summarized. "That's something that I sure wasn't expecting when I came to this dimension. But we are still missing its coordinates."

"The Aurora Unit should be able to find them from the Elysians' researches once we are done with the Leviathan."

Samus destroyed the White Shield Blast at the end of the hallway, letting them return in the room with the second bomb component, this time from the very top. Immediately, at the left, Samus spotted a Morph Ball tunnel that led to a Missile Expansion, just in front of one of the locks keeping the component in place. Once she took the expansion, Samus destroying it with the Seeker Missiles. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle decided to destroy herself another multi-targets lock, this one locking a lift.

The lift led them down to the middle level with the three walkways from which they were able to destroy the two other multi-targets locks keeping the component in place.

The roof opened as a result, letting Samus call her ship to transport the component away. The ship was still transporting the first component which was inserted into the second through the hole in the center, assembling them. Thus the ship was able to fly away with the two components, only one missing.

And so, they were done with this part of SkyTown.

Sweetie Belle and Samus took the tram back to the first area and backtracked to the pod with the last bomb component, this time taking the path made of floating platform they hadn't take yet. On the way in this new path, Sweetie Belle grabbed a Missile Expansion for the ship while Samus scanned a Databot above a platform with a Spider Ball track (no doubt to reach the Ship Missile Expansion Sweetie Belle just took).

The log of the bot pretty much recounted what the Aurora Unit already told them. As the Elysians studied the Leviathan, the Space Pirates invaded, destroying a big number of Elysians in their initial assault. After this assault, the pirates built the shield around the Leviathan, and the remaining Elysians studied the pirates in hope of finding a way to stop them. Instead, they discovered that all the pirates were corrupted by Phazon that apparently sustained them and controlled them with a will of its own.

"That means that the pirates are puppets too, not just the corrupted Bounty Hunters," Sweetie Belle said.

"And Dark Samus is the puppeteer. So they aren't working together, the pirates are just her pawns," Samus concluded. "She is using them to protect the Seeds."

"Everything comes back to Dark Samus in the end. We kill her, and everything will be over."

"We will still have to deal with that sentient planet where the Leviathans come from, or it will still continue to send them in the future."

"Right."

Eventually, they reached the Barrack Pod where they fought the Steamlord, and from here, they reached the pod with the last bomb component. Some Seeker Missiles to remove the lock later and Samus was able to call her ship to finally fully assemble the bomb.

Samus received a communication of AU 217 instructing them to place the bomb in the cargo hold of the Spire Pod, which was the big pod with the large circular area in open air.

So, without losing time, they used the cannon to return to the Aurora Unit's pod (destroying upon arrival the multi-target lock on the cannon here), traversed said pod, and used the cannon to the Spire Pod. Samus then called her ship, and the AU opened the roof of the Spire Pod to let it (carefully) drop the bomb in the cargo hold there.

Finally, the AU called them back to his chamber.

Back in the chamber, Samus activated the communication terminal.

"The Theronian bomb is primed and ready. Excellent work, you two," the AU began. "To drop the bomb onto the Leviathan's shield, you must move the bomb pod directly over the Leviathan and shut down the pod's engine. This must be done manually. This is a dangerous mission. Will you accept it?"

Sweetie Belle and Samus both nodded, the filly saying, "Of course!"

"Thank you. Initiating SkyTown migration."

Sweetie Belle then could feel that they were getting closer to the Leviathan. The whole facility was moving.

It must be impressive to see from outside.

"We will move the SkyTown facility as close as possible to the Leviathan's shield, and then deploy the bomb pod," the AU continued. "Do you understand what you are supposed to do?"

Again, Sweetie Belle and Samus nodded.

"After shutting off the engines, use the escape capsule to return here," the AU then said.

"SKYTOWN MIGRATION COMPLETE," a robotic, feminine voice informed.

"You must now proceed to the bomb pod. We will release the cables once you're in position. We regret this mission places you in mortal danger, but there are no other options. Good luck," the AU finished.

So Sweetie Belle and Samus left the chamber, the filly grinning.

"Time for some action!"

As soon as they returned on the Spire Pod, AU 217 did as he said and the cables connecting the pod to the rest of the facility were released, or rather destroyed. The Spire Pod then began its course toward the Leviathan while SkyTown returned to its previous location.

It wasn't long before AU 217 warned them that he was sensing a large number of enemies approaching, and Sweetie Belle immediately took flight.

They had to defend the pod.

A Space Pirate Assault ship named Skiff (which was just an ATC with a move powerful cannon but without place for troops) was the first to arrive and Sweetie Belle immediately moved to destroy it before it could fire at the pod while Samus went to deal with pirate drones.

Not long after the ship was destroyed, Aerotroopers came and distracted them from the arrival of an ATC that had time to drop some troopers before it was destroyed too by Sweetie Belle. Samus entered in Hypermode to rapidly deal with all the pirates and drones.

Another Skiff then came only to suffer the same fate than the first one, but it was quickly followed by more ships, both Skiffs and ATCs. Sweetie Belle dealt with the ships, leaving any pirates and drones that managed to arrive on the pod itself to Samus. Seeing how dangerous she was, one of the Skiffs attempted to fire at Sweetie Belle but the filly destroyed it before it had time to fire.

This continued for a few more minutes before the pod was finally above the Leviathan. A terminal then activated and Samus quickly used it to shut down the engines and reveal the escape pod which she entered, Sweetie Belle signing her that she could go on without her since she could already fly.

The pod, however, revealed to have a malfunctioning mechanism that Samus needed to fix by entering a Morph Ball tunnel that revealed itself afterward.

"Oh, come on! Seriously?!" Sweetie Belle yelled. "Okay, you know what? Screw the pod! There's a better way!" The filly then grew in size until she was as tall as Celestia, and she lowered herself so Samus could climb on her back.

Samus nodded in thanks and did so, and Sweetie Belle took off and flew away.

A few minutes later, they watched as the pod finally dropped on the Leviathan's shield, causing a huge explosion that blinded them.

When they could see again, the shield was gone.

Grinning victoriously, they returned to SkyTown to take the ship and fly to the Leviathan.

Things then happened pretty much like with the Leviathan of Bryyo. They landed inside the Leviathan, in a huge chamber full of little critters and of giant glands generating Phazon. They jumped on organic platforms to reach the access to the Core. On the way to the Core, they had to destroy organic masses blocking the way, these ones needed the Seeker Missiles.

And they reached the Core's chamber which was orange colored instead of blue colored like the chamber back in Bryyo...

But no Guardian could be seen contrary to last time.

They had to approach before the Guardian showed itself, revealing it to be a spherical robot with four tentacle-arm like appendages, and it could float.

Immediately, countless Swarmbots came and surrounded the round robot.

A scan revealed it to be called Helios, a robot made to control the Swarmbots which it used to attack and defend itself, using different formations.Helios immediately showed what the scan meant by forming a spherical shield of energy with the Swarmbots before rolling on the ground toward Samus and Sweetie Belle. As they moved to avoid the shield, they fired at it, destroying some of the Swarmbots and creating opening to fire at Helios itself. It was easier said than done of course as Helios rolled around very rapidly, making it hard to hit it.

Once it stopped its attack, new Swarmbot came to replace the ones that were destroyed. But before it could begin another formation, it was hit enough time that it overloaded, exposing its Phazon-enhanced core. The Swarmbots were dispelled, and two blades extended from its arms. Helios then began to continuously charge at either Samus or Sweetie Belle while swinging its blades, forcing them to constantly move to avoid it while they fired at its core with beams of Phazon.

They weren't able to destroy it however before it recovered, hiding its core again, and called back its Swarmbots. The formation the bots took this time was a humanoid one, the Swarmbots becoming two 'arms' and two 'legs' for Helios. Samus quickly scanned it again and revealed that the 'joints' were its weakness, but they had to wait for one of the limbs to attack to hit the corresponding joint. Just at this moment, Helios raised a 'leg', clearly about to create a shockwave on the ground, and Sweetie Belle and Samus quickly fired at the joint, destroying the whole formation of the limb. This made Helios fall, opening it to fire.

They overloaded it again, exposing its core a second time.

This time, it wasn't able to recover before it was destroyed.

Like with the Mogenar, as Helios exploded, a huge quantity of Phazon escaped it and was absorbed by Samus, causing her Seed to grow.

This time, she knew what was coming, and she didn't end up vomiting Phazon, probably because she was now adapted to it. As for her Suit, the parts that were still a dark shade of the original orange were now blue, and the visor had turned blue too. The helmet and torso were still red, but a darker, bluer shade. The metallic-colored parts hadn't changed however. And the veins of Phazon in the joints were now brighter.

Samus nodded at Sweetie Belle to reassure her before she grabbed the new upgrade that Helios left behind: the Hyper Missile. She immediately had to use them to destroy growths of Phazon crystals that appeared on orange minerals near the ceiling. The minerals cracked as a result of the destruction of the crystal, letting out streams of Phazon that went toward the opening in the ceiling. Out of the opening then came the Leviathan's core that Samus then killed like the previous one.

As the core fell dead, Sweetie Belle and Samus walked away, back toward the ship.

"I'm disappointed. The Mogenar put up a better fight than this pushover," Sweetie Belle said.

"Personally, I'm not complaining," Samus replied.

In stationary above Elysia, the two waited for AU 242's next communication to know the next step of the mission (unless it was exploring the Valhalla).

they didn't have to wait long, the AUs hologram appearing before them.

"Elysia is now free of further corruption. Both Leviathans have been removed from Federation space. You have once again performed admirably. I also report that Ghor has safely arrived on the Olympus and has been confirmed free of all Phazon and its corruption. He is now undergoing reparation. As for the ship, the Lor Starcutter, it was sadly too large to enter any of the docking bays of the Olympus. Instead, it integrated itself in the armada, flying alongside the ships. Many of our scientists and engineers are eager to learn more about it."

This made Sweetie Belle giggle.

"However, the threat is not over," the AU continued. "We received word from a reconnaissance unit that an emergency GF communication capsule has been found." At her words, the hologram shifted to show said capsule. The hologram then shifted again to show a clearly female humanoid alien with various info. "Analysis has uncovered a message from Gandrayda, sent while she was searching for the Pirate Homeworld." The AU's hologram returned. "This is her last message right before she disappeared." The hologram then showed a planet, half of it entirely blue, probably indicating Phazon. "To our surprise, the message indicates that a Leviathan has also impacted the Pirate Homeworld, which suggests that pirates are now enhancing their military forces with Phazon."

That's nothing new, miss, Sweetie Belle thought with a roll of her eyes.

"Worse," the AU continued, unaware of the filly's thoughts as the hologram showed the planet now with huge tentacles of Phazon coming from its surface, especially the surface covered in Phazon. "the corruption appears to be spreading very quickly. It's as if the planet itself is transforming into pure Phazon."

"Oh god..."

"Oh Celestia..."

The hologram returned to the AU. "Left unchecked, this corruption could spread to the entire galaxy. The time to act in now. You must destroy that Leviathan and stop the spread of further corruption." The hologram now showed several ships. "To that end, the Federation is planning a full-scale assault on the Pirate Homeworld. The attack will commence as soon as our preparations are complete." Back to the Aurora. "We have marked the location of the Pirate Homeworld on your map. And, you two, be on the look out for Gandrayda..."

On this, AU 242 ended her transmission.

Sweetie Belle and Samus stared at each other in horror at what they learned.

"Pirate Homeworld?" the filly asked.

"Pirate Homeworld," the Hunter confirmed with a nod. "The Valhalla can wait."

Author's Note

Seriously, after Mogenar and the splendid SkyTown, Helios is really lame. The formations with the Swarmbots looked great, but its life just went down too quickly. It should have been the first big boss of the game, not the third.

Chapter 49: The Pirate Homeworld

The Pirate Homeworld being in another, far away solar system, the trip wasn't as short as the one between Bryyo and Elysia (the two planets being part of the same system). So Samus took some time to do a scan on herself to see how bad it now was.

She discovered that her Phazon level had raised to 50%.

She decided that it was alright. She could still resist to the corruption. But with the present of a third Leviathan on the Pirate Homeworld, this level will certainly rise again, and THIS made her worry. She really hoped that this Leviathan was the last.

Sweetie Belle looked at Samus with some worry, especially after seeing the results of the scan, but decided to not say anything. Instead, she silently waited to reach their destination.

Eventually, they reached the Pirate Homeworld.

From space, the planet was red and dark, with many white lines spreading on the surface like spiderwebs. It really looked like it came out of Hell, or Tartarus, or whatever.

And as they approached the surface, things didn't look better. The sky was a dark orange, covered by black clouds from which rained what was certainly not water. The ship's systems indicated that it was actually acid! It also detected a big level of pollution, which may be at the origin of the disastrous atmosphere. The city, or base, of the Space Pirates was spreading as far as they could see, protected from the acid rain by shields coming from large structures floating above. There were, however, areas where immense Phazon growth could be seen as well as huge tendrils of Phazons coming out of the ground a little everywhere, swaying in the air.

Seeing this chilled Sweetie Belle. The situation here really was bad.

They saw the Leviathan in the middle of the city, without a defensive shield like the two previous Leviathans, but it was clear that flying to it with the ship was suicidal in the current situation, and even impossible before of the shield covering the base. Also, there didn't seem to be a path leading inside that could be accessed.

So they had to find a path that would let them get around the shield and land somewhere in the city and figure what to do from here.

Thankfully, Samus' ship was small enough and had a good cloak, so they were able to approach without being spotted. Passing between tendrils of Phazon, they reached a river of Phazon and entered a giant tube that seemed to be a waste disposal, the ship passing between the two parts of what seemed to be some kind of turbine at the entrance. The tube led to a series of tunnels, one of which eventually led to a landing site that the ship had detected.

They entered a large circular room through a hatch and found a landing pad here. Huge racks with tanks locked into them were present on the walls, and there were also a lot pf pipes and wires. Pirate drones could be seen flying around, but they didn't seem to be the military type, seeing how they weren't armed and flew to and from the tanks. Phazon was also present on the part of the landing pad before the pathway to the exit.

Samus rapidly landed the ship before she and Sweetie Belle disembarked.

Sweetie Belle looked around and said, "Alright. We're here. So, we simply explore until we find something?"

"It seems so. I haven't received any transmission from the Federation yet," Samus answered. "Be careful. We are in enemy territory now, and all your powers won't save you if you take a shot to the head from a turret. You have no armor."

"Aye aye!"

A small gap separated the landing platform from the pathway to the exit, so they had to jump to reach the Blue Door. Almost immediately, in the access tunnel that followed, they encountered patrolling Crawltanks that they had to destroy. However, the Crawltank passed in Hypermode when they spotted them, so it took a bit longer to destroy them than usual.

"Well, it didn't take long," Sweetie Belle remarked.

"I don't think these drones had time to inform the pirates of our presence. Let's ensure that this continues."

The next room was protected by a solid turret, but it still didn't resist long. Small critters ran away during the fight, escaping potential death as collateral damage. Once the turret was destroyed, Sweetie Belle and Samus were able to get a proper look at the room around them.

At the left was a map station blocked by a shield. At the right was a locked door. Between the two was a lift. On the wall at the right, there was also a device containing coded Space Pirate data. Samus was able to decode them, allowing her to read an entry from the pirates telling that they discovered Phazon for the first time two years ago and that two operation had been established only to fail because of (thanks to) Samus. It said then that the Federation had moved to secure what remained of the Phazon on Aether, and the pirates had been ready to fight to the death to get it from them. Also, the Pirate who had written this entry was apparently part of the crew of a battleship named the Colossus.

"Uh. Didn't expect to get the pirates' perspective of this story," Samus said.

"Maybe this will tell us how they entered in contact with Dark Samus. It would be nice if this could also tell how she came back to like."

Samus nodded before she turned to scan the locked door and the terminal beside it, discovering that the door led to another lift, but the terminal opening it missed power. She then scanned the terminal beside the shield and found out that she needed a different visor to interact with it.

So this left no choice but to enter the lift in the middle where they had to choose between two other floors. Samus decided to start by the first of the two floors only to be blocked in the next room by a large mechanical gate that cut the room in half and that couldn't be opened from this side. Also, they spotted a Missile Expansion accessible from the other side.

So this left the other floor which split into two path. They quickly saw that the right path led to another dead end, another mechanical door (different from the other one) that also couldn't be opened from this side. Also, the door was at the other side of a room without roof, and Samus' Suit apparently had no defense against the acid that rained here as a result.

So they took the left path leading to an Orange Door after turning left, which led to what seemed to be a courtyard, meaning that it was raining acid here too. They immediately saw pirates patrol on a pathway in the upper level, and they also spotted drones, but thankfully, none of them noticed the girls. At the other end of the clearing, a lone Space Pirate opened a force field to reach a Blue Door, the field closing once he passed.

It was at this moment that Samus finally received a transmission from AU 242 who said that the Federation got more information from Gandrayda's capsule. To make it short, behind the force field was a path connecting directly to the Seed, passing by a cargo supply route. But Samus first needed to find a way to protect herself from the acid rain.

"Well, at least, we found our final objective. But in the end, we still need to explore," Sweetie Belle said.

"Nothing new..."

They advanced in the courtyard, remaining under the pathway in the upper level to avoid the acid rain (not that it would matter for Sweetie Belle, she had thousands of ways to protect herself from the acid).

As they followed the protected areas, Sweetie Belle stopped in front of an hologram that showed the head of a clearly dangerous reptilian creature. She raised an eyebrow, wondering what that creature was, but she shrugged and continued to follow Samus who had found a vent shaft for the Morph Ball that was blocked by ventilation fans. Not able to reach the vent, she instead jumped to reach a ledge that let her and Sweetie Belle enter a small tunnel passing under the pathway. Navigating the tunnel, they passed under many pirates and, after some exploration, they found a Missile Expansion. The tunnel eventually led to a sheltered area with an Energy Cell that Samus took, which deactivated the holograms here and opened a hatch to another tunnel. This tunnel led back to the vent, the fans now deactivated too.

The vent led to a corridor with pistons at the left and a cylindrical generator visible through a window. Phazon infested the walls, and there was also a lift currently deactivated, forcing them to continue. After some Crawltanks, they reached an opening from which they dropped to the lower level where they followed a similar corridor even more infested with Phazon, having to fight more Crawltanks.

At the end were two Morph Ball tunnels next to each other, the one at the left blocked by a panel. The one that wasn't blocked however, at the right, only led to the room with the generator where there was only a Spider Ball track leading to a Missile Expansionthat Sweetie Belle flew to grab. So Samus used the grapple on the panel to move it, making it block the right tunnel so they could enter the left one.

This tunnel passed under what seemed to be a command room full of pirates with a central column that looked important and with some pink crystals. Here they found another Missile Expansion before they continued, the tunnel ending at a room with walls covered in Phazite. Here, they found a terminal like the one that was beside the shield blocking access to the map station, so Samus needed a different visor to interact with it. Behind that terminal was a large glass window that let them see tanks full of raw Phazon being transported to an unknown place, Surveillance Drones scanning around in search of potential intruders. Finally, in the ceiling, there was a multi-targets lock keeping a cylinder. Scan of the cylinder revealed that it contained an X-Ray Visor upgrade.

So Samus used the Seeker Missiles to open the lock so she could grab the cylinder and get the new visor, which used X-Rays to allow her to see things that she couldn't normally see, even through some matters like the Phazite. She could even see her own bones through her Suit.

She immediately used the new visor on the terminal. The terminal presented her with a code of four symbols, and she needed to press the right keys in the right order to activate it. The keys had symbols that she could see thanks to the X-Rays, allowing her to see which keys she needed to press. An added difficulty was that each time that she pressed a key, right or wrong, the symbols changed places.

This lowered a rail, allowing the Phazon tanks to be carried into the room. Sweetie Belle fired at one of them as it passed above the hatch blocked by the Phazon, making the tank fall and explode on it, destroying it.

They then entered the now unlocked tunnel which led to a corridor with paths. One was a simple Blue Door which, from the map Samus' Suit had made with the explored rooms, led to that room cut in half by the big mechanised door. At the opposite side of the Blue Door was a door with a green shield, this one needing a high-frequency beam to be opened which Samus didn't have. At the left of the Green Door was a locked door that needed an X-Ray terminal to be activated to be opened. At the right was one of these shields with a terminal that had to be drained of energy.

When they got too close of the Green Door, a computerised voice detected Samus and Sweetie Belle an unauthorized presences, leading it to engage a security gate made of Phazite plating that could only be penetrated by a high-frequency beam.

"Okay, okay, we understand. We need a high-frequency beam," Sweetie Belle said with a roll of her eyes.

Samus opened the left door with the X-Ray terminal, letting them access a lift that took them to a Blue Door to a balcony area overlooking the command room they traversed earlier by the tunnels. From here, they could see a pirate and a drone performing maintenance on a Phazine panel on the central pillar, which revealed to be a generator with three energy cores apparently powering the shield that protected the base. Samus was also able to scan the pink crystals from here which revealed to be vulnerable to Phazon.

A device with a new entry was present in the balcony area and Samus scanned it. The entry revealed what Samus already said. The pirates weren't able to stop the feds from leaving Aether with some Phazon, but more Phazon was still left on the planet and the pirates took it. But then, the entry revealed what they hoped to discover. In their haste, the pirates not only took Phazon, but also the remains of Dark Samus who then revived herself in their Phazon storage. Dark Samus then absorbed all their Phazon and wiped out a third of their crew before she began to brainwash what remained. The pirate writing this entry was one of the last few who still had all their mind.

"These idiots..." Samus muttered with a shake of her head.

"It still doesn't say how Dark Samus' remains were on Aether when she died on Dark Aether," Sweetie Belle said. "They should have disappeared with the planet."

"Probably used some Phazon power to transfer what remained of herself into the Phazon that the pirates had stored on Aether. I did kill her several times before our final encounter, but each times she came back. This must be how."

"Okay. So, now we have the full explanation of her return. And how she got her first pirate minions. I think that I know where this will go next."

"Me too."

They backtracked to the corridor where two Assault Pirate Troopers (the pirates with orange shields that deflected missiles) were now present. The pirates fired as soon as they spotted them, and the girls quickly killed them before they could get the idea of raising the alarm. Sweetie Belle then teleported the corpses into the river of Phazon they flew over earlier to leave no trace. Samus approved with a thumb up.

They then went to open the mechanical door which needed the X-Ray Visor to spot and disengage the five locks. It was then that Samus received a distress call from a Federation Trooper that had apparently been captured during the pirate assault on Norion. The fed had been able to escape but required help, and apparently had information about how to bypass the acid rain to reach the Seed. He then gave Samus his coordinates, in another area of the planet.

"Why would the pirates capture a Federation Trooper?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"There could be many reasons, like experiments. What really surprises me is that the trooper is still alive, or even still has his mind, after a month of capture. Captured victims generally don't last for than a few days, unless they are important to them."

"And by chance, the trooper knows a way to protect yourself from the acid rain."

Sweetie Belle and Samus exchanged looks and nodded. "It's a trap," they both concluded.

"We should still go, it's our only lead right now," Samus then said.

Sweetie Belle nodded, and on this, Samus used a newly activated Morph Ball slot to make the mechanical door and the platform it was on spin with them while Sweetie Belle grabbed the Missile Expansion they had seen earlier. Now at the other side of the room, they were able to return to the lift leading back to the room with the Map Station. Speaking off, Samus took time to use the X-Ray terminal to deactivate the shield and access the station, downloading the map data which not only gave the whole map of the current area, but also gave them the coordinates of the landing site of the area where the "Federation Trooper" was. It also gave them the coordinates of a landing site in the Leviathan, but they couldn't access it.

With this, they returned in the ship and took off.

Moving through the tunnels, they eventually reached the coordinates of the landing site of the facility from which the "Federation Trooper" had called "for help." Like in the previous landing site, drones were present, some transporting canisters clearly full of Phazon. Another of these canisters was on the walkway connecting the landing pad to one of the exits of the room. There was another exit at the other side of the landing pad, but it was blocked by a shield with a terminal that had to be drained of its energy.

The map data they had gotten from the station included the map of this facility, so they had a clear path to the coordinates given by the "Federation Trooper." So they passed the Blue Door at the end of the walkway with the Phazon canister and entered a room where there was an elevator directly in front of them. The elevator led them upward in a diagonal fashion, but once at the top, a locked security hatch blocked the path to the exit.

There was however another hatch, a weaker one blocking a tunnel that was destroyed with a simple charged beam. The tunnel led them to a chamber from which they were able to fire at the switch controlling the first hatch, opening it.

The room after the security hatch had some Phazon in the form of vapor released from vents in the floor, which would be toxic to any bioform not adapted to it (unless that bioform was Sweetie Belle). The first thing they saw upon entering was a large deceased unknown bioform that appeared to be part of a bioengineering experiment which disgusted the girls. After avoiding local versions of the Shriekbat dive-bombing at them when they advanced under the deceased bioform, Sweetie Belle and Samus then had to deal with some little creatures called Phazon Grubs coming out of the vents.

A bit before the Grubs, they spotted another security hatch, bigger than the previous one, blocking the exit, so they had to find a way to open it. While Sweetie Belle flew around to try to spot whatever controlled the hatch, finding a Missile Expansion above the deceased bioform, dealing with some more Shriekbats, and being careful to not be spotted by the patrol drones, Samus followed a made of a series of platform, one of which passed by the inside of the deceased bioform which had been hollowed-out. She eventually found a Morph Ball tunnel and signed the filly to join her before she entered it.

It led to a different room that contained more tunnels over a pool of liquid Phazon. The pool was guarded by a turret that fired at the pests that it detected such as Phazon Grubs, and Sweetie Belle quickly destroyed it before it detected them. To advance in these tunnels, Samus had to use bomb slots to open new passages while dealing with some of these pests that didn't have to worry about the turret anymore. On the way, they got an Energy Tank.

The tunnel ended in a high chamber with two circuit boards and a X-Ray terminal without power because one of the bords was damaged. Samus repaired the board, and then used the terminal, opening the big hatch and forming two steps out of blocks coming out of the walls, forming a path to the exit.

They then had to return in the tunnels, taking a different path where Samus had to use the Boost Ball to reach a bomb slot. While Samus did this, Sweetie Belle explored a bit, killing a swarm of creatures called Phazon Leeches (that had first been encountered in the landing area of the Elysian Seed) and finding a Ship Missile Expansion (which Spider Ball tracks were supposed to lead to).

The bomb slot opened a hatch to a last tunnel leading back to the room with the deceased bioform.

But then, as soon as they got out of the tunnel (which was blocked by a hatch that closed back behind them), a patrol drone scanned them and sounded the alarm.

"Shit."

Sweetie Belle sighed. "And we were doing so well..."

Two pirates with armors made of Phazite then appeared, followed by a pirate wearing an armor of red-colored Phazite that teleported on a platform. The pirate in red armor roared and ordered the two others to deal with "the Hunter and her sidekick" before he teleported away.

Sweetie Belle grinned, giving a shrug. "Oh well. I guess it's time to be violent."

"Just to warn you," Samus began as she scanned one of the pirates while dodging their beams of Phazon. "these Pirate Commandos can cloak themselves and teleport, and their armor of Phazite makes them very resistant. They are pretty much elite soldiers. Shit, I don't have the right beam to deal with them effectively."

"Thanks!"

Samus passed in Hypermode and began to fire at one of the pirates while Sweetie Belle charged at the other with one of her beam swords. The pirate parried her with one of his arm cannons before he fired with the other at her, only for Sweetie Belle to teleport behind him. The pirate teleported too, but when he reappeared, the filly was nowhere to be seen. Then, a sword made of Phazon energy came out of his throat, and the pirate let out a last gurgle before he dropped dead, revealing Sweetie Belle who had teleported again behind him. Meanwhile, Samus' Hyper Beam proved very effective against the armor of Phazite of the other pirate, and the armor was rapidly destroyed before the pirate was killed.

Surprisingly, when the two pirates were killed, the alarm stopped.

But now, the pirates knew that they were here.

"Let's go before more pirates come," Samus said.

"Bah, let them come. I don't mind more action."

Samus chuckled.

At this, they moved toward the opened hatch, climbed the steps, and exited the room through a Orange Door.

They were now in a corridor that turned left. Quickly, they stopped before a series of some kind of optical devices. A quick scan of one of them revealed that they were part of a security system and that they emitted light that couldn't be seen. The X-Ray Visor could see these lights, security lasers that will trigger the alarm if they touched them. The lasers were high enough that they could be passed under.

Instead, Sweetie Belle raised a leg toward the first laser, but before touching it, looked at Samus with a questioning grin. With a sigh, Samus signed the filly to go on, so Sweetie Belle touched the laser and the alarm sounded again. A Pirate Commando then quickly appeared.

Only to be immediately cut in half vertically by a sharp wave of energy from one of Sweetie's swords powered with Phazon energy. The alarm then stopped again, replaced by the sound of Sweetie Belle giggling.

"If you continue like that, you will have killed all the Pirate Commandos on the planet before the start of the Federation's assault," Samus said, making the filly laugh more.

In the middle of the corridor were two Phazite panels and a new entry that Samus scanned.

The entry was terrifying. The pirate who wrote it (probably the same pirate who wrote the previous ones) had fallen victim to Dark Samus' brainwashing, and now, he was like a zealot who had "seen the light" part of a cult with Dark Samus as the god. The pirate, by the same occasion, revealed Dark Samus' goal: to rule the universe.

Of course!

Further, the corridor turned right before ending, and the girls passed a Blue Door.

Behind it was a large room with a large containment tank in the center going all the way to the ceiling. Inside the tank was a lump of crystallized Phazon. In the walls around were containment chambers housing Phazon Metroids and what seemed to be eggs. There were also a few more, smaller, empty tanks and some exhibits of dissected Metroids. The room had a upper level with a pathway surrounding the central containment tank.

On this pathway, before an Orange Door, a pirate spotted them, and another ran before a White Blast Shield before he raised an orb that sounded the alarm. The two pirates then jumped down to attack the girls, quickly joined by a Commando.

Sweetie Belle went to deal with the Commando, leaving the two other pirates to Samus. The pirates had handshields, so Samus had to rip them off with her grapple before she could fire at them. Sweetie Belle rapidly killed the Commando by teleporting his brain out of his skull before she turned to the remaining pirate, Samus having killed one by now. The pirate hesitated a moment, not sure who he should fire at, and the girls used it to fire at him without mercy.

Like before, the alarm stopped with the death of the last pirate, letting the girls explore the room.

The compartment inside central tank could move between the current level and the upper one, but it was currently stuck because of a lack of power. The chambers containing the Phazon Metroids and eggs (as well as a Missile Expansion in one of them) had shields that apparently emitted a high-frequency noise that kept the Metroids docile so they didn't try to escape by phasing through the walls. The empty tanks contained some information about the specimens of Metroid that had been in them. One had contained a Metroid from Zebes, judged highly aggressive. A second had contained a Metroid from Tallon IV, and a third had contained a Metroid from a planet called SR388 which had been a "newly discovered strain." All three had been transferred respectively to an "off-site laboratory," "its original research center," and to the "main science center." Then came the exhibited dissected Metroids, starting with what Samus recognised was a Dark Tallon Metroid, a Metroid that had been possessed by an Ing from Dark Aether. The two other exhibits revealed that the pirates did some inconclusive researches on the Metroids' energy-draining abilities and that the Pirate Homeworld's atmosphere "resulted in various unique physiological mutations."

"The pirates could open a museum on Metroids with all this," Sweetie Belle remarked.

"An idea that will never cross their minds," Samus said.

The Hunter moved to a terminal beside a gate, a new kind that also needed the X-Ray Visor to be operated. The terminal opened the gate, revealing a lift that led them to the level below where Samus was able to repair a circuit board. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle found an Energy Cell that she took (making it four in their possession), cutting the power in some systems. When they returned in the main level, the compartment in the central tank was now moving up and down, and the shields on the chambers were deactivated, allowing the Metroids to get out only to be quickly killed. Sweetie Belle then destroyed one of the still intact glasses to reach the Missile Expansion and give it to Samus.

They remarked then that there was now an opening at the base of the central tank. When the compartment moved down, it revealed a slot that Samus quickly had to enter with the Morph Ball. The compartment then moved to the upper level, transporting Samus to another opening on the pathway that surrounded the tank.

The coordinates of the "Federation Trooper" were beyond the Orange Door, but out of curiosity, they destroyed the Whist Blast Shield to see what was behind, which turned out to be a room in open air, meaning that acid was raining in most of it. While they weren't able to continue further here, they found a Morph Ball tunnel that led to a Missile Expansion, so their curiosity rewarded them in the end.

They then took the Orange Door back in the room with the Metroids (where they had to kill a few more of them) and entered a smaller room with a wall jump surface with a multi-targets lock on it. Destroying the lock activated a mechanism that then formed the second wall jump surface. after destroying four Crawltanks that came, Samus then used the surfaces to reach an upper level, Sweetie Belle protecting her by destroying some Puffers Mines (Puffers that were engineered by the pirates to become patrol animals, their body filled with Phazon gas ready to explode) that were constantly coming.

At the top, badly contaminated by Phazon, was another entry of crucial importance because it revealed the name of the sentient planet at the origin of everything: Phaaze. To make it short, Dark Samus left the pirates (who shot down any who thought that she abandoned them) and came back with a Leviathan. Dark samus then used the Leviathan's ability to create wormholes to lead the pirates (who, again, shot down any who were scared of the unknown) to Phaaze, which was confirmed to be the source of all the Phazon in the universe.

If they destroyed Phaaze, they destroyed the Phazon for good.

"Now, we just need to wait for AU 217 to get the coordinates that the Elysians had discovered and Phazon will be history!" Sweetie Belle said happily.

"We will still have to find a way to destroy Phaaze," Samus reminded.

"That's not a problem."

"How so?"

Sweetie Belle answered with a simple innocent smile that said everything Samus needed to know.

Honestly, she wasn't even surprised. That filly was a monster.

They then passed the Blue door at the end and entered a hallway that had windows letting them see a room where a containment unit was loaded in a chamber. Another unit took the place of the first one in the room, at the base of a tower that could be rotated. They were able to see that this unit contained an upgrade, the one that Samus needed to resist the acid rain, the Hazard Shield. However, the only way they could see leading into this room was a Spider Ball track.

"So close, and yet so far..." Samus mumbled after sighing.

"New objective: find the Spider Ball," Sweetie Belle said, wanting to sound amused while she was actually annoyed.

Thankfully, the "Federation Trooper" wasn't far, so they continued in the hallway and passed the door at the end.

As soon as the door opened, they heard gunfire. When they arrived, they saw two pirates firing at a Marine who was covering behind a storage unit in a room with a deactivated elevator. Samus turned into Hypermode and fired at the pirate at the left while Sweetie Belle charged at the pirate at the right with her sword powered by Phazon energy and impaled him. The two pirates died, Samus' one taking a little more time as his armor had to be destroyed first.

the Marine came out of his cover.

"Samus!" he shouted happily. "Samus! Thank the stars it's you! I thought I was a dead man. I think I can help you get to the Seed."

Something definitively felt fishy for Sweetie Belle. Or rather, she was feeling Phazon, inside the Marine.

A lot of Phazon.

Don't say anything Samus, Sweetie Belle said in Samus' mind.

The Hunter reacted by looking at her, but didn't say anything. But under her helmet, she had a rather shocked expression.

"As I'm sure you know, the path to the Seed entrance is exposed to the acid rain," the Marine continued, unaware of the discussion that was starting in Samus' mind.

I'm feeling a lot of Phazon inside this guy. Whoever or whatever he is, he's corrupted.

"However, I've seen the pirates using a special suit shield that protects them from the elements."

I think that I know who this is. It's Gandrayda, Samus said in her mind, assuming that Sweetie Belle was able to hear her.

Really? Sweetie Belle asked.

"If you can acquire one of these shield units, you could probably make it to the Seed. Lucky for you, I've seen where they make these devices. Here are the coordinates," the Marine said before he downloaded the coordinates in Samus' Suit, not that it helped since they already knew where the shield units were stocked.

Gandrayda can shapeshift, Samus explained.

I see. So, what do we do? Should we wait for her to drop the act or should I try to destroy the Seed in her while she's busy monologuing?

"I even know a back entrance to that location, but will need your help activating the lift that takes us there. We've got to engage the security levers simultaneously," Gandrayda finished as she walked to one of the levers in question.

She's probably on her guard. Just keep an eye on her while we activate this elevator, Samus said to Sweetie Belle as she moved to the second lever.

"I'll call out the instructions. We must synchronize our movements or the security clamps won't release," Gandrayda instructed. "Are you ready?"

Samus nodded, grabbing the lever.

"Pull."

She pulled the lever.

"Twist."

She twisted it counterclockwise.

"Push."

She pushed it back in place.

They succeeded, and the elevator activated. Samus then walked on it alongside Gandrayda, and Sweetie Belle quickly joined them before the elevator rose.

It led them to a large circular room, clearly an arena of sort, with shutters as walls.

As Sweetie Belle and Samus looked around to get a good look at the room, Gandrayda silently moved her arm cannon toward the filly.

Only for said filly to suddenly turn around, materialize her whip, and wrap the arm cannon with it. she then pulled to bring Gandrayda in the air before she smashed her on the ground. Gandrayda let out a gasp of pain, and purple electricity came out of her body as it shifted, becoming like it had been shown by AU 242 in her briefing.

She had a humanoid appearance. Her body was entirely pink and blue, and her flesh was transparent excepted on her head, her skeletal structure visible as a result. Her eyes glowed blue, and Phazon could be seen circulating inside her.

She slowly got up, staggering a bit.

"Damn, you got me little horsy."

"We saw through your trap since the beginning, as well as I can see through you right now," Sweetie Belle said.

Gandrayda laughed, but Sweetie could hear anger in it.

"I was instructed by Dark Samus to kill you in priority after what you pulled off with Ghor. She told me of your power, so I prepared this trap. I put a lot of effort in it, it really hurts my pride that you saw through it."

"That was you putting a lot of effort? A child could have seen through it. Oh wait, I'm a child."

Gandrayda growled, but her anger then turned into anticipation.

"You know what? I'm glad that you survived. Now, I will be able to kill you the fun way. We will probably end up blowing up the facility, which I wanted to avoid, but... Oh well," she finished with a shrug. "This will be the pirates' problem. They can always rebuild it."

Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow. "Not that I want to boast, but do you really think that you have a chance against me? What I showed to Dark Samus was just the tip of the iceberg."

Gandrayda laughed again, her body changing shape. She shrunk, her arms turned into legs, she grew a tail and a pair of wings, a horn appeared on her forehead...

When the transformation was over, before Sweetie Belle stood a perfect replica of herself. She even had her whip

"Oh..."

"So, let's see what this body has to offer..." Sweetie-G said as her whip separated into ten cannons that then turned into double beam swords powered with Phazon energy. "Oh my..." she purred.

Sweetie Belle gulped. "Uh... Samus? How much can she copy from others?"

"As far as I know, she has always been able to copy the abilities and powers of the others, weapons included, no matter what they were."

Sweetie Belle stared blankly at Samus. "Abilities... Powers... Weapons..." She grinned. "There's one thing she can't copy! Even if she really can copy ALL my powers, I will still win!" Her grin then turned into a sheepish one. "But maybe I should teleport you to your ship so you can leave this planet ASAP. This will get very dangerous."

"I don't think so. Look," Samus said as she pointed at Gandrayda.

Sweetie Belle looked back at her doppelganger and saw that Gandrayda was now looking at her forelegs with a shocked expression, tears appearing in her eyes.

"I'm... I'm..." Gandrayda's shock turned into pure joy. "I'm myself! I'm myself again!" She suddenly jumped in joy with a "Woohoo!!!"

"What?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"I'm back in control! Yeah! Wooh! Suck it Dark Samus! I'm not your puppet anymore!" Gandrayda continued.

"Wait, WHAT?!" Sweetie Belle shouted. "What the heck? How is that...?!"

"Think about it," Samus said. "The instant she turned into you, she gained your immunity to the corruption of Phazon."

The next few seconds, Sweetie Belle remained silent, jaw dropped. Silence during which Gandrayda calmed down and flew to Sweetie Belle.

"There is no word to express how much I am thankful! Thanks to you, Dark Samus and her Phazon have no control over me anymore! No more corruption! I'm free! Ahahahah!" She hugged Sweetie Belle, tears streaming from her eyes. "I'm free! I'm free...!"

"Eheh... eh... You are welcome... but... that was nothing... really..." Sweetie Belle hesitantly said as she patted Gandrayda's back. Really, that was nothing. I literally did nothing. Also, way to go Writer, hyping an epic fight only to do this. I'm not complaining, but your followers won't be as happy I think.

Author's Note

I'm really sorry!

I really was ready to do an epic fight between Sweetie Belle and Sweetie-G, where Sweetie Belle would have eventually won because Gandrayda couldn't copy her skill, but then, I realized what Samus explained at the end, that by turning into Sweetie Belle, Gandrayda gained her immunity to Phazon corruption.
Well, at least, I didn't have to come up with if Gandrayda actually managed to copy ALL of Sweetie's powers or just a part of them. By turning into Sweetie Belle, Gandrayda should have gained her ability to control Void Energy, but whether it was all of it or not, I couldn't decide. Her shapeshifting would be very OP if she could actually do it.

Chapter 50: The Shield

Author's Note

I did some corrections in the previous chapter about the shield. I also removed all the extra 'o' that I put on "Morph" (for Morph Ball) in all the chapters until now.

Normally, three chapters left until the end of Metroid Prime 3. Then there will be at least one more chapter in the Metroid-verse before we leave it.

Chapter 50: The Shield

"So, it seems that, by copying me, you only got a fraction of my full power, but that fraction was more than enough to allow your mind to fight off the corruption naturally. It must be a natural defense that I developed thanks to my Void Energy-manipulating ability. I don't even have to think to resist the corruption of all that Phazon in this planet, it just happens," Sweetie Belle after she analysed Gandrayda's condition.

Gandrayda, still looking like Sweetie Belle, nodded. "It's exactly what happened. As soon as I turned into you, my mind began to become clearer and clearer until I had regained enough of myself to destroy all remaining corruption in one go. Wait, I only have a fraction of your power? I feel like I could take on the whole Space Pirate armada by myself and blow up this planet while I'm at it!"

Sweetie Belle grinned. "I can blow up stars if I desire. And not just the dwarf ones. And I can open miles-wide gashes in the very fabric of space and time to damage this universe bit by bit until it collapses."

Both Gandrayda and Samus gulped, the first one asking, "But... I always managed to copy everything until now!"

"Because you never encountered someone like me, who get the totality of their power not from their body but from their soul which you clearly can't copy. What you got is simply what I can do without the help of my soul's power. I'm relieved, you know. It means that, if we had fought each other, I would have defeated you without this planet and its whole solar system ending as collateral damage. And yes, I would have still defeated you because there's another thing that you can't copy: my skill." Sweetie Belle revealed her own ten double beam swords. "I'm pretty good with these. Not as good as some masters that I know, but good enough to win against an amateur in the art like you. And that's not speaking of my other talents."

Gandrayda pouted. "Hey! I'm pretty good with a blade! You aren't the first that I copied who used some kind of sword!"

"But did you get into sword fights? Or did you simply use these swords to stab your targets when they expected it the less?"

"Ehm... Okay, point taken."

"In any case, now that you are free from the corruption, we need to take care of that Seed inside you, or you will be corrupted again when you will stop being me. Also, as long as you have it, Dark Samus may come to absorb you like she absorbed Rundas and almost absorbed Ghor. I'm surprised she hasn't tried yet with you."

Gandrayda giggled. "You left a very big impression to her. She refuses to be on the same planet as you."

Sweetie Belle burst into laughter, and Samus let out a chuckle with a "No kidding..."

"As for that Seed..." Gandrayda continued before she began to focus. With a grunt, she was able to use her powers, or rather, Sweetie's powers inside her body to destroy the Seed where she could feel it. Almost immediately, she felt all the Phazon inside her body disappear. "There. It's gone."

"Yup. I feel no Phazon inside you anymore," Sweetie Belle confirmed.

Samus congratulated Gandrayda with a thumb up before she said, "However, you should remain in the form of Sweetie Belle as long as you are on this planet. With all that Phazon around, you would get yourself corrupted again in a matter of hours at best."

Gandrayda nodded as she got herself rid of her PED. "Of course, Sammy. I have seen oceans of Phazon on this planet. I would have to be very stupid to not move around without an adequate protection. And I won't turn myself into a Marine. It would just ask to be killed by the pirates. At least, as Sweetie Belle, I have the protection and the power to take on the pirates if they spot me." She grinned, letting out a cackle. "So much power in fact that I could just go and destroy the pirates by myself."

"You could do that, or you could wait for the Federation to launch their assault for a big Let's-Destroy-The-Pirates party all together. I suggest the later, group activities are always funnier. And it will be epic," Sweetie Belle said.

"Good idea! But we will have to take care of the shield protecting the base first."

"We will work on this! We saw the generator when we passed by the tunnels under the command room. We just need to find a beam to destroy the Phazite security gate that blocks the way," Sweetie Belle said.

"Ah yes, the Nova Beam. You should find one in the mines. They are used to power the mining cannons here. The access is from the pirate command facility. Remember the hallway access to the Command Station? You remember that shield with the terminal that needs to be powered down? It's right behind. There's a Landing Site in the mines themselves, but you won't be able to go far from here without the Nova Beam itself."

"But we first need a way to power down that terminal beside the shield, and we don't have one yet," Samus remarked.

"Oh, I can give you one! But couldn't you just blast your way through the gate yourself," Gandrayda asked to Sweetie Belle. "Or better yet, blow up the whole planet and be done with this?"

Sweetie Belle shrugged. "I could. But then, we would miss a lot, and it would be less fun than fighting the pirates."

Gandrayda laughed. "I can't hold this against you. These pirates are so fun to mess with."

"It's more that I love the adventure and the action that comes with it. And it helps create a bond between me and Samus, without forgetting the others that I meet on the way like you and Ghor," Sweetie Belle said before she sighed sadly. "If only we had saved Rundas... I'm sure he would have been a great friend."

Gandrayda sighed sadly too. "Damn... I will miss that big boastful idiot and the epic bar fights I had with him. And I laughed when I learned about his death, thinking about how he had just been a useless weakling. Ugh..." The same electricity than before then sparkled all over her body, some of it gathering into a single point of pink energy that she then sent right into Samus' Suit.

The Suit informed Samus that it received a new upgrade for the grapple, the Grapple Voltage, which will allow her to give or drain energy.

"Give that dark bitch hell," Gandrayda then said before she flew up. "Now, I'm going to join the Federation armada to wait for the assault. Have fun!"

"No need to search for a ship! You can directly fly into space in my form!" Sweetie Belle shouted as Gandrayda flew toward one of the shutters."

"Cool! Thanks!" Gandrayda shouted back before she crashed through the shutter and flew away.

Both Sweetie Belle and Samus watched her fly away, taking some time to destroy a few pirate defense turrets, before the filly said, "Things went really unexpectedly."

"And for once, in a good way," Samus said before she moved toward a shield that blocked the exit (beside the elevator which was now deactivated). "I wouldn't mind this to happen more often." She then tested her new Grapple Voltage on the terminal beside the shield and drained its energy. This not only shut down the shield but it also reactivated the elevator. As an added bonus, it even replenished her own energy that she had lost fighting the Commandos.

This new upgrade immediately became one of her favorites. She hoped that she won't lose it.

"Let's go. We must now search the Spider Ball."

"Darn. We forgot to ask Gandrayda about it," Sweetie Belle said.

"I'm sure we will find it behind one of these paths unlocked to us thanks to the Grapple Voltage."

Exiting the arena, they entered what revealed to be a Transit Station that, according to a map, led back to the Landing Pad where the ship currently was. Samus had to scan a control panel first to activate a Hand Scanner that she then used to call the transit tram. The tram quickly arrived and opened a door to let them in, and once inside, Samus had to pull, move, and push a lever on another terminal to initiate the travel. The door closed, and the tram began to move.

Then, after a few seconds of silence, Samus asked, "How bad this would have gotten if you had fought Gandrayda?"

"It probably would have ended with half the base blown up, with or without the Leviathan. Most of this would probably have been a result of Gandrayda's own carelessness, but some stray beams of my own would certainly have caused quite the damage. I don't think this would have ended up with the planet blown up. Gandrayda has the power to do it in my form, but I would have done my best to avoid this outcome. I would have easily overpowered anything she would have sent."

"I'm really starting to wonder if you aren't a god who has taken a mortal form."

Sweetie Belle giggled. "I'm not one... yet."

"Say what?"

Sweetie Belle didn't answer as the tram reached its destination and opened its door. She then walked out followed by bemused Hunter, coming face to face with another pirate entry which described how Dark Samus taught the pirates to improve the Colossus, and how they converted the first Leviathan that Dark Samus had shown to them into some kind of living dreadnought. They then left the station, returning in the Landing Site from the entrance they hadn't been able to reach because of a shield. Samus took down said shield by draining the power of the nearby terminal.

Then, as they returned to the ship, Samus received a transmission from AU 242 informing that AU 217 discovered evidence of hidden Chozo artifacts in SkyTown that may be useful to explore more of the pirates' base.

Sweetie Belle and Samus immediately knew that it was the Spider Ball. They did remember that path that was blocked by a gate that was low on energy.

And they could use the occasion to explore the rest of SkyTown and get what they missed. There were some other parts that needed the Grapple Voltage, and since they were about to get the Spider Ball, they will be able to use it to get the remaining map data from the Observatory. However, without the Nova Beam, there are still some things they won't be able to do, like destroy that Phazite panel in the Observatory. They will deal with that after destroying the Leviathan.

So, back to Elysia it was.

It wasn't long before they landed back in SkyTown. Thankfully for them, they didn't have to land all the way back at the first Landing Site where they fought Ghor. Even if the Spire Pod was gone, the kinetic cannon of the pod with the second Landing Site (where they landed) could fire Samus directly at the pod with the circular hallway which was their destination (but they couldn't go to the Aurora Unit's pod from here anymore). After destroying a group of Tinbots with Samus bowling them with the Boost Ball, they then opened the door that led to the zipline blocked by that gate that needed energy.

Samus used the Grapple Voltage on it, having to transfer a bit of her Suit's energy, and the gate opened, giving her access to the zipline. Like before, some gates were on the way and had to be fired at to let Samus pass. Some of the gates were in really bad condition, so firing at them not only opened them but outright destroyed them.

Further, Samus got the bad surprise of seeing Aerial Repair Drones sabotage the zipline. Sweetie Belle quickly destroyed the drones, but the deed was done and parts of the zipline collapsed. Thankfully, Samus was right above a floating platform when this happened so she landed on it. From here, she was able to use the Screw Attack to reach the pod that was their destination. On the way, Sweetie Belle spotted and grabbed an Energy Tank on a Spider Ball track.

Inside the pod, Samus drained the energy of a terminal to remove a shield blocking the path, allowing them to continue through a Morph Ball tunnel. After it, they passed a Blue Door and entered a room where they immediately spotted an spherical energy grid currently offline with four nods linked to it and to some grid below. Using Seeker Missiles on the nods activated the grid and opened the gate, revealing another Morph Ball tunnel that led to a room just below.

In it was a cylindrical metal barrier and a big gear on the floor. Above was a mechanism missing a piece. Finally, there was a Databot that held the final log of the Elysian who wrote them. Like with the final mural of Bryyo, it was depressive, maybe even more. It described how the Elysians fell victim to the PHazon-based virus until nor many of them remained with their free will. Then, Ghor came, only to be corrupted by the Phazon too and to help the pirates taking over the rest of the station, converting or destroying the last free Elysians who could only wait for their now inevitable end.

Well, this put a dump in the mood... But this didn't stop Sweetie Belle and Samus. The filly grabbed the gear with her magic and put it in its place, repairing the mechanism and removing the barrier. This revealed the statue of a sitting Chozo holding a capsule with the Spider Ball upgrade on its palms as if it was an offering.

Samus took it.

The statue then moved backward, revealing a hatch leading to a tunnel that was the only way to exit the room. In this tunnel, Samus was able to test her new Spider Ball to follow a long series of tracks around the pod's reactor, avoiding flames pouring out of cracks and openings. As Samus followed the tracks, Sweetie Belle flew beside her, keeping an eye on the many drones that flew around. Most of these drones were just cargo drones that transported crates, but there were a few repair drones too, and after what they did earlier, the filly didn't hesitate to destroy them.

At the end, a secondary track led to a Missile Expansion, Samus having to use the Boost Ball to propel herself and reach the next part of the track two times to reach it. A last track with more Boost Ball propelling then led back to the room with the spherical energy grid, and from here, they left the pod.

To return to the pod with the circular corridor, Samus had to jump back on the floating platforms with the Screw Attack to reach another series of Spider Ball tracks and Morph Ball tunnels, a long one that took a detour to give them a nice view of the pods around. The tracks eventually ended on another floating platform from which Samus jumped to reach the pod with the circular hallway.

And now, it was time for some exploration! With the help of the new upgrades, they explored SkyTown, finding Expansions they had missed. During the exploration, they discovered a new enemy, floating creatures made out of corporeal Phazon energy that formed after the destruction of the Leviathan that could only be killed by Phazon attacks. They were named Phazooids, and while most of them were blue, some of them, very rare and more powerful, were red.

An interesting moment of their exploration was when they returned in the pod where they fought the Defense Drone and Samus got the Boost Ball. Returning to the room where all this happened was much easier as Samus was able to reactivate the lift leading to it (through a tunnel) with the Grapple Voltage, avoiding the whole platforming session. As this happened, Samus received a transmission from an admiral of the Federation, Admiral Dane, who informed her that the Federation fleet warped to the pirate Homeworld to ready the assault. Gandrayda also successfully joined them and, like Ghor, was confirmed to be totally freed of Phazon and was ready to join the assault.

When she repeated the news to Sweetie Belle, the filly was very excited, but also a bit nervous. While it wasn't her first war, it was the first one that she will get to participate directly. Against Hyness' cult, it had mostly been the others who battled, gaining the attention of the Jambastions to allow her and her friends to reach Hyness unopposed. But here, she will be an actual part of the conflict. She will kill pirates, fighting alongside marines, while bombs and projectiles will rain everywhere and turrets will fire at the origins of these bombs and projectiles.

But I will have to get used to this, uh?

Also, thanks to the Screw Attack, Samus was able to reach a Databot that they had missed, this one recounting how, one week after the AU was deactivated because of the virus, Phaaze sent the Leviathans and one of them crashed on Elysia, destroying a big part of SkyTown on its path, and how the Leviathan began to spread Phazon that the Elysians recognized from the events of Tallon IV and others they witnessed.

After that, Sweetie Belle and Samus reached the room where the Hunter got the Boost Ball and they ended up fighting a Steamlord - probably the one who had caused them problems on the collapsing bridge the first time - that was quickly defeated like the first one. Thanks to the schematics given by AU 217, they were able to neutralize it without destroying its CPU (which they still weren't sure if the first Steamlord's CPU had survived). And the Steambots here weren't a problem at all as Samus melted them with her Plasma Beam in just a few seconds while Sweetie Belle dealt with the Steamlord.

After having dealt with the Steamlord, Samus used the Grapple Voltage to overload two turbines that supplied power to a lock that they had spotted the first time, destroying them and opening the lock.

It didn't reveal an Expansion, but an Energy Cell that Samus took.

"We are starting to have a nice collection of these things. Why do we keep them by the way?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"I have a feeling that they will be useful later," Samus answered.

Finally, once they were done exploring this part of SkyTown, finding eveything there was to find, they took the tram to the other part.

First thing they did as returning to the Observatory. Now that Samus had the Spider Ball, she could reach the remaining bomb slots here, gaining the map data of SkyTown indicating the emplacement of all remaining Expansions (which was none. They actually got all the Expansions of Elysia, but this confirmed that there were none left). They were also able to launch satellites to two more planets, Tallon IV and Aether, getting information about them and how the situation on these planets was evolving for the better after Samus' intervention.

There was still that Phazite panel left however.

Finished on Elysia, they returned to the ship and took off, returning to the Pirate Homeworld.

Landing back in the Research Facility, they decided to take the tram to reach the room where the Hazard Shield was stocked faster, passing by the arena where they almost fought Gandrayda. As Samus pushed the lever to make the tram move, she received a transmission from Admiral Dave again informing that the armada was now in orbit above the planet and was ready to begin the assault. However, they needed Samus to disable the shield.

Samus replied that this will take some time because she still needed to get the Hazard Shield, and then to find a Nova Beam to destroy the security gate protecting the access to the shield's control center.

Admiral Dave understood but still told Samus to hurry. He didn't want to give the pirates time to launch an assault on the armada.

Nothing more was said and the tram arrived not long after. From here, Sweetie Belle and Samus took the lift in the arena and returned to the hallway before the room with the Hazard Shield without encountering any pirate. The next part only involved Samus as the Hunter used the Spider Ball to reach a Morph Ball tunnel to enter the room. Well, the tunnel actually led into a chamber from which she had a better view of the containment unit with the Hazard Shield. She then entered another tunnel that led to the base of the two part rotating tower. Thanks to Spinners, she rotated the two parts, first creating a path that led her to a Missile Expansion, then creating another path that led her to a chamber with a Hand Scanner. Using it activated a crane that lifted the containment unit with the Hazard Shield into the chamber, and another crane opened the unit, letting Samus take the upgrade.

This visibly modified her Suit, adding pulsating purple hexagonal plating on her shoulder pads as well as an extra plate below the nape of her neck. Now, she could move through Acid Rain and even Fuel Gel.

But then, two Aerotroopers, ones equipped with that armor that can deflect missiles, came and fired explosive projectiles at the glass windows of the chamber to attack her. Samus quickly jumped out of the chamber, into the acid rain, to have more space to fight the pirates. Sweetie Belle joined her, already dealing with one of the Assault Aerotroopers by teleporting him into the Phazon river. This left one Aerotrooper for Samus who killed him without problem.

Samus then used another Hand Scanner, at the base of the rotating tower, to open the shielding glass from which she and Sweetie Belle first saw the Hazard shield. At the same moment, an Assault Pirate Trooper ran in and raised one of these orbs, setting off the alarm. By the time two Commandos appeared, the Assault Trooper was already dead, Sweetie Belle having forced the orb that activated the alarm down his throat.

Sweetie Belle and Samus then each dealt with a Commando like they did before.

They then jumped on platforms that served as steps to climb back to the hallway where Sweetie Belle began to move toward the transit station.

"Wait," Samus stopped her. "We aren't going in this direction."

"Uh? Why?"

Samus pointed above her shoulder, at the opposite direction. "According to my map, there's another transit station that we can now access over here. Remember that path behind the White Blast Shield in the room with the Metroids?"

"Oh yeah, we couldn't take it because of the acid rain."

"Exactly, and I think that the transit station here leads back to the Pirate Command. We won't need to use the ship."

"Okay."

Before long, they were back to the room where they ended up having to kill a few more Metroids before they passed the door that had previously been blocked by a White Blast Shield. Then they were able to continue under the acid rain, destroying a drone before climbing on a ledge while not minding the Metroids that were contained in both sides of the path. Samus then had to use a Hyper Missile to destroy a cluster of Phazon crystals blocking the path to the exit.

Behind the crystals, among Phazon infestation, was also another pirate entry that revealed some worrying news.

Under the orders of Dark Samus, the pirates under her control attacked the Valhalla and stole the Aurora Unit in it. They then jettisoned the surviving crew (made of recruits on a training mission!) into space to die before leaving the wreck of the Valhalla "as a warning to the Federation."

"So this is what happened," Sweetie Belle said, anger boiling. "But why would Dark Samus need an Aurora Unit?"

"I fear that I understand why..." Samus said without saying more.

The next room revealed to be heavily infested by Phazon, and looked partially organic. An activated Spinner allowed Samus to raise an empty tank concealed in the ground before opening its lid, propelling her up into a bomb slot. Using it activated another Spinner that did the same thing. The second bomb slot activated a third Spinner on a ledge, only for the lid of the tank it was part of to immediately open.

Flying out of it was a large creature with four tentacles. The creature had a Phazile-like shell that protected most of its body excepted the mouth and the tentacles themselves.

Most particular was its ability to fly without wings, like Metroids.

A quick scan of Samus revealed why: because it was a Metroid! A mutated version of the Phazon Metroid called a Metroid Hatcher, and like its named suggested, it could spawn Phazon Metroids. Also, it could leech life energy with a simple contact with the tentacles.

Letting out a series of curses at the fact that such a creature even existed, Samus began to fire at its tentacles with Seeker Missiles, and Sweetie Belle copied her with her own projectiles. Hitting the tentacles, however, quickly revealed to be a pain because the Metroid just won't stop moving, especially spinning around with them, so the projectiles often missed their mark. But one by ones, the tentacles were hit and the Metroid retracted them into its body as a result. Once all four tentacles were retracted, the Metroid opened its mouth to recover energy while spawning Phazon Metroids from it. Sweetie Belle killed the Phazon Metroids, giving Samus the opening to fire at the mouth, stunning the Metroid Hatcher. The Hunter then used the occasion to grapple one of the retracted tentacles before pulling. Sweetie Belle quickly did the same with another, and they both ended up ripping off a tentacle, making the Metroid bleed a big quantity of Phazon.

With only two tentacles left, repeating the operation was faster, and before long, Samus and Sweetie Belle ripped off the last two tentacles, killing the Metroid which exploded.

"A Metroid that can spawn other Metroids that can phase through matters... That's probably the scariest thing I ever encountered," Samus commented.

"I can imagine. One of these things in the wild could ruin the ecosystem of a whole planet. Or unleash it on an enemy base and its spawns will kill everyone in it," Sweetie Belle said, the images chilling her.

Stopping thinking about this, Samus used the Spinner on the tank from which the Metroid came to propel herself into a series of tunnels and Spider Ball tracks to reach, at the end, an Energy Tank. She then reused the Spinner to return at the beginning of the tunnel, taking another path that led to a bomb slot that she activated.

This removed panels that blocked two surfaces to Wall Jump, allowing her to reach the exit of the room.

The transit station was just behind, along with a recharge station that was much needed to replenish Samus' missiles after this fight.

They then took the transit tram which indeed led back to the Pirate Command facility.

This tram took a bit longer to reach its destination than the previous one, which was normal since it was leading to another facility instead of linking two opposite points of the same one. But it still was faster than taking the ship.

Before long, they were back in the Pirate Command, just behind that mechanised door under the acid rain. From this side, Samus had access to the bomb slot, making the door spin until she was at the other side.

Now, they were back in the hallway to the courtyard. Now that samus had the Grapple Voltage and the Hazard Shield, she could remove the shield blocking the access to the Leviathan, but they judged it preferable to first deal with the shield and allow the Federation to start their assault. However, when they returned in the hallway to the command center to deal with the shield at the right, they saw something that they hadn't remarked the first time because they didn't pay attention.

There wasn't a terminal to drain the shield's energy at this side. There was only one at the other side.

They both groaned.

"Now, we need to find another way to reach the other side," Samus said.

"Gandrayda would have told us if there wasn't a terminal. Maybe the pirates removed it without her knowing," Sweetie Belle remarked.

"Maybe. To ensure that we won't reach the mines so I don't get my hands on a Nova Beam."

Backtracking, they took the only path that was now available to them: the courtyard. As soon as they entered it, the alarm was triggered, and three Assault Troopers came to attack them. Three Phazite panels were also deployed, and the pirates used them as cover.

Sweetie Belle flew up to attack the pirates from above, gaining the attention of two of them while the third one continued to fire at Samus. Samus turned into a ball and rolled toward the pirate, slaloming to avoid his beams. When she reached him, she then jumped, turned back to normal mid-air, and gave the pirate a drop kick on the face, sending him on his back on the ground. She then turned into Hypermode and finished him before he could recover.

She turned to fire at the two other pirates only to see that Sweetie Belle already killed them, and the filly landed beside her.

"I spotted a pirate entry over here," she said as she pointed to a sheltered area in the upper level, at the left.

Samus nodded and used the tunnel on the ledge, the one passing under the walkway and most of the floor of the upper level, to reach the sheltered area where they had gotten the Energy Cell the first time. From here, she used the walkway to reach the other sheltered area where she indeed found the entry.

This one was actually a much more recent one. It talked about how Samus and Sweetie Belle managed to defeat Ghor and defeat the pirates on Elysia, helping the Federation regain control of SkyTown and destroying the Leviathan here. The pirates were now worried that the Federation will find the source of Phazon (aka Phaaze), but Dark Samus apparently wasn't. However, she was very angry at Sweetie Belle (who the pirates now called "the Little White Monster" much to the filly's amusement).

The pirates knew however that their Homeworld was the next in the list, and had readied themselves to face the girls.

Clearly they hadn't been ready enough.

"I'm sure there must be an entry about our exploits on Bryyo," Sweetie Belle said with a big grin.

"We will find it eventually."

They returned to the lower level and Samus used the Grapple Voltage to remove the shield blocking the access to the Leviathan. Then, after traversing a corridor full of drains in the ceiling releasing acid from the rain into a piping network below and after destroying a large group of Phazon-feeding vermin called Scritters, they reached another place without a ceiling.

Again, they triggered the alarm, causing three huge gates to close on the exit door and two Commandos to appear. Once the two Commandos were killed, Crawltanks came out of small passages in the walls, but they weren't a problem despite their number.

The alarm finally stopped, but the gates remained shut.

"Okay, what now?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Samus pointed at one of the passages from which the Crawltanks came out. This passage didn't have its lid anymore, now destroyed by the Crawltank probably because of poor maintenance. So it could now be used as a Morph Ball tunnel to who knew where.

But before, Samus scanned another entry that revealed what Samus had feared.

Dark Samus placed the stolen Aurora Unit inside Phaaze to gain control of the sentient planet. Dark Samus then commanded Phaaze to send a Leviathan right toward the Pirate Homeworld to convert the rest of them and eventually create a second Phaaze.

That was it. Dark Samus wanted to create more Phaazes that she could control the corrupted Aurora Unit to spread more Phazon, create even more Phaazes, spread even more Phazon, create EVEN more Phaazes, and so on and so on until all that remained in the universe were Phaazes with Dark Samus as the all-controlling god.

Well, Sweetie Belle and Samus will make damn sure that this won't happen!

They entered the tunnel...

And they arrived right where they wanted to go, behind the shield in the hallway to the command center. Samus immediately drained the terminal beside it to ensure that they won't have to do the detour again before she used a Spider Ball track to reach an upper part of the room that led to their destination, the transit station to the mines.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the mines. The arrival station also had a recharge station that Samus used, thinking that the Nova Beam will be heavily guarded and that she will need all her ammunition and energy.

She did good, because as soon as they entered the quarry after exiting the station, they were spotted by an Assault Troopers that raised the alarm. In total, Sweetie Belle and Samus had to fight two Assault Troopers and two Commandos among many crates that littered the room. One of them, still cloaked, actually attempted to attack the filly from behind, but she felt him approach and blasted a hole through his chest.

Once all the pirates were killed, seeing no exit at their level and no way to reach the upper level where there was a Blue Door and a Green Door, they entered a control chamber and Samus activated the control terminal to bring a mining drill into the room and use it to carve a U-shaped section to reach the Blue Door as well as a passage to a Missile Expansion they had spotted.

After taking the Missile Expansion, Samus used the Boost Ball on the U-shaped section to reach the Blue Door that they passed. After ripping off a weakened gate that blocked the way, they reached an elevator that was held in place by two clamps. So, after destroying two Crawltanks, Samus used a Spider Ball track to go up and reach the Spinners that controlled the clamps.

When the first clamp was removed, the elevator slightly dropped down, causing Sweetie Belle who was still on it keeping an eye to let out a surprised shriek. When Samus moved to the second spinner, the filly quickly flew up.

When the second clamp was removed, the elevator dropped all the way down in the shaft, revealing surfaces for Wall Jumps that Samus could use to return at the top.

Sweetie Belle landed on the elevator while Samus let herself drop.

"Not a fan of elevators dropping under your feet... uuh, hooves?"

"It can be fun, but when you don't know in which state the elevator will be once it hits bottom, it's preferable to not remain on it. It seems I didn't have to worry however. But give me a Tower of Terror in a theme park and I will say yes right away."

"I don't think you have the age."

"I don't have the age to do a lot of stuff that I do anyway. Like helping a bounty hunter saving the universe in the middle of a galactic war against merciless pirates."

Samus laughed. "True."

As they walked in the small corridor leading to the next door, Samus scanned another pirate entry that described their recent operation, sending three Leviathans at Norion, Bryyo, and Alysia to cripple the Federation and turn the planets into new Phaazes that would then be used as footholds.

Thankfully, Sweetie Belle and Samus made this operation fail despite a first victory of the pirates on two planets.

They then arrived at a room open to the acid rain. At first, they could only see a bridge that was destroyed by something as they approached. They quickly saw the origin of that destruction, a giant drone that was apparently a Phazon Harvester. The thing seemed to be partially organic and looked to have some creature's shell. It was clearly heavily armored and it was armed with a powerful beam. And according to Samus' scan, it couldn't be destroyed with her armament. The ship could destroy it, but the drone was apparently equipped with an anti-aircraft defense system.

Sweetie Belle and Samus could see that the path was passing by walkways linked by many more bridges above a deep pit of Phazon ore, so falling was out of the question.

As it was going, they will have to run on the walkways and the the bridges while avoiding the shots from the drones and while being careful of not falling when the drone will destroy the bridges.

Sweetie Belle decided that this won't do, so she charged at the drone and proceeded to have some fun with it, gaining its attention so it wasn't firing at Samus as she advanced on the walkways and bridges. The filly smashed the drone and sent it crashing into a wall, then threw it toward the pit of Phazon ore before she fired several beams that stunned it. While it was stunned, Sweetie Belle grabbed one of its 'legs' and slammed it on a while before tearing the 'leg' off. By now, the drone panicked and began to fire randomly in all directions, only for Sweetie Belle to use mirrors to deflect the beams back at it, doing huge damage. When she saw that Samus had reached the exit, she then charged right through the shell of the drone and, once inside, destroyed its systems until the drone dropped into the pit and exploded.

She teleported beside Samus who had been waiting her.

"Had your fun?" the Hunter asked.

"Yup!"

After passing the Blue Door, they reached another room with a deep pit, but this one had no bridges so they had to jump from platform to platform to reach the other end. However, the room was guarded by drones (not Harvesters, the more common ones), and cannons using high frequency beams fired at the Phazon deposits below so the jumps had to be time so they weren't hit by them. A tube at the right used a tractor beam to suck up the produce so it could be processed.

On a platform beside the last one, there was another entry that recounted the pirates' failure of taking Norion as well as their victory over Bryyo and Elysia. Despite the failure of Norion, the pirates rejoiced that Dark Samus managed to defeat Samus and the other Hunters and to plant the Seeds in them, knowing that it meant that the Hunters will eventually become slaves of the dark doppelganger and work for them.

"Like hell I will work for them," Samus said.

They then passed the door not far and entered a room where they immediately spotted the Nova Beam upgrade at the top of another mining cannon. The cannon fired the Nova Beam to cut up the Phazon deposit, then used a tractor beam to suck it up. Four glass pipes coming out of the cannon then distributed the Phazon to be used to various stuff, like creating armors. However, Sweetie Belle and Samus couldn't reach the Nova Beam as it was behind glass. So they had to follow the path as it circled around until reaching a lift, not minding the Green Door on the way. After the lift was some kind of Phazite door that stopped them from going further.

So they took the lift to the lower part of the room where they could probably do something to the cannon. As soon as they arrived, three hatches opened and Assault Troopers and Commandos began to come while a hatch made of Phazite closed behind the girls, blocking access to the lift. When the cannon fired the Nova Beam, several pillars rose all around that could be used as cover. When the cannon used the tractor beam, handrails were deployed instead for the pirates to hold onto to not be sucked into it.

Sweetie Belle and Samus exchanged looks of understanding.

When the cannon fired the Nova Beam, the girls used this time to kill the pirates. When it was the turn of the tractor beam, it sucked the corpses (that weren't turned into ash by the Plasma Beam) into it, and the girls made sure that the pirates holding onto the handrails knew the same fate.

As a result of the pirates, dead and alive, being sucked into the cannon, it was overloaded and an array with four nods was deployed. Samus fired at the nods while Sweetie Belle continued to kill the pirates that were still coming. When one of the nods exploded, it rendered the glass pipe above it unusable, electricity appearing in it.

The cannon then restarted firing, and the operation repeated. Dozens of pirates were killed and one by one the nods were destroyed. When the fourth nod exploded, the four glass pipes shattered and the cannon dropped with the Nova Beam upgrade.

Samus jumped on the destroyed cannon to collect it.

She immediately got to use it to open the Phazite hatch that blocked the lift. Nods were hidden behind the Phazite, so Samus had to use the X-Ray Visor to spot them, and then use the Nova Beam to fire through the Phazite. Hitting all the nods activated a terminal that Samus then used (still with the X-Ray Visor to open the hatch.

Back in the top level of the room, Samus used a similar method to open the Phazite door, accessing a Blue Door. But before taking it, they went to the Green Door and used the Nova Beam to open it.

Now in a corridor, Sweetie Belle dealt with a group of small drones named Crawlmines (because they were walking mines) while Samus used the X-Ray Visor and the Nova Beam to open a wall of Phazite at the right, getting a Missile Expansion after killing a Phazon Metroid that had been behind.

Samus discovered that she could use the X-Ray Visor and the Nova Beam together to spot and hit the vital organs of the creatures to one shot them. Thus she didn't even have to use an Ice Missile to kill the Metroid. She just saw its vital organ and fired at it with the Nova Beam, killing it immediately.

In the chamber where the Missile Expansion and the Metroid had been, another entry was present, this one talking about how they lost contact with the outpost at Bryyo and received images of Rundas falling in battle against Samus and Sweetie Belle (then called the Hunter's pet), then learned of the destruction of Bryyo's Leviathan. Apparently, they had spies in the Federation that warned them that Samus was then going to Elysia, so they had prepared a welcome party with Ghor as the host.

Which failed, of course.

But they will have to warn Admiral Dave about these spies.

Sweetie Belle and Samus then reached the mines' Landing Site, which was littered with metallic deposits that they had to dispose off to free the place for the ship to land. Samus then called her ship in case it was needed.

After that, they returned to the cannon room and took this time the Blue Door that had been behind the Phazite Door. In the room behind, a mining drill partially made of Phazite was struck in the ground. After firing at an internal mechanism thanks to the X-Ray Visor and the Nova Beam, the drill rose, leaving behind a hole that let the girls drop into a corridor that led, through a Green Door, to the quarry, into a balcony area that they hadn't been able to reach before.

Here, Samus took an Energy Cell (their sixth), opening a door that allowed them to jump back into the main part of the quarry. From here, they returned to the transit station that they used to return to the Pirate Command facility. Once they returned in the hallway to the command center, they did a quick detour to go open the door that was locked back in the room with the map station, giving the terminal nearby energy to open it. Samus then fired at the damaged cable holding the lift behind to make it drop and reach a Missile Expansion.

With nothing else to do inside the pirate base for now, they returned in the hallway and Samus used the X-Ray Visor and the Nova Beam to finally open the security gate, then the Green Door behind, finally entering the command center.

They were welcomed by an Assault Trooper and a turret that didn't last long. At this moment, they saw that the Phazite panel on the generator had a metal shield, so they had to find something else. Draining the energy of a terminal only deactivated a shield at the entrance to the Morph Ball tunnel below, where they got the Missile Expansion the first time. This left only a long series of platform that let them climb up, up, and up into the room. As they climbed, another pirate and two more turrets tried to stop them but failed, and they spotted two more Phazite panels protected by metallic shields.

Once at the top, three energy shields blocked access to a control unit in the generator, and a terminal was present on the wall. Samus interacted with it with the X-Ray Visor, entering a code that disengaged the metallic shields on the Phazite panels.

Almost immediately, Commandos appeared and began to attack the girls. Thanks to the combo X-Ray Visor plus Nova Beam, Samus was able to one shot them as she descended back on the platforms to reach the first Phazite panel. As Samus destroyed the energy cores behind it, Sweetie Belle covered her, killing more Commandos that continued to come. Samus then did the same with the two other Phazite panels, disabling the three energy shields back at the top.

Now, it was a matter of returning to the top of the generator while dealing with the Commandos that appeared on the way. Then, once at the top, Samus turned into a ball and entered the control unit before using a bomb, finally deactivating the shield covering the base.

Through a window, they could see the Federation immediately begin the assault on the base. Turrets activated to defend the base, but they were quickly destroyed. Federation carriers then came, beginning to drop marines all over the base while the smaller ships continued to give aerial support.

As she admired this, Sweetie Belle said, "Here we go..."

Chapter 51: The Assault

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 53: Phaaze

A wormhole opened, and out of it came a single ship.

Samus' ship.

With Sweetie Belle sitting on it.

Before them, a planet entirely blue, glowing with Phazon which it was entirely made of.

Phaaze.

And between the sentient planet and the ship, an armada of spaceships, ranging from hundreds of the little fighters to some huge and powerful destroyers with their three massive pongs circling a large front-mounted cannon (Sweetie Belle remembered that the ship that flew above the temple in the fiery region of Bryyo before the fight against Rundas was one of these). One of these ships was probably the Colossus because of which this whole debacle started. On all these ships, Phazon growths were visible on their hull.

A force that would have easily been able to face the Federation fleet.

But what they were about to face instead was much more powerful than a Federation fleet.

With a smirk, Sweetie Belle flew from Samus' ship toward the pirate armada, charging right at the closest destroyer. She crashed into the central cannon, and a huge explosion followed, disemboweling the massive ship. Sweetie Belle then flew out of it and began to cut in pieces the fighters that had approached with her swords, also slicing in two a nearby pirate frigate.

The majority of the pirate fleet began to attack the filly while some instead fired at Samus' ship as it tried to pass. The ship was easily able to avoid the shots, but Sweetie Belle still came and used her mirrors to deflect them, opening the way to Phaaze's surface.

Samus' ship successfully passed and reached Phaaze's atmosphere, leaving behind Sweetie Belle to deal with the pirates.

A spot at the surface, among countless giant tendrils of Phazon like there had been on the Pirate Homeworld, was found, and the ship landed on the rock-like Phazon that composed it. Samus then came out of the ship only to be immediately overloaded by all the Phazon of the planet, getting her stuck in this state constantly. This made the PED Suit trigger the emergency vent override, causing all the Energy Tanks to vent to prevent total corruption.

It was now a race. She had to find Dark Samus and the Aurora Unit 313 and destroy them before she fell to the corruption. She will have to constantly vent the Phazon accumulating inside her by the uses of the Hyper weapons she got through this adventure.

So she began to run on the only path accessible to her from where she landed, ignoring the plant-life that was present around. She quickly was stopped by a door that was actually an organic maw contained within a thin layer of Phazon energy. They worked like any other door, but they could only be opened by Phazon-based weapons.

Well, it wasn't like Samus could use any other kinds of weapons right now.

So she fired at the door with a beam of Phazon and continued, beginning her descent into the depths of Phaaze to find her targets.

She quickly had to fight local Phazon-based lifeforms, starting with creatures called Jelsacs that could expand their body to fill it with Phazon-based venom until they exploding, sending the venom in all directions. Hopping Metroids and Phazon Hoppers quickly followed after jumping to a lower level, among black crystallized Phazon.

After eliminating all threats, she used the Hyper Grapple to destroy a mass with pink crystals like there had been on the Pirate Homeworld. Overloading it allowed Samus to pour in it a lot of the Phazon that had accumulated in her, lowering its level a lot. She noted to use the Hyper Grapple more often on the local fauna to rid herself of the Phazon more effectively.

After the pink crystals was a hole down which she jumped, getting deeper inside Phaaze. Her path was then blocked by a cavern filled with small tendrils of Phazon that would tangle around anything getting too close, with Metroid eggs saturated with Phazon present too.

Thankfully, the tendrils couldn't do anything against the Morph Ball, so Samus rolled until there were no more tendrils. Phaz-Ings were present afterward, but Samus made short work of them with the grapple before she fired a Hyper Missile at a large cluster of big crystals blocking the path. More Phaz-Ings came after it until she reached the next door.

Now, she had to enter a Morph Ball tunnel and use the Hyper Ball to destroy Fleshlike blooms that fed energy into a Phazon mass to damage said mass and open the way. She had to destroy two groups of these blooms before she could reach the exit of the tunnel where a Phazon Puffer waited for her, a mutated Puffer that fed on Phazon energy from others and used that energy to attack, still easily killed.

Samus then had to go down a large cavern, jumping from ledge to ledge while fighting more Jelsacs as well as Phazon Metroids and while also using missiles to destroy more crystals. After passing another door, she used her Morph Ball to pass a small hole and enter a room where she had to kill some Hopping Metroids. Once they were all killed, she used the Hyper Ball again to destroy several growths to make a massive mass of Phazon with a shell explode, opening another hole down which she let herself drop.

She fell in a similar room to the previous one, this time with Phazon Hoppers. Once they were all killed, she destroyed the growths like before, destroying another shelled mass and opening another hole. This repeated a third time, this time with a Phazon Puffer guarding the room.

She then fell a long shaft and right into the mouth of some giant worm creature that didn't last long against the Hyper Ball.

After it was a cavern with a membrane that was the entrance to a nest full of Metroids, said creatures constantly comming out of it to attack her, so she didn't remain here long only to be stopped by the optical organ of some creature protected by thick plating. She had to fire at antennae randomly coming out of other plating to remove what protected the optical organ and be able to fire at it, destroying it. All the while, she had to fight off the Metroids coming out of the nest.

A mass of Phazon like the one on Norion was her next obstacle, and she had to kill all the Phazon Hoppers that spawned here, a good dozen, to destroy it. Its destruction released Phaz-Ings.

She then jumped down another long shaft only to be snatched by a big creature in the wall. The thing had five eyes and a really big mouth ready to gobble her, but Samus fired right in it, making its eyes explode one my one until she killed it, making the creature release her.

More Phazon Metroids came after Samus passed the door at the bottom of the shaft, and once she killed them, she fired at some hardened Phazon blocking an opening in the ground, letting her jump down another hole.

She then traversed a cavern with a Leviathan Womb, one of the places where the Leviathans were created. It was right above a seal covering a lower chamber.

Strangely, there were also molten husks of creatures on various ledges.

So, after killing some Phazon Metroids present, she used the grapple to tear off a soft tissue at the side of the womb, opening it and revealing the Leviathan infant inside it. As for Metroids as well as Jelsacs came from tunnels around only to be killed, Samus then fired at the Leviathan infant until it escaped to the other side of the womb. So Samus jumped on the opposite ledge and teared off the soft tissue here before she fired again at the Leviathan infant that was now here.

The Leviathan infant took a lot of hits to be killed, and all the while Samus had to defend herself against the Phazon Metroids and the Jelsacs constantly coming. The Leviathan infant escaped again to the opposite side of the bomb, forthing Samus to jump back on the first ledge to continue her assault on it. Finally, the Leviathan exploded along with the womb, destroying the seal under it.

Finally, Samus jumped into the lower chamber, and after a long drop, she landed on a circular hatch, the only technology she encountered on the planet.

The hatch was surrounded by a circular-motif grating above a pool of liquid Phazon, and a wall of jagged, crystallized Phazon surrounded all this. Outside of this wall, several Phazon-based lifeforms could be seen.

The hatch began to open, and Samus quickly moved away to not fall under it. Floating out of it was Dark Samus, now in a more physical form looking almost exactly like Samus with her Suit, excepted that hers was colored a metallic blue with veins of Phazon and looked more smooth. The hatch then closed and the dark doppelganger landed on it before she pointed her cannon at the Hunter.

Samus chuckled. "Found you."

Suddenly, in a flash of light, Samus turned into Sweetie Belle.

"Surprise!"

Dark Samus recoiled, clearly not expecting this and remembering her encounter with the filly back on Elysia.

Sweetie Belle laughed. "Ahahah! You expected Samus, but it was me, Sweetie Belle! Sorry, but Samus isn't coming."

Before the assault on Phaaze...

"So, what did you want to say?" Admiral Dane asked to Sweetie Belle in the Reunion Room where he had previously briefed Samus and the other bounty hunters before the pirates' assault on Norion.

Samus was also present to hear the plan, as well as Ghor, Gandrayda, and several high-ranking officers of the Olympus.

"I have a plan that will avoid having to send your fleet to a battle that will probably result in the destruction of a good part of it in the best case."

Castor Dane frowned, nonplussed. "Go on. I personally don't see any other way this could go."

"Yes, but the problem with your plan is that sending Samus to Phaaze will be very risky. Sorry Samus," Sweetie Belle quickly said to her Hunter friend who just gave a shrug in return. "Phaaze is entirely made of Phazon after all, so what do you think will happen once she lands on it?"

"She will start to constantly absorb the Phazon of the planet, entering as a result in a perpetual state of overload that could end up corrupting her like it happened for me, Gandrayda, and Rundas," Ghor answered.

"Damn. She would have to constantly fight it as long as she would remain on Phaaze," Gandrayda said in realisation. "And at all moment, she could lose the fight and make this whole operation fail, which would result in the whole universe being doomed."

"Exact, without forgetting that the pirates will defend Phaaze in number and will be ready, so even in case of victory, thousands of feds will be killed in the battle," Sweetie Belle said. "If not the entire fleet. So, instead, let's go with my plan: we don't send the fleet, and we don't send Samus."

"Then, who would go?" a very perplexed Admiral asked.

Sweetie Belle grinned. "Me, of course. If Samus doesn't mind being stolen the spotlight for the final act of this whole Phazon crisis, then I will go deal with Dark Samus myself. As Gandrayda may have told you, I'm totally immune to Phazon and its corruption."

All eyes turned to Samus who shrugged again. "No objection. I perfectly understand that this would be better this way. The fate of the universe is at hand after all. No place for bruised ego."

Sweetie Belle smiled at her before she looked back at everyone else. "However, after our little encounter back on Elysia, Dark Samus will probably try to escape Phaaze as soon as she sees me. I don't know if she would be able to survive even after the destruction of the planet since it will cause all the Phazon of the universe to vanish, but let's not give it to chance. If I have to go on Phaaze, I will have to disguise myself." She looked back at Samus before her body flashed and she transformed into the Hunter, Suit included. "So?"

Gandrayda laughed before she transformed too into Samus.

"This is getting out of hand. Now there are three of them," one of the officers around muttered, making many others laugh or groan.

"Anyway. Of course, disguised as you, I will have to borrow your ship if you don't mind."

"Only after I show you how to pilot it. I want the ship back in one piece," Samus said.

Sweetie Belle nodded before she looked back to the others. "Then, once I land on Phaaze, I will do as if I really was Samus and simulate as if I was on Overload to ensure that Dark Samus won't see that I am not the real one."

"And what about the pirate armada? You won't be able to pass it with Samus' ship without help," Dane remainded.

"I was coming to this," Sweetie Belle said before she looked at Gandrayda who had transformed back to her usual appearance. "Gandrayda taking my appearance should be more than enough to do the job."

"Say what?!" Gandrayda asked.

"I will have to train you a bit to better use my powers, but you will be more than enough to take on the pirate armada. So Dark Samus will think that I will be too busy dealing with the pirates to come to her and will lower her guard thinking that she will just face Samus."

Dane stared at Sweetie Belle thinking a long moment, before he sighed. He had personally seen how powerful Gandrayda was while taking the filly's form as she slaughtered the pirates by the hundreds on the Pirate Homeworld, so he knew that if she said that she could take on the pirate armada by herself then she wasn't kidding.

"I have a question," Ghor then said. "Why not simply blow up Phaaze with a beam like the one that you used against Dark Samus on Elysia?"

"Because Dark Samus wouldn't then get the beat down she deserves after everything she did. A quick death by planet blowing up would be too nice for her. Also, fighting Dark Samus will be funnier than simply blowing up Phaaze."

"Makes sense," Gandrayda said. "Alright, I'm in."

"So, what do you think? Impressive, uh?" Sweetie Belle asked as she finished some popcorn.

She and Dark Samus were now sitting on chairs that the filly had materialized, facing a large screen thanks to which Sweetie Belle had shown the scene. Dark Samus also had a big bucket of popcorn on her lap, but she hadn't touched it.

"Ah! Despite all your puppeting and masterminding, you haven't seen this plan coming! And now..." the filly suddenly grabbed her bucket of popcorn and put it on Dark Samus' head, causing the bucket on her lap to fall and spill its contents. "It's time to continue from where we left off on Elysia!"

Dark Samus immediately jumped away and ripped the bucket on her head in pieces with her hand before she fired at Sweetie Belle with scattershot beams.

Sweetie Belle avoided the shots by teleporting and appearing right in front of Dark Samus before she punched her in the gut, making her bend. The filly then gave an uppercut right into the helmet's visor, sending Dark Samus flying to land on her back several meters away. Before she could go up, Sweetie Belle flew up and surrounded herself in Phazon energy before she dropped back toward Dark Samus, only for the dark Hunter to turn into Morph Ball and to roll away. However, when she crashed on the ground, Sweetie Belle sent a powerful shockwave of Phazon that Dark Samus wasn't able to avoid while in Morph Ball, propelling her against the wall surrounding the arena.

Dark Samus got out of her Morph Ball form and began to float before she created two copies of herself but before they could do anything, Sweetie Belle teleported to one of the copies (they could be differentiated from the real Dark Samus thanks to the visor. The real one glowed blue) and blasted it to pieces before she teleported to the other and did the same. She then teleported to the real Dark Samus and blasted her too, sending her flying again. However, this time, Dark Samus recovered quickly enough mid-flight to send her grapple toward Sweetie Belle, catching her. She then brought the filly toward her as she readied a fist.

Sweetie Belle quickly summoned one of her swords, avoided Dark Samus' punch, and pierced her in the abdomen. Despite this, Dark Samus managed to blast the filly away before she recreated her two clones who moved away. Then, she began to absorb energy from Phaaze, and the clones mimicked her, serving as decoys.

Of course, this didn't work on Sweetie Belle, but she simply watched as Samus used the absorbed energy to heal herself.

"Impressive. Thanks to Phaaze, you have an infinite source of energy to heal yourself. If I don't stop you from absorbing it, the fight will last forever," Sweetie Belle said. "But as nice as it sounds, I have other stuff to do elsewhere so you will excuse me if I cut our fun short."

At this moment, Dark Samus fired toward the ceiling, and Sweetie Belle had to avoid a huge pillar of Phazon falling from it and planting itself in the grating around the hatch. Sweetie Belle replied by firing a beam of Phazon at least three times her size, and Dark Samus quickly got out of the way as the beam went right through the wall of crystallized Phazon and destroyed everything in its path.

"Hey, I just thought of something!" Sweetie Belle suddenly exclaimed. "Since you are a double of Samus, wouldn't it be fair that a double of her nemesis deals with you?" she said with a smirk before she transformed into Ridley.

The difference between her and the real Ridley was that her scaled skin was entirely white where Ridley was purple, and she didn't have his mechanical augmentations and other pieces of armor.

She chuckled. "Warning, what will follow won't be for children. The fight will get bloody! Or phazony. Whatever."

Sweetie Belle immediately followed her words by charging claws first toward Dark Samus. The dark Hunter tried to kept her distance by floating backward while she fired, but Sweetie Belle was faster and easily avoided the shots by spinning and she caught up before she grabbed the legs and threw Dark Samus right into one of the pillars of Phazon that had fallen earlier, destroying it before Dark Samus crashed on the grating.

Sweetie Belle dive bombed toward her, and like before, Dark Samus turned into her Morph Ball to escape. But Sweetie Belle knew the trick now and managed to catch the Morph Ball before she smashed it on the ground several times. She then put it in her mouth and pressed, biting it badly while she also fired fireballs at point blank, the fireballs exploding on Dark Samus inside her mouth. But Dark Samus eventually used a bomb, forcing her to spat her. Sweetie Belle quickly made her pay by smashing the ball mid-air with a claw, sending it crashing into another pillar of Phazon.

Dark Samus quickly left the Morph Ball mode and floated up before creating two clones again. she then began to absorb energy only to be pierced by Sweetie Belle's tail. Then, as she freed her tail from Dark Samus' body, she grabbed her by the helmet and did like she did against the real Ridley, violently dragging her on the ground by the head o cause a lot of damage. However, instead of throwing Dark Samus afterward, she pinned her under her weird before she began to repeatedly slash her.

But Dark Samus turned into her Morph Ball and escaped between Sweetie's legs, leaving behind a bomb that didn't look like the usual bombs that Sweetie Belle saw Samus use until now, the bomb beeping. Understanding that it was bad news, Sweetie Belle kicked it away before the bomb blew up, creating a huge explosion of Phazon that covered a big part of the arena so it still managed to hurt her while it also destroyed a part of the crystallized wall around.

"Urg... This must be one of these Power Bombs Samus mentioned. Darn... They pack a punch..."

Sweetie Belle then quickly lowered her head to avoid a rather big missile before she flew up to avoid a few more. When Dark Samus continued to fire them, Sweetie Belle sent fireballs to blow them up, only for the dark double to create two clones who also fired these big missiles from different directions.

Sweetie Belle flew around to avoid them, continuing to send fireballs to blow up some of them. After a time, however, she managed to hit one at the side with her claw, making it spin mid-air to the point that it flew back toward the real Dark Samus who moved to avoid it.

Sweetie Belle suddenly landed right between the real Dark Samus and one of the clones. Once the two fired their big missiles at her, she flew up again, and the two missiles passed beside each other, the clone's now going toward the real Dark Samus. Again, Dark Samus moved to avoid it only for Sweetie Belle to hit the second clone's missile like before to make it fly toward her while intercepting her. This time, Dark Samus couldn't avoid it and she took the missile right on the torso, the big explosion of Phazon that resulted sending her on the floor on her back.

Before she could recover, Sweetie Belle flew toward her and grabbed her by the head again before using her as a meat shield against the missiles of the clones who quickly stopped attacking.

While still holding her, Sweetie Belle then pierced Dark Samus with the tail one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight times before she smashed her on the floor. By this point, the clones had disappeared, but Sweetie Belle wasn't finished as she began to violently stamp her.

Suddenly, the hatch in the center of the arena opened, and out of it came the Aurora Unit 313 itself, now corrupted. Its shell was a dark grey, and it had now four red ports at its sides. Its optics were also blood red, and the brain was mounted on a giant mechanical spine.

While Sweetie Belle was busy staring at it, Dark Samus fired another big missile at her head, sending her flying. then, with some difficulty, she rose and flew up to the Aurora Unit with who she merged.

Sweetie Belle saw this as she recovered and turned back to her normal appearance. Then, as the Aurora Unit readied itself to attack, tentacles of Phazon coming out of its ports, the filly sighed.

"Fun is over."

Then, from her horn, she fired a giant beam of Phazon that totally enveloped the Aurora Unit. Little by little, the Unit disintegrated starting by the shell, exposing its organic brain for a couple of seconds before it disappeared too, leaving behind Dark Samus. The dark Hunter tried to resist, but the Phazon overloaded her until she disappeared into particles with a yell of agony.

With the destruction of the Aurora Unit, a chain reaction began all over Phaaze.

The planet was about to explode.

Not losing time, Sweetie Belle teleported back to Samus' ship and took off.

Above Phaaze, all that was left of the pirate armada was a field of debris, and when she saw the ship, Gandrayda, still in Sweetie's form, flew toward it.

Samus, still in the Olympus with Dane and Ghor, on the bridge, immediately felt when Dark Samus died. Suddenly contracting in pain, she felt the Seed inside her disappearing along with all the Phazon in her body. By the time it was over, her Suit was back to the colors it had before the fight against the Mogenar.

Taking some heavy breathes, she turned to look at Dane who was now staring at her along with everyone else, some feds coming to check if she was alright.

"She did it. Dark Samus is dead. You should open the wormhole again."

Dane nodded. "Leviathan Command, fire the portal beam. Be quick, before Phaaze explodes and the Leviathan disappears along with all the Phazon."

It wasn't long before the Leviathan battleship fired its portal beam, opening a wormhole. Almost immediately, Samus' ship came out of it, Gandrayda, still as Sweetie Belle, siting on it.

Just a few seconds later, the Leviathan battleship disintegrated, and the wormhole closed.

For a moment, everyone watched as the ship went to fly below the Olympus to go to a docking bay before Samus eventually said, "Well, Admiral..." She gave him a thumb up. "Mission complete."

The Admiral returned the thumb up with a military salute. "It was an honor."

Chapter 54: Diplomacy

"So, I take it it went well?" Samus asked once Sweetie Belle was escorted into the bridge of the Olympus.

"Dark Samus had some nice tricks up her sleeves. I got a taste of these Power Bombs you talked about and she could absorb the energy of Phaaze to regenerate herself again and again. She could even create clones that were as dangerous as the original, but very easy to break."

All these info made Samus wince a little, as well as the others. If she had gone and fought Dark Samus herself, this would have certainly been one of the most dangerous fights she would have gone through.

"But in the end, it was nothing for me. I simply had to hit her hard to stop her from absorbing energy, and I got her simply by turning into Ridley and going full beast-mode on her. Also, her reaction when she discovered that I wasn't Samus..."

"Wait a minute. Did you just say that you turned into freaking Ridley?" Gandrayda asked.

Sweetie Belle smirked before she transformed and took the form of the terrifying pirate dragon, arms crossed. "Gave her some nice irony in the face. The good Ridley who saves the universe from the bad Samus."

"And it has been enough to defeat her despite all you told us she could do? As powerful as Ridley is, I don't think he could match against that, especially in his base form without the augmentations," Ghor pointed out.

Samus huffed. "Then you don't know Ridley enough. Even without the augmentations, when he wants, he can be a real monster. Only his ego and the surprise effect allowed me to get him the first time on Zebes. And on Tallon IV, I got him only thanks to my experience even with all my power ups, experience that Dark Samus obviously didn't possess. Also, he still had it bad that I had bested him so he was pretty much blinded by anger and revenge. I'm surprised he hadn't attempted to attack me earlier, beside what happened on the frigate."

"He probably wanted to take you at your best to prove his superiority and heal his bruised ego," Dane said.

"Ah!" shouted an amused Gandrayda. "Didn't work so well!"

Dane then faced Sweetie Belle who returned to her normal appearance. "The Galactic Federation owes you a big thank you for your help. I'm sure that we can arrange to give you a reward, the same bounty that we promised them," he said as he designed the bounty hunters with a sign of his head.

"No thanks."

"You sure kid? That's a lot of zeros they are ready to give," Gandrayda said.

"I'm from another universe. All this money would be no use back home and I would have no idea what to do with it."

"You could open a bank account," Ghor proposed. "If you ever decide to return, this money could be useful to you. However, since you are a minor, you will have to bring an adult who is your guardian."

Sweetie Belle giggled before she turned herself into an adult version of herself. "Or I can do that. After all, you have no paper that proves my age. And I think that my actions today showed that I'm not your usual minor."

This shut up Ghor right there much to the amusement of Gandrayda.

"But thanks. You are right, I will take your advice," the alicorn continued as she reverted to her filly-self. "I will accept the reward."

"I was also told that you want to see the Chairman," Dane said. "After everything you have done, I'm sure that he will accept to receive you. And since I have to go give my report to him, then I can escort you to him."

"Thank you Admiral. And if they want, Samus and the others should come. What I want to say to the Chairman is very important and I think that they should hear it. I already told Samus a bit, but not much."

Samus nodded. "Whatever she wants to say, it's apparently bad news, but she didn't precise what kind of bad news. But considering she comes from another universe, then I fear the worst."

"Like... a threat that would put the pirates and the Phazon to shame?" Ghor wondered.

"Yes," Sweetie Belle answered very seriously.

This made everyone exchange worried looks.

Daiban.

Sweetie Belle had already seen planets with their surface entirely covered by a huge city, but it was still impressive to see. While Daiban didn't have all its surface covered, the cities only forming large country-sized circles with some more or less big 'branches', it still was close enough with the cities easily seen from space.

The planet itself was absolutely surrounded by a field of satellites and ships of all kinds, sizes, and shapes, many of these ships leaving or entering the planet. The whole planet was pretty much a fortress. No wonder since it was the Galactic Federation's capital. With the pirates, and also apparently the threat of some empire, the planet was constantly vigilant of a potential attack. The use of portal technology similar to what the Leviathans used was all it would take to bring war to its door despite being far behind the borders.

On its surface, Sweetie Belle, followed by Samus (now without her armor, instead in civil clothes), Ghor, and Gandrayda, was guided by Admiral Dane toward an humongous building that towered far above all the other skyscrapers some of which were already much taller than the skyscrapers of Manehattan. Seriously, that building was certainly over one mile tall. Probably even two.

It wasn't just its size that was impressive, but also how big it was and its appearance.

The building consisted of three HUGE tower structures, longer at the base but comparatively rather thin (again, thinner at the top). These three towers were in a triangular formation, facing the center. Near the top of each of them were cable-like structures linking them to a large circular central structure with a flattened dome roof. Said structure was in the air, having no contact with the ground far far below. All in all, the building could encompass all of Ponyville excluding Sweet Apple Acres.

The building was none other than the heart of the Galactic Federation, the Federation Meeting Assembly Hall, where the Council gathered. It was also where the Chairman's office was situated.

"Isn't it risky to have the place where all the most important peoples of the galaxy gather so far above the ground? What if these cable-things break in the middle of one of their assemblies?" Sweetie Belle wondered.

"Emergency reactors are placed at the bottom of the structure," Ghor answered. "If it starts dropping, the reactors will immediately activate by themselves, and the structure will slowly descend to the ground without damage. Or, if escape is needed, someone can take control to make the structure move away like a giant makeshift escape pod. There are even powerful energy shields, the bests of the Federation, ready to activate to protect it. And if things really are bad, there's even a portal to a secret location."

"Of course, the attackers would first need to get close enough," Dane stated.

"And with all that floats above our heads protecting the planet? I wish the attackers good luck," Gandrayda said.

It wasn't long before they entered one of the towers.

And eventually, they were in the Chairman's office where Dane began by giving the full report of what happened.

The Chairman, some small humanoid green creature with large pointed ears and two antennae, gave a sigh once Dane was done.

"So this is over. No more Phazon. I'm glad. And on top of that, we conquered one of the pirates' "Homeworlds". I hope this means that we won't hear from them anytime soon."

"At least long enough to rebuild," Dane said. "And maybe start to convert the Homeworld into something else. Maybe an outpost."

The Chairman nodded. "It would be very useful against the pirates. And also, try to find a cure for the Elysians. Losing them would be dramatic."

"Unit 242 is already working on it with Units 217 and 486, but it is not certain if the Elysians will ever be themselves again."

This visibly saddened the Chairman. Having nothing more to say, he looked at Sweetie Belle who was sitting on a chair in front of his desk.

"So, you are Sweetie Belle. It is an honor to meet a being from another universe. I am Chairman Keaton. I personally thank you for your help in this crisis."

"Nice meeting you Chairman Keaton," Sweetie Belle said with a small bow of her head. "I am Sweetie Belle..." Suddenly, she materialized her uniform, including her crown instead of her circlet. However, before continuing, she looked down at her uniform with a frown. "Hum... One moment, please." Then, she used her powers to change her uniform a bit.

She replaced the Dedede symbol on her cape by the one she had shown to Taranza just before entering this universe, the rainbow Dreamstalk growing out of the black heart. She then replaced the Dedede symbols on her flank by just the black heart before she swapped the color of the armored heart on her chest to black and did the same with the heart-shaped rubies of her gauntlets. She also made the flower of her crown rainbow-colored, then turned her cape to a darker pink than her cloth while getting rid of the white rim. Finally, she turned the gold of her gauntlets into the same shade of pink than the cape.

She will have to give it a better look later to see if it looked good, but right now she was satisfied.

Giving a satisfying nod, she looked back at the visibly surprised Chairman (who was doing his best to hide it but failing) and said, "So, as I was saying. I am Sweetie Belle, queen of Floralia."

"What?!" Samus almost shouted. "Hold on. You're a queen?!"

Sweetie Belle giggled. "Yup! I know, I may be a little young to be a queen, but a king gave me the title and I wasn't given a choice in the matter so, eh. And before you ask, a regent is governing Floralia until I reach maturity so, until then..." She gave an amused shrug. "I go against everything that a normal queen should do and risk my life going on adventures in unknown universes while kicking butts."

...

"Damn. Most badass queen ever," Gandrayda said. "And you know what this means Sammy? You got to fight alongside a queen all this time! Lucky you!"

Keaton chuckled. "A royal from another universe. Now this is unexpected." He then went serious business and placed elbows on the desk, fingers interlaced before his face. "So, what does a queen from another universe want to tell me?"

Sweetie Belle took a similar position, excepted that she simply put her forehooves against each other since she didn't have fingers.

"I have come here to warn you against threats that will surpass anything the Federation ever faced that may or may not come to this universe."

Keaton frowned. "You are not certain?"

"The Omniverse is a veeeeery huge place. All I know is that these threats will threaten countless universes. This could include yours, or not. But better be prepared for the worst, right?"

Keaton nodded. "What kind of threats are you talking about?"

"Two Gods, one of light and one of darkness, and one army. The army should be the first one to appear. I don't know how powerful they will be, but when you are warned by a God that they will threaten many universes, then you can be sure that I will prepare as best as I can to face them. However, I can't be everywhere at once, protecting all the universes that this army will attack."

"So you are seeking allies?"

"Yes. Like the Federation. Or even beings like Samus here who is pretty much a one-woman army. Organisations and peoples on who I could count to be here to help me, at least, face this multidimensional army and protect the universes. I admit that I barely started working on this. Your universe is the first one that I visit since I have been warned of these threats. But I can already assure you that my friends and I are working hard to be ready. We are studying the technology of a powerful ancient civilization so it should be a matter of time before we are able to open rifts big enough to send armadas to other dimensions. Me including, we have many strong and powerful beings in our ranks, including a Creator God and his sons, and maybe a second one with his whole pantheon soon. We also have magic, with some very powerful mages. What we lack are actual armadas of spaceships. We have spaceships, but only a few. You are actually the first galaxy-spanning organisation we come across. And you joining us would be a huge boon."

"Mmhmmh... And what is the best you have?" Keaton asked.

"Right now? I would say dimensional portals. Just big enough to let people and small vehicle cross. I have friends who can build one in a matter of days. But as I speak, these same friends are studying a technology that allows someone or something to be turned into energy to enter much smaller spaces, a bit like the Morph Ball, where they could be stored, locked, or transported easily. They are also studying a similar technology to be turned into data to be sent inside computers. I let you imagine the possibilities with these technologies."

At this point, Sweetie Belle could almost see stars in Ghor's eyes, the Hunter shaking in excitement.

She grinned. "Would you believe that the world I got these technologies from only use them to capture creatures and to stock them in virtual worlds inside computers, mostly for competitions and entertainment?"

"What?!" Ghor shouted in disbelief. "They have these wonderful technologies and they only use them for... THAT?!"

"Ghor, calm down," Dane said.

Sweetie Belle shrugged with amusement and said, "They have different priorities." She then turned back to face the Chairman. "But if we manage to fully reverse engineer the technologies of that powerful ancient civilization I mentioned, simply named the Ancients, then we would be able to... Well... Let's just say that the best the Ancients managed to create are these things."

Sweetie Belle then created from her horn a hologram of a Clockwork Star, Nova, the hologram slowly spinning to let everyone see it in its full glory.

"Don't let its feline face trick you. I have no idea why the Ancients gave them this. Maybe the one who designed them was an eccentric old cat lady and I wouldn't be surprised if it was really the case. The point is that these things, called Clockwork Stars, are the size of small planets, have near sapient AI, and have the power to bend space and time and to alter reality, saying "screw you" to physics, to grant pretty much any wishes. And I know for a fact that there are several of them. I personally encountered two of them, but I had to destroy them because one was working for a mad jested who had wished for world domination and the other was controlled by a crazy supercomputer who wanted to use it to wipe out all organic life in the universe. Note that the supercomputer was also created by the Ancients but had been corrupted, and also had reality-bending powers but to a lesser extent."

Sweetie Belle then showed the portal-world, New Halcandra.

"They also made these literal planet-sized portals. They only made two of them however, and one had been destroyed and the second is currently too damaged to work. Beside, the universe it was linked to is now gone so even if it still worked, we would need to tinker with it to allow it to send things to different universes."

She now showed the Jambandra Base.

"They even made this space station that dwarfed the biggest planets."

To prove her point, she created a hologram of Elysia - the biggest planet she saw until now - and put it against the Jambandra Base.

"But they did something even crazier. They allied their technology to the power of a God to create a whole universe out of their dreams. It's in this universe that most of their technologies that I showed you now remain, their home universe now being gone."

She turned off the hologram and looked back at Ghor, smirking.

"And we wouldn't mind more Smarties to help us study them."

Ghor shook more violently before he passed out.

Keaton was rubbing his chin in thought. "I will have to discuss this with the Council. This is a matter that could change the Federation, and that could be without a doubt very risky. This is not a decision that can be taken just by myself."

Sweetie Belle gave a nod. "I understand. How long do you think it will take?"

"Give me a few days. I will have to send a message to all the Council Members to call for an emergency Assembly, and it will take about a day for all of them to gather here. Then, the Assembly will start the next day. Your presence will be needed to help in explaining the situation. You will be given a VIP guestroom until then."

"Thank you Chairman Keaton."

The Chairman then looked at the others. "What was said in this room must not leave it for now. We will wait for the decision to be taken before we spread the news."

Everyone nodded with Dane giving a military salute. Excepted Ghor who was still out.

"Be sure to tell Ghor this once he wakes up."

Again, they nodded.

"Anything more?" Keaton asked, mainly to Sweetie Belle, but also to the others.

Sweetie Belle thought a bit. "Will you want to get in contact with a more experienced leader? I really don't know anything about politics and, truthfully, I would rather want to continue to explore new universes and discover new allies than remain here for weeks to talk... uhh... about trade stuff?"

Keaton chuckled. "Yes, it would be better."

"Then, after the Assembly, I will return to my home and talk to the leaders here, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. And no, my home is in a different kingdom than the one from which I'm queen. Long story. But just a little warning, the time in your universe goes faster than in mine, about six day to one. So while I go talk to the princesses, it may be one day or two for you before I bring at least one of them here. I'm trying to find a way to deal with this."

"I understand."

Sweetie Belle used the time until the Assembly to create for herself a bank account with the help of Ghor who decided to remain with her (mainly because he wanted to hear more about the Ancients' technologies) and placed the money she got as a reward for helping in the Phazon crisis in it. Samus and Gandrayda also remained on Daiban too in wait of the Assembly, wanting to know what decision they will take, but Dane had to return to his fleet.

The filly got to experience a bit of what it was like to live in such an advanced society. It truly was another world. Where technology was barely used in everyday life back in Equestria, here, it was everywhere. In a restaurant, for example, she didn't have to call a waiter. She simply had to sit at a table and then use a terminal here to chose what she wanted in the menu before passing her bank card over it to pay. Barely one minute later, what she commanded came out of the table perfectly cooked. Then, when she went to take a shower, the water was immediately at the right temperature to be perfect. No need to carefully adjust the water's temperature until it was good enough and no waiting one or two minutes for the water to become warm.

Then it was time for the Assembly to begin, and she was escorted to the Council. To reach it, they had to take a floating platform that moved through one of the cable-like structures that linked the towers to the central structure where it was taking place.

The Council was a breathtaking experience. She entered an absolutely huge room where there were easily thousands of people, all staring at her when she was directly escorted beside the Chairman in the center. All of them represented a whole planet and/or a whole people. All of them were politically as powerful as Celestia, if not more.

For a moment, her stage fright almost returned.

But when Keaton began to talk, she controlled her emotions and waited for her cue to talk.

The Chairman briefly explained the events of what he now called the Kalandor Crisis (because the region of space where Norion, Bryyo, and Elysia were was named the Kalandor Region) and congratulated the bounty hunters for their role in dealing with it, especially Samus. Then, he introduced Sweetie Belle and talked about her role in the crisis before he went on about who she really was.

Already, the news that she was from another dimension sparked a big hubbub among the Council Members that was quickly calmed by Keaton before he continued by explaining a bit why she was here. He then gave her the podium to talk and better explain the situation.

Most Members listened to her with rapt attention, and there were many questions that Sweetie Belle had to answer. There were debates, more questions, more debates, and after a few hours, Keaton asked for a vote.

Would the Galactic Federation join this multidimensional alliance?

A big majority agreed, Keaton included.

The details of the alliance will be discussed when Sweetie Belle will bring a representative with more experience in that stuff.

As soon as the Assembly was over, Keaton gave the news which quickly spread to the four corners of the Federation.

When she returned (with the Lor Starcutter) to Equestria, Sweetie Belle immediately went to talk with Celestia and Luna. Celestia immediately agreed to come, leaving Luna to take care of Equestria. Before sending her, Sweetie Belle also went to New Halcandra to talk to Gandaro, thinking that he should come too so he could discuss about the Ancient technology, and also because he was sorta the leader of New Halcandra so he needed to be here to represent the Dream Universe. He agreed.

When she used a rift to return beside the Federation Meeting Assembly Hall with Celestia and Gandaro, an escort almost immediately came to guide them to Keaton. Sweetie Belle then left them at his office with a goodbye before she went to search Samus who still must be on the planet, not far.

She didn't have to search far. Samus was waiting for her outside of the building, along with Ghor and Gandrayda.

"So, how is this going?" Samus asked.

"It's off to a good start. If this continues, then the alliance should be formalized before long."

"Eheh. I wonder how long it will be before we are sent to other universes to deal with threats," Gandrayda said.

"I wouldn't mind going to New Halcandra right now to begin to study the Ancient technology," Ghor said.

"No problem. But, I must warn you, New Halcandra being part of the Dream Universe, physics don't make sense over there. Some good example is that we can breath in space and underwater and we can walk on most clouds. So, avoid questioning how things happen, you would just give yourself a headache. It's dream stuff, and dreams aren't logic most of the time."

"Noted."

Sweetie Belle then looked at Samus and Gandrayda.

"So... This is goodbye. It's time for me to leave."

"Aww. I will miss you, you little monster," Gandrayda said. "But I guess that we will see you again soon. When this multidimensional army will show itself."

"Maybe even before, who knows. This army could appear in a few days, or in a few years. And I'm speaking of years both in your universe and in my universe. Until then, other stuff may come up. There's that situation with a group wanting to use corrupted Gods to control everything which I'm not sure how this will evolve."

"Damn," Gandrayda said in a shocked tone.

"Yup. Get used to it because I have the feeling that that kind of stuff will become common. Omniverse."

"Well, at least, we won't get bored if that's the case."

At this moment, Samus lowered herself to be closer to Sweetie's height and placed a hand on her head, rubbing it.

"As soon as this army or some other threat shows up, call me and I will come to help. I owe you that after everything you did."

"I will. Thank you Samus. And try to not lose your power ups until then," the filly said jokingly.

"Mph. No promise," Samus said with a smile. "Goodbye Sweetie Belle."

Sweetie Belle returned the smile before she turned around and opened a rift. With a sign of her head, Ghor then walked to her side. The two then waved goodbye before they passed the rift which closed behind them.

Sweetie Belle dropped Ghor on New Halcandra where he was like a child in a theme park for the first time. Leaving him to the New Halcandrins, the filly then returned to Ponyville to have a small meal at Sugarcube Corner and to rest her mind after all that politic stuff. She didn't physically need rest (and food, and water) anymore and could do adventures one after another without getting tired, but all that politic mentally drained her.

And she still felt bad about Rundas. Not seeing him alongside the other Hunters hurt. She really wished she could have gotten to know him better. From what she heard about him, he had been pretty much Rainbow Dash with ice powers.

Then, after her meal, Discord appeared beside her with a paper.

"I have good news! I got you the coordinates of two universes where you should find some powerful allies!" he shouted victoriously before he gave the paper to Sweetie Belle.

"Great! Thanks!" she said as she took the paper. "Care to tell me who these potential allies are?"

"And ruin the surprise? Puhlease!"

Suddenly, a bird landed on Sweetie's head and looked down at the paper...

Before talking. "Interesting. Why am I not surprised that you found for her these allies, of all possibilities."

A chill creeped up Discord's body as he immediately knew who that bird was.

He gulped, suddenly becoming very small. "Oh! Aah..." He waved at the bird with a terrified fake smile. "Hello... hum... DD, right?"

Sweetie Belle froze at hearing this name. She thought that the bird was one of Discord's tricks. "D-DD? W-w-what are you doing here?"

The bird snickered. "No need to be scared. Remember what I said."

At this, Sweetie Belle took a big breathe to control her fear. He was right. DD only preyed on third category Gods, and right now, he had only eyes on Sweetie Belle.

"As for what I'm doing here. Easy. I only wanted to join in the discussion and say how much I approve these coordinates. Good job Discord. I wanted some good shows, I will certainly have them with these three together."

Discord gave a weak laugh. "You're welcome..."

Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow. "Now you got me curious. I think that I will forget the rest and directly go to these universes."

Discord nodded frantically as he didn't stop looking at DD. "Yes! Do so! Meanwhile, I... I... Oh!" He pointed at a watch on his leg that hadn't been here before. "It's time for my Yu-Gi-Oh tournament with my alternate selves! Must go! Bye!" And he smashed his way through space, leaving behind a hole in the fabric of space and time that quickly closed.

The bird laughed. "He never ceases to amuse me." He then looked down at the filly under him. "You will see. You will love these new allies. You will form a terrifying trio with them," he said before he flew away, leaving her alone.

"Uh... If you say so..." Sweetie Belle said as she watched the bird until he disappeared behind a tree. Then, she walked toward the Lor Starcutter to put in the coordinates so the ship could lead her to them.

Author's Note

Looks at the chapter's number.

Darn, we are almost reaching the half of the total number of chapter of A Sweetie Dreamland, AND WE AREN'T EVEN HALFWAY THROUGH THE FIRST SAGA OF THE STORY! AND THERE WILL BE THREE SAGAS! AT LEAST!

This story will be very long.

Chapter 55: Phantom

Author's Note

To all the Jojo fans, I modified a little bit of chapter 53, when Sweetie Belle reveals herself to Dark Samus. You will love it. :rainbowdetermined2:

Chapter 55: Phantom

Once Sweetie Belle downloaded the coordinates, the Lor Starcutter took off and opened a portal.

The ship traversed it and appeared high in the sky of a planet.

"So, Lory, tell me what you see of this new planet," Sweetie Belle asked.

Images of the surface appeared on the large screen, and Sweetie Belle immediately recognized some stuff like Twilight's crystal tree castle or Canterlot Castle. However, there were many differences too, like Ponyville which didn't exactly look the same. The town was built differently, and seemed now to have two hearts: the castle and downtown where most businesses were gathered. While the houses kept their rustic appearance, the streets were now like in Manehattan or Canterlot and were filled with vehicles. No carriages however, but cars, some of which hovered over the road. There were also street lamps, traffic lights, many other modern stuff, and even robots! The dam was now a hydroelectric generator, and there were some factories in the outskirt.

Factories in Ponyville were so weird to see. So out of place.

No, scratch that! All that advanced technology was weird to see in Ponyville. Back in Sweetie's world, it was still weird to see a portal and the Lor there.

"IT WOULD SEEM THAT WE HAVE ARRIVED AT A TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED EQUESTRIA," the Lor stated. "A POSSIBILITY WOULD BE THAT WE ARE IN A FUTURE VERSION OF YOUR WORLD."

"Or we are in a version where the ponies put more care in technological advancements," Sweetie Belle said. "Or they got in contact with aliens. It could be any reason. Okay. Time to find this potential ally. I wonder who it will be? Twilight? Rainbow Dash? Or maybe even Rarity?"

She could feel an unknown powerful energy coming from below, from Ponyville, but she couldn't pinpoint its exact origin yet.

Well, she will find out soon enough, once she landed.

"Time to land, Lory. Go toward the place around Twilight's castle."

The Lor Starcutter followed her instructions and flew down toward Ponyville. Quickly enough, it drew the attention of the ponies, and when they saw that it was going toward the castle's place, most of them went there to see it land, filled with curiosity and some apprehension.

Sweetie Belle could feel that mysterious energy coming from somepony among them.

Once the Lor landed, the exit and the ramp appeared, allowing her to descend.

And she saw her, the origin of that energy. Right in front of the crowd, ready to attack if Sweetie Belle revealed to be a threat.

Scootaloo.

And as soon as Scootaloo recognised Sweetie Belle, she became very confused, lowering her guard as she said, "What?"

At her sides, the Sweetie Belle of this world and Apple Bloom both dropped their jaw, especially the white filly. And quickly enough, most of the crowd had either their jaw dropped too and/or were looking in confusion between the two Sweetie Belles.

Then, somepony finally remarked.

"She has wings!"

This drew the attention of everypony on the fact that, yes, she was an alicorn, and more jaws dropped.

"Sweetie Belle?! An alicorn?!" shouted Rarity among the crowd.

Then, Twilight, who was beside the local CMC, tried at several reprises to say something only to fail before she raised her head to the sky and yelled, "Discord! Is that your work?!"

The draconequus appeared beside her, pouting. "You know, I almost feel insulted that you immediately thought that I was responsible of this even if, this time, you are right."

Sweetie Belle flew to him. "I get it that you are the one who gave the coordinates of this universe to my Discord?"

Discord grinned at her. "You got it right! Your Discord contacted us on the Chaosnet about you, and I gave him the coordinates of this universe so you could encou-"

He was suddenly shoved out of the way by Twilight who took his place to face the filly. "You are from an alternate Equestria?!"

At this instant, despite their curiosity, most of the crowd decided that they had elsewhere to go and quickly vacated the area.

Sweetie Belle materialized a book on quantum physics and Twilight's eyes immediately focused on it.

"You see that book on quantum physics that you don't have? You see that book on quantum physics that you don't have? Go fetch it!"

And the filly threw the book with enough force that it would land at least one mile away and Twilight quickly flew after it. This made Discord as well as Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Spike, and the fillies still present laugh, and even the others barely held in a chuckle.

"That... pfff That wasn't very nice," Fluttershy said. It was very difficult to not laugh.

Sweetie Belle shrugged unapologetically. "I didn't want to be at the receiving end of Twilight in Twilighting mode. I will wait for her to calm down before I start to answer her questions. This book should be a good enough diversion until then."

"Eh. We can't fault you on this one," Scootaloo said, and many agreed with a nod.

Pinkie Pie then suddenly was in front of Sweetie Belle. "Oh my gosh! I can't believe I'm meeting a Sweetie Belle from another universe! You would have been second if I had been allowed to go to the human world where I would have met the human Sweetie Belle, but since I wasn't, then you are first! And you are an alicorn! So does that make you a princess? Does this mean we are visited by royalty from another dimension? Will you talk to Princess Celestia and form an alliance that will start the process of making a powerful multiversal org-"

Applejack silenced her with a hoof in her mouth. "Down, girl. Leave the filly breathe. She just arrived."

Sweetie Belle giggled, then looked around at the ponies who still were present. There was the Element Bearers (excepted Twilight, of course), Discord, Starlight Glimmer, Spike, the CMC, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon surprisingly, and even who she recognized as Berry Pinch and Lily Longsocks from her school. Twilight then already returned with the book in her magic, muzzle down in it as she sat beside her friends without asking anything, but no doubt she will be listening. The others gave her amused smiles.

"Ahem. So... You are an alicorn," Rarity began awkwardly. "Does this mean that I am...?"

"Nope. Sorry Rarity, you aren't an alicorn in my universe," Sweetie Belle answered.

"What about Apple Bloom? If ya became an alicorn, then surely yer friends became alicorns too," Applejack asked, although she was very weirded out at the idea of an Apple being an alicorn. Also, the idea of the three Crusaders being alicorns was strangely terrifying.

"Nuhu. I'm the only one of the Crusaders who became an alicorn."

Some ponies released sighs of relief at her answer.

"What about that ship?" Rainbow Dash then asked as she admired the Lor Starcutter alongside most of the fillies. "Are you from an Equestria even more advanced than us that you have airships that can go to other universes?"

"Not at all. The Lor Starcutter is one of a kind. My Equestria is technologically less advanced than yours from what I can see. But with the way things are going, we should catch up soon enough."

"Then how did you get this ship?" Rainbow dash asked.

"Long story," Sweetie Belle answered. "How I became an alicorn is part of this story. It involves a long series of adventures with friends, ending up in fights against terrible foes that would put the likes of Sombra, Chrysalis, Tirek, or even Grogar himself to shame."

"Really now?" Scootaloo asked, interested. "How bad?"

"Do you want a full list or just the best?"

Scootaloo thought a bit. "Let's go for the full list."

So Sweetie Belle materialized a list of all the villains she fought. She also included her duels against Dedede, Meta Knight, and Kirby. she then gave it to Scootaloo who began to read, the others quickly going to her sides to read too, even Twilight.

The more they read of it, the more jaws dropped. Even Scootaloo was impressed at the last few foes in the list.

"So you fought a God before ascending? What kind of God was it?" Scootaloo asked.

"The kind of God that could create and destroy an universe as easily as we create and destroy sand castles," Sweetie Belle answered. "But like I pointed out in the list, I was far from being alone when I fought him."

"But now that you are an alicorn...?" the pegasus inquired.

"Well... I'm still not as powerful as him, but since he is not what I would call a skilled fighter, then I guess that I could take him one on one."

The local Sweetie Belle came to her side with stars in her eyes. "I didn't think there could be alternate versions of me so powerful!"

Sweetie Belle giggled. "There are powerful alternate versions of everyone. In the Omniverse, everything is possible, even Opal with superpowers."

"What?" Apple Bloom asked. "What'd be the superpowers of a cat?"

Sweetie Belle shrugged. "No idea." She then looked at Scootaloo. "Speaking of, what are your powers? I can feel some energy from you."

Scootaloo smirked before she materialized a red cube. She then sent it toward Sweetie Belle who let it come. Once it touched her, the world around her became weird. It took on red colors and became glitchy. Then, not unlike when Discord first unleashed chaos on Ponyville, houses began to levitate out of the ground. Quickly enough, the effects of the cube disappeared, and the floating buildings disappeared, now back at their place.

Sweetie Belle was amazed as she looked around. "Woah! What was that? Some kind of illusion?"

Smirking again, Scootaloo then materialized an apple and tossed it at Sweetie Belle who caught it.

"Mmh... I can feel its texture. If it was an illusion, I shouldn't be able to feel anything, right? Unless your illusions are that good?" She took a bit of the apple. "I can even- Pouah!" She spat the apple. "Why does it taste like licorice? Pouah! Pouah!"

Apple Bloom looked at Scootaloo in horror. "How could ya do something so horrible? I thought ya weren't evil!"

Scootaloo grinned evilly. "What? Licorice is good!"

"You are the only one who likes licorice!" shouted the local Sweetie Belle in disgust.

What remained of the licorice apple disappeared as Sweetie Belle glared at Scootaloo. She then laughed. "That was a good one! Here, have a cookie." She materialised a cookie and sent it right into Scootaloo's mouth. The pegasus couldn't stop herself from chewing and she rapidly started sweating because of her mouth burning.

"L-liquid rainbow in a cookie... Now that's evil," Scootaloo said as she resisted the urge to run and drink the whole river.

The two exchanged smirks that promised that it was war, much to the amusement of Discord.

"If you two start a prank war, could you please do it on another planet?" Spike pleaded. "We don't want to rebuild Ponyville. Again."

"Don't worry Spike. So, really, what is your power?" Sweetie Belle asked Scootaloo.

"You guessed it actually, I use illusions. I can alter the reality of my targets and turn it real for them. This includes my own reality. And I can then transpose these fake realities into the real world, like I did for that apple."

"Neat!"

"What about you?" Scootaloo asked as she looked at Sweetie Belle's Cutie Mark. "What are you the alicorn from? Darkness?"

"Void. Which is darkness I guess. I have total control of an unique energy that comes from it, which is nothing else than the energy at the origin of all others, of everything. So I can create from it any other energies that I can think of, and from them, do pretty much anything. Including..." A red cube materialized at her side as she smiled smugly. "This."

Scootaloo, and everyone, stared at the cube in awe. "Tha... That's cheating!" the pegasus eventually shouted.

"Sorry. It's how I work," Sweetie Belle said with a shrug before she looked at the cube. "How do you call this energy? It's really powerful."

"Phantom energy," Scootaloo answered.

"Wait. How come everything is created from the void?" Rainbow Dash asked. "Void is nothing, right? Then how could something come from... nothing?"

"Because void has no rules, making it true chaos," Twilight lectured. "And true chaos being unstable, then it eventually turns into something else. Why do you think most stories starting with the beginning of the universe go "at first, there was chaos"?"

"I don't know, the only stories I ever read are Daring Do. And classics that everypony knows of course. Wait a minute. Does this make this Sweetie Belle an alicorn of chaos? Isn't it... uh... What's the word...?"

"Paradoxical? Not really. Take Cadance for example. Love is known to be a great source of chaos. Magic too by the way. But alicorns aren't just about chaos or order, they are about harmony, which chaos is part of," Twilight explained. Then, she looked back at Sweetie Belle with a raised eyebrow. "But I hope that you have an alicorn of order to counter all that chaos."

"Aww. But I'm pretty ordered. I keep my room all tidied up. If I decided to really turn chaotic, then my Discord would be out of a job, and I don't want that. I prefer to use my chaos to do good, like fighting bad guys."

"Uh. Just for info, if you see Chrysalis around, don't attack her, she has turned over a new leaf," Starlight informed.

This surprised Sweetie Belle. "Really? How did you manage it? No matter how much I kicked her flank in my dimension, she refused to join the friendship side. Now she's in Tartarus alongside Sombra, Tirek, and Grogar."

"She hasn't really joined the "friendship side"," Twilight said. "It's... a long story."

"That and she's smart enough to understand that she wouldn't stand a chance against me if she tried to conquer Equestria again," Scootaloo said.

"Uh. My Chrysalis must have had a few less brain cells than yours. I mean, I one shot her with a giant beam on her face while she was on her magic-nullifying throne surrounded by her minions, and she went on by resurrecting Sombra and breaking Tirek out of Tartarus before sending them after me, Tirek powered by the magic of Twilight, Celestia, Luna, and Cadance that the Changelings had captured. And when I defeated them, she still went on by bringing Grogar back from wherever he was exiled. She never learned."

"Not the same circumstances I guess. She had a whole war to see how much out of her league I was. And even then, by the end, the majority of her Changelings were now in good relation with ponies and other species, so she knew that it would have been suicidal for her to try anything."

Something gained Sweetie Belle's attention in what Scootaloo said. "A war?"

This made the ponies around look at each others, a deep sadness filling them. Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity each gave a hug respectively to Lily Longstocks, Berry Pinch, and Silver Spoon (Diamond Tiara also hugged the grey filly) as the fillies seemed ready to cry.

"Let's... talk in my castle," Twilight eventually said before she looked at the three mares who were hugging the fillies. "I don't think that you should come..."

The three mares agreed before they began to walk away, followed by the fillies (excepted the CMC). Discord also decided to go with the yellow pegasus

The remaining ponies then entered Twilight's castle where they told Sweetie Belle about what happened while sitting around a table.

A ruby came out of a rift and was found by Scootaloo. With the ruby came a mad human scientist known as Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik. Scootaloo managed to stop him from getting the ruby by accidentally swallowing it and using its powers to teleport Eggman away. That was how Scootaloo gained her Phantom powers, but they came with the mind of a psychopath that had been trapped inside the ruby and who named himself Infinite, so she now had to share her body with him. And because the power of the ruby was shared between the two, she could use only 50%.

Eggman eventually began to build robots using animals as power sources and used them to search Scootaloo to get the ruby for himself. The doctor had built a secret robot factory under Manehattan and even allied himself with Tirek so he learned to give magic to his robots. Once he had enough robots, he began to invade Manehattan. The invasion failed thanks to Scootaloo, ending up with the ponies discovering Eggman's hideout. Eggman and Tirek however escaped to a HQ that the human had secretly built in the Badlands. Tirek then managed to convince Discord to betray the ponies, and eventually, war began against Eggman's army of robots. Eggman managed to conquer all the South part of the continent that had previously been conquered by the Storm Empire, and Equestria managed to convince the griffons, the yaks, the zebras, the dragons, and the hippogriffs to join. Even the changelings allied themselves with the ponies, Chrysalis judging that she would have no future joining Eggman.

Ponyville was attacked by a huge force that included Tirek, Discord, and Eggman in a powerful mecha. While the ponies managed to push them back thanks to newly made copies of the Phantom Ruby, the town was entirely destroyed, and some ponies died. When Eggman found out how to teleport whole fleets, other cities were also attacked, and the war spreed to everywhere. But in the end, thanks to more and more Phantom Ruby copies being built, the Alliance managed to send a general assault from the North, East, and West, and Eggman's HQ in the Badlands was quickly captured. However, by then, Eggman had built another, bigger fortress in the center of the desert, not far of Klugetown, from which he was building a huge space fortress named the Death Egg. He intended to use it to absorb the magic of the whole planet!

Despite the armies of the Alliance managing to reach the fortress, even destroying Eggman's most powerful robot and defeating Discord, the Death Egg was launched into space and absorbed all the magic of the world. The one who truly absorbed the magic, however, was Tirek who now had the size of a mountain. Scootaloo and Infinite had to merge, becoming Phantom, to be able to face him with the full power of the Phantom Ruby, helped by the Element Bearers with their newly unlocked Rainbow Power. That was until Eggman petrified Tirek by surprise with one of the Storm King's special bombs and used the Staff of Sacanas to absorb all the magic out of him before killing him. The doctor used the magic to return to his home dimension where he took a set of powerful gems called the Chaos Emeralds to become even more powerful. Then, with the help of two versions of Eggman's nemesis who was a blue hedgehog named Sonic, of another hedgehog who was black named Shadow, and of another set of Chaos Emeralds, the group fought the mad scientist in a terrible battle and won. After that, the ponies brought the Staff of Sacanas back to Equus and released all the magic in it.

Following the war, the ponies and other peoples rebuilt, using Eggman's technology to gain a big technological advance (but eco-friendly). Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rarity adopted Berry Pinch, Lily Longstocks, and Silver Spoon who had been orphaned in the war. As for Phantom, she decided to continue to live as Scootaloo.

"So should I call you Scootaloo, or Phantom?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Scootaloo, or Phantom, now in her anthropomorphic form, shrugged. "Whatever you prefer. Personally, I prefer Scootaloo when I'm being Scootaloo, and Phantom when I'm being Phantom, but I don't mind if you call me Phantom while I'm being Scootaloo or vice versa."

"Ok. Well, if you want me to go give Eggman a bad time, just ask and I will give him the worst time of his life, without killing him," Sweetie Belle quickly reassured the ponies.

Scootaloo shrugged again. "I will bring the offer to past Sonic. And I wouldn't mind if you killed him."

"Don't," Twilight deadpanned.

"Beside, killing him would be too nice for him," Sweetie Belle said as she smirked, the others understanding what she wasn't saying.

"I like the way you think," Scootaloo said before she gave a fist bump to a fist-shaped green shield that appeared beside her.

"Anyway, I'm sorry for what you all went through. It feels... weird to think that ponies that I see often back home are dead here. Even if they aren't the ones I personally know, it still hurts."

A moment of silence followed before Twilight eventually said, "S-so... From what Discord said earlier, he sent the coordinates of our universe to you. But, why? Why did you come to our universe?"

Sweetie Belle silently thanked Twilight for the change of subject before she said, "I'm here to talk to you about the... Omniversal Alliance Initiative."

Discord suddenly appeared, wearing a weird blue, red, and white uniform, and said, "I understood that reference!" before disappearing.

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. "Of course you understand that reference. You are the one who gave it to me."

"An omniversal alliance?" Spike asked.

"I'm working on creating a powerful alliance to face yet-to-coming threats that I have been warned about. I asked my Discord to help me find potential powerful allies and your Discord answered the call to give him the coordinates of your universe, obviously so I could get introduced to Scootaloo Phantom over there," Sweetie Belle explained before she smiled at the anthropomorphic filly. "What do you think about exploring other universes alongside me, living exciting adventures while making new allies and facing new enemies?"

Before Scootaloo could answer, Twilight said, "Wait, what are these threats you talked about?"

"Two Gods and an army that will threaten countless universes across the Omniverse. I don't know the details however. Yes, this means that we will probably enter a war that will put the one you went through to shame, but it's either that or leave these threats do as they want and risk our universes being conquered, destroyed, or whatever else they intend to do. I... would perfectly understand if you decide to not join."

"I'm joining," Scootaloo said without hesitation. "I don't know about the others, but I will join. And I can even lead you to more allies that I'm sure will accept to join you."

"The Sonics?" Sweetie Belle guessed.

"And their friends," Scootaloo added. "The older versions are even used to fighting god-like beings."

"Great!"

Scootaloo then looked at Twilight. "While I lead Sweetie Belle through the portal to meet Sonic and the others, how about you go to Canterlot to talk to Celestia and Luna about this?"

Twilight nodded. "Yes. This is a decision that should be discussed with all the leaders of the Alliance."

"Uh... It makes me think that we should talk to the leaders of the other kingdoms in my world about this Omniversal Alliance," Sweetie Belle thought out loud. "Also, note to self: find a better name than Omniversal Alliance."

Bonus: Sweetie Belle's List

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 56: Sonic The Hedgehog

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo entered a large room where there were two portals. Sweetie Belle recognized the one to the human world, so the other - entirely mechanical although she could feel magic in it - must be the one leading to the two versions of Mobius, present and alternate past. Before activating the portal, Scootaloo hesitated a bit, wondering which version they should go to first. In the end, she settled for the present version, which she knew more thanks to the memories of her Infinite side.

Once the portal was activated, they traversed it and came out inside a bare room with walls made of plated metal.

"Where are we?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"It should be Tails' workshop in the Mystic Ruins," Scootaloo answered. "He told me that he would build the portal there, so this must be it. I don't know if he's around however." She then spotted an advanced phone device beside the portal and said, "Let me call him," before she approached it and activated it.

«Yes?» the voice of a young boy answered after a few seconds.

"Hello Tails. It's me, Phantom. Where are you? I have someone with me who would like to meet you and Sonic."

«Phantom! It has been a long time!»

«Phantom?» asked another male voice, more mature. «Hey! How are you? Finally decided to visit us?»

Phantom rolled her eyes. "Great. He's with you. This will gain us time."

«We are flying around with the Tornado,» the young boy, who Sweetie Belle supposed was Tails, informed.

«You should join us. Nothing in my opinion beats the feeling of the breeze on the face while standing on the wing of a flying plane. You will love it,» the other, Sonic the filly assumed, said.

"Uh. Sounds fun. I should try it," Sweetie Belle said to herself. "But darn. The guy has guts."

Phantom grinned. "Maybe I will take you up on your offer another time. Can you come?"

«Of course! We should arrive to the workshop in a few minutes. Make yourself at home until then, but be careful with my inventions please.»

Phantom chuckled. "Who do you take me for? Sonic? Knuckles?" Tails laughed. "Remember, I'm part Infinite, and Infinite was mature enough to know when to keep his hands away."

Sweetie Belle smirked. "But you are also part Scootaloo, who just couldn't stop herself from touching what she shouldn't."

She received a glare from Phantom in return, making her guffaw.

"We will wait for you outside of the workshop," Phantom growled at the phone in the middle of Tails' laugh before she hung up. "Let's go."

They had to explore the workshop a bit to find the exit, finding the hangar where Tails kept variants of the Tornado which wasn't actually far of the room with the portal. Sweetie Belle wanted to get a better look, but Phantom continued and she had to follow her. Just beside the hangar were stairs leading to a smaller, currently empty hangar where Phantom opened a door that revealed to be the exit.

It turned out that most of Tails' workshop was underground, and the hangar they came out from was the only part at the surface, on a cliffside to the ocean. The hangar was on a plateau, with stairs leading to the bottom. From the hangar started a long road ending at the cliff, serving as a runway for the Tornado to take off and land. There was also a hydro-generator just beside the hangar, indicating that the workshop worked on hydro power.

Not far, a wooden train station could be seen, and in the sky was a large floating island.

Sweetie Belle and Phantom were barely out of the workshop that they spotted a red and white biplane approaching. Standing on its left wing was an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog, Sonic, and Sweetie Belle could see a bit of Tails' head in the cockpit, Tails revealing to be an anthropomorphic fox.

The fillies waited as Tails landed the plane on the runway, opened the hangar's large door, and slowly made the plane advance into the building before closing the door. As soon as the plane landed on the runway, Sonic jumped from the wing and approached the fillies with a wave of his hand and a "Hey!"

Sweetie Belle waved back at him. "Hello!"

"Hey, I think that I saw you in the victory party. You are one of Phantom's friends. Sorry, I don't remember your name."

"My name is Sweetie Belle, but I'm not the Sweetie Belle that you remember seeing."

Sonic looked at her questioningly, then raised an eyebrow as his eyes moved toward Phantom. "More dimensional trouble? Or temporal?"

"Dimensional," both Sweetie Belle and Phantom said.

Sonic sighed in relief. "Great. For a moment, I thought that we had another Time Eater mess."

"I don't know about this Time Eater you are talking about, but I can safely say that our actual mess may be worse," Sweetie Belle said.

Sonic remained silent for a few seconds, staring at Sweetie Belle, wondering what that new mess was, before he spread his arms and gave a shrug in a "whatever" fashion.

"Baldy McRottenegg has been strangely silent these pass few months, so I guess that I should as well accept the new distraction."

At this moment, Tails came out of the workshop, and for the first time, Sweetie Belle could see that he had two tails.

"Hey, Tails! Guess what? We're back in action!"

Tails groaned. "Of course things couldn't remain peaceful forever... Is Eggman back?"

"Well..." Sonic began before he looked back at the fillies. "Actually, does he have anything to do with this?"

"Not that I know," Sweetie Belle answered. "All I know is that some army will appear and invade many universes, and two evil Gods will come some time later to add more problems."

"Jeez! Talk about a mess," Sonic said.

Sweetie Belle then turned anthropomorphic like Phantom. "By the way, since I'm not the Sweetie Belle that you encountered back in Phantom's world, then let me present myself correctly." She extended her arm to shake. "I'm Sweetie Belle, alicorn of the void. To differentiate me from the other Sweetie Belle, you can call me Sweetie Void."

Sonic was the first to shake her hand, not questioning her ability to transform. "I'm Sonic! Sonic the Hedgehog!"

"And I'm Miles Prower, but my friends call me Tails," the fox then presented himself as it was his turn to shake Sweetie's hand.

Miles Prower... Oh! Miles per hour! Oh my gosh! Sweetie Belle did her best to not laugh. "Nice meeting you two."

"So, alicorn of the void? Does this mean that you are the alicorn of nothing?" Sonic joked, having been told what were the alicorns before.

"Yup! It's really nice to be able to create spaces of nothing where you would disappear because there is really nothing, not even physic laws to hold the atoms composing your body together."

...

"Okay... Please, avoid doing that near somebody," Sonic said.

Sweetie Belle giggled. "Well, truth is that I don't know if I can really do that yet. I never tested. I was just messing with you. And you, I got it from Phantom that you can run very fast!"

""Very fast?" Come on, that's almost insulting. I can run several times the speed of sound no sweat! That's far more than "very fast.""

"Oh boy..." Sweetie Belle muttered before she turned toward Phantom. "You didn't tell me that he was a Rainbow Dash number 2."

"Hey! She's the one who's a Sonic number 2!" Sonic shouted upon hearing her.

Phantom rolled her eyes and said to Sweetie Belle, "At least you weren't there when these two were together."

"Uh. If this happens again while I'm here, then remind me to bring the popcorn."

Both Phantom and Tails chuckled at this while Sonic rolled his eyes.

"So I guess that you are searching allies to face this army and these two Gods? This is why you are here?" Tails asked to Sweetie Belle.

"Yup!"

"Well, you found yourself two more!" Sonic said. "Between my speed and Tails' genius, these guys won't know what will hit them."

"Careful. I don't know what this army will bring. They could have the technology to counter your speed," Sweetie Belle warned. "It's a multiversal army after all. Their technology will certainly be above anything you ever encountered."

"Eh. I'm used to deal with high-tech foes. I eat robots for breakfast and blow up battleships for dinner everyday. Don't worry. What other allies you have already found?"

"Well, as we speak, my Celestia is assuring the alliance with a Galactic Federation. It's exactly what it is. Whole fleets of powerful spaceships. Armies of well-trained space-marines. Laser and plasma guns. And even a bounty hunter who can take on an army by herself with her powerful armorsuit. I have too some powerful friends in an universe that we name the Dream Universe, also with some advanced technology like portals. My Twilight and some other friends are also in a world full of creatures called Pokémon, helping in dealing with a crisis there to ensure that they can join us. Then, once I'm done here and I've checked the second coordinates my Discord gave me, I'm planning to return to a place called Hyrule to talk with the royal there to see if she will accept to join too. Her magical powers and the local hero would be a real plus. There's also that alternate Equestria where everyone is human that I suppose I should visit with Twilight once she's back from the Pokémon World."

"Not bad," Sonic said. "Already getting yourself quite the army it seems."

"However, do you have a mean to communicate between dimensions?" Tails asked. "It's good to form a multiversal alliance, but if you can't communicate, it will be difficult to coordinate to face the enemies."

"No..." Sweetie Belle said with a sigh. "We still haven't managed to find one."

"Well, you are lucky! Back during the Time Eater Incident, I worked with my past-self to modify some transceivers to be able to talk with anyone anywhere, even in other dimensions. I'm sure that, with some help, I could make more of them."

"You will have to tell me more about that Time Eater Incident, seems like things were interesting."

"More like headache-inducing..." Sonic said with a hand on his forehead.

"Yeah, time shenanigans tend to do that," Sweetie Belle said with an amused shrug. "At least, I got it easy. The time shenanigan I went through consisted simply of going back and forth between two time periods to solve problems, defeat an evil dark lord, and save the future. Anyway, it's a great news Tails! Twilight, Magolor, and Susie will be happy to hear about it! You are incredible!"

Her praise made the young fox chuckle while rubbing the back of his head both in pride and in shyness.

"He is not just incredible," Sonic said as he put a hand on Tails' head. "He wasn't even eight years old that he began to repair and tinker my Tornado. At nine years old, he built himself a plane that can turn into a mecha and went one on one against Eggman several times. And that Time Eater moment happened not long after we celebrated his tenth birthday - during MY birthday, that party pooper -. He is a genius that is born only once every few thousands years."

"C-come on, Sonic!" Tails shouted with embarrassment. "Eggman is even more of a genius than me! I don't hold a candle compared to him!"

Sonic sighed. "I admit... But we could have done without that genius."

"Yeah. It's such a shame that he uses his genius to do evils... These few times we had to work together to face a common threat really made me see how much I would have loved to be his assistant in other circumstances."

Phantom shrugged. "We can't do anything about it."

Sweetie Belle raised a finger and said, "Well..." gaining the attention of the others.

"You can do something about it?" Phantom asked.

"Yeah, but I already know that these two won't like it."

"Tell it anyway."

"I could rewrite his mind. I can enter others' minds and do pretty much anything I can think of. See their thoughts, turn them into vegetables, enslave them, or change their personalities. I could turn the most cold-hearted jerk into a softy giving to charities without ulterior motives other than wanting to help."

"Yeah... That's definitively a no," Sonic said. "As nice as it would be, it would be too wrong. It would be like killing Eggman and replacing him by some clone who is him but not really."

This made Phantom roll her eyes but she decided to not say anything. Stupid goody-two-shoes heroes and their foolish morals. At least, this Sweetie Belle seemed willing to dirty her hands/hooves. Still she was impressed that Sweetie Belle could do something like that. Where were her powers stopping?

Sweetie Belle simply shrugged at Sonic's words. "I told you you wouldn't like it."

In an instant, Sonic was beside Sweetie Belle, an arm around her shoulders. "That's okay. Say, do you wanna see our pals?"

"I would love to!"

"Sonic! Sonic!" a voice that sounded like Tails but younger suddenly shouted from the entrance of the workshop.

Its origin quickly revealed to be a younger-looking Tails who was running toward them, panicked.

Sweetie Belle guessed that he was the Tails from the alternate past version of this world, which the portal was also linked to.

"Woah! Hey, Past Tails! A problem?" Sonic asked.

"Phantom! You're here too! Oh I'm glad!" Past Tails said upon remarking the presence of Phantom. "Sonic- I mean my Sonic! He...! Help!"

"Breathe!" Phantom said. "Calm down, breathe, and tell us what happened."

Past Tails followed Phantom's instruction and took a big breath to calm himself down. Once he was calm enough, he said, "I'm really glad to find you here, all of you. I don't think we have long. My Sonic has been captured by my Eggman!"

"What?!" both Sonic and Tails shouted in shock.

"So Eggman escaped, what a big surprise. Anyone who hadn't seen it coming raise their hand," Phantom said.

Nobody raised their hand, mostly because the Sonic and the two Tails instead rolled their eyes.

"What happened?" Tails asked.

"My Eggman escaped from Prison Island a few weeks ago..." Past Tails began.

"Wait. Only a few weeks ago?" Sonic asked.

Past Tails shrugged. "Either he was bidding his time, took the time to come up with a plan or prepare his next one, or the security of the prison was just THAT good. Anyway, he escaped, and apparently, he freed my Shadow in the same occasion, the G.U.N. never bothering to tell us about this."

"Yeah. As much as I like them, the G.U.N. seems to be mostly made of idiots. Remember Tails? They couldn't even tell the difference between me and Shadow, as if they were all colorblind," Sonic said with some disdain.

"Don't remind me... Wait, so Eggman freed Shadow earlier than planned? Ohh that's not good..." Tails said.

"It definitively wasn't," Past Tails said. "So we learned about Eggman's escape, but not that he escaped with Shadow. Not sure what happened next, but Eggman kept a low profile in the following weeks. We knew of course we needed to prepare, so the others and I began to gather the Emeralds, but we only wound six of them."

"That's not surprising," Tails said. "I learned that to free Shadow from Prison Island, the power of an Emerald was needed. I don't know how Eggman managed to get one from his cell, but if he freed Shadow, then it means that he had one somehow."

"That's what we found out. Without warning, a roboticized Shadow appeared and used the seventh Chaos Emerald to take Sonic totally by surprise before he could activate the six others. I saw all this and immediately knew that I needed your help. the last thing I saw before flying away was Eggman flying down on his Egg Mobile while Robo Shadow grabbed Sonic. This means that Eggman now has the seven Chaos Emeralds and Sonic! Maybe he will roboticize him too! We must hurry!"

Now everyone was astonished and horrified.

"He... roboticized Shadow?" Sonic asked.

Phantom put a hand on her face, groaning. "I should have seen that coming. Eggman knew that Prison Island was where his grandfather's secret weapon was kept. Of course that he used the occasion to see what it was. And when he saw that this secret weapon was Shadow, the very Shadow who helped us defeat him, then he decided to not trust him and roboticized him. Worst of all, he freed him at a time where you and Sonic are not ready to fight him."

Tails nodded. "Phantom is right. When our Eggman freed our Shadow, Sonic and him were even. Your Sonic, however, still lacks some of the skills and experience to face him. As for you, you haven't even made yet the X Tornado. And it doesn't help that as a robot, Shadows is certainly different." The fox then looked at the others. "We must help them!"

"You don't have to tell us twice!" both Sweetie Belle and Phantom said before they ran into the workshop, quickly followed by Sonic and the Tails.

"Wait, has Shadow told Eggman about ARK and the Eclipse Cannon?" Sonic wondered.

"No idea," Past Tails said.

"If he did, then we have double reason to hurry! Eggman doesn't know that inserting the seven Chaos Emerald into the power supply will cause the ARK to hurtle toward the planet and destroy everything! And without us, he won't be able to stop it!" Tails said.

"Oh, and also, I hope for you that Knuckles hasn't had to break the Master Emerald into pieces," Sonic said. "One world crisis is already enough, we don't need to add Chaos in the mix. And by Chaos, I'm speaking of a liquid creature that can absorb the Chaos Emeralds to become a powerful giant water-dragon-thing able to destroy whole cities by flooding them."

Before long, they were in the portal room, and Tails quickly activated it and set it so it would led them to the past version of the world.

"I just thought of something," Tails then said. "How will we find where Eggman has taken Past Sonic?"

"Uh..." Sonic began, searching for a solution.

"I can feel the energy of the Emeralds and follow it. Where the Emeralds are, Past Sonic must not be far," Sweetie Belle said.

"Really? Thank you! Uh... Wait. Who are you? You are familiar," Past Tails wondered.

"I'm an alternate version of Sweetie Belle, one of Scootaloo's, or Phantom's, friends. Call me Sweetie Void. You can count on me to help you deal with your Eggman."

Phantom smirked at her. "Eh. I don't think that your powers will be needed. My Phantom powers will be more than enough to make Eggman regret that he didn't remain in his cell."

Sweetie Belle smirked back. "Doesn't mean that I can't be part of the fun."

"Hey! Leave some to me!" Sonic said.

The group then entered the portal.

Author's Note

Tell me if there's anything that I missed or got wrong about the Sonic saga. I watched a whole walkthrough of Sonic Adventure 2, watched part of another walkthrough of Sonic Adventure 1, watched bits and pieces of other Sonic games, and spent hours in the Sonic Wiki before finishing this chapter.
Yes, I saw that the planet is called Earth in Sonic Adventure 2. Let's just keep calling it Mobius. Blame Sega's incompetence.

Chapter 57: Eggman's Trap

As soon as they came out of the portal in exactly the same room than in the other version of Mobius, Sweetie Belle searched for the powerful chaotic energy of the Emeralds.

She immediately felt it. Or rather, them. Two huge concentrations of energy, from two different directions, one upward and one downward.

When she told the others about this, Tails said, "The first one must be the Master Emerald, still in its shrine on Angel Island. It means that Eggman hasn't yet gone after it."

"Then the other must be the seven Chaos Emeralds together," Past Tails concluded.

"Let's not lose time then," Phantom said before she ran in the direction of the exit of Past Tails' workshop, the others quickly following her.

Once outside, Sweetie Belle moved in the direction where she was feeling the energy of the Chaos Emeralds, toward the ocean. Most of the team could fly above the water, the Tails using their tails as a propeller like an helicopter. Sonic, however, had to run on the water, and after some time, the foxes got tired and had to be transported by Sweetie Belle and Phantom.

It wasn't long before Sweetie Belle stopped in the middle of nowhere above the ocean and looked down at the water. At the same time, she levitated Sonic once he stopped running so he wouldn't sink.

"The Emeralds are down there."

"An underwater base? Aww man. I hate when he does that," Sonic complained. "Water. My only weakness."

"As well as spikes, blades, bullets, energy projectiles, rockets, fire, lava, electricity, space vacuum, quicksands, Amy R-" Phantom began to list.

"Okay okay! I get it!"

Sweetie Belle gathered everyone inside a single bubble shield before she moved it alongside the group into the ocean. Half a minute later, they reached Eggman's base, a huge facility kept dry by a solid dome of glass with two hatches, a small one at the side and a larger one at the top (probably to let out and in vehicles). Instead of going toward one of the hatches or breaking the glass dome, Sweetie Belle teleported them through it, reappearing on some platform with a ship/submarine.

"We will have to explore the facility. I don't think that Eggman put Past Sonic with the Chaos Emeralds," Tails said.

"Uh... It makes me think... What if Eggman put other me inside another base?" Sonic remarked.

This made Past Tails worry. "I hope that's not the case."

At this instant, an alarm started blaring, warning everyone and everything in the base of their presence. Almost immediately, robots of all shapes approached the platform.

"Alright, let's not dilly-dally here," Sonic said as he crouched. "Time to go everyone!" Then, he curled into a ball and rolled on place, accumulating energy, before he took off very rapidly, blasting his way through the robots which freed a lot of animals that had been trapped in them.

The Tails didn't lose time going after him, using their tails to propel themselves forward and keep up. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle and Phantom stared at each other and smirked before the orange filly materialized with her Phantom powers a red sword and moved after the others, slashing at some remaining robots on the way. Sweetie Belle flew after her, firing from her fingers small lasers at flying robots that approached. She also made sure to teleport the freed animals back to the surface, on land.

The exploration started with some platforming on the roof of the base before Sonic reached an entrance, allowing them to enter the facility itself.

The inside was a maze of pathways going in all directions, even upward and downward, with loops and corkscrews and other weird layout choices that made Sweetie Belle wonder just... why?

Some parts of the facility were filled with water, forcing Sweetie Belle to create bubbles of air around Sonic and the Tails' head so they could breathe.

Traps such as spikes or electric barriers were also present a little everywhere along seemingly bottomless pits, often forcing Sonic and the foxes to slowdown to avoid them, sometimes doing more platforming or even having to bounce on robots.

After exploring a good part of the base, finding many rooms that were full of machinery or crates or robots or capsules with trapped animals or other stuff, they eventually reached a room where they finally found Past Sonic unconscious on a table beside a terminal and under a device with several mechanical arms with tools and pincers. The hedgehog was, thankfully, still fully organic.

However, beside the terminal was a robot hedgehog looking like Sonic, ready to press a button.

"Hey, you stupid copy! I advice you to not touch this button if you don't want to be turned into a pile of scraps!" Sonic shouted.

Metal Sonic simply stared at him wordlessly, everyone seeing its smirk despite the robot having no mouth, before he pressed the button, activating the Roboticizer. Metal Sonic then placed himself between the group and the table, ready to sacrifice himself to ensure that they won't be able to stop the machine in time.

In a blink of an eye, Phantom charged at him with her sword at a speed that made it look like she warped behind the robot, and Metal Sonic was vertically sliced in two.

Tails immediately moved to deactivate the Roboticizer while the others joined the orange filly, remaining on guard in case more robots came.

"It's scary how you destroyed Metal Sonic so easily," Past Tails said to Phantom.

Phantom smirked at him. "When you don't let your ego get in the way, almost nothing can stand against the power of the Phantom Ruby."

She didn't see small coils coming out of the ground at everyone's feet. Before they knew it, high-voltage electricity came out of them and electrified everyone except Tails who was deactivating the Roboticizer. While the group was getting shocked, a hole opened in the ceiling, and out of it fell several nets which were electrified too, trapping the group.

"Oh no! Everyone!" Tails shouted in panic, now hesitating between saving the group or finishing deactivating the Roboticizer.

He judged that the Roboticizer was the more pressing matter at the moment.

"Hold on guys! Give me a minute!"

But at this moment, a half-mechanical black hedgehog with eyes replaced by a visor glowing red, his left arm replaced by a cannon, and a jet pack on his back, warped in the room right behind Tails and grabbed him by the neck, almost choking him.

A large screen then came out of the hole in the ceiling and activated, revealing Eggman's upper body.

"Mwahahahahaha!! Right in my trap!" the mustachioed bald mad scientist shouted victoriously.

"T-trap?" Tails was barely able to ask.

"That's right, fox boy. Why do you think I let your counterpart escape? Thanks to a mini-camera robot, I saw that portal that he built in his workshop and I understood where it led to. I knew that he would go to search help in the other worlds after I captured Sonic. So I used him as a bait to gather all of you here where I set up this trap! And now, you are all at my mercy! Even this pony girl! Mwahaha! Oh, I'm such a genius! And even if someone were to come to help, like that knucklehead echidna, I doubt that they would be able to do anything against Shadow. So, you know what this means? I win!"

"I don't think so."

"What?"

Suddenly, a beam destroyed the Roboticizer just before it could cut Past Sonic's legs. Then, Sweetie Belle, now entirely made of stone, tore off the net trapping her with her bare hands before she materialized her sword and cut the nets trapping the others.

She giggled. "Too bad for you, as soon as I felt the electricity, I turned myself into stone with just a thought. With all these electric traps we saw on the way, I had prepared the mental command just in case."

"Grrrr... Shadow! Plan B!"

"Yes, Doctor," Shadow replied with a half-robotic, monotonous voice before he dropped Tails who immediately ran to the others who recovered from the electricity.

"Man... I can't believe we fell for it," Sonic said. "Thank you Sweetie Belle."

"Eggman, you are so dead..." Phantom growled. Her growl quickly stopped however when she saw what Robo Shadow was doing. "Oh shit..."

Robo Shadow now had the seven Chaos Emeralds orbiting him and he was in the process of absorbing their energy. A few seconds later, he turned entirely golden (excepted the red parts on his quills and his mechanical parts).

Phantom could perfectly fight the power of the Emeralds, even someone in their Super State, but she knew that it will still be a hard battle, especially against a master of Chaos Control like Shadow.

"So, if I remember correctly, when someone uses the power of all seven Emeralds, they are pretty much invincible, right?" Sweetie Belle asked. Without waiting for an answer, she then grinned and said, "Cool!"

She then tackled Super Robo Shadow and rammed the wall behind the Roboticizer with him, blasting a hole through it. Sounds of explosions and of stuff hitting metal then followed, the base beginning to shake.

"She's crazy! She really thinks she can take on Super Shadow?" Eggman wondered.

Phantom remembered the list Sweetie Belle made her read and said, "Yes, she can." Then, she lifted Past Sonic from the Roboticizer's table and turned to the others. "We should leave. I don't think that we want to remain around with these two going at it. Their fight will certainly cause the base to be flooded."

Everyone agreed, especially Sonic.

Shadow used his power over chaos to send several blasts of red energy that homed in at Sweetie Belle who dodged them expertly, the blasts instead creating several big holes in the wall and the floor. Sweetie Belle countered with a giant beam that Robo Shadow avoided by warping, the beam going through all the walls of the base in its way and blasting a hole in the glass dome surrounding it, causing water to start to flood it.

The hedgehog appeared behind the filly and charged energy in his arm cannon before firing a huge red ball of energy that also homed in. Sweetie Belle avoided it, but the ball exploded into a firework of red energy blasts that flew in all directions, and Sweetie Belle had to use a shield to protect herself. Shadow fired more of these balls, and after avoiding two of these and the blasts they created, Sweetie Belle kicked one back at him, catching the hedgehog off guard as the ball hit him before exploding. Before he could recover, Sweetie Belle punched him with a giant fist-shaped shield, sending him flying through one of the holes in the wall behind. She then charged after him, her ten swords appearing around her before Shadow sent more red energy blasts at her.

Energy blasts flew in all directions, either avoided or deflected. Pathways and other elements of the base dropped as they were accidentally sliced by the swords or destroyed by the blasts while Sweetie Belle and Shadow flew and clashed everywhere. Water filled the base more and more, waterfalls appearing a little everywhere, to the point that the fight now happened partially underwater. Shadow made sure to pick up the rings that were floating a little everywhere to continue to power his Super State. Then there was a "Chaos Control!" and everything stopped as time itself stopped.

Sweetie Belle was able to free herself from the time stop, but not before taking several hits. She then made Robo Shadow pay by turning half of her swords back into their cannon mode before firing powerful lasers as the two clashed and clashed again, warping and attacking and warping and attacking. Eventually, time returned to normal and all the damage that the base took while it was stopped happened at once, parts being cut, exploding, or being propelled around without apparent reason.

Shadow sent more of his giant red energy balls, and Sweetie Belle fired this time her own giant energy balls to counter them, the resulting explosions propelling the two of them backward. But Shadow then warped right behind Sweetie Belle and put his cannon on her back as she recovered. He then fired a huge chaos blast from it that entirely enveloped the filly, but she resisted it, turned around, and gave an uppercut in Shadow's gut before she teleported behind him and kicked him on the back, sending him crashing on a wall. She then teleported beside him again while she gathered a lot of energy into a small ball in her hand and hit him with it, the ball exploding. despite it, Shadow managed to fly to Sweetie Belle and headbutted her in the gut before they both crashed into another wall. The filly punched him away right into a black hole that spat him out after a few seconds. Shadow immediately recovered, and the two clashed again as Sweetie Belle created more black holes a little everywhere to hinder him, the holes sucking up many debris and some water.

In the middle of one of their clashes, Shadow suddenly fired a red beam from his visor, hitting Sweetie Belle right on the chest. She was propelled through several falling debris before she crashed into the water. The hedgehog waited for her to come out, but instead of a filly, a huge pillar of water came and hit him like a train, sending him crashing into the ceiling. Sweetie Belle then came out of the water and used aquakinesis to send arrows of water as well as giant tentacles of water after him. The arrows were the first to hit Shadow just as he recovered from the previous hit, and the tentacles then wrapped him. Sweetie Belle then used her ten cannons to send huge quantity of electricity at the water, the electricity spreading everywhere and Shadow ended up badly electrified, which caused some of his mechanised parts to smoke.

Despite the pain of the electricity coursing through him, Robo Shadow managed to accumulate a huge quantity of energy as he said with some difficulty, "Chaos... BLAST!"

And a huge part of the base blew up in a huge explosion of chaos energy, the majority of the glass dome, already badly damaged, finally breaking in pieces, resulting in what remained of the base being totally flooded.

Robo Shadow quickly saw that Sweetie Belle survived the explosion, but not without burns as she had put a shield that hadn't been able to resist the explosion. The burns rapidly disappeared however thanks to Sweetie Belle healing herself.

Sweetie Belle then surrounded herself in purple Dynamax Energy as she smirked at Robo Shadow.

And she used the Crash Ability.

Phantom and the others were back at Past Tails' workshop, all facing the ocean as they waited for Sweetie Belle to finish her fight. Phantom wanted to join, but she estimated that Sweetie Belle didn't need her help.

Suddenly, there was a giant, miles wide explosion followed by an as huge column of purple energy going all the way to the sky in the distance that sent hundreds of thousand of tons of water into the sky, a lot of it as vapor and some of it raining back on the Mystic Ruins. The big hole that was left behind in the ocean quickly closed back, forming a huge maelstrom for a moment.

"Holy...! What was that?!" Sonic asked. "Not even Shadow's Chaos Control can create explosions that big! Not even explosions from nuclear missiles are that big!"

At this moment, Sweetie Belle teleported beside them.

"Shadow used Chaos Control to warp away with the Chaos Emeralds. I can feel that they are now somewhere above our heads, in space," she informed.

Tails groaned. "The ARK..."

"Hey! That explosion! Was that you?" Sonic asked.

"Yup! It was nice. It's not everyday that I get to unleash my powers a bit. That Super State is no joke."

Sonic was about to say something but was interrupted by Tails.

"We have no time to talk about that explosion! If the Chaos Emeralds are in the ARK and if Eggman is in there too, then he will certainly try to use the Eclipse Cannon! We must do something before this happens!"

Meanwhile.

The ARK was a giant space station that looked like a perfectly spherical space boulder from outside. Inside it, Eggman was walking back and forth in the main control room, on the half-circular walkway in front of the main computer of the station.

Robo Shadow then appeared above the platform before he floated down on it, deactivating his Super State. He then dropped a knee on the ground, too weak to remain up as smoke escaped from his damaged mechanical parts and his organic parts were badly injured. The seven Chaos Emeralds dropped around him.

"I'm sorry Doctor. The white pony was too powerful," he said.

"HOW?!" the doctor yelled. "She doesn't have the ruby contrary to the other one, so how is she able to face someone in Super State?!"

"Energy readings overloaded when I tried to analyse her," Robo Shadow said.

Eggman growled. "These ponies... Alright! Plan C! Insert the Emeralds in these slots!" he said as he pointed at the seven slots in the pillar-like terminal in the center of the room. "Activate the Eclipse Cannon! We will force them to surrender!"

"Yes, Doctor."

Chapter 58: The ARK

"Alright everyone. No time to search for a spaceship or whatever. Just gather around me and I will do like when we had to go underwater," Sweetie Belle said.

Everyone nodded, but Tails then turned to his past-self. "You should remain here to look after your Sonic."

"You are right," the other Tails replied before he moved toward the still unconscious Past Sonic that Phantom had laid on the ground. "I will take Sonic to my workshop and wait for you there. Good luck everyone."

All the others gathered around Sweetie Belle who created a bubble around them like she did above the ocean.

And she teleported everyone directly into space above the planet, in the direction where she felt the energy of the Chaos Emeralds.

Where they appeared, the ARK was still further away, so Sweetie Belle made them fly toward it, eventually seeing the spherical station in the distance.

And suddenly, the lower hemisphere of the ARK exploded into a field of boulders, revealing in the center of the bottom of the upper hemisphere the Eclipse Cannon.

"We're too late!" Sonic shouted.

"Yes!" Eggman shouted. "The cannon is activated and ready to fire! Now, let's broadcast it to the whole world to have their unconditional sur-"

He was interrupted by an alarm suddenly blaring as a big WARNING appeared on the screen of the main computer.

"What?! What's happening?"

Eggman looked at the computer, trying to find out what was going on. The Eclipse Cannon was refusing to charge. Instead, something else was happening, and whatever it was, it had nothing to do with the cannon.

Then, a recording popped up on the screen, showing an old man who had a striking resemblance with Eggman except that he was thinner and was wearing entirely white clothes. The man was also chained to a chair, looking down.

"My grandfather? Gerald Robotnik?"

The station then began shaking, almost making the doctor fall on his butt as the part of the terminal with the Chaos Emeralds moved down into the pit below. The recording then began, the old man in it speaking.

"This is a death sentence for every human being on Earth. If my calculations are correct, the Space Colony ARK will impact the planet in 27 minutes and 53 seconds. All of you will be destroyed, along with your beloved planet Earth. I plan to give you a taste of my revenge once all the seven Chaos Emeralds are collected. Once I initiated this program, it cannot be disabled. All of you ungrateful humans, who took everything away from me, will feel my loss and despair!"

"Is there anything else you want to say?" asked an unknown man.

"No," Gerald answered.

The man then said "Ready!" before the recording looped.

"That madman!" Eggman shouted. "I must stop it! Somehow! Shadow, do something!"

"The Chaos Emeralds are moving to the cannon's core to turn it into a reactive bomb," Robo Shadow informed. "In order to stop the ARK from crashing, we must reach the Core and cut off the Chaos Emeralds' energy. But without a mean to do this, we have no way to succeed."

"You have got to be kidding me!" Eggman yelled as he punched the keyboard of the computer. "The only thing that I know that could do it is the Master Emerald, but we don't have time to go to Angel Island to grab it! Curse!!!"

The ARK began its crash course toward the planet before the heroes.

"Alright!" Sweetie Belle said as she mimed rolling up her non-existent sleeves. "I guess it's time to blow up a space station!"

"No! Don't!" Tails shouted back. "The Eclipse Cannon will be needed in a few years to repel an alien invasion! It's why Gerald Robotnik created it in the first place before he decided to turn it into a bomb."

"Right. The Black Arms. I remember," Phantom said. "I... I lost half of my mercenaries to them when they invaded."

"Ok. so, what do we do to stop the ARK?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"We must go to the Eclipse Cannon's Core to stop the energy given off by the Chaos Emeralds. However, we have two major problems," Tails said.

"First of, there's that big and very powerful lizard-thing that guards the Core," Sonic informed. "He's a prototype of the ultimate lifeform, so he's pretty much Shadow's big brother, and he will do everything in his power to ensure that the ARK will crash."

"And even if we pass the Biolizard, we don't have the Master Emerald which is the only thing that has the power to stop the Chaos Emeralds," Tails said.

"You are forgetting that the Phantom Ruby can restrain the power of the Emeralds," Phantom reminded.

"And I can manipulate the Emeralds' energy to stop them," Sweetie Belle said. "We won't need the Master Emerald. As for that giant lizard, he won't be a problem, don't worry."

Phantom nodded. "We will blast our way to the Core, destroy that lizard, and deactivate the Chaos Emeralds. It shouldn't be difficult then to put the ARK back in place."

"Simple and to the point. That's my language," Sonic said. "No objection Tails?"

The fox shook his head.

"Alright! Then let's go!" the hedgehog shouted. "And once it's over, we will kick Eggman's butt to next week and free Shadow!"

"Yay!" Sweetie Belle cheered before she made everyone charge toward the bottom of the station. Tails pointed the ideal location to enter the station and rapidly reach the Core without damaging the Eclipse Cannon itself, and Sweetie Belle made the bubble go toward it, surrounding it in energy.

They crashed through, entering into a random room of the station, which revealed to be guarded by Eggman's badniks. Some of them were sucked out into space as a result.

"Okay everyone!" Sonic said as he landed on a ladybug robot, freeing a rabbit that Sweetie Belle immediately teleported back on land on the planet. "We already stopped the ARK once, time to do it again!"

And the group charged, destroying any robots getting in their way.

Eggman destroyed an Artificial Chaos, an artificial lifeform made of water-like liquid with a mechanical head made to look like the legendary Chao God, Chaos, by the scientists of Project: Shadow and left behind by the G.U.N. after they shut down the station.

He was on his way to the Core alongside Robo Shadow and a great number of his badniks, but he was encountering a lot of resistance from these artificial things that were slowing him down. And there were also very solid security doors. At this space, he won't be able to reach the Core in time, where he hoped to find something to stop the Chaos Emeralds.

"Doctor," Robo suddenly began. "I received a message from the badniks left to guard the rest of the station. Sonic and his friends have arrived and are on their way to the Core too. They will reach our position before long."

"What?! They're here?! How are they here?! Nevermind! Order the badniks to let them come! We will need them to reach the Core in time!"

"Yes, Doctor."

And suddenly, the robots stopped attacking the group and actually let them pass, even helping them dealing with the lone Artificial Chaos showing up every now and then.

"Eggman is helping us!" Tails said.

"You know it's bad when Eggman is on our side," Sonic commented. "Which was also the case the first time, so it's not a big surprise."

"At least, it means we won't lose time anymore dealing with these small fries," Phantom said.

It wasn't long after that that they reached Eggman who was busy blasting a security door.

"I don't know by what miracle you managed to come here so quickly, but for once, I'm happy to see you," the Doctor said. "You probably already know the situation so I won't lose time explaining it to you. Let's just hurry to reach the Core before the ARK crashes. I hope that you brought something to stop the Emeralds."

Sweetie Belle raised her arm, and also grabbed Phantom's arm to raise it too. "We're here!"

Eggman eyed them for a few seconds before he finished destroying the security door with the cannon mounted on his Egg Mobile. "Whatever works."

Unbeknown to him, Tails discreetly approached Robo Shadow and whispered to his ear "Maria."

Shadow froze.

"S̶͇̓̀̈́̈́̊̑̇͊̃͊̚h̴̲͔̆͌̈́̏̏̈́͂͑̈̊̒ạ̷̡̖͇͍̯̗̦̥̣̋͆̃͊̐́̄͂ͅd̵͔͈͓̫̻̈́̎̈́̓͌̒̔̕̕͜o̸̧̢̯̲͎̮̝̹͐̃͒̒̈w̶̖̞͉̮̞̬̩̥̳̓̓̈́͜͝͝ͅ,̴̲̘̹̗͕̺͔̝͌̀̓̋̿ ̵͕̎̃̋̉̉I̵̛̮̤̲̹͐̈́̈̉̇̆̚̚ ̸̡̛̘͙̓̽́͗͊̚͝b̷̢̠̝̿̀̎́̏̃ẽ̵̟͙̫̲̱͚̎͌̓̈g̵̠͔̬̙̀̿͂́ ̸͍̳̭͚͙̗̥̃̈́͒͑͠ͅŏ̵̧̩̯͒̂͂̐́f̶̨̜̬̬͚̳̭̝̹̂͑̎̓̉̌͝ ̵̡̢̣̳̘̉ẙ̶̭̙͇͖̻̈͛̋̀̂͠o̶̢͈͉͎̗̦̔͂͐̊̾̆ừ̴̜͉̥̩̍̉̀͌̈.̷̖̯̞̘̈́̇̂̊̓́̕̚͠͝ͅ.̶̲̳͇͓̜̯̜̭̬̬̭̈́̓̈̊͗̍͠͝.̷̙̮̯̫͎̹͓͕̎̇̿̏̐͂͝"

".̷̟͓̝̳̤̜͆̅̇̑.̶̛̹̫̾̏̆̐͊̈́͘͠.̶̹͒̉͑͂̀̐̄̄̏̋͘ ̶̖̈̈͆̋͒́̏̃͝g̶̼͝i̸̡̢̛̝̥̣̣̟̦̦̅͗͗̄͘̚͝v̶̭͊̒̃̒̍̀̔̔͗̕ẹ̵̤̬̦̰̠̼̹͍̏̽̏̈́̄͆̽͂́͠ ̶̡̺͇̠̹͋͂͒̍̆̉͌͒͘ṯ̸̡̠̤̖̩̳͌̿̽̄̑͛͑́͝ḩ̸̡̨̡͇̳͇̮͖̏̋̆͂́̀͋̅̌̎͊ę̸̱͚͉͎̮̲̅̓̏̃͛̚͠m̴̨͍͍̖͕̘͉̪̪̩͑̀͆͋̉̾̋̈̍̄̚͜ ̷̢̗̲̥̩͌̆͒̐a̵̢̙͚̖̺̹̜͎̲͍͑̍͋̎̃͑͌͆ ̴̨̻͙̳̲͓̓͗͌͂c̴̲͔̺͍̺̠̪̼̅̈́̀͊̽̇̀h̶̠̟̺̹̪́̽̂̃̿̃̅͊͜ắ̸̖̟͓͂̽́n̸̲͔̼̬͍͑͛̇̿̓͂̚̕͜ĉ̴̗̜̇̽̆̋͂̈̅͒͘͝e̸̮̞̥̺̯̝͌͋͐̐̒̄̈́͐̿͊̉.̴̨̆̈́͋.̵̧̨̜̝͖̰̫̬͇̈́̔͗̐̾́͂́̚͝.̸̡͚͙̲̟͖͔̭̖͌͌͌̒͂̓͌͑͗͝ͅ"

".̴̛͖̞̤̀̒͗̉̈̚͜͝.̴̡̛̥͕͙͙̓̄͌̏͆̓͋̓̋.̷̛̟̣͙͕̲̹̝̀̐͊̂͆̎̔̅͝ ̷̡̛̻͔̪̼̯̦̀̐̓̊̏̓̊̃y̸̛̼̙̪̼̘̰͓̎̐̈́̌͒ͅͅō̵͎̣̝̲̺͓̥̩̪̣̺̓̈́̄͑ữ̶͙̗̘͖̗̠̝ ̷͎̺͈̄̎͊͆̐̐͊͘ͅw̵̧̡̠͓̻̗͍̜̬̭̌́̅̇̃̕̚̕e̷̫͔̒̄̒̋͋̈͊̕͠r̴͉̠̝̟̪͖͕̠̰̪̉͂́̂̍͂̀͂͑̋́e̶̠̞̹͇͓͎̱̻͌͜ ̷̧̠̭͚̗͎̦̤̼͕̔́̎́̿͛̈́̚͜b̵̢̙͈̬͙̱̹̹̘̤̉̂̒̌̿͋͒r̴̡͓̫̱̭̜̭͋̽̀̍o̵̡̭͉̲͕͉̅̂̈́̚u̴̡̨̨̩̗̘͋̓̇̐̕ǵ̵̢̗͓̜͕͓̺̃̎̄̈́́̐̆͆́͊ȟ̴̨͕͈̬̱̯̒̋̋̒͗̋͑͠t̷̢͕̣̰̩̿͐̃̄.̷̭̼̠͈̝͠.̶̺̙̙͉͕̙̦͛͂̿̏͒̃̔̒̀͠.̵̑̇̈̌͗͜"

"S̸̨͕̱̻͔̅̂̈́́̆͠ä̷̢̠͙͉͙̲̗̊͐̈́͌̄̐͂͛͝ͅy̵̬̦̙͖͎͎̝̪͙̗̏̃̋̌̎o̶̧̦͌̍̀̃̕n̶̯̞̳͈͆͆̔̈́̅ả̴̲̜͙̖̜̾̃̿̃͗̔͝ͅr̴̨͖̰̰̥̮̲̽̃͗̅a̵̟̳̜̪̠̺̻͇̺̗̪͌̄͑̉͝,̴̫͛̋̑ ̴͔̫͍̼̝͓̝̰̺̊͋S̵̥̮̟̖̝͒͑̓̽͘͜h̶̢̤̯̭̬̺̹̫̘̠̐a̴͎̗̬͚̻͐͂̑̉́͂̄͑̏ḓ̴͓̳̼̰̭̹͌̓͐́͛̕͜ô̶̻̎̅͝ẘ̶̨̘͍̟̤͇̳͚̩̓̂̄ ̸̨̼̿͑t̷̲̭͙̗̲̯̪̓̑̔̉̐͝h̶̗̫́̎͘e̷̢̛̮̼̻͕̠͂̆̓͂́̐̈́̓͝͠ ̴̥̖͂͛̓͒̅̌͜ͅͅḨ̸̞̰̲̞͙͕̀̚e̴̮̗̱̞͖͊͒ͅḑ̸̙̥̞͇̱̯̊̆͆̏̽͜͝ḡ̵̛͚̀̿͗̾̿͊̎̿̋e̷͚͇̟͇̗̯͓̯͠ḩ̵̢̧̠̣͙̩̫̭͎̆̓̽̌͗̇̐̐͝ͅö̷͙̫̝͔̝̖́̂͂̽͑̓͑̄̓̍̅ḡ̵̲͎̘͖͕͔̘͇͂̍̄̾͛̽̚.̶̡̩̔̃.̶̡͖͎̏͝.̶͎̪̻͑̋̋̔͒̍̅̌̚̕̚͜"

Robo Shadow put a hand on his head, feeling a sudden headache, while Tails moved back beside Sonic who gave him a silent thumb up.

Eggman saw Shadow's state and asked, "A problem, Shadow?"

"I... I think that I need repair..."

"Right. With all this, I wasn't able to repair the damage you took. You will have to wait until we have stopped the ARK."

"Yes, Doctor."

The constituted team quickly continued through the following areas, Sweetie Belle taking Eggman's place to blast the security doors open. All the while, Robo Shadow, who remained silent, had more headaches

Before long, they reached the Core's chamber where there was a shrine surrounded by seven pillars under an apparatus that beat like a heart. On the pillars were the Chaos Emeralds. Several pipes were all around, as well as a path surrounded by yellow fluid which was separated in two by a canal. The path formed a large circular area in the center.

As the group approached the shrine, holograms of the recording from earlier appeared above them by dozens, the recording repeating Gerald's maddened words as energy gathered above the circular area of the path.

Then, in a large flash of light, a colossal orange lizard-like creature with a dark gray underbelly appeared, over two hundred feet from the head to the tip of the tail and over sixty feet tall where there was a large disk-shaped machinery with a glowing red orb on his back. With a roar, the lizard landed in the yellow fluid in the center of the circular area, making the room shake.

"The Biolizard!" Tails shouted.

"Leave it to me!" Phantom yelled as she sent a wave of Phantom Energy at the beast. "Continue to the shrine!"

Everyone nodded and ran around the Biolizard, keeping an eye on his head and his tail in case he decided to attack them. He did try to attack them by sending dozens of pink egg-things at them, but they were either avoided or destroyed, and Phantom enlarged her red sword before she jumped and she threw it at the red orb on the Biolizard's back, making him roar in pain as his life-support was damaged.

"It's me you should be focused on, you giant abomination!" the pegasus yelled.

She succeeded in gaining the giant lizard's attention and he fired dark energy balls at her from his mouth. The filly easily avoided them by flying around.

Meanwhile, the others reached the shrine.

"This is where we are supposed to place the Master Emerald to stop the Chaos Emeralds," Tails informed.

"Then it's time for me to do my job," Sweetie Belle said before she focused on the Emeralds' energy to deactivate them.

Seeing that Sweetie Belle had the matter in hand, Sonic looked back at the Biolizard as he roared in pain after one of Phantom's illusions that were currently invisible to the hedgehog hit the life-support system.

"Since my help is not needed here, I should as well join in the fun," he said before he ran to the lizard, jumped on his tail, and attacked the red orb by jumping again and curling into a ball before charging at it, doing what was called a Homing Attack.

"Shadow, go help him," Eggman ordered.

"Yes, Doctor," the black roboticized hedgehog replied before he did like Sonic.

Between the three attackers, despite all its chaos powers, even controlling gravity to force them to levitate, the lizard was totally overwhelmed and didn't stand a chance. Phantom's illusions, especially, didn't give him any respite, constantly attacking the life-support system.

The lizard was rapidly defeated, weakened, but not dead yet.

Sweetie Belle then appeared above him, shouting "I'm done!" before she sent a small beam of energy that pierced the life-support system as well as the near invulnerable skin before exploding inside the Biolizard's body, pretty much destroying everything inside him.

Despite this, the beast still had enough fight left in him to gather energy for a Chaos Blast, hoping to take everyone with him.

Phantom didn't let him as she entered his mouth and made his head explode from the inside, killing him for good.

They didn't have time to breathe however as Tails suddenly yelled "Sonic!" gaining everyone's attention.

Back at the shrine, Tails was now on the ground, half-unconscious, and the Chaos Emeralds were now gone from the pillars.

Instead, they were now orbiting around Eggman.

"Mwahahahaha!!! Now that this crisis is over, it's time for me to-"

He didn't have time to say more however. Robo Shadow suddenly warped in front of him in the middle of his speech and kicked him in the face, propelling him out of his Egg Mobile before he fell down the shrine. As the Chaos Emeralds all dropped, the badniks still present all turned to attack Shadow, but he destroyed all of them rapidly with his arm cannon.

At the bottom of the shrine, Eggman groaned in pain as he tried to get back up.

"Sh-Shadow...? What...?"

Shadow, still on the shrine, had a hand on his head as he visibly struggled.

"I... I won't... Error... I m-must protect... The world... The D-d-doctor... No... E-error... Mariiia... MariaaaaaaaAAAAAHHHHH!!!!"

Shadow finally seemed to win whatever inside fight he was having with that last burst of will because he then stopped struggling and looked down at Eggman with a glare that was visible through his visor. However, he seemed also mentally exhausted.

"I... am Shadow the Hedgehog... The ultimate lifeform... I won't be your slave... any longer...! I will protect... the people of this planet... from the likes of you...!"

He then pointed his arm cannon toward the doctor only to fall on a knee.

Tails got up and placed a hand on his shoulder and the other on his chest.

"Easy. You just managed to fight off Eggman's programming and you are still hurt from your fight against Sweetie Belle. Let us deal with him."

The fox then carefully made him sit while the others joined them on the shrine, all glaring down at Eggman.

"You alright buddy?" Sonic asked to Tails.

"Yeah. He didn't hit that hard."

"I advice you to not try anything again Eggman," Sweetie Belle said as she destroyed the Egg Mobile. "You have nothing left, and you are far outmatched."

"We still have to put the ARK back in its place. What do we do with him?" Phantom asked.

Sweetie Belle grinned as she materialized a certain doll. "Allow me." She then threw the doll above Eggman and used her powers to make it grow and give it life until Spikezilla landed beside the doctor.

"What the...?!" everyone beside Sweetie Belle shouted.

"Heya Spiky! Sorry, I wasn't able to play with you a lot lately. But I found you a new toy! You see the man at your feet? You can play with him!"

The dragon of yarn gave the filly a big smile, then the smile turned into an evil grin as he looked down at the sweating doctor.

"Nononononono AAAAAAHHHH!!!"

Sonic and Tails flinched at what was happening down there.

"Aren't you going a little far?" the hedgehog asked to Sweetie Belle. "He isn't dangerous anymore. We can simply capture him."

Sweetie Belle huffed. "After everything he has done, I think that I'm perfectly justified to give him a bit of Tartarus. Don't worry, Spiky won't kill him. He will just... break him a little. Nothing he won't be able to recover from. Anyway, I'm going to put the ARK back in place. I will need instructions to know where exactly the station was at the origin."

"I can give them... But I will need a way... to communicate with you..." Shadow said weakly.

"I can take care of that," Tails said. "And I can also use the time to repair your mechanical parts a bit. As for returning you to normal... I will try to find a way..."

Shadow simply gave a nod in return.

It didn't take long for Sweetie Belle to push the ARK back in its place. Meanwhile, Spiky finished 'playing' with Eggman and Sonic kept watch of what remained of him, and Tails repaired Shadow a little.

Shadow also took the occasion to reveal what led him to this situation.

From his cell in Prison Island, despite all the security, Eggman managed to create very little robots powered by insects and he used them to secretly hack the prison's computers. He also sent them to search all over the world for the Chaos Emeralds. After finding one, he told the G.U.N. as an anonymous source where the Emerald was. Once the G.U.N. took the Emerald and brought it back to the facility to keep it safe, Eggman then deactivated all the security systems and caused some stuff to blow up, using the following chaos to get out of his cell, take the Emerald, and go all the way to where Shadow was kept to free him.

Once Shadow was free, he helped Eggman get out of the island and told him about the Eclipse Cannon, secretly intending to use him to send the ARK crashing into the planet. Cooperating, they then spent the following weeks lying low as they discovered that Sonic and Tails had already gathered the six other Chaos Emeralds. Knowing that it was too dangerous to attack them like that, Eggman used the time to build a base as well as his forces.

Then he backstabbed Shadow and roboticized him.

But thanks to Tails reminding him about Maria, Shadow was able to recover himself, and even to remember his true goal as Gerald had apparently modified his memories for his plan of vengeance.

While Shadow wasn't... expressive, he clearly was thankful.

After that, the heroes spent the following hour or so destroying all the badniks that were still present a little everywhere in the station. Then, once all the robots were gone, they returned on Mobius, at Past Tails' workshop.

Chapter 59: To The Next Recruit

Past Sonic and Past Tails left an Eggman entirely plastered into the care of the G.U.N. doctors and returned to the fox's workshop where the others awaited them.

As they arrived, Present Tails just finished installing a machine that he brought back from his world: a deroboticizer. Tails planned to use it to deroboticize Shadow who really didn't want to keep his mechanical parts although the foxes got rid of the programming so he didn't have to fight it anymore.

Shadow simply remained against a wall, arms crossed, as he waited. Present Sonic was talking with Sweetie Belle, exchanging tales of their adventures while Phantom listened. Sonic was actually in the middle of recounting how Shadow and him turned Super to fight the Biolizard who had fused with the ARK to become the Finalhazard and force the ARK to crash after they had managed to use the Master Emerald to stop the Chaos Emeralds. While Phantom didn't seem to react much to the tale, Past Sonic and Past Tails could almost see stars in her eyes.

Sonic, however, paused it when he remarked the presence of the Past duo and he waved at them.

"Hey! So, what's the verdict on Fat Egg?" he asked, bringing everyone's attention on them.

"It's uncertain," Tails answered. "Since Eggman already managed to escape the best prison of the United Federation and possibly the world, Commander Tower, the President, and some other important people will have a meeting to decide his fate, if he's to be put back in a cell or be exceptionally given the death penalty. Or something else. One thing is sure, this time, they will really do everything to ensure that Eggman will never be a threat again, even if it means building a whole prison facility deep underground or somewhere in space just for him. This may be the last time we will hear of him."

"Lucky you," Sonic said. "Ours is still somewhere out there doing who-knows-what, and I have a bad feeling. The last time he went silent for several months straight, he ended up conquering the world, even if just temporarily."

"Well, if Eggman found himself another overpowered energy source and things go wrong, remember that you are just one portal away from me," Phantom said. "I will be happy to help kicking his ass. I wonder what will be his reaction when he will recognize my power."

Before Sonic could reply, Tails then shouted "Done!" as he stepped back from the deroboticizer. "It's ready! Now, Shadow, lie down on the table."

Wordlessly, Shadow did so and Tails pressed a few buttons on the keyboard under the screen before he said, "I will have to anesthetize you. The process is really painful."

"No need," Shadow declined. "I can support the pain."

"You sure?"

"Just let's finish it already."

The fox gave a sigh. "Alright. I should have expected that..." he then mumbled before he activated the machine.

It then proceeded to slowly, one by one, replace Shadow's mechanical parts by their original organic counterparts. The arm cannon eventually disappeared, giving the hedgehog back his hand, and the visor was soon next, replaced by his eyes. As Tails had warned, it revealed to be painful, but Shadow only let out painful groans as he waited for the ordeal to end.

It still took several long painful minutes before Shadow was fully organic again. Several minutes during which the others could only watch.

Once it was over, Tails gave the clear and Shadow sat up, quickly testing his limbs, especially what had previously been the arm cannon, before he began to walk toward the exit of the workshop giving a quiet "thank you" to Tails.

"What? You're just gonna leave like that?" Past Tails asked.

"I have no reason to remain here," Shadow said.

"And where will you go? What will you do?"

Shadow stopped, thinking for a few seconds, and answered, "I don't know yet."

"If it can help," Present Tails began. "Our Shadow was recruited by the G.U.N. and helps them protecting the people of the world, whether from simple criminals, terrorists, Eggman, or other big threats like the Black Arms that will invade in a few years. If he did it, then you can do it too. Maybe you will even encounter Rouge with who you form a good team if the G.U.N. already recruited her." The fox then frowned. "There was Omega too, but now that Eggman is gone in this timeline, I don't think he will ever exist." He turned to look at his past-self. "Maybe I will give you his schematics so you can build him yourself."

Past Tails gave a nod.

Shadow remained silent for a few seconds as he turned to look at the fox and said, "I will think about this."

"And there is also the matter of an multidimensional hostile army that may or may not invade this universe along with many others," Sweetie Belle said.

This made Shadow as well as Past Sonic and Past Tails look at her in surprise and shout "What?!" (yes, even Past Sonic)

"Yeah, I haven't gotten time to talk to you about this because of Eggman, but the reason I'm here at the origin is to warn about this army and recruit new allies to face it. I already told Phantom about it, as well as Sonic and Tails," She pointed at the present version of the blue hedgehog and the two-tailed fox. "and they agreed to help, but I wouldn't mind more people to join us. Against such a threat, the more the merrier."

"You haven't mentioned the two Gods," Phantom reminded.

"One at a time. First the multidimensional army, then the Gods."

Past Tails groaned, putting a hand on his eyes. "One threat ends, another appears... When will this army come?"

"No idea," Sweetie Belle answered. "I know almost nothing about this army. I just know that it will appear eventually and will invade universes. And this may or may not include this one."

"So this may be what has Silver worried," Shadow then said, excepted that while it was his voice, it wasn't him who talked.

Instead, from one of the entrances of the room came another Shadow who looked in all points identical.

Present Sonic immediately guessed who he was. "Oh, hey Shads!"

"Don't call me that! Everyone has been searching for you and Tails back in our world. Since we couldn't find you, I guessed that you were here. Silver is back and is panicking, and he wouldn't tell us what's going on without you there."

Everyone excepted the Shadows exchanged looks and moved in the direction of the portal, followed by Present Shadow and then by Past Shadow after some hesitation.

Back in the other world, they had to contact everyone and wait for them to gather in Tails' workshop. Before long, a silver-colored hedgehog came, many other people levitating behind him before he let them drop.

The others were a red Echidna named Knuckles, a flying squirrel named Ray, a red armadillo named Mighty, a pink hedgehog in a red dress named Amy Rose, a bat named Rouge, a big red and black robot named Omega, a crocodile named Vector, a purple chameleon named Espio, a bee named Charmy, a lavender cat named Blaze, and a red cat named Leo*.

They all let out groans as they rubbed the spots they landed on.

"You could have at least been gentler..." Rouge complained.

Silver didn't listen to her however as he looked at Sonic, horror visible in his eyes.

"Sonic! Finally!"

"What's going on Silv?"

"The future is gone!" the silver hedgehog yelled. "It's gone! And not just my time, but ALL the future!"

Everyone stared at him in shock. Sweetie Belle, however, quickly had an idea of what may have caused this and got a guilty look.

She asked, "Is this universe one of these universes where a change in the timeline causes all of it to be rewritten instead of creating an alternate universe?"

Present Tails understood where she was going. "Ohh... Yes, you are right, Sweetie Belle. We are in one of these universes. Each time that there's an outside influence, like the Phantom Ruby appearing, the future is modified instead of creating a new, different one. Silver is immune to these changes and sees them, so he travels back in time to warn us about these and helps us in dealing with the causes."

"Ohhhh!" Past Tails said in understanding. "And with Sweetie Belle's intervention and that stuff about a multidimensional army and all, the future is now uncertain!"

"More like it stopped existing," an unknown voice said, bringing everyone's attention to a nine-tailed anthropomorphic female orange fox now sitting on a chair where there had been empty space just a few seconds ago.

The ones who could feel the Chaos Energy immediately felt something wrong with this being and got in guard.

"What are you?" one of the Shadows asked.

Seeing the Shadows' reactions, Omega got his weapons out and pointed them at the stranger who didn't pay any mind to him.

"DD?" Sweetie Belle guessed. "I suppose that you are going to explain to them?"

"You got it right!" DD said with a finger gun in Sweetie's direction.

"Wait. Who is this? You know her?" Phantom asked.

"She's the one who warned me about the multidimensional army and the Gods I told you about. Don't try anything against her, you wouldn't stand a chance. This means lower your weapons Omega if you don't want to be literally turned into a tin can! I'm not kidding!"

"Oh, I wouldn't do that," DD said. "He would need to be a threat first."

"Do as the pony says Omega. Your weapons would do nothing to her. I don't think it's even her real body. I can't feel anything from it," Present Shadow said.

"It's true, this body is just an avatar," Sweetie Belle informed. "In reality, she's... they are... everywhere. They don't have a real body. They're a God, an all-powerful consciousness. The most powerful kind. They would have no problem defeating all of us at once with just a thought."

Her statement was followed by some audible gulps.

"Come on, stop doing that Sweetie. I'm not here to make others do in their pants (I know, most of you don't have pants, but whatever), I'm here to do as you said: explain about your little time problem. By the way, you can thank me for not being invaded by an infinity of Silvers."

"What do you mean?" Blaze asked.

"Simple. Silver didn't exist at just one point in the future. He existed in each instant from his birth to his eventual death. And between these two moments, the number of instants was infinite. So, why is there just one Silver here instead of an infinity from each instant coming and asking why the future suddenly disappeared? Answer: I merged all the Silvers into one the instant the future disappeared."

"So this is why I suddenly lived the majority of my life in one instant when everything disappeared around me? Do you know how weird it feels to live the instant I died only to still be alive in the end?"

"Yes. At least, be happy that you didn't have to relive the instant of your birth."

Silver shivered.

"As for why the future disappeared, this isn't just because of the uncertainty due to the outside influence. Or else, the future would have just been modified like it had been modified when the Phantom Ruby appeared. I fear that this is my fault, indirectly. I helped Sweetie Belle become what she is today. I am unique. There is not two beings like me in the whole infinity of the Omniverse. As a result, my influence is unique, and the beings and instants that I influence become unique. But contrary to me who is beyond time, who exists in the past, the present, and the future of the universes I enter, these beings and instants only exist in one point in space and time. So Sweetie Belle is unique, and from her and her actions, my unique influence spreads. When she enters an universe in an instant t, then everything before and after this instant t ceases to exist. No past. No future. Just the present. The unique present her presence created. Generally, this results in the creation of alternate universes that only exist in the present, but in universes like yours, where time acts as she explained, this results in the past and the future being erased, only the instant t now existing. The dimension of time is now just a dot. No more time travel. No more predicting the future. There's just the present instant t, advancing instant by instant. So, Silver, I fear that everything you knew is now definitively gone. My bad."

""My bad"? My home-time is gone because of you, and all you say is "my bad"?!" Silver yelled.

"I'm sorry Silver! It's also my fault!" Sweetie Belle said in the verge of crying. "I didn't think about that when I started exploring universes."

DD rolled her eyes. "No need to make a drama about this," she then said.

Everyone glared at her.

She snapped her fingers.

"There! I brought your time back as a different universe! You can use Tails' portal to go to it."

"What?! Just like that?" Silver shouted in shock.

"See? As I said, no need to make a drama out of it. After all, as Sweetie told you, I am a God." DD gave them the most serious look she could give. "Demand me anything, and you shall have it if I want. If something goes wrong because of me, then I can make it right. Consequences have no meaning to me." She then smiled at Silver. "No need to thank me!"

And suddenly, she wasn't here anymore.

...

"Wait! But then, how come our present wasn't modified after the Time Eater crisis where the past was changed?" Present Sonic wondered.

"Oh! This one is easy!" DD said as she reappeared, finger raised, making everyone jump. "When the Time Eater destroyed the timeline, the fragments turned into alternate universes! And they remained this way once the Time Eater was destroyed!" And she disappeared again.

...

"That's one strange friend you have here," Present Sonic commented to Sweetie Belle.

"Not my friend. They want to eat me."

...

"What?"

"Long story. So, I guess this settles this. You present your friends to me?"

Sweetie Belle and Phantom, back in their normal pony form, passed the portal back to Equestria, returning inside Twilight's castle. Sweetie Belle now had two of these dimensional communication devices that the Tails made, one to keep in contact and the other to give to the eggheads on New Halcandra to reverse engineer.

The devices may have a problem however. In universes where time is too different from each other, as in advancing too quickly or too slowly, they may not work. Something will have to be done about this time problem.

At least, the time in the Sonic-verses was almost equal to the time in the pony-verses. Every twenty-three years, the Sonic-verses gained one day over the pony-verses. So there won't be a problem with the devices. However, universes like the Pokémon one will be more problematic. Heck, even universes that were just two times faster or slower than the pony-verses will be problematic.

The Tails promised to search a way to stabilise time between universes, but it would be so much advanced time-technology that they weren't sure to pull this off. It was one thing to time travel, but to slow or advance time in an universal scale? It was pretty much at the level of playing God. The Tails were still interested to meet Susie and the others to work together on it. Silver even thought of bringing some of the top-scientists of his time period/universe to help.

But before, they wanted to link their portals to the one in Sweetie Belle's universe, and from there, to the others, so the filly had to transport Present Tails to her universe while Past Tails remained behind so they could each work on their side, helped by more of these dimensional communication devices.

All the others were interested in helping against the multidimensional army when it will appear, and some even wanted to explore other universes, but right now, they wanted to remain in their world in case Eggman attacked. The mad doctor was missing for far too long and this worried them. They wanted to be ready for whatever big scheme he was preparing. Sweetie Belle passed a good time with them, and she promised them that she would come help if they called her.

They also promised her that they will talk with the President (past universe, present universe, and future universe) about the whole Alliance thing.

Almost as soon as Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo came out of the portal, Twilight teleported before them.

"I talked with Celestia and, while she isn't happy about the prospect of entering another war, she understands that there may not be another choice, especially if this army you told us about decides to invade our universe. She hasn't given an answer however because she wants to talk with the leaders of the other countries, and the meeting won't happen before several days."

"I understand," Sweetie Belle said. "So, I guess that I have done my part in this universe for now." She looked at Scootaloo as she showed the paper with the other coordinates that her Discord gave her. "I have another universe to visit. You want to come?"

"Eh. Why not? I'm curious to see the powers of our third potential group member."

"And I think that I know who this third member will be."

"Duh. We've a Sweetie Belle: you. We've a Scootaloo: me. All that remains to complete our group is an Apple Bloom. It's so obvious that even Snip and Snail would understand."

Twilight rubbed her face. "And if this Apple Bloom is as powerful as you two..." She groaned. "Discord, I hate you..."

Discord appeared, said "I like you too Sparklebutt!" and disappeared.

The fillies giggled.

"Don't worry Twilight. We will try to not go too overboard," Sweetie Belle said.

Twilight gave her her best "I don't believe you" look. "I doubt it..."

The two fillies were back in front of the Lor Starcutter, Scootaloo facing her friends while Sweetie Belle remained behind.

"You're sure you don't want to come?" Scootaloo asked.

"Our sisters won't let us," Scootaloo's Sweetie Belle complained.

"They want to be sure first that the universe ya go to isn't dangerous," Apple Bloom said.

Rarity, who was behind Sweetie Belle, nodded. "Even if this will be an alternate Equestria, who knows in which state you will find it. It could be in the middle of a war against Sombra for all we know. Or worse."

"True... Any idea Sweetie Void?" Scootaloo asked to the Sweetie Belle behind her.

"None," the alicorn answered. "I just have the coordinates and the knowledge that I will find someone powerful there, that's all. It could be an Equestria where everyone is human actually, like behind the mirror. Or where girls are boys and boys are girls. Or it could be an universe where Equestria doesn't actually exist. Anything is possible."

Scootaloo nodded at her and faced her friends again. "Then I guess that I will recount what I will see there once I return."

"I can't wait!" the two other CMC shouted in excitement.

The goodbyes then followed, and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo entered the Lor while the spectators waved. The ship took off, and after flying up a bit, fired a beam at the sky that opened a star-shaped portal. The Lor then disappeared in it before the portal closed.

As they thought, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo ended up in another Equestria, Canterlot visible in the distance and Ponyville present below with Twilight's castle standing out.

It was rather late in the day, and the sun will probably set in a couple of hours.

"So, at first sight, this Equestria doesn't seem different from my Equestria," Sweetie Belle commented. "This Ponyville is exactly the same as mine, no advanced technologies or whatever. Do you see any difference Lorry?"

"UNKNOWN BUILDING PRESENT NOT FAR IN THE EVERFREE FOREST," the Lor answered as she showed an image of the building in question, a really large manor with an apple symbol near the top.

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. "Are we in an universe where the Apples are rich?"

Sweetie Belle rubbed her head. "But why build a manor in the Everfree Forest?"

"IMPORTANT PARANORMAL ACTIVITY DETECTED," the Lor suddenly said before it showed several images of Ponyville where ghosts could be seen alongside the livings. More ghosts could be seen around the manor in the Everfree Forest, and even more ghosts were visible floating above the trees of the forest itself a little everywhere.

"What the...? Why is there so many ghosts?" Scootaloo wondered.

"I have never seen so many ghosts, not even when I explored ruins and temples," Sweetie Belle commented. "At least, they seem to get along with the livings contrary to most ghosts I encountered."

Scootaloo chuckled. "Their Nightmare Night must be a killer. But seriously, what are all these ghosts doing here? I can even see animal ghosts around Fluttershy's cottage. In what kind of crazy universe are we that Fluttershy lives around ghosts? Wait... Lor, zoom at Fluttershy's cottage."

The Lor followed her instruction, allowing the fillies to see Fluttershy herself who was tending to the animals, both living and dead.

"Look, Sweetie Belle, there's something wrong with Fluttershy."

Sweetie Belle looked intently. "Are her eyes... buttons?"

"What is going on with this universe? Ghosts are everywhere, the Apples seem to be rich and have built a manor in the Everfree Forest, and Fluttershy is... a pony-sized doll? What the hell?"

"Well, we won't get the answers by remaining here. Let's land."

Author's Note

*For the ones who haven't read The Phantom Filly, Leo is the Avatar from Sonic Forces.

The Ray and Mighty in this chapter are the present ones, not the past ones from the Classic Era. Present Sonic did as he promised to himself during the celebratory party near the end of The Phantom Filly and spent time with them again. Cream, Cheese, and Big weren't here because they weren't part of the search party.

I hope that the explanations about all that time stuff were clear...

Chapter 60: Ghosts

In an unknown part of the world, in an unknown desert.

Two men advanced under the heat of the sun. The fattest one, surprisingly, wasn't bothered by it, but his thinner, taller companion had trouble advancing, using some cane to walk while breathing and sweating heavily.

"Are we there yet?" the thin man asked, taking off his purple cap with a yellow "Γ" symbol in a white circle before using a sleeve of his purple shirt to wipe some sweat from his forehead. The man was also wearing black overalls, white gloves with the same "Γ" symbol, and orange shoes. His main characteristic was his narrow face with pointed ears and a pointy, thin mustache coming from a big pink nose.

"Almost," the fat one answered as he looked down at a map. He was wearing a similar outfit to the thin man, excepted that his cap and his shirt were yellow, the cap having a "W" symbol instead of the "Γ" (same on the gloves) and the shirt having short sleeves, his overalls was purple, and his shoes were green. His ears were less pointy, but his pink nose was bigger with a longer zigzagging mustache and he had a big double-chin. Under the fat of his arms, muscles could be seen.

Before long, they reached a cliff that surrounded a large, empty valley.

"We have arrived."

"Finally... I thought that I would die..."

"Stop complaining. You should be happy that I let you tag along for once," the fat man said before he looked down and used his foot to move some sand on the ground, revealing a small round hole. He then grabbed from one of his pockets on his overalls some kind of stone medallion with a triangle sculpted on it with a single eye at the center and placed it in the hole.

Suddenly, the earth began to shake before a huge pyramid came out of the ground in the middle of the valley, easily over 500 feet tall and close to a mile at the base which was a pentagon. The pyramid was made of black stones, and had the same triangle than on the medallion on each of its sides.

Stairs then came out of the cliff, leading down to the valley.

The fat man grinned as he admired the pyramid.

"Waaahahahahahaaa!!! The pyramid of Cankentriops! Finally! Now, Cankentriops' legendary treasure will be mine!"

The thin man stared at the other. "You mean 'us', right Wario?"

Wario waved dismissively at him. "Yeah yeah, Waluigi. You will have your part. Now, let's go."

A few minutes later, they were just in front of the entrance of the pyramid, looking at a big stone door blocking it. Waluigi grabbed a small, living bomb on feet from one of his pockets and threw it at the door, the bomb exploding on it. The door was destroyed by the explosion, letting the duo enter.

Almost as soon, as they advanced in a long, narrow corridor, small stone golems with pyramidal heads (with pentagonal bases like the actual pyramid) came and attacked them, but Wario easily destroyed them with his fists while Waluigi simply cowered behind him.

At the end of the corridor, they reached a room with a large gap and several platforms floating above it, some of them moving. At the other side was a door and two switch that Wario guessed opened the door and created a bridge. Instead of jumping on the platform, the fat man grabbed his companion by the legs and threw him at the other side.

A little too strongly as Waluigi hit the door head first. With a "Waaah..." the poor guy was rubbing his nose.

"Hurry up and activate the bridge!" Wario shouted.

Waluigi got up and did so, the first switch making the platforms form a bridge and the second switch making the door rise. Wario then joined the thin man before they both continued.

Three more doors followed, the switches hidden this time. The first one was on a ledge, and Waluigi had to jump on Wario's shoulders to reach it. The second was in a stone block that Wario destroyed with his fist. And the third one was in an alcove above a gap that Waluigi reached by throwing another bomb, this time using a tennis racket to send it far enough.

The path was then blocked by more of these stone golems, this time using large stone shields to form walls to stop them.

"Eheheh. If they think that this will stop me..." Wario said before he took off his cap and replaced it by an helmet with horns. He then dashed at the walls of stone shields and smashed right through them before he put back his cap.

The duo then finally entered an antechamber with another, bigger door. The room was guarded by a much bigger golem, easily three times taller than Waluigi.

"The treasure must be behind! Come on Waluigi, we will turn this guy into rubble and get it! Let's go!"

Waluigi hesitated a bit, but eventually got a determined look before he grabbed his racket and another bomb. "Oki doki!!"

Wario began the fight by charging shoulder first at the golem, hitting the legs and making it topple so they could now reach its head. Waluigi immediately sent a bomb at it before he approached it and gave it several kicks at the same time than Wario punched it. The golem eventually began to charge energy at the eye in the center of the face of the pyramid that faced the duo, and the two quickly moved back before they avoided the laser coming out of it. The golem then got back up and went to punch Wario, only for the fat man to counter it with his own punch, pushing it back. The golem decided to attack Waluigi then, but the thin man avoided the punch by jumping before landing on the arm. He then ran on it until reaching the golem's shoulder before he attacked the head with his racket. The golem quickly attempted to hit him, but he jumped away before it could.

Wario then charged again at the golem's legs, making it topple again, and the two attacked the head like before until the golem fired a laser again before it got back up. This time, it smashed the ground, sending a shockwave above which the duo jumped before Wario charged at the legs and made the golem topple yet again.

This time, they managed to destroy the head before the golem could get up, and the golem collapsed, leaving behind a switch.

"Wahahahahahaaa!"

"Yeah! Yeah! Waluigi number one!"

The duo shouted in victory before they did a high five, Wario putting too much strength and making Waluigi spin.

Wario then activated the switch, making the door glow with the same triangle symbol before it lowered into the ground.

The room behind it was totally plunged in darkness, and suddenly, out of it came something that charged at Wario. The fat man barely had time to shout in surprise before whatever it was entered his body.

Waruigi recovered from the sudden spin Wario's high five made him do and looked at his now immobile companion.

"A problem, Wario?" he asked.

Wario then slowly turned to look at him, grinning widely and revealing his now black eyes.

"No," he said. "Everything is perfect."

Then, out of the darkness came hundreds of ghostly beings that swarmed the room.

"WAAAAAAHHHH!!!!"

The Lor Starcutter 'landed' (remained hovering over the ground) beside Twilight's castle, and like the first time, a crowd had gathered around it, this time not only made of ponies but also of many ghosts.

As the entrance and the ramp leading to it appeared, smoke came out and covered it, so the crowd could only see a silhouette walk down the ramp.

Then, as the silhouette reached the ground, the smoke cleared to reveal... a green one-eyed octopus-like being with two antennae?

The being slowly raised two left tentacles beside his head and said, "You don't need to worry my equine friends. I come in peace."

Twilight, who was among the crowd, began to panic. "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! First encounter with an alien!"

Applejack, who was at her side (and was a freaking robot!) asked, "Aren't Mario and his pals aliens too?"

But Twilight didn't listen to her. "What do I do? What do I do? Oh, right, start with welcoming them. Alright. Alright." She began to take big breaths to calm down. "Everything will be alright. Okay, let's go." She then approached the alien. "W-welcome to Equus! I'm Twilight Sparkle, one of the princesses ruling over these lands."

"I'm Zdghiftho, representative of my people for that first contact."

"Nice meeting you Z... Zgi... Mister."

"Madam."

"Eep! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! U-um... It's really nice to meet you!" The poor mare extended her hoof for a hoofbump.

The alien wrapped one of her tentacles around the leg and gave a strong shake, almost getting Twilight on the ground. She then released the leg and slowly began to raise her tentacle while doing small waves with it and saying "Boogaboogabooga."

Twilight stared at the alien in incomprehension before she tried to copy what she did with her leg, not able to do correctly the little wave because she wasn't an invertebrate. "Uuh... Boogaboogabooga."

"Aand it's in the box!" Discord suddenly shouted from the crowd as he lowered a camera.

The alien then burst into laughter and began to roll on the ground before Twilight's eyes that screamed "What the buck?!" Discord also dropped on the ground in laughter.

The alien then transformed into an alicorn Sweetie Belle, and a chuckling Scootaloo came out of the ship.

"What?!" Twilight shouted before she looked back and forth between the two fillies and the Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo who were in the crowd. "What the buck is going on?!"

While most of the crowd wondered the same thing, many couldn't help but laugh at what they understood was a prank pulled on the poor mare, especially among the ghosts.

"Wait a minute..." Twilight then said. "Discord! Give me that camera!" she yelled at the draconequus.

"Never!" Discord yelled back before he made the camera disappear. "I can't wait to watch it tonight before going to sleep."

Twilight growled.

Sweetie Belle calmed down from her laugh. "Sorry Twilight, I couldn't help myself. I had already missed the opportunity when I went to Scootaloo's universe, so I didn't want to miss it again."

Cogs worked in Twilight's mind for a few seconds before she understood. "Ooh! You are from another universe! And... you have the power to shapeshift? And you totally got me," she said that last part with a deadpan look. "I expect such a prank from a Rainbow Dash, or a Pinkie Pie, or Discord of course, but not from a Sweetie Belle."

"I taught you better than that!" Rarity shouted.

Sweetie Belle giggled. "I had some bad influences."

"You mean good influences!" Discord shouted.

Twilight glared at him.

"It's a question of point of view, but I personally like it," the Scootaloo who came out of the ship said with a grin. "By the way, I'm not from the same universe than her. You can call me Phantom to differentiate me from your Scootaloo."

"Phantom?" Twilight asked.

"And you can call me Sweetie Void," Sweetie Void said.

Twilight looked at the two fillies while her friends finally decided to approach, Applejack holding back a very excited Pinkie Pie. It was then that Sweetie Void and Phantom remarked that the pegasus' counterpart was also a robot, and Sweetie Void could feel something wrong with her own counterpart, without forgetting Apple Bloom from who she felt a great power. There was also that little filly ghost at their side who seemed to be a powerhouse too. They also finally saw Starlight who was a ghost too.

"So, you two come from different universes?" Twilight asked before she got excited as she finally realised the implications. "How different are they from ours? I can see that you are not a robot and an undead. Instead, one of you is an alicorn! So what happened? What is this ship?"

"Undead?" Sweetie Void asked before she looked again at her counterpart, understanding why she felt wrong. She didn't have this energy that living beings have, the one produced by the body to keep it functioning, as well as the energy of the heat generated. "We should be the ones asking what happened here..."

"Yeah. Like, half of you guys are... different," Phantom said.

"It's a nice way to say that we are dead," Scootaloo replied not without some sarcasm.

"Well, to make it short, have you ever heard of Discord's little brother, Thanatos?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Thanatos... Thanatos..." Sweetie Void thought aloud, tryng to remember if she heard this name before.

"I don't think I ever heard of Discord having a little brother," Phantom said.

After a few more seconds, Sweetie Void opened a rift, making many ponies' jaws drop as she put her head in it.

They then could hear her shout, "Discord! Do you have a little brother?"

They then could hear Discord's voice answer, "Not at all, but I remember that Grogar hesitated for a moment to create another draconequus after he created me, but he didn't in the end."

"Oh, ok. Wait, you were created by Grogar?"

"I never told you?"

"Uhuh. But I guess this isn't surprising when I think about this." The filly got her head out of the rift which then closed. "So I guess this is where our universes started to differ. This Thanatos never existed in mine, and I suppose that this is also the case for Sc-Phantom's universe."

"Then we were the unlucky ones..." Apple Bloom groaned. "Basically, he was the Spirit of Death, and be happy that he doesn't exist in yer universes. He's responsible of a lot of suffering in ours."

"He's the one who...?" Sweetie Void waved at Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Starlight to show what she meant, and Apple Bloom nodded sadly. Sweetie Void then frowned angrily. "Then tell me where he is and I will gladly get you rid of him."

Apple Bloom shook her head. "No need. He already got what he deserved."

"So you managed to defeat a draconequus? You must be really powerful then," Phantom said.

"How do ya know Ah'm the one who dealt with him?"

"Why do you think we are here?" Phantom asked as she pointed at herself and at Sweetie Void. "We're missing a CMC in the team."

"And your Discord gave the coordinates of this universe to mine. After encountering Phantom in the previous universe, I knew that a powerful Apple Bloom would be here. Also, I can feel that you have a lot of power," Sweetie Void said.

"Also, your Cutie Mark is clearly not an ordinary one," Phantom remarked. "Have you seen ours?"

Apple Bloom looked at their flanks, seeing the blotch of black and the weird gemstone. In relation with their 'nickname', Apple Bloom had an idea of what Sweetie Void's Cutie Mark represented, but she was less sure for Phantom. At least, Apple Bloom's Cutie Mark was more obvious: a red shield protecting a white ghost with a vacuum cleaner coming out of it, the vacuum cleaner sucking up a black ghost, and there was a skull of purple energy on the shield. Well, they may not understand the purple skull part, but the rest was obvious.

"So it's not hard to guess that it's you who dealt with this Thanatos," Sweetie Void said. "The two of us also had to deal with our own villains and adventures."

Apple Bloom smiled. "But Ah wouldn't have managed ta do it without everypony else. It was a teamwork."

"Yeah!" Scootaloo shouted as she raised a leg. "We made him regret everything he did together!"

Applejack gave her sister a proud look. "But Bloom here is the one who finished him, and she did a lot of the work."

"Sis! Please, stop!" Apple Bloom shouted embarrassed.

"Can you tell us more?" Sweetie Belle asked. "Like, who is the little filly ghost at your side?"

"I'm Little Ghost! It's nice to meet you! And I can't wait to tell you how brave Apple Bloom had been! She went through a whole manor full of hostile and powerful ghosts to save everypony!" Little Ghost said before she looked down in embarrassment. "Which I had captured and hypnotised..."

Sweetie Void giggled. "Don't look like that. I have some friends who did far worse when they were in their bad guy phase."

"Worse than...? Don't tell me you befriended murderers!" Rarity shouted.

"Erh... One exterminated most of his species but it was the species' fault because they were too fanatical and the guy wanted freedom so they wanted to stop him and he was left with no choice. As for the other... Well, all the bad he did wasn't really his fault because he was corrupted by dark emotions caused by war and betrayal. I don't think any of the others ever killed, buuuut attempting to conquer or even destroy the whole universe must be pretty high in the list of bad things to do, and again, the guy wanting to destroy the universe had become crazy and corrupted because too much negativity and... In brief, he wasn't entirely responsible of his acts."

"You managed to stop someone from destroying the whole universe?" Rainbow Dash asked in awe.

"How about we go talk about all this somewhere else instead of remaining standing here?" Phantom proposed.

Twilight nodded. "You are right." She then looked at the Lor and seemed to hesitate.

Sweetie Void understood what she wanted. "Of course we can go in the Lor if you want. There is more than enough place. Uh, now, I'm surprised that your Twilight didn't ask to go in the Lor, Phantom."

"All that stuff about the war, and then what you revealed, probably put the idea of entering the Lor in the back of her mind."

So the whole group entered the ship, joined by the ghost of an old stallion who was named Smart Spirit and some kind of white ghost dog called Polterpup.

By now, the inside of the Lor was built to be a real manor, so it wasn't hard to find a room for all of them to sit before Sweetie Belle used a food generator to give them food and drinks.

Twilight immediately wanted to know everything about the food generator, and also about the Lor, the Sweetie Bot Armor, why it was bigger inside the Lor, why eating the food suddenly healed a small bump Rainbow Dash had made to herself, and Applejack put a hoof on her mouth to shut her up.

Sweetie Void and Phantom then began by telling their stories, the alicorn starting first but not bringing out why she was now in this dimension searching to recruit Apple Bloom into her group.

To say the least, the ponies had a hard time believing the powerscale of some of Sweetie Void's foes and thought for a moment that she was exaggerating, but Sweetie Void quickly proved them wrong by showing the recording of the battle against Star Dream that Discord's mini-double (or Dissy) had taken. Even if she had read about Star Dream from Sweetie's list, Phantom was as amazed as the others by the intensity and the scale of the battle. Sweetie Void also showed some images from her memories of her fights against Magolor, Sectonia, and especially Void.

When the alicorn was done, Phantom was next, starting by transforming into her anthropomorphic form to show a bit of her power before she recounted her story. Hers was much shorter (and yet, Sweetie Void had shortened her story a lot), and the ponies had less problem believing it. A mad scientist using armies of robots to conquer the world wasn't as crazy as all that stuff with a Dark God, an ancient civilization, screwed dimension, space-time-warping machines, queen bee that merge with a giant flower, abomination that steal colors, and so on. Although the final battle against Eggman and his super powered God Emperor Death Egg was pretty much on par.

Then, it was Apple Bloom's turn to recount what happened to her, helped by the others.

It started with the famous Gem Family. Back in Sweetie Void and Phantom's universes, they were just a noble family among the many others, known to be one of the nicest. In this universe, they had been ghost hunters, working to protect Equestria from paranormal threats.

Maybe the Gem Family in Sweetie Void and Phantom's universes had also been ghost hunters, and maybe they were still secretly ghost hunters. Sweetie Void now wanted to investigate.

Anyway, one day, one thousand years ago, the Gem Family had managed to capture a powerful ghost named Bogmire, which they discovered later was a creation of Thanatos. Then, the matriarch's eldest son, Pyrite, jealous that he didn't get the family's fortune because he was born a bastard child, freed Bogmire and unleashed a terrible and powerful curse on his family, sending the Gem Manor and everyone inside to the Spiritual World where they all died in horrible ways excepted Pyrite who not only took the fortune all for himself but also got from Bogmire great powers.

Then, one thousand years later, the Gem Manor reappeared, not far of Ponyville, where the Apple Mansion now was. Of course, Twilight and the others went to investigate and were captured by Little Ghost, the stillborn foal of the Gem Family who had gotten by then powerful enough to take control of Bogmire's curse. The CMC then decided to enter the manor too to see what happened to their sisters (and almost sister), but again, Little Ghost came to capture them. It was at this moment that Smart Spirit, the last descendant of the Gem Family, came and managed to save Apple Bloom before they both exited the manor. Smart Spirit then equipped Apple Bloom with the Poltergust, a special vacuum cleaner made to capture ghosts, and the filly was able to clean the manor of all its ghosts, including Bogmire and the ghosts of the Gem Family members who were hostile because of the curse, despite the presence of her brainwashed friends constantly hunting her. But Pyrite escaped. Then, in a terrible battle against Little Ghost, Apple Bloom saved everypony, destroyed the manor which the filly ghost had taken possession of, and destroyed Bogmire's curse.

Apple Bloom then used the Gem Family's fortune that she found to build the Apple Manor for the ghosts and to put in Smart Spirit's lab.

However, Pyrite went to Thanatos and told him about Apple Bloom, bringing the Spirit of Death's attention and interest on her. He then began to play "Death Games" with her.

The first game happened in a haunted valley, the Evershade Valley, that was in a pocket dimension. Apple Bloom had to explore no less than five manors there (which were actually a small manor, two towers side by side, a clock factory above an ancient tomb, a mine, and a bigger manor turned into a museum) to save Smart Spirit who had been captured and to free the ghosts there who were controlled. They didn't know at the time that the responsible was Thanatos, but they quickly understood that Pyrite had made himself a powerful ally. This was where things started to go wrong as they quickly found Smart Spirit's corpse in the basement of the first manor, Thanatos having killed him before leaving his body there to enjoy their reaction, especially Apple Bloom's. Then, while Apple Bloom was exploring the following manors, Thanatos went to Ponyville, took control of the Gem Family (excepted Little Ghost who was powerful enough to resist him), and captured Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo as well as Big Mac and Granny Smith. After that, while Apple Bloom was fighting the ghost that served as 'boss' of the mine, Thanatos captured Applejack and the others who had accompanied the filly. As a result, at the end of the fifth manor, Apple Bloom had been forced to fight Applejack possessed by a powerful ghost, the fight ending with the mare's death, and when Apple Bloom finally met Thanatos in his castle after having captured Pyrite, the draconequus killed Sweetie Belle with a simple boop as a show of his powers. In the fight that followed, Apple Bloom was able to capture Thanatos only for him to immediately escape from the Poltergust, having only used a small part of his powers. Thanatos then sent everypony back to the valley, including the ghosts who were now free of his control, having judged that Apple Bloom had won his game.

The second game came a few months later, during Nightmare Night. In the meantime, Discord had used his power to bind Sweetie Belle's ghost to her body, turning her into an undead, and to give Applejack a robotic body because he couldn't recover her organic body (so Applejack was actually a ghost bound to a machine). He also made sure that Thanatos wouldn't be able to kill the others directly with a simple touch and that he couldn't take control of them as easily.

Apple Bloom had been invited to a hotel by one Eternal Rest. They had actually encountered the mare once previously. She had come to the Apple Manor to tell them about the Evershade Valley, setting the trap for the first game. Eternal Rest was actually one of Thanatos' most powerful minions, and she was the one who personally 'played' with Apple Bloom this time. She captured everypony excepted Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Applejack, Little Ghost, and Polterpup, and even killed Scootaloo by ripping her ghost right out of her body before the Earth Pony filly's eyes before she escaped into the laundry shut to the basement. Apple Bloom, this time helped by Sweetie Belle and Little Ghost (Applejack remaining in the basement to protect the ponies that the fillies saved), then had to explore Eternal Rest's hotel floor by floor, first saving Twilight and Spike, then Rarity, then Pinkie Pie, and finally Rainbow Dash (by fighting the ghost of Blackbeard himself!). However, Eternal Rest had already killed Fluttershy and had trapped her ghost in a doll by the time they reached the last floor, as punishment for Discord helping them. And when they reached Eternal Rest herself, she took possession of Starlight's body and, once she lost that first fight, made it explode, killing her. After that, the team, now joined by Scootaloo now trapped in her own scooter, fought Eternal Rest on the roof and managed to capture her.

But as she was captured, Eternal Rest, bad loser that she was, opened a portal right under Apple Bloom, sending her into another universe.

It revealed to be a very bad move on her part because, in this universe, Apple Bloom encountered a primordial ally in her fight against Thanatos: the Professor Elvin Gadd, or E. Gadd for short.

Phantom suddenly burst into laughter, to everyone else's surprise.

"What's funny?" Apple Bloom asked.

Phantom calmed down. "S-sorry. It's that... His name! Egad!"

Sweetie Void rubbed her head in thought. "I think that I heard someone on New Halcandra shout it."

"Uh... It must be a non-pony thing..." Smart Spirit voiced.

So, this E. Gadd was actually a counterpart of Smart Spirit who had helped a guy named Luigi go through similar adventures than Apple Bloom, so he had built his own Poltergust. Or rather, Poltergusts. He showed Apple Bloom no less than three versions, and he helped her build a new Poltergust that had all their properties as well as Apple Bloom's Poltergust's. He also showed her a machine to trap ghosts into portraits and they even built a device to temporarily turn Apple Bloom into a ghost. Then, after building a portal between E. Gadd's Evershade Valley and Apple Bloom's Evershade Valley, he built another machine that the ghosts that Apple Bloom befriended used to give her a bit of their energy, making the filly very powerful in her ghost form.

With this, Apple Bloom was ready to assault Thanatos' castle in the Spiritual World, still helped by Sweetie Belle and Little Ghost, and this time too by Applejack and Scootaloo who also got a robotic body that could shift between a pegasus form and a scooter form. Each member of the team were armed with the same Poltergust, and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle even got clones of goo named Apple Goo and Sweetie Goo that were pretty much invincible.

Inside the castle, Thanatos played another of his 'games' where he forced the group to explore the castle to find the four keys to his throne room, having to fight all his most powerful minions on the way including four ghosts that were as powerful, or even more powerful than Eternal Rest. They even had to fight the Founders, Sombra, Gusty the Great, and Grogar himself, among many other more or less historical figures!

During their fight against the guardian of one of the keys, a mad scientist that did stuff that disgusted Sweetie Void and even Phantom, Apple Bloom got her hooves on a device that the scientist made that could absorb all the powers of a ghost and give them to the one currently using it.

Sweetie Void understood where this was going, and she was right. When Apple Bloom and the other finally reached Thanatos and fought him, Apple Bloom used the device on him once he was weakened enough, stealing all his powers. During the fight, an incident also made it so Apple Bloom could now turn into a ghost at will without limits.

Apple Bloom showed the result to Sweetie Void and Phantom, first by deactivating a charm on her, revealing that her body was now very pale and almost entirely transparent, her bones visible, and that her eyes had an unnatural purple glow behind the irises. Then, she turned into a ghost.

To put it simply, give her a cloak and a scythe and she could pass for the Reaper. As a ghost, she was nothing more than a skeleton with purple lights in her eyes.

"Cool!" Phantom exclaimed.

Sweetie Void grinned. "Can I hire you to play some pranks on one of my friends for me?"

"No," Apple Bloom simply answered. "Do these pranks yourself."

Not much happened after Thanatos' defeat and capture. He was trapped into a portrait along with all the other bad ghosts encountered in Apple Bloom's adventures, and Apple Bloom used the money she got from the Gem Manor and Eternal Rest's hotel to build a town in Evershade Valley for all the ghosts, including an identical hotel and a museum that also served as a prison for the ghosts. The museum actually opened just a few hours before Sweetie Void and Phantom's arrival, and the two were interested to visit it.

Now that they were done exchanging their stories, Sweetie Void then went for the main course.

She explained why she was here.

Apple Bloom (who had returned to normal) didn't have to think long.

"Ah agree! And I know some people who could also help!"

"In the other universe you were sent to?" Phantom asked.

"Eeyup! Remember Luigi? He and his brother Mario are great heroes over there!"

"Then I can't wait to meet them," Sweetie Belle said before she looked at Twilight. "And I guess that I will have to wait for you to talk to Celestia to get this Equestria's answer, right?"

Twilight nodded. "But I'm certain that she will agree to help."

"And you can already count on us!" Little Ghost said as she placed herself between Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. "And I'm sure that all the other ghosts will want to join too!"

"Well then, Apple Bloom, how about you lead us to this other universe meanwhile?" Sweetie Belle proposed.

"Of course! The portal's still in Evershade Valley, so let's go."

Chapter 61: Scuffle Against The Koopa Clan

The entrance to Evershade Valley was not far of the Apple Mansion, in the Everfree Forest, so the group passed beside the manor on the way, giving Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo a good view of it and of how big it was.

"And you built it just for the ghosts?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"And for the lab," Apple Bloom reminded.

To enter the Evershade Valley, they had to pass by a tunnel in a cliff. Once inside the valley, plunged in eternal night, Apple Bloom then led them through the ghost town she built here, Spookane, to the first manor that Apple Bloom used as a base in the valley.

On the way, Apple Bloom didn't miss the occasion to point out some of the buildings.

"That huge building over here is the hotel! We built it to look exactly like Eternal Rest's hotel, but more friendly looking and without all the traps and dangerous stuff! Beside it is the museum that Ah told ya about! And there, ya can see the theater. If I'm not mistaken, Piano Virtuoso's currently having a concert in it!"

"Piano Virtuoso? THE Piano Virtuoso?" Sweetie Belle asked with some stars in her eyes.

"Eeyup! He was one of Eternal Rest's slaves."

After reaching the manor and entering it, they went to the basement where there was another lab, and the portal.

"Mmh... Ah'll have ta remember to place it somewhere more accessible if we're gonna use it more often."

"Twilight's castle would be good. This is where we put the portal to Mobius back in my universe," Scootaloo said.

"And where does it lead? To this E. Gadd's lab?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"No. The emplacement of the portal in the Mushroom Kingdom had been subject to debate for a bit. Many wanted to put it in Princess Peach's castle, which was the obvious choice, but it was then reminded that it was a bad idea because of how often the castle was assaulted, taken over, or destroyed by Bowser or other bad guys. Ah didn't want a villain to suddenly appear in mah basement, and the risk of the portal being destroyed would've been too high. So they decided to put it somewhere where nobody'll think of searching for it: the basement of Luigi's own mansion. It doesn't take long to reach Toad Town from there. Luigi didn't mind, but they'd ta dig a room for it."

"So, this Mushroom Kingdom has a bad guy problem?"

"Ya've no idea. During the several months Ah was there, Bowser attacked so many times that Ah stopped counting after twenty, at least half of these attacks resulting in Peach being captured and a couple of times in the castle being taken over. Let me tell ya, there's no bad guy more determined than Bowser."

Scootaloo whistled. "Not even Eggman attacks that often."

"And Ah only saw his lamest attacks. Ah was told that Bowser once had a "conquering the universe" phase where he not only captured Peach but also brought the whole castle to space with some kind of UFO spaceship. But don't go too hard on him if you meet him. Despite everything, he can be a nice guy, and he never goes too far. He knows where to draw the line, he doesn't use fear to make himself obeyed by his troops, and he even has a son that he loves and treats very well."

Sweetie Belle sighed. "If only all villains were like that."

"You can't be serious," Scootaloo deadpanned.

"Ah'm very serious," Apple Bloom replied before she jumped on the pipe and moved down it as if she was on an elevator.

Sweetie Belle shrugged. "While weird, it's not as bad as using cannons to move around. Also, remember that we are in a world where hills and clouds have faces. Using pipes to journey isn't that weird in comparison."

"Right. And how are you not weirded out by all this?"

"I must admit that hills with faces is a new record in the craziness meter, but after spending over a year in the Dream Universe, I learned to not ask and just accept things."

"You told me that the Dream Universe had at least the excuse to be literally an universe made from the dreams of a whole civilization. What is this universe's excuse?"

"Different physics."

"......... Yeah... Okay... I can't say anything against that."

The short journey to Toad Town happened without incident, and before long, the trio could see the mushroom-looking houses in the distance as well as the famous castle.

And they could also see the airship flying above it. An actual seafaring wooden ship only it had propellers instead of sails, more propellers at the back, and a figurehead at the image of some horned monster with a fiery-looking mane at the top.

As soon as she saw the airship, Apple Bloom facehooved and let out a groan.

"Figure..."

"Seems like we arrive just in time for one of Bowser's attacks," Scootaloo said.

"Eeyup. And if we act quick, we can stop him from kidnapping Princess Peach. Yet again."

"Let's go on the ship and say a quick "hello!" then," Sweetie Belle said before she teleported the three of them on the airship, slightly in the air to ensure that they didn't teleport into someone. So Sweetie Belle ended up dropping on a small brown living mushroom in pajama for some reason while Apple Bloom landed on a bipedal winged turtle with a bucket on the head and a red shell.

Sweetie Belle looked down at the crushed mushroom under her who was thankfully still alive but stunned. "Oops! Sorry."

Many other little brown mushrooms and bipedal turtles, some with red shells and others with green or blue or yellow shells, with and without wings, were around them on the ship among some walking living bombs, masked guys with their body entirely hidden behind clothes generally red, and green bipedal reptilian creatures with small black shells on their back and blue hair only at the top of their head. Some of the turtles also had helmets and were armed with hammers while others were in wizard robe and had wands and glasses. Not only some of the turtles had wings, but also some of the brown mushrooms. And was that a living turtle skeleton over there?

Apple Bloom recognized the turtle she fell on. "Howdy Corporal Paraplonk! Ah finally have the drop on ya, uh?"

Sweetie Belle giggled at the pun while the corporal groaned.

Suddenly, one of the masked guys, this one in green clothes and wearing a backpack with a pipe and a wand pocking out of it, took a hammer and went to attack the Earth Pony filly, but Scootaloo intercepted the weapon with one of her legs, stopping the masked guy. Scootaloo was then able to take the hammer out of the masked guy's grip and used it back against him, but the masked guy jumped back and took his scepter before pointing it at the pegasus filly.

By now, everyone on the ship was surrounding the fillies, the turtles with helmets ready to throw their hammers, the wizard ones ready to use their wands, and the green reptiles holding big spiked balls that they spat out.

"So, girls, let me do the presentations," Apple Bloom began. "The brown mushrooms are Goombas, and the one ya landed on, Sweetie Belle, is Private Goomp. The turtles are Koopas, the wizard turtles are Magikoopas, and the ones with the helmets and the hammers are Hammer Bros. The Koopa skeleton one is a Dry Bone. The ones with wings, both Goombas and Koopas, are simply known are Paragoombas and Paratroopas, like Corporal Paraplonk here..." She put a hoof on the back of the Corporal's head and pressed a little. "The masked ones are Shy Guys, and Sergeant Guy's the name of the one who attacked ya Scoot. The bombs are Bob-ombs, and the lizards are Spikes."

"Well, hello everyone!" Scootaloo said with a wave of her leg and a happy smile that quickly turned sadistic. "Don't mind us, we're just here to break your skulls!"

"All in good fun!" Sweetie Belle added.

Some of the troops gulped.

At this moment, a Magikoopa flew down from the sky on a flying broom and faced the three fillies.

"You! You are these equine pests who helped Mario all these months ago! Uh? Wasn't the orange one a robot? And since when the white one has wings?"

"Howdy Kamek! Nice ta see ya again too! Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo here ain't the same Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo who were with me before."

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo nodded, the alicorn finally moving away from Private Goomp.

"Alternate universes," Sweetie Belle cleared.

"Great... Alternate universes again... What next? Elder Gods?" Kamek mumbled to himself before he shouted to the ponies, "It doesn't matter! You dared to board Lord Bowser's personal airship and even assaulted without warning like cowards two of our most esteemed soldiers! Prepare to be at the receiving end of my wrath!"

Kamek then fired from his wand a magical beam made of colored geometrical figures like circles, triangles, or squares toward Sweetie Belle. The alicorn readied herself, only to see that the beam was disappointingly slow (not THAT slow, but still very slow compared to actual beams). She looked at it as it slowly approached her, then punched it out of existence once it was close enough, making Kamek's jaw drop along with many others.

"Please, tell me it was a joke," Sweetie Belle said. "I was supposed to be scared of this? Please! Let me show you a REAL magical beam!"

Sweetie Belle then fired from her horn a magical beam that almost immediately hit the Magikoopa and exploded upon impact. When the explosion cleared, Kamek was now entirely black, face frozen in shock, before his broom turned to ash and he fell on the ship unconscious.

Seeing how easily Kamek had been defeated, pretty much all the soldiers on the ship gulped again, some even stepping back from the fillies.

Suddenly, a huge Koopa with spikes on his shell and wearing black spiked bracelets on his arms as well as a similar collar around his neck jumped on the ship from the roof of the castle. Where a normal Koopa was about the size of an adult mare, this one easily dwarfed them and was even taller than Celestia! His head was exactly like the ship's figurehead, with fangs and claws and a large muzzle and he even had spikes on his tail. He was pretty much the cross between a turtle and a dragon.

Anypony would easily be intimidated by him.

The fillies weren't anypony, but Sweetie Belle was still awed at the beast.

Under his left arm, he was holding a human woman with long blond hair, a royal pink dress, long white gloves, and a crown. She was obviously Princess Peach.

Behind who was clearly Bowser, a small, round and white vehicle flying on a propeller and with a clown face arrived, a being looking like a younger version of Bowser inside it, about the size of a normal Koopa, maybe a bit taller. The young Koopa, however, was wearing a bib-like bandana with a fanged mouth childishly drawn on it instead of a collar, and his bracelets were missing the spikes.

Seven other Koopas then jumped from the roof of the castle and landed behind Bowser. They all had characteristics like Bowser, with spiked shells, large muzzles, and everything, and they even had spikes on their bracelets, but they were all about the same size as the Koopa child, the smaller being even smaller than a normal Koopa while the bigger one was easily half the size of Bowser. They also all looked very different, with different colored shells and skins, some of them possessing hair, having unique accessories, and they were all armed with a wand like the Magikoopas.

"Let me go!" Princess Peach shouted.

Bowser only laughed in answer before he said, "Alright everyone! I have the princess! Now let's hurry before these pesky plumbers come and ruin everything!"

"My Lord. We have a problem..." Sergeant Guy then said as he slowly moved toward Bowser, not stopping from watching the fillies and from pointing his wand at them.

"Mmh?" Bowser simply replied in wonder before he got a good look of the situation. Seeing the fillies, he gave a small roar of rage at them. "You! You're these pipsqueak furballs from a few months ago! Uh? Wasn't one of you a robot? And since when the white one has become half-chicken?"

"Hey!" Sweetie Belle shouted in indignation.

Scootaloo laughed. "For once, it's not me who's called a chicken!"

"Ya know he just implied that all pegasi were chickens, right?" Apple Bloom remarked.

"... Hey!"

Peach looked very happy and relieved to see the ponies, and stopped struggling.

Kamek, at this moment, recovered consciousness. With difficulty, he got up and, using his wand as a cane, walked toward Bowser.

"Your Evilness. They said that these two came from alternate dimensions. Be careful. The white one managed to defeat me with just one magical beam. She's clearly more powerful than the one we fought all these months ago."

One of the smaller Koopas, the one who had a blue shell and large blue hair as well as an overbite on the upper snout, chuckled. "That's pathetic from you, Kamek."

Kamek became red in rage. "Shut up, Ludwig! You wouldn't be laughing if you had seen what she did! Also, she took me by surprise!"

"Hey! Knock it off you two!" Bowser yelled before he pointed at the ship's wheel. "I want someone at the wheel right now! Let's move before Mario comes!" He then carefully placed Peach on the floor. "And I want the Princess to be escorted to her special room."

Two Koopas and a Shy Guy answered the orders. The Shy Guy went to the wheel while the Koopas gently grabbed Peach's arms and led her into the ship.

"And I want these three equines to be thrown out of here! Everyone! Attack!"

"Yeah! What are you waiting for?! Attack!" the Koopa child shouted.

One of the seven other Koopas who came with Bowser, the one who had darker skin compared to the others, a black shell, and a white head with a grey star around his left eye then yelled, "Morton will break little equines in pieces!!!" before he jumped toward the fillies and readied his arms to smash them.

The three avoided him by jumping in three different directions, and Morton instead ended up smashing Corporal Paraplonk who had still been under Apple Bloom's hooves. Apple Bloom landed in front of Sergeant Guy and bucked him on the mask before he could react, sending him toward the only female Koopa who had a pink shell, a pink bow with white dots on her head, a necklace of red pearls, large rings around her wrists, and pink shoes. The girl jumped high in the air to avoid the Shy Guy before she used her wand to send a large ring in the direction of the filly.

The ring was intercepted in the air by Sweetie Belle who caught it by putting one of her legs in the hole, not affected by the ring's hurtful magical nature. This shocked the Koopa girl, but her shock quickly turned to anger as she stomped her foot on the floor before she sent more rings.

Meanwhile, Morton assaulted Scootaloo, jumping again toward her. At the same time, the smallest of the Koopas, who had the particularity of having yellow, pink, and blue hair in a punk style as well as an orange shell and googly eyes like Derpy, had gone to the opposite side of Scootaloo before he materialized with his own wand a big spiked ball and kicked it toward the pegasus. Scootaloo rolled her eyes before she jumped back, resulting in Morton punching the balloon back at the small Koopa who was hit by it. Scootaloo then punched Morton hard in the stomach, sending him crashing right into the mast and cracking it.

It wasn't enough to knock the dark Koopa out however as he quickly got up and prepared himself to attack again. Before he could, Scootaloo sent a Phantom Cube at him, trapping him in her power. Morton found himself facing a big cannon that fired at him and he was hit by the cannonball which resulted in him being sent through the mast before he fell beyond the edge of the ship. The mast was destroyed, not only causing the ship to lose flight power but it also fell toward Scootaloo. The pegasus simply avoided it with a sidestep, and the mast fell instead on the small Koopa from earlier who had been now on a giant ball about to roll on her. The mast then fell from the ship, dragged by its weight as most of it was beyond the edge.

The other minions decided that it was time to intervene, and before long, hammers, spiked balls, and magical beams were thrown in all directions, as well as bones from the Dry Bone.

Seeing this, Apple Bloom decided to turn into her ghost form just as the buffed Koopa who had a purple shell, pink skin on his head, and pink sunglasses was about to punch her, the punch traversing her as a result. Apple Bloom then used telekinesis to grab all the projectiles before sending them at the minions, knocking out a good majority of them. At the same time, she made ice spread from the Koopa's arm, and before long, he was entirely trapped in it. She then kicked it, sending the trapped Koopa sliding around, bouncing off the walls and ramming many minions.

Ludwig decided to attack her with his wand, sending magical beams like Kamek, but also fireballs while he levitated around. While Apple Bloom didn't have to fear physical attacks, magical ones were another thing. So she made sure to avoid them before she mentally took control of the Dry Bone and forced him to throw a bone at the floating Koopa from behind, causing him to drop. Just before he crashed, Apple Bloom then caught him by the arm and used him as a shield against the Magikoopas' magical beams. After a few seconds, she then used him to ram more minions before she threw him in the air and used her powers to throw a Bob-Omb at him. The bomb hit him before exploding, and a now unconscious Ludwig fell beyond the edge of the ship.

Scootaloo dealt with the last few minions before she suddenly received a punch from behind that sent her rolling and crashing against the railing on the edge of the ship. When she got up from this, she saw that the origin was the Koopa Child still in his flying clown car, mechanical arms with boxing gloves coming out of it. The child himself had some weird paintbrush in one of his claws.

"Ahahahah! What a bunch of idiots these Koopalings! It won't be as easy against me! Come on! I dare you to-" Slash slash!

There was a sudden moment of silence as Scootaloo was suddenly behind the child with her red sword. Then, the two mechanical arms of the clown car fell off, to the child's shock. "Wow! What?! How dare you damage my car? You will pay!"

He then raised his paintbrush and charged at Scootaloo who was joined by Apple Bloom.

All this time, Sweetie Belle played with her three opponents: the Koopa girl, the Koopa who was a lighter shade of blue than Ludwig and who used a tennis racket to send fireballs and bombs at her, and the tall Koopa with green hair, a green shell, and glasses who was sending magical projectiles seemingly randomly but actually cleverly used them to impede Sweetie Belle and make sure that she would be hit by the others.

Of course, this totally failed against her.

By now, Sweetie Belle had a good collection of rings around all four of her legs.

Thinking that she had enough, she levitated all the rings from her legs and merged them so they formed a long chain. She then sent the chain toward the Koopa girl, made the last ring grow until it was big enough to get around her, and shrunk it back, trapping the girl. Sweetie Belle then used her as a flail to hit the two others, sending her crashing on their heads, back and forth until they were KO.

Smirking, Sweetie Belle then sent the girl right at Bowser's face only for him to catch her. Growling, the huge Koopa then destroyed the chain with his claws before he dropped the girl.

"To defeat my Koopalings so easily... I'm not dealing with everyday creatures."

A giant broom suddenly appeared and went to attack Sweetie Belle, but the filly flew up just before and caught it by the top of its handle. She then swept the floor of the ship with it, sending unconscious minions away, before she suddenly swung the broom at the one who materialized it: Kamek.

"HIAAAAHHH!!!!"

The Magikoopa was swept off the ship.

Sweetie Belle then went to smash the giant broom on Bowser, but he easily destroyed it with a punch before he took a big breath and let out a large stream of fire. Sweetie Belle surrounded herself in a shield before she went through the stream toward Bowser who jumped at the last second before he dropped back right on her to crush her under his butt. She teleported out of the way and appeared further away. Seeing this, Bowser threw several hammers that Sweetie Belle avoided by slaloming toward him. When she was close enough, Bowser attempted to crush her again, this time by smashing a hammer on her. Sweetie Belle countered by punching the hammer, then avoided the punch he sent just after, then quickly flew backward to avoid being bitten by the Koopa's sharp teeth. Bowser then forced her to fly away as he entered his shell and spun rapidly.

When he got out, he continued to attack her with everything he had, using all his strength. Punch after punch, fireball after fireball, hammer after hammer, he attacked, and attacked, and attacked, many of his attacks damaging the ship as a result as he got angrier and angrier. A fireball even destroyed one of the propellers on one of the two remaining masts, causing the ship to start to lose altitude which made Bowser even more angry. But none managed to hit the filly who toyed with him.

Then, Sweetie Belle stopped moving and sat on the ground, and Bowser went to punch her again.

Sweetie Belle caught his arm, stopping it right here much to his shock.

She smiled sweetly at him. "Enough playing. The ship is about to crash, so time to end this."

Scootaloo and Apple bloom were still facing the Koopa child, which Apple Bloom revealed to Scootaloo was named Bowser Jr. The child was surprisingly tough, and the paintbrush was an amazing accessory that was pretty much like the Magic Paintbrush, having the ability to create pretty much anything Bowser Jr. wanted, the only limit being his imagination. And being a child, Bowser Jr. had a really wild imagination! He could create all kinds of monsters, send droplets of paint that turned into lava or some kind of blue electric stuff, create portals, and do many other things.

His clown car wasn't to be underestimated too. That thing had a lot of hidden tricks that managed to catch Scootaloo off guard more than once, but not Apple Bloom since she was more used to fighting the Koopa child. For example, a cannon could come out of the clown's mouth, or it could drop some kind of mechanised Koopa that eventually exploded.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo still quickly managed to destroy the car, which enraged the young Koopa who then put his bib-like bandana.

And suddenly, the child had a totally new appearance, looking human with a blue translucent body, including a mustache under a big nose, a cap with a "M", overalls, gloves, and shoes.

In this form, Bowser Jr. was extremely agile and, allied to his mastery of the paintbrush and his propensity to use tricks, he was an impressive foe. He still had no chance against the two fillies, but he still gave them some work.

But it still wasn't long before he had a knee on the floor.

But before they could end the fight, the two fillies and the young Koopa suddenly heard a succession of loud crashes that prompted them to look at the direction they came from...

Where they saw Sweetie Belle repeatedly smash Bowser on the floor back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, again and again and again for many long seconds.

After a whole minute of this, Sweetie Belle eventually stopped and released Bowser who wasn't moving anymore.

"I think we're done here," she then said before she jumped into one of the many holes in the floor that the battle created. Just a few seconds later, she flew back out with Peach on her back. "Hurry up, the ship is getting very close to the ground!"

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom decided to leave Bowser Jr. knowing that Sweetie Belle was right, and they flew away with her, landing not far to watch the ship crash.

But it wasn't over. Out of the wreck, Bowser jumped and landed beside it. Now, he wasn't just angry, he was livid! He began to advance toward the fillies when...

A human with a red cap, a red shirt, blue overalls, and a yellow cape suddenly dive-bombed right on Bowser's head before he bounced away. If this attack wasn't enough to finally knock out Bowser, a similar human in green also dive-bombing on his head did the job, and the Koopa King dropped unconscious.

Or not. Bowser still managed to open his eyes before getting up with a lot of difficulty, growling. He was staggering, but he refused to give up.

"Mario... Luigi... Don't think I'm... done yet...!"

The two humans readied themselves to fight, getting hammers out.

Sweetie Belle looked at Peach still on her back and gave her a nod. Understanding, the Princess got down, allowing the alicorn to join the plumbers, followed by her friends.

It was overkill to go all together against Bowser now that he was so much weakened, but Sweetie Belle didn't want to miss an occasion to fight alongside the local heroes. Scootaloo wanted to beat down Bowser for the heck of it, and Apple Bloom wanted to fight the Koopa King alongside the brothers like in the good old times.

But just as the fight was about to start, Peach suddenly screamed.

Everyone immediately turned toward her.

And they saw Wario now standing beside her, holding forcefully her arm with a big grin.

And black eyes piercing them right at their souls.

"What the-?!" Apple Bloom shouted.

"Wario?" both Mario and Luigi said in surprise.

"Hey! Hand off of her!" Bowser yelled.

Wario chuckled. "She's perfect. A heart so pure... Thanks to her, the day will finally come..."

"What are you blabbering about, fat face?!" Bowser roared. "Last warning! Hand off the Princess!"

Wario didn't reply, instead giving them an even bigger grin before the sky was suddenly covered by grey clouds.

And legions of ghostly beings came, spreading in all directions, a small number going toward them and the wreckage.

Without warning, Wario then disappeared with Peach just as the first ghostly beings, six of them, about the size of Mario, with a single eye and two disembodied hands, landed in front of the group.

When the ghostly beings charged at them, some punches was all it took to make them poof.

But more of them landed after that, including a ghostly being two times bigger than the others with four disembodied hands, little pyramids floating above two of them.

At the same time, many of these beings reached the wreckage, which worried Bowser.

"Junior!"

Mario eyed Bowser, the ghostly beings, and the wreckage not far behind. Then, with a sigh, he took two red mushrooms with white dots from his pockets and handed them to Bowser.

"One for you and one for your son."

Bowser was visibly reluctant to accept the plumber's help, but with a growl, he took the two mushrooms and ate one, healing some of his injuries before he ran toward the wreckage, punching two of the ghostly beings into oblivion on the way.

The three ponies and two plumbers then readied themselves to face the ghostly beings that surrounded them.

Chapter 62: Toad Town

Author's Note

Warning in advance, I have NO idea of where to put the '-a' like in "It's-a me" for Mario and Luigi, so I didn't bother.

Also, little reminder about the sizes:
Goombas are about as tall as the fillies.
Mario, Luigi, Peach, and the others are about the size of a grown pony, so they are about the size of Dedede too.
You should have no problem working the size differences from here.

Chapter 62: Toad Town

The ghostly beings, despite their number, still were easy to deal with. They simply charged at the heroes only to be punched in return, or to be hit by Mario and Luigi's hammers. The bigger one with the pyramids, however, quickly revealed to have some tricks as he seemed to mentally control them and used them as projectiles to attack while remaining out of range of physical attacks. And when Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle each managed to destroy one of the pyramids, the thing was able to materialise new ones. In the end, Sweetie Belle dealt with him simply with some beams before she focused back on the smaller ones that charged at her.

While the heroes fought the waves of ghostly beings, Bowser jumped on the wreckage of his airship, which wasn't that damaged by the crash actually. With how slowly it fell, it was mostly the bottom of the ship that took the brunt of the damage, the Shy Guy at the wheel having ensured that there were no obstacles.

As soon as he arrived, Bowser witnessed how the ghostly beings entered his minions' bodies and took possession of them, the possessed minions gaining black eyes like Wario. Thankfully, Bowser Jr., back in his normal form, despite being weakened by the earlier fight, was able to avoid this fate as he used his paintbrush to push his assailants back. Bowser quickly joined him and handed him the mushroom. Without a word, the child took it and ate it before the two Koopas faced the possessed minions and the ghostly beings that hadn't taken possession of anyone because of a lack of body to possess.

Bowser growled as he saw that even the Koopalings who had still been on the ship were now possessed.

"What are these guys?" Bowser Jr. asked.

"Like I have any idea!" Bowser answered. "Whatever these freaks are, they will quickly regret their life choices! One of them DARED to kidnap Peach before my eyes! Nobody is allowed to kidnap Peach but me!"

At this, he punched the closest Goomba, sending the mushroom creature flying and crashing on several other minions. This made the ghostly being possessing the Goomba come out of his body. Seeing this, Bowser quickly sent a fireball at him to destroy him before he could retake possession of the Goomba. It wasn't really useful in the end as another of the ghostly beings who hadn't taken possession of a body yet took possession of it right after.

The same thing happened when Bowser Jr. bonked a Koopa on the head, knocking him out and forcing the ghost thing out of him. The child then quickly attacked the ghost to destroy him, but while he did that, another ghost took possession of the Koopa.

Bowser used his fire breath to burn several minions and ghosts, and again, any minion that was freed was immediately possessed by other ghosts.

"This is already starting to get very annoying!" Bowser shouted, irritated.

He saw Roy, the buffed pink Koopaling, enter his shell and begin to spin. Bowser quickly prepared himself as the purple shell then suddenly charged at him, and he was able to catch it. The shell still managed to make him slide backward a few feet before he stopped. He lifted the shell, made one of the holes face his mouth, and breathed fire in it. Despite this, Roy came out and attempted to punch Bowser in the face, but the Koopa King intercepted the fist by biting it before he grabbed Roy by the head and smashed him on the floor. Seeing that it wasn't enough to knock him out, Bowser then lifted a foot and violently brought it down on the smaller Koopa's head. This time, this made the ghost come out, and Bowser quickly dealt with him, keeping Roy's body close to him to ensure that no other ghosts would be able to possess it.

Meanwhile, Bowser Jr. twirled his paintbrush in front of him to shield himself from some magical beams fired by Magikoopas before he used it as a bat to knock away a Paragoomba who charged at him, sending him right on the head of one of the wizards. When several minions then jumped toward him, he entered his shell and spun, hurting all of them with the spikes on it. His father then quickly sent fireballs on the few ghosts who came out of them.

It was at this moment that Bowser remarked that the enemies began to scatter, jumping or flying off the ship and going in all directions probably to cause mischief instead of losing time here. Among them were the remaining Koopalings as well as Sergeant Guy, Corporal Paraplonk, and Private Goomp, leaving only a handful of minions to fight Bowser and Bowser Jr. Mainly Goombas and some ghosts without bodies.

It wasn't long before the remaining enemies were eliminated.

At the same time, the heroes also finished on their side, the ghost things finally stopping coming as they probably understood that it was no use to insist with them despite the arrival of several of the bigger ones with the four hands and the pyramids.

Of course, by now, countless of them had spread in all directions.

"Any idea what these things were?" Scootaloo asked.

Apple Bloom, as well as Mario and Luigi, answered by shaking their heads.

Apple Bloom then looked at the two humans.

"Ah don't know why they took the Princess, but we'll save her! Don't worry! Also, it's nice ta see ya two again."

"Same, Apple Bloom!" Mario said before he looked at Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. "You are not the same Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo that we encountered, right?"

"Alternate universes," Sweetie Belle confirmed.

The two simply nodded, accepting this.

"You don't seem surprised," Scootaloo remarked, expecting to see the two to at least raise an eyebrow.

"It isn't the first time. There was that time where we had to team up with an alternate paper version of Mario to fight Bowser and an alternate paper version of him. There's that whole alternate paper version of our world in that book at the castle," Luigi explained.

"So you two are the heroes that Apple Bloom told us about? It's nice to meet you," Sweetie Belle said. "And you can count on us to help you save the Princess and deal with their ghost guys."

"If we had at least a lead to know where to start," Scootaloo said. "They could be anywhere."

Apple Bloom eyed Sweetie Belle. "Can't ya feel where the Princess was teleported ta?"

Sweetie Belle shook her head. "Whatever energy these ghost things are made of is all over the place and is obscuring everything else, but I can feel huge concentrations of it in several places."

"Mama mia..." Luigi said as he looked around in case more of these ghosts came. He really wasn't reassured now that he knew that the kingdom was being invaded by scary ghosts.

"These concentrations must be in settlements!" Bowser suddenly shouted from the wreckage where he could be seen looking at them at the edge. "These guys can take possession of bodies! I had to fight my possessed minions! They must be taking possession of everyone else as we speak!"

"Oh no!" both Mario and Luigi shouted.

Sweetie Belle groaned and shuddered. "It's the Dark Matters all over again."

"Toad Town isn't far," Apple Bloom said. Bowser's airship hadn't had time to go far before it crashed. "We'd go and help there."

Mario nodded. "And maybe we can find out what these things are and where they may have taken Princess Peach in the library."

Sweetie Belle looked up at Bowser still on the ship. "You're coming with us to find out too?"

"I don't need to know what I'm fighting! I just need to know that I can punch them, and I already know that!" Bowser shouted back before he had a moment of hesitation. "And as much as I want to know where they brought Peach, I need to return to my castle which is probably attacked too." Rage and determination then appeared in his eyes. "With my army at my side, these floating white sheets will regret making me their enemy!" The Koopa King then rubbed his head as he looked behind him at the few minions that he managed to free but that were still unconscious. "I just need to wake these guys up first. Somehow."

"I can help!" Sweetie Belle shouted before she flew to Bowser and lit her horn, spreading a healing field all over the ship. Once she felt that everyone was totally healed, she then flew backward to face the ship and used her powers to fully repair it. Before long, the airship was hovering above the ground as good as new.

Both Luigi's and Bowser's jaws dropped while Apple Bloom, Mario, and Bowser Jr. simply looked in amazement. Scootaloo wasn't that impressed however.

Bowser quickly regained control of himself and yelled, "I didn't ask for your help!"

Sweetie Belle stuck her tongue at him. "My pleasure."

Bowser grunted before he turned to his minions, some of which were starting to wake up with clear incomprehension on their faces.

"It isn't the time to sleep you idiots! Get up! We must return to the castle pronto! It's an urgency! If I see anyone still sleeping in the next five seconds, they will have bathroom chores for the next month! All the bathrooms!"

His threat worked as all the minions immediately got up and spread to move the airship without asking question.

"You should tell them what is going on so they can prepare," Sweetie Belle advised.

"Don't tell me how to do my job! Beside, I intend to do it on the way to the castle. We don't have time to lose."

"You are right. We should hurry." At this, Sweetie Belle flew back to her friends. "I can teleport us back directly to town."

Everyone agreed, and they disappeared in a flash of light while Bowser's airship flew away.

They appeared right outside of Toad Town, and already, they could see that things weren't looking good here.

Many ghosts were flying around in search of bodies to possess or chasing civilians, and civilians who were already possessed were doing the same when they weren't simply spreading chaos, destroying everything they could and spreading terror.

The heroes didn't lose time charging in the action, Luigi hesitating a bit before he understood that he would be alone if he didn't follow the others. And the last thing he wanted was to be alone facing a large group of these ghost things.

Like Bowser, they discovered the joy of having to deal with people possessed by these ghosts. Each time that they managed to free someone, another ghost would come behind their back to take possession of their body. Because of this, the fillies quickly decided to attack in priority the ghosts who hadn't yet possessed anybody with their many long-ranged attacks to lower their number.

The bigger ghosts, the ones with four hands and the two pyramids, were obviously more numerous this time, and of course, many of them had taken possession of bodies. So this meant that the heroes had to deal with Toads (small human-mushroom creatures), Goombas, Koopas, and all other kinds of creatures who not only had their original abilities, but also telekinesis, and they didn't use it just to throw these little pyramids. While their telekinesis seemed to be weak, they still could use it in various way, like self-levitating, sending debris and other stuff or even other creatures as projectiles, or use debris as weapons from a distance. When these things were met in groups, they could even combine their power to become even more threatening.

They discovered by the way that these ghost things could apparently take possession of other ghosts because they had to fight possessed Boos (white round ghosts) in some dark alleys and inside some houses.

Then, they suddenly heard someone shout "HELP!!!" and the Mario Bros seemed to recognise this voice as they immediately turned in the direction of its origin before they ran, quickly followed by the fillies.

In a street a little further, before a mushroom house that was actually a store not far of the castle, they saw a little creature that was actually a yellow orb with two feet (with no legs, like Kirby) and a little star at the top chased by a group of ghosts and possessed Paratroopas and Paragoobas. Despite not possessing wings, the creature was somehow able to float in the air.

"Starlow? What is she doing here?" Luigi wondered.

Mario didn't ask any question however as he took his hammer and went to save her, Luigi quickly following him. The fillies decided that the brothers had the situation in hand and continued to fight the ghosts all over the town.

Mario and Luigi jumped right between Starlow and the ghosts chasing her, stopping them. Seeing the brothers, the yellow orb was relieved, but also a bit annoyed.

"Mario! Luigi! I'm glad to see you! Where were you? I have been searching everywhere for you and Princess Peach!"

"Bowser," Mario simply said, explaining everything.

"Oh. Of course," Starlow deadpanned.

No more was said as the ghosts attacked and the bros were forced to either dodge or use their hammers to counter them. Because of the number of enemies, and the fact that most of them were flying, the bros used team attacks mostly involving Luigi using his hammer to crush Mario a bit before hitting him on the back so the elder brother was sent at one of the enemies curled up like a ball. Mario would then bounce from the enemy back at Luigi who would then hit him again, doing some kind of ping pong game where he made sure to target the ghosts not possessing bodies yet in priority. There were also a couple of times where, when the enemies were close enough, Mario used his hammer to bury Luigi in the ground before he would jump into the group of enemies. Luigi would then move in the ground before suddenly coming out of it under Mario just as he had been about to land, using himself as a spring to launch Mario in the air where he then spun with his hammer to repeatedly hit the enemies around.

It wasn't long before all the ghosts were eliminated, only for a new group to come.

This time, the group was composed of three dinosaur-like reptiles named Yoshis. A green one, a red one, and a blue one. The green one seemed to be possessed by one of the bigger ghosts as he had two small pyramids levitating around his head.

Mario and Luigi first dealt with the other two who charged at them or used their chameleon tongue to try to eat them, all the while keeping an eye on the pyramids that the green one was sending. The Yoshis knew how to fight and could do some very high jumps, even using their legs to float and move in the air a bit. The Yoshis used this to move above the brothers before dive-bombing them butt first with the force of a falling anvil. This attack was thankfully easy to avoid and the brothers always used the opportunity to counterattack. Once the blue Yoshi and the red Yoshi were out and the ghosts who possessed them were destroyed, the bros then fully turned their attention to the green Yoshi who was joined by a group of possessed Toads.

Then, the green Yoshi ate them, trapping them into white, green-dotted eggs that he sent at the brothers one by one like cannonballs. Despite the eggs' speed, Mario and Luigi still were able to hit them with their hammers and to send them back at the Yoshi to hurt him. Each time that a egg hit the reptile, it broke, freeing the Toad in it. Once he had no eggs left, the brothers then attacked him and the freed Toads. the Yoshi fought like the two others but had the advantage of the presence of the Toads that he ate when he had the occasion to trap them in Eggs to use as projectiles. And Instead of using his leg to remain in the air for a limited time, he could self-levitate so he didn't have as much problem going above the brothers to butt-bomb them. despite this, the Yoshi and the Toads were rapidly knocked out before the ghosts that possessed them were eliminated

No more ghosts came, all of them having seemingly been eliminated in the close area.

"Thank you for saving me you two!" Starlow said.

"You are welcome Starlow. But what are you doing here?" Mario asked.

"I was sent here to talk about... well... our current problem, and help in dealing with it. But I think this can wait. There's still many Cankens around."

"Cankens?" Luigi asked.

"These weird ghosts."

"Strange name," Luigi commented.

"And if it can reassure you, they aren't really ghosts. They are... different. You will understand once I tell you about their origin."

Mario and Luigi both nodded before they moved to fight the Cankens that were still in town, but it seemed that the fillies had already managed to eliminate a good majority of them.

Speaking of the fillies, they were now in the castle, just finishing knocking out an old mustachioed Toad with brown dots on his mushroom hat who Apple Bloom knew as Toadsworth, Princess Peach's steward. Earlier, they also managed to save a smart-looking Toad who had a blue mushroom hat with white dots and glasses known as Toadbert from a group of possessed guards.

But almost as soon as they freed the old Toad, they then found themselves facing one of the Koopalings: Morton.

It wasn't really surprising. The Koopaling had been knocked off the airship pretty early, so he probably fell not far of the town where he was possessed by a ghost and joined the others in attacking it.

No pyramids were visible around him, so it seemed that he was possessed by one of the smaller, weaker ghosts. But he proved them wrong when he took a big breath and, instead of sending a fireball, he sent a bolt of purple electricity at Sweetie Belle. The filly hadn't been expecting that and was literally shocked by the attack, but she resisted and immediately made the ghost pay by hitting him with a beam that knocked him back. The Koopa wasn't out yet however as he got up, took another big breath, and sent this time smaller, weaker bolts of electricity at a faster pace, three to four per second.

Sweetie Belle was ready this time and used her mirrors to reflect the bolts back at the Koopa while Scootaloo teleported beside him and punched him in the gut. Apple Bloom took the occasion to join her before she bucked Morton in the teeth, knocking a few of them out, before Scootaloo gave him an uppercut that sent him flying. Sweetie Belle then intercepted him by smashing him on the back on the head, sending him crashing back on the floor. Before he could get up from this, Apple Bloom then turned him so he was on his back before the three fillies drop kicked him at the same time in the belly.

Out of him came a ghost that was different from all the others encountered until now. This one only had two disembodied hands, but was still as big as the ones who had four hands and had a pyramid instead of a head, still with a single eye. The ghost immediately attacked them by sending bolts of electricity from his eye, but like before, Sweetie Belle reflected them with her mirrors. Scootaloo then materialized a spear of electricity and threw it right at the eye, piercing it. It wasn't enough to kill the thing, but he was now blinded and was left without his main weapon, leaving him totally vulnerable. He didn't last long after that.

The ghosts seemed to get the message after that as the fillies saw them fly away from the town through the castle's windows. They still went to intercept any who attempted to escape the town while in possession of a body.

Once all the ghosts were gone, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom used their powers to heal everyone (once he woke up and was told what happened to Peach, poor Toadsworth fainted and he had to be brought to the infirmary), including Morton who was missing half of his teeth. Since they now seemed to have some kind of... alliance with Bowser, it was only natural to help his minion.

When Morton woke up, he was obviously ready for a fight.

"Little equines pay for attacking us!" he shouted, beginning to do circles with his arms.

"Hold on! We're now helpin' yer Lord," Apple Bloom said.

This calmed Morton down, looking at the fillies in wonder. "Really?"

Apple Bloom then explained the situation in simple terms. "Bad ghost things kidnapped Princess Peach. Bowser wants to punch them. We want to punch them. We work together to punch them. Mario and Luigi with us too."

Morton tilted his head, then seemingly understood. "Oh! Like against crazy green ugly witch! Plumbers were with Lord Bowser!" Morton tilted his head to the other side. "And Lord Bowser became weird, crazy, ugly, and ordered to fight plumbers."

"Not fighting plumbers this time. Plumbers helping Bowser. Bowser back to fortress to save army against ghosts."

Morton bounced as he was filled with determination, not hearing a scream getting louder and louder. "Then Morton must join Lord Bowser to help!"

But before he could run away, something smashed through a window and rammed him before they both crashed on the wall. The thing quickly revealed to be a Poltergust - the vacuum cleaner that Apple Bloom and her friends used to capture ghosts - excepted that this one was bigger and had a reactor that was actually sputtering smoke. With it came a small old man, almost bald, only possessing a tuft of white hair at the top of his head. His weird glasses and his white jacket seemed to depict him as the scientist type.

The poor old man recovered from the crash, sitting beside the unconscious Morton, rubbing his head as he said "Crimini..."

"Professor E. Gadd?" Apple Bloom exclaimed in surprise.

Before more could be said, a group of ghosts, including one with a pyramid for head, then came from the window. The fillies immediately charged to get themselves between the ghosts and the old man to protect him.

Hearing the fight that followed, Mario and Luigi, as well as Starlow and some of the Toads who had already been healed came to see what was going on. Seeing the ghosts, Mario and Luigi jumped to help the fillies, and the fight was quickly over.

Apple Bloom then went toward the professor who was still a bit out of it after his crash and healed him with her ghost powers.

"What happened, prof?" the filly asked once she felt that the old man was fully back to his senses.

"Ugh..." The prof shook his head and looked at Apple Bloom. "My lab was invaded by these things, and I had to escape with my Super Poltergust 3001. As you saw, they chased me, and the one with the pyramid managed to fry the Poltergust's systems with his electricity. Did I crash on anyone?"

Apple Bloom pointed at the still unconscious Morton.

"Oh. Just him? Good."

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. "Any other time, I would have agreed, but not today. We're kinda allies."

For the first time, E. Gadd remarked the presence of Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo.

Before he could ask about why they looked different from the Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo he knew, Apple Bloom said, "Alternate universes."

This picked the prof's interest. "Oh, really now?"

Starlow suddenly flew between E. Gadd and the fillies. "It's not the time to go geek mode," she reproached to the old man before she looked at the fillies. "I heard about you. Well, about Apple Bloom and your counterparts. My name is Starlow, and I'm a Star Sprite. Nice to meet you. And thank you for the help against the Cankens."

"Is that how these ghost things are named?" Scootaloo asked.

"Yes. And if you want to know, the little ones are known as Kennies, the bigger ones with the telekinetic power are Telekens, and the ones with the pyramids for of heads that can shout electricity are Eleckens."

"Nice original names," Scootaloo said with sarcasm.

"You can thank Cankentriops, their leader, for that. Apparently, he didn't want to wrack his brain over names. At least, it makes them easy to remember."

"So ya know who're these... Cankens?" Apple Bloom asked.

"That's why I'm here. I was sent to inform about them."

"Uh. Then let me heal Morton, again, before we start," Sweetie Belle said. "Bowser will need to know about the Cankens, and Morton could relay what you will say to him."

"I think that I read about them a long time ago," Prof E. Gadd said. "As you may or may not know, I specialise in the study of paranormal, especially ghosts. I know that they aren't really ghosts, but they are close enough that I managed to capture one of them with my Super Poltergust 3001," he informed as he tapped the vacuum cleaner slash vehicle. "I can study him to try to find a way to deal with them like we dealt with the Shroobs. While I doubt that baby tears will work against them, there must be something. But I will need a laboratory where I will be sure that the Cankens won't attack me."

"Ya can use Smart Spirit's laboratory back home," Apple Bloom said.

"And instead of using the portal in Luigi's mansion's basement, I can open a rift directly to Apple Bloom's mansion," Sweetie Belle informed. "And I even have communication devices that can let us talk to each others despite being in different universes. I can give you one."

"Really? That's great news!"

The group was gathered around a table in the castle's library, joined by Toadbert and Toadsworth, the old Toad having particularly insisted to be here to hear what the Cankens may have planned for his Princess. Toadbert had a paper and a pen, ready to write down what Starlow was about to reveal for Bowser.

"So, where do I start..." Starlow began. "Thousands of years ago, there was that powerful cult that formed, led by a certain Cankentriops, a terrible wizard. They had somehow entered in contact with a being from another dimension powerful beyond our imagination known as Crakkthulx that they venerated like a god. Crakkthulx gave them power, and in return, they worked to bring him to our world. The power of Crakkthulx turned the members of this cult into these ghostly beings that you fought today, not really alive, but not really dead either. Thankfully, the Elder Star Sprites of the time were able to seal the Cankens in their own pyramid before they could spread all over the world to cause chaos and search for what they needed to bring Crakkthulx to our world, and turned their own golems that they had built into guardians to protect the seal. The emplacement of the pyramid was then lost to time. Even we, the Star Sprites, forgot where it was. Or at least, that's what we thought... Seems like someone somehow found the pyramid and unleashed the Cankens to the world."

"Wario..." both Mario and Luigi said with annoyed looks.

"Who?" Starlow asked.

"One of the greediest and most selfish person that I know," Mario said. "He hunts treasures all over the world. When he has his sight on a treasure, it's almost impossible to make him stop going after it, and he has no qualms in using morally reproachable methods to get it."

"I heard that, when he is low on money, he makes games," Luigi informed. "Haven't tested them, but I don't expect great quality coming from him."

"Also, he is the one who kidnapped the Princess before our eyes. He was possessed," Mario finished. "I'm ready to bet all my gold coins that it's him who freed the Cankens thinking that he would find a treasure."

"AND IF HE TOUCHES A SINGLE HAIR FROM HER THEN I SWEAR THAT I WILL MAKE HIM EAT HIS MUSTACHE!" Toadsworth yelled.

"It's not really Wario who has the Princess, it's the Canken possessing him and that Cankentriops guy," Toadbert reminded.

"IT'S STILL HIS FAULT FOR BEING A GREEDY IDIOT!"

"Ahem! Anyway..." Starlow brought everyone's attention back to her. "Now that the Cankens are freed, they're certainly working to do their ritual to summon Crakkthulx to our world. Princess Peach, being pure-hearted, is one of the "pieces" needed for this ritual. So she must be in their pyramid, wherever it is..."

"What are the other pieces?" Sweetie Belle asked before Toadsworth could start another rant.

"Five special gems known as the Elemenstars. Star-shaped gems containing the power of the elements: fire, water, earth, wind, and aether. I would like to tell you where to find them, but I have no idea of where they are. They could be anywhere. This is why the Cankens are spreading all over the world; they are searching for them. There is only one gem that I know where to find: the Wind Star. The Star Sprites found it and kept it safe in Starven, our city in the sky."

"Uh... If you have this star, then why haven't you taken it to give it to us so we can keep it safe?" Scootaloo asked.

"It would have been too risky. You saw how I was attacked. It would have been easy for the Cankens to take it from me. You will have to come to Starven, and we should hurry because this is only a matter of time before Starven is attacked too."

Toadbert suddenly jumped as he realised something. "Wait, by Boogity! I think that I know where we can find another of these stars! A few months ago, I went to Sarasaland to visit a newly opened museum in Chai Kingdom, and guess what I saw here? An Elemenstar! The earth one I think, it was brown."

"That's excellent news Toadbert!" exclaimed Starlow. "We must immediately go and retrieve it! But, we also need to go to Starven to get the Wind Star. If we go get the Wind Star, then the Earth Star may be taken, but if we go get the Earth Star first, then it will be the Wind Star that may be stolen by the time we are done. I fear that we will have to make a choice."

"No need. We can simply spread out," Scootaloo said. "Sweetie Belle, Apple bloom, and I go to retrieve one of the stars, and Mario and Luigi go to retrieve the other."

"That's a good idea, young one," Toadsworth said, more calm. "Now, who wants to go where?"

"Sarasaland!" Luigi shouted, surprising everyone. "We will go to Sarasaland!"

Mario opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it as he gave instead a knowing look at his brother.

Nobody else understood however.

"Master Luigi, why are you so dead set on going to Sarasaland?" Toadsworth asked.

"N-no reason! I just want to go there because... The Earth Star and... Because!"

Behind his brother, Mario formed a heart with his fingers and winked. Everyone understood, although not everyone knew who was the lucky girl.

"In that case, we will go to Starven," Sweetie Belle said.

Starlow nodded. "Once we have the Wind Star and the Earth Star, we will decide what to do next. With some luck, we will find out where are the other three stars."

"Well, before you go, I have someone for you, Mario and Luigi," prof E. Gadd then said before he put a hand in a pocket and retrieved what seemed to be a miniature suitcase. "Stuffwell. Activation."

The suitcase suddenly jumped from his hand and grew, becoming bigger until it was about the size of the fillies, two legs and a face appearing.

The walking suitcase, Stuffwell, then looked around before he began to talk. "It's nice to see you again, Mario and Luigi. And I see some new faces. Greetings! I'm Stuffwell." He turned to face the professor. "I take it that my assistance is needed to face a new threat?"

"That's exact. You will accompany Mario and Luigi and do like you did back against the Shroobs."

"Very well," Stuffwell replied before he turned to face the brothers. "It's with joy that I join you to be your assistant again! I don't think that I need to give you the basic instructionals again, but do you still want me to give them?"

"Hey, wait a minute!" Starlow interrupted before she flew to Stuffwell. "I'm their assistant! You are not needed! Also, 'instructionals' isn't a word!"

"You are working as their assistant too?" the suitcase asked.

"Yes! I'm their number one assistant! I helped them in no less than three of their adventures! I'm the perfect one for the job!"

"In that case, shouldn't it be time for me to get some screen time? And I don't see how you can be a good assistant. You don't have all the splendiferous technology that I have."

"'Splendiferous' isn't a word either! And I have magic!"

"But I am the first assistant they ever had, so I'm certainly more emblematic than you. And what would be more logical than a suitcase to travel?"

"I can help in a fight! Whenever the enemy is about to send an attack that can't be avoided, I'm here to get them out of the way! What can you do beside stocking items?"

"As I said, I have a lot of technology in me allowing me to be useful in all kinds of situations."

Everyone else was sweating at the exchange. Eventually, Sweetie Belle decided to intervene.

"Mh... Starlow. How about you come with us instead? We will need you to guide us to Starven, because we don't know where it is."

Starlow looked back at the filly, becoming silent. "....... You have a point." She looked back at Stuffwell. "Very well. You go with Mario and Luigi while I go with Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo."

"Glad that we reached an agreement."

"Nothing to add?" Toadbert then asked to Starlow.

"No, nothing."

"All right. Then..." The blue Toad took the paper where he wrote all the important information and went toward Morton who was sleeping against a wall near the entrance of the library. "Here's the letter for Bowser," he said, but Morton didn't wake up. "Heho." Still not waking up. "Morton!" Still not waking up. "WAKE UP!!! BY BOOGITY!!!"

This worked, Morton jumping awake. "Wha-whe-who-whu-what?"

"Letter for Bowser. Make sure it reaches him. It's important."

Morton looked at the letter that Toadbert was giving him and took it.

"Morton will give letter to Lord Bowser. Now, Morton go?"

"Yes, Morton go. Hurry up."

And without warning, Morton ran to the closest window and jumped through it.

This enraged Toadsworth who ran to the broken window and yelled, "BARBARIAN!!! THERE'S A DOOR!!!"

"Window faster!"

"YOU COULD HAVE AT LEAST OPENED IT!!!"

"Breaking faster!"

The others simply stared silently, sweating.

Chapter 63: Beginning Of A Night Of Horrors

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 64: Starven

Author's Note

I did some edits in the previous chapter. More info in this blog.

Also, about Metro Kingdom, more specifically New Donk City. Everyone here agrees with me that the city being on some platform in the middle of the sea (or a bay, whatever) is stupid, right? They did that just to give a limit to how much could be explored, but in reality, a city like that on such a small platform is absurd. Why use cars then? You can literally go anywhere by walking in just a few minutes!
So, in this story, New Donk City WON'T be on a platform in the middle of the sea. It will be a real New York-like city with the size that goes with it.

Chapter 64: Starven

The fillies were the first to reach their destination, which wasn't surprising because Starven was actually somewhere in the sky above the Mushroom Kingdom.

It was a small 'land' made of clouds colored from pink to blue passing by purple, with little twinkling yellow stars decorating them and little round cloud houses with doors and windows shaped like stars a little everywhere. These houses were actually scattered on several cloud platforms, some further up than others, so unless you had a mean to fly, it was impossible to explore the whole town.

The Star Sprites inhabiting this town didn't have to worry about that of course.

However, they currently had to worry about something else: the invading Cankens.

Again, the sky was covered in dark clouds that ruined the beauty of the place, and Cankens were everywhere, attacking the Star Sprites.

The little spherical things, colored in various shades of pink, blue, and yellow, however, contrary to the inhabitants of Toad Town, were managing to defend themselves quite well. With their magic, all of them were able to fight back the Cankens. Sadly, it was obvious that they were getting overwhelmed by the Cankens' huge number. Some of the Star Sprites were dark purple with black eyes, obviously indicating that they were possessed, and the rest were gathering in groups surrounded by the Cankens where it was only temporary before they would lose the fight.

Starlow saw this and was bowling with rage before she yelled, "Don't worry everyone! The cavalry arrives!"

Scootaloo grinned. "Yeah. Excepted there's only the horses."

"It's not the time for jokes!" Starlow shouted in annoyance.

Sweetie Belle giggled. "As long as we don't horse around, that's no problem."

"Uuuugh! Let's just go!"

"Already ahead of ya!" Apple Bloom said as she charged into the action. She was immediately followed by Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, leaving Starlow in the dust (figuratively since they were flying).

"Wha-h-HEY!! Wait for me!"

By the time Starlow joined the fillies, they were already busy wrecking the Cankens by the dozens per second, including a what looked like purple Kennies that could teleport that starlow revealed were called Warp Kennies. Some possessed Star Sprites gathered to use their magic and attempt to stop the girls, but they barely slowed them down. The magic of a Star Sprite was just no match.

Before long, the first groups of Star Sprites were saved, and the oldest of them, a white Star Sprite with a grey moustache, approached them.

"Starlow, glad to see that you are all right and that you brought help. I expected the famous Mario, but it seems that these young ones are a better choice."

"No kidding, Mayor! These three are an army by themselves! They will deal with these Cankens before we know it!"

"Still, that's a big army they sent for just a town," Apple Bloom remarked.

"That's not surprising," the mayor replied. "We are the ones who sealed them in their own pyramid in the first place. They didn't attack just to retrieve the Elemenstar. They want to wipe us out. Cankentriops sent no less than three of his better minions to attack us, including his own right hand man."

"Three of them?!" Starlow shouted. "Three of the five are here?! They really want us dead!"

"You mean that Cankentriops has five lieutenants?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Yes," the mayor answered. "They are known as the Five Branches of the Pentacle. Five Cankens far more powerful than all the others. And in case you haven't guessed, Cankentriops himself is the Center, or Core, of the Pentacle. These six are the tip of the Canken pyramid. If they are eliminated, then it will all be over for the Cankens."

Sweetie Belle grinned. "You hear that, girls? We have our targets."

Scootaloo gave back a smirk. "And three of them are here he said. We have the occasion to do half of the job in one go."

"And get the sect's second out of the picture while we're at it," Apple Bloom said.

"These three evils are probably assaulting the Assembly as we speak," the mayor said. "It's where the Elders are sheltered, ready to defend the Elemenstar to the last with many of our most prominent mages."

"Oh no!" Starlow shouted before she turned to face the fillies, panicked. "We must hurry and save the Elders!"

"What about the other Star Sprites we haven't saved yet? There are still many Cankens attacking around," Sweetie Belle wondered.

"Leave them to us," the mayor reassured. "You eliminated a lot of them already. We should be able to manage from now. At least long enough while you defeat the Branches."

The three fillies nodded before they looked at Starlow. Understanding what they wanted her to do, she flew away, and they followed her, dealing on the way with any Cankens attacking them.

It wasn't long before they saw the building after moving around a cloud. Like the houses, it was only one floor high and circular, but it was certainly larger and more decorated, mostly with columns and stars, and the roof was only a dome at the center part of the building (where it actually went two times higher than the houses around), being flat in the rest.

And right now, many of the windows were destroyed, with Cankens entering the building through them. The entrance was also replaced by a big hole, and there were some more holes in the walls here and there.

The fillies didn't lose time and entered the building, destroying all the Cankens on the way simply by ramming them. Inside the building, they encountered many possessed Star Sprites as well as tall purple cloaked Cankens armed of spears that Starlow named Sentrykens, who were stronger and more powerful than the usual Cankens and apparently servel as the personal guards of the Branches of the Pentacle and of Cankentriops. The fillies had no problem defeating all of them before they entered the Assembly Room of the building where most of the remaining Star Sprites defending the building were gathered.

Well, gathered, but also scattered all over the room either unconscious, defending each others, or facing two figures in the center of the room.

Said figures revealed to be two Toads.

One was a 'classic' male Toad (white mushroom hat with red dots) who was dressed like an explorer with a red bandanna around the neck and a light on the hat. The other was a female Toad with a pink mushroom hat with white dots which somehow formed two pigtails, who also had a light on the hat and a red bandanna around the neck, as well as a belt on a short pink dress and pink pant.

Apple Bloom raised a nonexistent eyebrow upon seeing them. "Captain Toad and Toadette?"

"I feel great power coming from them. I think that they are possessed by two of the Branches the mayor told us about," Sweetie Belle informed.

"It was kind of obvious," Scootaloo said. "They stand out in the middle of a small field of unconscious Star Sprites, and I think that I identify a few Elders among them. Also, these two are armed with something else than spears."

As Scootaloo remarked, Captain Toad was armed with a black sword with a hilt shaped like a pyramid with an eye, and Toadette had a large black fan also with an eye.

At this moment, the fillies also stopped behind the Toads a hole in the floor that seemed to lead to a basement.

"That holes... It's where the secret trapdoor to the basement was situated," Starlow informed as she grew more worried. "The Wind Star is kept there. And there's a Branch missing. The third one is certainly in there, after the star."

"Then we must hurry with these two and go after him!" Scootaloo said.

By now, the two possessed Toads had spotted them.

Toad looked at them with amusement. "Look at that, Kirima, the idiot orbs are sending their beasts of burden against us." He then raised his sword in front of his face and looked down, eyes closed, as if praying. "Lord Crakkthulx, help me punish these inferior beings for such an insulting, albeit amusing action. Your servant will put an end to these fools' cursed existence of stupidity and pray that they return as your slaves with at least a few more neurons."

.......... Okay, the guy managed to reach the top of the fillies' shit list in just a few seconds. They will take pleasure turning that arrogant smirk upside down with a few dozens painful hits on his face.

Once they get him out of Toad, of course.

Toad was then hit on the back of the head by a very annoyed Toadette, or Kirima, after she rolled her eyes.

"Stop with your dramatics and let's just get it over with them before we join Jupacc."

"What she says!" Sweetie Belle shouted. "I just want to punch you in the face and be done! Not listen to some zealot's nonsense!"

A vein could be seen on Toad's forehead. "WHAT DID YOU SAAAAY?!!! Stupid animal! For such heretic parole, prepare to be slain by the holy sword of Maztur, the Paladin of Lord Crakkthulx!"

Maztur, as he called himself, then planted his sword in the ground, and explosions of energy suddenly erupted from it randomly in the area where the fillies were.

When he looked up to see the result of his attack, he was faced with a hoof.

The next instant, he was sent flying through the wall behind.

Kirima stared at where Maztur had been not even a second ago, then at the hole in the wall through which he disappeared, then back at the place where he had been, then back at the wall, then at Sweetie Belle, then all around her as the fillies now surrounded her.

"Oh dear...You are stronger than you look."

At this, she grabbed from somewhere in her clothes a crown with two eyes and a design looking like Toadette's mushroom hat in it. When she put it on, Toadette then transformed, taking an appearance similar to Peach with her dress having a design reminiscent of Toadette's mushroom hat. She also still had her pigtails, and now had a pink bow on her chest.

With a giggle, she then placed her fan before her face, hiding the bottom part of it. "Uhuhuhuh. With this form, I won't be as easy to fight as that idiot."

And she threw her fan which began to make circles around her while spinning.

Before she could do more, Scootaloo materialized a spear looking like a lightning bolt and pointed it at Kirima, and at the same time, Apple Bloom pointed a hoof toward her. From the weapon and the hoof then came bolts of electricity (purple in Apple Bloom's case) that absolutely roasted the doppelganger of the Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom.

The the lightning stopped coming, Kirima was badly burned, smoke coming out of it, and the crown fell from her head, turning her body back to Toadette.

And just as she recovered from it, she found herself face to face with a hoof.

The next instant, there was a second hole in the wall beside the one in which Maztur had disappeared into.

...

"You know. You three are starting to scare me," Starlow said.

"Yeah, I can have that effect," Scootaloo said with a grin, making the two other fillies roll their eyes.

At this moment, Maztur and Kirima returned in the room, still in possession of Toad and Toadette's bodies, and looked very, very angry.

The crown that Kirima used previously then flew right into her hand before she put it back on her head while Maztur raised his sword, charged it in purple electricity, and swung it, sending a huge wave of electricity at the fillies. The three avoided it, but then, while she was mid-jump, Scootaloo saw Kirima just beside her, back in her Peach-like form, fan fully deployed and enveloped in purple electricity too.

Scootaloo quickly teleported behind Kirima, avoiding the fan, and attacked her with her lightning spear. However, Kirima was able to avoid it with an air-jump, doing a backflip above the pegasus before she attempted to hit her on the back of the neck with her shoes enveloped in electricity.

Kirima instead hit a shield materialized here at the last second by Sweetie Belle, bolts of electricity escaping from the impact point. One went straight toward the alicorn who deflected it by hitting it with her hoof, sending it toward Maztur who was too busy trying repeatedly to hit Apple Bloom with sharp waves from his swords to see it coming. As Maztur was electrified as a result, Apple Bloom took the occasion to fly toward him and grab him before she slammed him on a giant bone she made come out of the ground. Then, she dropped him on the ground and levitated the giant bone before she bashed him with it repeatedly.

At the same time, Scootaloo grabbed Kirima by the leg and trapped her in an illusion where the clouds were replaced by hard steel before she proceeded to repeatedly slam her on it, adding some bumps on the steel to do more damage. When the crown fell again, turning Toadette back to normal, she didn't stop.

This continued until the two Cankens were forced out of the bodies, finally revealing themselves as they flew away until they were side by side again and faced the fillies, ready for another round.

They looked very different from the usual Canken. They had arms and even legs instead of just disembodied hands.

Maztur revealed to be very tall, almost two times taller than the Sentikens, and was well-muscled while not as buffed as someone like Bulk Biceps. Disturbingly, while he had a pyramid head like most other Cankens, he also had a large full-toothed mouth on his torso, the cloak he was wearing not hiding it.

Kirima was even taller, almost reaching the dome that served as the ceiling of the room, and was as slim as a stick, with a rather small pyramid head compared to all the others'. She also had four pairs of very long arms, all with a spikes protruding from the elbows. She then bent down, using her two lower pairs of arms as legs and getting her size closer to Maztur's as her body seemed to be able to bend in really weird ways.

Sweetie Belle brought out her whip while Scootaloo pointed her spear at the Cankens and Apple Bloom created a scythe out of bones. Red cubes also appeared around the pegasus.

The two Cankens were silent for a couple of seconds before Kirima said, "Let's go, Maztur. We must avoid being killed."

Maztur let out a growl. "What about Jupacc?"

"He will be okay."

"Hold it. Ya really expect us to let ya escape?" Apple Bloom asked.

The two Cankens exchanged glances before, in a blink of an eye, Kirima ran like a lizard toward a door and smashed through it, and Maztur flew after her. Some Cankens then placed themselves between the fillies and the newly created hole in the wall.

The fillies were taken off guard by the speed at which the two Branches managed to escape, but they quickly got over it and readied themselves to follow them.

"Wait!" Starlow shouted, stopping them. "We will lose too much time chasing them. Remember, there's still the third Branch in the basement going after the Wind Star! It's our priority to stop him from getting it!"

"Cankentriops' right hand man, right? All right. I guess these two bozos will have to wait their turn," Scootaloo said.

"These guys are surprisingly good at running away. We will have to be more careful against him," Sweetie Belle added.

"He won't be able to escape. The basement only has one exit, and it's that hole in the ground over here," Starlow informed. "I will remain here to help the others fight off the remaining Cankens while you go."

The fillies nodded before they jumped into the hole where they could see the remains of a door. Passing it, they had to fight their way through more Cankens, mainly Sentikens with at least half of them in possession of Star Sprites, as they traversed rooms and corridors in what seemed to be a maze. Thankfully, they had no problem finding the right path as they simply had to follow the Cankens. Any obstacles had been destroyed by that Jupacc guy and his cohort.

And before long, they reached the last room of the maze behind a large double door that had been blown up like many others.

They arrived just in time to see none other than Ludwig, the Koopaling with the wild blue hair, defeat the last Elder Star Sprites by sending a ring of explosive balls at them.

Behind the Star Sprites was an altar with a green crystal star floating on it, now defenseless as Ludwig, or Jupacc, began to advance toward it.

"Not so fast, you freak!" Sweetie Belle shouted before she teleported right beside the star and grabbed it.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo positioned themselves behind him, ensuring that he wouldn't escape. Hearing them, Jupacc turned to look at them, then looked back at Sweetie Belle.

"Three little horse things. Managing to get past Maztur, Kirima, and the legions of Cankens on the way to this room. Who are you?"

"Sweetie Belle."

"Scootaloo."

"Apple Bloom."

"We are here to save this town and stop you from get-" Sweetie Belle said before she had to teleport away as Jupacc sent without warning a giant explosive ball from Ludwig's wand, destroying the altar. Sweetie Belle reappeared between the two other fillies, Wind Star on her back. "Hey!"

Jupacc chuckled as he slowly hit the palm of his hand with the tip of the wand.

"You want to stop me from getting the Elemenstar? Very well. Then..." He pointed the wand at them as he began to levitate. "En garde!"

Explosive balls of energy then came out of the wand, but Sweetie Belle destroyed all of them by firing several beams while Apple Bloom sent herself several spheres of energy at him. Jupacc managed to avoid most of them by floating around but was eventually hit by one. To everyone's surprise however, the sphere of energy passed through him without doing anything.

Then, dozens of copies of Jupacc/Ludwig appeared everywhere in the room, all now armed with a black chakram with a small eye on a side in addition of the wand. They all threw the chakram at once, and Sweetie Belle quickly surrounded the three fillies with a shield. All of them passed through it and the fillies as if they didn't exist excepted one that bounced on the shield before disappearing.

"Darn. He's using illusions," Sweetie Belle concluded as she looked around. "And I can't even tell where's the real one. His illusion even works on that sense."

"Well, lucky I'm a master of illusions," Scootaloo said before she sent a wave of Phantom energy in all directions. The real Jupacc was obviously caught in it, and so, taken off guard, was victim of painful illusions (a giant hammer) that badly armed him and forced him to show himself as it was revealed that he had been invisible.

Before the fillies could act on this, the guy disappeared again, and this time, he seemingly managed to avoid whatever illusions Scootaloo was using on him as he didn't reappear. The fake ones were still here however and continued their fake attacks to distract the fillies, and the real Jupacc used that to attack sneakily with his chakram and Ludwig's own attacks. Again, Sweetie Belle protected the fillies with a shield, but somehow, Jupacc managed to enter the shield and gave Sweetie Belle a very bad cut with his weapon.

This gave his position to the others and both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom gave him a bad hit before he got away. Sweetie Belle then sent a fiery wave in all directions (making sure that the fire avoided her friends and the unconscious Star Sprites), hoping to hit the real Jupacc, but somehow, he was able to avoid it.

Sweetie Belle immediately put back her shield before the fillies went back to back to avoid a repeat of what happened previously.

Suddenly, Jupacc appeared right before Scootaloo who quickly attacked him, only for this Jupacc to reveal to be a illusion. Several more appeared before the fillies, and since it was impossible to know which one was the real one, they had no choice but to act to avoid being cut or hit by electricity or fireballs or whatever. Scootaloo then suddenly had a hunch, instinct telling her to do something NOW, and she quickly swung her spear, hitting the real Jupacc who had still been invisible.

When everything else fails, you can count on your instinct, and Infinite (or Zero) had very good instincts honed by years of surviving by himself in hostile environments since he was a child.

Too bad for Jupacc, he won't get the drop on her this way. And worse of all for him, it got him to be hit by a wrecking ball created by Scootaloo's illusion (under which Jupacc was still in).

Apple Bloom immediately took the occasion offered by Scootaloo to attack Jupacc directly in his mind, immobilising him long enough to allow Sweetie Belle to for at him from her ten cannon dozens and dozens of beams. Apple Bloom then made a big bone come out of the ground right under Jupacc to send him in the air where Scootaloo, who had turned giant, gave him the mother of all punches that sent him crashing on a wall with the force of a meteor.

Somehow, he was still conscious, and used Ludwig's magic to duplicate himself, creating two clones before the three of them disappeared.

"Come on..." Sweetie Belle grumbled.

Scootaloo tried to think of a solution when she facehoofed and said, "I'm an idiot." Then, she sent a wave of Phantom energy at both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, and altered reality for the three of them so their senses weren't tricked anymore by Jupacc's illusions. Immediately, all the fake Jupacc disappeared, and the three real ones appeared at different places in the room.

Well, three for three, each filly took on a Jupacc and unleashed Tartarus on them. Before long, one of the Jupacc fell unconscious wall the two others disappeared in poofs of smoke.

Jupacc himself then came out of Ludwig's body.

He revealed to have the less ordinary appearance out of all the Cankens encountered by the fillies until now, because he was just a floating pyramid about the size of Big Mac with an eye on all the faces, including the pentagonal base. He also had three disembodied hands in a triangle formation around him, slowly circling him, one of the hands holding the chakram.

"Impressive, you three. Impressive. You are not just more bark than bite, you really are threats to our cause. I have no doubt now that if I remain here, you will kill me."

"And contrary to your two friends, you can't escape from this room. We are between you and the only exit," Scootaloo said.

"True. However..."

Suddenly, one of Jupacc's hands teleported beside Sweetie Belle and grabbed the Wind Star.

"Yoink."

"Wha-?"

And then, Jupacc was gone.

But they still could hear his voice.

"It has been a very informative fight. I will inform the BigEye about the abilities I witnessed, and next time, we will be prepared to face you."

...

"Wow. He got us good," Apple Bloom said. "He could've teleported away with the star anytime, but he fought us instead to see our abilities, and even hid that he'd teleport."

"Now that I think about it, we should have guessed that he could do it. How else could he enter Sweetie Belle's shield other than by teleportation?" Scootaloo said. "Unless he was already in the shield when Sweetie Belle put it."

"There are many ways to bypass a shield, like phasing through it, or shrinking, piercing a hole too small to be seen or felt, and traversing it," Sweetie Belle corrected. "Sorry girls, I'm not used to face competent villains."

"Same."

Scootaloo chuckled. "I'm more used to face competent heroes." Her amusement quickly disappeared however. "But now, they have the Wind Star. I hope that Mario and Luigi will have more luck. You can't track him, Sweetie Belle?"

Sweetie Belle shook her head. "Like I said, their energy is all over the place. All I can feel is that he went somewhere in this direction," she said as she pointed at a certain direction. "But no idea of where exactly."

One of the Elder Star sprites placed a map of the world on a table.

"This direction, you said?" he asked to Sweetie Belle who answered with a nod. The Elder then levitated a pen and traced a line from in the direction given by the alicorn from where they were. "It seems... either he went to Cap Kingdom, or somewhere in North Emiraco." He pointed with the pen at the North part of the continent just East of the Mushroom Kingdom. "After, it could be another trick. Jupacc seems to be a tricky fellow."

"We should send a group to investigate," another elder proposed.

"I advise against this," a third Elder said. "The poor souls we would send would have all the chances to be possessed. They would need a powerful escort, and our furred friends here still must search the other Elemenstars. There are at least, hopefully, four left. As long as we manage to get one, the Cankens won't be able to bring their 'god' to our world."

"Mario is on his way to get what is supposed to be the Earth Star in Sarasaland," Starlow informed. "Hopefully, they will get it."

Apple Bloom, back in her 'normal' body, looked at her friends. "Should we help them now that we're done here?"

"Hum... could you first get us back to the surface, please?" a fully healed Captain Toad asked, standing beside an also healed Toadette. Ludwig, also healed, was standing behind them.

"Of course!" Sweetie Belle said. "It shouldn't take long." She looked at Ludwig. "And I wouldn't mind using the occasion to see what Bowser is up to."

"Before you go, allow us to thank you again for saving our town and people," the first Elder said. "We will be happy to provide you with anything you need."

"Aw chucks. It was nothing," Apple Bloom said.

"Can we keep the map?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Of course."

So they returned to the surface, the fillies dropping Captain Toad and Toadette in Toad Town before they flew to Bowser's castle following Ludwig's direction.

Before long, they reached a mountainous wasteland filled with lava, with Bowser's castle on a plateau. In the castle, they didn't find Bowser however. The few minions keeping guard of the castle informed that Bowser went to Metro Kingdom with his whole armada where there was apparently an Elemenstar. The minions also informed Ludwig that while Roy and Morton were okay and went with Bowser to Metro Kingdom, the other Koopalings were still missing. They hoped that Captain Goomba and the troops he took will find them quickly.

"Is there any airship left?" Ludwig asked.

"Sorry, but no," a Goomba answered.

Ludwig crossed his arms thoughtfully. "I won't be able to join Lord Bowser by myself with a Koopa Clown Car. The risk of getting myself possessed again would be too high, and it would take too long. I guess that I have no choice but to go help Captain Goomba find the others."

"Mmh... Once we are done in Sarasaland, maybe we will go to Metro Kingdom to see if Bowser needs help. So, just before, I could teleport back here to take you with us," Sweetie Belle said after some thought. "Hopefully, you will have found the other Koopalings by then."

"It would be appreciated," Ludwig replied gratefully.

Meanwhile, Captain Goomba and his team were able to knock out Lemmy, the Koopaling with the tri-colored hair. Since they had already freed Larry (the other Koopaling who had blue hair) who then joined them not long ago, it hadn't been a problem to fight the second oldest Koopaling and his balls, as well as the Teleken getting out of him.

"And two! Who does this leave?" Captain Goomba asked.

"Wendy, Iggy, and Ludwig," captain Koopa Troopa answered. "And let's not forget Sergeant Guy and his teammates."

"And all the minions still possessed and scattered everywhere," Captain Boo added.

"Seems like we still have a lot to do. Come on everyone, let's save everyone so we can join Lord Bowser together as quickly as possible!"

Chapter 65: Sarasaland

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 66: New Donk City

The guards of Chújú really managed to hold their own very well against the Cankens. Helped by many brave civilians, despite the overwhelming number and power of the invaders, they were able to limit the damage caused to the town and the palace. However, many were the ones badly hurt as a result, mainly because of the explosions caused by the Bombshell Koopas' shells, and if it hadn't been for the fillies, the hospital would have been submerged.

While this happened, worried about Luigi, Mario went to search his brother in the mountains around. Thankfully, he didn't have to go far before he saw him transported by none other than Funky Kong alongside Diddy Kong and some other primates that Mario never encountered.

Excepted the old bearded one. Mario knew who he was.

While Funky had Luigi, unconscious, on his back, Diddy was dragging a beaten up Waluigi on the ground.

Mario was surprised to see them, but he quickly got over it to approach Funky and see if his bro was alright.

He had some bruises and burns, but nothing that a mushroom or two shouldn't be able to heal. It seemed that Luigi was simply sleeping, exhausted after his fight. This reassured Mario.

Diddy tried to tell him something, but Mario couldn't understand their primate language.

Old Bearded reminded Diddy of this by calming him down with a light hit on the head with his cane before he advanced toward Mario.

"Long time no see, Mario," he said in perfect common language.

Mario nodded. "If Donkey Kong hadn't told me (through body language and the very few words he could talk) about you, I wouldn't have recognised you."

"What are you saying? I still look as dashing as when we last fought."

Mario only commented on this by raising an eyebrow, making the ape roll his eyes. Funky said something with a big grin which resulted in him being bonked on the head by the cane. Despite this, Funky kept his grin, amused at what he did.

"Mph. No respect. No need to remain here. Let's go to Chújú while we continue talking. This young man needs a bed and I imagine that we have a lot to talk about, and I'm not talking about catching up."

"Like why you are in Sarasaland instead of your island? Does this have to do with the Cankens?"

"If Canken is the name of these ghost-things, then yes."

"Okey dokey! Lead the way, Donkey Kong."

"Just call me Cranky."

Luigi was in the middle of eating a small buffet (side effect of the pill he took) by the time everyone, including Daisy's father, caught up to the situation.

Scootaloo was the first to see Mario return to Chújú with the others, and she went to help them bring Luigi to the palace so they could put him in bed in one of the rooms there. But on the way, Sweetie Belle saw them too and used her powers to not only heal Luigi and Waluigi, but also gave Luigi some energy so he woke up. In the palace, they were led to a room where Sweetie Belle went to search Apple Bloom and Daisy while her father joined them. Once everyone was here, Mario then told them what Cranky told him.

Donkey Kong's island was invaded by the Cankens, Donkey Kong was captured, and the Cankens found what Starlow guessed was the Fire Star.

So this meant that the Cankens had three Elemenstars.

It was then Mario and the others' turn to explain to the primates about the Cankens.

"So this meant that if we don't stop them from getting the two remaining Elemenstars, we will have some evil god on our arms?" Diddy asked worriedly. "We must do something!"

Of course, beside the primates, nobody understood him.

Excepted Sweetie Belle thanks to her translator.

So the filly revealed, "We know where the fourth one is. Bowser learned that it is in New Donk City."

"New Donk City?!" Cranky exclaimed in surprise. "Of all places..."

"It's a small world," Tiny Kong said with some amusement.

"I can't help but remark the similarity between the city's name and the name of Donkey Kong," Scootaloo remarked. "I thought that it was a coincidence, but seeing your reaction, it isn't, right?" she asked to Cranky.

Cranky sighed. "I was born in this city, in a circus that just so happened to be there when I saw the day, so they found it funny to name me as a play between the word "monkey" and the name of the city, without thinking of all the mockeries I would get because of it."

"No kidding. With a name like 'Donkey', for an ape..." Scootaloo said.

"And these guys showed their lack of imagination by giving my son the same name," Cranky said with an exasperated shake of his head. "They treated us well, but really, they were horrible at names."

"A flaw that you have too," Funky said. "You named Diddy and the others after street and building names from the city. Heck, even 'Cranky' is a name of an avenue there."

Cranky bonked him on the head. "Like I'm the only one! At least, I can give names, contrary to most of the others on the island! Why else would they come to me to name their newborns or their animal friends? Even K Rool's father came to me for this! My own son couldn't give a proper name to his son and had to give him the SAME name! Why do you think I had to call myself 'Cranky'? With three Donkey Kongs, it was a nightmare!"

Mario laughed. "Then you escaped the circus."

"Ah, yes," Cranky said as he reminisced. "I had a bad day. I slept badly, I accidentally hit myself on the head, and some brats mocked my name. Because of this, I failed a juggling act and became the laughingstock. And my temper got the better of me and I kidnapped the first person that I got my hands on before escaping. Speaking of, I heard that Pauline is now the mayor of New Donk City. Who thought that this girl would go so far?"

"It really surprised me when I saw this," Mario agreed. "Do you know she made a festival about that first time you kidnapped her?"

"I heard about it, and I don't know how to feel. One day, you will see, they will make a video game of it."

At this moment, Waluigi, who was left sleeping on a couch placed in the room, woke up with a small "Waaahh..." as he rubbed his head. "That's the last time I let Wario bring me to one of his treasure hunts..."

When he finally opened his eyes, he found himself face to face with a grinning Daisy. "Sleepy head's finally awake?" She then grabbed him by the shoulder straps of his overalls to get him closer so his nose was touching hers. "Mario and the others told me that you and Wario are certainly the cause behind the current disaster! So tell us everything!"

"WAAAHHHH!!! S-s-spare me!"

Daisy's father sighed. "Daisy. Put him down."

After a few seconds of glaring at him, Daisy released him, allowing Waluigi to calm down as he put a hand on his heart and took big breaths. While he did that, everyone gathered around him, giving him similar glares (excepted Luigi who was still eating).

"Talk," Daisy's father ordered.

"I-I swear it's not my fault! I only followed Wario! Really! He found out about Cankentriops and his pyramid, thought that there was a huge treasure in it, and brought me with him! Beside the treasure part, I knew nothing about Cankentriops!"

"Can you at least tell us where is the pyramid?" Scootaloo asked menacingly.

"I just know that it's somewhere in the desert in North Emiraco! In Desert Kingdom!"

"With how big Desert Kingdom is, it doesn't help much," Stuffwell commented.

"And we'd already guessed that with the Star Sprites," Apple Bloom said.

"Can't you tell us exactly where the pyramid is?" Starlow asked.

"It was Wario who had the map! You will have to ask him!"

"Ugh! This guy is useless!" Daisy shouted.

"Darn... I guess we have no choice but to go to New Donk City then. Let's hope we will find Wario again there," Sweetie Belle said.

"And that we manage to save him this time," Apple Bloom added.

"But before we go, I must go search Ludwig and whoever Captain Goomba and the others managed to save," Sweetie Belle informed. "I will not be long."

She then teleported away.

"Well I'll be on my way. Good luck saving the world," Waluigi said as he got out of the couch and began to walk toward the exit.

"Not so fast!" Scootaloo shouted before she teleported beside Waluigi, took her anthro form, and caught the man by the ear, pinching it painfully.

"Wawawah!"

"Even if you just followed Wario, you are still responsible of all this shit! So you will come with us and participate!"

"Waaaahhh..."

Mushroom Kingdom.

It took a couple of minutes, but Sweetie Belle was able to find Captain Goomba's group in some forest. And at this point, it was more a small army. Captain Goomba and his comrades not only managed to save Lemmy and Larry (without counting Ludwig) as well as the three members of the Elite Trio, but also hundreds of minions of Bowser. The ones from the airship weren't the only ones who had been possessed only to escape, Bowser had countless minions who had been on the roads or in other fortresses when the Cankens attacked. Only a small percent of their overall number had been possessed, but it still wasn't nothing in the end.

However, no trace of the last two Koopalings, Wendy and Iggy.

"So we're going to Metro Kingdom?" Ludwig asked.

"But we haven't found-"

"You can continue to search for them if you want, but I'm joining Master Bowser in New Donk City," Ludwig interrupted.

"As he says," Larry said as he joined Ludwig's side. "Beside, I find it weird that we didn't find them already. I'm starting to think that they may not me in the Mushroom Kingdom anymore."

"We only have explored a small part of the Mushroom Kingdom," Captain Koopa reminded.

"Well, let's make it simple," Sweetie Belle said. "Anyone who wants to join Bowser, get beside me. Anyone who wants to continue the search, then don't get beside me."

The Koopalings, the Elite Trio, and a good majority of the minions went beside the filly.

The Captains accepted this and assured that they will continue the search with the few minions that remained, and that they could count on them.

So Sweetie Belle teleported back to Sarasaland with the Koopalings and the others.

From there, Scootaloo used her powers to materialize an airship that they used to fly to New Donk City, making sure that it could go very, very, very fast.

Only the royal family of Sarasaland didn't come, judging it preferable to remain in the empire.

Earlier. New Donk City, Metro Kingdom.

Bowser traversed the whole continent from the West with his armada, dozens and dozens of airships now threateningly flying over a seemingly endless sea of skyscrapers, causing quite the panic below. The Cankens hadn't attacked yet, it seemed, but the Koopa Army had had to fight their way through them at several reprises while they flew to Metro Kingdom, lost a few ships to them, so they knew that it was a matter of time, maybe minutes, before they appeared here.

And as they feared, as they neared the New Donk City Hall, the tallest skyscraper of the city, the dark clouds suddenly darkened the sky before Cankens came and flew down to the streets.

"Guess we arrive just in time, uh?" Bowser asked to nobody before he roared, signaling his minions to attack. The minions immediately fired from the cannons of the airships many Bullet Bills, living bullet-like projectiles possessing arms and eyes, that exploded on the approaching Cankens. Goombas, Koopas, and many others jumped from the ships to land on the streets, Hammer Bros went for the roof from which they could rain hammers, flying minions spread to cover their comrades and the airships, and Koopas flying on clouds known as Lakitus dropped dozens of smaller red spine-shelled quadrupedal Koopas known as Spinies everywhere. The airships also dropped on the streets countless of little robots looking like wind-up versions of Bowser known as Mechakoopas that went to target nearby Cankens.

"Remember!" Bowser yelled. "Remain in groups so you can stop each others from getting possessed! Don't mind the New Donkers unless they have black eyes! And if you encounter Wario or any other guy that is tougher than normal, warn me IMMEDIATELY!"

Bowser then got in his clown car and flew down toward the City Hall, using his literal fire power to blast any Cankens getting too close. Instead of passing by the door, he blasted his way through the wall, entering the building's auditorium that served as most of the first floor alongside some of his minions including Kamek who ensured that no Cankens entered this way.

Many New Donkers were there, including Mayor Pauline herself, a beautiful woman with long dark hair wearing a red pantsuit and lot of make up and possessing high heels as well as golden earrings and a bangle.

As soon as she saw Bowser, she exclaimed, "Bowser! Is this one of your schemes?!"

"Look through the windows and you will see that this is not at all the case," Bowser answered before he spotted, hanging from the ceiling above the scene in a glass case, the object that he searched, a certain blue crystal star that was used to reflect light all over the room to give a nice effect.

Bowser used his car to fly to it before he punched the glass, destroying it. As the star dropped as a result, he then caught it.

"Ah! Bowser: one! Stupid ghost-things: zero!"

BAM!

Something suddenly hit violently the entrance doors (which had been locked)!

"Mmh?" Bowser turned with his car to face the doors.

A couple more hits followed before the doors flew open, letting enter none other than Donkey Kong armed of a black hammer, followed by a big number of Sentikens. The New Donkers took their distances.

"Here's Tukaral!" he shouted. "I can feel an Elemenstar here!"

"BWAHAHAHA! You are too late!" Bowser shouted before he jumped from his car and approached Tukaral, followed by some of his minions who had entered the room with him. "So you got the primates? What a joke!"

Tukaral spotted the Elemenstar in Bowser's hand and pointed his hammer at him. "Hand off the star! Unless you want me to open your skull!"

Bowser grinned as he stopped a few meters in front of the Canken. He then put the Elemenstar in his shell before he crossed his arms. "I found it, I keep it, monkey brain. If you want it..." He then spread his arms, showing his sharp claws. "then come take it!"

"I will turn you into turtle soup, fat face!"

"F-fat face?!" Bowser shouted. "Now you will get it! Prepare to die!"

"That's my line!" Tukaral shouted back before he charged at Bowser with his hammer ready.

Bowser caught the hand holding the hammer by the wrist before he punched the Canken on the face. As they wrestled with the hammer, they exchanged more punches before Bowser sent a fireball at Tukaral's face almost at point blank and followed this by lifting the possessed ape and slamming him on the ground on his back.

While the two fought, their minions also began to clash, with a number advantage for the Cankens but Kamek made up for it with his powers.

Bowser attempted to stomp on Tukaral while he was still on the ground, but the Canken stopped him by sending purple electricity at the Koopa's face from his hammer, forcing him to take some steps back. Tukaral then quickly got up and hit Bowser on the chin with his hammer, sending him flying to land on his shell.

Instead of getting up, Bowser entered his shell before a stream of fire came out from the tail hole. It propelled him forward, taking Tukaral by surprise before he was rammed by the shell missile which pushed him all the way out of the building through the doors.

Now in front of the City Hall, the stream of fire eventually stopped, Bowser getting out of his shell before he used his limbs on the ground to stop himself near the center of the City Hall Plaza. Tukaral continued his course down the main street facing the building, then bounced and rolled chaotically once reaching the ground before he used the momentum to finally land on his feet beside a small park.

Behind him were Cankentriops as well as Wendy and Iggy, the last two possessed Koopalings. Wendy was now armed of a certain black fan, and Iggy of a certain black sword.

Kamek joined Bowser, and Bowser Jr, Roy, and Morton came in their respective clown car (with a grey border at the top and propeller at the bottom for Morton's and red ones for Roy instead of the usual green).

"Wario spotted, Lord Bowser," Morton said.

"I saw that, idiot," Bowser replied.

"Seems like wherever we go, we find strong opposition," Cankentriops remarked.

Tukaral pointed at Bowser. "BigEye, he has the Elemenstar."

"I see," Cankentriops said as he grinned before he took his scepter and pointed it at Tukaral before he fired a beam of energy. "Let's finish this rapidly. Go wild, Tukaral!"

"Oooooh!!! With pleasure! I will smash this city and this army until nothing remains!" Tukaral yelled excitedly as he began to grow.

"Oh, so they want to do it this way?" Bowser said. "Kamek!"

"Right away, sir!" the Magikoopa replied before he flew over Bowser while dropping a magical powder from his wand.

The powder fell on Bowser who glowed different colors before he began to grow too.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Cankentriops yelled. "What? Anyone can become giant nowadays?"

"Turn me giant too, Great BigEye!" Iggy said. "I shall slain this foul beast!"

"Yes, do so," Cankentriops said before he pointed his scepter at Iggy.

"Not so fast!"

Suddenly, Cankentriops was rammed by Bowser Jr.'s clown car in kart mode, stopping him from sending another magical beam.

Roy, Morton, and Kamek joined them, the Magikoopa saying, "We won't let you! Morton! Roy! You two will face Iggy and Wendy while I take care of Cankentriops with the Young Master! Do your best to separate them! We must ensure that they aren't turned giant!"

"Yes, Kamek!" the two Koopalings shouted before they jumped out of their cars, took their wands, and charged at the two possessed Koopalings who readied their weapons.

Meanwhile, both Tukaral and Bowser continued to grow. When they stopped, they were about the same size, the two as large as the Main Street and were taller than some of the buildings around.

Anybody still in the street between the two colossus ran or flew away.

Bowser then roared, signaling the beginning of the fight.

An airship flew beside Bowser's head, and a Shy Guy on it said, "We're ready to help, my Lord! Say the order and we will intervene if we can!"

Bowser nodded, and the airship flew away before the Koopa King began to walk toward his enemy.

With a growl, Tukaral threw his hammer toward Bowser, but the Koopa punched it, sending it away. Tukaral called it back into his hand and raised it, filling it with purple electricity before he smashed it on the ground, sending a powerful electric shockwave.

Bowser was able to jump above it. While in the air, he surrounded himself in stone, turning himself into a giant spherical boulder with a hole for his head and his hand. He then rolled on the street until ramming Tukaral who had readied himself to catch him. While he didn't roll over the ape, he still managed to push him back a long way before he was stopped. Tukaral then lifted him, but before he could do anything, as the hole was facing his head, Bowser spat fire at him. This made Tukaral drop Bowser right on his head, and the Koopa got out of his rock shell as the Canken dropped to the ground with him on top.

Tukaral sent Bowser flying with a kick to the belly, then immediately jumped on top of him when he landed on his back, reversing their positions. He then pummeled Bowser with his hammer and his fist. Bowser breathed fire again to stop him, but Tukaral countered it by putting his hammer in the Koopa's mouth before unleashing electricity from it.

Despite being electrified, Bowser managed to raise an arm, signing something. The next instant, half a dozen airships came and fired at Tukaral, making him stop. Bowser quickly took the occasion to grab the Canken by the shoulders before he headbutted him, then he threw him to the side into a building. finally, he got up before Tukaral could recover and breathed more fire at him. Tukaral made him stop by kicking him on the chin before he jumped at him. The two then wrestled a bit until Bowser threw him away into another building. Bowser followed this by throwing several hammers in the same manner than a Hammer Bro, the hammers doing arcs in the air while spinning before dropping back on Tukaral. The Canken deflected them with his own hammer before he charged back at Bowser who grabbed two more hammers. Hammer then clashed against hammer, and Bowser managed to hit Tukaral on the head with his other hammer only for Tukaral to bite his hand, making Bowser drop his weapon with a roar. The Koopa awarded him with a fireball in the face, but received bolts of electricity in return.

The situation back on Bowser Jr. and the others' side was more complicated. Wendy and Iggy, respectively possessed by Kirima and Maztur, were much more powerful than Roy and Morton, and Cankentriops was superior in every points to Bowser Jr. and Kamek despite their teamwork. They just didn't stand a chance. Thankfully, they could count on the help of minions to make it more fair, but Cankentriops' powers truly were devastating.

It was the sight of an all out battle between the Koopa Troop army and the Cankens with the New Donkers in the middle trying to escape that welcomed Sweetie Belle and the others as their airship arrived to New Donk City. Then they saw giant Bowser fighting giant Donkey Kong among the buildings, witnessing a group of Magikoopas merging their magic to create a giant magical ball that they sent at the ape, hitting him on the chest. Bowser himself followed this by ramming him, only for Donkey Kong to levitate big chunks of buildings before sending them at the Koopa. The first one hit its mark, but Bowser was able to punch the following ones into smaller pieces.

By now, the city was in pretty bad shape...

"Celestia..." Apple Bloom muttered, horrified by these sights.

"Brings back bad memories..." Scootaloo said.

"We must save DK!" Diddy shouted.

Another airship, from Bowser's army, then came, flying at their left, probably to see who they were. Ludwig and the other Koopalings placed themselves so the minions on it could see them.

"Master Ludwig!" a Koopa shouted upon spotting them. "You're here!"

"What's the situation?" Ludwig asked.

"Well, as you can see, Master Bowser is currently fighting a giant Donkey Kong, and he seems to have the situation in hand with the help of some of our troops. However, Wario was sighted along with Wendy and Iggy, and the Young Master Bowser Jr. as well as Kamek, Roy, and Morton have difficulties against them."

"Cankentriops if here?" Starlow asked. "Then we must get him!"

Stuffwell nodded. "It's a beautificious occasion to finally defeat him, we must not miss it after Sarasaland."

"Beautificious is not a word!" Starlow shouted at the walking suitcase.

Everone agreed, about the fact that Cankentriops had to be dealt with in priority. Bowser could manage Donkey Kong. Also, Roy and Morton apparently needed help against Wendy and Iggy, so they needed to disperse.

Thus, it was decided that Lemmy, Larry, and Ludwig would help Roy and Morton while the Mario Brothers (plus Yoshi), the Kongs, and the fillies would join Bowser Jr. and Kamek against Cankentriops. The Elite Trio, as for them, would take command of the troops and lead them against the Cankens.

An airship flew to Bowser after he sent Tukaral flying after spinning while holding him.

"My Lord!" a Koopa yelled. "Mario has arrived with his allies! And he brought reinforcements, including Ludwig, Larry, and Lemmy! They started to help your son against Wario!"

"Good! I should join them soon enough. I'm almost finished with this stupid monkey."

"What are you saying?" Tukaral asked as he returned from wherever he landed. "I'm the one who's almost finished with you and who will join BigEye!"

"Pfff! Haven't you seen the movie? The monkey gets wrecked by the reptile! I'm the superior being! You're fated to lose!"

"What are you talking about? What's a movie?"

"Right. You guys are from the stone age."

"Hey! We aren't THAT old!"

"Tell yourself that, old man!"

Enraged, Tukaral charged at Bowser, electricity charging in the hammer, and the Koopa took a big breath. Then, Tukaral jumped, and Bowser let out a powerful stream of fire. Tukaral used his hammer to shield himself from the fire as he dropped back toward Bowser. Then, as they neared each other, Bowser stopped his fire breath and readied a punch that hit the hammer, starting a terrible clash that caused the weapon to unleash electricity in all directions. Tukaral, however, won the clash after a few seconds, pushing back Bowser's fist, but Bowser immediately sent another punch that hit Tukaral on the face at the same time that Tukaral's hammer hit Bowser between the horns. The ape was sent flying into buildings by the force of the punch while the Koopa found himself stunned by the blow to the point of falling on his belly.

Bowser still got up with some difficulty and roared in direction of Tukaral before he grabbed a hammer and threw it toward him. A group of Magikoopas then came and sent their magic at the hammer, making it grow even more giant before he dropped on the still recovering Canken. As he saw the hammer, he barely had time to put his hands to try to catch it, but because of the size and weight of the hammer, it took him several seconds before he was able to send it away. Seconds that Bowser took to charge toward him and punch him on the face.

In a frenzy, Bowser gave Tukaral no respite as the punch was immediately followed by another punch in the belly, before he grabbed Tukaral by the arm and slammed him on some buildings a few times. Bowser eventually tossed him up, then gave him another punch in the belly as he dropped back, sending him flying high in the sky. Bowser then roared as he pointed at him, and all the airships that could do it fired at the flying ape who found himself hit from all sides by dozens and dozens of Bullet Bills and even a few of their big brothers the Banzai Bills (that were much, much, much bigger, possessing no arms but instead possessing a fanged mouth that the Bullet Bills didn't have).

By the time Tukaral dropped back near the City Hall, he was smoking.

He still wasn't out. He got up, badly injured, raised his hammer, and yelled, "Help me, my Brothers! I need your power!"

At his call, dozens and dozens of Cankens flew toward him and entered Donkey Kong's body. Tukaral still had control of it, and as Cankens continued to enter the body, he began to climb the City Hall. Once he reached the spire at the roof, he then looked around at the many airships that now surrounded him and raised his hammer. The dark clouds above began to swirl and glowed purple before a huge discharge of electricity fell into the weapon. The next instant, giant bolts of electricity escaped it in all directions, randomly hitting buildings and airships, Koopa Troop members, Bowser himself, and even other Cankens. Airships fired at him again, and he was hit by many more Bullet Bills, but he continued his attack without minding the intense pain and exhaustion he was getting.

But then, a fireball from Bowser hit the hammer, knocking it off from his hand. As it fell down the building, Bowser then caught it with a great leap. Then, once he stopped sliding upon landing, he spun, and spun, and spun, before he threw the hammer toward Tukaral. Again, a group of Magikoopa came and made the hammer grow even more before it hit Tukaral on the head.

This finally was too much. The body of Donkey Kong fell, not only unconscious, but also from the building. While it fell, the many Cankens possessing it flew out, and Donkey Kong began to shrink to his normal size. The ape was back to normal just as he crashed, right in the middle of the City Hall Plaza.

Bowser spotted what must be Tukaral himself among the Cankens that flew out of Donkey Kong's body, because he looked very different from the other Cankens. He was much bigger, and his body consisted of an upside down pyramid with a single eye, two trunk-sized arms, and two trunk-sized legs, very buffed. And he had no head, so the upside down pyramid seemed to serve as it.

Tukaral eyed Bowser angrily, but decided to not try anything as he flew to another part of the city.

The Koopa's body then began to shrink too as he roared in victory.

In parallel of Bowser's fight against Tukaral, the Koopalings had been busy trying to save their last two remaining members who were possessed by Kirima and Maztur.

Roy and Morton had been in difficulty against them, but with the arrival of Ludwig, Lemmy, and Larry, the tide quickly turned. While Kirima and Maztur were still monsters with their electric and telekinetic powers added to their weapons, a two versus five, with the five being five rather skilled and strong fighters who worked well together, really wasn't at their advantage.

Lemmy used his wand to materialize big spiked balls that he sent toward Larry who smashed them with a tennis racket to send them like cannonballs toward Kirima and Maztur. At the same time, Ludwig, in his shell, was repeatedly kicked by Roy and Morton to be sent toward the two Cankens. To make it simple, one of the two Koopalings kicked the shell, sending it to hit one of the two Cankens, then the shell would bounce back ready to be kicked again by one of the two Koopalings to be sent back at one of the two Cankens, and again, and again. With the superior strength of Roy and Morton, the shell hit like a train and seriously hurt. And to make it even more effective, Ludwig used his magic to randomly send little bouncing fireballs out of his shell.

Still, Kirima and Maztu were no pushovers. They were Branches of the Pentacle after all. Just one of them could more or less rival with Mario, Luigi, or Bowser in one on one fights.

Kirima threw her fan in an arc so it hit both Lemmy and Larry, stopping their attack while Maztu used his sword as a ramp so Ludwig's shell went up it and continued its course in the air with no way for Roy or Morton to get it. While in the air, Ludwig came back out of his shell and began to levitate himself before he sent magical beams from his wand.

The four still on the ground had to jump above an horizontal electric wave sent by Maztu with a swing of his sword. Before he could repeat it, Roy caught Morton by the arms and threw him toward the Cankens, and Morton ended up crashing into Maztu, the two crashing further back. Roy then took the opportunity to gang up on Kirima with Lemmy and Larry while Ludwig went to help Morton.

Lemmy materialized a giant ball that he rolled to try to crush Kirima, but she used her fan to make it pop. Roy came at the same time and punched her, opening her to a bouncing fireball sent by Larry with his racket. Roy then punched her again, then a third time, but that third punch was stopped by her fan that she used as a shield before she did a small spin followed by a back kick in the belly that sent Roy sliding backward a few meters.

Filling her fan with electricity, she then spun before throwing her fan which began to do circles around her while unleashing electricity in the form of columns above and below it. At the same time, she used Wendy's own magic to materialize and throw rings at the Koopalings who didn't dare to approach with the fan circling her which was just too fast, and the electricity destroyed any projectiles, balls, fireballs, or magical beams sent. So the Koopalings had no choice but to wait while avoiding the rings.

Eventually, thankfully, the fan ran out of electricity and Kirima had to call it back. Lemmy and Larry both immediately charged at her and respectively used their wand and racket to directly attack, forcing her to use her fan to protect herself. They were able to land a few hits, but they were both eventually pushed back.

That was then that Larry remarked something. "Hey! Where's Roy?"

"Uh?" Lemmy asked before he looked around and noted the absence of their pink friend. "What? Did he ditch us?"

"Nah. It's not his style. He must be up to something. This guy can be surprisingly crafty for a muscle-for-brain."

Meanwhile, Maztu was under the assault of three Ludwigs who had duplicated himself while he had to defend himself from the constant charges of Morton. The Canken stopped counting the number of time he slashed the grey Koopaling only for him to return and repeat his action. Morton wasn't the brightest of the bunch, and his attacks were easy to avoid and counter, but they were a constant diversion that prevented Maztu from focusing on Ludwig and his clones, and Morton himself still managed to punch him a couple of times, his fists hitting hard.

But Maztu could see that Morton was starting to tire. As soon as the big Koopaling will stop his attacks, the Canken will be able to slice their annoying leader into little cubes.

But then, there was a whistle that gained everyone's attention, and they turned to see Roy now at the head of a large group of large Koopas in football attire: Chargin' Chucks.

"CHARGE!!!" he yelled, and the whole group charged like a buffalo stamped.

In panic, Larry, Lemmy, and Morton quickly called their clown cars and escaped in them. As for Maztu and Kirima, they levitated themselves out of the way, Kirima using her fan as a flying platform to go faster. But then, Morton charged at Maztu with his car and sent him right into the stamped to be trampled on.

Kirima then whistled too, calling many Cankens, including a few Sentikens and many that were in possession of New Donkers and unlucky Koopa Troop members, that she sent to attack the Chargin' Chucks. The result was a chaotic brawl that only worsened as more members of the Koopa Troop and more Cankens joined in. And Maztu was still stuck in the middle of it, along with Roy.

This left Kirima alone against the other four Koopalings (or rather six since Ludwig still had his two clones).

Then, Paragoombas, Parakoopas, and Magikoopas joined the Koopalings to help them.

Then, all kinds of Cankens joined Kirima to help her.

Things became even more chaotic from here.

And in parallel, Cankentriops had been wiping the floor with Bowser Jr. and Kamek despite the two being helped by Koopa Troop members.

Like in Sarasaland, Cankentriops had surrounded himself with a shield and had created five clones.

To put it simply, Bowser Jr. and Kamek didn't stand a chance at all, but they still did their best to ensure that he wouldn't turn Kirima and/or Maztu giant. Thankfully, he didn't seem to be able to turn himself giant. Or for some reason, he didn't want to. Or he didn't judge it necessary to become giant himself. Whatever the case, it was all for the better. This guy in giant would be impossible.

Because, even without being a giant, Cankentriops was already impossible to fight. Even if Bowser Jr., Kamek, and the Koopa Troops managed to brute force the shield, most times, they ended up hitting a clone that simply went poof! before it was replaced. Meanwhile, his attacks devastated their ranks.

A laser from his scepter sent Kamek to the ground where he remained, too hurt to move. Beside him, Bowser Jr. in his Mario form was using his paintbrush as a cane to remain standing with difficulty. Around them, the remains of the prince's clown car could be seen, along with many unconscious bodies of Koopa Troops and New Donkers.

Then, suddenly, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom (in ghost form) landed around. The alicorn's horn then glowed, and the next instant, Mario and the others appeared.

Waluigi immediately went to hide in the back.

"You!" Cankentriops shouted.

"Hey, Cankentriops! Did you miss us?" Sweetie Belle asked with a smirk.

Diddy growled as he grabbed a banana and lightly hit the palm of his hand with it. "Remember me, fatty?"

"This time, we won't let you escape!" Mario said as he took his hammer.

"Uh... But what if he decides to teleport away like before? We won't be able to stop him if he does," Luigi reminded.

"Then we will just kill him before he decides to do it," Scootaloo said as she took her anthro form and materialised her sword, now Phantom.

Cankentriops frowned. "I haven't the Elemenstar yet. That stupid turtle has it. I don't intend to leave without it. If I have to fight all of you at once, so be it."

While he talked, Sweetie Belle healed Bowser Jr. and Kamek who got up.

"So Bowser has the star?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Yes," Kamek answered. "We managed to reach it first. Just before Donkey Kong showed up."

"I swear, if Jupacc pulls off the same trick for the third time..." Sweetie Belle said.

"What trick?"

"Teleporting without warning beside the one who has the star and snatching it before teleporting away."

"Oh, I don't think we have to worry about this. The star is safely put in Bowser's shell. He won't be able to snatch it like that. They will have to defeat Bowser first to get it."

"Good! But Jupacc is suspiciously absent. Let's be careful, just in case. And watch your back."

"Eh. Jupacc isn't here. He's on his way to the Moon," Cankentriops said.

"The Moon?" Luigi asked.

"You mean that the last Elemenstar is on the Moon?" Phantom asked.

"We searched the whole planet and haven't found the Aether Star anywhere. From the deepest abysses to the tallest mountains, no trace of the star. So we concluded that it wasn't on the planet, somehow. The Moon is the next step."

"But the star may not be there," Sweetie Belle remarked.

"If we have to, we will explore the whole universe planet by planet, asteroid by asteroid. No matter how long it will take, we will get this star."

"Well then, I guess that we will go to the Moon next," Mario said.

"I won't give you the occasion. You interfered enough! You will die in this city!"

"Dying today isn't in our schedule," Cranky said with a glare. "Yours, however, is."

Cankentriops simply replied with a smirk before what seemed to be his five clones suddenly flew up to the sky along with their shields. Then, they dropped back toward the heroes, their shields surrounding themselves in fire so they looked like meteors.

"Heyheyhey! You must be kidding!" Waluigi shouted before he ran away.

The others followed his example, excepted the fillies who each attacked one of the "meteors", thus managing to destroy three of them. Two still hit the ground and exploded, creating huge blasts that left craters half as large as the street they were in. Thankfully, they hit nobody. However, Cankentriops immediately recreated his clones before they all raised their scepters, and the next instant, lightning began to rain all over the area, randomly striking here and there.

Sweetie Belle used her ten cannons to destroy the six shields at once, but Cankentriops himself and his clones managed to avoid the lasers before they returned fire with their scepters. At least, without their shields, they were open to the others who didn't lose time to attack too, starting with Phantom sending hundreds of Phantom Cubes that the six Cankentriops avoided by... teleporting.

Three of the Cankentriops then teleported behind the fillies. Sweetie Belle was prepared for this and bucked the one behind her, destroying the clone. Apple Bloom quickly phased into the ground, and Phantom avoided a laser from the Cankentriops behind her with a roll before she threw her sword at him, only for him to teleport away so the sword continued its course.

"Teleportation is starting to get on my nerves," Phantom said annoyed. She remembered, as Infinite/Zero, how Shadow easily kicked her ass because of this ability.

"Get used to this," Sweetie Belle said as she fired at the Cankentriops who had attempted to attack Apple Bloom only for him to teleport. "At least, you can teleport too. I had to learn to fight enemies that loved to spam it when I couldn't even teleport myself."

"Must have sucked."

The two Cankentriops who escaped then reappeared not far of the two fillies and readied their scepters only for Apple Bloom to come out of the ground and to destroy one by slicing him with a scythe. Phantom then teleported behind the remaining Cankentriops and pierced him with her a spear she materialized.

While three of the Cankentriops had gone to attack the fillies, the two others went after Mario and the others. One appeared right beside the plumber in red who had to bend backward to avoid a swing of his scepter. The Cankentriops was then destroyed with one hit from Luigi's hammer. The second appeared above Diddy, scepter pointed down ready to impale, and the monkey barely got pushed out of the way by Cranky before he used his cane to bonk the leader of the Cankens on the head, making him poof out of existence.

But no trace of the last, real Cankentriops.

Until he suddenly appeared and raised his scepter. The next instant, dozens of one-eyed triangles appeared everywhere in the air before they fired lasers from their eyes.

Everyone did their best to avoid them (in addition of the still raining lightning) or defend themselves from them as the more daring charged at Cankentriops when they couldn't simply send projectiles at him. But Cankentriops teleported again and recreated his clones and shields before the six teleported yet again to various places in the street. Again, Sweetie Belle used her cannons to destroy the shields before she teleported right beside one of the Cankentriops and punched him hard, destroying what revealed to be just a clone.

The five remaining Cankentriops slammed their scepters on the ground, spreading cracks from the impact points everywhere from which walls of hurtful energy bursted out for a second before the cracks disappeared. The Cankentriops repeated the attack a couple of times, each times spreading cracks in different, random patterns while the heroes managed to destroy three more clones that were, however, recreated.

Until Waluigi finally got the real Cankentriops with a Bob-Omb thrown.

"Yeah!"

The explosion of the bomb propelled Cankentriops in the air, but he managed to recover and was about to land back on his feet when, suddenly, Diddy threw a banana peel right where he had been about to land. Cankentriops slid on it for several meters on electrified paint left by Bowser Jr. until his face had a meeting with Mario's hammer resulting in many of his (Wario's) teeth getting broken along with the nose. The hammer sent him on a crash course toward one of the buildings only for Yoshi inside an egg-shell to ram him. He was then hit by Luigi's Green Missile, high-kicked by Dixie, hit by a magical beam from Kamek, bounced on by Cranky using his cane as a pongo stick, and Funky finished by slamming his surfboard on him before the Canken was finally able to teleport away and recreated his clones and shields again. But unknown to him, a very little being had managed to clung to him before he teleported, so he was taken by surprise when Tiny suddenly returned to her normal size while still on him before she slapped him on the face several times.

Cankentriops eventually caught her and slammed her on the ground, but then, he felt a punch in the gut when nobody was attacking him. Searching for the cause as it didn't seem to be someone invisible, he saw Apple Bloom attacking his shadow!

Cankentriops immediately disappeared.

And hundreds of him appeared everywhere around the heroes.

Sweetie Belle touched one to confirm her suspicion. "Illusions. Like against Jupacc."

Phantom, smirking, did like against Jupacc and made it so her senses weren't tricked anymore, allowing her to only see the real Cankentriops. She then teleported behind him only for the Canken to brusquely turn around and punch her in the gut with all the herculean force of Wario, knocking the breath out of her.

Cankentriops grinned evilly. "After what Jupacc told me, I knew you would do that."

His grin disappeared as Phantom grabbed his arm, and it was her turn to grin as he found himself in her power. Before he could react, he was surrounded by an army of Phantoms, and contrary to his illusions, these ones were as dangerous as the original.

And as he was being beaten down by the hundreds of Phantoms, the rest of the group joined in.

All stopped when, in the distance, Donkey Kong (Tukaral) climbed the City Hall and unleashed giant bolts of electricity from his hammer everywhere, attacking and destroying everything. One of the bolts went right toward them, and they had to retreat. But as soon as they were gone, Cankentriops intercepted the bolt of electricity with his scepter, absorbing it, before he turned the scepter toward the heroes and unleashed the electricity.

Only for Sweetie Belle to materialize a big mirror that deflected the electricity back at Cankentriops.

In the distance, a fireball knocked the hammer off of Donkey Kong's hand, stopping him from sending more electricity.

Cankentriops, smoke coming out of Wario's body, glared at them as he readied his scepter to send his next devastating attack.

Mario took his hammer and jumped. Sweetie Belle teleported him right above the Canken, then the plumber hit him on the head with his weapon.

Cankentriops finally fell unconscious, and the Canken himself came out of Wario's body.

The heroes prepared themselves as their enemy's real form was finally revealed to them.

And it was... disappointing.

Cankentriops revealed to be fairly normal compared to the Branches. He was a little bit smaller than Mario, was as thin as Waluigi, was humanoid, didn't have any extra limbs or mouths or whatever... He just had the one-eyed pyramid head, and a well-decorated hooded cloak.

Sweetie Belle quickly teleported Wario's body beside her to not give Cankentriops the occasion to possess it again.

But then, before they could attempt anything to finish Cankentriops before he could escape, bolts of electricity came from above, their origin being none other than Tukaral who had freshly escaped from Bowser.

This diversion was enough to allow the leader of the Cankens to disappear before a huge number of the cultists attacked the heroes, forcing them to deal with them as Tukaral escaped too.

Elsewhere, Kirima and Maztur, forced out of Wendy and Roy, also escaped.

The Cankens were defeated.

And yet...

Bowser laughed victoriously.

"I told you! It's not a stupid monkey who would get the best of the King of the Koopas!" he yelled.

Because he was too busy gloating, he didn't see Cankentriops rapidly flying toward him from the sky until it was too late.

A few seconds later, Cankentriops grinned as he looked down at his new claws. Quickly, he then searched his new shell until he grabbed the Elemenstar, confirming that it was here, now in his possession.

"Hehehe. No matter what, I always win in the end."

With a last laugh, he teleported away.

Author's Note

Yes, I dared.

The story of the original Donkey Kong seems to differ from source to source. In one source, for example, it is said that Donkey Kong was the pet of Mario (then a carpenter) who mistreated him. In another, Donkey Kong escaped the circus, probably having enough of Mario laughing at him when he screwed. In both cases, he kidnaps Pauline to get revenge on Mario. Frankly, I don't see Mario as the bully type, even when he was younger, so I had to think of something and do some rewrite.

Also, sorry it took so long. The fights in this chapter gave me problems. Then Slime Isekai Memories came out, and there was Halloween, then Come And Learn With Pibby came out and I became obsessed by it, then there was Murder Drones... It was quite the filled week. By the way, I totally advise you to go see Come And Learn With Pibby and Murder Drones if it's not already done.

Chapter 67: The Moon - Part 1

All remaining Cankens in the city either escaped or were eliminated.

And news from witnesses spread: Bowser had been possessed.

And since he was the one who had the Elemenstar...

"Oh come on! The Cankens got off with the Elemenstar?! Despite us winning?! Again?!" Sweetie Belle shouted.

"Seems like it," Apple Bloom groaned.

Phantom took a big breath to calm herself. "Let's hurry to heal everyone here so we can go to the Moon. If the last Elemenstar is there, then we must hurry."

"Or," Starlow began before she turned toward the still unconscious Wario. "We ask Wario where their pyramid is and we go grab the Elemenstars they already have, which they probably placed there! And we save Princess Peach by the same occasion!"

"Mmh... I don't know. Wouldn't it be too obvious? I'm sure that they hid the Princess and the Elemenstars somewhere else," Stuffwell retorted.

"You are overestimating the Cankens. Would they really think to hide Princess Peach and the Elemenstars somewhere else than in the middle of their HQ where they think they are well protected?" Starlow argued.

"I think that you are the one underestimating them. Remember how they managed to get the Elemenstars despite everything? They aren't stupid. We aren't even sure if they intend to do their ritual in their pyramid. They could do it on the Moon as soon as they have the fifth star, if the star is indeed on the Moon."

"Or maybe there's something specifically in their pyramid that will force them to do the ritual in it."

"The point is that we must not act on "maybes". Maybe they hid the Princess and the Elemenstars in their pyramid, or maybe not. Maybe they need the pyramid to do their ritual, or maybe not. What we know is that, as we speak, they are searching the Moon for the last Elemenstar. At least one of their leaders is there. It's very probable that they will even all be there since they already explored the whole planet. Whether the last Elemenstar is on the Moon or not, it is the perfect occasion to eliminate the whole leadership of the Cankens. And in the off chance that the last Elemenstar is on the Moon and that they could start their ritual right away upon getting it, then we must not wait. With them gone, then we can explore their pyramid to see if they indeed left the Princess and the Elemenstars in it. If not, then I'm sure that we will think of a way to find them."

"The suitcase has good points," Kamek began. "The priority is to eliminate the leadership of the Cankens."

"And save dad!" Bowser Jr. interjected.

"Right. And save Master Bowser, who we may certainly find on the Moon as the suitcase said. So if you decide to go to the pyramid anyway, then it will be without the Koopa Troops."

"But if Bowser, possessed by Cankentriops, is on the Moon, then you won't stand a chance!" Starlow warned. "I understand your points, but if Princess Peach is really kept prisoner inside the pyramid, then we must go and save her as soon as possible."

Mario and Luigi both agreed with nods, albeit uncertain because they knew that Stuffwell was right.

Sweetie Belle smirked. "I have an idea. How about everyone goes to the pyramid while I go to the Moon with the Koopa Troops?"

"Uh?"

Sweetie Belle explained what she was thinking. In absence of Bowser, she will take command of the armada and teleport it to the Moon so they don't lose time travelling to it. Then, on the Moon, they will fight the Cankens and do everything they can to eliminate the leaders and, especially, stop them from getting the last Elemenstar if it is there. Meanwhile, the rest of the group will go to the pyramid to see if Princess Peach and the Elemenstars are there, and get them out of there if that's the case. Or at least, if the Cankens need to use the pyramid for their ritual, manage to get the last star, and escape, then the group will already be there to welcome them.

"Are you sure you will be able to fight Cankentriops without our help?" Luigi asked.

"Don't worry. I have fought more powerful than this guy in the past. He is nothing."

"You really think that I will let you take command of the army?" Bowser Jr. shouted. "In absence of dad, then I'm the one in command! And if you decide to come, then you will be under my command too!"

"Do you even know how to lead an army?"

"Of course! Just ask the Koopalings!"

"Mmh... Then how about we both share command of the army?"

"No!"

"Then... How about a fight to determine who will be in command?"

Bowser Jr. thought about this and grabbed his paintbrush. "Fine!"

"Wait, Young Ma-" Kamek began only to be interrupted.

"The first to be KO! And it won't be me!" Bowser Jr. shouted before he charged at Sweetie Belle.

Only to take a beam between the eyes. The next instant, he was on the ground, sleeping.

"Seems like I win," Sweetie Belle said. "So I will be in command. Any objection?"

The members of the Koopa Troop looked down at the sleeping prince, then shook their heads.

"Alright, so I want all the injured to be brought to me as quickly as possible so they can be healed! And I really mean all! This includes everyone that isn't part of the Koopa Troop, like the New Donkers and Donkey Kong! Spread the order!"

The Koopalings went to do so, but Kamek remained just in case.

In the end, everyone agreed to the plan as Wario was the first to be healed. However, Cranky judged it better for him to remain in New Donk City because he was starting to tire from all the fighting. Funky and Tiny decided to remain with him, not really being fighters themselves.

Then, Wario woke up. With a big headache.

"Ooohhhhh... I'm going to kill Cankentriops..."

"Welcome to team "We Want To Kill Cankentriops"," Phantom said, having seen Wario waking up. "You can contribute by telling us where the pyramid is."

Instead of saying anything, Wario looked at the scene around, spotting Mario, Luigi, members of Bowser's army, Waluigi, and everyone else. He saw Sweetie Belle who was busy healing anyone who was brought to her by Bowser's minions, most of them being New Donkers. He saw Pauline, who was talking with Mario. He saw that they were in some street in what must be New Donk City badly damaged. The dark clouds covering the sky. Airships flying left and right between the buildings or above them. Donkey Kong, unconscious, who was brought to Sweetie Belle. Bowser Jr. sleeping.

"Yeah, that's quite the mess you caused," Phantom said.

Her comment annoyed Wario. "How could I have known that that pyramid was some kind of prison for an army of mad cultists?! Generally, pyramids just have treasures with sometimes a few mummies, ghosts, golems, snakes, spiders, and/or traps!"

"It still doesn't change the fact that you're at the origin of this mess. And now, you will help us end it."

"Grrr... Fine. Give me a map and I will indicate the emplacement of the pyramid. You're lucky I have a bone to pick with Cankentriops and his lackeys, or I would have charged you for this."

"You would have charged nothing. Since you caused all this, then it's only natural that you do some community service." She extended a hand toward Wario, the hand suddenly turned into a nightmarish claw, and her mouth stretched to turn into an ear-to-ear fanged grin while her eyes became red with black pupils. "Is that clear, fatty?!"

Wario gulped. "C-clear!"

Donkey Kong was the next to be healed, and he woke up a few minutes later surrounded by Diddy and the other Kongs.

DK was very extravagant in showing how glad he was to be freed from the Cankens' possession as he almost immediately got up with a bounce and gave Diddy and Dixie a bear hug, even spinning with them in his arms before he received a friendly slap on the back from Funky.

"Welcome back Big Guy," Funky said.

"Getting yourself captured... I thought we were past that phase," Cranky grumpily said.

"Sorry Cranky," DK said sheepishly. "The guy possessing Wario took me by surprise." He then took a more serious expression. "Next time, I will smash his face to bits!"

"You may have an occasion. Mario and the others are about to go to these guys' HQ."

Looking around, DK indeed saw Mario and the others and agreed to go with them, impatient to give the Cankens a good beat down made in DK.

Beat downs were his specialty.

Cranky proceeded to explain more of the situation while Wario got a map and marked the emplacement of the pyramid. Phantom then showed the map to Sweetie Belle who was still busy healing people while she was also spinning Bowser Jr. who had woken up and challenged her to a rematch. She spun him with her magic until he couldn't stand anymore, becoming so dizzy that he fell.

With the emplacement of the pyramid memorised and Bowser Jr. defeated for the second time, Sweetie Belle continued healing the injured while everybody prepared for departure.

So, going to the Moon were Sweetie Belle and the Koopa Troops including Bowser Jr., Kamek, the Koopalings, and the Elite Trio among many others.

And going to the pyramid were Phantom, Apple Bloom, Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong, Wario, and Waluigi.

Once everything was done and ready, Sweetie Belle returned to Apple Bloom's Equestria to warn Prof. E. Gadd and give him the emplacement of the pyramid just in case. The prof had apparently finished his tests and was in the middle of building a machine to get rid of all of the Cankens in one go.

"This machine will be able to extract the energy the Cankens are made up of in a very large perimeter. Since the Cankens are mostly made up of this energy, this will greatly weaken them, if not outright kill them. Once I'm done here and if you haven't eliminated all the Cankens by yourself by then, then I will join you at the pyramid. It shouldn't take me too much longer," he explained.

"Alright. Glad to hear it."

Sweetie Belle then returned to New Donk City, "fought" Bowser Jr. a third time by tickling him to submission (which finally convinced him to give up because he didn't want a repeat of this torture), and watched as the other group departed on the same airship that Phantom had materialized to come to the city from Sarasaland.

Finally, it was Sweetie's turn to depart to the Moon.

"All troops are ready," Kamek informed.

"Good!" Sweetie Belle replied before she lit her horn. "Bags included?"

"Bags included," Kamek confirmed. "Excepted for the ones who are used to teleporting like me, of course."

Sweetie Belle giggled. "Of course."

Then, the whole armada disappeared from New Donk City only to reappear somewhere in space near where she thought the Moon was.

From New Donk City, she knew that the Moon had been somewhere in the other side of the planet, but she had no idea of the distance, so she did a first teleport where the armada actually appeared not far above the atmosphere. Here, she looked around, saw the Moon, and judged the distance before she teleported the armada again. Excepted that it was hard to judge correctly the distances with the Moon and all because she didn't exactly know how big it was, so it still took her a couple of teleportations before the armada finally appeared close enough of the surface of the natural satellite.

Below, the planet was entirely hidden under the dark clouds that spread wherever the Cankens went. The Moon, however, didn't have any cloud so they could actually see the legions of Cankens flying all over it in search of the last Elemenstar.

Sweetie Belle waited a bit for everyone to get over the sickness caused by the teleportations before she used her powers to link her mind to the ones of everyone in the armada.

You hear me, everyone?

She got a big headache from all the confused answers she got in return. She should have thought of that. She quickly cut the feedback.

Ugh... Okay. Listen to me. Short story, I'm using my powers to communicate with all of you without having to yell or to rely on messengers to give my orders to everyone. It will be much more effective and faster this way. No need to answer me, I cut the feedback so my mind won't explode with all of you answering me at once. If one of you wants to tell me something, then just think about it and I will feel it so I will let you talk to me.

Now, before we start the assault, a little warning: if any of you sees Bowser, warn me! Cankentriops is far too powerful for you to fight, even in number. Back when he was possessing Wario, he already almost defeated Bowser Jr. and Kamek despite the two working together, and he even gave a bad time to Mario helped by Yoshi and Daisy with an Elemenstar. Now, he has Bowser. I may not know all of Bowser's powers, but I still can easily guess that Wario-Cankentriops was nothing compared to Bowser-Cankentriops. You simply wouldn't stand a chance at all.

Any comment? Yes? What is it? Sweetie Belle asked to the Koopa who gained her attention.

Uh... The Cankens are coming to us, the Koopa said.

And indeed, from the surface of the Moon, countless Cankens that had spotted the armada were flying toward it.

Well then. how about we welcome them with a good barrage of Bullet Bills? Come on! Fire! Sweetie Belle ordered before she walked to the edge of the airship she was on and watched as dozens and dozens of Bullet Bills eliminated a huge number of the Cankens. Then, she joined it by firing a huge beam that decimated many of the remaining Cankens and left quite a mark on the surface of the Moon.

The way is open! To the Moon! And don't stop firing! Magikoopas! Spikes! If Cankens get too close, send your respective projectiles at them! Hammer Bros, be ready to throw your hammers too if they get even closer! And don't forget, remain close to each other! Do everything you can to ensure that the Cankens don't possess anybody if they ever board the airships!

Remember guys, our priority is to find the Branches of the Pentacle and Cankentriops himself and eliminate them! You all got description of these guys, so you should be able to recognize them! Unless they are in possession of a body, then be careful if you face someone possessed. A secondary objective would be to find the Elemenstar before them, if it's even on the Moon.

The armada thus blasted its way through the Cankens and began a fierce battle against their legions with Sweetie Belle keeping watch and giving orders while she fired beams after beams from her horn and her cannons.

Once they reached the surface of the Moon, they were assaulted from all sides.

There are too many of them. They will eventually overrun our barrages of projectiles. No choices. It's time to disembark to go fight the Cankens directly. I want as many of you as possible to land while ensuring that the airships are still defended enough. For this, I want the flying troops to surround the ships and fight any Cankens that manage to pass the projectiles. Ground troops, I want you to remain close to the ships. Ships, don't stop bombarding the approaching waves of Cankens, both on the ground and in the air.

Following Sweetie Belle's orders, the troops that could fly flew out of the airships and helped fighting off the Cankens while the remaining troops jumped from the ships and landed on the surface of the Moon. Before long, Cankens began to target them, reducing the pressure in the sky (or whatever you call the sky for the Moon).

To all Hammer Bros and other long-ranged troops that landed, make sure to remain behind the ones who don't have any long-ranged attacks like the Goombas and the Koopas. Magikoopas, remain as far as possible from the Cankens behind the lines so you can bombard the Cankens with your spells while remaining safe, and don't hesitate to merge your magic into big, superpowerful spells for a max of damage in large areas. Lakitus, rain Spinies behind the lines too, but not far so the Spinies can quickly join the Goombas and others to fight. And Dry Bones, since you can reform your bodies when you are attacked, then even if you can throw bones as projectiles, I want you to be the front-line's shield against the enemies' own projectiles. Oh, and... RELEASE THE DOGS!!!

And the next instant, a large group of living balls of various sizes each with a chain (like the chained balls prisoner stereotypes are usually seen to have at their legs) behaving like dogs called Chain Chomps came out of the airships and began to tear apart the Cankens with their sharp teeth.

And keep an eye on them so they don't get too far and get themselves possessed!

"You surprise me, young one," Kamek, who was still beside Sweetie Belle, said. "Have you already commanded an army before?"

"I was the second in command of a king in another world so I had to learn how to. The captain of the guard taught me a lot. And I got some experience after leading troops to repel an alien invasion on the castle." Watch out over there! There's a big number of Eleckens coming! She fired a huge beam that eradicated at least half of the Eleckens she warned about, as well as many more Cankens unlucky enough to be in the path. "Darn, it's as if all the Cankens on the Moon are coming for us."

"It seems to be the case," Kamek said. "Either they really want us dead - which wouldn't be a surprise after all we did against them - , or they are distracting us to gain time for their leaders to find the Elemenstar."

Sweetie Belle frowned and rapidly flew to the surface where she dug into the ground to the core of the Moon. From here, she felt the energy of the Cankens. Again, like on the planet, she could feel that it had spread all over the surface. However, she could feel it little by little concentrate where the armada was. The Cankens really were assembling to fight the Koopa Troops.

However, she could feel a single point in the Dark Side of the Moon where there still was that energy. A lot of it. And she could feel a different, huge source of energy at the same place.

Buck... Guys, I will have to leave you. One of them seems to have found, or is about to find the Elemenstar at the other side of the Moon.

Leave it to us, she let Kamek reply to her. Uh? Oh... Bad news. The Broodals, including Madame Broode, are here, and they seem to be possessed by the Branches of the Pentacle. The five of them.

The Broodals?

Five rabbits who live on the Moon and helped Master Bowser plan his wedding with Princess Peach not that long ago.

Wait, what?

Long story.

Will you be able to deal with them? Especially Jupacc? The guy is tricky with his illusions.

We will manage. The Koopalings are already overwhelming them with number and it looks like we- Oh... Oh dear... The Broodals just called in their giant robot... Uh. It looks different than what I remember.

What?

Yeah... They have a giant robot... But don't worry! We should be able to destroy it! Leave it to us and go save the Lord!

Uhh... Okay. Good luck.

And so, Sweetie Belle dug her way to where she felt the two energies in the Dark Side of the Moon.

Things quickly became chaotic when Sweetie Belle left and the possessed Broodals came and began to spread havoc among the ranks of the Koopa Troops. Then the Koopalings came with dozens and dozens of elite troops selected among the ranks and began a giant brawl against the Broodals and some other Cankens.

Thanks to their weapons, you could tell which Canken was possessing which Broodal. Maztur revealed to be possessing Topper, the smaller of the rabbits who was round and was wearing a green suit and top hat. Hariet, the only female Broodal beside Madame Broode, recognizable by her purple dress and spiked hat, was obviously possessed by Kirima. Tukaral had Spewart, a Broodal who looked a lot like Morton excepted that he had orange hair and was wearing a blue suit and hat. The tallest of the Broodals (without counting Madame Broode again), Rango, was Zutr. And finally, Madame Broode herself, easily as big as Bowser with a red dress and a lot of makeup, was possessed by Jupacc.

But despite all their powers, they could do nothing between the Koopalings, Bowser Jr who joined the fight a little later, and all the Koopa Troops that came with them. More Cankens did come to help, but then, the airships fired at them.

So Jupacc then yelled, "Enough playing around!" before he... She... They took a remote control and pressed a big red button. A few seconds later, a giant robot jumped from a nearby cliff and landed behind them, and the possessed Broodals all quickly climbed inside it.

The robot wasn't actually as big as Luigi, Waluigi, Bowser, and DK had been, but it still was easily a little bit over half their size. It had a similar appearance to the Broodals, looking like a bipedal rabbit, even wearing a sparkling golden suit and top hat, but everything was made of metal and the eyes were replaced by a big visor through which the Broodals could be seen piloting it.

"Eheheh! What do you think of this?" Jupacc said. "These rabbits called it the Super Robobrood. A machine engineered to destroy, armed from ears to metallic fluffy tail. Prepare to be annihilated."

Cannons then came out from all the sides of the top hat and began to fire homing firework rockets at the airships before the robot raised a leg to crush Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings who quickly escaped.

Thankfully, the robot's movements were rather clumsy as it almost fell after that.

"Be careful Tukaral!" Jupacc yelled.

"Sorry. I don't know how to pilot that thing. Too many buttons and levers."

"Same. It's bothering," Zutr said. "What is this button doing?"

The robot began to play a music.

"Be careful, you idiot! What if this button had been to self-destruct?" Kirima shouted, annoyed.

"Why would someone put a self-destruct button?" Maztur asked.

"I don't know," Kirima answered.

"Have any of you read the notice?" Jupacc asked.

"No," the four answered, making Jupacc groan before he began to list what each buttons and levers did.

"Hey! You aren't the only ones who have a giant robot!" Bowser Jr. yelled once they were far enough.

Kamek came at this moment. "Hum... I don't think that the Mecha-Bowser can fight that thing."

"I know! I'm not stupid! I wasn't talking of the Mecha-Bowser! Wah!"

Bowser Jr. and a few others had to jump to the side to barely avoid some bolts of electricity fired from the left hand of the robot.

"Oh. Wait, are you talking of...? I thought that we wanted to keep it a secret for the next time we confronted Mario?"

"Do you see any other solution? The armada is being decimated! Beside, the filly isn't here anymore so she won't be able to tell Mario."

"She could see it if she comes back. But I guess that we don't have a choice."

"Then let's call it, guys!"

At this, Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings each took their own remote control and pressed a button.

But nothing happened...

"Uh..." Bowser Jr. began.

"We have to wait for them to come all the way from the castle," Kamek said. "Obviously, it will take some time."

"Drat... Uh... Try to do diversion? So the armada won't be destroyed by the time they arrive?"

Kamek gave Bowser Jr. a deadpan look. "... How?"

"Uh... I don't know! Think of something! You're the smart one!"

"I may be the "smart one", but I'm not a miracle maker. But I will try."

Kamek flew away, then returned with a large group of Magikoopas. Together, they gathered their magic into a giant ball that they launched at the Super Robobrood, only for the robot to punch the ball back at the Magikoopas who barely escaped. They then returned and did another attempt that ended with the same result.

"I'm starting to get the hang of that thing," Maztur said.

"Shut up and focus. The next ball is coming," Tukaral warned.

At least, it was a diversion, so it worked.

And at least the airships were firing back at the robot so it was taking some damage, but it was rather minor as the airships also had to contend with the Cankens.

And eventually, a giant Bowser robot landed, followed by seven airships that looked more like futuristic airships shaped to look like Bowser. Some of the ships had unique feature however. For example, while they generally didn't have wings, one of them had them. Another also had what looked like a giant magic wand hooked to its underbelly.

"Finally!" Bowser Jr. shouted."Alright guys! Morphin time!"

"Yes!" the Koopalings shouted as they took their remote controls again and pressed another button on them.

The seven airships then began a dance with the Mecha-Bowser as they opened themselves and shifted to take different forms. One by one, the transformed airships then merged with the Mecha-Bowser, forming some kind of extra armor that also added some features like longer limbs that had a wider range of moves. In addition of a thick chest piece, helmet, and so on, they also added a pair of large wings, and the left arm ended in a mouth while the right arm simply ended in a claw holding the giant wand. Even the shell had an upgrade, more armored with the spikes longer and sharper and with two mounted cannons.

The resulting robot looked like an armored Bowser about the size that the real Bowser had been when he fought Donkey Kong.

Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings then entered the robot by a leg and quickly climbed it to their cockpit inside the head before the Super Robobrood would start attacking it. The arrival of the Mecha-Bowser and the airships merging with it definitively gained the possessed rabbits' attention.

Just in time as a group of Cankens forced the Magikoopas to scatter, giving an opening for the Mecha-Bowser to approach.

"So you guys have your own giant metal golem? This promises to be interesting," Jupacc said.

"It's called a robot, you cavemen!" Bowser Jr. yelled.

"Technically, it's a mecha," Ludwig corrected.

"Shut up! It doesn't matter what it is! Just know that it's called the Megakoopa! And that it will squash you! Look! It's even bigger than your stupid tin can!"

"Oh bother... And I thought that we would finally get an easy fight," Zutr said.

"Ah! Destroying this army without resistance would have been too boring!" Tukaral said.

"Don't get your hope high. Their... robot could be all bark but no bite," Maztur said.

"The Megakoopa can bite! And it can bite so hard that it will have no problems tearing off the arms of your metal rodent!" Roy shouted.

"Yes! And it can use magic! I'm sure yours can't!" Iggy boasted.

"We can do that!" the five Branches shouted before the Super Robobrood raised a hand and Maztur's sword appeared in it, version giant like Tukaral's hammer back when he was giant Donkey Kong or Zutr's trident when he was giant Waluigi.

"Ahah! It doesn't scare us!" Bowser Jr. said.

"You should be..." Jupacc said threateningly.

The sword was filled with electricity before the Super Robobrood charged at the Megakoopa who fired a magical beam from its wand. With a single slash, the Robobrood destroyed the beam and continued to run before the sword ended up clashing with the wand.

But then, the Robobrood raised its left hand and Zutr's trident materialized in it before it was filled with electricity too. The rabbit robot then brought it down on the Megakoopa to pierce it, only for the Megakoopa's mouth at the end of its left arm to open before it sent a stream of fire on the rabbit's face. Despite the fire, the Robobrood continued its attack and pierced the Megakoopa with the trident, electricity spreading in the robot.

"AaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAahhhhhh!!!"

"Morton won't... " Morton shouted before he made the Megakoopa punch the Robobrood on the head with the left arm. Then, the Megakoopa gave a strong kick on the belly of the rabbit, forcing it to take some steps back. This caused it to leave the trident planted in the Megakoopa, and the electricity stopped, saving the robot from having its circuits roasted.

As soon as they recovered from the electricity, the Koopalings made the Megakoopa put its wand in its mouth before it grabbed the trident, got it out, and threw it at the Robobrood. The trident impaled the rabbit, but it barely took a step back before it recovered from the hit so it was able to duck to avoid a fire beam fired from a big cannon in the mouth of the Megakoopa.

Firework rockets were fired from the Super Robobrood's hat, countered by Bullet Bills fired from cannons in the Megakoopa's chest plate. The Robobrood then fired electricity from its left hand, only for the Megakoopa to use its wand to teleport behind the rabbit. Before it could react, the Megakoopa then grabbed it and suplexed it before it fired two Banzai Bills from the cannons mounted on its shell.

The Banzai Bills exploded in the Robobrood before it could get up from the suplex, causing big damage, but the Robobrood made the Koopas pay by firing more firework rockets from its hat. When the Super Robobrood then got up, it charged head down right into the Megakoopa, the ears impaling the bigger mecha, only to receive a hit from the bottom end of the wand on the back of the neck. The Megakoopa then grabbed the Robobrood by the ears as they got out and spun before throwing it away into a cliff.

The Megakoopa then used the wand to send several boulders just as the Super Robobrood got up and materialized Tukaral's hammer, the robot rabbit using the weapon to destroy the projectiles. The Robobrood then materialized Kirima's fan and Jupacc's chakram before it filled them with electricity and threw them at the Megakoopa, only for the robot Koopa to take off with the reactors on its wings and under its feet.

The Megakoopa then sent giant fireballs from its arm cannon, and the Robobrood ran to avoid them before it took a boulder and threw it at the flying mecha. The Megakoopa easily avoided it only to be hit by another boulder that the Koopalings hadn't seen coming as it had been invisible.

Jupacc's illusion power.

Annoyed, the Koopalings made the Megakoopa charge toward the Robobrood, arms first, not minding the boulders hitting it. Seeing the Megakoopa coming, the Robobrood materialized Tukaral's hammer again and readied itself.

Back a few minutes earlier, Sweetie Belle arrived at the Dark Side of the Moon, where she felt the energies. Here, she found some kind of temple sculpted in the stone of the Moon.

And right in front of the entrance, she found Bowser.

Or Cankentriops.

And he was grinning.

"I knew one of you "heroes" would come, and you are too late," he said before he grabbed something from inside the shell and revealed it to be a white crystal star. "I have the Elemenstar!" He then quickly put it back inside the shell.

"And why haven't you yet teleported back to your pyramid?" Sweetie Belle asked suspiciously.

"Isn't it obvious?" Cankentriops said with a chuckle. "I want to kill you. And in this wasteland, I will finally be able to unleash my full power."

"What do you mean?"

"Why do you think I didn't turn myself giant? It was to avoid destroying everything. Because I don't want to reduce Lord Crakkthulx's fun by blowing up a few cities in advance. Here, however..."

A purple aura of energy surrounded Bowser's body before he began to grow like in New Donk City. Only, this time, it was Cankentriops in command, the colors took on darker, purplish tints, and the eyes glowed the same color.

"You shouldn't have come alone, little one, because now, your chances of victory as null!" Cankentriops finally shouted as the body finished to grow, now easily two times the size Bowser had in New Donk City, before he laughed. "Prepare to be crushed like the ant you are!"

He then raised a leg and violently brought it down on the filly, the force causing cracks to spread, pieces of the ground to rise or crumble, and the area to shake violently.

Cankentriops looked down, satisfied, thinking that the filly was now just a bloody smear.

Only for her to appear before his face, giggling.

"You missed! Did you forget that I could teleport?"

Before Cankentriops could react, Sweetie Belle's mane and tail suddenly turned into ethereal fire before she punched him on the cheek. To his surprise, he not only felt the punch, but he actually had to take a step back to keep his balance.

With a growl, he rubbed his cheek and glared at the smiling filly. "Are you a god?"

Sweetie Belle giggled again, eyes closed. "Not quite." she then opened her eyes, now filled with emptiness. "But for you, I guess that I'm as good as one."

Author's Note

Thank you to The Kelduo for helping me find the theme for the robot fight. Seriously, I couldn't find a single remix of the Robobrood theme excepted a surf rock cover and some 8-bit versions or whatever. And Mecha-Bowser? Outside of the one from Mario Galaxy which got some nice covers but had nothing to do with an epic fight, it was the desert. For a moment, I thought that I would have to settle for the normal Robobrood theme. I'm disappointed. Really disappointed. I expected better of the Mario fandom.

Chapter 68: The Moon - Part 2

The airship transporting Mario and the others was rapidly flying above the desert obscured by the dark cloud, like the rest of the world.

Surprisingly, they didn't encounter any Canken in their travel from New Donk City to here.

"We're approaching," Wario warned with a finger in his nose. "Behind these mountains, we will see the valley, and the pyramid."

So the others stared with anticipation as the airship flew between the last mountains.

And they could see it, in the distance, the cliff surrounding the valley Wario told them about. And in this valley was the pyramid, giant, made of black stones, with a pentagonal base, and with triangles symbols with a single eye in the center on each of its sides.

And it was guarded by surprisingly few Cankens. Cankens that the heroes never encountered until now.

They were just... small one-eyed pyramids with two pairs of angelic wings.

And as soon as they saw the airship approaching, they fired lasers at it from their eyes. Far too many. Chunk by chunk, in just a few seconds, they destroyed the airship until it couldn't float anymore. Thankfully, Phantom used her powers to repair it before they could crash. Apple Bloom then took possession of the ship and quickly flew down toward the ground while Phantom went to eliminate the Cankens. The others could only panic and take cover to not be hit by the lasers.

As soon as the ship landed, everybody jumped out and ran toward the entrance of the pyramid while doing their best to avoid the lasers raining from above. Some of the Cankens approached so the heroes would have less time to dodge their lasers, but it also made it easier for Apple Bloom to target them as she used her powers to protect the group. Thankfully, Phantom was doing a good job of clearing the sky from them.

But then, a huge dark purple dragon dropped from beyond the clouds and blocked the entrance of the pyramid, roaring at their face.

"There're dragons in this world too?!" Apple Bloom shouted.

"Mama mia!" Mario shouted with a facepalm. "Of course they use him to defend the pyramid!"

DK placed himself at the front of the group and pounded his chest in defiance, not scared of a dragon. In the contrary, both Luigi and Waluigi ran away only for Yoshi to catch Luigi with his tongue before placing him on his back while Apple Bloom levitated Waluigi back to them while glaring at him.

Wario cracked his knuckles. "A dragon, uh? Give me five minutes."

The dragon took a big breath before he unleashed electricity from his mouth at the group. The group quickly scattered, and the heroes then did their best to avoid the large rings of electricity spreading from the impact point.

Apple Bloom flew above the dragon's head and blasted it to the ground where Wario punched it with enough force to make it recoil. Angrily, the dragon attempted to crush Wario with a claw, but the man in yellow was joined by DK and the two of them were able to hold it back while Apple Bloom blasted the head again. Mario began to climb the dragons' body from the claw still held by Wario and DK while Yoshi threw Luigi directly at the head which was then hit by the two plumbers' hammers from above and below. Finally, Wario and DK pushed the claw back so they could get away from under it while the dragon was stunned.

When he recovered, the dragon glared at the group as Phantom finally joined them, having eliminated all the Cankens in the sky. The dragon's scales were then covered in electricity before he raised a claw and smashed the ground with it, electricity spreading from the impact point in all directions despite the ground being made of sand, forcing the group to jump to avoid the patterns the electricity formed. Of course, since Apple Bloom and Phantom could fly, they didn't have to worry about this, but they still had to dodge the electricity breath as the dragon targeted them.

Only to get a Bob-Omb in the mouth, causing the dragon to glare at the responsible: a very scared Waluigi. Thankfully, he was saved from retaliation by Phantom using her illusion powers to hit the dragon with big laser cannons, followed by Apple Bloom blasting the head again only for her to be slapped by an electricity-covered claw.

The dragon then charged while enveloping himself in electricity again, forcing everyone to run out of the way while avoiding the electricity sent from his claws each time they touched the ground. He even attempted to eat Phantom as he passed beside her only for her to materialize a giant weight above his head. Again, the dragon found himself stunned as a result, and DK took the occasion to climb him. Once he reached the head, he smashed it repeatedly until he was forced to jump away as electricity enveloped it again. But then, Apple Bloom upped her game by manipulating the sand and even turning it into glass after shaping it into spiked balls before she bombarded the dragon with them.

When the onslaught ended, the injured dragon looked at the ghost filly only to spot Wario and Waluigi preparing something.

Waluigi had placed a Fire Flower just in front of Wario's butt, with his butt facing the dragon.

And Wario farted.

The gas was ignited by the flower, and the next thing the dragon knew, he was hit by a huge stream of fire. Since he was an electric dragon, he didn't have any resistance to it.

This was finally too much for the dragon who fell unconscious with dozens of Kennies leaving his body. Apple bloom and Phantom promptly eliminated them.

With the dragon out, the way to the pyramid was open, and the group didn't wait to enter.

Wario had informed them that the path to the center of the pyramid was a straight one with just a few traps and puzzles, but it quickly appeared that the Cankens redesigned the inside as almost just after entering, the path split to the left and the right, but not forward. Also, Apple Bloom verified, she couldn't pass through the strange black stones that composed the walls, so she couldn't cheat her way to the center. Phantom also attempted to use her Phantom powers to create a more direct path, but the walls wouldn't bulge. Whatever these black stones were, they were impermeable to anything they did to them. Of course, thanks to what Wario told them, they knew that they could blow up their way to the center of the pyramid, but then, they may risk causing the structure to crumble on them and on Peach if she was indeed kept in the center.

So they were left with no choice but to take a random direction among the two proposed path and enter what quickly revealed to be a labyrinth filled with traps and guarded by possessed beings from all over the world, from Toads to Koopas passing by humans, Piantas, the colored skeleton-like beings that inhabitant the nearby Sand Kingdom, and many, many others.

Heck, they even encountered possessed Tyrannosaurs!

And to all this, they had to add golems like the ones that Wario and Waluigi fought the first time they entered the pyramid, but more numerous.

It will take a long time before they reach the center of the pyramid...

In the Dark Side of the Moon, with a giggle and a smug smile, Sweetie Belle signed at Cankentriops to come at her.

And Cankentriops answered her call by materializing his scepter before dozens of giant chains of purple energy appeared out of thin air and went after the filly who flew to avoid them. The chains followed her, eventually surrounding her as they forged a giant hand that closed on her, only for her to blow it up into bits. She then charged at Cankentriops who intercepted her with a punch resulting in the two violently clashing before the punch was suddenly pushed back, allowing the filly to ram into Cankentriops' gut which sent him flying on his back.

To say that Cankentriops was shocked was an understatement. The filly not only managed to overpower him, but she also sent him flying despite her being the size of a bug to him.

With a roar, he got up and used Bowser's geokinesis to create absolutely huge boulders that he sent at Sweetie Belle only for her to easily destroy them with giant fists made of energy. Then, she punched him all over his bony with more of these giant fists before he teleported behind her. She avoided a swing of his scepter, then countered one of his punch with her own punch before she fired a beam from her horn at his eye. Cankentriops roared in pain but still attacked with another punch, and this time, it hit. The filly was sent crashing and ended up digging a trench for nearly a whole mile until reaching a cliff where she still dug a deep hole.

"Owww..." Sweetie Belle groaned as she regenerated her body from what remained after that. "Okay... Gotta be more careful..."

Cankentriops was laughing victoriously, thinking that Sweetie Belle was dead, so he had quite the surprise when she appeared behind him and smashed his head with such force that he almost felt his (Bowser's) eyes pop out of their sockets.

"How are you still alive?!" he yelled.

Sweetie Belle answered with a giggle. "For such a big guy, you are surprisingly fast. You really got me there," she said before she winked. "But I won't be so easily killed."

Cankentriops frowned in annoyance before he raised his scepter. A dark light appeared at the eye before he lightly tapped the bottom end on the ground. Then, tentacles of shadows spread, and eyes appeared in them and looked at Sweetie Belle before the shadows went to attack her.

Sweetie Belle countered shadows with shadows and even added in the eyes too. As the shadows clashed, the filly then summoned her ten cannons that she turned into double-sword mode before she dove to slice some of Cankentriops' shadows. But then, the eyes in the shadows fired lasers at her, so they weren't just disturbing decoration.

She countered by doing the same with the eyes in her shadows as she avoided them, and her lasers attacked the eyes in Cankentriops' shadows. But then, Cankentriops summoned more eyes like he did in New Donk City which fired lasers too.

"Too many eyes. Time to fix that."

Holes opened near the eyes, and the space in them solidified to turn into spikes that impaled and destroyed them. A move taken from Magolor's repertoire. Then, leaving the shadows clash (with hers winning), she teleported beside Cankentriops as he fired giant beams from the eye of his scepter and she hit him several times until the Canken teleported away. Sweetie Belle teleported after him, and the two clashed again and again as they repeatedly teleported all over the place. Shadows continued to fight, lasers flew in all directions, meteors were summoned, and Cankentriops even used Bowser's geokinesis to create and drop a small mountain on his adversary only for Sweetie Belle to teleport the mountain above him.

The mountain blew up the next instant, sending boulders in all directions, and Sweetie Belle materialized a giant baseball bat to send some of them back at Cankentriops. And just after she sent a last boulder to hit Cankentriops on the head, she charged after it, ramming the Canken between the eyes.

As Cankentriops was sent flying on his back as a result, again, he managed to catch Sweetie Belle before he rolled on his feet, jumped, put the filly under his belly, and crushed her as he dropped back on the ground, making the area shake as if it was the apocalypse.

And before he could get up, Sweetie Belle appeared above his shell and added her touch by surrounding herself in a giant spherical shield enveloped in electricity before she rammed him, half-burying him into the ground and electrifying him.

Very angered, Cankentriops got up and jumped high in the sky. When he fell back, he violently smashed the ground.

And pretty much the entirety of the Dark Side of the Moon erupted into terrible earthquakes and giant geysers of electricity, and the shaking spread to the rest of the satellite.

The shaking was felt all the way to the battle that was still happening at the other side, almost making the two fighting mechas topple.

"Seems like the BigEye is going serious," Jupacc observed.

"Oh bother... We should hurry up here before he ends up blowing up the Moon with us still on it," Zutr said.

By now, the two robots were in very bad shape, electricity sparking here and there as their hulls were now full of holes. The Megakoopa had lost one of the big cannons mounted on its shell and its jaw was stuck hanging open, and the Super Robobrood had lost most of its hat.

Then, the Robobrood received a Banzai Bill in the face followed by a punch, and it countered with a swing of Tukaral's hammer filled with electricity. Despite the hit, the Megakoopa grabbed the arm holding the hammer and used it to lift the Robobrood before slamming it on the ground. It then kicked the smaller robot while it was still on the ground until it was stopped by the Robobrood sending electricity from a hand. The Megakoopa saw it coming and had barely the time to place its wand in the way to intercept the electricity.

The five weapons of the Branches of the Pentacles then appeared and floated around before they each unleashed electricity at the Megakoopa. Since the wand was already busy with the electricity from the hand, there was no way for the Megakoopa to protect itself from them.

Instead, as it tanked the electricity, starting to smoke worryingly from many places, the Megakoopa sent a powerful fire breath from its mouth.

And finally, a chain reaction of explosions began in the Super Robobrood, ending with the mecha itself exploding and expelling the possessed Broodals in different directions.

Jupacc was the first to recover and looked around at the situation. The Cankens were still very numerous, but with the Robobrood gone and with the Koopa Troops still having their huge mecha, the leader of the Branches understood that the situation wasn't at their advantage.

And they judged that they had done enough diversion by now.

"Time to return to the pyramid and wait for the BigEye there."

At this, Jupacc left Madame Brood's body before he teleported away. Following his example, the other Branches left the Broodals and flew toward the planet, followed by the surviving Cankens.

Kamec pointed his wand at the retreating army and yelled, "We must press on! All troops, return on the ships and follow them!"

The Megakoopa, with some difficulty, walked toward him. Once he was close enough, Ludwig asked, "What about Sweetie Belle?"

"Mmh... Let me see with her."

Kamec reached to Sweetie Belle with the mental link that was still present.

What is it, Kamec?

The Cankens have retreated. We're chasing them back to the planet. How is this going on your side?

I'm still fighting Cankentriops. Don't worry about me. Give me a few minutes and I will join you at the pyramid. By the way, good job guys.

Kamec couldn't stop a blush. It wasn't everyday that he was complimented. He then relayed what Sweetie Belle said and Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings left the Megakoopa (which looked like it was about to fall into pieces) before they joined the rest of the armada and flew after the Cankens.

The battle between Sweetie Belle and Cankentriops gained in intensity by the minute. The Dark Side of the Moon already looked like nothing after the Canken's earlier attack, but since then, it got much much worse.

Sweetie Belle teleported herself just in front of Cankentriops' face and used the Crash Ability, enveloping the giant possessed fire-breathing turtle into an explosion. Despite this, Cankentriops was able to smash her with so much force that he sent her right through the Moon.

Cankentriops looked down at the hole she left, daring her to return from this. What came out of the hole, however, was a huge beam that he took right in the face, followed by the filly appearing behind him before she punched him on the back of the skull, smashing his head on the ground.

Sweetie Belle then felt something different as Cankentriops raised his scepter while still on the ground. By the time she understood that he was using the Aether Star, it was too late.

An intense flash came from the scepter that blinded the filly, and the flash was followed by a huge beam of intense light.

When the beam disappeared, all that was left of Sweetie Belle was a blackened husk that crashed not far from Cankentriops.

This time, he was sure that she was dead.

But to his shock, Sweetie Belle got up, skin regenerating.

He immediately got up and fired another beam of light only for her to deflect it with a simple punch before her ten swords levitated around her.

The next thing he knew, he was punched on the face so hard that he was sent flying into space only to be punched again and he crashed hard back on the Moon.

He got up with a roar and fired yet another beam of light. To his surprise, a portal suddenly opened in the way and the beam entered it. Then, another portal appeared behind him, and the beam came out of it and ended up hitting him on the back of his head, burning Bowser's hair.

When Cankentriops recovered from the hit, he found himself surrounded by dozens of tears in the very fabric of space. The tears then opened and unleashed huge space beams that hit him from all directions, followed by hundreds of sharp waves from Sweetie Belle's swords.

As soon as the attacks stopped coming, Cankentriops searched Sweetie Belle and, upon finding her, used the Aether Star to send black holes from his scepters.

Only for Sweetie Belle to send bigger black holes that swallowed his. Once all of Cankentriops' black holes were gone, she then merged her black holes into a giant one that she absorbed before she surrounded her horn with her ten swords and unleashed a giant beam that seemed to be made both of light and darkness. Cankentriops teleported to avoid it and reappeared further away. But when the beam hit...

It blew up a huge chunk of the Dark Side of the Moon. An explosion that, while mostly hidden by the Moon itself, could still be seen from the planet if the sky wasn't covered by the Cankens' dark clouds.

Cankentriops still was conscious, floating in space among debris of the Moon, but after THAT...

Well... He was conscious, but he had to use all his will to not close his eyes. He didn't want to leave this body yet.

So he returned to his normal size and teleported away just as Sweetie Belle had been about to fire another laser.

"Drat!"

Sweetie Belle knew where he teleported to. Deciding that she will repair the Moon later, she rapidly flew back to the planet.

The group of heroes finally reached the big room where Wario and Waluigi fought the big golem the first time, with the door behind which the Cankens had been sealed.

Without losing time, Apple Bloom blew up the golem which had been rebuilt with a single blast of energy before the group passed the door and entered the room where the Cankens had been sealed.

The labyrinth, in the end, had only taken a small portion of the pyramid, between the entrance and the golem's room. The rest of the pyramid? It was this room.

It was dark. It was large. And right there, not far of the door, they saw Peach, eyes closed in a praying position, in a cage floating above the ground, above a very small hole. Despite the darkness of the place, she somehow was clearly visible to everyone.

Everyone was clearly visible to everyone. It was unnatural. This whole room felt unnatural.

"Princess!" Mario shouted.

Hearing him, Peach opened her eyes and looked at Mario and the others with pure joy. "Mario!"

But before they could do anything to save her, Bowser suddenly appeared under the cage. He immediately dropped on a knee, his body filled with injuries of all kinds.

It didn't take him long for him to spot them. "What? You are here? You've got to be kidding me..."

Phantom smirked. "Seems like Sweetie Belle gave you a bad time."

"You don't say..." Cankentriops growled.

Then, he planted the scepter into the hole in the ground.

The next instant, the whole pyramid began to shake.

The Cankens had arrived at the pyramid a bit earlier, quickly followed by the Koopa Troop armada that immediately started another battle. Sweetie Belle then arrived just in time to one shot the dragon which had been possessed again and had been about to breathe electricity.

Just in time to witness as the black stones composing the pyramid suddenly flew toward the sky, disappearing into the dark clouds which began to swirl as if a tornado was about to appear. As the stones disappeared, some remained on the faces of the pyramid which became smoother. Then, the pyramid opened from the top, more stones coming out of it while the faces slowly lowered onto the sand.

To everyone's amazement, the pyramid became a giant pentacle!

The black stones that had disappeared into the clouds then returned and placed themselves on the five branches of the pentacle to form walls and roofs, the branches thus becoming some kind of fortresses.

However, the pentagon in the center remained without roof, and Sweetie Belle could see, at the very center, Phantom, Apple Bloom, and the others facing Cankentriops with Peach trapped in a cage floating above him.

"May the ritual... beg-"

Cankentriops was brusquely interrupted by Sweetie Belle crashing on him.

"You thought I would let you go? Our fight isn't over!"

"You... little..." Cankentriops growled.

Sweetie Belle suddenly turned around to parry Jupacc's chakram as the second of the Cankens appeared to help his leader. The other Branches also came, flying down, each armed with their respective weapons. The heroes readied themselves.

"Don't bother with them," Cankentriops said as he got up and took the Aether Star that Juppac immediately grabbed. "Take the Elemenstars and do what you must. We must bring our Lord to this world. At ALL costs."

The four other Elemenstars then came out of secret holes in the ground all around and the other Branches took them before the five of them went to enter one of the five fortresses that formed the branches of the giant pentacle. The others attempted to stop them or to follow them, but they were stopped by doubles of Cankentriops appeared and blocking the entrances, the clones protected by shields.

"If you want to go after them, then you will have to defeat me first!" Cankentriops shouted.

Only to be finally knocked out by none other than Bowser Jr. ramming him on the head with his Junior Clown Car from above.

"Get out of my dad!" he yelled.

Kamec came just after as Cankentriops himself finally left Bowser's body. Sweetie Belle then didn't lose time to heal him.

Thanks to Bowser Jr.'s move, the doubles had disappeared, but it was already too late. From the five fortresses, five beams of different colors, red, blue, brown, green, and white, came and hit Peach. As the Princess yelled in pain, the energies of the five star merged in her with her own magic before it came out as a black beam that hit the center of the pentacle, under her cage.

And a small portal appeared, slowly growing.

"Finally!" Cankentriops shouted before he opened the cage and threw the now unconscious princess at Mario. "You can take her back. She's not useful anymore. Now, to stop the ritual, you would need to remove the five Elemenstars from their emplacements. But will you succeed before the portal grow big enough to let our Lord come to this world? I don't think so. I can already feel Him approaching. It's only a matter of minutes. This world is doomed! It's over!"

"I don't think so, you stupid cyclops dwarf," he heard, his attention turning to Bowser who was just waking up. "We won't give up, even if it means giving this Lord of yours the smack down of his life. I intend to rule this world, I won't let some schmuck like you or that thing you serve destroy it!"

"Then come! As long as I'm alive, I won-"

Cankentriops suddenly disappeared in a big explosion caused by a beam hitting him, courtesy of Sweetie Belle. When the smoke of the explosion cleared, nothing remained of the leader of the Cankens.

"Less blah blah, more action. We've five stars to get, and they probably will be defended by the Branches of the Pentacle," Sweetie Belle said.

"Well said," Starlow said as she came out of Mario's pocket along with Stuffwell.

"And to get the Elemenstars in time, I devise that the best plan of action would be to split up into five groups," the living suitcase said.

At this, the heroes exchanged glances, immediately knowing which groups to form.

Sweetie Belle, Phantom, and Apple Bloom.

Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi.

Wario and Waluigi.

DK, Diddy, and Dixie.

Bowser, Bowser Jr., and Kamec.

Sweetie Belle pointed to one of the five entrances, the one from which the white beam was coming. "My group will go there. The Aether Star in this direction, and Jupacc will certainly be with it. Better to leave him to us."

The others agreed.

"As for us, we will guard the Princess and keep an eye on the portal," Starlow said, speaking for herself and Stuffwell.

Again, everybody agreed.

With nothing more needing to be said, the groups separated and entered the five fortresses.

All the while, the portal continued to grow, already several meters wide.

Chapter 69: The Branches Of The Pentacle

Sweetie Belle was frankly ready to blast her way through the walls of what she dubbed the Aether Fortress, the fortress that Cankentriops made to protect the Aether Star, but upon passing the entrance, she saw that things may not be as easy as she thought they would be.

Because the inside of the fortress revealed to be a pocket dimension where the fillies were now in space, walking on a floor made of stars of different colors. Stars that led to some wormholes that probably served as entrances to other "space rooms". "Space rooms" that were not limited by physical walls, but by how far the star floor went. To verify it, Sweetie Belle went to test if there was a wall at the limit of the floor and felt nothing. Meanwhile, Phantom entered one of the wormholes, then came back and confirmed that there was a similar "room" beyond it.

"I think that we are in a maze," Phantom stated.

Sweetie Belle dramatically raised her front legs and shouted, "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Apple Bloom raised a non-existent eyebrow. "Since when did ya turn into Rarity? Mazes aren't that bad."

The ghost suddenly felt chill creeping up her back as she found herself at the receiving end of a murderous glare from the alicorn. "You obviously didn't go through the Tartarus that I went through because of mazes. One of my first adventures involved me having to go through no less than three of them, and just thinking about them makes we want to bash someone's skull. They were THAT horrible." She then glared at the wormholes, growling. "And I thought that I didn't have to worry about them anymore..."

She then went to what seemed to be the center of the "room" and materialized a white totem pole in her effigy before she someone planted it among the stars.

"What are you doing?" Phantom asked.

"This totem pole will show that we already passed by this room. I will use different colors for the others. This way, we won't get lost. Stupid maze... Once I become a God, I will erase all of them from existence..." she mumbled the last part as she went toward the nearest wormhole, followed by Phantom and Apple Bloom.

Once they were gone, Jupacc appeared in the room and destroyed the totem pole with a low cackle.

The other teams also had their own problems, albeit not as... problematic as the maze Team Crusaders was in.

Team Mario found itself in what Sweetie Belle would have dubbed the Wind Fortress, and thus, the three members had to face strong winds pushing them back and avoid tornadoes. They regularly had to go on alternate paths to press switches to deactivate fans that blew winds so strong that they stopped any progress.

Team Bowser was in the Fire Fortress. Bowser himself had a high resistance to high temperature, to the point that taking a lava bath would only burn him slightly (as long as he didn't remain in it too long). Thanks to this, the many obstacles made of fire that were present were just an hindrance, Bowser using his own body to shield his son while Kamec simply teleported when the obstacles couldn't be avoided by flying.

Team Kong was in the Earth Fortress, full of rolling boulders and quicksands. Boulders also had to be pushed on switches to activate mechanisms to continue, and there was a huge number of golems here, forcing the primates to fight a lot.

Finally, Team Wario was in the Water Fortress. Nothing as bad as the Water Temple. Wario and Waluigi simply had to swim into room filled with water with sometimes strong currents, and fill jars with water so they would lower a platform they were on and unlock the exit. At some occasions, they also had to press switches to deactivate strong streams of water blocking the passage.

So yeah, they had it pretty easy compared to Team Crusaders.

Especially when the fillies understood that something was wrong...

"That's weird. Shouldn't we have seen at least one totem pole by now? There mustn't be that many rooms, right?" Apple Bloom asked.

Now that Apple Bloom pointed it out, it was suspicious, and this got Sweetie Belle worried.

"Let's return to the previous room," the alicorn said before they passed the wormhole they just took.

In the previous room, the totem pole she had placed was now gone!

Sweetie's eye twitched, the filly immediately understanding, and she swore that she will make Jupacc suffer Tartarus and she will take great joy doing it.

In the end, the five groups reached the final room of the fortresses, at the tip of the branches of the giant pentacle, almost at the same time, and for the five rooms, the sight was the same: the Elemenstar of the corresponding element was floating inside a ring on a pole at the opposite end from the entrance, and before the stars were the Branches.

Kirima for the Wind Star.

Maztur for the Fire Star.

Tukaral for the Earth Star.

Zutr for the Water Star.

And Jupacc for the Aether Star.

For once, none of them were possessing a body.

They were ready to fight to the death to protect the stars.

"Uhuhuhuh! You are heroes, right? Then surely you will be gallant with me and not attack a girl," Kirima said, her fan hiding her mouth while she looked at Mario flirtatiously.

Mario answered with a frown and pulled out his hammer. Luigi then followed his example while Yoshi took an offensive pose.

Kirima huffed. "Very well, you ruffians. Let's do it the hard way."

Maztur raised his sword in front of his face in a prayer pose. "My Lord, watch me as I slay the Beast and his spawn and free the world of their dirty presence!"

Bowser Jr. groaned bemusedly. "Sweet... We got the weirdo..."

"I already can't wait to make him shut up," Bowser said with a growl.

"I will finally have my revenge!" Tukaral shouted as he hit the ground with his hammer.

Dk pounded the ground. "You're the one saying that?! You won the fight because of your master!"

Diddy smirked. "But this time, we are three."

"And you are alone," Dixie added with a "bring it on" sign.

Of course, Tukaral didn't understand them.

"Oh bother... Let's just get this over with. I really want to sleep," Zutr said with a sigh.

"Oh, you will sleep, my friend, you will sleep... and never wake up," Wario said, pounding his fist on his palm while Waluigi took his tennis racket and readied a Bob-Omb.

"We meet once again," Jupacc said, not bothered by the death stares the fillies were giving him.

"Yeah. It's as if fate itself is asking us to put an end to your miserable existence," Phantom said.

"Actually, it's more because we have a bone to pick with you after our first encounter," Sweetie Belle corrected. "In a more literal way in Apple Bloom's case."

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes.

"And after all the dirty tricks you pulled off, especially in that stupid maze?" Sweetie Belle continued. "Well, we will enjoy the next few minutes."

And at this instant, five fights began at once.

The heroes expected for a moment that the fights against the Branches would be similar to the ones until now, but they were quickly proved the contrary. With the Elemenstars just behind them, the Branches were able to use their energies to boost their own powers like Cankentriops did back on the Moon.

So it was with some shock that the members of Team Mario were fighting to not be pushed back by the strong gusts of wind that Kirima sent with her fan. Maztur planted his sword in the ground, causing geysers of fire to erupt all over the room. Tukaral turned the stone of the ground into sand to create quicksands while he created fist-shaped boulders that he sent at the Kongs. Zutr flooded his room and sent dozens of water arrows. And Jupacc fired from his eyes beams of light like Cankentriops did while he used two Chakrams as portals.

While fighting the winds, Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi had to regularly jump to avoid sharp winds while they tried to approach. They quickly came up with a plan, and Luigi jumped on Yoshi's back. The dinosaur had less problems facing the wind, so he managed to reach Kirima, allowing Luigi to land a few hits with his hammer. This forced Kirima to stop sending winds, using instead her fan made even sharper by the wind to try to cut the two. This however opened her to Mario who spun with his hammer out, hitting the Canken several times. Kirima used two of her arms to send electricity, forcing the brothers and their friend to retreat, then she sent small tornadoes with her fan.

Bowser tanked the fireballs sent by Maztur, allowing Kamec to send some magical beams in return while Bowser Jr. fired with a cannon that had been hidden inside the mouth of his Junior Mobile. While Maztur moved to avoid the projectiles, Bowser suddenly rammed him like a train just as fire appeared on his sword. Maztur kicked Bowser away before he opened his chest-mouth and breathed out fire which Bowser replicated, the two getting in a fire-breath clash that ended with Bowser Jr. using his car's boxing gloves to punch the Canken repeatedly from the side.

Tukaral smashed the sand with his hammer again and again, each times causing a column of stone to sprout. The three primates jumped left and right to avoid them while being careful of the quicksands. Eventually, Diddy activated his jetpack to fly around, making diversion by firing peanuts at the Canken with his guns. While Tukaral didn't seem affected by them, they still annoyed him enough that he pointed his hammer at the flying monkey and sent electricity from it as well as stone fists. He then saw DK coming and the two ended up exchanging punches, Dixie quickly coming to help by hitting the Canken with her ponytail. Tukaral eventually managed to uppercut DK with his hammer, only for Diddy to dive bomb him.

Wario jumped with Waluigi on his back as Zutr electrified the water, then used the plane-like helmet he put not long before to glide toward the Canken. He then grabbed Waluigi and used him as a bat to smash Zutr's head. Zutr quickly recovered from the hit and caught Wario before he slammed him into the water, but Waluigi was able to jump on the Canken and clung to him, hitting him several times with his tennis racket. Zutr eventually caught him too and threw him away before he formed a bubble of water around Wario's head. Before he could drown, Wario drank all the water and expelled all of it as a stream right at Zutr's face. Wario then charged, but quickly jumped back to avoid being eaten by Zutr's belly mouth. Instead, the mouth ate a Bob-Omb thrown by Waluigi, the bomb exploding inside.

Several chakrams flew around, each with a portal in it, and Jupacc constantly used them to send beams of light or even his hands to punch the fillies. He wasn't using illusions, knowing that it was no use, but these portals made up for them. When a laser or a hand entered one of them, it was impossible to know from where they would come out. And of course, without warning, he sometimes sent one of the chakrams to directly attack the fillies. He also constantly teleported to avoid them and their projectiles. Apple Bloom eventually tried to attack Jupacc's shadow, but the Canken saw it and used light to make the shadow move elsewhere, the light also burning Apple Bloom. He then teleported to avoid a group of Phantom Cubes sent by Phantom, only for Sweetie Belle to then teleport right on top of him (just above the tip of the pyramid that made his body) before she blasted him to make him crash on the ground. Phantom quickly took the occasion to teleport beside him before she grabbed him and planted him tip-first into the ground. Apple Bloom then used a big bone like a hammer on his pentagonal face to bury him a bit more.

Peach woke up, sitting against a wall. Just in front of her were Starlow and Stuffwell who looked at her with relief.

"You are awake!" Starlow shouted.

"What... happened?" Peach weakly asked.

"Cankentriops started the ritual to summon Crakkthulx and used you to open the portal. You lost consciousness during the process," Stuffwell explained before he moved slightly to the side to let the Princess see the portal in question. "Mario and the others are working to stop it."

By now, the portal had grown a lot, easily covering over half of the surface of the pentagon of the giant pentacle (reminder: at its widest, the pentagon was close to a mile), and it was still growing!

"Oh no! Is there anything we can do to help?"

"I don't think we have enough power to even slow it down," Starlow regretfully dismissed. "All we can do is pray that they hurry up."

"Let's still try. Even if it's just to gain a few seconds, it will be better than just remaining here watching," Peach said determinedly.

Starlow hesitated, but eventually agreed. Like the Princess said, it was better than nothing.

So the two combined their magic and sent a beam at the portal. However, as Starlow had guessed, it barely slowed it down.

"What do you three think you are doing?" someone suddenly shouted.

Surprised, Peach and Starlow stopped and looked around until Cankentriops, still alive, appeared before them. However, he looked really hurt. He clearly didn't escape the explosion unscathed.

"You're still alive?!" Starlow shouted.

"Teleported before the smoke of the explosion cleared. I hoped to remain hidden until I recovered enough. But trying to slow down the opening of the portal? This, I won't allow! Guess that I will have to kill you three! Especially you, Star Sprite! After what your kind did to us, I'm itching some payback!"

Starlow gulped. "B-bring it on! I will do what us Star Sprites weren't able to do all these years ago: end your threat for good!"

Princess Peach inhaled, then exhaled, steeling her nerves. "I will help! I... I can fight!"

"I will help too," Stuffwell said with uncertainty. "I may be a suitcase, and I wasn't made to fight, but I'm sure that I can be useful. Also, our enemy is weakened, so we may have a chance."

Starlow nodded. "You're right! We can do it!"

"Pfff! You three look pathetic! It should be over quick!" Cankentriops said as he summoned his scepter.

Starlow started the fight by headbutting Cankentriops, only to be hit in return by his scepter. Peach immediately followed by lunging forward and bashing Cankentriops with her butt. She then went on to slap him several times until Cankentriops electrified her. Starlow headbutted him again, stopping him and allowing Peach to retreat beside Stuffwell who opened and let out a Mushroom and a Fire Flower. The Princess quickly ate the Mushroom to heal before she absorbed the power of the Fire Flower, gaining a white and red dress. She then sent fireballs at Cankentriops who had been in the middle of firing beams at Starlow who escaped. At the same time, Stuffwell opened again and sent miscellaneous objects stored in him such as a vase, a bomb, a weird metallic soccer ball, or a little toy Mario.

He eventually received a beam that propelled him backward, and Peach had to duck to avoid another beam before Cankentriops teleported right beside her and hit her with his scepter, causing her Fire Flower power to disappear. She retaliated with a kick followed by extending an arm and discharging pink magic from her hand on his face. Both Starlow and Stuffwell then rammed him at the same time, but Cankentriops grabbed the Star Sprite and used her to bash both the Princess and the suitcase.

Annoyed to be used this way, Starlow charged energy and yelled, "Supernova Spaaaarkle!!!"

Yoshi, with Mario on his back, jumped to avoid a sharp wind. At the summit of his jump, Mario jumped too from his back right at Kirima's face and spun with his hammer. Kirima had been in the middle of strangling Luigi, and the hits from Mario's hammer forced her to release him. As soon as he was freed, Luigi jumped on the Canken's back and pounded it. Yoshi then came, rolling inside an egg-shell, only to be kicked by one of Kirima's legs like a soccer ball. Kirima caught Mario by the head and attempted to behead him with her wind-boosted fan, but was stopped by Luigi doing the Green Missile on the back of her head. The two brothers then quickly jumped away to regroup with Yoshi. Kirima choose this moment to throw her fan and make it do circles around her, the weapon surrounding itself in a tornado while releasing sharp winds randomly in all directions.

Maztur was busy destroying weird blob creatures coming out of the paint that Bowser Jr. put a little everywhere, sending fireballs after fireballs at them while keeping an eye on the Koopas. Kamec sent a giant broom that Maztur burnt to ashes, distracting him from Bowser who charged at him. Maztur readied himself for another clash with the Koopa King, only for Bowser to enter his shell at the last moment before spinning, injuring the Cankens several times with the spikes of his shell. Despite the pain, Maztur was able to grab the shell and stop it from spinning before he threw it toward the Magikoopa who avoided it by teleporting. Maztur then targeted Bowser Jr. who was approaching with his clown car and used his sword to send several waves of fire. Bowser Jr. had to use his Junior Mobile in kart-mode to avoid them, sometimes having to bounce. While avoiding the waves, the Prince of the Koopas released some Mecha Koopas that slowly walked toward Maztur while Bowser charged again.

DK and Tukaral were exchanging hits again in a pure fistfight (plus Tukaral's hammer), Tukaral's fist enveloped in stone. Diddy and Dixie were both on Tukaral's head (on the pentagonal face) and continuously pounded it, but the Canken didn't mind them despite the headache they were giving him. Tukaral eventually pointed his hammer at DK to send electricity, but Dixie jumped on it, making it point down at the ground. DK punched him right on the eye, Tukaral countered by dropping a boulder on the ape, followed by an uppercut with the hammer (despite Dixie still clinging to it) that sent him flying toward a quicksand. Diddy got him out of it thanks to his jetpack. Tukaral then caught Dixie and threw her right into a wall of stone that he sprouted out of the ground. Diddy, still holding DK, dropped him toward the Canken, and the ape smashed his head.

Wario charged again at Zutr, sending him on his back. Waluigi was about to throw another Bob-Omb at Zutr, but then, Wario grabbed it and put it in Waluigi's butt, to his horror. Wario then grabbed Waluigi and pointed him toward Zutr as the Canken was getting up. When the Bob-Omb finally exploded, Waluigi was launched like a rocket, hitting Zutr in the chest - Wario made sure to avoid targeting the belly so Waluigi wouldn't risk getting himself eaten by the big mouth there- and sending him on his back again. Recovering quickly, Waluigi took the occasion to repeatedly stomp the Canken's head, judging that it wasn't the moment to rage at Wario. Eventually, however, Zutr grabbed him by the leg before he got up again, and Waluigi found himself upside down with the head in the water. All the water flooding the room then turned into ice, trapping the man. Zutr left him to his face and turned back to face Wario who was also trapped by the ice. Thankfully, Wario didn't have any problem getting himself out, then he grabbed the ice by the hole he left and took out a big chunk that he threw at Zutr with all his strength. Zutr deflected the chunk of ice with his trident only to be hit by another charge from Wario who then grabbed Waluigi and got him out of the ice. Waluigi still had his head trapped in a block of ice however, which gave Wario the idea of using him like a bat to violently hit Zutr on the head, the hit destroying the ice and freeing Waluigi for good.

Beams were flying in all directions. Sweetie Belle deflected them with her mirrors. Jupacc sent them back at the fillies with his portals. Jupacc then sent electricity at one of the chakrams. From it, the electricity went from chakram to chakram, creating a web that constantly moved as the chakrams continued to fly around. The fillies knew by now that destroying the chakrams wouldn't work because Jupacc could generate new ones, so they simply worked to avoid the electricity while continuing their attacks on the Canken himself, but Jupacc used the Aether to bend space and make it so most of their attacks ended up missing him.

Sweetie Belle quickly understood that Aether was pretty close to Void Energy. She wouldn't be surprised if Aether was a direct mutation of the Void energy, and she was thankful that she had been able to defeat Cankentriops on the Moon before he could learn to control it, or things would have turned messy. She was also thankful that the Elemenstar didn't seem to be able to give the full scale control of this element as it was pretty clear that someone having full control of it could be considered a God. It was THAT powerful. But here, Jupacc seemed to only have minor manipulations of Light and some other forces such as Space, Gravity, Time, and Spiritual. Maybe that his own being limited how much he could control the star's element. It was hard to say.

But the little he learned to/could control still gave the fillies quite the workout. It was now hard for Phantom to land a hit because Jupacc learned to read minds and she didn't have any defense against that contrary to Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. So she mostly acted as support, attacking only when she was given an opening. Apple Bloom had her own problem as the Light that Jupacc used with the Aether revealed to be very effective against ghosts and burned her just by being in proximity when she was in her ghost form, so she had to remain in her normal form most of the time.

Sweetie Belle didn't have any problem beside trying to outsmart Jupacc with her own powers to manage to land a hit, which wasn't easy. Jupacc suddenly altered gravity so Sweetie felt as if she weighted an elephant. It was okay for her, but her friends found themselves working hard to remain standing up, and the sudden shift still opened her long enough to receive a light beam in the flank. She used this gravity-shift against Jupacc by teleporting just above him, and she dropped on him like a boulder, which opened him to Phantom who sent a group of Phantom Cubes at him. Trapped in an illusion, Jupacc was attacked by flying buzzsaws. Jupacc quickly recovered and managed to avoid most of them, only to feel intense pain. Knowing the origin, he sent light toward his shadow, burning Apple Bloom who had attacked it, before he bent space to change the trajectory of a beam from Sweetie Belle so it went toward Phantom.

Cankentriops teleported to avoid a powerful beam sent by Peach and Starlow combining their powers and sent one of his own beams at the Princess in return. Starlow quickly placed herself in the way and took the beam, and she was immediately healed by Peach.

Cankentriops was about to attack again, but he stopped himself as he felt something.

Bowser avoided the sword and clawed Maztur a couple of times before the Canken placed a hand on his head and electrified him. He was stopped by Bowser Jr. cutting him on the side with a buzzsaw coming out of his Junior Mobile. Bowser immediately readied a punch which Kamec boosted with his magic. After a few seconds, the Koopa King attacked, hitting Maztur on the face. The Canken was sent flying and crashing on a wall.

His body began to explode with little Poof! all over it.

"N... No... The Paladin of Lord Crakkthulx can't... Against this Beast... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"

And he finally exploded under the victorious roar of Bowser, leaving only his sword behind.

Cankentriops felt it and muttered "Maztur..." before he felt something else.

Wario threw ice chunk after ice chunk at Zutr who used his trident to destroy them. Meanwhile, Waluigi approached the Canken from behind and jumped on his back before he climbed on his shoulder and put his hands on his eye, blinding him. Because of this, he got hit by the chunks of ice. He quickly raised his trident and produced spikes of ice that randomly rained all over the room from the ceiling. Wario avoided some, then caught one and threw it at the Canken. Seeing the spike coming, Waluigi waited the last instant before he jumped away, not giving time to Zutr to react before the spike planted itself in his eye.

Like Maztur, as he dropped his trident, his body began to explode.

"....... I guess... That's it's time to sleep... Sorry BossEye."

And he exploded.

"Wahahahahahaa!" Wario laughed as he did the victory sigh.

"We did it! We did it! We did it!" Waluigi shouted, doing a small dance.

Cankentriops looked in direction of the Water Fortress. "They are losing..."

Mario let himself propelled up by a tornado. Yoshi quickly made diversion by grabbing Luigi with his tongue and sending him toward Kirima to ensure that she wouldn't target the elder brother. Luigi crashed on Kirima's head and clung to it before he gave her a sheepish smile as she glared at him. Luigi then put a finger in her eye, making her scream in pain, before he jumped down. At this instant, Mario dropped back, spinning vertically, and bonked her on the head with his hammer, the hit causing it to slam on the ground.

Her body began to explode.

Seeing it as she got up with difficulty, she growled, then roared in rage as she raised her fan and readied herself to attack Mario.

But she exploded before she could do anything.

Mario looked at Luigi and Yoshi and made a thumb up.

One last jump followed by a powerful punch from DK was all it took for Tukaral to get the same fate, his body starting to explode.

"How can I lose to these animals? Again?! HIIAAAAAAAARRRG!!!" he yelled before he disappeared in an explosion.

DK pounded his chest, Diddy clapped, and Dixie bounced in joy.

"I must act. Quickly," Cankentriops said to himself before he materialized five clones of himself who then teleported.

Before he could do more, he was hit by a charged beam of magic from Peach and Starlow, and he felt the magic beginning to tear his body apart.

Jupacc pretty much turned into a chaotic disco ball as he began to spin in random direction while firing lasers from all his eyes, the lasers thus randomly sweeping the surfaces of the room. Sweetie Belle used mirrors again to attempt to deflect the lasers back at him, but Jupacc used his portal-chakrams to ensure that no laser reached him and even send them back at the fillies. Phantom teleported beside Jupacc and attacked him with her sword which the Canken easily dodged before he read her mind. But what he didn't read was what Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had planned. Sweetie Belle teleported Apple Bloom (in her normal form) right above where Jupacc was dodging and she dropped on him with a scythe she materialized, giving him a bad cut.

And his body began exploding.

"Ugh... Eheh... That was fun while it lasted... But don't think you have won yet! Lord Crakkthulx will come to this world!" he shouted before the leader of the Branches of the Pentacle finally exploded.

"Finally! He's gone!" Sweetie Belle shouted.

"What did he mean?" Apple Bloom wondered. "We've won, right? There's nobody left, right? And Crakkthulx isn't here yet so Ah don't think we're too late ta stop him from coming."

"I think that he meant THAT!" Phantom shouted as she threw her sword in direction of the Elemenstar as it was being picked up by Cankentriops. The leader of the Cankens teleported away with the star just before it could impale him, then reappeared quickly to grab Jupacc's chakram before disappearing again.

"What?! Ah thought that he was dead!" Apple bloom shouted in shock.

"Well, apparently, he survived, and now, he took the Elemenstar. I don't know what he is planning, but that must not be good. Let's return to the center of the pentacle," Sweetie Belle said before she teleported the three of them.

The same thing happened for the other teams. As they were about to grab the Elemenstars, a clone of Cankentriops appeared and took the stars as well as the Branches' weapons before disappearing. The teams then had to re-traverse the fortresses (now without the elements serving as obstacles with the Elemenstars gone).

Team Crusaders was the first to appear, just in time to witness the clones drop the Elemenstars and weapons before they poofed into non-existence as the real Cankentriops' body was dissolving into purple energy.

By now, the portal covered the majority of the surface of the pentagon, forcing everyone to remain near the walls.

"I will not die yet!" Cankentriops yelled. "LORD CRAKKTHULX! I BEG YOU! GIVE ME POWER! HELP ME FACE THE FOES WHO ARE ATTEMPTING TO STOP YOUR ARRIVAL!"

As the other teams came out of the fortresses one by one, they witnessed as a huge quantity of purple energy came out of the portal and went toward Cankentriops. At the same time, the Elemenstars and the weapons levitated and went to orbit around the leader of the Cankens as he flew toward the center of the pentagon. Strong wind suddenly picked up as the clouds above swirled faster and faster, some of them parting to reveal the partially destroyed Moon above.

Then, there was a big flash of dark light.

And Cankentriops has transformed.

From the edges of the pentagon, it was difficult to see, but Cankentriops seemed to be much bigger than before. They watched as he slowly descended until he landed... on nothing, as if he was now standing on something invisible. Sweetie Belle could actually feel that he turned the space under his feet solid, creating a large platform to stand on above the portal which continued to grow larger despite the Elemenstars being gone from their emplacements.

No doubt that Cankentriops continued to feed it by himself.

Thankfully, it seemed to not be as effective as the portal was growing much more slowly.

Sweetie Belle saw Starlow fly toward her.

"Peach and I will use our power to slow down the portal even more. You should quickly transport everyone else to fight Cankentriops together. But be careful. I can feel that he is now more powerful than anything we ever faced."

Sweetie Belle nodded at Starlow who flew back toward Peach. Then, after looking around at the other teams that she could barely see in the distance, with a single teleportation spell, she transported everyone excepted Peach, Starlow, and Stuffwell, on the "space platform", not far from Cankentriops.

Upon appearing, she looked at the others as they understood where they were and what they were about to do. Expressions ranger from determination and anger to outright terror, but everyone eventually turned to face their common enemy, now able to fully see his new, terrifying appearance.

Cankentriops now towered over all of them, even Bowser. If she was to compare his size to someone or something, she would compare it to a two-story building. He was now also very muscled, with three pairs of tree-trunk arms that were each holding one of the Branches' weapons as well as Cankentriops' own scepter. His head still was a pyramid, but much larger, and the face facing them now had three eyes, one at the center, one slightly up to the left, and one near the right edge, the last two constantly looking at different directions while the first one was glaring at the heroes with rage and madness. More eyes could be seen on the faces at the left and the right, and no doubt there were more on the two faces at the back. And in addition, there was now a mouth under the center eye that almost split the pyramid in half, a large tongue hanging from it. Finally, behind the head was a large ring seemingly made of solidified light with the five Elemenstars inlaid in it.

He roared. "GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! Destroy!!! Must! Destroy!!!"

"You will destroy nothing!" Bowser shouted.

Suddenly, a huge beam of light came out of Cankentriops and went toward the clouds before, the next instant, lightning rained and destroyed every single airships present, making them crash.

Bowser winced. "Excepted my armada..."

"Buck, I hope they're alright," Sweetie Belle said with worry as she looked at the still numerous (but much less numerous than previously) Cankens now charging down at the crashed troops.

"It's not the moment to worry!" Phantom shouted. "He's coming!"

"GRRROOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAHHH!!!!!!"

With another mighty roar, Cankentriops raised his scepter and pointed it at the heroes while he also readied the other weapons.

Chapter 70: Cankentriops

Cankentriops fired a light beam from his scepter at the group. Feeling its terrible power, Sweetie Belle quickly intercepted it and deflected it with a lot of difficulty toward the sky, the laser eventually exploding with such force that the night was turned into day for several seconds.

During these seconds, the heroes began their assault on the leader of the Cankens. It began with a fireball from Bowser, followed by Mario and Luigi attacking with their hammers, and then by Wario charging and DK punching. Cankentriops didn't flinch when he was hit by all of them, and Phantom putting him in an illusion where he was attacked from all sides by lasers was barely better. It was as if he couldn't feel pain anymore. Or didn't care about it.

However, in return, he loved to inflict it. As the heroes attacked him from all sides, he raised the sword and the hammer as the Fire Star and the Earth Star lit up. Huge boulders then formed in the sky before they were surrounded by intense fire that melted them into big balls of lava that began to drop all over the area. Phantom quickly used her illusion powers to turn everyone's reality and transpose it to the real world so the balls of lava turned into giant beach balls that simply bounced around harmlessly, at worst bouncing on the heroes. However, Cankentriops then raised his scepter and used the Aether Star to bring reality back to normal, turning the beach balls back into lava balls. Sweetie Belle quickly materialized a giant tennis racket and used it to send a lava ball that had been about to fall on Waluigi at the Canken. The others managed to avoid getting bad burns, Diddy and Yoshi still getting some minor ones from droplets of lava balls splattering not far of them.

Despite taking a lava ball on the face, Cankentriops raised the trident and the fan, and the Water Star and Wind Star glowed before little particles of ice appeared everywhere in the air and strong winds blew in a small cyclone around the Canken. The wind transported the particles of ice at dangerous speed, the particles cutting and injuring everybody until Apple Bloom took control of them and directly sent them at Cankentriops, cutting him from all sides.

Cankentriops then raised the Chakram as the Aether Star glowed again and, the next instant, portals moved on the ground out of his feet toward the heroes. The ones who could fly weren't bothered by them, but the ones who couldn't were forced to avoid them with jumps. As portals continued to come, another opened above Cankentriops and he fired a continuous laser into it, the laser coming out of the other portals. This meant that the heroes now had to jump to the sides to avoid them, instead of just jumping up to let the portals pass under them.

All the while, the heroes continued to attack whenever they had the occasion. Without surprise, Sweetie Belle was the one dealing most of the damage, pummeling the Canken with giant fist-shaped shields, cutting him with her ten double beam swords, constantly sending lasers from all sides. She attempted to end the fight rapidly by beheading Cankentriops, but somehow, the head remained on his shoulders after the passage of her sword. It seemed that he now possessed a strong ability to regenerate as any injury he was given quickly disappeared.

To defeat him, they had to deplete him of his energy fist. Tire him out.

Thankfully, since he was fueling the portal below, his energy was constantly diminishing. It was only a matter of time. And they could make it faster by forcing him to use more in the current fight.

Which was the occasion to see some unusual teamwork from the heroes. As Cankentriops sent flying electric water sharks, Mario grabbed Bowser by the tail and spun before throwing him toward the Canken. While he was sent toward Cankentriops, Bowser entered his shell and spun too before colliding, causing a lot of damage. As Cankentriops sent tornadoes of fire, Wario ate some garlic before DK grabbed him and positioned him so his head was facing the Canken. Wario then farted which propelled him like a rocket to violently headbutt their enemy. DK was left half-dead from the gas, but Sweetie Belle thankfully quickly took care of him. Waluigi threw Bob-Ombs at Yoshi who ate them and used them to lay eggs that he then threw at Cankentriops, the eggs exploding on him. Diddy fired a peanut that Kamec grew to giant proportions with her magic. Bowser Jr. in his clown car flew beside Luigi and used his paintbrush to create a path of blue paint that Luigi slid on as he readied his hammer. Once he was close enough, he then gave Cankentriops a strong hit.

Cankentriops eventually decided to protect himself with a shield, but it was quickly destroyed by Sweetie Belle despite it being stronger than originally. It still took a few second, which gave Cankentriops enough time to charge a huge quantity of energy as the five Elemenstars glowed. A black hole appeared some distance before him, its pull attracting the heroes who did their best to not be sucked in until it disappeared. Many of them understood what Cankentriops was preparing, and Apple Bloom quickly levitated everyone up right as the Canken fired from his original eye a powerful cone-shaped multi-colored beam that destroyed everything in its path, the beam eventually growing so big that it reached the ground below and dig a bigger and bigger trench and disintegrated a huge part of the cliff surrounding the valley in the distance. Thankfully, Sweetie Belle moved all Koopa Troops in its path to another place, the beam only killing other Cankens who hadn't gotten time to move out of the way in the end.

Once the beam dissipated, Cankentriops was left very weakened. However, before the heroes could act on it, he roared.

It wasn't a roar of madness or anger or challenge.

It was a call.

In the following moments, dozens of Cankens came from all around and flew toward Cankentriops who opened his mouth. The Cankens then exploded into clouds of purple energy that Cankentriops sucked in, replenishing his own energy.

"Of course he can do that..." Sweetie Belle said with a deadpan expression.

"What, so this means that as long as there are Cankens still around, we won't be able to end him?" Wario asked.

"Well, I could teleport everyone here to the other side of the world, blow up the whole area and end this fight right there and now," Sweetie Belle said. "Or not. With his current power, I wouldn't be surprised if Cankentriops can survive against me going all out at least a minute or two even after I exterminated all the Cankens."

"And leave all the fun to you? Don't count on it," Wario replied, and the filly simply shrugged in return before she resumed attacking Cankentriops.

At the same time, Mario took out a bell which he absorbed the power to gain a catsuit that he immediately used to pounce on Cankentriops and repeatedly scratch him. Luigi also took an object, some kind of raccoon costume, and once absorbed, he gained a fox-like suit. He then nodded at DK before he turned himself into a statue, and the ape quickly grabbed him and used him as a club until Luigi was forced to come out of his statue form.

Sweetie Belle looked at Mario and his catsuit and made a note to herself to visit a certain sunglasses-wearing friend with such a suit.

Professor E. Gadd, transported by Little Ghost, arrived on the cliff surrounding the valley of the pyramid. Behind him, transported by a group of ghosts, was a rather big machine that looked like a coil. The ghosts dropped it beside the old man as he looked down at the terrible battle that was taking place in the valley.

"Seems like we arrived just in time," he said. Then, he pressed a button at the base of the coil. "Let's end this."

Purple electricity began to course up the coil, and a few seconds later, it began to emit a purple light at the top, a light that gained in power as the seconds passed.

The group of ghosts then took the machine again and transported it into the valley below.

And as it approached them, it absorbed the Cankens' energy, purple wisps leaving them and going toward the machine. More and more, they turned into powerless husks until they just disintegrated. Being mostly made of that energy, it proved to be fatal to the Cankens, just as the prof had planned.

However, there was one Canken it revealed to not be fatal to...

With a roar, Cankentriops threw the fan, the weapon sending fireballs in a spiral pattern. He then swung the hammer at Wario who was charging at him while he went to impale Dixie with the trident only for her to avoid it with a leap to the side. When he saw a couple of fist-shield come, he opened his mouth and destroyed with balls of energy, only to end up punched directly by the Sweetie Belle herself, the punch blowing up part of his head and making him step back. However, his head quickly regenerated and he attempted to bite the filly with his sharp teeth covered in energy. She used claws of energy to keep the mouth open, not without some difficulty, and fired several beams from her horn into it before she teleported away just as Cankentriops fired another beam from it. Phantom then came and planted her sword into his main eye while Apple Bloom used scythes to slice off his arms. The arms, however, attached themselves back to him while he stomped the floor to create a shockwave and used the Aether Star to create areas where time was slowed down, forcing the heroes to be careful of where they were going especially as, after a few seconds, the areas' time stopped, immobilising anything and anyone in them.

Then, E. Gadd's machine passed in the sky above them, and as soon as it came too close, it drained Cankentriops of his energy. The drain was quick, and painful as the Canken roared and attempted to attack the machine with a beam that Sweetie Belle stopped.

"About time," Apple Bloom said as she eyed the machine, understanding that it was E. Gadd's and what it was doing.

In just a matter of seconds, by the time the machine moved away, Cankentriops looked like a dried mummy.

But he wasn't dead.

Because he still had something in him. Crakkthulx's energy.

Even if he was terribly weakened and even if the Cankens were pretty much exterminated, the fight wasn't over. The heroes quickly understood it as Cankentriops, with a roar that transcribed all his determination, brought out that energy which not only brought himself back to "normal" (considering his current appearance as "normal") instead of remaining a mummified shade, but also added a few features to his physic. Mainly an eye in his left pec, another in his lower right forearm, a tentacle sprouting out of the left of his head near the top, and a second, longer tongue coming out of his large mouth. Also, the ring of solidified light behind his head became black, and its bottom was now enveloped in flesh coming out of his back with another eye present there.

"Ahhh... Gaaahhhh... Lord... Coming... Aah... Must... Not... Rraah... Give... Up... Rahh..."

Lasers then shot out from all his eyes and swept the floor and the sky randomly.

Again, Sweetie Belle blew up his head by punching it, and again, it regenerated. However, instead of returning to its pyramid shape, it took on a mass of... flesh, eyes, and tentacles.

Then, his upper-right arm suddenly grew several meters, taking Sweetie Belle off guard as she was flying away so he was able to grab her by the head before slamming her on Mario, causing him to lose his catsuit. A tentacle then wrapped itself around Bowser's foot and lifted him before using him as a weight to hit the others. A Phantom Cube touched Cankentriops and sent him to a reality where several circular saws embedded themselves into his body, one of them cutting the tantacle holding Bowser, but the wounds just closed or turned into mouths and more eyes. In return, Cankentriops teleported beside Phantom and almost beheaded her with the sword that she was able to avoid, then she teleported to not have her head bit off while Yoshi ran away to not be squashed by the hammer.

Several magical beams from Kamec hit him on the back where the ring was more and more covered by flesh, gaining his attention. Diddy took the occasion to high-kick his right leg on the knee, only to be slapped by the fan enveloped in fire, sending him away. Both Wario and DK then charged and punched him, the first from the left and the second from the right, before Apple Bloom appeared before him and blasted him on his chest, sending him crashing on his back. In the middle of his flight, he threw the trident enveloped in purple electricity at Apple Bloom, impaling her and sending her further back.

Cankentriops' appearance continued to shift as the fight advanced, becoming more and more grotesque. The right part of his chest had bloated a bit, and the middle-left arm had moved so it was now on his belly. He also became hunched, now using his long upper-right arm as a leg to remain up, and his "head" was now constantly tilting to the left, slightly backward.

He called back the trident, then used it as well as the other weapons to send projectiles of fire, water/ice, stone, and wind while his eyes resumed firing lasers in all directions. In return, the heroes' attacks doubled in intensity in hope of finally ending this fight.

But all they seemingly managed to do as they attacked Cankentriops was to turn him more and more into an... Abomination. He lost more and more shape of what he was at the origin. A huge mouth suddenly opened in his torso and a tentacle-like tongue came out and grabbed Luigi in a clear attempt to eat him, and he was saved by Phantom slicing it with her sword. A big round eye then opened in his belly, under the arm there, and fired a huge beam of light that Sweetie Belle had to deflect. One of his arm was eventually sectioned, but as it dropped on the floor, it gained a life of its own and leaped to attack Waluigi before Bowser turned it into ashes. Even the weapons... merged with Cankentriops, becoming part of his body, gaining just as grotesque shapes and seemingly gaining life.

The sword lunged at Dixie, now at the end of a tentacle. The trident randomly fired projectiles at the heroes. The hammer constantly smashed the floor around, sometime sending shockwaves. The fan was flapping, each flap sending waves of projectiles. The chakram detached itself from the main body and went after random targets. And the scepter slowed down time, raised the gravity, fired beams, and just did its best to be the greatest nuisance.

And by now, the ring on Cankentriops' back was fully enveloped in his flesh, making it fully a part of him too.

Phantom quickly managed to destroy the Chakram as it went after her, slicing it to little pieces that she then disintegrated with laser cannons. The hammer then went next as it attacked DK only for the ape to catch it before tearing it off and pummeling it until it disintegrated into oblivion. The hammer attempted to defend itself by firing an ice ball on DK's face, but it just made the ape angry. Mario and Bowser Jr. faced the sword, respectively using hammer and paintbrush to attack it until it was destroyed. The fan was disintegrated with a beam from Sweetie Belle, and Bowser caught the trident and used his sheer strength to break it into pieces that disappeared. This left the scepter which Kamec took care off with the help of Diddy using his jetpack and his guns as well as Yoshi throwing eggs at it.

All the while Apple Bloom constantly blasted and sliced the main body which was starting to lose stability. Bloated parts began to blow up by themselves, limbs fell off (only to gain life of their own and attack any nearby hero), eyes closed, and overall, everything began to melt. The ring with the Elemenstars was eventually swallowed, disappearing inside it.

Despite having lost his weapons, Cankentriops continued to use the Elemenstars' powers, now at their paroxysm. Winds picked up to the point that the heroes had to use all their strength to not be blown away. Constructions made of fire, water, and stone flew around, randomly targeting everyone. Lightning and beams of light rained. Time, space, and gravity constantly shifted.

Sweetie Belle had to work really hard to counter these last cases, cursing these Aether Powers.

Then, Cankentriops took a last blow from Wario, and it was finally too much.

Letting out a roar of agony, his body began to blow up, energy escaping him. What remained of his body trashed and twisted in unnatural ways, and even attempted to continue the fight. His many mouths tried to say something, but all that came out of them were random words or unintelligible sounds in a cacophony that forced everyone to cover their ears. They still could hear, especially the blood-chilling screech that the roar eventually turned into.

And finally, he exploded. The last traces of him were wisps of energy disappearing into the atmosphere, and the five Elemenstars now resting on the floor.

Floor which Sweetie Belle made sure remained here despite Cankentriops now being dead to ensure that they wouldn't drop into the portal below.

And so, the Cankens were gone. Once and for all.

There were many sighs of relief among the heroes as they understood that it was finally over. Mario took the Elemenstars, and below, the portal began to close. The sighs then left place to shouts of victory, with hugs, roars, slaps on the back, and acrobatics.

Which were suddenly interrupted by an intense earthquake as a voice not of this world yelled something that nobody excepted Sweetie Belle understood, but even her multiversal translator seemed to have difficulty as the voice sounded glitchy to her and hurt her brain.

"F̷̦̓̾̒Ớ̷̛̺͂͑́̓̐Ǫ̵̢̞̮̻̺̈́̓̐͂͆̇͊͠Ȍ̷̲̠̺͚̑̈̍͝Ö̶̜̺̜̦̺̈́Ǫ̷̝̟̦̖̱̝͊̾̀̕Ò̶͕̘̤̙̹̘̳̌͋̀Ȭ̷͎̲̮̪̖͔̤͜͠Ō̴̬̩̫̳̻̭̦̭̈Ơ̶̯͇̍̓́̉͝Ṏ̵̢̢͙̠̯́̓͊̃͝ͅL̶̗̘̫̔̍͛̃́͒!̵̯̪̘̮͛̀͝!̶̳̰̮̣̙̝̒̍̓!̴̢̮̪͓̮̍͑͂̕̚͝ͅ!!"

Out of the portal, which was already almost closed, then came a large tentacle with a single eyeball at the end that broke right through the "space platform" right in the middle of the group of heroes, the eye, two times bigger than Bowser, slowly circling to get a look at all of them. The tip of more tentacles then came out and placed themselves against the edge of the portal, stopping it from closing and even broadening it back a bit.

"D̷̫̙̟̞͂̉͗I̴̗̻͖̖͎̙̤͗̆Ḑ̵͔͕͌̄̽̊ ̵̧̛̫͉͇̝̭̺͌̅͊̎̄Y̷͈̗̰̍̽̑̃̊͊̋Ō̶̢̾̏͌̈̚͠U̴̢͓̣͙͈͆̈ ̶̢̰͖̺͇̾̄Ŗ̴͉̥̼̹̮́̇̓̽̚͜͝Ȩ̴̧͎̺̭́̅̉̊͘A̷̳̔̽L̴͍̖̮̩̙͒̇͝L̸̟͇̪̊̓Y̶̨̖͖̬͍̐̽͜ ̵̛͓̥͓̒̀̐̀́͆T̷̢̲̓̇̇̐́̎Ḧ̴̡̤̲̮̣́̽͑̿̿̚Ï̷̲̽̾̎N̷̛̯̞͈͖̍͌̋̀̀̕K̶̛͈̊͛͗ ̷̢̫̼͉͓͑͛̀͘ͅͅY̵̨̺͎͓̒̽Ǫ̴͙͕͈̟̋͊͜Ű̴̡͕̞̼̘̼͊̓͠ ̷͇̺̝̜̠̺̓͊̆͌̐̓H̴̢͎͈̻͌̄͛̓͘A̴̬̋ͅD̶͉̆͐̂̚ ̷̧̰̞͕̩̽̎̈́̍̂͝Ẁ̵̡͚̦͉̄̋͌̏̚͝O̵̡̥̮̮͓̖͉̎͐͛͋N̵̖̟̩̺͔̲̆̓͑̑?̷̱̬̈̅̕ ̴͉͈̐͊̈̕͘D̷͓̆̉̐Į̷͙͇̹̯̄̿̍͜D̷̡̜̈́̈́̅ ̴͍̏̆͌͗̕͝Y̸͕̰̘͖̺͓̋̇̍͊́̽̄Ō̸̡͓̞̮̤̔̄͜Ṷ̸͛̾́̓̅ ̶̟̒́̂̾̋͘R̴̰̼̀̂Ȅ̴͙̺̞̞̃̽͐̚A̴͓̭̺̥͈̥͍͐̀̈́̉̀L̴̘̫̻̟͍͠͝L̵͉͓̈́̀̏͆̿̉̕Y̵̡̨̞̗̟͚̮͒̈́̓ ̶̹̽͗̀̓͆̍T̴̛̙̦̻͉̙̰̰͋̀̅́H̶͚̭̱̎̈́̀̉͊̄Ḯ̵͖̮͉̯̓͌̾̚Ņ̸̛̬̑̅̈́̿͜K̵̟͓͕̥̼̑́ ̵̙̝̉̈́̐͛̓̂̔Y̸̧̛̟̞̲͑͘͠O̶̬͙͆͐̔̕U̴̢̧̫̦͓̥̓ ̶͓̦͖̥̣͝H̴̛̜̟̩̳̤̦͙̀̓̄͂̕Ā̵̡̛̜͍̊̃̽͘͠D̴͖̓̚̕ ̵̨̲̳̯̮͆S̷̭̻̻̪̟̫̊̔̉̅̽͊T̶̡͒̿̽O̴̠̲̙͕̣̜͔̽͛́̉̂͛̕P̵̡̡̠̟̔̈́͐̒͌͘P̷̨̯͔͓̰̱̀ͅE̵̠̯̦̭͎̜̔͂͑̍̀D̵̺̭͙̔ ̴̡̧̢̘̼̭͈͗̍̿̈́M̵̙̲̤̅̍̀̍͗Ÿ̵̖̌̽ ̴̢̼͍̊̊̐̽̔͝C̴̙͇̠̟̉́̕̚O̵̝̮͓̼͋̎͋̔͊̕͝M̸̱̟̪̭̜̑̀͌͐͂Į̴̢̗̗͚̤̇͆͛́̾͘͠N̷̫̭̩̘̫͖̆̍̾̀͜G̸̟̩͒͂̈́̆͝?̴̖̤̦̰̞̦̩́̾̈́̚͘ ̶̛̛̖̼͖̤͚͖͊̑͌̓̐T̵̙͇̱̮͈̗̝͌̋̕H̸͙͔̪̖̣̽̊̚Ę̵̙͚̜̠̎͒̈́̈́̕͝͝ ̸̝̭̪̉̈́̈́̒Ì̴̠̱̫̤̈́̂̍̒͆͆Ǹ̷̙̤̞̟̎̈́̉͐̆͝S̴̡͚̤͎͕̘̀͋T̶̘̫͈̰̞̯̀̾̈́́͐͜Ä̶͈̦́̌͝͝N̵̦͎̬͆͌T̴̬͍͋̔ ̵̨̮̥̀̅͒̓̇̌̈́T̸͓͉̜̜͚̖̼̊͠H̶̛͚̓̓͗E̸͎̋́̐̄̈͌̆ ̵̨̗̭̠̈͗̈́́́P̴͓̲̹̺̰̬̘̈́͊̋́̋̏Ǫ̶͇̙̓̄̀̏̍̅̕ͅṚ̶̬̙͗̈́͜ͅT̷̡͕̜̟͍̈́͌̆̍̿̕A̴̖̪̓̈́̊́̎͐̃͜L̶̫̮̳̮̭͓̦̈ ̸̳̬̱̐̂͂̑O̴̧̪͌͗̑̑͆̔̆P̷̨̧̺̈́̈́̅̈͌̂̓Ȩ̶̺̹͈̮̈N̵̫̙̟̦͂ͅE̵̺̥̱̫͑͋͐̅Ḑ̶̬̦̣̤̿ͅ,̴͚̻̗̬̒̔͛ ̶̨̡̛͍̻̮̐̈́͝͠Ỳ̵̜͉̀̀͝O̵̼̍̈́U̵̠̗͛ ̷͕̮̗̱̲̠̈̆̆̇̔͜H̶̢̺͉̙͍͊̒̓͊A̴͐̈͜͝D̴͚͉̻̰̝̱̔̉̚ ̸͉͎̼̤̓͛͐͆̀L̷̩̫̤̹̀̑O̷̠̻̦͖͉̲͙͝S̴̢̭̪͊͆̈̃́͌̇T̸̙̲̪̓͋͒̅!̶̛̺̜̖̙͍̻͈̈́̐̀̄́ ̵͚͔̣͉̅̍I̶̦͗͠ ̷̛̼̲̥̙̼͋̏͐͐̍͝Ẃ̴̗̼̗́̅̕͠ͅȀ̸̲̜͇̠̮̠͑͌̚S̷̘̜͂̾ ̶̟͔̳̱͊J̴͔̣͕̯̐̓̈́̎́͌̚͜U̶͔̱̤̰͔͗̾̀̈́S̵̡͉͌͌T̸̞̎͋͆̒̏̀̄ ̸̯͚̅T̵̘̩̖̺̭̘̀Ả̶͉͍̠̰̏͆̾̒͝K̴̡̨̡͙̹̤͔͛͛͆͌͂̊̕I̵͕͕̼̪͉̼͑̋́͊̄̄N̸̡̛̛͙̈́͜G̷̺̹̼̟̦̮̚ ̴̧͓͕͔̀͑I̴̹̒̈͂͝N̶̪̻̯̺̄̈͘ ̷̫͕͋̉Ṱ̵̦̝͍̬̓͐͘̕͜H̸̡͔̬͂̏̈́̓͋E̵͇̳̦̠̊̀ͅ ̶͎̹͘S̵̙̮̬͑̀̽̀H̶̝̥̀̌̒̐͝O̷̭̜̱͝W̸̻͖̮̗̔͑͋̓̚,̸̝͔̲̞̪̉ ̷͚͉̣̩̯̭̉̉W̴̬̝̪̫̽͜A̷͕͔͘T̶̺̮̠̙̗̭̄͜C̷̹͊̏H̵̨̗̙̹͌I̶̬̱̋͆̀͘N̶̛̞̩͕͎̫̉͛̓̀͜͝ͅG̸͉̙͙̭͓͠ ̷͖̥̳̎̌Ḁ̴̛̊̿̓͒̔̚Ś̵̢̖̹͕͈̻̈́͆̈́̎͐̽͜ ̴͚̙̘̺̦̻̈͐Y̷̛̼̫̻͈̗̽Ŏ̸̧̢͓̟͈̳̯̈́̈͊͐͝U̶̧̡̙̫͒͂͐̓ ̶̧͚̹͍͉̀́͂̌̾̍Ų̶̢̭̞̰̫̈́̏́͑͊S̵̨̛̼͎̺̤͍̤̐͛Ẹ̵̢̮̳̒̒̂̔̕L̶̲̲̪̖̠̠̜̈́̀͆̅̽͝E̵̢̼͕͙͗̾͛̔͘͠S̵͕̺͖̿͆́͝S̸̹̖̲̟͎͈͎̆͌̽̈́̈̀L̸̨̜̦̱̱̫̬̃͛̚Y̶̩̹͖̹̩̽͜ ̶̱̳̠̗̎͝S̵͎̩̣̅̍͊͐T̵̖̱̘̜́̏̀͛̋͊̕R̶̮̫̙͇͇͋͑̈́Ủ̷̩̫̞̖͛͂̽̊͜͠G̵̨̻͖̰͊G̸̛̛̝̉̂̈́̄͠L̷̤̃̔̀͆̑̏̓ͅE̴̢̢̗͇̜̬͊͂͒̍̚͝͝D̵̥̝̣̰̲̲͗̌̒̿̈͌͝ ̶͉̐̇͘T̶̡̲͎̞͆̽̅̂͜ͅO̴̗̒̆ ̷̡̡̖̘̰͚͈̄C̸̺̥̀̄̅̉L̵̻̑Ő̶̱̏̀͛̚͘͜S̴̤̘̦͓̮̆̓Ẻ̵̡͝ ̵̡̪͔̫̙̿̊͗̉̐I̷̗̯̫̅͛̓̀T̵̪͕̿͜͝,̵̢̬͎̲̗̯̈̈́̆̔̾̈ ̴̝͌̀̌̍W̵̩͓̘̪̪̪͜͠Ǎ̶̛̮I̵̢͓͍̻͖͖͗̐͋͒͜͝T̶̰̳͖̠͔̲̰̈́̄̆Ȋ̴̧̯̲͓N̶̠͆̂̐Ḡ̴̗̪̗͍̲͌̀̆͘͘ ̷͓̺͚̈́ͅF̵̖̻͔̺̿̈́Ő̴̲Ṟ̸͝ ̵͉̤̳͇͚̊̇̋̈́T̶̢̠̿́͋͐̀͝Ḧ̴̠̩̪̺̯́͠E̵͕̺̊̆̔͒͌́ ̴͕̦̌́͒L̶͖̩̤̈́̒͐A̶̜̫͇͆S̷̻̭̜̳͐͆̽̄̋̓ͅT̴̨̤̑͒̉̏͝ ̶͕̆͒͘Ḿ̷̛̥͌͌̂Ơ̴̲̭̭̖̅̊̔̅M̵̺̥̠͒͗̃Ẹ̴̛́̾̽̎̓̕N̷͈̠̤͔̓̑̄̔͋͘T̶̙͌ ̷̬̙͖̈́̈́W̸̨̞̫͕͚̄̕Ḩ̴̰̟̜͋̋́̈́͜͝ͅÉ̸̻̦̰̳̑̀͛̉̓͘͜N̴͎̯̯̬͕͓͂́̔ ̷̗̆̉̒́̆̕Y̸̨̬͓͍̜̝̌̀̉͂Ơ̶̥̬̾͝U̸͓̫̍̀͐̓̚̚Ŕ̴̖̰̺̘̮̭́͂̾̈́ͅ ̴̳̠̳̠̩̌̐́̕͜͜H̶̢̟̞̫̮̀̓́̕Ő̸̬̤͉͍͓̳͙͂̀̋̈́P̴̘̬̍E̵̹͙̝͍͓͋̂͌͛̇̃͘ͅS̸͚̼̅͊́̈̈́͝ ̶͉̘̘͖́̒̔͝W̷̙̹͓̉̿̾͐́͘͜͝Ǫ̶͙͂Û̶̹͉̜̜͓̈́̍̚͜͝͠ͅL̷̢̩͇͔̝̲̑̕̚ͅD̶͙͔̹̼̦̙̀̋͆̕͝ ̶̺̗̩͖̏̈́̆́̈́̍ͅB̸̝̽̏E̵̡͚̯͌̇̓̿͠͝ ̷̼͋̽̄T̷̢̑̉̈̉͠H̸̙̮̖͈̮͐̕E̸͕̰̙͙͗̀ ̶͙͙̤͚͙͊̈́̌̓̉̀̈́ͅH̶̨̽̀͂̚͝Į̸̠͖̫̰̘͂͑̿͒̚G̷̹̘̯̠͉̙͐̍H̸̡̠̊͛͛̀͋̕ͅE̸̯͚̓̑͑S̶̨̡̛̤̟̣̗̀̋̈̕̕T̷̪̳̙̘̄͐͛̀͠͝!̵̰̫̯̟̅͆̊̈́̕ ̸̮̜̳̀̊͑̔̑͜͝Ậ̷̧̘̬̈́̄͆̎͝N̷̳̜̙̩̗̩̉̃̈́̔̈́̈́͠Ḑ̸̡̛̮͖͚͂̅̒͘͝ ̴̗͔̟̣̺̙̦͂͒̊́̆̓͠N̷̢̧͍̫̣̣̈́̅̓͌͝O̴̢̥͐̽͊̈̕̚Ẁ̴̦͌,̶̢̲͇̥̠̠̬̈́͝ ̸͍̣͈͚̮̓̔̓̍̄I̸̧̳͔̳̋̊̀͂͝N̵͎̻̤͔͐͐̑͆ ̸̢͍͖͙̎̽T̶̢̤̹̹̫̈̂͋̀͂̈H̸̞̹̊͛̑̈́̑I̷̛̪̳̔̍̋̾̊Ś̴̡͖̟͛͊̚͠ ̴̜͛̅̀͌̔͘̕H̸̘͈̱̦̓͝O̴̦̫̍̓̈́̐̔U̴̯̪̣̺̩͠R̵̢̠͕͙͙͂̓ ̸̲̫̼͚̀̍͑͋̔͠͝T̵̺̘̔H̵̡̖͓̹̲͂͑̀̕Å̸̦̾̆T̶̨̝̤̂͑̎ ̸͋̎ͅẀ̵̜̦̝̼̂̉A̶͚͙̋̎̓͑Ś̶̹̦͗ ̴̛̥̽̚S̷̡̻͖̝̰̉͌͠Û̴̦̳͝Ṕ̵̪͎͘P̶̧̝̅̏͌̇͝O̵͑̾̌̿́͜͝͝Ś̷̳̼͖̙̜͒̊̉͒Ê̸̼͈̻̠͇̽D̸̹̿̿ ̷̧̭̜̮̟̯̉̓̂͜T̵̞͍̘̱͐̋̄̊̕͜Ǒ̶̜̹̱͙̳̮̓͐̉̒͒͝ ̷̛̝̥̟̰̟̠̰̋͋̌̂̆̚B̶̘̠͍̳̞̟̓͛̈́E̶̡̞̭̅͌̊̐͗ ̷̳̻̪̖͖̀Y̴̪̦̽̽͆̃̀͝Ö̴̙́Ữ̸̭̦̼̮̱͝͝R̵̺͕̺͐ ̶̧͕̹͔̗͋̉͗̎̀̾ͅF̶̔̚͜Ǐ̵͚͎̞̆̇͂͝N̴̯͕͗̈́̅̔̌͝Ȩ̸͉̾̉̐̊̃̇̚ͅS̷̢̛͓͔̜̣͉͌̀͒T̸̗̫̩͓̝̩̟̉̍͝,̷̳̝͎̞̞̀͗ͅ ̴̗͎͙̇̐̔̈́̀̐͜Ï̶̮̪̗̫̒ ̸̧̧͕͓̱̯̼̎̎̓S̷̢̝̤̹̯̊̎̐̃̋͠H̶͓̓̇A̶̮̘̩̪͛̿̍L̴̢̙̻̳͊̎̆Ḷ̴̲̜̆̽́͆̕͠ ̷̪͎͐̉̃R̸̛̦̜̗̦̟͖̈́̀͆̋͊̅͜I̷͈̞̞͑͐̍̂̐͝S̷̨͖̖̦̫̰̼͋̄̑͋̏Ḙ̸̦̖̜͒̊ ̵͔̓̔Ȧ̷̡̜̬͙̹̾Ṇ̷̮̩̭͎̍̀̍̋̅͘D̶̯̄̂̓͛͌͠ ̸̹͇̭̈̈͐̈̀̂͜D̸͓̹̔͛̔͛̓͝͠Ȇ̷͉̞̄̂͒S̴̱͈̟̯̭̬̞͐̀̿͋͝͠T̴̨̳͔̺̫̣̝̿͋̒͗̀̎͝Ṛ̵̪̥͉͇͉̓͊͐̋̈́͛͘O̸̧̩̓͜Y̶͓̹̠̅̈ ̶̮̭̖̠͋̐̂́̋̅̕T̶͔̻̩̙͉̀̂̉͐̏̕H̸̡̛̯̥̭̔͌͐͂̉͜͝Ì̷̈́̉̀́͘ͅͅS̷͉̥̦̦̈́̂ͅͅ ̶̻͎̥̈́̔̓U̷̪̩̪̗͈̐̈̆̚̕N̵̩̠̻̻̟̈́̀̀Ī̶̢̛͖͍̹͐͛V̶̖͐͐͗͊̀͝Ȩ̶͙͇̹̝̤́̈̀R̴̡͚̠̞̼͉̔Ş̷̯̼̹͇̭͊É̶͉̗̫̭͍͌͌!̷̜͙͖̝͔͗̅͑͠͝ ̴͖͉͖͎͔̼̖̀̽̄̇̍A̸̧̬̝̝͗̌̒̉N̸̡̳̬͇̪̗͉͒̄̄̆͂͌D̸̺̱͍̘̠̝̒͐͌ ̶̹͈͑̆͐̍͝Y̸̫̙͚͉̥̑̈́͌͊̄͑̎O̸̰̼̮̺̎̉͛͆̾͐̉Ǘ̶͙̤̅͋̇̒̄̇ ̶̛̛̲̟̮̞͒̊̂S̸̡̛̙̬̰͎̀H̵̖̮̹̻̰̦̄̅͛̀A̷̯͍̰̚L̵̛̠͔̙̀͋̉̈L̶̘̤̦̜͑̔͜ ̸̻̿Ḑ̶̨͔́͝ͅI̵͔̙̤͇͕̐Ë̶̙̙̲͖̂͋̈͒̕ ̷̼͍̱̌̄̒̈́͜͠Î̸͇̲̇͝N̶͚̺̈̆̊̕͘ ̴̢͇͙͙̦̊̚D̴̲̫̦̥̘͕͔̓͒̑̇̌̐̕Ḛ̵̯̗̤͉̒͠S̷̹̮̮̱̫̗̓̉͝͝P̷̡͎̥̫̰͚̼̊A̵̼͌̍͝Î̷͚̤̠̥̖͉̽̅̃̚R̴̡̖͓̥͌̆̅̐͗̕͜ ̷̳̦̦͑͋Ą̴̮̬͓̹̄̿͗͊̊͝͠S̷̥͍͉̄́̈́́ ̸̬͋͒Y̴͙͈͑̂Ö̴̧̹̘̥̣̫́͆́̽U̵͕͍̳̝̦̇̾ ̷̟̠͍̿̃̄̆̌̑̎Ȗ̶͓̖̄̋͑̚͠N̶̤̽͌͑̎̕̚D̷̹̯̘̠̻̉̇̾͊E̵̢͆R̸̰̎̋̀̈͝Š̴̯͍͇̫͍̂͌͘ͅT̵̜͌͒̋͊Ḁ̴̠͓̺͙͍͖̈́̇̆N̷̡̘̯͓͌͝D̵̮͖̗̫͈̪̔́́ ̸̧̼̯̲̘͙̰͐͝͠T̵͔̝̦̼̟̦̊͆H̸̗͉̝́ͅÁ̶̞͔͚̀͋̋͑̒̕T̷̙̺͛̏͘ ̷̡̧͍͓͚̦̀A̴̹̟͌̕L̶̩̘̙̱̤͐͂͜ͅL̵̢̬̮̬̙̹̈́̉̌͆ ̷̪͛̑̎̃Y̵̞̦̹̜͑̋͒̉̍O̷̲̱͎̖̥̺͔̐͌͑̈́̍̈́U̵̞̼̪̦̬̬͋͋́͝ ̶̟̱̅̿̃͊͘D̷͕̱̍̉̾͗̃͘I̶͈̝̞̐̉̌̋͠D̷̻͙͉̓ ̸̘͕͓̲͓̿̀͒́̏͘͜W̵̫̣̖̗̓̔A̵̧̡̢̯̘̖̽͋̏S̷͚̩͔͕̋̔͂ ̷̨̘̿̓̈́̋̊F̷̳̼͗̔̚͠O̸͈̫̗̲̐͜R̷̫̄̏̈́͒̏͗ ̶̢̛͕̼̳̞̭̹̀̓͌̊̾̒N̷̹͈̗̻̰̈́̓̌͝Ŏ̸̧̄͐̍T̸̪̒̈̌̽Ḧ̶͕́̃͆͗͑̔ͅI̸̧̪̬͉̫̪̙͂͊̅̋̚͝N̴̳̱̭̩̍̄͛̉̃͝Ğ̸̟͎̟͖̱͛̃!̴̭̳̺̦̻̚"

"I won't let you!" Sweetie Belle yelled despite the terrible headache the voice was giving her before she fired a beam powerful enough to disintegrate the eye.

This only had for effect to make Crakkthulx laugh before the shaking returned. He used his tentacles to broaden the portal again, letting more of him come out, starting by what seemed to be the head.

Sweetie Belle had to teleport everybody back beside Peach, Stuffwell, and Starlow as the "space platform" was shattered. The tentacle with the eye revealed to only be the tip of the iceberg, so to say. It was part of what revealed to be Crakkthulx' "hair", made of more such tentacles, some with eyes, some without. As more and more of the head came out, it revealed to be almost as wide as the pentagon that served as the base of the Cankens' pyramid. It was almost spherical, with a single, giant eye taking the majority of the "face".

Then came the body, mountainous, rising and rising and rising, easily reaching over three miles of height. It started with a muscled humanoid torso with skin that looked like the one of an elephant, two herculean arms ending in eight-digits claws, and a pair of large wings like the ones of a dragon, so large that they obscured a huge portion of the sky. Then, below the torso, the body turned like the one of a squid, separating into countless tentacles that could topple the biggest skyscrapers without effort.

They forced everyone to retreat even further, on the cliffs surrounding the valley.

Once the last of his tentacles passed, the portal closed.

And Crakkthulx laughed.

"How are we gonna fight THAT?!" Bowser Jr. asked in panic.

Bowser pounded a fist into his palm. "I don't know, but as they say, the bigger they are, the harder they fall! I will just make the Magikoopas turn me giant again!"

"Even if ya turn giant, one of these tentacles could still crush ya like a bug!" Apple Bloom said.

"Do you have a better idea, Smartybone?!" Bowser asked.

"I could try to drop a sun on him but... it may not be enough..." Phantom thought aloud. "What do you think, Sweetie Belle? Sweetie B-"

Phantom looked at her side at Sweetie Belle only to be taken off guard as her alicorn friend suddenly took off and flew toward Crakkthulx.

Crakkthulx hadn't expected something like that, so he wasn't prepared as Sweetie Belle rammed into him and actually lifted him toward the sky.

"Ẁ̷̮͓Ḥ̶̫͍̰̰̫̉̎̈́̋Á̵͖̦͎̩̩̩͂́̍Ţ̶̬̭̟͖̺̄?̷̪͇̩̔̾̈́͐!̴̲̱̖̻̬́͐͆̐"

"Let's have a talk somewhere more private, okay?"

And at a speed nearing the one of light, she flew away from the planet with the god-like entity.

Chapter 72: Assault On Team Rainbow Rocket's Hideout

In a matter of seconds, they were back to Earth. During the brief time it took to travel, Sweetie Belle quickly explained to Rosalina what happened with the Cankens and Crakkthulx. Rosalina had actually heard about the story of the Cankens as well as of a few others like the Dark Star, and she was glad that she won't have to worry about them anymore.

Once the Observatory stopped above the atmosphere of the planet, Sweetie Belle teleported everyone (excepted the Lumas) to the surface, back on the cliff where the fillies last saw Mario and the others.

Who were in the middle of fighting each others. Apparently, Bowser thought that it was the occasion to return to his old habits and was trying to kidnap Peach. Of course, Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, the Kongs, and even Little Ghost and some other ghosts were stopping him, but the Koopa King was helped by his son and his troops. Wario and Waluigi just remained on the side, watching with disinterest. And E. Gadd had run away to not be caught in the fight.

In the middle of the action, nobody saw the fillies and Rosalina appear. When she saw what was going on, Apple Bloom facehoofed and groaned.

"Uuugh!!! Bowser! The world just got out of a crisis! Ya couldn't've waited at least one day?! Or even one. Freaking. HOUR?!"

Sweetie Belle let out a sigh. "Let me deal with this." She then teleported right in the middle of the fight between Mario and Bowser, making the two of them stop in surprise at her sudden appearance. Bowser stopping the fight caught the attention of others who also stopped, which caught the attention of even more and so on and so on. "Hey! Crakkthulx is dead and the universe is safe!"

"You were able to defeat that thing?" Luigi asked.

"With the help of my friends, yes," Sweetie Belle said as she pointed at Phantom and Apple Bloom.

"Woohoo! I knew you girls could do it!" Mario said.

"Yeah. That's great. I had the feeling that you would somehow pull it off," Bowser said.

"I suppose that it's why you thought that it was a good idea to attempt to kidnap Princess Peach again, am I right?"

Sweat appeared on Bowser's forehead. "Uhhh..."

"You know, after a whole night of fighting, I wouldn't mind some peace. So, how about you put your kidnapping attempt on hold so we can all return to our homes and have a good rest? I really need one."

"Y-you think that I will let a pipsqueak tell me what to do?!" Bowser shouted after some hesitation.

The next instant, he was punched in the face and sent flying out of his shell into the sky where he disappeared.

"Yes," Sweetie Belle answered before she looked at the Koopa Troops around. "Any objection?"

"Uh... Nono!"

"Not at all."

"No objection!"

"We're good."

"I was getting tired anyway."

"Great!" Sweetie Belle said before looked at the shell that Bowser left behind. "Mmh... I think that I will keep it as a souvenir. Could make a nice sled too."

"Ya may consider getting rid of the spikes then," Apple Bloom said.

Phantom huffed. "Seriously Apple Bloom?"

"I agree with Scootaloo! Removing the spikes would make it lame!" Little Ghost said.

"Because a giant turtle shell isn't already good enough?"

"A giant turtle shell with spikes is much better!"

"I see Apple Bloom's point. The spikes could hurt someone. But I'm sure that I can do something to make them less lethal. I don't want to remove them too," Sweetie Belle said.

While the fillies bickered, Peach approached Rosalina. "Rosalina! You are here too. You helped Apple Bloom and her friends in their fight?"

"I sadly wasn't able to. The scale of the fight was well above what I could do. But no help has been needed in the end. They were able to eliminate Crakkthulx without too much problems."

"That is impressive! Crakkthulx was the size of a mountain! I already knew that Apple Bloom had become very powerful after she became the new Spirit of Death of her dimension, but it seems that her new friends are not left out."

"That's an understatement. I saw them do feats that put to shame even the more powerful Stars."

"Will you remain a day or two?" Peach asked.

"Probably longer. I will offer my help and the Lumas' to rebuild."

"Thank you very much. We accept this offer."

All traces of the Cankens were destroyed. What remained of the pyramid-turned-pentacle and its unnatural black stone was disintegrated by Sweetie Belle.

After that, using the airships that Sweetie Belle repaired, everyone agreed to return to the Mushroom Kingdom to have some rest, the Koopa Troops returning to their castle. Bowser Jr., Kamec, and the Koopalings took a different direction as they first went to find Bowser wherever he landed. Wario and Waluigi also just decided upon arrival to the Mushroom Kingdom to go in their way, probably to sleep in an inn. Rosalina also returned to her Observatory.

Apple Bloom sent Little Ghost to warn her family and friends that she won't come home right away, and also to tell the good news about the Cankens' defeat and Crakkthulx's death.

Apple Bloom also informed Sweetie Belle that she didn't have to worry about any time difference between this world and Equestria. Discord used his powers to ensure that it was the same in both world.

"He can do that?"

"Ya didn't know?"

"I guess that I never thought to ask."

"But he can't abuse it. It really tired him out when he did it."

"Well, now, we have three Discord, so I'm sure that it won't be that much of a problem anymore."

After that, they went to sleep.

Because the night had been well advanced by the time they fell asleep, almost dawn, everyone slept until well after noon the next day. Then, once they woke up, and after a nice breakfast (or late lunch), Sweetie Belle thought that it was a good time to tell the locals why she was here in the first place. She hadn't gotten the occasion, first because of Bowser, then because of the Cankens. And for the next days, they will certainly be busy rebuilding all that had been destroyed because of the Cankens and the battles against them, so it was now or never (or at least not until the next time she would visit this world).

But first, as Rosalina and a few Lumas floated down from the sky, Sweetie Belle teleported to New Donk City to bring Cranky and the other Kongs as well as Pauline to the Mushroom Kingdom. The Kongs was mostly to reunite them with DK, Diddy, and Dixie while Pauline was because Peach wanted her to be present for the talks about rebuilding since New Donk City was hit pretty badly because of the terrible battle that happened there. For a similar reason, Sweetie Belle also teleported to Sarasaland to bring Daisy.

Secretly, Sweetie Belle understood that it was also because Peach wanted to have a nice day with her friends after last night's events.

And she was glad for this as it meant that there will be more people, leaders even, to listen to her when she will talk. The more the better.

She also went to Starven to give the Elemenstars to the Elder Star Sprites who would certainly know what to do with them.

Once everything was ready, she and her friends joined the princesses and mayor as well as the Mario Brothers, the Kongs, Starlow, E. Gadd and Stuffwell, and Toadsworth.

"Ahem!" Toadsworth cleared his throat. "Now that the Canken Crisis is over, thanks to the combined actions of our heroes and even of rivals and enemies, it is time to talk about the afterm-"

"Sorry to interrupt," Sweetie Belle suddenly said. "But before we broach this topic, I have something to say. It is about why I originally came to visit this world before the Cankens appeared."

"It wasn't just for a visit?" Mario asked.

"There is that," Sweetie Belle answered. "but there is another reason." And she proceeded to explain everything.

"Come on Superfish, use Water Pulse!" Scootaloo shouted.

Despite being stuck in a Bind, Superfish, Scootaloo's Goldeen who evolved into a Seaking during the battle against Team Rainbow Rocket in Mt. Moon, sent a pulsating blast of water at Brock's Onix. The attack hit the giant stone serpent right on the face and sent it on the ground, freeing the fish from its Bind.

The Onix was out.

"And you win," Brock said. "Not a surprise."

"Heck yeah!" Scootaloo pumped her leg in victory before she went to hug Superfish. "You were awesome Superfish! I knew you could do it!"

Brock approached her, giving her a grey badge that looked like a boulder. "Here is your badge. You deserve it. That was a good fight."

Scootaloo took the badge with stars in her eyes. "Ohmygosh! Thanks!" She then called Superfish back into her Poké Ball and ran toward her friends who watched the battle and were in the process of congratulating her. "I have my first badge! I have my first badge! You saw that?"

"Yeah, we saw that! That was awesome!" Rainbow Dash said as Scootaloo reached her and gave her a hug. "Now, it's my turn!"

"What? Ah thought it was mah turn!" Applejack said.

"I don't remember that," Rainbow Dash countered.

"Hum..." Brock cut in. "My Pokémon need rest after these two fights, so how about you take this time to discuss this? Then we will battle in... one hour?"

The two mares agreed.

While they talked, Scootaloo showed her new badge to Apple Bloom. "Now, we both have one!"

Apple Bloom took her own badge. "Ah can't wait ta show it to Sweetie Belle."

"Oh boy, she will be jealous! She was supposed to be the first one to get one!"

"Ah wonder if we'd try ta get a second badge."

"Would we even have time? Spring Break must already be almost over in Equestria."

"Uh... Ah don't remember... What was the time ratio between this world and Equestria, again?"

"One day in this world equals a bit less than five days in ours," Twilight, hearing them, answered. "You girls still have until... around tomorrow noon before you have to return for school."

"Thanks! So this should give us enough time to get a second badge," Scootaloo said.

"The one in Cerulean City, just after Mt. Moon, is the closest if Ah remember correctly. But it's a Water-type specialist Gym, so it won't be at yer advantage again," Apple Bloom informed.

"Well, thankfully, I have Speedy so it shouldn't be a problem. I will just need to train him a bit before."

"Without forgetting the Grass-types ya got in Viridian Forest."

"Of course."

Suddenly, Brock received a call that he immediately answered after seeing who was calling.

"What is it, Gold?"

...

"Really?"

...

"Very well. I'm gathering backups and we're coming," Brock finished before he ended the call and turned to the ponies. "We found the Rockets' hideout."

"Already?" Spike asked.

"The Rockets suddenly massively attacked Hoenn, from Mt. Chimney to the Seafloor Cavern, led by Maxie and Archie. The Hoenn League managed to push them back with the help of Team Aqua and Team Magma, and Ruby was able to put a tracker on a grunt before they teleported away. And it turns out that the Rockets' hideout, or at least one of them, is on some random island in the ocean just South of Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn. As such, the three regions are preparing a coordinated assault, with all the Gym Leaders, Elite 4 members, and Champions involved, and as many trainer volunteers as possible. The volunteers must have at least two badges however. They don't want to take any risk.

"Darn. This means that we won't be able to participate," Scootaloo complained.

"We wouldn't have allowed you to join the fight anyway," Twilight said. "I know that children tend to accomplish miracles in this world, but who knows what will await us in this hideout. In the worst case scenario, we could end up fighting the whole pantheon of this world. And this means that you won't come too, Spike."

The dragon sighed. "Alright..."

"I doubt that we will encounter all the leaders there," Brock pointed out. "But just a few legendaries would already be pretty bad. Maxie and Archie will probably be there. We know that Maxie has Groudon, and Gold reported to me that Archie used Kyogre in his battle against Ruby."

"Wow. Between Kyogre and Groudon, the weather must have been pretty crazy over there during the battle," Twilight said.

"I can only imagine. Battles between Kyogre and Groudon are known to be apocalyptic, and that's not counting when Rayquaza intervenes," Brock said. "And if Maxie and Archie are present, with Ruby coming, then we will find ourselves with two Groudons potentially ending up fighting each other."

"Oh boy, this will be one heck of a battle!" Pinkie shouted excitedly.

"Are you sure you want to come?" Brock asked the mares. "Half of you don't even have Pokémon, and the ones who have don't even have a badge yet."

"That may be the case, but this isn't the first time that we end up in a battle," Twilight said.

"Yeah, we know how to fight," Rainbow Dash confirmed as she did a few jabs with her front legs.

"As unladylike as it is, I confirm," Rarity added. "I can throw some punches if needed. And while I am not as proficient in it as Twilight, my magic could be useful."

"Hum... As much as I would like to come with you... I... I would prefer remaining here. If that's okay with you," Fluttershy then timidly said. "I could keep an eye on Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Spike."

"Of course, Sugarcube, we understand," Applejack reassured.

Brock gave them a nod. "Very well then. But you will be careful, alright?"

The mares nodded.

Soon enough, Brock spread the news, and a team of volunteers was quickly formed. After that, they quickly traversed Kanto until reaching Vermilion City, a port, where everyone that will participate to the assault against Team Rainbow Rocket was gathering and embarking onto a ship prepared for that. It was here that the ponies got to meet the other Gym Leaders as well as two of the Elite 4 members, Surge and Sabrina, who decided to embark here while the two others were embarking in Olivine City, in Johto, along with Gold.

Red was also present, of course, which reassured many trainers and even some of the Gym Leaders.

Many were curious about the ponies but weren't surprised as the news about them had already spread.

After a few hours, the ship left the port with everyone onboard and started its journey to the island where the Rockets' hideouts was supposed to be. On the way, they were quickly joined by the ship from Johto, and then, a bit later, by the ships from Hoenn.

Three ships actually came from Hoenn. One of them transported members of the Hoenn League as well as the trainers who accepted to come. A second transported the members of Team Magma, with their emblem having been quickly painted on it. The third ship was actually a blue submarine modeled to look like a Sharpedo, a shark Pokémon, with Team Aqua's emblem (a white skull-and-crossbone in the shape of a "A").* Obviously, it transported the members of Team Aqua.

The rest of the journey was uneventful. Many, however, felt more and more tense as the ships approached the island. Team Aqua even went underwater just in case the Rockets had an underwater ambush ready. And to make things worse, as they neared the island, a mountain visible in the horizon, a storm started. Not to the point that giant waves suddenly appeared to overturn the boats, but the vision became very limited.

"Just our luck..." Applejack said.

"Pfff, come on! I understand that the weather isn't controlled in this world, but don't they have attacks that allow to change it? What are they waiting to do it?" Rainbow Dash wondered.

"This storm isn't natural," Red told her. "I think that I know what is its origin, and I don't think that a simple attack will be enough to get us rid of it."

Some of the ponies gulped. "You mean...?" Twilight hesitantly began before she was interrupted by someone.

"SOMEONE IS ON THE WATER! AND I'M NOT KIDDING! THEY'RE STANDING ON THE WATER!" the vigil shouted to be heard through the storm.

Among several exclamations of "What the heck?" or others, everyone went to the bow of the ship to see who it was.

And right there, as the vigil said, someone was standing on the water. The crews of the ships quickly pointed lights at him to reveal who he was.

It was a bearded man in a blue full body swimsuit possessing a golden necklace with an anchor and a short ragged black cape connected to a gold chain around his waist. He also had a light blue bandanna with a familiar emblem: a white skull-and-crossbone in the shape of a "A".

The man was just standing there, feet in the water, arms crossed and with a confident smirk despite being alone against all of them.

"IT'S ARCHIE!!!" someone shouted from the Team Magma ship.

Team Aqua's submarine then emerged before one of the grunts came out. "WATCH OUT! HE'S ON-"

He didn't have time to finish however as whatever Archie was standing on emerged too, revealing itself to be some kind of deep blue whale or giant orca-like Pokémon with two huge fins that ended in square-shaped claws. It had a white chin area as well as white stripes on its belly near the tail, white spots above its eyes, and white extremities on its fins. Its body was partially translucent with a bio-luminescent golden light emitting from inside. It also had circular marks both on its fins and on its forehead, as well as lines that were generally blue excepted the ones on its black that were translucent. finally, it had a tattered tail that separated into four trails, each with a line in the middle glowing like the rest of the body.

Not only was it HUGE, but it also possessed razor-sharp teeth that it showed very clearly.

And Archie was standing on its back, his smirk growing.

"As I thought..." Red muttered. "Kyogre. In its Primal form. That's bad. We're in its element."

"Wh-What can we do?" Twilight asked as the ponies looked worriedly at the legendary Pokémon that could destroy the world by flooding it if it wanted. And this time, Sweetie Belle wasn't present to deal with it like she dealt with Groudon.

Red smiled reassuringly at her. "Don't worry, we have it."

"Eheheheh. I'm afraid that I can't let you go any further, my friends," Archie then said before he eyed Team Magma's ship and Team Aqua's submarine. "Team Aqua and Team Magma working together. And Team Aqua isn't even trying to expand the seas. What kind of crazy dimension am I in? Bah, it doesn't matter. No matter who you are, if you are opposing Team Rainbow Rocket, then you are my enemies. Team Rainbow Rocket promised me to help me spread my ideals to as many world as I want, to free as many of them from human civilization as possible. How could I have refused? Even if it means that I have to work with that idiot Maxie," he said the last part with visible annoyance. "So. I'm sorry, but it's time for you to disappear in the depths of the ocean. Kyogre! Use Surf!"

With a terrible sound similar to the one of a whale that the ponies understood as "Yes, Master!" Kyogre answered before he created a giant wave that he rid on, the wave advancing toward the ships.

The majority of the people on the ships began to panic. But in the middle of it, both Red and Ruby threw a ball, calling out Articuno and the legendary titan ice golem known as Regice. Immediately knowing what to do, they fired their most powerful Ice Beam at the wave, causing ice to spread from the impact points. In just a few seconds, the wave was frozen, and it didn't stop as the ice spread all over the ocean, around the boats, around the island, and until reaching the horizon.

"Holy Arceus!" a trainer shouted.

"Legendaries are scary!" another shouted.

Kyogre had no problem freeing itself from the ice, with Archie on its back visibly trying to control his temper.

"So you want to do it the old way, uh?" he asked.

Ruby, grinning, sent out another Pokémon: Primal Groudon. As it appeared, it made a small island rise out of the water to land on it. Then, seeing Kyogre, its eternal rival, it roared at it, which Kyogre answered.

With Groudon's appearance, the weather began to alternate between storm and intense sun.

"You can say that," Ruby then said. "We didn't really finish our battle in Hoenn, so how about we settle it?"

Archie wasn't as certain of his chances now. But then he saw Maxie being Teleported on the ice not far at his right.

"So much for not needing help," Maxie said before he called his own Primal Groudon who also created a small island to land on.

"I had the situation well in hand!" Archie shouted at him.

"Really?" Maxie asked with a raised eyebrow. "I always knew you had a poor judgment, but I didn't think it was that poor."

"We're in the middle of the freaking ocean! Kyogre's domain! There's no way I would have lost even if they outnumbered me!"

The Maxie who was a friend was looking at the two arguing from the bow of his ship and rubbed his face with a sigh. "I can't believe we were that bad."

"We still are!" friendly Archie shouted from his submarine with a chuckle, much to Maxie's annoyance.

Meanwhile, Red, Gold, and Ruby exchanged smirks before they sent out more of their Pokémon. Thus, Red sent out the two other Legendary Bird, Gold sent out Lugia, Ho-Oh, as well as the three Legendary Beasts, and Ruby sent out Regirock, Registeel, the red humanoid alien Pokémon known as Deoxys, and the green, giant, flying, serpentine Pokémon known as Rayquaza, which Ruby then proceeded to Mega Evolve before jumping on its back.

This caused Archie and Maxie to stop arguing, the two now rethinking their choices. Even their Kyogre and Groudon didn't feel as certain as before, especially when they looked at Rayquaza.

"How can they have so many freaking Legendaries?" Archies asked.

Maxie didn't have any answer to give.

Ruby laughed at their faces. "You should have called your friends! And be lucky that Dawn isn't here!"

"You aren't calling Mewtwo?" Blue asked to Red.

Red answered with a shake of his head. "I'm keeping him for later just in case."

Meanwhile, Gold also jumped, getting on Ho-Oh's back before he looked at the ships. "Lugia, levitate the ships to the island."

"Deoxys, help Lugia," Ruby instructed to his Pokémon.

The two Pokémon did so, levitating the ships out of the ice and toward the island with their psychic powers.

"I leave it to you," Red said to the birds as Kanto's ship passed beside them, and the birds nodded.

Archie and Maxie didn't attempt to stop them. They knew it was no use as they stared at the small army of Legendaries that faced them.

"Get ready everyone!" Blue shouted. "I have the feeling that these two were just the first line of defense!"

At his words, many trainers grabbed a Poké Ball, readying themselves to call their Pokémon as the ships slowly lowered toward the beach of the island.

Author's Note

I'm cutting the chapter here. It was starting to take too long and, well, did I say how much the Pokémon Universe is difficult to write? Especially the battles? Well, as you can guess, the next chapter is my hell... :fluttershbad: I already started it, but I want to bang my head against a wall.

*Funny story. Team Magma stole the submarine, and Archie found it intolerable that Team Magma got to have a submarine while Team Aqua was supposed to be the sailors. So Archie decided after the events of the game to build his own submarine (while Team Magma gave the submarine they stole back).

Chapter 73: Battle In The Hideout!

Under the weather constantly alternating between storm and harsh sun because of Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre, Lugia and Deoxys carefully dropped the ships on the beach. Everyone then disembarked, generally by jumping from the ships on the back of a Pokémon. The trainers and members of Team Aqua and Magma then gathered in front of the ex-Champions, Elite 4 members, Gym Leaders, and even Maxie and Archie (the Champions, Gold and Ruby, being busy fighting Parallel Archie and Parallel Maxie back in the ocean).

All of the top of the top of the three regions were present, even Steven, ex-Champion of Hoenn. Many ex-Gym Leaders and ex-Elite 4 members could also be spotted in the crowd of trainers facing them. Like Sweetie Belle, Twilight made sure to read everything about them and felt honestly a bit overwhelmed by so many people with really powerful teams of Pokémon being gathered here, and she was wondering if, in the end, the ponies will be needed.

"We will separate into groups," Peter began. "While we determined that the Rockets have a hideout in this island, we don't know where the entrance is. So we will have to spread all over the island to search for it. However, their grunts are probably ready to ambush us, and who knows what kind of traps they have prepared."

"That's why each group will have at least an ex-Champion or an Elite 4 member at their head," Drake, an old man who was an ancient sailor and an Elite 4 member of Hoenn who was also a specialist of the Dragon-type, said. "And minimum two Gym Leaders."

Twilight thought it weird that an ancient sailor would specialise in Dragon-type and not in Water-type like expected. She supposed that she shouldn't judge someone's team on their archetype. Sailors weren't all Water specialists (but most of them were).

As the trainers formed the groups, the ponies decided to remain together and to follow Red who chose Misty as well as a Gym Leader of Johto, a girl named Whitney, to follow him.

Of course, the Gym Leaders brought their best teams, some of which could rival with an Elite 4 member.

Red then let his Pikachu out of his Poké Ball before the group of around two dozens trainers plus some members of Team Aqua and Team Magma plus the ponies took a random direction and moved out of the beach.

The island seemed to be a classic one. Beyond the beach was a dense jungle with a mountainous area at the center.

Perfect setting for ambushes and traps, and to hide an hideout.

And sure enough, after a few minutes of walk, at least three dozens Rocket grunts came out of hiding from behind trees and bushes and called out their Pokémon. The trainers remarked that most of the grunts now had at least one Master Ball.

Red's Pikachu immediately went into action doing what he did best: being a slippery little rodent. Using Quick Attack helped by a Double Team to create illusory copies to disorient the enemies, Pikachu zip-zapped around randomly, bouncing off the ground or from trees at incredible speed. Then, he charged at a huge green dinosaur-like Pokémon known as a Tyranitar and used Iron Tail on its face, the giant Pokémon falling unconscious right away before the electric mouse went to repeat his actions. In the few seconds it took for the other trainers to react and call their own Pokémon, several Pokémon from the grunts were already out, and the grunts themselves were starting to panic.

They had clearly underestimated Red.

Misty and Whitney still quickly went to deal with what Pikachu was weak to, like Ground-type Pokémon, and the remaining trainers quickly followed. Twilight herself began to fire magical beams, not at the Pokémon, but at the grunts while Rainbow Dash charged into a big bird Pokémon that looked like a fusion between a crow and a knight known as a Corviknight. Pinkie then began to divert the Pokémon by playing hide and seek behind the trees, opening them to the others.

Whitney's Miltank - a pink cow-like Pokémon - rapidly revealed to be a real beast, almost on par with Pikachu. She would use Attract on any male Pokémon so they would be too busy being infatuated by her to attack, and then, she would use the most effective move to deal heavy damage. And when needed, she used Milk Drink to heal herself. Most enemy Pokémon couldn't do anything before they were knocked out. Why wasn't she a member of the Elite 4?

Misty wasn't left out. While her team consisted only of Water-type Pokémon, most of them had various secondary types, making it a motley team that could face almost any enemy. While none of them were as scarily strong as Pikachu or Miltank, she was sweeping the enemy Pokémon like a tsunami. However, she had some difficulties because of the weather still alternating between rain and harsh sun. When it rained, Water-type moves were more effective, but when the sun was present, all Water-type moves failed.

And this happened to ALL Pokémon with Water-type moves, vice versa for Pokémon with Fire-type moves. Rain also gave Pikachu a big advantage as it allowed one of his most powerful electric attacks, Thunder, to be 100% accurate.

As for the trainers, with all of them having minimum two badges, they were better prepared and had less problems facing the grunts than back in Mt. Moon. The trainers with the weaker teams still needed to go two to one against most grunts however, so Red sent his Dragonite to support them. And at least, they all thought to bring dozens of potions and revives and even stuff against stat effects while the grunts only had a few at best.

Twilight levitated some kind of tortoise-like Pokémon which had for shell a boulder known as a Golem and threw it into a Butterfree before she flew up to avoid several projectiles of different elements sent at her. While she was flying, a grey bird known as an Unfezant tried to claw her but the alicorn easily sent it crashing into a tree before she fired a beam into the ground in the middle of a group of enemy Pokémon, making it undulate in a wide area which destabilized the Pokémon and even caused a tree to fall on one of them. But then, a Vine Whip from some Grass Pokémon she couldn't see wrapped itself around one of her legs and pulled her down to crash on the ground where more Pokémon waited for her. She quickly put a shield around herself before they could attack, and then watched as Red's Pikachu came to her rescue and knocked out all the Pokémon in just a few seconds.

To think that Sweetie Belle managed to defeat this little guy...

"Thank you, Pikachu!"

"You're welcome, Princess!" Pikachu exclaimed happily with a smile.

Twilight remarked the sudden silence around her and looked to see that they had won the battle. All the Rocket grunts and their Pokémon were now unconscious, and the trainers were now in the process of healing their teams. Applejack and Rarity were among the ones being healed, Applejack having some cuts and Rarity being drenched from head to tail (and she was very annoyed and grumpy as a result). Rainbow Dash also had a small burn that she took from an electric attack, but she waved it off as being nothing and told anyone wanting to heal her to spare their potions for Pokémon that really needed them.

But in the distance, everyone could hear battles still happening. The other groups were attacked too.

Twilight removed her shield and approached Red. "Should we go help the other groups?"

Red shook his head. "No need. I trust in the others. We must advance to search the entrance of the hideout." Then, he looked up at the sky, remarking something as the sun let place to a storm again. "Why is the weather still chaotic? Shouldn't their battle have ended by now?"

For what was probably the tenth time, Archie's Primal Kyogre fell unconscious, floating upside down in the water, and the leader of Team Aqua quickly grabbed a Max Revive and used it to restore it back to full health.

"Oh come on!" Ruby shouted. "How many Max Revives and Full Restores do you guys still have?!"

"A lot," Maxie answered with all the seriousness that he could muster as he and Archie were being utterly slaughtered by the team of Legendaries they were facing.

"Now I know what it feels like to face an adversary who spams Potions and Revives..." said a very annoyed Gold.

"I will have to say sorry to a lot of people once this is over..." Ruby said ashamedly.

"Same..."

Red's group advanced further into the jungle, not encountering any other Team Rocket grunts. However, the grunts were replaced by something worse.

Red threw a stone that ended up being zapped by some trap put into two trees that shot bolts of electricity. To put it simply, not unlike in Mauville City's Gym in Hoenn, pylons were placed to form electric barriers. But here, the pylons were hidden inside trees with small holes to let the bolts of electricity out the only indication of their presence. The trees were fake and totally non-flammable but they really looked like real trees so it was almost impossible to tell the difference, and the electric barriers themselves only activated when someone or something passed between the two pylons.

And it wasn't a small zap. Being hit by one of these bolts of electricity was like being hit by a Thunder.

And to make things worse, hidden under grass and leaves were tiles that launched in the direction indicated by the arrow anyone walking on them while also making them spin uncontrollably. Some of these tiles pointed right toward electrical barriers while others simply sent their victims to crash into trees or brambles, or even into the river when they passed beside one (Rarity happened to fall victim to that last one. If this continued, she would become aquaphobe. It hadn't helped that the water had been full of Carvanha which were piranha-like Pokémon).

Each time that they encountered an electric barrier, they destroyed it, ensuring that nobody else would end up shocked by it if the other groups passed by the same path.

And eventually, the group reached a cliff at the base of a mountain in the center of the island, with a cavern.

"Who is ready to bet that the entrance to the hideout is in there?" a trainer asked.

"Let's be careful. There could be other traps," Misty warned.

Surprisingly, the only trap encountered was another electric barrier at the entrance of the cavern. Further into it, the stone walls left place to metal ones, confirming that it was the entrance they searched.

Red immediately sent the word through his phone to the other groups.

Coincidentally, at the same time, he received words from Sabrina's group that they found another entrance, a secret one, which was an elevator hidden inside a tree.

Darn, this meant that they may have passed beside such a secret entrance without knowing. At least, this prompted the other groups to look more closely to the trees. And soon enough, they received more words of secret elevators being found. A group even found one inside a boulder.

It seemed that the hideout spanned a good part of the underground of the island.

Sabrina then sent a warning that her group encountered more Team Rocket grunts (not as many as when they were ambushed), meaning that there were certainly more of them in there.

And sure enough, as they entered a room with more of these arrow tiles forming a maze, they encountered Rocket grunts. Pikachu was able to knock out two of them before they could even call their Pokémon. The group however had to fight the remaining ones and their Pokémon, including some Ultra Beasts this time, while being careful of the arrow tiles. More than once, a Pokémon had the misfortune of stepping onto a tile in the middle of a fight and ended up launched in some direction while spinning. Even Applejack stepped on one and ended up crashing into a Lucario. Pinkie however, without surprise, turned it into a game. At least, the Rockets and their Pokémon also fell victim of these tiles, but not as often and even used them to their advantage by pushing the trainers' Pokémon onto them. A Magmortar even willingly went on one of them so it could move rapidly and spin while using Flamethrower which was very effective even if it hit some of its allies. But the trainers quickly learned and returned their strategies against them.

Once all the grunts were defeated, the group was free to advance (once they passed the maze of arrow tiles). In the maze of hallways and rooms that followed, the group encountered more grunts as well as many traps, and not just the electric barriers this time. There were turrets that sent fire and tiles that opened into trapdoors, those last ones causing many unlucky trainers to be separated from the group. Thankfully, the trapdoors only led to lower floors, nothing like pits with spikes at the bottom. Eventually, the group reached a staircase that led down, but there was also a staircase that led to an upper floor. Considering that they were in a mountain, it wasn't surprising.

The big of the hideout really was in the underground of the island. Red hadn't stopped receiving reports from the other groups telling how they found storerooms full of stuff Team Rainbow Rocket stole in their raids. Many grunts were also present down there, including none other than the Team Rocket Admins. Steven's group thus had an encounter with Executive Proton, Phoebe's group was in the middle of battling Executive Petrel, and Lt. Surge's group just managed to defeat Executive Ariana.

No trace of Archer for now however. He may be in the upper floors. Or he may not be in the hideout at all.

Red decided that they should go to the upper floors. Maybe there was something important under the pic of the mountain. Maybe whatever they had been searching in Mt. Moon and in the other places.

So they climbed the staircase to the upper floor to explore here, all the while listening to the news from the other groups. The groups encountered and fought more and more grunts, a real army. Some of them had teams so powerful that they gave even Gym Leaders problems. The Admins themselves had given troubles to Lt. Surge and Phoebe.

They found mainly storerooms full of what the Rockets stole in their raids and other objects like hundreds of potions of all kinds, and barracks for the grunts. There were also some arenas where the Rockets probably trained their teams by fighting each others, and even a couple of self-made Pokémon Centers with all the equipment to heal Pokémon. And of course, there were all the rooms that just contained traps to either slow down or hurt the trainers.

Red's group, however, seemed to have taken the right decision by taking the stairs to the upper floors. The grunts here were particularly nasty, easily the elite that Team Rainbow Rocket had to offer. Still nothing for Red's Pikachu and Dragonite, but they were making short work of most of the trainers' teams. Only the trainers who had at least seven badges as well as Misty and Whitney were able to fight them with some efficiency. A lot of healing items were used as the group climbed floor after floor.

Twilight was happy to be an alicorn, because she was sure she would have reached her limit by now if she had still been an unicorn with all the powerful magic she used to fight. The same couldn't be said for her friends however. Especially Rarity who really wasn't used to that much action. But Rainbow Dash and Applejack were starting to breathe heavily, and even Pinkie Pie was slowing down. Applejack was almost knocked out by a Crobat at one point, and Rainbow Dash had had all the pain in the world fighting a particularly powerful Garchomp.

Eventually, they reached and passed what seemed to be the quarters of the leaders as the rooms were better decorated. But the hideout didn't end here so they continued.

And then, they reached a door to a room that was open with a small group of grunts in front of it with none other than Archer among them, easily recognisable as he was wearing a white uniform in contrast of the usually black uniform and he had short blue hair. Three grunts then ran out of the room, each transporting in their arms a covered object that seemed rather flat and rectangular. The three grunts ran further down into the hallway, away from Red's group, toward another staircase.

Archer and his group, however, remained behind to face Red's group.

"Go ahead Red, we will take care of them," Misty said. "Whatever they took, they must be important and we must get them before they get away."

Red agreed and ran toward the group of Rockets. Surprisingly, Archer didn't stop him and let him pass with his Pokémon.

Fearing that Red was running into a trap, Twilight teleported behind the group of Rockets and ran after the ex-Champion, trusting her friends and the others to deal with Archer and the grunts.

They climbed the stairs.

And came out on top of the mountain, in a large flattened area from which the whole island could be seen.

The weather was still alternating between intense rain and harsh sun.

The three grunts they chased were now facing someone. The next instant, an energy appeared on them, and the three grunts disappeared in a flash with what they had, leaving behind whoever they had been facing.

The figure revealed to be a middle-aged man who was medium built. He had short, flat, dark hair and was entirely clothed in black excepted for a white undershirt. Finally, he had an insignia with the rainbow R of Team Rainbow Rocket on the heart area.

Red approached the man who simply remained where he was standing while he watched, hands behind his back, and Twilight carefully followed.

Once he was close enough, Red stopped.

"Giovanni... It has been a long time."

Giovanni gave a small smirk at Red's words. "I wish that I could say the same thing, but I personally never encountered you. But I know who you are, Red. I heard a lot about you. In this world, you defeated me when you were just a ten years old kid. I would say that it is preposterous, but it wasn't that long ago that, in a different world, a kid about the same age managed to put a wrench in my plans despite everything I made him face. Speaking of, this kid also exists in this world. Current Champion of Alola. But I'm not worrying. This time, I'm prepared." He grabbed a Poké Ball, which was actually a Master Ball, like all the others he had. "How about I show you?"

And he threw the ball, out of which came a Dugtrio, a Pokémon almost entirely buried in the earth so only its three brown heads were visible.

With a simple look, Red made Twilight understand to remain out of this before he sent Dragonite.

Dragonite being a Dragon/Flying-type, it had absolute advantage over the Dugtrio because Ground-type moves were totally ineffective against Flying-type Pokémon.

But it didn't mean that the fight was already won.

"Dugtrio! Use Stone Edge!"

Dragonite was weak to Rock-type moves...

Sharpened stones appeared around the Dugtrio and were sent toward Dragonite who quickly sidestepped and moved to dodge them, a few of them grazing its scales.

Dragonite then countered with Ice Beam which immediately knocked out the Dugtrio who was frozen solid, and Giovanni called it back into its Poké Ball.

"Not bad. You deserve your reputation. Nidoking!" He threw another Poké Ball out of which came a Nidoking. "Ice Beam!"

Dragonite barely had time to react and could just place an arm in the way of the beam, the arm ending up frozen. Dragonite countered with Ice Beam too, again, while he smashed the frozen arm on the ground to free it from the ice. The Nidoking was able to dodge the Ice Beam, but was surprised by Dragonite charging at it before using Aqua Tail (it was raining, thankfully) which hit it violently on the chest, propelling it on its back. Nidoking was still conscious and quickly attempted to get up with some difficulty, but Dragonite didn't let it and fired another Ice Beam.

Giovanni called back his now unconscious Pokémon and sent a Nidoqueen.

"Ice Beam!" he shouted.

This time, Dragonite was able to dodge the beam and fired back its own Ice Beam which the Nidoqueen dodged too. Dragonite attempted to repeat what it did earlier and charged at the Nidoqueen while preparing an Aqua Tail.

"Ice Punch on the tail!"

The Nidoqueen did as ordered and was able to stop the Aqua Tail by punching it, freezing the tail by the same occasion, only to receive in return an Ice Punch too followed by Dragonite using the currently harsh sun to send a Fire Punch. However, because of Nidoqueen's ability Poison Point, Dragonite got poisoned. Despite this, Dragonite slapped Nidoqueen with its frozen tail, breaking the ice and sending the Nidoqueen crashing on its back, out.

Next came a Rhyperior, a large bipedal rhinoceros-like Pokémon with skin made of rock with orange plates on the head, shoulders, and around the waist. The tail also ended in a small boulder.

Dragonite immediately used Aqua Tail, but Giovanni ordered the Rhyperior to use Ice Fang, making it bite the tail. It still received damage, but it was lessened, and Dragonite now had its tail stuck in the Rhyperior's mouth. Giovanni then quickly ordered it to use both Stone Edge and Ice Punch at the same time, dealing heavy damage to Dragonite who was knocked out.

So Red sent Pikachu.

Giovanni grinned, thinking that this one will be easy. "Earthquake."

But to his surprise, Pikachu dodged the Earhquake by jumping high before he fell back toward the Rhyperior and used Iron Tail on its face, knocking it out right away.

Giovanni was surprised, but he quickly came over it before he called back the Phyperior and sent his next Pokémon.

A Garchomp.

"Bulldoze!"

Garchomp stomped on the ground, but Pikachu easily jumped above the shockwave before he began to use Quick Attack to rapidly move around his adversary. Garchomp attempted to follow him with its eyes, but failed which annoyed it to the point that it attempted to hit Pikachu with Dragon Claw without even waiting Giovanni's order. It missed, of course, and Garchomp received an Iron Tail in the face for it which angered it even more.

"Continue to use Bulldoze! A shockwave should eventually get it!" Giovanni shouted.

So Garchomp began to repeatedly stomp the ground, sending shockwave after shockwave. One of them managed to hit Pikachu because the electric mouse landed right on it, but it wasn't enough to knock him out so he continued. However, instead of continuing to jump around with Quick Attack, he jumped right on Garchomp's head and repeatedly hit it with Iron Tail from here while also using Brick Break. Pikachu eventually had to jump away when Garchomp smashed its head into the ground to get him.

Garchomp then continued to use Bulldoze, but this quickly turned into a Stomping Tantrum.

But then Pikachu used Dig, avoiding the attack, and came out of the ground like a bullet, headbutting Garchomp in the stomach.

Garchomp clutched its stomach and growled at Pikachu before it fell, unconscious.

Giovanni called it back.

"For you to defeat my team with just two Pokémon... Including a Pikachu, of all things. And you didn't even have to give orders. You truly are a Master. I didn't expect less from the boy who stopped me. That was a truly intense battle. Now I really which that I encountered you in my world. I wonder why you never showed up. Maybe you were stillborn? Or maybe you died from some accident. Or maybe you simply never got interested in becoming a Pokémon trainer for some reason." The man had a wishful expression at this.

Red frowned. "You still have a sixth Pokémon."

"Eh. True." Giovanni grabbed his last Ball. "Time to pull off the kiddy gloves. Go! Mewtwo!"

Out of the Master Ball came Mewtwo.

But it looked different than the Mewtwo Red and Twilight knew.

Instead of being grey with a purple tail, it was black with a light grey, almost white tail, and the two small blunt horns were sharper and were also light grey. Also, its eyes glowed red.

Also, it had two rings with a Mega Stone.

And, grinning, Giovanni rolled up a bit his sleeves to reveal two Mega Rings, each with a Key Stone. He then crossed his arms to press the two Key Stones at once, making the two Mega Stones in Mewtwo's rings glow.

And Mewtwo transformed.

Mewtwo gained all the characteristics of its Mega-Evolved Y form like the tail coming from the back of the head, but to them were added the ones of its X form. It kept its normal tail, gained bulkier arms and legs with raised ridges, and gained large light grey growths on the shoulders. The fingers on both its hands and feet also became light grey, but remained closer to the ones it normally had than the ones it had in its Y form.

With its transformation over, it hovered above the ground, arms spread, a huge quantity of power emanating from it.

Author's Note

I always wondered why people assumed in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon that Giovanni, boss of Team Rainbow Rocket, was the same that we fought in Pokémon Red/Blue/Green/FireRed/LeafGreen when it clearly isn't possible. I mean, in these games, we stop Giovanni from getting Mewtwo. And yet, this Giovanni has Mewtwo. And there's supposed to only be one Mewtwo in the world. So this Giovanni clearly comes from a world where Red wasn't there to stop him.

To help for Mewtwo's form in the end, take this image:

(but all the fingers are purple like in its Y form while retaining their shape of its normal/X form)
and color swap it with the ones of Shadow Lugia from Pokémon XD:

Chapter 74: Versus Shadow Mewtwo

Red was sweating.

"You guys already managed to recreate Shadow Pokémon?"

"Eheheh. It wasn't hard. Once we got the researches, we just had to start where Team Cipher left, starting with recreating the formula. We just managed to finish it a few minutes ago, and Mewtwo here is the first test subject. And as you can see, it worked perfectly. Mewtwo has become exactly like Team Cipher's Shadow Lugia. Its feelings are now locked deep in its hearts, turning it into a merciless fighting machine, and purifying it is almost impossible."

"How can you treat a living being like that?!" Twilight shouted in outrage before she wondered something. "Wait, Team Cipher had Lugia? I thought that Gold had Lugia since... I don't know how many years."

"There are more than one Lugia in the world," Red explained. "Many legendaries are unique, but some like the Legendary Birds aren't."

Giovanni chuckled. "Pokémon are just a tool, a mean to an end. A source of power to reach my goal. Isn't it what they are for every single trainers on this planet? You, Red, for example, you used your Pokémon to reach your dream and become a Champion. Everywhere, they are used to facilitate works. Digging tunnels, building structures, travelling around the world. They are used as a source of entertainment, in conflicts, and some even collect them like you collect bottle caps or stamps. They are even exchanged with Pokémon of random strangers. And their opinion never matters. So what is the difference between the way I treat them and the way others treat them? Wait, don't tell me, you treat them with kindness? Respect? Sure. But it doesn't change that, in the end, this is slavery. Me, at least, I don't hide behind excuses and hypocrisy. I know what I'm doing. And I. Don't. Care."

"But Pokémon need us! To survive, grow, and learn!" Twilight countered.

"Which is why they don't object when they are tasked to do something. If they refused to follow orders, then they would be abandoned. They don't have a choice. We use their needs to our advantage, and they can't do anything against it," Giovanni replied to this.

Twilight was about to retort something, but she was silenced by Red placing an arm in front of her before he shook his head. It was no use to argue.

Still, the ex-Champion looked at his Pikachu. Remembering how, at first, the little Pokémon hadn't really been fond of following him, being outright hostile. But now, as Pikachu looked back at him, he knew that the little Pokémon wasn't following him out of obligation, but of choice. They exchanged a smile, then a nod, before Pikachu turned back to face Shadow Mewtwo.

Pikachu, as well as his other Pokémon, weren't just his Pokémon. Their relationship had evolved beyond this, as proved when Red let them fight without even giving a single order. They were now partners. Best friends.

A family.

Giovanni looked down at Pikachu. "You really think that this rodent can defeat Shadow Mewtwo?"

"I trust him," Red replied calmly.

Giovanni smirked. "You will regret this. Mewtwo! Use Shadow Sky!"

Shadow Mewtwo expelled from its body a huge cloud of darkness that went to cover part of the sky above the mountain. From the cloud then rained literal darkness on everyone excepted Giovanni. Not only the darkness had for effect to hurt Pikachu upon contact, but it also hurt Red and Twilight, and the alicorn quickly used her magic to create a shield above the three of them that stopped it.

"Ugh... I-I think that I should intervene in this fight," Twilight said.

Red agreed, and Twilight ran beside Pikachu.

However... "Use Shadow Shed," Giovanni ordered.

And in one move, Shadow Mewtwo destroyed the shield, letting the darkness rain on Giovanni's adversaries again. Gritting her teeth, Twilight immediately put another shield.

Pikachu went to attack by repeating his usual strategy. Using Quick Attack, he moved around Shadow Mewtwo and attacked it from all sides with moves such as Iron Tail or Thunderbolt. Not long after Pikachu began to move, Twilight flew up and began to fire magical beams at the corrupted legendary.

However, Shadow Mewtwo easily avoided most of the attacks. Under Giovanni's order, it used Light Screen and Reflect, then caught Pikachu with its psychic powers and threw it at Twilight who was able to grab him with her magic before he could crash on her.

"Shadow Mist!"

Shadow Mewtwo expelled another cloud of darkness, this time covering the area in it. The cloud didn't hurt, but it impeded everyone's vision.

"Now, Mewtwo... Eh. Do your worst."

Twilight quickly created winds to push the cloud of darkness away, but the cloud wasn't affected by them and remained. While she looked, annoyed, at the darkness, she was then hit by a projectile of darkness that came from a random direction. It hurt like Tartarus, but she quickly recovered and fired a beam at the direction the beam came from. However, judging by Red suddenly letting out a shout of pain, she hit the wrong target.

"Sorry!" she shouted.

Her shield was then destroyed, and the rain of darkness returned. Pikachu, who was still being levitated beside her, whimpered in pain. Twilight barely had time to move him out of the way of another projectile of darkness.

"Enough!" she yelled before she created a intense light from her horn that actually pushed the cloud of darkness away. Happy to see that she finally succeeded, she looked around, spotted Shadow Mewtwo who had been blinded by the light, and threw Pikachu at it. Pikachu used Brick Break, destroying the Light Screen and Reflect, but Mewtwo side-levitated to the left to avoid the hit. Twilight had prepared for this and immediately moved Pikachu after it, and Pikachu was able to hit Shadow Mewtwo in the stomach as it had been about to hit him with one of its tails.

Mewtwo, however, quickly recovered and enveloped a fist in shadow before it attempted to punch Pikachu on the spine. But, again, Twilight was one move ahead and teleported Pikachu back on the ground before he could be hit.

Only for Mewtwo to teleport too exactly at the same moment and to hit Pikachu anyway. Twilight understood as she felt a presence in her head that Mewtwo read her mind. She tried to push it away from her mind, but the Pokémon revealed to be just too powerful.

Luna would have probably managed to do it. It was one of her specialities. Twilight vowed to ask the night princess for some training upon returning to Equestria.

Mewtwo teleported beside her, another Shadow Punch ready, and she quickly flew out of the way to avoid it while firing a few beams at the Pokémon. The beams were deflected back at Twilight, and the mare barely had time to put a shield. But then, Mewtwo stretched its arm and caught her before it slammed her on the ground. A Thunder from Pikachu stopped it from continuing its assault.

At this moment, the rain of darkness finally stopped, making everyone sigh in relief as the constant pain it caused disappeared.

Still, there were no respite. Luckily, the Thunder had for effect to paralyse Mewtwo, leaving it open long enough for Twilight to fire a more powerful beam. She also grabbed several chunks of the ground with her magic and smashed them against the Shadow Pokémon.

Mewtwo recovered from all this and, while still paralysed, glared at Pikachu, its eyes glowing. Pikachu's eyes glowed then, and the electric mouse sent another Thunder, this time at Twilight who yelped before she quickly teleported away just before the electricity could hit her.

Now, while Mewtwo recovered from the paralysis, Twilight had to face the mind-controlled Pikachu, and she wasn't sure how to save him.

"Pikachu! Snap out of it!" Red yelled.

This attracted Mewtwo's attention who was able, despite the paralysis, to send a projectile of darkness, that seemed to be an actual Shadow Ball Shadow-type move instead of the Shadow Ball Ghost-type move, at him to shut him up, and Red barely dodged it with a plunge.

Twilight made it regret its move with a powerful charged beam on the back, but the mare herself then got headbutted on the side by Pikachu with a Volt Tackle. Not only it badly hurt Twilight, but Pikachu also suffered from it, and the Pokémon finally fainted after that.

After all the hits he took, it wasn't surprising.

Red quickly called him back into his Poké Ball before he grabbed his Master Ball and sent his own Mewtwo. Red then immediately Mega-Evolved it into Mega-Mewtwo Y.

Shadow Mewtwo eyed its counterpart and, understanding that it was in for a serious fight, used Recover, healing all the damage it took until now.

Thankfully, it couldn't recover the energy it used since the beginning of the fight, so it will be a matter of tiring it out first. And they had the advantage of it still being paralysed from Pikachu's Thunder. Seeing that Twilight was hurt, Mewtwo used Recover on her too. It understood that it will certainly need her help to face its dark counterpart. The mare obviously wasn't as powerful as Sweetie Belle, but she still could do a good enough job at least as a distraction.

"Thank you," Twilight said to it.

"Mph. Of course you got Mewtwo," Giovanni said. "Now this is interesting. I never expected to see a Mewtwo versus Mewtwo fight. But yours only has the Y form. Do you think it will be enough against my Shadow Mewtwo?"

"More than enough," Red said. "Go, Mewtwo! Show him!"

Mewtwo immediately began with a Shadow Ball, knowing that, no matter what, its counterpart was weak to Ghost-type moves, and Shadow Ball was the only Ghost-type move it knew.

Mewtwo knew that it had a slight disadvantage, and not just because Shadow Mewtwo had both it X and Y form. In its Y form, it still was just a Psychic-type, and thus, was still weak to Dark-moves, some of which Mewtwo could use from TMs. It will have to be especially careful of Fling because it was wearing a Mega-Stone, as well as Foul Play. At least, it didn't have to worry about any Bug-type moves. Shadow Mewtwo, however, having its X form, was a Psychic and a Fighting-type Pokémon, which changed almost everything. It still had its weakness to Ghost-type moves, but its weaknesses to Bug and Dark were replaced by weaknesses to Flying and Fairy. The problem was that Mewtwo had no Fairy-type moves, and only one Flying-type move: Hurricane. This problem was countered by Shadow Mewtwo not having its resistance to Psychic-type moves anymore while Mewtwo still had its resistance to both Psychic and Fighting-type moves, so it at least had this advantage.

Of course, resistances were useless if the moves Shadow Mewtwo used were Shadow moves which were effective against everything that wasn't a Shadow Pokémon, no matter what these Shadow moves were at the origin.

Shadow Mewtwo easily avoided the Shadow Ball and used Shadow Sky again before it deflected a couple of beams from Twilight. Mewtwo used the opening to use Hurricane. Shadow Mewtwo tried to get out of it, but its paralysis stopped it and it was caught in the wind. While Shadow Mewtwo was spinning in the Hurricane, Twilight created another shield to protect everyone from the rain of darkness.

Once the Hurricane stopped, Shadow Mewtwo turned to glare at Giovanni and levitated a Paralyze Heal right out of his pocket before it used it on itself. Giovanni nodded in approval.

While this happened, Twilight fired more beams at it, and it was also hit by a Shadow Ball from Mewtwo. Shadow Mewtwo however used Recover before it used a Shadow move variant of Psychic or Psystrike on Mewtwo, badly hurting it. Just as it launched the attack, Twilight charged horn first on its back, sending it crashing on the ground, allowing Mewtwo to recover from the hit it took before it sent a Shadow Ball that Shadow Mewtwo avoided by teleporting. Shadow Mewtwo appeared right between Twilight and Mewtwo and stretched its limbs to catch the two of them, probably in an attempt to smash the two of them into each other, but the two easily flew out of the way.

The two Mewtwo then exchanged several attacks while flying and teleporting around, Mewtwo mainly sending Shadow Balls while Shadow Mewtwo essentially used Shadow versions of its Psychic moves while throwing every now and then a Shadow Fire or a Shadow Bolt. Many Status moves such as Calm Mind or Bulk Up were also used when they had the occasion.

Mewtwo had to use Recover a lot more often than Shadow Mewtwo. Shadow moves really were frightening. And that was despite Mewtwo getting more openings thanks to Twilight, and Twilight herself landing a strong hit sometimes when Shadow Mewtwo was too focused on its counterpart. However, Recover also had to be used on Twilight a lot, and the mare was regretting not having the power she had had while facing Tirek. Shadow Mewtwo also continued to use Shadow Sky each time that it dissipated, and Twilight regularly had to put a new shield to protect everyone from it.

Mewtwo was hit by a Shadow Punch for what was probably the twentieth time in this fight and it countered with a Thunder Punch at the same time that a magical beam from Twilight hit Shadow Mewtwo from behind. But almost immediately after being hit by the two attacks, Shadow Mewtwo used another Shadow Punch on Mewtwo with its right fist while sending a Shadow Wave at Twilight with its left hand which Twilight avoided by teleporting. Shadow Mewtwo's tail then covered itself in darkness before it used it to hit Mewtwo on the side, sending it on the ground. Mewtwo quickly sent a Shadow Ball on Shadow Mewtwo's face before it could attack again, but despite its head jerking backward and despite being hit by another magical beam, Shadow Mewtwo stomped hard on Mewtwo and readied another Shadow Punch.

Only for Red to jump on its back and to put his backpack on its head with something very loud ringing in it, ruining Shadow Mewtwo's focus. While Shadow Mewtwo tried to get itself rid of the bag and of Red, the trainer revealed that he put on his left wrist a new bracelet with a slot containing a weird light purple, diamond-shaped stone with the Ghost-type symbol (a cartoonish image of a ghost).

As best as he could considering his position and Shadow Mewtwo's erratic movements, Red crossed his arms before his chest, the bracelet glowing, before he swung his arms up and around to his sides. Then, he brought his arms straight in front of his body, one hand on top of the other, before he crouched down with his hands curled into fists in front of his mouth. Then, they rose up slowly, swaying left and right like a slithering snake or a ghost eerily rising up behind somebody. The arms then spread apart and he lurched forward as if jumpscaring someone. An aura of energy then appeared around him, and another appeared around Mewtwo who quickly got up and readied itself.

At this instant, Shadow Mewtwo finally managed to grab Red and to throw him away only for Twilight to began to send everything she had at it, from beams to thrown boulders passing by manipulated wind and even the water that rained down.

Finally, Mewtwo, thanks to the energy it received, began to use its new move: Never-Ending Nightmare.

It began with Mewtwo engulfing the area in a dark illusion with a scenery worthy of nightmares. A large shadow then spreed from its position and reached Shadow Mewtwo before multiple shadowy hands came out of it and attacked, soon enveloping Shadow Mewtwo in a dome of shadows that then exploded, releasing a column of purple smoke.

It was a Ghost-type move, so it was Super Effective. And after all that Shadow Mewtwo had already taken?

The Shadow Pokémon was knocked out.

Not looking shocked at all that his Pokémon was defeated, Giovanni began to clap as he walked toward it.

"A Z-move. I should have expected it. But..." He took out a a small, yellow, star-like medicine that he placed in Shadow Mewtwo's paw. The next instant, the Pokémon was entirely healed and regained consciousness. "This is not over."

Giovanni then took out a white band with a red rim on one side and a blue rim on the other that had a black part with a blue Poké Ball symbol in the center and placed it on his right wrist, below the Mega Ring.

Red raised an eyebrow, but got suspicious. "A Dynamax Band? This is not a Power Spot, it won't work."

"Eheheheheh. You are right, this area is not a Power Spot," Giovanni said before he grabbed from one of his pocket a strange purple ball. "But I can remedy to that." He then broke the ball, releasing a purple energy that then entered the Dynamax Band which glowed.

"You must be kidding me..." Red said as he took a step back.

"You guys managed to create a way to transport Dynamax energy?" Twilight asked in shock.

"Exactly." Giovanni answered. "After some time researching Dynamax Energy, we created these balls that can contain a certain quantity of it, just enough to Dynamax a Pokémon. We have no way to create Dynamax Energy, so we have to collect it on the Power Spots back in Galar, but thanks to these balls, we can release it anywhere, anytime, and thus Dynamax one of our Pokémon wherever and whenever we want. Admire."

At this, Giovanni called Shadow Mewtwo back in its Master Ball. Energy then came out of the Dynamax Band and entered the ball which grew in size and became entirely purple, glowing and releasing energy. Giovanni then threw the ball which opened, releasing Shadow Mewtwo who grew more and more in size until it was easily the size of a building. It was back in its normal form, but Giovanni immediately used his Mega Rings to Mega-Evolve it back into its merged X and Y form.

"I'm not done yet!" an ecstatic Giovanni said as he then put around his left wrist, under the Mega Ring here, a bracelet exactly like the one that Red used.

"A Z-Ring too?!!" Red shouted.

"Look closer," Giovanni instructed as he showed the bracelet, more exactly, the Z-Crystal on it.

It was a crystal like the one that Red used, diamond-shaped. However, this one was black and had for symbol, in a black even blacker, a heart with a keyhole.

Twilight gasped. "Is that?"

Giovanni let out his best evil smirk, sure of his victory. "This is the true power of Team Rainbow Rocket!"

He then began the same dance than Red did earlier. Crossing his arms, swinging them to his sides, and bringing them in front of his body. But then, instead of moving the arms like Red did for the Ghost-type, Giovanni brought his left hand to his heart and mimed as if he was using a key to lock it. Then, the hand mimed grabbing the heart and violently tearing it out before he dramatically held it up. The right hand then moved above and did as if he was a puppeteer using strings to manipulate the heart.

Like before, the aura of energy appeared around Giovanni, and another appeared around Shadow Mewtwo in addition of the purple Dynamax energy that was already circling it.

Red's group, Misty and Whitney at the head, chose this moment to finally climb the stairs and join them, seeing the Dynamaxed Shadow Pokémon about to send a Z-move.

Some stopped in fear with various exclamations immediately upon seeing it, but others continued to run toward Red.

"All the Rockets suddenly disappeared from the island!" Misty informed.

Twilight gulped. "I... think that we should follow their example.

"What's going on here?" Rainbow Dash asked as she looked at Shadow Mewtwo in fear.

"I think that it's pretty obvious," Rarity said. "And I agree with Twilight. Whatever it is preparing, if all these rufians decided that it was time to abandon their base, then it must not be good to remain."

Giovanni grinned. "Mewtwo. Z-Max Shadownova." His grin widened. "Don't hold back. Use all your power."

Shadow Mewtwo raised a paw, and shadows came out of it, gathering into a ball that grew more and more in size until it dwarfed even the Dynamaxed Pokémon.

"Mewtwo! We must get everyone out of the island!" Twilight shouted.

Yes, Mewtwo replied with a nod before the two joined their power to teleport everyone, Pokémon included, to the boats. Mewtwo made sure to give a telepathic message to all Pokémon who knew Teleport to help.

And in one instant, everyone was back on the boats, just in time for Gold and Ruby, respectively on Lugia and on Rayquaza's back, to reach them as they were finally finished with their battle against Parallel Archie and Maxie.

"Sorry we're late. These idiots continued to use Potions and Revives on their Pokémon and they had, like, a bazillion of them," Ruby said.

"Then they just disappeared, and I think I understand why," Gold said as he looked at the giant ball of shadows that descended into the mountain. "Lugia!"

Lugia didn't need to be told what to do. The Legendary began to levitate the boats, quickly helped by Mewtwo and Deoxys. They didn't just levitate the boats, they also made them move as rapidly as they could.

Behind them, the island disappeared in a huge explosion of darkness, and dark clouds spread to cover the sky for miles around, the dark rain pouring everywhere under them.

The Pokémon dropped the boats just outside of range of the clouds and their painful rain, and everyone could still see the explosion in the distance. It didn't take long for Red and Twilight to recount what happened to everyone, and they all understood how bad the situation was.

Team Rainbow Rocket completed the formula to turn a Pokémon into a Shadow Pokémon, and Red remarked that it seemed even more perfect than the one Team Cipher made in Orre, because the Shadow Mewtwo didn't get into Reverse Mode even once despite all the Shadow moves it used.

Reverse Mode was a state where the Shadow Pokémon lost control randomly after using a Shadow move and could easily disobey its master, and it always hurt itself after an attack.

If Team Rainbow Rocket managed to bypass this problem, then the Shadow Pokémon were now pretty much without weakness.

Then, they obviously had their hands of some Z-Crystals and even managed to produce at least one Shadow Z-Crystal (whatever name they gave it), allowing their Shadow Pokémon to use what was without a doubt a powerful Shadow Z-Move.

And finally, they were able to contain Dynamax Energy so they could use it outside of Galar. They could Dynamax their Pokémon and unleash their devastating attacks, and the trainers would have no way to counter them unless they fought in large groups.

And of course, they had no qualms using a Z-Move while their Pokémon was Dynamaxed. Even the Galarians avoided doing this because of how apocalyptique the resulting attacks would be (and it was helped that Z-Crystals weren't accessible in Galar), and Giovanni just proved how right they were. And he made the attack while Shadow Mewtwo was in its merged Mega-form X and Y, which added quite the punch to an already powerful attack.

And thanks to whatever technology they used to move in and out of this world (certainly related to Ultra-Wormholes), they could attack anywhere and escape as easily as they came. And if every single grunts sent out a Dynamaxed Shadow Pokémon and used a Z-Move... They could destroy whole cities and the trainers would be able to do nothing against it.

And it wasn't even the worst part.

"So, what did you think of the show?" a familiar voice asked behind everyone on the Kanto ship.

Everyone turned from the direction where they watched the explosion and spotted Giovanni now on the ship, his Shadow Mewtwo levitating behind him keeping guard.

"You! Want a round 2?" a trainer who had been in Red's group shouted.

Giovanni raised an eyebrow. "Here? On this ship? Very well, but I think that we all know how this would end if we start," he said as he grabbed another purple ball and stopped just short of breaking it open.

Many gulped. The ship wouldn't resist.

Red signed to everyone to not try anything while Gold, who had still been on Lugia's back, landed beside him.

"What do you want? You're just here to gloat?" Gold asked.

Giovanni shrugged. "In a way. It's more to give an advice. Give up. As you saw, we now have the power to make the world kneel. And it's only a matter of days before I get the final piece that will truly make us invincible."

"Which is?" Twilight asked.

"Come on. I'm sure you already put the pieces together. Mewtwo is one of the most powerful Pokémon of the world, but not the most powerful. There's one Pokémon who's at the top of the food chain, and I intend to get it."

Blue advanced out of the group of trainers to gain attention. "Are you speaking of Arceus? We already suspected that you were after it. You are searching its plates."

Giovanni's smirk was all the answer they needed to confirm it. "If you want to know, we already found six of them. Earth, Flame, Splash, Stone, Spooky, and Pixie." He suddenly went silent as his eyes turned to his ear where an earbud could be seen. "Mmmh... Scratch that. Make it seven. Cyrus just found the Icicle Plate in the mountains of the Crown Tundra. You understand now? You can't stop us. This world is as good as mine. So make it easy for me and stop fighting."

"You dream!" Gold shouted.

Giovanni gave a mocking shrug. "Worth a try."

Energy then appeared on him like on the grunts back at the top of the mountain, and in a flash, he and Mewtwo were gone.

...

"Sooooo... What do we do now?" Pinkie asked.

Many wondered the same thing, but before an answer was given, a Gold's phone rang.

He took it and looked at the number. "It's Dawn," he informed before he answered. "Yes, Dawn?...... Oh?....." A grin spread on his face. "Great! As planned! Then send the word to the others!" His grin was then replaced by a frown. "It's time for a crisis meeting. We must stop Team Rainbow Rocket as soon as possible."

Chapter 75: Spreading The Shadows

Back in the Mushroom Kingdom, Sweetie Belle had finished explaining to everyone about the future threats she was working to counter by searching allies.

Without surprise, everyone agreed to help, and Peach and Daisy weren't against forming alliances with the three Equestria as well as all the other countries, worlds, and organisations Sweetie Belle already befriended.

Eventually, all the leaders will have to gather to talk together.

But first, Sweetie Belle still had to inform Zelda about that whole stuff, and even the Zelda of Past Hyrule even if she never encountered her.

There was also Frisk's world, but after the monsters' return, the filly wasn't sure of how this would go.

And then, there was still the case of Team Rainbow Rocket in the Pokémon World. While DD assured her that the League could deal with them for now, there was no doubt that the team needed to be eliminated in order for the talks of an alliance with the Pokémon World to go smoothly.

Sweetie Belle also wondered if she should return to that first universe she briefly visited just before the Pokémon World. All she saw were two alien species warring at each other, so she wasn't sure what to expect. One of these alien species had very advanced technology, so gaining it as an ally would be neat. But said alien species had been slaughtering the other species which didn't have technology at all (looking more like wild beasts), so it had looked more like a case of a superior civilization wiping out an inferior one in order to gain territory and/or resources, and Sweetie Belle wasn't sure if she wanted to become ally with a civilization that would do this. Or there may be another reason, she really didn't know. She will have to find out before deciding what to do.

But not right now. She didn't want to potentially lose time on this case when she knew that when she will open a rift to a new universe, DD will lead her to one where she will surely find new allies. With the mysterious army threatening to appear anytime, that was the last thing she wanted. Unless DD leads her to this universe, she will wait until the two Gods are eliminated before she will attempt to contact this potentially hostile advanced civilization.

Back to the Mushroom Kingdom however, there was the matter of rebuilding everything that had been destroyed during the Cankens' invasion. It had been the second subject of discussion after what Sweetie Belle brought up and the Mushroom Kingdom, which had been the less hit, was willing to give any help it could to the other countries, especially Metro Kingdom. Sweetie Belle also said that, as Queen of Floralia, she was willing to help too, and she was certain that once she talked to Luna, Equestria will help too. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom also proposed to have words with their respective princesses. Apple Bloom's case was helped since her world and this world were linked by a portal, even if said portal wasn't in the most accessible place.

They should work on this by the way.

And they should work on building more portals faster. Hopefully, with the Galactic Federation joining, it won't be a problem.

Dream Land was another matter... Sweetie Belle could convince Dedede to help too, but Dream Land didn't have any real government. Dedede was self-proclaimed King of Dream Land but despite his power and his army he had rather limited influence on the inhabitants of the country, and he wasn't really willing to put more work into it. He could do something to create a government and turn Dream Land into a real, organised country. He proved that he had the power back when he ordered his army to steal all the food. He just lacked the motivation. Or at least, the motivation to do it the nice way. As much as she loved Dedede, Sweetie Belle knew that if he had his way, he would turn the country into an autocracy where the only laws would be "bring food to the King at least ten times each days" and "have at least one statue of the King in your home". He still would be a very protective country leader as he proved in the past that he really cared for the lives of the ones under his wings, and even of the ones who weren't, but his HUGE ego allied to his gluttony and his laziness would really make him a terrible one.

Uh. Maybe Sweetie Belle should really annex Dream Land to Floralia. Give it a proper government while letting Dedede keep his power. She wondered how this would work. Maybe they would have something like Celestia and Luna, sharing power and all. Of course, there was no doubt that Sweetie Belle would do most of the work while Dedede would just... be Dedede, but she wouldn't mind.

Once the discussions were over, Sweetie Belle opened a rift back to Apple Bloom's Equestria.

"So, I drop Apple Bloom to her Equestria so she can talk to her Celestia and Luna, then Scootaloo to hers to do the same, and then I return to my Equestria to talk to my Luna before I'll go to Floralia. Once we're done, we will gather back here with the news. Alright?"

Everyone nodded, and the three fillies disappeared into the rift.

They came out right outside of Apple Bloom's home, Apple Bloom wanting to see first her family and her friends before going to Canterlot. Sweetie Belle then opened another rift to drop Scootaloo back to her world, leaving the Spirit of Death alone.

Apple Bloom opened the door to her house and shouted, "Ah'm home!"

"Just in time for dinner!" she heard Granny Smith shout back. "We were about to start!"

Apple Bloom ran to join her family at the table, seeing Big Mac and Granny Smith as well as Applejack and even her parents around it. The ghosts couldn't eat, but they never wanted to pass the occasion to have some family time around a meal. As for Applejack, she just had a glass of apple juice. Having a robotic body, it was all she could consume, the liquid being her source of energy (thanks Discord).

"Hey Bloom. Welcome back. So ya saved Mario's world?" Applejack asked.

"Eeyup! Ended up having ta fight some kin' of eldritch abomination with mah new friends," Apple Bloom said as she climbed on a chair while her mother served her. "But now, Mario and the others need help rebuilding everythin' that's been destroyed so Ah'll have ta talk ta the princesses ta see if they'll agree ta give some. There'd been a lotta damage."

"I'm sure they will agree," Pear Butter said.

Bright Mac nodded. "We owe a lot to this other world. Without their help, Ah don't think ya'd've defeated Thanatos. It's time for us ta repay this."

"But first, finish yer meal youngun," Granny Smith said.

Contrary to Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle left Scootaloo directly at Canterlot where the pegasus went to see her Celestia and Luna.

As soon as Scootaloo explained what happened, the princesses agreed to help who they knew will be future new friends. They however wondered how they will be able to send supplies to this other world. Scootaloo then proposed that they could maybe link the portal that was currently in Twilight's castle to the one in Luigi's basement and use it while waiting to build one bigger. She was however uncertain. She knew nothing about how this worked and she wasn't sure if it was possible to link two portals that were different and that hadn't been built to be linked to each other in the first place, but as long as there was a possibility that it could work... The Tails were already trying to link the portals in the two Mobius to the one in Sweetie Belle's universe, so it may be possible.

Maybe this Magolor Sweetie Belle talked about or other members of his people will be able to do it.

Once she was done, she decided to pay a visit to her friends. However, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom being at school for now, she went to see if Rainbow Dash was free from her work.

And she indeed found the pegasus chilling on a cloud, taking advantage of the warm sun.

Scootaloo teleported to her side and poked her. "Guess who's back."

"Mmh?" Rainbow Dash groaned but smiled as she recognized Scootaloo's voice before even opening an eye. She sat up happily on the cloud, her sleepiness immediately gone. "Hey Scoot! Welcome back! So, how did it go?"

Scootaloo smiled. "We entered an alternate Equestria where Ponyville is full of friendly ghosts, and the local Apple Bloom is the Spirit of Death."

"Spirit of Death? Like Discord being the Spirit of Chaos?"

"Yeah, and that's as epic and creepy as it sounds. She can kill pretty much everyone with just a touch, and she can summon the dead to create her own undead army. If we ever end up in the middle of a war, she will be redoubtable."

"No kidding," Rainbow Dash said with a chill creeping up her back. That was some bucked up powers.

Scootaloo then proceeded to recount the events of Mario's world in a passionate and over-dramatic way, and the mare listened with rapt attention.

Sweetie Belle finally appeared back in her dimension, in Canterlot.

However, when she asked if she could see Luna, she was told that the Princess was in Ponyville.

It wasn't new for Luna to pay a visit to Ponyville, but Sweetie Belle wondered what it was for. Twilight and the others weren't present after all. Only Starlight Glimmer was there, the mare having wanted to remain to continue to study friendship, but Sweetie Belle wasn't sure if her relationship with Luna had gone far enough that the Princess would pay her a courtesy visit.

So Sweetie Belle teleported to Ponyville, in the sky above the town to have a global view, only to see quite the scene at the portal.

Luna was here, beside Celestia and Gandaro, and the three of them were talking with who she recognized was Chairman Keaton from the Galactic Federation. There were also a few humans and other alien creatures, some wearing formal attires while others had armors (obviously guards, of the elite kind judging by their decorated armor), and there were also a few scientists (recognizable by their blouses) who were all gathered around Tails having what seemed to be a very animated and passionate discussion about whatever techno or science-stuff they were talking about.

It didn't take long for them to build their own portal. It must have been, what, four days in their universe? Five? Frankly, between their advanced technology and Gandaro's help, it wasn't surprising.

And it seemed that Keaton had wanted to see more about the Federation's potential future allies. Or just allies if the discussions were already over.

Starlight was also present behind the Princesses, and a crowd of onlookers obviously surrounded them, curious about the strangers. Among them, she could see some finding the armor of the guards very cool judging by the stars in their eyes. Well, space marines. Of course they're cool.

One of the guards spotted her and informed the Chairman, seemingly having been told who she was, and Sweetie Belle took it as her cue to approach without risking being shot.

She landed so that she faced both the Princesses and Keaton and said, "Hello. Nice to see you again Chairman Keaton. Welcome to Equestria. And hello too, Princesses. Hello Gandaro."

Keaton gave her a slight bow. "Thank you. It is nice to see you again too, Sweetie Belle. But I fear that I will not be able to remain here too long. I can't be away from my duties for more than a few days."

Sweetie Belle nodded. "And considering the time difference between our universes... Yes, I understand. So I won't take too much of your time. I just need to tell the Princesses something."

"Is it related to whatever new universe your explored?" Celestia asked.

Sweetie Belle gave another nod. "An army of mad cultists invaded the world I was in. Me and some friends I made managed to destroy them and the abomination they called a God, but the cultists and the battles caused a lot of damage everywhere, so they need help." She turned to look at Tails who was still talking with the scientists. "Hey! Tails! Have you succeeded in linking the portal to the one on Mobius?" she called and asked, gaining the fox's attention.

"Not yet. It has only been half a day after all. But I think that we're getting close to figure it out, me and other me," Tails answered.

"And I can help!" Gandaro said.

"We would be happy to help any way we can," Celestia said.

"But would we have the necessary resources to help a whole world to rebuild?" Luna questioned.

"Not everything has been destroyed," Sweetie Belle reassured. "But some cities took major damage, especially one that is like Manehattan but much bigger. But Equestria won't be alone helping. Tails must have told you a bit. I encountered an alternate version of Scootaloo and an alternate version of Apple Bloom, each from a different Equestria, and they each returned to their respective home to ask their Princesses for help too. And I can assure you that Floralia will also help."

"I would gladly also offer help from New Halcandra, but I'm sorry to say that we can't. We are already using all our resources to rebuild it and make sure that everyone in our growing population has a home as quickly as possible," Gandaro said with regret.

"That's okay, I understand."

"So I guess this means I will have to link this portal to that world too? Do they even have a portal already?" Tails wondered.

"Yes, they already have one of their own, so it will only be a matter of linking them. I should put you in contact with Professor E. Gadd. He's the one who built it in this world, and he's a real genius. I was told that he even built a time machine. You two will hit if off right away."

"What?! He built a time machine you say?" Tails asked in shock, which was shared by many others surrounding them. "I can't wait to meet him! But I don't have another dimensional phone for you to give to him," he said that last part sadly.

"Then I will give him mine. It shouldn't be long before the guys at New Halcandra finish to build new ones. Speaking of..." She looked at the scientists. "If any of you guys want to go to New Halcandra, or even Pop Star, just use the portal. It's already linked to the portals on these worlds. If you come to Pop Star and want to visit my kingdom, it's the group of floating islands surrounding the giant beanstalk. Just a warning, try to not think on how this universe works. It is made from dreams so literally anything is possible, even the more impossible stuff like breathing in space."

"An universe made from dreams?" one of the scientists asked with disbelief. "Yeah. Right. How would this work?"

"I'm sure Gandaro will be happy to tell you. Or you could ask the local God, Void, if you decide to go to Pop Star. He personally helped creating it."

"Talking with a God?..." another scientist asked before they exchanged glances. All of them then moved toward the portal, one of them asking Gandaro, "How do we use it to go to Pop Star?"

"I'll show you," Sweetie Belle said before she went after them.

The scientists already knew how to use the portal since they helped build the one back in their universe, so Sweetie Belle just had to show them how to open it to the one on Pop Star. It was very easy actually as there was simply a list of portals it was linked to with names beside them. The one to Pop Star was called "Pop Star - Dream Land - Base of the Dreamstalk". They precised its location in case they build more of them later. The portal was built at the foot of the Dreamstalk because they could easily access the main locations of Dream Land as well as Floralia from there.

Once she opened the portal, she said her goodbyes to Keaton, the Princesses, and everyone else. She also let out her Pokémon to let them do what they wanted. Since she barely used them in her adventures because of the dangers, she decided that it was better to leave them in Equestria and bring them only when she feels that it won't be too dangerous for them to participate instead of leaving them in her pocket dimension in their Poké Balls. Maybe, once they better trained, she will have less problems sending them into dangerous situations. They will be a great help against the army DD warned her about once they're strong enough.

When she looked back at the scientists, she saw that they were staring at her Poké Balls as if they were divine artefacts.

"Go to New Halcandra and you will learn more about the Poké Balls," she told them before she finally led them through the portal, leaving everyone else to return to what they had been doing.

"So, should I lead you to my castle?" Celestia asked.

"I would like to. From what I can already see from here, it seems to be an architectural wonder," Keaton answered.

The Ultra Space, the interdimensional spacial realm connecting worlds and even universes all with Pokémon.

Flying in it was a sinister castle of dark bricks with pennants and tapestries bearing the symbol of a rainbow-colored R. That was the Team Rainbow Rocket's Neo Castle, the team's mobile HQ built with the original castle in mind, but much bigger and with reactors in order to make in move like a spaceship. The castle slowly advanced, never remaining in place.

Situated in the last floor of the castle was Giovanni's office, with the team's boss himself before his desk, facing the bosses of the other teams.

Archie and Maxie weren't looking their best. Maxie tried to keep appearances but everyone could see his frown and one of his eyes twitching. Archie, however, didn't hide that he seemed ready to blow up like an Electrode. And after they got their butts trashed by the Champions serving as diversion, it was very understandable.

The other bosses were simply waiting to see what Giovanni had to say. Cyrus, boss of Team Galactic, recognizable by his short spiked blue hair and his expression that showed absolutely no feelings, had his arms crossed behind his back as he looked, not at Giovanni, but at a blond man in a white overcoat and wearing large green glasses who was standing beside him.

Faba of the Aether Foundarion. Giovanni secretly recruited him not long before they began their operations on this world, and since then, he was helping Team Rainbow Rocket developing technologies and researching things. Cyrus knew that he was recently researching something very important for Giovanni, and seeing the man's pleased smirk, he knew that he was finished, so Cyrus was interested to know what it was. No doubt that it was something that will help them reaching their goals, and that it was what Giovanni will reveal in this meeting. Truthfully, having already fulfilled his goal of creating a perfect universe devoid of useless emotions and spirit, he didn't really care about Giovanni and his plan, but he thought that following Giovanni was a good occasion to bring more universes to what he judged was the perfect state.

The others expected the same thing as they alternated between looking at Faba and at Giovanni. Lysandre, the leader of Team Flare who looked like a lion with his long spiky hair connected to a spiky beard, remained silent and away from the others, not really appreciating his curent company as he knew that everyone present here were some of the worst that humanity had to offer. But he was willing to work with them if it was to reach his goal, secretly hoping to get an occasion to backstab Giovanni and gain access to all the Team Rainbow Rocket's technology for himself to go to other universes at will and do what he did to his own world: exterminate all life excepted a group of chosen ones to who he would give the gift of immortality with his Xerneas. Until such an occasion presented itself, he was just following Giovanni's plan, hoping to save at least some of the worlds that they will cross, starting with the current one.

And then there was Ghetsis, formerly one of the Seven Sages of Team Plasma, and now the King who ruled over his world with an iron fist that would put to shame any tyran known in history. He easily was the more perturbing person in the room, between his red eyes that showed pure cruelty and his yellow and purple cloak that had eye-motifs which had red pupils too. Most worrying of all, his right arm was hidden under his white robe, so he could be hiding a dagger for all they knew, and everyone knew that he did use one to kill the previous King of Team Plasma (as he loved to gloat about it) so they made sure to leave as much space between him and them as they could. Everyone was also certain that he was secretly plotting to take over Team Rainbow Rocket, but surprisingly, Giovanni was doing nothing to put a leash on him which was even more worrying for some of them.

"We are all here. So, what did you want to tell us, Giovanni?" Ghetsis asked.

"Well, first of all, I would like to congratulate Maxie and Archie for successfully keeping the Champions away from the island. Thanks to them, our men had enough time to retrieve the plates that were gathered there. Good job you two!" Giovanni exclaimed before he applauded, joined by Faba.

They were the only ones applauding.

"Your congratulations, you can shove them where-" Archie began to yell before he was interrupted by Maxie hitting the back of his head.

"What this sea-idiot wants to say is that we aren't really in the mood. Facing all these legendaries was... painful, and we would like to have some time to... recover," the leader of Team Magma then said, ignoring the glare that Archie was giving to him.

"And if you ask us to be a diversion again, then-" Again, Archie was hit on the back of the head by Maxie.

"What he wants to say is that we would be very grateful if you could ask someone else to be the diversion next time that it is needed," Maxie then said, again ignoring Archie's glare.

"You hit me again and I will send you to the bottom of the abyss with Kyogre!" Archie yelled at Maxie.

"I would like to see that," Maxie said calmly with an expression that said that he considered Archie as a being even more stupid than the fishes that he loved.

Ghetsis glared at them and the two calmed down.

"Also, good job Cyrus for finding the Icicle Plate. It must not have been easy searching the mountains in the middle of the snowstorms," Giovanni said as if the two leaders hadn't been about to start a battle of legendaries in his office.

"Get to the point, Giovanni," Cyrus said with some annoyance.

"Eheh. Very well. As you all probably know by now because you aren't stupid..." Giovanni eyed Archie and Maxie. "Or at least not THAT stupid..."

"What is this supposed to mean?!" Archie shouted.

"Faba here was researching something very important for me. It wasn't long ago that I sent Archer to Orre to retrieve something probably left behind by Cipher. Can any of you guess what that was about?"

"I never bothered to know what was going on in this region," Cyrus said.

"Same," Archie, Maxie, and Lysandre joined at once.

"Mph. That region was a mess. I just decided to wipe out everything there without question to restart from scratch. It was much easier," Ghetsis said.

"Well then, if you had bothered to look deeper into what happened in this region, you would have discovered something about what are called Shadow Pokémon."

"Shadow Pokémon?" Lysandre asked. "I don't think that I like where this is going."

At Lysandre's words, Giovanni smirked before he took one of his Master Balls and threw it to let out Shadow Mewtwo, revealing it to the other leaders.

"What the-?!" Maxie almost shouted while taking a step backward as he saw the darkened Mewtwo.

Archie and Lysandre had similar reactions while Cyrus simply raised an eyebrow and Ghetsis looked first surprised, then interested.

"Tell more," that last one said.

Giovanni proceeded to explain everything about Shadow Pokémon, how about they were real fighting machines with their emotions locked so they had no problem following orders and attacking with everything they had. The emotion part really got Cyrus' attention. Giovanni also said about how Shadow moves were very effective against all types of Pokémon, giving a huge advantage no matter what the enemies' teams were.

"With these Shadow Pokémon, getting the last plates will be child's play. Anyone who will oppose us will be easily defeated. Even the Champions. I personally fought Red, and my Mewtwo outmatched his. So now, let's turn your Pokémon into Shadow Pokémon."

"I refuse!" Archie shouted. "Turning Pokémon into fighting machines? Locking their emotions away? I was willing to cooperate with you despite how some of you treated Pokémon in order to make more worlds like mine, but this is going too far! I will not stand for this!"

"You know what, Archie? For the first time, I agree with you," Maxie said as he grabbed a Poké Ball.

Giovanni's smirk simply grew at this. "Mewtwo."

At Giovanni's call, Mewtwo's eyes glowed. The next instant, Maxie and Archie's expression became blank, now totally under Mewtwo's control.

Suddenly, Lysandre threw a Master Ball and sent Xerneas, the legendary Pokémon incarnating Life looking like a giant black stag with a blue head and four pairs of antlers, each pair having branches of different colors (orange, red, purple, and blue).

"Xerneas! Use Megahorn!" Lysandre shouted.

Xerneas' horns glowed before the Pokémon lowered its head and charged at Mewtwo. The Psychic Pokémon was hit, but it was able to grab Xerneas by the antlers before it used them to slam it on the ground, on its side. Mewtwo then repeatedly and mercilessly used Shadow Punch on Xerneas' head until the Pokémon lost consciousness before it threw it aside to crash into a wall.

"Wha-?! Arg!"

Lysandre then found himself being levitated from the floor, a strong force squeezing his throat to the point that he couldn't breathe anymore. Mewtwo eventually slammed him on a wall, almost breaking his back, before the Pokémon finally decided to take him under his control like he did with Archie and Maxie.

Faba applauded. "Marvelous! That show of power was absolutely spectacular!"

Ghetsis grinned. "Amazing."

Giovanni silently nodded at Mewtwo and looked back at Cyrus and Ghetsis. "Seeing that you did nothing, I suppose that you aren't against turning your Pokémon into Shadow Pokémon?"

"After seeing THAT?" Ghetsis exclaimed excitedly. "Not at all! With these Shadow Pokémon, I will become invincible!"

Wordlessly, Cyrus grabbed his Poké Balls and placed them on Giovanni's desk. "Do it."

"Good. And once we are done with your Pokémon, I will have another mission for you to retrieve a certain flute. I suppose that you know where it is."

Author's Note

Writer's Block is a b****, but I finally got the chapter out. But before writing the next one, I think that I will rewrite Chapter 59. Rereading it, I think that I got some of the time stuff explained in it wrong.

Chapter 76: Giving A Hand

Upon entering Dream Land, Sweetie Belle pretty much left the scientists to do as they wanted as long as they didn't cause problem, briefly indicating the general direction of Void's home as well as some important places like Dedede's castle or the training building before she flew up to Floralia, to her castle.

However, she forgot to warn them about the black doors. Oh well. They will learn.

She rapidly reached her castle and found Taranza who was helping putting banners with the kingdom's new emblem, the one that Sweetie Belle gave him with the rainbow flower coming out of a heart-shaped hole. It was barely a day since Sweetie Belle showed it to him and they already managed to make a lot of banners and other stuff with it on them like vases, tapestries, and pieces of clothing! It was even painted on some armors, and shields had been made to either look like a rainbow flower or a black heart! She was always impressed at how much could be done in so little time when people worked together like that.

As soon as she appeared, Taranza interrupted his work and flew toward her to greet her.

"Greetings, Sweetie Belle! What do you think?" he asked as he gestured at the banners and at everything else.

"Amazing! I didn't think you would manage to do so much in just one day! You all made a great job! And make sure to repeat what I just said to everyone who participated."

"Of course! But I presume that you aren't here just to talk about the decorations. Has something else happened? Yet another enemy?"

"No new enemy, thankfully. It's the contrary actually. It's to send help to new allies. To make it short, there was a world invasion and there was a lot of damage, so they need help to rebuild."

"Oh! So you want Floralia to gather resources and a workforce to send to that world? Or maybe you intend to bring some inhabitants of that world to Floralia to give them shelter? We have plenty of place in the castle."

"All of the above. So start the process to ready everything. Take your time however, we won't be able to send them right away. We first need to link the portal to this world and this may take a few days, depending of how long it will still take before we find out how to link two different portals. It shouldn't be long, thankfully. Gandaro is helping while Magolor is still building the portal in the Pokémon Universe."

"Very well. I will tell all this to the servants so they can start to prepare everything. Is there anything else?"

Sweetie Belle told him that there wasn't before she bid him goodbye and left.

Instead of directly returning to the Mushroom Kingdom, she first decided to visit some of her friends, starting with Adeleine and the others who were at the girl's school in Lollipop Land (which was starting to turn into quite a settlement as more and more people came to live there, interested in learning the art of giving life to art). After saying a quick hello to the girls as well as Yin, Yarn, Paint Roller, Vividria, and a few others, she spent a few minutes joining the students in painting, knitting, and crafting before she left and went toward Dedede's castle to see the King and her other friends who lived there.

While she found Broom Sunglasses, Cape Knight, and Knuckle Joe, she didn't find Dedede and Bandanna Dee however. Cape Knight told her that they were in the Training Building with Kirby and some Waddle Dees of the Science/Engineering Department (the same ones who made Dedede's Hammer Mk2 and Sweetie Belle's first version of her magitech whip).

This made Sweetie Belle raise an eyebrow in wonder. If it had just been Kirby, Dedede, and Bandanna Dee, she would have concluded that they were training to face this army they had been warned about, but with the Egg Head Waddle Dees too? They had something in mind. A new weapon? But why would Kirby come? Science and Kirby were antinomic excepted when the puffball had his Doctor Ability on (and even then, Kirby had no idea what he was doing and just mixed stuff together hoping that the solution won't explode on his face). And it was already a miracle to see Dedede with an open book so seeing him participating in some sciency or engineering stuff was like a dream.

Wait, wrong comparison. They were in the Dream Universe where dreams were possible.

Let's rewrite that. Seeing Dedede participating in anything related to science or any other stuff requiring heavy use of brain cells unless it was to effectively clobber someone would be like seeing Twilight willingly put a library on fire.

It. Was. IMPOSSIBLE. Not even in dreams. Unless they were VERY crazy dreams. Or unless Dedede and Twilight were under some spell that turned their personalities upside down.

So Kirby and Dedede working with the science team? And in the Training Building?

Sweetie Belle HAD to see what was going on.

So she teleported right away to the building and entered it to see quite the show: Kirby was in the middle of doing the Water Ability course in the highest difficulty under the watchful eyes of Dedede, Bandanna Dee, and the Egg Head Waddle Dees who were taking notes. Yes, even Dedede was taking note. Every little details of how Kirby used the Ability was put down on paper. And seeing the stacks of papers that were littering the room, they had been at it for some time, probably with more of Kirby's Abilities. A quick glance at the top of a nearby stack revealed notes about the Sword Ability. And another stack had notes about the Tornado Ability.

In order to not ruin what they were doing, Sweetie Belle waited until Kirby was done with his course and everyone stopped writing before she made her presence known to them.

"Hello everyone!" she shouted, making everyone jump, excepted Kirby as he was just leaving the course after he finished eating the food that was given to him as an award.

"Gah! Sweetie Belle? Don't do that!" Dedede yelled as he put a hand on his heart.

"Poyo!" Kirby ran and hugged the filly who happily returned it, making some of the Waddle Dees daww.

"Cape Knight told me that you were here. What are you guys doing?" Sweetie Belle asked before she looked around at the stacks of notes. "Are you planning to make a robot in Kirby's likeness?"

Dedede smirked. "Close enough."

"We're-!" Bandanna Dee began to say before he was shushed by the King.

"I want to keep the surprise! Just know that it involves Kirby and his Abilities," Dedede informed.

"So you are making Kirby run through all the courses one by one to analyze all his Abilities to... I suppose... replicate them somehow?"

"Eheheh! Exactly! But that's the easy part. The hard part will be how we will replicate these Abilities," Dedede said before he crossed his arm and rose his chin like one of these snobbish nobles. "And I'm not telling you! You will have to guess by yourself or wait and see!"

"You will not believe it once you will see it!" Bandanna said excitedly.

Sweetie Belle snorted. "With you guys? And this universe? I'm ready to believe everything."

Sweetie Belle returned to the Mushroom Kingdom and found out that Scootaloo was already here (her Phantom powers included the ability to open rifts to other universes which was how the Phantom Ruby ended up in her universe in the first place) but not Apple Bloom. The Spirit of Death came not long after however while Sweetie Belle was telling Peach and everyone else the news on her side. All good news, not only from the alicorn but also from the other two. Their respective Celestia agreed to send help, and Apple Bloom's Celestia could even do it right away since her Equestria was already linked to this world. They just needed to wait for everything to be ready and for the portals to be moved to less problematic places than the Evershade Valley and Luigi's basement.

Everyone was happy to hear the news even if most of the help will only be able to come once the portals will be linked. Apple Bloom's Equestria will be a good beginning while waiting for the rest to come.

The three Equestria will also need to be linked to each others so the Celestia will be able to discuss together the logistic of this operation.

Sweetie Belle didn't forget to give her phone to E. Gadd so he could communicate with the Tails. The fact that the prof spoke the same language than the foxes despite being from different universes greatly made things easier.

The fillies then returned to Apple Bloom's Equestria because the Earth Pony filly wanted to show them around a bit and present them to some of the friends she made, many of which were ghosts. Mostly, this involved exploring Spookane, the town that Apple Bloom built (and was still building) in Evershade Valley for the ghosts.

They danced as a ghost mare calling herself Deathjay played her music, and Sweetie Belle was able to play the piano alongside the great Piano Virtuoso himself, something that she never expected would happen since he was dead since over two hundred years. Sweetie Belle knew nothing about playing the piano so the result was awful, but she had great fun even if, by the end, Piano Virtuoso seemed ready to explode. She then got to taste some food made by Chef Cordon Bleu, one of the most famous chefs who ever lived, and as she thought, his food was to die for. After that, a trio of mares known as the Magica Triplets gave them a small magic show helped by their assistant Ooga the Cavepony before the fillies were finally led to the museum by Apple Bloom.

Apple Bloom already told them that it served as a prison for the evil ghosts she captured after she used one of Prof. E. Gadd's inventions to trap them into portraits, and she apparently had quite the collection. Well, it was one thing to be told this, it was another to see it. Hundreds upon hundreds of portraits of various sizes and dimensions were placed on the walls inside the museum, each with at least one pony or other creature like griffons or zebras in it. The walls were absolutely covered by them, almost no place left.

You could see the pride in Apple Bloom's eyes as she showed her collection. Each portrait was the result of a life-risking fight. All these trapped creatures were the worst that the world had to offer. From bandits to serial killers and absolute psychos. It was really impressive to see all the horrors Apple Bloom had had to face, either by herself or with her friends. Well, Sweetie Belle also faced quite the horrors in her adventures, Zero and his Dark Matters easily at the top (but beings like Necrodeus, Drawcia's Soul, Sectonia's Soul, Corrupted Marx, and Master Crowned Magolor weren't far behind), but facing cosmic abominations wasn't the same than facing ponies that were sick in their mind. And Scootaloo went through a war but at least the beings she faced were robots so this wasn't as traumatizing as if she had had to fight and kill beings of flesh and blood. Her Infinite side, however, may have gone through some pretty bad stuff in his life but Sweetie Belle didn't dare to ask.

A killer clown... A crazy-looking mare with a freaking gattling gun... An ice queen with an army of penguins... A colt with a knife who looked suspiciously like a male pony version of Chara... (Sweetie Belle eyed this one for a whole minute in wonder before she judged that this was just a coincidence) Freaking Captain Blackbeard and his whole crew... Without forgetting Sombra!

Then, after exploring all the hallways, Apple Bloom led them down a set of stairs and through another hallway with a door at the end.

"At yer left, ya can see the portrait of the Father of Monsters himself, Grogar!" Apple Bloom announced like a tour guide.

Sweetie Belle laughed. "Well well well. Grogar, old friend, now I find you trapped in a portrait? Oh how the mighty has fallen!"

"Right. You fought Grogar too," Scootaloo remembered.

"Yup! When I was done with him, he was pretty much crying his mommy!"

"Really?!" both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom asked before they fell in laughter.

Scootaloo then stopped as she realised something. "Damn. This means I'm the only one among the three of us who hasn't gotten to fight Grogar."

"You would just end up beheading him in five seconds, even if he has his Bell," Sweetie Belle said.

"True."

"By the way, did Ah tell ya that Ah absorbed his powers too?"

"Ah, no, you forgot. But really? That's cool!" Scootaloo said.

"No wonder you were able to control a whole army of ghosts so easily back against Crakkthulx. Between Grogar's powers and Thanatos' powers, you must be one of the most powerful necromancers of the Omniverse," Sweetie Belle complimented.

"Thanks."

After that, Apple Bloom led them into the room behind the door at the end of the hallway which was where the portraits of the most powerful and dangerous ghosts were kept. And so, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo could finally see the feared Thanatos, the previous Spirit of Death now a powerless draconequus trapped in a portrait like all the others, the portrait depicting him sitting on a throne of bones and yet looking absolutely defeated. He had certainly been a terrifying being previously, but now, he was just pathetic.

Some of the beings in the other portraits, however, truly looked monstrous, even now. That... thing that looked like a spherical purple agglomeration of all kinds of creatures (mainly ponies) looked absolutely nightmarish, and the monster with a body so long and big that it could wrap itself around several towers of a castle just leaked power even from within its portrait. Then, there were the pony surrounded in toys and the pony with a scalpel who looked plain creepy, and knowing what they did, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo really wanted to throw their portraits into a black hole.

They then left the museum and Evershade Valley, Apple Bloom leading them to her manor where they encountered the totality of the Gem Family and where they played tag with the ghosts of foals (and even of some adults). With everyone having the ability to fly and to go through surfaces, this game of tag quickly took on epic proportions that made Discord and his apprentice Upside Left proud.

Finally, when Apple Bloom's Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo came out of school, Sweetie Void proposed something to them.

"I would like to make you visit the Dream Universe. So how about we return to your universe, Phantom, pick up your friends there, and all together go to the Dream Universe with the Lor Starcutter? Beside, I need to bring you to New Halcandra so you can be given translators for our future adventures. Many universes seem to share the same language than ours, but I'm sure that we will eventually enter one where that's not the case. I even entered universes that shared the same oral language but not the same written language."

The fillies all agreed, and Little Ghost even decided to join them. After getting permission from their respective families and after some goodbyes, everypony entered the Lor Starcutter (which had been left where Sweetie Void had landed it the first time) and the ship took off before opening a star-shaped rift to Phantom's universe. Here, the Lor landed back where it landed the first time and Phantom went out to search her friends.

"And after, we're going to get yer Apple Bloom and Scootaloo?" Apple Bloom asked to Sweetie Void while they waited for Phantom to return.

Sweetie Void shook her head. "I would love to, but they're having their own little adventure in another universe with my Rarity and her friends." She then got a worried frown as she said, "I hope they're alright. When I left them, there was that team of criminals that began to cause troubles. But I had to go to start gathering allies to face that army DD warned me about, and DD reassured me that the people in this universe could take care of them for now."

"Eh. If these alternate versions of us are like us (without the whole being dead or half-dead part, of course), then I don't think that you have to worry, especially if they have Rainbow Dash and the others with them," Scootaloo said.

Sweetie Void giggled. "You're right."

"I don't think that any universe is ready to handle three sets of Cutie Mark Crusaders anyway," Little Ghost said after holding a laugh.

"What is it supposed to mean?" Scootaloo asked in mock offense.

"Ahem! Moving on..." Sweetie Void said, barely holding a laugh. "We will have to find nicknames for you girls. Not you, Little Ghost, you are unique. But Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom will need one."

"Pfff. Mine is easy to find. I'm Scootabot," Scootaloo said.

"Mmmh... Let's go for Apple Death fer now," Apple Bloom decided. "Until Ah find something that sounds better."

"And I guess that I will be... Sweetie Lich? Sweetie Ghoul?" Sweetie Belle proposed, wondering which one to choose.

"They both sound okay," Sweetie Void said. "Whichever one you prefer."

Sweetie Belle simply gave a shrug in return, not able to decide. "Mmh... I guess that I will settle for Sweetie Lich for now." She then returned to looking at the screen showing the world outside of the Lor, the technologically advanced Ponyville.

"It's amazing how this Ponyville is different from the one we know, right?" Sweetie Void commented.

"Yeah. The robots. The streets. The vehicles. The house," Scootabot listed.

Sweetie Lich nodded. "I don't know what to think. On one hoof, it looks really great, but on the other, knowing why it is different..." She looked down in sadness. "Knowing that ponies we know are dead here, and this time, they are really gone, not even their ghosts remaining... Wait. Are there even ghosts in this universe?"

"Probably. But without Thanatos' influence, they probably aren't as numerous as in your universe," Sweetie Void answered. She then looked too at the screen. "But yeah, I had a similar thought when I learned what happened here."

"We learned to live with that," they heard from the entrance, and the fillies turned their heads to see Phantom now present with her friends behind her. "The best we can do for the ones who died is to move on, live our life to the fullest and make this world a better one while keeping a place in our heart for them."

"Well said, Phantom!" Apple Death said before she looked at her alternate self and at the alternate Sweetie Belle. "Howdy! Uh... Are presentations needed when they're pretty much us?"

The fillies exchanged insure glances before they decided that it was better to do it anyway since they weren't exactly the same so they presented themselves to each others. The new arrivals were a little put off by Sweetie Lich being an undead and by Little Ghost being a ghost, but they quickly got over it.

"So, can you come with us?" Sweetie Void asked.

"Eeyup. We got confirmations from our families. As long as we remain near Phantom and ya," Apple Bloom answered.

"Great! But we will need to find nicknames for you and Sweetie Belle to avoid confusion. I go by Sweetie Void. These three are Apple Death, Sweetie Lich, and Scootabot, and your Scootaloo simply uses Phantom. What will this be for you two?"

Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom thought for a few seconds before the unicorn said, "Can we just go by Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom for now while we think of a nickname? I just can't think of one."

"Same," Apple Bloom said.

The others simply shrugged and agreed.

"So, everyone's ready to visit the Dream Universe?" Sweetie Void asked.

Everyone answered with affirmatives, so the alicorn made the Lor take off before the ship opened a rift to the Dream Universe. Sweetie Belle then led everyone on the desk of the ship where they took in the view as they came out of the rift above Dream Land.

"So you spent over one year here?" Phantom asked as she looked around. "Nice place. That castle over there, however, looks like the lair of an evil overlord."

"Ahah! Yeah. Dedede loves giving that vibe but he is actually a big softy. I lived in that castle and it was a nice home where I made a lot of friends and I had a lot of fun."

As the Lor passed over the castle, Sweetie Void waved at the Waddle Dees that were patrolling on the walls, and the Waddle Dees waved back.

Sweetie Belle then gasped as she spotted something in the distance. "Is that a theme park?!"

The Lor then proceeded to approach the theme park in question so they could have a better view of it.

"After we defeated Magolor, he built this theme park as a "My bad". As you can see, it's entirely themed after Kirby and many others who had had important roles in the adventures, me included. See that carousel?"

"Oh yeah! That's you!" Little Ghost exclaimed as she pointed down at the carousel. "But with your mane on fire... And electrified... And frozen..."

"The mounts are based on me when I used Kirby's abilities. Hey, how about, once my Apple Bloom and my Scootaloo are back from their adventure, we go all together have fun there?"

"Yeah!" everyone agreed enthusiastically.

Sweetie Void then pointed to a building visible further away. "And over there is something else that Magolor built. We call it the Training Building, and as its name suggest, the building is used to train. There's that room that basically uses hard light constructs to create foes and obstacles."

"Sounds like something right out of a comic book," Scootabot said.

"It can even recreate powerful enemies we faced, from Nightmare to Void, so it's really a good place to train. But the artificial Void doesn't hold a candle to the real one. And I can't go all out to avoid destroying the building. It's solid but not that solid. Maybe we should find something for that. Maybe make it so the room becomes a pocket dimension..." Sweetie Void said thoughtfully that last part.

"Let's go inside! Ah want to see some of these enemies ya'd to fight!" Apple Death demanded.

"Alright. Maybe Dedede and the others have finished what they were doing by now. If they haven't, then they could use a break."

"Dedede is in there?" Sweetie Lich asked.

"Maybe. He was there when I came a few hours ago taking some notes on Kirby's Abilities. But now, maybe he's gone."

And indeed, when they entered, they found nobody.

"Great! We have the building for us! So, let me show you how this work and I will let you choose which enemy you will want to fight. We can fight enemies individually or in waves, and in that last case, there's an ultimate difficulty where you have to fight everyone we ever fought one by one until Void."

"Mmh... Maybe another time. I just want a quick fight against one of the guys you fought to see how they were," Phantom said.

"Ah don't really want ta fight. Ah just want ta see these enemies ya showed us," Apple Death said.

"I wouldn't mind testing myself against one of them," Little Ghost said.

"Me too," Scootabot followed.

"Alright. Everyone who wants to fight advances. I will go first to show you, and then you will decide between yourselves who will go next. Unless you want to fight together against a common enemy? Team battles are also possible," Sweetie Void instructed. As everyone nodded, she then pressed some buttons to ready the training room, choosing to fight against Nightmare.

One of the weakest enemies among the "Big Bosses" but, at this point, Sweetie Void could slaughter in less than a minute everything that the Training Building proposed excepted probably Void and Galacta Knight so she should as well take it easy. Beside, it was fun to mess with who she thought at a time was invincible. Pfff! How things had changed since that day.

"So you press this button to decide what you want to do, and in battle mode, you do that and decide if you want simple battles or activate the wave mode before choosing which enemy or enemies you want to fight. In wave mode, it's actually decided by level of difficulty. And like I said, in the highest one, you have to fight all the foes we ever fought. To tell you how difficult it is, only three people succeeded in accomplishing it: me, Kirby, and Void. Not even Galacta Knight has managed to do it. When you aren't in wave mode, you simply choose the enemy or enemies in that huge list. From simple Waddle Dees to Void himself, everyone is here separated into three categories: common enemies, stronger enemies, and unique ones. The unique ones are the ones that interest us."

As she talked, she showed the list of unique enemies, showing one by one some of them like Meta Knight, Hyness, Sectonia, before settling for Nightmare. Once she pressed another button, the door to the training room then opened.

"And here we go! Have a good show!"

She then entered the room, and the next instant, light appeared and formed Nightmare, the terrible dark wizard who tried to plunge Pop Start into an eternal nightmare to gain enough power to conquer the universe.

"Wow! He looks terrifying!" Sweetie Belle said with awe at the huge dark wizard.

Phantom laughed. "With a look like that, you can only be evil."

Apple Death, Scootabot, Sweetie Lich, and Little Ghost shrugged and all said, "Meh, we saw worse."

The fight then began between Sweetie Void and the fake Nightmare. By now, the alicorn knew him and his moves by heart and had absolutely no problem avoiding his many star-shaped projectiles that he was constantly sending while teleporting around.

"Be warned. Many enemies I encountered spam teleport to try to confuse you. Not all of them, thankfully, but be prepared," Sweetie Void said as she side stepped a bunch of projectiles coming from behind her.

Nightmare changed tactic and plunged the room in darkness, but this didn't work as Sweetie Void could still feel the projectiles before she used magic to bring light back. Nightmare then charged energy into his hands to fire a powerful laser but it was avoided too. Finally, Nightmare charged at Sweetie Void in an attempt to ram her but the filly jumped at the last second and landed on his head, taking a ride. The wizard attempted to shake her off, even teleporting and rapidly flying around before he used one of his hands to catch her, but the filly then used one of her sword to slice it off.

"Okay, that's enough."

She planted her sword in Nightmare's head, and the wizard disappeared in an explosion of light.

The spectators all clapped, some of them in awe at Sweetie Void's performance. That dark wizard looked like he could have given some problems even to an alicorn, but she defeated him so easily!

"My turn," Phantom said while Sweetie Void exited the room. She looked at the list of unique enemies, trying to decide which one to fight. Her attention eventually settled on a certain pink masked knight with a spear. "I remember seeing this guy when you showed us bits of your fight against Void. So that's Galacta Knight? Despite his appearance, he looks tough."

"Oh. Galacta Knight is VERY tough. You want to try to fight him? I'm warning you, he's one of the most powerful enemies this building proposes."

"Mmh... Yeah, I think that I will fight him."

And so, Phantom entered the room where a copy of Galacta Knight appeared.

"Alright Pinky, let's see what you're made o-Holy shit!"

Without warning, Galacta Knight charged at her spear first and, in the blink of an eye, almost impaled her and she barely avoided it by moving to the side. Phantom then quickly teleported away as Galacta Knight followed his attack by a series of thrusts that were so fast that the fillies couldn't even see them with their naked eyes. Even Sweetie Void had difficulty following them.

"And that's not even his final form! So you should start to get serious if you want to defeat him!" Sweetie Void advised.

"Noted!" Phantom shouted back as she materialized a cloud of Phantom Cubes around her while she also turned herself into her anthropomorphic appearance, Infinite's red sword appearing in her right hand while a lightning spear appeared in her left hand.

Galacta didn't pay attention to the cubes and charged right through them, not minding when he found himself trapped in an alternate reality where dozens of laser cannons fired at him. He avoided most of the lasers easily and brushed off the ones that hit him like they were nothing before his spear finally clashed with Phantom's sword. Phantom then found out that she was right to get herself a second weapon because damn was that guy fast! She would even dare to say that his attacks with his spear were freaking faster than Sonic! If it hadn't been for her Phantom powers allowing her to get a superhuman (or superpony) reaction time, then the fight would have already been over! And teleporting to get some space didn't work because the knight just won't let her go. As soon as she reappeared, he was already at her!

And then, Galacta Knight raised his spear and made lightning rain all over the room, but Phantom immediately answered by materializing lightning rods and she even used her lightning spear to "catch" the lightning bolts and send them back at the knight.

"Woah... The guy's actually giving Phantom a workout," Apple Bloom said, amazed.

"But in the end, she's still getting the advantage. But, uh... You said that this isn't his final form?" Sweetie Belle asked worriedly at her alicorn counterpart.

Sweetie Void simply gave a smirk in return while Phantom smashed Galacta Knight around with two giant hammers that she materialized while Galacta was trapped in an illusion.

The knight seemed to understand then that he needed to up his game so he raised his spear again and gathered energy before darkness engulfed him.

"Ohoh! He's going directly for his dark form! He saw how powerful Phantom is and takes her for the threat she is," Sweetie Void commented.

"His dark form?" some of the others asked.

The darkness disappeared, allowing everyone to see Galacta Knight's new dark form, and Phantom actually gulped.

"Just for info, in this form, Galacta Knight can cut a planet in half without sweating."

Translation: playtime is over, give everything you have because you're now facing a world-destroyer.

And Galacta quickly proved it as he sliced the fabric of space to fire a giant space-beam from the hole he opened.

As Phantom and Galacta went all out, making the building shake under the intensity of the battle, Apple Death asked, "How did ya defeat this guy? Ya weren't even an alicorn when ya fought him, right?"

"I got so angry at him almost killing my friends that I triggered a new transformation that allowed me to temporarily become his equal. Even then, the fight that followed was a close call and the two of us were on the brink of death by the end."

"What do you think are Phantom's chances?" Sweetie Lich asked.

"Oh, I don't doubt that she will win. She will just have to work hard for it."

And that was exactly what was happening. Galacta Knight was unleashing boggling attacks comprising of hundreds of sword-shaped beams, giant sharp waves, apocalyptic tornadoes, without forgetting the space-beams. He was so fast that it was almost impossible to follow him, and he was relentless. Phantom really had to use her best illusions to get to him while constantly moving to avoid everything he was sending. It was pretty much her only option as attempting to use her swordsmanship at this point was suicidal. As good as she was with a sword, and she could land some hits if she tried, Galacta's speed would allow him to land ten times this number of hits without problem. Yes, Phantom could easily heal any wound she took, but she would rather want to use the Phantom energy to attack.

Many of the stuff Phantom sent in her illusions didn't work. Galacta Knight easily destroyed things like seesaws or chains. Even giant monsters like Infinite had used back in the war against the Resistance in Mobius were just turned into cubes in a few seconds. She actually went as far as sending a copy of Sonic himself but even the hedgehog couldn't outspeed Galacta Knight and simply served as a diversion for a few moments before Galacta was able to destroy him by turning him into swiss cheese. Even Eggman's best robots like the Egg Dragoon were no match. Phantom's best chances were to use projectiles of energy. Galacta couldn't destroy these ones, just try to avoid them or to deflect them with his spear and his shield.

In the long run, it worked, and Phantom was able to defeat Galacta Knight, but she was out of breath by then. This knight could have given even Tirek powered by all the magic of the world a run for his money.

"I think that I will need a good nap after that," she said as she exited the room.

"No kidding. It's a wonder the building is still standing," Little Ghost said. "Alright, my turn! But... Uh... Can you warn me if I choose something too much for me? she asked to Sweetie Void who agreed with a nod.

Little Ghost settled for Drawcia, the painting witch. Sweetie Void reassured her that Drawcia should be okay but reserved a few surprises. Her main shtick was to give life to what she painted, pretty much like Pyrite, so she should be in familiar territory.

And the fight actually went well at first. Whatever Drawcia painted was easily destroyed and these balls of energy she sent from her body were easily avoided. There was a close call when she caused giant colored spikes to come out of the ground for the first time but Little Ghost reacted just in time. She teleported every once in a while but nothing problematic. The only problem was that her laugh was starting to get on everyone's nerves.

But then, after a final hit, Drawcia transformed into a giant, nightmarish, screeching ball of paint.

"What the buck?!"

"That's Drawcia Soul. Things get real so be careful," Sweetie Void presented and warned.

"Wait, is that actually Drawcia's soul?" Apple Death asked.

"Yes. In this universe, under some conditions, it is possible for some beings to unleash their soul to fight, becoming much more powerful but losing themselves in return as souls are pure will that will stop at nothing to reach whatever goal they had. And if this goal is to kill you... Well..." Sweetie Belle waved at the battle. "Just watch."

As Sweetie Void talked, Drawcia Soul had begun attacking, randomly, erratically bouncing around as she attempted to crush Little Ghost. She screeched, teleported a dozen times, screeched again, turned into a giant fireball and attempted to ram into Little Ghost, teleported a few times again, screeched again...

"Ah see what ya mean. She really lost all reason..." Apple Death said. "It's like fighting Madness incarnate."

"And if you think that's bad, that's nothing. When I fought the real Drawcia with Kirby, it wasn't just her who went crazy, but the whole world around us. We fought her in a painted world she created from scratch, and when she unleashed her Soul, everything turned into pure chaos and by the end I was fighting a headache. Thanks the stars I am not epileptic."

Little Ghost destroyed a small group of these one-eyed things that Drawcia Soul sent and attacked using lightning, causing heavy damage. In the end, despite everything, Little Ghost had not much problem despite some bad hits, especially when Drawcia Soul turned her body into little blobs of paint that she rained all over the room. Before long, in a last screech, Drawcia Soul exploded into light and Little Ghost exited the room with a proud expression.

"This leaves Scootabot. You still wanna try?" Sweetie Lich asked.

The robotic pegasus now looked insure. Galacta Knight had been a monster of power who gave even Phantom trouble, and while Sweetie Void and Little Ghost easily defeated their respective adversaries, said adversaries had still been powerful ones that she wasn't sure she would have been able to fight herself.

She still looked at the list, looking at the beings and examining them to determine how powerful they were and if they would be okay to fight.

She eventually stopped at something that looked... not powerful at all. A little jester on a ball named Marx. He didn't even have arms. He really looked harmless. Of course, if he was in this list, then it meant that he was probably hiding something, but maybe that it was alright for her to fight this guy.

Sweetie Void looked at what she selected and frowned. "Marx, uh? I... don't think that it's a good idea for you to fight him."

Scootabot waved her off. "Bah, it's a jester! How bad could he be? What, he will make me laugh to death? Play some mean pranks? It will be okay."

"Are you sure?" Sweetie Void asked before she selected Dark Matter. "Dark Matter here is the first enemy I actually ever fought back when I didn't have much power yet so I think that it would be better for you if you fight him."

"No thanks," Scootabot replied before she selected Marx again. "Don't worry. I will manage. It's not a jester that will scare me."

"Uhh... Ya remember all the killer clowns we encountered?" Apple Death reminded.

This made Scootabot question her choice. "Well... I guess that we will see."

She then entered the room where the jester appeared, bouncing on a ball with an innocent-looking smile.

"So, what do you have in store for me, little guy?"

Suddenly, with a crazy laugh, Marx turned into a bat-like horror before saying, "Time to play!"

"Okay... Nope!" Scootabot ran toward the exit only for Marx to teleport in her way.

"Where do you think you are going? We haven't even started!" he said before his cheeks bulged out and he spat a giant laser that Scootabot barely dodged by jumping to the side.

When the pegasus got up, she looked in horror at where the laser impacted the wall.

"Scream "I give up!"" Sweetie Void yelled.

"Uh... I give up! I give up!"

Marx lost his smile and said, "You're not fun," before he disappeared in a flash of light.

Scootabot immediately left the room under the laugh of her friends.

"Next time, listen to us," Apple Death said, giving her friend a small bump on the leg.

Scootabot huffed. "Yeah yeah... But seriously, how could I have expected that jester to turn into... that?"

"Welcome to my world," Sweetie Void said. "Really, in this universe, everything is possible. You can get your butt kicked by a tree, and a freaking boar even threw bombs at me once. Aah... Good times..."

Scootabot stared at the alicorn before she shook her head. "Anyway, I think that I will pass my turn, finally. Maybe another time."

At this moment, Apple Death entered the training room, and Marx reappeared.

"Uh? What are you doing?" Scootabot asked.

"Giving this jester a piece of mah mind for scaring mah friend."

At her words, Marx laughed before he transformed. He then teleported a few times around the Earth Pony filly until he just disappeared. Apple Death looked around, trying to find him.

"Under you!" Sweetie Lich shouted, making Apple Death look down at a large shadow that was in the ground under her. Understanding, she jumped aside just in time to avoid Marx as he came out of the ground. As Marx flew out, Apple Death was able to catch him by the wing to keep him close before she punched him between the eyes. Marx then screeched in pain as his body decomposed rapidly until only his skeleton remained before Apple Death slammed it on the ground, scattering his bones (which weren't numerous since he was just a head with two feet and two wings).

Apple Death dropped the wing she had been holding before it disappeared in light along with the rest and she grinned. "It's been fun playing with ya, Marx."

"Yikes..." Sweetie Void let out, wincing a bit. This Marx was just a copy of her friend but seeing it finish like that...

"Wooooh! You rock Apple Bloom!" Little Ghost shouted.

Apple Death gave a mock bow.

Meanwhile, in the Mushroom Kingdom...

"Grrrr... I... will make... her regret...!" Bowser growled as he was being fed some soup by Kamec. The King of the Koopas was now heavily bandaged, result of both Sweetie Belle's punch and of his landing afterward. At least, he had a new shell. The previous one had been starting to crack.

"How, your horribleness? I fear that this filly may be beyond you," Kamec asked.

"I don't know... But I will find a way..."

"MUAHAHAHAHAH!" a crazy laugh suddenly echoed from nowhere, making Kamec jump and throw upward the bowl of soup that then landed on his head.

Despite his injuries, Bowser jumped out of his bed and readied himself to fight. "Who's here? Show yourself!"

The next instant, a rift opened, and Bowser could see the silhouette of something at the other side. Whatever it was, all he could see was a giant hand.

A left hand.

"Who are you?! How dare you enter my castle?!" Bowser shouted.

"Technically, I am not in your castle," the being said. "As for who I am, I am someone who can give you what you wish.

POWER."

Chapter 77: League Meeting

Gold was facing a large screen in what was known as the crisis room, a room very rarely used as, as its name showed, it was only used in times of crisis, when all the Champions of the Pokémon League needed to have a meeting to talk together of what to do to deal with the situation.

The room was large, round, and had for only furniture some chairs to sit on. Behind Gold, above the exit door of the room, the current icon of the Indigo Plateau was present.

Gold wasn't alone. Alongside him were the members of the Indigo Plateau's Elite 4 as well as Red, Blue, Professor Oak and his younger colleague from Johto Professor Elm, and Twilight Sparkle.

The screen before him was divided into small windows all showing the members of the other branches of the Pokémon League in other regions, Champions, Elite 4 members, as well as the Pokémon Professors and some ex-Champions or important individuals. In Galar's case, since there wasn't an Elite 4, there was only the Champion, Ex-Champion, and the local Professor.

News of what happened had quickly spread in the hours that followed the battles against Team Rainbow Rocket. The island was destroyed! Gone! Wiped off the map! And knowing that Team RR had now such firepower was causing a huge amount of panic all over the world which wasn't helped at the knowledge that the team could attack anywhere, anytime, without warning.

Twilight finished recounting what happened against Giovanni and by the time she was done, many looked worried, angry, or had somber expressions.

"So, let me get this straight," Leon, ex-Champion of Galar and current Chairman of the Galar League, began. "They not only were able to recreate Shadow Pokémon, but they also managed to find a way to use Dynamax outside of Galar?"

"Yes, they did," Twilight answered, making many rub their head with groans. THAT was VERY bad news.

"Isn't there something you can do to help about it with Eternatus, Victor?" Professor Elm asked.

Victor, the young boy who managed to defeat Leon and become the Champion of Galar, sighed. "Eternatus can Dynamax other Pokémon but they will need to be in its proximity, which means that I would need to be present in every battles, and I can't guarantee that. And even then, Eternatus is still very weakened. Still can't even take its Eternamax form. So the number of Pokémon it will be able to Dynamax at once will surely be very limited, and I doubt that it will be able to do it every days."

His words were followed by more groans and sighs.

"Unless..." he continued as he looked at the Champion of Alola, another boy named Elio. "Unless you go hunt for alternate versions of Eternatus with Lunala's help? You explore the Ultra Space in search of alternate worlds and see if you can't find some Eternatus in them to bring back."

Elio shook his head. "You make it sound easy. The Ultra Space is a very huge place with countless worlds. Finding alternate versions of our world is already not easy, so finding one where Eternatus is present? And if I do find even one, I would still have to find the Eternatus, awaken it if it's not already awake, and capture it probably after a difficult fight against its Eternamax form. It would take forever. And that's not counting that, while exploring the Ultra Space, I may end up having to fight Ultra Beasts, including other Solgaleo and Lunala, and maybe even other Necrozma. No, it would be easier to simply do what the Rockets did: study the Dynamax Energy and find a way to stock it and unleash it where and when needed."

"And we will work on it right away," Professor Magnolia, the aged Pokémon Professor of Galar said. "If we could get our hands on one of these capsules Team Rainbow Rocket uses to stock the Dynamax Energy, it would make it easier. You know what to do next time you encounter one of them, everyone."

Everyone nodded.

"We should also work on ensuring that Giovanni doesn't reach Arceus," Flint from Sinnoh's Elite 4 said.

"You are right," Ruby agreed. "We should send teams to search for the plates. Even just finding one will upset his plan."

"Why doesn't Arceus do something about it?" a little pink-haired girl member of the Elite 4 of the region of Caloom, a Fairy-type specialist named Viviane asked curiously. "If the Rockets are after it, then shouldn't it stop them itself?"

"It will not do anything," Cynthia, ex-Champion of Sinnoh, answered with a shake of her head. "Arceus doesn't intervene in the matters of the universe, even when it concerns itself. I guess that it will only intervene if Giovanni reaches the legendary Hall of Origin. But it is said that Arceus sometime acts through a "Chosen One" at some occasions, a bit like a guide, and given the situation, I wouldn't be surprised if such a "Chosen One" suddenly appears."

Blue frowned in thought. "I'm not sure what a "Chosen One" would be able to do more than us. Many of us already have very powerful teams, with many Legendaries included." He turned to look at Twilight. "Maybe we should call back Sweetie Belle."

Twilight agreed with a nod. "But we must wait for the portal Magolor is building to be finished. He should be done in a few hours. Or we can wait tomorrow when Sweetie Belle should return to bring Apple Bloom and Scootaloo back to Equestria for school. It would be preferable because Sweetie Belle is certainly in one of her adventures in some other universe, and finding her would be very difficult."

"It shouldn't be a problem. That's just one night away. Unless the Rockets suddenly decide to start a world-scale assault in the middle of the night or somehow manage to find the remaining plates in just these few hours, we should be okay waiting for her," Blue said.

"Well, we may not even have to wait for her," Dawn, the Champion of Sinnoh, said. Everyone had obviously been told about the ponies, especially Sweetie Belle who managed to defeat Red's strongest team as well as a Groudon. "Time for the good news! When the Rockets warped during the assault on their hideout, Palkia was able to determine where they came from.* If we could meet directly, Elio, we could work together, we could determine where in the Ultra Space they came from and you could go scout with Lunala to see if what I think is their HQ is really there and what is awaiting us. Then, we could prepare an assault and stop them."

"That's great! Then come to Alola so we can start right away!" Elio exclaimed happily.

"Nice. If everything goes well, we should be done with Team Rainbow Rocket in the following hours," Iris, ex-Champion of Unova, said. "Then we will start to prepare."

Gordon, the Champion of Ekusy, the oldest person present in this meeting, suddenly raised a hand to gain everyone's attention. The man was almost one hundred years old but he still imposed respect, especially knowing that he kept the title of Champion since he got it when he was seventeen. He only ever lost to one person: Red, but the battle had apparently been a very close one despite Red using his strongest team. "Before we end this discussion, we should remove the limit of six Pokémon we have. Team Rainbow Rocket doesn't seem to have gone around it yet, so we should use it to our advantage. If we are about to face an army of Dynamaxed Shadow Pokémon, then we will need as many Pokémon as possible. We can't think anymore about being fair, especially against these terrorists."

Everyone agreed.

"And you should also be careful, Dawn," he continued. "The Rockets will certainly go after the Azure Flute, and they could use your absence to launch an assault on the Sinnoh League to get it."

"If this happens, then we will be here to welcome them," Cynthia said with a small smirk that chilled many.

They pitied the poor fools who will dare to face her.

The meeting ended not long after that.

Sweetie Void and the others left the Training Building and returned inside the Lor so Sweetie Void could continue giving them a tour of Dream Land and beyond.

They passed over Kirby's home where they could see Kirby sleeping under the tree behind it. Sweetie Void thought that Void was probably inside the house talking with the scientists. Then they went toward the Meta Knights' HQ where Sweetie Void quickly waved hello to the guards that could see them before they flew away. Further in the lands, Sweetie Void spotted the Halberd probably doing a round, and the Lor went to fly alongside it where the alicorn could see Meta Knight standing on the deck. The knight gave them a small, silent nod that Sweetie Void returned.

The others were very impressed by the battleship, even Phantom. The pegasus saw many battleships back as Infinite and during the war between Equestria and the other nations against Past Eggman, but one look was enough to tell her that the Halberd would destroy them as if they were paper ships. Of course, the fillies already saw the Halberd back when Sweetie Void showed them the battle against Star Dream, but they hadn't been able to take in the details. The ship was absolutely huge and had more cannons than they ever saw. And there was that grappling claw that looked very dangerous to any Hunter-class ship that dared to come too close. A very ingenious idea Phantom thought.

Flying in the sky of Dream Land alongside such a ship as they soared above sceneries worthy of dreams was quite the experience for the fillies, but the Lor eventually flew away to go on its way to show more of this world.

"Impressive battleship," Phantom commented.

"It could destroy Bowser's armada like it's nothing," Apple Death added with a nod.

"Yes. The Halberd is a very great ship. To think that I managed to destroy it with Kirby very early after my arrival in this universe. I barely knew how to fire magical beams from my horn back then!"

The others stared at the alicorn, and at least half of them shouted, "How?!"

"Easy. Boarding it. Fighting through the crew. Destroying key parts until it crashed in the ocean. The hardest part had been finding out how to board it without being shot down by all the cannons. Not even the Warp Star could do it."

"How did ya board it?" Apple Bloom asked.

"A giant armored rainbow bird with bladed wings that Kirby previously helped offered us a ride."

...

"You serious?" Scootabot asked.

"Very."

...

"Welcome to the Dream Universe."

The fillies witnessed the beauty of the Rainbow Resort and the Fountain of Dreams, Sweetie Void silently chuckling thinking how the whole area had been destroyed in her fight against Kirby. They then drooled as they were shown the cookie hills of Cookie Country, Sweetie Void taking the occasion to grab a VERY big chunk to snack on with her friends (but mostly for herself). They visited the Squeak Squad's hideout, the Rainbow Islands, the Popopo Islands (some of the fillies finding the name funny), the tower of Nutty Noon, and many other places all over Pop Star.

Finally, they returned to Dream Land where the Lor flew toward the Dreamstalk and up alongside it.

"And now, I present to you my kingdom, Floralia!" Sweetie Void shouted just before they passed the first island. "This is Fine Fields!"

She presented the islands one by one and, without surprise, the fillies thought that they were dreaming when they saw the island made of sweets with towns made of giant toys and construct blocks. A real paradise for children (without counting the haunted circus). They found the third island, Old Odyssey, very beautiful with its palace and the fountains balancing on top of the mountains. Then there was Wild World that looked perfect to have adventures.

And then, their jaw dropped when they saw Sweetie Void's castle which put to shame any other castle they ever saw, both in size and in beauty. And the sight was embellished by the magnificent flower of the Dreamstalk visible in the background, without forgetting that it was a freaking crystal castle in the sky as the clouds visible around it reminded.

"When Sectonia got corrupted by the Mirror, she built an evil-looking castle right there, a castle that Sombra would have certainly been proud of. When we... defeated Sectonia and I took over as queen, we destroyed her castle and the inhabitants built this one instead for me using her own collection of crystals. It was a really big collection," Sweetie Void informed.

"Well, these guys sure went far to show their appreciation of their new queen," Sweetie Belle said in awe.

Sweetie Belle looked around with pride at her kingdom. Beside the six main islands connected together thanks to the Dreamstalk, there were other, smaller islands floating around, and the inhabitants of Floralia had begun building homes on them. Farms were built on Fine Fields. There were obviously the quarries on Old Odyssey. And there were even talks of building generators using the heat of the volcanoes of Endless Explosions to produce electricity, and they were coming up with little blimp-like vehicles to allow the inhabitants who couldn't fly to go from island to island. Sweetie Void also came up with the idea of bringing more floating islands from all over Pop Star to bring more land to Floralia later on, and also clouds to build on.

By the time Sweetie Void will truly start her duty as queen, Floralia will already be the most prosperous nation of Pop Star (which wasn't difficult...).

Taranza really was doing an excellent job. He would have been a good king. Maybe she should just let him become it? She will have to talk to him about this eventually.

"Want to have a tour of the castle?" she asked to her friends.

They agreed unanimously, so Sweetie Void made the Lor land on a platform that had been built on a smaller island not far of the entrance linked by a bridge.

Of course, they didn't tour the whole castle. It would take the whole day. So she simply led them to the more interesting places like her apartments or the gardens. They also helped the servants put some banners as they were still in the middle of doing it. And of course, they couldn't help but play a bit in the vast hallways, games going from tag to simply looking at the distorted reflections on the crystalline walls and make funny faces.

Once they left the castle and returned to the Lor, Sweetie Void showed them next the Space Resort and promised them that they will visit it once her friends were back from the Pokémon World.

At the same time, the fillies were able to see Pop Star from space, expressions of wonder appearing as they saw the star shape of the planet with its two rings.

"How does this work?" Scootabot asked.

"Dream Universe," Sweetie Void simply answered. "And again, there are planets with weirder shapes. You will see soon enough."

"Mario's universe's also very weird apparently," Apple Death said. "While planets've spherical shapes, there're many little planetoids and other space bodies that're just strange. Remember in our fight against Crakkthulx?"

The three fillies who participated in the fight all remembered how there had been buildings and what could have been considered asteroids but with very unnatural shapes, as if they had been more or less sculpted.

After a few minutes spent staring at Pop Star, the Lor Starcutter opened a portal, starting a tour of some of the planets that Sweetie Void visited through her adventures, and almost all of them received the same looks of wonder than Pop Star.

"A planet made of yarn? What?"

"Uh. This planet looks like a giant floating island with a smaller planet half buried in it."

"Woah! This planet looks like it burns! How did you explore it without being turned into ash?"

"That's not a planet! That's a bucking planet-sized space-station with a futuristic city built on it!"

"What the heck happened to this planet? Why is it in pieces?"

"Funny. This planet looks like a giant water drop around an asteroid."

"And yet, there are lands on its surface. Don't ask."

Shiver Star was probably the more normal-looking planet they saw even if its surface was entirely frozen.

"This planet was previously known as Earth and was the home of the humans in this universe, but some war caused its surface to froze and the humans escaped into space, some of them ending up on Pop Star. Now, the robots they left behind have taken their place," Sweetie Void recounted. "They are very nice, and they sometimes help when we need to work with technology, like that time they built a mecha for Dedede. Too bad the mecha disappeared in a rift and we had to destroy it later when we found it piloted by a hostile robot on Halcandra."

Phantom raised an eyebrow. "A mecha piloted by a robot? Eggman would laugh at the idea."

They briefly went to see the robots at the surface before the Lor transported them to Ripple Star.

"Okay. After the star-shaped planet, I can accept a heart-shaped planet. But how the heck can it have a face? And... giant ribbons orbiting it?" Little Ghost almost shouted.

Sweetie Void shrugged. "Two words: Dream Universe. This planet is the homeworld of fairies. Me, Kirby, Dedede, Bandanna Dee, and Adeleine saved it from the Dark Matters. This is where we had our final showdown with them and their leader, Zero. Nothing better than the planet incarnating love to defeat for good a being whose greatest weakness was love."

"Oh boy. A whole planet of Cadances?" Phantom wondered jokingly.

Again, they descended on the surface to visit the fairies. It had been some time since Sweetie Void saw Queen Ripple. And after a nice talk around tea, the fillies returned on the Lor to go to their final destination: New Halcandra.

Again, seeing the huge ring-shaped world amazed the fillies.

"This planet is entirely artificial, made by the Ancients themselves. It is actually a giant portal gate that had been linked to the home-dimension of the Ancients, but now that the dimension is gone, the portal is useless. It's broken anyway, and we probably won't be able to repair it before some time. Now, Magolor and the other descendants of the Ancients along with many other beings from all over the universe are working to make this planet their home. It was almost destroyed in our final adventure, the one where we ended up fighting Void. Magolor, corrupted by a piece of the Jamba Heart, summoned Galacta Knight and unleashed him on us. By the end of the fight, the planet was cut in two, and it could have been worse. Thankfully, Void repaired everything with his almighty powers in the aftermath. As for the large floating island in the middle, this is what remains of Halcandra, the homeworld of the Ancients after it was destroyed by Void in the second act of the Civil War."

"And I thought the wars against Eggman and Past Eggman had been bad..." Phantom muttered.

"Not the same scale. Not at all," Sweetie Void said.

They descended on the surface and the Lor landed at the usual place. From here, Sweetie Void led her friends around and presented them to everyone else like Susie or the Mage Sisters. The fillies received translators and spent some hours helping around in the rebuilding of the city (all in good fun with the lot of incidents, of course) getting to know the locals.

And with that, it was time for the girls to return to their homes for dinner (it was lucky that their three dimensions shared almost the same hour even if not the same date).

"Are you going to one of your adventures after that?" Phantom asked to Sweetie Void.

"Yes, possibly a last one before I bring my Apple Bloom and my Scootaloo back to my Equestria. I think that I still have about... two days My-Universe-Time before the time comes. It will obviously depend of the time difference between my universe and the universe I will end up in. You want to come?"

"Of course. This is why you came to us, right?"

"Great!"

"How about after dinner?" Apple Death proposed.

"Alright. You can both open rifts, right? Then I will await you in my Equestria. You should have no problem finding me."

They agreed, and Sweetie Void led everypony back to their universes before she brought the Lor back on its platform beside her Twilight's castle. She then went to have a meal in Sugarcube Corner while she waited for Phantom and Apple Death to return.

Not even an hour later and Phantom came to her, soon followed by Apple Death.

"You two ready?" Sweetie Void asked as she finished her cake.

"Eeyup."

"Yep."

At this, they left the bakery, and Sweetie Void opened a rift before they stepped through it.

The fillies barely stepped through the rift that they were welcomed by shouts ranging from simple screams of surprise or fright to "What the heck?!" and they quickly saw why.

They landed in what seemed to be the bridge of a spaceship judging by the windows showing the vacuum of space outside and the computers and other machines present around reminding of what Sweetie Void saw in the bridge of the Halberd and the Warhammer. No wheel however so it was one of these spaceships where you had to press some buttons on the computers to define the ship's course.

And the shouts came from the five anthropomorphic animals that had been sitting on the various chairs: two foxes (a male one with the usual orange/light brown and white fur and a female one with blue and white fur), a male frog, a male blue bird with red around the eyes (probably a bird of prey), and an old male rabbit. There was also a tall bipedal humanoid robot with a red visor instead of eyes.

The frog had fallen from his chair which had toppled backward in his surprise, but the others were more reactive and were all now standing up and pointing weapons at the fillies, mostly laser guns but the vixen was pointing some kind of staff that clearly had power. The robot, however, was simply staring, obviously not made to take on threats.

"Well... This starts well..." Sweetie Void mumbled.

Author's Note

*If you remember, back in chapter 7, Arceus said that Palkia communicated with it. And then, Arceus asked Dialga to bend time to allow Sweetie Belle to return to her world the instant just after she left it. And yet, Dawn is in possession of both Dialga and Palkia here (I decided to not take the remakes into account and to make as if something similar to Pokémon Platinum with mechanisms like Mega Evolutions happened instead. I was really disappointed that they didn't do like with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. What a missed occasion...). Well, Palkia being able to manipulate space, I wouldn't be surprised if it can open a rift from inside its Poké Ball to pay a visit to Arceus, and Arceus would obviously have no problem communicating with Dialga.

I may need help to come up with the interior of the Great Fox (Star Fox Assault version) because I have no idea of what could be the layout or what room we could find in it.

Chapter 78: Meeting Team Star Fox

Upon seeing the fillies, the anthro animals' expression went from suspicious to surprised or bemused (excepted the frog who had been too busy getting up from his fall before he saw the fillies and went straight to shock). Sweetie Belle wasn't sure what they had expected to see come out of the rift (she refused to look into their mind), but clearly three adorable, seemingly harmless little fillies must have been at the bottom of the list. And they must look very alien to them too. If anthro equines exist in their universe, then seeing quadrupedal ones must be weird for them. At least, Apple Bloom had her illusion on so she looked like a normal filly instead of how she looked now with the skeleton visible through the skin and all.

"Who the heck are you? Why are you here?" the bird asked.

Before any of them could answer, Sweetie Belle felt someone trying to enter her mind, probably to determine if they were a threat, and felt that it was the vixen. Instead of pushing her back, she let her see some images of who they were and where they came from. The vixen looked a bit suspicious, probably thinking that Sweetie Belle could be tricking her, but she sighed and lowered her staff.

"I don't feel any ill intend from them. But be careful, the white one seems to have similar powers to me."

"Don't worry, I don't intend to invade the privacy of your minds," Sweetie Belle reassured.

The bird smirked. "I especially advise you not to enter Fox's mind there. His must be full of lewd thoughts about Krystal."

The fox (named Fox? Seriously?) stuttered a bit, becoming red, before he yelled, "Shut up Falco!"

The vixen, presumably Krystal, giggled. "I confirm."

Under an indignant (and whining) "Hey!" from the fox, Falco exploded into laughter and the frog was trying his best to avoid laughing too while the rabbit just shook his head in exasperation before he yelled, "This is not something to talk about in front of new guests!"

Falco rolled his eyes. "You should really learn to pull out that stick, gramp."

"Ahem!" Fox loudly faked clearing his throat before the old rabbit could explode on Falco, using this to also regain his composure as he fought down the blush. "So, you think we can trust them, Krystal?"

"I think, yes," Krystal answered. But silently, her expression clearly added "But let's remain careful," to which Fox nodded.

All the while, the fillies had remained silent. Sweetie Belle was very amused by the exchange but couldn't help cringing with a silent "Eww" alongside Apple Bloom. While the alicorn was the more romantic of the CMC, she still was a child. Scootaloo was divided between sadistic amusement at the poor fox's embarrassment and exasperation at Falco. This guy was really mature, uh? Reminded her of Sonic.

"So, uh... To answer Mr. Birdy's questions..." Sweetie Belle began after a couple seconds of silence.

Falco spluttered. "Mr. Birdy?"

"I'm Sweetie Belle."

"Apple Bloom."

"Scootaloo."

"As for why out of all the space in this universe, we appeared here and almost gave you a heart attack, that's because someone seems to like messing with us." Sweetie Belle glared upward at nothing at this last part. Upon seeing their stares, she added, "Short story, when we cross a rift, an... acquaintance ensures that we always land somewhere of interest instead of, say, on a desert planet with no idea of where to go."

"Makes sense. But how does this work?" the frog asked. "Some portal technology?"

"Nope. A being of power beyond imagination transcending everything you can think of," Sweetie Belle answered.

"In two words, a God," Scootaloo clarified.

"What? A God's helping us?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Right. I forgot to tell you about DD. They're the one who warned me about these threats I told you about. I will tell you more about them later."

Falco snorted. "A god? You must be kidding."

His words only made the fillies chuckle, making the bird look at them with suspicion not sure if he was being made fun of.

"I don't know if this god story is true or not, but right now, let me welcome you to the Great Fox, our team's home sweet home," the rabbit said.

Fox nodded. "We are Star Fox, and I am the leader, Fox Mccloud," he presented himself before he put a hand on Krystal's shoulder. "And this is Krystal, our newest recruit."

"Wait, so you really are named Fox?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"... Wow. And I thought Asgore had been bad with names. At least, he didn't name his kid "Goat"."

"That's what I said to James!" the rabbit shouted. "No imagination at all! He should have left the naming to his wife!"

Fox groaned. "Please, let's not bring that up again..."

Scootaloo chuckled. "Poor guy must have constantly been teased about it."

"For having spent most of my life at his side, I confirm," the frog said with a big teasing grin at the fox.

"Enough about my name!" Fox yelled, making most of the people in the room laugh.

"By the way, I'm Slippy Toad, the mechanic and engineer of Star Fox," the frog presented himself.

Falco was next. "Falco Lombardi, the team's ace pilote."

"And biggest hothead of the Lylat System," Slippy added.

"Shut up, Frog Boy!"

"Remind me how many time Fox had to save your butt because you charged head first without thinking?" Slippy asked.

"You are one to talk! I wasn't the one screaming "Help me!" not even ten seconds after the beginning of our first mission!" Falco shouted back, promptly shutting the frog up in embarrassment.

The rabbit mumbled something about maturity before he said out loud, "And I'm Peppy Hare. Nowadays, I mostly remain in the Great Fox supervising and giving advice, trying to ensure that these boys don't kill themselves. It's harder than it sounds."

"What about the robot?" Apple Bloom asked.

"That's ROB 64, the operator of the Great Fox," Slippy answered. "You can return to your duty, ROB. Everything is fine."

"Affirmative," the robot answered before he turned back to his computer.

All the other members of Star Fox returned on their sits while the fillies simply decided to sit on one of the tables, making sure to avoid where there were buttons and screens.

"So, where do you three come from? You are clearly not from the Lylat System," Fox asked.

"And you said earlier that your acquaintance makes sure that you land only, to use your words, somewhere of interest. So this means that we are of interest. Why?" Peppy asked.

"We come from other universes, and we're here in search of allies to help us fight some future threats," Sweetie Belle answered. "And if we're here, it means that you guys could potentially help."

Slippy's eyes widened. "Visitors from outside the universe?!"

"That's something I didn't expect to see," Peppy said.

"She showed me some images of her homeworld," Krystal then informed. "They come from a land of magic but far behind us technologically-wise. They haven't even developed yet space travel. But it seems they have been entering in contact with other, sometimes more advanced civilizations." She looked back at the fillies. "However, while I understand that you seem to have some powers, I don't understand why you, who are just children, are the ones going out to search for allies instead of someone like a diplomat."

"So they really are just kids? I wasn't certain since they're from an unknown species," Fox said.

Krystal confirmed it with a nod.

"We may just be kids..." Scootaloo began.

"And again, fer Scoot, that can be put into debate," Apple Bloom briefly interrupted.

"But if you learned what we are capable of, I'm sure that you wouldn't be thinking that. For example, we aren't as innocent as we look."

This made several members of Star Fox raise an eyebrow before ROB suddenly interrupted.

"Receiving call from General Pepper."

All the members of Star Fox perked up.

"Answer!" Fox shouted

An holographic screen showing the image of an aged anthropomorphic dog in fancy red military uniform appeared above the main computer.

"Star Fox, the Cornerian Army requires your help. We are battling an army that has reformed from Andross' remnants on Fortuna, and we require you to come right away."

"We are coming right away, General!" Fox said before ending the communication. "Everyone, ready for warping to Fortuna!" He turned back to the fillies. "Sorry, but we will have to put on hold our discussion until this is over."

"No problem," Scootaloo said.

"We could help!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed.

Fox raised an eyebrow. "How?"

The three grinned and said in unisson, "You will see," chilling the fox for some reason.

It wasn't long before the Great Fox was able to warp to a giant structure above a planet that opened a green portal for them. The Great Fox crossed it, allowing it to reach the planet Fortuna in just a few seconds, the planet revealing to have a lot of green on its surface. Already, they could see the battle taking place above the planet between the Cornerian armada and the armada made of Andross' remnants as the General said, and it seemed that the Cornerian armada was having problems.

Transmission was opened with the Cornerian army before Fox said, "Team Star Fox... ready for duty!

"Aw, leave these losers to the pros. We'll beat'em in no time!" Slippy confidently exclaimed.

General Pepper then entered communication again, starting a small briefing.

"Well, Fox, looks like we're not too late."

"Yup! Of course General."

"It's just so crazy..." Slippy began. "I can't believe Andross had so darn many troops left behind."

"They're almost all common scum in it for the money," Peppy informed.

"They're quite dedicated for a bunch of hired guns," Krystal commented.

An image of an anthro ape in some uniform and yelling at a mic then appeared, revealing the ape's name to be Andrew Oikonny, as the general said, "The leader of this rebellion is none other than Oikonny."

Fox nodded. "Ok, I see now. Se we're here because..."

"We're here because we gotta put this creep on ice," Falco put in.

Pepper confirmed it with a nod. "Yes, you must take him down. I'm counting on you... now get prepped and go!" he shouted before he ended the communication.

Fox turned to the other members of Star fox. "Let's go, team!"

Fox, Krystal, Falco, and Slippy then ran out of the room, leaving Peppy, ROB, and the fillies behind.

The rabbit turned to look at the three little equines who had remained silent. "So, what are you three going to do?"

"Well, I have an idea," Sweetie Belle said as she looked at the space battle with a grin. "But I must return to my home universe first. I should be back quickly. Wait, that makes me think that I forgot to verify the time difference between our two universes. I hope it isn't too much. I will take the occasion to do it."

At this, she opened a rift, making Peppy's jaw drop, and duplicated herself, sending her double through it. She then proceeded to use the usual method to see how much time passed in one universe compared to the other and was relieved to see that it was just a bit faster in Equestria. Eight days in Equestria for six days in this universe. The usual, twenty four hours day, of course. No doubt that the length of a day differed from planet to planet, and there wasn't even a day properly speaking while being inside a spaceship. Once she was done, she made her double disappear and crossed the rift for good, the rift closing behind her.

Once she was gone, Scootaloo used her Phantom powers to take on her anthro form, taking an appearance closer to the one of the animals in this universe by the same occasion instead of the usual Mobian look. At the same time, Apple Bloom took her ghostly form, almost making Peppy topple his chair in fright.

"I don't know what is her idea, but I hope that she won't mind if we go ahead," Phantom said.

"As long as we leave some fer her, Ah guess it'll be alright."

Phantom looked at Apple Bloom with some worry. "Will you be good? Those are real flesh and blood people we're about to fight and kill. Nothing to do with the Cankens and Crakkthulx."

Apple Bloom simply gave a nod in return.

At this, Phantom placed a hand on Apple Bloom's back with a reassuring smile before she teleported out of the Great Fox while Apple Bloom phased through the wall, leaving a gawking Peppy alone with ROB.

Then, he laughed. ""We aren't as innocent as we look," she said... She sure wasn't kidding. Definitively not just children."

It wasn't long after that that four spaceship fighters with a white and blue avian-esque design came out of the belly of the Great Fox which revealed to be a large ship with an avian design, possessing two wings as well as a dorsal wing with the symbol of Star Fox: a red fox with what seemed to be a wing. The ship had a long neck ending in a head which was where the bridge was situated, and below it was a pair of laser cannons above the hatch out of which came the fighters.

"The fillies went ahead," Peppy eventually informed them through the communication line as the Star Fox members started firing at enemy fighters.

"What? How? They don't have ships of their own!" Falco shouted.

"You will see. Just focus on the mission. I already warned the Cornerian army about them."

It wasn't long before Star Fox spotted who they recognized was Scootaloo now looking more like them and somehow flying in space by herself. The filly was easily destroying enemy fighters by creating out of nowhere various weapons. Sometimes, fighters were even destroyed by unknown means, as if they were teared apart or they crashed into something invisible. Obviously had something to do with these cubes she sent at them.

"I don't know how she's doing all this, but I'm glad she's at our side," Slippy said.

At this moment, before their eyes, Phantom sliced an Androssian ship in two with just a swing of a sword.

"Hod did...?! That can't be just magic!" Falco shouted.

"I'm reading some unknown energy. I don't know if it's her version of magic or something else, but this seems powerful. I will ask more once the battle is over," Slippy said.

"Mmh... Where are the other two?" Krystal wondered.

"I saw Apple Bloom enter one of the Androssian ships," Peppy told them. "Hasn't come out since then, but she must be preparing something."

"How did she enter an enemy ship? Does she have the same powers than Scootaloo?" Slippy asked.

"Not at all. The three of them seem to be very different. By the way, the ship she entered is the one right before you, Fox."

Suddenly, the ship's cannon turned to fire at the other Androssian ships.

"Uh. The ship is now attacking its allies. What did she do to it?" Fox wondered.

"Frankly, I don't think that I want to know," Peppy said.

What Apple Bloom did was that she killed the crew and turned them into zombies that took over the ship. Now that the ship was under her control and attacking other enemies, she left it, allowing everyone to see her skeletal, ghostly form before she flew further into the enemy armada.

"She's a ghost?!" Falco yelled in shock.

"But she looked very alive when we saw her!" Slippy shouted.

"She took this form just before my eyes. I don't know if she's alive or dead, but this clearly has nothing to do with Scootaloo's powers."

"What about Sweetie Belle? Do you see her?" Krystal asked.

"She returned to her home universe. She's preparing something. I don't know what this is, but seeing what her friends can do, I'm ready to see anything."

Sweetie Belle came out of the rift right beside the Lor Starcutter which she immediately entered. The ship then took off and opened a portal to Floralia, not far of a large group of islands stuck together by metallic parts. Sweetie Belle then opened a window on the screen, showing a Lord Antler with an uniform similar to the one of Captain Vul.

"Queen Sweetie Belle!" the Antler shouted happily.

"Hi Admiral Stinger! Open the roof of the hangar, it's time for the Unique Horn's first battle!"

"Finally! I thought that I would be dust before we would get our first flight!"

A huge part of the ground of the islands and the metal linking them together then opened to reveal the hangar that had been built inside them, and the battleship in it.

As the Lor went to hover over it, Sweetie Belle said, "Starting the docking process." Then, the Lor slowly lowered itself, entering the bridge of the Unique Horn through an opening made especially for it. Once it was fully inside, the opening closed while cables attached themselves onto the Lor's hull and a footbridge was put in place to link the bridge to the Lor's main entrance. An especially large cable attached itself to the big star at the Lor's bow. With this, the Lor was fully linked to the Unique Horn, becoming a part of it. The Lor's control headpiece then placed itself on Sweetie Belle's head.

Under Admiral Stinger's orders, everyone then started the process for the Unique Horn to take off, turning on the three main reactors as well as the many engines. In the following minutes, the Unique Horn slowly floated upward, three pairs of wings deploying. Once it was high enough, the Unique Horn used the Lor Starcutter's power to fire a beam from its horn and open a star-shaped portal large enough to allow it to cross.

When a star-shaped portal suddenly appeared away from the two warring armadas, it took everyone by surprise. When they saw it, Phantom and Apple Bloom assumed that it was the Lor Starcutter, so they were in for a surprise when they saw instead a humongous battleship cross it.

The battleship was designed very similarly to the Halberd, but was easily two times bigger and was white, pink and purple. The bow also didn't have a mask but was shaped to roughly look like the head of a pony with a very long horn coming out of above the window that served as the eyes. Three pairs of angelic wings were present instead of the two pairs of bat-like wings, and the ship had a total of ten thrusters, two huge ones surrounded by eight smaller ones. Where the Halberd had a claw, this battleship had two, and instead of being on the deck, the claws were at the sides of the ship. And finally, all kinds of cannons could be seen all over it, from simple anti-fighters turrets to rocket launchers passing by a set of three large cannons in the middle of the deck before the bridge that looked very dangerous.

Inside the bridge, inside the Lor Starcutter, Sweetie Belle grinned as she looked at the window showing the battle going on. "Hey everyone! Say hello to Big Mama Ship! She's here to give the naughty boys a good spanking they won't forget anytime soon! Unique Horn..."

Her grin turned evil.

"Make them cry."

Author's Note

Anyone has ever seen Space Pirate Captain Harlock? Then I think that you know what is coming next chapter.

Chapter 79: The Unique Horn

Andrew stared at the huge battleship that suddenly appeared out of a portal and wondered where it came from. It wasn't a Cornerian design even if the "head" reminded a bit of the Great Fox with how it actually looked like the head of an animal.

But seriously? Feathered-like wings? Why? What was the use? And Andrew swore he saw them flap like actual bird wings.

"What is this ship?" he wondered aloud.

Then, the ship's cannons turned to face his ships and began to fire, the three big ones before what seemed to be the bridge firing beams powerful enough to pierce one right away, causing the ship to explode almost immediately.

"It's firing at us!" one of Andrew's men shouted.

"I saw that, imbecile! What are you waiting for? Attack it!"

"Yes sir!"

At Andrew's command, some of his ships stopped firing at the Cornerian ships and targeted the new arrival while a few dozens crafts went to assault it. However, they quickly saw that none of their projectiles damaged the hull.

"What the-?!" Andrew shouted.

"Sir! It seems that the enemy ship is equipped with a powerful force field covering its hull!" one of his men informed.

Andrew frowned in thought. "A force field, uh?"

At this instant, they saw two hatches open side by side on the ship's belly, and star-shaped fighters came out of them, beginning to attack their crafts. These fighters, too, revealed to have a force field.

"Nothing we do works on them!"

"Whatever generator they use to create these force fields must have a limit! Continue to fire at them!" Andrew ordered.

Just what he needed. First the Cornerian armada, then Star Fox, then these two weird equine-like creatures, and now that. This wasn't his day.

"Of course she has a battleship," Phantom muttered as she was joined by an awed Apple Bloom.

"It's so big! Where was she hiding it?"

Phantom shrugged. "One thing is sure, if we want to keep up, we must up our game." To show her point, she used her Phantom power to create a strong gravity center that caused nearby ships to crash into each others.

"Eeyup," Apple Bloom replied before she created a scythe made of bones and used it to slash at enemy ships. While she didn't slice them in two like Phantom did, her slashes caused corrosion to slowly spread on the hull for a bit, creating holes that became bigger and bigger which caused members of the ships' crews to be sucked out into space by the depressurization. Attacking vital points also caused important components to stop working, making the ships more vulnerable. Apple Bloom made especially sure to target the bridges.

The Unique Horn had barely started firing a few seconds ago and already it destroyed its fifth ship, without counting the dozens of fighters that came to die under the constant barrage from the turrets plus the claws plus the Star Fighters.

This really pleased Sweetie Belle. The Unique Horn was as monstrous as she had imagined it, and it hadn't even shown yet its full potential.

She then received a call and answered, opening a window showing General Pepper.

"General Pepper here. Star Fox informed us to expect you, but we certainly didn't expect you to come with such a battleship. This is more than welcome."

"You are welcome, General. This battle was a good occasion to test the Unique Horn. It's her first flight. By the way, my name is Sweetie Belle, and you can count on me and my friends to help you until this is over."

"Glad to hear. You three are certainly proving to be a remarkable asset. Already a good chunk of the enemy fleet is destroyed thanks to you, and our ships are making good use of the opening you provided us. Just be careful of the stealth ships. They caused us a lot of troubles."

"You mean these ships over there that Star Fox just destroyed? I don't think we will have to worry about them anymore."

"Oh, I didn't expect any less from them. They are already nearing Oikonny's flagship."

"Mmh... Hey, Admiral Stinger? What is your thought on these ships over there?"

"That's a lot of 'em forming a nice line," the Admiral answered. "Obviously ready to defend the flagship."

"Well then, let's make Star Fox's job easier, if you see what I mean," Sweetie Belle said with a big knowing grin.

"I perfectly see," the Admiral replied with glee. "Everyone! Ready the cannon! You know which one I'm talking about! Let's give everyone a show!"

"Because we weren't already giving a show?" someone out of screen asked.

"A better show!"

"How do you intend destroying all these ships?" Pepper asked.

"You will see, General," Sweetie Belle answered.

Outside, the mouth of the head at the bow opened, letting out the end of a really big cannon. Inside, a spear-shaped bullet the size of a big house was quickly placed in it. Following instructions, the crew then moved the ship to ensure that they had a good shot of the line of enemy ships, ready to fire.

"What are they doing?" Falco wondered as he observed the Unique Horn. "To think that they have a secret weapon despite already being armed to the teeth."

"Fox, I suggest you avoid getting in the way," Krystal warned.

"Magnetic cannon! Watch out!!!" ROB suddenly shouted.

"Wha-?!"

Fox was interrupted by the cannon firing, and before he knew it, the whole line of ships before him was destroyed. Some projectile pierced all of them at such speed that he wasn't able to see it, and he could only see the aftermath: the ships blown into pieces, gutted and shredded, and countless of the smaller crafts were destroyed by the resulting debris crashing into them. Even ships that hadn't been in line were damaged by these.

"Holy shit!" Falco shouted.

As everyone gawked, they then received a communication from Sweetie Belle.

"The way is open, guys. Go get that stupid ape," she said.

Fox got over his shock and smiled. "With pleasure. Good job."

"Once this is over, I want to have a look at this cannon," Slippy said.

"No problem. But you know that this is simply a big magnetic slingshot, right? Anybody can make one, but many seems to underestimate the power of magnetism," the alicorn replied.

Star Fox advanced through the field of debris left by the blown ships and were able to reach the flagship only for it to turn around and flee toward the planet, and the team gave chase.

"Well then, while they deal with Oikonny, we will finish what remains of his fleet," Sweetie Belle said.

She still remained in contact with them just in case.

"Should we charge the magnetic cannon again?" Admiral Stinger asked.

"No. Their fleet is almost destroyed. No need to waste a bullet on just a couple of ships. Just fire in the mass with all the other cannons."

As Sweetie Belle said that, she made the Unique Horn charge at a nearby enemy ship, gutting it with the horn. She then made the wings slap a squadron of fighters that got the bad idea of flying between them.

Then, the Lor spotted a few dozens enemy fighters approaching the Unique Horn from behind. Of course, they saw that there weren't as many cannons defending the back of the ship and thought that they could attack from there without too much worry.

Bad idea. Sweetie Belle made a hatch open right between the two giant thrusters and out of it came little metallic balls that began to regularly flash red once they were past the thrusters. By the time the crafts understood that they were proximity mines, it was too late and a field of explosions appeared behind the Unique Horn for a couple of seconds.

The filly giggled.

By now, the enemy fleet was almost entirely destroyed, and it seemed that the remaining ships were hesitating between fighting to the end and retreating. Not that it mattered in the end. Sweetie Belle as well as Apple Bloom and Phantom finished them rapidly, ending the battle above the planet.

That was too easy.

"All of Oikonny's force has been destroyed," a Cornerian soldier informed.

"But there are still the troops on the surface of Fortuna," another said.

"Star Fox is probably dealing with them as we speak. We will just need to take care of what remains once they're done," General Pepper said.

"I confirm," Sweetie Belle said as she looked at what was happening on the surface thanks to the feeds she was receiving from Star Fox's Arwings. While she watched, Phantom and Apple Bloom joined her in the Lor. "Star Fox just entered the enemy's base and is cleaning it in their search for Oikonny's flagship. Darn, they're good. Especially Fox and Falco. Ace pilot alright. Hey girls. How did it go?" she asked to her friends.

"Very well. It was actually fun," Phantom answered.

"That's one heck of a ship ya've here. Anything else ya've hidden?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Well, there are still a few things that I can do with this ship that I haven't shown yet," Sweetie Belle answered.

It wasn't long before Star Fox located Oikonny's flagship flying above a valley, between two cliffs. Instead of attempting to escape again, Oikonny did something unexpected and revealed his flagship to be some kind of giant mecha, making it change appearance so it looked like a giant robotic version of him. Once it let go of the superfluous, the mecha was actually made of three parts: two flying hands and a flying head with a bit of a torso. It seemed that the mecha was directly linked to Oikonny because its lips moved in synchronisation when he talked.

And yet, Fox took on the mecha one on one and easily got the upper hand because it revealed to be a joke. Whenever it attempted to punch the fox's Arwing, it took Oikonny a few seconds to charge, giving more than enough time for Fox to get out of the way while firing at the weak points. It took him less than a minute to damage the two hands to the point that they couldn't be used anymore to attack, leaving the mecha totally vulnerable.

And yet, Oikonny was still boasting, totally ignorant (or delusional) of his situation. "Ahh ha ha ha! Is that all you fools have got?!? I am the one and only true heir to the great emperor Andross! The new emperor: Andrew Oikonny..."

Suddenly, just as he said his name, a beam came from nowhere and pierced the head of the mecha, followed by a few others. As the mecha exploded and dropped lifelessly to the ground as a result, Andrew shouted one last, "Uncle Androssssss..."

"What was that?!" Sweetie Belle shouted.

"That wasn't one of our ships," General Pepper said.

From the sky then came an unknown object that revealed itself to be some kind of giant, half-mechanical eight-winged wasp-like life form that immediately attacked Star Fox.

Before the fillies could ask what that thing was, they were answered by ROB repeating a single word in warning: "Aparoid."

Peppy seemed very shocked, and even Pepper was worried as everyone watched Star Fox battling the insect creature. Thankfully, despite the many beams of ring-shaped pulses it fired from its wings, Star Fox, especially Fox, was able to destroy the wings one by one by attacking the giant eyes visible on them. Even without its wings, the aparoid still was a huge threat as it used the same beam that destroyed Andrew's mecha, which was coming from its backside, to draw a circle on the ground to heat it and cause boulders to be lifted and used as projectiles.

There were some close calls, but the members of Star Fox were able to avoid the boulders. This led the aparoid to open its mouth, revealing a purple orb, before it fired from it yellow projectiles that homed in on the crafts. Star Fox immediately understood that the purple orb was the aparoid's weak point and fired at it until the aparoid closed its mouth. From there, each time that the aparoid opened its mouth for one reason or another, Star Fox fired at the orb until the aparoid began to explode and dropped on the ground where one last explosion killed it.

It had been a hard battle, the aparoid having revealed to be a dangerous foe, but they won.

Fox then went to take something from the remains of the aparoid, hurrying up as more of these winged aparoids came in the sky, beginning a huge assault on the planet. Star Fox barely escaped while a big chunk of the aparoid force went to attack the Cornerian fleet.

Pepper immediately ordered a general retreat.

"Go ahead General. We will remain behind," Sweetie Belle said.

"What? Are you crazy?! Those aren't simple ships. Aparoids are much more dangerous, and there's a whole swarm of them."

"Don't worry about us General, it won't be a problem," Phantom said.

"Yeah, it just means that we will get serious," Sweetie Belle added.

"What?"

The fillies exchanged grins before Phantom teleported back out of the Unique Horn and Apple Bloom flew through the walls.

"You heard that everyone? Star Fighter pilots, time to unleash the true power of your crafts! And charge the magnetic cannon just in case! Unique Horn, let's crush these bugs!"

At this, the Unique Horn charged toward the aparoids and began to fire everything it had at them. The aparoids returned fire but the Unique Horn then revealed to be almost as agile as the Halberd and the Warhammer back when Kirby and Sweetie Belle had control of them thanks to the Robobot Armor and the Sweetie Bot Armor, easily avoiding most of the beams fired at it and thus limiting the toll on the generator of the force field. Then, the horn lit and fired several beams that homed in at the aparoids, each beam destroying one of them in one shot.

Despite this, countless more aparoids now surrounded the Unique Horn and fired at it from all sides. In return, grinning, Sweetie Belle unleashed her power through the battleship, opening dozens of rifts out of which came beams that targeted the giant bugs. Giant fist-shaped shields also materialized and began to punch the aparoids or to grab them to crush them. At the same time, the Star Fighters' hull began to spin faster and faster before energy came out of the branches, taking the form of sharp energy blades. The Star Fighters then charged at the aparoids and promptly cut them in pieces.

Between the Unique Horn, Phantom who was slaughtering them with her Phantom powers, and Apple Bloom who was not only killing them with a simple touch but also turning them into zombies under her control to turn them against their brethren, they easily gained the attention of every aparoids assaulting the planet and they all came to attack them.

Admiring this, Pepper had stopped the retreat and, seeing that the aparoids were leaving the planet, distracted by the fillies, he quickly reacted and sent ships to evacuate the natives.

The Unique Horn finally fired the magnetic cannon, the bullet killing dozens and dozens of aparoids that were simply obliterated. Meanwhile, the two claws at the side, which had a VERY long range, were able to grab the two ends of an aparoid and teared it apart. The horn impaled bug after bug, and the mouth even managed to catch one before it closed on it, biting off a huge part of the wasp-like life form.

As the battle went on, the swarm quickly diminished, but Sweetie Belle kept a close look at the gauge indicating the state of the force field generator. Despite avoiding a lot of the enemy beams, and Sweetie Belle even using her own shields to deflect many others, it still was slowly diminishing.

Then, a second swarm suddenly came, seemingly called by the first one.

Sweetie Belle frowned. "Lorry, take over. I'm going out."

Without waiting for an answer, she took off the head piece, teleported out of the Unique Horn, and materialized her ten cannons before she joined Phantom and Apple Bloom in killing the aparoids. But first, she charged a huge quantity of energy into a ball and sent it right in the center of the new swarm before the ball exploded, creating a huge explosion that killed many of the bugs.

The battle thus continued even as a third swarm appeared, the fillies giving enough time for the Cornerian Army to evacuate Fortuna. Once the evacuation was over, Pepper sent the word to the Unique Horn, and Admiral Stinger repeated it to one of the Star fighter pilots who approached Sweetie Belle and signed to her that they could go.

Nodding, Sweetie Belle sent one last energy ball to explode in the third swarm before she teleported herself, Phantom, and Apple Bloom inside the Unique Horn. They then waited for the Star Fighters to return in the ship before they followed the retreating Cornerian fleet. Aparoids tried to follow but were all killed by the battleship with the cannons and the proximity mines.

Chapter 80: Katina

The Cornerian fleet, the Great Fox, and the Unique Horn warped to some random point in space with no planet nearby, putting as much space between them and the aparoids as they could to have time to think on the new unexpected situation.

Before the warping, Fox had quickly given whatever he got from the remains of the aparoid to the Cornerians, and one of their ships warped to a different place with it.

"Many owe you their life, little ones," Pepper said to the fillies through the communication between his flagship and the Unique Horn and including the Great Fox. "Thank you. What you did was very impressive. Once we are done here, we will bring the refugies we saved with your help to Corneria."

The fillies nodded. "But first, we have to talk about these... aparoids," Phantom said.

"Yeah," agreed Fox. "What are these aparoids? You seem to know about them, General."

Pepper sighed. "They are probably the biggest threat ever encountered by Lylat, certainly even bigger than Andross. The research director will brief you on all the details."

On cue, a new window showing clearly an aged frog wearing large glasses badly put on popped beside the General's.

"Hello again, everybody," the old frog exclaimed enthusiastically with a wave of his hand.

Slippy was surprised. "Dad! You're... the research director? You never told me that!"

Slippy's dad looked agitated at his son's words as he looked away embarrassed. "Oh ho ho! Yes, well... Gee, didn't I?"

Slippy had to visibly stop himself from rolling his eyes, but he still lowered his arms and shook his head in exasperation.

"In any case, if I may continue, these aparoids, ahem..." the old frog quickly put this behind by returning to the subject at hand. "I believe it was about 17 years ago..." Another window popped to show the filmed images of an aparoid like the ones that Star Fox and the fillies fought earlier attacking a Cornerian fleet, easily destroying the ships by itself. "A whole fleet was destroyed by a sole aparoid."

"Yeah, these things really were dangerous, and with the surprise effect, that's not a surprise," Sweetie Belle commented. "Kudos to Star Fox for killing one."

"This achievement would be nice if it wasn't shadowed by you managing to kill hundreds of these guys!" Falco shouted.

Phantom shrugged. "We don't count. We're on a whole other level. Like, at least over one million above you guys on the pecking order. Ouch!" She was hit on the arm by Apple Bloom (who was back to normal).

"Be nice."

Phantom glared at her before she mumbled, "I was just telling them that they didn't have to downplay what they did because of us."

"Showing'em yer superiority bah the same occasion," Apple Bloom deadpanned.

"Moving on," Slippy's father said. "We received the Core Memory you retrieved and have started analyzing data from it. But we could understand much more if we had a complete specimen."

"Darn, so the one Fox retrieved got damaged in the aparoid's explosion," Apple Bloom groaned.

"So this means we will have to kill an aparoid while being careful of not damaging its Core Memory," Sweetie Belle thought aloud. "It won't be easy if they all explode upon dying like the one Star Fox killed."

"And it would be preferable to get one from a leader aparoid," Slippy's father added. "If my theory is true, they could tell us the location of the Aparoid Homeworld."

"Sweet! It shouldn't take long to get one," Sweetie Belle said.

"You will get an occasion immediately," Pepper said. "We have detected a distress signal originating from one of our outposts on Katina. However, we're unable to contact anyone there. So we suspect aparoid involvement. you must find the distress signal," he ordered Star Fox.

"No problem at all, sir!" Fox replied.

"We're coming too," Sweetie Belle said.

"Actually, we may need your help elsewhere. We got reports that invading forces have struck several places throughout the Lylat system, and we will need the power of you and your battleship to repel them and help the civilian populations," Pepper informed.

"Mmh... We still should send one of us with Star Fox just in case," Sweetie Belle said.

"Who?" Apple Bloom asked.

At this, the alicorn materialized a bottle, placed it on the floor, and made it spin. After a few seconds, the bottle stopped and was closest to pointing at Phantom.

"Well, I guess the story will now focus on you, Scoot," she said.

Phantom groaned. "Please, can you not start speaking like Pinkie? One pony not making sense is already enough, not mentioning Discord."

Sweetie Belle jokingly waved dismissively at her. "It's a matter of perspective. You just have to think outside the box."

Phantom stared at Sweetie Belle, then raised her arms and shouted, "I'm going!" before teleporting.

Sweetie Belle laughed. "Now I understand why Pinkie always does that! It's so fun!"

Apple Bloom made an exasperated sound.

The Great Fox left the fleet not long after that and warped away.

Katina revealed to be a semi-arid world that Corneria was apparently starting to colonize, outposts being built all over its surface. Not a trace of the aparoids could be seen, but the members of Star Fox and Phantom decided to remain prudent. So Fox decided to go to the surface by himself to search for the signal while the others will cover him from the sky. Phantom decided to accompany him just in case. Being alone was a bad idea.

They found the outpost from which originated the signal, smoke coming from near the base of a tower at the center, and Fox landed his Arwing not far outside of it, Phantom also landing at his side.

They immediately remarked that there was not a soul in sight. Despite the smoke, not even a corpse could be seen.

"It's too quiet..." the Fox commented as he took his blaster and slowly advanced toward the entrance of the base.

"Smell a trap," Phantom said, eyes moving in all directions in search of any little details.

It was quickly revealed that she was right as they barely passed the door that an alarm blared before it closed. Then, four-legged aparoids came from behind the structures to assault them.

Again, these aparoids were insectoid creatures, but lacked wings, instead having legs. The front ones were smaller than the back ones, and there was four pincers on its head around a large glowing cercle that was obviously the eye. They were also much smaller than the aparoids previously encountered as they were about the size of Fox when they were on their four legs, a bit taller.

Nothing as menacing as the winged aparoids from before. These things clearly were the simple infantery. Probably the winged ones had been the equivalent of the battleships, sent first to hit Lylat hard and fast before the Cornerian army and co could prepare themselves.

Thankfully, these aparoid crawlers seemed to lack any form of long-range weapon because they simply charged at Fox and Phantom. Their shell revealed to be very weak too as they exploded from a single hit from Fox's blaster. Their only advantage was their number.

But it didn't mean much against Fox who knew how to fight with a blaster, and it meant even less against Phantom when she herself created two guns in her hands that she used to blasts the crawlers left and right.

"I got your back, Fox!" Phantom shouted.

"Thanks. Let's keep moving."

"Yeah, time to do some pest control. Where's a giant bug spray when we need one?"

"I don't think this would be very effective against these bugs," Peppy said.

"Beside, can't you just materialize one with that Phantom power of yours?" Slippy asked.

"That was what we call a joke to lighten the situation," Falco sarcastically said.

"I knew that!" the frog quickly said trying to save face.

"Uhuh." Falco wasn't convinced.

"Fox! Look! There's a machine gun not far of your position!" Krystal suddenly shouted.

"I saw it, thanks," Fox replied before he charged to grab the weapon left on the ground. With it, he mowed the aparoids by the dozens.

At the same moment, Phantom spotted an aparoid that looked like a mini-tank coming from behind a nearby structure and, identifying it as a bigger threat, sent a Phantom Cube at it to trap it in a different reality where she changed gravity to send it crashing against the base's wall while making it ram a few crawlers on the path.

"Looks like you've got more company!" Falco then warned them.

Indeed, two aparoids that looked like bigger, more bulky and purple-colored versions of the crawlers came out of the base and fired blue orbs of energy at them like mortars, the balls exploding upon impacting anything. These things not only seemed to have more resistant shells, but they also had a barrier that rendered them invincible to weaker shots like the ones of the machine gun. To kill them, Fox had no choice but to charge shots with his usual blaster. Phantom also had to replace her guns by a bigger, more powerful one.

The two purple aparoids were quickly killed along with dozens more of the crawlers and a few more mini-tanks, but more continued to come and Fox took cover behind a corner while Phantom continued to fire at everything that came too close.

"Whew... There's no end to these things!" Fox commented, and Phantom couldn't help but agreeing, wondering if she shouldn't simply blow up the base. "Peppy! Send me a Landmaster, will ya?"

"Landmaster?" Phantom wondered aloud.

"On its way! What's the situation?" the old rabbit asked.

"Well, I've got my hands full, but what else is new? At least, Scootaloo is a great help.

Then, after a few more seconds. "Done!" Peppy shouted. "Here's your Landmaster!"

"Lemme know if you two get lonely and I'll drop by," Falco added while a column of blue light appeared and some tank appeared in it.

"Nah, all I need is the Landmaster!" Fox replied.

"And all I need are my guns," Phantom added as she blasted another mini-tank before she saw a purple aparoid fire an energy ball at her. She gave it a jump-kick and sent it back at the aparoid, killing it in the ball's explosion.

Meanwhile, the Landmaster finished to appear and the blue light disappeared, revealing the colors of the tank which were the same as the ones of the Arwings.

"Transmission complete! It's all yours, Fox!" Peppy said.

There was just a problem... The Landmaster appeared a few dozens meters away surounded by the aparoids.

"Great... Good to see the transmission system's targeting is as sterling as ever," Fox said with a hand on his face before he ran out from the corner toward the tank.

Thankfully, the aparoids between him and the tank were mostly crawlers, and Scootaloo easily eliminated the two mini-tanks and the lone purple aparoid, letting Fox easily reach the Landmaster and enter it.

However, flying aparoids now appeared in the sky. Thankfully not the wasp-like ones, but much smaller ship-like ones with three appendages for steering. Thus a fight began in the sky between these new aparoid flyers and the members of Star Fox in their Arwings. There were a lot of them however so Fox quickly worked to destroy a couple ones that had already been chasing Krystal before he began to target the purple aparoids on the ground. With the Landmaster, he simply rolled on the crawlers and the mini-tanks, not minding them.

Seeing that Fox now could deal with these bugs with his tank, Phantom left his side and flew to the other side of the base to eliminate the aparoids here, dividing the cleaning of the base between them. When flyers passed not far of her,she also made sure to target them to clear the sky and make the others' job easier. But in the end, it seemed that her help really was superfluous as Star Fox proved again to be experts, easily eliminating the aparoids despite their number while keeping each others' back.

It wasn't long before all the purple aparoids were eliminated, but the aparoids weren't done yet as another new kind of aparoid descended from the sky. These aparoids looked like hexagonal caskets with a yellow core, and as soon as they landed, they let out a honeycombed energy field.

"Whoa! What are THESE things?" Fox asked.

"Mmh... This looks bad. Our scans show those things can spawn more aparoids," Peppy informed.

And indeed, Fox and Phantom could see new crawlers and mini-tanks being spawned from these... hatchers. Meanwhile, more purple aparoids also came as reenforcement.

"Ugh... Seriously?" Phantom groaned before she immediately destroyed a nearby hatcher. "Let's hurry to destroy these things before they overrun the base with thousands of newborn aparoids."

The situation wouldn't be so bad if these hatchers weren't so darn well defended, mainly by mini-tanks. It wasn't a problem in the exterior of the base where the Landmaster could easily destroy all of them, but they quickly saw some of the hatchers crawl into the base where the Landmaster couldn't enter, meaning that Fox would be forced to leave the tank to deal with them with his blaster and mini-gun. Meanwhile, the many purple aparoids outside continuously slowed Fox down as he constantly had to avoid their energy balls while dealing with them.

"I'm going to deal with the ones who entered the base. Continue to kill the ones outside with your tank," Phantom eventually informed and instructed.

"Alright. Be careful in there."

"Don't worry. These bugs don't stand a chance against me."

First, Phantom went to clear a depot where large crates would have blocked the Landmaster from entering. Already it was full of crawlers so she decided to use the big guns to eliminate them in groups. One by one, she found and destroyed the hatchers and left the depot to enter the tower itself. After taking an elevator, she entered a hallway full of pests, and instead of eliminating them the normal way, she sent a wave of Phantom energy that got all of them in her control. She then materialized a big wall that covered the whole hallway before she made it advance to the other side where the hallway branched into two others. A lot of aparoids were thus crushed, and Phantom had no problem taking care of the ones that remained in the other hallways.

When she exited the tower, she saw that there were still a few hatchers remaining, Fox being busy blasting purple aparoids on the walls of the base. With her help, the number of purple aparoid quickly diminished, allowing Fox to focus more on the hatchers. As they explored all the corners of the base, they found and killed the last few hatchers, Peppy informing them of how many remained.

Once all the hatchers were killed, it wasn't hard to eliminate the remaining aparoids, and the few flyers that remained flew away.

So it seemed that the battle was over, but Fox had a bad feeling.

"It's not over, uh?" Phantom asked.

As if answering her, a column of purple light appeared below a red honeycomb energy field in the sky. Out of the field then came a gargantuan UFO-shaped quadrupedal aparoid that descended on the base's courtyard.

"Yeow! That thing's huge!" Slippy exclaimed.

"So... The leader, huh?" Fox guessed.

"That thing is giant... and ugly!" Falco commented.

"And no doubt well armed," Phantom added.

"Wait! That thing as a Core Memory!" Krystal pointed out.

"You heard the lady! You gotta get that Core Memory!" Peppy instructed.

"In the purple orb on the spire on top of it, right? Okay, I'll try to not hit it too hard," Phantom said before she flew on the back of the aparoid. But then, the aparoid sent homing missiles that went after everyone, including Phantom, and she had to teleport to avoid them. It wasn't helped that the orb was protected inside the spire on the aparoid's back, and the window to attack it when the spire popped up to reveal it only lasted a few seconds. And of course, it was so armored that simple guns didn't work so Phantom had to create more powerful cannons like the one of the Landmaster.

Speaking of the Landmaster, it couldn't reach the back of the aparoid so Fox had to find something else. Thankfully for him, the aparoid had a second weakness: another purple orb in its underside. While avoiding the missiles and lasers by rolling to the side, Fox fired at it until the aparoid was stunned and forced on its knees. Now, the back of the aparoid was low enough that the Landmaster could get on it by flying up using its thrusters. Finally, Fox could join Phantom in attacking the orb in the spire once the aparoid recovered and the spire started popping up again (as it had stopped while the aparoid was stunned).

It took quite the number of shots, but the orb was eventually destroyed and the aparoid's body was littered with some explosions before it fell lifeless. Fox and Phantom had to escape to avoid being taken in one of the explosions.

Thankfully, the Core Memory was left undamaged, and once the explosions stopped, Peppy pressed them to take it.

"Careful! We don't know anything about what we're up against," the rabbit added.

"I know that," Fox replied. "Hey... It looks like that distress signal's no longer transmitting..." he remarked.

"Mmh... That doesn't sound good," Peppy said.

Meanwhile, Phantom had already flown back on the dead aparoid and was about to grab the Core Memory when she saw a small yellow ship with three thrusters reveal itself behind Fox. Not sure if it was friendly, she shouted, "Fox! Behind you!"

This got Fox's attention and allowed him to see the yellow ship as it flew above him.

"Heh hoo heh! Hey, thanks for helping me out!" whoever was piloting it said to them through the communicator.

Recognizing the voice, Fox shouted angrily, "Pigma!"

"Har har! Long time no see, eh, Fox?"

"The SOS signal... It was you?!?"

"Hoo heh!" The yellow ship was now hovering above the dead aparoid, and a purple tractor beam appeared and began to attract the Core Memory. "Since I'm here, I'll just help myself to this!"

Phantom, however, easily snatched the Core Memory from the beam. "Not if I help myself first."

"Hey!" Pigma angrily shouted.

Phantom then flew up to face the cockpit of the ship, seeing that the pilot was a very ugly fat anthro pig.

"Fox, can you tell me who is this guy?" she asked.

"Give me that!" Pigma shouted.

"... That's Pigma. With Peppy and my father, he was a member of the original Star Fox team, but he betrayed them by allying himself to Andross and leading them to a trap. He's nothing more than a greedy pork who would sell his mother."

Hearing this, Phantom gave a murderous glare at Pigma. "I see..."

Pigma then fired at Phantom but the filly avoided the beams before she materialized a big cannon on her shoulder.

Seeing this, Pigma gulped. "Uh... Waitwaitwaitwaitwa-!" He began to steer his ship away.

Only for Phantom to fire. The beam that came out of the cannon pierced right through the glass of Pigma's ship's cockpit and blew up the pig's head. Without its pilot, the ship then went out of control and, since it was in hovering mode, the thrusters crashed first which caused them to explode with the ship.

Phantom landed beside Fox who was staring at the wreckage and tossed him the Core Memory. Fox barely caught it.

"There. One Core Memory and one roasted pig, all free of charge. You're welcome."

Fox looked silently at Phantom, seemingly divided.

"I'm not sure if killing him was the right thing to do," Slippy said.

"We could have arrested him so he could be judged for his crimes," Krystal agreed.

"Frankly, I'm glad this smelly pig is gone," Falco countered.

Peppy remained silent.

Fox took a big breath before he said, "Pigma could have caused a lot of trouble, and in the current crisis, we didn't have time to lose dealing with him, and especially not arresting him. It was either letting him escape and risk him causing problem again or... do what Scootaloo just did. Eliminating him was the best option. Now, let's go."

Fox walked toward his Arwing beyond the exit. Behind his back, Phantom rolled his eyes.

Idiots. Killing scums like him is not just the best option, but the only right option. No need to make a drama about this.

On an oceanic planet named Zoness, Apple Bloom watched as an army of zombified aparoids on the ground slaughtered their still alive brethren while Sweetie Belle easily cleared the sky of any winged bugs with the help of the Unique Horn and a Cornerian fleet. Sadly, by the time they arrived, a part of the locals were already killed by the aparoids and the few Cornerians that had been protecting the planet had been in very bad posture.

Worse, it seemed that the aparoids had the ability to infest both machines and organisms to turn them into new aparoids, and the infestation was fast. Sweetie Belle stopped counting the number of Cornerian fighters she had to destroy because of this. "Thankfully", most organisms didn't survive the process so the number of aparoidedified fauna they ended up having to fight was limited, and they arrived just in time to avoids things from getting too bad, starting by clearing the ocean.

Now, the aparoids were almost entirely wiped out of the planet and it looked like they will be able to move to another world in the next few minutes.

Then, they received a communication from Phantom.

"We got an intact Core Memory. Get your butts here as soon as possible."

"Roger," Sweetie Belle answered. "Are you done Apple Bloom?"

With a flick of her leg, Apple Bloom disintegrated all the zombies. "Eeyup. Not a single aparoid remains on the ground where Ah am. What about ya?"

"There's still a few aparoids flying around, but I think that the Cornerians will be able to deal with them. Let's join Scootaloo."

Author's Note

For the ones who haven't played Star fox: Assault, killing Pigma here is a major change. In the game, Pigma gets his sweaty fat hands on the Core Memory and escapes, forcing Star Fox to chase him for a good part of the game which was obviously a huge lost of time. Thanks to Phantom's intervention, we will get right to the main dish.

Chapter 81: Fichina And Aquas

Thanks to Phantom and Star Fox having done most of the clean up, especially getting rid of the aparoid leader, the Cornerian Armada that followed had no problem eliminating the pests that remained on Katina while the heroes went toward Corneria to give the Core Memory to Slippy's father. Since Katina was a neighboring planet of Corneria, it didn't take long to reach it and the Great Fox soon enough landed in the capital, Corneria City.

Corneria was a planet like Equus or Mobius, with different climats and lot of farming soils, perfect for the growth of an advanced civilization. Thus, it was no surprise to see, sheltered among mountain ranges and not far of an ocean, a large city that would put Manehattan to shame. The city was beautiful, but the streets were almost empty. Obviously, most of the inhabitants had sheltered in case the aparoids invaded. They barely recovered from Andross' invasion all these years ago so they weren't willing to take any risk.

Not long after the Great Fox landed in the local spatioport and the members of Star Fox as well as Phantom came out, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom appeared beside the pegasus. Using the coordinates given by the Cornerians, the Unique Horn was able to open a portal to the space above the planet and Sweetie Belle then used her ability to feel energies to determine where Phantom was and teleported herself and Apple Bloom to her.

"Hey Scootaloo. So, how did it go?" the alicorn asked while the group walked away from the spatioport, following Fox.

"Destroyed a giant U.F.O.-like aparoid and blew up the head of a pig too greedy for his own good. Found out that they could reproduce very rapidly because of spacial aparoids that served as hatchers. Sadly no survivor in the base we were sent to. What about you?"

"We simply helped the Cornerians exterminate all the aparoids on a planet named Zoness." Falco stiffened at this. "It would have been simple, but these damn bugs then revealed to have the ability to turn machines and organisms into new aparoids like freaking zombies."

Everyone, even Phantom, stared at her in horror.

Apple Bloom nodded. "And Zoness' ocean had lots of strong critters, apparently mutants caused by the planet havin' served as garbage dump by Andross, and we'd to kill a few of them that had been turned. And even some that weren't turned were hostile."

"And all the while we also had to deal with the usual aparoids, including some of these giant wasp-like ones that were still present as well as many of these hatchers you talked about, and even turned Cornerian fighters, soldiers, and a few unlucky civilians," Sweetie Belle continued, getting a haunted look when she talked about the civilians. "At least, not many seem survive the process so their number was very limited."

"Small blessing..." Falco said. "So it means that for every thousand people killed, a couple dozens get turned into a monster?"

"It seems to have more to do with various factors, like the strength of their will or their physical condition. I'm not really sure. Trained soldiers seemed to have an easier time being turned into an aparoid. And said people first had to be infected, so it's more like for every thousand people killed, about a hundred gets infected. And among these infected, if they are simple civilians, only one or two seem to survive the process to fully become an aparoid. Soldiers seem more like nine times out of ten," Sweetie Belle explained. "As for machines? Every single times. If a ship gets infected, game over, abandon it before you become part of it whether you survive the process or not. I could still see the pilots inside the turned Cornerian fighters... It wasn't a pretty sight. Luckily, no battleships were turned."

With these revelations, the members of Star Fox understood how bad the situation was. This wasn't just an invasion.

It was an assimilation.

The aparoids won't stop until the whole Lylat system was either dead or turned into aparoids. And after that, they would certainly go to another system to repeat the process. The whole galaxy was threatened. Maybe even the universe.

And this also meant that they will have to be more careful in the future. They didn't know how the aparoids could infect someone or something, so they will have to keep an eye. The last thing they wanted was their own Arwings or even the Great Fox to be turned into aparoids.

With this in mind, they hurried to the research center where Slippy's father worked to end this nightmare as quickly as possible.

"You already got one?" the old frog asked in surprise while grabbing the Core Memory that Fox handed to him. "I guess that I shouldn't have expected less from Star Fox."

"Pigma almost got away with it, but one of our new friends stopped him before he could," Slippy informed.

"Yes. Without Scootaloo, I fear that we would have ended up in a merry chase across Lylat trying to catch him," Peppy added.

Krystal crossed her arms. "I don't want to think of all the time we would have lost. Of all the lives that would have been lost."

Slippy's father nodded. "I will start extracting the data from the Core Memory right away, but this will take some time. Until then, you should return to the fight against the aparoids. There is especially something that worries me. We have lost all contacts with our friends in the Climate Control Center on Fichina. We received reports of aparoids in the area so I fear that they were attacked. This may be too late to save them, but we must absolutely ensure that the center isn't destroyed. As you may know, the center regulates the climate to allow the planet to be habitable so we could colonize it. Its destruction would heavily set us back. So if you could protect the center and drive the aparoids back until one of our fleets could come, it would be very appreciated. This is, however, not as important as defending the populations of the other planets, so I won't hold it against you if you refuse to go there."

"I'm sorry Beltino, but the lives are more important than a center," Peppy said.

"Well then, we will just split again," Sweetie Belle said as she pointed at herself, at Phantom, and at Apple Bloom. "One of us will go alone while the rest of us will go to defend another planet."

"Actually, one of us should remain here, at Corneria," Phantom said. "The aparoids could attack at all moment."

"That's true," Beltino agreed. "With our forces stretched all over Lylat against the aparoids, a direct assault on the planet would be devastating."

"Then I will remain here," Phantom said.

"And Ah'll go to Fichina," Apple Bloom said.

"Then I will be the one continuing to help the Cornerian army defending other planets with the Unique Horn and Star Fox," Sweetie Belle said.

"Well, you should then ask the General where you should go," Beltino advised.

Leaving Phantom on Corneria, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom returned inside the Unique Horn while the Great Fox warped toward Aquas.

A quick call to General Pepper and the old dog told them that the aquatic planet was currently assaulted by the aparoids. While there were no civilization currently on it, there were still apparently many mutants created by Andross in the depth of its ocean and the last thing the Cornerians wanted was for these mutants to be turned into aparoids possibly along with the billions of fishes and other submarine fauna living there.

But before the Unique Horn could follow the Great Fox, they had to drop Apple Bloom on Fichina. So they used the coordinates given to them to open a portal to the icy world. Once they arrived, Apple Bloom then turned into her ghost form and descended onto the surface of the planet. Having been shown a map of the surface, she had no problem finding the Climate Control Center, which was a large circular building with a dome roof.

As they thought, aparoids were present everywhere around it, but the building itself was surprisingly intact. Well, from what Phantom said, the base on Katina had also been mostly intact, and the few buildings on Zoness had been mostly ignored, the ones that had been damaged being so because of collateral damage and stray shots or because the civilians had locked themselves inside them, so it seemed that the aparoids didn't care attacking the buildings.

Now, it was just a matter of eliminating the aparoids while trying to ensure that the Center wasn't accidentally damaged in the chaos that will follow. No problem.

At least, as a ghost, the extreme cold of the planet didn't bother her. And the aparoids present were all small fry. Nothing like the wasp-like ones or that U.F.O.-like one Phantom and Fox fought on Katina. It seemed that, because of the limited number of beings present on the planet, the aparoids hadn't bothered to send much of their forces.

Apple Bloom turned into a shadow and crept toward the nearest aparoid. Once she reached it, she attacked its shadow, killing it right away. Turning it into a zombie, she then went to the next aparoid and repeated the process. The only aparoids that were safe from this tactic were the ones whose shadow was hidden by other, bigger shadows like the one Center, the cliffs around, and also the three towers that surrounded the building. The flying aparoids weren't safe because no matter how high you were, your shadow always was present somewhere on the ground.

One by one, the aparoids were assassinated and turned into cybernetic zombies that then went to attack other aparoids. It rapidly turned into a slaughter, and it didn't take ten minutes for the bugs to understand that they could do nothing so they retreated.

But no matter where they will go on this planet cold like death, because Death will hunt them down to the last. The only ones that will live will be the ones smart enough to get away from the planet.

In the end, the Cornerian fleet that eventually came wasn't even needed.

Assassin and Necromancer. A scary combination, for sure.

Where Zoness had been an aquatic world with many islands popping up here and there, perfect for tropical vacations, Aquas was an aquatic world with almost no land above the water. No surprise then that Star Fox had to bring out their own submarine, the Blue-Marine, to go fight with the aparoids. The problem was that they only had one submarine, so while Fox was underwater blowing up bugs and infected fishes with torpedoes (thankfully in infinite quantities), the others were forced to remain patrolling the sky. The Cornerians had their own submarines, but they were far too much outnumbered in the ocean. Thankfully, Sweetie Belle was here.

The sky and above were already freed of aparoids. The Unique Horn, backed by the Cornerians and Star Fox, was pretty much invincible and the bugs quickly understood that it was no use. All that remained were the ones in the water who probably thought that they were untouchable down there, but they quickly learned that nothing was untouchable for a certain alicorn filly, and even Fox seemed to start to gain a reputation among the aparoids judging by how they were putting more efforts trying to stop him.

This fox was a demon in disguise. No matter if he was in command of a fighter, a tank, a submarine, or armed with just a gun, this guy was a terror. Krystal even told Sweetie Belle a bit about Fox's adventure on Sauria, a planet full of dinosaurs, where he had just been armed with Krystal's magical staff. Not even a blaster. No matter the weapon or the vehicle, it seemed that Fox learned to use it in one minute and mastered it in five. No wonder he won the war against Andross pretty much by himself.

Sweetie Belle hunted the aparoids around the ruins of what seemed to be a temple. Surprisingly, a civilization did prosper in the ocean of the planet, but eventually disappeared for some reason. All that remained now were ruins around which the Cornerians were now battling the aparoids and their victims. It was a long and difficult hunt. The ocean was not only vast, spanning the whole planet, but could also go very deep in many places and they often had to move in darkness. There were also Andross' remaining mutants to account for, infected or not.

Thankfully radars helped them find where aparoids were hidden or they would have been at it forever and may have left the planet with one or two still alive which would have been a disaster.

They did eventually encounter the aparoid that seemed to be the leader of this bunch, some kind of giant aquatic beetle that could send waves through the water using its legs and that could fire torpedoes from the six holes on the sides of its shell. Like the wasp-like aparoid, its core was inside its mouth, but it refused to open it. Of course, Sweetie Belle could easily defeat it in five seconds, but she decided to let Fox fight it so everyone could see what strategy to use if they ever encountered more of these beetles in the future.

It turned out that it was a simple process. First, they had to fire at the holes in the shell. Fox fired a torpedo at one of the holes which caused a big explosion inside the shell, the hole thus becoming unusable as it smoked afterward. The process had to be repeated for each holes, Sweetie Belle deciding to help to make it shorter. Once all the holes were unusable, the beetle was forced to change tactic and had to open its mouth to charge energy and fire a powerful laser. This was the occasion to hit. The beetle also attempted to charge at them and even to throw boulders but it wasn't a problem to avoid them, or even to destroy the boulders with torpedoes.

Eventually, the beetle died in an explosion, and the Cornerians took note of how to kill it.

They did well, because it quickly turned out that there were a few more beetles hidden at different places in the ocean. Using Fox's example, the Cornerians had no problem killing them with minimal lost using their number. As for Sweetie Belle, she easily killed the ones she found.

The filly eventually received a call from Apple Bloom would told her that she was done with Fichina, so she sent the Unique Horn to fetch her. The Earth Pony filly Spirit of Death could open rifts to go from one planet to another, but like with teleportation, if she didn't know the place, it didn't work. So she needed to visit the planets first.

Maybe if she was shown images of the places... This will have to be tested.

So Apple Bloom briefly joined in hunting the few aparoids that remained on Aquas, and it wasn't long before the ocean was cleaned of all pests, and even of Andross' mutants while they were at it.

"So that's it? No more aparoids on aquas?" Fox asked.

"We get no more readings," an officer Cornerian answered. "All enemy forces were exterminated. The planet is safe. Thank you for your help Star Fox."

"Glad it's finally over!" Slippy shouted.

"We barely did anything," Falco said.

"Exactly! It was boring just flying in circle in the sky! I only got to shoot at two aparoids! Next time, remind me to build more Blue-Marines. And Landmasters too."

"We will need more place in the Great Fox before you can do that," Peppy reminded.

"I'm returning to the Great Fox," Fox informed.

"Very well. ROB, get the Great Fox on the surface of the ocean, near Fox's position."

"Affirmatif."

"Do you guys know if another planet is attacked?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Not currently, but we received reports of aparoids in Sector X," Peppy answered. "If nothing else comes up, this will be our next destination. If nothing is done, they could go to Titania or Macbeth from there."

At this moment, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom received a call from Phantom.

"Uh. One moment please," Sweetie Belle said before the call was answered. "Yes, Scoot?"

"Girls, we have a code "Get Your Butts Here Right Now". Corneria is attacked, and their number is unbelievable."

"What?!?" everybody shouted.

"They just came out of a portal. Millions of them. I think that they felt that vital information is being extracted from the Core Memory and they sent everything they could to stop this. Hurry up. They're too many for me to correctly defend the planet and the Cornerians will quickly be submerged."

"On our way!" both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom said before they ended the call. "We will go ahead while Fox returns in the Great Fox," Sweetie Belle then added before the fillies returned inside the Unique Horn. The battleship then opened a portal and made sure to leave it open to allow the Cornerian ships around Aquas to come defend their homeplanet immediately.

The portal led them far enough from Corneria to ensure that they weren't assaulted right away. In the distance, they could see the planet with its surface partially obscured here and there by what were obviously swarms of aparoids. More aparoids were visible around the planet battling Cornerian ships and other defenses.

Already, it didn't look good.

Author's Note

The mission on Fichina in the story is much different from the one in the game. As I said previously, in the game, Pigma escapes with the Core Memory and Star Fox is forced to chase him. After encountering Star Wolf, a tip from Panther leads them to Fichina where they discover that Pigma has deactivated the Climate Control Center, causing a blizzard to appear. Because of this, the members of Star Fox couldn't use their Arwings and Fox was forced to go on foot. The first objective was to enter the Center to reactivate it, but the center was protected by a shield that Pigma probably activated previously, so Fox had to deactivate it by firing at the generators in three towers around the Center. Then, once inside, after reactivating the Center, Fox was attacked by defense drones turned into aparoids by Pigma using the Core Memory and was barely saved by Falco who was able to come now that the blizzard was gone. After that, Fox climbs on Falco's Arwing's wing and has to fire on the aparoids targeting the fighter until Pigma reveals himself and uses the Core Memory again to turn one of the towers into an aparoid, causing the Center to enter a critical state. So Fox had to let Pigma escape to destroy the new aparoid before the Center was destroyed. But now, in the story, with Pigma dead, the mission was much simpler, consisting just of eliminating the aparoids around the Center. No tower-turned-aparoid, no shield to deactivate, and no rail shouter section surfing on the wing of a fighter.

Also, before the aparoids' assault on Corneria, there was a mission on Sauria to defend the planet from them. This doesn't happen here thanks to the time gained by Phantom killing Pigma.

Fun fact: until now, almost every civilizations encountered used the same language, English or equivalent, so the translators hadn't been needed excepted to understand Pokémon or the Space Pirates between some others. But here, in Lylat, the inhabitants have their own language that would have been absolutely impossible to understand otherwise. I'm serious. The Lylat language could be selected in the PAL version of Star Fox 64 on Nintendo 64.
I'll let you admire:
Link
I loved to select it. It made the game funnier.

Chapter 82: Corneria

Phantom was on a street, looking up as the sky was more and more obscured by countless flying aparoids of all kinds that were already fighting the Cornerian defenses while dropping their ground brethren. She had just finished warning her friends and she was now ready to start to defend Corneria City. She won't be able to do much more. As powerful as she was with the power of the Phantom Ruby, it couldn't cover the whole planet. A few miles at most. Enough to cover the city.

So, after cracking her knuckles, she flew up in the middle of the swarm of aparoids and unleashed a powerful wave of Phantom energy that went all over the city and slightly beyond. As the wave passed, it caused countless doubles of various people she knew to appear everywhere in the city. Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Sonic, Shadow, Metal Sonic, Mario, Luigi, and so on. Also appeared were turrets and even Eggman's airships from when he took over Mobius with Infinite's help as well as Equestrian airships from her world.

Just like that she already turned the scale of the battle for to the advantage of the Cornerians, and she had thankfully warned Pepper so the Cornerians would know that they were friendlies, but she wasn't done yet. She immediately sent part of the army she materialized to go beyond the city to defend the rest of the planet when they had the possibility (like the hedgehogs and Rainbow Dashes who could cover great distances in a blink of an eye). Then, she raised a fist and made countless blades materialize, creating a huge cloud of them that she then sent at the flying aparoids with a wave of her arm. The blades gored the bugs, often skewering them in lines. Following this, she materialized two laser cannons that she grabbed before she made them fire two continuous beams toward the sky. Using them like swords, she swept the sky with the beams, killing even more aparoids.

Between herself and her army that had started clearing the streets from the ground aparoids, she must have already killed many thousands of the bugs in not even one minute. And yet, they were still as numerous as before.

This promised to be a long battle.

Then she received a call from Pepper (who was also participating in the defense aboard his personal starfighter which she was keeping an eye on) warning her that their radars were being jammed, and he asked her help to kill the aparoids responsible of this. They quickly identified which ones were responsible, the aparoids looking like big hovering balls which were actually an eye surrounded by six pointed fin-like arms. They immediately became a priority to eliminate.

An infected mecha that Phantom remembered Andrew's forces used was sent by the aparoids to deal with her. Probably they got it after decimating what remained of the Androssians. It was fast, agile, and quickly charged a devastating beam that Phantom had to dodge. The antro pegasus countered by sending a cloud of cubes at the mecha, materializing four manacles that caught it by the arms and the legs, keeping it in place. She then used the manacles to control the mecha and make it ram other aparoids before she eventually made them tear it apart. What remained of the mecha dropped to the ground where it was crushed under the leg of one of these U.F.O.-like aparoids like the one she fought on Katina.

Looking down, she saw that a few of these things had dropped in the city and around, firing their rockets and crushing everything in their paths. Wasp-like aparoids were also in the sky in number. The bugs really sent everything they had to stop them from extracting the data from the Core Memory.

Materializing in her hands a spear that she pointed down at the giant aparoid that had just crushed the mecha, she imbued it with electricity before she dropped on the bug like a lightning bolt, right on the spire that contained its core. She pierced right through it in a thunderous crash, and the aparoid let out a terrible wail before it dropped dead.

Rising from the corpse of the titanic beast, she turned back to face the aparoids in the sky, ready to unleash the full power of the Phantom Ruby on them. She will show them how she had been able to almost exterminate an army by herself when she had been Infinite.

Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom didn't wait for the Unique Horn to approach to charge into the battle above the planet while the Cornerian ships that had been defending Aquas traversed the portal that the alicorn's battleship opened with the Great Fox among them.

Thanks to her speed, Sweetie Belle was the first to enter the battle, reaching a first swarm of aparoids battling a small, disorganised, and heavily outnumbered Cornerian fleet. The swarm had all kinds of flying aparoids, from beetle-like and moth-like ones to ones resembling more like ships, and had a huge number of the big wasp ones.

Frowning as she charged at the swarm big of several thousands individuals, she surrounded herself with her ten cannons in double sword beam mode and also created energy blades on her wings and her legs. She even divided herself so there were four of her flying in a squarre formation toward the aparoids, all with energy blades on the wings and legs.

Then they slashed, slashed, slashed, slashed, slashed, slashed, up, down, left, right, right again, and so on and so on until they traversed the whole swarm, leaving behind the aparoids cut into pieces. All of them. In just a few seconds.

Sweetie Belle then sent her doubles to continue the battle and help the Cornerians fleets around the planet before she called Phantom.

"We're here, and we brought with us Star Fox and the Cornerians who had been defending Aquas. What is the situation on the surface?"

Further away, she saw Apple Bloom enter the battle by unleashing in the middle of a swarm of aparoids where there were no friendlies some kind of cloud of death that killed everything touching it, breaking down their bodies until they were dust. After that, she began the process of zombifying the bugs.

"Not good. I'm using everything I have but I can't defend the whole planet. The capital is still standing despite having taken some damage and it seems to have taken the brunt of the assault, but I don't want to think of which state the rest must be. Hopefully, the Cornerian army and the clones that I sent were able to limit the damage out there. And for the ones who ask, General Pepper is okay. He's fighting the aparoids in his own ship and I'm keeping an eye on it to ensure that it doesn't get infected. But for an old dog that has probably not piloted a fighter in several years, he's still quite the war hound. He's giving the aparoids a lot of work."

"I'm not surprised," Peppy joined in. "It's not time that will worn him down, especially when the lives of what he holds dear is on the line. We're still descending to help him defend the city. What about you Sweetie Belle?"

As he talked, the members of Star Fox began to fight their way through the aparoids while they flew toward the surface of Corneria. They quickly began to battle a wasp using the same method than the first time they fought one.

"The capital seems to be in good hands, so I will rather help defending the rest of the surface," the alicorn answered, judging that the pilots didn't need her help as she watched. "What about you Apple Bloom?"

"Ah'll remain in defense of the fleets above the planet," the Spirit of Death answered.

"Alright. I will leave some doubles behind too," Sweetie Belle said.

"Doubles?" Peppy asked.

"Haven't you seen that there are four of me flying around?"

There were a few seconds of silence as the rabbit seemed to search for the doubles and quickly found them slaughtering the aparoids by thousands here and there. "So you can duplicate yourself?"

"Yup! But don't expect me to be able to create thousands of them. Everything is shared between my doubles. My consciousness, my energy, the damage I take... To put it simply, all the doubles are part of my body so the more I create doubles, the more dangerous it becomes for me. But against these bugs?" She grinned. "I can allow to create a dozen or two."

And she duplicated herself again, creating more and more doubles until they were fifteen. Counting the three that were already fighting the aparoids, this made a total of eighteen Sweetie Belles.

"Time to go!" the fifteen exclaimed before they all flew toward the surface of Corneria, eventually separating to go all over the planet.

The number of aparoids on the planet rapidly began to drop afterward.

It didn't take long for Fox and the others to kill the wasp and fly to Corneria City, fighting through countless aparoids on the path.

Then, they reached the city, and it was pure chaos. Thousands of aparoids of all kinds were flying around unknown airships all over the city in a dogfight against the Cornerian fighters while more bugs were on the ground fighting both Cornerian soldiers and all kinds of creatures. Laser, plasma, and other kinds of energy projectiles were going in all direction among the smoke coming out of the buildings and the giant U.F.O.-like aparoids that were like walking fortresses spreading death and destruction. In the chaos, they easily spotted General Pepper's ship and Phantom, the filly killing one of the giant aparoids by making it eat some powerful bomb.

"Let's spread to cover more ground. Kill as many as you can. Priority to the giant ones," Fox instructed. "Remember, their weakness is the core in the spire on their back. When it opens, fire at will!"

"Yes!" the three others replied before they flew in different directions and began to fire at the aparoids.

"We must also kill the bloated ones. They seem to be some kind of bomber," Krystal rapidly informed.

"Slippy, you already have three bogeys on your tail," Peppy warned.

"Oh come on!" the frog shouted in frustration. They barely started!

But thankfully for him, the three aparoids were quickly destroyed by Pepper's ship, which looked like a much bigger and more powerful version of the usual Cornerian fighter. "I'm glad to see you here Star Fox, but be more careful. With their number, any mistake could be your last."

"Thank you General," Slippy said.

"At least we can count on you and the pony to keep an eye on Little Froggy," Falco added. "But who and what are all these guys fighting for us?"

"Creations of Scootaloo. Her power apparently allow her to create whatever she wants, and this seems to include other people," Pepper answered.

"Woah! All of this is from her? Even the ships?!?" Slippy exclaimed.

"Ahah! Take that!" Falco shouted as he managed to kill one of the giant aparoids. "I'm not even surprised. Now, I'm more wondering what these ponies can't do. By the way, a few of these guys seem to be adults of their species."

"So all these beings are probably doubles of people they know," Krystal concluded. "Oh oh... Can someone help me? Rocket-like aparoids are chasing me and I have a bad feeling."

"Those are kamikazes!" Pepper informed.

"I'm coming!" Fox shouted and quickly joined Krystal to destroy the few rocket aparoids chasing her before they could reach her.

Meanwhile, Falco, Slippy, and Pepper fired at a group of these bloated bomber aparoids that had been about to attack the research center. At the same time, Phantom killed another giant aparoid that had been getting too close.

"Dad, how long until the data are fully extracted?" Slippy asked his dad.

"Almost done! Hold on a few more minutes."

"Alert! The aparoids are targeting the gate!" a soldier suddenly alerted. "A big missile aparoid has come out of a portal not far from it!"

"Damn it! They're changing target!" Falco shouted.

"Don't worry guys, I just destroyed the missile," Sweetie Belle then said. "Darn, more are coming!"

"The aparoids must think that if they destroy the gate then we won't be able to send our forces to their world," Pepper guessed.

"Ah! Too bad for them, even if the gate is destroyed my ship can open one. Uh? What is it Admiral Stinger?"

"Missiles are coming toward the Unique Horn."

"... I should have shut up my big mouth," Sweetie Belle deadpanned before she giggled. "Not that I worry. The Unique Horn can handle them."

"There're more and more aparoids up there. We'll need reinforcements if this continues," Apple Bloom warned.

"Alright. I'm sending some of my doubles from the surface."

The battle thus continued, and before long, between Phantom and Star Fox, all the giant aparoids were killed. Just in time for Beltino to announce that he finished extracting the data from the Core Memory and that he now knew the coordinates of the Aparoid Homeworld.

"That's great, dad! Give them to us and we will go right away!" Slippy exclaimed happily.

"Hold your horse, son. We aren't done yet. There's still something else that I must do before you can go and end their invasion."

"What is it, Beltino?" Pepper asked.

"Yeah, what is more to do? We go there, blow up their queen or whatever, and we're done, right?" Falco asked.

"Well, blowing up the queen would be good, but nothing would stop the surviving aparoids from creating a new one, making the whole operation useless. Without forgetting that even if you manage to kill the queen, you would still have to deal with its billions, maybe even trillions of servants, and you would be dead before you could escape."

"Wouldn't blowing up their homeworld work?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"WHAT?! How would you blow up a whole planet?!"

"... I have a way..."

"Hum... W-well... I suppose that blowing up the planet would kill the majority of them, but nothing garanties that all the aparoids will be on it. If even a single one escapes the planet's destruction, then this nightmare would eventually restart. No, we need to find a way that will ensure that every single aparoids in the universe will be eliminated in one go."

Sweetie Belle pouted. "Darn."

"You are disappointed that you can't blow up a planet?" Phantom asked. "You're starting to scare me, Sweetie."

"Ahem! Thankfully, we found something that could allow us to eliminate all the aparoids in one go. You see, from the data of the Memory Core, we discovered that the aparoids are vulnerable to apoptosis."

"Apoptosis, huh? You mean they contain cells that are created for the purpose of self-destruction?" Slippy asked, understanding what his father meant.

"Right! And I'm making a program to set off a chain reaction in those cells. If you fire the program into the queen, all aparoids will self-destruct!"

"That's incredible!" Fox complimented.

"Now, you just have to wait for me to finish the program. Until then, continue to defend the planet and the gate. And especially my research center."

"Well, we already did a good job and I don't see any reason why this would change now," Phantom said.

Apple Bloom groaned. "Please, don't jinx it,"

Apple Bloom's worry quickly turned true as the aparoids seemed to grow desperate, sending more and more missiles more and more heavily guarded at the gate and the Unique Horn. In the end, the focus of the battle of Corneria shifted from the capital to the gate as the Unique Horn flew to approach it so it would be easier for everyone to defend the two targets. Corneria City was still assaulted, but the aparoids were much less present than before, and the rest of the surface had almost been entirely cleaned by then. The aparoids zombified by Apple Bloom served as a first line of defense against the missiles and their escorts, and any that passed were promptly destroyed by the Cornerian army, Star Fox, and the fillies. The sneaky bugs attempted to send a missile directly at Corneria City to destroy the research center while everybody was busy defending the gate and the Unique Horn, but Phantom who had remained on guard easily destroyed it.

After several long minutes spent destroying dozens of missiles and the swarms escorting them, a last wave came with an humongous missile several times bigger than the others, easily the size of a ship like the Great Fox. And of course, it was heavily guarded.

Sweetie Belle yawned as she charged energy into her horn before she released a powerful beam that, upon hitting the missile, not only destroyed it but also caused an explosion that destroyed most of the aparoids escorting it.

No more missiles came after that. Seemingly understanding that they lost the battle, the remaining aparoids retreated, probably to prepare the defense of their homeworld knowing that an assault was now unavoidable.

And just in time for Beltino to call. "Well done everyone! We've just finished the self-destruct program, too!"

"Way to go, dad!" Slippy exclaimed.

"Now all we have to do is gift wrap it for the aparoid queen!" the scientist continued.

"That's one gift it won't forget," Apple Bloom said.

"You should add a little note that says "long live the queen" while you're at it," Phantom added.

"Guess it's time to head for their homeworld, huh?" Fox said.

"Yes. I will prepare our fleet for our assault. It's finally time for us to go on the offensive. And I must thank you, everyone, for defending Corneria. We are in your debt, Star Fox and... Excuse me, but what do you call yourselves, little ones?" Pepper asked.

"Us? Huh... Well... Good question." Sweetie Belle began to think of a name for their group. "The Cutie Mark Crusaders?"

"Mmh... What we're doing has nothing to do with Cutie Mark crusading. And we already have our Cutie Marks," Apple Bloom said.

"And while we may be CMCs, we are from different CMC groups. The three of us form a totally different group," Phantom said.

"Oh! Oh! I think I got it! We are the Ultimate Multiverse Explorers!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed, winking at nothing.

"Seriously?" Phantom deadpanned.

"Hey, it's simple and effective. Ah like it." You could almost hear her shrug.

Phantom sighed. "Alright. Let's go with the Ultimate Multiverse Explorers. Damn, it's so corny..."

Author's Note

Two missions in one here. In the game, because of the time lost chasing Pigma, the aparoids attacked Sauria. While Star Fox was busy defending the planet, the main force of the aparoids assaulted Corneria and defeated the defenses, overrunning the city. By the time Star Fox found out and arrived, the city was badly damaged with aparoids everywhere and infected Cornerian soldiers and vehicles in every corners. Worst, Pepper's personal fighter was infected too with the General still in it. Star Fox, with an unexpected help from Star Wolf, was able to force the aparoids to retreat and destroyed Pepper's ship, but Peppy was able to save the old dog.
Beltino then revealed about the emplacement of the Aparoid Homeworld and the self-destruct program and the aparoids began a new assault, this time on the gate in hope to destroy it and thus stop the Cornerian from launching an assault. So the mission was mainly to destroy aparoid missiles before they could reach the gate and destroy it.
Here, since Star Fox was able to directly give the Core Memory to Beltino, the aparoids were forced to launch an assault on Corneria earlier, and thanks to the fillies, Star Fox was able to participate in the actual defense of the planet instead of dealing with the aftermath. Of course, I guess that the assault in the game was less important than the one in the story. The fillies' actions obviously led the aparoids to be more desperate.

Chapter 83: The Aparoid Homeworld

Once everything and everyone were ready, the Cornerians began the process to open a portal to the Aparoid Homeworld using the gate.

An operator listed one by one the steps as they were made. "Zypher Ring now expanding. Main re-block disengaged." A giant ring divided into three blocks that floated away from the station and from each others. Three smaller parts also came out from between the blocks and floated between them, remaining equidistant in a circle. "All blocks, orbits confirmed. No anomalies detected."

As a green energy began to come out of the blocks to form a ring, the Cornerian armada, commanded by Pepper himself, approached along with the Great Fox. It wasn't the full Cornerian army. Some of it had to remain behind to defend the planet just in case, and there were still the many forces dispersed around the Lylat System to defend the other planets from the aparoid raids.

"Commencing energy exposure." From lens on the three blocks came rays of the green energy that went toward the center of the ring, forming a Y-shape. "Expending gate lens." A big flash came from where the three beams encountered each others, and the portal was open. "Gate creation successful."

Half of the armada, with the Great Fox and Pepper's flagship at the head, moved to face the gate while the other half remained with the Unique Horn that also opened its own portal, much bigger.

"Eheh. We will get them with a pincer attack," Phantom said.

Fleet-wide transmission was opened, and Beltino began a speech. "Attention, fleet of Corneria. We in command have done all we can. From here on out, we're entrusting everything to you. So please, do your best... but try to come back alive."

"OK, pop..." Slippy said.

"Well said, Beltino," Pepper began. "Nine years ago, the Lylat System barely survived the invasion of Andross and his forces. And now, here are these space bugs threatening our homes. But this time, despite the surprise of the invasion, thanks to the help of unexpected allies, we are in a position of strength. Let's show these aparoids our wrath! Let's show them that we don't threaten everything we built, everything we care, without consequences! Now, link the gate! Target: the aparoid homeworld!"

"Ok! Is everyone ready?" Fox asked. "Star Fox! Move out!"

"Everyone, let's go!" Sweetie Belle shouted.

Thus, the fleet divided in two passed the two portals, appearing on opposite sides of a purple planet. The first fleet that had the Great Fox came out of the portal on a side of the planet that looked, as Krystal put it, very lovely. Nothing they expected.

But the second fleet, with the Unique Horn, came out above a side of the planet that looked very different. Desolate, artificial, with glowing blue vein things.

Peppy saying that the planet's size and mass were disproportionate definitively broke the illusion for everyone.

That, and the countless aparoids coming from its surface, and especially from a point in the center of the artificial side, starting the battle. The two fleets fired everything they had at the bugs, already killing thousands and thousands of them, but this barely put a dent in their number.

"Uh? My queen! Look! There's a hole in the center of this artificial side! Seems like the entrance of a tunnel," one of the Unique Horn's crew members on the computers gained the fillies attention.

"You got that, everyone?" Sweetie Belle asked to the rest of the fleet.

"Yes, maybe we could use it to make our way to the planet interior..." Peppy thought.

However, as Peppy said that, the last aparoids came out of the tunnel and a honeycombed yellow shield appeared to cover its entrance.

"Dang it! Of course there's a shield," Apple Bloom said.

"Multiple shield generators detected," ROB informed them before images of a platform above the shield were shown, indicating the presence of the shield generators there.

"Well, first, let's reduce the number of pests around the planet. Once the sky will be more clear and the fleet won't risk to be overwhelmed, I will take care of the shield," Sweetie Belle said before she exited the Unique Horn.

"Rather than wait, I will get on the platform and deactivate the generators," Fox said. "With the shield down, we will be able to reach the queen and end this battle."

"You sure, dude?" Phantom asked.

"Yeah, don't worry. Leave the commando operation to us while you guys protect the fleet and make diversion," Falco said.

Phantom and Apple Bloom nodded and also exited the Unique Horn to join the battle.

As the battle raged, Star Fox fought their way through the aparoids to the platform above the shield. Here, Fox and Krystal both landed on it while Falco and Slippy remained in their arwings to cover their friends from the sky.

Peppy even teleported in the Landmaster for Fox.

Apparently, aparoid hatchers helped powering the shield generators so they were, once again, the primary targets. The hatchers were hidden inside buildings, so the Landmaster had to be left behind. Of course, the hatchers were heavily defended. The mini-tanks were present but dozens along with countless of small spherical aparoids that rolled toward Fox and Krystal to jump on them and many bigger aparoids looking like the ones encountered on Katina but that fired green projectiles that homed in. On the ceilings were also aparoids crawling on it to drop explosive projectiles, and that was without counting the many turret-like aparoids that were pretty much in each corners. And then, Fox and Krystal quickly found out that the hatchers themselves were defended by shields, so they had to find the generators of these shields first and destroy them before being able to destroy the hatchers. And of course, the generators were also heavily defended and knowing that the two foxes had to go after them had prepared many ambushes in the corridors.

To put it simply, Fox and Krystal had to fight like demons just to gain a few meters. Thankfully, they came prepared with a whole armory on them, from simple blasters to rocket launchers passing by grenades and even their own shields, without forgetting Krystal's magical staff. And their teamwork was absolutely perfect, their synergy making so they were fighting almost like one entity. Despite this, there were many close calls, the aparoids' number, cheer power, and slyness almost getting them at several occasions. And since they were inside windowless buildings most of the time, Falco and Slippy could do nothing to help them.

While Star Fox dealt with the platform, the UME were constantly moving around the planet trying to kill as many aparoids as they could. More than once, they had to stop the bugs from going after Pepper's flagship and the Great Fox that seemed to be their main targets along with the Unique Horn. At least, the Unique Horn had its force field protecting it so it didn't need as much protection and the majority of the aparoids getting too close ended up killed by the many cannons and the Star Fighters. By now, the surface of the planet was littered with craters of all sizes, result of the constant lasers and other projectiles raining from the intense battle above. The survival rate of a ground aparoid was very low, and that was mostly from stray shots.

The fillies kept attention to the evolution of the situation on the platform through their transmission with the members of Star Fox in case they needed to intervene. Frankly, Sweetie Belle could have sent a double to destroy the platform right away but the priority really was to reduce the number of aparoids right now to limit the loss and for this she already sent all the doubles she dared to create. The bugs were THAT many. Clearly, without the fillies, the Cornerian fleet would have been submerged and forced to retreat by now. Phantom had her powers working at one hundred and ten percent to materialize the biggest and strongest army she could in addition of weapons, bent reality, and anything else that worked. And Apple Bloom was also sending everything she had while she wasn't busy zombifying aparoids or even calling spirits from the afterlife to join Phantom's army. There were quite the number of people that were ready to come back temporarily to protect Lylat from these bugs. There were moment when they almost went to help Fox and the others, especially when they were ambushed, but they were quickly reassured each time that they were good.

Eventually, Fox and Krystal managed to kill all the hatchers in the buildings only for bigger ones to appear under the platform, defended by these aparoids that fired the green projectiles that homed in which were especially dangerous against the arwings. But against Fox and Falco, those were nothing.

"All targets down!" Fox shouted after he destroyed the last hatcher.

"You did it, Fox! Now we can invade the base!" Peppy exclaimed. "You heard that everyone? The shield is down! Now, we're about to enter the tunnel to take the fight to the queen. Just hold on a bit longer."

"This is very good news, Star Fox," Pepper said. "Go ahead. Don't worry about us."

"We shouldn't be far behind. The number of aparoids has diminished to the point that the situation is a bit more manageable for us. Soon, we should be able to leave and give you a hand without having to worry about the Cornerians," Sweetie Belle said.

"What a mess. Despite everything we sent, we still lost a lot of ships," Apple Bloom said gloomily.

"They really were far too numerous. Typical of pests, multiplying until reaching ridiculous numbers," Phantom said.

"Yeah. Even the Unique Horn's force field got taken down. It received some damage and... some of our Star Fighters were destroyed..." Sweetie Belle informed, on the verge of crying. She really cared for the crew of her ship.

"We are sorry to hear that. Their sacrifice will not be forgot-Huh? What's that?" Fox asked when he looked back down at the entrance of the tunnel which was now covered by a blue honeycombed shield.

"You gotta be kidding! They put up an auxiliary shield!" Slippy shouted. "Mmh... At least, it seems weaker than the previous one. An impact powerful enough should be able to open a big enough breach to let us pass before it closes."

"Give me one minute!" Sweetie Belle said. One of the alicorn's doubles, the one with her ten cannons, fired a powered-down Ultimate Doom Laser and moved it among the aparoids, killing many thousands more of them and sweeping the surface of the planet by the same occasion. Once she was done, she then moved to kill some aparoids that had managed to land on Cornerian ships before she finally went to join Star Fox, taking the occasion to fly right through several more bugs and slice many more with her swords and wing blades. On the way, she was joined by Apple Bloom and Phantom who thought that they could also now join the fight against the queen without worrying about the battle left behind. With the number of aparoids now much lower, and between Sweetie's doubles, Phantom's army of copies, and Apple Bloom's zombified aparoids and army of spirits called back from the afterlife, things should be alright.

When the fillies joined Star Fox, Sweetie Belle didn't lose time and charged at the shield, impacting it with the force of a giant meteor and breaking a big part of it.

"Shield breached! Hurry up before it closes!" she shouted.

Without word, the four pilots of Star Fox accelerated and passed the reforming shield, followed by Apple Bloom and Phantom.

"Good luck, Star Fox and UME," Pepper said at last.

They went down the tunnel that, at first, simply consisted of a straight line with honeycombed walls and other walls made of some kind of purple energy. No obstacles and no enemies in sight. But after one minute or two, a first group of aparoids came to stop them, and from there, many more followed. Then, a blue honeycombed shield not unlike the one on the entrance of the tunnel began to form on their path, trying to block it, but they managed to pass it before it could fully close. However, a second shield followed which forced Fox and the others to enter a secondary tunnel before Sweetie Belle could destroy it.

In this new tunnel that was smaller and made of swirling honeycombed walls with purple "veins", big panels partially blue and sliding back and forth of the walls partially blocked the path, forcing the pilots to be careful of their movements. After passing a few of these panels, they entered a bigger tunnel like the first one where they quickly encountered a big, circular structure that opened to release more aparoids, and they had to save Slippy who ended up chased by a bunch of them.

After passing this structure, they fought their first defensive aparoid turrets since entering the planet before the tunnel turned and shrunk. The new section had weird purple and glowing blue spheres coming out of the walls and following blue lines before returning inside the walls, threatening to ram the heroes. Thankfully, the spheres could easily be destroyed, but their number could have been dangerous. After two sections of these moving spheres, they entered another section with the moving panels before they reached a new section with triangular panels rapidly coming out of the walls without warning.

"Obstacles dead ahead! Watch out, everyone!" Fox warned.

This one almost caused Slippy and Krystal to crash, and even Sweetie Belle actually had to destroy a panel she had been about to fly into.

"Woah! An instant later and I would have gotten one heck of a headache!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed.

"Just a headache?" Slippy asked bemused.

"You're gonna block us at any cost, is that it?" Falco asked rhetorically to the aparoids.

Finally, they returned into a bigger tunnel where there was another structure that opened to release aparoids that went, this time, after Krystal. Then there was another shield that formed to try to block the path before the tunnel turned. Now, the heroes entered a section that was squared with pink energy barriers partially blocking the way appearing and disappearing.

"These attacks are intense. It shows how far we've come," Fox commented.

"We must be getting close," Phantom said.

"Fox! Falco's in trouble!" Krystal suddenly shouted as Falco was suddenly chased by a large group of aparoids.

Once the avian was saved, a big aparoid ship that could alter its shape and that had a strong armor came and began to fire at the heroes with both purple beams and homing green missiles. Sweetie Belle quickly got rid of it, allowing the others to focus on the turrets and other aparoids that were coming (some out of weird purple crystals on the walls). After another honeycombed shield and another turn, they passed another structure opening to release aparoids before they encountered a new kind of aparoid.

The aparoid placed itself in the center of the tunnel and launched energy tendrils that began to swirl while it sent rings lasers. The rate it fired these lasers forced the heroes to constantly moved in circles while they destroyed it.

Then, after many more turrets and another honeycombed shield, the tunnel turned and shrunk again, getting to a new section with blade barriers that circled followed by another section with barrier-gates that opened and closed like pincers.

Finally, they entered a new section of the tunnel that was totally different from what they went through until now, the walls being octogonal and slowly turning. Here came another new kind of aparoid that was silver-colored. There was a huge number of them, placing themselves in front of the heroes with their three spinning blades and opening their mouth to fire powerful plasma torpedoes. And on top of that, they revealed to have a very big armor so killing just one took forever for the members of Star Fox. But of course they were still no problem for the fillies who easily killed all of them, opening the way.

While they took care of the silver aparoids, they also found themselves assaulted by aparoid larvae falling from down the tunnel.

"Larvae. Now we are definitively close," Phantom said.

"It's time to confront the queen... Let's move!" Fox exclaimed.

And so, as the walls turned silver (again, honeycombed), they reached the end of the tunnel, entering the queen's chamber.

It was a vaste room half-filled with a gelatinous silvery liquid. In its center was a monolithic silver structure with a white head that looked like a mask in the image of a human face.

"That must be..." Falco began.

"The queen..." Krystal continued.

"Remember girls. No killing it. We must just weaken it," Slippy reminded the fillies.

"We know. We know when to restrain our powers to avoid killing," Phantom said.

"Stop..." a voice suddenly said in their transmitters.

This took everyone by surprise. "Huh?!?"

"Fox... There is no need to fight."

"That voice... Dad?!" Fox shouted.

"No way!" Slippy shouted.

"Give in. Join us. This is evolution. We will be one," the voice that Fox identified as the one of his father, James, continued monotone.

"Does she really think we will fall for that?" Phantom exclaimed.

"Fox, I don't know your dad, but I don't think that he would ask you to turn into a slave for queen ugly over here," Sweetie Belle said.

"Yeah. Don't let it fool you," Falco said. "You know that your father is..."

"I know!" Fox shouted, angry at the queen for daring to use his father against him.

"Come on, Star Fox. There is nothing wrong," a different voice said.

"There is no suffering anymore," a female one said.

"I'm with my mommy and my daddy," the one of a little boy continued.

"Tell the General to end this nonsense. No more bloodshed," a gravely one said.

More and more voices followed, all pretty much telling how nice it would be to let the aparoids absorb them, creeping out the heroes more and more.

"We will be together forever, son," the voice of James finished.

"That's enough!" Fox yelled.

"Let us live together...

"Together..."

"Live... As one..."

.............

"That's... Enough!"

"!!!"

The voice of James suddenly returned, but clearer, and that was when the members of Star Fox spotted a fifth arwing behind them. An old model. However, this one had an aura... not of this world. They all immediately recognized who was in the pilot seat.

"W-What?! How?!" Fox shouted in shock.

At this, Apple Bloom floated backward in front of the arwing, forelegs behind her head and whistling innocently. "It's nice ta be the Spirit of Death."

"You go, Apple Bloom!" Sweetie Belle shouted.

Fox and the others clearly hadn't expected that. They were informed while they were assaulting the platform above the shield that Apple Bloom had been able to call spirits to join the battle, the spirits somehow even coming with their own ghostly fighter ships, but for her to call in the spirit of James Mccloud to make the queen shut up?

"Remember Fox. Don't hesitate. When the time comes, just act," James said.

Hearing these familiar words from his father, Fox shook his head to regain his senses before he got a determined expression and wordlessly nodded at James.

He then looked back at the queen. "Everyone, let's give the queen her present. Star Fox team... Let's go!"

Everyone then went to fly around the queen who deployed her wings, reminding of the wasp-like aparoids (her body shape was very close of one by the way). Energy accumulated from the wings, and everyone that was in front of the queen immediately flew out of the way before she could unleash it in the form of a devastating maelstrom of energy. At the same time, globes came out of the silvery liquid and floated around.

"Fox... Look at the queen. We can't get a self-destruct program through that armor..." Krystal observed.

"Rats! Stupid armor..." Slippy exclaimed.

"What's wrong? If something's in the way, we just blast it!" Falco said.

"I like your style, birdy," Phantom said, making Falco huff.

Most of them began to fire at the silvery scales that surrounded the queen's body as she began to spin. Others also fired at the globes to clear the space, but firing at them caused them to divide into smaller and smaller globes. It was only when they were small enough that they were destroyed for good. Eventually, the globes hatched into yellow larvae that began to randomly float around, so they had to quickly be killed before they collided with someone.

"Larvae are never beautiful things, but these ones could win an ugly contest," Sweetie Belle commented.

While the larvae were killed, the queen's scales were destroyed one by one, revealing more and more her wasp-like body and also eventually revealing a red gemlike surface.

"Weakness spotted!" Apple Bloom said.

"All right! Concentrate your fire right there!" Fox instructed.

However, they eventually had to move away as the queen accumulated energy in her wings again.

"All of you... Join us... It's your only salvation..." the queen said through one of the voices of the ones she absorbed.

"Give up already!" Falco shouted.

"Please... I don't want to die," a little girl's voice said.

"Now that's just cruel," Krystal said.

"Don't listen to her forked tongue," James said as he returned to fire at the gem-thing, only for new scales to form to protect it.

"Drat! She can regrow her scales!" Sweetie Belle said.

"Then let's just blast them again," Phantom said.

"You have no chance of victory," the queen said through a different feminine voice.

"Stop fooling yourself," a gruff one continued.

"Shut up already!" Slippy yelled.

Rapidly enough, as the queen spun again, the scales were destroyed a second time and everyone fired at the gem-thing that began to crackle.

"You're fools... Get smart and surrender," a familiar voice said.

"And now she's using Pigma," Fox said.

"Hah! You think we'd be fooled by stupid impersonations?" Falco questioned.

"Look out! Get away from the front of the queen!" Krystal yelled as the queen accumulated energy in her wings again.

Only for them to be cut by both Sweetie Belle and Phantom using a sword.

"That attack was starting to piss me off," Phantom said.

"Yeah, should have done that earlier," Sweetie Belle said.

"No matter what you do, you cannot win," the queen said through yet another voice as her scales reformed.

"All right! Just a little more!" Falco exclaimed as he saw that the gem-thing was almost destroyed.

"One last time!" Krystal said.

"Stop right there," a voice said.

"The aparoids are not your enemies. Think..." another one continued.

"If you waste this chance, you're utter fools," a third one finished.

"Ya're the foolish one if ya think we're gonna listen," Apple Bloom said.

More and more larvae were constantly coming from the silvery liquid, but the heroes didn't let them distract them long. The scales were rapidly destroyed, and they were able to fire again at the gem-thing.

"There's no reason to continue fighting."

"We live..."

"We will evolve as one..."

"My friends..."

"You who will be the food of evolution..."

"Think again, Fox!" the voices continued.

"Ignore that, team! Attack!" Fox shouted.

After a few more seconds, the gem-thing was destroyed, opening a hole in the queen's body.

"Now, Fox! Fire that program in there!" Falco shouted.

Fox quickly placed himself in front of the queen and did so, opening the compartment usually for bombs and firing the program instead with a "Take THIS!!!" The program went right in the hole, and a reaction began inside the queen. In a flash, most of her exploded, only leaving the bottom of her body where the gem-thing had been.

"Is it working?" Fox wondered.

"I'm not sure, but..." Slippy said, sensing that something was wrong.

Then, what remained of the queen began to shake.

"Hm? Something's wrong, Fox!" Krystal warned as the chamber itself began to give big jolts.

The queen then slowly began to sink into the silvery liquid as a new feminine voice was heard, both talking through the transmitters and out of them. "All for us... All things in the universe... will be ours..."

"What?!?"

"Yeah, of course... It was too easy," Phantom said.

"All for us... Everything in this universe exists for us... Bow before us! Submit to us!" what seemed to be the real voice of the queen continued as her body sunk more and more in the liquid which was also draining from the chamber.

"What?!?" Falco repeated from Fox.

"Is the self-destruct program working?" Krystal asked.

"It should be working, but the queen's suppressing it!" Slippy revealed as the queen finally disappeared in a new tunnel. "This is bad. If she escapes now, she'll create an anti-body!"

"Then let's not lose time! After that thing!" Sweetie Belle shouted before she flew after the queen.

James flew beside Fox. "Let's go, Fox,"

Fox nodded. "We've got to defeat this thing and execute that program! This is it. The final battle!"

At this, everyone followed Sweetie Belle, chasing the queen.

They rapidly caught up with the queen inside a tunnel that seemed to entirely be made of purple pulsating energy with some honeycombed metallic plates circling them just in time to witness as she transformed, visibly becoming bigger while what remained of her previous body continued to face the heroes.

"Look out, everyone! That thing looks really steamed!" Falco warned as the queen turned to reveal her new body.

What remained of her previous body was now just... her butt. The first thing they could see beyond it was a circle of wing that spun around what was now the middle of her body, which was very thin. However, the top of her body, her "head", was huge and, when it fully faced the heroes, it revealed four pink eyes in a square formation and four tentacle-like appendages between them coming out of some four-pointed star-like thing in the center that seemed to be its mouth. The appendages constantly released the same globes than earlier, the globes quickly hatching into larvae that threatened to collide with the heroes.

"It must have a weak point! Watch the queen's reactions!" Krystal advised.

"I'm ready to bet everything I have that these big glowing eyes are what we search. As Button Mash would say, "If the boss as a big eye that stands out, there's nine chances out of ten that it's a weakness.""

"Quoting your coltfriend now, Sweetie Belle?" Phantom teased.

"Shut up! He's just a friend!"

Not minding the bickering between the fillies, everyone began to fire at the eyes when they didn't have to fire at the larvae. Seeing the eyes slowly closing the more they fired at them, they understood that Sweetie Belle was right.

"Fools! We are perfection. We possess all knowledge," the queen directly talked to them.

"Oh, trust me, you know nothing of the universe, you stupid bug," Sweetie Belle said.

"Look at its mouth! Something's coming out!" Slippy observed as the last eye was closing and the mouth opened.

It wasn't just the mouth in the end. The whole head opened like a flower, what was previously the top now being like petals, and the queen's real head revealed itself in the center, looking more like the head of a dragon with some kind of helmet.

"Oh my gosh! It's changing again!" Slippy shouted.

"I think it's trying to scare us with that ugly mug!" Falco mocked.

"Well that's a failure," Apple Bloom laughed.

"My sister when she wakes up is way scarier," Sweetie Belle said.

"We are perfect. We are not the same as these fell creatures," the queen said before she released dozens of mines. At the same time, the new head opened its mouth to release a series of rings of destructive energy.

"Waoh! Watch out!" Slippy shouted.

"Fire at the mines," James calmly instructed.

While they did their best to avoid the rings of energy, most of the heroes destroyed the mines, allowing a few of them to focus on the dragon-like head itself. Firing at it quickly destroyed the helmet-thing, revealing a single eye which immediately became the target. The dragon-like head then stopped firing the rings and instead attempted to directly headbutt the heroes.

"We've come too far to be beaten now!" Slippy shouted.

"Don't hesitate! The queen's afraid of us!" Krystal said.

"THIS time we're gonna end it!" Falco added encouragingly.

"Such pointless actions..." the queen said before the "flower" closed so the heroes had to fire at the four glowing pink eyes again. The larvae also returned, more numerous than ever.

"She's gaining time," Phantom said.

"How far from the surface are we?" Apple Bloom wondered.

"Don't know, don't care. Even if we reach the surface, we won't stop chasing her until she's dead, even if we have to go to the other side of the universe," Sweetie Belle said.

"We are the ones who survive. Resistance is nothing," the queen said.

"Ah yeah? Aren't we currently kicking your ass?" Phantom asked back rhetorically just as she forced the last eye to close, forcing the queen to open again to reveal her dragon-like head. Everyone immediately fired at it while avoiding the rings of energy it fired.

Again, the queen sent mines, forcing some of the heroes to fire at them while the head attempted to slam them.

"I don't know how long she will resist again, but I'm sure that she's almost done for," Slippy said.

"A little more effort," James said.

However, the queen closed again, forcing the heroes to fire back at the four eyes while avoiding dozens of larvae. It didn't take long to close three of the eyes, but before they could close the fourth one, the queen suddenly gained speed before bolts of purple or pink electricity came out of the walls and became obstacles in the path.

"I thought she had revealed all her cards!" Slippy shouted.

"A cornered beast only becomes more dangerous," Falco said.

"It's like being inside a storm cloud," Phantom said.

"We are the perfect beings. We are truth," the queen said.

"You're lying. If you really were 'truth', then you would know that nothing is perfect, not even Gods," Sweetie Belle said.

The alicorn surrounded herself in a shield and passed right through the bolts of electricity as she accelerated. Once she was close enough, she fired at the last eye and forced it to close, opening the queen again.

"Fire at will!" Fox shouted.

"Come on, queenie. Time for you to leave your throne," Phantom said.

"It's time to do or die! Let's move!" Krystal exclaimed.

Finally, the queen began to explode. "NO! WE ARE TRUTH! ONLY US!! NO!!!!" she shrieked.

But as the heroes thought that it was over, the head detached itself from the body and transformed again as the body finally exploded. Now, she was an one-eyed insectoid creature that looked like nothing.

"Again?!" Apple Bloom shouted.

"Fox! Finish it!" Krystal shouted.

"Here I come, you evil space hag!" Fox shouted.

Desperate, the queen fired a tunnel of energy at Fox who avoided it by flying right into it while he fired. The queen had no defense left so every shots injured her more and more. More tunnels of energy followed, but Fox expertly flew into all of them, and then quickly flew out of the way when the queen replaced them by a huge beam. He never stopped firing.

The queen erratically flew to avoid him, but the rest of the team then came to add their fire.

"Let's show that thing real union!" Fox shouted.

They all fired as one at the queen, leaving her no chance.

And finally, the queen lost control, her body spinning as she was stunned. With a last screech, she disappeared in a flash of light.

"That's the end of the queen," Fox said. There was then a jolt, and the tunnel around everyone began to collapse. "Hey!!"

"The program's working!" Slippy exclaimed happily.

"Destruction is spreading across the entire planet," Krystal observed.

"So... I guess that's the end of the aparoids!" Falco finally said.

"So the whole thing was just one big entity," Fox said.

"And a nasty one," Sweetie Belle said. "As bad as the Phazon. No, I would even say worse. At least, Phazon wasn't intelligent. Well, not until Dark Samus arrived and placed a brain inside the living planet."

"Wait. That's not the first time you fight something like that?" both Slippy and Apple Bloom exclaimed.

"Sounds like an interesting story, but how about we get out of here before the planet explodes on us?" Phantom reminded.

"Right," Fox said with a nod. "All ships! Evacuate at maximum velocity! Let's go!"

And so everyone flew toward the exit.

"My doubles warned Pepper and the others. The fleet is getting away so they aren't caught in the explosion," Sweetie Belle informed.

"Thank you Sweetie Belle."

Then, James flew alongside Fox. "I'm proud of you, my son." Fox smiled at him, but then, James added, "And hurry up to give me grandchildren with that vixen of yours!"

This made Fox splutter and Krystal blush while everyone else laughed.

Not long after, they reached the exit, and three fillies and four arwings came out of it.

The planet exploded soon after, and everyone quickly escaped before they could be hit by the debris.

Author's Note

I had to watch the fight against the Aparoid Queen at least ten times, from ten different sources. It really was difficult.

For some reason, in the fight against the queen's second and third form, I always hear this theme: Link One of my favorites.

Of course, things go very differently in this chapter compared to the game. For starting, the Cornerian fleet is much more numerous than in the game because, in the game, they were almost exterminated by the aparoids attacking Corneria. And since Pepper had been infected, then Star Fox was forced to take the leadership. Then, while Star Fox attacks the platform to shut down the shield, the fleet suffers heavy losses again and is forced to retreat, leaving Star Fox alone in the front line. Worse, when the auxiliary shield comes up, Peppy and ROB are forced to sacrifice the Great Fox as the ship was infected with hundreds of aparoids crawling on it. Peppy and ROB themselves were infected when they rammed the ship into the shield, and everyone thought they died then as the ship exploded.
Then, when Star Fox entered the tunnel, they were joined by Star Wolf that somehow passed the shield too without being spotted before. Together, they go through the tunnels until they reach the last one where Star Wolf does diversion and makes the silver aparoids come after them, opening the way for Star Fox.
And in the fight against the queen, she used the memories of everyone she infected including Pigma, Pepper, Peppy, and ROB to impersonate them and even James. Of course, no ghost of James comes to help. But here, in the story, since the aparoids never got the occasion to infect Pigma and the others, then she had to use the memories from everyone else that had been infected. Military and civilians.

Chapter 84: Destruction Trio

News quickly came from all over the Lylat System that, following the death of the queen thanks to the program, all aparoids remaining in the system died at once, confirming the end of the aparoid threat. So it was in hero that the force sent to the Aparoid Homeworld was welcomed back on Corneria. For their role in the defense of the system and in the extermination of the aparoids, Star Fox and the UME were especially acclaimed. Beltino Toad and his team of scientists who made the program that ended the space bugs also received praises.

"And so, for everything you have done to save us from the aparoids, all of you will be graciously rewarded," Pepper said after a long ceremony followed by an as long speech about the victory over the aparoids and praising the actions of everyone. Before him were the full Star Fox team, the UME, and Beltino.

"Thank you, General," Fox said.

"We just did our duty," Beltino said.

"Eeyup. We just did what was right. Ah don't know about Fox and the others, but ya don't need to reward us," Apple Bloom said for the fillies.

"I insist," Pepper said.

"Please, Bloom, shut it. If he wants to reward us, then let him," Phantom said with a big grin.

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. "Shameless much?"

Phantom just chuckled.

"I already tried to refuse a reward once in a previous adventure but some friends made some really good points about how useful it could be to accept. We could use the money if we need to buy something in this universe," Sweetie Belle said to Apple Bloom before she faced back the General. "So, we accept the reward. Buuut... Whatever money you have will certainly have no value back where we come from. So, how about you just open bank accounts for the three of us?"

"Very well, this will be done," Pepper said.

"Thanks!"

"I recently had some great ideas for upgrades for the Arwings and the Landmaster, and thanks to that reward, I will finally be able to make them real!" Slippy exclaimed.

"What kind of upgrades, Slippy?" Peppy asked.

"I will show ya once we're back in the Great Fox."

"Hey! Now that all this stuff is over, how about we return to what we were discussing before the General called?" Sweetie Belle proposed.

"That's right! Uh... What were we talking about again?" Slippy asked.

"About these three being here in search of allies to fight some future threats," Krystal reminded.

Peppy nodded. "And with the General just in front of us, this is the perfect occasion for you. He is one of the leading figures of Corneria. Through him, you should be able to reach the Prime Minister, the other reigning body of our world."

"Thank you." Sweetie Belle looked back at Pepper who looked curiously at her. "General Pepper. I, Sweetie Belle, Queen from the Kingdom of Floralia from planet Popstar, would like to discuss with you and the Prime Minister to begin relationship between our peoples. And by "our", I mean not only my people but also the ones of some friends I made."

"You are a queen?!" everyone excepted Apple Bloom and Phantom shouted in shock.

Sweetie Belle laughed. "You know? I should start to take photos of the reactions I get each time I reveal that I'm queen, they're always hilarious."

"Would make for some nice memories," Phantom said with a chuckle.

Pepper quickly recovered from his shock. "How about we go talk in private now that the ceremony is over?"

The fillies nodded before Sweetie Belle asked the Star Fox team, "Will you come? I would like you guys to be here. I know that you are mercenaries and that you have no reason to follow beside simple curiosity, but fighting alongside you showed me that I could count on you to help against these threats I'm about to reveal and you being here will allow you to learn what they will be and what is awaiting this universe if Pepper and the Prime Minister agree to ally our peoples."

The Star Fox team agreed as well as Beltino and they all followed Pepper into his temporary office (his regular one having been destroyed by a stray shot during the aparoid assault on the planet). Once the door was closed behind the last one to enter, the General immediately went to the point.

"Before I call the Prime Minister for a meeting, can you tell me more? Who are you? What are these threats? Why do you require our help?"

"Yeah. Are you really a queen? Aren't queens supposed to remain with their people and rule instead of risking their life adventuring?" Falco asked. "Oh, and don't tell me you two are also royals!" he then shouted to the two other fillies.

"Nope. Spirit of Death. Nothing royal. But Ah guess Ah'm some kind of mayor for a literal ghost town Ah founded," Apple Bloom replied.

"Just a simple citizen with cool powers," Phantom said. "Ancient leader of a mercenary group by the way."

"Leader of a group of mercenaries? At your age? How old are you by the way?" Falco asked in disbelief.

"Just about one year old. And for your information, in my world, a year equals 365 days and a day equals 24 hours. And before you express even more disbelief at me having been a mercenary leader in such a short time, let me tell you that I'm actually the fusion of two beings, and one of them led a mercenary group for several years."

"Ahem! Yes, I'm a queen, but a regent is taking care of everything back home until I reach adulthood. Until then, I go on adventures. Nobody really minds me risking my life excepted my sister, but as you saw, they don't have much reason to worry. I'm very hard to kill. Certainly not something like the aparoids that will cause me problem," Sweetie Belle said to Falco.

Then, she faced Pepper and continued. "Who I am... Who we are, is exactly what you saw and heard. We explore universes, and currently, are in search of allies to help us face future threats that an acquaintance warned us about. Just the first threat will apparently be a powerful multi-dimensional army that will target many universes, and us alone won't be enough to face them for the same reason that we weren't enough to face the aparoids. We just can't be everywhere at once. One-man-armies like Fox and his team here are especially what we seek, but we won't say no to the Cornerian army adding their number to what we already gathered, and Beltino would be a great addition to our team of scientists."

"And how much did you gather?" Pepper asked.

"Nobody has yet officially joined this new alliance because discussions and negotiations are still taking place. We barely started, you see. But among the possible allies we found, I think that a galaxy-wide civilization is a good find. But the only official members for now are my Equestria as well as the kingdom I rule, Floralia, as well as an ally kingdom on the same planet, Dream Land. There is also a portal-planet in the same universe, New Halcandra, but the colony there has barely started to rebuild from the ruins of the civilization that previously built and inhabited it. At least, it's a good source of very advanced technology that is being studied by our eggheads. And speaking of advanced technology, we got our hands on one that allows us to turn something or someone into energy to be kept inside small capsules and on one that turns anything into data."

"Say WHAT?!" Beltino shouted. "You imagine all that could be done with such technologies?!"

Sweetie Belle laughed. "A friend studying them told me some examples. I'm also good friend with an actual God, the kind that can create and destroy universes like we build and destroy sand castles, so this is quite the powerhouse ready to fight for us."

"And what do you know about this army?" Pepper asked, keeping his calm despite everything Sweetie Belle was telling him.

"Not much beside what I already said. The acquaintance who warned us didn't say more. I just know that this army will be preparing to fight two other Gods, one of Light and one of Darkness, both evil, but this army will do a lot of harm in countless universes while doing so, and this could include your universe. And yes, these two evil Gods are other threats that we will certainly end up facing. No idea however of when this army and these Gods will appear. Time is a really difficult matter to discuss in the Omniverse."

Pepper was silent for a moment before he pressed a button on his office desk. Not long after, the holographic head of an old havanese dog appeared.

"Hello General. Why are you calling?"

"Hello Minister. I am requiring a meeting with you with some special guests I have. It is of utmost importance."

It was hard to judge the Minister's reaction, his fur hiding his eyes, but he clearly gave the General, then everyone else in the room a curious look, stopping on the fillies, before he nodded. "Very well. Come as soon as you can." And he ended the call.

Pepper immediately faced the others and said, "Let's go," before he moved to open the door so everyone could leave the office.

Between Corneria and Fichina was an asteroid belt named Meteo, a very risky area to fly through. As such, it was the perfect place to hide from the law, so it was no surprise to find a hideout home of criminals and thugs. Known as the Sargasso Space Zone, or Sargasso Region, this hideout was a huge space station very well defended that the Cornerian judged as a very real threat, especially because many of the criminals it sheltered were Androssians and had brought with them Androssian technology.

But the very real reason why this place was dangerous was because of the team leading these outlaws: Star Wolf.

Star Wolf was an elite team of mercenaries, not unlike Star Fox, excepted that these ones had no qualms accepting the dirtiest jobs where Star Fox would refuse. If they were payed to assassinate General Pepper, they would gladly do it.

At the origin, the team had only two members: Wolf O'Donnell, a wolf who was the leader looking like a space pirate with his eyepatch, and Leon Powalski, a chameleon and very feared assassin. Then, during the Lylat Wars, under the employment of Andross, they were joined by two more members: Pigma Dengar who joined the team after betraying the original Star Fox team to Andross, and Andrew Oikonny, Andross' nephew that was forced into the team. The team fought Star Fox at several occasion during the war, leading to some terrible dog fights that challenged even Fox's piloting skill.

After the war and Andross' death, the team found shelter in the Sargasso Region and quickly climbed the ranks until Wolf was now considered the "lord" of the place. However, Pigma and Andrew were quickly kicked out of the team for various reasons. Recently, the team was joined by Panther Caroso, a black panther who eluded the Cornerians for years and thus proved his worth.

The Region was left untouched by the aparoids, so Star Wolf and the criminals under his rule never got to take action, simply watching the events from afar. Surprisingly, Wolf had been ready to help Fox and the others if the situation had evolved for the worse. The aparoids winning would have not at all been in their best interest since the bugs would have eventually slaughtered all of them too, but in the end, his intervention was never needed and he was happy for it.

And so, Wolf sighed in relief as he read the news that the aparoid menace was definitely destroyed.

"Panther, tell everyone that they can relax. The aparoids aren't a threat anymore."

"They somehow managed to stop them?" Leon asked. "I thought that the Cornerians were too incompetent. Color me surprised."

"They are incompetent. But Star Fox, like always, pulled it off," Wolf said. Looking back at the news article in his holo-screen, he continued, "But they were apparently helped by strange equine creatures. They don't say more about them, just that they were vital in their victory."

"If they are that good, then we will have to be on the look out for them," Phanther said.

Wolf agreed. "We will upgrade our defenses again, and maybe move the station somewhere else, maybe closer to Venom."

"Sector Z?" Leon suggested.

Wolf nodded. "We will have to be careful to not be spotted. It won't be easy. Panther, go do what I said."

"Right." Panther left to tell the rest of the gang that they could relax now that the aparoid threat was gone.

But just then, Wolf received a call from an unknown source. Thinking that it could be a potential client, he answered it (with the usual precautions that it involved). But as soon as he answered the call, his holo-screen glitched before a familiar figure appeared in it.

A floating ape head.

"Wolf O'Donnell. It's nice to see you again," it said.

Wolf glared at the ape head, hiding his amazement. "Andross? That's impossible. He's dead. Who are you really?"

"Hehehehehehe! You are right. I'm dead. But I AM Andross."

Wolf sighed and rubbed his head. "Of course you found a way to cheat death... You apparently already did it once on Sauria."

"Ah. Like I thought. This plan failed. And I guess that Fox Mccloud has something to do with this failure. But as you can see, I had a safeguard. I copied my mind into a digital version that I stored in a special microchip that my nephew was supposed to take with him in the event I died, but it seems that that idiot failed to do this simple task."

"In his defense, we were in pretty bad shape following our last defeat against Star Fox," Leon remarked.

Andross rolled his eyes. "He could have returned to take the chip once he was healed. But of course, this scatterbrain must have forgotten. I knew I should have never put my trust in him, but if we can't even trust family to do something as simple as taking a chip..."

"But this means that someone else found the chip, or you wouldn't be here," Wolf understood.

"Yes. New allies that will help me. They have an army greater than anything you can even think. And now, Star Wolf, I'm proposing to you to join us. Despite your debacle against Star Fox, you remain the most skilled pilot that I know that isn't bowing to that mutt. And if you agree, I can promise you that money won't be a problem for you anymore. And you may end up getting your revenge to Star Fox."

Now this interested Wolf. As he stared at the screen, a grin slowly formed.

Cyrus was finally taking the last elevator before the Champion's room, leaving his remaining minions to deal with Lucian, the fourth member of Sinnoh's Elite 4.

He didn't want to lose time dealing with them himself.

However, Cynthia, because he knew that it was Cynthia awaiting him in the Champion's room in Dawn's absence, he had no choice but to deal with her himself. His minions would barely hold her back for a few seconds, not enough to find the flute.

As he expected, when he entered the room, she was here, waiting for him, Poké Ball ready to be thrown.

"Cyrus... I didn't expect to see you again after you disappeared in the Distortion World," she said.

"I'm not that Cyrus," Cyrus replied. "Let's just get to the point. I want to be finished here before reinforcements come."

"... As you wish."

Both threw their Poké Ball, Cynthia calling Spiritomb, a ghostly Pokémon made of some swirling purple gas with green parts (some of which forming a face) attached to a stone, and Cyrus calling Honchcrow, a large crow-like Pokémon looking like a mob boss in formal attire.

"Dark Pulse," Cyrus ordered.

"Rock Tomb!" Cynthia shouted at the same time.

The Honchcrow sent an aura imbued with dark thoughts in the form of dark purple rings while Spiritomb hurled boulders at the bird. Spiritomb barely flinched from the Dark Pulse while the Honchcrow was almost buried in the boulders, immediately knocking it out as it was very effective against it.

Cyrus frowned before he called his Pokémon back and sent a Crobat, a four-winged purple bat-like Pokémon that didn't fare better against the Spiritomb despite using Air Slash.

A Weavile, a bipedal grey pokémon looking like a cross between a cat and a weasel with a red crown and collar, followed but another Rock Tomb got rid of it.

Three Rock Tombs, three KOed Pokémon. That was Cynthia.

But then, Cyrus said, "Enough playing around," before he sent his fourth Pokémon.

Dialga. More exactly, Shadow Dialga. Its body now had the same color palet than Shadow Mewtwo, mostly black with light gray parts. But, strangely enough, it didn't have its usual appearance (without counting the color swap and the sharper extremities that seemed usual to Shadow Pokémon).

Usually, Dialga was a dark blue sauropod-like Pokémon with gray metallic portions such as the chest plate on its torso (which had a deep blue diamond-like crystal embedded in the center, but in this Shadow form, it was darker, closer to black) or the fin-like plate on its posterior. Its head also had some kind of crest with two metallic structures on the sides, and it had light blue stripes across its body.

But now, it looked closer to Arceus, especially at the back legs and the head and also now possessing a cross-wheel like Arceus around the abdomen. Its front legs were larger, its tail was much shorter and crystal-shaped, its fin-like plate had a second, star-like layer, and its chest plate was now gone. Instead, on its neck was now a large shape jutting out toward the front along with two pairs of protrusions on either sides, with the upper pair being bigger. The diamond crystal was on embedded in this shape as well as the two bigger protrusion, looking as if it was actually three diamond crystals linked together. Also, Dialga was now much bigger.

Cynthia looked in awe at it. "This... This form... Is this...?"

To answer her, Cyrus showed some kind of crystal. "You guessed right. This is Dialga's Origin Forme. Dialga, show her your power. Shadow Roar."

Following his order, Dialga fired a powerful beam of dark energy that could not only distort time but actually damage it. When it hit Spiritomb, the Pokémon shrieked before its purple gas was disintegrated by the beam followed by the stone.

"Spiritomb!" Cynthia yelled. "Damn you! Garchomp!" In rage, she sent her Garchomp and promptly made it Mega-evolve before she shouted, "Earthquake!!!"

Garchomp immediately set off a powerful earthquake that caused pieces of the ground to violently come out and hurt Dialga. This was terribly effective, but not quite enough to knock out the legendary Pokémon. The thing was, in its Origin Forme, Dialga had more physical defense.

"Shadow Roar," Cyrus ordered. "Make it join its friend."

Dialga fired its beam again, but Garchomp jumped out of the way.

"Continue to use Earthquake!" Cynthia shouted.

Garchomp did so, and this time, knocked out Dialga, only for Cyrus to use a Max Revive.

"Use as much Max Revives as you want, we won't give up!" Cynthia said.

"Yes... Your Garchomp reveals to be as annoying as I expected. I don't think that Dialga can win," Cyrus agreed before he grabbed two other Poké Balls and threw them.

Revealing Palkia and Giratina, both in their Origin Forme and both Shadow Pokémon.

In its Origin Forme, Palkia, like Dialga, looked more like Arceus, and actually really looked like a winged centaure with a ring around its abdomen and pearl-shaped crystals embedded this time where its arms usually were in its normal form.

Beside it, Giratina looked like a flying giant snake with six claw-like wings.

Cynthia could only look in horror as the Creation Trio in their Origin Formes was now facing her.

Cyrus readied two fingers. "Dialga. Palkia. Giratina. Let's finish this."

He snapped.

Chapter 85: Return To Hyrule

The talk with the Prime Minister went really well. The old dog was silent and patiently listened as the fillies convinced him to agree to open relations with Sweetie Belle's Equestria and their allies. He agreed, just for the idea of Corneria potentially becoming part of what could clearly become a multi-dimensional civilization, with all the relations and technologies and other advantages that this would give. In return, the Prime Minister proposed the idea that he would talk to other civilizations he was in contact with outside of the Lylat System to see if they would agree too. Contrary to Samus' universe with the Galactic Federation, there were no galaxy-wide organisation here. There were organisations like empires, federations, republics, and so on, or just planet-states like Corneria with their lots of alliances and conflicts, but nothing of the scale of the Galactic Federation. So he will have to talk to all of them one by one which will take some time. At least, Corneria had no conflict with any of them. They tended to remain in their little corner of the galaxy not minding the rest.

Diplomats will be sent as soon as possible, with maybe Gandaro again and/or some others of his kind so they could start building a portal if all goes well.

Once everything was said, the meeting ended and everyone left the Prime Minister's office.

"So, now you will be leaving?" Fox asked the fillies as they left the building that housed the Minister's office.

"Yeah. I now have to talk to the leaders of my Equestria to decide who they will send here to negotiate," Sweetie Belle answered. "And then, a little rest before going off on the next adventure."

"To find more allies against this army... Thinking of what will happen when they show up..." Krystal said.

Slippy gulped. "Yeah. The war against Andross will look tame in comparison. That's scary."

"Don't worry guys. We will get through," Phantom reassured.

"Exactly," Pepper said. "The future is still uncertain on what will be our position, but in the case we join this alliance of yours I have no doubt that we will win. Despite all odds, we have always gone out victorious, and I know that this will still be the case against this mysterious army."

"I must point out however that this army must have a technology far superior to what we currently have. So if we want to survive this war, we will have to hurry up to upgrade what we have," Beltino reminded. "If this alliance is formed, then I advice to put a lot of resource into studying the technologies of this ancient civilization you told us about."

"The New Halcandrian are already working hard studying them while also rebuilding but don't worry it's already planned. Some scientists of the Galactic Federation universe already went ahead to help and I'm sure that much more will come once the alliance is formalized. And you and your scientists will be more than welcome to join," Sweetie Belle replied to the aged frog.

"I would be happy to!"

Smirking, Falco put an elbow on Slippy's head, leaning on him and making him whine indignantly. "And meanwhile, Frog Boy here will do his magic as he said earlier. When this army will show itself, we will be even more effective. I'm sure."

"We can't wait ta see the result," Apple Bloom said.

Eventually, they left Pepper and Beltino, the dog giving them a military salute. Then, after more goodbyes, the fillies separated from the Star Fox team and teleported into the Lor Starcutter which was still in the Unique Horn that remained above the planet, having nowhere big enough to land.

Once she put the headpiece, Sweetie Belle then said, "Alright everyone, we are done here. Time to go home."

At this, the Unique Horn opened a star portal and flew through it, back to the sky of Floralia. Soon enough, the ship landed back in its hangar where repair quickly started since it took some damage in the assault on the Aparoid Homeworld.

Once Phantom and Apple Bloom returned to their worlds, Sweetie Belle sighed and began the difficult task of telling the closed ones of the crew members who died about their death. She then told Taranza to start the preparations for a ceremony to pay them homage.

Still having some time before she had to retrieve her friends in the Pokémon World, she then decided to do something she had been thinking for some time: return to Hyrule to warn Zelda and Link about the future threats. She didn't expect Zelda to let Hyrule join the future war, the kingdom barely recovering from seven years under the rule of Ganondorf, but having Zelda's support would still be nice since she was very good in magic. She and Twilight could join and discover new powerful spells or other ways to use magic against the legions of the mysterious army. And Link? He would join the ranks of the one-man-armies alongside Red, Samus, Sonic, the Mario Brothers, and Fox, without forgetting Kirby and the others.

Needless to say that those were especially the ones that Sweetie Belle was researching. Finding armies to go toe to toe with the enemy was good, but finding people that could by themselves slaughter whole legions and overturn whole battles was much, much, much better. Star Fox proved it in the Lylat Wars against Andross. While the Cornerian Army was facing the Venomian Army, Star Fox fought its way directly to the brain responsible of the war and destroyed it, putting an end to it. Sweetie Belle hopped to do the same against the mysterious army. While the forces gathered would counter the enemy legions to limit the damage, she, Kirby, and the others would go directly after the leaders even if they had to fight thousands (or even millions and more in Sweetie Belle's and a few others' case) of enemies in the way.

They would just need to know where the leaders will be first... At least, Fox knew where Andross was so he didn't have to search behind every single space boulder in the Lylat System to find him and kill him. And here, they were speaking of the scale of the Omniverse so finding the leaders by luck was pretty much impossible.

They will cross that bridge when the time will come. Right now, it was recruitment time.

She appeared in Future Hyrule on the Hyrule Field, in front of the walls of Castle Town.

The drawbridge was repaired, and the sounds of hammers hitting nails, saws sawing planks, and various shouts among many others indicated that the town itself was still subject to heavy repair. She could even see the top of scaffoldings around the roofs of the houses from behind the wall. And beyond, the castle itself was slowly but surely being rebuilt. The earth itself, however, will still take a long time healing. It still looked almost as black as when they fought the dark lord.

Maybe she should propose to Zelda some help from Floralia. Food must be a nightmare to get. Sweetie Belle felt shame not having thought about this the first time.

She found Zelda guiding the people and offering moral support inside Castle Town and calmly trotted toward her.

"Princess Zeldaaa! Or is it Queen, now?"

Zelda immediately recognized the voice and turned to face the approaching filly, smiling. "Sweetie Belle. It's nice to see you again. What brings you back?"

"Well, I would lie if I said that it is just to catch up, but I was still getting curious to see how things were advancing here. And it reminded me that with that whole "returning to the past" just after beating Ganon I forgot to propose to you the help of my kingdom to rebuild Hyrule and feed your people."

Zelda sighed. "It would be more than welcome. Especially the food. We barely have anything. But would the king or queen of your kingdom agree?"

"Of course! Because I agree! That's another thing I forgot to tell you: I'm the queen."

"What?!"

There was a sudden flash coming from a camera that hadn't been here before floating above Sweetie Belle, confusing Zelda. The camera then floated down into the filly's hooves and she looked at the result before giggling.

"I was right. I'm definitively keeping this photo." The camera disappeared from her hooves and she looked back at the princess. "Sorry, but after the last time, I told myself that I would take a photo each time that I would tell someone that I'm a queen. The faces are always worth to remember."

Zelda didn't know what was a photo but she understood enough. And beside, she was still more focused on the revelation that Sweetie Belle was royalty, like her. Unless she was joking?

"Nope. I'm not joking," Sweetie Belle said, surprising Zelda again at finding out what she was thinking. "Let's just say that the old queen was doing Ganondorf things so I exploded her a bunch. Then she started doing Ganon things so I exploded her some more. And then I was made queen. But I'm not here to talk about that. I would be more than happy to offer some resources from Floralia to help Hyrule. We have MORE than enough food to give your people."

"Thank you," Zelda replied, grateful. "But you said that you didn't come for that. Why are you really here?"

Sweetie Belle warned Zelda about the army and, while she didn't propose for Hyrule to join the war, she still proposed for Hyrule to join the alliance. Since the future invasion of this mysterious army could concern everyone here, then they could at least work together in preparing the defense or other stuff. Zelda herself could join the fight, having proved herself against Ganondorf. And as Sheik, she could even use her ninja skills to spy on the enemies among other things. Too bad the Sheikah were almost all dead.

Zelda reassured that she will think about it but she will first have to talk to the leaders of the other races of Hyrule to decide together and asked Sweetie Belle to return in a few days. Sweetie Belle agreed and promised to return with food, material and workforce as soon as she could. Then, she left Zelda and opened a rift to the Past Hyrule.

Again, she came out not far in front of the drawbridge to the town. But before traversing it to enter the town, she wondered a bit what to do here. She wanted to find Link but she had no idea of where he was. Maybe he returned to live with the Kokiris, but she was almost certain that that wasn't the case. After his adventure, Link settling back to his previous life was very hard to imagine. Maybe, instead, he decided to join the king's guard as an apprentice. Maybe even become the personal guard of Zelda since they were the same age, thus becoming a friend and a confidant that the princess certainly needed.

So Sweetie Belle decided to fly directly to the castle in search of Zelda, turning herself invisible to not be spotted by the guards. Flying around a bit, she quickly found the princess in the garden playing a harp, the same one that she played as Sheik in the future version, under the watchful eye of Impa who was standing back against a wall. She played a song that Sweetie Belle didn't recognise but the filly couldn't stop herself from listening for a minute or two because of how beautiful it was.

Eventually, still invisible, she walked toward Impa and sat beside her legs before she let go of her invisibility and said, "It's a very beautiful song."

Impa silently agreed with a nod.

...

...

The Sheikah suddenly jumped away from Sweetie Belle and placed herself between the filly and Zelda while grabbing her sword. "Who are you?! How did you get here?!"

Her reaction made Zelda stop playing to look at what was happening.

Sweetie giggled. "I'm Sweetie Belle, and I simply came here by flying." She flapped her wings to prove her point.

Zelda gasped, but it went unheard by Impa who said, "That can't be it. I would have seen you."

"I was invisible," the alicorn answered.

Impa frowned, but before she could ask more, Zelda suddenly asked, "Are you Link's friend? The one he told me about, who helped him against Ganondorf?"

Sweetie smiled. "So he told you about me. I thought that he wouldn't, with how hard it would be to believe. I mean, it must have already been very hard with that whole time travel stuff."

Zelda gave a small laugh, hand in front of her mouth. "It was, but I could tell immediately that he was telling the truth."

"So Ganondorf..."

"Was arrested before he could act thanks to him," Zelda answered the not finished question. "We are eternally grateful to him for this. And since you helped him, we are also grateful to you."

Understanding that Sweetie Belle was a friend, Impa calmed down. "In the future, can you please avoid sneaking on us?"

Sweetie grinned. "No promise."

Impa put a hand on her face with a small groan, making the two younger girls giggle again.

Sweetie Belle approached Zelda. "By the way, where is Link? I'm here to see him."

"Oh..." Zelda frowned a bit. "When he got into the garden to tell me everything, his fairy friend left him. He went to search for her."

"Navi left him?" Sweetie Belle asked, surprised, before she sighed. "Of course... With Ganondorf dealt with, she must have thought that her duty was over and that Link didn't need her anymore." She kicked at the ground in anger. "That idiot fairy! After everything they went through! Did she seriously think that Link only thought of her as a guide or whatever?"

Zelda looked down in sadness. "Link was terribly upset when she left. As soon as Ganondorf was arrested, he started to plan to go after her. He got a filly from the Lon Lon Ranch and gathered some provisions before he went to the Lost Woods to search for her. Nothing I said could stop him, so I gave him the Ocarina of Time as a memento of our time together. I also gave it to him in the hope that, knowing how important the Ocarina is, he will one day come back safe and sound to bring it back."

"The Lost Woods?!" Sweetie Belle shouted. "The woods where it is said that children getting lost without a fairy to guide them turn into Skull Kids? These Lost Woods?"

"Y... Yes..." Zelda answered hesitantly.

Sweetie Belle facehooved and said, "I'm going right away! It was nice to meet you! See you again soon!" and teleported right above the Lost Woods. She could see the clearing where there was the village of the Kokiris, and the other clearing with the Forest Temple and the path to it. However, flying above these woods, she could also see how huge they were. Searching Link in them will be like searching a needle in a haystack, made worse because the boy was certainly wearing his green tunic and Epona - because Sweetie was sure that the filly Link took was Epona - was mostly brown, colors already very dominant in forests.

"LIIIIINK!!!! WHERE ARE YOOOOOOU!!!!" she yelled in the hope that he would reply.

No such luck.

So she descended into the forest and began to search while regularly yelling the boy's name.

"Damn it! Where is he?" she eventually asked to herself after several minutes of fruitless research, looking around.

And then, she spotted a glowing arrow panel that she swore wasn't there when she previously looked that way. The panel pointed to a direction and "This way," was written on it.

Sweetie's brain shut down for a bit before she understood. "Is that you DD?"

A panel suddenly coming out of the ground in front of her with "Yep!" written on it answered her.

"Well... Thank you. Gains me some time."

At this, she ran in the direction pointed by the first panel. More of them followed, all pointing in the same direction. After a minute of running, she decided to fly, going faster this way.

After many minutes, the panels led her to a tunnel in what seemed to be the root of a giant tree stump. Beyond it was a small area with several more tree stumps leading to a big tree with many giant mushrooms on its trunk and a large hole at its base, like another tunnel. Several arrow-panels pointing at the hole surrounded it, indicating that the hole was Sweetie's destination.

Landing before the hole, she slowly began to advance in it, wondering What now?

Rapidly, the hole led to a large, seemingly bottomless pit inside the tree.

"What? Don't tell me he fell down there! There's no way he could have survived such a fall!"

She looked up from the hole to see an arrow-panel pointing down. Nothing was written on it but she understood. Sighing, fearing the worst but hoping for the best, she jumped, disappearing in the darkness of the pit.

In her fall, she swore she could see several colored images floating around. She didn't have much time to see what they were but she thought she recognized a Deku Scrub head, an ocarina (the Ocarina of Time?), and a heart-shaped... head? With two big eyes, eight small spikes at the sides, and two more spikes at the top looking like horns. There were many other images but she didn't have time to recognize them.

The images disappeared as suddenly as they appeared and she suddenly landed on some kind of big flower on water.

No trace of Link, but she quickly saw that she was in some underground room still inside the tree, with light coming from above. What? After that fall?

What the heck was all that? Did I fall into Wonderland? No, wait, a flower. Don't tell me that I'm in this world's version of the Underground, and Link is this world's version of Frisk. Whatever...

Jumping from the flower onto land, she continued and approached a large, round wooden door-thing between two torches with what seemed to be tribal paint on and around it. The paint on the door seemed to depict some kind of face while the one around looked like the rays of the sun or the petals of a flower.

Passing the door, she entered a wooden tunnel with more paint on the walls, of flowers (hard to say what kind; the red ones looked either like tulips or some kind of carnivorous plant).

There was then another room in what seemed to be another tree with more of these flowers like the one she landed on. The room had two ledges at both exits separated by a lower area where she could see more tribal paint among the grass, but she wasn't sure what this one was.

Not trying to discover what it meant, she flew to the other ledge and passed the door here, entering another room with a bottomless pit and several pillars that seemed to be actually cut tree trunks. More of these flowers were on some of them but she didn't mind them as, again, she simply flew to the ledge with the exit which was another round tunnel with the sun rays/flower petals (more probably flower petals) painting around it. Beside the tunnel was a weird plant that looked like a Deku Scrub had been turned into a deformed tree sprout. It looked dark and gloomy, almost like it could start crying any second...

Sweetie Belle felt a chill when she looked at the plant and understood that it wasn't natural. This certainly was a Deku Scrub somehow turned into a tree, and she felt that there was nothing that she could do to save him.

So she continued into the tunnel that gave a weird feeling of dizziness as she walked under roots and approached the entrance of what seemed to be a building. She had to open a pair of heavy stone doors to continue, entering a room where there was a very ancient gear at the left and a still working waterwheel at the center propelled by a river. The waterwheel was on some wooden structure and made a wooden pillar that continued through a hole in the ceiling at the center turn. Surrounding the structure was a ramp linking the room to another one above which Sweetie Belle entered.

"Oh my... That wasn't expected," she suddenly heard upon reaching the top of the ramp.

The room was entirely bare excepted for the turning wooden pillar in the center going to a series of wooden gears on the ceiling and a weird stone with the Sheikah symbol on it against a wall, beside a staircase leading to the exit.

The origin of the voice was a man, or hylian judging by the pointed ears, with brown well-groomed hair and wearing purple clothing. The man had his eyes closed and a really unsettling smile, and had his hands wrapped on each other before him. On his back, he was wearing a huge bag with several masks hanging from it (and was it Sweetie or one of the masks looked like Mario?).

"The little boy's otherworldly companion. I didn't think I would see you here," the man continued, taking a thoughtful pose, hand under his chin, without even moving (?!?). "But... To find this place... You were helped, weren't you? By a very powerful being..."

This man... wasn't normal. Sweetie Belle could feel something wrong about him, but she wasn't sure what.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"If you search your friend, he is beyond this door," the man said, pointing at the exit (again without moving!!!) and ignoring Sweetie's question. "You should hurry, or you will miss him."

Sweetie Belle nodded and climbed the stairs, quickly getting away from this mysterious creepy man.

She didn't know what she expected upon passing the door, but this certainly wasn't the sky. She was supposed to be at least one hundred meters underground! She found herself in the middle of a town all that was normal, at the base of a tower, where there was supposed to be a forest.

But she didn't have time to wonder as she immediately saw a very big problem: the Moon that was in a crash course right into the town. And to make it very creepy, the Moon had a snarling face. And its big nose was getting dangerously close to the circular platform at the top of the tower.

There were so many questions in Sweetie's mind, but upon seeing the Moon, she immediately went to take action to stop it from crashing.

Only to hear a song from the top of the tower, stopping her on her course.

The earth then shook before deep voices answered the song from all around the town. As Sweetie slowly flew up, she could only watch as four red bearded giants appeared far in the distance from a forest, an ocean, snowy mountains, and a canyon and approached the town. As they approached, their steps making the earth shake, she reached the circular platform at the top of the tower where she finally spotted Link. At his side was a yellow fairy, and not far in front of him, seemingly unconscious on the ground, was a creature in a red cloak and hat wearing a heart-shaped purple and red mask with two big round eyes that seemed to show pure madness, eight spikes at the sides, and two more spikes on the top looking like horns. Sweetie Belle could feel something evil from this mask. There was also a second fairy, a purple one.

Sweetie Belle landed beside Link and the two watched as the four giants approached the town and finally stopped right outside of its wall. They could easily walk over it if they wanted. Then, the giants raised their arms to stop the Moon, and after a great struggle, succeeded.

The two kids admired all this before Sweetie Belle said, "Woah... What a show!"

Link and the yellow fairy both yelped in shock at hearing her, the boy even falling on his butt.

"Where do you come from!?!" the fairy yelled.

"What? You didn't see me land? I wasn't even invisible this time."

Before the fairy could say more, the purple fairy suddenly crashed into her screaming "Sis!!!"

Oh. The purple fairy was a male. Sweetie didn't know that male fairies existed in this world.

The yellow fairy then rubbed herself against her brother. "Tael!!!"

While the two fairies began to talk, Sweetie Belle helped Link get up with her magic.

"Hey Link! It's good to see you again. You really worried me when I learned from Zelda that you went into the Lost Woods without a fairy."

Link looked guilty at this. "Sorry... It's just that the Lost Woods are the home of most fairies so..."

"You thought that you could find Navi there, and I understand. But didn't you think at least to ask another fairy to guide you to ensure that you wouldn't get lost?"

"Erh... No."

Sweetie sighed exasperatedly, but smiled. "At least you're alright. And apparently, you got into another adventure. How did it come to this?"

"Well, you see... I was in the Lost Woods when this Skull Kid..." Link began.

But he was then interrupted by a new voice saying, "Certainly, he had far too many weaknesses to use my power," apparently replying to something that one of the fairies said.

"Yeah! That's right! Admit your stupidity!" the yellow fairy shouted. "... Huh?"

Everyone turned to face the creature, which was apparently a Skull Kid, as he began to float up like a puppet without its strings, the mask facing them.

"A puppet that can no longer be used is mere garbage," the mask said before it dropped the Skull Kid. The mask itself remained floating in place. "This puppet's role has just ended..."

"It can't be!" the purple fairy, Tael, shouted. "Then that moon?"

Energy then came out of the mouth of the Moon and engulfed the mask, and it flew into the mouth. The next instant, the eyes of the Moon began to glow.

"I... I shall consume. Consume... Consume everything," the mask's voice then came out of the Moon before it started to push against the giants to crash.

The fairies panicked, and the yellow one shouted, "Waahhhhh! This isn't good! Let's go back! Let's go back! Hurry! The Song of Time! The Song of Time!!!"

Link and Sweetie Belle, however, remarked that the energy that allowed the mask to enter the Moon was still here and approached it.

The yellow fairy was resigned. "Aw, no... You've got to be kidding. Don't tell me you're going up there..."

"It's the occasion to stop the Moon, and the mask," Link said as they stopped before the energy.

"I won't do it! I'm staying with Tael! You go by yourself!"

"I'll go!!!" Tael then exclaimed.

"What?! What are you saying, Tael? Is something wrong with you?"

"I don't want to always be running away! If only I had been stronger, the Skull Kid wouldn't have..."

A moment of silence passed between the two fairies before the yellow one finally said, "I understand. I'll go! After all this time, Tael, you've gotten really stubborn... Just like someone else I know..."

Sweetie Belle grinned. "That's being a hero."

"You know, you guys are really stupid..." the fairy continued, making the filly and the boy laugh.

Everyone excepted Tael then entered the energy which transported them into the Moon.

Author's Note

Thank you to Herald of Opera for this line: "the old queen was doing Ganondorf things so I exploded her a bunch. Then she started doing Ganon things so I exploded her some more."

Chapter 86: The Mask Of Madness

What do you expect to find inside the Moon?

The correct answer would be: "Rock, rock, and more rock. And nothing else."

And certainly not: "A partially cloudy blue sky over an infinite expanse of serene grassland with a single, lonely tree on a little hill."

And yet, that was exactly where Sweetie Belle, Link, and the yellow fairy appeared after they entered the Moon.

They were speechless. They really didn't expect to find such a... peaceful landscape inside this nightmare fuel oversized boulder threatening to destroy everything.

"Ok. Can someone please explain what the buck is going on?" Sweetie Belle asked. "The last ten minutes of my life had more craziness than in several of my adventures put together! First, I fall into a hole and somehow end up in this place instead of in caverns under the Lost Woods! Then I meet this creepy dude that could change position without moving and that knew more than he should! I'm almost certain this guy wasn't human, or hylian! Then I reach this place to discover the Moon about to crash on it, then four giants come and stop it, then there's an evil mask threatening to destroy everything, and now we are inside the Moon which is actually..." She waved at the landscape. "this place instead of caverns!" She then spotted something around the tree. "And there are freaking masked children around that tree over there! What the buck?!"

"Uuh... I don't understand everything myself," Link replied. "We are in Termina, which seems to be some kind of parallel version of Hyrule. I met several people here that are different versions of people from Hyrule. But something feels wrong about this world so... I don't know..."

"You are too slow!" the fairy suddenly interrupted before she flew to face Sweetie Belle. "I don't know who you are but since you came with us and Link seems to know you then I suppose that I can trust you. First of, I'm Tatl."

"Sweetie Belle," the filly presented herself.

"Secondly, to make it short, we... As in me, Tael, and the Skull Kid... We stole this mask from this creepy salesman, but when the Skull Kid began to wear it, he turned all evil and he got the idea of sending the Moon to crash to destroy everything. Link and I had to go all over Termina to awaken the Four Giants so they could stop it as you saw. But as for why there's this place inside the Moon, I have no freaking idea! Maybe it's this mask. Its powers are crazy."

Link nodded. "Yeah. Majora's Mask caused many calamities all over Termina. It cursed places, contaminated the weather and the vegetation, caused someone to turn into a child, turned a Deku Scrub into a small tree, and even turned me into a Deku Scrub. And that's without forgetting pulling the Moon to make it crash. I wouldn't be surprised if it really possesses reality-bending powers to create this... realm. What I don't understand is why it would create such a peaceful one."

"And we can add mind control since it seems that this is what it did to the Skull Kid," Tatl added.

Sweetie Belle groaned. "Leave it to a mask to make Ganondorf look like a schoolyard bully in comparison... Well, let's go. You can give me the details of what happened while we search for this mask."

The group then began to walk toward the tree.

"You really don't mind going to fight a mask with crazy powers?" Tatl asked.

"This is not my first entity with reality-bending powers and this certainly won't be the last."

"She helped me save Hyrule. We can count on her," Link said.

They reached the tree, seeing that there were five children each wearing a different mask. Four were running around, playing, while the fifth one who was wearing Majora's Mask was sitting against the trunk.

That was so surreal, even for Sweetie Belle's standard...

"Those are the masks of the monsters that were guarding the Giants," Tatl remarked before she groaned. "This creates even more questions. Nothing makes sense."

Link, to their surprise, approached one of the running children, the one wearing what seemed to be a wooden mask with two angry eyes, a mouth with small sharp teeth, three colored decorations at the top, and diamond earrings hanging from extensions at the sides. Was it a war mask from some ancient tribe?

Once Link got the attention of the child, he began to speak. "Ahhh... Nice weather... Isn't it? Masks... You have... a lot. You, too... Will you be... a mask salesman? Then I'll play with you. So... The masks... Give me some..."

Raising an eyebrow, Link took out a mask and gave it to the child.

"Thanks... You... You're a nice person... Aren't you? Hide-and-seek... Let's play. All right... I'll... hide..."

Then there was a flash and everyone was transported inside some ancient stone building. There were two sets of spinning wooden platforms with flowers like the one Sweetie landed on, spinning spiked bars above the second set of platforms, ledges with more of these flowers, and an immense bottomless pit spanning the whole room excepted these ledges.

Sweetie groaned. "Brain hurts... It makes even less sense than Discord, and Discord prides himself in not making sense. If Majora's Mask wants to stop us, then why make us give masks to play hide-and-seek?"

Link shrugged before he took out a Deku Scrub mask and put it. In a flash, he was then transformed into a Deku Scrub.

Sweetie looked agape. "So these masks can transform you?"

"Some of them. Many masks I collected in this world have some power of another," Link answered. "This one is inhabited by the spirit of the Deku Scrub that has been turned into a tree and it allows me to turn into a Deku Scrub as you can see. The Deku Scrub himself has passed on, but part of him has remained behind, inside this mask. The spirit also becomes part of me so don't be surprised if I don't act like normal."

Sweetie could already see that. Link seemed more cheerful, more like a child is age, or maybe even younger. If what he said was right, then it seemed to mean that the Deku Scrub turned into a tree had been just a child...

So she decided to hug the Deku Link, taking him off guard. No words were exchanged, and Link eventually returned the hug. After what seemed like forever, he let go and gave Sweetie a thankful nod before he skipped carefreely toward the flower that was on the ledge they were on. Once he was on the flower, he was able to enter it. Waiting for the right moment, he then launched himself out of the flower into the air and used two flower-propellers to slowly glide toward the first spinning platform.

While he traversed the room using this method, he said, "While in this form, I met the Deku Scrub's father in the forest South of here. He is the butler of the royal palace of the Deku people there........ He didn't recognise that I had the form of his son, I guess that I look sightly different, but he asked me to play with him because of how I reminded him of him. To be someone's son... It felt..."

Sweetie Belle waited as he searched a word to express himself, but he never found one by the time they reached the exit door at the other side of the room.

"Wasn't the Deku Tree your father since he raised you?" she asked before they opened the door.

"I guess? I never really considered him as one. He was more a grandfather figure that always had a wise thing to say to help. And the Kokiris were more like big brothers and big sisters or cousins."

They finally passed the door, entering a small room where the masked child was waiting.

"... You found me... Hey... I want... more... masks..."

Link gave him one.

"Heh, heh... Thanks... You're... nice. Umm... Can I ask... a question? Your friends... What kind of... people are they? I wonder... Do those people... think of you... as a friend?" the child asked before there was a flash and everyone returned to the peaceful landscape with the tree.

The child they just talked to was now gone, leaving four kids.

"Is it trying to make us doubt? Or was it some philosophy test?" Tatl wondered.

Sweetie Belle gave Link (who was still in his Deku Scrub form) a smile and wrapped a leg on his shoulders. "I have no doubt. I know that Link is my friend and I'm Link's friend. And that's the same for everyone I consider a friend. But I know some edgelords who would refuse to acknowledge it."

Link took off his mask before returning Sweetie's smile. But this smile quickly turned into a frown. "But... Was she thinking of me as a friend?"

"I'm sure she was, and she still is. But she must be wondering the same thing about you."

Without saying more, they returned to the tree where Link went to talk to the child with a mask seemingly made of stone. It had a human face, but a large angular chin as well as two large bull-like horns.

The child repeated what the other child said and asked too for masks. Link had to give two before the child was satisfied and transported them to a cavernous area for a new game of hide-and-seek. There were many thin strips of land and bridges with ramps and open treasure chests.

This time, Link took a Goron mask and transformed into a Goron with white hair not unlike Darunia.

"What is the story of this one?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"This masks has the spirit of Darmani III, a hero Goron who perished in an accident while trying to stop the winter that the Skull Kid and Majora's Mask caused in the mountains, threatening the Gorons. While the Deku butler didn't recognise me as his son, the Goron Elder thought that I really was Darmani and his son looked up to him as his hero," Link recounted. "To not break his dream, I had to act as Darmani and be his hero, even winning a race. I... don't know if, by now, he found out about the fate of the real Darmani..."

Sweetie placed a reassuring hoof on Link's leg. "Even if he discovered that his hero is dead, I'm sure that he will continue to live to become a hero as great as him thanks to you inspiring him."

What followed was a long and stressful trial where Link had to roll on the thin path without going beyond the edges to not fall into the bottomless pit below. But he masterfully reached the exit door without problem, and he was quickly joined by Sweetie Belle.

In the next room, the child waited for them and asked for two more masks that Link gave.

Then, he asked, "You... What makes you... happy? I wonder... What makes you happy... Does it make... others happy, too?" before they were transported back to the tree.

Three children left.

"What is the purpose of all this?" Tatl wondered.

"No idea," Link answered. "But it must lead to something. Let's continue."

Next was the child wearing a scary fish mask who asked the same thing as the other two. Link had to give three masks before they were transported this time to a place with water.

Link grabbed a Zora mask and put it on, becoming a Zora.

Before Sweetie could ask, he began to explain. "This one has the spirit of Mikau, a Zora who was the lead guitarist in a rock band."

"A rock band?" Sweetie Belle asked, not expecting that.

This made Link laugh. "Yes. He was also a Zoran hero, but he died fighting the Gerudos which are pirates in this world. The Gerudos stole the eggs of their band's singer and he went to retrieve them, but when I found him, he was mortally wounded. I could do nothing to save him. I suspect that he was the father of the eggs."

"Damn... And so, you had to be...?"

"... Yes. It was... awkward... I didn't know what it was to be loved this way. That the singer looked like Ruto didn't help."

Sweetie Belle guffawed, rolling on the floor on her back, making Link blush.

He jumped into the water where he had to activate a crystal. Then, it was a simple matter of using the Zora's ability to swim rapidly to reach the exit door before the gate in front of it closed back. After the door, this repeated. However, it quickly revealed to be a maze so they had to retry a couple of times before finding the right paths. At least, it wasn't as annoying as some mazes Sweetie Belle went through.

Once they found the third child, Link had to give him three more masks before he went on to ask, "The right thing... What is it? I wonder... If you do the right thing... does it really make... everybody... happy?"

Sweetie Belle sighed. "Never, sadly..."

They were transported yet again to the three where Link immediately went to talk to the last running child that had some three-eyed insectoid mask. Four masks given later and they were transported to a new small room that looked like the inside of a temple.

"So, there was the forest where you had to use the Deku mask, the mountains with the Goron mask, and the ocean with the Zora mask. What about that canyon I saw?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"I didn't get any special mask there. Well, I did get a mask that could turn me giant, but I could only use it in a special area to fight the guardian of the fourth Giant. Outside of that, the canyon was a land of death and desolation, result of some antic war. So pretty much only undead now live there. Some of them were friendly at least."

"There was also a father that had been almost turned into a Gibdo. That was scary! And his daughter was forced to keep him inside a closet while Gibdos had surrounded their house," Tatl added.

"Yike..."

"But there's something very nice that I learned over there. The undead king taught me a song that allows me to create a statue of myself or of the spirit of the mask I'm currently wearing if I'm wearing one. This way, if there's a switch that needs something heavy on it to hold it down, I just need to leave a statue on it without having to search for something like a pot or a barrel. And between me and the three masks, I can create up to four statues. However, mine is very creepy."

"Uh. Can you show me?" Sweetie asked.

Link agreed and took the Ocarina before he played the song.

Once he stopped playing, he moved away, leaving where he was standing a statue of himself.

Sweetie Belle blew it to pieces with just a beam.

"Holy cow!" Tatl shouted.

"I saw what you meant and I now regret even asking. Now I'm scared to use the song myself," the filly said.

"You can also use the Songs?" Tatl asked.

Instead of answering with a simple "yes", Sweetie Belle grinned at the fairy before she sang the Song of Storms, starting a small storm inside the room.

"Of all the songs you had to use this one as an example..." the now drenched fairy deadpanned.

"It was the only one among the ones I know that I could use here. The Sun's Song would work but we wouldn't see the result inside this windowless room. No reason to use the Song of Time, Saria's Song, Epona's Song, and Zelda's Lullaby. And the last thing we want right now is to be warped to one of the temples back in Hyrule with one of the Warp Songs."

Tatl made an exasperated sound at this. "Ugh! Whatever!"

Sweetie Belle giggled and advanced toward the door. "Let's go."

They entered a very colored room seemingly entirely made of solid stained glass. Here, a Dinolfos welcomed them and was promptly beheaded by the filly in the blink of an eye (shocking Tatl), unlocking the door to the next room, which just had one of these weird stones with the Sheikah symbole. So they continued to the room after which was entirely grey and had two levels.

Their next obstacle was a new one for Sweetie Belle, a being wearing a purple cloak and a mask, possessing two flaming sabers. The thing quickly revealed to be fast and agile, jumping and spinning around with its sabers, even teleporting right above the heroes. Tatl called it a Garo Master.

After a few seconds of watching what it could do, Sweetie Belle used her magic to hold it in place, allowing Link to pierce it with his sword until it was dead.

A chest appeared on the superior level of the room, near the edge, allowing Link to use his grapple on it to reach the level. The chest itself, however, only contained a few arrows.

After another room with just a stone, they entered a blue room with glowing runes and with an Iron Knuckle. Before it could attack, Sweetie Belle cut its giant battle axe, disarming it. Thanks to it, Link just had to worry about its punches and its kicks. Once it was dead, a chest containing Bombchus appeared. Spotting a cracked piece of wall near the ceiling, Link used one of the Bombchus to destroy it, revealing an eyeball switch that he activated by firing an arrow at it. This made a ladder to the upper level of the room appear, allowing them to continue.

Another Bombchu had to be used in the following room to destroy a cracked piece of the ceiling, but this time, Sweetie Belle had to fire at the bomb to make it explode in time. This revealed a frozen eyeball switch that Link activated with a fire arrow, opening the exit door.

Finally, the masked child was in the next room. He asked for four more masks before he posed his own philosophical question.

"Your true face... What kind of... face is it? I wonder... The face under the mask... Is that... your true face?"

And for the last time, they were transported back to the tree.

One child remained, the one sitting against the tree, wearing Majora's Mask.

"So, did talking to these kids do anything?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Link searched himself just in case something appeared in his purse or his pockets. "No. I see nothing. But there's one last kid to talk to."

Sweetie nodded and they approached the sitting kid.

Once they were in front of him, he began to talk.

"... Everyone has gone away, haven't they? Will you play... with me?"

Link hesitated, and nodded. "Yes."

"You don't have any masks left to share, do you?" the masked child remarked as he got up. "Well, let's do something else. Let's play good guys against bad guys... Yes. Let's play that."

And then, the child gave Link a new mask. One that looked like Link's face, but with silver hair, red markings under the eyes, and another, blue marking on the forehead.

Both Link and Sweetie Belle could feel tremendous power emanating from the mask, but also a great ferocity. This scared the hylian who feared to put it on.

The child with Majora's Mask continued. "Are you ready? You're the bad guy. And when you're bad, you just run. That's fine, right? Well... Shall we play?"

And in another flash, they were transported to a new place. An arena that seemed to blur, with various designs on the ground and the walls, colors mostly going toward the blue, and with four areas on the walls with a colored circle: red, blue, green and yellow. Between the areas with the red and blue circle was a circular alcove with Majora's Mask.

Then, the masks of the four guardians that Link had had to fight and which the children had worn appeared and went on the colored circles on the walls. Following that, Majora's Mask's eyes glowed before it came out of the alcove, coming to life. The spikes at the sides moved like little arms and hair-like tentacles grew from its back. It was also much bigger than previously.

The mask immediately began the fight by spinning before charging at the heroes. Sweetie Belle quickly placed herself before Link and used a shield to stop the mask, but it surprisingly cut right through the shield, and Sweetie had to call her ten swords to block it. She was pushed backward, but she succeeded, allowing Link to quickly run out of the way as the mask was still spinning and was managing to cut through the swords. Once Link was safe, Sweetie Belle teleported out of the way, allowing the mask to continue its course. Once it was done, it floated up again, always facing the heroes.

"Not bad," Sweetie said.

At this moment, Link finally put the new mask he received. When he put it on, he began to painfully struggle as the mask took the place of his skin, becoming his face. As he screamed, there was a flash, and Link was transformed.

He now looked like his adult-self, but much taller, somewhere between two and three meters high. His clothes were now a grey-blue, and he had armor on his torso with a yellow crescent moon on the right and a yellow triangle on the left. He also had armored gauntlets, and his sword was a huge double-helix one with one half blue and the other half green. Finally, his eyes were totally white.

Glaring at Majora's Mask, he grabbed his sword and swung, sending a spinning crescent beam that hit it and stunned it, making it drop on the ground. Sweetie Belle quickly recovered from her gawking and quickly used the occasion to attack the mask, soon joined by Link. Judging by the mask's reaction, a hit from Link's sword hurt it A LOT.

Suddenly, the four other masks gained life and began to float around, firing energy beams at the heroes, stopping them from attacking Majora's Mask.

"I'll take care of them," Sweetie said.

Link nodded and quickly jumped to the side to avoid a beam of fire fired by Majora's Mask before he sent another crescent beam that stunned it again.

Sweetie Belle easily destroyed the four masks by piercing them with four of her swords, allowing her to return to the real matter. But by then, Link had already hit Majora's Mask a couple more times and it chaotically spun toward the center of the arena where it began to violently shake.

Its tentacles disappeared, and instead, it grew two arms and two legs as well as a small, one-eyed head with horns. So the mask itself was now the creature's torso. Sweetie Belle then looked in wonder as Majora began to stretch its legs like a sportive, doing very high-pitched sounds with its new voice.

Like the one of a child.

Majora then started to chaotically run and jump around the room, leaving after-images after itself, becoming absolutely impossible to predict. It even started to dance!

"What the heck are we fighting?!" Sweetie Belle asked to no one in particular.

Link didn't answer, instead sending another of his crescent beams. Majora, however, suddenly changed trajectory so the beam missed. Link then had to roll to avoid energy bolts fired out of Majora's hands. Sweetie Belle took the occasion that it had stopped moving to hit Majora from behind with one of her own beams, making it fall to the ground on its face. As Majora flailed about, the two attacked savagely, making it screech with its high-pitched, child-like voice.

Majora eventually recovered however and restarted moving around, its chaotic behavior allowing it to avoid anything the heroes sent at it. It even made a rude gesture to them, the jerk! It still tried to hit them with energy bolts but the heroes also managed to avoid all of them. Eventually, a crescent beam from Link was able to hit it as it was doing the Moonwalk, making it fall again and leaving it at the heroes' mercy.

But it quickly recovered again, jumped away, and ran on the walls! A somersault made it avoid a beam from Sweetie Belle, and when it landed, it jumped again and spread its legs to avoid a crescent beam from Link. But then, as it started to run again, it suddenly hit an invisible wall courtesy of Sweetie Belle. Majora immobilised, the heroes attacked it again.

After a few more hits, it let out a terrible screech as it suddenly got up and held its head in pain. After a few seconds of flailing, it stopped before its limbs started to grow in muscle. When the transformation was over, it showed its new, more demonic head, the eye on the forehead. Its arms then turned into whip-like tentacles.

No more joking around.

Against this, Sweetie Belle gathered her swords into Whip-mode, which she separated into two whips. Link fired another of his crescent beams that Majora avoided with a big jump to the side before it attacked with its whips. Sweetie Belle countered the whips with her own. She wrapped one of her whips around Majora's right one, then she did the same with the left one. With the two's whips wrapped around each others, they were stuck.

Majora attempted to lift Sweetie Belle to make her crash but she turned herself into metal and grew herself to the size of Celestia, becoming extremely heavy. She then did the same with Majora and made it crash into the ceiling, then into the ground, then the ceiling again, then the ground again, ceiling, ground, ceiling, ground, and so on and so on. While she did this, Link readied his sword as he moved between Sweetie Belle and Majora.

Seeing what he was preparing, Sweetie Belle crashed Majora one last time on the ground before she violently pulled, propelling Majora toward herself and Link. As it got close to Link, the hylian then spun with his sword.

Majora was sliced in half.

With one last high-pitched screech, the two pieces of Majora's body turned into ashes.

And everything disappeared in light.

Chapter 87: Healing The Hero

Author's Note

In the previous chapter, I added a little scene that I had forgotten (it was very late when I wrote the chapter), just after that Sweetie Belle blows up the Link Statue. I advise you to quickly read it, it's important.

Chapter 87: Healing The Hero

Sweetie Belle and Link (still with his mask on) woke up some time later outside of the town, on the field surrounding it. They weren't sure how much time passed, but they could see that it was dawn and that the Moon was gone. The fairies were also with them, already up, as well as Epona; and they could see the Skull Kid, now awake, not far to their right facing the Giants.

Without Majora's Mask, Sweetie Belle could now see the Skull Kid's face, which was different than she expected. She expected to see some kind of skeleton-like face (Skull Kid), but instead, the Skull Kid had a simple brown head with two small glowing orange eyes and a beak. A beak. A. Beak.

Adults lost in the Lost Woods turned into Stalfos, skeleton monsters. Kids turned into Skull Kids which, judging by their name, should also be skeleton-looking creatures not unlike the Stalchildren. But here was a Skull Kid, revealing that they looked more like humanoid birds crossed with scarecrows than skeletons.

Sweetie Belle wanted to have a few words with whoever came with the name Skull Kid about the importance of accurate naming. Bird Kid would be a much better name for these creatures.

While Sweetie Belle had an inner rant about proper names, the Skull Kid said to the Giants, "You guys... You hadn't forgotten about me?"

One of the Giants answered with a deep sound that seemed to be their own way of communicating. Thanks to the translator, Sweetie Belle could understand it, but even without it, it wasn't hard to understand that it was a simple confirmation of the Skull Kid's words.

The Skull Kid lowered his head, feeling shame and on the verge of crying as he said, "You still thought of me as a friend?"

Tatl and Tael went to confort him while the Giants looked down at him without making a sound. Then, one of them sung the same music that Link played to summon them while the three others began to walk away, returning where they came from. The fourth rapidly began to walk too while continuing to sing.

Once the Giants were gone, the Skull Kid calmed down and turned to face Link and Sweetie Belle. "Did you... Did you save me?"

Link finally removed the mask, returning to normal. Then, he smiled at the Skull Kid and nodded. "Yes, we did."

"I guess I did, but Link really did all the work. I pretty much popped at the last minute to help him fight the mask. I knew absolutely nothing of what was going on until Tatl told me the short version while we were in the Moon," Sweetie Belle said.

"The very short version," the fairy added, making Link snort.

"That's an understatement."

The Skull Kid laughed a bit at their antics before he looked back at where the Giants had been, somber, and said, "I thought they didn't want to be friends with me... But... They hadn't forgotten about me... Friends are a nice thing to have... Heh, heh."

"On this, we all agree," Sweetie Belle said.

The Skull Kid looked back at them, smiling. "Could you be my friends, too?"

"Of course!" the filly and the hylian replied happily.

Grinning, the Skull Kid approached Link and sniffed him, making him step back, before giggling. "Eh-hee-hee... You have the same smell as the fairy kid who taught me that song in the woods..."

At the words "fairy kid", Link's mood dropped a bit before he smiled back at the Skull Kid, took out the Ocarina, and played Saria's Song, making the Skull Kid gasp.

"That's you!"

Before Link could say something, he and Sweetie Belle remarked a familiar presence not far to the right. The mask salesman was now there, Majora's Mask in his hands. They could swear that he wasn't there a few seconds earlier.

"Oh... So the evil has left the mask after all..." he began before he turned his head to look at the heroes. "Well, now... I finally have it back." He then remarked the mask in Link's hands and, for the first time, Sweetie could see the salesman's eyes which were usually closed (or looked as if they were). "This mask!"

The salesman approached them, always staring at the mask in Link's hands. The Skull Kid lowered his head again, not daring to look at him, or at the mask he was holding.

"Majora gave it to us for some reason," Sweetie Belle informed.

"Can I see it?" the salesman asked, extending a hand silently asking Link to pass it to him.

Hesitantly, Link agreed, giving the mask to the salesman so he could have a better look at it.

"Yes... This is it. The Fierce Deity's Mask. How curious. So it was Majora who possessed it all this time? Why did it give it to you? Did it know the power hidden within this mask? We will probably never know." He gave the mask back to Link. "Be very careful with this mask. It possesses a lot of rage. Don't let it control you, or you could end up doing something that you would regret. It is a power that you don't want to abuse."

Link nodded.

Again, without moving, the salesman then gave Link and Sweetie Belle a small bow, hand before his chest. "Well... Since I am in the midst of my travels... I must bid you farewell." He then walked past everyone toward the town. But after a few steps, he looked back at Link. "Shouldn't you be returning home as well? Whenever there is a meeting, a parting is sure to follow. However, that parting need not last forever... Whether a parting be forever or merely for a short time... That is up to you." He bowed to them again. "With that, please excuse me..." And he restarted walking toward the town.

Only to stop and to look at Link again. "... But, my, you sure have managed to make quite a number of people happy. The masks you have are filled with happiness. This is truly a good happiness."

With these last words, he resumed his walk again and eventually faded out of view like a ghost.

There was a few seconds of silence as everyone stared at where the salesman disappeared. Then, Sweetie said, "I already said it, but I'm saying it again. This guy is not human, or hylian."

Everyone else agreed with a nod.

"Well, both of us have gotten what we were after..." Tatl then began. "So this is where you and I part ways, isn't it? You know... it was kind of fun."

Link looked a bit saddened but agreed with everything she said.

Sweetie Belle sighed. "You know, this doesn't have to be a goodbye, like the salesman said. Link, I know that you want to find Navi, but this isn't worth wasting your life in the Lost Woods."

"But..."

"Tatl, Tael, Skull Kid, do you three intend to eventually return to the Lost Woods?" she asked the three others.

The Skull Kid nodded. "We want to remain in Termina, but the Lost Woods are also our home."

"Well then, when you return to the Lost Woods, can you spread the word to other fairies that a boy in green is searching a blue fairy named Navi? If they find her, then they must tell her to return either to the Kokiri village or to Hyrule's castle to find Link. He's really missing her."

"No problem. We would be happy to," Tael said cheerfully.

Link sighed sadly and said, "It's not just that..." before he sat down. "It's hard to explain. Nobody... Nobody knows what I went through to save Hyrule. Zelda... Saria... It made me feel so... out of place. Zelda thought she was doing well sending me back, and I thought too, but in the end, it revealed to be a curse... The only ones who know are you and Navi. This is why I want to find her, and why I don't feel like returning to Hyrule right now. I really don't know what else to do." He took out the Deku Mask, the Goron Mask, and the Zora Mask, and looked at them. "And after experiencing what it felt like to be... I... I feel even more empty... I don't even know who I am anymore. I d-don't... k-know... w-w-what t-to..." His words were broken by sobs before he put his hands on his eyes.

"I didn't know he had such heavy baggage..." Tatl said.

"Me too. I thought that, at worst, he was feeling the same thing than me. That after everything we went through, returning to a normal life is almost impossible so we search for... something to do. But I hadn't thought about what this whole time travel would cause to him," Sweetie said. "That must give some serious identity crisis, and that whole stuff with the masks obviously didn't help."

Tatl suddenly pulled on Sweetie's mane. "I have an idea. Come!"

"Alright! Alright! No need to pull my mane!"

Under the curious expressions of the Skull Kid and Tael, the two girls moved further away and began to whisper to each other. Sweetie Belle nodded, then became silent as she stared at Tatl for a couple of minutes before she nodded again and returned to Link.

Her horn glowed and a music that Link immediately recognised began to play.

And she sang.

"Heal your soul. Heal your mind. Heal your inner wounds.
Swordsman clad in green who stopped the mask and moon.

Look into the mirror. Just what do you see?
Empty husk, or keeper of harmony?"

The song got Link's attention, recognising it as the Song of Healing that he used to help the spirits to pass on and receive their mask and power in return. When he uncovered his eyes, he found himself in the dark, alone with the singing filly, her voice coming from everywhere around him.

Then, two fairies, a yellow one, Tatl, and a purple one, Tael, appeared at his left and his right, and there was Skull Kid, a hand on Link's right shoulder, smiling, and Epona, trotting toward him before rubbing her head against his cheek. Sweetie Belle herself approached to hug him. She looked like she had stopped singing but her voice was still echoing around him.

"Listen to your heart, Link, and look to the stars
Savior of Hyrule, you have come so far

Cast away your worries, courageous hero
The Triforce chose you, you choose where to go!"

Link suddenly felt more presences behind him and looked above his shoulder to see Saria and Zelda, both her child-self and her adult-self. Then, one by one, the other sages appeared too, Darunia, Ruto, Impa, Nabooru, and Rauru. Together, they formed a group that offered to Link their best supporting smile, Darunia even rubbing Link's hair with his large hand while Saria grabbed his hand.

Link slowly got up and looked around, seeing the Kokiris surrounding him, and the Deku Tree himself was further in the distance, giving him a proud look. Malon then appeared, followed by Link (Darunia's son). More and more familiar faces surrounded him. Malon's father, the Zora King, Lord Jabu-Jabu in the distance beside the Deku-Tree, that guard who had been guarding the gate to Death Mountain and who gave the Keaton Mask to him so he could give it to his son for him...

"You'll never be alone as you adventure
In person or spirit, we'll help you venture

With your sword, slay evil and claim victory
Unlock the land's freedom; you are the key!"

Now, he was surrounded by what seemed to be the whole population of Hyrule, or at least most of it. The people from Hyrule Castle Town, the people from Kakariko Village, the Gorons, the Zoras, even the Gerudos. All of them were looking at him, joyful, grateful, cheerful. Many of them began to acclame him, to encourage him, to thank him.

And then, he heard the familiar sound of a fairy flying.

"Remember your friends and what you're fighting for
You fight to protect the world and so much more

Cling onto your hopes and hold onto your dreams
Help one another and your light will gleam!"

He looked around to find the origin of the sound and quickly saw a certain blue fairy doing circles above his head. Than, Navi landed on his shoulder and snuggled against his neck. Gently, Link placed a hand on her, his heart feeling warm as he closed his eyes.

Then the song ended and he opened his eyes to find himself back on the field of Termina, Sweetie Belle in front of him, Epona, Tatl, Tael, and the Skull Kid at his sides. Just them, and nobody else.

But he could feel it now. Everyone...

Some tears flowed down his cheeks as he gave the filly the brightest smile he gave in a long time. "Thank you, Sweetie Belle."

"Thank Tatl. She is the one who gave me the idea and showed me the song."

"Aww, that was no-" Tatl began only to be snatched by Link who gently put her against his chest in a hug. "Hey! What are you doing?! Stop hugging me! You're embarrassing me in front of Tael!"

Tael laughed. "I don't see you trying to escape, sis."

Tatl let out a grumble at this while everyone else laughed.

"So, what do you want to do now, Link?" Sweetie asked. "Still want to search Navi? If you still want, then that's alright, but in that case I'm staying with you. As nice as the Skull Kid is, I don't want you to turn into one if you return to the Lost Woods."

Link thought for a moment as he released Tatl before he sighed. "I still want to see Navi again but... I guess that searching randomly in the Lost Woods for her isn't the right thing to do. She may not even be in the Lost Woods. Asking Skull Kid and the fairies to spread the word is a good plan, and I can always ask the Deku Tree sprout to keep an eye for her."

"Okay."

"So I guess that I should simply return to Hyrule. Maybe, in the future, I will go on an adventure around the world."

"You know, if you want, I can transport you to Future Hyrule. You remember? This is what I told before Zelda sent you back. All I would need is to open a rift."

"That's right!" Link exclaimed in remembrance. "Well, I wouldn't mind returning to Future Hyrule. But I guess that I will remain living in this version of Hyrule for now. I'm sure that I can find something to do here with this Zelda's help."

Sweetie nodded. "When I came here, I actually expected to find you as an apprentice guard, or even as Zelda's personal guard."

"That's not a bad idea actually."

"That's great! This means you could come visit us!" the Skull Kid then shouted happily.

"Wait. You can actually go to the future?" Tatl asked.

"That's a long story,' Sweetie Belle said. "How about we take some hours to trade stories?"

"I would like that," the Skull Kid said.

"Sounds great," Tael said.

"All right," Tatl said.

The next couple of hours, Link's adventures on both Hyrule and Termina were recounted, the first one to the Skull Kid and the two fairies, and the second one to Sweetie Belle, the Skull Kid, and Tael.

Link's adventure on Termina started like Tatl said. She, Tael, and the Skull Kid ambushed the mask salesman and the Skull Kid was apparently influenced by Majora's Mask into taking it and putting it on. Just after that, the three encountered Link who was travelling the Lost Woods in search of Navi with Epona and ambushed him too. Once Link recovered, the thieves escaped with the Ocarina of Time and Epona, and Link went after them through the same hole than the one Sweetie Belle used to come here.

When he landed, the Skull Kid and the fairies waited for him, having apparently already sold Epona to someone, and the Skull Kid welcomed him by cursing him, turning him into a Deku Scrub. The Skull Kid then flew away with Tael, leaving Tatl behind because she had been too busy taunting Link. So Tatl had to team up with Link to find the Skull Kid and her brother.

Thanks to his Deku Scrub form, Link was able to reach the inside of the Clock Tower where he encountered the mask salesman who asked him to retrieve the mask that the Skull Kid had stolen. In return, if Link managed to retrieve the Ocarina, the salesman would teach Link the way to return him to his former self. And all this in less than three days because the salesman was "a very busy fellow".

So Link exited the Clock Tower only to discover the situation in Termina. Somehow, while Link and Tatl were in the underground (which couldn't have been more than half an hour. Time in Termina seemed to be very fast), the Skull Kid had been very busy. He caused all sorts of calamities all over Termina and was now in the process of sending the Moon to crash in three days (they all remarked how it coincided with the salesman's time limit). The Skull Kid himself was on top of the Clock Tower, but the only way to reach him was to way for the end of the third day for the way to open, so Link had to wait.

There had been not much that Link could do in his Deku Scrub form so he had no choice but to wander the town while waiting. At the end of the third day, part of the Clock Tower tipped to the side so the clock's dial was now a platform at the top and a path to go on it had opened. Thanks to this, Link was able to join the Skull Kid but he could only get his Ocarina back. Tatl told them about the Four Giants and where they were before Link played the Song of Time (the Ocarina somehow transforming into a group of horns known as the Deku Pipes to allow him to play). With the song, the Goddess of Time granted him the possibility to return to the dawn of the first day, starting a time loop.

Back in the first day, Link returned in the Clock Tower to show to the salesman that he had the Ocarina. In return, the salesman materialized a huge piano out of nowhere and taught him the Song of Healing, allowing Link to put to rest the spirit of the Deku Scrub child and to return to normal, getting the Deku Mask by the same occasion. However, when the salesman found out that Link didn't have Majora's Mask, he got very angry and troubled and told Link more about the mask, its evil, its origin, and what it could do. He begged Link to get the mask back at all costs for the sake of the world. He even gave Link a notebook that will be very useful in this time loop. Link could note stuff in it to not forget them.

Thanks to this, through several loops, Link was able to work out a schedule to ensure that he could fix all the problems in Termina before the end of the three days. So he could save everybody (or almost...) while working to awaken the Giants. This allowed him to obtain all these masks that he had to give to receive the Fierce Deity's Mask. But he just wanted to do it to be sure that everyone was safe by the end of the loops. And if he had to use the Song of Time before he could save everyone or failed somewhere, then he would just restart.

Link didn't count how many loops he did, but thankfully it wasn't much. He quickly learned to organise his schedule. Right from the first loop, when he had been stuck as a Deku Scrub, he had seen a few problems that he hadn't been able to intervene. Then, during the second loop, he spent most of his time exploring Termina and speaking to the inhabitants. Already, by the end of the second loop, he had had a good idea of what to do and he had even already helped fix a few problems.

It really was from the third loop that he started to act to fix everything. He even learned to play a different version of the Song of Time so days lasted twice as long (and yet people continued to follow their schedules as if it was normal). And he quickly discovered that he kept all the gears he obtained even when he reset the loop so, from loop to loop, he could do more and more stuff faster and faster. By taking shortcuts for example. Finding and obtaining Epona as soon as possible also greatly helped.

Eventually, he was able to do everything in one loop. Helping everyone, lifting the curses, without forgetting beating the powerful guardians of the temples.

Link actually joked that he could now reconvert into a scheduler if he wanted.

The rest, Sweetie already knew. With everything done, Link went to confront Skull Kid on the Clock Tower (which was apparently a close call because he had to wait pretty much the last minute for a guy turned into a child to join his lover) and played the song to summon the Four Giants to stop the Moon when the filly appeared.

Truthfully, Sweetie Belle was both sad and glad that she didn't get to participate in one of these time loop adventures. She wasn't sure how well she would have fared, but she regretted the missed opportunity. "Going through a time loop" would have looked nice on her adventurer résumé.

After they were done, Link was curious to know what Sweetie Belle did since she left him so she also recounted some of her adventures, to the amazement of the Skull Kid and Tael. Even Link couldn't help himself but have stars in his eyes when Sweetie Belle recounted her space battles against the Space Pirates and the Aparoids.

Boys and space stuff.

And there were several gulps when Sweetie Belle told them about Crakkthulx.

Of course, Sweetie Belle took the occasion to tell Link about the army and the two Gods. Link immediately reassured the alicorn that she could count on him to help against them and any other threat that would show up. He will gladly join.

Finally, after drawing themselves and the Giants on a boulder as both a token and a memory of their friendship, Sweetie Belle and Link bid goodbye to the Skull Kid and the fairies before they left Termina and returned to Hyrule through a rift.

Author's Notes Part 2:

Thank you very much to The Kelduo for the lyrics of the song. There is one thing that I always found very sad in Majora's Mask, above all the tragic stuff in it.

Link used the Song of Healing to help others...

... when he was the one who needed it the most. :ajsleepy:

Chapter 88: Shadows On The Pokémon World

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 90: Anomaly

Sweetie Belle didn't lose time in giving the Dynamax Capsules to the professors and Magolor so they could reverse-engineer them as soon as possible. Victor made sure to remain on stand by with his Eternatus to supply Dynamax Energy to store inside them without having to go to Galar. Meanwhile, Elio returned from the Ultra Space to rest a bit, reporting that he still didn't find the Rockets' HQ. He was shown by Dawn and her Palkia the area in the Ultra Space into which Ghetsis and his minions warped from the portal's island, but like expected, the HQ was already gone. But Elio still retook his researches from there and hoped to quickly find the HQ before it could move too far away.

It was quickly discovered that the assault on the portal served as a diversion as several reports came from here and there of Rainbow Rocket presence. No doubt they were able to retrieve a couple more Plates in addition of kidnapping hundreds of Pokémon and stealing many objects. Quite a few trainers were sadly killed by their Shadow Pokémon. Guessing that the Rockets only had a few Plates to find, Dawn went to guard the Spear Pillar, the ruins of a temple dedicated to Arceus at the summit of Mount Coronet which also served in legends as the entrance to the Hall of Origin where one could find Arceus. If the Rockets come, she will immediately alert the others and try to stall them as long as possible with her powerful Legendaries.

In parallel of all that, the big brains were putting a lot of resources in advancing the technology allowing to purify a Shadow Pokémon and return them to normal. As it currently was, purifying a Shadow Pokémon was a difficult process.

First, they had to catch the Shadow Pokémon. Since it was impossible to catch a Pokémon already caught, this pretty much meant knocking out the grunt and take their Poké Balls. There was a machine invented in Orre, the Snag Machine, that could turn a Poké Ball into a Snag Ball to snag an already captured Pokémon, but most copies had been destroyed following Team Cipher's last defeat and only one was kept in the local Pokémon Lab just in case. More were being produced now and it shouldn't be long before select trainers were equipped with the first ones.

Then, once the Shadow Pokémon was caught, they had to weaken the lock on its heart. There were two methods for that: keep the Shadow Pokémon in your team and treat it with love and respect so the Pokémon would try to return the feeling and fight against the lock and weaken it, or put it in a special machine called Purify Chamber that would slowly damage the lock using a difficult process of placing Pokémon into a set forming a loop. To put it simply, you placed the Shadow Pokemon in the center of the loop which was linked to one of the four emplacements of the loop itself on which you put four other Pokémon. You had to ensure that the type of the Shadow Pokémon was Super Effective to the type of the Pokémon in the emplacement it was linked to and then, you also had to ensure that the types of the four Pokémon in the loop were Super Effective to the types of the Pokémon in the emplacement after them, going clockwise. The more effective the type matchup, the faster the lock in the Shadow Pokémon was damaged, making this method the most effective. But even then, it still took some time before the Pokémon was ready to be purified. However, all of this only worked on imperfect Shadow Pokémon. Perfected Shadow Pokemon had to directly go to the last step.

The purification process itself. There again, there were two possibilities. In Orre was a mystical stone called the Relic Stone that allowed the Shadow Pokémon to remember their happy memories, breaking the lock for good. However, it didn't seem to work on Perfected Shadow Pokémon. It had been the only known method for a time, but then they invented the Purify Chamber which became the second possibility, and it could even purify Perfect Shadow Pokémon. However, purifying a Perfect Shadow Pokémon with the Chamber was much harder than with an Imperfect one. With an imperfect Shadow Pokémon, you only had to use one Set (so one loop) to purify it, and even then, the type matchup didn't have to be perfect. However, for a Perfect Shadow Pokémon, you had to use the NINE Sets of the machine, and each of them had to have a perfect matchup. So, in addition of the Perfect Shadow Pokémon that you wanted to purify, you had to use 44 other Pokémon while paying attention of their types to avoid any error. Needless to say that purifying a Perfect Shadow Pokémon was VERY difficult. At least, the Perfect Shadow Pokémon was immediately purified. You didn't have to wait for its lock to be weakened first.

There was actually a third possibility. It was said that the Relic Stone was where a Legendary Pokémon known as Celebi once landed, so the power of the stone came from the Pokémon. This meant that if they could find Celebi wherever it was hiding, they could ask it to use its power to purify the Shadow Pokémon right away, but good luck finding it... Celebi was known to be one of the most elusive Pokémon in the world. The highest chance of finding it was at Ilex Forest in Johto, of which Celebi was the guardian, but even then the chances remained very, very, very low. A Time Flute could call it but they were almost as hard to find as the Pokémon.

So, in absence of Celebi, the scientists were working on making the process to purify a Perfect Shadow Pokémon easier. The more ambitious were thinking of creating a Purify Ball that would immediately purify the Shadow Pokémon caught (after being turned into a Snag Ball, of course, unless the trainers wanted first to destroy the Shadow Pokémon's current Poké Ball in order to re-capture it with a Purify Ball), but they still had a long way to go before they would be successful.

Right now, they had managed to reduce the number of Sets needed to five, tested successfully on one of the rare Shadow Pokémon that someone managed to snag right out of the hand of a grunt after punching him in the face. And they were confident that they will be able to lower the number of Sets to three soon enough. They even managed to reduce the number of Pokémon needed in a Set to three (plus the Shadow Pokémon). They were advancing very rapidly, but they weren't sure if they will manage to create a method of purification as effective as they imagined a Purify Ball would be by the time Elio will find the HQ. It will entirely depend of how lucky he will be. But even then, the scientists working on it estimated that it could take them several weeks, maybe even months, before they would be able to develop something like a Purify Ball. That was a level of technology easily on par with the one of the Master Ball. But knowing that Team RR probably got their hands on a few more Plates and that people were getting killed, they were accelerating the pace.

All this to say that in the couple of hours following the assault on the portal, the tension around the world went up a notch. Again. But thanks to Sweetie Belle's victory over one of the most powerful Legendaries in the world, the moral was also higher. Despite their overwhelming power, the Rockets suffered a humiliating defeat at the hooves of a filly barely bigger than a Pikachu (when she didn't grow to giant size) before the eyes of most of the world. It was nice to know they had such a powerful ally.

And Sweetie Belle was glad to learn that the Pokémon World was more and more ready to counter Team RR. But now, the waiting game returned. She didn't want to leave. She wanted to remain to avoid another Cynthia. But they didn't know when the Rockets will attack next beside the now usual skirmishes and she had to return to her adventures in search of allies against the threats DD warned her about. And even before that, she had been adventuring almost nonstop since she returned from Samus' universe, and even when she hadn't been adventuring she hadn't stopped running around doing this or that. Despite her infinite stamina, even she had a limit so she needed to rest a bit.

But then she got an idea and quickly returned to New Halcandra. As she had hoped, the locals made five more of these dimensional phones and they gladly gave them to her. With them in her possession, she returned to the Pokémon World and gave four of them to Twilight (once the ponies stopped cheering her), keeping the fifth one to herself since she had given hers to E- Gadd so he could communicate with the Tails about the portals.

"Give them to anyone you feel should have one and call me if something happens," she instructed.

Twilight marveled at the devices. "They will allow us to talk to each others despite being in different universes? That's amazing! But... If you are in an universe where time is much faster or much slower than in the one we are, won't the words come out too fast or too slow? Is there something in them to prevent this?"

Sweetie Belle facehooved. "Right... Uhh... I think that these phones have texting. This should work."

"Mmh... Maybe I can try to find a way around this problem beside texting. I will have to look into these once I have the occasion. Who built them?"

"The two two-tailed foxes I briefly told you about is the one who first came up with this phone. These ones were built in New Halcandra."

Twilight nodded. "I will talk to these two foxes. I hope to work with them to improve these phones."

"And bring in others like Magolor and Susie. The more the better, right?"

Twilight agreed and was actually glad to get one of these phones. It meant that she and her friends will be able to return to Equestria too, to their life. Then, if the Rockets attack, then they will be just one text away to come helping. And now that the portal on this world was finished, they could simply use it instead of having to ask for Sweetie Belle. The best part was that since time was faster in the Pokémon World, then the ponies could take a hours or two to prepare themselves before coming and only a few minutes would pass here. As soon as she would return to Equestria, she would go look for these Tails and begin to work on improving these phones with them.

"So Ah guess this means we're leavin' this world," Applejack said once Twilight told all this to her friends.

"Yes, but I will remain behind a bit to pass the word and give these phones to... Mmh... There are three spares so... I think that I will give one to Dawn so she can warn us if the Rockets appear on Mt. Coronet, another one to Elio so he can warn us when he finds their HQ, and the last one to whoever is now guarding the portal so they can warn us if it is attacked again."

"They left this old man... Gordon I think he was called, to guard it," Sweetie Belle informed. "He is apparently a very powerful Champion."

"Yes, I know who you are talking about. I met him," Twilight said. "He's a good choice."

So, after some quick goodbyes to the friends they made in this world using phones, the ponies without Twilight and Spike (who remained with the lavender alicorn) gathered behind Sweetie Belle before she opened a rift to Equestria.

Sweetie Belle took a small break from her adventuring as the Spring vacation ended and school restarted. Twilight and Spike came out of the portal about half a day after everypony else had returned and immediately began to work on the dimensional phone with the help of one of the Tails and even of E. Gadd (while also working together on linking the portals that weren't already linked to each others), and many things happened as the day passed. The alliance with the Galactic Federation was formalized and, already, ponies were using the portal to visit this new universe they were now allied to. Many inhabitants of the Federation also used the portal to visit Equus, full of curiosity about a world so different of what they were used to.

Now that Magolor had finished with the portal of the Pokémon World, he started to work on building a second one in Equestria, this time in Canterlot, using the occasion to teach how to build one. This way, the ponies could build their own portals and could teach how to build them to the other peoples of Equus. Sweetie Belle also sent Ganduro and a few others to Future Hyrule so he can start to build a portal there too and also so he can start discussions with Future Zelda. Past Hyrule could wait for now, Future Hyrule desperately needed help.

Like the Mushroom Kingdom's Earth. The portal there was moved from Luigi's basement to New Donk City so the badly damaged city could directly receive the supplies and workforce that started to be sent from Floralia and Para-Equestria (such was the name Sweetie Belle decided to give to Apple Death's Equestria). Sweetie Belle's Equestria (she hadn't found a name yet for it) and Techno-Equestria (Phantom's Equestria) weren't ready yet. Speaking of Techno-Equestria, discussions had started there between the members of the planet's own alliance to decide about joining Sweetie's Alliance, and representatives were also sent to the three versions of Mobius (Past, Present, and Future), Corneria, and Past Hyrule.

As a result of all these worlds starting to mix, the translators also began to be sent from New Halcandra so anybody using the portals could have one to ensure that they could understand everyone and everything they interacted with. A big number of them had been made so they had enough in stock for thousands of beings. For a price. They needed the money to build supplies to rebuild New Halcandra.

Speaking of money, this was a major point discussed. An economy will have to start between the various universes, and this meant deciding of what to do with their respective currencies. For example, how many Galactic Federation credits was an equestrian bit worth? A pokédollard? A gold coin from the Mushroom Kingdom? An answer was already found between Equus and the Galactic Federation, but not yet for the others. The Mushroom Kingdom gold coins (and other currencies of their world) will be especially difficult considering that it was generally really easy to find them in the wild. Same for Hyrule's rupees once this will come up. There were already ideas of creating a new currency for everyone joining the alliance, or just using the Galactic Federation's credits which seemed to be the simplest, a totally artificial money which you just needed a card to use. Corneria had exactly the same currency, and even the Space Pirates, so it seemed that passed a point, most civilization resorted to credits (or whatever other name they used for the artificial currency).

So things were advancing very rapidly as the first day of school passed for Sweetie Belle and the two other Crusaders. And already, she felt rested enough to start another adventure. But this time, now that her friends were here, she would like to make it special.

So as soon as school was out, she opened a rift to see if her next adventure will take someplace too dangerous. She entered the new universe in what she immediately recognised was a deserted alley of a city, between two very tall skyscrapers. The exit of the alley wasn't very far and she could already see that she was in a very populated city judging by the huge number of people she saw passing. There were many humans, but among them were also robots, cyborgs, and aliens of all kinds, so Sweetie guessed that she was in another advanced civilization like the Galactic Federation and Corneria.

It seemed safe enough.

She quickly verified the time difference between this universe and hers and calculated that it was pretty close actually, two days in Equestria almost equalling three days here, if a day here was twenty four hours too of course but the point was here.

Seeing that she won't return to her friends being ninety years old, she turned herself invisible and flew to have a quick view of the city. It clearly was a big one, even bigger than Corneria City, and many skyscrapers measured easily several hundreds meters, not as tall as the Federation Meeting Assembly Hall, but the taller ones were probably half its size which was already huge. And as expected from an advanced city, there were many flying vehicles in the sky. With all this, Sweetie Belle was definitively in familiar territory from her time on Daiban.

The only novelty she spotted was the presence of racing tracks floating high above even the taller buildings, very high in the sky. That, that was new. Racing tracks in the sky? Well, if they had a racing competition, then alright. It could be nice to watch.

She returned to her Equestria to tell all this to her friends.

"So, I appeared in another futuristic city with robots and aliens and there doesn't seem to be anything too dangerous. If we can convince Applejack and your aunts, Scoot, we could go pass some time there the three of us. Or make it nine."

"Nine?" Apple Bloom asked.

"I would like to take the occasion to also bring the other CMCs I encountered in the alternate Equestrias."

"Uh... Won't it get confusing with three of each of us?" Scootaloo asked.

"Maybe a bit at first but we came up with alternate names. Well, we still have to choose one for some of us like for you two, but it shouldn't be too difficult. Phantom and Apple Death are different enough that they can be recognized immediately. Same for Apple Death's friends. You two and Phantom's friends, however, will need something to be recognized. It would be great to visit another universe all together, and it would be the perfect occasion to get to know each others better. They are very different from us after everything they went through so this will be nothing like befriending perfect clones of us like we would expect."

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo got very excited at the prospect of encountering alternate versions so similar and yet so different of themselves and agreed. They then both went to ask their families while Sweetie Belle went to the alternate Equestrias.

In a place outside of time, a gruff-looking middle-aged bald man with a dark one-day-old beard and a scar beside his left eye was looking at a folder that worried him. A folder titled "DEATHBORN". Probably one of the most worrying cases he got since he created the Time Patrol, in what was in his point of view two years ago (but the patrol technically existed since the beginning of the universe because time).

The Time Patrol was exactly what the name indicated. It was an universal-scale organisation charged of keeping watch over the timeline. It recruited agents from all over time and used time travel to hunt beings threatening the timeline itself.

And the threat after who the folder was named was probably the biggest one the organisation encountered. Already, in the two years since its formation, its agents had several encounters with him, and he was even killed a few times. But somehow, Deathborn always came back, with new mechanical parts, and even managed to kill a few agents in return. They didn't know where he came from. Everything about this guy was abnormal. It was very possible that he came from some place outside of space and time.

And now, it seemed that Deathborn was preparing something very ugly in the twenty-sixth century of the Earth's calendar. Already, it was suspected that he was the cause of the accident that caused the F-Zero to be suspended for three years before it was re-opened as the F-Zero X. This Accident never happened in the original timeline that Chronos remembered, but why would Deathborn do it? Now, it seemed that the target was participating in the Underworld version of the Grand Prix for the second time in a row. But why?

This worried Chronos terribly, and he hoped that the agents he sent, Phoenix and QQQ, two of the bests he had, will be able to find out what was Deathborn's plan and stop him. Whatever it was, it had to do with the F-Zero X Grand Prix so they will be participating in the normal version that will start in Mute City.

A humanoid bull-like agent then barged into Chronos' office with the most horrified expression the boss of the Time Patrol ever saw. He immediately feared the worst.

"Boss! Boss! It's... The timeline... There's..."

"Get a hold of yourself Agent Bull! What happened?!" Chronos yelled.

"An anomaly entered the universe!"

Chronos paled. He immediately understood what kind of anomaly the agent was talking about judging by his expression. "You mean...?"

Bull nodded. "All the timeline collapsed, excepted at one point."

Dejectedly, Chronos put his face in his hand. That wasn't just the worst. That was THE WORST.

The Time Patrol had studied many scenarios, and this one was the one that they had hoped would never come as they had no way to stop it. To be unlucky enough that their universe ended up being visited by something which the very existence was a... glitch. A glitch corrupting everything it interacted with. They hadn't even been sure that something like that existed outside, this had just been speculations.

And now...

"When?" Chronos asked.

"Exactly the same point in time that you sent Phoenix and QQQ to, sir."

Chronos groaned as he began to rub his head. An anomaly popping up at this time wasn't just a coincidence. "It seems that some being, either the anomaly itself or something above it, has decided to play with us."

"What should we do?"

"There isn't much we can do Agent Bull. Send a word to Agent Phoenix. He will have to try to find the anomaly if it is still in our universe and decide what to do with it, something tells me that he will find it in Mute City, but his current mission remains a priority. Even if the timeline is gone, Deathborn must be stopped at least for the good of the present he is in. Meanwhile... we will try to see if we can find a way to bring back the timeline."

DD wondered if They should do something about this but They decided to wait and see. This could be entertaining.

Author's Note

For the ones who don't remember him, Gordon briefly appeared in Chapter 77. He's an OC, Champion from a region I made up, Ekusy. Ekusy is actually a region that I imagined based on Germany, all the way from modern Germany to the ancient German peoples from the time of the Roman Empire passing by the Holy Roman Germanic Empire. I sadly don't know much about the German history, but I thought that it would have been a nice continuation from Kalos (France) and Galar (England), basing new regions on European countries. And it seems that Gamefreak had the same idea since the region of the next gen is based on Spain.

For the ones who are curious, the other region I made up in the same chapter, Caloom, is based on Italia. As I see it, there would be a lot of Christian inspiration in this region in addition of references to the Roman Empire, Leonardo DeVinci, the Italian Renaissance, and so on. Heck, I see the League here in the equivalent of the Vatican.

Back to Gordon and Ekusy. As I stated, Gordon is the oldest Champion and the man who kept this title the longest, over 80 years! All this time and he was only defeated once by Red using his team made of the Legendary Birds and Mewtwo. He is a warrior, pure and simple, but he is not a brainless brute either, far from it. He is more... like one of these old generals who saw many wars. A prodigy strategist in Pokémon battles, sharpened after going through thousands of them. He could give the battle of their life to many of the Champions we know, even to Ruby and Elio despite their Mega Rayquaza and Ultra Necrozma. His Pokémon are all trained to perfection (translation: they all are level 100 and all have the best EV) and have a very good synergy To put it simply, he is someone like you find in the competitive battling scene. Also, he has a very no-nonsense attitude. You don't want to mess with the guy.

And now, knowing all this, I'm asking you guys to help me giving him a team. I'm sure that many of you know much more about how to make a team worthy of this guy than me. And even more since the Six Pokémon Limit was removed to better fight Team RR. Since he comes from a fanmade region, then this means that some of his Pokémon can be Fakemon. So, go wild! Types, abilities, appearance, stats, movepools, if they Gigantamax, and so on. And since the region is based on Germany, then you can come up with ideas based on what you know about this country and its History, customs, legends, and so on.

For example, I thought that one of his Pokémon could be an eagle-like one, based on the German eagle. So at least a Flying-type. Maybe a Steel/Flying-type. Or a Dark/Flying-type. That's all I have thought of for now.

Gordon won't enter in action before some time, so you don't have to hurry up. Just don't forget that we can work together. I suppose that coming up with a good competitive team made of both Fakemon and real Pokémon could be very complicated to do by ourselves.

Chapter 91: The F-Zero X Grand Prix!

It wasn't hard for everyone to agree to let the three sets of CMC go explore a different universe. As long as they promised to remain close to Sweetie Void/Phantom/Apple Death, their respective families trusted them to remain safe. Apple Death's group (which included Little Ghost) especially didn't have any problem convincing because, well, they were already dead and knew how to fight, having nice powers backing them up even if they didn't compare to Apple Death.

So the three sets of CMC gathered in Sweetie Void's Equestria outside of Ponyville where Phantom's group and Apple Death's group finally got to meet Sweetie Void's group.

"Nice to finally meet you two," Scootabot said, the others agreeing as they shook hooves.

"You know, if Sweetie Belle hadn't told us about what happened to you, I would have said that you look awesome." Sweetie Belle's Scootaloo couldn't stop herself from looking at her robotic counterpart in amazement.

Scootabot grinned. "I am awesome. I'm a freaking robot! Yeah, it sucks that I died, but no need to turn around this."

Phantom smirked before she used her Phantom powers to transform herself into a robotic version of her anthropomorphic form looking very closely like the form Metal Sonic took just after having absorbed the powers of a Phantom Ruby Prototype during the battle to stop the Death Egg from being launched. "Not as awesome as I can be."

The two other Scootaloo had stars in their eyes while the three Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom rolled their eyes, some letting out a giggle.

"I thought ya were supposed ta be the more mature one," Apple Death said.

You could see Phantom grinning despite the absence of a mouth in her current form as she shrugged. "I'm mature enough to know that, between Scootaloo and Infinite, I have more ego than even Rainbow Dash so boasting a bit is perfectly normal for me."

"And she is still Scootaloo. What did you expect?" Phantom's Sweetie Belle added. "It's not some half coming from an edgelord that will change that." A small wave of Phantom energy suddenly hit her. Sweetie Belle quickly looked at herself to see what Phantom did to her but, seeing nothing, looked at her friend and opened her mouth to ask what she did only to let out a squeaky noise like one of these squeaky toys. She immediately closed her mouth in shock. After a second, she did a few more tries, each time letting out another squeaky noise, before she gave Phantom a deadpan glare, blushing a bit in embarrassment as the three Apple Bloom couldn't stop themselves from laughing, and even the two other Sweetie Belle let out a giggle despite them giving Phantom threatening looks at the jab at their voice tending to squeak.

Phantom chuckled. "You should know by now to never refer to me or a part of me as an edgelord, Squeaky Belle. Oh, I think it suits you well. This should be your nickname from now on."

Her Sweetie Belle's glare only deepened at this before Discord suddenly rolled not far of them on an unicycle and said, "Sorry but it's already taken in a different multiverse."

"There isn't a trademark on it as far as I know so I don't care!" Phantom shouted back before the draconequus disappeared behind a tree. She then returned to her pegasus form. "Speaking of, we now need nicknames for you four," she said to her Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom as well as to Sweetie Void's Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.

"Just so you know, I'm Sweetie Void." The alicorn pointed at herself, then pointed at the others one by one as she said their nicknames. "Phantom, of course. Apple Death. Scootabot. Little Ghost won't need one. And... Mmh... Have you decided between Sweetie Lich and Sweetie Ghoul?" she asked to her undead counterpart.

"Let's go with Sweetie Ghoul. I don't feel like a Lich. I mean, Liches know necromancy, right? Well, I totally don't and I don't think I ever will. Apple Death is already the necromancer of the group."

"It doesn't mean that we can't have a second necromancer," Little Ghost retorted. "With your affinity with your voice, you could raise the dead and send them to fight just by singing. It would be epic to watch."

"And scary," most of the CMCs that weren't from Apple Death's group said, a chill creeping up their back at the image.

Phantom's Sweetie Belle, however, could only let out a squeak. Reminded that Phantom hadn't yet returned her voice to normal, she walked toward her friend and loudly squeaked at her ear, almost making her topple.

Turning a hoof into a hand to rub the inside of her hurting ear with a finger, Phantom glared at the unicorn. "Alright. Sheesh." She sent another small wave of Phantom energy at Sweetie Belle. "You could have simply squeaked to gain my attention and pointed at your neck."

The unicorn gave her best troll grin. "I did squeak to gain your attention, very loudly. And the way I did it was more effective and felt good. You can call that... sweet revenge." She proceeded to hoofbump her two counterparts who looked proudly at her. Little Ghost laughed but the three Apple Bloom and Scootaloo excepted Phantom let out groans. Phantom simply looked resigned.

"So, nickname... Nickname..." Phantom's Apple Bloom began to say pensively. "Ya know. It's really hard to think of a nickname for ourselves. How about ya give me one?"

Little Ghost eyed the three members of Phantom's group as she was getting an idea. "Since you two are with Phantom... Then how about we call you Phantom Bloom and Phantom Belle?"

Phantom's Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom looked at each other and gave a shrug before the Earth Pony said, "Ah guess this works. Sweetie?"

Her unicorn friend nodded. "Better than Squeaky Belle," she said, confirming the nicknames for the both of them while giving a last glare to Phantom.

"I like these nicknames. It makes you sound as if you were some kind of ninja or spy or some other mysterious figure in the shadows," Sweetie Void's Scootaloo said, making the two grin and laugh.

"But does that mean we should go as Apple Void and Scootavoid?" Sweetie Void's Apple Bloom wondered.

Sweetie Void thought a bit and shook her head before grinning. "Nah. You shall be Black Apple and Shadow Speedster! We will be the Darkness Trio!"

Her two friends both snorted while the others all looked at Sweetie Void as if she was crazy, making her laugh.

"They sound like Supervillain names!" Scootabot shouted before she grinned. "Can I exchange by nickname with this one? Shadow Speedster sounds much cooler!"

"Too late! It's taken!" the now nicknamed Shadow Speedster countered with a similar grin.

"Alright. Let's go with Black Apple," the now Black Apple said with a chuckle.

"Great!" Sweetie Void shouted before she used her powers to turn Black Apple's bow black and to materialize a white bandana with a black lightning bolt around Shadow Speedster's neck. "And there, to differentiate you from your counterparts!" She gave a mirror to Black Apple so she could see her now black bow.

Shadow Speedster looked down at her new bandana and touched it. "Neat!"

"AJ may think Ah'm entering mah Goth Phase," Black Apple said as she looked at the bow through the mirror.

"As long as you don't dye your mane and tail black, you should be okay," Sweetie Void reassured. "It's just a black bow after all."

"Well, this settles everything. How about we go?" Little Ghost asked impatiently. "I can't wait to visit a new universe anymore!"

Sweetie Void giggled and opened a rift to the universe she explored earlier. "We will have a few hours before we have to return for the night." Her group's day time and Phantom's group's day time were pretty close so they didn't have to worry about one group being late too much, and Apple Death's group didn't need to sleep so they didn't care how late they returned as long as they were back in time for school. "Thankfully, time in this new universe is a bit faster than in ours so we will have a little bit more time, but not much. More than enough to explore a bit and, hopefully, see something really interesting."

As Sweetie Void thought, as the group walked among the crowd, they didn't have to transform into humans or some humanoid creatures. With all the aliens around, nobody batted an eye at the group of equines. They were quadrupeds? They were far from being the only ones around even if bipeds clearly were the big majority. Obviously, it was hard for species without a way to manipulate tools to develop a civilization so that was why species like the ponies were so rare, but there were such species that developed a way to do this despite the visible absence of fingers or similar appendages so nobody thought twice about Sweetie Void and the others, especially when they saw that their legs were as dexterous as fingers, or even more, and could somehow hold objects with their hooves. As for why they looked so much alike? Well, there could be many explanations for this. A quirk of their species. Cloning. Twins. And Scootabot could easily be explained as someone having built her in the image of her two lookalike for some reason.

Even Little Ghost didn't gain attention! Were ghosts common in this universe too? Or were there actual spiritual species?

The fillies didn't ponder on that long as they marveled at the huge metropolis they were in and couldn't help but look at every stores to see the marvels they had. Even Phantom's group. While they came from a more technologically advanced Equestria, they were still Prehistoric compared to this world! Only the three UME weren't much impressed, especially Sweetie Void who spent several days in the Galactic Federation. Phantom simply eyed everything with slight disinterest. Apple Death reacted a bit more as she hadn't gotten to see much from Corneria City but she still was less impressed than the others.

Of course, they could buy nothing, having no local currency, but just exploring was more than enough even thought they wouldn't have minded tasting some of the vegetarian menus of the restaurants.

But then, Shadow Speedster had her attention attracted by a billboard advertising about what was called the F-Zero X Grand Prix which seemed to be a racing competition judging the animated image of a blue vehicle that looked like a little spaceship with its wings raised up floating on some track followed by a bigger pink one. And apparently, it was the second edition. There was a date too but she had no idea of if it was close or not. She didn't even know what was the current date. But a futuristic racing competition? She was so NOT missing that!

"Sweetie Belle! Uh... Void! We have to see that!" she shouted while pointing at the billboard.

The fillies all looked at the billboard and all who wasn't a Scootaloo rolled their eyes, amused.

"Why am Ah not surprised?" Apple Death said.

"But I think that we all agree with her, it will certainly be fun to watch." Sweetie Void looked around. "But now, we must find out how much time remains before it starts. Remember, we only have a few hours."

"Well that's easy," Scootabot said before she stopped a passing woman. "Excuse me miss. What is today's date?"

The lady raised an eyebrow but still answered, revealing that it was exactly the same date than the one indicated by the billboard. In other word, the Grand Prix started today! This very evening judging by the hour indicated on it! In just a couple of hours!

"Oh my gosh oh my gosh! Quick! We must find out where it starts!" Shadow Speedster shouted excitedly.

Asking around again, it wasn't hard to find out where it will take place. A man pointed at the track in the sky and then said where to go to reach it for the ones who didn't have a flying car. Of course, you had to have a ticket, one per person, which the fillies didn't have. If they couldn't go to the track then they could simply watch the race in a TV.

The fillies thanked the man and immediately went into an alley where Sweetie Void turned them invisible (excepted Little Ghost who turned herself invisible) before everyone was levitated to the track which was named Twist Road. Using their various powers, they had no problem passing all the securities and entering one of the large rooms with glazed walls overhanging the starting line.

Already, pilots and their vehicles were arriving on the track, and the public rooms were almost entirely full with people that had come early to have the best places. Giant screens above the pilots were showing informations and images about them and their vehicles, alternating between each of them, and many televisions in the room were doing the same or simply showing the track and the arriving pilots.

Now all the fillies were excited to see the race start as time passed and more and more pilots arrived.

Eventually, a man who was a cyborg, his eyes and the right part of his head being replaced by mechanical parts equipped with goggles and a microphone, who had green hair and a turquoise suit, appeared on several of the screens.

"Goooood evening everyone! Are you ready? What a question, of course you are! But the race isn't ready yet so we still all have to go through the gruesome process that is "waiting"!"

Phantom snorted. "Yeah. Waiting is always the worst part."

"Thankfully you have me, yours truly Mr. Zero again, to kill time! Not literally. Already, as you can see, our competitors are arriving one after another, and I see many familiar faces from last yeah! Dr. Stewart! Mr. EAD! James McCloud!"

The UME did a double take and the three of them shouted "What?!" before looking down at the track. And indeed, among the vehicles they spotted what looked like a modified version of an Arwing with exactly the same colors! And standing beside it was what looked like an human version of Fox's dad! Uh... And was that them or was that Mr. EAD guy reminding them of Mario? They should have payed more attention to the pilots showcased by the TVs.

"Seems like this universe has some counterparts of people we know," Phantom remarked. "I wonder who else there is."

Mr. Zero went to interview some of the pilots, starting with a brown-haired woman beside a white and purple vehicle who was named Jody Summer and was apparently from the military or the police, hard to say. Mr. Zero then went to talk to a bipedal tortoise-like alien beside a green and yellow vehicle named Pico, a regular from the first days of the F-Zero and also a known criminal and assassin. The fillies were surprised to learn that even criminals didn't hesitate to come racing here. Mr. Zero also interviewed what was apparently a newcomer beside his red vehicle, a pilot named Phoenix who was apparently a time-traveller along with a robot named QQQ who was also a pilot.

"Oups..." Sweetie Void muttered. If that was like with Silver... But seriously, they developed, or will develop time travel?

Phoenix revealed that they were after some criminal but couldn't say more beside reassuring the people that everything will be alright. Mr. Zero then went on to interview more pilots like a Superhero and his wife respectively named Super Arrow and Mrs. Arrow, a Supervillain named Zoda, another newcome who was apparently an important head mongul but also a criminal known as Don Genie, a living skeleton who was a revived pilot from some two hundreds years ago named Skull, the man known as Dr. Stewart, and a few others including an anthropomorphic feline-like being and a handsome-looking man that made many girls faint.

"There're really all kinds of people coming from all over the universe!" Phantom Bloom said in amazement. "Look! There's even an octopus and a gorilla!"

The public suddenly cheered loudly as a blue vehicle, the same one they saw on the billboard, arrived.

"Look who is coming everyone!" Mr. Zero shouted like a fanboy. "Here he is! Last year's champion! Captain Falcon himself always with his famous Blue Falcon!"

The blue vehicle, the Blue Falcon, stopped at what seemed to be its place before its pilot came out. The man was wearing a form-fitting blue armor and blue pants with a single metallic pauldron on his right shoulder, had two layers of gloves, the first layer, brown-colored covering his arms to the elbows and the second layer, yellow, only covering the hands, had golden metallic boots with a falcon on them, a yellow scarf, and had a red helmet with a visor barely letting his eyes being visible and a small golden falcon decorating it on the front.

Mr. Zero approached him followed by what seemed to be one of the representatives of the competition.

"Captain Falcon! How nice to see you back! Wanting to claim the belt and the cup for the second time in a row? Speaking of the belt..." The announced gestured to the representative following him.

Captain Falcon smiled and took a belt out of his vehicle before giving it to the representative.

"And after one year, the Captain just returned the Champion Belt! Whoever will win the Grand Prix will have the pleasure of returning home with it, this marvellous cup ready to decor your shelf..." At this, many of the screens showed a magnificent golden cup with a huge golden F on the front and a smaller flaming red X beside it between a pair of golden wings like the ones some of the vehicles had. "and one billion space credits!"

The fillies' eyes became as big as saucers. "No wonders people from everywhere, even super famous criminals, are coming to race!" Phantom Belle said.

"Do you think you will win the Grand Prix again?" Mr. Zero asked to Captain Falcon.

The Captain gave a small salute with his fingers. "I have my chances, but many pilots as skilled as me are gathered here tonight. The battle will be tough but I won't give any slack!" The public cheered again at his words and some of the pilots applauded. "But at least I will do my best to ensure that unsavoury people like Pico or Zoda don't leave with the prize money. It would only ask for trouble."

"You can dream, Captain Pigeon!" Zoda yelled from beside his vehicle. "This time, I will get the prize money and be able to finance my scheme! And finally, I will conquer the world! Mwahahahahaha!!!"

"What scheme? Another whacky robot that can't hurt a fly?" Super Arrow yelled in turn.

"SHUT UP!!!"

As they talked, a few more pilots arrived, including a freaking mutant T-Rex! Among the last ones to arrive was the same pink vehicle the fillies saw on the billboard. It stopped right beside the Blue Falcon and out of it came a massive man with muscles that would make Bulk Biceps proud. He was wearing a simple white sleeveless T-shirt with a leather vest, dark blue pants, boots, and some old-style pilot helmet, and his eyes were hidden behind small and round sunglasses.

He pointed a finger at Captain Falcon. "FALCOOOON!!! This time, I will be the one winning the Grand Prix! I swear!"

"I won't let you, Goroh!" a muscled man with a dark blue shirt, a white long coat, military pants, and a blue helmet shouted, his eyes also hidden behind small round glasses. "As I told you, as long as I'm here, you won't win anything, you traitor! I swore!"

"Don't talk like that to my dad, Antonio!" a ten years old kid dressed like Goroh but also wearing large pilot glasses, a katana on his back, and big wooden sandales making him look taller than he his shouted before he waved who was apparently his dad. "Don't worry, dad! I'm with you!"

Goros was surprised. "Dai?! You are participating too?!"

Dai took a pose to show off his muscles. "Yes! I will make you proud! But I'm warning you, if I win, I'm keeping the money!"

This made Goroh guffaw. "That's fair, son! But don't expect me to go easy on you!"

All in all, twenty eight racers were now present, leaving only two places. The crowd was getting wild as the hour of the start of the race was approaching.

But then, the last two racers finally arrived and nobody looked happy to see them, many looking in fear or booing at them.

The first was a red vehicle with a yellow front while the second was a huge black vehicle with two sharp spikes jutting out of the front.

Mr. Zero gulped. "Oh... Blood Falcon and Black Shadow..."

The two vehicles stopped at their places. Out of the first one came what looked like a perfect replica of Captain Falcon, but instead of blue, he was wearing red. His boots were silver with winged skulls on them, his pauldron had spikes, and his gloves and helmet were purple, the helmet having a skull instead of the falcon. Was it an evil twin?

Out of the other vehicle came a titan of a man who looked like evil incarnate. He was wearing an entirely black bodysuit with a cap and two huge bull-like horns. His feet also had bull-like hooves.

Again, Mr. Zero gulped, shaking like a leaf as he slowly and carefully approached.

"Yeaaah... That's the villain. Totally," Sweetie Void said.

"No kidding. He could give Sombra a run fer his money in the whole "Look at me, Ah'm a villain!" department," Apple Death said. "All he misses are skulls like on what Ah suppose's his underling."

Mr. Zero reached the evil man. "B-B-Black Shadow. You are back. That's... unexpected."

Black Shadow looked down at the poor man and grinned evilly at him before he grabbed the mike he was brandishing right out of his hand. "Yes, I'm back. And this time, I WILL get the belt, and anyone standing in my way will quickly learn to regret it. You are warned." He then crushed the mike before returning in his vehicle, giving Captain Falcon one last threatening glare.

"W-well..." Mr. Zero quickly moved away, returning to his jovial self. "The race is about to start so everybody gets ready! Pilots, enter your machines! Everybody else, clear the track!"

Both Shadow Speedster and Scootabot were now repeatedly jumping in excitement. "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

"Come on! Hurry up!"

After a few minutes, Mr. Zero reached his booth. "Here we are! The first race of the second edition of the F-Zero X Grand Prix, my friends! Readyyyyy?!!"

The many screens began a countdown. As the "3" appeared, the pilots began to turn on their engines one by one, their vehicles floating up to a few centimeters above their position.

2.

1.

"GOOO!!!"

Author's Note

As I said, I changed many things, so don't expect stuff to happen like in the game. I kept the main plot but that's all.

Chapter 92: Meeting The Pilots

Author's Note

List of racers:
1.Dr. Stewart
2.Mr. EAD
3.James McCloud
4.Jody Summer
5.Pico
6.Phoenix
7.QQQ
8.Super Arrow
9.Mrs. Arrow
10.Zoda
11.Don Genie
12.The Skull
13.Leon
14.Jack Levin
15.Captain Falcon
16.Bio Rex
17.Samurai Goroh
18.Antonio Guster
19.Dai Goroh
20.Blood Falcon
21.Black Shadow
22.Roger Buster
23.Silver Neelsen
24.Dr. Clash
25.John Tanaka
26.Gomar & Shioh
27.Draq
28.Michael Chain
29.Octoman
30.Billy

For the ones who don't know, QQQ is pronounced Q3.

Chapter 92: Meeting The Pilots

"GOOO!!!"

In a blink of an eye the racers already disappeared from the line. The fillies were amazed at the speed they were going as they turned to look at the screens allowing them to follow the race. In just a few seconds, they were almost reaching the speed of sound! Actually, when they flew over yellow arrows that boosted their speed, they reached the speed of sound or even exceeded it!

The track was really large so there was enough enough for the racers to fly without too much risking bumping into each others, and yet the race barely started that there were already some that directly attacked others by ramming into them from behind or the sides, even twirling to give violent hits. Without surprise, Black Shadow was the more violent of the bunch as he already almost sent a rival flying above the hard light barrier that made sure that the racers wouldn't fall to their doom. The victim, the mutant T-Rex, still won't be able to continue the race as his vehicle was left in a poor state after it did several rolls and bounced on the wall, stopping just before a jump. Super Arrow and another racer, a very old bearded man in a dark blue vehicle with lightning patterns at the sides, almost crashed into it but were able to avoid the accident. The vehicle and its pilot were quickly teleported to safety.

While many cheered, some winced, including Mr. Zero. "Ooof... Say whatever you want about Black Shadow, he knows how to give a show. Bio Rex is already out before even reaching the Pit Rows. For reminder, it doesn't mean that Rex is disqualified from the Grand Prix. If he manages to repair his machine by the next race, he will be able to continue. But he will be dead last."

What happened to Bio Rex gave the message to the other racers who made sure to remain away from Black Shadow. But there were still a few like Captain Falcon, Phoenix, and Jody Summer courageous enough to face him. As the racers passed the area with the pink rows which Mr. Zero called Pit Rows and approached a half-loop, Captain Falcon even managed to send Blood Falcon crashing into a barrier with a twirl. Blood Falcon's vehicle wasn't damaged enough however and was able to continue, but he lost a lot of precious seconds. Captain Falcon then found himself side to side with Black Shadow who was trying to push him against the barrier while they were upside down after the half-loop. However, an intervention of Samurai Goroh just after the track reversed so they had their head facing the sky again slowed down the two of them, letting the muscled man reach the line first.

"And Samurai Goroh is the first one to finish the first lap, closely followed by Captain Falcon and Black Shadow! Just behind them are Jody Summer, Pico, Phoenix, and Billy! Boosters unlocked! Now the real show starts!"

As soon as the racers passed the line, they activated a boost that allowed them to break the sound barrier, reaching speeds even more crazy! Before the fillies knew it, the racers already reached the area with the Pit Rows which apparently served to replenish the vehicles' energy, repairing them by the same occasion. Indeed, it turned out that using the boost was a very risky move as it consumed the vehicles' very energy, damaging them. If the racers weren't careful, they could deplete their vehicle's energy and render them unable to continue the race.

"Some vehicles can even catch fire or explode!" a man beside the fillies informed them with an enthusiasm that reminded the three Sweetie Belle of their father when he talked hoofball.

"Dang. It looks like a mix between a classic race and a gladiator competition," Phantom commented.

Since the boosts damaged the vehicles, it meant that the others had an easier time ensuring that their rivals couldn't continue the race. Again, Black Shadow proved it by easily destroying Dai Goroh's vehicle as the kid tried to pass him. Pico also destroyed QQQ's machine with a twirl while the octopus, Octoman found himself crashing into a barrier after being pushed by the gorilla named Billy, and contrary to Blood Falcon, Octoman's vehicle couldn't continue. Just before the line, Don Genie then caused The Skull to do several rolls before Zoda crashed into him. Two more out!

"And we end the second lap with five more racers out! I told you the show really started!" Mr. Zero shouted excitedly. "Black Shadow is now at the lead! James McCloud is gaining ground but is blocked by Phoenix! And Jody Summer and John Tanaka are now in a clash with Blood Falcon and Pico! Gomar and Shioh are attempting to use the chaos to take the lead but Draq doesn't allow it! Woah! Leon tries to pass Mr. EAD only to receive a twirl in the face that finally has reason of his machine! And look at that! Captain Falcon and Samurai Goroh now seem to be working together against black Shadow! Seems like Goroh hasn't liked what the King of Evil has done to his son."

Captain Falcon was at Black Shadow's left, and Samurai Goroh was at his right, and the two of them closed on him at the beginning of the half-loop, their machines touching each others to the point that sparks could be seen.

The fillies were now cheering as loudly as the rest of the public, even Phantom, not wanting to see the evil man win.

Then, while the racers were upside down, Black Shadow pushed back Captain Falcon before he did a twirl that sent Goroh away. However, Captain Falcon took the occasion to unleash his boost, passing before Black Shadow who quickly hit his boost too despite his vehicle now being badly damaged. But Captain Falcon still reached the finish line, his vehicle in bad shape but still okay, while Black Shadow reached it only a fraction of a second later with a badly smoking vehicle.

"And Captain Falcon wins the race! Followed by Black Shadow, then by Jody Summer, Samurai Goroh, Don Genie, Dr. Stewart, Billy, Michael Chain, Silver Neelsen..."

As Mr. Zero continued to name the racers as they arrived, Captain Falcon and the others stopped their machines just after it under an explosion of cheers from the public, Black Shadow quickly coming out of his just in case it decided to explode.

The screens went on to show the ranking, the times of each racers and the points they got depending of their position. For example, Captain Falcon received 100pts while Black Shadow received 93, Jody Summer 87, Samurai Goroh 81, and so on. Even the ones who got out received points. Bio Rex, being the first one, was considered last and only received 15pts. Being the next one, Dai Goroh was twenty ninth and got 16pts. And this went so on.

For a moment it looked like Black Shadow was about to attack both Captain Falcon and Samurai Goroh as Blood Falcon finally stopped beside him. But finally, he decided to just go away as people began to retrieve his machine and the ones of the others to place them into garages where it will be up to the pilots to get them, or what remained of them.

Goroh faced Captain Falcon. "Let's be clear, Falcon. I didn't help you. I just wanted this guy to pay for ruining my son's first race."

You could see Captain Falcon mentally roll his eyes. "Sure."

"That was an amazing race everyone! It didn't disappoint!" Mr. Zero shouted. "It's hard to believe that it was just the first race! Four more are to come, each more difficult than the previous one! For the ones who don't know, the next one will happen on Big Blue, on the track called Drift Highway, same hour! Our competitors should hurry to repair their machines! For the ones who can't, I'm sorry to say: too bad!"

The racers then left the track one after another as Mr. Zero gave his closing speech of the day.

"Tomorrow same hour... Let's see... Twenty four hours here... Sixteen hours in Equestria..." Sweetie Void thought aloud while the public began to leave too.

"It must be a bit over 8PM back home," Phantom Belle added.

All the fillies sighed sadly as they easily made the calculation. They will still be in school.

"Darn it! I want to see the next race! It was so cool!" Shadow Speedster shouted, irritated, before she mumbled "Stupid school..."

"Mmh... Phantom? Do yer Phantom Copies work when ya aren't in the same universe?" Phantom Bloom asked.

Phantom thought a bit. "Good question. I will have to test it."

"So we would replace ourselves by copies while we go watch the races?" Sweetie Ghoul asked.

"That's the plan, even if Ah don't really like the idea of skipping school, as much as Ah also want ta see the next race," Phantom Bloom answered. "But there's something weird about this whole stuff."

"What is it?" Little Ghost asked.

"I think that I see what you are thinking" Phantom said. "Why does something called "the King of Evil" want the Champion Belt of some racing competition so much? And why try to obtain it the normal way instead of simply stealing it?"

"I was thinking the same thing," Sweetie Void same. "That's weird. Very weird."

"Maybe to prove himself the best?" Scootabot proposed. "Or some other show of ego?"

Phantom snorted. "This could very well just be that. But I feel like there is a more sinister plot. That time traveler guy did say that he was here after some criminal. Why would he participate in this Grand Prix then?"

"That's a good point," Scootabot conceded.

"But maybe Phoenix is targeting someone else, like Pico," Little Ghost thought.

"Or Don Genie, or Zoda," Black Apple added.

The ten fillies exchanged looks as they all came to the same conclusion, and they shouted, "Investigation time!"

"Let's separate into our respective groups," Apple Death proposed. "Ya know. Me with Scootabot and Sweetie Ghoul. Phantom with Phantom Bloom and Phantom Belle. And Sweetie Void with Black Apple and Shadow Speedster. Little Ghost can go her way through the walls."

They all agreed and exited the room before separating into said groups, taking different hallways and Little Ghost going through the floor. Of course, just in case, they all turned themselves invisible.

Each of the groups quickly found out that some of the racers had already left, including most of the criminals, but others had remained. Listening to the few they met however gave nothing. Same with the few F-Zero X Grand Prix staff they encountered. Little Ghost was able to find Don Genie resting so she remained behind the furniture a moment to listen in case he revealed something, but no luck.

Sweetie Void's group however eventually entered the place's cafeteria where many of the remaining racers were having dinner. Among them was Captain Falcon, but also Phoenix and his partner the robot QQQ. Sweetie Void wondered if Phoenix was a descendant of Captain Falcon because she thought that there was a family resemblance from the little she could see. And from Falcon to Phoenix, there was only one step. Even Phoenix's clothes were very similar to Falcon's, excepted that Phoenix had a black suit and pant and the rest was white or silver-colored. But there were also a few differences like he only had one layer of gloves, a silver chest-plate, a cap which was red inside, and a belt. and of course, there was the absence of the Falcon symbol. And he didn't have the pauldron too.

Beside him, QQQ was clearly more advanced than the robots the fillies saw until now in this universe. The AI-advancement was surprisingly lacking despite this civilization being so advanced. However, physically, QQQ looked rather frail, not bulky at all. Its arms and hands looked like the pincers of a fun fair (the ones that failed to catch these darn stuffed toys nine times out of ten even if you targeted them right) and its legs and feet reminded of the ones of a bird (but with only two digits each), and its head was large and flat with a single blue eye. And it was also smaller than most humans. Of course, it wasn't eating, it was only here to keep Phoenix company.

They weren't sure what to do here so they remained a bit near the entrance to listen and observe.

Maybe they should go talk with Phoenix? Or with Captain Falcon? Or Jody Summer who was also present with John Tanaka?

As soon as the fillies entered the room, Phoenix's helmet's visor showed him that he was now in the presence of something that shouldn't be here in this time. So, either another time traveller he didn't know about or something not from this universe.

He looked around but saw nothing, so he activated his visor's thermal vision and... right there, at one of the entrances of the room, he spotted three invisible little creatures that seemed to look like equines. Phoenix knew every single civilizations in this corner of the universe and he knew of none composed of such equine-like creatures. He immediately understood what they were.

The anomaly he was warned about.

Phoenix glared at them. Because of them, everything he knew was gone. His time was gone. But he didn't act. The three equines simply seemed to be looking around, not yet causing any mischief.

"Looks like Phoenix spotted us," Shadow Speedster remarked.

"He must have some mean to see us despite us being invisible. Should have seen this coming, with him being a time traveller," Sweetie Void said.

"What do we do?" Black Apple asked. "He seems ta be angry."

"Mmh... Remain here. I'll go talk to him. I think that I know why he is angry," Sweetie Void instructed.

The other two nodded, and the alicorn exited the room to hide behind a wall. Making sure that there was nobody and no camera, she turned herself visible and walked into the cafeteria as if she entered it for the first time, walking toward Phoenix and QQQ's table. She saw the time traveller move his hand. She couldn't see anywhere he could have hid a weapon but she had no doubt that he had one on him somewhere and that he was getting ready to grab it to defend himself from what he perceived as a threat. She didn't want to start an incident here so she made sure to look as nonthreatening as possible. Thanks to her natural adorable, harmless-looking appearance, it wasn't hard, but Phoenix obviously wasn't buying that.

Still, he let her approach, and she was glad for this. She used her magic to move one of the still vacant chairs around the table and jumped on it.

She silently stared at the two time travellers for a few seconds, wondering how to start, before she eventually began. "Hi! My name is Sweetie Belle. Phoenix and QQQ, right? I watched the race with my friends. Scootaloo absolutely loved it. I think she found a new life goal." She said that last part with a small laugh. Her small talk seemed to make Phoenix and QQQ relax just a tiny teensy bit, but the man still seemed ready to use a weapon. "Erh..." She sighed. "You are time travellers, right? Let me guess, this universe is one of these universes where a change at one point in the timeline causes all of it after said point to be rewritten?"

"You mean there are universes where this is not the case?" QQQ asked.

"Not all. A changement in some simply causes a split in the timeline leading to the creation of a new, alternate universe. I come from one such universe."

Both Phoenix and QQQ nodded to show that they understood before the man said, "You guessed right. We are in an universe as you described. The Time Patrol, which I'm part of, makes sure that nobody tries to rewrite the timeline."

"A Time Patrol?!" the alicorn shouted before she groaned and rubbed her head. "Horsefeather... They must want my head. If they didn't all disappear with the rest of the timeline."

"Many were thankfully in the HQ which is outside of time, but we still lost many other agents that were in various cases across the timeline," Phoenix revealed coldly.

"L-listen. I'm sorry this happened. I don't want this, but each time that I enter a new universe, this happens. It's... It's my nature... There is nothing I can do to stop this. But at least I know someone who can fix this!"

Phoenix visibly raised an eyebrow. "Someone who can bring back a whole timeline?"

"Yes! As a parallel universe! And I'm sure They will find something to ensure that it won't disappear again once you return to it now that I've interacted with you. For info, this someone is the reason why I cause timelines to collapse wherever I go. Because of Their intervention, I'm now a being unique in both space and time."

"Some king of divinity?" Phoenix guessed.

"Yes. You can say that."

Phoenix sighed before he finally fully relaxed. "But why have you come here?"

"You can thank this someone I told you about. They are the one choosing where I end up when I open a rift. There is a longer story but I don't really have time. I have to bring my friends back home for the night. It must be getting late where we come from, and we have school tomorrow."

This surprised the two time travellers. "You are children?" Phoenix asked, alternatively looking at her and at the two other, still invisible fillies who were still near the entrance of the cafeteria, but Shadow Speedster had now gotten closer to the table where Super Arrow and Mrs. Arrow were both eating with Dr. Stewart, listening to them. It seemed that Super Arrow was in the middle of retelling one of his battles against Zoda, and of course the pegasus couldn't pass the opportunity of listening to a Superhero.

"Yup! We are!" Sweetie Belle signed to her friends that they could now approach. The two still thought of doing like Sweetie did and first left the cafeteria so the alicorn could turn them visible without anyone seeing this before they returned and walked toward their table. "I present to you Scootaloo and Apple Bloom! But because of alternate universe mayhem we use the nicknames Shadow Speedster and Black Apple. I'm Sweetie Void."

The two fillies each jumped on a chair too, one of them having to take one from a nearby vacant table as there were only four chairs per table.

"Hello!"

"Howdy!"

Again, Phoenix raised an eyebrow. "Why do they sound like Supervillain names? Reminds me of Black Shadow. Actually, merge two of these nicknames and you get his name."

"Pure coincidence for the Black Shadow part!" Sweetie Void exclaimed. "And we chose them because I use the power of the void which is pretty much pure darkness and we decided to make ourselves the Darkness Trio even if Shadow Speedster and Black Apple don't use anything related to darkness."

"And they sound cool," Shadow Speedster added.

"And that too," Sweetie Void agreed. "And speaking of Black Shadow, is he the criminal you are after?"

"No, that's not him," QQQ answered.

"Really?! I would have bet that it was him!" Sweetie Void said in surprise.

"So what? That's Zoda? Pico? Don Genie?" Black Apple asked.

"None of them. The criminal we are after isn't participating to this Grand Prix. However, we suspect that at least one of the participants in this one works for him. It could be Black Shadow or it could be someone else like Zoda," Phoenix revealed. "Why do you ask?"

"Because we thought that Black Shadow was acting very weird. Why does he want the Champion Belt so much?" Sweetie Void asked.

The two time travellers were silent for a few seconds before the robot said, "That's... a good question."

"We think that it may be some ego stuff. Ya know, to show to everyone that he's the best," Black Apple said. "Villains love ta boast like that."

Phoenix chuckled. "True. But I know Black Shadow. He doesn't care participating in competitions. Especially to gain some belt to show off. He usually does that in terrorist attacks and other terrible crimes with his group. If he wants the belt, then he would just steal it along with the cup and any other riches present and would destroy the place guarding them by the same occasion leaving no survivors, or almost. That he is participating in the Grand Prix to get it is unusual for him. This belt must have something special. But if this meant that this has something to do with the criminal we are after, we are not sure."

"A lot changed after the Accident from four years ago," QQQ clarified. "Black Shadow participating in the Grand Prix may simply be a consequence of these changes. For one reason or another."

"An accident?" Shadow Speedster asked.

"A horrible moment in the history of F-Zero," someone said. The next instant, Captain Falcon himself took a chair and joined the table. "In the middle of a F-Zero Grand Prix four years ago, during a race, a huge explosion happened in the track. There were no death, but almost every racers ended up injured in the aftermath. I was among them."

"Because of this Accident, the F-Zero was suspended for three years and only restarted last year, now named the F-Zero X," Phoenix continued. "One racer, Mighty Gazelle, was so badly injured that he had to be revived as a cyborg, almost fully robotic. A team of racers, Team Shooting Star, was also forced to disband, and all its members mysteriously disappeared afterward, among many others. All of them were professionals that had won the Grand Prix at least once."

"Mmh... Strange how I never got targeted," Captain Falcon remarked. "I won several Grand Prix too."

"You were either too hard to target or the responsible knew that we were keeping an eye on you so he didn't try anything. You are very important to the timeline. Without you, it would be freestyle for the criminals, especially Black Shadow and his group."

"Black Shadow creating a clone of you is also a result of this Accident," QQQ remarked.

"Yes... Somehow getting my blood while I was in the hospital," Captain Falcon grumbled.

"But that's assuming our criminal is the one who caused the disappearances. We suspect him, but it could very well be Black Shadow and his group assassinating them," QQQ remarked.

"And then they went and began to participate in the Grand Prix last year," Phoenix continued.

"Which took many off guard, me the first. I didn't take him for the competitive type," Captain Falcon said.

"And all of this was NEVER supposed to happen. This Accident and the disappearances that followed were caused by someone who modified the timeline. and this someone may very well be the criminal we are after. But why he caused them is anyone's guess."

"Who's this criminal by the way?" Black Apple asked.

"His name is Deathborn, a powerful cyborg from mysterious origin.

When they stopped talking, they finally remarked that Sweetie Void had materialized a board on which she wrote all the informations they gave. "Well, I'm sure that we can try to guess if we manage to assemble the pieces of this puzzle. Ancient Champions being assassinated, if it is by Black Shadow, could very well be him eliminating the concurrence to have an easier time getting the belt. But if this is Deathborn that caused them..."

"This wouldn't really make sense. He isn't participating," QQQ said. "Actually, he is participating to the Underworld version from what he know. But none of the racers that disappeared participated in it."

"But you said you think that someone could be working for him. so it is possible that he eliminated the concurrence to make it easier for his underling," Sweetie Void reminded.

"And Black Shadow being after the belt makes him the primary suspect," Phoenix finished. "But this also could be Pico. He is a professional assassin and racer. Deathborn could have hired him to race for him, and maybe also kill some of the ancient Champions."

"This still doesn't answer why he participates in the Underworld Grand Prix while having a minion participating in this one," QQQ interjected.

"Well, Black Shadow participating to win specifically the belt could mean that there is something special with it, and somehow they can't steal it. So maybe Deathborn is also after it for the same reason. No idea why however."

"As far as I remember, the belt has always been normal. It didn't look special at all when I gave it back earlier," Captain Falcon said. "No idea why they would want it."

"Unless there's something hidden in it?" Shadow Speedster proposed.

"Why would something that villains want be hidden inside a championship Belt?" Black Apple asked her.

"I don't know! It's the only explanation I could think of that seemed to make sense!"

"Has the belt ever been tested?" the voice of a man asked.

"Why would we test the belt?" a woman replied.

"It's not like the organizers would let us test it," another man said.

The ones who talked were Dr. Stewart, Jody Summer, and John Tanaka respectively, and the fillies found out that their table had gained the attention of everyone in the cafeteria.

"Uh. I guess that we should have expected that talking out loud about the Accident, Black Shadow, and the missing racers would have led to this," Sweetie Void said.

"Well, no matter the reason Black Shadow and that Dearthborn are after the belt, it can't be good. One more reason to ensure that all these villains don't win the Grand Prix," Silver Neelsen said.

Many in the room agreed with the old man, even among the staff.

"And you can count me in to help stop them," Sweetie Void said. "I may be just a child, but I know how to fight and I defeated many villains. If you want, I can just go and deal with Black Shadow as soon as he shows up again."

"I advise against it," Captain Falcon said. "Anywhere related to F-Zero is considered neutral ground by the wealthy marchants running the competition. Their organization is very powerful so you don't want to mess with them. This is why Jody can't do anything against the criminals participating despite her job. Unless this is by attacking them during the races, and ensuring that they don't gain the prize money of course."

"I don't want to cause an incident. Alright. Then I will deal with him if I encounter him outside of F-Zero property."

Super Arrow laughed. "Black Shadow isn't the most feared criminal of the galaxy just for his crimes. He is very powerful. Many who opposed him met an early end. I don't see you being able to do anything against him."

At this, Sweetie only gave a giggle and a wink. Super Arrow wasn't sure how to take this.

"She can totally deal with this guy!" Shadow Speedster shouted. "In our world, she won against the most powerful villain of all time by herself rather easily despite his huge army of very strong monsters, and the guy is now crying his mommy each time he sees her! And that was before she got a mega power up that made her, like, one hundred times more powerful! I don't know how powerful Black Shadow is, but he wouldn't stand a chance against her!"

"Calm, Scoot. Calm. That's okay," Black Apple calmed down her friend.

That was when the rest of the fillies entered the cafeteria, now visible too, making many of the persons present do a double take.

"We finally find you. We heard Shadow Speedster from outside," Phantom said.

Little Ghost laughed. "Scootaloo really has a loud mouth, uh?"

"You haven't heard Sweetie Belle when she screams," Scootabot retorted with an annoyed glance. "A real banshee."

"Hey!" both Sweetie Ghoul and Phantom Belle shouted.

"My point."

"Hey girls!" Sweetie Void waved at them. "Found anything?"

"Nope. Nothing," Phantom Bloom answered.

"I tried to find Black Shadow to spy him but he seems to be already gone. Instead, I found Don Genie resting in a room but he said nothing interesting," Little Ghost informed.

"Same for anyone else we encountered. Sorry by the way, we almost gave Dr. Clash a heart attack. Phantom Belle accidentally broke a vase in front of him while trying to imitate a ninja," Phantom said, making the unicorn chuckle sheepishly.

"And Scootabot couldn't stop herself from saying "BOO!" at Dai Goroh's back, making him jump into his father's arms," Sweetie Ghoul said while giving her robotic friend a glare as the pegasus whistled innocently. "Now, Samurai Goroh looks ready to turn the place upside down in search of the responsible."

"Aww come on, Sweetie. You know that being invisible just asked for me to do something like that," Scootabot said, making Sweetie Ghoul huff, Apple Death shake her head in exasperation, and Little Ghost laugh.

"Anyway. So you girls actually talked to some of the racers?" Phantom asked.

"Yeah. Phoenix here spotted us despite us being invisible, and Sweetie talked to him. From there we learned a lot of stuff," Shadow Speedster said.

The Darkness Trio then proceeded to quickly present everyone and to give a quick resume of what they learned. Meanwhile, the racers talked to each others, starting to make plans to ensure that the belt at least won't be won by Black Shadow. Many of them were sure and certain that he was the one working for that Deathborn.

"Sooo... We are now in some kind of space thriller with a plot involving time travel and racing?" Phantom asked, bemused.

"That's a good way to resume it, yeah," Sweetie Void confirmed.

"Ooooh! Do I get to wear a fedora?" Phantom Belle asked.

"A what?" several of the other fillies asked.

"You know, these hats that detectives and criminals often wear in stories."

"These hats," Sweetie Void helped clarify by materializing one such hat and placing it on her head.

"Oh! So that's how they are called!" Shadow Speedster exclaimed as she recognized the hat.

"Ahem! Moving on. We'd start to return ta our Equestria. It's getting very late," Apple Death said.

Some of the fillies groaned at this.

"I will test if my Phantom Copies still work while I am in another universe. If that's the case, then we can return here tomorrow if you don't mind missing school," Phantom reminded.

"Our sisters will kill us if they learn," Phantom Belle said.

Phantom shrugged. "What they don't know doesn't hurt."

"And if the copies don't work, you can always ask Discord. I'm sure he won't mind filling in for us with his powers," Sweetie Void suggested. "However, I will remain here a bit after you are gone. We still need to find out where is Big Blue so we won't miss the next race."

At this, Captain Falcon gave her a thumb up. "I can transport you there. I have a ship."

"Big Blue is actually an oceanic planet," QQQ clarified. "It's a very popular F-Zero location. Many F-Zero tracks, both old and recent, are all over its surface and even underwater."

"I see. Thanks! See you quickly!"

Sweetie Void then opened a rift, to everyone's amazement, followed by Apple Death and Phantom doing the same with their respective powers before the three sets of CMC each took their respective rift back to their Equestria.

Chapter 93: Big Blue

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 94: Lightning

With some convincing and pleading (and conveniently forgetting to mention the existence of dangerous villains), all the fillies received permission to pass the night in the F-Zero-verse. If they wanted to continue to see the Grand Prix, then alright, as long as they remained careful and they were back and well-rested for school. And they will also be accompanied, because the three Rainbow Dash also wanted to come. After they were told what was the F-Zero X Grand Prix and the first race was recounted to them (omitting again some details), they really wanted to see it too. Races with vehicles going at the speed of sound that can attack each others? They SO wanted to see that! Some of the fillies in their respective Equestria hesitated to bring the pegasus with them as she will certainly discover what was going on with Black Shadow, and she could even find out about them having missed a bit of school to see the second race, but they couldn't find any excuse to refuse her to come without sounding suspicious.

When the fillies saw that the three Rainbow Dash were coming, they had to take a little time after school, and after they gathered, to decide on nicknames to give to them.

"Well, you two went with Phantom Bloom and Phantom Belle, right? Then I guess that I will go with Phantom Dash," Phantom's Rainbow Dash decided first.

The two other Rainbow Dash had more difficulty. Apple Death's Dash didn't have any specificity like the Crusaders (translation: she wasn't dead) and Sweetie Void's Dash didn't feel like using a "dark" nickname like the fillies even if she found them cool. Especially Shadow Speedster.

The later eventually decided on something similar. "I will be Chromatic Bolt!"

The remaining Rainbow Dash, however, still couldn't find anything as she rubbed her head thoughtfully. "... I guess that I will use the name of that Power Pony I became once. Zapp. I can't think of anything else."

Sweetie Void nodded happily. "It works! Now, to physically differentiate you..." She materialized three bandanas, a blue, a yellow, and a red. "Take the one you want."

The three mares shrugged and randomly took one, Chromatic taking the red one, Zapp taking the yellow one, and Phantom Dash taking the blue one.

"Alright! Time to go!"

They came out of the rift in Mute City and Sweetie Void immediately began to ask around for Lightning. Once they got a direction, Chromatic Bolt, Phantom Dash, and Zapp respectively put Shadow Speedster, Phantom Bloom, and Sweetie Ghoul on their back while Sweetie Void did the same with Black Apple and Phantom turned herself into her anthro form and took Phantom Belle in her arms. Apple Death then turned into a ghost while Scootabot deployed her wings, and all together, they flew in the given direction. Lightning, apparently, wasn't that far of Mute City. A few hundreds kilometers away. By flying, they should reach the place rapidly. They would take the train buuut... no money.

As they flew, the three Rainbow Dash were impressed by Mute City. The city truly was huge and some buildings really were gigantic. Manehattan looked like a simple village in comparison.

"And you visit places like that regularly?" Chromatic Bolt asked to Sweetie Void.

"Yep. Still not as impressive as that planet-sized city I visited with Kirby once in the Dream Universe."

"Would there be even something more impressive than a planet-sized city?" Apple Death asked.

"Who knows," Sweetie Void simply answered.

At cruise speed, it took them a couple of hours before they reached Lightning. They immediately knew that it was Lightning because the area was so covered by black clouds that it was as dark as the night, and it rained more lightning bolts than during the most violent storms. Thankfully, lights were placed to ensure that anyone could see something and the lightning bolts were essentially hitting lightning rods placed high in the sky, most of them being buildings made to collect the electricity and convert it into power like Captain Falcon said.

It surprisingly was beautiful in its own way. And somehow, people were perfectly living in these conditions in a city that could be seen below. It was crazy how people could adapt.

Among the buildings in the sky, tracks could be seen, and judging by the name of the one Mr. Zero said will be the next one to be used, Half Pipe, the fillies could guess which one it was. One of the tracks was indeed mostly made of half-pipe areas (where the floor curved into walls as if they were inside a pipe cut in half). This meant that the racers will be able to go on the walls, but there were no barrier so they will have to be careful not to go above these walls or they will fall into the city below. Even some of the flat sections didn't have barriers contrary to the previous tracks. The half pipes could be used as ramps with a lot of skill, but this will be a risky move.

Yes, this track already promised to be much more dangerous than the previous ones. Some exploration of the track revealed also the presence of lasers toward the end, an area where the track spiraled, and even another where the half-pipe turned upside down so the racers will have to go on the ceiling to not fall into the hole that replaced the floor at this moment. Oh, and there were also many tricky turns where it will be easy for the racers to end up jumping up the walls and fall beyond.

Yikes... The fillies already had vision of the slaughter that Black Shadow could cause in this track if he repeated the same tactic than on Big Blue. He could push the other racers beyond the walls or into the hole in the upside down area very easily, and let's not talk about the spiral.

The three Rainbow Dash looked at the track horrified as Zapp asked, "And the racers will race in THAT?! This is just asking for someone to be killed!"

"Well, the previous track had huge gaps where the racers had to jump above. Uh... From what we were told! I guess that building dangerous tracks is pretty common for the F-Zero Grand Prix," Sweetie Void said.

"And I suppose that the last two tracks of the Grand Prix will be even more dangerous," Phantom added. "Scaling difficulty, you know? And everything to put a good show to make money."

"Oh boy. This track already looks crazy! The next ones will be insane!" Scootabot exclaimed.

"So, uh... Where do we go?" Phantom Dash asked.

"Mmh... Captain Falcon must have already arrived. We should search for him. He must be somewhere in the building connected to the track," Sweetie Void said.

They all nodded and flew to the building in question, which was where the track spiraled. It passed right through it. Balconies for the public were present there.

Finding an entrance, they began searching around, quickly finding some of the other racers that were also wandering around for a reason or another, but there weren't many. A lot of them probably hadn't arrived yet, and a lot of the racers who had arrived were still busy repairing their machines after the heavy damage many of them took in the previous race courtesy of Black Shadow. At least, the F-Zero garages were fully equipped for this, but the racers certainly had to bring their own pieces.

Captain Falcon was among them. Even if the damage the Blue Falcon took weren't as bad as others, it still took quite a toll during the fierce battle it had had with Blood Falcon's machine. By the time the race had been over, it had been at its limit despite the reprieve it had had thanks to the Pit Rows that had been present not long before the finish line. But he was almost finished so the ponies decided to not bother him and, instead, went to the cafeteria. They were getting hungry after their small journey. Well, the ones who still needed to eat.

A few racers were present in here like Gomar and Shioh or Octoman, but none of the ones the fillies started to have good relation with so they simply took their meal and regarded the news that passed at the TV, only to freeze.

The news broadcast showed Black Shadow and some of his goons wreaking havoc around a power plant in the city below, and the Galactic Federation force was currently facing them only to get their butts terribly wiped out. Sweetie Void exchanged looks with Apple Death and Phantom before the three of them got up of their chairs. Apple Death immediately turned herself into a ghost and phased through the floor while the two others teleported.

The ponies left behind simply shrugged and returned to their meals knowing that the situation was in good hands, or hooves.

Instead of teleporting out of the building, Sweetie Void teleported back to the garage where Captain Falcon just finished repairing his machine.

"Black Shadow is attacking a power plant below! You're in?"

After the initial shock, Captain Falcon quickly recovered and nodded. "I'm in."

"You don't mind being teleported? It will be faster."

"Go on."

Sweetie Void nodded and teleported herself, Captain Falcon, and the Blue Falcon on a random road of the city she saw while flying earlier. Here, Captain Falcon entered his machine and put in the news broadcast, quickly identifying which power plant was being attacked, which was one in the opposite side of the city, far away of the track.

Nothing problematic. With his Blue Falcon, he will reach it in a couple of minutes.

Cackling, Black Shadow charged dark energy into a ball before he sent it at a group of vehicles of the Federation forces, blowing them up along with the officers around them. His minions around him finished the ones who survived.

He then received a call from Blood Falcon. «Master! We did it!»

Black Shadow grinned. "Good! Now get out of there quickly before you are caught in the explosion." He suddenly remarked something in the sky and quickly lowered himself, barely avoiding a sword that had been about to behead him. At the same time, a bolt of purple lightning hit one of his minion and then spreed from minion to minion, badly electrifying all the ones that were around him.

Getting up, he looked at the orange creature that almost beheaded him, then at the ghostly yellow creature that eliminated his minions so easily, and understood immediately that, contrary to the Federation forces, these two were no joke. The ghost one went on to continue to eliminate his minions all over the area, leaving the orange one to face him.

So Black Shadow prepared himself. "I don't know who and what you are, but you will quickly regret attacking me, little girl-horse-thing."

Phantom simply huffed at Black Shadow's threat, not even wanting to put effort into a reply for him. She teleported at him and swung her sword only for Black Shadow to block it with his arm covered in some dark energy. Not even raising an eyebrow at this, Phantom immediately created a group of Phantom Cubes and sent them at the terrorist only for him to destroy them with a punch. Now this took Phantom by surprise.

"So you aren't just bark," she said.

Black Shadow gave her his best evil grin at this before he covered his arm in a lot of dark energy that seemed to turn it into a shadow of itself before he yelled, "Shadow... PUNCH!!!"

Phantom quickly teleported before the punch could hit and appeared behind Black Shadow as the punch released a huge amount of dark energy like a shockwave that went forward and destroyed or sent flying everything over ten meters in front of him, leaving the road they were on badly damaged.

The filly attacked him again with her sword only for Black Shadow to turn around surprisingly rapidly for his size and to punch the weapon, not only blocking it but also pushing it back. He then followed his punch by another that Phantom dodged before she used the opening to thrust her sword forward right toward his head. But Black Shadow then parried her sword with one of his horns before he tried to punch her again. Phantom had to use her sword to block the punch, then swung only to be blocked again by another punch. They repeated the exchange a couple of times before Black Shadow jumped backward and created chains of dark energy that wrapped themselves around the filly.

"What?" she shouted, taken off guard, before Black Shadow gathered more energy into a ball. Thankfully, Phantom just had to teleport to free herself from the chains, avoiding the ball of black energy that exploded where she had been a second earlier.

Phantom then sent a wave of Phantom energy which Black Shadow definitively couldn't destroy with a punch, sending him in one of her illusions. Black Shadow looked around at the altered reality and jumped, avoiding a big circular saw coming from behind that could have cut him in half. Two more circular saws came from the sides but, this time, he destroyed them with his punches, then also punched and destroyed a big wrecking ball before jumping aside to avoid a big laser fired by a cannon. The road then turned into a slop that sent him sliding right toward Phantom and her sword only for him to block her weapon with his foot before he jumped and was able to wrap his arms around the filly before violently landing on the floor with her under him. Despite this, Phantom elbowed him in the belly, forcing him to free her as he walked backward holding his belly. She then made a spike come out of the ground and successfully pierced him in the shoulder despite his best attempt to avoid it.

Growling, Black Shadow broke the spike with a punch and hurled the tip that just pierced him at Phantom like a cannon ball. Phantom avoided it by teleporting and appeared right in front of the terrorist, her sword turned into a spear made of electricity. At the same time, Black Shadow charged energy into a punch again.

"Shadow PUNCH!!!"

The punch and the spear clashed, sending dark energy and bolts of electricity in all directions and making the road they were on shake.

Captain Falcon and Sweetie Void reached the power plant, the Blue Falcon being careful to avoid the destroyed vehicles and the bodies on the road, and found John Tanaka staggering on the road, badly injured.

The Captain quickly stopped the Blue Falcon and came out, catching the man, carefully lowering him on the ground. "Are you all right?"

Not answering, John Tanaka pointed at the power plant. "Jody's still inside the building."

At this moment, they heard a sound like an explosion and saw the clash between Phantom and Black Shadow further away, on another road.

Sweetie Void looked back at Captain Falcon. "You go save Jody, I'm going to help Phantom."

Captain Falcon nodded and returned inside the Blue Falcon. "Wait here," he instructed Tanaka before drew away toward the power plant.

Sweetie Void then flew toward Black Shadow.

The two ended their clash by jumping/flying backward.

And then, Black Shadow was punched out of nowhere on the cheek by a white hoof, sending him flying beyond the side of the road. The roads they were on still being far above the ground, the terrorist fell.

"Had fun?" Sweetie Void asked to Phantom.

"Yeah. The guy was more challenging than expected. I was starting to think of using something that would cause collateral damage."

This made Sweetie laugh.

But suddenly, Black Shadow, body entirely covered in dark energy, flew up from where he fell, looking very angry. He then charged a lot of energy into his hands before he rained bolts of dark electricity on the two fillies who quickly teleported out of the way. Staring at where Sweetie Void reappeared, he then raised a palm toward the sky and shot dozens of smaller balls of dark energy that went to fall where the alicorn was, continuing the attack as she flew to avoid it. At the same time, he saw Phantom charge toward him with her spear and successfully caught it, not reacting to the electricity coursing through him as a result. He then tightened his hand and broke the spear only for Phantom to use the piece she still had to pierce him where the spike pierced him earlier. Growling in pain, he was about to punch her when he suddenly took an energy ball on the head. Both Sweetie Void and Phantom then punched him on his ribs at the same time only for the both of them to be smashed on the back by his fists and to crash through the road. But a rift then opened behind him and both Sweetie Void and Phantom came out of it and rammed him on the back, sending him crashing on the road.

Sweetie Void then called her ten swords and sent them against Black Shadow who quickly got up and defended himself against them with his arms like he did earlier with Phantom's sword. But he couldn't do anything against ten weapons attacking him from all directions at once so he quickly found himself with cuts all over his body. Despite them, he was able to destroy three of the swords, making Sweetie Void angry. Rebuilding them was very difficult! So she teleported beside Black Shadow and punched him, sending him flying again further on the road.

Right at this moment, as Black Shadow was getting up, the power plant exploded. Then, before he could react, the Blue Falcon came and rammed into him before brusquely stopping, sending him flying and rolling a very long distance on the road.

Captain Falcon came out of the vehicle with Jody Summer, unconscious, in his arms. "That scum overloaded the power plant. I barely escaped with Jody."

Despite everything he took, Black Shadow got up and, growling in anger and hate, wrapped himself in dark energy again, allowing him to float. "Tonight, in the race, I will make you regret what you did, Falcon!" he yelled before he disappeared in a cloud of dark energy.

"Of course he can teleport..." Sweetie Void grumbled.

"He still intends to race despite his injuries?" Phantom wondered.

"Seems like it," Captain Falcon answered. "This guy is made of strong stuff." He turned to look at the two fillies. "Good job you two. Nobody has ever been able to fight and hurt him like that."

Phantom snorted. "We fought worse. But I admit that he surprised me when he destroyed by Phantom Cubes. It's the first time that someone does it."

"Hey. Where's Apple Death?" Sweetie Void then asked.

"Right here!" the Spirit of Death shouted as she approached. "Ah just finished cleaning the area of Black Shadow's goons. There were a lot of them. The police's starting to arrest the ones who survived."

Captain Falcon eyed the three. "You really hadn't been kidding when you said that you could deal with Black Shadow. You three did more damage to him and his group than I ever did."

The fillies looked proud of themselves at his words.

Despite the victory over Black Shadow and the lost he suffered, he still caused a lot of casualty among the officers and the civilians unlucky enough to be present. And the power plant he destroyed was a huge lost to the company it belonged to. And then there were John and Jody who were now too injured to race and were forced to withdraw from the Grand Prix. Two less allies to count on in the races...

They weren't the only ones. Mr. EAD, Billy, Super Arrow (another ally), and Leon also had to withdraw because they weren't able to repair their machines by the time of the race. This made the total of racers who withdrew since the start of the Grand Prix a total of seven, almost a third of the participants. In Mr. EAD's case, after he fell into a gap, this had been certain. Unless you had a spare machine on hand, falling was pretty much game over.

And with how easy it was to fall off this third track... well... The ponies had a feeling that the number of participants will diminish again by the end.

Also, since the whole event had been broadcasted, then everyone got to see the fillies in action and Black Shadow getting his butt kicked. To say that everyone was now staring at them with respect was an understatement. And Black Shadow no doubt lost a lot of fear factor. Also, the criminal racers were now giving them a wide berth. Excepted Zoda but this guy was mad so they weren't surprised. Apparently, the guy had a machine in his suit constantly pumping adrenaline and dopamine into his body!

And finally...

"It seems that you girls forgot to tell us about this Black Shadow guy," Zapp accused.

"Sorry Rainbow... uh... Zapp, but if we told you and the others that there was a guy like him participating in the Grand Prix, you probably would have thought that it was too dangerous for us to go," Shadow Speedster said. "Beside, it's not like he's a problem with Sweetie and the others around. And he doesn't even dare to try anything while we are on F-Zero ground, he doesn't seem to want to get the merchants at the top on his back. So, as long as we don't leave the track and the buildings part of it, we're safe from him."

"If you say so..." Chromatic Bolt said, eyeing the pegasus filly. "But now, we want to know everything that you know. It's clear that something bigger is going on. Then we will decide on what to do."

So the fillies reluctantly revealed everything to the mares, about Black Shadow, Deathborn, them going after the belt for some reason, and so on. The three Rainbow Dash's first instinct was to go and deal with Black Shadow themselves but the fillies stopped them and convinced them to just let things go for now. The priority was ensuring that none of the baddies would get the belt, and for this, one of the good guys like Captain Falcon or Phoenix needed to win the Grand Prix. And so, all they could do was watch the races and remain on guard in case one of the villains did something like Black Shadow just did with the power plant. In the end, the Rainbow Dash agreed that the fillies (Black Apple, Shadow Speedster, Phantom Bloom, and Phantom Belle) could remain, feeling that it was safe enough despite what was going on as long as they remained on F-Zero ground, in addition of the already existing condition of not leaving the UME's side. As soon as the race was over, they would return to their respective Equestria immediately.

It was eventually time for the race to start and the remaining racers placed themselves at the departing line while Mr. Zero appeared on TV, this time in a booth. He probably didn't want to risk being hit by a lightning bolt while in his pod.

"Give a thunderous roar for our new track!" he shouted before thunder was dramatically heard through the screen. Reactions from the public at his pun were mixed. "Aah. Lightning. What a great place to have a race, don't you think?" The ponies weren't sure if he was being genuine or sarcastic. "Going at the speed of sound while lightning rains all around you! Does it sound epic to you or not? If you say "no" then you are weird. Anyway, as you can see, our racers are taking place. However, I am sad to announce that several had to withdraw after... the last race. Say goodbye to Billy, Super Arrow, Leon, and Mr. EAD. Also, due to injury they got... uh... in duty, Jody Summer and John Tanaka won't be able to race anymore either. But Black Shadow is still racing, to everyone's joy!" Now they clearly heard the sarcasm. Mr. Zero really didn't like Black Shadow despite the profit his actions certainly gave to the merchants thanks to how intense he turned the races. The audience was beating all the records.

"Now, look at this track! Half pipes! Half pipes everywhere! And with no barriers at the top of them! Which means that these half pipes can be used as ramps so our competitors can propel themselves into the air! Let's see how they will use that to their advantage. But they will have to be careful of it will be an assured fall, so using them will be very, very, very, very, very, very risky. But as they say: nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Now, is everyone ready?!"

The countdown started. Some of the ponies were biting their hooves in anticipation of what they think will be another carnage.

"GO!!!"

The race started surprisingly calmly. It seemed that the racers were testing the water with this track to decide when and how to use the half pipes. A sharp turn almost right after the start almost caused a few of them to go overboard but nothing happened in the end. Even Black Shadow was rather calm compared to before, simply bumping the other racers here and there, probably also studying the track. Already, the racers identified a few places where they could use the remps to gain shortcuts if they did it well when they unlocked the boost.

The first highlight happened after a large turn, at the section where the half pipe turned upside down. There, Zoba managed to push Pico into the hole. The reptile quickly ejected himself from his falling machine, a parachute deploying itself above him.

"Zoba... From now on, watch your back..." he growled before he called his personal ship. Out of question to fall all the way to the city below.

"And we have our first out!" Mr. Zero shouted. "Sorry Pico. Maybe next time. But so far, this first lap is going better than expected. And it isn't even Black Shadow or Blood Falcon who sent Pico into the hole contrary to what we anticipated. However, I fear that this is just the calm before the storm. And yes, I know that we already are in the middle of a storm but you know what I mean."

"It's great when criminals eliminate each others. That's one less to worry about," Sweetie Void commented just as the first racers passed before the balconies, going through the spiral section.

It was hard to follow who was at the lead because it constantly changed and the racers were rather close to each others. Don Genie was at the lead, then Captain Falcon, then QQQ, then Michael Chain, then QQQ again, then Gomar and Shioh, then Don Genie again, then Black Shadow, then Captain Falcon again... This continued on and on in just the space of a few seconds. Black Shadow actually tried to push Captain Falcon into the lasers when they arrived at this section but the Captain masterfully avoided him and started the second lap first.

Now the fun started. With the boost unlocked and the racers having a better idea of the track, the more daring ones started to do as Mr. Zero said and used the half pipes as ramps in the right areas to propel themselves into the air to land on other sections of the track, gaining some precious seconds. Dai Goroh, however, tried and failed and found himself eliminated. Michael Chain followed just behind, wanting to show off but failing miserably. But others such as Captain Falcon, Phoenix, Black Shadow, Blood Falcon, or Samurai Goroh had no problem and quickly found themselves far ahead of the ones not daring to jump, pretty much cutting the racers in two groups.

Blood Falcon stared at the Blue Falcon as it took the lead again with a brief boost and smirked before he grabbed a detonator.

He pressed the button.

And the Black Bull, Black Shadow's machine, suddenly exploded, to his horror.

"What?! HOW?!?"

"What happened? The Black Bull's engine suddenly blew up!" Mr. Zero exclaimed. "A default? A loosened screw? A piece not correctly put in place? No matter what, this seems to be the end for the King of Evil. Ah, no. I see him ramping out of the wreck, still alive." He sounded disappointed at this. "Probably his cockpit being elevated compared to the rest of his machine saved him. But between that and the beat down he received earlier, this is NOT his day. AH!"

Little Ghost cackled, gaining everyone's attention.

"So this is what ya talked about?" Apple Death asked.

"Yeah. I decided to follow Black Shadow and Blood Falcon to see if I could find where they go only to see Blood Falcon creep into the Blue Falcon's garage and place something in the engine, really well hidden. When he was gone, I took what he planted and placed it in the Black Bull's engine instead just before Black Shadow and some of his goons came and took the vehicle away."

Many laughed, and both Sweetie Void and Phantom grinned. "Nice!"

"But this means that we should leave someone in the Blue Falcon's garage in case they try something like that again," Sweetie Ghoul said, and the others agreed.

Meanwhile, despite Black Shadow gone, the race seemed to gain in intensity as the racers were becoming bolder, and Blood Falcon didn't like what happened to his master and pushed QQQ out of the track at the start of the spiraling section. He then attacked Don Genie in the laser section but the head mogul hit him back with a twirl in return that almost sent him off course. Meanwhile, a laser had reason of James McCloud who had been pushed into one by Samurai Goroh.

In the third lap, Blood Falcon went after Captain Falcon, the two starting a terrible battle at the head with Don Genie and Gomar and Shioh behind them while Octoman tried his luck with using the half pipes as a ramp to catch up only to fail and fall. In the upside down section, Zoda almost did to The Skull what he did to Pico but a boost saved him at the last second, taking Zoba off guard who fell into the hole instead.

Once they passed the spiral section, the last racers gave everything they had to reach the finish line first with their boost (helped by a Pit Row present just before the line) and Blood Falcon tried to push Captain Falcon into the lasers. The Captain, however, avoided him and passed the line first followed by Blood Falcon, Don Genie, and Samurai Goroh.

"That's another victory for the Captain!" Mr. Zero blurted out as everybody cheered.

"Black Shadow must see red!" Scootabot said.

"Ah don't want ta be Blood Falcon. Black Shadow'll gore him with his horns," Phantom Bloom said.

"Another memorable race, my friends!" Mr. Zero continued. "This track gave us all its promises and quite a few surprises! So far, Captain Falcon is at the lead and is on his way to win the Grand Prix! And to everyone's surprise, Black Shadow is joining the bottom of the ranking with two races he couldn't finish! I don't even know if we will see him again in the next one after all the damage his machine received in that explosion! Without forgetting the injuries he has gotten! But we are not safe from a surprise that could turn around the situation. Other racers can still catch up and Captain Falcon could very well be forced to withdraw, especially knowing what the next track has in store. Indeed, the next track is in Aeropolis, another new location for our great pleasure. Name: Dragon Slope. Let me tell you, if you thought that this track was hell, you saw nothing. See you tomorrow!"

Blood Falcon walked into the hallways of the building, toward the garage where they put his Blood Hawk, not feeling well.

"FALCOOOON!!!!"

Blood Falcon froze right here as he saw a very, very enraged and injured Black Shadow walk toward him, dark energy coming out of his body.

"M-master... I swear, I don't know what happened! I placed the bomb in the Blue Falcon like you instructed me!"

"Someone must have seen you and somehow put the bomb in my machine! How can you be so incompetent?!"

"But... But I saw nobody! I made sure of this! I was constantly on the loo-Ack!"

Black Shadow suddenly grabbed him around the neck, squeezing tightly, and glaring at him in the eyes. "Let me make it clear. You better not fail me again or I will have your head decorating one of my horns. Understood? Tomorrow, do everything in your power to ensure that nobody gets the better of me. Especially not Captain Falcon. I must win this belt."

His vision darkening because of the lack of oxygen, Blood Falcon nodded before Black Shadow released him and walked to the garage where they stored his Black Bull.

"So, what did you think of the race?" Shadow Speedster asked as they walked in the building in search of Captain Falcon.

"I admit, that was awesome," Phantom Dash answered for the three mares.

"Yeah. I understand why you don't want to miss them," Chromatic Bolt continued. "Now I really want to see the next one too."

"But I'm still surprised that nobody died. Even the ones who fell all had a way to avoid crashing into the city below," Zapp added.

"Yes, I guess that when you participate in a F-Zero race, you prepare a way to survive in case you fall," Sweetie Void said. "But I'm worried of what Black Shadow will do now. He must be getting desperate."

"Eeyup. And there's nothing more dangerous than a cornered animal," Black Apple agreed. "With two races left and him so low in the ranking..."

"He still has Blood Falcon. He's really high in the ranking," Phantom Belle reminded.

"But he ain't as dangerous as his master," Phantom Bloom said. "If Captain Falcon and the others manage to get rid of him, then Black Shadow'll have nothing left."

"And then we really will have to watch our back," Phantom finished.

Author's Note

1.Dr. Stewart
2.~~Mr. EAD~~
3.James McCloud
4.~~Jody Summer~~
5.~~Pico~~
6.Phoenix
7.~~QQQ~~
8.~~Super Arrow~~
9.Mrs. Arrow
10.~~Zoda~~
11.Don Genie
12.The Skull
13.~~Leon~~
14.Jack Levin
15.Captain Falcon
16.~~Bio Rex~~
17.Samurai Goroh
18.Antonio Guster
19.~~Dai Goroh~~
20.Blood Falcon
21.Black Shadow(?)
22.Roger Buster
23.Silver Neelsen
24.Dr. Clash
25.~~John Tanaka~~
26.Gomar & Shioh
27.Draq
28.~~Michael Chain~~
29.~~Octoman~~
30.~~Billy~~

Chapter 95: Aeropolis

The ponies were now all in the Falcon Flyer, flying toward the planet where Aeropolis was located. Like with Big Blue, the journey will last a few hours so the occasion was used by Captain Falcon to rest while the ship's computer worked on repairing the Blue Falcon. The ponies were also sleeping, gathered in a pile, excepted Sweetie Void and the Death Quatuor who were using the ship's computer at the cockpit to learn more about their destination while trying to not bother the sleeping Captain on the chair just beside them.

Aeropolis was a sight to behold, that was sure. The photos showed a city of skyscrapers in a bright yellow sky. Because of the brightness, nothing much could be seen beyond a certain distance, but apparently, this was a very huge city, going for dozens of miles. The skyscrapers themselves could measure a good mile or two or even three in height. Huge machines called Neo Uranos constantly constructed new skyscrapers to house the ever growing population, and all of this was managed by a supercomputer called Mother-Q.

Mother-Q really was responsible of everything. It was a giant white sphere that moved around, storing and analysing every single little bits of information in the city including from the citizens to create the perfect living environment. A place seemingly as close to an utopia as it could be. Now THAT was what one thought when thinking "future".

Such a city really seemed too good to be true. The fillies couldn't help themselves but wonder what was the catch. Well, they found one: a total absence of privacy. Mother-Q knew absolutely everything that was going on in the city. All your life was constantly observed. When you woke up. If you did push ups after waking up. What kind of shampoo you used. What kind of toothpaste you used. What you ate. What shows you watched. If you liked or didn't like your boss. If you were overweight. You stole a cookie in the cookie jar? Mother-Q saw that. You wanted some alone time at your computer? Too bad! Big Sister Mother-Q was watching you! E-VE-RY-THING! ALL! THE! TIME!

Well, at least, Mother-Q knew to keep all these info to herself. And thankfully she wasn't the blackmailing type. She was purely professional. So the citizens learned to not mind her. And this had the upside of having crimes being pretty much non-existent in the city. If anyone tried to do something against the law, or even planned to do something, Mother-Q immediately knew and acted in consequence. The only things she could do nothing against were spur-of-the-moment actions, like someone grabbing an object in anger and smashing it on another person.

It meant that they won't have to worry about Black Shadow attempting anything in the city. Mother-Q would immediately know and this would end up very badly for him. Was this why they chose Aeropolis? After what Black Shadow did in Lightning? Or was it planned from the start? The fillies weren't sure.

Also, the city was pretty minimalist and monotone. Most of the buildings looked like each others and lacked details and decorations that would give them a little personality. At least, the skyscrapers in Manehattan each had a little something that made them different from each others even if it wasn't always obvious.

"If Rarity had come, she would have been disgusted by the total lack of glamour and style of this city," Sweetie Ghoul eventually whispered, making all of them laugh quietly.

They arrived in Aeropolis, landed in a spatioport, and booked an hotel and a garage for the Blue Falcon. Contrary to previous tracks, Dragon Slope apparently didn't have any structure to house public, pilots, and machines, so they had to do with what was around. Captain Falcon thankfully didn't mind giving some credits to them for the hotel. And as soon as they were settled, they returned to sleep.

And Sweetie Void, who still remained up, went to observe the track. And the less she could say was that Mr. Zero hadn't been kidding. Half Pipe had been nothing compared to what this one had in store for the racers.

The track was pretty much composed of three sections: the first was some weird loop that looked like a one hundred eighty degree folded hairpin, first making you roll parallel to the walls of the skyscrapers and then upside down before entering a tunnel, the first two turns (the one making you enter the "hairpin" and the "folded" part) each having a Pit Row; then came a series of four massive drops, three of which made you land on small floating pieces of track which had even smaller pieces (two per section, the top one smaller than the bottom one) hanging above them for the racers who were able to jump far enough to land on them, and none of these sections had guard rails; finally there was what the track was named after, a big climb back to the start of the track that twisted like the body of an oriental dragon, which didn't have guard rails either for the first half, and even had a slippy row halfway through that first half in the middle of the road. To note that the climb narrowed a lot at the second half but, thankfully, guard rails were present there, and a Pit Row was also present at the beginning after the slippy row. The track also passed before the line in the middle of the top of some building from which vehicles constantly left and entered using vertical roads built on its walls at both sides of the track.

Sweetie Void was sweating. These drops promised nothing good, and that slippy row with no guard rails around... Yikes...

And that was "just" the fourth race? What did they prepare for the fifth one then?

She then heard a sound that she identified coming from her dimensional phone. Taking it out of her mane, she looked at it and saw that she received a text from the Pokémon World.

They identified the location of a second Team RR hideout, this time in the middle of a vast tropical jungle, and they asked for her help.

Well, neat! But this meant that her friends will probably have to return to Equestria without her help. At least, she could count on Apple Death and Phantom to bring them back. And she will have to hurry up to not miss the next race.

She quickly took a lot of photos of the track before she returned in the hotel and warned the Death Quatuor, who had been playing with cards, that she must go and why she had to go before she gave them the photos. These will allow Captain Falcon to study the track and determine the best course, especially to avoid a fall. She made sure to take ones where everything was visible, including the position of the boosters.

Finally, after a "See you quickly!" she opened a rift to her Equestria, where it was very early morning, and gathered her Pokémon to bring them with her. She didn't get to let them out last time, when she fought Ghetsis, but this time, maybe she will finally see the fruits of their training. They were still far from the level to take on the average RR grunt, but together, they should be able to do some damage.

Once she had all her Pokémon in their Poké Balls, she left a message to Rarity about not being able to go to school because she had been called to help against Team RR before she opened a rift to the Pokémon World.

Appearing before the complex of the portal island, she saw Gordon himself waiting for her. The old man pointed in a direction and said, "If you go a little over two thousands miles in this direction, you will reach the jungle. Others are already present in a camp at the jungle's edge."

"Thanks! You got any problem since Ghetsis' attack?"

Gordon snorted. "Believe it or not but that fool returned with another group of idiots. But this time we were ready and I personally showed Ghetsis that this is not because he has a Legendary dragon and he thinks of himself as all mighty that he can walk on everyone else."

Sweetie Void whistled. "You really earned your reputation, uh? Not even one of the most powerful Legendaries in the world scares you despite you having no Legendary in your team. Well, all right then, off I go! Continue the good job!" And she flew away in the direction pointed by Gordon.

She rapidly reached the jungle and, after some searching, found the camp. The jungle was really huge so searching the hideout won't be an easy feat without knowing its exact position. If they used the same method than last time to discover it, then this shouldn't be a problem. Among the trainers present, she found many she knew such as Gym Leaders, Elite Four members, without forgetting Champions and ex-Champions. Much more than in the assault against the island. Among them were Red, Blue, Gold, Ruby, and even Victor. Calem, the Champion of Kalos who possessed Yveltal among others, was also present, as well as Hilbert, ex-Champion of Unova who currently possessed Zekrom, Rosa, current Champion of that same region who possessed Reshiram and Kyurem, Lance, Steven, Alder, Iris, Diantha, Leon... Even N was present, really not liking how Team RR was treating the Pokémon! They really were sending almost everything this time!

Dawn wasn't present however, obviously still guarding Spear Pillar. Elio was also absent, probably still searching the Rainbow Rocket HQ in the Ultra Space. Gordon had remained guarding the portal. And Cynthia...

Sweetie Void really hoped to encounter Cyrus during this assault to make him regret being born.

"You gathered pretty much all the Champions and ex-Champions in the world and some trainers as powerful as them among many others and you still called my help?" she asked jokingly once she landed beside Red.

The man shrugged. "Better be cautious. Team Rainbow Rocket already proved that they are very tough."

"True."

The alicorn remarked that Red, as well as a few others, were now equipped with a Snag Machine. Nice! By capturing the Rockets' Shadow Pokémon, they will reduce the enemy's forces and, by the same occasion, add the captured Shadow Pokémon to their own teams to face the grunts. Shadow moves weren't effective against other Shadow Pokémon, but not all the Rockets' Pokémon were Shadow ones so having some will be a huge advantage against the ones that weren't.

With Sweetie's arrival, they were ready to go. So, in the following minutes, they left the camp and entered the jungle.

Only to almost immediately be ambushed.

These poor fools...

The ponies left in the F-Zero-verse had to wake up and return to their Equestria for school without Sweetie Void, but Apple Death didn't mind opening a portal for Black Apple, Shadow Speedster, and Chromatic Bolt. The next F-Zero race won't happen before the evening (in Equestria) so they didn't worry about having to miss school again. They told Miss Cheerilee why Sweetie Void was absent, and class started.

When school ended, Sweetie Void still hadn't returned. Thankfully, Phantom came to bring them back to the F-Zero-verse, once they warned their families that they returned there. The Rainbow Dash also returned, now caught in the F-Zero hype too despite their initial doubts due to the dangers. They still had them, but to Tartarus with that! These were epic races at the speed of sound on tracks that can have loops and all other kinds of cool sections worthy of the best rollercoasters! And the dangers added more thrill to them! Of course, they hoped that nobody will die but, so far, everything went well. The pilots were prepared. The only hazard really seemed to be Black Shadow. If Little Ghost hadn't seen Blood Falcon put the bomb in the Blue Falcon, Captain Falcon... would have actually been alright. Captain Falcon told them after the race that he had a computer aboard his machine that would have detected the bomb and warned him about it.

That made the whole thing hilarious. No matter what, Black Shadow's plan would have failed. Little Ghost just made the failure painful to him. And with some luck, Black Shadow took his anger on Blood Falcon and the clone won't be able to race anymore in reason of... very bad injuries. At best. They also hoped that Black Shadow wasn't able to repair his machine in time but they doubted it. He was the head of such a powerful organization, they obviously had the technology to repair the Black Bull no matter the damage, or may even have copies of it in the worst case scenarios such as a fall. Unless he was one of these bad guys who thought that there was no way something like that would happen to them.

When they found Captain Falcon in the garage where the Blue Falcon was stored, he was still studying the photos left by Sweetie Void, especially the ones of the big climb. While the drops were the really dangerous part, the many twists of the climb, the slippy row in the first half, and the narrowing path in the second half made it the trickier part to drive on. Accidents could easily happen there, even with the reduced number of racers.

As soon as they entered, the Captain looked up from the photos and immediately remarked Sweetie Void's absence. "Mmh? Your friend still hasn't returned?"

"Yeah, probably still fighting Team Rainbow Rocket," Shadow Speedster answered.

It was pure apocalypse in the jungle. Dynamaxed Pokémon and Shadow Pokémon moved everywhere, spreading destruction with their Max-moves (Z-moves and moves from mega-evolved Pokémon also helped a lot in the destruction). Large chunks of the forest were gone, and part of the rest was on fire or frozen or flooded. There was now a huge crack separating it in two where the Rocket hideout could be seen under the surface. Mega-Mewtwo Y attacked Dynamax Shadow Primal Groudon and sent it flying far away while Mega-Rayquaza swept the jungle with Dragon Pulse, leveling more of it.

Tank, who had just now evolved into a Blastoise after helping taking out a Shadow Ninetails, propelled Volta at a Dynamax Shadow Gyarados using his water cannons on his back. The Pichu was able to grab the crest on its head before she used her most powerful Thunderbolt. Being a Pichu, the attack hurt her, but it was extremely effective against the Gyarados whose two types (Water and Flying) were both weak to Electric-type. The Gyarados moved erratically its head to make her let go, but Volta stubbornly held on and continued the Thunderbolt until the giant Pokémon eventually fell unconscious, right beside a huge pile of unconscious Pokémon and RR grunts on which Sweetie Void was sitting while repeatedly slapping a Shadow Arbok.

"Good job, Volta!" she congratulated.

"Thank youuuuuhh..." the Pichu slurred, dizzy, before she fell from the Gyarados' head. She then glowed before her body changed, finally evolving into a Pikachu.

Sweetie Void immediately dropped the unconscious Arbok and went to hug Volta. "You did it, Volta! You evolved!"

"F-finally..."

"There." Sweetie Void healed the Pikachu.

"Thanks!"

"Now, let's continue to kick butts!"

"Yay!"

Sweetie Void then flew to punch Dynamax Shadow Xerneas who was in the middle of battling Dynamax Yveltal, not minding a group of bird Pokémon that was swept away by tornadoes sent by Lugia.

"We don't know when she'll be back. Time in the Pokémon World's much slower than in this universe. She may end up missin' the race," Black Apple said.

"We can't do anything about it," Scootabot said before she climbed at the desk before the Captain and looked down at the photos. "So, you think this track will be a problem?"

"Yes, obviously," Captain Falcon answered. "The drops, for starting, will be perfect for Black Shadow to throw the others off track. Just a little push while in the air and they can miss the landing. For the same reason, it will be the perfect occasion to get ourselves rid of him and Blood Falcon, at least for this race. Then there's the climb. I don't think that Black Shadow and Blood Falcon will take the risk of trying anything during the slippy row section. It would be too easy for them to slip off track while attacking the others. However, that narrow section would be perfect to cause a pileup. We will have to be cautious there, me and the others."

"Maybe we should find the other racers and talk to them about this," Phantom Belle proposed. "Discuss together about avoiding the worst."

Captain Falcon agreed.

Thankfully, he had contact with some of the racers he became acquainted to during this Grand Prix and previous ones, such as Dr. Stewart, Phoenix and QQQ, the couple Arrow, Silver Neelsen, and a few others, so it was easy to come up with a place to gather and talk.

The solution was simple: avoid Black Shadow. Try to keep a distance from him. Especially at the narrow section. A pileup was the worst thing that could happen in this track. It could potentially wipe out a lot of racers, and who knew how many among them would be able to repair their machines in time for the last race. And the more racers started the last race, the better.

The time of the race eventually came and Sweetie Void still hadn't arrived.

"And here we are, ladies and gentlecreatures!" Mr. Zero began from his pod. "In Aeropolis! Joined by the wonderful supercomputer Mother-Q herself!" The camera then moved to show Mother-Q's giant white sphere now present above the second half of the climb, just after the Pit Row after the slippy row. She had linked herself to the buildings around, but also to the track, holographic windows with all kinds of informations present around.

"Woah! That's one heck of a guest!" Apple Death exclaimed in surprise. "Ah didn't think she'd come!"

"I would ask her to join me in commenting the race but she's sadly the silent type," Mr. Zero continued. "Anyway, let's start with the bad news. Black Shadow is still in the course! It's your cue to boo." Booing came from many of the buildings around the track. "Also, as you can see..." He showed the racers at the line. "the precious track did a number on our participants. Pico, Dai Goroh, Michael Chain, QQQ, Octoman, and Zoba all had to withdraw, putting the total of remaining racers to seventeen. But the reduced number doesn't mean that this race will be boring, far from it. Look over there."

Mr. Zero then proceeded to show the few quirks of this track, mainly the drops and the huge twisting climb that promised a good show. Nothing the fillies and most of the racers didn't already know.

"So, are you hyped or are you super hyped? Because I am super SUPER hyped! Let's start the race now!"

The countdown began and ended with the now usual shout from Mr. Zero, and the racers kicked off like rockets. They passed the hairpin without trouble and reached the drops in just about fifteen seconds, which was already a lot considering that a lap in the first track lasted about half a minute without using the boost and less than twenty seconds with the boost. That was saying something about the size of this track as the hairpin was just a very small part of it.

As planned, Captain Falcon and the others who had been with him tried to avoid Black Shadow but it wasn't easy as the King of Evil continued to play brutal and did everything he could to approach the other racers to attack them. And even when they managed to avoid Black Shadow, they still had to contend with Blood Falcon and, to some extend, Samurai Goroh and Don Genie who were both more brutal than average as they attacked every now and then, but not as much as the two members of the BS Group. Antonio Guster was mostly violent to Samurai Goroh so they didn't have to worry about him. All the others were mostly pacifists but still bumped and twirled if needed, and avoided to do this to allies.

Thankfully, even while in the air, the machines could still be steered to control where they would land so, even if they were pushed, that wasn't the end. So, contrary to what many thought, nobody ended up falling off track during the four drops. It really helped that it was very hard to hit another racer while in the air. Some machines could glide further and fall more slowly than others depending of their design, speed, and weight. Phoenix's ship-like machine, for example, was very advantaged in this. Good luck reaching him mid-fall. In the last drop, he could even soar over a big part of the beginning of the climb. When he landed, he found himself at the lead far ahead of the others. Black Shadow was in the second position, followed by Captain Falcon, Blood Falcon, and Dr. Clash.

Speaking of the climb, the real battle started there. Just after the landing, Blood Falcon managed to send Dr. Clash off track while Black Shadow went after Captain Falcon. The attacks didn't last long however as they reached the slippy row and nobody was crazy enough to attempt anything while on this section. Zoda would have certainly tried something, but thankfully, he was out.

They reached the end of the slippy row which marked the halfway point of the climb where the barriers returned. As they passed under Mother-Q, Black Shadow and Blood Falcon teamed up against Captain Falcon, surrounding him by the time they reached the narrow section that was just large enough for their three machines side by side to pass without touching the guard rails.

"Seems like Black Shadow and Blood Falcon decided that enough was enough and now really want to end Captain Falcon. Will he be able to come out of this situation in one piece?" Mr. Zero wondered.

The path didn't remain narrow for long, thankfully, and by the time they passed in the middle of the top of the building, Phoenix decided to slow down and to let the three pass him before he accelerated to chase them. When they unlocked the boost at the start of the second lap, he immediately used it to ram Black Shadow from behind, causing him to lose control a bit. This gave Captain Falcon some much needed respite as he used the first Pit Row to replenish the Blue Falcon's energy, now only having to deal with Blood Falcon. Luckily for Phoenix, he didn't end up facing Black Shadow alone as he was quickly joined by Mrs. Arrow and The Skull finally catching up to them. The Skull wasn't part of the alliance formed by Captain Falcon and some of the others but he knew that Black Shadow had to be stopped so he was willing to put aside any rivalry to help against him.

"Captain Falcon will owe one to Phoenix after this race," Mr. Zero commented while the ponies sighed in relief.

Again, the drops happened without incident. However, at the slippy row, Antonio Guster ended up falling off track because he attempted to use his boost to ram into Samurai Goroh only for him to dodge at the last moment, leading to Antonio sliding uncontrollably before falling.

"I thought nobody was supposed to be stupid enough to try anything while on this section," Scootabot said.

"Anger can make you act stupidly," Phantom explained. "And remember that this guy is very angry at Goroh. Something about being betrayed by him."

While they talked, Black Shadow was able to damage Mrs. Arrow's vehicle enough that she was forced to give up the race just as they passed under Mother-Q (Black Shadow kept her away from the Pit Row just before so she couldn't replenish her energy), but James McCloud thankfully came to take her place.

Which was a wrong decision to take because the narrowed section followed and this was the occasion Black Shadow waited to do an ugly. Phoenix saw this and panicked but could do nothing as Black Shadow sent The Skull crashing against the guard rail right in the path of James McCloud. Dr. Stewart then crashed into James McCloud, Samurai Goroh crashed into the two of them, followed by Don Genie, Roger Buster, Gomar and Shioh, Silver Neelsen, Draq, and finally Jack Levin. Of the seventeen racers that started the race, only four remained: Captain Falcon, Blood Falcon, Phoenix, and Black Shadow.

The public gasped. This brought back some bad memories of the accident. And the ponies could only look in horror as their worst fear happened. Even Mr. Zero was silent.

Black Shadow cackled as he left his art behind, Phoenix slightly ahead of him. The time traveller had his teeth clenched but he decided to not try anything anymore against Black Shadow as he used his boost to catch up with Captain Falcon and Blood Falcon who were just a bit further ahead, side by side.

As they started the third lap and went through the hairpin, the damaged vehicles were quickly removed from the track, all their pilots confirmed alive but more or less injured.

Mr. Zero spreed the news. "They are alright everyone! I just got words that nobody got killed! But apparently, James McCloud and Roger Buster are in pretty bad shape. I hope they will survive their injuries. God... Why did we let Black Shadow participate...?" he wondered to himself. "Uh... What...?"

Everyone's attention returned to Captain Falcon, Blood Falcon, and Phoenix. As they approached the drops, the time traveller bumped into Blood Falcon from behind, destabilizing him. Captain Falcon then twirled, causing Blood Falcon to spin uncontrollably. He wasn't able to regain control in time as they reached the first drop and ended up falling.

The public cheered very loudly from the buildings around. Blood Falcon was out. And, hopefully, he won't be able to return in the next race with his machine totally destroyed by the fall. Bloop Falcon still was able to get out of his vehicle using a jetpack, the clone looking ready to explode.

But that wasn't enough. There was still Black Shadow. During the climb, he caught up to Captain Falcon and Phoenix using his boost. But the other two also had their boost so they used and abused it, reducing their machines' energy to almost nothing. Thanks to this, they were able to avoid Black Shadow until they reached the finish line. The two reached it pretty much at the same time but it quickly turned out that Phoenix reached it first by a few hundredths of a second.

"Well, so... First, Phoenix. Second, Captain Falcon. And third, Black Shadow. Aaaand... that's all." Mr. Zero said. "Now... that's a race that will remain in everybody's memories. That's for sure. Now, the last track will be in..." He looked down at a paper. "Phantom Road? Slim-Line Slits? Where the hell is that? Sorry everyone, I don't have more info. Seems like the bosses want to keep the surprise. They just say to gather back at Twist Road in Mute City fifteen minutes before the usual hour. Then, a Transport Ship will transport the racers and their machines to wherever Phantom Road is. Mmh... To be frank, I don't know what to feel. After what happened, I'm not really up for a surprise. But this will still be the last race of the Grand Prix, and I'm even more excited to see how this will end than ever. Will Black Shadow win? Seems unlikely considering how low in the ranking he is. But, I must remind you of the following rule: in the last race of the Grand Prix, if a racer is not able to reach the finish line for one reason or another, then it will be considered as an abandonment and their name will be retired from the ranking, like the names of all the racers who had had to give up until now. You know what this means... See you t... What now?"

Just as Captain Falcon got out of the Blue Falcon, Blood Falcon landed right in front of him. Before he could react, the clone grabbed his arm before he shouted "Do it! Now!" The next instant, the two were warped away.

Silence followed for several seconds before Mr. Zero yelled, "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!"

Black Shadow cackled again before a black ship with a similar design to the Black Bull suddenly came and took him and his machine using some tractor beam. Phantom suddenly teleported above it, ready to attack it in a way that it wouldn't kill Black Shadow so they could question him about where Captain Falcon was warped to, only for it to fly away as rapidly as it came. By the time she could even think of following it, it had already disappeared into the brightness of Aeropolis' sky.

"Shit!"

A couple of hours later, Sweetie Void came out of a rift in the hotel where she found all her friends.

"Hey everyone! I guess that I missed the race. Sorry, but Team Rainbow Rocket fought really hard. But we won! Yeah, a jungle is now destroyed, the climate is screwed in the area, there's a few new lakes, a couple of new volcanoes, the tectonic movement must have been turned upside down, but that's okay! We showed these Rockets not to mess with us and I even made a few new friends that I saved from their clutch. Well, these new friends still need to be purified but I can work on this later. So, how was the race?" she asked before she remarked everyone's mood. She immediately frowned. "Okay, who died?"

"Nobody. Well, we think," Apple Death answered.

"As we feared, Black Shadow caused a pileup. Nobody died, but some pilots got seriously injured. Captain Falcon and Phoenix still won over him and even managed to make Blood Falcon fall from the track, but then, that bloody clone came and warped away to who-knows-where with Captain Falcon before Black Shadow fled in a ship. We don't even know if he's still alive by now," Phantom recounted.

"And the worst part?" Shadow Speedster continued. "Since this is Blood Falcon who kidnapped Captain Falcon while he was still on F-Zero ground and not Black Shadow, then only Blood Falcon was disqualified! Black Shadow will still race next time!"

"The merchants still got very angry at him and put the BS Group in their enemy list. But since Black Shadow didn't personally do anything against the rules, then he can still race," Zapp finished.

"And nobody knows where Captain Falcon was warped to?" Sweetie Void growled out.

"They think that he was warped into the BS Group's HQ, but nobody knows where it is," Phantom Belle answered.

"I know where it is," suddenly said a robotic voice from the entrance of the room they were in. When they looked to see who it was, they recognised Captain Falcon's robot who usually remained in the Falcon Flyer to operate it. "I received a signal from the Captain. I know where he is. I can guide you to him. However, there are bad news."

"What are they?" Sweetie Void asked worriedly.

"Wherever they are, it is moving away from the galaxy. If we go now with the Falcon Flyer, I estimate that it will take us almost one whole day before we reach him."

"Dang it! Black Shadow really took everything into account. Even if help is sent to retrieve Captain Falcon, he won't be able to return in time for the race," Phantom said.

"But I could teleport us back once we save him," Sweetie Void reminded. "Where is the next race taking place?"

"Somewhere called Phantom Road," Little Ghost answered. "It's some place apparently totally unknown. Not even Mr Zero knew about it. So the racers must gather first back in Twist Road fifteen minutes before the usual hour before they will be transported to wherever this place is."

"Alright. Well then..." Sweetie Void opened three rifts. "Time for everypony to return to their Equestria while I go save Captain Falcon with Apple Death and Phantom."

"Wait! What if you don't return in time for the race?" Shadow Speedster asked.

The others exchanged looks at this. "Well, Ah guess then that we'll have ta trust Phoenix and the others ta win," Apple Death answered.

"I... I don't know... Black Shadow almost won today..." Shadow Speedster said. "W-what if someone takes Captain Falcon's place?"

"You mean a substitute? Someone taking over Captain Falcon? Sorry, but I guess that that's against the rules," Phantom replied.

"Yes but... I was more thinking of... Sweetie turning someone into him? A double? I mean, Captain Falcon is number one in the ranking! If he is disqualified, then his points will be gone! But if "he" races, then his points will remain! And even if "he" doesn't win the race, "he" will still win the Grand Prix as long as "he" reaches the finish line!"

"That's a good idea, Scoot!" Sweetie Void exclaimed happily. "I can turn one of the disqualified racers into him! Buuut..." She lowered her ears. "I don't see who among them would agree to this and be skilled enough to hold their own against Black Shadow and reach the finish line in one piece."

"The answer is simple. Nobody," Phantom said. "The few who would agree and would be skilled enough are either at the hospital or still running - if they haven't been injured enough in the pileup to be forced to withdraw -."

"Maybe there are other racers who haven't participated in the current Grand Prix who would agree?" Sweetie Ghoul proposed.

"Finding one in less than a day, it'd be a miracle," Phantom Bloom countered.

"Maybe if we can convince one of the racers still participating to withdraw only to take Captain Falcon's place..." Phantom Dash proposed in turn.

"I'll do it!" Shadow Speedster suddenly shouted, interrupting everyone who turned to look at her in surprise.

"What?" Chromatic Bolt asked.

"Hum... I'll do it?" Shadow Speedster hesitantly repeated. "I mean, I drive with my scooter at crazy speeds and do crazy stunts with it all the time!"

Many of the ponies raised an eyebrow, excepted Scootabot who agreed.

"That has absolutely nothin' t'do with F-Zero racin'," Apple Death said.

"Driving a scooter is nothing like driving one of these machines," Phantom added.

"And there's no way I will let you participate in one of these death races!" Chromatic Bolt shouted.

"Come on, girls! Let me try at least! I have a whole day to train anyway! And remember that it's only if you don't return in time with Captain Falcon!"

Everyone could see the determination and the conviction in her eyes but were still very reluctant to let her race.

"The Captain has a hideout in Mute City with a simulation mode. I can tell you how to access it and she could train there," the robot informed.

A moment of silence followed before Chromatic Bolt asked, "You really want to do it, Scoot?"

"Y-yeah... Since the first day of the Grand Prix, I really loved watching these races, and I thought that, maybe, one day, I could race too. You know, since I met you, I always dreamed to one day race like you. But because of my wings, that will never be possible. But these F-Zero races... They are the closest experience that I would have to this."

"Aww, Scoot, you know that you don't need to be like me, right? You are already awesome in my eyes. You don't need to race."

"I know, but I still want to. I really love the feeling of speed. The thrill and everything. So... I really want to have a F-Zero race. I know that it will be dangerous with Black Shadow, but... But I won't be alone! Phoenix will be there! And Dr. Stewart! And Mrs Arrow! And all the others! And I can try to remain away from him! I don't need to win the race, right? I can just remain in the back while Black Shadow will probably be at the head! And if something goes really wrong, the girls will be there to save me!"

Chromatic Bolt stared intently into Shadow Speedster's eyes as she debated internally what to do. "We will talk with your aunts and ask them. We will see then."

Shadow Speedster agreed.

Author's Note

Note that I'm not relaying everything that Mr. Zero says during the races. Only the interesting parts. The rest are mostly small talks, anecdotes about this or that racer or about something related to the current race, and little comments about random happenings in the race (like A took the lead. B attacked C. D almost fell off the track...).

Chapter 96: Phantom Road

Author's Note

One word before we start the chapter.

In F-Zero GX, the two tracks in Phantom Road are what Rainbow Road is to Mario Kart, ten times worse. I'm absolutely not kidding. They are respectively the last track of the hardest cup and the last track of the Story Mode. All other tracks are pieces of cake compared to them.

Chapter 96: Phantom Road

Captain Falcon found himself in a large room with some warping platform, surrounded by a dozen of Black Shadow's goons in addition of Blood Falcon who came with him. The goons all had a gun pointed at him.

Blood Falcon laughed. "Welcome to our HQ, Captain! Don't expect to leave anytime soon!"

Captain Falcon clenched his teeth. "You brought me here so I won't be able to race tomorrow."

"Yes! And without you there, the Master will have an easy victory! Now... KILL HIM!!!"

At Blood Falcon's order, all the goons fired at once at Captain Falcon only for him to leap, avoiding all of them. He landed on a goon and used him to bounce again before landing near the entrance of the room. He immediately made a run for for it.

"You incapables! Go after him! Spread the alert!" Blood Falcon yelled. "Also, begin to move the HQ away from the Milky Way! If he manages to call for help, we must ensure that they won't reach him in time!"

While running, Captain Falcon grabbed his own gun from a holster on his right hip and fired a small ray beam from it at a goon in his way, killing him. The alarm began to blow, and Captain Falcon quickly entered some kind of laboratory when he saw a large group of goons come out from behind a corner. He traversed the place while firing at anything that was hostile, doing his best to avoid the enemies' own beams while using anything he could as cover. Firing at some unknown machine made it explode, blowing up a small group of scientist goons that had been around it.

He eventually managed to leave the laboratory, twisting a goon's neck as the guy arrived at the exit. Another tried to punch him from the behind the exit but Captain Falcon caught the fist in his palm before he kicked the guy in his gut, making him double over. A spinning kick on the side of his head then sent the goon crashing on a wall, knocked out. He immediately fired at a goon chasing him from inside the laboratory, then at another arriving from the hallway before he continued to run.

The chase lasted a while before Captain Falcon was able to hide in some storage room, now armed with a submachine gun that he took from one of the goons he killed. He immediately used the respite to recover his breath before he pressed a button on the side of his helmet, sending a signal to his Falcon Flyer. F0N, his robot, will see it and send help. However, he didn't know how long it will take them to reach him. Until then, he will have to play hide and seek with the BS Group in their own base. Unless he could find a ship for him to leave but he doubted of this. No doubt Blood Falcon put the place on lockdown.

What really worried him was what will happen in his absence, especially if he wasn't able to return in time for the last race.

It took a lot to convince Shadow Speedster's aunts to let her race, but they were able to reassure them that she will be alright.

Sweetie Void was already gone with the Falcon Flyer however. She hadn't been able to allow herself to wait that much, with Captain Falcon's life being in danger. So Phantom was the one to use her powers to transform Shadow Speedster into Captain Falcon once they found the Captain's hideout following the robot's instructions. Only Shadow Speedster, Chromatic Bolt, and Phantom came however. All the others remained in their respective Equestria for the night. The Death Quatuor also wanted to come, but there wasn't much they could do since Shadow Speedster and the others will also sleep once they installed themselves into the hideout.

The hideout was well hidden. The entrance was in an alley, behind some random shop, and could only be opened by finding a well-hidden falcon symbol on the wall. The Blue Falcon's entrance, however, was further away, a large secret door at the end of some old and deserted dead end. A long tunnel then led from this entrance to the hideout's garage.

Once here, they slept the night in Captain Falcon's sleeping quarters before Shadow Speedster was ready to start the training. After a nice breakfast brought from Equestria, Shadow Speedster, with the help of Phantom, was able to use the computer aboard the Blue Falcon to activate the simulation mode. She chose the easier level and the easier track among the ones proposed, a simple oval-shaped one. The Blue Falcon then rose while the garage around disappeared and left place to the simulated track, which was one from Mute City.

Everything was like the real deal. The rooms at both sides of the line (excepted that the public was absent), the places where the machines usually took position, and even the screens (all turned off).

«All right. First, some laps to familiarise yourself with the Blue Falcon. You read the instructions on how to pilot it, right?» Phantom asked through the Blue Falcon's computer, using the one in the garage.

Shadow Speedster rolled her eyes. "Of course I did. I read them at least ten times."

A whistle came through the computer. «You? You actually read them more than once?»

"Yeah yeah. I know. Reading so much when not needed is out of character from me. But I didn't want to screw up, so yes, I did."

«Well good for you. Now go, girl.»

«Good luck, Scoot!» Chromatic Bolt shouted then.

Smiling, Shadow Speedster started the first lap. She first went slowly but added speed little by little as she got more and more confident in herself.

"I think I'm getting the hang of it," she eventually said after a few laps, stopping at the line.

«Then time to add a bit of difficulty to see if you control the Blue Falcon well enough.» The simulation flickered, resetting. The track remained the same, but now, there were yellow holographic areas at various positions all over the path. «You see these yellow things? They are called Capsules. You must get all of them in less than eighty seconds, no matter how many laps it takes you. Just pass through them.»

"Should be a piece of cake."

«After that, we will replace this track by Twist Road. The real training will start then.»

"Roger!"

As the hours passed, the training gained in complexity as Shadow Speedster went from track to track harder and harder. She did more races with the Capsules, but also simple races where she had to do three laps as rapidly as possible. She learned to use the boost, so she learned by the same occasion to work with Pit Rows. She also went through pretty much everything Falcon went through in the Grand Prix. Lasers, slippy rows, half pipes, but also some he didn't encounter in the current Grand Prix but that also existed such as cylinders where the machine could move all around them, and lava rows that damaged the Blue Falcon if she drove on them. She learned to drift to pass sharp turns, and learned to steer the Blue Falcon while in the air.

To make it short, she went through all the fundamentals so she was as prepared as possible to whatever this Slim-Line Slits track will throw at her. But this track being totally unknown, it could possess some surprises...

Meanwhile, Sweetie Void was still aboard the Falcon Flyer, slowly approaching Captain Falcon's position. Behind the ship, the Milky Way was slowly shrinking.

She watched the computer screen as she saw the distance between her and her friend decrease light-year by light-year.

Captain Falcon probably ran the equivalent of the Marathon (or even two Marathons) since he appeared in the BS Group's HQ, with the occasional moments of rest that rarely lasted as the goons always ended up finding him. He stopped counting how many of them he killed after he reached one hundred. Despite their reduced number, they still seemed to be as numerous as before.

As he reached an intersection, someone suddenly grabbed him by the arm from behind a corner. Whoever it was was able to force him to release his weapon, but Captain Falcon was able to punch the guy on the face with his other arm, freeing himself from his hold. The Captain then faced his attacked, seeing that it was Blood Falcon.

"Enough playing tag with you," he said. "Time for you to say nighty night."

Captain Falcon didn't reply and directly attacked with a punch that was blocked. Blood Falcon returned the attack with a punch of his own that was also blocked. The two thus began an exchange where they attempted to hit their adversary here and there on their body only to always be blocked or dodged. Blood Falcon being Captain Falcon's clone, the two had exactly the same moves so they knew each others perfectly well. This came to a point where Captain Falcon and Blood Falcon repeatedly attempted to punch or kick each other only for each attack to be countered by the exact same attack from their adversary.

Goons then started to come from the hallways when, suddenly...

"Falcon..."

"Falcon..."

The two Falcon readied a fist that enveloped itself in fire.

"PUNCH!!!"

The fire taking the form of fiery falcons, the two fists collided in a BOOM! This created a shockwave that propelled the fire into the hallways around, sending the arriving goons flying to crash further away while burning them.

Getting annoyed, the two restarted their exchange, putting more power into their attacks. Their fists were now constantly covered in fire, smaller fiery shockwaves forming each time that they collided.

Until the whole HQ suddenly violently shook. This made Blood Falcon lose his focus as he wondered what was the cause, resulting in him receiving a punch on the face. Holding his bloody nose, he took a few steps back in shock. He looked down at the blood on his hand before glaring at Captain Falcon.

The Captain gave a small smirk. He knew what was the cause of this shaking. Help finally arrived.

Moral boosted, he thrust out his left arm and signed for Blood Falcon to come closer. "Come on!"

"We finally reached the Captain's position," the robot warned Sweetie Void.

"Finally!" the filly exclaimed. "I'm going right now! Start to return the Falcon Flyer to Mute City. I can bring Captain Falcon back by myself and it will be faster.

"Very well. Good luck."

Sweetie Void gave the robot a thankful nod before she teleported out of the ship, finally getting to see where Captain Falcon was warped to.

It was hard to see what it was in the darkness of the inter-galactic space where there were almost no stars to illuminate everything so she lit her horn.

Before her was a space station about as large as the Jambastion made to look like Black Shadow's head, horns included.

"Typical..." Sweetie Void deadpanned.

She then burst right through the huge metallic gate at the mouth, arriving at where the BS Group's ships were docked. The hole she left behind caused a depressurisation that sucked out any unlucky goons that had been too close. Others quickly moved to avoid the same fate while also pointing their weapons at Sweetie Void.

She stared at them unimpressed. "It's nice to be welcomed so openly. Now, here's the one million bits question for you. Where. Is. Captain Falcon? You have one second."

Shadow Speedster gulped as it was finally time to go to Twist Road. Sweetie Void still hadn't returned with Captain Falcon, meaning that she had to take over.

She was inside the Blue Falcon while Phantom used her powers to teleport the three of them onto the track, not far before the line so Shadow Speedster just had to advance a bit to reach where the other racers were gathered. Giving her a good luck nod, Phantom then teleported herself and Chromatic Dash into one of the public rooms where they found Apple Death and the others. Not just them however, but also Shadow Speedster's aunts as well as Chromatic Bolt's friends. It seemed that the fillies received a permission to skip school (for the ones it wasn't the week-end) to support their friend along with the mares who had all somehow been convinced to not try to stop the pegasus filly.

Shadow Speedster then took a huge breathe before she advanced to join the other racers.

Many of them looked very surprised to see her, or rather, Captain Falcon, especially Black Shadow. The King of Evil gawked as she came out of the Blue Falcon, giving him her smuggest grin.

"HOW ARE YOU HERE?!?" Black Shadow yelled.

Shadow Speedster gave him a two-fingered salute like Captain Falcon liked to do. "Some friends found me and brought me back just in time."

"Impossible! There's no way someone could have brought you back in time for the race!"

"And yet I'm here."

Black Shadow let out a roar and visibly had to stop himself from attacking.

Phoenix then approached her. "It's good to see you. I really thought that we would have to deal with Black Shadow without you."

"Mmh..." Shadow Speedster looked around before she whispered, "Actually, I'm not Captain Falcon. It's actually me, Shadow Speedster. Phantom used her powers to turn me into Captain Falcon so I could race for him. This way, we don't lose his points."

"I see. But are you sure you are up to this?"

"I trained very hard with Captain Falcon's simulation mode. I should at least be able to reach the finish line, which is just what we need to win, even if I'm not first."

Phoenix nodded and returned to his vehicle. He then went to whisper something to Mrs. Arrow, probably repeating to her what she just told him. They then spread the news to the other friendly racers so they all in the known.

Shadow Speedster was glad that so many of them were able to return despite the pileup. However, as expected, James McCloud wasn't back. Roger Buster too. It looked like Draq also retired. With Blood Falcon disqualified, and Dr. Clash and Antonio Guster who had to withdraw as expected after their fall, only eleven racers remained. However, Shadow Speedster could see that many of them hadn't returned without at least a bandage. And seeing how they were all glaring at Black Shadow, it seemed that they were now all sharing the same goal: make him pay. Even Don Genie.

Mr. Zero appeared on the screens. "Well, here we are! Back on Twist Road! And out of the thirty racers that had been present here the first time, I count now only eleven present. Blood Falcon was disqualified. Dr. Clash and Antonio Guster had to withdraw. James McCloud and Roger Buster are at the hospital - I'm glad to announce by the way that they are out of danger -, and Draq has decided to retire to remain with his friend. But, unexpectedly, I see Captain Falcon among the ones present here tonight! Seems like whatever plan Black Shadow had to ensure that Captain Falcon wouldn't be able to race tonight failed.

Now, I still don't know anything of what the higher ups have cooked for us tonight, but I can see the Transport Ship approaching to transport our racers to their destination! Sorry, my dear public, but we won't be able to go with them, but the screens will still broadcast everything."

The ship landed further onto the track, after the line. A ramp lowered to allow the machines to enter it.

"Here you go, pilots. Enter this ship," Mr. Zero instructed.

Gulping again, Shadow Speedster returned inside the Blue Falcon and drove inside the ship, being careful to not bump into the others. Once they were all inside the ship, the ramp closed before they took off. A screen then lit up to show to them where they were going.

A few minutes later, they reached a huge circular ship with four extensions under it. Out of the extensions came bolts of electricity that joined at the center. After a few seconds of this, what seemed to be a black hole opened.

"Uh... What?" Shadow Speedster wondered aloud.

"What is... Wait a minute... could this be...?" they heard Mr. Zero begin. "Ohohoh! Now this is getting interesting! Seems like the higher ups decided to use a very advanced technology! You see this black hole? If what I'm guessing is right, it will lead to a cyber space entirely generated by computer! You heard me right folks! Our pilots will race on a computer-generated track made real thanks to the power of scieeeence! Prepare to enter an entirely different dimension where physics may be a little screwy."

Shadow Speedster didn't look reassured at all as the Transport Ship approached the hole. After a long minute, it entered it. The whole ship shook for a few seconds as space in the screen distorted.

Then, they found themselves somewhere alien. It really looked like they were inside a computer. The space itself looked grided, grid which moved, making it look like the space itself was in movement. There were dozens of giant cubes, themselves made of smaller cubes, which moved around. And there was also a giant vortex which was from which they entered.

Before them was a track that made Shadow Speedster dizzy just looking at it. It seemed to be an agglomeration of twists and turns, like a giant knot bag, or a very extreme rollercoaster of doom.

"And we have our track: Slim-Line Slits! And... I don't know about you, but it intimidates me. I don't want to be at the place of the racers," Mr. Zero commented.

The ponies all gulped at seeing the track.

"Is she... ready for THAT track?" Holiday asked Chromatic Bolt.

"Uh... Well... Remember, she just has to reach the finish line. So I think that she will be alright."

"You think?" Lofty repeated.

"Uh... I mean, I know that she will be alright."

Twilight remarked that Pinkie Pie looked as if she was trying to levitate something with her mind. "What are you doing, Pinkie?"

"I'm sending Scootaloo all my luck!"

The Transport Ship dropped the racers before the line before leaving. Shadow Speedster went to her place and readied herself.

"Okay... Okay... You can do it, Scoot... You can do it... You... CAN... do it..." she repeated like a mantra before the countdown began.

And the race began.

As she expected, Black Shadow immediately went to take the lead while she remained at the back, away from him. The track started rather calmly, the road (seemingly made of hard light tiles) simply doing small waves while climbing a bit. So far, there were guard rails, so Shadow Speedster didn't risk falling unless she was somehow propelled above them.

Once they reached the top of that first climb, they then went down a slop worthy of a rollercoaster, Shadow Speedster making sure to not miss the booster on the way, before they reached a section where the path cut into two smaller ones, the right one passing above the left one before they merged back into a single path. Not able to decide, Shadow Speedster took the one that Black Shadow didn't take, the left one. There too, there were barriers.

She did well to not take the right path because Black Shadow was already able to cause a small pileup by sending Don Genie, who had been attacking him, to spin out of control before Jack Levin crashed into him. Mrs Arrow almost crashed into them but was able to avoid the worst, but Silver Neelsen wasn't so lucky.

The race barely started and three racers were already out... Eight left...

Shadow Speedster tried to not think about this as she continued to drive. All that mattered was reaching the finish line.

The path split a second time but, thankfully, this time, there were no accident. When the two paths merged black, it was immediately followed by a slippy row in the right side which Shadow Speedster avoided. She then saw a Pit Row in the left side but she didn't need to remain on it as the Blue Falcon was barely scratched by her bumping once against Gomar and Shioh when the path split the first time. And she did well when she saw that the Pit Row ended at a sudden dead end with no guard rail. Now that was just plein sadistic!

Shadow Speedster actually remarked at this moment that, in this section, the road seemed to be split into four lines. The slippy row had taken the two right lines while the Pit Row had only taken the most left one. The two left lines then ended brusquely, only leaving the two right ones. After a bit, the left lines returned only for the two right ones to end brusquely too. At least, the first time it happened, everyone had been able to see it coming but this second time was harder and many almost fell into this trap including Black Shadow himself. Gomar and Shioh actually weren't able to go left in time and fell.

Another out...

"You can do it! You can do it!" Shadow Speedster reassured herself with the same mantra than earlier.

The left lines became right lines as two new left ones started after a bit, a Pit Row on the most left one. Another Pit Row started a bit further on the most right line before the two ended brusquely like the first one. Shadow Speedster made sure to remain in the middle while she saw Black Shadow push The Skull with a twirl into the left gap. She saw Samurai Goroh attempt to do the same thing to her as he approached so she quickly decided to act first and rammed into him before twirling to send him falling into the right gap.

"Take that, you samurai jerk!" she yelled.

Five left...

The left and right line returned not long after along with two last Pit Rows, these ones thankfully not ending in gaps, before they reached the line.

Right, that was just the first lap... It felt like an eternity for Shadow Speedster.

Thankfully, the remaining racers beside Black Shadow were all allies so she could count on them.

"So far so good..." she said to herself as her boost was unlocked. She was dead last, but she didn't care.

Sweetie Void smashed her way through walls after walls as she traversed hallways and rooms searching for Captain Falcon, spreading destruction everywhere she passed. Probably she ended up destroying a lot of important stuff for the fortress this way but she didn't care.

And eventually, she found him, still fighting his clone. The two were out of breath and bloody and bruised all over.

"Captain Falcon! I finally find you!"

Blood Falcon looked at Sweetie Void in surprise. "Wh-How did you-?!"

"FALCON PUNCH!!!"

Captain Falcon punched his clone right on the head with his fist enveloped in a fiery falcon, badly burning his face before sending him flying far into one of the hallways, knocked out.

"Nice to see you, Sweetie Void. Took your time," Captain Falcon said with a two-fingered salute.

"Sorry, but this fortress was moving away from the galaxy. It took forever for the Falcon Flyer to reach it."

Captain Falcon frowned. "But the race has probably started by now."

"I guess. But don't worry. You aren't disqualified."

"What?"

"We turned someone into you so they could race in your place."

"Who?"

"Shadow Speedster. If we go now, we may be able to see the end of the race."

Upon learning of who was racing in his place, Captain Falcon had visible doubt of the ability of the pegasus filly to win the Grand Prix. But he still nodded and joined Sweetie Void.

"Before we go..." The alicorn materialized a cloak on the Captain. "We don't want people recognizing you. Now, let's go." She teleported the two of them, leaving the damaged fortress to drift into space with its occupants. The thing was that, in her rampage, she totally destroyed the engines and the ships. This meant that there was no way for everyone inside to change the fortress' course or to leave.

The two reappeared on the roof of the building surrounding Twist Road's line. After feeling for Phantom and Apple Death's energies, she then teleported to them with Captain Falcon.

"We're back! So, how are things going?"

As the others welcomed Sweetie and Captain Falcon back and the mares got to meet the Captain, Phantom answered. "Second lap, only five racers left. Black Shadow, Phoenix, Dr. Stewart, Mrs. Arrow, and..." She looked at the cloaked Captain. "And Captain Falcon. So, both good and bad."

Sweetie Void looked at one of the screens. "Woah! What is this place? This reminds me of that illusion in the Access Ark where it looked like we were inside a computer."

"That's pretty much that," Black Apple answered. "Excepted that it ain't an illusion."

As the ponies explained to Sweetie Void the nature of the Phantom Road, Captain Falcon stared through the screens at his double.

As they reached the slippy row, Phoenix, Dr. Stewart, and Mrs Arrow were surrounding Black Shadow, constantly attacking him. Black Shadow didn't let himself being impressed however and was able to twirl to send Phoenix spinning on the slippy row. Not enough to force him to give up the race, but he ended up behind Shadow Speedster as a result. Black Shadow then pushed Mrs. Arrow in the gap at the end of the first Pit Row, and did the same with Dr. Stewart at the first right gap.

Leaving only him, Phoenix, and Shadow Speedster...

"Oh, Celestia..."

Phoenix arrived at her side and she could see him give her a thumb up. But then, Black Shadow suddenly slowed down to get himself at their level.

"Horsefeather..."

As they reached the section with the two Pit Rows ending in gaps, she quickly used her boost while on the left Pit Row to gain speed and avoid a twirl from the King of Evil. While only two lines remained, Phoenix went to attack Black Shadow only for him to use the boost too to go after Shadow Speedster. And just as the last two Pit Rows before the line came, he not only caught up to her, but actually managed to pierce the Blue Falcon with the Black Bull's horns.

Shadow Speedster saw that and immediately understood that she was screwed.

The next instant, Black Shadow twirled, sending the Blue Falcon flying from the horns. It crashed against the guard rail and did several rolls before stopping just at the line. The machine was now badly damaged, and the roof of the cockpit was totally gone.

Thanks Celestia whoever made this track using computers thought to include air.

Shadow Speedster was still conscious, but groggy and feeling horrible. She lost.

Everybody was shocked by what happened. They looked at the screens, thinking if it was a nightmare.

"Dang it! She's doing so well!" Black Apple shouted. Thankfully, nobody in the public listened and caught that she used "she".

Now, Mr. Zero looked depressed. "Seems like this is over for Captain Falcon. Only Phoenix is left between Black Shadow and his victory." He remarked something about Captain Falcon. "Wait a minute..."

Shadow Speedster began to hear a bip and looked at the computer. She saw that it was showing all the damage that the Blue Falcon took, but also that the machine was still working! And yes, now that she remarked, the engine was still on! She tried to make the Blue Falcon advance a bit, and it advanced!

Her shock turned into relief, and then into a glare, anger filling her. "Now he did it. Enough of Captain Falcon. Time to be Scootaloo!"

"I can't believe it! Captain Falcon is still in the course!" Mr. Zero yelled excitedly under the cheers of the public. "But he will have all the difficulty of the world to catch up with Black Shadow and Phoenix!"

"She doesn't need to catch up to them! She just needs to... What is she doing?!" Sweetie Void interrupted herself when she saw Shadow Speedster doing something totally reckless.

Shadow Speedster reached the top of the first climb, her brain working overdrive as she was thinking of what she was about to do.

After all, what was Scootaloo known for?

Stunts!

At the top of the climb, she moved toward the guard rail, partially going on it, and used the boost, launching herself in the air! She then landed just before the path split in two and immediately went to take the right path before she moved again toward the guard rail before she hammered it with the butt of the vehicle, launching herself in the air again. She passed right above the line and used the boost while steering the machine to land just before where the path split in two for the second time, gaining a huge amount of time! Thanks to this, she wasn't far behind Black Shadow and Phoenix who were bumping into each other.

Black Shadow saw Shadow Speedster approaching from behind. "WHAT THE-?!!"

"Did he use the guard rails to propel himself into the air and catch up with Black Shadow and Phoenix?!" Mr. Zero shouted in shock and awe while the public was going wild. "I haven't seen something that crazy and reckless since the first F-Zero Grand Prix! That was awesome!"

"Heck yeah!" the three Rainbow Dash agreed.

"What is she thinking?!" Sweetie Void shouted. "She could have fell off-track! And why is she approaching Black Shadow?! As she forgotten that she doesn't need to win?!"

"Ya seem ta've forgotten something yerself, Sweetie. She's Scootaloo," Black Apple reminded.

Sweetie Void put a hoof on her face, groaning.

Black Shadow immediately slowed down to get to Shadow Speedster's level but she didn't let him. She remained firmly behind him. Phoenix hesitated for a bit as he remained ahead. They passed the first Pit Row with the first gap, then the second gap, and the two Pit Rows with the two gaps. As they approached the last two Pit Rows before the finish line, he finally decided to try something and slowed down to go to Black Shadow's level by his right, on the right Pit Row. He then went to do a Spin Attack just as Black Shadow went to do one on him too, the two attacks colliding. Black Shadow easily won the clash thanks to the strength of his Black Bull and Phoenix was sent crashing against the guard rail before he passed above it and fell. However, Phoenix' attack still left the Black Bull destabilised and Shadow Speedster used the occasion to boost to Black Shadow's left and Spin Attacked him, hitting him on the butt of his machine and sending him spinning uncontrollably. At the same time, she slowed down a bit so she remained behind Black Shadow before she used the boost again.

She rammed the Black Bull on its left side, toward the front, and sent it flying and rolling. She passed the finish line just before the Black Bull rolled onto it, ending up upside down. Its engine then exploded.

"HE DID IT!!!" Mr. Zero yelled. "Our Champion! Captain! FALCOOOOOOON!!!!!"

You could hear the cheers from all over Mute City as everyone celebrated Captain Falcon/Shadow Speedster's victory over Black Shadow.

"Wow. She totally humiliated Black Shadow at the end, there," Phantom said proudly.

She was suddenly hugged by Sweetie Void who was also hugging Black Apple while crying and laughing. "I know! That idiot, crazy, hot-headed pegasus! She didn't need to do that! I'm so thinking of slapping her and then hug her and then yell at her and then give her the best party of her life!"

"I was exactly thinking that last part!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

Shadow Speedster slumped against the Blue Falcon's chair, breathing loudly and feeling lighter than she ever felt. She couldn't believe that she did it. She not only won the race (and the Grand Prix, but that was still technically Captain Falcon's victory) but also put Black Shadow in his place. And she never felt so alive than during that last lap. She could feel her heart beating like crazy, and she wanted to laugh out loud.

"How...?!" she heard from behind the Blue Falcon. Looking, she saw Black Shadow crawling from the Black Bull, even more injured than before. One of his horns was even broken.

"Simple," she began before she pointed at herself with a thumb. "You messed with the wrong p... The wrong man!"

To her surprise, Black Shadow looked terrified. She didn't make such an impression, right?

But then, purple bolts of electricity appeared from nowhere and gathered at a certain point not far from Black Shadow, slightly in the air. In a flash, enveloped in a purple sphere of energy, a new being appeared, floating in the air. Shadow Speedster quickly hid behind the chair of the Blue Falcon while she watched.

All she could see from her position was his red cap fluttering in the wing he was creating, but she could occasionally see his red shoes attached to grey greaves, their back purple, as well as his purple hands. When he talked, his voice came out dark, cold, and distorted as if he was speaking through a fan. "Black Shadow! You failed AGAIN! You good-for-nothing..." Some kind of pole made of energy appeared in his hands before he hit Black Shadow with it.

The King of Evil yelled in pain as the energy spread across his body. "AAARGH! Forgive me, Lord Death!" he pleaded, to no avail. His body glowed purple before he disappeared painfully.

Shadow Speedster looked in horror before what she heard clicked. "Lord Death? Lord Death... Deathborn?!"

Deathborn (?) turned to face her, finally fully revealing himself to her, and he looked even more scary and evil than Black Shadow. He had a red head with two small, entirely white eyes full of malice. Starting from above his eyes and all the way to the back of his head was a glass part that let her see his brain. His mouth was covered by a black breathing mask which explained his voice. He had huge black pauldrons with red parts and a black chestplate lined with gold on a red and purple suit. Finally, he had a baggy black and red pant which seemed to be part of the suit, with metallic parts on the red sides.

"So you know about me. These pesky Time Patrol agents must have informed you. But it doesn't matter."

At this moment, Sweetie Void, Phantom, and Apple Death appeared around Shadow Speedster, ready to defend her.

"You finally show yourself, Deathborn!" Sweetie Void shouted only to be hit by the same energy that Deathborn used on Black Shadow.

"Sweetie!" the three others shouted.

"Out of my way! It's between me and the one who won the Light Belt!"

Sweetie Void felt as if her body was decomposing, but she could also feel that she wasn't dying. As she glowed purple, she disappeared like Black Shadow.

Deathborn pointed his energy pole at Phantom and Apple Death. "Now, if you don't want to join your friend in the outer limits of space, I advise you to go away!"

The three raised an eyebrow before Phantom asked, "So you just teleported Sweetie elsewhere?"

Deathborn glared at her as if she was stupid. ""Just" teleported...? I banished her beyond space! She will wander alone for the rest of time!"

The three before Deathborn exchanged looks before they burst into laughter.

"WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?!" Deathborn yelled.

Before they could answer, a rift suddenly opened before Sweetie Void came out of it.

"Sorry Mr. Death, but I will have to put a zero on your vacation spot. So empty, cold, and dark, no way to pass a good time, nobody to welcome us... Not even a nice fresh drink."

Deathborn stared speechless at the alicorn before he yelled, "SCREW THIS" He then pointed a finger at Shadow Speedster. "You! Come to the Underworld with the belt tomorrow! We will race each other for it! At these coordinates!" He taped something on some cylindrical piece on his arm, and the Blue Falcon's computer received the coordinates. "I will be waiting! And I will know if this isn't you! I know that you aren't really who you pretend to be! So do not attempt to fool me!" he threatened at last before he disappeared like he arrived.

Leaving the fillies to look at each others again.

"Seriously. Why does he want that belt so much? And why does he want to obtain it by racing?" Sweetie Void wondered.

"We'll find out soon enough," Apple Death said.

Chapter 97: Deathborn

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 98: One Last Enemy

The group returned victorious into Captain Falcon's hideout where Shadow Speedster couldn't wait to tell her Rainbow Dash and Apple Bloom (without forgetting the others) the good news. However, when they entered, they found the place empty. But they quickly found a message left.

Find us at the Bet & Race Dollars!

Pinkie Pie

"The Bet & Race Dollars?" Phantom asked.

"I know this place," Captain Falcon answered. "It's a bar that is also a lounge and inn where F-Zero racers regularly go to have a drink while betting and participating in races. Even questionnable people like Zoda and Pico frequent it, causing at worst a small bar fight. And while this is pretty much war on the tracks, it isn't rare to see what are usually enemies share a drink there. I saw for example Super Arrow and Zoda drink together at the same table more than once."

Shadow Speedster snorted. "When I will tell Spike that a superhero can have a drink and a civilized conversation with a supervillain without trying to fight each other, he won't believe it."

"Well then, lead us ta that bar, Captain. Ah already have an idea of what's awaiting us there," Apple Death said.

Sweetie Void giggled. "Anybody knowing Pinkie Pie a minimum should."

Following the Blue Falcon, they found the bar which was located in the entertainment district on the outskirts of Mute City, part of a huge chain of establishments called Casino Palace which included, you guessed right, lots of casinos but also huge casino-themed domes where F-Zero tracks were located for people to bet and race. Some of these tracks were even officially part of the F-Zero X Grand Prix even if none of them were used this year. No wonder F-Zero pilots frequented this place so much. It offered them many occasions to gain big amounts of money while waiting for the yearly Grand Prix and its billion in money award. The Bet & Race Dollars itself was linked to a casino area with a track.

They parked outside the bar and entered it, quickly hearing the cacophony of dozens of people speaking and laughing loudly in a good atmosphere that was usual in that kind of place (that or huge bar fights that included bottles and chairs being thrown and smashed) while a nice and catchy jazzy song was playing from a jukebox.

They entered the bar itself where they finally found the ponies as well as many F-Zero pilots, both who participated in the Grand Prix and who didn't. There were the Arrow couple with Mrs. Arrow holding a baby, Zoda who was at their table, Bio Rex who was drinking a bottle of beer in his corner, Jody and John who had both recovered but still had some bandages, Dr. Stewart drinking with Jack Levin, Gomar and Shioh, Silver Neelsen, The Skull, and Leon. Among the pilots who didn't participate in the Grand Prix but that Sweetie Void recognized were Mighty Gazelle, a racer who had been the most injured in the Accident to the point that they had been forced to almost entirely replace his body with mechanical parts, a dark skinned man in a purple suit known as Baba, a muscled man with various animal parts constituting his attire known as Beastman, and a dark skinned woman with afro hair who was a famous singer called Kate Alen. There was also a teen lightly clothed in red with lots of hearts decorating them, her hair even looking like one, and even Mr. Zero was present. Dr. Clash was the barman, his artificial arms on his back allowing him to serve drinks faster.

Pinkie Pie suddenly popped in front of the new arrivals. "Here you are! I knew you would defeat that Deathjerk so I prepared a party for you!"

Phantom raised an eyebrow. "Not a surprise party?"

"I know! But I wasn't able to convince these guys to remain silent more than five seconds..." the mare said sadly before her smile returned. "So I turned it into a normal party! I wanted to have it in Captain Falcon's hideout but I thought that he wouldn't like his hideout not being hidden anymore. And Phoenix's garage was out of the question because it's stinky over there. No offense."

"None taken. It's a junkyard after all," the time traveller reassured with a shrug.

The group advanced into the room where they were greeted by everyone.

"Ah! The guest of honor is finally here!" Silver shouted. "You sure put that Black idiot back to his place! Ah ha ha!"

"Your belt looks different from the one you won in the Grand Prix," Dr. Stewart remarked. "Did you win it by defeating that Deathborn?"

"Yeah, he merged his belt from the Underworld Grand Prix with the F-Zero X Grand Prix's belt and this is the result," Shadow Speedster answered.

"Oh! So this is, like, the ultimate Champion Belt? It looks gorgeous," Kate said. "But what will this mean for the future Grand Prix?"

"Well, no idea, but we have one year to figure it out with the merchants," Sweetie Void stated. "Including the fact that this is Shadow Speedster who won the Grand Prix instead of Captain Falcon. I don't know how this will go." She said this while eyeing Mr. Zero who could report this to his bosses.

Mr. Zero remarked this and gave a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. I won't tell anything and will let you do it your way. With some luck, you will be able to convince them not to disqualify you and take back the belt to give it to Black Shadow. But since Black Shadow is gone, then Phoenix would probably be the one receiving it as he was the last one to fall off the track, unless they decide to just redo the race. But I understand that they wouldn't be able to take it back anyway, right?"

"Yeah. This belt has some force inside it that accepted me as its true owner after I won it against Deathborn. It won't let anybody take it away from me."

"A force, uh? So this is why Black Shadow and Deathborn were after it?" Zoda asked with interest, leading to Super Arrow giving him the stink eye as he guessed what he was thinking.

"If you want this belt for your evil schemes, you will have to win it in next year's Grand Prix," the Superhero warned. "And if you decide to participate, then I will too to stop you."

"If you want to stop me, then start by getting better at driving a machine! You are a disaster on the tracks!"

"Ugh... I wasn't that bad... At least compared to last year..."

"Yeah. I admit. You at least managed to not get yourself disqualified right at the first race."

If the fillies didn't know that these two were mortal enemies, they would think that they were just bickering rivals. Sometimes, people really had weird relationships.

"So, how did the race go?" Chromatic Bolt asked.

"It has been pretty close," Shadow Speedster answered. "I had the speed advantage, but the track had many twists and turns that forced me to limit it or be careful. It wasn't helped that there were many mines placed all over it, and hitting them not only damaged my machine but also gave it a sudden small boost. Made me hit the walls a couple of times. And meanwhile, Deathborn knew the track like the back of his hand as well as the placements of the mines and had a machine perfectly adapted to it. He was also extremely violent and he almost sent me flying above the barrier. And the worst part? No way for me to do one of my tricks to gain a big advance. The track had no place that would allow me to do it. So yeah, everything was stacked against me! But despite this, I won!"

The filly then proceeded to recount everything to everyone listening while the "party" started for good. It wasn't really what you would call a "Pinkie Pie Party" however. She set up food and games like usual, but they were still inside a bar, meaning that alcoholic beverages were also present in big quantity compared to the usually child friendly parties she hosted. Thankfully, Dr. Clash was very thoughtful and avoided serving such drinks to the fillies and the ponies in general unless they asked for one like, without surprise, the three Rainbow Dash as well as Applejack.

Phantom also joined in. "I may make myself look like a child, but I can be any age I want and half of me is an adult. So bring in the booze. The hard stuff. I really missed having a good drink. And sorry AJ, but your hard cider doesn't hold a candle to the real good stuff."

"Heresy!" the three Rainbow Dash shouted.

"Don't believe me? Alright. Doctor, give these mares the same than me!"

Let's just say that the pegasi will wake up the next day with a big hangover.

It was already late in the night so the party didn't last as long as the usual ones, but it still went on for a couple of hours before the ponies went to the rooms they rented in the inn part of the building. Captain Falcon didn't mind giving them some of the money he won thanks to Shadow Speedster winning the Grand Prix. He was even ready to give to her half of the billion for being the one who won it, but since she didn't have an account yet in this universe, he had to wait.

But before, some of the pilots present wanted to have a race. Not all of them could participate in reason of their machine not being repaired yet after the last race of the Grand Prix, but they were still more than enough to have a fun and challenging one, also using this as a new occasion to gain money through bets. The Shadow Raven not being in top shape after the race against Deathborn, Shadow Speedster wasn't able to participate in it, but she still enjoyed it among the public. The race ended with Dr. Stewart's victory, with Gomar and Shioh getting second place and Captain Falcon getting third. As good as Captain Falcon was, even him couldn't win every races. But he still showed why he was the one who had been about to win the Grand Prix. He remained at the head for a good part of the race and only lost because Dr. Stewart managed to push him onto a mud area, an area that had for effect to slow down any machine flying above one, in the last lap.

With the race over, everyone either left the building or entered a room to sleep. Upon morning, the ponies would then return to their respective Equestria after saying goodbye to Captain Falcon and the others. As for the diplomatic side? Well, this universe will need the intervention of real professional diplomats instead of Sweetie Void going to have the first talk. It had already been a miracle that she managed to convince the Galactic Federation from Samus' universe to open discussions with Equestria (helped a lot by her help against the Space Pirates and the Phazon threat). But this universe's Galactic Federation spread across seven galaxies instead of just one and had descent diplomatic relationships with most of the other organisations of this universe. As such, this universe was pretty unified compared to all the ones Sweetie Void visited until now, even Star Fox's universe. Convincing this Galactic Federation to join would mean convincing this whole universe, or at least the big majority of it. This was too much for just a single filly, and this would obviously take far more than just a few days. So yeah, professionals were needed. Many. And possibly from more than one universe.

So, first, Sweetie Void will have to talk to Celestia, who will then have to talk with other leaders such as Chairman Keaton or General Pepper to plan together how to proceed with beginning discussions with this universe. Succeeding in convincing this universe to join would be very good. The alliance Equestria and the other universes were forming would benefit a lot. Just thinking of what they could do with that technology they used to create the Phantom Road track... Which was actually very similar to the technology from the Pokémon World, used to turn Pokémon into data to store into computers. But here, it was actually like creating a whole pocket dimension out of data with a rift to allow even ships to enter it! Such technology was so advanced that it could be compared to magic! And even that was beyond what the more powerful mages in Equestria - including the alicorns - could do! Only beings like Discord, Phantom, and Sweetie Void herself could think of doing something of this level! But Sweetie Void didn't know yet how to pull this off. She still needed to train.

Also, Sweetie Void remembered to try to talk to DD about this universe's timeline. She owed this to Phoenix and the Time Patrol.

Shadow Speedster's sleep was suddenly interrupted by three voice echoing in her head.

Wake up!

"Waaahhh!!!" The filly brusquely bounced on her be before groaning and rubbing her eyes because of the abrupt awakening. "Ugh... Who the heck...?"

The three voices that she heard in her head then giggled, this time coming from the Champion Belt she placed on a nightstand beside her bed, before three lights came out of it and began to fly around her. These lights revealed to be the origins of these voices, and they continued to laugh.

"Scootaloo! Hahahahhh..." a first voice said

"Or is it Shadow Speedster? Mwahahahahahhhh..." a second voice followed.

"Let's go with Scootaloo. It's less of a mouthful. Ha ha ha ha ha..." a third voice finished.

Shadow Speedster looked around at the three lights, curling up a bit as she was getting scared. "Wha-what is going on? W-who are you?"

"Aww... Look as the little thing. Huhuhuhu," the first voice said with a coo that was obviously fake.

"Hehehehehe! Where did that bravado you used against Deathborn go?" the second voice asked.

"Don't worry. We won't attack you," the third voice tried to reassure, but Shadow Speedster still felt chills as she continued to look alternatively between the three lights.

But then, the lights returned inside the belt, or more exactly, inside the gemstone which was glowing again. Carefully, Shadow Speedster grabbed the belt to look closely at the gemstone. Inside it, she could see the ghostly form of three faces that were alternatively going forward as they spoke.

"We are the Creator," the first voice, from the face at the left, finally answered her second question.

"The Creator? As in... Gods?" Shadow Speedster asked.

"Not Gods. God. Singular," the second voice, coming from the face in the middle, corrected.

"We are a single entity," the third voice, coming from the face at the right, clarified.

"And as it implies, We created everything in this universe," the left face continued.

"Including Deathborn, who was Our best creation," the middle face said.

"What a surprise that you managed to beat him," the right face finished.

"You created Deathborn?! But why?! And why are you inside a belt?" Shadow Speedster asked, now truly terrified. If this Creator created something as evil as Deathborn and took pride in it, then this wasn't a benevolent God like Void or Arceus.

"We created him for pure entertainment purpose," the left face answered.

"We also wanted a powerful Champion to take their soul and make them Ours," the middle face continued.

"And We thought of using the F-Zero Grand Prix to test him," the right one said.

"Admittedly, in the whole universe, We find nothing more entertaining than F-Zero races."

"So We tricked Deathborn into believing that in order to gain Ultimate Power, he had to prove himself by winning the two belts containing the two gems that were supposedly containing the Forces of Light And Dark, which he had to convince the merchants to create first."

"But in truth, there was nothing in these belts. As soon as Deathborn would have won them, we would have taken his soul and turned him into Our puppet. There is no Ultimate Power. No universal forces, excepted Us."

Shadow Speedster couldn't believe what she was hearing. So all of this was just one big manipulation from this God to gain a puppet while getting some entertainment? The Ultimate Power, a big lie! All that happened, the Accident, the disappearances, the races to stop Black Shadow and Deathborn, for nothing!

"Hahahahahhh... But somehow, you defeated Deathborn and became the champion of the two Grand Prix," the left face continued.

"You proved yourself superior to him!"

"We knew this could be an eventuality, so this is why We tested him. We wanted nothing but the best after all. Uhuhuh..."

"And so, instead of taking his soul..."

"We will take yours..."

"And turn you into..."

"Our creation!" the three shouted at last before they burst out of the belt again, this time not as lights but as some kind of blue spirits each wearing some armor (helmet included), one bronze, one silver, and one gold. Reality distorted around the filly, finding herself in a completely different dimension that had absolutely nothing beside some multicolored fog that wasn't too dense. And yet, Shadow Speedster was still standing on some invisible floor, and she saw her Shadow Raven appear beside her, repaired.

"However, We will give you a chance, just to make it less boring," the spirit in bronze armor, which revealed to be the bearer of the first voice, said.

"If you defeat Us in a race, then We won't take your soul. We swear," the spirit in silver armor, bearer of the second voice, said.

"But there is no way this will happen. Ah ah ah ah ah ah!" the spirit in gold armor, the third voice, said mockingly.

Shadow Speedster gulped. Racing against a God? Was this even possible to win? But she had to. She didn't want to become this guy's puppet. So, filling with resolve, she said, "Challenge accepted! Bring it on!" before she jumped into her machine.

The three spirits gave her mocking laughs before they said, "Are you ready?" Then, in a flash, they merged together to form a ghostly copy of her Shadow Raven which placed itself beside hers. The multicolored fog then disappeared, revealing that they were in a dimension similar to Phantom Road, on a new track. On the little that she could see from her position, she could see no guard rail. She didn't know if this was the case for the whole track, but if that was...

The countdown then began and she quickly readied herself.

3...

2...

1...

Shadow Speedster and the Creator took off at the same time, the two machines going off side by side. The Creator having made an exact copy of the Shadow Raven, it meant that the two machines had exactly the same speed and power, so this race will entirely depend on the filly's skill. She however quickly found out something. The Creator's machine being ghostly, it was entirely intangible. No way to touch it, and thus, to attack it to make it fall beyond the edges of the track. This also meant that the Creator couldn't attack her.

So, again, pure skill in piloting the Shadow Raven will determinate who will win.

The race started alright for Shadow Speedster. She was side by side with her rival as they flew on a mostly straight line. Then, they arrived at a large turn to the right, nothing challenging. It was after this turn however that the real challenge began as more turns followed, starting with a U-turn that wasn't too sharp but still was a bit tricky as it was immediately followed by another turn. Then came another U-turn, this one much sharper, that formed an horizontal loop with the exit passing above the entrance. After that was an ascending spiral composed of two more loops, the second one much smaller than the first one, before this calmed. And all the while there weren't any barrier. Any screw up and the race would end for Shadow Speedster.

Because of this series of turns and loops, Shadow Speedster was forced to slow down to avoid such screw ups while learning the track's layout, allowing the Creator to take the lead. And the worst part was that this whole series of turns and loops didn't offer any occasion for the filly to do one of her tricks. At least, beside the absence of guard rails, there weren't any obstacles. And no Pit Row too by the way, meaning that she will have to be careful with the boost once she unlocked it.

But first, she reached an hill like there had been on the Slim-Line Slits track, allowing her to launch herself in the air, but no trick occasion again to her annoyance. The hill was followed by a series of four small jumps, the third one and fourth one each preceded by a sharp turn. Finally, before the line, there was a single Pit Row.

Just one Pit Row on the whole track? And just before the line? Gonna have to use the boost smartly.

While she did the first lap, she didn't just took note of the layout of the track, but also of how the Creator piloted. The Creator was an extremely good pilot, no surprise here. They drifted and took these turns and loops perfectly. However, she quickly saw that They weren't the daring type. They avoided all risks, not getting near the edges as much as possible. It meant that they weren't taking the turns as closely as They could to gain precious seconds, and remained at a safe speed while still making sure to remain fast enough.

Which wasn't the case of Shadow Speedster. She didn't know a filly more daring than her, without counting her crazy alicorn friend and her alternate selves. As such, after using a first boost in the straight line that followed the line, she made sure to take all the turns as tightly as possible, remaining close to the inner edges and using the boost when she felt it wouldn't send her flying off track. She especially used it at the top of the hill to remain flying longer. While in the air, thanks to the speed she gained, she was able to glide for a good while, skipping a good part of the track including the first two jumps, finally catching up to the Creator. She then passed Them thanks to the two sharp turns that followed, drifting close to the inner edges while going as fast as she could without going beyond the opposite edges.

As she passed Them, she made sure to give them the smuggest smirk she could. "Punny God."

After recharging her energy on the Pit Row and starting the third lap, she continued as she did. She took the turns dangerously even if it meant having half of her machine above nothing for a moment, leaving the Creator in the dust. The Creator did try to follow her example but They clearly hesitated, not as confident, and still weren't as extreme as she was being.

And so, Shadow Speedster passed the finish line several seconds before Them. Immediately, the track disappeared and the multicolored fog returned, covering back the dimension. The Creator, not believing that They lost, lost control of Their machine before They separated and flew away in different direction in total panic and confusion. The dimension then disappeared and Shadow Speedster found herself where she parked the Shadow Raven, not far of the entrance of the Bet & Race Dollar.

She let out a huge sigh, slumping against her pilot's chair. This race revealed to be less difficult than the one against Deathborn, but it still was a very stressful one because of the absence of guard rails and the fact that there had been only one Pit Row. This track forced her to dance with Death pretty much from beginning to end with how dangerously she had had to take these turns to pass her rival.

A big smile formed on her muzzle. "I beat a God in a race... Awesome! Wait until I say that to Rainbow Dash and the others!"

Meanwhile, DD finished Their snack. This Creator wasn't as tasty and filling as a third category God, but They made a good appetizer while waiting for the main course.

But there was one thing that DD could agree with the Creator, these F-Zero races made for a very good entertainment. The Devourers that directly devoured universes really missed a lot.

Chapter 100: Little Purple Glowing Spheres

Author's Note

Already the hundredth chapter. Back in A Sweetie Dreamland, we were right in the middle of the Star Allies arc, near the end of the story. But here, we are only nearing the end of the first saga out of five, just starting the Earthbound/Mother arc (which shouldn't last long).

And look at that. For the one hundredth chapter, a BIG event is happening! Now... Time to get serious... :pinkiecrazy:

Chapter 100: Little Purple Glowing Spheres

Sweetie Void and Ness looked down at the invaded town, seeing dozens more of these pig men (mainly pink ones but also several blue ones, a few green ones, and they saw one white one with a cape) and clay beings, and also some tanks. The pig men were taking some pleasure terrifying the inhabitants, causing as much damage as possible. Further away, the children could see that they started a forest fire.

Behind them were the five pig men they fought plus the two they previously knocked out, now in a pile beside the remains of the clay being.

Sweetie Void sighed. "So much for just scouting." She looked at Ness. "A friend is having a party in a few hours so let's hurry up."

"Uh... Okay. Then let's go."

"Wait! Big bro!" The shout gained their attention, the two seeing the little girl run toward them holding a red cap. "Here, your cap!"

Ness took the cap she presented to him and put it on, blue bill turned to his right side. "Thank you, little sis."

"Kick their butts!"

Ness laughed. "I will."

He then ran down the path to the town followed by Sweetie Void, the two quickly encountering a couple of pig men that were quickly knocked out before the two children separated to cover more ground. The invading pig men weren't that many, thankfully.

Sweetie Void easily rolled over anything she encountered. Men armed of guns and beings made of clay were just small fry to her, as easy to knock out as Waddle Dees. She bonked a man on the head with the handle of her sword, punched another with so much force that she sent him crashing into a house, cut a clay being in two like you cut butter, and then used another clay being as a shield to protect herself from the shell fired by a tank. Looking at the tank, she was silent for a few seconds before she grinned, getting an idea.

Meanwhile, Ness had a bit more problem but still was able to knock out in one hit most pig men he encountered. The pink ones were really weak. The few blue ones he encountered, however, already asked more caution. Then he encountered a green one.

"Yah!"

"Urgh!"

Ness hit the green pig man on the head with his bat like he did to all the pig men he encountered. But the pig man tanked the hit and immediately retaliated by kicking the boy away before he fired his gun. Ness was hit by the energy projectile which hurt him quite a bit despite his shield. At least, thanks to the shield he put being a stronger version than the one he used earlier with Sweetie Void, some of the damage blocked by it was returned to the green pig man.

"Ouch... PK Lifeup," Ness mumbled, focusing a bit before his wounds closed. He then pointed a finger at the pig man and said, "PK Paralysis!"

To the green pig man's surprise, he found himself numbed to the point that he could barely move, leaving him vulnerable to Ness' bat without being able to counterattack. After a few more hits, he was out.

But after defeating some more pig men including two more green ones, Ness encountered the white one with the cape who was at the head of a group of three greens. Frowning, the boy quickly put two fingers on his forehead and strongly focused before he yelled, "PK Rockin!" A huge psychokinetic wave then came out of him and hit the group of pig men like a train, sending them flying to land further away on their back, out cold.

Just then, he saw a group of pig men run away, chased by a tank with Sweetie Void poking out of its entrance now wearing a military helmet. Cackling, she pointed at the pig men and yelled "Fire!!!"

BOOM!!!

"OIIIIIIINK!!!!"

"I knew I should have called in sick todaaaaay!!!"

Two of the clay beings suddenly jumped in the tank's way and managed to stop it in its course, holding it in place with their strength.

"Hey! Come on! You're ruining my fun!" the filly complained, but the clay beings didn't react to her words at all. Annoyed, she grabbed them in her magic and crushed them into balls of clay before tossing them away, restarting spreading terror among the pig men.

Ness sweated at what he witnessed before he shook his head and resumed fighting the pig men, encountering a clay being too against who he discovered that these things were easy to put to sleep with a "PK Hypnosis". Already, not many enemies remained in town. Pretty much all the clay beings and tanks were destroyed by Sweetie Void, and many of the pig men who weren't knocked out escaped by either running out of the town or returning inside their pig UFOs. Ness still encountered a couple more clay beings that he easily eliminated with PK Hypnosis' help before he finally ended up facing a tank that had managed to escape the filly's rampage.

The boy quickly jumped out of the way of a shell before he yelled, "PK FLASH!!!" A group of small flashing green lights then came out of him and moved toward the tank. A huge green explosion followed, destroying the tank in one hit while the pig men that had been inside it were sent flying away.

With this, the town was mostly cleared of enemies.

But this wasn't over as Sweetie Void entered the forest, leaving the tank behind, and began to put out the fire only to see that said fire was caused by weird flies spewing fire. Upon looking closer after catching one in her magic, she saw that they were actually flies combined with a lighter.

She snorted. "Way to make literal fireflies." Deep down, she was both amused and worried by this. If these guys could combine animals with objects... Well, Fluttershy would be horrified.

No matter. It meant that she had to find and stop all these flies to stop the fire. Thinking of how difficult it would be, she instead decided to fly toward the ocean and levitated a huge quantity of water to flood the forest, not only putting out the fire but also sweeping the flies all in one go, and she made sure to control the water so it didn't reach and flood the town.

Her job done, she returned in the town and found Ness as he destroyed one last clay being that had been left behind by the retreating pig men.

"I put out the forest fire," she informed.

"And I think that I eliminated the last enemy," Ness returned. He then gave the filly his hand. "I'm Ness."

She shook his hand. "Sweetie Belle. But you can also call me Sweetie Void. I'm an alien from another dimension simply visiting your world. That I arrived just in time to help fight off this invasion is just pure coincidence." Or not.

"Okay."

She raised an eyebrow, bemused. "I'm not the first alien from another dimension you meet, uh?"

"Well, it's not exactly the same, but I met a rhinoceros beetle-like insect alien from the future. And I fought a humanoid robotic one who followed him. And then I had to go to the past with my friends to defeat this last one's master who had become Evil incarnate." Ness got a thoughtful expression. "I'm not sure if the Giygas I fought was the one from the future who travelled to the past or if it was a past incarnation... Speaking of, Porky was his right-hand man."

"The same Porky who is now at the head of this army and who is now forcing you to "play" with him?"

"Yeah... He was my neighbor. A bully, jealous, self-centered, immature, but also with a very difficult home life. Despite all this, he was alright to be around. But then he got corrupted by Giygas and became worse, actively helping him to destroy the universe. When I defeated Giygas with my friends, he used Giygas' technology to escape through space and time. I didn't hear from him since then, several months ago."

Sweetie Void sighed. "Darn... Then I hope that we can save him if he's still corrupted."

"I'm not sure if he's still corrupted. I mean, Giygas is dead. His influence is gone. Everyone and everything that had been turned crazy by his power is back to normal. So..."

"Then... Let's deal with him. Fourside, right?"

"Yes. I can teleport us there."

"Not so fast, young man," a female voice interrupted them before they turned to see Ness' mother approaching. "You just pushed back an invasion. I advise you to rest a bit before you go. Who knows what that horrible boy has prepared for you. I prepared a steak for you. And a salad for your new friend."

Ness reluctantly agreed.

While they shared a meal in Ness' home, Sweetie getting to know Ness' mother and sister, the woman eventually said, "It's too bad that you must go on an adventure now. Your father is returning home. You will barely miss him."

"Don't worry, mom. If everything goes well, I should be back in a few hours," Ness reassured.

"You know as well as me that you shouldn't say that. Chances of things not going according to plan are very high in a hero's life. For all we know, this is the start of another journey across the world to save the universe," the mother reprimanded.

Sweetie Void snorted. "I know that from experience. One moment you chase a cake thief. The next, you fight a god-like incarnation of evil in space."

"Exactly. Or one moment you are investigating a poltergeist phenomenon, and then you end up stopping an alien invasion."

Ness' sister laughed. "A hero's life is so weird!"

"You have no idea," the filly said with a giggle.

Ness groaned. "I hope that you are wrong..."

"Just in case, you should bring your other friends. Jeff and Poo," the mother proposed.

"Okay."

Once they were done eating, Sweetie Void and Ness exited the house and moved to an area of the path where there weren't any obstacles.

Then Ness began to run faster and faster in a circle, only to stop when he saw that Sweetie Void wasn't doing the same and was instead looking at him as his he was crazy.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm teleporting," the boy answered as if it was obvious.

"What?"

Ness raised an eyebrow. "To teleport us, I must run faster and faster until reaching a certain speed, with you following me. Thanks to Teleportation Beta, I can run in circles instead of having to go in straight lines, which takes less place. You didn't know?"

"Well... no," Sweetie Void answered before she demonstrated how she teleported, simply by popping out of existence and reappearing at another location further to the side. "To teleport, I don't need to run."

Ness was flabbergasted. "Woah... Uh... W-well... Can you teleport us to Winters, then?"

"No, sorry. I have to know where my destination is to teleport there, and also know the place to make sure that I don't accidentally teleport into something. So I guess that you will have to teleport us. So I just have to run in circle behind you?"

"Yes. Just follow me."

So Sweetie Void went behind the boy and the two began to run in circle, gaining speed until the two just ran into a portal that opened. The next thing they knew, they ran out of the portal in an area covered in snow, before the gate to a large building.

A building that was attacked by weird animals. As in, there were animals that looked like amalgamations of at least two animals, and there were cyborg animals. Or animals that were both amalgamations and cyborgs.

Sweetie Void stared bemusedly at a wolf whose head was replaced by the one of a goat with two horns looking like small spears. Then she looked at a bear whose front legs were replaced by gattling guns and who had a cannon in its mouth.

"What the buck...?"

Despite the questions, the two quickly sprung into action and began to attack the animals. After knocking out an elephant with huge wings instead of ears, they entered the building where they separated to save everyone.

Sweetie Void entered rooms after rooms, saving children and staff from the rampaging animals. She barely stopped a porcupine armadillo from turning a girl into a strainer. Then she saw a gang of sunglasses-wearing mice forcing other children into giving them money by threatening them with guns, and the filly promptly gave them a lesson. The weirdest was probably when she encountered a bird that could lay explosive eggs, dealing with it as it just entered the building through a window. At least, she didn't encounter many people so she guessed that they must have gathered somewhere, and the ones that she saved were the ones who got themselves separated.

Meanwhile, Ness found his friend Jeff in a classroom in the second floor, defending the majority of his classmates and the school's staff with one of his guns. Many animals were laying unconscious all over the room.

"Jeff! Are you alright?"

"Hey, Ness. How did you know that we needed help? Has Paula seen this and informed you with her psychic powers?"

"Uh... No. I came to ask you to help me saving her from Porky. I had no idea that the school was being attacked."

"Uh. Then as you can see, everyone here is alright. However, we are missing a few people. You should go search for them before something bad happens. Don't worry, I have the situation in hand here."

BOOOOM!!! Boomboomboomboomboomboomboom! A huge explosion followed by a series of smaller ones suddenly came from elsewhere in the building only to stop as suddenly as they started by a big CRASH! Looking out a window, Ness saw a giant squid with a cannon as a mouth and more cannons at the tip of its tentacles being blasted off into the sky.

"What was that?!" Jeff asked.

"A new friend I made today. She's helping me pushing back these animals."

"Oh? Cool. You will present me once this is over."

"Of course. Then we will go take Poo before going to Fourside. By the way, any news of your father?"

Jeff shook his head. "Nothing..."

"I'm sorry..."

"Now is not the side. Just go."

Ness nodded and exited the room.

Only to quickly find out that Sweetie Void had already cleaned most of the building and saved everyone else. He only had to fight a few more animals before they were all defeated. A few remained outside but the filly quickly dealt with them before they could get away and risk to rampage elsewhere. She then gathered all of them in a big cage that she sent to New Halcandra with a message clarifying what that was, hoping that the guys there will be able to help them one way or another.

"So you are Ness' new friend, uh? I... didn't expect a winged unicorn," Jeff stated upon meeting the filly not long afterward, before the school's entrance.

She giggled. "Nobody expects a winged unicorn."

"True."

Blond bowl cut. Rectangular glasses that made him look smart. Freckles. Green coat and pants with a black bowtie and white shirt. He really looked like your typical genius kid/teacher's pet. And yet, he didn't act haughty like most were depicted to act. Actually, he seemed to be the shy type as he was hesitant when he talked to Sweetie Void. But behind his shyness and his glasses, the filly could see a lot of curiosity in his eyes. She intrigued him.

A bit as if he was a fusion of Twilight and Fluttershy.

"I can't wait to fight alongside you," she eventually said, hoping to open him more.

"Me too. I can't use psychic powers like Ness, Paula, or Poo, but I make up for it with gadgets. Speaking of, they still must be in my bag, in my room. One minute." He returned inside the school and exited it a couple of minutes later with a backpack. "Look at these!" He put the bag down and opened it, starting to show items that were inside. "Here I have a bazooka! Beside my gun, it's the weapon I used the most back in the days. Huge damage to the main target plus splash damage to any enemy stupid enough to be close to said target. Very useful against groups of enemies. And best of all? Infinite ammo and no need to reload it! And look at this! I call it the Hungry HP-Sucker! It drains the enemies from their energy and heals me! Oh, and I love this one. The Neutralizer. With this, I can undo all the effects of all the psychic moves, including buffs and debuffs. But I must be careful when I use it because it affects even friendlies. A bad timing and I could destroy Ness' shield just as the enemy attacks him, or remove a PK Hypnosis and wake up the enemy. I really should work on doing one that targets only the enemies' psychic moves..."

Before he could continue, Ness interrupted him by putting a hand on his shoulder. "Sorry Jeff, but we must go. If your school was attacked, then I fear that Dalaam was attacked too. Let's hurry."

"Uh... Yeah! Right! See you quickly Tony, hopefully," he said to a boy with a black hat who was standing at the entrance door.

The boy waved back at them. "Good luck!"

Ness teleported the group to a large floating island in the sky, made of a series of slopes and cliffs with one of these oriental palaces with a golden domed roof at the very top of the island while a village was in the lower levels.

They appeared in a large area beside the palace only to almost run into a rather large pile of unconscious pig men of all four encountered colors with only a single destroyed tank, a couple of destroyed pig UFOs, and a few destroyed clay beings.

"Woah..." Sweetie Void was amazed to see that the enemies were already dealt with here.

Jeff chuckled and crossed his arms. "I guess that it was useless to worry." He looked up at the top of the pile. "Right, Poo?"

Sitting on the top of the pile, as if meditating, was a young teen, a boy wearing a white gi with a black belt and black shoes. He was almost entirely bald except for a patch of black hair tied into a pigtail. From what Sweetie could see, he was also wearing a well-decorated diadem, cloak, bracer, and had also a beautiful sword at his hip.

After a few seconds of silence, the boy, Poo, spoke. "These fools were no challenge to me. They tried to invade my home, only to hit a wall, very painfully." He opened his eyes and looked down at the group, smiling. "But I thank you for worrying. I take it that they also attacked you?"

"Well, these pig men attacked my hometown, but Jeff's school was attacked by rampaging animals that these guys seem to have experimented on," Ness informed. "Porky is responsible of this. They work for him. He kidnapped Paula."

Poo sighed. "I see... So he is back... I would have loved to forget about this brat. And who is the... uh... kirin?"

Sweetie Void tilted her head. "Kirin? That's the first time I'm called like that."

"Her name is Sweetie Belle-"

"But you can call me Sweetie Void!"

"-and she comes from another dimension. She is helping us."

Poo got up and jumped down from the pile, landing before the filly before bowing to her. "How lucky I am to meet such a noble creature. Thank you for helping us in our time of need."

"Uh... You're welcome?" Sweetie Void was a bit weirded out. "Actually. I'm what we call an alicorn. Sorry, but I don't know what are these kirins you are talking about."

"Mmh... You said that you came from another dimension?"

"Uh... It's Ness who-"

"Then I guess that this is how kirins call themselves in this dimension you came from. I understand. If this is your wish, then I will refer to you as an alicorn from now on."

Sweetie gave Ness and Jeff a pleading look, which the boys returned with shrugs.

"Now, Ness, I will gladly join you again to give the brat another lesson," Poo said to Ness. "Do you know his current location?"

"He said that he would wait for me in Fourside," Ness answered. "Let's go."

Poo nodded.

They teleported into a huge city that reminded Sweetie of Manehattan, with skyscrapers surrounding her. However, she quickly saw two problems:

Firstly, the streets were empty. Like, there was absolutely nobody, not even a cat. Usually, streets in such large cities were bustling.

Secondly, above the skyscrapers was a huge ship with the snout of a pig and a giant propeller like an helicopter, looping the same music that the smaller pig UFOs had been playing.

"So, in which building do you think that Porky is with Paula?" Sweetie asked to the others.

"Mmh..." Ness thought for a few seconds. "I'm guessing what had been the Monotoly Building. This is where I last encountered Porky before the final battle against him and Giygas, and he loves feeling at the top."

"Ding dililing! We have a winner!" An holographic screen descended from the sky, showing an empty golden sofa. "You know me so well, Ness. Oh. How I missed you, old pal. Old buddy. Old friend. Eheheheheh. You know, I gained immortality. I lived thousands of years... Probably. It's hard to say, with time travel. And yet..." From behind the sofa jumped a young, overweight blond boy Ness' age who dropped on the sit. "Look! I haven't aged at all! Well truthfully, because of time travel, I became a frail old geezer. Bleh. Not fun. I could barely walk out of my walker. But then I met some new friends who helped me regain my youth! And just for you, I decided to return to my good old thirteen years old-self. Well, that and also because it felt so wrong for me to be an adult. I mean, me? An adult? What a joke! Adults are no fun. They only think of working and working and working again. No, I prefer to remain a kid, thank you. This way I can do what I want without caring for the consequences. I can play all day, stuff myself with icecream, and sleep as much as I want. And the best? Nobody to scream at me! No stupid parents to punish me! THIS! Is good life! Well, almost. Like I said, I really missed you, Ness, you loser. Like I said, if I chose to return as a thirteen years old instead of any other age, this is for you. Because I miss the good old times. When you went in your little adventure to save the world and I was here to oppose you. I never felt so alive, had more fun than back then. You as the hero, and me as the bad guy! I want that again! I want to play with you again! So... Come! Come save your girlfriend! Hehehehehehe! That is..." He grabbed a remote control with a single red button from his pocket. "If you reach me!" He pressed the button.

Then, a hatch opened in the underbelly of the huge ship, and out of it came countless of little purple glowing spheres that dropped all over the area around the group. Once reaching the ground, these spheres then gathered into groups and merged together, taking shapes that looked more and more like bipedal humanoid creatures about the size of Luigi. They formed a round head, some suit with a large collar, shoes, gloves, and a hat with what looked like a feather. Finally, the purple turned into different colors. Thus the beings' skin became dark grey/black while the suit and hat turned green with the feather being red, and the shoes and gloves were brown. Finally, on the suit was a little emblem that looked like a circle with a single line going to the center, the space inside the circle being red. All of these beings had different faces, going from simple soulless white and red eyes to complex patterns, or just a single large red circle, between many others. Some of them had just their bare hands while others were armed with boomerangs, swords, and guns, and a few had red suits and hat instead of green ones.

Surrounding the kids, these things easily numbered the hundreds, maybe over one thousand, much move numerous than the pig men had been.

"What are they?" Sweetie Void wondered, not really asking the question to Porky.

And yet, the boy answered. "No idea! I just got them and didn't bother to ask their name. Now... Let's get ready to rumbleeee!!!"

As if this was a signal, the mysterious humanoids charged at the kids.

Chapter 101: Porky Minch

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 102: This Is Not Goodbye

The group of kids was in a place called Saturn Valley, not far east of the bubble created by the Subspace Bomb. The bubble could be seen looming behind the hills surrounding the valley, constantly reminding everyone of their utter failure against Porky.

When you ignored the Subspace bubble, this valley was a really strange, peaceful, and funny place inhabited by very strange, eccentric, and kind creatures called Mr. Saturns, after which the valley was named.

Yes. Mr. Saturn. That was the name of these creatures. The Mr. was part of the name, not a title. Even female ones had it.

The Mr. Saturns were small creatures, a little bit smaller than even Sweetie Void. They had a simple semi-spherical beige body with two feet and a large round nose, but no hands. They also had four whiskers and a single hair with a red bow on the top of their head. And while they had two small biddy eyes, they didn't seem to have a mouth.

Honestly, they looked like they came right out of Popstar.

They also talked very funny, often saying random stuff or phrasing things in an amusing way, had weird quirks such as putting ladders everywhere even when they were unnecessary and, in the small time that Sweetie got to know them, revealed to be extremely kind and generous. When they saw how tired Ness and the others were, they immediately offered hospitality without asking anything in return.

They also allowed Ness to bury Paula's body in their village without objection, as a temporary location for her grave until they managed to bring back Twoson, her town. If it was possible to bring it back. And despite their eccentricities, they perfectly understood the situation and were a great support to the human kids, especially to Ness. Even as Ness remained sitting in front of Paula's grave, one of them silently kept him company as some kind of living plushy.

Sweetie Void, Jeff, and Poo were not far behind, silently observing him with some Mr. Saturns.

"Ⴥꭱ⟟⋲ηɗی ᘓƌη ꭱ⋲ی⍭ ⟟η ⌵⟟ℓℓƌ𝙶⋲, βơ⟟η𝙶, ƌی ℓơη𝙶 ƌی ⍭ꔠ⋲ɣ ⍵ƌη⍭," one of the Mr. Saturn said.

"We are grateful for that," Poo said with a thankful bow.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Void turned to look as she spotted a military helicopter flying before the Subspace bubble. Without surprise, in the minutes that followed the end of the fight against Porky, military came and established a perimeter around the bubble. Sweetie made sure to tell the highest ranking officer present to NOT send men into the bubble, relaying Porky's warning. Sweetie herself hesitated about entering the bubble. She thought that she could enter it and then exit it with everyone trapped in it using one of her rifts, but she had no idea of what to expect once inside the bubble. For all she knew, time inside could be stopped. Tests will have to be made.

"I'm sorry, but I won't be able to remain," she said. "I must return home and recount my experience with this Subspace Army. It may very well be the army I have been warned about and that I have been preparing to fight. Also, we could send people here to see if we can do anything about this Subspace Bubble."

"You were warned about these things we fought?" Jeff asked.

"Not exactly about these things or Porky, but that an army will come and cause problems to a lot of universes without specifying what they will be. And when I see that..." She pointed at the bubble. "I think that we have a good contender for being this army. From what Porky said, he is only a part of it. Who knows what are his "friends" he mentioned, and how worse they can be. And especially how many they are. But even if this army is not the one I have been warned about, I swear that I will do everything to make them pay for what happened today. Especially Porky. Next time I encounter him..." Everyone suddenly got a chill as they felt an intense aura coming from the filly whose eyes turned into two globes of darkness. "I will give him an eternity of suffering."

...

"Don't," they suddenly heard. They all turned to look at the origin, Ness, who was still sitting in front of the grave, still staring at it. "She wouldn't want that. To fall into hate and vengeance because of her. Even against someone like Porky. Beside... This is my fault..."

"Your fa-? Well, I admit that you could have been more careful, but you were angry after what happened to Onett. We won't hold it against you," Poo said. "And we all thought that Porky really was down. Nobody saw that coming."

Ness shook his head. "You are right, but I wasn't talking about that." He gave a long sigh. "When I first met Paula, she was prisoner of a cult, the Happy Happy Cult. Porky had recently joined it, even becoming a high priest. He was certainly influenced by the Mani Mani Statue, an evil statue that could bring out the evil in everyone by enhancing their desires, which Giygas used to spread his influence. Mr. Carpainter had gotten the statue and, influenced by it, created the cult, everyone in it becoming brainwashed. The statue probably used Porky's need to feel important and accepted because of his loneliness and his abusive parents. When I defeated Mr. Carpainter and freed him and everyone from the statue's influence, Porky then came and asked to be friends again..."

"What a horrible nightmare. I somehow woke up. Ness, let's be friends again."

"I never really considered him a friend. He followed me around because I was too nice to push him back and I got along very well with his little brother, Picky, but his selfishness and egotistical personality not helped by his immaturity made it rather hard to tolerate him too long. He was very good at getting on your nerves. So when he asked to be friends again, I actually hesitated and remained silent."

"Please, answer me. I promise to be good... Uh... Okay?"

"It was very hard to believe when he promised that he would behave from now on. Still, I began to think if I should accept or not. However, I spent too long and he interpreted my silence as me refusing."

"Hah! I lied! See you, sucker!"

"He saved face by saying that he was tricking me before insulting me like usual and running away. However, at this moment, I saw genuine pain in his face. I understood then that he had been sincere, but now it was too late. I guess then that he fully embraced Giygas' influence to become who he is today. The next time I saw him, in Fourside, in the Monotoli Building, I could see in his eyes that something was already wrong, but he didn't even let me put in a word as he monologued, insulted me, and then kicked me out. Then he stole Monotoli's helicopter and I didn't see him again until the very end, before the machine containing Giygas. By then, he was entirely under Giygas influence, and I could do nothing anymore."

Ness turned to look at his friends, tears in his eyes. "Paula would still be alive if I had just opened my mouth back then. I would have been able to save Porky from Giygas' influence, maybe even make him one of us. Everything that happened today, I'm the one to blame."

Everyone remained silent at this until the Mr. Saturn that Ness was still holding like a plushy flicked him with his big nose. "Ɣơ⊔ ηơ⍭ βℓƌᨓ⋲! φ⟟𝙶 βơɣ βℓƌᨓ⋲!"

"You couldn't have foreseen the consequences of you refusing Porky's friendship," Jeff agreed. "In the best of worlds, he would have remained in his home and would have simply decided to stop following you. Or he would have tried harder to get forgiveness, to show that he really was ready to work to prove to you that he could change and get your friendship. Instead, he decided to follow his father to work for Monotoli, and then to steal the helicopter to continue to be a nuisance to us. And even then, after we defeated Giygas, he could have repented with the excuse that he was under his influence. But instead, he escaped by travelling through space and time and became the monster we saw today, of his own volition. You may have kickstarted the whole process by remaining silent, but everything he did afterward was his decision, including killing Paula. He is the one to blame."

Poo nodded. "And your hesitation to accept his friendship was entirely understandable, after everything you told us about him. The risk of him ending up backstabbing us if you had agreed was very real."

"And I'm a bit to blame too," Sweetie Void added before she looked down in shame. "I had the power to stop Porky right away, but I decided to go easy on him because I tend to lower myself to my enemies' level to have good fights. Until now, it always went well when I did that. They are especially good bonding moments when I fight alongside new friends I just made. But I guess that luck eventually had to run out... Annnd there's also the fact that I'm never sure if I should go on and put down the bad guy by myself or let the local hero have their fight and I just support them. I mean, if I was to suddenly appear and defeat right away the evil dark lord, then the reason why the hero went on a journey full of hardships and sacrifices would disappear. All they did would be for nothing. Or the hero has some personal matter to settle with their nemesis and I suddenly come and steal their chance. There really can be many reasons. For example, here, after what Porky did to your home and family, would have it been right for me to steal your fight against him? Now that I know the outcome, I wish that I had, but back then, I really thought that it was the right thing to do to let you guys deal with him with me supporting you."

"I understand. This was thoughtful of you," Poo said. "We won't hold you for this. You were just thinking of us."

"You could have really destroyed Porky's walker right from the start?" Jeff asked.

"I can blow up planets when I go all out, so a walker is nothing," Sweetie Void revealed.

"Blow up planets?! Are you kidding?! The amount of power needed to do that would be astronomical!" Jeff shouted in disbelief.

Sweetie Void shrugged. "I have a LOT of power." She looked back at Ness. "You are a very good boy if you are able to not think of vengeance despite what happened... I'm not that good..."

Ness shook his head. "I'm not that good either... I... I WANT to make him pay. But... If we have to go after him, then this won't be for that reason, but because we have to stop him. Because we can't allow him to continue to do what he did today. Same for his "friends"."

Sweetie Void smiled at him. "And I guess that this is what really matters."

"......." Ness looked a few more seconds at Paula's grave before he released the Mr. Saturn and got up, looking at the filly. "If you are leaving... Can I come with you?" he asked. "If you are going to fight this Subspace Army, then I want to help."

Jeff and Poo exchanged glances before they both nodded and said, "Us too!"

"Are you sure, guys?" Ness asked. "I don't know how long it will be before we return. You still have your school, Jeff, and your kingdom, Poo."

Before the two other boys could say anything, Sweetie Void interjected. "If it can help, we are producing dimensional phones allowing people to communicate with each others through dimensions. For now, only texts work most of the time because of how much faster time in a dimension can be compared to another. But seeing how close the times of our dimensions are, I think that you would be able to directly call each others. And with some luck, the locals will agree to let us build a portal here so you would be able to visit us whenever you want. And if something is going on, then you are one call away from helping us."

"Oh! And then Poo could teleport to take Jeff before going to the portal and joining us!" Ness continued.

"I will have to give you the phones first, however, and I don't know if we have spare ones," Sweetie reminded. "This may take a few days before you get yours."

"Then we will spend these few days in your dimensions," Jeff stated resolutely.

"Eheh. Alright."

As they were about to leave Saturn Valley, Ness turned one last time to face Paula's grave. He then placed his hands together and prayed to say goodbye.

To his surprise, he was enveloped in a white light before he suddenly felt a big headache, as if he had a fever. Then, the light and the headache disappeared like they came.

Having an hunch of what happened, the boy took a few steps away from the grave before he pointed two fingers at a random location where there was nothing and shouted "PK Fire!" Then, out of his fingers came a Z-shaped projectile. Not hitting anything, the projectile quickly disappeared into the air, but he knew that, if it had hit a target, then said target would have been set ablaze.

He now had PK Fire, and he had the feeling that he also got PK Freeze, PK Thunder, PK Magnet, PK Defense Down, PK Offense Up, and PK PK Shield. All of Paula's PK powers that he didn't possess.

I will always be with you, Ness. This is not goodbye.

Tears returned in the boy's eyes as he looked up at the sky. "Thank you, Paula."

He joined the others, Jeff shocked while Poo and Sweetie Void smiled, the filly having wet eyes too. She then opened a rift.

"⍵ƌ⟟⍭! ƌᨓ ᘓơᨓ⟟η𝙶 ⍭ơơ! ᘓơ⊔ℓɗ ꔠ⋲ℓφ! Ƶơơᨓ!" a Mr. Saturn shouted before he jumped on Sweetie's back.

The filly looked at the small creature in confusion. "Uh... Okay. Welcome."

They then all passed the rift which closed behind.

And Writer, I hate you.

Author's Note

Not quite like in the games for the Mr. Saturn font, but that's the best I could find.

Did I say that I'm not really good with emotional scenes? I hope that this chapter wasn't too clumsy...

Also, I found out that, while the first villain is named Giygas in Earthbound and Giegue in Mother in the American versions, Japanese versions both name him ギーグ (Gyiyg). So, in the end, Giygas/Giegue's name is like Pokey/Porky's name. They may be different from one game to another because of how they were translated, but in reality, they are the same. So don't be surprised if characters name the villain "Giygas" instead of "Giegue" even when they are referencing his Mother version, like they are naming Porky "Porky" instead of "Pokey".

Chapter 103: Assemble!

The Ultra Space.

Like always, Team Rainbow Rocket's Neo Castle was flying at full speed, doing its best to remain out of the League's radar. For a long moment, this worked. For many days, it had been able escape Elio's search.

But this couldn't last forever. Its luck would eventually run out.

And it ran out.

"Is that...?" Elio said as he spotted the castle in the distance. "This must be it! Let's approach it, Lunala. But be careful."

The bat-like, Moon-themed Pokémon on which he was riding, Lunala, nodded with a "Very well," (Elio got a translator, allowing him to understand it) before it flew toward the moving castle.

"Yes! This is their HQ! Finalyyyy..." he said in relief, slumping on Lunala's crescent-shaped head. "Uh... Lunala? Can't you turn off your Full Moon Phase? We are going to be spotted."

"You know very well that I can't while we are in the Ultra Space," Lunala replied. "I will just avoid getting closer."

Being in its Full Moon Phase, Lunala's usually night blue wings and yellow crescents and stars at their tips were glowing at lighter colors, pretty much turning the Pokémon into a light making it easy to be spotted.

Elio carefully searching something in his pockets and pulled out a small device. "But I need to place this tracker on the castle. Without it, Palkia won't know the castle's coordinates to open a portal to it."

"Then we will have to find something. At least, I see nobody on the towers and walls."

"It doesn't mean that they don't have a way to see if something is getting too close to them."

"Yes. Probably, in case Ultra Beasts decide to get too close and to attack," Lunala agreed.

Elio groaned and placed the tracker back in a pocket before he took out a phone and called someone.

"Hey, Dawn. I finally found the HQ. ... Yes, but I don't know how to place the tracker without being spotted. We can't get too close. Do you have an idea? ... What is it? ......... That's great! Alright, I'm waiting."

He ended the call and began to wait while Lunala continued to fly after the castle. Then, after a few minutes, Palkia appeared beside him. Elio presented the tracker to it, and Palkia teleported the device right on one of the towers, at one of the entrances.

"Perfect!" Elio shouted victoriously. "Hopefully, this will be over soon!"

The door to Sugarcube Corner opened, allowing a certain filly alicorn to enter and finally join her pegasus friend's cute-ceañera.

Pinkie Pie suddenly popped in front of her. "You are late!" she shouted, gaining the attention of many of the other people (not just ponies) attending the party, and eventually, all eyes were on her and Sweetie Void.

"Sorry Pinkie. Something happened and delayed me," Sweetie Void replied to the pink mare with a seriousness that surprised her.

Then, everyone saw the three human boys and the weird creature following her, said boys looking just as serious.

Twilight immediately approached. "What happened."

Sweetie Void stared at Twilight, and the mare immediately saw in the filly's eyes that what happened was very bad. "I think that I encountered that army we were warned about."

The party was cut short. Sweetie Void was sorry that she pretty much ruined her friend's cute-ceañera but Shadow Speedster didn't mind, understanding the gravity of the situation. Very rapidly, Twilight and her friends gathered in her castle's throne room with Sweetie Void, Ness and his friends, Starlight Glimmer, Spike, Present Tails (the one who had been working alongside Twilight and the others), Present Sonic, the president of the United Federation of Mobius, E. Gadd, Magolor, Susie, Celestia, Luna, Phantom, Apple Death, Chairman Keaton, General Pepper, Future Zelda, King Liam from Past Hyrule, Princess Peach with the Mario Brothers, and even the Twilight and company plus the princess sisters from the two other Equestria, making the room quite crowded.

When Sweetie Void and the human boys finished recounting their tale, everyone else had horrified or grave expressions. If this Subspace Army really was what they had been warned about, then they were darn glad of the warning. Just the Subspace Bombs made this army into a much bigger threat than anything any of them ever saw. And these bombs and the obviously advanced technology going with them under the command of someone as screwed up as this Porky made the threat even worse. And this was knowing that Porky was just one of the generals. If the other generals were as bad, without forgetting the Supreme Commander or whatever was their title, then yes. This was worth gathering several universes to form an alliance.

Everything was recorded so this could be repeated to whoever would need to hear about that, like the other leaders of the alliance from the Techno-Equestria or the Champions from the Pokémon World.

"We will need to send a team to study this... void bubble left by the bomb," Magolor stated, much to the agreement of the others in the room.

"Maybe even Void himself," Susie added.

"And now that it's clear what our enemies are and how dangerous they are, more or less, then I think that we can all agree to hurry up to form our alliance," Keaton said.

Celestia nodded. "The team for the F-Zero-verse is ready to be sent. Hopefully, they will be able to convince the local leaders to join us. Now that contact was made with the Subspace Army, who knows when this will happen again, and where."

"The team we will send to study the void bubble will also have to do that with the local world," Sweetie Void's Twilight said.

As the more politically inclined people present began to discuss about the actions to take to prepare now that they knew about the Subspace Army, the others (Phantom, Apple Death, the three sets of Element Bearers minus the three Twilight, the Mario Brothers, E. Gadd, Sonic, Tails, and the three human boys) left the room to have their own discussions, starting by the ones who were first meeting each others introducing themselves, leading to many small talks as they were getting to know each others.

"I would have never expected plumbers to be heroes," Sonic said after shaking hands to Mario and Luigi.

Mario let out a laugh. "I feel that I will often hear this in the future. But really, everybody can become a hero. This shouldn't be surprising."

"True."

"So Ah guess we must come up with nicknames fer everyone," one of the Applejack said as she looked at her counterparts, not minding the three Pinkie Pie excitedly bouncing around as they finally had the occasion to greet the new friends.

"For reminder, us Rainbow Dash already have nicknames. I am Zapp."

"Phantom Dash."

"Chromatic Bolt."

"Can I be Surprise?!" the three Pinkie Pie suddenly shouted simultaneously, startling all the mares. The three pink Earth Ponies then exchanged glares before one of them said, "Let's settle this with Rock, Paper, Scissor!"

The two other agreed, to the confusion of the ponies.

"But you don't have hands!" Phantom shouted from where she was in the room.

The Pinkie Pie didn't listen however and curiously put a hoof in their manes while chanting "Rock... Paper... Scissor!"

The three suddenly pulled an object out of their manes. Two pulled out scissors while the third one pulled out a rock.

"Yes! I win!" the one who pulled out the rock exclaimed with a bounce while the two others looked down sadly with a defeated "Aww..."

Meanwhile, Phantom stared bemusedly at the scene. "..... Okay. This should have been obvious."

"Hum... Which Pinkie are you?" one of the Fluttershy who weren't a living giant plushy asked.

The Pinkie who won pulled Chromatic Bolt against her. "I'm hers!"

"So the Pinkie from Sweetie Void's Equestria. Okay," Shadow Dash said with a nod. "We will have to find a way to physically differentiate you from the two other Pinkie Pie... Same for everypony else. Excepted the robot Applejack and plush Fluttershy. You two are obvious."

"That's some nice inventions you made here. Impressive for your age," E. Gadd said as he examined Jeff's stuff alongside Tails who agreed. About the inventions, not about these being impressive for Jeff's age. Tails, after all, was even younger than Jeff and yet was able to build robots as easily as you build buildings out of toy blocks.

The boy was blushing at the praises. "Thank you, professor. But that's nothing compared to what my father can do."

"I would like to meet him, but don't belittle yourself. I'm sure that you will eventually surpass him."

"It will be hard for you to meet him. He disappeared a few months ago. I have no idea of where he is."

"That's strange. You should lead me to his laboratory when we have the occasion. Maybe I could find a clue of what happened to him."

Jeff frowned. "I don't know. I already searched and found nothing."

"It still costs nothing to try again with us to help in case you missed something," Tails said.

Jeff nodded, agreeing.

Eventually, the discussions merged into one, returning to the real matter: the Subspace Army, and Porky.

"How do we deal with someone who is immortal?"

"Easy. He is immortal, not invincible," Sonic answered.

Apple Death nodded. "We destroy his walker, make sure that this is the real Porky, and capture him."

"And then we send him inside the core of a star, or into a black hole. Not sure which one would make him suffer the most, but both would ensure that he wouldn't be able to hurt anyone anytime soon," Phantom continued darkly, making many in the room gulp.

"I sometime forget that you are part that Infinite psycho," Sonic said. "But yeah. That's the gist of it. We capture him and trap him somewhere he won't be able to ever escape. Not necessarily a star or a black hole however."

Phantom scoffed. "A simple cell would be too good for him."

"Well, when you think about it, a cell in total solitary would be a really cruel punishment in the long run. Being alone by himself with nothing to do for millennia could become absolutely unbearable for him and lead him to become absolutely insane or outright just stop thinking. In other words, he would still be alive, but he would be pretty much brain dead. For eternity," E. Gadd informed. "The human brain is just not made for this."

Interested, Phantom began to think about this only for Apple Death to talk. "We'll see what we'll do with him once we get him. But what about these purple spheres their soldiers are made of? Ya think they can produce them?"

"Probably. Meaning that they would have an infinie supply of troops," Poo said.

"In addition of robots. They can certainly build and use them," Tails said.

"Well, they did sacrifice two robots to activate the bomb," one of the Rarity reminded from what Sweetie and the boys said.

"Why do they need to sacrifice robots to activate a bomb?" Shadow Dash wondered.

"The question we should ask is "why did they design the bombs this way?"" E. Gadd corrected.

"No ide-"

"GUYS!" they suddenly heard Sweetie Void shout urgently from the throne room. Quickly, they all returned in the room to see Sweetie Void happily showing them the screen of her phone. "They finally found it!"

We found the Team Rainbow Rocket HQ. We are starting the preparations to assault it. Your help would be more than welcome.

The message came from Elio.

"Team Rainbow Rocket?" Ness asked.

"It's a team who is causing huge problems in another world," Phantom explained. "They have several corrupted god or god-like monsters in their control, and their leader wants to get his hands on the God who created their universe."

"That's great! We will finally get to deal with these guys before we will have to focus on this Subspace Army!" one of the Twilight exclaimed in joy.

But then, a sound indicated that Sweetie Void received another message. Upon looking at it, she said, "It's from Dawn... Oh..." She looked up at everyone in the room. "Team RR just launched a general assault on Mt. Coronet. It seems that this is it. They are attempting to get to Arceus."

"Well, obviously, we're answering the call," Apple Death said.

"Corrupted god-like monsters, uh? Count me and Tails in," Sonic said.

"Us too," Mario said for himself and Luigi who gulped at this.

Ness exchanged glances with his friends before he said, "Us too."

Sweetie Void looked at all of them before she smiled. "And I think that I can bring more people to help us. I'll be back in a bit. Meanwhile, everyone who wants to join gets ready at the foot of the castle," she said. She then opened a rift and walked through it before it closed.

She appeared before Dedede's castle, only to see the Waddle Dees and other members of Dedede's army in full panic mode when she entered.

"Uh. What happened?" she asked.

"Oh Your Majesty Sweetie Belle! It's horrible! The King just disappeared into a vortex with a part of our army!"

"What?!"

"Yes, the King was just chilling on the walls of the castle, and then that star-shaped vortex appeared without warning and sucked in everyone who wasn't inside. Even some of the bricks of the castle were sucked in."

"When did this happen?"

"Just a few minutes ago."

"And any idea where this vortex led to?"

"Not at all."

Sweetie groaned. "Ugh! This couldn't have been at a worse timing! But without knowing more, there is nothing I can do. Where is Bandanna?"

"Trying to control the chaos that the King's disappearance created with Cape Knight's help."

"Well, listen to their orders. Until Dedede returns, they are in charge. I will ask Void to investigate this vortex."

The Waddle Dee nodded.

Void, however, wasn't present in Kirby's house. Galacta said that he decided to rebuild the second portal-world, the one that had been entirely destroyed during the second Ancient Civil War when he became corrupted and went on a rampage backed by the Magic Clan after their exile following the first one. He thought that this second portal-world would be eventually needed. Void himself would simply do the primary part: putting the pieces back in place. It would then be up to everyone else to repair the rest, like they were actually trying to repair the first portal-world.

The idea was that they could use one of the portal-worlds to call fleets and other huge things into the Dream Universe, and then use the second portal-world (which would be moved just beside the first one) to immediately send said fleets to another universe, the Dream Universe thus serving as some kind of bridge to rapidly move fleets from one universe to another. But portals would need some modifications however as they were originally only designed to send stuff back and forth between the Dream Universe and the home universe of the Ancients, which was now gone anyway.

Sweetie loved the idea as they would have a mean to move the Federation and Cornerian fleets around without her or Void having to be present to open huge rifts that could damage the dimension. It would be VERY useful against the Subspace Army.

But it also frustrated her because it meant that Void couldn't help for the vortex. Instead, Galacta agreed to see what he could do about the vortex. He wasn't sure that he would be able to do much beside being on the lookout in case more of them appeared however.

"I will warn Meta Knight and all the others. The more the better," he added before he flew toward the HQ of the Meta Knights, leaving Sweetie Void with Kirby.

"Well then. Kirby? Do you want to come with me to help fighting a powerful group of villains attempting to control their universe and certainly many others?"

Kirby looked at Sweetie questioningly. "Villains?"

"Yup!"

The puffball gained a determined expression at this and nodded. "Poy!"

"Great! I missed fighting alongside you!"

"So, you are in?" Sweetie asked to Link, back in Past Hyrule.

The hylian child nodded. "It would be wrong to do nothing when I can help." He looked down at Kirby. "Uh..."

"Don't worry about Kirby. He is more than able to fight."

"Okay."

"So. I'll give you the best bananas we have on Dream Land if you help us. Deal?"

"Deal!" both Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong exclaimed.

"Don't worry. General Pepper already contacted us. He's ready to pay a huge sum to us if we are able to eliminate this Team Rainbow Rocket. But we will need help to bring the Great Fox to this other universe," Fox said.

"These guys are a threat to everyone. We could only agree," Slippy added.

"So you want me to help?" Captain Falcon asked. "Why?"

"First, because you are a great fighter and you would be really helpful to deal with all their corrupted monsters. Second, because I know that this is not your style to let villains threatening innocent lives, and billions across universes are threatened by them. Third, because we are ready to pay you with whatever you want. I'm not sure if the Federation and Cornerian credits would work, but I'm sure that we can find something. And fourth, I encountered what seems to be this army I told you about, and the last thing we want is for Team Rainbow Rocket to delay our preparations to face it. The Subspace Army seems to be as dangerous as expected, so we don't want to lose time."

"They are all good arguments," the Captain said with a nod. before he chuckled. "The second one would have been enough, you know? Very well. I'll help."

Back on Equestria, at the foot of Twilight's castle, a rift opened, and out of it came Sweetie Void followed by Kirby, Link, DK and Diddy, and Captain Falcon. Upon arriving, she saw that Phantom and Apple Death were present along with the three sets of Element Bearers, Scootabot, Sweetie Ghoul, Little Ghost, the three Luna, Magolor, Susie, Sonic and Tails, the Mario Brothers who were now with the Yoshi who helped against the Cankens, Future Zelda, and Ness and his two friends. In another group were all the ones not going to fight but wishing to support the first group by watching them go. Among them were Shadow Speedster and Black Apple who just joined.

"Uh. I expected to see Star Fox," Phantom said upon seeing the alicorn and who she brought with her.

"Star Fox is coming with the Great Fox, but I will have to open a rift for them once we're on site," Sweetie Void replied. She then proceeded to quickly present everyone before she said, "There's also Samus who is already at Mt. Coronet."

They mingled, Link getting toward Zelda who was glad to see him again, the primates joining the Mario Brothers with DK strongly tapping Mario on the back, and Captain Falcon talking with the ponies. Kirby remained beside Sweetie Void, but he waved happily at everyone, making most of the females present who never met him to aww at him.

"An ape?" Sonic wondered.

Said ape flexed his arms. "Yeah!"

"Woah. Knuckles would love to have a go with you."

"Are you a superhero?" Ness asked to Captain Falcon in aw.

The man laughed. "Not at all. But I guess that I'm like one in the eyes of many. And being a beacon inspiring others is worth everything."

Jeff was examining Kirby. "What... the heck... are you?"

"Kirby!" the puffball answered cheerfully.

"Uh... Is that your name or the name of your species?"

Sweetie Void giggled. "That's his name." She then looked around at everyone. "We should go. I don't know how things are going on Mt. Coronet, but we should hurry to help them."

Everyone else nodded, and the alicorn opened a rift before the group walked through it.

To Mt. Coronet.

She never remarked the small spiderbot hidden in her mane.

At the top of a tower of one hundred floors, Porky was slowly waking up in his chamber. With a yawn, he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and jumped out of his king-sized bed, right on a small, circular robot that transported him to the bathroom where another robot curiously looking like his mother brushed his teeth, helped him change out of his pajamas, and combed his hair. He was then transported into the dining room where he was served breakfast by a Pig Mask soldier with a chef hat.

As he was eating, a Pig Mask colonel came and gave him a salute before he shouted, "King P! There's-"

"Yeah yeah, I know." Porky waved dismissively at him, and the colonel quickly left.

Once he finished breakfast, the same robot than before transported him to a room with a huge screen. He then pressed a button beside a blinking red light, and the screen turned on.

"Why did it take you so long to answer?!"

"Aw, come on, Master. Give me some slack. After playing and being repeatedly killed, I needed my rest."

"You should have warned me or the Minister before you went and took a bomb and several thousands Shadow Bugs!"

Porky shrugged. "Why? It did no harm. We already have more than enough in stock, and I'm sure that what I used has already been replaced. Beside, you should thank me and make me employee of the month. The bomb I took pretty much served as a test and proved how powerful they are. And now, you have your first captured area."

"I didn't need to test them! But the problem isn't that! You went behind our back and did what you wanted! What if something went wrong and you led an enemy to us? We can't allow all our preparations to go to waste! We aren't ready yet!"

"Pfah! You had nothing to fear. Everything went according to plan. Excepted for one little thing that made everything more fun. I encountered a traveler from another dimension."

"A dimensional traveler?"

"Yeperoni, Master! And a powerful one at that! And seeing how she reacted to our army, I judged that it would be smart to keep an eye on her. So I discreetly placed a trackerbot on her when she was busy repeatedly slaughtering me. A real savage this one. She really didn't like what I did. Eheh."

"... I don't want a repetition of what you did! Next time you want to use our resources for one of your schemes, warn us. That's the last warning. You think that you may be above everything because you are immortal, but you can't be further from the truth."

Porky gave him a mocking salute. "Noted! So, what will you do about the traveler?"

"I will see how much of a threat to us she is, and depending of this, eliminate her. You are dismissed."

The screen turned off.

The room was then plunged into silence as Porky stared at the screen. He then got a chill before he let his robot transport him elsewhere.

"Eh. Poor little horsy. I pity her. Oh well. Not my problem anymore."

Author's Note

After over one hundred chapters, here we are.

Chapter 104: Team RR's Ultimate Strike

Dawn was still at her place, sitting at the extremity of the Spear Pillar, guarding the entrance to the Hall of Origin. The earth was shaking. The weather was chaotic. The temperature was constantly climbing and dropping. There were yells. Roars. Pokémon loudly shouting their names as they attacked. Explosions. She could see jets of fire, bolts of electricity, balls of shadow, and many other kinds of attacks regularly disappearing into the sky. Flying Pokémon moving around in said sky, fighting each others or whatever they were targeting on the ground.

But she wasn't moving from her place.

She knew that her side was heavily disadvantaged despite their number. Because of the enemies' Shadow Master Balls, nobody dared Dynamaxing their Pokémon. The bigger the target, the easier it was to hit with one of these balls. But the Rockets didn't have this problem. Because the allies didn't have any Master Ball, they were forced to weaken the enemy Pokémon enough to be able to have better chances to capture them. They obviously needed her help. Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina' help was needed.

But she wasn't moving.

Giovanni hadn't appeared yet. He had the Flute. He had the Plates. She had to make sure that he won't reach the Hall of Origin. And this meant that she had to remain here. As much as she wanted to join the others, to send her Pokémon to help them, she couldn't. Because she saw the assault as what it was: a distraction. This frustrated her, but she didn't have a choice. If Giovanni captured Arceus...

This would be the end.

At least, Samus went to help. She entered the tunnels of Mt. Coronet to go fight the Rockets present in them, potentially stopping them from reaching Spear Pillar this way. Of course, Dawn didn't doubt that, if they had wanted, the Rockets would have directly warped onto the ruins. Or they could Teleport here, or reach the place with the help of flying Pokémon. But not a Rocket came, and she was starting to wonder why.

Thank Arceus they evacuated Sinnoh, knowing that such an attack would eventually come. It had barely started, and already she was receiving reports of how bad the region was being transformed by the battles, especially because of the Shadow Legendary Pokémon.

Oreburgh City had entirely collapsed onto the mines below it. All the western coast was flooded by a terrible tsunami, removing several of the islands there from the map as well as Canalave City, Floaroma Town, and Eterna Forest. Jubilife City was still standing, but took heavy damage, especially from the earthquakes, and had its feet deep in water. Same for most of the remaining of the West part of Sinnoh. Dawn's own childhood town, Twinleaf Town, was now partially underwater.

She swore she would sock Alternate Archie on the face for this.

The East part of Sinnoh was faring better, except that a good part of it fell victim to a rampaging Shadow Dynamax Groudon. Stark Mountain pretty much blew up, burying everything around it under layers of burning ashes and lava. And last she heard, the Pokémon was in the middle of destroying Veilstone City like a freaking kaiju. Heck, Groudon's proximity while going all out already caused some of the mountains separating the region in two to turn into volcanoes, destroying Celestic Town by the same occasion.

As for the rest of the cities and town, they were all being turned more and more into ruins by the earthquakes and intense battles opposing the League members and their allies against the Rockets. Huge cracks were now spread all over the region. Even the Sinnoh League building was wiped out by Ghetsis and his Gigantamaxed Shadow Masuryu. And Pastoria City was particularly being hit by the battle currently opposing Lysandre and his Shadow Dynamax Xerneas to several Champions and Elite Four members.

Dawn felt a chill as she thought that this could have been worse. Instead of Xerneas, this Lysandre could have had Yveltal, and a town being destroyed by the battle would have been the last of their worries.

And finally, the whole region, including the ocean directly surrounding it, was transported to another dimension. The sky and everything beyond the border of what was transported was now replaced by some void with shifting and swirling cloud-things of different colors. These clouds actually made it look like space-time itself was moving. Obviously, this was Cyrus' doing. Because of this, no outside help will come, and no way to escape. Not that it mattered. Pretty much all the more powerful trainers of the world were gathered in the region. Champions, ex-Champions, Elite Four members, ex-Elite Four members, Gym Leaders, ex-Gym Leaders, and just powerful normal trainers. If they lose today despite all this, then no way trainers still outside, as heroic as they would be, would be able to change the outcome.

And like stated earlier, they were losing despite all the help they received, like the soldiers that had been brought from that futuristic Federation. Dynamaxed Pokémon really were another thing, especially when they weren't limited to just a minute or less in this form, just long enough to attack a few times before being forced to revert to normal. She really wondered how they were able to store so much Dynamax Energy in these small capsules. And there were these damned Shadow Master Balls that managed to capture more and more of their Pokémon, adding more force to the Rockets while diminishing theirs.

There were still some good. Red and Gordon were absolutely wrecking every Rockets they encountered in the tunnels of Mt. Corona and the surrounding mountains. Elio's Ultra Necrozma and Victor's Eternatus were currently fighting Ghetsis' Masuryu over the eastern ocean, away from the coast, ensuring that the dragon won't join the Shadow Groudon to rampage together through the Eastern Sinnoh. The Shadow Groudon itself was being fought by Gold and Hilbert while the Shadow Kyogre was being taken care of by Ruby. Then, among the people fighting Lysandre were Rosa, N, and Calem. No news about Cyrus however, but all of this meant that at least most of the enemies' big hitters were currently being occupied. If they were defeated, then they could retake advantage. As for many others like Blue, Peter, Steven, Iris, and so on, the Elite four members, the Gym Leaders, most were spread out among the tunnels of the mountains, or on the mountains, or around the mountains, where the majority of the Rockets had appeared. Some were west, others east, and others north, covering Sinnoh as much as they could. With part of the region being flooded, it was actually an easier task.

Still, she sent a message to Sweetie Belle a few minutes ago, knowing that the filly's help could tilt the balance of the battle in their favor. And so, it was with joy and relief that she saw a rift opening at her left. Then the alicorn came out of it followed by a large group of ponies and other beings. Dawn had to do a double take when she saw that there were three versions of the same ponies, thinking that she had problems with her eyes. Seeing that that wasn't the case, Dawn got up and ran toward them.

The group barely arrived that an earthquake began and lasted a couple of seconds, followed by the sound of a huge explosion in the distance and by the harsh heat (no sun could be seen) being suddenly replaced by a terrible storm, forcing the ones possessing a hat to quickly use a hoof or a hand to stop them from being blown away or to catch them when they weren't fast enough. Then the rain stopped as suddenly as it started and the harsh heat returned.

"Jeez! What's the deal with this place?" Sonic wondered.

"That's what happens when the local Gods have fighting," Sweetie Void answered not long before the storm returned. She then saw Dawn approaching and exclaimed, "Hey, Dawn! Why is it so calm here? I expected at least a few Rockets to battle you. Unless you already defeated them?"

"No Rocket came yet to fight me. Not even Giovanni," Dawn answered. "You have no idea how much I itch to go down and join the others because of that."

"Don't worry, we're here to join them instead! This battle is already won!" Chromatic Bolt said.

"What is with the sky, miss?" Jeff asked as he looked at the void now surrounding the region.

"Cyrus transported the region into another dimension, I suppose with his Shadow Palkia," Dawn answered as she looked at the boy and at all the others that she was just meeting. She considered asking who they were but thought that it wasn't the moment for presentations. Instead, she took a map of Sinnoh. Seeing this, Sweetie used her magic to sheild the map and dry the ground before Dawn placed the paper on it. Using it, she began to point out the locations of the enemy leaders. "Maxie is there, in Veilstone City. Archie is somewhere in the west of Sinnoh that he flooded. You should have no problem finding him as he is battling Gold. Ghetsis must be somewhere not far of what remains of the Sinnoh League. His Masuryu is above the ocean between it and Sunyshore City, not far of the coast beside Veilstone City. Lysandre is in Pastoria City. Petrel and Ariana are somewhere in the tunnels of the mountains, and Archer is in Route 216. No idea of where Cyrus is. He didn't show himself. And nobody saw Giovanni either. The grunts, however, are all over the place."

"Well, you have your targets, everyone. Pick one and go," Phantom said.

"Remember before you choose, everyone listed excepted Petrel, Ariana, and Archer have Pokémon that are considered as Gods," Sweetie Void reminded.

"And again, the Entei stolen from Gold may have been given to Archer, or at least to one of the two others," Dawn said.

"Or it could be to a simple grunt," one of the Twilight added.

Sweetie Void reminded herself to ask for the nicknames they decided to give themselves, but she was sure that this Twilight was hers.

"For information, the Masuryu is probably the strongest Legendary the enemies have, without counting Palkia and Dialga's space and time control. It almost killed me. So, whoever decides to go fight it, be careful. Same if you encounter Giovanni. The only one more powerful than his Shadow Mewtwo when it takes its merged X and Y Mega form is Arceus itself when it has all its Plates, and that's not counting Dynamax."

"We will see how this will go as we encounter the enemies," Mario said. "We will probably be too busy fighting the minions to worry about the leaders."

Dawn nodded. "And the Champions and the others will hopefully deal with them quickly enough. They may be defeated before you could even encounter them."

Luigi looked relieved about this. He didn't want to fight Gods.

"We will still try to go to them," Link said.

Sonic started stretching his legs. "This won't be a problem. I will reach one in a few seconds. Not sure which one however. I haven't decided yet. But I will avoid the ones above the ocean."

"Wherever you go, I'll be behind you, Sonic. You can count on me," Tails said.

Sonic gave the fox one of his grins. "Like always, buddy."

At this instant, Red suddenly appeared alongside his Mewtwo who was in its Mega Y form. His Pikachu was also present on his left shoulder. The man looked frantic.

"Dawn! Quick! Ask Palkia to open a portal to the Rockets' HQ!"

"Uh? Why?" Dawn asked.

Red showed a piece of stone with some red crystals poking out of it. "I saw a bunch of grunts mine a bit of this before they warped away."

Dawn gasped. "That's Origin Ore!"

"Origin Ore?" Sweetie Void asked. "I can feel... a great power from it."

"This ore is said to come from the origin of the world, containing Arceus' power," Dawn explained. "If Team RR took some, then I fear that they intend to craft something to use against Arceus.

"Wait, so this means that this whole assault didn't have for objective to open the way to Arceus, but to collect this ore?" one of the Twilight concluded.

Red nodded. "And this means that they aren't quite ready to go after Arceus yet. So, hopefully, I can stop them before they finish whatever they are doing with the ore."

"Then I'm going with you, Red," Sweetie Void said. "The others should be able to deal with the Rockets here by themselves."

Many in the group nodded before Sonic gave a thumb up and said, "Leave it to us."

Sonic then ran down the mountain, not by the path through the tunnels, but by the side of the mountain, jumping on boulders and rocks when needed. Before they knew it, he was already gone.

"Hey! Sonic! Wait for me!" Tails shouted before he began to follow the hedgehog, using his tails to propel himself forward, and then to fly down the mountain.

Sonic's speed and Tails' ability to fly by using his tails like the propeller from an helicopter impressed more than one, but they quickly recovered and began to move too. Most decided to pass by the tunnels, but the Mario Brothers and their dinosaur friend decided to follow Sonic's example and to go down the mountain by jumping down its side. Kirby then materialized his wings and flew away, Magolor and Susie doing the same afterward, the girl using a propeller machine.

"You don't mind if we go ahead?" Little Ghost asked as she, Scootabot, and Sweetie Ghoul remained.

Apple Death waved at them to go. "Ah don't mind. Go."

The three nodded and went to follow the others into the tunnels. Sweetie Void also let out all her Pokémon and sent them after the others into the tunnels, warning them about the Shadow Master Balls and asking them to keep each others' back to ensure that they don't get captured. She even sent Spiky. At the end, only Sweetie Void, Phantom, Apple Death, Red, and Dawn remained. Dawn then let out Palkia and, after checking the HQ's coordinates, asked Palkia to open a portal to it, which it did without problem.

Speaking of...

"Oh! I almost forgot!" Sweetie exclaimed before she flew high into the 'sky' and opened a big rift out of which came the Great Fox. "You guys shout everything that flies and that is purple and light grey colored! But try to avoid killing them! They aren't in their normal state!" she then shouted before she returned back to the portal that Palkia opened.

Falco gave the filly a deadpan look through the window of the Great Fox's cockpit. "Yeah... This will be so easy to not kill these things when we will fire at them with our laser beams..."

"We will simply use minimum power," Slippy said. "Just enough to stun them with more or less heavy burns."

"But this means that the Great Fox won't be able to use its weapon to help. It's too powerful."

Fox nodded. "I fear so. We will have to remain close to help if it's attacked. Let's go, team."

Meanwhile, Sweetie Void and Red passed through Palkia's portal under the good lucks of the three that remained behind. Then, as the portal closed, Phantom and Apple Death readied themselves to fly away too to join the fights when they spotted someone who hadn't been present at the entrance of Spear Pillar a few seconds earlier.

A blue-haired man.

Dawn immediately recognised him as she growled his name. "Cyrus..."

"Dawn..." Cyrus said without emotion. "The girl who stopped me in this world. Supposedly the most powerful Champion of this world. At least in the top five with Gordon, Ruby, Elio, and Victor." He glanced at Palkia who was still out of its ball. "Considering who you have as Legendaries, this is not a surprise. Let's see..." He took a Shadow Master Ball. "Will you end up like that woman?" He took a capsule and broke it open, sending Dynamax Energy into the Shadow Master Ball and transforming it before he opened it, letting out a Dynamaxed Shadow Dialga in its Origin form. "I advise you to be careful in our battle. When Dialga and Palkia clash, they send destructive ripples through space and time. This whole region could end up collapsing as a result."

Dawn gulped, but then smirked. "Then I will just avoid to use Dialga and Palkia against yours. Come back, Palkia!" She called Palkia back and took a Master Ball. Out of it came Giratina, also in its winged serpentine Origin form.

Phantom and Apple Death took place alongside the Pokémon, Apple Death saying, "Don't forget about us!" before she turned into her ghost form while Phantom took her anthropomorphic form.

Cyrus eyed the fillies. "So you want to turn this into a three versus three? Very well." He took two other Shadow Master Balls, filled them with Dynamax Energy, and opened them to let out Dynamax Shadow Palkia and Dynamax Shadow Giratina.

"How about we just knock you out?" Phantom said.

"Is this really what you want to do? Without me, who will stop these monsters from destroying this whole dimension?"

"Uh..."

"Alright. No knocking out the villain. We must first defeat these three."

"We will have to defeat the three at once so we can go after Cyrus right away, or else he will certainly revive them with Max Revives. He must have a lot of them on him," Dawn informed.

"Mmh... This won't be easy..."

"If that's the case then we just knock them out again and again until he runs out of these Max Revives," Phantom said.

"If ya don't fall from fatigue before that," Apple Death warned.

Phantom silently admitted that she was right. Those were Gods after all. Of Space, Time, and... She wasn't sure what Giratina represented. Just knocking them out once will ask her to use a lot.

Maybe she should have brought the Chaos Emeralds...

In the tunnels, Samus shifted out of the way of a lightning bolt sent by a Shadow Luxray before she fired at it with a charged beam. She didn't worry that this would kill it. These Pokémon were revealing to be surprisingly resistant. Considering that they apparently fought each others daily by throwing stuff like super hot sun beams or sharp pieces of rock and always came out with just scratches, burns, and whatever else, this shouldn't be a surprise. And the Luxray getting up despite having taken the charged beam on the head proved this, even if it had some difficulty.

Then, a Shadow Mienshao jumped at her to attack her only for it to receive an arrow before Samus found herself joined by a young boy in green and a blond woman in an elegant pink dress with golden ornaments. With a wave of her hand, the woman sent a small ball of fire that slowly moved toward the Mienshao as if it was guided before it exploded on it, sending the Pokémon crashing onto the tunnel's wall.

"I'm guessing you are Samus?" the woman asked, and Samus answered with a nod. "I'm Zelda, Princess of Hyrule, and this is Link. We were sent here to help, so allow us to give you a hand."

"Your help is more than welcome," Samus said as she glared back at the group of grunts she was facing with, at their head, a man with undercut purple hair on the sides, leaving longer hair at the top to form a lock, and he also had a small beard just at the chin.

Thankfully, Samus hadn't been alone as she had been facing the group with the help of some trainers, including some Champions and a few Elite Four members, as well as Blue.

"This guy seems to be one of the leaders Sweetie warned us about," Link remarked. "Thankfully, it is one of the lesser ones."

"Yeah, it's Petrel. One of the admins of the original Team Rocket," Blue informed. "Not as big of a threat as the likes of Cyrus or Ghetsis, but still powerful on his own."

Link nodded and readied himself as a Shadow Camerupt attacked.

"Necrozma! Max Mindstorm!" Elio shouted from the back of his Fearow.

Before him was Necrozma, in its Ultra form, fused with Lunala, and also Dynamaxed. He felt confident to use the Dynamax because they were far enough above the ocean and in the air that Ghetsis shouldn't be able to throw a Shadow Ultra Ball to capture it. Elio still regularly kept watch to see if the ancient leader of Team Plasma approached on the back of some flying Pokémon.

Elio didn't like fusing Necrozma to Lunala, but the Pokémon he was facing didn't leave him a choice. Masuryu really was powerful. Despite the types advantage and the fact that he was fighting it alongside Victor and his Eternatus, without forgetting the few allies that were around and that could participate thanks to having flying Pokémon, the Masuryu resisted. It easily dodged most of their attacks and used any opening it found to try to land terrible hits that caused huge damage. Already, Elio had been forced to use a Full Restore once when Ultra Necrozma was hit by what seemed to be Masuryu's signature move(version Gigantamax) which almost killed it. Elio knew that the only reason that Ultra Necrozma survived was because it was one of the most powerful Legendaries and Fighting-type moves weren't Super Effective against it.

Unlike the partially armored dragon of light, Eternatus, who looked like a dark violet skeletal dragon with red highlights, wasn't Dynamaxed. Because it couldn't. Well, it could Dynamax, taking on an unique form called Eternamax, but maintaining this form more than a few seconds costed it a huge amount of energy that it just hadn't recovered yet. At best, it could keep the Eternamax form only the time to launch its signature move: Eternabeam, which was thankfully Super Effective against Masuryu... when it landed, which was pretty much never because that darn dragon was too good at dodging. But the trainers didn't doubt that if Eternatus could remain Eternamaxed, then this battle would probably already be over, and this made some of them curse at this.

Ultra Necrozma sent a series of giant circular psychic waves at Masuryu, but the dragon calmly dodged again, with minimum movement like always, perfectly reading the move. What was scary was that it didn't move that fast, and the psychic waves of the move itself grew bigger the further they moved, but Masuryu just read the attack and immediately knew what to do to avoid it, immediately acting in consequence, moving and shifting its long serpentine body out of the way so the attack just grazed the tip of its tail.

"Eternatus! Dynamax Cannon!" Victor shouted from the back of his Braviary while Masuryu was moving to dodge the previous attack, trying to take it by surprise while it had its attention focused on Ultra Necrozma.

While Eternabeam was definitively the most powerful move in Eternatus' arsenal, Dynamax Cannon, which was just a giant beam made of Dynamax energy fired by Eternatus without having to turn into its Eternamax form, had the advantage of dealing double damage to Dynamaxed enemies.

But again, it only worked if it landed, which it didn't as Masuryu still dodged, thought the beam still took off some of its scales as it grazed its body, the dragon almost moving too late.

Masuryu then began to gather shadow energy into its mouth, probably to fire some beam, but a blur suddenly came and the next thing it knew, it had a big cut between its front legs. Despite the pain, Masuryu immediately changed its focus and targeted the newcomer, firing the shadow beam at him.

"Poy!"

A big mirror made of energy suddenly appeared and deflected the beam back at Masuryu, which barely managed to move its head out of the way. But then, it saw a giant hammer on fire on a collision course with its cheek.

"POYAH!"

This one it wasn't able to dodge, and its head almost made a 360° when it was hit. But it quickly recovered and attacked the winged pink puffball with lightning japs of its claws, forcing said puffball to teleport away.

When he appeared not far of them, Elio and Victor could finally have a good look at Kirby.

"What are you?" Victor asked, bemused.

"Friend!" Kirby answered simply and happily before he focused back on Masuryu, an Ultra Sword appearing on each of his arms.

A blue blur moved through the region, ramming Pokémon and Rocket grunts left and right like a bowling ball. Pokémon weren't Eggman's robots however. Ramming them and sending them flying wasn't enough to deal with them for good. Every single one of them got back up after being hit. Tails, who followed Sonic, tried to finish the job by hitting them with his tails but that wasn't enough. This forced Sonic to take time to return and attack them again, shifting to a hit-and-run tactic until his targets finally collapsed. Ghost-type Pokémon, however, weren't affected by Sonic and Tails' attacks, to their frustration. And some Pokémon were fast or skilled enough to be able to defend themselves against the hedgehog's speed. This became worse when they encountered a Psychic-type, a Rapidash from Galar, that managed to catch Sonic in its psychic hold, effectively immobilising him.

"Hey! Not cool!" Sonic shouted.

He was thankfully saved by Tails who attacked the unicorn-like Pokémon, breaking its focus on the hedgehog.

"Ugh... Reminds me-" He moved out of the way of a jet of water. "of Silver." He avoided a tornado. "And these guys are-" He ducked to let some sharp leaves pass above him. "starting to get-" He jumped above a Sandslash attacking him with its claws. "very annoying!" He attacked the Sandslash with a Homing Attack on its head, sending it on its back, but it quickly got up, ready to fight again. Sonic didn't let it time to attack again and Spin Dashed into it before he used it to change trajectory to ram another of the Pokémon surrounding him. Like a pinball ball, he bounced from target to target, hitting them repeatedly and randomly until they eventually finally fell down unconscious. Tails took care of the few that managed to get away. And again, the only ones that remained were the Ghost-types.

"How do we deal with these ones?!" Tails pondered.

"Leave them to us!" a nearby trainer shouted. "Thanks for the help! We won't have any problem dealing with these Ghost-types!"

Sonic gave them a salute. "Then I'll be off to help elsewhere!"

The hedgehog then ran to another area, quickly followed by Tails.

Back in the tunnels, a grunt was taking the Poké Balls of a trainer that he injured with a surprise attack with his whip, when suddenly...

"FALCON KICK!!!"

The grunt was kicked on the face by Captain Falcon who burst out of nowhere in a rush of fire, and he was violently sent crashing head first into the tunnel's wall.

Captain Falcon then jumped toward the grunt's Shadow Steelix and "FALCON PUNCH!!!" The Steelix's head crashed on the ground, the Pokémon out. A Shadow Golurk attempted to avenge the Steelix and readied itself to punch the Captain, but then... "PK Freeze!" The golem-like Pokémon was frozen by Ness. Poo then came and shapeshifted into Golurk before he used a Shadow Punch (Ghost-type move) on the frozen Pokémon, breaking the ice but also sending the Pokémon on its back, out.

Captain Falcon raised an eyebrow under his helmet. "The kid can shapeshift?"

"That's his ability, Mirror," Jeff confirmed. "He can take the appearance of the enemy he is facing, gaining their abilities."

"Impressive."

"I should say the same. You knocked out that giant worm of steel in one punch, and you don't even seem in pain. I mean, you punched steel."

Captain Falcon chuckled. "I'm just very good at hiding it," he said before he rubbed his hurting knuckles.

The Mario Brothers plus Yoshi were currently fighting their way through many enemies as they were going toward Pastoria City where the closest enemy leader was. They wanted to help in dealing with one of them at least. It was the least they could do.

But the enemy Pokémon revealed to be quite the hindrance. Really nothing to do with Goombas and Koopas. Fighting Pokémon was more like fighting Bowser's elite minions. The heroes had to give everything to defeat them, especially the more powerful ones.

Mario used Luigi's shoulders to bounce very high before landing on a Shadow Pangoro's head, violently stomping it. Then he bounced again and stomped on the head again, repeatedly until the Pangoro forced him away with a swipe of its claws. Luigi used this to do a Green Missile and ram head first into the Pokémon's belly, making it bend in pain, out of breath. Then, Yoshi came and jumped to do a series of kicks on the Pokémon's head, Flutter Jump-style, by rapidly moving his legs as if he was running on air so it somehow allowed it to remain floating for a few seconds. With a groan, the panda-like Pokémon finally dropped unconscious, and Mario quickly used his hammer on the grunt who used it to stop her from reviving it with a Max Revive.

It took them over two minutes to defeat this panda, they didn't want to lose more time repeating it especially when they also still had to deal with a Shadow Yanmega who was constantly using Bug Buzz against them, forcing them to always move. And then a Mismagius came, replacing the Pangoro.

A Ghost-type.

Contrary to Boos and most other ghosts in their world, Mario and Luigi couldn't hit the Ghost-type Pokémon here. Not with physical attacks like the usual jumps, punches, kicks, and hammers. Not attacks that were considered "Normal" or "Fighting".

Thankfully, they weren't alone since allied trainers were around, also battling the grunts and their Shadow Pokémon (some of which were Dynamaxed). Among them, Leon, former Champion of Galar, saw that they had a problem and immediately sent his Mega Charizard X to deal with the Mismagius. Like many others, he didn't dare to Dynamax it because of the enemies' Shadow Master Balls, but the Mega Evolution was good enough.

This allowed the Mario Brothers to deal with the Yanmega and get an opening to continue on their path to Lysandre, having to jump above a small crack that had formed on the way and that was slowly growing as the earth continued to regularly shake, courtesy of Dynamax Shadow Groudon.

The three sets of Element Bearers and the three Luna spread out into smaller groups among the tunnels and the mountains to cover more ground, so it was inevitable that one of these smaller groups ended up encountering the second Team Rocket admin: Ariana. The ponies who encountered her were none other than Sweetie Ghoul, Scootabot, and Little Ghost.

Of course, the admin was already in the middle of battling several trainers alongside grunts when the fillies arrived, so their arrival was pretty much unnoticed. They used this to their advantage to attack by surprise, starting with Little Ghost who levitated Ariana's Shadow Vileplume before sending it to crash right into her. Sweetie Ghoul then began to sing to boost everyone's strength, and Scootabot turned into her scooter form and rolled at full speed toward Ariana's Shadow Pheromosa. Just before reaching it, Scootabot jumped, turned back to her pony form, and used the momentum she gained added to Sweetie's boost to land a powerful kick on the Ultra Beast's face, sending it crashing right into the Vileplume, which sent the both of them again toward Ariana who had been in the process of getting up.

"Ah! Combo!" Scootabot shouted before she gave a high five to her ghostly friend.

Magolor and Susie were flying above the flooded area of West Sinnoh, joined by one of the Luna who decided to help there. Despite being in the air, they had to fight quite the number of flying Shadow Pokémon, some of which were Dynamaxed. They thankfully received help from Star Fox as their Arwings began to patrol the sky and shot down some of the enemy Pokémon, opening the way for them as they saw from afar Ruby's Dynamax Mega Rayquaza battling Archie's Dynamax Shadow Kyogre. The presence of waterspouts around the two greatly helped in spotting them.

It wasn't just them. The water was also full of Pokémon battling each others, like the air, but nobody dared getting too close in fear of being caught in Kyogre's attacks. It was already hard enough to fight with how the fight and the violent storms still regularly popping up caused the water to rage.

Luna didn't lose time and immediately teleported herself right above the Kyogre.

"PREPARE TO RECEIVE JUSTICE, YOU FIEND!" she shot with the Royal Canterlot Voice before she fired a huge magical beam at the submarine inside of which Archie was, in the cockpit, from which he used a speaker to give his orders to Kyogre.

The beam pierced the submarine from top to bottom without problem, but it didn't seem that she hit anything vital because it did nothing special beside causing the submarine to start to sink, water entering through the bottom hole. The Rockets inside quickly used their Pokémon to escape through the top hole caused, including Archie thanks to a Shadow Sharpedo.

Seeing that Ruby had the upper hand over Kyogre, Magolor and Susie decided to join Luna and to go after the Rockets that came out of the submarine, Magolor sending his dark balls while Susie fired with her gun.

On a mountain neighboring Mt. Coronet, Donkey Kong gave a storm of punches at a Shadow Kommo-o, overwhelming the Pokémon before Spiky grabbed it from behind and suplexed it. A Shadow Umbreon attempted to attack the dragon of yarn but Diddy Kong suddenly jumped on its head, hung on, and pummeled it. The Umbreon erratically moved to get rid of him, but Diddy had a strong grip. Then, Donkey Kong came and smashed his fists on the Umbreon's back, only to be bitten by a Seviper, getting poisoned as a result. Thankfully, a nearby allied trainer was able to heal him with an Antidote while a Federation trooper shot the Seviper.

Then Gordon ordered a big black eagle-like Pokémon with wings made of shadows, an Emprumbra, to send tornadoes at the grunts that commanded these Pokémon while he himself punched a Shadow Incineroar, then used the Snag Machine he had to turn an Ultra Ball into a Snag Ball before violently hitting the Incineroar with the ball still in his hand, capturing it.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Void and Red were running in the maze-like interior of the HQ, easily fighting their way through the few grunts that remained while they searched Giovanni. They eventually found where the Shadow Master Balls were mass produced and Sweetie quickly destroyed everything before they continued. Then they found what seemed to be the castle's own arena, inside a huge dome, and here was Giovanni waiting for them. His Shadow Mewtwo was already out of its ball, in its merged XY Mega form, and Dynamaxed, acting as his bodyguard.

"We see each other again, Red. And this is the little equine who has been giving us so much problem," Giovanni said.

With a simple move of his head, Giovanni ordered the Shadow Mewtwo to act. Without warning, it caught Sweetie Void with its telekinesis before it sent her through the dome's roof. Then it teleported after her.

Red frowned. "Do you really think this is a good idea to separate yourself from your Mewtwo when I still have mine?"

At this, his Mewtwo, who was out of its Master Ball and already in its Y Mega form, advanced, ready to fight.

Giovanni only smirked at this before he grabbed a Shadow Master Ball. "Don't underestimate me. I wouldn't make such an error when I'm so close to reaching my goal."

He then broke a capsule to send Dynamax energy into the Shadow Master Ball before he threw it, sending out a Dynamax Shadow Darkrai.

Red muttered a curse.

Chapter 105: Giovanni's Plan

Sweetie Void recovered and stopped herself quickly enough that Team RR's HQ was just a few dozens meters bellow her, but the castle was quickly getting away. But before she could do anything to return in it, she saw the Dynamaxed Shadow Mega Mewtwo charging at her with what seemed to be a Dynamax version of Mega Punch. Sweetie immediately countered the punch with her own punch, causing the two to clash for several seconds before they separated to face each other. The Shadow Mewtwo then quickly used Dynamaxed versions of moves such as Light Screen, Reflect, Psychic Terrain, Agility, Bulk Up, and some others to boost itself. Psychic Terrain was a particularly nasty surprise because it boosted the damage of all Psychic-type moves while Light Screen and Reflect assured that the damage of Sweetie's attacks were reduced by half.

She didn't want to fight it. She rather wanted to just teleport back to Giovanni to end all this right now. But looking at the Shadow Mewtwo, and how its eyes were glowing, she knew that any attempt on Giovanni would fail. Mewtwo was keeping Future Sight activated, and a very nice ability that this move gave was the one to see a bit into the future, but the Pokémon had to remain very focused and it cost it a lot of energy to do this passively even if it didn't use the offensive part of the move. As such, it should have difficulty focusing on attacking as long as it had it activated.

But it didn't look like it wanted to go on the offensive, and Sweetie understood. It was gaining time, and it could see that going on the offensive wouldn't work very well. So it was remaining on the defensive, ready to avoid or counter any attack Sweetie would send at it.

"You want to play like this?" the filly growled out before she let out all her power, making her mane, tail, and eyes turn into pure darkness, and called her ten cannons. Then, she began to fly all around Shadow Mewtwo so rapidly that, even with its Future Sight, it had difficulty following her. Then, Sweetie Void with to punch it from the left, and it saw it and intercepted it with its arm. The next instant, Sweetie was at the opposite side and Shadow Mewtwo used its right arm this time to intercept another punch. It still saw what was coming next but wasn't able to react in time as Sweetie destroyed the Light Screen and Reflect shields. Then it teleported away only to immediately have to duck to avoid a charge from behind, then teleported again to avoid beams fired by the ten cannons from all sides.

Shadow Mewtwo decided to follow the HQ as it was flying away, not wanting to lose it, and quickly moved aside to avoid a large ball of energy, then used its tail to try to slap Sweetie like a fly as she was approaching him at a speed that would put Sonic to shame. But the filly avoided the tail at the last moment by teleporting and Shadow Mewtwo had to intercept another punch with one of its arms. Each time that it intercepted a punch, it had to use Recover as the punches were so powerful that they broke the bones of its arms. However, it wasn't able to intercept the next attack in time and it was violently punched on the face. This punch was followed by a storm of punches all over its body, Sweetie Void just a blur as she flew around. It almost looked like Shadow Mewtwo was surrounded when it wasn't the case at all.

Shadow Mewtwo was eventually able to push Sweetie Void back with a extending psychic forcefield, gaining some respite, before it pointed an arm at where the filly was sent flying and gathered a huge quantity of Shadow energy before its fingers. Then, it sent the ball which divided into dozens of smaller balls of shadow that all flew in Sweetie's direction. But then, dozens of copies of Sweetie Void appeared from behind the balls as they avoided them and flew toward Shadow Mewtwo while the cannons were in sword mode and were cutting open rifts to fire space beams.

The only reason why Shadow Mewtwo wasn't feeling fear right now was because its feelings were locked in its heart.

Nothing much remained of the Spear Pillar. All that was left was the extremity where the staircase to the Hall of Origin was supposed to appear. Not sure if the staircase would be able to still appear if this area was destroyed, and not wanting to have Giovanni on his back if this wasn't the case, Cyrus made sure to protect this area, even placing himself there while Dawn was forced to fly on the back of a Togekiss.

Cyrus almost only ordered his three Pokémon to respectively use Shadow Roar (the Shadow-type version of Roar of Time for Dialga), Shadow Rend (the Shadow-type version of Spacial Rend for Palkia), and Shadow Force (which was pretty much the same move than usual for Giratina, excepted that it was Shadow-type instead of being Ghost-type), and Phantom, Apple Death, and Dawn's Giratina had to do their best to avoid these terrible attacks.

While Dynamaxed Pokémon had a number of new moves thanks to their size and the Dynamax Energy, most of their panoply from their usual size remained, excepted that they had more oomph thanks to the bigger size and the Dynamax Energy added to them. As such, Dialga, Pakia, and Giratina still had their signature moves, but with a Max added in the name and with more power.

You didn't want to be hit by Roar of Time, Spacial Rend, and Shadow Force (Ghost-type).

You didn't want to be hit by Shadow Roar, Shadow Rend, and Shadow Force (Shadow-type).

You didn't want to be hit by Max Roar of Time, Max Spacial Rend, and Max Shadow Force (Ghost-type).

You ABSOLUTELY DIDN'T want to be hit by Max Shadow Roar, Max Shadow Rend, and Max Shadow Force (Shadow-type).

Each time that Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina used them, huge chunks of Mt. Coronet and the mountains around were destroyed. In the case of Max Shadow Roar and Max Shadow Rend, these chunks were purely erased, their atoms scattered across time and space.

Apple Death was the one who had to avoid the Max Shadow Roar this time, but instead of going after Shadow Dialga, she targeted Shadow Giratina alongside Dawn's Giratina who had to avoid the Max Shadow Force. So Phantom was left to deal with both Shadow Dialga and Shadow Palkia after she teleported to avoid the Max Shadow Rend.

Phantom used her Phantom powers to materialize giant chains to hold the two Legendaries in place but, after a few seconds, they were easily broken. These precious seconds were still used by Apple Death and Dawn's Giratina to gang up on the Shadow Giratina. The filly sent ghostly purple flames while Dawn ordered her Giratina to use Shadow Force. Ghost-type being weak against itself, these attacks were very effective against Shadow Giratina.

Meanwhile, Sonic and Tail arrived at Veilstone City, almost entirely destroyed as lava now covered some of the streets and some of the buildings were destroyed, or even toppled. It wasn't hard to spot the Dynamax Shadow Groudon in its Primal form rampaging across the city while fighting the members of the Pokémon League and their allies.

"Reminds me a bit of Perfect Chaos, excepted that instead of water, there's fire and lava," Sonic commented.

"How do you intend to attack Groudon? Apparently, touching it will burn you right away. Something about magma in its body," Tails wondered.

"By being too fast for the heat to register," the hedgehog answered confidently before he ran toward a building that was still more or less intact, up its wall, and then from roof to roof, followed by the fox.

Since the Shadow Groudon was too busy attacking Gold's Lugia, it didn't see Sonic coming. The hedgehog reached the giant Pokémon and began to attacking it with homing attacks all over its body. When it understood what was going on, all it could see was a blue blur bouncing here on its shoulder, then there on the back of its neck, and so on.

"Use Max Eruption!" they heard Maxie shout from a nearby building.

The Shadow Groudon roared before it raised its mouth toward the sky and launched numerous giant fiery boulders from it. The boulders began to fall all over the area like a rain of meteors, causing huge damage to the city and to many Pokémon, both allied and foes. Sonic and Tails had to move around the city to avoid the falling boulders while saving as many allied Pokémon and trainers as they could.

Once the boulders stopped raining, Sonic stopped on a roof and looked at the Shadow Groudon, letting out a sigh. "Yep. One of these fights. I wish I had the Chaos Emerald."

The Mario Brothers and Yoshi also reached one of the enemy Legendaries: Shadow Xerneas, in Pastoria City. It was a large town built in a forest, between marshes and the ocean. The perfect environment for the stag-like Legendary Pokémon.

Many were already present to fight Xerneas, including Rosa and Calem. However, because Xerneas was a Fairy-type, which was immune to Dragon-type, Rosa couldn't use her Reshiram and Kyurem without heavy risks, while Calem's Yveltal had a disadvantage as Dark-types were weak against Fairy-types. Calem also had Zygarde but... Dragon-type... And sadly for Rosa, Hilbert was the one who had Tornadus, Thundurus, and Landarus, the Forces of Nature. She did have Cobalion, Terrakion, and Virizion, but the three were Fighting-types which were also weak against Fairy-types. Only Cobalion didn't mind Fairy-types thanks to its double type Steel/Fighting, Steel being effective against Fairy.

But all in all, the two Champions were rather disadvantaged against Xerneas with their own Legendaries, forcing them to rely on other Pokémon. At least there were many others fighting alongside them, including N and a few other Champions/ex-Champions. But the help of the Mario Brothers was more than welcome. Especially when Luigi took out his Mega Mushroom Pills. However, he hesitated a bit as he looked between the box and Mario.

"Uh... It's your turn, Mario."

Mario sighed. "Fine. But then, you will be the one taking care of these guys with Yoshi and the others' help." He pointed at the Team RR grunts and their many powerful Shadow Pokemon that were fighting the allied trainers and Federation soldiers that were present.

So Luigi had to choose between fighting the super powerful giant God-like monster or the army of more or less smaller and less powerful (but still powerful) ones (there were also a few other Dynamaxed around).

With a whine, he took a pill and turned giant, ready to face Xerneas. The Pokémon immediately faced the new threat only to be punched on the face before Luigi took it by the antlers and used them to lift it and slam it on the ground, targeting a group of enemy Shadow Pokémon by the same occasion.

Things were going slightly better for the group fighting Shadow Kyogre, excepted that Luna knocked out Archie, leading to the Shadow Kyogre going on a total, uncontrolled rampage. The ocean was absolutely out of control and it was only thanks to the constant work of water Pokémon that nobody drowned yet. Most flying Pokémon had to go away to not be caught in the many waterspouts that appeared more and more. And pretty much all lands on the West Sinnoh had to be abandoned to avoid the huge waves that were constantly coming, water even passing the mountains to reach the East.

Luna had the unconscious Archie on her back while she and everyone else attacked the Shadow Kyogre. The Pokémon used Max Shadow Chill on Ruby's Dynamax Mega Rayquaza, but the serpentine dragon of the sky tanked it, allowing Ruby to heal it with a Full Restore before it used Max Hyper Beam alongside Luna and Magolor who both also sent their own, most powerful beam attack. The three beams hit the Shadow Kyogre and were able to send it on its back.

Seeing that the Kyogre wasn't moving anymore, and with nobody conscious anymore to heal it and protect it, Ruby quickly used a Snag Ultra Ball to capture it before it could sink into the ocean. Almost immediately, the ocean calmed down. However, without Kyogre, the weather entirely let place to heat

"Yeah!"

"We did it!"

"This is a great victory, but this is not over yet," Luna reminded Ruby and Magolor.

This calmed down Ruby who looked around at everything and sighed. "I will have a lot of work once this is over..."

"You won't have to do anything," Susie said. "Your Groudon will be the one doing all the work getting all this water away."

This made Ruby chuckle.

Archer, who was still somewhere Route 216, ended up encountering one of the three Twilight Sparkle along with an Applejack and Steven. As guessed, he was the one now possessing the stolen Entei, which was turned into a Shadow Pokémon, and right now was also Dynamaxed.

Entei being a Fire-type Pokémon, this forced Steven to avoid using his famous Metagross. Instead, he used an Aerodactyl, against which Fire wasn't effective.

The battle started with Steven making his Aerodactyl use Stone Edge, followed by Twilight levitating several boulders to throw them at the giant Pokémon. Applejack followed her example with her lasso, wrapping it around boulders before using it to send them at the Entei. The Shadow Pokémon countered with Max Shadow Fire, sweeping the area to target its three opponents one after another. It was stopped by an Arwing passing not far above while firing at it, and Applejack used the occasion to start to climb the giant dog to go on its head where she began to buck its skull.

Where the battle against Archer was just starting, the one against Petrel was already over. When Link put on the Fierce Deity's Mask, he easily defeated all the Pokémon that he faced, both from Petrel and from the grunts around. Some resisted more than others, but never too long. And while he dealt with the Pokémon, backed up by Zelda, Samus used the occasion to approach Petrel and the grunts in her Morph Ball form before dealing with them with bombs.

Ariana was already knocked out by Apple Death's friends' combo attack. A fight never started between them.

And then, there was Kirby who was trashing the Shadow Masuryu. Even if the dragon was able to dodge most attacks, the puffball was just too fast, teleporting, flying around, and attacking with everything it could use. Masuryu, however, regularly used Rest to heal itself, a move that Ghetsis made it learn after its fight against Sweetie Void, much to everyone's annoyance.

"Mewtwo, come back," Red said.

A Psychic-type against a Dark-type was out of the question, no matter how powerful Mewtwo was. Dark-type moves were super effective against Psychic-type Pokémon while Dark-type Pokémon were totally immune to Psychic-type Pokémon.

Red looked at his Pikachu and, with a sign of his head, the little mouse Pokémon went to face the Darkrai.

"Your Pikachu again. Let's see how it will fare against Dynamaxed Shadow Legendaries!" Giovanni exclaimed. "Darkrai! Max Anathema!"

From Darkrai, shadows spread to cover both everyone in the room in a bubble of darkness. Pikachu then seemingly began to see something because it escaped and fought back something nobody else could see. What Pikachu was seeing were several silhouettes of Pokémon, mainly Ground-type ones but also some Legendary ones like Mewtwo or the Legendary birds, that attacked it. They were clearly illusions, but Pikachu felt that it should avoid their attacks at all cost. When an attack grazed its tail and it felt it, even leaving a scratch, it confirmed its feeling.

Instead of remaining focused on the shadow illusion constructs, Pikachu went after Darkrai itself. While doing its best to avoid and push back the shadows, it Quick Attacked toward the Dynamaxed Pokémon and began to attack it with quick Thunderbolts. The Max Anathema eventually ended with Pikachu taking minimum damage.

"Max Shadow Mist!" Giovanni shouted, and Darkrai released a shadowy mist that covered the arena. Pikachu could still see Darkrai, but it now had difficulty distinguishing stuff. Still, it continued to attack Darkrai, damaging it more and more with each attack. It also used the respite to replace the Thunderbolts with the more powerful Thunders which asked a bit more time and focus to use. But then, Giovanni ordered Darkrai to use "Max Dark Pulse!" and the Pokémon sent rings of dark energy at Pikachu. And because of the Shadow Mist, Pikachu could barely see them.

Pikachu still avoided the attack with several jumps to the side before it decided to approach the Darkrai to climb it. Once on its shoulder, it used Iron Tail merged with Electro Ball repeatedly on its head. Pikachu's tail was just a blur with how fast it was moving, and after dozens of hits in just a few seconds, the Darkrai finally collapsed, unconscious.

Giovanni chuckled, but didn't bother to call back Darkrai. "Not bad. Genesect!" He opened another capsule and threw another Shadow Master Ball which sent out a Dynamaxed insectoid bipedal Pokémon with a robotic body and a saucer-shaped head. Because it was also a Shadow Pokémon, its body was mostly of the same dark purple with some lighter gray parts.

It was a Bug/Steel-type.

Meaning that it had a double weakness to Fire.

"Come back, Pikachu!" Red called back his Pokémon before he threw a simple Poké Ball. "Go, Charizard!"

Out of the ball came a draconic orange Pokémon who had the particularity of having the tip of its tail on fire. Red then immediately put on a bracelet with a Key Stone and used it to Mega Evolve Charizard into a sleeker form with three pointed horns on its head, the Mega Charizard Y.

The Charizard then used Inferno, flying up a bit before breathing a powerful stream of fire at the feet of the Genesect. From the impact point then came a column of fire that covered the Genesect, causing huge damage and putting it on fire, causing burn damage. The Genesect was already on its knees.

But Giovanni grinned and shouted, "Use Max Self-Destruct!"

Both Red and Charizard got wide eyes before the Pokémon flew to its master and covered him with its body. The Genesect then exploded, and the two were caught in the blast which sent them crashing into the wall. Thanks to Charizard, Red was alright, but the Pokémon was badly injured as a result. He quickly used a Max Revive to heal it, but the damage were so great that it wasn't enough. So Red called it back in its Poké Ball, hoping to quickly have a nurse to look at it.

Red then looked up to see that Giovanni escaped the explosion thanks to a giant ring that created a portal before him, the blast of the explosion going through it to who knew where. The portal closed, revealing a huge six-armed Pokémon, the arms being disconnected from the body. It looked like a demon merged with a djinn, with large horns and an arrow-pointed tail and lots of rings on its arms, legs, and horns. Being a Shadow Pokémon, it had a dark purple body with light gray parts, including the hair (which was in a ponytail) and beard.

This was the Pokémon known as Hoopa, in its Unbounded Form.

And of course, it was Dynamaxed too. Unbound Hoopa was already pretty huge, but here, it was GIANT!

Psychic/Dark-type.

Double weakness to Bug.

And Red knew that it couldn't learn moves such as Explosion or Self-Destruct.

"Go, Butterfree! Use Bug Buzz!"

"Max Hyperspace Fury!"

As the Butterfree sent sound waves from its wings at its adversary, Hoopa sent its rings to form portals all around the butterfly Pokémon. Hoopa tanked the sound waves and sent its arms through the portals to repeatedly strike Butterfree. The butterfly was able to avoid some of the punches but was eventually hit, badly. But Butterfree resisted and used Bug Buzz, this time sending the sound waves through the portals to hit Hoopa and its arms. This took Hoopa off guard and made it stop its attack, and Butterfree quickly used this to fly until it was right in front of Hoopa's face before it used Bug Buzz again, finally defeating the Legendary.

Weakly, Butterfree flew back to Red and fell into his arms where the trainer used a Full restore to heal it.

Speaking of, Red looked at Giovanni suspiciously, wondering why he wasn't healing his Pokémon. He was certain that he had a stock of Full Restore and Max Revives, so why wasn't he using them? He wasn't even bothering to call them back, leaving them out and unconscious!

Instead, Giovanni sent out, Dynamaxed again, an unicorn-like Pokémon with a large, ridged horn and little protusions above its eyes.

Keldeo, in its Resolute Form. Water/Fighting-type. No double weakness this time. But it was weak to Electric.

Without Red even needing to say or do anything, Pikachu returned on the arena and immediately began to repeat its usual tactic. Quick Attack around the arena and attack the enemy with whatever worked best, in this case Electric moves. However, Keldeo was a rather fast Pokémon so Pikachu also used Agility, and it did well as Giovanni made Keldeo use Max Shadow Sword, a Shadow version of Keldeo's signature move: Sacred Sword.

Keldeo's horn was covered in a long blade of shadow energy and it moved to slice Pikachu, again and again and again, moving like a master swordsman. It even used the blade to block some of Pikachu's attacks, the electricity not spreading on the shadow energy of the blade. At a moment, Pikachu was forced to use Iron Tail to parry the horn, but it was still badly hurt and was knocked back by the force of the giant Pokémon.

But like with Darkrai, all of Pikachu's attacks gave their toll to Keldeo and it eventually fell on a knee, then lost consciousness, but not before attempting one last time to slice Pikachu only for the mouse to avoid the blade with a jump before clinging to Keldeo's face and hitting it with a full powered Thunder.

Finally, Giovanni sent out a Dynamaxed Shadow Deoxys. As the fight started and he ordered it to use Max Shadow Mist followed by Max Anathema, Giovanni was then distracted from the fight by Faba Teleporting behind him.

He was grinning victoriously before he showed to Giovanni a Poké Ball which looked like it was made from crystal with pieces of different colors covering it, the whole ball glowing in a dark energy.

"It is done, Boss! The Shadow Deity Ball! From the Origin Ore and the Plates! With it..." Faba's grin turned more excited. "Arceus is yours!"

"Wh-? All that just to create a Poké Ball to catch Arceus? Why bother when you already have Master Balls?" Red asked.

"Eheheh. You see, Red, it's simple. Master Balls aren't enough to catch Arceus. Its avatar, yes, but not THE Arceus," Giovanni explained before he took the ball and showed it to Red. "This ball is made from Arceus' energy, from both the Origin Ore and the Plates. It's the All Powerful Poké Ball. It will be able to trap the God itself. All of it."

At this moment, something came through the roof and crashed right on the Deoxys, interrupting the fight. The thing revealed to be Shadow Mewtwo, now unconscious and badly unjured, with Sweetie Void standing on it.

"Piece of cake," she said before she turned to face Giovanni. "Now, time to end this!"

"Faba!" Giovanni shouted.

"Y-yes! Go, Necrozma!" Faba opened a capsule and threw a Shadow Master Ball, sending out a Dynamaxed Shadow Necrozma in its Ultra Form. Instead of being made of light, it was made of shadows. "Max Shadow Laser!" the Ultra Necrozma attacked Sweetie Void by sending shadow lasers using prisms.

The filly quickly teleported from the Shadow Mewtwo who was hit by the lasers, which weren't effective on it before Shadow-type wasn't effective on itself. She then rammed the Ultra Necrozma right on the face, slamming it head first on a wall.

While this happened, Giovanni quickly ran to his Shadow Mewtwo and used a Max Revive to heal it before he called it back in its Master Ball, not bothering with the now unconscious Deoxys.

"Pikachu! Stop him!" Red shouted, and Pikachu used Thunder on Giovanni.

But the man silently grinned at them before he warped away just before the Thunder could hit him.

"Oh no... Sweetie Belle!" Red shouted, gaining the filly's attention as she was burying Necrozma's head into the wall where she slammed it. "Go after Giovanni! I'm sure that he teleported on Mt. Coronet! Don't worry about me! Go quick! You must stop him!"

Sweetie Void understood and let go of the Necrozma before she opened a rift and passed it.

Giovanni didn't lose time as he appeared on what remained of Spear Pillar, just beside Cyrus. Upon seeing Giovanni, Cyrus immediately sent a Houndoom, a Honchkrow, and a Weavile to guard him as Giovanni took out the Azule Flute and played.

The notes could be heard from very far across Sinnoh, and many recognised what they were.

Dawn ordered her Giratina to attack Giovanni but Cyrus stopped her with his Giratina. Phantom and Apple Death both teleported to stop him but Cyrus' Pokémon were ready and intercepted the fillies.

Giovanni then finished playing, and in a flash of light, a stairway made of light appeared, seemingly going on forever into the sky.

He let out his Shadow Mewtwo, not Dynamaxed and not in its Mega form this time, just as a rift opened, Sweetie Void coming out of it.

"Stop her from following me. Come at me as soon as you don't see me anymore. And this time, don't get beaten. I will need you to do you-know-what," he instructed before he started to climb the stairway.

"Oh come on! I already defeated it once!" Sweetie Void shouted, exasperated.

"Less whining, more fighting!" Phantom admonished as she returned to attacking Shadow Palkia, hitting it with several bombs that she created with her illusion powers. But the Pokémon resisted and used Max Hydro Pump in return, forcing Phantom to fly away.

Wordlessly, Sweetie Void unleashed her full power again and punched the Shadow Mewtwo on the face, almost knocking it out in one hit, but the Shadow Mewtwo resisted and used Recover to heal itself. It was then joined by Cyrus' Pokémon, Cyrus ordering them to support it.

To everyone's surprise, the Shadow Giratina was then hit by a Max Hyper Beam on the face originating from Ruby's Dynamax Mega Rayquaza.

Upon seeing him, Dawn quickly approached him with her Togekiss. "Ruby!"

"Hey Dawn! Good news! We got Archie and his Kyogre! And most of the grunts in the West are defeated! The others are taking care of the remaining ones! Need help?"

"Any help is welcomed!" Dawn said happily.

And so Ruby joined the battle against Cyrus.

All over Sinnoh, battles were reaching their climax. Steven was able to defeat Archer's Shadow Entei with his Aerodactyl using Stone Edge with Twilight bashing repeatedly Entei's head with a boulder. Entei used Max Flare on them, but Twilight teleported to avoid the attack while the Aerodactyl was hit and was finally knocked out after everything it took, but not before using Stone Edge one last time before losing consciousness. That last attack was too much for Entei and it lost consciousness too. Archer attempted to use a Max Revive, but he found himself lassoed by Applejack.

Kirby avoided a claw from Masuryu and counterattacked with a stream of ice - he was told that ice worked well on Masuryu - that the dragon avoided only to be hit by a Prismatic Beam from Elio's Ultra Necrozma. Kirby used the occasion to grab Masuryu by the beard while covered in electricity from the Spark Ability. Electricity wasn't effective on Masuryu, but it still caused damage that accumulated. Kirby then pulled on the beard to bring Masuryu's face to him before he punched it, then pulled on the beard again and punched the face again and repeated the process several dozens times until Masuryu fired another its shadow beam attack just before it could be punched again only for Kirby to deflect it with Mirror right into its mouth. Kirby then quickly materialized a giant bomb and dropped it into Masuruy's mouth where it exploded.

Masuryu used Rest yet again to heal, but Kirby used this to grab the dragon's beard again while it was sleeping before he flew toward the sky with it.

"Where is that thing going with my Masuryu?!" Ghetsis yelled from where he was watching the fight on the cliff not far of the ruins of the Sinnoh Pokémon League.

"Hey, Eternatus, look!" he suddenly heard, making his heart skip a beat. He turned around and looked up at the origin of the voice: Victor who was still on the back of a Braviary, flying alongside his Eternatus. "Here's the trash! How about we take it out? Dynamax Cannon."

Ghetsis panicked and immediately warped away.

He appeared in the Rocket HQ in what was known as the Warping Room so members of the team could warp into the HQ without risking to appear on someone else's path only to be welcomed by a Thunder that knocked him out right away.

Littering the room with dozens of unconscious Rocket grunts, scientists, and guards, and standing against the wall was Red and his Pikachu who was awaiting his next victim. It didn't take them long to take care of Faba, especially after Sweetie already pretty much dealt by herself with his Shadow Ultra Necrozma.

In Veilstone City, Sonic Homing Attack repeatedly a weakened Shadow Groudon. As the giant Pokémon looked around, trying to follow the hedgehog, Tails then jumped from a nearby Pidgeot to attack directly its head with his tails. Hilbert then attacked it in turn with his Zekrom, using the diversion to approach and attack with Dragon Claw. Zekrom being an Electric-type, it mostly remained at a safe distance, waiting for such occasions. Then Gold attacked with Ho-Oh using Fire Blast, and many other trainers attacked from all around.

All other grunts in the city and around were defeated, Maxie and his Groudon were the last remaining enemy, but they were darn resisting, causing a huge amount of damage to the whole region. Cracks caused by the Groudon had now divided the region into several smaller floating islands, especially the East part, and more and more volcanoes were appearing, even where there weren't mountains. And the level of the West ocean had dramatically diminished.

Groudon used Max Eruption again, sending fiery boulders to rain everywhere yet again.

But then, something came from the sky and crashed right on the Groudon at a speed superior to the one of sound.

"Woaaah!!!" The shockwave created by the crash sent almost everyone around flying including Sonic and Tails, as well as many debris.

Sonic quickly recovered when he landed and ran to see what happened, only to see a certain puffball standing beside the now unconscious Groudon as well as Masuryu, looking as if he finished a simple everyday task.

Sonic rubbed his head, not sure what to think. "Jeez... You just stole our 'kill', you could at least look smug, or proud of yourself, or something. Well, whatever. Good job!"

"Poyo!" Kirby replied happily.

All that remained was Lysandre and his Shadow Xerneas, but not for long. The Xerneas avoided Luigi's hammer only to be hit by a Hydro Pump from Calem's Greninja, a bipedal blue frog-like Pokémon that looked like a ninja with its tongue wrapped around its neck like a scarf. This opened the Xerneas to another attack from Luigi with his hammer, followed by N using a Bisharp to attack with Iron Head. As Xerneas was attacked from all directions, it used Max Moonblast to attack around and force many to stop attacking before it attacked Luigi with Max Megahorn. As Xerneas charged at Luigi with its horns down, he readied himself and jumped to stomp on Xerneas' back. Then he jumped again and dropped back on Xerneas, this time with his hammer, badly hitting its spine.

Calem then finished Xerneas with a Sky Attack from his Yveltal after he made sign to someone to deal with Lysandre to stop him from reviving his Pokémon. And this someone was Yoshi who caught Lysandre with his tongue from behind and ate him before laying an egg with the man trapped inside it.

All remaining Team RR grunts were being defeated. The ponies, Captain Falcon, and Ness and his friends defeated them everywhere inside the tunnels of the mountains, or around them. Sweetie Void's Pokémon and Spiky also fought well, and with Petrel and Ariana beaten, Link, Zelda, Samus, Apple Death's friends were able to join the hunt.

Team RR was being decimated.

In total, only a few minutes passed since Giovanni began to climb the stairs to the Hall of Origin.

Sweetie Void rained dark beams on the enemy Pokémon, dealing huge damage to the Shadow Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina while the Shadow Mewtwo was able to avoid them by moving and teleporting around. Phantom tried to slice it with Infinite's sword but the Pokémon caught her with its psychic power and threw her away right on the path of a Max Shadow Roar, but Apple Death caught her just in time to get her out of the way while Shadow Mewtwo teleported out of the way of a giant fireball sent by the ghost filly. At the same time, a Max Hyper Beam fired by Ruby's Mega Rayquaza hit Cyrus' Shadow Palkia while Dawn's Giratina and Cyrus' Shadow Giratina repeatedly used Shadow Force (the Ghost-type move for one and the Max Shadow-type move for the other) against each other. The two Ghost/Dragon-type Pokémon were flying around, regularly disappearing before reappearing charging at their adversary only to miss because the adversary disappeared too to attack. However, because of sweetie Void's beams, Cyrus had to use Full Restores on his three Pokémon.

As for Cyrus' Houndoom, Honchkrow, and Weavile, they were knocked out a long time ago and he didn't bother to revive them.

Sweetie Void punched Shadow Mewtwo in the belly, making it bend in pain with its breath knocked out. It still managed to grab Sweetie by the head before violently slamming her on the ground only to take a beam on the face fired from one of her cannons. A psychic forcefield pushed the cannons back, and it was saved from Sweetie's retaliation by Shadow Palkia attacking her with Max Shadow Rend. It used the occasion to use Recover to heal itself again.

But it was starting to be exhausted.

But then, it remarked that it couldn't see Giovanni anymore and knew that it was time to join him, so it began to fly up the stairs.

Sweetie Void blasted Shadow Palkia and quickly went after it, leaving her friends to finish the battle. After flying up a few dozens stairs, they seemingly disappeared.

Just at this moment, Kirby flew in and sliced Shadow Dialga before attacking Shadow Palkia by dropping bombs on it. Despite the surprise of Kirby's arrival, everyone quickly acted and attacked.

It turned out that the stairway led through some kind of dimensional barrier. One moment, they were in the dimension where Sinnoh was transported into, and the next, they were... somewhere else.

Somewhere in space, above what looked like the atmosphere, glowing blue-green with aurora lights, as far as the eye could see. Above was the void of space itself, black, with countless stars.

The Hall of Origin itself was present at the end of the stairs, some kind of giant glowing glass-like platform surrounded by the aurora lights, with strange patterns sculpted in the platform itself, full of symbols that historians specialising on Arceus would probably know the signification of.

Sweetie Void immediately spotted Giovanni who was joined by his Shadow Mewtwo...

And he was facing Arceus.

The instant Sweetie thought of attacking Giovanni, Shadow Mewtwo teleported beside her and attacked her with a Low Kick that she avoided before she punched it back, sending it away.

Done with Mewtwo for now, she quickly turned to look again at Giovanni and saw that Arceus was attacking him with Judgment, its signature attack that could take on the type of the Plate currently used by it. Since Arceus had no Plate, then the move was actually Normal-type.

Not that the type of the move mattered. If Giovanni was hit by it, then he would end up, at best, badly hurt, at worst, killed.

And yet, Giovanni didn't try to dodge the attack and instead threw the Shadow Deity Ball before being hit by the attack which sent him on his back groaning in pain. Arceus saw the ball and its eyes barely had time to widen when it recognized what it was before the ball touched it and opened.

It wasn't just Arceus that turned into red energy. The whole universe seemed to take a red teint before the red started to be sucked into the ball. Among this red were particles of red light that appeared out of nowhere.

And in just a few seconds, all the red was gone, and the ball closed before dropping on the platform.

With a groan, not even trying to get up to go get the ball, Giovanni yelled "Mewtwo!" and the Pokémon teleported to grab the ball. Sweetie Void recovered from her shock of seeing Arceus being captured and immediately fired a powerful dark beam that would disintegrate Giovanni, but Mewtwo acted and pushed the man out of the way with its powers before it gave the ball to him. Mewtwo then intercepted a punch from Sweetie Void only to have its head grabbed and slammed onto the glass platform just as Giovanni opened the ball.

What came out of it, Sweetie wasn't sure. There was just a... moment where everything was black, and then the black was gone, everything seemingly returning to normal with no Arceus to be seen.

Excepted that there was now a giant... disk seemingly made of particles of shadow covering most of the space above, hiding the stars. It was difficult to say how far it was, and so how big it was. It could either be close and so it wasn't that big (but still big), or it was far and so it was VERY big, potentially the size of a galaxy or even more.

And deep down, as she looked in awe at the disk, Sweetie knew that it was just an eye, and that the being it belonged to was unimaginably huge.

An omnipotent God with a real form beyond any mortal comprehension, and who was now corrupted.

Then, coughed some blood, Giovanni yelled "Now! Do your thing, Mewtwo!"

The Shadow Mewtwo, whose head was still on the ground under Sweetie's hoof, on the brink of losing consciousness from the exhaustion and everything, unleashed its powers one last time, its eyes glowing.

And Giovanni's body turned into light that moved toward the eye.

The eye seemingly closed for a moment before it opened again, now specifically staring at Sweetie Void.

Giovanni's voice echoed inside her mind.

I win.

Sweetie whimpered.

Author's Note

Thank you to Kelduo for the Max Shadow move, Max Anathema.

Chapter 106: Versus Omnipotence

For the first time in a long time, Sweetie Void doubted that she could win a fight, even if she used everything she had. All her powers, as immense as they were, were nothing to an Omnipotent being like Arceus. A true Omnipotent one. The kind that could erase the whole Pokémon Multiverse (the Ultra Space and all the universes linked by it) with just a thought. What could she do against that? With Arceus' power, Giovanni could erase her from existence before she could understand what was happening to her. No fancy lasers or galaxy-wide explosions. Just pop! and she would be gone.

Void had been powerful, but he had still been vulnerable to mortals. He could create universes, but it was a long process for him that asked for the creation of a huge amount of Matter Energies using his own body. But he couldn't really do much beyond that in the scale of the universe. He could create stuff like planets, but he could only do it in a local scale to him and it wasn't instantaneous, like he was doing now with repairing the second Portal World in the Dream Universe. Repairing it was asking him to be physically present and was taking time and a lot of focus. Arceus, however, could instantly create an universe, and from there forge it to its vision as easily as a child created a sandcastle and decorated it how he wanted. With Arceus' power, planets and stars popped everywhere, filling the universe, or multiverse, in what had probably been a matter of hours, if not mere minutes.

The only limit that Arceus seemed to have in forging the multiverse was that it didn't seem to be able to see everything at once, so he couldn't work on the whole multiverse instantaneously. Sweetie wasn't sure how much it could see at once, how much its 'eyes' could see, but it couldn't follow all the happenings in its multiverse. Probably it could see through its Avatars, which were probably the "arms" the Pokédex spoke about in its description. And so, what the Avatars couldn't see, Arceus couldn't see either. And so, the Avatar didn't see that Giovanni had made a Poké Ball that could capture Arceus itself, the God, not the Avatar. Probably the Avatar had been too busy observing what was happening on Sinnoh, but remained true to its policy of not intervening unless it was absolutely necessary. Considering that Arceus let Cyrus destroy/reshape a whole universe, Sweetie wondered what was the "absolutely necessary" situation that would push it to intervene.

But in the current situation where Arceus, or Giovanni, had his full focus on her, it didn't matter. She had his attention, and she doubted that she would lose it anytime soon, at least not until he killed her, whenever he wanted.

Running away wouldn't work. She knew. Giovanni would simply 'follow' her.

So, tell me, what do you intend to do, now? he asked in her mind.

Sweetie Void took some seconds to answer, thinking, before she looked down at the now unconscious Shadow Mewtwo. Quickly, she opened a rift and dropped the Pokémon through it. Destination: the Pokémon HQ Lab of the Orre Region where Shadow Pokémon were purified. They will know what to do with it.

Now, this poor Pokémon was out of danger of whatever will happen here, and will finally be free of its suffering.

It doesn't matter. I don't need it anymore. And I can always get it back later if I want. Actually, I should probably get rid of it and of Red's Mewtwo, and of all Mewtwo in existence, to make sure that their power couldn't be used to force me out of Arceus.

Sweetie Void perked up at this. If she could get Red and his Mewtwo...

I don't think so, little one. You would first need to leave this place, and I won't let you.

At this, the stairway to the Hall of Origin shattered, the path from the Spear Pillar thus disappearing.

She... wasn't stuck here. She could still open rifts to leave. But this meant that nobody will be able to come from Sinnoh unless they used Palkia to move through space to here. And maybe Giratina. And of course, as soon as she would try to leave, she would be dead.

You have been a thorn in our side. I actually feared you. The instant Maxie reported about you and how you were defeating his Primal Groudon so easily, I knew that you were dangerous. I wasn't surprised that you defeated Ghetsis' Masuryu, and my Shadow Mewtwo just a few minutes ago. If you had found out the location of our HQ right away, you would have eliminated us before I could have accomplished my goal.

"And your goal was to become Arceus?"

Yes. Mewtwo has the unique power of being able to transfer someone's mind into another's body. When I discovered that it could do that, I became much more ambitious. Mewtwo wasn't invincible. Despite having it in my possession, I was defeated by an alternate version of Elio, in another universe, and my plan from back then was thwarted. But now that I am Arceus, I have no equal. Nothing will be able to stand against me.

The eye then closed, and shadows gathered before Sweetie Void to form Arceus' Avatar, now with the usual color scheme of Shadow Pokémon (with the ring around its body being silver-colored instead of gold-colored).

However, before I deal with you, I would like to have one last battle, just for fun. Let's see how you will fare against Arceus...

Suddenly, the Plates reformed around the Avatar.

With its Plates.

Oh boy... You know, Writer, sometime, I think that you hate me...

A few minutes earlier, back on Sinnoh, the battle against Cyrus came to a close.

After Kirby's arrival, it was child's play to manage to knock out Shadow Dialga, Shadow Palkia, and Shadow Giratina all at once so they could deal with Cyrus without risking of letting one of the corrupted Legendaries go on a rampage and destroy the whole universe. It helped that the Arwings and the Great Fox joined in with most of the Rockets and their Pokémon in the sky being eliminated by now.

It felt good for Dawn to punch Cyrus on the face, and then knee him between the legs.

While she finished tying the man with a rope and took its Poké Balls and other items, one of the Arwings landed and Fox came out.

"Good news. All the enemy leaders seem to have been neutralized. One of them warped away however."

"Probably escaped back to their HQ. Red is still there, so whoever it was was probably taken care of by him, along with any grunt who got the same idea," Dawn said.

"So this leaves Giovanni," Phantom said.

Apple Death, at her side, nodded. "We should join Sweetie Void. She should be back by now."

Phantom agreed. "Yeah. Giovanni should have been no big deal for her. Something must have happened."

"Poyo!" Kirby thought the same.

But right at this moment, when they were about to fly up the stairway, it suddenly shattered into countless glowing pieces that disappeared into the air.

Everyone was left looking in shock and horror, wondering what happened, and what this meant. Apple Death turned into her ghost form and flew to see if she could still reach the Hall of Origin by following where the stairs had been, but only ended up flying into the sky of the dimension Sinnoh was still in.

She got a bad feeling, and she returned to the others.

"We must find another way to enter the Hall of Origin!"

"There is no other way," Dawn said. "Unless..." She let out her Palkia. "Palkia! Can you bring us to the Hall of Origin?"

The Pokémon nodded. "I can." It then moved to an area where nobody was present and tried to open a rift. However, it suddenly dropped, unconscious.

"What?!" Dawn exclaimed before she ran to join the Legendary and looked at it in worry. "What happened?"

"Seems like something stopped it from opening a rift to the Hall of Origin," Phantom deduced. "Damn... This probably means that Giovanni got his hands on Arceus and is using it to trap Sweetie Void in there, keeping her alone so he can deal with her."

"What about you two?" Dawn asked to the fillies.

"We don't know where the Hall of Origin is. We never went there, so we can't open rifts or portals to it," Apple Death explained.

"Beside, even if we could open a rift to the Hall of Origin, Arceus would probably stop us like it stopped Palkia," Phantom added. "It seems like Sweetie can now only count on herself. Unless DD decides to help?" She asked, looking up toward the sky.

Only to be met with silence, making her sigh.

"Well, at least, I'm sure They'll intervene if something goes wrong, so we don't have to worry... I think..." she continued, not sure of her words.

Sweetie Void wasn't worried about battling the Avatar. She was certain that she could deal with it. well, Maybe she will need to use her Soul Song. No doubt that it will be very irritating to fight because of its Plates allowing it to change type at will, but she can win against it.

But she knew that Giovanni was just playing with her. Whether she won or lost this fight, Giovanni would get rid of her in the end.

She had to use this fight to gain time and think of something.

She readied herself, and took on a defensive position. "All right! Come!"

The Shadow Arceus, however, didn't move, instead doing something else.

Calm Mind. Swords Dance.

Drat! Of course it boosts itself first. Alright then...

For the third time, Sweetie unleashed all her power, turning her mane, tail, and eyes into pure darkness, and this time, since she didn't have to worry about accidentally killing Arceus since it was just its Avatar, she added in Dynamax Energy, adding some purple to the darkness.

She punched the air, and cracks spreed in the very space toward Arceus.

Protect.

Oh, come on! Not THIS move! Everything but THIS move!

A shield surrounded Arceus just before the cracks could reach it, and the shield was able to protect it from the damage that the cracks would have caused. This move protected its user from almost everything. At least, it wasn't a permanent shield, it only remained a few seconds, and it had the disadvantage of having less and less chance to work if used too much in a short period of time.

Future Sight.

Sweetie sighed. Of course it has it.

Light Screen. Reflect. Multitype: Ghost.

Arceus used the Spooky Plate to change its type to Ghost-type, rendering all attacks that would be considered as Normal and Fighting ineffective.

She rolled her eyes, teleported beside Arceus, and attempted to punch its head anyway. Arceus saw it coming thanks to Future Sight and got surprised before it lowered its head to avoid the punch, only for Sweetie to teleport and punch again faster than it could think, this time the punch landing as it didn't have time to move its head.

"If I want to punch a Ghost, I can bucking punch a ghost!"

Multitype: Electric. Thunder.

A thunderbolt suddenly rained from the sky and hit Sweetie Void. Clenching her teeth, she resisted the pain and punched Arceus again, this time sending it flying beyond the limits of the platform.

Shadow Force.

It suddenly disappeared, and what followed were a few seconds of intense silence.

There was then the sound of glass cracking, and Sweetie turned to face cracks in the fabric of space that appeared. Then, in a burst of shadows, Arceus broke through and charged at the filly who teleported right above the Avatar at the last moment and punched it on the back. But Arceus saw it coming and was already in the process of turning around to face her.

Mega Punch. Ice Beam.

And it countered the punch with its own punch before firing a Ice Beam from its mouth at the filly who used a mirror to deflect it. Arceus Teleported to avoid the beam, then Teleported again to avoid a beam sword from behind, then used Protect to block another beam sword while it began to rain meteors on Sweetie Void.

She easily punched the meteors into pieces with giant shield fists while she began to fire dark beams at Arceus, by dozens, from all directions.

Multitype: Dark.

It changed its type to Dark to better resist the beams and moved around, doing its best to avoid them with Future Sight's help. Many of them hit it however, and it was even pierced by several sword beams that were among them.

Judgment.

Arceus gathered energy above its head and unleashing it as several beams that rained everywhere.

Shadow Beam.

Just as Sweetie Void appeared before its head, ready to fire her own beam, Arceus fired a Hyper Beam of shadow that covered her entirely.

Smog. Payback

It followed it by a cloud of poisonous gas as Sweetie was still before its head, recovering from the beam, and the filly was poisoned as a result. She didn't mind the poison however and finally fired the beam she had been preparing earlier. Arceus had been storing power however and unleashed it, badly hurting Sweetie Void due to the nature of Payback.

But Sweetie healed all injuries she got, and the next thing Arceus knew, it was beheaded by one of the beam swords. Then its body was cut into smaller pieces in the blink of an eye by more swords.

However, the pieces turned into shadows and reattached themselves, reforming Arceus' body, and a Recover finished to heal it.

Not bad. You are a real monster. But how about this? Sweetie Void heard before Arceus' Plates approached its body. Then there was a flash, and Arceus was now a bit different.

Its body mostly remained the same, but looked like it was partially covered in armor. Its hooves had silver horseshoes covering them, it had a silver collar-like chestplate, and it had a crown-like silver helmet. Also, the ring now looked like a silver sun with the Plates being in its rays/branches. The front horseshoes and the helmet were linked to the chestplate by silvery lines along Arceus' body, and the chestplate itself as well as the back horseshoes were linked to the ring.

"What?"

Consider it as Arceus' Origin Form. that's not the case at all, Arceus doesn't have an Origin Form, but you get the point. In this form, it is resistant to all attacks, no matter the type. And Judgment will be super effective no matter what. This is the real, full, incomparable power of the Avatar. No Pokémon can stand against it.

"Well, lucky me, I'm not a Pokémon," Sweetie Void replied as she readied her ten beam swords, now double beam swords.

Protect.

Arceus quickly Protected itself as Sweetie Void followed her words by a storm of sharp and powerful energy waves using her swords.

Agility. Shadow Roar.

Arceus used its boosted speed to quickly fly upward, avoiding the storm of waves, before it sent a beam exactly like Shadow Dialga's. Sweetie put up her strongest mirror and successfully deflected the beam.

Mirror Coat.

The beam was deflected again by a special shield surrounding Arceus, the shield also having for effect to double the beam's power.

Shadow Force.

Sweetie Void avoiding the beam this time and quickly turned around to punch Arceus as it appeared out of shadows to attack her. The punch dug into the Pokémon's head.

Vine Whip.

And yet Arceus was still able to attack and vines appeared from its sides before they wrapped Sweetie Void and slammed her on the ground. The vines then whipped her on the back before she coated herself in fire, burning them, and she charged at Arceus like a comet, dividing herself into ten doubles on the way.

Arceus Teleported to avoid the first Sweetie-comet, then used its leg to knock the second one away, then used Hydro Pump to push the third one back. It barely avoided the fourth one by moving its head out of the way, but then got hit by the fifth one on the stomach, and the others quickly followed, hitting it all over its body repeatedly. The ones that had been avoided or pushed back also joined the assault.

Thunder.

Despite the assault, Arceus was able to rain lightning bolts right on the ten doubles, stopping them.

Judgment.

Then it sent powerful homing beams at them. Some hit, others were avoided, but Arceus continued to use the move only to be attacked by the ten double beam swords. Sweetie then used the diversion to have her doubles to assault Arceus again, but this time, each double attacked using something different. One sent simple beams, another went for punches and kicks, another used fire, another used water, another used ice, another used electricity, another used poison, another used shadows, another turned her body into steel to attack, and the last one used rocks.

Recover. Protect. Psychic. Iron Defense. Sand Attack. Prismatic Laser. Shadow Force. Eruption. Confuse Ray. Leech Seed. Gust. Hyper Beam. Meteor Mash. Lunge. Rock Throw. Hydro Pump. Roar of Time. Spacial Rend.

In return, it healed itself and began to use move after move while still maintaining Future Sight and using Protect every now and then.

Against the onslaught of moves, the ten doubles merged back into a single Sweetie Void who did her best to avoid them. Arceus really was the Creator of Pokémon. It was using moves of every types, and in very rapid succession. Sweetie stopped trying to cut the Avatar into pieces. They just reattached themselves. So, instead, she went with simple brute force allied to speed.

She wasn't sure how long the fight would last. Arceus just Recovered from any injury it received and it seemed to have infinite stamina, like Sweetie herself.

In other word, the two were pretty even, but Sweetie had the advantage of power. Her attacks generally packed more punch.

Sweetie Void could sing to add even more power, but she decided that it was no use. It would feel good to trash Arceus around like a punching bag, but she would gain nothing from this. Arceus would still Recover and they would still be in a stalemate. The fact that she was already overpowering it despite its new form was already good enough.

If it wasn't for its infinite stamina, she would have definitively defeated it. The Avatar's power was nothing compared to Void. It would have eventually tired from using Recover and other moves and this would have been it, like against Mewtwo.

Let's stop this fight, she eventually heard before Arceus evaporated into shadows that scattered all across the dimension. I have enough of it.

"Uh?" Already? I haven't been able to think of something to get out of this situation alive! Wait, how long have we been fighting?

We have fought for over an hour, Giovanni revealed.

"Uh... I guess that I have been having fun despite everything, because I didn't see time pass at all."

To tell you the truth, same for me. We probably could have continued for days, but enough losing time with you.

The shadows returned, this time forming Giovanni's body with his usual smirk.

"I have a whole multiverse to take control of."

Above, the purple eye returned, followed by countless others of various size all around, all staring at Sweetie Void. She was surrounded. She knew, she just had a few seconds left. She had to find something, or everyone will become slaves of Giovanni, or will be killed.

Everyone.

Including all her friends who came to help.

Burning rage was filling her at the thought, and she finally thought of a solution.

Well, she thought of it since the start of the fight but she refused to use it.

But desperate times...

"It has been nice knowing you," Giovanni said. "Goodbye."

However, before he could use Arceus' power to erase Sweetie Void of existence, he felt a sudden increase in the filly's power as he saw her black marks of her flank spread and cover all her body in the blink of an eye. The instant the last spot was covered in black, on her forehead below her horn, Giovanni felt that she was different.

That she was now an equal.

Her body was now entirely covered in darkness. No, it was darkness. Was a pony-shaped black hole. With no eye visible, and no mane and hair-tail.

Acting quickly, Giovanni used all of Arceus' power on Sweetie Void to eliminate her, making his Avatar disappear to spare every single bit of power he could, only for Sweetie Void to use all of her own power to counter it.

In that new form of hers, she was omnipotent, like Giovanni currently. The two had absolutely equal power.

And these two powers now clashed.

There were no flash, no bolts of electricity, no displaced air, nothing visually special. It was just two, all-powerful forces clashing.

In the instant the clash began, the whole dimension of the Hall of Origin collapsed.

Dawn used her Dialga and Palkia to put Sinnoh ( or its pieces) back where it belonged, then Ruby began to use Groudon to evaporate the water that flooded the West. Dawn joined by using Regigigas, the titan's prodigious strength allowing it to close the cracks that formed by pushing the pieces of Sinnoh.

Everyone else began to participate in their own way. Doing the point of the situation, rounding up the Rockets, taking their Poké Balls and items, welcoming people that were arriving now that Sinnoh was back in place, healing, and so on.

A portal to the Rockets' HQ was opened, allowing people to enter it and arrest all the Rockets still present in there and also to destroy or take the technologies they used for study later. Everything related to Shadow Pokémon was destroyed. The HQ itself could be reconverted into an Ultra Space ship to explore the Ultra Space without the help of Pokémon like Lunala. As for Red, he returned to Sinnoh to help the others, bringing Faba and Ghetsis with him.

Then the whole dimension began to shake.

And the sky above Mt. Coronet suddenly broke like glass, forming a giant rift. From it, cracks in the fabric of space spreed everywhere across the dimension and began to form smaller rifts through which other worlds from the Pokémon Multiverse or the Ultra Space, or simply other planets from the same universe, could be seen.

The thing was that the Hall of Origin was the heart of the Pokémon Multiverse. It was a nexus linking all the universes, from which Arceus watched over them. Thanks to Arceus' power, the dimension of the Hall of Origin was actually countless parallel planes, so people from various universes could enter it and yet never see each others.

And with its collapse, the whole multiverse began breaking apart.

And everyone could only watch as a giant purple eye now covered the sky. Said eye could actually be seen now from all universes in the Pokémon Multiverse, always above Mt. Coronet, and so was the little black form under it.

Of course, seeing the black form itself was pretty much impossible unless you were on top of Mt. Coronet. From afar, it looked like a black dot. And nobody was currently present on Mt. Coronet which was good because the top of Mt. Coronet was being disintegrated by what was happening above it, and the disintegration was spreading. But some had binoculars and used them to see what was going on. The Great Fox was also able to have a good view and, soon enough, everyone could see what was going on through their TV, computer, phone, or whatever.

And everyone who knew about Sweetie Void's Soul Form gasped in horror upon identifying it. It didn't take long for the gears to turn and identify the being the eye belonged to as Arceus, obviously still under Giovanni's orders.

Magolor, who was beside Dawn, said to her, "Instruct to everyone to attack that eye-thing! We must help Sweetie Belle and end this fight RIGHT NOW, or everything will be destroyed!"

Dawn gaped at him but nodded without asking anything before she took her phone and began to spread the instruction. Before long, streams of fire, lightning bolts, and all thousands upon thousands of other kinds of projectiles were sent toward the sky, toward the eye, from all over Sinnoh and even beyond. the Great Fox joined in firing at the eye, as well as all of Sweetie's friends if they could.

But all these attacks didn't seem to affect Giovanni whose focus was still entirely on Sweetie Void. If his focus was diverted even a little, then the filly could overpower him and this would be over. All these attacks weren't even comparable to bug bites for him.

For the first time, Phantom and Apple Death, who were at the foot of Mt. Coronet, were feeling powerless as their most powerful attacks were doing absolutely nothing.

"No no no! This is not how you do this!" their attention was suddenly caught by a new voice that they never heard before and that seemed to echo and to be full of power. Turning to look in the direction it came from, behind them, they saw what seemed to be a giant floating white right-hand glove.

"What the-?!" they both exclaimed at the same time as anyone else spotting the hand who seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

"Watch and learn," the hand said before it flew toward Sweetie Void and stopped alongside her. He grunted, feeling his body beginning to be teared apart by the clash of omnipotent powers that was happening, but he resisted.

He shouted, "Hey! Ravioli!" before giving Giovanni the middle finger. "This is what I did to your mom!"

THIS got Giovanni's attention, annoyed.

And the next instant, the purple eye disappeared, evaporating into nothingness.

And just like that, it was over.

Feeling that she won, Sweetie Void Soul knew that she was done and let go of her power, the black leaving her body until it was just the marks on her flanks again. She then lost consciousness, and the hand quickly materialised a glowing yellow platform between his fingers before he threw it like a card, the platform stopping right under the filly as she had been beginning to fall. The platform then gently lowered Sweetie toward the foot of Mt. Coronet while the hand gathered energy and closed into a fist, and the next instant, the giant rift closed along with all the cracks and smaller rifts, returning everything to normal.

It was only just a few minutes before Sweetie Void opened her eyes and saw that she was surrounded by everyone. The ponies, Kirby, Magolor, Susie, all her friends who came from other universes, and some of the Champions and other trainers like Red, Dawn, Blue, Gold, and Ruby.

She wasn't sure what to feel right now. She won. Giovanni was gone and the Pokémon Multiverse, and possibly many other universes, were saved. But...

She looked sadly at Dawn. "I'm sorry... I killed Arceus..."

Many gasped at this.

"Wait, what?" Blue exclaimed. "You mean that Arceus is really dead? I thought that it was just... gone. And what happened to Giovanni?"

"He's dead, along with Arceus," Sweetie Void revealed. "He used his Shadow Mewtwo's power to transfer himself into Arceus, taking direct control of it. By killing Arceus, I also killed Giovanni, because the two now shared the same 'body'. I'm so sorry..."

"Don't hold it against her," Magolor quickly said to the trainers. "Sweetie Belle was in her Soul Form. In this form, she is, to put it simply, omnipotent. But in this form, she is pure Will. If she wants to do something, then she will do everything to accomplish it no matter the collateral damage, even if it means destroying the universe with everyone in it. Her goal was obviously to defeat Giovanni, or to stop him, and this is what she did in the end without being able to control the fact that she took Arceus with him."

"I had no choice but to take this form," Sweetie Void continued motionlessly. "Arceus was omnipotent too. With Giovanni controlling it, he was about to kill me and would have enslaved this whole multiverse with all of you included. I knew this would end badly, but I had no choice..."

Why did it have to go this way, Writer? I hate you...

...

"So Arceus is dead... Really dead..." Dawn said in disbelief before she sighed. "We won't hold it against you. You did what you could to save everyone."

"Sometimes, sacrifice must be made for the greater good," Sweetie then heard.

She sat up and looked behind herself, seeing behind everyone the giant hand that helped her.

"Don't let the guilt destroy you. You can mourn Arceus and what you had to do to it, but remember that you were left with no choice. Hard decision must often be taken. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about."

Whoever this hand was, Sweetie Void could feel a lot of power from him and immediately knew that she had before her another God, albeit not as powerful as Arceus or Void.

Kirby seemed to recognize him.

"Who are you?" she eventually asked to the hand.

"I'm Master Hand."

Author's Note

Master Hand's first appearance, and his first action is to cause a God's death by giving it the middle finger before insulting his mom. I'm sure that nobody expected such an entrence.

Chapter 107: Master Hand

"Nice to meet you, Master Hand. Thank you for your help against Giovanni," Sweetie Void said.

"You are welcome. I saw what was going on and knew that you couldn't win without help. And if nothing had been done, this whole multiverse would have been destroyed, and the destruction could have eventually spreed to other universes. Since you clearly needed a hand, I decided to intervene."

...

Many groaned at the pun made by the giant hand, and a few others laughed, including Sweetie Void.

"Oh boy, you are a handful, uh?" she replied with an amused smirk.

She was bonked on the back of the head by an annoyed Phantom. "Don't you start!"

Master Hand laughed. "I should be the one saying that."

"Oh, you have no idea," Sweetie Void's Rarity said with a sigh.

"Things have certainly gotten more interesting since Sweetie Belle returned from Popstar," Sweetie's Twilight said.

Chromatic Bolt suppressed a laugh. "Things got more interesting since you arrived in Ponyville."

It wasn't just the one Twilight that sighed at this, but the three present, and they said, "I wonder why..." making many of the others chuckle.

The ponies and everyone else then proceeded to present themselves to Master Hand who then confirmed that he was a God. A First Category one he added, of Creation.

"First Category...?" Sweetie Void repeated thoughtfully. "Right. Gods that represent forces of nature or that kind of stuff. Of Creation? So you can create whatever you want?"

"Pretty much, yes. Curious that you already know about the God Categories. Not many mortals know about them. Many Gods don't even know about them. It's generally something more known to Third Category Gods and a select few of the others."

Sweetie Void shrugged. "I encountered a God who told me about them, including Devourers."

Master Hand visibly shivered when he heard the word 'Devourers'. "Pray that you never encounter one."

Too late for that... Sweetie thought.

"Excuse me, Master Hand. Sorry if this sounds rude, but why are you here exactly? For you to be among us must not be just a coincidence, right?" one of the Luna asked.

"You are right. This is not a coincidence. You see. Contrary to the majority of the divinities of the Omniverse, I don't have a specific universe or multiverse I live in. I'm a wanderer, seeking challenges. I heard about little Sweetie Void here, and she picked my interest."

"What? You heard about me? From who?" Sweetie Void asked.

"Let's just say that you are starting to gain attention. I found you thanks to that and arrived just in time to witness your clash of omnipotence against Arceus. I didn't expect to see something like that upon arriving. Such clashes are very rare. Especially when one of the clashing beings isn't a God."

"Well, I hope that I won't have to do this again. I don't want to retake this form. Too dangerous. So, you seek challenges?"

"Yes. I like facing foes. TO SHOW THEM MY SUPERIORITY! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" he said in a dramatic evil act, even doing the hand movement when someone is cackling evilly while they have their hands raised beside them, palm up with the fingers partially curled, and he even added lightning for more effect. This made many laugh at how hammy he acted. "And I'm not disappointed by what I found today. Not only you, but a lot of your friends here. I can see that many of you would be fun to face. This whole multiverse is full of such beings. These Pokémon sure have a lot of potential. As well as YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU!" he repeatedly while pointing a finger at everyone present that knew how to fight one by one, Phantom, Apple Death, Kirby, Mario, Sonic, Link, and so on. Once he finished, he continued. "However, this is clearly not the time. After these intense battles you had, fighting is clearly the last thing in your minds, especially you Sweetie Void."

"You really want to fight all of us? Even the Pokémon?" Link asked in disbelief.

"No. It would take too long. And I'm sure that many of you isn't interested in fighting me. So I had that idea of creating a tournament where challengers would enter and fight each others in duels, and the winner would face me. But I'm ready to wait until everyone recovers from this ordeal. A couple of day, local time, should be enough, I think. You can use that time to decide who will participate. Until then, I guess that I will remain here to help rebuild. My creation powers will be very useful for this."

"I imagine. Your help will be very welcome," Dawn said.

Master Hand replied with a thumb up.

After that, Sweetie Void quickly learned the consequences of this huge battle.

For starting, Sinnoh was almost entirely destroyed. Not a single city or town was still intact. the West was ravaged by the water, the East was destroyed by earthquakes, and the mountains in the center forever changed. Thankfully, the volcanoes that appeared because of Shadow Groudon went extinct not long after its defeat, but the lava they released changed the landscape around the mountains and burned some of the towns around, and new caverns will have to be dug as ancients were now buried.

But the damage were nothing. They could be repaired, and a new Sinnoh will be born from this with the help of the whole planet and the other dimensions.

What couldn't be repaired, however, were the casualties this battle caused.

The flood caused by Shadow Kyogre was particularly deadly. Many, both Rockets and League trainers without forgetting Pokémon, drowned because of it. Others fell into the cracks caused by the earthquakes, and others were burned to death by the lava. and of course, many trainers and Pokémon were killed by Shadow Pokémon and their mortal Shadow moves.

Among the Rockets, the Executive Proton died very early in the battle because of a cavern collapsing on him. This was also a big cause of death since many people and Pokémon had been in the caverns of Mt. Coronet and the mountains around.

To the Executive, hundreds of Grunts and their Pokémon added to the count, generally caused by the disasters caused by the Shadow Legendaries, but also killed by Federation marines or the Star Fox lasers.

Among the League trainers...

Ex-Champion Alder was taken by the flood. This was the only casualty among Champions and ex-Champions, but this still was a terrible loss.

And then there were the Elite 4 members and the Gym Leaders, both current and ancients.

Bruno. Flint. Olivia.

Erika, Morty, Jasmine, Norman (Ruby was devastated upon learning that he lost his father), Volkner, Burgh, Skyla, Valerie, Wulfric, Milo...

And many others from other Regions from across the world.

And hundreds of trainers and Pokémon plus some Federation marines and pony royal guards.

The League trainers definitively took the biggest hit, but it wasn't surprising considering that they had been more numerous than the Rockets and that the Shadow Pokémon had been absolutely merciless. Their Shadow Z-moves or Max moves (or both) especially caused a real slaughter. And this was without forgetting the Shadow Legendaries. By themselves, they were responsible of the majority of the deaths.

Casualty among wild Pokémon were thankfully minimal. Thanks to teamwork and the help of some Legendaries, most of the wild Pokémon of Sinnoh were evacuated before the start of the battle.

And then, there were the greatest casualties of all:

Giovanni.

...

And Arceus...

Sweetie still couldn't believe that she killed it.

As she laid on her back at the top of Mt. Coronet by herself, wanting to be alone a bit, she looked at the sky, reminiscing her encounter with the God all these weeks ago, after her battle against Red during her very first adventure. Arceus had been so nice to her.

For what was probably the hundredth time, she closed her eyes and sighed sadly.

She knew that the others were right. She shouldn't let herself being eaten by the fact that she killed it. She had been cornered. She had been left with no choice. But she just couldn't stop. After all, Arceus had been innocent, and knowing this hurt the filly. And it also hurt that many were probably hurting because of its death. Arceus had been the (fore)father of all Pokémon after all (well, almost since some were from human origin or other stuff), and had been venerated in many places all over the world. But she repeated to herself: this wasn't her fault, this was Giovanni's. She had no choice.

She opened her eyes to look back at the sky.

Only to see two big blue eyes just a few centimeters before hers.

"Eep!" She tried to sit up by reflex and headbutted the eyes' owner. "Ow..."

"Owie!"

After rubbing her forehead a bit, Sweetie Void looked to see who she accidentally headbutted and saw a familiar little pink cat-like Pokémon now sitting on the ground and also rubbing its forehead.

This same cat-like Pokémon she met and played with that first time.

"Mew? What are you doing here? Uh, sorry for headbutting you."

Mew stopped rubbing its forehead and looked at Sweetie Void before giggling. "No, it's my fault. It was silly of me to get so close of you like that."

The two then silently stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity before the filly looked down sadly and said, "Sorry..."

Mew immediately understood that, this time, Sweetie Void wasn't apologising for the headbutt but for something else. And it knew what, because that was the reason why it was here.

Instead of answering Sweetie's apology, Mew smiled at her before it wrapped its paws around her as much as it could. Before Sweetie Void could say anything in reaction to this, Mew then looked at her and booped her muzzle. "Boop! You are it!" Then it flew away giggling.

Sweetie Void was left behind, speechless. A smile then slowly formed on her muzzle. "Just you wait!"

And thus began the most epic game of tag in history.

Mew was known as a very playful and childish, sometime mischievous Pokémon. And that was exactly what was sometime needed to help advance after a terrible and traumatic ordeal.

Sweetie Void made a mental note to find a way to thank Mew appropriately later. It lost what was pretty much its progenitor partially because of her, and yet here it was, helping her get over it. This Pokémon was too good.

Later that evening. Dinner time.

Sweetie Void joined everyone who had gathered in one of the many makeshift restaurants made in camps all over Sinnoh to house and feed the people and Pokémon that were helping rebuilding. Everyone was present, spread across different tables that were put side by side to form a giant one, with the Pokémon either eating on it or on the floor around it. There were the ponies. There were trainers like Red, Blue, Gold, Ruby, Dawn, and some others. There was Kirby, Magolor, Susie, and Spiky. There was her Pokémon. Everyone, from Link and Future Zelda to the full team of Star Fox passing by Ness' group, Captain Falcon and even Samus (currently without her suit), without forgetting Mario's group and Sonic and Tails, was present, happily chatting and getting to better know each others.

It warmed Sweetie's heart to see that. Many of the friends she made in her adventures were now together, starting to form what she hopped was a close knit group.

Master Hand was also present, but wasn't eating (could he even eat? He didn't have a mouth, but this didn't stop creatures like Waddle Dees from eating), simply discussing and listening.

"Seems like we are both used to fighting evil organisations led by a sadistic space tyrant on a regular basis. What would you think if we team up one of these days? I would of course buy you a drink afterward," Captain Falcon said to Samus, the last part almost flirty.

Samus smirked. "I will hold you to that."

"Are you serious?" Tails asked as he looked at Mario in shock. "How can you live with a villain that attacks so often? Not even Eggman attacks so regularly! We at least a one or two months of respite before he tries something again!"

Mario shrugged. "Bowser is VERY stubborn and determined. But we learned to live with it."

"How can something so small eat so much?!" Jeff exclaimed, not able to stop himself from looking in awe at Kirby who was eating by himself at least half of the content of the tables.

"And you have seen nothing. This is just a snack for him," Sweetie Void informed with amusement.

Blue whistled. "He could compete with a Snorlax."

"A Snorlax?" She scoffed. "That's small fry for him. I don't think that even a Guzzlord could compete against him."

"So it looked like Star Wolf would easily defeat us with their new Wolfen II. They really surpassed us in every points. But we had something that they missed: teamwork. Instead of spending our time trying to escape the enemy glued to our butts, we fired on the enemies glued on the others' butts while doing our best to avoid their shots. Their whole team was down in less than one minute, and the path to Andross was open," Peppy recounted, like one of these old people who like to recount stories.

And Link was listening to him in amazement, looking in every way like the child that he currently was.

Scootabot was also listening and exclaimed, "What happens next? What happens next?!"

"Our hotheaded boss decided to play the heroic lonely knight and flew into Andross' base alone, leaving us behind," Falco said.

Link looked at the bird questioningly. "And you didn't follow him?"

"We could have, but it clearly was something that Fox wanted to settle by himself. Andross did kill his father after all," Falco answered.

"Good point."

Discussions like this continued for a bit until Sweetie Void looked at Master Hand and said, "By the way, Master Hand, I will participate in your tournament."

"Good!"

Sweetie Void looked at everyone else. "And don't worry for everyone else who intends to participate. I will limit myself. It wouldn't be fun otherwise. And Kirby, if you decide to enter, no Stella Knight either. Give them a chance."

"Poyo!" Kirby agreed.

"I could perfectly take you at your full power, as long as you don't enter this Soul Form of yours," Phantom said confidently.

Sweetie Void gave her a deadpan look. "Remember Galacta Knight? How much trouble he gave you to defeat? Well, remember that I managed to barely defeat him... back when I was an unicorn." She proceeded to show her wings to remind her that she wasn't an unicorn anymore. "And Kirby in his Stella Knight form? I consider him my rival. Think about this."

Phantom actually winced at this. "Point."

"But then how much will you limit yourself?" one of the Rarity (probably Void's) asked.

"To how powerful I was before I ascended. Maybe a bit less. This should be good enough." Sweetie Void then eyed her Pokémon, and looked at Master Hand. "How does it work for Pokémon? Can they also enter the tournament?"

"Of course," the hand answered. "With or without a trainer. However, the trainer won't be able to switch Pokémon, or it wouldn't be fair. This reminds me..." He looked around at everyone. "Remember that the battles in this tournament will be duels. This means that the number of challengers will have to be in the powers of two. Two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty two, and so on. I'm hoping that we will reach sixteen, or at least eight, but if more decide to come than I thought, then try to reach thirty two, or even sixty four if this comes to this point, or I will be forced to remove challengers."

Everyone around nodded.

"So this means that you can participate too guys, if you want," Sweetie Void said to her Pokémon.

However, it didn't look like many of her Pokémon wanted to enter the tournament with her in it. That they still were relatively beginner compared to most other Pokémon present in the room obviously didn't help.

"Think of it as training. And this will be fun," the alicorn filly added to try to convince them, which worked a bit.

"We will discuss this?" Tank questioned more than confirmed as he looked at his teammates.

Sweetie Void nodded.

Lot of discussions about who would enter followed that evening as well as the next day. Reasons to enter were many: to prove themselves, to have fun, to train, or to know each others better through battles.

Ruby didn't want to participate, still trying to get over his father's death, and his Pokémon wanted to remain at his side. But the other Champions and some others all wanted to have a part in it. To avoid flooding the tournament with Pokémon, however, they all decided to send in only one, which forced Sweetie Void to choose among her Pokémon who would participate as many were eager to battle. Spinning a bottle decided that Lulla the Jigglypuff was the chosen one, much to Volta's sorrow. It was quickly clear that some won't be able to participate however because there were only enough challengers to reach a bit above thirty-two.

They settled that through battles.

While this happened, Master Hand continued to help with rebuilding Sinnoh and even went to the portal to visit other universes, thus presenting himself to many who hadn't come to the Pokémon World following the end of the battle.

Then came the day of the tournament.

"Anyone who decided to participate, put your name on this paper," Master Hand said as he presented a blank paper. "For the Pokémon, I advise to put the name of the trainer between parenthesis beside theirs, just in case two or more of the same Pokémon enter the tournament."

One by one, the names of the challenges were written on the paper.

Sonic!
Phantom
Sweetie Void
Kirby
Lulla (Sweetie Void)
Decidueye (Hau)
Mario
Luigi
Yoshi
Donkey Kong
Diddy Kong
Captain Falcon
Incineroar (Elio)
Jolteon (Blue)
Samus
Zoroark (Rosa)
Cinderace (Victor)
Rillaboom (Hop)
Fox
Falco
Krystal
Pikachu (Red)
Apple Death
Link
Greninja (Calem)
Meganium (Gold)
Ness
Poo
Tails
Magolor
Serperior (Hilbert)
Empoleon (Dawn)

Master Hand looked at the names and counted them. "Thirty two. Good. I won't have to make the difficult decision of removing someone from the tournament."

"This is so NOT fair! I should fine you for this!" shouted a blond man named Barry, much to Dawn's amusement.

Blue mockingly grinned at him. "You lost fair and square. Stop being a baby."

Barry silently pouted and cried.

Meanwhile, a slot appeared in the air, and Master Hand put the paper with the list of names in it. The slot then disappeared, replaced by some kind of holographic screen also floating in the air, with the name of the thirty-two challengers appearing on it.

"Without further ado..." Master Hand began before he tightened himself into a fist above a big red button that came out of the ground. "Let's start the tournament! Let's see who will be the first ones to fight!"

He dramatically punched the button, and the names in the screen lit and darkened one after another, starting too fast to follow but quickly slowing down until one name remained lit.

"And our first fighter is... MARIO! Now the second one!" Master Hand exclaimed before he punched the red button again, restarting the process excepted that Mario's name remained darkened from beginning to end. Once it finished... "And the second one is... CINDERACE! Mario versus Cinderace! Now time to choose the arena!"

"Ya've arenas?" Apple Death asked.

"Of course! Homemade!" Master Hand answered before he punched the red button again. In the screen, the names of the challengers were replaced by images scrolling too rapidly to follow. when the scrolling began to slow down, everyone was surprised to recognise places from their respective universes. The Fountain of Dreams, the Great Fox above Corneria, the roof of Hyrule's castle, Onett...

Then the scrolling stopped on an image of a circular platform that seemed to be falling down a pit surrounded by metallic walls.

"Hey! I recognise this place! This is where I fought Eggman's Egg Dragoon for the first time, when I had that Werehog form!" Sonic exclaimed.

Master Hand gave Sonic a thumb up. "Exact!"

"But how?"

"Well, I allowed myself to have a look inside your minds - not too deep, don't worry, I'm very respectful of privacy - to search for places that could make good arenas. They won't be the real deal however. They are simple recreations that will last the time of the battles."

Phantom frowned. "I don't like having someone looking into my head, no matter how much they limit themselves."

"Yeah! Our mind, even the surface, is out of bound!" Slippy shouted.

"You could have at least asked!" Sweetie Void said.

Master Hand waved dismissively at them. "Sorry. Sorry. I won't do it again. Anyway." Using two fingers, he punched two holes in the fabric of space. "Mario. Cinderace. Pass these rifts to enter the arena. Victor, since you are Cinderace's trainer, you can enter too. But remember, only to give instructions and to encourage. No using healing items, no switching Pokémon, no attacking directly your opponent, no diversion..."

"I get it. I get it," Victor said before he looked at the rabbit-like Pokémon at his side. "Let's go, Cinderace!"

"Yes!"

The two then passed one of the rifts while Mario passed the other one, and the adversaries appeared on the platform that they saw in the image, on opposite end. The others were able to see that thanks to the screen showing them and growing until reaching the size of the screen of a movie theater.

Master Hand then grabbed a microphone. "Before the battle starts, let me tell you the rules. Your goal is to either knock out your adversary or to send them out of the ring. For precision, the ring isn't just this circular platform. You see the translucent barriers above and below?"

Victor and Mario looked up and saw the translucent barrier Master Hand talked about. They then looked down beyond the edge of the platform and saw another such barrier. With the platform in free fall, the barriers were moving down at the same speed.

"Yeah, we see them," Victor said.

"These barriers are the actual limits of the ring. If the fighters are sent beyond them one way or another, this is ring out. Normally, arenas will be entirely surrounded by these barriers, forming a cuboid, but since this arena has these walls surrounding it, then the barriers are only present up and down. You can perfectly bounce off the walls, there won't be any consequence. But since the platform is falling and the barriers are following it, I highly advise to avoid remaining on these walls too long if you somehow stick on them."

Yeah. That was obvious, Sweetie Void thought.

"To defeat your opponent, everything is permitted excepted killing. We are here to have fun, not to have a bloodfest. Thankfully, you will quickly discover that it is rather hard to die in these arenas of mine. You could be hit by a plasma beam on the face and only get a bad burn. Don't try to snap your opponent's neck however."

"Not that we intended to do it..." Victor muttered.

"There won't be any time limit. The fight will end when one of the opponents is knocked out or sent beyond the barriers, not before. Be careful, this arena may have a few surprises for you. Are the fighters ready?"

Mario nodded.

"Cinderace?" Victor questioned his Pokémon who nodded in answer.

"Good!" Master Hand showed his five fingers and began to use them to count down. "Five! Four! Three! Two! One!....... GO!!!"

Author's Note

This chapter was haaaaaard!!! But I finally finished it! Sorry for the way everyone.

One fight won't be equal one chapter, or it would be too long. I think that it will depend of the length of the fights.

Chapter 108: Tournament Part 1

Mario immediately sprung into action, running toward the rabbit Pokémon.

"Quick Attack into Fire Punch!" Victor shouted.

Cinderace was already a fast Pokémon, especially this one, so with Quick Attack, it reached Mario in the blink of an eye, ready to punch with its fist surrounded in fire. But Mario jumped at the last moment, intending to stomp the Pokémon. However, he didn't take into account that they were currently free falling on a platform. So, when he jumped, it was pretty much as if he was on the Moon, resulting in him falling toward Cinderace much more slowly from a higher distance than he expected.

That he was even falling faster than the platform itself should be impossible, but it wasn't hard to guess that it was Master Hand's doing to avoid that they remained stuck in the air. Unless this was some physic stuff that Mario didn't understand? Like, the platform didn't have as much air penetration than Mario's body? He decided to not think about it.

But it worked against him because his slower fall allowed Cinderace to avoid him before readying a Double Kick that Mario took right in the face upon landing, sending him on his back near the edge of the platform. He quickly got up with a jump only to leap aside in panic to avoid a Pyro Ball, Cinderace's signature move.

As Mario looked back at his opponent, however, they both spotted something that wasn't present before. Having appeared near the center of the platform, a bit on Mario's left, was a red Koopa shell.

"What is it doing here?" Mario wondered.

"MWAHAHAHAHA!!! This is an item! To add some spice to the fights! Use them however you like!" Master Hand exclaimed excitedly.

Both Mario and Cinderace exchanged stares at this before they sprung to reach the shell. Without surprise, Cinderace reached it first and kicked it toward Mario who avoided it with a side bounce. But to his surprise, the shell did a U-turn and he was forced to avoid it again. The shell then continued its course and, to Cinderace's surprise, was now after it. So it avoided the shell with a jump only for it to do a U-turn again to go after Mario. The plumber took his hammer and hit the shell, sending it right at the Pokémon who was rammed in the stomach. Both rabbit and shell dropped back on the platform, and the shell restarted moving around, going after Cinderace this time who barely avoided it by relling aside as it was recovering from the hit.

Then, suddenly...

"Ohh ho ho ho ho!" a laugh resounded in the arena from above.

Sonic, Tails, Phantom, and all the ponies from her universe immediately recognised it, shouting in unisson and in shock, "Eggman!"

And indeed, the feared Egg Dragoon, piloted by Eggman himself, descended to hover right beside the platform, facing the two fighters who stared at it mouth agape (which resulted in Cinderace being hit by the red shell, not paying attention to it anymore). Sonic remarked immediately that this was the prototype version, the one that didn't have yet two cockpits and all its attacks like the ice waves from its claws.

"This gorge will be your tomb!" the mad scientist shouted before he pointed the mecha's barreled cannon toward Mario and fired.

"Mamma mia!"

The plumber had no choice but to run to avoid the fiery projectiles fired by the cannon, also avoiding the red shell by the same occasion which finally disappeared in a puff of smoke. A paper fan appeared further away, but nobody payed attention to it.

"YES! Here we are! The items were the spice. THIS is the Dragon's Breath chilli pepper! Remember when I mentioned that this arena may have a few surprises? Well, here it is! Eggman and his Egg Dragoon arrives as a special guest! Don't worry, this isn't the real one. Like the arena, this is just a recreation of the Eggman and Egg Dragoon from when Sonic fought it on this platform. And like with the items, do whatever you want with him. You can either fight him to destroy the Egg Dragoon to bring back some respite to this battle, or you can ignore him and hope that he will help you bring the downfall of your opponent. Have fun!"

"Will all the arenas have something like that?" Tails asked.

"Not all. It will depends. Some arenas will have a "special guest" like this one. Others won't but may have other stuff. And some arenas will have nothing special. This will be up to luck."

While he talked, Cinderace decided to use the distraction to do a Sunny Day before sending another Pyro Ball at Mario, but the plumber saw it and took his hammer, hitting the ball with it and sending it at the Egg Dragoon's cannon. This knocked the arm with the cannon away, stopping its attack. Mario then barely caught a kick from the rabbit aimed to his face and spun with it before throwing it toward the mecha. Cinderace crashed on the Egg Dragoon's torso but was able to bounce from it back on the platform. But then, Eggman readied electricity on the Egg Dragoon's drill and swept it toward Cinderace. The Pokémon had no problem avoiding the drill with a small leap, but it didn't expect the wave of electricity it unleashed and it was caught in it. Mario barely avoided the electric wave by jumping, and by the time he landed, the electricity disappeared. As for Victor, he was able to jump on a broken metal plate that came up from below, serving as a temporary platform.

Victor then spotted something. "A Poké Ball? Cinderace! Look at your right!"

Recovering from the electricity, Cinderace spotted the Poké Ball and immediately went to grab it and opened it, letting out what revealed to be a Snorlax who jumped toward Mario, using Body Slam. Thanks to the slower fall caused by the arena being in free fall, Mario was able to avoid the Snorlax while running toward Cinderace, only for Eggman to prepare his Egg Dragoon's cannon to fire again. But despite the mecha targeting him again, Mario didn't stop and actually got the idea of guiding the Egg Dragoon's cannon so it ended up firing at Cinderace, by running so the Pokémon was between him and the cannon.

Cinderace used its powerful legs to avoid that, using Agility and running around while using Flamethrower when Mario was getting too close. Mario then spotted a small white and pink capsule on the floor and grabbed it before throwing it at Cinderace while Eggman began to charge energy into the cannon. Cinderace kicked the capsule which had for effect to open it, letting out a Bob-Omb. After Cinderace grabbed it, the two fighters had to jump in opposite direction to avoid the giant ball of ice fired by the Egg Dragoon and the explosion and shockwave that followed when it hit the platform. Cinderace decided to throw the bomb at the mecha, right into one of the green cores in the lower body, causing a lot of damage and staggering it a bit.

Ciderace saw Mario coming and quickly used Counter, blocking Mario's punch and returning it two times stronger. Mario was badly hit on the face and was sent on his back, but he was able to get out of the way of a Fire Punch by rolling backward and immediately countered with one of his famous uppercuts that sent the Pokémon flying high into the air. Mario then had to jump too to avoid a wave of electricity unleashed by the Egg Dragoon and was able to punch Cinderace with enough force to send it toward a wall.

Cinderace quickly recovered and bounced off the wall before it used Counter on the fiery projectiles of the Egg Dragoon's gun, sending the bullets back at the mecha. Counter didn't last long however so it was eventually forced to run to avoid them. Mario placed himself on the way to block it but Victor instructed Cinderace to use Tackle to directly ram the plumber and not stop running. But its Tackle was met with a hammer in the face that sent Cinderace into one of the fiery projectiles. The small explosion caused by the projectile sent it toward the edge of the platform, but Cinderace landed on its feet, then bounced backward onto a broken metal plate that came from below, and then bounced off of it toward Mario who had been running toward it. Cinderace readied a Fire Punch and Mario barely blocked it with his arms, but he was still launched a few meters backward.

Cinderace then grabbed what some of the spectators recognised was the Star Rod and tested it with a swing, sending a star-shaped projectile. Seeing this, Cinderace grinned and sent star after star at Mario who now had to both dodge them and the fire bullets from the Egg Dragoon's cannon. Some of the stars ended up hitting the mecha, causing some damage to it. As the Egg Dragoon stopped firing, a crate appeared and Mario quickly ran to take cover behind it. The stars rapidly destroyed it, and out of it came three items: a beam sword, a paper fan, and a baseball bat.

Mario took the sword and, to everybody's surprise, threw it toward Cinderace. The rabbit yelped and barely moved out of the way, and Mario used the respite to run toward the Pokémon with his hammer ready. The two ended up clashing, hammer against Star Rod, only for the Egg Dragoon to interrupt them with another round with its cannon, targeting Cinderace this time.

"Cinderace!" Victor called, gaining its attention, before he pointed at the opposite side of the platform, not far of the Egg Dragoon.

Cinderace looked where he was pointing and saw another Poké Ball, and immediately changed course to get it. With all its attention on the Poké Ball, it didn't see the approaching plumber however.

"Watch out!" Victor tried to warn it, but too late as Cinderace wasn't able to react in time to avoid being punched in the face. As a result, it was launched a few meters away, and in its surprise, it dropped the Star Rod.

Mario then quickly ran toward the Poké Ball and grabbed it before letting out the Pokémon that was in it.

Which revealed to be a Mew... Which flew away without doing anything, leaving behind two bemused fighters plus one trainer. Because of this, Cinderace was hit again by one of the projectiles from the Egg Dragoon's gun.

Mario then had his attention taken by the Egg Dragoon which gathered electricity on its drill, readying another electric wave. Having enough of the mecha, Mario took his hammer, jumped to avoid the wave, and began to attack the green cores. To reach them, he had to jump, so he generally only could hit them once before he had to bounce off the mecha to return on the platform.

It wasn't him however who ended up destroying the Egg Dragoon, but a Pyro Ball from Cinderace who tried to use the occasion to attack Mario by surprise, but Mario was able to move out of the way of the fire ball which hit instead one of the green cores. It was finally too much for the Egg Dragoon which explosions began to litter it. With Eggman screaming "NOOOOO!!!!!" the mecha then fell down, disappearing under the platform.

Mario and Cinderace didn't pay attention to the dropping mecha as the rabbit used the Pyro Ball a second time, only for Mario to use his hammer to send the ball back toward Cinderace who then kicked the ball back at Mario who hit it back at Cinderace, and this continued for a moment. Cinderace's feet, however, quickly began to ache because of this and it wasn't long before the ball hit one of its feet again but the Pokémon wasn't able to kick it back toward the plumber. Instead, it felt like it was hit on the foot by a cannonball. The ball pushed the foot backward and continued its path while Cinderace lost its balance as a result.

Recovering, grunting in pain, Cinderace saw Mario approaching with his hammer, then spotted a hammer that had appeared not far at its left, and quickly bounced toward it to grab it. Hammer clashed against hammer, but Mario got the upper hand and knocked Cinderace's hammer out of its hand. Mario then immediately followed with another swing of his hammer which Cinderace Countered. But Mario avoided the Counter punch with a small bounce and did several vertical spins with his hammer while in the air. Cinderace quickly used Iron Head to cover its head in metal for defense before it was violently hit by the hammer, sending it face first on the ground.

"Cinderace!" Victor shouted.

The Pokémon wasn't moving anymore. Carefully, Mario turned it on its back and saw that it was unconscious.

"End of the fight!" Master Hand exclaimed. "The winner is: Mario!" He then used a finger to open a rift to allow the fighters to come out.

Before that, Victor returned Cinderace in its Poké Ball, congratulating it for the good fight it put up, before shaking hand with Mario. "That was an amazing fight."

Mario nodded. "Your Pokémon really is strong."

"Thanks."

The two then passed the rift and found themselves before everyone else who congratulated them.

"You two sure gave us a good show!"

"That mecha was impressive, but it looked like it was barely an annoyance to you!"

"That moment with Mew was funny."

"I never thought I would see a human defeat a Pokémon in a battle."

"Alright. Alright everyone," Master Hand gained everyone's attention by snapping his fingers. "Let's proceed, or we will be here all day."

Behind him, the screen shrunk and returned to showing everyone's names while a second screen appeared and showed the tournament bracket, which was mostly empty excepted for the presence of Mario and Cinderace's names. The name of the Pokémon grayed out while Mario's name advanced on the corresponding line and stopped at what will be the second round.

"So, for the second fight, we will have..." Master Hand punched the red button, starting the selection process. After a few seconds, the first fighter was chosen. "PHANTOM!"

Phantom grinned. "Great. Didn't have to wait much."

Master Hand then punched the red button again, and before long, the second fighter was selected. "Versus Sonic!"

This took both Phantom and Sonic by surprise. They didn't expect to fight each other. Especially not so soon. Then they exchanged glares and you could almost see sparks flying between them.

"Ready to get your butt trashed again?" Sonic said.

"As if. This will be different. I'm not Infinite, even if he is part of me, and you don't have that cat friend of yours to help you. I even have the powers of the real Phantom Ruby this time! Not of that piece of jump that I had! My victory is assured!"

"Keep your hopes up."

Master Hand suddenly punched the red button for the third time, starting the selection of the arena. It wasn't long before the scrolling stopped on the image of what the fillies recognised was the Falcon Flyer above some track on Big Blue (judging by the ocean visible in the background with structures pocking out of it). They couldn't recognise what track it was however. Also, some of the F-Zero machines were present under the ship.

"Uh. This will be interesting. What will be the platform? The Falcon Flyer?" Sweetie Void wondered.

"You will see soon enough," Master Hand answered as he opened two rifts like before. Without prompt, Phantom and Sonic walked through them and ended up on the Falcon Flyer. The sudden acceleration as they landed on the ship which was flying above the speed of sound didn't bother them at all.

Sonic looked around and couldn't decide between amazement at the beautiful place and worry at the presence of water everywhere. He was also starting to get excited thanks to the speed they were going.

"This is my kind of race!" he shouted as he looked at the machines below.

"Uh... Is it me, or are the machines bigger than normal?" Phantom questioned.

"They had to be big enough to serve as platforms," Master Hand answered.

"This is already more complex than the previous arena," Fox commented back on Sinnoh. "Instead of falling, they are moving at incredible speed. The arena isn't just a circular platform, but moving vehicles on a racing track. And if they fall on the track itself, they would be left behind and this would be the ring out. They also have to make sure to not fall off the track itself." He snorted. "Of course, Phantom doesn't have to worry about any of this. She can just fly."

Tails grinned. "But Sonic couldn't have dreamed for a better arena! Well, for him, it would have been better without all the water, but that's good enough. I feared that he would be stuck on some small arena with barely any space to run."

There was a moment of silence before Captain Falcon said, "Right. That hedgehog can run as fast as the machines. This arena's speed won't be a problem for him either."

After asking if the two fighters were ready, Master Hand did the countdown and the battle started.

Instead of sending Phantom Cubes, Phantom immediately used a wave of Phantom energy to ensure that Sonic was in her power and would remain in it. Then she changed gravity for Sonic so everything seemed to shift ninety degrees so it looked like for him they were moving up. To not fall down and get a ring out, Sonic had to cling to the Falcon Flyer and climb to the ship's beak.

"Almost got me there! This is some really broken powers to have in such a battle! You could just inverse gravity, send everyone into the sky, and be done with it!"

"That was the idea, too bad I fell on a cockroach that clings too much."

"Hey! I'm an hedgehog! Not a cockroach! Do you need glasses that bad?"

Phantom didn't answer and instead gathered Phantom energy into a ball before she threw it at Sonic who jumped from the ship toward the track and began to run up on it despite the shifted gravity. As the Falcon Flyer was starting to fly ahead, soon passing the translucent ring out barrier, platform-like drones came to take its place while the machines were constantly moving up and down the track, bumping into each others, accelerating, or slowing down. This made running on the track dangerous, but Sonic had no problem avoiding the vehicles. He was in his element.

Phantom then materialized cannons and began to rain beams all over the track, but Sonic dodged all of them. Changing tactic, Phantom shifted gravity again to it looked like the world was upside down. She hoped that Sonic would at least fall on one of the drone-platform, and this would result in him having limited place to dodge her attacks. However, to her surprise, Sonic was able to keep running on the track while upside down. She cursed, but then saw that they were approaching a jump in the track and grinned knowing that Sonic will be forced to fall thanks to not having a track to run on anymore. But before even reaching the jump, Sonic jumped and did a Homing Attack on her.

She hadn't remarked that he had gotten so close to her!

"Gah! You...!"

Sonic was able to land on one of the drone-platforms, then quickly jumped on another to avoid an electric spear thrown by Phantom, the spear electrifying the platform when it planted itself on it.

However, he had nowhere else to go. There were only two platforms currently, and one of them was still being electrified.

"Drat..."

"It's over!" Phantom shouted as she fired a giant beam from a cannon that covered the whole platform.

But Sonic surprised her again by jumping up to cling to one of the machines, avoiding the beam. Getting annoyed, Phantom didn't lose time this time and fired a smaller beam right from her hand, only for Sonic to let go of the machine to fall back on the platform, a hand behind his back.

Growling, Phantom materialized dozens of cannons again, but before she could fire, Sonic suddenly revealed a gun and fired a beam, which took her off guard. The beam didn't hurt much, but this still knocked her a bit and opened her to more beams from the gun, and because of that, she wasn't able to command her cannons to fire.

"What, did you forget about the items? A few have popped since the start of this battle, and they aren't affected by your gravity shift," Sonic said smugly. "I'm not usually one to use guns, this is more Shadow's stuff, but in the current situation, I'm willing to make an exception."

Phantom, however, was quickly able to recover her senses and deflected the beams before she finally commanded her cannons to fire. But Sonic hadn't remained idling on the platform while firing with the ray gun however and had jumped back on the other platform which wasn't electrified anymore. Phantom didn't see that and didn't see that the platform had started to move toward her. So, as she recovered from the beams and made the cannons fire, she found herself face to face with a spiny blue ball. Then, instead of bouncing off her face like usual, Sonic actually clung to her, throwing the gun away.

"Hey! Hands off!"

"Ah! Try to fire at me while I'm on you!"

Phantom replied by punching him on the face, which led to the two exchanging blows for a few moments while Phantom tried by the same occasion to shake him off, in vain. Eventually, she decided to just push him against the track, dragging him along it. This shredded some of his spines but Sonic quickly used this to his advantage by starting to run on the track (still upside down) before he punched her again and then threw her toward the closest machine. The machine thus rammed her and sent her flying almost to the ring out barrier before she stopped herself.

"Okay! No more miss nice filly!" Phantom yelled before she materialized ranges and ranges of cannons above (or under, whatever) the track and used them to create multiple beam barriers taking the whole track with no way to avoid them. Before Sonic could react, he ran right into the first one and was badly burned. Then he ran into the second one, then the third one, before he finally reacted and thought of something. He quickly approached the edge of the track and grabbed the guard rail here before using it to get to the other side, and then to jump on the underside of the track. Now he wasn't upside down anymore, even if the ocean, was now a few meters above his head, along with the bottom face of the cuboid formed by the ring out barrier.

Phantom's eye twitched, and she reversed gravity in hope that, in absence of anything to cling on or to fall on, the stubborn hedgehog will finally get ring out. But then, said hedgehog saw this and simply moved back on the upperside of the track. But this time there was no reversed gravity to save him! So she recreated the beam barriers! Only for him to use the drone-platforms as cover from the beams coming from above, and the machines as cover from the beams from the sides! And because the elements of the arena seemed totally indestructible, none of them was destroyed.

Phantom was filled with silent rage as she thought Screw it! and began to send everything she could think of. She began by sending dozens of circular saws, then replicas of the machines, then a replica of the Falcon Flyer, then a whale, then a Death Egg Robot, then a replica of the Great Fox, then a building, then another building, then yet another building, then the Halberd, and so on and so on.

But this didn't worry Sonic however, the hedgehog jumping on the thrown objects and running on them, using them to reach Phantom so he could do another Homing Attack on her. But this time, Phantom had Infinite's red sword and she used it to block Sonic before sending him back on a drone-platform with a swing. Phantom then teleported right beside him and swung her sword again, deciding to get close and personal.

The two became blurs, Sonic jumping around, on platforms and on machines, to avoid the sword and Phantom not giving him any respite as she continuously and ferociously attacked, occasionally teleporting to try to take him off guard. Every now and then, Sonic attempted a Homing Attack, but he was pushed back by Phantom's sword every time. They passed a whole looping and several long jumps doing that, and eventually, the Falcon Flyer returned.

Then without warning, Phantom teleported away, out of reach, and materialized a real army of pretty much everything that could fly and hurt that she ever encountered. Robots, Cankens, Paratroopas, Pokémon, Aparoids, and so on. But that number quickly turned against Phantom when Sonic simply bounced from enemy to enemy, swiftly avoiding any projectiles sent at him, and used them to approach her again.

He had an answer for everything she was throwing at him! Should she send him to the Null Space? She wasn't sure if transporting your adversary to another dimension was against the rules or not.

As he Homing Attacked her, she materialized a big shield that she used to bash him away before she grew to a giant size (not too big to not reach the ring out barrier) and began to sweep the arena with two big lasers from her palms while she made her minions disappear. But Sonic simply avoided them by running left and right on the track before he ended up reaching her feet and proceeded to repeatedly Homing Attack her all over.

She tried to slap him like a fly but failed, so she disappeared and reappeared in the opposite side of the area, back to her normal size, before she materialized new minions, this time random robots and vehicles that could roll as fast as the machines. Since they weren't flying, there was no way that Sonic could use them this time to reach her.

The minions fired at Sonic with guns and rocket launchers, but he was used to such circumstances thanks to Eggman so he had no problem avoiding them despite the machines being obstacles to freely move around. He simply bounced above them if he had to. Between destroying the minions, he grabbed items to see if he could use them to regain the advantage. But he only got a beam sword, some kind of bumper, a green shell, and a big tomato with a M?

"Wait. Is that...?"

Didn't Sweetie Void say something about tomatoes that healed all your wounds back in Kirby's homeworld?

He ate it, and all the burns and few other wounds he got since the start of this fight disappeared.

"Healing items?! Seriously?!" Phantom yelled.

"That's part of the spice!" she heard Master Hand say. "You should have payed more attention to them! They are part of the fight!"

Phantom facepalmed with a groan. "No matter..." She glared back at Sonic as the hedgehog restarted destroying her minions while searching for items to use, which she made sure to destroy or to push on the track with her powers. By now the Falcon Flyer was gone again, so she had a better view of everything as the drone-platforms weren't that big. "You needed a tomato to heal, but not me! With the Phantom Ruby's power, I'm constantly regenerating myself! All the wounds you caused on me are already gone! You will never be able to knock me out!"

"But I can still win by ring out! I just gotta figure out how..."

Phantom didn't reply with words, instead shifting gravity again so Sonic had to cling on the side of one of the machines. Phantom's minions weren't affected by it however and could still roll on the track without problem, always firing at Sonic. The hedgehog had no choice but to jump from machine to machine to avoid the projectiles, and then jumped on the back of a minion that looked like one of the members of the Subspace Army, the ones that looked like living, robotic one-wheeled red bikes. Riding on it despite the weird angle, Sonic was able to steer it left and right (or up and down). Phantom didn't lose time dispelling the minion, forcing Sonic to jump again on a machine.

Phantom then restarted firing small beams from her hands while sending cannons to reform her beam barriers. Like before, Sonic went to the edge of the track and jumped on its side, running on it, to avoid the barriers. The track's side didn't have a lot of place to move left and right however, so he had more difficulty avoiding the homing missiles and the beams, often forcing him to jump back on the machines before returning on the track's side.

"You know, we can continue like that for hours!"

"You will eventually tire out! Even you have a limit to your stamina!"

"Pff! Come on! I could jog like that for days, no problem! Without counting the hunger, thirst, lack of sleep, and need to go to the restroom."

"He calls going beyond the speed of sound a simple jog..." Phantom muttered before she suddenly reversed gravity, almost getting Sonic as he was saved by Homing Attacking a few missiles before jumping on the opposite side of one of the machines where he was burned by a beam barrier which Phantom continued to create. But then, Sonic got the idea of Homing Attacking the missiles again to reach one of the cannons producing the beams forming the barriers, then used the cannon to reach Phantom, this time attempting a kick. But Phantom moved aside in a blink of an eye and punched him in the gut.

Before he was propelled away, Sonic was able to cling to Phantom's arm, then pocked her eyes with two of his fingers, forcing her to put a hand on them in pain. He then used this to wrap himself around her body before headbutting her. But Phantom quickly recovered and was able to catch Sonic by the neck, almost strangling him. He punched her arm to try to force her to release him, in vain.

Phantom glared at him, then looked at the closest face of the ring out barrier, and though Why didn't I think of that earlier? before she grabbed Sonic by the legs with the intent to throw him toward the barrier. But then, Sonic curled into a ball and began to roll in the air. Phantom still holding to his legs, she found herself spinning around at sickening speed while Sonic was starting to fall down with her toward the ring out barrier. But instead of waiting to fall into it, Sonic Spin Dashed mid-air forward right into the ring out barrier before him, bringing Phantom with him.

Because Phantom was spinning around Sonic, she touched the barrier first, followed by Sonic a fraction of a second later.

"Ring out!" Master Hand shouted before the two fighters were brought back to Sinnoh. "The victor is: Sonic!"

Chapter 109: Tournament Part 2

It took some time for Phantom to understand that she lost. The time that it took for the world to stop spinning around, and for her stomach to calm down as she was lying down on the ground.

How was Sonic able to avoid getting dizzy when he does a Spin Dash and whatever other attacks where he is rolling curled in a ball?

Then she recovered, sat up, and the reality caught up to her. "Wait. I lost? How...? How could I lose to Sonic? Again? Despite everything?"

Rage was starting to build up in her, only for everything to stop as she had Sonic before her, giving her a hand. "Hey. Don't sweet it. That was just a fight for fun. And I must admit, you put up a much better fight than the last time I fought you... Uh... Infinite. You almost got me more than once. And hey, without that ring out stuff, I would have never defeated you."

Phantom stared at him with conflicting emotions before she sighed and grabbed his hand, allowing him to help her getting up. "I guess that I need to train, to rely less on my Phantom powers and more on my skills."

Sonic gave her a thumb up. "That's good thinking! Sonic approved! Don't let your powers go to your head!"

Some of the others then proceeded to reassure Phantom, about how she would have definitively won if she had faced them instead of Sonic. It was just bad luck. They also congratulated Sonic for a well deserved victory against such an overwhelming opponent.

But before long, it was time for the third battle to start. Like before, Master Hand punched the red button and selected the two opponents and the arena.

First was Krystal.

Second was Link.

And the arena was... the City Hall of New Donk City?

"Uhhh... They'll fight on the roof?" Apple Death wondered.

She was quickly answered when the two fighters entered the arena, not on the roof of the skyscraper, but on the ground level, before the entrance, with some scaffolding placed in front of the doors to serve as a platform. A band, with Pauline herself as the singer, was playing on another platform, this one flying thanks to a propeller under it, behind the ring out barrier*.

Already, as Master Hand began the countdown, some of the spectators were starting to bop to the song, especially when Pauline began to sing.

"START!" Master Hand shouted.

Krystal immediately started the hostilities by firing two fireball-like energy blasts from her magic staff, which Link reflected thanks to the more child-sized Mirror Shield he got from his adventure in Termina. Krystal quickly reacted to this and was able to bat away the energy blasts with her staff.

This already started bad for her. Because of this shield, she won't be able to use her fire energy blasts and her streams of ice, or even her blaster. Then, Link took his bow and fired an arrow at her, which she destroyed with a swing of her staff, before he followed by sending his boomerang which she avoided by ducking.

Link definitively had the advantage while in distance. She had to get close.

But before she could put actions to thoughts, a large platform suddenly came out of the ground under them and ascended with them on it, the scaffolding somehow passing through it. While this took both of them on guard at first, they quickly recovered and Krystal finally ran toward Link and her staff clashed against the child's Gilded Sword. Being an adult, Krystal had the strength advantage and was able to push back his sword, but not by much. For a preteen, this kid had some muscle!

As the platform dropped them on the first ledge of the City Hall, still at the front where two scaffoldings were present, and the platform sinking into the floor, the two stopped the clash and Krystal swung her staff to hit by the side only to be blocked by the Mirror Shield before she had to shift to avoid a thrust of the sword. With a spin, Krystal then attacked from the other side, but instead of parrying, Link ducked to avoid the staff before he bashed her with his shield. In return, she managed to grab the arm holding the shield before hurling him to make him fall down the building so she would win by ring out. But then, Link took out his Hookshot and wrapped it around Krystal's waist, the vixen quickly planting her staff on the ground to resist the pull that followed. But this allowed Link to return on the City Hall's ledge as he was instead pulled toward her.

He used the momentum of the pull to body-slam her before he landed on his feet. Before Krystal could recover, Link then took the Goron Mask and put it on, turning himself into a Goron. With the Goron's natural strength, Link knocked the staff out of Krystal's hand with just a swing of his arm before he violently punched her, sending her crashing on the City Hall's wall. Link then curled into a ball and rolled toward Krystal who barely rolled out of the way in time, right toward a baseball bat that she grabbed. With her new weapon, she readied to swing while she got close to Link again. The bat seemed to start flashing, and Link immediately knew that he had to avoid being hit by it. So just as Krystal attacked, Link took off the Goron Mask, returning to his normal Hylian boy form which was small enough that the bat passed above his head, grazing his green hat. He then proceeded to slash at her several time as her guard was open.

At this moment, the big platform returned and carried them again as it ascended to the second ledge of the City Hall, which was starting to be quite high. During this time, Krystal was able to parry Link's sword with the bat, stopping his assault, and the two repeatedly clashed with their respective weapon. The bat wasn't perfect however for Krystal, and she eyed her staff which was just at the edge of the platform, behind Link, hoping to get an occasion to retrieve it.

When they landed, the two fighters quickly took into account that there were this time three scaffoldings forming platforms in a triangle formation, and Krystal jumped on the one behind her while throwing her bat at Link who easily blocked it with his shield. She then quickly jumped on the top scaffolding, then on the one above Link, and finally descended back on the ledge behind Link to grab her staff. The boy threw a bomb at her, but she jumped back on the scaffolding and readied her staff before jumping down close to Link. She then hit the floor with the tip of her staff, causing a small earthquake and sending a powerful red pulse on the floor in all directions, knocking Link almost to the corner of the ledge, badly hurt.

Krystal was surprised that he wasn't out yet however. "How are you still conscious? These pulses are powerful enough to topple a RedEye in one hit!"

Link grunted as he got up. "A RedEye? What is that?"

"Mmh... Imagine a giant bipedal lizard about two times taller than me with a big jaw full of razor sharp teeth, powerful legs to sprint, very solid scales, and two small arms not really useful to them."

"Wait. Is she describing a T-Rex?" one of the Twilight asked out loud.

Link, however, didn't recognize what she was describing but got the idea. "No wonder it hurt so much. Wow, even being rammed by a rolling King Dodongo wasn't that bad."

Krystal closed her eyes and shook her head in disbelief, which was an error to do as Link took the occasion to jump on the scaffolding near him and threw a bomb at her from it. Krystal quickly jumped on the scaffolding opposite his and then barely caught an arrow that the boy had readied, only to discover that another bomb was attached to the arrow with a piece of rope. Before she could do anything, she was blown off the scaffolding and barely grabbed the extremity of the building's ledge to stop herself from falling.

With difficulty, she began to climb, but then saw Link who had jumped down from his scaffolding take some kind of mouse-shaped blue and yellow object before placing it on the floor, its 'head' facing her.

Then the little mouse thing began to advance toward her in small zigzag, flashing red. Krystal tried to hurry up to climb the ledge, but the fast mouse reached her and, as soon as it touched her, exploded, blowing her away. And this time, she couldn't recover, especially when she saw the big platform reappearing and ascending again with Link, leaving her behind as she fell.

"Aaand ring out! The victor is: Link!" Master Hand exclaimed.

Falco whistled. "That kid is good! But where does he keep all that stuff?"

Sweetie Void giggled. "And again, you haven't seen his ace."

"I saw this 'ace' you are talking about," Samus said. "I saw things that could make grown men cry in fear and shrugged them off with some charged Power Beams and Super Missiles, but even I got a chill when I saw, and felt it. Whoever will end up fighting Link in the next round, I advice them to knock him out before he uses it, or you won't stand a chance. Unless this is someone like Sweetie Void."

While she talked, Krystal fell from a rift, barely conscious, and Link walked out of another, not without difficulty because of the bad hit he took from the red pulse. Sweetie Void immediately healed them before Fox could even let out his worry.

"What is it with kids being overpowered?" Krystal wondered with a grunt before she eyed Ness' group.

Seeing this, Sweetie Void giggled. "Ness could be Mewtwo's apprentice, Jeff could build a giant mecha if given the necessary material, and Poo can rain meteors." She stretched her leg to bring Kirby to her side. "And if you don't know, this little guy is a kid too. Not sure how old however."

"Poyo!" Kirby innocently waved at the vixen.

She sighed. "Slippy. When will you be done with your Reflectors?"

"No idea," the frog answered.

"Reflectors?" some around questioned, including most of the eggheads.

"Yeah. I thought of replicating the Arwings' ability of reflecting projectiles when they do an aileron roll. I want to create a device that would allow someone to entirely surround themselves in a deflective shield, just by pressing a button. Now I wish I was able to finish them for this tournament. They would have been very useful."

"Uh. Could we have a look at them? Maybe if we work together..." Jeff proposed for himself and the other geniuses present.

Slippy looked like it was his birthday and Christmas all at once. "Your help is welcome! We could even start right now while watching the fights!"

Speaking of, it was time for the next fight to start, starting by the selection process.

First was Greninja.

Second was Yoshi.

As for the arena, it ended up being the roof of Hyrule Castle. Zelda remarked that it wasn't at all like the roof, or even the castle that she remembered. It looked much smaller, more the size of a large house or a small manor, and the roof itself was only divided into four areas, or sections. First was what seemed to be the main area, a large flat space with a tower and a spire. The tower itself had three platform against one of its sides, with the middle to the right of the top and bottom ones. At the left of the main area was a smaller one with a slanted green roof, at a lower height. At the right was another flat space, smaller and at a lower height too, lower even than the left area, and this one had a green gazebo-like structure. The fighters will be able to enter it (but there wasn't much space) or jump to its flat top (which lacked place too, about as much as the platforms on the tower's side). Finally, the fourth area was at the forefront of the main one, flat too, lower in height than all the others, and also much smaller with a spire decorating it.

"The real castle was muuuuch too big, so I decided to create this one which is more... 'arena-esque' if you see what I mean. Get used to this, there are more arenas like this one," Master Hand explained to Zelda's remark before he opened the two rifts to allow Yoshi and Calem to enter the arena.

The trainer let out his Greninja who immediately faced Yoshi, ready to fight, both on opposite end of the main area.

When Master Hand shouted "GO!" after the countdown, Greninja ran right toward Yoshi "ninja-style" with the help of Quick Attack and, following Calem's instructions, started with Feint Attack, first looking like it was about to attack the little dinosaur by his left only for it to suddenly disappear, and Yoshi found himself punched on his right cheek. Suddenly, smoke appeared, courtesy of Smokescreen, and when it cleared, Yoshi found himself surrounded by copies of Greninja, this one courtesy of Double Team.

Yoshi had no idea which one was the real one, and instead of attacking them one by one to find out, which would certainly result in him getting punched again, he curled and covered himself in a shell looking like a Yoshi egg (white with green spots) and began to roll in circles, ramming into the copies and destroying them. The real Greninja had no choice but to jump away to avoid the rolling egg, and he landed on the lower platform of the tower from which he readied a Water Shuriken that he threw at the egg. It hit, but the water didn't seem to cause any damage to the shell.

Before Calem or Greninja could think of something, Yoshi got out of his shell beside a green shell that he ate before laying an egg. He then grabbed the egg and threw it toward Greninja who avoided it with a jump before firing another Water Shuriken that Yoshi dodged. However, he couldn't dodge the Extrasensory that followed, and because of it, he almost didn't see Greninja approach him with a Night Slash ready. But at the last moment, he was able to jump before ground pounding the Pokémon. Yoshi then quickly wrapped it with his tongue and repeatedly slammed him on the floor until he was hit by another Extrasensory. Instead of letting Greninja go however, the dinosaur ate the Pokémon before laying an egg with it trapped in it. Yoshi then grabbed the egg and prepared to throw it off the arena, but Greninja broke out of the egg faster than expected and immediately made Yoshi pay with a Hydro Pump that sent him crashing into the base of the tower.

Greninja ran toward Yoshi to attack him before he could get up, but the dinosaur suddenly opened his mouth and sent his tongue. But to Yoshi's surprise, Greninja disappeared in a puff of smoke and in its place was a log around which the tongue wrapped. In another puff of smoke, Greninja reappeared from the lower platform of the tower and jumped down before using Pound to punch Yoshi. The dinosaur then quickly recovered and jumped away before moving his tongue, which was still wrapped around the log, and made it so the log would hit Greninja. But he missed because Greninja jumped back on the tower's lower platform, then the Pokémon decided to jump on the second platform only to have the surprise of seeing a little tornado present on said platform, and he jumped right into it. Inside the tornado, Greninja found himself rapidly spinning around, quickly getting dizzy, before it was launched vertically to the point that he almost reached the upper face of the ring out barrier. Yoshi didn't lose the occasion and ate a ray gun, laying a new egg, before he grabbed the egg, jumped on the roof of the gazebo-like structure, and threw the egg toward the Pokémon as it was dropping back.

It hit, and Greninja was knocked backward as a result, falling hard beside the spire of the main area, near the area with the slanted roof. With a jump, Greninja got back on its feet and used Double Team again before jumping and using Water Shuriken. Because of Double Team, it looked like there was a dozen of water shurikens flying toward Yoshi who was still of the structure's roof, and he had no idea of which one was the real one. Not wanting to take his chance, he jumped down from the structure and landed beside its base, avoiding all the shurikens. Yoshi then jumped back on the main area and saw only one Greninja run toward him - the doubles must have disappeared - so he readied himself and headbutted the Pokémon. But said Pokémon was then replaced in a puff of smoke by a log which Yoshi ended up headbutting instead.

The real Greninja came from behind the tower and threw a capsule which hit Yoshi on the head before opening, revealing a strange little lightning bolt that slowly floated down. Yoshi immediately recognised what it was and touched it. The next instant, Greninja was hit by a lightning bolt coming from the above and found himself at the size of a mouse (a real mouse, not a mouse Pokémon like Pikachu).

Yoshi cracked his knuckles.

Greninja ran away, behind the tower, and the dinosaur quickly ran after him full speed. But then, as he passed beside the back wall of the tower, he walked on something which exploded, blowing him away toward the sky.

"Oh? There are motion-sensor bombs?" Slippy wondered.

"Some already appeared in the previous battles, but nobody payed attention to them," Samus said.

"Mmh... It's good to know about them. They could be very useful to change the balance of the fight," Fox said.

Yoshi wasn't blown far and landed beside the structure, barely avoiding a tornado. He quickly got up and moved away from it.

Meanwhile, Calem said to Greninja, "He's almost down. Let's not give him any respite. Use Shadow Sneak as soon as you can and then try to hit him with Lick. Let's hope it will paralyze him."

Greninja nodded and moved from its hiding place between the tower and the spire on the main area just in time to see Yoshi jump back on it. It immediately extended its shadow toward him, but Yoshi jumped again and was able to land directly on the second platform of the tower. With a third jump, Yoshi moved toward Greninja, ready to give it a series of kick. Greninja took a few steps back to avoid the attack and then used its long tongue (usually wrapped around its neck like a scarf) to lick Yoshi. The dinosaur felt a chill, but the attack failed to paralyse him and he quickly caught the tongue before pulling on it to bring Greninja to him to punch it.

The punch ended up clashing with Greninja's foot, and the Pokémon used the fist as support to jump before using Aerial Ace, kicking Yoshi on the head at an incredible speed from above. Yoshi, however, still had hold of Greninja's tongue and pulled on it again, violently, slamming the Pokémon on the ground.

But then, before Yoshi still had hold of the tongue, Greninja was able to use Lick again, licking Yoshi with the tip of its tongue, and this time, it paralysed Yoshi successfully.

"Great! Now, use Hyper Beam!" Calem shouted.

Greninja got up from where it impacted the floor with a bit of difficulty** before it began to gather energy. Yoshi tried to move out of the way but failed because of the paralysis, and Greninja fired the Hyper Beam. The beam engulfed Yoshi, and when it dissipated, a badly burned dinosaur was left behind. Yoshi tried fought hard to remain conscious, very determined to continue the fight, but he eventually closed his eyes and fell.

"KO! The victor is: Greninja!" Master Hand shouted.

"You did it, Greninja!" Calem shouted.

"This dino was strong, but I came out on top!" Greninja exclaimed proudly.

Sweetie Void giggled. "Sorry for Yoshi, but I saw that coming. He was facing a ninja after all."

Phantom snorted. "Yeah. Ninjas and their bullshit skills... So damn cool..."

Before long, the fighters were back on Sinnoh, healed, and congratulated like usual before the next ones were selected for the next battle.

The new fighters were Fox and Jolteon who will be fighting... in Ponyville, many recognising Twilight's castle in the image.

"Not a big surprise there," one of the Applejack who wasn't Applebot said. "Of course Ponyville'd be an arena."

"Sorry Fox, no Reflector yet," Slippy said.

Fox sighed. "It would have been useful against Jolteon."

In the end, he gave a shrug before he walked through one of the rifts that Master Hand opened, blaster already in his hand.

Both him and Blue appeared some distance before the castle's entrance, in opposite direction. A thin cloud-platform then descended beside Blue.

"I suggest that you climb on it. You will need it," Master Hand said to him.

"Uh. Alright. Is it solid at least?"

"Why don't you test it?"

Blue did so by putting a hand on the cloud, and seeing that it didn't pass through it, began to carefully climb on it. Once he was standing on it and confirmed that he will remain on it, he took out his Poké Ball and let out Jolteon. On the ground, not on the cloud. The cloud was just large enough for him to stand on, there wasn't enough place for someone else.

Seeing that Jolteon was ready, Master Hand counted down.

"GO!"

"Dig!"

Fox immediately fired a beam from his blaster at Jolteon only for the Pokémon to dig into the ground, the beam only grazing it as a result. Fox didn't let that stop him and ran rapidly toward the hole before throwing a grenade in it.

"Get out!" Blue shouted in panic.

But it was too late already and a blast came out of the hole, followed by smoke. Fox remained on guard however, and he did well, because he heard something under him and quickly jumped away as Jolteon came out of the ground where he had been standing. It seemed that the grenade hit its mark because Jolteon's fur was slightly burned. But avoiding the Pokémon didn't help him against the Thunder that it unleashed.

Just because of this attack, Fox found himself on his knee. But he then took Jolteon by surprise by leaping at it and tackling it. Fox then grabbed Jolteon by its left front leg and used it to slam the Pokémon on the ground before he took his blaster and fired at it while it was still down.

Then, like with the New Donk City Hall arena, a platform, this one made of solidified purple magic, came out of the ground and Fox quickly jumped to climb on it. Recovering from Fox's attacks, Jolteon almost missed it, but was also able to get on it before the platform started its ascend, the cloud-platform Blue was on following it. As the platform began to traverse Ponyville from above, Fox kicked Jolteon on the face, then received a Pin Missile in return before he was bitten with a Thunder Fang. Despite the pain of the electricity coursing inside him, Fox placed his blaster between Jolteon's eyes and fired, making it release him. Then, he targeted its mouth as the Pokémon yelled in pain and fired again.

Jolteon was lucky that the ray gun wasn't mortal in Master Hand's arena of it would be dead, easily five or six times by now (counting the grenade).

It used Agility to get away from Fox to recover, but this didn't help much as Fox continued to fire at it with his blaster. Getting annoyed, it used Thunder again, but Fox ran away and avoided the attack, still firing, forcing the Pokémon to start to run too.

While the two ran around attacking each other, the platform landed them on Sugarcube Corner's roof. The two immediately had to stop running to avoid sliding on the gingerbread-like roof tiles at the sides. Also, they ended up at opposite sides of the tower structure in the center so they couldn't fire at each other anymore for now. Fox was also just beside the chimney.

"You guys seriously have a gingerbread house?" Elio asked to the ponies.

"Why is it surprising? It's logical for a bakery," one of the Pinkie Pie replied, confused.

"If it can reassure you, this is not made of real food," Phantom said. "It would be stupid. The building would constantly be eaten and they would have to rebuild it all the time. And even if the building wasn't eaten, the food would eventually start to mold."

Meanwhile, the two fighters studied the new arena and both concluded the same thing: going on the central tower wouldn't be a very good idea at all. Yes, they would be able to cover the whole roof (excepted behind the chimney), but in return, they would be vulnerable to long range attacks from everywhere on the roof.

So, instead, they began to circle the tower, moving carefully on the tile, and attacked as soon as they had a clear shot of their adversary before moving back into cover behind the tower. That was until Fox decided to break open a crate that had been sliding off the roof to see if some item could give him the advantage. The crate revealed three items: a mushroom, a motion-sensor bomb, and a Poké Ball. Fox didn't know what the mushroom was for but decided to forget about it, instead quickly grabbing the Poké Ball and the bomb before they could fall off the roof.

He threw the Poké Ball above the tower like a grenade. The Poké Ball landed behind Jolteon, and out of it came a Blastoise that began to use Hydro Pump at it. Jolteon wasn't able to react in time and crashed against the tower because of the water. The Blastoise then used Hydro Pump again but Jolteon jumped out of the way this time before it attacked with Thunder, knocking out the tortoise in one hit. As it disappeared in a puff of smoke, Jolteon heard Blue shout a warning before it was kicked on the right cheek by Fox who quickly took cover again to avoid a retaliating Pin Missile.

Jolteon decided to move around the tower from the other direction to get Fox from behind, but Blue then shouted, "Wait, Jolteon! Look down!" and it did so, seeing a motion-sensing bomb that it had been about to walk on. Jolteon quickly jumped back and shot a Thunder Shock at it to make it explode.

At this moment, the platform returned and they ascended into the sky again, flying over Ponyville in the direction of the next destination. Meanwhile, Fox resumed firing at Jolteon with his blaster while randomly running around now that there wasn't any cover anymore. Using both Agility and Quick Attack, however, Jolteon charged at Fox at stunning speed and landed a speed-boosted Double Kick that sent Fox to the edge of the platform, on his back. Jolteon then jumped on him to pin him down before it used Thunder Fang. Fox quickly put his left arm to shield himself, but being bitten on the arm didn't help against the electricity coursing him. And it was clear that Jolteon didn't intend to release him until he passed out. Fox fired at it with his blaster but the Pokémon just refused to give up.

Fox had one last idea, but he winced at it. This is going to hurt...

Dropping his blaster, Fox grabbed instead a grenade, activated it, and moved it right beside Jolteon's head, the Pokémon looking panicked.

Blue didn't even have time to yell something. The grenade exploded and the spectators could only wait with bated breath as the aftermath smoke cleared while the platform began to lower itself on a group of clouds in front of Rainbow Dash's house.

And finally, they saw the two fighters passed out. And no way to know which one was knocked out by the grenade first.

"Seems like this is a draw," Sweetie Void said. "How will this work?" she asked to Master Hand.

"We could wait to see who will wake up first, but this could take a long time and it would be boring. I could choose who did best, or let hazard do the job with a little hazard game. Or I could decide that the two are eliminated, so this means that whoever will win the next battle won't have to fight in the next round. I can't decide. I didn't expect for something like that to happen."

But before he could decide, to everyone's surprise, both Fox and Jolteon woke up and began to stand with heavy difficulty, clearly on their last leg. The Pokémon already had electricity and launched one last thunder, and at the same time, Fox grabbed his blaster that was on the cloud and fired. The beam went through the electricity and hit Jolteon between the eyes while Fox was hit by the Thunder.

While Jolteon was immediately knocked out by the beam, Fox remained conscious while he shouted in pain from the electricity, his body spasming. Then, once the electricity disappeared, he finally lost consciousness too.

Despite this, this time, there was a clear victor as Master Hand announced. "The victor is: Fox!"

"Using a grenade while keeping it in your hand? That was bold of you," Falco said once Fox was healed and he woke up.

"You should be used to that. Remember when he went to fight Andross by himself?" Peppy said, amused.

"And you can be pretty bold too, Falco," Slippy added. "Too bold."

"It's pretty much the trademark of Team Star Fox," Krystal said with a giggle.

Falco smirked at her. "That's why I'm part of it."

Meanwhile, Blue didn't look upset at all that he lost as he was congratulated by the others. It was a very good fight, and it had been a very close call. And losing was part of being a trainer.

Quickly enough, it was time to select the fighters for the next battle.

Master Hand punched the button, and after a few seconds... "The first fighter is... APPLE DEATH!" And after a few more seconds once he punched the button again. "And the second fighter is... SAMUS!"

The two immediately exchanged glances.

As for the arena... The selection stopped on the image of an area plunged in darkness excepted for a huge machine made of interconnected tubes that looked fleshy converging at a spherical core, some of the tubes forming a floor to walk on.

This got a reaction out of Ness and his friends as they recognised what the machine was: the Devil's Machine.

Author's Note

*Since there was no way I could reproduce the dynamic music like in the game, and Link and Krystal would have no reason to touch the musicians to add them to the band, then I decided to have the complet band right from the start. As for why they are on a flying platform instead of at the right of the entrance, that's because this is a 3D arena, not a 2D one like in the game. So if they were left at their place, the band would be caught in the crossfire.

**Remember, Fighting is very effective against Greninja, and Yoshi slamming it on the ground like that was very probably considered a Fighting-type move, and a powerful one at that.

Chapter 110: Tournament Part 3

Apple Death and Samus entered the chosen arena and were immediately filled with an oppressive feeling of impending doom as they looked at the core of this freaky machine, the spherical thing dwarfing them. They both went through a lot of terrifying stuff, but they never felt like this, like they were simple little bugs facing an entity that could tear them apart without a second thought, and they could do nothing to stop it. Whatever was inside that machine was Powerful, and Evil. And the pipes of the machine itself were pulsating like veins, making the machine look like an organ (it looking like it was made of flesh not helping).

Things then became even more disturbing when the face of a child appeared on the surface of the core, staring emotionless at them. It was hard to distinguish, but the face looked like the one of Ness.

Even the spectators got chills.

"What is this place coming right out of Tartarus?" one of the Luna asked.

"That's the Devil's Machine," Ness answered. "It's where we fought Giygas. He is contained right inside this core. I hope for Apple Death and Samus that the machine won't be deactivated during the fight. I don't think that they could face Giygas if he is unleashed."

"So that's the machine you talked about," Sweetie Void said. "What even is Giygas? Just looking at the core of this machine is creeping even me."

"Giygas was an alien with very powerful psychic powers. His powers got so huge that they tore him apart, body and mind, to the point that he became, to use Porky's words, "an almighty idiot" and "the embodiment of Evil itself". But Porky somehow built for him this machine that keeps him and his powers contained while keeping his mind stabilized enough that he at least knows what he is doing. And as long as he is in this machine, he is invincible. There is a shield that will absorb anything that hit it and send it back at the attacker too times stronger."

At the same time, Master Hand was also talking. "Before we start this battle, I must say something. I know, Samus, that you could fight Apple Death even in her ghost form, but to make it more fair, I will make it so even attacks that usually wouldn't hit a ghost will be effective. So you will be able to punch and kick her if you desire, for example. This will also be the case for any other ghosts among the challengers."

Apple Death shrugged. "No problem."

Master Hand then began the countdown and started the battle, and right away, Apple Death turned into her ghost form and then turned herself invisible, but Samus immediately countered this by changing her visor to one that allowed her to still see the ghostly filly despite this.

"Sorry, I already fought ghosts. You won't get me with this," the bounty hunter said before she fired.

Apple Death removed her invisibility as she flew out of the way of the projectiles. "Ah should've known."

As Apple Death flew around, Samus didn't stop firing at her, not letting the filly out of her sight. However, eventually, one of the beams went toward the core of the Devil's Machine and was suddenly stopped by a psychic shield appearing around it. The beam was then sent back right toward Samus who, still being focused on Apple Death, didn't see it coming and got hit, much to her surprise. The beam thankfully didn't do much damage.

"Great. That thing has some kind of reflective shield," she groaned.

"Gotta watch out where we aim," Apple Death added.

Samus then resumed firing at her, and Apple Death resumed dodging while she began to attack by sending purple electricity from one of her hooves. Samus was quick to react and as soon as she saw Apple Death moving she rolled out of the way, barely avoiding the electricity. Apple Death didn't stop sending electricity however and began to make it chase Samus while sweeping the floor, forcing her to run.

The ghostly skeletal filly then began to make bones poke out of the floor on Samus' path to serve as obstacles, or even directly under her to hit her with them, but Samus expertly avoided all of them, even jumping above the ones forming walls to stop her in her course.

But suddenly, the core of the Devil's Machine, Giygas, sent a wave of psychokinetic energy that Sweetie Void, Ness, and the others recognised as Ness' signature attack: PK Rockin. However, it seemed to be the weaker version, the Alpha, as it only consisted of a small circular wave fired in a diagonal way so that it would hit both Samus and Apple Death despite the later flying. Still, the wave moved really fast, so the two barely had time to react and move out of the way.

"And gotta watch out for these psychic wave... So that thing can attack us and we can't attack back?" Apple Death wondered.

"Seems like it. I hate when I encounter something like that," Samus answered.

"Ah ah ah ah ah ah!"

A childish laugh suddenly resounded before some kind of giant bio-mechanical spider half the size of the core appeared out of nowhere in the air and slowly floated down to land in front of it. The spider-thing was entirely grey, had a single big eye, two weird little horns under it, and a huge glass dome on the top protecting its hollowed inside which was actually a cockpit with an overweight child in it.

Sweetie Void immediately recognised Porky, and rage filled her, the filly wanting to enter the arena to tear open this spider-walker and crush the child into a bloody pulp. But she was able to control herself as she remembered that this wasn't the real Porky, but a simple replica created by Master Hand. Beside, this Porky looked different from the one she remembered.

This Porky had bluish-grey skin and he had black hair instead of his usual blond. He was wearing a vertically-striped red and black (or very dark grey) fancy suit with a red tie, and his eyes...

His eyes (partially hidden under his hair like always) were simply filled with Evil and Madness, and he was smirking like the Mane-iac.

This was the Porky under Giygas' influence.

And he was eyeing the two fighters like they were preys... No... Like they were toys to play with and break. To destroy.

"Are you surprised?" he taunted.

Ness glared at Master Hand. "Don't tell me you are going to have him unleash Giygas!"

"Don't worry. One: it would be folly to recreate Giygas. Two: I don't have the power to recreate him anyway, not fully. Three, Giygas is already a big enough threat while inside the Devil's Machine's core and helped by Porky. Releasing him would be too much. And four: I don't want to traumatise half of the audience. Really, even I admit that this thing is fucked up. The Devil's Machine is already disturbing enough. And Porky's state, looking right out of a slasher movie."

Ness and his friends felt relieved.

"Is Giygas that bad?" Luigi asked.

"Worse," Jeff answered. "Much much MUCH worse."

With Porky now in the fray, the fight turned chaotic. The corrupted child was using his bio-mecha to randomly attack the two fighters with its legs or by charging, forcing the two fighters to constantly be on the look out. Now, Apple Death and Samus had to choose between attacking each other or attacking Porky, all the while being careful to not accidentally attack the core.

Speaking of the core, exactly thirty seconds after its previous attack, it sent another PK Rockin Alpha at the two fighters, not minding if Porky was in the crossfire. It wasn't a problem for Porky however as it seemingly saw the attack coming before it even started and moved he mecha out of the way. The mecha also revealed to be pretty solid so there was no doubt that a simple PK Rockin Alpha wouldn't do much damage to it.

Apple Death decided to end the battle right there and then and waited for Porky to make diversion before she charged at Samus. Thanks to her intangibility, the ghost entered the suit, touched Samus herself, transferred the intangibility to the woman, and pushed her out of the suit.

The now suit-less Samus recovered with a roll as she looked back at her suit, which Apple Death hadn't left as she took possession of it. The suit then floated up and surrounded itself with spinning scythes made of bones.

"Crap..." was all Samus could say before she grabbed a gun she always kept with her in case of such situations, but she didn't expect it to help much.

Thankfully for her, Apple Death was suddenly rammed by Porky's mecha, interrupting her as she had been about to send the scythes. This gave her some respite to decide on what to do next, and it didn't take her long to find something:

Going close and personal.

As soon as Apple Death got away from Porky and used the suit's cannon to fire charged beams and missiles at the mecha, Samus ran toward her, jumped to reach her height as she was flying, and kicked her in the face, sending her crashing on the floor. Upon landing, Samus then immediately went toward Apple Death and began to use the martial lessons she got with the Chozos to punch and kick her possessed suit without giving any respite. She eventually had to jump away however as Porky attacked them with his mecha's legs, the first swipe knocking Apple Death away, before Giygas used PK Rockin again, the wave being horizontal this time since the two fighters were on the ground. This forced Samus, Apple Death, and Porky to jump to avoid it, the filly barely succeeding as she recovered from the earlier hit and she wasn't that familiar being on two legs.

Apple Death then grabbed a Bob-Omb and threw it at Porky before she took a hammer as she saw Samus run toward her again. It didn't reveal very useful however against Samus' martial skills. Apple Death may be physically strong thanks to being an Earth Pony, but she didn't know how to fight that way. The best hunting ghosts helped her learn was to use a blunt weapon like a bat. But martial arts? Nothing.

So, knowing that she couldn't win this way, Apple Death flew out of the suit to ram Samus on the chest, sending the woman flying. She then turned to face Porky as the corrupted child approached and flew into the mecha, taking possession of it. She ejected Porky out of the arena and materialized bones that went to extend the mecha's legs, making it now look like one of these long-legged spiders, before giving it two bony pincers and a bony scorpion-like tail. A VERY long tail easily thrice the length of the body of the mecha. Tail into which a huge amount of energy gathered at the tip before it slashed at the approaching PK Rockin wave that Giygas sent again, destroying the attack.

Meanwhile, Samus recovered from Apple Death's attack and, seeing what the filly was doing, ran toward her suit in the hope of recovering it now that the filly had left it. Only for a huge bony leg to place itself in her way before pushing the suit out of the arena, ensuring that Samus will not be able to get it back.

So now, the bounty hunter was facing a huge bio-mechanical spider-turned-scorpion controlled by what was pretty much the Reaper armed with just a gun (that can function as a paralyzer and a whip) and her martial skills plus some other nice stuffs like jet boots to allow her to jump very high.

She didn't like these odds.

She looked around and saw a Poké Ball. No, a Master Ball! With a leap, she caught it and opened it to let out whatever Pokémon was inside. Since it was a Master Ball, she hoped that the Pokémon inside it would be a very powerful one.

And she got it right as out of it came Giratina in its Altered Forme.

Who was promptly caught by the bony tail wrapping strongly around its neck before Apple Death tried to repeatedly slam it on Samus who used her speed and agility to her advantage to avoid being crushed. She fired at the mecha with her gun but the projectiles didn't seem to have any effect, so she eventually decided to jump on the legs to reach the body, using her boots to propel herself and give powerful kicks. It barely made Apple Death flinch however as she used the tail again to destroy another PK Rockin wave.

The Giratina eventually disappeared in smoke and Apple Death changed strategy by using her pincer to catch Samus while she was midair. As strong as the woman was, she wasn't able to open the pincer to escape, so she could only look as the pincer brought her in front of the mecha's eye, before which energy gathered into a ball.

The ball of energy then turned into a beam that entirely covered Samus who yelled in pain.

When the beam ended, an unconscious, badly burned Samus was left behind, smoke rising from her body.

"KO! The victor is: Apple Death!"

"You are screwed, dude," Samus said to Fox once she was healed, making the fox gulp.

Apple Death, back to her normal appearance, chuckled. "And again, Ah could've taken possession of the Devil's Machine itself. Ah don't know how this would've gone however, with Giygas."

"Since this wasn't the real Giygas and this replica wasn't as powerful as the original, I think that you would have gained control over his power and become, to put it simply, invincible," Sweetie Void guessed. "Samus wouldn't have been able to do anything to you with that reflective shield, and in return, you would have simply spammed PK Rockin or used the bio-pipes to attack from everywhere, turning the whole arena against your opponent."

Samus actually got a chill at this, as well as many others.

"Let's start the next battle! The first fighter will be..." Master Hand punched the red button to select the fighter. "KIRBY!"

Kirby jumped in joy. "Poyo!"

"Good luck to whoever will be chosen next," one of the Rarity said, causing some who hadn't been selected yet to look at her with worry.

"And the second fighter will be... Serperior!" Master Hand shouted as the other fighter was selected.

"Very bad luck there, dude," Chromatic Dash said to Hilbert.

"I'm so sorry for you," a Fluttershy followed.

Then the stage followed, revealing to be the roof of the Sylph Co. building from Saffron City, in Kanto. The full arena actually seemed to be comprised of the roof of several skyscrapers of various sizes with the Sylph Co. at the center, and there were also small floating platforms visibles. The roof of the Sylph Co. had the particularity of having a door.

Kirby and Hilbert entered the arena, appearing on the roof of the Sylph Co. Hilbert appeared right above the door and let out his serpentine Pokémon.

"Five! Four! Three! Two! One! GO!"

"Leaf Storm!" Hilbert shouted, and Serperior sent at Kirby a real storm of sharp leaves.

Only for Kirby to jump before charging at the Pokémon while turned into a real fireball, the leaves burning when getting too close. Serperior quickly jumped down from the top of the door to avoid him, but then, Kirby teleported and appeared right above it with a hammer on fire, bonking it on the head. Kirby then spun and created a fire tornado that covered both him and Serperior.

"Serperior!" Hilbert shouted in worry.

The tornado disappeared after a few seconds, revealing a still conscious but burned Serperior who quickly moved away before looking back to search for Kirby, very angry, only to feel its tail being grabbed. Kirby then slammed it around several times before spinning. At this moment, he saw the door opening, an intense light hiding what could be inside. Having a hunch, he threw the Pokémon at it, and just as it was about to pass the door, an Electrode came out and stopped its course before its body began to glow.

Still being above the door, Hilbert looked in horror and quickly jumped on the roof of a neighboring building as the Electrode Exploded, the explosion sending Serperior flying only to be intercepted by Kirby teleporting before he clung to it and used the Crash Ability.

Needless to say, Kirby got a perfect KO not even one minute into the fight, and everyone understood that he was a real monster.

"I know I told you to avoid using the Stella Knight, but you could have at least held back more to let the fight go on a bit. The poor thing barely got time to act," Sweetie Void reproached to the puffball who looked at her innocently.

"When she said that she considered him as her rival, she wasn't kidding..." Sonic said, sweating.

"And you saw nothing," Magolor warned. "NOTHING!!!"

"Next battle!" Master Hand interrupted before he punched the red button. "LUIGI! Versus..." He punched the button again. "LULLA!"

Luigi didn't look reassured, but under the encouragements of Mario and some others, he gained more confidence.

"You can do it, Lulla!" Volta shouted at her friend.

"I'm sure that you can win, Lulla, but be careful," Sweetie Void warned her Pokémon. "Luigi may be a scaredy-cat, he knows how to fight."

"Don't worry. I know that I will win. Just you watch," Lulla confidently said.

Meanwhile, Master Hand selected the next arena which revealed to be the Great Fox flying over Corneria.

Before long, the two fighters entered it, appearing on the ship.

"GO!"

As soon as Master Hand started the battle, Luigi took his hammer and readied it. However, he didn't move from his place, preferring to wait and see what the Jigglypuff will do.

So he was surprised to see that, instead of attacking, Lulla began to sing.

Luigi immediately understood his error as he began to feel drowsy, but it was already too late. Barely a few seconds into the song, he fell asleep.

When Lulla saw this, it stopped singing and smiled victoriously before she calmly advanced toward Luigi. An Arwing passing above fired at it by surprise but it was able to avoid the beams with a leap before it continued to advance toward the sleeping plumber. When it reached him, it grabbed him by the leg before it dragged him toward the edge of the Great Fox while the ship was leaving Corneria and warped in the asteroid belt known as Meteo*.

Lulla then pushed Luigi beyond the edge and he fell down.

"Is this allowed?" Victor asked.

"Yes. You can put your adversary to sleep. You never know, your adversary may be able to continue the fight while sleeping, or something unexpected may happen," Master Hand answered. "By the way... RING OUT! The victor is: Lulla!"

Author's Note

*As much as I love the stages with the Great Fox on Corneria, in Z Sector, or on Venom, I always thought "Why don't they do a stage where the Great Fox moves through the Lylat System following paths like in the game?" The way I see it, each planet/sector/whatever would have different events. Like, in Y Sector, the combat space suits encountered in this level would sometime come to attack the fighters. On Aquas, the fighters would fall into water and they would have a chance to climb back on the Great Fox if they are fast enough. In Meteo, meteors would crash on the Great Fox. And so on.

Chapter 111: Tournament Part 4

Luigi was crying, ashamed, on Mario's shoulder, the older brother trying to comfort him with some pats on the back.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Void looked at them not knowing what to think while Lulla looked proud beside her. "You know, Lulla, you can't just count on Sing to win your fights. You could have waited until you had no other choice before using it. Now, everyone knows about it and will be prepared. You could have actually defeated Kirby by managing to surprise him like this."

Lulla's expression changed from proud to horror when she heard this. Sweetie was right. She was doomed.

Master Hand then selected the fighters and arena for the next battle.

Falco!

Versus...

Decidueye!

On the roof of Thanatos' castle (which didn't seem to have the the ruins of the tower and other pieces destroyed by Ω).

"If a replica of Thanatos' there, good luck," Apple Death warned both Falco and Hau.

"Why?" Hau asked.

"He was the previous owner of most of the powers Ah now possess and used them in the worst way possible, if ya see what Ah mean."

The two got the gist, and Hau gulped before they entered the arena. Once on it, they couldn't help but look around a bit to admire the castle, then watched some ghosts fly around, before Hau got Decidueye out.

"You are in your element, Decidueye! This fight will be piece of cake!" Hau cheered his Pokémon.

"In your dreams, kid. Ghosts don't scare me and especially not your little chick," Falco retorted confidently.

"Oooh! This is on, Polly!"

You could see a vein pop up on Falco's head. "Nobody calls me 'Polly' and lives to see the next day."

Master Hand started the fight, and Falco immediately ran toward Decidueye. He wasn't as fast as Fox, but he still could race.

So Hau quickly shouted, "Use Spirit Shackle!" and Decidueye jumped high into the air, avoiding a kick from Falco, before it grabbed one of the vines of its leafy hood to use it like the rope of a bow while closing the hood almost entirely. In a flash, it then plucked a quill from its wings and placed it against the vine like an arrow, aiming, accumulating ghostly energy around the tip, before firing.

The arrow quill moved so fast that Falco wasn't able to move to avoid it. Thankfully for him, the arrow didn't target him. Instead, it planted itself in his shadow before unleashing a burst of blue fire-like energy that burned Falco for a few seconds before disappearing.

While it hurt, Falco wasn't impressed and, seeing where Decidueye landed, he grabbed his ray gun and began to fire at the Pokémon while starting to move to avoid the Razor Leaf that it used. However, Falco quickly felt a pull that stopped him from taking even one step, leaving him to be cut repeatedly by the sharp leaves. He still was able to limit the damage by protecting himself with his arms.

Once the leaves stopped coming, Falco used the respite to look down at the arrow quill still planted in his shadow, understanding that it was the reason that his movements were restrained. He moved to pull it off, but was quickly forced to place his arms again to defend against a Sucker Punch powered up by a Sword Dance.

"Urgh... I give you this... You got me good there," Falco admitted with a grunt before he ducked to avoid a Leaf Blade.

With Decidueye's constant assault, Falco didn't have any occasion to pull off the arrow, forcing him to be on the defense as he blocked or avoided the Pokémon's attacks. Eventually, he managed to get an opening, punching the owl Pokémon in the gut.

Where he lacked speed compared to Fox, he made up for it with strength, so his punch hurt!

Falco then quickly pulled off the arrow, finally allowing him to move from his position, and most of all, allowing to do a very fast spin kick on Decidueye's face. With his arms hurting like heck because of all the blocking, using his legs was the best way to continue the fight for him, beside using his ray gun.

Now that he got the advantage, he pressed it, continuously kicking interspersed with firing with his ray gun. While this happened, platforms made of bones formed here and there but nobody minded them.

But Decidueye was eventually able to jump like before, then it used Brave Bird. This time, Falco wasn't able to block or dodge, so he too the attack right on his torso and was sent flying far. Decidueye took some damage from the recoil however, but when it landed, it immediately used Giga Drain to drain some of Falco's energy as he was recovering, healing itself a bit. Finally, Decidueye used Leaf Storm, hoping to finish the fight.

To its surprise, Falco charged right into the storm of sharp leaves, and used his ray gun to fire at some of the leaves on his path, diminishing their number, and so, the damage he received. On the way, Falco moved a bit to the left to grab a baseball bat that had appeared and readied it. Decidueye jumped again to avoid his attack, but Falco surprised it again by jumping too.

Then Falco swung the bat.

In a tenth of a second, Decidueye plucked a quill and fired it down.

The bat hit Decidueye right on the head, but contrary to what Falco expected, the Pokémon wasn't sent flying. It remained right where it was, and it was even floating! As Falco lande, he quickly saw the reason: Decidueye fired the quill at its own shadow to stop itself from being sent away!

Despite the bad hit from the bat, Decidueye then used its position to its advantage to fire another quill at Falco's shadow, trapping him and hurting him with a blue fire-like energy again. While Falco pulled off the quill, Hau suddenly crossed his arms, showing his Z-Ring which flashed.

"That was a fun fight, but now, let's end this! Come on, Decidueye!" Hau then did a series of moves reminiscent of a ghost while an aura of energy appeared around him, then around Decidueye, and he shouted, "Sinister Arrow Raid!"

A big number of quills came out and surrounded Decidueye in an arc while the one planted in its shadow disappeared in the blue fire-like energy. Decidueye then charged toward Falco followed by the quills.

"Crap!"

Falco ran away while firing at Decidueye with his ray gun. Seeing that it didn't work, Falco readied the bat again and waited for it to come. And just as Decidueye was about to swoop past, Falco jumped to meet it and swung the bat.

The bat clashed with Decidueye's beak before Falco was hit by a small explosion, then by all the arrows which also exploded in a blue blast of fire-like energy. The two fighters ended up covered in smoke.

When it cleared, everyone could see Falco unconscious on the ground, and Decidueye seemed ready to join him but was able to resist, barely.

"Victor: Decidueye!" Master Hand confirmed its victory.

Hau jumped in joy at this, shouting, "You did it, Decidueye!" before he ran to hug his Pokémon, only for it to finally lose consciousness too.

"If it had been an aerial dogfight, I would have won," Falco mumbled after he was healed.

"Don't beat yourself. Z-moves are just OP," Blue said. "Fox is lucky that I didn't think of using mine. Using them isn't as much a second nature to me as it is to the alolans. This is the case for many of us here."

"And you still almost won despite it," Sweetie Void said. "But now that Hau reminded the others that they have Z-moves, I pity whoever will face the remaining Pokémon."

Susie giggled. "Unless they face you, then I will pity them."

And speaking of, the selected fighters for the next battle:

Captain Falcon!

"Ah. Finally," the captain said.

Versus... Sweetie Void!

Phantom patted Captain Falcon on the back. "Someone had to be the unlucky one. Sorry."

Captain Falcon didn't move and didn't say anything, giving his best poker face as Master Hand selected the arena: a platform made of logs strewn together sitting on rocks jutting out of a waterfall in a jungle with a small wooden house present beside the river. There were two tilted masts on the platform, each possessing two smaller platforms (one about midway and one near the top) made of horizontally sawed logs. A rock without anything on it was visible at the right of the platform, also jutting out of the waterfall. A floating barrel with an arrow pointing up was also present under the rocks with the platform.

Contrary to what some would think, the poker face wasn't hiding horror but determination. A will to try his best even knowing that he had no chance. Unless he was able to pull a miracle. Sonic did manage to defeat Phantom after all. Admittedly, Sonic had been advantaged because he already fought the Phantom Ruby in the past, and the arena helped him a lot, but it still showed that it was possible to defeat the fillies. He will just need to fight smart. Use the environment and items to his advantage.

"I don't recognise this place," Sweetie Void said.

"That's home!" Donkey Kong answered with a big grin.

"Oh. It's your island? That explains it. I never went there. What is this floating barrel with the arrow?"

"It's an Arrow Barrel. A Barrel Cannon that launches you in the direction pointed by the arrow if you enter it, and you can decide when it will fire," Diddy explained.

So this meant that if Captain Falcon fell, if he was lucky, he could fall into this barrel and be fired back to have another chance. That was good to know.

When they entered the arena, Captain Falcon appeared on the right side of the large platform while Sweetie Void appeared on the middle platform of the left mast.

The arena revealed to not be that big. The Ring Out Barrier made it so they couldn't go on the shore of the river, and the wooden platform itself wasn't large. Going in the water was out of the question. At least, for Captain Falcon. The turbulent water would just carry him down the waterfall. At least, a look down allowed them to see that the Arrow Barrel moved back and forth under the rocks, so if he was lucky...

"GO!"

Sweetie Void immediately jumped down from her platform to face Captain Falcon who took his gun and fired. The filly used her weapon-turned-staff-mode - which Falcon would swear she didn't have when she passed the portal to the arena - to deflect the ray beams with simple swings before she threw it at him using her magic, like a spear but without the sharp tip. With a large movement of his arm, Captain Falcon was able to deflect the staff away and immediately punched afterward to meet Sweetie's hoof that had been about to hit his face. He then ducked to avoid a beam fired from her horn before he managed to grab her by the neck and slammed her on the floor. Finally, he raised a foot to stomp her.

But Sweetie Void turned her fur, mane, and tail into spikes before turning herself into metal, so Captain Falcon ended up impaling his foot without hurting the filly at all. He quickly rose the foot and hold it in pain, and Sweetie used the occasion to make a sweep at his other foot to make him fall. She then jumped on his chest as he landed on his back and began to pummel his face, her body still metallic. So not only Falcon was being repeatedly punched by metallic hooves, which hurt a lot, but his chest was getting crushed by the weight of Sweetie's metallic body, cutting his breath and making his ribs hurt.

Despite all this, Captain Falcon readied a fist as he breathlessly muttered, "Falcon..." Fire covered the fist. "Punch...!!" He punched Sweetie Void from the side and sent her flying off his chest despite her metallic body, not minding that the resulting falcon of fire burned him a bit and that his knuckles ached as a result of punching metal. He immediately stoop up to face the filly who didn't fly far as she was just in front of him, her body not metallic anymore. But as he focused on her, he didn't notice the staff returning and he was hit on the cheek with a swing from it.

Sweetie Void then turned into her human-self and jumped to catch the staff before using it to relentlessly attack Captain Falcon. One swing and she hit him on the left ribs. Another swing and she got him on the right leg with the opposite end. A spin followed by a thrust and the tip of the staff struck on the liver, making him bend. The thrust was then followed by an upward swing that hit Falcon on the chin. Falcon was able to block the next swing however, and he quickly moved away to jump on the midway platform of the right mast. Sweetie Void quickly joined him on it, but then, a star suddenly appeared and fell right on the bounty hunter.

This revealed to be a star from Mario's universe, as Captain Falcon was then surrounded by the sparkling aura of near invincibility such stars gave.

"Seriously?" she shouted.

Captain Falcon grinned. He didn't know what the star was, but he felt the energy coursing him and immediately got a deep understanding that, as long as it was present, the filly couldn't do much to him. So he used this to his advantage and began to recklessly attack Sweetie Void who did her best to dodge or block everything. Thankfully for her, the effects of the star didn't last long and quickly dissipated after a few seconds.

When this happened, she grinned, and Falcon actually gulped.

Then, without warning, a small blue crocodile-like creature was thrown at his head, and the crocodile's jaw snapped shut on his face. As Falcon tried to pull it off without success, Sweetie Void spotted something she recognised on another platform and gasped before reaching it with a jump. The item she saw turned out to be none other than a piece of the Dragoon, the legendary Air Ride machine, the nosecone more exactly.

"There's even the Dragoon? But how will this work? Won't we be Ringed Out if we use it?" she wondered aloud.

"It's a special case," Master Hand answered her. "Once you collect the three parts, the Dragoon is immediately formed. Then, once you climb on it, it will transport you away, no Ring Out, then do a U-turn and fly back toward the arena. You won't need to do anything beside stirring it so it rams into your opponent, so you don't need to know how to drive it. Whether you hit your opponent or not, the Dragoon will then return above the arena and disappear, dropping you back on it."

"That's great!" She felt relieved about the 'no need to know how to drive it' part because she never learned how to drive them. Maybe she should ask Kirby if he would let her learn with his Dragoon.

While Master Hand talked, Captain Falcon finally managed to pull off the blue crocodile before throwing it down the waterfall. He then jumped down on the main platform and grabbed a red diamond-shaped object with written on the top, white face a big black 'B'.

It wasn't hard to guess that it was some kind of bomb. Not sure of the kind however. When in doubt, he decided to just throw the bomb toward Sweetie Void who still was thinking about learning to drive the Dragoon.

Thankfully for Captain Falcon, this Smart Bomb was quite a toned down version of the real one invented by Slippy. If it had been a real one, then the resulting explosion would have enveloped the whole arena and Captain Falcon would have been caught in the blast, and its power would have blown him and Sweetie right to the Ring Out Barrier, knocking him out right away by the same occasion.

This replica's explosion only took a small area in comparison, small enough that it didn't reach the captain. But this meant that its power wasn't as great, and so, Sweetie wasn't blasted very far and she quickly recovered to air-jump back on the platform, back in her filly form, making sure to keep hold of the piece of the Dragoon with her magic. She then made Falcon regret his action by sending her staff like before only to turn it into whip mode at the last moment when the captain was about to knock it away. She then made it wrap him, making sure to get his arms so they were stuck alongside his body. Then, she used her whip to lift Captain Falcon in the air before she made the magical links between the sections explode. While this happened, Sweetie Void spotted a second piece of the Dragoon, the body, on the bare rock and took it using her magic.

As she expected, Captain Falcon remained conscious despite the explosion. He was a though one after all, went through a lot. It wasn't a small explosion like that that would get him. The explosion barely ended and she barely returned her whip to her that he came out of the cloud of dust that it created and attacked her with a Falcon Kick on the face that sent her flying. But she immediately recovered midair and charged back at Captain Falcon with a hoof surrounded in fire, giving him a terrible fire punch in the gut. But then, she was grabbed by the tail and Falcon made her hang upside down in front of him before he Falcon Punched her, releasing her tail at the last moment. Again, this sent her flying but, this time, she teleported while keeping her momentum and appeared right behind Captain Falcon, ramming him on the spine. She then levitated a crate and slammed it on him, the crate revealing a Poké Ball, a beam sword, and a mushroom from Mario's universe which dropped on the captain, making him grow in size until he was two times bigger than usual.

Captain Falcon quickly grabbed the sword, which somehow grew to fit his size, and began to attack Sweetie Void with it. But the filly quickly flew away while taking the Poké Ball before throwing it at him. The ball hit him on the head and opened, letting out a Goldeen that only used Splash, to the filly's dismay. Captain Falcon easily kicked the fish away.

But then, Sweetie Void spotted the final piece of the Dragoon on the main platform, the multicolored 'feathers' forming the tail, and quickly grabbed it with her magic. As Master Hand said, the three pieces immediately assembled and she didn't lose time before hopped on it before it flew away with her. In a blink of an eye, she was just a twinkling star in the sky. Captain Falcon, in panic, thought quickly and decided to jump down into the Arrow Barrel, thinking that he will be safe in it.

He wasn't.

A couple of seconds later, there was another twinkling star that announced the return of the Dragoon, and the air ride machine pierced the barrel at a speed beyond the one of sound. This not only knocked out Captain Falcon right then and there, but it also sent him flying beyond the Ring Out Barrier far into the sky. Sweetie Void landed back on the arena not long afterward.

"The victor is: Sweetie Void!"

"No surprise there," Phantom commented.

"Did she have to use the Dragoon on this poor man? She could have simply thrown him beyond the barrier," one of the Fluttershy said.

"For the show, I guess," Chromatic Bolt replied. "Or just for the heck of using the Dragoon."

"At least, I let him fight a bit instead of knocking him out right away like a certain puffball did," Sweetie Void said.

"Yeah... But I don't know if it was better or not. You looked like a cat toying with its prey," her Twilight said.

"No matter what I would have done, it would have looked bad anyway, but this way he got some fighting time."

"The first fighter of the next battle is... POO! Versus... MAGOLOR!" Master Hand announced.

The arena selected afterward looked to be from Termina judging by the Moon visible in the background. However, Sweetie didn't recognise the area it was from. Admittedly, she didn't see much from Termina back then, but recalling Link's recounting, she identified the area as the Great Bay. It didn't take place on the coast however, or the temple, or the pirates' stronghold. Instead, it was on a group of platforms in the middle of the sea, not far of the coast.

One of the platforms, an metallic one, was right on the water with the statue of an owl on it. Right at its left was another metallic platform, this one elevated on four piles, with a weird round building on it. Finally, at the left of the platform with the building, barely poking out of the water, was a small flat rock serving as a third platform. It wasn't all however as a giant turtle was present at the very right, head facing the platforms, two palm trees on its shell.

Before the two fighters entered it, Poo thought to ask something.

"Can we swim?"

"Yes. But be careful to not swim beyond the barrier. This includes going too deep."

Poo nodded, and he entered the arena alongside Magolor. The boy appeared on the left side of the platform with the house while Magolor appeared on one of the palm trees on the turtle.

"This will be hard not to fall in the water..." Poo muttered as he understood that he would be very disadvantaged if he fell in it. Heck, he was already disadvantaged because Magolor could naturally fly.

"GO!"

Magolor flew to Poo right away, preparing an Ultra Sword. Before he could attack, Poo yelled "PK Brainshock!" and sent a ray of psychic energy that reached Magolor. This confused the alien, the world starting to spin around for him. In his confusion, his attack hit nothing, and Poo used this to place a PK Shield on himself before he attacked with a PK Freeze that managed to freeze Magolor. He had no problem freeing himself from the ice however, the confusion gone, before he countered by sending several orbs of energy that were able to pass through Poo's shield and hit him fully. He then conjured one of his needles of energy right under the boy who was sent flying by it. Poo landed on his feet right on the small rock and immediately sent a PK Thunder in return. Magolor barely blocked the resulting thunder strike with his star-shaped magic barrier in time, but it wasn't able to block the following PK Starstorm, the barrier breaking under the meteors.

After being his by a first meteor, Magolor quickly opened a portal and entered it to avoid the others. Poo remained on guard, looking around in wait for Magolor to reappear. But he didn't expect him to charge right out of the water, but he still reacted in time to avoid him by jumping back on the platform with the round building. Magolor entered another portal however, and came out of another right behind Poo, still trying to ram him. But Poo was ready this time and, in the blink of an eye, he unsheathed his weapon, the Sword of Kings, spun around, and slashed at Magolor who was sent backward to crash on the turtle.

Turtle who decided that it was the moment to immerse himself into the ocean, Magolor thus ending in the water. Poo quickly used PK Thunder to strike the water, electrifying Magolor.

Despite this terrible blow, it wasn't enough to down Magolor who flew out of the water and sent energy balls right away. But he then remarked something that made him stop his assault as his eyes became as big as saucers.

"Eehh?! Wait-wait-wait! Wait! Is it me, or is this ugly Moon over there getting bigger and bigger?"

"Don't mind it. What happens with the Moon will have no consequence on the battle. It's just part of the background of the arena, for the ambiance," Master Hand reassured.

"If you say so..." Magolor accepted before he looked back at Poo only to see that his body was now metallic. "Uh? You can turn into metal too?"

"No. There was that weird green box with an exclamation point that appeared. When I picked it up, it disappeared, and my body was metallic."

"Oh. An item that turns you into metal? I don't know from which universe this comes from, but it would be nice to have something like that on hand for the future."

At this, they resumed the battle, Magolor sending this time swirling fireballs while Poo replied with PK Freeze which Magolor avoided by entering a portal again. He reappeared right behind Poo, and this time, he had a magic barrier ready to block the sword slash. He then quickly grabbed and ate a steak that was present on the floor, the food healing him a bit, before he moved back to reach, lift and throw a yellow paper-mach ball that was surprisingly heavy. The ball landed hard on Poo but it didn't do much since he was still metallic, but then, the ball floated up a bit and made a little jingle before opening, letting out a shower of confetti as well as several items.

Out of the ball came a strawberry shortcake, an onigiri, a pineapple, a Poké Ball, a Star Rod, a green shell, and a paper fan.

Poo immediately grabbed the Poké Ball and threw it at Magolor, hitting him on the head with it before it opened and let out a Meowth that used Pay Day. While Magolor was stuck being repeatedly hit by gold coins, Poo ate the three food to heal himself, then used PK Shield to put the reapply the shield on himself, then used PK Lifeup Alpha to heal himself up a bit more, before he finally used PK Magnet to steal some energy from Magolor and replenish himself. The Meowth then disappeared, freeing Magolor from the storm of coins, and the alien quickly recovered before he sent a dragon made of fire that badly burned Poo who wasn't metallic anymore. Magolor then moved so when he fired an energy ball at the green shell, it flew right into Poo's face. The green shell wasn't as effective as it would have been however as some of the damage it caused was absorbed by Poo's PK Shield.

Poo used PK Brainshock again, but Magolor immediately put up his magic barrier to protect himself, not wanting to get confused again. Magolor then raised his hands and created a rune circle that collapsed into a black hole, and Poo was too close to react in time and think of how to avoid being sucked in. For many long seconds, the boy was stuck inside the black hole where he received heavy damage before he was violently thrown out of it to slam on the floor. An energy needle then came out from under it and sent him into the air right in front of Magolor who blasted him into the water.

Despite all this, Poo was still conscious, but barely, so after swimming back to the surface of the water, he quickly used PK Lifeup to fully heal himself. But then, Magolor used his magic to gather a huge amount of electricity before unleashing it into the water.

Then, Magolor formed a giant hammer.

Despite being electrified, Poo still was able to react and created his best PK Shield in the hope of tanking it. But no matter how powerful the shield, it didn't protect him from the knockback of the hammer when it smashed on him, propelling him deep underwater.

"Ring out! The victor is: Magolor!" Master Hand announced.

"Are all people from that Dream Universe that scarily powerful?" one of the Twilight who wasn't Sweetie's Twilight wondered.

"Nah," Sweetie Void answered. "A very large majority of the inhabitants of the Dream Universe are still what you would consider normal. It's just Magolor who is easily in the top 10 of the most powerful in the universe. Maybe in the top 5. I'm not sure. Let's see... Void is number one... Kirby is number two... Then there's Galacta Knight... No, wait, I think that Meta Knight has surpassed him. And maybe Dedede too. Uh... Does Morpho Knight count? Well, no matter what, I take back what I said, Magolor isn't in the top 5. But top 10, this, I'm sure. Not sure of his position however. I will need to check with Marx and Dark Meta Knight. And Hyness. And the Mage Sisters. And Taranza. And Gooey. And Bandanna Dee too who is getting pretty darn strong. Uh... I'm not so sure about the top 10 anymore..."

Everyone who could hear the filly could only look at her with bemused expressions.

Author's Note

I wanted to put in the next fight but I decided to cut here. It's a good place for the end of the chapter, and I'm honestly currently lacking the inspiration to end said fight. Really, I have been stuck on this fight for several days now.
Let me tell you, it's not tomorrow that I will do a full Pokémon crossover fic.

Chapter 112: Tournament Part 5

"For the next battle, we will have... EMPOLEON! Versus... ZOROARK!" Master Hand announced as the two Pokémon were selected.

"Uh. So this will be pretty much a Pokémon battle, but with items and an unconventional arena," Blue commented. "This promises to be interesting. I'm curious to see how this will go."

"A lot will depend of the arena," Dawn said.

As they talked, the arena was selected, revealing it to be some platform flying alongside the Halberd.

"The Halberd?" Sweetie Void questioned. "Now I wonder what will be the role of the ship. Will it be like with the New Donk City Hall and they will move around it to board it at different places? Or will they simply fly around and it will fire at them with its cannons? If they end up fighting the Heavy Lobster, then all bets are off."

"Or this could be none of it and the ship will just be there for the show," Phantom said.

Sweetie Void simply answered with a shrug as Dawn and Rosa entered the arena.

They appeared in the Halberd's hangar, with the battleship resting just behind them, its bow facing them. Both Dawn and Rosa actually appeared on their own small platforms floating above the floor, and after marveling at the battleship a bit, they let out Empoleon and Zoroark. Master Hand then began the countdown while an alarm began to blare, an holographic window with "WARNING" on it appearing and the domed roof opening.

"GO!"

Almost immediately, a part of the floor under the two fighters opened to let out two circular platforms, a smaller one floating above the center of a larger one. Guessing what will happen next, Empoleon and Zoroark made sure to jump down from the opening floor on them, although Empoleon used this to try to get an easy win by attempting to push Zoroark away with Hydro Pump, but Zoroark was able to avoid the attack.

The Halberd then took off, and the platforms followed it into the sky as the battleship unfolded its bat wings, finally giving everyone a very good view of the battleship. The platforms then moved aside to let the ship pass as the engines kicked in and made it fly away above Orange Ocean into the sunset, and it managed to go quite far away before they began to catch up to it.

It was at this moment that everyone, trainers and Pokémon, remembered that they were supposed to battle instead of admiring the show.

"Agility!" Rosa shouted.

"Brick Break!" Dawn shouted at the same time.

Zoroark was known as a glass cannon. It could hit hard, both in physique and in spécial, but it didn't have a lot of defense and a strong attack could easily knock it out. Zoroark was also weak to Fighting type moves, so it was out of the question for it to be hit by Brick Break. While it could certainly tank the move thanks to Empoleon not having a lot of physical attack, it would weaken it a lot.

So Zoroark played on another of its advantages: its speed. It easily jumped out of the way of the Brick Break and immediately countered with a Low Kick that made Empoleon fall over while giving it heavy damage, Empoleon being also weak to Fighting and Low Kick causing more damage the more the target is heavy (and Empoleon was heavy).

Dawn thought of what to do. She could make Empoleon use Sword Dance to increase its attack, but Zoroark certainly knew Foul Play which caused more damage the higher the target's attack was, and while Empoleon wasn't weak to Dark, this would still hurt a lot.

The platform didn't give a lot of place for Zoroark to move around, so Empoleon would probably manage to eventually hit it if she made it repeat Brick Break. Or she could use Empoleon's huge amount of Spe Attack and try to hit her foe with a Spe move, preferably one that would be hard to dodge.

Or...

"Use Night Slash!" Rosa shouted.

"Protect followed by Brick Break!" Dawn answered to that, making Rosa panic.

Empoleon surrounded itself in a green translucent shield that entirely protected it from Zoroark's Night Slash, allowing it to immediately counterattack with Brick Break which successfully hit its foe very badly on the jaw, sending Zoroark on the floor. Empoleon immediately followed with another Brick Break in hope of finishing Zoroark before it could recover, but Zoroark was able to roll out of the way, and Empoleon jumped backward to avoid another Low Kick. Zoroark then used Night Daze, but Empoleon jumped above the dark shockwave before it used Surf, creating a wave of water that it sent toward Zoroark while riding it. Zoroark easily avoided it by jumping and landing on the smaller platform before attempting another Night Daze, but Empoleon used Protect again against it.

"Attack again, Zoroark!" Rosa shouted, knowing that the more you used Protect without using other moves between each uses, the less it had a chance to work.

But Rosa wasn't the only one to know that and Empoleon used Brick Break again instead of Protect as Zoroark used Night Slash. However, instead of attacking Zoroark, Empoleon used Brick Break on the attacking claw, making the two moves clash a moment before Empoleon was able to push Zoroark back. As Zoroark landed after that, Empoleon then followed with an Ice Beam that fox-like Pokémon barely avoided by leaping before sending a Shadow Ball that Empoleon also avoided by shifting its body aside. But then, Zoroark jumped toward a barrel that had appeared and threw it toward Empoleon, the barrel rolling on the floor toward the penguin who had no problem destroying it with a Brick Break, followed by a second Brick Break with the other wing clashing with Zoroark's Night Slash as the fox had been just behind the barrel ready to attack.

Once Zoroark was pushed back again, Empoleon then grabbed a winged spiked blue shell that came out of the barrel and threw it toward its foe. Zoroark avoided the shell by ducking, but then, the shell began to fly above Zoroark's head. Both Rosa and Zoroark got a bad feeling, and Zoroark began to run and jump around to get rid of the blue shell which constantly followed it, always remaining above its head. Because it was focused on the shell, it almost didn't see the Water Pump fired at it by Empoleon by surprise anticipating its movements, and it stopped itself from moving at the last moment, letting the powerful stream of water pass before it.

But the shell chose this moment to drop on Zoroark before exploding, and it propelled Zoroark upward.

Thankfully, despite the platform moving very rapidly around the Halberd, the Pokémon continued moving alongside it despite the explosion so it didn't end up left behind to fall into the ocean.

As Zoroark fell back on the platform and quickly recovered before Empoleon could use the occasion to attack it, the platform then stopped above the deck of the Halberd, above the circular part facing the dreaded Combo Cannon, and lowered itself into it until only the smaller platform remained floating in the air above the center. This made the arena much bigger, taking the totality of the circular deck, but this also added an hazard: the Combo Cannon itself.

Barely the fighters landed that the bottom cannon began to charge a laser while the top cannon fired a big explosive cannonball on Empoleon. And the Pokémon could do nothing to it in return because it was outside of the Ring Out Barrier. So all Empoleon and Zoroark could do was to avoid the cannon's attacks while fighting each other. Empoleon had no problem avoiding the cannonball and the resulting explosion while Zoroark easily avoided the claw attacking it. Then, as the two had another clash, they quickly had to jump away to avoid the laser fired by the bottom cannon.

And then there were the items, always present. The Pokémon didn't mind them much in the action, but whenever they had the occasion, they used one. Zoroark was almost caught in the blast of a Bob-Omb, and a Red Shell caused a lot of problems to both fighters. At a moment, Zoroark even got its claws on a modified Franklin Badge that could deflect ALL projectiles instead of just electricity, allowing it to catch Empoleon off guard by deflecting a Water Pump back at it. Just before the badge disappeared, it even managed to deflect the Combo Cannon's laser. If it hadn't been for that whole "the arena is indestructible unless elements are purposely made destructible", the cannon would have been destroyed, which would have resulted in the whole deck blowing up.

"I wonder if Meta Knight did something about this since then," Sweetie Void wondered aloud at that thought. "It was kind of a big weak point of the Halberd. Destroy the Combo Cannon, and a third of the ship blows up with it, losing a huge amount of firepower by the same occasion."

Still, Pokémon duels weren't known for their longevity, and it was very rare for a duel to last more than a couple of minutes. It was already a miracle, and a show of the Pokémon's skills, that this one lasted that long. Even the two Pokémon using their Z-Move at the same time didn't end the fight.

Victory was decided during another clash between Empoleon and Zoroark respectively using Brick Break and Night Slash. Like always during these clashes, Empoleon's greater strength won out and the penguin was able to push back the fox. But this time, Empoleon made it so Zoroark was pushed right into an explosive cannonball, right above a Smart Bomb.

Needless to say, after the resulting explosion, Zoroark didn't get up.

"And the victor is: Empoleon!"

"I shouldn't have expected less from the one who defeated the Cynthia," Rosa said with a happy sigh.

"Trust me, it could have been worse. The Combo Cannon is okay compared to the Heavy Lobster. Feel lucky that you didn't face it," Sweetie Void said to Dawn and Rosa.

"The two were as bad as the other. They both almost succeeded in killing you. Especially the cannon. If it hadn't been for that Invincibility Candy..." her Rarity said.

"But once the initial surprise passed, the cannon was rather easy to destroy compared to the Lobster. And then there was the Reactor. Having to juggle avoiding the burners, the laser gun, and the pulse cannon while fighting each other would have been very difficult."

"So... That Combo Cannon was the "easy" part of this ship?" Rosa asked hesitantly.

"Yep! And again, Master Hand didn't bring in the crew. Or he could have been a jerk and brought in the Lobster with the Combo Cannon. Now this would have been too much. Or heck, Meta Knight could have come out of the bridge to attack you."

All the ponies from Sweetie Void's universe flinched at that. Even if this had been the Meta Knight from back then, this would have resulted in a slaughter.

Meanwhile, Master Hand selected the fighters and the arena for the next battle.

"DONKEY KONG! Versus... PIKACHU!" he announced.

Well, now that was one match up where nobody was sure how this will end. Pikachu was very fast while Donkey Kong was extremely strong.

Speed versus strength.

Of course, some could already say that Donkey Kong won't be able to hit Pikachu which will result in his lost, but Donkey Kong wasn't just strong. He was also resourceful. When he couldn't punch someone right away, he always found a way.

As for the arena...

It turned out to be the Egg Fortress, the fortress into which the Badlands was turned into by Past Eggman when he invaded Phantom's Equestria, with the Egg Tower easily identified in the background. And it seemed to be in the middle of a huge battle.

When DK and Red with his Pikachu entered the arena, it turned out that they were actually on some robotic platform flying above the fortress, giving them a very good view of it and of how huge it actually was. The platform itself was composed of nice squares currently forming a bigger one, but it wasn't hard to guess that these squares will be able to move independently to change the layout of the arena while they will obviously fly around the fortress. Again, Red was on a platform of his own while Pikachu jumped on the main one. Observant people remarked that it was now equipped with a small bracelet with a Z-Crystal.

"Uh. I shouldn't be surprised that he can use Z-Moves too, but why didn't he use one when he fought me?" Sweetie Void wondered.

"He probably didn't think that it would be needed. In most cases, after all, Mega Mewtwo is more than enough," Blue answered.

"GO!"

Pikachu immediately started with its usual tactic of running and zip zapping around with Agility and Quick Attack while regularly attacking with Thunderbolt and Iron Tail. Mostly Thunderbolt this time. Pikachu didn't dare getting too close in risk of getting punched. It had no doubt that it would hurt a lot, like being punched by a Machamp.

However, DK easily tanked the electricity and didn't even attempt to punch the mouse. Instead, he glared around, trying to follow Pikachu with his eyes, before he began to repeatedly slap the floor, causing vibrations that made the whole platform violently shake. This destabilized Pikachu who lost its balance and fell down, opening it to the ape who immediately closed the distance with a bounce, fist ready.

This would have been the end of the fight right then and there if it hadn't been for the arena. The squares began to move up or down, and the one Pikachu was on was among the last ones. As a result, DK's punch passed just a few millimeters above Pikachu's head. But DK didn't let this upset him and instead put his fists beside each other and attempted to smash Pikachu who barely jumped out of the way onto another square in time, the fists instead violently hitting the platform and making it shake. Pikachu then immediately decided to play it safer by putting up a Reflect.

By now, the nine squares were separated and floated at various heights, and they then proceeded to move away form each others, reorganising themselves, while the arena itself moved down toward the fortress. They finally stopped above the triangular roof of some storage building, and the squares formed three groups of three platforms, one above the tip of the roof and two at the sides, all three parallel to the length of the building. The two platforms at the sides were also moving back and forth alongside the building while the one above the roof was moving left and right.

Pikachu used this new layout to his advantage by jumping from platform to platform (including the roof) while attacking, making sure to not remain on the same platform than Donkey Kong in case he decided to repeat what he did earlier.

DK, however, starting to feel the effects of all that electricity, moved toward a crate and destroyed it with a punch, revealing a green shell, a beam sword, and a ray gun. The ape took the shell, then took a position like a pitcher in a baseball game, made sure to keep following Pikachu with his eyes as the mouse continued to jump around, and then threw the shell like a cannonball. He perfectly anticipated Pikachu mid-jump and the shell hit the mouse right in the face, making it spin in the air before it crashed on the roof.

Miraculously, this didn't knock Pikachu out, and it immediately moved to get up with some difficulty before it jumped out of the way as DK attempted to smash it again, then quickly used Grass Knot to make DK trip at the ape charged at it again

Red frowned. It seemed like he had no choice. Making sure that Pikachu could see him, he gave it a silent nod as he showed his Z-Ring. Understanding, Pikachu began to run toward Red, but the arena choose this moment to change its layout again as the squares separated and the arena began to move away from the roof. Both Pikachu and DK made sure to jump on one of the squares to not be left behind.

It wasn't long before they stopped on two Eggman airships side by side with the squares forming a bridge between the two ships. To add more difficulty, there were various kinds of flying robots around, especially Buzz Bombers, the wasp-like ones, and some of them began to attack the two fighters who had no difficulty destroying them (even if DK had to wait for them to get close enough so he could reach them with a jump before smashing them).

Once it had the clear while DK was busy destroying a last Buzz Bomber, Pikachu ran toward Red whose platform was just beside one of the airships and jumped so Red could put his cap on its head before Pikachu gave him a fist bump followed by a "high five" with its tail, causing energy to start to accumulate, before Pikachu landed back on the airship and the two of them pumped their fist forward. With this, Pikachu was ready to unleash its Z-Move while it saw DK approaching.

"Now, Pikachu! 10 000 000 Volt Thunderbolt!" Red yelled.

Readying itself, Pikachu suddenly jumped very high just before DK could punch it, and the sky was suddenly covered by a powerful thunderstorm. Pikachu then gathered all the electricity inside its body before unleashing with the Z-Power into seven lightning bolts in the colors of the rainbow.

DK could only look in panic and horror at the approaching bolts before he braced himself and the bolts hit him in an explosion of electricity that would have certainly destroyed the airship he was on in a normal situation.

Pikachu remained on guard however as it landed, Red's cap still on its head. And it did right because a now very blackened DK jumped out of the smoke left by the explosion. However, as it jumped away, DK was able to catch it by the tail before he tossed the Pokémon into the air. Touching Pikachu caused its Ability Static to take effect, paralysing DK, but the ape was now in some kind of berserk mode where he brushed off the electricity, and then brushed off the Thunder that Pikachu quickly unleashed while it dropped back, before he performed a long series of punches that were so fast that they could barely be followed by the naked eyes, all of them hitting Pikachu all over its body like small meteors. One final powerful uppercut then sent Pikachu flying into the sky until it was a twinkling star.

DK then finally fainted, his body giving out.

"Ring Out! The victor is: Donkey Kong!"

Author's Note

I discovered just before finishing this chapter that I made a big error when I made Volta a Speaky-Eared Pichu. Yeah, at the time, I didn't understand The Kelduo's comment about the Pichu and Celebi because I didn't know that the two were related. I just thought that the SE Pichu was just a nice alternative skin, but then I finally found out that it wasn't just that. Because of some timey wimey stuff with Celebi, a Pichu physically changed to become the SE Pichu, leading to it losing its ability to evolve into a Pikachu. And obviously, in my story, this is not something that has happened to Volta, and I made her evolve in the middle of the F-Zero arc. So I will have to correct this and turn Volta into a normal Pichu (or a shiny one, I'm not yet decided).

Chapter 114: Tournament Part 7: Fateful Rivals

"Is it me or kids in this tournament are all ridiculously OP?" Samus questioned.

Tails rose a hand. "I'm a kid, and I lost."

"Your OP is in your genius. You aren't even a teen yet and look at everything you invented and built," Phantom reminded.

"I agree. If you could have brought the Cyclone, Incineroar wouldn't have stood a chance," Sonic said.

Tails laughed. "I wouldn't go that far. Incineroar is very strong. It would probably still put up a great fight against the Cyclone."

Sonic raised an eyebrow. "One shot from your Power Laser would probably be enough to defeat it, and if not, then a few of your homing missiles should finish the job. The fight wouldn't last more than a few seconds."

"The Power Laser?" Dawn questioned.

"A huge multicolored and extremely powerful laser that would put your Hyper Beam and Solar Beam to shame," Sonic simply explained.

Not far, Elio gulped.

Meanwhile, Diddy Kong was sitting on his own. You could almost feel the aura of depression coming out of him as he muttered about "crazy kids with crazy powers" and "not even getting to fight."

"And with this ends the first round of the tournament!" Master Hand exclaimed. "If everyone feels like it, we can proceed to round two! If you start to get hungry..." He snapped his fingers, making a huge table full of food appear. "Here are some snacks. And if anyone needs a restroom break, then do so now."

A few people did need to go, so Master Hand decided to wait a few minutes.

Once everyone was back, he continued. "Now let's start the second round! Here are the fights!" He showed a board with the bracket of the tournament, showing who participated, who lost their fights, and who was fighting who in the second round. "The first fight will oppose MARIO against SONIC! Now let's select the arena!"

He punched the red button, and the selected arena eventually revealed to be none other than the Fountain of Dreams, albeit not exactly like Sweetie Void remembered. The real fountain was on the surface of Rainbow Resort while this one was on a circular structure elevated in the sky of the resort. Both had in common that its water was pouring down from it to form a small pond around, but since this one was on an elevated structure, the water was also pouring down from the structure like waterfalls before becoming mist. On the structure were also some of the decorations that were behind the fountain, lika a big tree with multicolored leaves, two small tower structures, and several stars of all colors. These decorations were on a part of the structure that wasn't immersed, slightly above the rest, letting some grass being seen.

Truthfully, Sweetie thought that this made the Fountain of Dreams look even more beautiful than the original. Heck, the circular structure looked like it was part of the fountain itself. Speaking of, while this fountain was obviously working, it didn't have a Star Rod on it. Considering that the Star Rod was an item that the fighters could use to fight, that was understandable.

Like in some previous arenas, three platforms were present in a triangular layout. The difference here was that the two bottom platforms were supported on streams of water shouting up from the structure's surface.

Just looking at this Fountain of Dreams made Sweetie Void reminisce a lot of memories that made her smile in nostalgia, and as Mario and Sonic entered the arena, she couldn't stop herself from wrapping a hoof around Kirby who was just beside her to hug him. She then sent a glare at her Rarity who was looking away too innocently while clearly holding back a giggle while using a hoof to hide her mouth.

Meanwhile, while everyone was focused on the future battle, Poo took Ness elsewhere.

On the arena, Sonic looked around. "Not a lot of place to run this time, but this will do," he said before he began to stretch his legs.

"GO!" Master Hand shouted, starting the battle.

Sonic immediately started the fight by running circles around Mario, too fast for the plumber to follow. The hedgehog then punched Mario from behind, and by the time the plumber reacted and punched in return, Sonic already attacked again from the opposite side. Before he knew it, Mario was subjected to a storm of punches from all sides and he couldn't land a single blow in return. Sonic was just too fast.

So, instead, Mario took his hammer and spun rapidly, and the weapon successfully hit Sonic on the cheek, sending him flying a few meters away. After a few rolls, Sonic was able to recover with a bounce before he stared at Mario with a cheeky grin.

"Not bad! Seems like it won't be as easy as I thought it would be."

Mario took the compliment. "Hehe. I have a lot of experience."

"Well, me too."

At this, Sonic did a Homing Attack that Mario pushed back with a swing of his hammer. Sonic then ran around a bit before doing another Homing Attack that also failed, and another, and another, then another from one of the platforms, and then charged a Spin Dash that Mario avoided with a jump. Sonic did a U-turn for another but, this time, Mario countered him by spinning with his hammer again, the hammer clashing with the hedgehog for a few seconds before they moved away from each other. Mario didn't give Sonic time to breathe however as he immediately jumped toward him to smash him with his hammer, but Sonic easily dodged him with a jump followed by a Homing Attack that Mario blocked with a swing of his weapon again.

Sonic landed right beside a Bob-Omb that he threw at Mario right away, once for Mario to send the bomb back at Sonic with another swing of the hammer, taking the hedgehog by surprise but not long enough as he was able to run away before the bomb could hit him. Mario then suddenly ducked, causing Sonic to punch the air much to his shock before Mario finally got him with a jumping uppercut that sent the hedgehog high. Mario then jumped after him to follow on his attack only for Sonic to do a Homing Attack from the air that hit the plumber on the head, sending him crashing near the edge of the arena. Mario quickly recovered with a bounce and immediately stopped another Homing Attack with his hammer.

Mario then moved away from the edge of the arena while blocking more Homing Attacks, but he was then taken by surprise as Sonic ran toward him again only to trip him with a slide kick, and Sonic used the opening to hit Mario with yet another Homing Attack only, this time, he remained on Mario's back to do a Spin Dash on him.

Everyone winced.

"If it wasn't for Master Hand's special dimension, Mario's back would have been shredded," one of the Twilight said.

"Still must hurt like hell," Samus replied.

Mario slowly got up with difficulty once Sonic moved away from his back which now felt like it was burning.

"Still want to continue?" Sonic asked.

Mario wordlessly answered by readying his hammer.

At this, Sonic ran toward Mario, ducked to avoid a swing of the hammer, and punched the plumber hard in the gut only to be punched himself before Mario grabbed him by the arm, spun, and threw him toward the edge of the arena. Sonic quickly recovered mid-air and used a Homing Attack to land back on ground before he could fly beyond to fall off. But when he looked back toward Mario, he panicked upon seeing a crate on wheels roll right toward him and he barely got out of the way. He failed to see Mario riding the crate however who violently bonked him on the head with his hammer as a result.

Mario was then about to do another attempt at throwing Sonic beyond the edge of the arena only for Sonic to curl into a ball and to ram Mario with a Spin Dash, pushing him back until he crashed against one of the decorative trees behind the Fountain of Dreams with Sonic still Spin Dashing against his belly. Resisting the urge to yell in pain, Mario grabbed Sonic at the sides, resisted the pain as they were getting injured like his belly and his back earlier, and threw the hedgehog upward. Then, he jumped, readied the hammer, and smashed down the Sonic ball who strongly bounced off the ground, splashing a lot of water in all directions, before he landed on his legs and fell on a knee.

"Oof... You must be a killer at volleyball... Even if using a hammer would be cheating."

Mario shrugged. "It depends. Not long ago, we played soccer while throwing shells, bombs, and banana peels at each others. Hammers were accepted, and the Hammer Bros had a field day using them to plant everyone into the ground, even the goalkeepers."

Sonic raised a finger, then lowered it. "You know what, this sounds like fun. Too bad I'm not allowed in any soccer team. Or in any sport that asks you to run in general."

He then saw something appear on the top platform and, recognising a piece of the Dragoon, jumped on one of the lower platforms (the only one remaining as the other one had disappeared into the water, the stream keeping it up having stopped) to reach and grab it.

Sonic looked at the Dragoon piece (the wings) in his hand before he looked at nothing and shouted, "Hey, uh, Master Hand! Isn't there a less cumbersome way to transport these things? Not everybody can levitate them around like Sweetie Void!"

"That's a good point. There." The Dragoon piece disappeared in a flash. "You still have it, but it's now transported in a pocket dimension. If you collect the other pieces, then they will join it in this pocket dimension. If you collect the three, then they will reappear and form the Dragoon like normal. There's a catch now however: if you are hit, then there's a chance for one of the pieces you possess to drop out of the pocket dimension. The stronger the hit, the higher the chance."

"That's fair. Thanks," Sonic said before he jumped down from the platform to face Mario again. "Time to resume our brawl... Uh?" To his surprise, Mario, who was now beside the fountain, was finishing eating a banana which healed him a bit, at least making the pain from the injuries caused by the Spin Dash to be more bearable. "Oh, come on! That, however, is NOT fair!"

Mario rose an eyebrow. "You healed yourself like that in your fight against Phantom. Also, it's totally fair. Healing items are part of the fight. Deal with it."

Sonic groaned. "No matter! I'm still gonna win!"

At this, Sonic resumed running in circles around Mario - and around the fountain by the same occasion - only for Mario to throw the banana peel on Sonic's path. Sonic ended up running right on it and slid until crashing against the same tree that Mario crashed into earlier. Mario then quickly pinned him against the tree before he could recover his senses and repeatedly punched him on the face. Eventually, the Dragoon piece dropped from Sonic and Mario grabbed it right away. This opened Mario to Sonic however who was able to headbutt him, making the plumber lose his grip and allowing Sonic to gain the upper hand by grabbing Mario and pinning him against the tree to give him a taste of his medicine. Mario, too, ended up dropping the Dragoon piece which Sonic grabbed only to be tackled by Mario. The two rolled a bit in the water before Mario got up and threw Sonic headfirst at the fountain, but Sonic was able to curl into a ball to harmlessly bounce off its edge.

Sonic landed right beside a headgear with bunny ears. He didn't know what it would do but refused categorically to wear it, so he left it where it was and returned fighting Mario while looking around to see if a second piece of the Dragoon had appeared. One did appear, but Mario saw it first and was already about to grab it, but Sonic stopped him and the two began to fight over it.

"Sonic doesn't know what he's missing by not taking the Bunny Hood," Link said.

"That was one of the masks you gave to one of the masked children in the Moon, right," Sweetie Void remembered, recognising the headgear. "What does it do when you wear it?"

"It increases your speed."

"So, Sonic would be even faster than he is now? Is it even possible?" Tails wondered.

Phantom snorted. "I don't think that I want to find out. He could end up breaking the light barrier, and I'm not sure of what would be the consequences."

Sweetie Void then remarked that her Pinkie Pie was deep in thought. "What is in your mind, Pinkie?"

"Oh, I was just thinking of who would win a race between Sonic and someone riding the Dragoon?"

"That's a good question," Applejack said.

"The Dragoon would have an unfair advantage. It can fly," Magolor reminded.

"It never bothered Sonic," Tails said with a shrug.

Mario avoided a diagonal flying kick from Sonic who jumped from a higher platform and counterattacked with his hammer only to be burned by a stream of fire sent from a Fire Flower. Mario quickly got away.

"This is not how you use a Fire Flower!" he shouted.

"This is how you use them here!" Sonic countered smugly before he chased Mario to continue to burn him.

Because of the fire, Mario dropped the second Dragoon piece, the tail, which Sonic immediately grabbed before jumping away to avoid a Poké Ball thrown by Mario. Out of the Poké Ball came an Electrode which was starting to use Explosion. Sonic got the idea of kicking the Electrode to send it toward Mario who used his hammer to send it into the sky where it exploded. Another swing of the hammer pushed back a Homing Attack. Mario then ran toward Sonic who used the Fire Flower again, but to Sonic's surprise, Mario ran through the fire, not minding the burn, and clobbered him on the head with his hammer. On the floor, despite seeing stars, Sonic used the Spin Dash to splash water on Mario, forcing him to protect his eyes and opening him to Sonic Spin Dashing into him. This time, Mario ended up crashing on a giant decorative purple star, and for the second time, he was badly injured by the Spin Dash on his belly. But this time, instead of throwing Sonic in the air, he used his hammer to crush him against the floor. This one hit made Sonic drop his two Dragoon pieces which Mario took before he moved toward the third piece that he spotted on a lower platform earlier. Before Sonic could recover, Mario was able to grab the piece, thus forming the Dragoon. In less time than it takes to say it, Mario was just a twinkle star far away in the sky.

Seeing that Mario got away with the Dragoon, Sonic began to charge another Spin Dash. When the Dragoon returned, Sonic charged right toward it.

Everything happened so fast that most of the spectators wasn't able to follow.

At the VERY last moment, just before the Dragoon would hit him, Sonic, still rolling Spin Dashing, jumped and rammed Mario, unseating him. The Dragoon continued without its pilot, piercing its way through the elements of decoration behind the fountain before disappearing into the sky.

Mario and Sonic fell off the arena, but Sonic then was able to use the now unconscious Mario to bounce his way back on ground where he stood up proudly and gave a thumb up.

"The victor is: Sonic!" Master Hand announced.

"And that's a victory for Sonic the Hedgehog!" Sonic shouted.

But right after that, he fell on his knees, also barely clinging to consciousness as he was still seeing stars from Mario's last hits.

"Ugh... Okay. He still got me good... Wasn't as easy as I thought it would be."

Once both Mario and Sonic were back with the others and were healed, the two shook hands.

"That was a good fight. Very close. If you want to have another round, I would be more than happy to have it," Sonic said.

Mario nodded.

"Time to start the next battle! Link versus Greninja! You two prepare yourself while I select the arena!"

Quickly enough, the arena was selected: the Unova Pokemon League. There were however some differences from the real Unova League.

For starting, it was scaled down, like Peach's castle. The battle seemed to happen at the League's main hall as the towers housing the Elite 4 members surrounded the arena, but the floor of the hall itself was squared instead of being circular, and there was a large platform slightly down in front of it, with two smaller platforms sticking off the two front towers under their windows. No entrances to the towers however, and no statue at the center either. Said statue was supposed to be part of an elevator that activated only when you defeated the Elite 4 and would lead you down to the staircase to the building housing the Champion. But there, the staircase was directly accessible in the background. And most of all, the whole structure was at the top of a mountain with a dark pit surrounding it and no path leading to it. There were also two more tower, one at both sides of the structure, both tilted. It was also very dark, the sky covered by storm clouds. For some reason part of the ground and part of the base of the two front towers were damaged so there were rubbles littering the main platform.

"Ooh! And I think that I know what awaits you in this arena," Hilbert said with a big grin.

"What? You mean N's c-" Rosa began only to be silenced by Hilbert covering her mouth with a hand.

"GO!"

Link fired an ice arrow right away that Greninja easily avoided with a high jump before the Pokémon countered mid-air with a Water Shuriken that Link blocked with his shield.

Calem quickly though of how to get pass this shield and only saw one solution. "Forget attacking from a distance. Go close to attack. Just, watch out for his weapon," he instructed.

Greninja nodded, prepared Night Slash, and charged toward Link who readied his shield and his sword. Greninja's attack ended up blocked and it quickly moved around Link to avoid his sword before it attempted another Night Slash from behind only to receive a back kick that sent it backward a few steps before Link slashed it with his sword. Greninja jumped away before Link had time to land another hit.

Before Greninja could resume its assault, everything suddenly shook, and to the two fighters' shock, a huge baroque-style castle rose out of the ground around the League. It was so huge that it was about two times taller than the League (including the mountain), and its two wings surrounded the League all the way to the left and the right (passing by behind). Actually, the castle was constituted of seven sections (or towers) put side by side to form a whole building

"Wha-How did a castle come out of the ground like that?!" one of the Twilight Sparkle questioned.

"Especially such a huge one!" Diddy Kong added.

"One word: Pokémon," Hilbert answered.

N nodded. "Especially Ground-types and Rock-types," he clarified. "Team Plasma, with the help of a very big number of Pokémon, spent years digging the chamber underground and building the castle in it. They started even before Ghetsis found me. And when it was the moment, when I defeated Alder, a combination of preparation in advances, of Pokémon, and of ingenious mechanisms made the castle rise out. The perfect entrance for the start of Team Plasma's rule according to Ghetsis."

Captain Falcon whistled. "Ghetsis was one hell of a drama queen, uh?"

N answered with a laugh and a nod. "And also a very patient man. He did make a plan to rule over everything that took decades to come into fruition."

"Only to fail at the very last moment because of a meddlesome kid. No wonder he went insane," Hilbert finished with amusement.

Rosa snorted. "He raised a kid with the intention to assassinate him. He was insane well before that."

"Point. I just made it worse."

Everything stopped shaking when the castle fully rose only for several staircases to come out of it to plant themselves into the League and the mountain, all over it. Of all the staircases, only two were accessible to the fighters, one at both sides of the main platform in front of the League's main hall. This will allow more space to fight, but the stairs were rather narrow so it would be easy to be pushed aside to fall.

But it wasn't all as Reshiram flew in and landed in the middle of the square floor of the main hall before unleashing fire toward the two fighters, spreading over most of the main platform and even on the smaller ones against the towers. While fire wasn't effective against Greninja, this was still the fire from a Legendary so it quickly moved away from the fire and countered with a Rock Tomb which managed to trap Reshiram for a couple of seconds before it freed itself. Link, however, quickly put the Goron Mask, turning himself into a Goron that allowed him to tank the fire without receiving much damage.

While Reshiram freed itself from the Rock Tomb, Link then curled into a ball and rolled toward Greninja who barely saw him coming as it was still focused on Reshiram. Still, it was able to avoid Link with a jump and countered with Hydro Pump but missed its mark as Link suddenly accelerated while still rolling, going on the left staircase. Link then stopped stoop up, turned around to face Greninja. Thinking that the boy was about to do another attempt at ramming it, Greninja jumped on the left smaller platform, Reshiram's fire having disappeared by now.

But contrary to its expectations, Link actually took off the Goron Mast and instead put the Zora Mask. Now a Zora, he then put his arms together and sent his two arm-fins toward Greninja, the two fins acting like homing boomerangs. Again, Greninja avoided them and attacked with Extrasensory. Link leaped down from the stairs to avoid the multicolored beam and ran toward Greninja's platform, arm-fin ready (once it returned). Seeing this, Greninja readied Night Slash. Link then jumped to reach the platform. However, mid-air, he activated an electrical barrier that entirely surrounded him. Greninja hadn't been expecting something like that so it ended up electrified by the barrier before Link repeatedly slashed it with his arm-fins. He was eventually stopped by Greninja Licking him.

At this moment, Reshiram flew from its position and hovered above the two fighters. It opened its mouth and gathered energy into it. Seeing this, Calem warned Greninja who immediately used Smokescreen, hiding both itself and Link. Reshiram then unleashed its Blue Flare, breathing a huge stream of blue fire toward the fighters' last seen position. Link, still in Zora form, ran out of the smoke and Reshiram turned its head to make the Blue Flare follow him, leaving a trail of fire behind. As for Greninja, once the smoke disappeared, it simply seemed to be gone. However, a keen eye would be able to spot the Pokémon hiding in the shadow inside the left tower, in the window above the left platform.

While running, Link sent his arm-fins toward Reshiram and was able to hit it with them, making it stop its attack. Link followed this with a Smart Bomb that he grabbed a few seconds earlier while running, the resulting huge explosion blowing Reshiram away a bit. He then jumped on the right platform and used it to reach the top of the right tower where he quickly took a fish skeleton-like guitar seemingly coming out of nowhere.

Just as Reshiram recovered from the explosion and returned, Link then began to intensely play the Song of Storms.

The sky was already covered by storm clouds, so it didn't take long before it began to rain, starting as a simple downpour before it intensified until it was a real curtain of water droplets that hit the whole arena. Wind also picked up, getting stronger and stronger.

Calem had to hold his hat as he wondered, "What is he doing? The rain will only make Greninja's water attacks stronger. At least, Reshiram's fire attacks will be less problematic. Greninja! Attack him with Water Shuriken while he's busy!"

With an agreeing shout, Greninja came out of the left tower and prepared a Water Shuriken.

But then, lightning struck the top of the left tower, making Greninja lose his focus on the attack as it couldn't stop itself from bouncing in fright.

As Link's song gained more intensity, more and more lightning struck all over the arena, the castle in the background, and even Reshiram itself, stopping it from Using Blue Flare again. Electricity wasn't effective against the Pokémon but being hit by it still had some effects. Meanwhile, Greninja took cover under the left platform to not be hit by one even if it was very unlikely as lightning mostly targeted the more elevated objects like the towers... or Reshiram. Reshiram understood this and decided to land beside the right tower to directly face Link and make him stop his song.

Link did stop the song before he jumped high in the air and reactivated his electric barrier. Lightning struck him, or more exactly, the barrier, overcharging it and making it send electricity everywhere. Even with its resistance, Reshiram was badly electrified before Link fell on it and slashed its eyes with his arm-fins, making it start to erratically move its head in pain as it was blinded. It even used Hyper Voice, but Link resisted the pain and the urge to put his hands on his ears.

Greninja, having used Double Team so it looked like there were two Greninja, suddenly climbed on Reshiram and attacked Link from opposite sides with Night Slash. Not knowing which one was the real one, Link instead jumped high in the air again before he sent his arm-fins, each targeting a different Greninja. Both Greninja avoided the projectiles however and moved on Reshira's back. Then, it used Hydro Pump in the hope of propelling Link beyond the top surface of the Ring Out Barrier. There was the risk that Link would use his electric barrier which would cause electricity to spread in the stream of water to electrify Greninja, but the frog should be able to resist the electricity long enough to win by ring out.

That was exactly what happened as Link activated his electric barrier again. However, instead of being propelled away by the stream of water, Link was able to swim in it, and not only he resisted the stream, but he was also able to swim upstream despite its power! Before Greninja could recover from its shock (in all senses of the word), Link reached it and hit it with a cross-slash with the arm-fins.

Despite the bad hit, Greninja was still standing and immediately kicked Link away from Reshiram's back before it used Extrasensory, successfully hitting the boy with the psychic beam. Reshiram then turned around, using its hearing sense to determine Link's position before it prepared, this time, a Dragon Pulse that Link was able to avoid this time with a roll. He wasn't able to avoid the blast as the attack hit the ground which blew him toward the right staircase.

Groaning, Link took off the Zora Mask as he got up. He then looked back at Reshiram as the Legendary still pinpointed where he crashed and began another Dragon Pulse while Greninja was standing on its head and used Rock Tomb to trap him. Despite the rocks now restricting his movements, Link was still able to use his shield and he promptly used it to reflect the Dragon Pulse, not at Reshiram, but at Greninja, the attack sending it all the way to crash on the opposite staircase. Reshiram was also injured on the head by the attack exploding just above it when it impacted the frog, but it still sent a third Dragon Pulse, taking time to charge it this time to make it more powerful. But this didn't matter for the Mirror Shield which still reflected it to hit Reshiram right on its head, sending the dragon to crash on its back.

Link put on the Goron Mask again, the Goron form's strength allowing him to free himself from the rocks. He was even able to grab one of the rocks and he threw it with all his Goron strength at Reshiram, hitting it on the head again just as it was rising from its position on the ground. Link then grabbed another rock, and seeing this, Reshiram decided that it had enough and began to fly away.

Only to be struck by lightning, the storm that Link called earlier still fully raging.

This last bolt was finally too much for Reshiram who fell from the sky and crashed on the left staircase, destroying it before the Pokémon disappeared into the abyss.

Link, however, was suddenly slashed by Greninja using a beam sword. Despite the Goron's hard skin, the beam sword still managed to hurt him a lot, and Greninja immediately used the opportunity that Link's guard was lowered to follow it with a Water Pulse that pushed him back almost to the Ring Out Barrier behind him. Link eventually recovered enough that he was able to curl into a ball and to fight the stream by rolling. At first, there was a standoff, but after a few seconds, spikes appeared all over Link's body and he suddenly gained speed and power, allowing him to push against the stream and to advance toward Greninja who jumped away.

But then, Link stopped right beside a hammer, seized it, and threw it at Greninja while it was still in the air, the hammer hitting its mark. Greninja fell on the right staircase but still started to get up again, albeit weakly.

Only for Link to jump toward it before slamming on it with his fists with such force that he destroyed the staircase. Both Link and Greninja fell with the fragments, the Pokémon clinging to consciousness, not wanting to give up. But Link then took off the Goron Mask and put on the Deku Mask, allowing him to use two flowers like propellers to slow his fall.

In its state, Greninja could do nothing to stop its fall however.

"Ring Out! The victor is: Link!

Author's Note

I really wanted to find an intense guitar cover (not made with an electric guitar) to convey the moment when Link plays the Song of Storm, but I could only find versions with the more normal rhythm. It shouldn't be difficult to find fast-passed versions with the guitar but, apparently, nobody thought to do one (again, with a normal guitar, not with an electric one. Zora Link uses a normal guitar).

Chapter 115: Tournament Part 8: Child's Play

"Your Pokémon fought well but, uh, why didn't you use your Z-move? You probably would have won," Blue asked to Calem.

The Champion from Kalos looked depressed as he answered, "I don't have one. I haven't gone to Alola yet."

"Ah..."

"I'm not sure this would have worked anyway," Samus put in. "Remember that Link resisted Krystal's ultimate attack easily. That kid just has a crazy endurance. He would have probably gotten up and put his last mask, and Greninja wouldn't have stood a chance."

"So, next is Fox against Apple Death, right?" Falco then remembered. "Ok, I'm betting on Apple Death."

"Shouldn't you root for your boss?" Fox questioned.

"I would root for you if I knew that you would even have an ounce of a chance against her."

"Sorry Fox, but I must agree with Falco," Slippy said.

"You could at least do it just by principle and consideration for your teammate..." Fox almost whined, looking miserable.

Taking pity for Fox, Krystal said, "Don't worry. I will cheer for you."

"Me too," Peppy said. "Even if we have no illusion of what the outcome of this fight will be."

Fox let out a deep sigh.

The selected arena ended up being one happening on Yoshi's Island. It was essentially one big, round, curved platform on top of a grassy hill with a smaller platform (about half the bigger's size and rectangular) floating above the center.

Fox and Apple Death were standing at opposite sides, ready and waiting for Master Hand's signal.

Fox was already visibly sweating. In his mind, he was trying to come up with a plan to deal with the filly based on what he knew of her, but nothing he thought of worked.

"GO!"

Fox immediately grabbed his blaster and fired at Apple Death. The filly turned herself into her ghost form and materialised a bone before she used it to deflect the beams with well-timed swings. While she did this, she raised her other foreleg and sent out from it several balls of purplish fire that went up before they homed in toward Fox from above. Fox tried to avoid them with a roll, but it only allowed him to avoid being hit directly by the first one only to be caught in the following explosion as it hit the floor. Then the second ball crashed on him, followed by the others.

However, Fox ran out of the smoke caused by the explosion, much to Apple Death's surprise who didn't expect Fox to still be conscious after that. He clearly was badly injured and burned, and yet the fox closed the distance in the blink of an eye and, before Apple Death could react, punched her on the skull. He then followed it with a spinning double kick, and then by a storm of very fast kicks all over Apple Death's body, not letting her time to even breathe (even if she didn't breathe in this form).

But eventually, Apple Death sunk into the ground, morphing into a shadow, and immediately came out of it to headbutt Fox in the gut. She then blasted Fox away with powerful eye beams, making him crash into a passing Fly Guy (a Shy Guy flying thanks to a propelled sticking out of their head) which dropped a watermelon they had been transporting. Fox bounced off the Fly Guy, allowing him to land back on the arena on a knee.

He quickly looked back toward Apple Death's position only to discover that she was gone.

Then Apple Death brained him with the watermelon, half of the fruit breaking open so Fox's head ended up inside the remaining half with watermelon flesh, seeds, and juice dripping all over him. As Fox dropped on the ground with a concussion, Apple Death then began to hum while she searched him until she found a grenade that she activated. She then gently placed the grenade in the collar of the grunting and slowly recovering Fox's jacket before she floated away.

BOOM!

"KO! The Victor is: Apple Death!"

"Told you so," a smug Falco said to a groaning Fox.

"I didn't take you for the kind who walks away from explosions like a badass. It would be more my thing," Scootabot said to Apple Death.

Her friend laughed. "Ah wanted ta try ta see how it felt, for once."

"Your turn, Lulla," Sweetie Void said to her Pokémon who seemed to be on the brink of hyperventilating. "You can give up the fight, you know?"

Lulla stared at Kirby and steeled herself. "No. I will do it. Maybe, with some luck..."

It was another arena with a platform moving from place to place, this time on one of the tracks of Mute City. One the fillies didn't get to see previously.

The platform, however, was smaller than usual and had a more hexagonal-oval shape, and when the fighters arrived, it was already moving toward the starting/finish line of the track.

"GO!"

Immediately as Master Hand signaled the start of the fight and the platform arrived before the line and slowly lowered itself to let them on the track, Lulla closed her eyes and opened her mouth to start to Sing. She wasn't sure if Kirby could cover his ears, or if he even had ears to cover, so she had hopes (small hopes...) to get him this way even if he already knew about her Singing.

"POOOOOOOOOYY!!!!!"

Before she could even let out a syllable, Lulla's own ears were attacked by a deafening yell amplified by a mike right in front of her. The sound knocked her right on her back, her poor ears were now totally useless, and her body was locked in a state of total shock so she wasn't moving even one inch.

Kirby, who had just used the Mike Ability - so he was now holding a mike and was wearing a headphone - saw that Lulla won't move anytime soon and dragged her away from where the platform would reappear. A few seconds later, the platform returned, rising out of the floor with Kirby on it, and moved away along the track, leaving behind Lulla.

"Ring Out! The Victor is: Kirby!"

Master Hand sighed. "Here I am, putting a lot of thought into these arenas, and you guys don't even give time for them to show everything they have... In this one, machines were racing on the track and would regularly appear in the middle of the fight so they could ram into the fighters. You could have even destroyed them with powerful enough attacks and items. And in the previous one, seasons were supposed to change and Blarggwich would have randomly appeared around the arena to serve as extra platforms. And I guess that I should tell you that Zekrom could have also appeared in the Unova League arena instead of Reshiram, or even a Whimsicott, a Milotic, or a Shaymin. These last three ones wouldn't have been hostile however."

"Well, how about this: once a fight in a new arena ends, give us something that shows or explains all the details of said arena that we couldn't see," Magolor proposed.

Master Hand thought about this for a few seconds before he snapped his fingers and materialized a table with paper on it. With a simple look, everyone could see that they entirely described the arenas, one by paper (or group of paper for the ones which took more to be described). Many began to read them.

"Oh! So the Egg Tower would have eventually fired at Donkey Kong and Pikachu?"

"Man. Now I wish we could have seen Area 6. It would have been epic."

"Wait. Vehicles could have crashed into us in the Onett arena?"

"The seasons would have just been for show? Well, I guess that not everything needs to have an impact on the fight. At least, it would have been pretty."

Meanwhile, Sweetie Void remained beside Lulla (whose ears were thankfully healed). "It was very brave of you to do the fight even if you knew that you didn't stand a chance."

"T-thanks..." Lulla actually really thought that she stood at least one small chance but she decided to not say it.

Sweetie Void mentally chuckled. You can be so mean, Writer. Still not forgiving you for what you pulled off and will certainly pull off.

"Alright! Alright everyone! Time for the next battle! Decidueye versus Sweetie Void! Arena!"

After a press of the red button, the selected arena revealed to be a large circular platform that seemed to be part of a temple. And judging by the statues all over the roof and the wall of the temple in the background, it was a Chozo temple.

The platform had twelve large totems arranged concentrically six by six. All of them had a socle on their side, facing the center of the two circles. A different-looking totem, looking more like a carved pillar separating into four feet at the base, taller than the others, was also at the center.

And it was also raining.

"The Artifact Temple," Samus recognized. "The temple that sealed the crater where the Leviathan impacted Tallon IV. And if this goes like I think it will, then prepare to face an old acquaintance."

Sweetie Void got a glint in her eyes that scared a few. "An old draconic acquaintance?"

Samus nodded.

"Yay! I missed playing with him! Well, it won't be the real him, but close enough!"

"There seems to be a difference between this arena and the temple as I remember it."

"Which is?"

"The platform had a small wall at the edge so nobody would accidentally fall below. It is visibly absent there."

When they appeared on the arena, Sweetie Void and Hau could barely see each other because of the totems between them, and the rain didn't help much. It didn't bother Sweetie Void, and Hau didn't mind it because it rained often in Alola.

"Alright, Decidueye! Do your best and have fun!" Hau shouted as he opened his Poké Ball.

Not long after Hau let out Decidueye, Master Hand announced the start of the fight with a "GO!"

"Let's start by taking cover behind one if these totems! Then fire toward the sky with Spirit Shackle!" Hau instructed.

Decidueye moved behind the nearest totem, plucked a feather, and fired it upward. The feather went very high, almost disappearing into the clouds, before it dropped back right toward Sweetie's position only for the filly to destroy it with a magic beam.

Sweetie Void then flew and landed on top of the central totem, getting a full view of the whole platform. From here, she copied Decidueye's strategy and fired beams toward the sky which homing in at the Pokemon, forcing it to be on the move. However, instead of jumping from totem to totem to remain behind cover, Decidueye used Phantom Force, using portals to move from place to place without being seen. Too bad for it that Sweetie could sense it, so she wasn't fooled. Feathers were destroyed and leaves were blocked with a shield while beam were avoided through portals, and this continued like that for a moment, Decidueye not daring to approach the filly. The Pokémon occasionally got its wings on an item that it threw at her, like a Green Shell, or a capsule (which revealed to be a bomb), but none of them reached her.

Then, as predicted by Samus, a roar heralded the arrival of a certain space dragon. Ridley, fully covered in metal plating that made him look like a robot, including artificial wings with orange translucent fiber instead of skin, swooped in from behind the temple and flew around the platform.

"Woah! What the heck?!" Hau shouted upon seeing the huge and terrifying cyborg dragon.

Sweetie Void innocently waved at him. "Hey! Ridley! Nice to see you again! I missed you! Too bad you aren't really him..."

Meta Ridley flew above the central totem where Sweetie Void was still on before he suddenly slammed himself down. Sweetie Void quickly flew away before Meta Ridley destroyed the totem and unleashed a fiery shockwave that went all over the surface of the platform, almost getting Decidueye despite it still being hidden behind one of the totems. The Pokémon barely jumped on said totem in time while the flames passed around Hau not doing any harm to him, much to his relief.

Sweetie Void having seemingly disappeared, Meta Ridley glared at Decidueye, making it clear who was the dragon's target. He took a huge breath and fired a powerful plasma beam that Decidueye avoided by jumping away, the beam destroying the totem it had been standing on. Decidueye then countered with a Spirit Shackle that successfully pinned Meta Ridley down just in time to stop the dragon from charging at the owl to shred it with his claws.

Sweetie Void then dropped on Meta Ridley's back.

The dragon glared at her.

She returned the glare with a grin.

And the dragon began to trash around (limited by the Spirit Shackle, but still managing to destroy some of the closest totems) to try to get Sweetie Void off his back.

Despite the absence of harness to hold on, Sweetie Void remained on Meta Ridley's back without problem. After a few seconds, she materialized a stetson hat and waved it around while screaming "Yeehaw!" like a cowboy doing a rodeo, because that was pretty much what she was doing, excepted that it was on the back of a genocidal cyborg space dragon instead of something like a horse, a bull, a bison, or a buffalo.

"Ahah! I dare anyone to top that!" she shouted.

Apple Death glared at the screen showing the fight. "Challenge accepted."

"Ok... Uh... While she is busy, let's do our Z-move. Okay?" Hau proposed to his Pokémon who agreed with a nod. It may be their only occasion to win this fight.

Several seconds later, Decidueye flew toward Sweetie Void and Meta Ridley surrounded by feathers. The two disappeared in the following explosion, Ridley's screech indicating that it was effective. As Decidueye landed however, several homing missiles came out of the smoke left by the explosion. It quickly moved behind one of the surviving totems to use it as a shield against the missiles, but the totem was quickly destroyed, and the remaining missiles were freed to hit the bird.

Then the smoke cleared and showed Meta Ridley still up with his plating now damaged and even destroyed in the case of the chestplate and the wings, leaving his heart visible and now vulnerable. Sweetie Void was also still on his back, only looking slightly bruised.

"Being on the receiving end of a Z-move is not fun," she said before her attention returned to Meta Ridley. "Hey, Ridley, are you getting hungry?"

The recovering Decidueye gulped.

But it didn't have to worry. Sweetie Void didn't have the Pokémon in mind. Instead, as Ridley glared at her, she forcefully opened his mouth and made him gulp a Smart Bomb. The bomb caused HUGE damage inside him, visible thanks to the broken chestplate, and Meta Ridley collapsed on the ground, still breathing.

Sweetie Void then put a collar around his neck linked to her tail by a leash.

"And now, time to take the dragon out for a walk!" she exclaimed before she turned her hooves into wheels and began to roll all over the platform while dragging the screeching Ridley behind. She took special care to make him crash into the remaining totems, and even took sudden turns that made him crash into the wall of the temple.

Decidueye was also a prime target - they were still in the middle of a fight after all - but she made sure to try to avoid Hau who had quickly retreated at the extremity of the platform.

Eventually, Decidueye jumped high up and attacked with a Leaf Storm.

Against this, Sweetie Void stopped herself, caught Ridley before he could crash into her, and threw him at Decidueye headfirst. Most of the leaves ended up hitting the dragon instead of the filly, and Decidueye barely had time to panic before Ridley hit it like a plane. Pushed by Ridley, Decidueye quickly passed the Ring Out Barrier and continued far into the mountains in the distance.

"Ring Out! The victor is: Sweetie Void!"

Sweetie Void looked a bit disappointed. "It didn't feel as good as if it had been the real Ridley." She took a paper and a pen. "Note to self: ask Fluttershy to teach me what she does with the bear for next time I meet Ridley."

In another universe, Ridley felt a sudden chill.

Author's Note

Sweetie loves Ridley. He's her BFF. She can't wait to have fun with him again.

Chapter 116: Tournament Part 9: Water, Fire, and Grass

"I hope someone filmed everything," Sweetie Void said upon leaving the arena.

Samus gave her a thumb up. "I did. It will be nice to watch before going to sleep. I will make a copy for you."

"Thanks."

"It was hilarious! Make a copy for me too, please!" Hau requested.

"Now, Magolor versus Empoleon. Let's see what will be the arena," Master Hand said before he punched the red button.

The selected arena revealed to be one that the fillies and Team Star Fox recognized very well: the orbital gate above Corneria. More specifically, from what they could see from the image shown, the fight will happen again on the Great Fox, but this time, it was the upgraded version from when the Aparoids invaded, and the gate was visible in the background. Aparoids and Cornerian ships were visible here and there, meaning that it was during the Invasion of Corneria by the space bugs.

"Uh. Ah wonder if we'll appear, either as a hazard or just in the background," Apple Death thought aloud.

"You girls were part of this battle, right?" Sweetie's Twilight questioned.

"Yes, against the Aparoids," Sweetie Void answered. "They sent a huge force to invade Corneria to stop us from finding out where their Homeworld was, or at least to make sure that we wouldn't reach it. The Orbital Gate was one of their objectives because of that, so a lot of the action took place around it. So prepare to witness an intense space battle. Master Hand. Popcorn for everyone, please."

Magolor appeared on the Great Fox while Dawn appeared one a small platform flying alongside the ship. The girl immediately let Empoleon out.

As said, the arena was taking place right in the middle of the invasion of Corneria, around the Orbital Gate. As such, the Aparoids were absolutely everywhere. In addition of the Great Fox, the Arwings, Cornerian ships, and even the Unique Horn and its Star Fighters were also present, killing the bugs left and right. It was pure chaos.

Before Master Hand even made the fight begin, an Arwing and a Star Fighter already came to fly above and at the left of the Great Fox to be used as platforms while they defended the ship from incoming Aparoids.

Not minding any of this, Magolor took a paper. "So, let's see... Empoleon... Water/Steel-type... A lot of resistances, a couple of super resistances, and even an immunity, but weak to Ground, Fighting... and Electric." You could almost see his grin at the last part before he threw away the paper.

Right. He can use electricity magic. And very powerful ones, Dawn remembered.

"GO!"

Magolor gathered electricity into his hands, forming a ball, before unleashing it in the form of a huge and powerful bolt only to hit a Protect.

"We must not remain on the defensive! Attack him relentlessly!" Dawn instructed.

Empoleon did so by starting a Hail followed right away with a Blizzard that forced Magolor to protect himself with a huge amount of fire. Empoleon then continued its assault with a Hydro Pump while advancing toward the mage. This one, Magolor was able to avoid by floating aside before he placed a hand in the stream of water and let out electricity which spread up the stream to electrify the penguin.

Empoleon didn't stop running despite the pain and hit Magolor with a Steel Wing, then a Brick Break, and finally with a Fury Attack. In the middle of that last attack, Magolor eventually floated backward, getting away from the jabs and allowing himself to put up his star shield just before Empoleon could advance to resume its assault. Seeing the shield, Empoleon prepared another Brick Breaker but Magolor then teleported right behind the Pokémon and placed a hand on its back to shock it again. As Empoleon turned around to face Magolor again, it was then met with an electric ball in the face before Magolor finally decided to fly away, barely avoiding a retaliating Ice Beam. In return, Magolor grabbed a Red Shell and threw it at Empoleon. Remembering the particularity of the Red Shell, Dawn told her Pokémon to send it away from the Great Fox, and it did so with a swing of its wing, and the shell disappeared into space.

Dawn then remarked that, while the Great Fox was moving to the left, the Ring Out Barrier wasn't following it but was now focusing on an Aparoid missile that was now under the ship, which was part of a swarm of other missiles defended by many Aparoids. She quickly told Empoleon to jump down from the Great Fox before the Pokémon would end up being carried beyond the barrier by it. Magolor didn't have to worry about this since he was flying. Empoleon landed on one of the missiles, then quickly leaped away to avoid an Aparoid crashing on it as the bugs defending the swarm of missiles were being shot down by Cornerian and Star Fighters, and the missiles themselves were being destroyed one by one.

In the background, another such swarm was being destroyed by the Unique Horn, giving a nice firework show to everyone.

"Oooh! The pretty blue!" one of the Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

"This is that space battleship you told me you built, Sweetie?" Rarity asked her little sister.

"Yes, it is. Impressive, uh?"

"Well, it's hard to judge it from that distance," Sweetie's Applejack said. "But yeah, it looks impressive."

Empoleon was forced to jump from missile to missile while firing at Magolor with Ice Beam and Flash Cannon, the egg-shapped alien remaining flying at a distance while sending electricity. The number of missiles quickly diminished until only one remained. On the last one, Empoleon found a crate that it broke open, freeing a Poké Ball, a Baseball Bat, and a Franklin Badge.

Empoleon took the Franklin Badge, and the next bolt of electricity from Magolor was deflected back at him as a result.

The last Aparoid missile was then about to be destroyed, and it looked like Empoleon would have nowhere to go to escape the explosion and the fall that would follow. Thankfully for the Pokémon, the squadron of Cornerian Fighters that was firing at the missile was approaching, so just before the missile exploded, the Pokémon jumped and was able to land on one of the smaller ships. It was obviously the expected thing to do because the Ring Out Barrier now focused on the squadron, and Magolor had to follow them to not be left behind.

Empoleon tried to use this to its advantage by firing at Magolor to slow him down in hope that the Ring Out Barrier would catch up to him. However, Magolor simply teleported and appeared on one of the fighters. Empoleon immediately joined him on the same ship, arriving with a Drill Peck that hurt Magolor a lot. Despite this, Magolor rose his hands, gathered energy, and smashed them on Empoleon's skull, the hands covered in electricity. While Empoleon was down, Magolor then placed his two hands on its back and unleashed all the electricity he could create thanks to his magic.

"Oh no..." Dawn quickly began to do the movements for the Z-move, but it was clear that it will be too late by the time she finishes them.

But then, just before Empoleon would faint from the electricity, Magolor stopped sending it and said, "I give up."

Empoleon looked up from its position. "Uh?"

"What?" Dawn questioned.

"I'm giving you the win. It was fun while it lasted, but I'm not fancying facing Sweetie Belle in the next round. So, have fun against her."

"... Well then... The victor is: Empoleon!" Master Hand announced after a moment of silence.

"Scared of fighting me?" Sweetie Void questioned with a smug and mocking grin.

While Magolor didn't have arms to cross, he mimed doing so with his hands while taking a proud expression. "No. Just being pragmatic. Rather than being curb stomped by you, I leave on my own terms. Now, you are Empoleon's problem."

Sweetie Void pouted. "You are no fun."

A bit away, Dawn was wondering if she should give up too.

"Next: Donkey Kong versus Incineroar!" Master Hand then exclaimed.

And the selected arena ended up being none other than Dedede's boxing ring.

Sweetie Void saw this and sighed in nostalgia. So many hours spent training there... Many of them being smashed around by Dedede. Good times.

The arena revealed to be mostly limited to the boxing ring itself as well as a bit around it because the Ring Out Barrier won't let them reach the bleachers which were full of cheering creatures from Dedede's army. It was okay, the ring was more than big enough for the two fighters who were standing at opposite corners of it. Elio was behind the ropes, already giving advice to his Pokémon.

"That ape hits hard, certainly even harder than you, so use your Dark-type to your advantage and, above all, be fast. You can get it."

Incineroar flexed. "I will get it! Roaaar!!!"

DK, hearing this, frowned, then grinned and repeatedly pounded his chest before he said, "Bring it on, kitty!"

"GO!

DK and Incineroar charged at each other right away, and the two met with a clash of their fist in the middle of the ring, a clash so powerful that it created a shock wave of air that spread all over the ring. DK went for another punch right away, but Incineroar then used Cross Chop to jump, avoiding the punch, before descending toward the ape. DK didn't react in time to avoid the hit, but he was able to grab the Pokémon while it was still in the air before slamming it on the floor. DK then got a Flamethrower in the face, making him let go of Incineroar who performed a Throat Chop. While DK had his hands on his throat as he tried to regain his breath, Incineroar then moved behind him, grabbed him around the waist, and did a suplex. Incineroar then couldn't stop itself from taking a pose and to roar at the sky to show off to the public before it jumped to do an elbow drop on DK who was able to roll out of the way thanks to the time the Pokémon lost.

As DK got up, Incineroar attempted a sweep kick from its position on the ground to trip the ape, but DK was able to grab the leg before it could hit and he threw Incineroar into one of the posts at the corners of the ring. DK then charged, but Incineroar quickly recovered and got out of the way at the last moment, causing DK to charge into the post. Incineroar then grabbed DK's head and violently slammed it on the post. Before DK could recover from this, Incineroar then made him turn around while keeping him trapped in the corner before it repeatedly and savagely punched him on the head, regularly using moves such as Fire Punch, Mega Punch, or Brick Break, not giving him any time to breathe.

DK still eventually managed to grab Incineroar's arms, holding them in place. Incineroar used Bite on the ape's left wrist to make him release, but DK resisted despite the pain and headbutted Incineroar, making it take several steps backward as it was stun. DK then grabbed Incineroar around the waist before doing a suplex too to make Incineroar hit the top of the post with its head. Incineroar then fell out of the ring with a big concussion, but still managed to get out despite the world spinning. It barely saw DK climb the post, his intention clear, and it was able to roll out of the way as DK jumped and attempted to smash it.

Incineroar quickly climbed back on the ring, not wanting to remain outside of it with the risk of being thrown through the Ring Out Barrier, and DK followed him only to be welcomed by a Darkest Lariat. Despite a first hit, DK was able to stop the move by grabbing Incineroar by the tail before he slammed the Pokémon around. While this happened, Incineroar grabbed a Poké Ball that had appeared around and threw it at DK to make him release its tail. While being hit by the Poké Ball didn't do much beside annoying the ape, the Poké Ball let out an Eevee.

DK snickered at the little furball whose only threat was to give heart attacks with how adorable it looked.

Then Eevee used Take Down, charging at DK and headbutting him in the gut.

THIS made DK release Incineroar's tail. Instead, the ape grabbed the Eevee and threw it into the bleachers where it disappeared in a puff of smoke. DK then quickly looked around to spot where Incineroar had gone to and found it on one of the posts with Elio standing behind said post and doing a series of movements that made Incineroar being covered in energy.

Recognizing Incineroar's Z-move that it used against Tails, DK began swinging his arm around.

Incineroar then used Malicious Moonsault, juming high into the air before falling back toward DK chest first while surrounded in fire.

DK released the punch he had been readying.

This resulted in a huge explosion.

While everyone was holding their breath as they waited for the smoke to clear, Ness and Poo returned from wherever they had gone to at the beginning of the round. Only a few saw this but said nothing.

When the smoke cleared, it revealed that DK and Incineroar were both still standing but had both taken heavy damage. DK was now armed with a hammer that he didn't hesitate to use, forcing Incineroar to roll around to avoid it. While rolling, Incineroar managed to trip DK with a kick and, while the ape was on the ground, it Cross Chopped him in the gut, making him drop the hammer. Despite this, DK was able to grab Incineroar and to roll so the Pokémon was now the one against the floor with DK on top of it and the ape began to pummel it only for Incineroar to kick him between the legs. With a high-pitched yelp, DK grabbed where it hurt and fell aside, letting Incineroar get up before it took the hammer and attacked the downed ape with it.

DK rolled out of the way, got up, and threw a Motion-Sensor Bomb that Incineroar batted away with the hammer. DK then charged at the Pokémon who readied the hammer, and the weapon clashed with the ape's fist. DK was able to push the hammer out of the way only to receive another Flamethrower in the face that allowed Incineroar to get away. The next thing DK knew, he was then hit on the head by a thrown Party Ball that then slowly floated upward while Incineroar jumped at DK with its hammer ready to smash.

As the ball began to do its little jingle, DK was able to catch the hammer before it could hit, and the two fighters struggled with the weapon. DK eventually managed to force the hammer out of Incineroar's grip and threw it away before he was punched in the face with a Fire Punch. He returned with a punch of his own, and the two began to exchange blows.

Then the Party Ball above them opened and it rained Bob-Ombs.

BOUM!!!

The two fighters disappeared in another explosion. When the smoke cleared, it revealed that DK and Incineroar had been blasted into the ropes at opposite directions, and the two seemed out.

Master Hand sighed. "This time, it really seems to be a double knock out. BUT! Don't worry! I have come up with a solution!"

There was a snap! and both DK and Incineroar were healed a bit and then woke up.

"Continue the fight until only one is left! But now, there will be an added difficulty!"

At this, the Ring Out Barrier began to slowly close in.

You two should hurry up!"

They didn't need to be prompted. DK and Incineroar charged at each other.

DK punched Incineroar.

Incineroar used Revenge.

The punch DK received in return was two times more powerful.

The two then remained standing, not moving, simply staring at each other for a few seconds before DK finally dropped unconscious.

Victorious, Incineroar let out a loud roar while taking a pose.

"And the victor is: Incineroar!"

DK and Incineroar gave each other the manliest handshake, both grinning.

They will definitively redo that fight one day.

"And now, for the last fight of Round 2: Meganium versus Ness!" Master Hand announced.

And the arena revealed to be the ruined throne room of the Castle of the Two Sisters.

The mares stared at the image of the arena, then hesitantly looked at the three Luna that were present, guessing that a certain alter ego of the alicorn could appear and this could upset said alicorn.

The Luna saw this, looked at each others, and one of them shrugged and said, "If I can take Nightmare Moon being used for a holiday, then I can take her being used as a hazard in a battle arena."

"If she appears," another Luna added.

"And I admit taking some pleasure at the idea of seeing her being beaten down," the third Luna continued. "Even if I fear that she may be too powerful for Meganium and Ness."

"I'm sure she will be no big deal for them," Phantom said.

"IF she appears," the second Luna repeated.

The arena was slightly different than the throne room the ponies remembered. The arena itself was actually a large, mostly circular platform in the middle of the room, separated from the rest by a pit surrounding it as a result from the floor there having crumbled. Several debris were present on the platform, and the Ring Out Barrier ensured that nobody will be able to go to the rest of the room even if they knew how to fly or could jump far enough. The platform still was very large enough to allow a lot of movement, the room itself being just as big as expected from a throne room. Especially when said throne room had two thrones. Gold still was on a separate platform, ensuring that he won't be in the way.

"GO!

Meganium used Sunny Day right away, bringing some much-needed light in this rather dark place. At the same time, Ness unleashed his most powerful PK Fire, sending a real wall of fire that Meganium avoiding only because of the debris behind which it could take cover. After doing a quick Light Screen while safe behind the debris, it then moved out and fired a Solar Beam, only for the beam to meet a Shield that partially reflected it back at Meganium who had no problem tanking it. Meganium then quickly returned behind cover to avoid another full-powered PK Fire, only for Ness to follow it with a PK Thunder that managed to hit Meganium. It wasn't very effective, but every little damage added, and the lightning bolt from the full-powered psychic attack still was powerful.

Meganium then used Nature Power. Being inside a ruined building, this allowed Meganium to use Tri Attack, and the Pokémon launched toward Ness three blasts of energy, one fire, one ice, and one electric, simultaneously. Again, Ness just let the attack come so his Shield partially reflected it back at Meganium, but he ended up paralyzed as a result while Meganium was burned. One PK Healing got Ness rid of his paralysis while Meganium used Aromatherapy to remove the burn. But then, Ness used PK Flash which caused Meganium to become confused as it felt strange, forcing it to use Aromatherapy again and opening it to a PK Fire that it its target this time. Ness then finally healed himself with PK Lifeup while Meganium recovered from the fire attack with difficulty.

Then, an evil cackle announced the arrival, as expected, of Nightmare Moon who appeared above the thrones, materializing from shadows in the most dramatic fashion.

"The night shall last forever!" she announced before she looked down at the two fighters. "You fools will never stop me!"

Then she landed on the platform and materialized two magical swords that she manipulated around at will.

"PK Rockin!" Ness hit the alicorn with a powerful psychic shockwave that sent her crashing right into Luna's ancient throne. Like before, Meganium avoided the attack by taking cover behind a debris and immediately fired a Solar Beam at Nightmare Moon, then another at Ness before returning behind cover to avoid the beam reflected by the Shield. The Solar Beam particularly hit badly Nightmare Moon who had barely been recovering from her crash.

"AAARGH!!! YOU LITTLE...!"

She flew back on the platform and sent her two swords to attack the two fighters. Ness' Shield still reflected some of the damage and he easily healed what he was getting thanks to Lifeup, and Meganium's Light Screen also worked very well against the sword targeting it. However, contrary to Ness, it didn't have any way to heal itself. But then, it saw Gold pointing with his finger at something. Seeing what he was pointing at, Meganium ran toward the Maxim Tomato and quickly ate it, finally being healed only to be hit by a powerful magical beam from Nightmare Moon.

Ness avoided another magical beam fired this time at him and countered with another PK Rockin that sent Nightmare Moon crashing again. Gold and Meganium (who took cover from the psychic attack again) used the distraction to use their Z-move: Bloom Doom. As Nightmare Moon returned on the platform, everything was covered by vegetation before energy expanded from Meganium, and Ness was hit by the column of energy which exploded in energy taking the form of a giant blooming flower.

And because of Ness' Shield, Meganium received a lot of damage in return. At least, Nightmare Moon was also caught in the explosion which blasted her and sent her crashing again, even destroying her magical swords. But then, Nightmare Moon disappeared into shadows which moved toward Meganium, and she rematerialized right beside the Pokémon who quickly used Petal Blizzard while also firing a Solar Beam at Ness who took cover while healing himself. The boy also got his hands on a piece of the Dragoon.

Nightmare Moon attacked Meganium with her two swords and also her own armored hooves, not minding the petals cutting her even if they were effectively injuring her. Ness then sent yet another PK Rockin but, this time, Nightmare Moon was expecting it and used a magical shield to protect herself against the psychic shockwave. The attack still managed to destroy the shield, getting through enough that Nightmare Moon was pushed back a bit, and Meganium (who had taken cover again) used the occasion to Body Slam the mare. In return, Nightmare Moon bit Meganium on the neck with her sharp teeth, hard, and threw the Pokémon into a debris before firing a huge magical beam at Ness who took cover again. Thankfully the debris were an element that couldn't be destroyed.

Meganium then threw at Nightmare Moon a Deku Nut, stunning her, and the Pokémon then fired a Solar Beam (after redoing Sunny Day) at her before the effects of the nut disappeared.

"PK STARSTOOOOORM!!!"

It was all the warning Meganium had before the sky fell on its head.

When the falling stars stopped raining all over the arena, both Meganium and Nightmare Moon were unconscious.

"And the victor is: Ness!"

"Since when can he use PK Starstorm?" Jeff exclaimed.

"He learned fast," Poo said.

"What? You taught him?"

"Just a few minutes ago."

"You haven't seen him and Ness leave, earlier?" Sweetie Void questioned.

"Uh... No..."

Chapter 117: Tournament Part 10: Beginning Of The Quarterfinals

The Luna were very happy to see their alter ego beaten up, especially with such an ironic move as making "stars" rain on her. You want the night? Then have some night in your face! The next best thing would have been to drop the Moon on her which probably could have somehow happened if Sweetie Void had been in the fight.

Although, the ponies remarked that this version of Nightmare Moon was very nerfed compared to the original one. If it had been the original one, then she would have simply remained out of range and blown up the whole arena with a Moon-powered beam, or she would have plunged everything in total darkness and slaughtered everyone while they were blinded. Well, for that last one, maybe the Sunny Day move could have countered it. They couldn't determine if Nightmare Moon's darkness would have been able to absorb Sunny Day's light.

But it obviously would have been too much for the fighters. Full-powered Nightmare Moon would have wiped the floor with them.

Or... with Meganium, at least. Ness was another story. Especially now that he knew PK Starstorm. The fight would be MUCH less in Nightmare Moon's favor. Maybe Ness could even win.

Anyway.

With the end of Round 2, like before, Master Hand gave a few minutes of rest to allow people to relieve themselves or do whatever else.

"Sorry Apple Death, but I'll root for Kirby," Sweetie Void warned her friend.

"What? But what about the CMC's All Fer One And One Fer All?!" Apple Death exclaimed. "Ah mean, we aren't from the same groups of CMC, but we're still CMC!"

Magolor put a hand on the Apple filly's withers. "My dear Apple Death. Let me ask you this: in a fight between your boyfriend and one of your best friends, who would you root for?"

"Oh. Ah see. Fair enough."

"Hey! Kirby is not my boyfriend!" Sweetie Void shouted. "It's just that we went through a lot together and we became very close friends and I don't want to see him lose and... Ugh... Don't start with that! It's already bad enough with Rarity and Void! I still can't believe these two went as far as working together to put up a candlelight romantic dinner under the full Moon right on the roof of Dedede's castle! They even prepared a plate of spaghetti, and Pinkie was there ready to play an accordion!"

Suddenly, her Pinkie Pie was just beside her playing said instrument. "Oh, this is the night, it's a beautiful n-"

She was brutally stopped by the accordion suddenly being incinerated by Sweetie Void. "Don't push it!"

"You are no fun." With a huff, muzzle toward the sky and eyes closed like a snobbish noble, Pinkie walked away. "One day, I will play that song, I tell you! I Pinkie Promised!"

Sweetie Void was left groaning, face hidden behind her legs, the filly not daring to look at her friends who were laughing.

"How did you ruin that dinner?" Phantom eventually asked with a big knowing smirk.

At this, Sweetie Void grinned at her. "Kirby gobbled the whole plate of spaghetti in one go along with the candlelight, and I played the Drunken Sailor with Pinkie's accordion."

Everyone around burst into laughter.

"And it's not over! It turned into a big sea shanty dancing party with the majority of the castle! Halfway through, it turned into a pirate party, with everyone talking, acting, and even disguising as pirates! Even the next day, well after the end of the party, many were still in a pirate mood!"

By now, many were rolling on the floor.

Excepted Rarity who heard everything, had her hooves crossed, and grumbled about ruined hard work.

Then Pinkie whispered to her, "Hey, it wasn't entirely a waste. Sweetie still ended up sharing some fruits with Kirby during the party, and they even danced together. Not the romantic dance you expected, but that's still something."

The reminder made Rarity smile. "You are right. Thank you."

At this moment, Master Hand interrupted all activity. "Is everyone here? Because it's time to start the quarterfinals! Four battles await us!

Sonic versus Link!

Apple Death versus Kirby!

Sweetie Void versus Empoleon!

Incineroar versus Ness!

Let's start the first battle right away!"

And at this, he selected the first arena which revealed to be on Donkey Kong's island judging by the ape's house visible in the background among trees. However, the island looked very different from usual.

It looked frozen. Everything was either covered in snow or trapped in ice.

First, the arena itself was made of a wooden, arched bridge with some snow on it. The bridge was above a pit and was damaged, missing the left extremity. At the right, the bridge was connecting to a circular piece of land with the remains of an ancient stone wall on it. Said wall had two platforms on its face, one at the bottom right above what had been the entrance of whatever building the wall had been part of and one at the top left under a window. No way to know if there were other platforms on the other face of the wall, but a tree could be seen coming from behind, its trunk tilting right so the top ended above the pit that surrounded the piece of land. There were also some rocks at the left of the door, and a round shield was left against the right extremity of the wall. Finally, an Arrow Barrel could be seen at the bottom right, in the pit.

For the background, beside DK's house, all that could be seen at first were snow-covered trees and a frozen river. But further, the mountain with the giant sculpted ape head was present and, at its tallest pic which actually was a volcano, a giant drakkar was resting on the chimney, partially hidden by storm clouds that covered the sky above it.

"Let me guess. All that snow and ice isn't there because it's Winter, right?" Apple Death questioned the primates.

Diddy nodded. "You are right. It was the result of the invasion of the Snowmads, a viking people who used some magic horn to manifest an ice dragon that blew us out of the island and froze everything. They then made the island their new home."

Sweetie Void looked at him with stars in her eyes. "Vikings?!"

"How did that drakkar end up on the top of that volcano?" Tails then asked.

"It could fly, somehow," Diddy answered.

"Ah. Of course. Bowser has flying ships, so why not vikings?" Sweetie Ghoul said with a shrug.

Link appeared on the wooden bridge.

Sonic appeared before the entrance in the wall.

The hedgehog already remarked that the bridge wasn't that wide, so if Link remained on it, then he won't be able to use his usual tactic of running in circles around to rapidly punch his adversary from all sides. And even on the piece of land, with the wall as an obstacle, it would be difficult.

Also, it was freaking cold there! Not his favorite environment at all!

Meanwhile, Link was thinking of plans to manage to land hits on the very fast hedgehog. He got the same conclusion than Sonic about the bridge, and he intended to use this to his advantage. But even with that, Sonic could still run back and forth on the bridge. It was just large enough to allow him to pass beside Link, and Sonic would be able to alternatively attack from the front and from behind in a hit-and-run way.

Thankfully, Link had a way to avoid that.

"GO!"

Link immediately put on the Goron Mask. As a Goron, he was as large as the bridge. No way for Sonic to pass beside him. He will have no choice but to attack from the front. With Sonic's speed, Link wasn't sure if he will be able to keep up, but his chances were much better. The problem with the Goron was that this form was far from being the fastest (when it wasn't rolling).

In a blink of an eye, Sonic ran toward Link, punched him in the belly, and ran back to the wall. Link barely had time to react.

That was exactly what he feared. But at least, thanks to his Goron form, he barely felt the punch. While the Goron's belly was rather soft, it was still like punching an elephant, and the Goron's natural fat also served as a cushion to make the punch even less effective.

Hitting Link's head would be the only way for them to be effective.

So, instead, Sonic opted to use a Homing Attack. It not only hit Link on the head, but it also hurt a lot more than a simple punch, and this made Link take a step back. Then, before Link could recover from this first hit, Sonic attacked again with another Homing Attack, followed by another, and another, the hedgehog not giving the boy time to recover his senses.

The problem with the Homing Attack was that it was very telegraphed, and even in his state, Link eventually managed to punch Sonic, sending his crashing right on the edge of the wall.

After dropping on the ground face down, Sonic muttered, "Ouch... I felt this one. It was like being punched by Knuckles."

Seeing his chance, Link moved from his position in an attempt to smash Sonic while he was still down, but the hedgehog jumped out of the way just in time. Then, Sonic attacked Link's side with a Spin Attack and immediately jumped away before the boy could get him with a swing of the arm.

Now that he was on the piece of land, Link lost his advantage. Sonic could attack him from all directions. So Link turned around to return on the bridge only for Sonic to get in the way. But Link wasn't impressed and curled into a ball to force his way. Sonic countered him with his Spin Dash which actually managed to push Link backward and to hurt him despite the Goron's rock-solid back.

Considering that the Spin Dash was strong enough to damage steel-plated robots (and even the occasional robots made of stronger stuff), it shouldn't be a surprise that even a Goron's rock-like back skin couldn't withstand it.

Understanding that it was no use insisting, Link stopped rolling, got up, and took off the Goron Mask. He briefly thought of putting the Zora Mask instead but quickly decided against it. The Zora form was very agile, especially underwater, but it wasn't really the answer here, and Sonic would out-speed the boomerang-scales and easily avoid them.

As it was, in his current situation, his usual boyself was his best chance.

He also wanted to take an elevated position, so he tried to move toward the lowest platform against the wall, but Sonic stopped him by getting in his way. Link tried to bash the hedgehog with his shield to move him, but Sonic simply jumped before he used his Shooting Star Kick. When Sonic landed, he then Spin Dashed toward Link only for the boy to do a spin attack with his sword, effectively slashing Sonic and pushing him back. Just as he finished his spin, Link then grabbed and threw his boomerang which hit Sonic on the head just as he landed from the previous hit, stunning him. Link then sent his Hookshot which wrapped around Sonic's left arm before he pulled, bringing Sonic to him. Link then slashed him again, the slash sending the hedgehog backward again only for Link to pull again to bring him back to him and restart.

After this happened three times, Sonic finally recovered his senses enough that he was able to catch a Beam Sword before he was pulled again, and the sword clashed with Link's weapon. The clash sent Sonic backward again, and he readied himself to be pulled another time. As he expected, Sonic pulled him again, but this time, not toward himself, but toward the wall, making him crash against it, just beside the group of rocks that was beside the entrance. Before he could recover, Link then took a Deku Nut and threw it at him which releasing him from the Hookshot, stunning him again. Link immediately followed this by throwing a bomb at him which blew him up to crash under the upper platform where he was pierced by a fire arrow which badly burned him.

Despite the burn, Sonic bounced off the underside of the platform to land back on ground and immediately ran away to avoid the explosion of another bomb that Link had just thrown guessing where he would land. Sonic used his hit-and-run tactic to slash Link three times with the Beam Sword that he still had, then did a slide-kick to trip Link while avoiding a retaliating Spin Attack. While Link was on the ground, Sonic jumped and attempted a Spin Dash drop on him like he did against Mario, but Link rolled out of the way and threw his boomerang while getting up. Still Spin Dashing, Sonic rolled away, avoiding the boomerang, and began to roll circles around the wall, faster and faster.

By doing this, he displaced a lot of the snow that covered the ground, blinding Link. Because of this, Link didn't see a giant snowflate-thing arriving which hurt him upon contact. In addition of that, Sonic used the cover of the snow to throw a capsule that he found. The capsule opened to reveal a weapon version of these fire bars like Bowser loved to put in his fortresses.

The displaced snow then cleared, allowing Link to see again only to see Sonic nowhere. He looked everywhere, even upward, seeing a big, helmeted owl passing, but no sign of the hedgehog.

Only for said hedgehog to come down from the sky on a Warp Star, crashing right on the Hero of Time. And right away, while Link was down, Sonic used a Homing Attack to reach him and followed it right away with a Spin Dash while he was on him.

After a couple of second of shredding Link, Sonic jumped away thinking that the boy was down for the count. He was surprised to see that he was still conscious and already getting up, albeit with a lot of difficulty.

"Man, what are you made of? Most kids would already be out after all this," he questioned.

Breathing heavily, Link smiled at him. "I'm not most kids."

"Eh. Right. You did tank that attack that Krystal said could kill a T-Red in one hit. Why am I surprised?"

Sonic barely finished saying that that he already was a blur, and the next instant, Link was punched on the cheek, then on the back, then on the ribs... Despite the attacks, Link raised a fist and punched the ground, summoning a dome of fire with Din's Fire that blew Sonic away while also burning him. However, Sonic quickly recovered and resumed his attacks, seeing that using Din's Fire took a lot out of the already weakened boy.

A couple more punches made Link drop on a knee, but while he was being attacked, Link slowly grabbed another mask, and then put it on.

He transformed.

And promptly caught Sonic's fist just before it could reach his cheek again. Oni Link then raised his head to menacingly glare at the surprised hedgehog.

Sonic tried to free himself, to no avail.

Before he knew it, he was grabbed by the neck and lifted off the ground by the two-meters tall warrior who squeezed him hard to the point that he couldn't breathe.

Then, with what sounded like a roar, Link slammed Sonic on the ground with so much force that it created a small shockwave that displaced all the snow around, revealing the dirt under. Before Sonic could even understand what happened, Link stomped on him, hard.

When Link rose his foot to do it again, Sonic quickly got away and ran all the way to the extremity of the bridge, allowing him to get a good look at what the boy had become and to recover his senses by the same occasion. Link's injuries didn't heal, but where before he was ready to fall, he was now standing tall, proud, and menacing, as if the pain didn't exist.

After glaring at Sonic a bit, Link looked down, seeing the Beam Sword that the hedgehog unknowingly dropped when he was slammed, and grabbed it.

And he threw it at Sonic like a spear. Sonic barely had time to move his head out of the way before the sword passed him and traversed the pit behind to plant itself into a tree.

Sonic stared at the sword which puffed away, then looked back toward Link only to see a sword close in on his neck. He ducked at the very last moment, the sword passing above him, almost cutting his spines, and sending a spinning sharp wave that continued its course through the frozen jungle behind, cutting down several trees (which returned in place right away).

Since he was ducked, Sonic decided to go all the way and to do a Spin Attack, hitting Link on the chest, but the warrior didn't even let out a grunt of pain before he grabbed the spinning ball, not minding his hands being shredded, and threw him again into the air almost all the way to the top surface of the Ring Out Barrier. Link then did several swings with his sword, sending dozens of sharp waves at Sonic, cutting him all over the body. Then, as the hedgehog was beside him in his fall, he punched him down, slamming him headfirst on the ground.

Sonic twitched.

Link smashed his foot on his face.

And the hedgehog was the one down for the count.

"KO! The victor is: Link!"

"I already saw a demonstration against these Team Rainbow Rocket members and their Pokémon, but that form that the Fierce Deity's Mask gives you is really impressive," Zelda said to Link.

"And terrifyingly brutal. Like, damn, dude. I could feel theses stomps from here, and it hurt just to watch," Phantom said. "So that was what you were talking about, Samus?"

"Yeah. I was present when he used it to fight Team RR, and even I was impressed and disturbed. That was like... watching the perfect warrior. Strong, fast, smart, merciless, relentless, effective, no emotion, no hesitation..."

"It's exactly what this form is," Link said. "This Fierce Deity... It's as the name says. He's a ferocious Warrior God. When I wear this mask, my mind becomes clear, fighting becomes even more instinctual than breathing, and the opponent's defeat is the only thing that matters."

"Well, keep this mask warm, because you will need it again very soon. Whether it's Kirby or Bloom who wins the next battle, your next opponent will be very powerful," Phantom warned.

Speaking of, Master Hand selected the arena for said battle.

And the selected arena was a small planet.

Really.

The whole arena was a small, partially grassy planetoid with, from what could be seen, two small houses, several round patches of flowers either white, yellow, or purple, a pipe, small, weird round shrubs, a tree stump, at least one crater, and a circle of small menhirs.

"Oh! That's the planet where I first met Rosalina!" Mario exclaimed. "Mmh... It's missing the monument that appeared after I played hide-and-seek with these three Lumas."

"So the whole planet is the arena?" Apple Death questioned.

"Yes. The planet is small enough, and there are the three holes that will act as pits for Ring Out if you fall in one. Of course, if you are launched high enough, this will also be Ring Out. And the pipes will also be usable to go from one side of the planet to the other rapidly," Master Hand explained.

"Nice!"

"All the place you will need for what promises to be an epic battle," Sweetie Void said to both Kirby and Apple Death. "And remember, Kirby, no Stella Knight. You should still be able to defeat her even without," she then whispered to the puffball.

Apple Death and Kirby ended up appearing at opposite sides of the pipe near the houses.

"Okay. Let's see what Sweetie's rival can do," the filly muttered to herself.

"GO!"

Apple Death immediately turned into a ghost and sunk into a shadow before moving toward Kirby in the blink of an eye.

"Po!"

Kirby also turned into a ghost and sunk into the ground. Apple Death's shadow stopped upon seeing this, hesitated a bit, and then disappeared as Apple Death also sunk into the ground to follow Kirby.

After several seconds of calm, the whole planet suddenly shook before the two burst out, Kirby not a ghost anymore but using instead the Wing Ability as well as Fighter Ability to repeatedly attack Apple Death with a Vulcan Jab. Apple Death then blasted him away with a burst of purple electricity followed by several balls of purple fire. The balls were deflected back at Apple Death with Mirror while Kirby also used Beam to charge energy into a wand before sending it in the form of a large ball.

Apple Death easily avoided the fireballs and then materialized a bone scythe to cut the large ball of energy in two, destroying it. She quickly had to use the scythe to parry Kirby who charged at her with his Sword, and the two struggled a bit before Kirby suddenly teleported with ESP. Taking a regular trick from his foes' book, he randomly teleported around to throw her off before he appeared right above her and dropped on her with both Stone and Metal. Apple Death was taken by surprise, but then let herself drop under Kirby, and instead of being crushed against the ground, she phased into it. A huge jaw made of ghostly energy then came out and almost trapped Kirby who teleported away, only for Apple Death to teleport behind him before she electrified him with her purple electricity. Kirby electrified her in return with Spark and the two electrified each other for several seconds before they separated by flying at opposite directions.

What followed were long minutes of the two fighters constantly teleporting, attacking, and teleporting again. Kirby teleported and fired a fire arrow, Apple Death teleported to avoid the arrow and fired a beam of energy, Kirby teleported to avoid the beam and threw an electrified spear that spread bolts of electricity in all directions, Apple Death teleported to avoid the spear and swung her scythe, Kirby teleported to avoid the scythe and attempted to smash the filly with his frozen Hammer, and so on and so on. And this happened all over the small planet.

"This could last a while," Sweetie Void commented.

"I can't believe that that Kirby is holding up against Apple Bloom!" Little Ghost exclaimed.

"And again, he is holding back, or else, the fight would already be over," Sweetie Void said. "If Kirby used his full power, nobody in this tournament beside me would stand a chance against him. It wouldn't be fun."

"How much is he holding back?" Scootabot asked.

"Well, right now, with the power he is using, he could crack a planet the size of Equus in two with just a punch. With his full power, he would pulverize Equus with just a punch."

Everyone around gulped.

"Yeah. If that wasn't for that whole indestructibility that Master Hand gave to the arena, that little planet would already be dust by now," the alicorn added.

Apple Death sent a stream of ice as cold as death to freezing Kirby, but the puffball used Mirror to send it back at her. But Apple Death knew the trick by now and flew right through the stream and the mirror to punch Kirby by surprise, sending him crashing right into one of the two pipes on the planet's surface. Apple Death followed him in the pipe only for an explosion to blow her out right away, courtesy of the Crash Ability, making smoke come out of the pipes and the craters. Kirby then teleported in Apple Death's trajectory and Stone punched her back to the planet before he used his sword covered in fire to send several fiery waves after her. However, instead of crashing on the planet, Apple Death phased into the ground again and the waves only ended up hitting dirt, not even burning the grass.

Apple Death then teleported right behind Kirby, swinging her bone scythe, but Kirby blocked him with his sword and, this time, flew backward so that he was able to target the filly and send several feathers at her from his Wing Ability. Apple Death burned the feathers however and materialized several skeleton birds that flew after Kirby, but some of the birds quickly broke apart and many others lost control.

"What? She can do animated skeleton constructs, now? Since when?" Sweetie Ghoul wondered.

"Uuh... I think she's testing new stuff with her powers. She can already materialize bones to make objects like her scythes, so why not? But clearly, she hasn't gotten it to work well yet," Little Ghost said.

"You don't say. It must already be hard to make skeleton constructs that are... Uh... "alive", but doing it in the midst of a battle? And when you never did that before? Not a chance it would work. This will need training." Scootabot said.

"Must be why Thanatos never created skeleton constructs against us while in battle, only made them come out of portals which meant that they already existed elsewhere. He probably never bothered ta learn," Apple Death's Applejack guessed.

Phantom smirked. "His lost. You imagine if he could have sent a skeleton dragon after you?"

"I would have blown it up, but this would have been impressive and certainly made the fight even harder than it already was."

In the end, only two, wobbly, fragile skeleton birds reached Kirby who easily destroyed them with one jab each. Apple Death still used the distraction they provided to throw her scythe like a boomerang while also levitating and sending a Bob-Omb that she spotted. However, Kirby easily flew out of the way of the Bob-Omb while throwing an axe the same way, and the two swirling weapons clashed in the air. But the axe quickly destroyed the scythe and continued its course, only for Apple Death to send it back with several more scythes, this time made of purple energy. Then, while Kirby avoided the weapons, Apple Death materialized hundreds of bones that she rained all over the planet.

Kirby got hit by some, but he eventually was able to use his sword allied to Tornado to block the rest while sending dozens of sharp waves in all directions. After a few seconds, he even alternated elements so the waves were made of fire, ice, or electricity. Apple Death countered with a shockwave that destroyed Kirby's waves but was destroyed in return by Kirby's sword.

Apple Death suddenly rammed Kirby, sending him flying, then opened a portal in his path, and opened the exit one right beside the Ring Out Barrier surrounding the planet. But Kirby teleported again, avoiding the portal, and rammed Apple Death from behind with the horn of the Beetle Ability, then used the Mike Ability to give her a deafening yell. While this stunned Apple Death a bit, as a ghost, this wasn't as effective against her as it would be, so she quickly recovered and blasted Kirby away.

But he returned with another teleportation, from above, and Apple Death barely had time to block the following punch with her forelegs. The punch still propelled her through the planet and Kirby already awaited her at the other side. Apple Death was the one who attacked with eye lasers, forcing Kirby to move before he used the Yo-Yo Ability, taking the ghostly filly by surprise and successfully wrapping her with the yo-yo's string. He then used the opening to punch her hard toward the Ring-Out Barrier.

But Apple Death phased through the string of the yo-yo in time, avoiding the Ring Out, and then commanded a tall bone to pop out of the ground, almost taking Kirby off guard as the bone went all the way from the ground to him (who was still flying with the Wing Ability). Another bone then came out of the ground after Kirby avoided the first one, and more followed, forcing the puffball to constantly be on the move. Apple Death eventually teleported in his path, and Kirby attempted to ram her with the Beetle Ability again but, this time, Apple Death caught him by the horn, spun, and threw him violently to crash into one of the little houses.

When Kirby recovered, he saw Apple Death sending several bones at him. Before they could reach him, he suddenly called a cooking pot and all the bones as well as Apple Death were sucked into the broth in it. After some seconds of stirring, Apple Death was then expelled out along with several different food that Kirby immediately inhaled, healing himself.

"Did he just...?!" Falco exclaimed.

"Yep. He cooked Apple Death and her bones and used them to make food to heal. Very useful Ability," Sweetie Void said.

"Very scary Ability," Blue corrected.

Apple Death found herself getting the Missile Ability in her face, and the resulting explosion blasted her almost to the Ring Out Barrier.

In return, Apple Death levitated and used every single items that were now present all over the planet, starting by equipping a Franklin Badge. Kirby then had to avoid a crate thrown at him before he blocked a Beam Sword only to be burned by a Fire Flower. He then barely avoided the Warp Star with Apple Death riding it before he ate the Fire Flower and blocked the Beam Sword again, then cut a Paper Fan into pieces. He finally grabbed a baseball bat about to bonk him and used it to send a Poké Ball back at Apple Death who had no problem avoiding it, not sure if the Franklin Badge would reflect it. The Poké Ball then opened and let out a Genesect that used readied its cannon toward Apple Death, ready to use Techno Blast. However, Apple Death used her powers to levitate Genesect and force it to fire at Kirby instead who used Mirror to send the beam back at Apple Death, only for her to use the Pokémon as a shield. The Genesect then disappeared in a puff of smoke.

After this, Apple Death materialized for herself a huge skeleton body that looked like a giant equine but with many appendages ending in scythes coming out from the back. She sent the appendages after Kirby who dodged and blocked. Apple Death then opened the equine's mouth and fired a huge beam of ghostly energy. The beam engulfed the puffball.

Thinking that Kirby was caught in the beam, Apple Death lowered her guard, only for Kirby to suddenly teleport beside the mouth of the equine skeleton. By the time Apple Death saw this, it was already too late as Kirby entered the giant skeleton's mouth and used the Crash Ability, blowing it up from the inside.

The explosion blasted Apple Death far, even causing the Franklin Badge to drop from her, but she was able to stop herself in time to not cross the Ring Out Barrier, again. Then, she unleashed powerful winds that Kirby had to resist before she sent hundreds and hundreds of bones, balls of purple energy, and scythes made both of bones and of purple energy. She also attempted to send skeleton birds, but like before, most of them failed to even reach their intended target, many breaking apart right at the start of their existence, and the few that reached Kirby were either easily avoided or destroyed or were just outright ignored.

Apple Death eventually stopped her rampage, having spent a lot of energy but not wanting to spend everything.

And she did right because this barely phased Kirby who either dodged, blocked with the sword, or reflected with Mirror the many projectiles, receiving almost no damage.

Kirby then used the Magic Ability to send a whole flock of doves from his hat at Apple Death. While the filly was distracted, Kirby then threw several bombs in the air, then shot at all of them one by one with his Archer Ability making so the arrows sent the bombs right at Apple Death to blow up on her face (turning the doves disappear into puffs of smoke).

Just as Apple Death recovered from the bombs, Kirby then teleported right beside her and clung to her before he began to spin. Using a combination of Tornado and Fire, he trapped Apple Death inside a fire tornado that slowly moved down toward the planet. Once they were close enough, Kirby then violently slammed the filly against the ground. And finally, he used the Crash Ability again.

Despite all this, Apple Death was able to get up.

Only for Kirby to use the Crash Ability yet again.

Only for him to be blasted away by a beam of ghost energy fired from Apple Death's mouth.

The filly then got up again and reconstructed a scythe made of bones while readying several fireballs around her.

Kirby simply readied his sword.

And then charged at Apple Death who sent some of the fireballs. Kirby moved left and right to avoid the fireballs before he was blocked Apple Death's scythe. While they were clashing, Apple Death sent the remaining fireballs.

Kirby used the Crash Ability before the fireballs could hit.

Apple Death still recovered and made a giant bone scythe that she mentally manipulated to make circles around her while she made bones come out of the ground AND rain from the sky. Kirby still avoided most of the bones and managed to grab the giant scythe before using it against Apple Death.

Then he used the Crash Ability.

Apple Death sunk into the ground and came out right under Kirby who didn't have time to react before he was headbutted, electrified, and blasted away. She then opened a portal and fired a beam into it, and the beam came out of another portal just behind Kirby. The puffball, however, inhaled the beam and spat it back through the portal, much to Apple Death's surprise, causing her to be hit by it. Kirby then used the occasion to fly through the portal.

And he used the Crash Ability.

Apple Death levitated a hammer that appeared and manipulated it to attack Kirby while she remained at a safe distance to not be caught in another explosion. While Kirby blocked the hammer with his own Hammer Ability, Apple Death then also sent a bone scythe to attack him, controlling the two weapons at once. But to her shock, Kirby then inhaled her scythe and swallowed it.

Thus, gaining a whole new Ability: the Scythe Ability. He also gained a dark cloak with a hood by the same occasion.

Using the handle of the scythe to block the hammer, he then teleported, avoiding several bolts of purple electricity. He appeared right beside Apple Death who immediately teleported away before he had time to use the Crash Ability again.

The filly finally decided to pull out all the stops and entered the planet again which then began to shake. The three craters moved, and two of them began to glow with some purple light coming from the darkness inside them. Before long, these craters took a triangular position, with the two with the purple light side by side at the top. Then the whole planet turned so the craters now faced an amazed Kirby.

Apple Death took possession of the whole planet, and the craters now composed a "face", with the two with the purple light being the "eyes" while the third one was the "mouth".

"Uh... This is allowed?" Slippy questioned.

"Yes," Master Hand answered. "But the possessed arena isn't indestructible anymore. But if it's destroyed, then it will reform after a few seconds."

Energy began to gather inside the "mouth".

With a horrified "Poyo!" Kirby quickly flew away, avoiding a huge beam. Apple Death then launched the menhirs that homed in after the puffball who punched them into rubbles with the Fighter Ability. Big fireballs were fired out of the two pipes while energy gathered again inside the "mouth". Kirby had no choice but to teleport away as the remaining menhirs stopped him from flying around freely to avoid the beam.

Apple Death understood that Kirby teleported behind her so she made the planet turn.

Only to see Kirby charge at her with a punch ready.

"PooooooooooYO!!!" CRASH!!! Kirby punched the planet so hard that it simply exploded, pieces flying in all directions, leaving behind a very shocked Spirit of Death.

The next thing she knew, Kirby was right before her face, waving at her with a friendly "Hiii!"

And then he used the Crash Ability.

When everything cleared, Apple Death was floating in space, back to normal and barely conscious.

She groaned and stared at Kirby. "Ah... Ah give up... You win..."

"And the victor is: Kirby!"

Author's Note

That battle between Kirby and Apple Death was HARD!

I should have specified it the first time we saw DK's island, but in the story, I made the island as some fusion of the original design seen in the original DKC games and the new design in the more recent ones. So there is the big sculpted ape head on the side of the mountain, and there are the snowed pics, and the volcano is in the center of the island and the tallest mountain.

To note that, in this first arena, there was some stuff that I couldn't point out in the mid of the battle. First, the Arrow Barrel was flying in circles around the piece of land, passing under the bridge. Second, Tufftons (the big owls with a helmet) sometimes passed above the arena, serving as temporary platforms, but only one was briefly mentioned in the end. And third, the big harmful snowflake from the Homecoming Hijinks level from DKCTF (the snowflake that hit Link) would also regularly pass here and there, harming on contact and even have a weak chance of freezing the victim.

And yes, now that he got the Scythe Ability once, Kirby will be able to use it whenever he wants.

Chapter 118: Tournament Part 11: End of The Quarterfinals

"And he was holding back?" Apple Death asked.

"Yeah. Like I said to the others, if Kirby had used his Stella Knight form, he would have finished the fight in just a few seconds. You may see this form if he faces me in final," Sweetie Void answered. "Speaking of, it's now my turn."

"Sweetie Void versus Empoleon! Let's see what the arena will be!"

The selected area quickly revealed to be a piece of land forming a single, rather narrow path that included a bridge at the left extremity and a depression in the middle. The path was elevated, so its sides were steep, checkered, perfectly vertical rock faces (without counting some depressions in the walls), and the grass present here and there on it was striped. Some palm trees were also present as well as some flowers (mainly ones that looked like sunflowers) and even some totem at the right.

From what could be seen in the image, this path seemed to be part of a biome that was... surreal. More paths like this one were visible, and one of them even formed a loop in the background. Among these paths were also cuboidal hills, pieces that formed floating platforms, and a wooden platform at the end of a chain suspending from some floating orange ball was also visible. This biome was just beside a large body of water which poured out between the paths and the hills into waterfalls and rivers. This body of water seemed to be a huge lake because more cliffs, even mountains, were visible further in the background with waterfalls pouring water into it.

And there were also floating rings here and there.

"Aah... Green Hills. I'm never tired of this place," Sonic said. "Fun fact: it's where I fought Eggman for the very first time."

"Oh. It's from Mobius. This explains everything. Environments forming paths like that with loops and everything are very common over there," Sweetie Void explained to the others.

"Not that you can complain. From what I saw, Popstar is just as bad," Phantom said.

"No, Popstar is worse."

Empoleon didn't look at all sure of itself. It was visibly sweating as it glared at Sweetie Void who was simply sitting, waiting for the beginning of the battle.

"GO!"

Empoleon attacked right away with Earthquake which Sweetie Void easily avoided by flying up, the earthquake causing part of the ground to collapse, forming a pit in the middle of the depression between the two fighters. Empoleon immediately followed its attack with an Ice Beam which was deflected by a mirror, and the Pokémon had to leap aside to avoid it.

While the path was rather narrow, it still was large enough that there was space to move left and right.

Sweetie Void came in for a punch before Empoleon had even time to get up, and the Pokémon countered with a Brick Break, its wing clashing with Sweetie's hoof, then used Blizzard pretty much point blank. The filly didn't mind the Blizzard at all however as she fired a bolt of electricity from her horn, hitting the pinguin right between the eyes and electrifying it. The shock left Empoleon open, and the filly used it to try to punch it again, but Empoleon still was able to duck, avoiding the punch, and countered with a Drill Peck on Sweetie's belly.

She let herself being hit so she could grab Empoleon by the head before she lifted the Pokémon and slammed it violently on its back. It countered with an Ice Beam that froze the filly solid, but she kept floating while trapped in ice, flew up, and then crashed into Empoleon, the ice making it hurt even more. And right after the crash, she unleashed an explosion.

Most Pokémon would be out by now, but Empoleon wasn't any Pokémon. It was the Pokémon of a Champion, and most of all, said Champion's Starter, and MOST of all, Dawn's Starter.

So it got up, and used Ice Beam on the extremity of its two wings to cover them in a block of ice.

Sweetie Void, floating not far before Empoleon above where the ground had collapsed but had now reformed, let it do its stuff and waited for it to come.

And Empoleon came with a Fury Attack allied to a Peck, repeatedly jabbing with both its ice-covered wings and its beak, but the filly easily dodged all of them and punched Empoleon in the gut in return. Empoleon, however, put its wings together, the two blocks of ice at their extremities side by side, before it hammered the filly with them, sending her crashing on the ground at its claws.

Claws which Sweetie Void grabbed before she spun.

Right there, she could throw Empoleon at one of the pits at both sides of the path that formed the arena, but what would be the fun in that? Instead, she threw Empoleon upward, but not hard enough that it would reach the Ring-Out Barrier. Then, she grabbed a Master Ball that had appeared a bit earlier on the bridge and threw it at the Pokémon as it was falling back. Upon hitting Empoleon, the Master Ball opened and let out a Tapu Koko, one of the Legendary Guardians of Alola.

Tapu Koko used Discharge.

And a very blackened Empoleon crashed on the ground. However, much to Sweetie's surprise, it still got up, because it was able to use Endure just before the Legendary's attack. Empoleon then used Rest to heal itself, followed by Sleep Talk, which made it use Hyper Beam. Sweetie Void reflected it with a mirror, and the beam hit instead the still sleeping Pokémon, waking it up.

A crate on wheels then appeared behind Sweetie Void and rolled down the depression. Sweetie Void barely teleported out of the way in time, seeing it coming at the last moment, but Empoleon still was recovering from the Hyper Beam and couldn't avoid it. Instead, Empoleon destroyed the crate with a Break Brick, revealing that it contained a piece of the Dragoon, a Maxim Tomato, and a hammer. Empoleon ate the tomato, took the piece of the Dragoon, and finally grabbed the hammer before it ran toward the filly with the weapon ready to crush her into a pancake.

"A penguin with a hammer. How familiar," Sweetie Void said with a giggle while she side-stepped to the left to avoid the hammer. She then side-stepped to the right to avoid a second hit, then to the left again to avoid a third.

Annoyed, Empoleon punched the ground, using Rock Tomb to trap Sweetie Void between boulders so she couldn't avoid the next attack.

And so, it attacked with the hammer for the fourth time, only for Sweetie Void to turn her body into steel so the weapon bounced off her without hurting much. The head of the hammer came off as a result, propelled upward, and Empoleon stared in confusion at the naked stick that remained. Then the head of the hammer came down right on the Pokémon's head.

Sweetie Void tisked. "What a low-quality hammer. Dedede's would have resisted it and would have even flattened me despite my steel body."

Empoleon rubbed its head where the hammerhead hit and looked back toward Sweetie Void only to see that she was gone from between the boulders. The next instant, it was punched from behind so hard that it was sent on its belly. Sweetie Void then punched the ground where it landed, causing it to collapse with the Pokémon on it. Empoleon got up and jumped back on stable ground.

Right on a Motion-Sensor Bomb.

The explosion propelled Empoleon in the air where it found itself between several cuts in the fabric of space caused by Sweetie's ten swords. Out of the cuts came space beams that engulfed Empoleon from all sides. A last beam even more powerful was fired from Sweetie's horn from above.

Sweetie Void then teleported back on ground, striking a pose as Empoleon, unconscious, dropped into the pit behind her.

"The victor is: Sweetie Void."

Dawn sighed. "I should have followed Magolor's example..."

"Empoleon fought well. Using Ice Beam to cover its wings in ice to enhance its punches was very smart," Sweetie Void complimented to Dawn.

"Thank you. Empoleon is amazing. He is the one who won me the League against Cynthia and her Garchomp. Even Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina had been defeated."

"This must have been an intense battle."

"It was. Cynthia really was a legend," Dawn said, feeling sad and nostalgic.

At this moment, Master Hand selected the arena for the last battle of the quarterfinals, the one opposing Incineroar to Ness.

The arena revealed to be the bridge of Gerudo Valley, including some of the lands at both sides. The carpenters' tent was present at the left side, and the Gerudos' fortress was visible in the background, partially hidden behind the cliff. Canopies with the Gerudo symbol were added at both sides to serve as platforms. Also, the chasm wasn't as large as in reality. Most humans probably still wouldn't be able to jump above it, but this distance shouldn't be a problem for Incineroar who had powerful jumps. Ness, however, may have a problem.

"I hope for you that you have a way to jump across the chasm, Ness, or you will be stuck using the bridge and you will be disadvantaged," Sweetie Void said to the boy.

Ness smiled at her. "Don't worry. I have something in mind."

Incineroar was at the side of the bridge with the carpenters' tent. Ness was at the opposite one. And both agreed with one thing: they will avoid getting on the bridge. Going on it was a disaster waiting to happen. It was not only instable like most bridges made of ropes and wooden planks, but this one didn't even have security ropes! One wrong step and it was a guaranteed drop. Incineroar especially had it bad because of its size. So getting on it was out of the question.

"GO!"

"PK Thunder!"

Incineroar ran away, avoiding the thunderbolt, then took some momentum before jumping above the chasm to land just beside Ness who immediately put up a PK Shield. Incineroar destroyed it with a Brick Break, ignoring the recoil, and followed it with a Fire Punch which Ness avoided by ducking. Ness then countered by hitting Incineroar on the ribs with his baseball bat, making the Pokémon flinch a bit, but Incineroar still used another Fire Punch and managed to land a hit that sent Ness flying. Ness landed with a roll and immediately sent a PK Rockin in return that Incineroar tanked with a Protect.

Incineroar Bulked Up and ran toward Ness to use Double Kick. Ness answered with another PK Shield and brassed himself, using his bat to protect himself. Once Incineroar was done with its move, Ness blasted it away with another PK Rockin before it could continue its assault.

Psychic attacks were normally useless against Dark-types, but as Master Hand stated earlier, immunities were nonexistent during these battles. However, they still didn't hurt Incineroar much, so the Pokémon quickly recovered. As such, Ness decided to limit his use of Psychic attacks to not get himself tired uselessly and too quickly. He will have to count on his trusty baseball bat and use smartly his assist PK moves like the Shield of the Lifeup. He wasn't sure however if stuff like Defense Down, Hypnosis, or Paralysis would work on the Pokémon.

He had to do some tests.

Incineroar ran back toward Ness with a Brick Break ready to destroy his Shield, and Ness decided to keep his distance. After some seconds of running around, Ness went on the bridge where Incineroar didn't dare to follow him. Ness used the occasion to finally try if his assist PK moves would work and tested them one by one quickly. However, Incineroar resisted to all of them.

Good to know."

"Ah... Screw it!" Incineroar then shouted before it jumped toward Ness with a Brick Break ready. The attack destroyed Ness' Shield, but then the boy immediately jumped backward as Incineroar used Flamethrower, avoiding the fire. Instead, the flames began to burn the bridge. Seeing this, and seeing that the flames actually damaged the bridge, both Ness and Incineroar understood what it meant and began to run back on ran. However, the ropes snapped, and the bridge collapsed with the two still on it. Incineroar was able to jump to avoid the fall, but Ness had to cling to the planks with all his strength, especially when they slammed against the cliff. Ness then quickly climbed as the fire spread up plank by plank.

Ness barely got his feet back on land that two high-pitched cackles suddenly sounded. Looking up at the direction they came from, he, Incineroar, and Elio saw two very old and very ugly witches flying on brooms, circling each other. One had her fire hair while the other had ice hair.

Sweetie Void raised an eyebrow. "Koume and Kotake? I didn't expect to see them. This isn't the Spirit Temple."

Beside her, her Rarity put a hoof on her mouth, looking green. "Ugh... They are so disgustingly ugly."

"You wouldn't say the same thing if you saw their fusion form."

Ness was on guard, waiting to see what these witches will do. Kotake (the ice one) then flew away while Koume faced Ness' side and rose her wand, charging fiery energy in its extremity. Koume then sent a big fireball which crashed not far behind Ness, and from the impact point, fire began to spread all over the ground, burning the canopy and the tent and quickly approaching the boy. Having no other choice, Ness jumped above the chasm.

But as expected, he didn't jump far enough.

"PK Thunder!"

Instead of a bolt of electricity, Ness sent the attack in the form of a ball which he mentally manipulated to make it do a circle and approach him from behind. When the ball touched him, it had for effect to propel him forward without hurting him at all, the worse he got being the equivalent of a shock given by a joy buzzer.

When he successfully landed at the opposite side of the bridge, Ness looked very proud of himself as he exclaimed, "It worked!"

Meanwhile, Elio, who was at the other side, remained safe from the flames which remained away from him, to his relief.

As for Koume, she simply flew away like her sister, leaving like she came.

While Ness was celebrating the success of his new use of PK Thunder, Incineroar used Sunny Day and attacked with Fire Punch. Ness saw him coming just in time and barely ducked to avoid the punch before he countered with his baseball bat, and this time, he jumped away before the Pokémon could retaliate. But Incineroar simply moved after him and Mega Kicked him before he could put up a Shield. Incineroar then grabbed and threw an Arrow Barrel at Ness, exactly like the ones that had appeared in the arenas on Donkey Kong's island. Ness found himself trapped inside the barrel, but the boy kept his calm and looked through the barrel's exit while using PK Offense Up. He then fired himself out of the barrel just as it pointed toward Incineroar and smashed the Pokémon with his bat. The hit was so strong that Incineroar found itself down on its back, stunned, and Ness took the occasion to use PK Lifeup to heal himself.

At this moment, Incineroar sat up, rubbing its head, and Ness promptly smashed it again with his bat before he repeatedly bonked it on the head. This stopped when Incineroar gave him a sudden uppercut that sent him flying, then it sat up again.

At this moment, Koume's flames at the other side disappeared. The next instant, the Song of Time played in the air, and it was as if time was rewinding. The burned tent and canopy as well as the bridge reformed themselves, as good as new.

Incineroar didn't pay attention to all this however as it decided to use Rest and Sleep Talk, which made it use Shadow Claw. So the sleeping tiger went after Ness where the boy landed and clawed him, only to receive recoil as Ness put up a Shield just before. Ness then grabbed Incineroar's claw, pointed two fingers at the Pokémon, and sent out a PK Thunder in the form of a continuous bolt of electricity arcing from his finger to its body, continuously electrifying it for a few seconds. This awakened Incineroar who fought to move while being shocked (even if it was a Psychic attack and counted as one for the Pokémon, it still was electricity) and eventually managed to Bite Ness on the shoulder. Because of the Shield, Incineroar received recoil again, but it didn't care, and this at least stopped Ness. With its body stopping spasming, Incineroar then was able to use Brick Break to destroy the Shield, followed by a Drain Punch to heal back a bit. It was then blasted away by a PK Rockin.

Ness then began to repeatedly use Offense Up on himself, each use rising his attack more and more. Incineroar came back to resume its assault, but Ness did his best to dodge him and keep his distance so he could continue to buff himself. To gain time, he even used MK Starstorm, which worked as a great diversion as it forced Incineroar to focus on dodging the meteors (which were already boosted a lot by the few Offense Ups that Ness already cast).

Also, the bridge was destroyed a second time as a result.

Which led to Koume and Kotake to return with their cackle. After circling each other a bit, Koume flew away while Kotake remained and readied her wang, accumulating icy energy.

Before she could send an ice ball that would spread ice all over this side of the bridge, Incineroar and Ness attacked her respectively with Flamethrower and the most powerful PK Fire extremely boosted by all the Offense Up. There was an explosion of fire, and all that remained of the witch was a cloud of ash blown away by the desert's wind.

Incineroar understood that this was essentially the result of Ness' PK Fire. Its own Flamethrower was FAR from being that powerful.

It couldn't stop itself from gulping.

Then Incineroar saw Ness run toward it with his bat and barely had time to put up a Protect before the boy attacked. Incineroar immediately countered by grabbing Ness by the head before throwing him toward the chasm to get a Ring Out. However, Ness used his PK Thunder ball to propel himself back on land. Seeing this, Incineroar returned on the offensive with a Mega Punch which Ness dodged and countered with his bat again.

Ness had to hurry up to land a hit before the effect of the Offense Ups disappeared.

Again, Incineroar was able to use Protect, then grabbed Ness again. However, instead of throwing him in the chasm again (which was just behind the boy), Incineroar tossed him so it could hit him with Dark Lariat.

Only for Ness to use PK Thunder, the thunderbolt one, which struck Incineroar in an explosion of electricity that blew Ness a few meters away above the chasm.

After the attack, Incineroar was entirely blackened but was still standing, smoke coming out of it but still conscious. However, it looked unfocused.

By the time it regained its senses, it was already too late.

"PK Thunder!"

Ness sent out another ball of electricity that he guided like before.

And he had his bat in his hands.

When Incineroar saw this, the ball was just about to reach Ness' back. No time to dodge.

So it used Protect again.

But it failed. Because Incineroar didn't have time to use Dark Lariat before so it counted as using Protect two times in a row, and the more you used Protect in a row, the more it had a chance to fail.

Then, Ness was propelled toward it thanks to the electric ball, bat ready.

And...

Right in the face.

In any other situations, Incineroar's head would have exploded. But here, its skull merely cracked.

As Ness landed, taking big breaths, Incineroar dropped behind him, unconscious.

At this moment, the Song of Time played again to repair the bridge.

"The victor is: Ness!"

Author's Note

Next chapter.

versus

and

versus

Chapter 119: Tournament Part 12: The Semifinals

"And now, the semifinals!" Master Hand announced, making the many who gathered to watch the battles cheer. "First, Link versus Kirby! Arena time!"

After several intense seconds, the selected arena revealed to be the ruined remains of some building. Whatever it was, all that remained was the floor which was partially collapsed here and there. No platform and no obstacle were present.. It was the night, very cloudy, but the Moon was fully visible, and light from the beginning of the sunrise was visible in the horizon. But that light was still very weak and only allowed to distinguish some firs. All the rest was plunged in almost total darkness.

For some reason, many felt a chill upon seeing this arena. There was just something eerie about it.

Mario rubbed his chin in thought. "Mmh... I have déjà-vu, but I can't quite remember from where and when."

When Link and Kirby appeared on the arena, they were glad to see that, despite the darkness, there was still enough visibility that they could see each other and the arena itself, including where the floor ended and where it was partially collapsed, so no risk of tripping and falling if they payed attention.

"Go!"

The very instant that Master Hand started the battle, Link put on the Fierce Deity Mask. He knew that anything else and Kirby would end the fight in ten seconds flat.

Kirby immediately stood on guard.

He did well because, the next thing he knew, a large helix sword was coming from his right in a path that would result in the pink puff being cut in two, and he barely flattened himself on the ground in time. In a flash, he then countered with his own Sword only to suddenly find himself without his weapon which was sent away in a single powerful swing, leaving him open.

Not even Meta Knight managed to disarm him in just a swing like that.

Kirby teleported behind Link and electrified him with the Spark Ability, but Link didn't even spasm, flinch, or yell in pain. Remaining deadly stoic to the electricity coursing his body, Link spun with his sword and slashed Kirby, sending the puffball flying almost to the Ring Out Barrier beyond the limits of the floor. But Kirby was able to stop himself with Wing and returned on the arena where he used the Crash Ability right away when he saw Link charge at him.

When he saw the explosion starting, Link stopped himself and raised his sword, gathering energy on it, and brought it down on the blast.

Not only the explosion was cut so the blast went to Link's left and right but didn't hit him, a sharp spinning wave of energy came out of the sword and continued through the explosion to slice Kirby.

Several jaws dropped.

"Di... Did he just...?!" Magolor began.

"Yep. Link just cut the freaking Crash Ability," an awed Sweetie Void said. "It's the first time that I see someone else beside me cutting an explosion."

"Mmh... I wonder why..." Phantom began. "Maybe it's because NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD THINK OF CUTTING FUCKING EXPLOSIONS!!!"

"Darn. Just like that, Link won at least one million badass points," Scootabot said. "Screw walking away from explosions, real badasses cut them."

"Uh? Wait. There's something rising in the background," Gold remarked.

At a speed that the eye could barely follow, Link continued to swing around to send sharp waves at Kirby who was now keeping his distance while sending any projectiles he could think of, which generally ended up cut into pieces, blocked, or avoided. Kirby had a lot of difficulty avoiding the waves because Link anticipated his movements and acted in consequence, forcing the puffball to always change trajectory at the last moment. And even then, Link anticipated this and trapped Kirby by sending waves in advance trying to predict Kirby's new path, and more often than not, Kirby's only solution to not be sliced was to teleport.

Meanwhile, in the darkness of the background, a huge figure rose, blocking the light of the sunrise and partially obscured.

Its appearance reminded of Bowser Jr. if he was giant.

But it was in reality none other than Bowser as his baby self.

Then he roared, his roar so powerful that it caused several boulders to rise into the sky before some of them rained all over the arena, passing through the floor and causing the appearance of pits. Except one which Link hit with his sword to send it right toward Kirby who easily flew out of the way.

Mario snapped his fingers in recognition. "That's right! I remember now!"

"What is it?" Luigi asked.

"I actually don't remember much, I was just a baby back then, not even brought yet to my parents by the stork, but this was the first time that I encountered Bowser. A Yoshi fought him to protect me and save Luigi who had been kidnapped."

Luigi began to shake. "I remember now."

Apple Death stared at the brothers. "Ya two and Bowser go THAT far back?! Wait a minute. Babies are actually brought from storks in yer world?!"

"Of course. Everyone knows that."

"Uhhh..."

"Why?"

"Uhh... Nope! Ah pass! Ask someone else!"

Baby Bowser began to breathe giant fireballs at both Kirby and Link. Thankfully for the two of them, they took a lot of time to reach them all the way from where Baby Bowser was standing, so they both had more than enough time to get out of the way without minding them while continuing their exchange of projectiles. Still, they were a potential minor nuisance that Link won't stand for. So, after a whole minute of this, he stopped attacking Kirby and turned in the direction of Baby Bowser before he rose his sword. Suddenly, a huge quantity gathered on it so it looked like the sword was now the size of a building before he brought it down, sending a huge sharp wave toward Baby Bowser.

After a couple of seconds, the wave reached Baby Bowser and vertically cut him in half, killing him.

The Fierce Deity didn't care that it just killed a baby (even if it was a fake), it just eliminated an obstacle to defeat his foe.

Of course, while Link was busy with Baby Bowser, Kirby didn't remain idle and attacked the Hero of Time from behind with a storm of fireballs, ice balls, electric balls, arrows, bombs, and everything else he could send during the precious few seconds during which he was opened. But Link sucked up the damage like a sponge without giving a hint that he was in pain. The only reason Kirby knew that his attacks worked was because they left visible injuries behind, but it was as if they didn't exist for Link. When he was done with Baby Bowser, Link resumed his assault on Kirby as if nothing happened, destroying all oncoming projectiles with a few swings of his sword in a fraction of a second.

However, Kirby then got his nonexistent hands on a Power Star that just appeared, turning himself invincible. Kirby thus turned bolder and went close and personal to relentlessly attack Link with all matters of weapons and elements. Even with his speed with his sword, Link wasn't able to block everything... at first. He eventually got his hands on a Beam Sword, allowing him to use two weapons to block Kirby's attacks, the Fierce Deity having no problem holding the huge helix sword with just one hand even if it was a two-handed weapon.

But the Power Star's invincibility wasn't eternal and disappeared after a few seconds, allowing Link to return some of the blows he took before Kirby teleported away. But then, Link turned around, guessing where Kirby teleported (in the sky, not on ground), and threw the Beam Sword at him like he did against Sonic in his previous fight. Kirby saw the sword coming at the last moment and just had time to open his mouth to eat it. But then, while Kirby gulped the sword, a Bob-Omb came just after but Kirby was able to send it back at Link with a Mirror.

Why did he use Mirror only now? Because Kirby had the feeling that Link's waves would be able to cut through them like through butter. They seemed to be able to cut through anything, or almost. Avoiding them was the best solution. But a Bob-Omb? No problem.

Link suddenly jumping at him, sword covered in energy and ready and passing just a few millimeters beside the Bob-Omb? Problem.

Slash!

Link's sword cut through the Mirror and sliced Kirby. The Fierce Deity then grabbed Kirby to stop his course and get on him before he teared off his Wings. With Link still on him, Kirby painfully dropped on the arena where he decided to try his luck with the Crash Ability again. This time, since the explosion was as point-blank as it could be, Link could do nothing but take it and be blown away right into one of the pits. However, Link planted his sword into the wall of the pit to stop his fall and climbed back on ground where he saw Kirby painting a Maxim Tomato.

He promptly sent a wave. Kirby saw it coming and flattened himself to the ground, but the wave cut the painting before it could be finished. Instead, Kirby attempted the Cook Ability, making a pot appear and sucking in all the objects present in the arena as well as Link to create food. However, the pot ended pu cut in two by Link as he was attracted to it, spilling the broth in it without any healing food coming out.

Kirby quickly teleported away before Link could attack him.

Giving up on trying to heal, Kirby resumed his attacks, this time with the UFO Ability.

Against the projectiles of energy that the UFO fired, Link used his sharp waves again, the waves destroying the projectiles and continuing toward Kirby, but the UFO moved fast in all directions without having to turn so he easily avoided them.

Then, Link suddenly stopped sending wave.

The problem with these waves was that they consumed Link's magic, and he finally ran out of juice.

A few seconds of silence followed as both Link and Kirby understood the new situation. Then, Kirby smirked and went wild with the UFO allied to some of his other Abilities. He chased Link with a vertical ice beam while constantly firing all kinds of other projectiles in all directions. Because of the ice beam, Link had no choice but to constantly move while blocking or dodging the storm of projectiles coming out of the UFO.

Then, Link got a Warp Star and disappeared into the sky.

One second later, Kirby moved out of the way of the falling star only for Link to jump from it and to cling to the UFO. Kirby immediately surrounded himself in electricity but, like always, Link didn't mind it and repeatedly slashed him while standing on him, perfectly keeping his balance despite the UFO not being that large and constantly changing direction.

Then, Kirby used the Crash Ability, and with Link right on top of him, it perfectly hit its mark, blowing him upward almost to the Ring Out Barrier before he dropped back and crashed on the arena. Kirby, however, was very weakened after being cut so much, so his UFO disappeared and he dropped on the arena not far of Link. Despite this, before the Hero of Time could get up, Kirby kicked the sword into one of the pits, disarming him. But then, Link suddenly grabbed Kirby by the foot while still face down on the floor and slammed him, making sure that his back was up, before he got on his knees and began to pummel the puffball on his back. Then, he finished it by getting up and strongly stomping him. However, before the foot hit, Kirby teleported away again, so Link just ended up stomping the floor, causing a cloud of dust to form.

Kirby appeared above Link, in the sky, with the Hammer Ability coated in Ice. He dropped toward Link with the hammer ready to bash his skull.

But Link caught the hammer and intended to headbutt Kirby. The puffball quickly used the Needle Ability when he saw the attack coming, forcing Link to stop and to move Kirby away from his body so the needles didn't turn him into cheese. Instead, Link punched Kirby with the hand not holding the hammer, not minding if it was pierced by the needles as a result. Kirby was sent away by the punch, but Link got to keep the hammer, which he threw at Kirby right away. Kirby used his Mirror to deflect the hammer back at Link, only for Link - who had gone after the hammer - to punch the weapon and to smash it on Kirby with his fist still on it. Link then grabbed the hammer and crushed Kirby against the floor with it. Finally, he let go of the hammer, leaving it on Kirby, and stomped it, making it crush Kirby even more, even creating a small shock wave. A second stomp, and the foot this time went through the hammer which exploded before it hit Kirby.

Link then readied a third stomp.

Only for Kirby to spin with the Tornado Ability boosted with Fire.

Only for Link to still stomp on him, stopping him right there.

Kirby turned himself into Steel.

And he still ended up being painfully stomped on, Link not caring about the metal.

Kirby stopped moving after that. Wanting to see if he was out, Link grabbed him and lifted him up to face him.

Only to get an arrow planted between his eyes.

...

Link glared at Kirby before he grabbed the arrow and repeatedly stabbed the puffball with it. Then, he held the arrow on the floor, tip upward, and slammed Kirby on it.

Now, it was Kirby who had an arrow sticking out between his now swirling eyes.

"The victor is: Link!"

At the announcement of his victory, Link took off the mask and fell on his knees, breathing heavily, but grinning that he managed to defeat someone as powerful as Kirby.

Everyone's jaws dropped. Especially Sweetie Void's. She really didn't expect Kirby to lose, even without using his Stella Knight form.

This confirmed it. This Fierce Deity was NO joke.

He may not have huge amount of powers, but his skill and sheer brutality made up for it. He didn't hesitate hurting himself if it allowed him to land a good hit on Kirby. Also, he had a better advantage of the arena than Apple Death had had. The planetoid arena had allowed Kirby enough breathing room to heal himself, that wasn't the case here. And the fact that the Fierce Deity didn't care at all about the pain made it so he was always ready to attack Kirby to ensure that he couldn't heal, even after a bad hit, and even when Kirby managed to get some peace, it never lasted long enough. Healing was just almost impossible for Kirby, and without healing, he didn't last long.

She will have to pull out her A game when she will face him in final (while still limiting herself to back when she fought Kirby before she ascended). At least, judging by Link's state after he took off the mask, this fight wasn't as one-sided as the Fierce Deity made it look. It was even pretty close! It was just that the Fierce Deity shrugged off pain like nobody else, so Sweetie will have to bring his body to the breaking point so he won't be able to move anymore. Or do a Ring Out.

But first, she will have to win her fight against Ness, and she had a feeling that the boy will also give her a hard battle.

Once Link and Kirby were back and healed, she gave the puffball a big hug before she congratulated Link.

"Not many can pride themselves of having defeated Kirby in a duel, even if he didn't use everything he had. You were amazing."

"Thanks. But... You know, I had to stop myself from stomping on the arrow at the end to fully push it into Kirby. Even if he was out, there was a moment where I told myself "He could still get up again," so..."

Both Sweetie Void and Kirby winced. "Good thing you didn't do it. I don't know the limits of the crazy no-killing physic of Master Hand's pocket dimension, but I think that you may have killed Kirby if you had." The filly then grinned at him. "But this means that you more or less control this mask and that you still know when to stop when you use it, so, no worry! By the way, does the Fierce Deity have a strange addiction of stomping on his enemies?"

Link laughed. "No, it's just very effective when they are already on ground and vulnerable to get his boot on their face."

Then came the time to start the battle between Sweetie Void and Ness, starting by the selection of the arena.

And the arena was... the top of the Megalo Tower, in Ultra Megalopolis.

It was a huge, futuristic... Well... megalopolis which was entirely plunged in darkness, and its buildings looked like prisms. The only source of light was the Megalo Tower which had lots of huge spotlights all over it, especially triangular ones at the top. What looked like a black hole was just above the tower, and purple clouds were swirling around it.

The arena itself was a circular one with a very small barrier surrounding it. Two platforms were floating above it at the same level, at opposite extremities.

Very simplistic.

But both Sweetie Void and Ness guessed that it won't be that simple. And Elio confirmed it when he said that it was where he fought Ultra Necrozma.

Well then...

Sweetie Void and Ness each appeared under one of the floating platforms.

No trace of Ultra Necrozma yet.

"Go!"

Sweetie Void teleported right beside Ness before he could even put up a Shield only to be welcome by a baseball bat in the face followed by a point-blank PK Fire Omega that engulfed the filly in a giant fireball. A strong gust of wing came and blew away the fire, revealing Sweetie Void with burns that were visibly healing.

Also, her ten swords were now levitating around her.

"You asked for it."

"PK Shield!" Ness quickly shouted before he was assaulted from all sides by the weapons. After getting in a few hits that resulted in Sweetie Void taking some damage because of this shield, she broke it with a punch and resumed her assault only to be blown away by a PK Rockin Omega which Ness followed with a PK Starstorm.

Avoiding the falling meteors, Sweetie Void gathered her ten swords into one staff and used it as a bat to knock one of the meteors toward Ness. She then jumped on the platform closest to the boy as he was recovering from the meteor and began to fire at him homing beams from her ten cannons.

Again, Ness put up a Shield and followed it with a Lifeup to heal himself, letting himself being hit by the beams while he healed, before he sent another PK Rockin that Sweetie avoided by teleporting through the oncoming wave of psychic energy.

At this moment, with a roar, Ultra Necrozma descended from the sky, remaining just at the other side of the Ring Out Barrier, before an aura flared to life around it. Then, it used Photon Geyser, targeting Sweetie Void since she was the closest. Sweetie Void saw it and sent it back at the Pokémon with a mirror, taking it off guard. Ness quickly used the diversion to Franklin Badge before sending another PK Starstorm.

The Franklin Badge annoyed Sweetie a lot because it meant that she won't be able to attack Ness like before with the meteors. Instead, she batted the meteors toward Ultra Necrozma who had been about to use Prismatic Laser.

The next thing she knew, Ness jumped at her with his baseball bat covered in spikes of ice, striking her on the side of her skull. She immediately blasted him away, not minding the recoil from the Shield that was still here.

"Did you use your PK Freeze to coat your bat in ice?"

Ness nodded. "Uhuh. I just got the idea from that ice hammer Kirby used earlier."

"Not bad."

Then, Ultra Necrozma finally used Prismatic Laser, sending multicolored beams all over the arena. Ness took cover under one of the platforms (which wasn't the one Sweetie was standing on) while Sweetie used her mirrors again to send them back at the Pokémon. From under his platform, Ness repeatedly used Offense Up while the filly sent huge ice boulders at Ultra Necrozma.

Already having enough, Ultra Necrozma's aura flared even more before it began to absorb and gather all the light in the arena into one huge ball.

It was none other than its Z-Move: Light That Burns The Sky.

You know, that name is epic. Sounds like something coming right out of one of these apocalyptic stuff. Which... I guess is the point.

Sweetie Void braced herself as she placed herself in the trajectory of the giant ball of light, readying herself to send it back to its sender only to be struck by a very powerful PK Thunder.

Because of this literal shock, she couldn't do what she intended, got hit by the ball, and ended up at the epicenter of a huge explosion of light that spread over most of the arena. When the resulting smoke cleared, Sweetie Void was on the ground groaning in pain, but all the damage she took was already being healed.

"Ugh... I definitively felt this one..." From her position, she glared at Ness who was now at the extremity of the arena, where the explosion didn't reach. "This. Is. On."

Suddenly, she got up and sent toward Ultra Necrozma several waves of energy that cut the Pokémon into pieces before it even knew what was going on, the pieces then disintegrating into particles of light. Then she began to float while surrounding herself in a shield with her ten cannons levitating around it, and two giant shield-fists also formed.

Ness gulped.

Many paled upon seeing Ultra Necrozma being so easily killed, especially among the trainers and their Pokémon.

Magolor snorted. "That Ultra Necrozma wouldn't have lasted five seconds against me when I was wearing the Master Crown. Sweetie one-shoting it, even while she is still holding back, is no big deal. Of course, if this one had been the real Ultra Necrozma, she would have held back even more to not accidentally kill it."

"It's terrifying when you know that Ultra Necrozma is one of the most powerful Legendaries," Blue muttered.

Ness found himself having to move. A LOT. Constantly leaping and rolling and ducking and jumping to try to avoid bullet hell that Sweetie Void was sending his way. Mostly balls of energy or of some element, but there was also the occasional beam, either fired from Sweetie's horn, hooves, tail, eyes, cannons, shield-fists, or just the air.

She avoided using electricity. While Ness didn't have the Franklin Badge that he took earlier anymore, he still had his regular Franklin Badge which reflected only electricity.

Not that it mattered in the end.

"PK Rockin!" Ness used a rare opportunity to attack only for the wave of psychic energy to be brushed off by Sweetie's shield. The shield got damaged, but it was quickly regenerated, and Sweetie attacked back by cutting open rifts to fire space beams. At the same time, two huge Ultra Swords made of energy materialized in the shield-fists, and the filly began to attack Ness with them too, either directly or by sending energy waves with huge swipes of the weapons.

Ness didn't even have the occasion to heal himself. He attempted to create a diversion when he got his hands on a Poké Ball, but the Charizard that came out of it was immediately punched out of existence by one of the shield-fists cloaked in water. At another occasion, he was able to use PK Starstorm, but the meteors were then easily destroyed by the shield-fists while Sweetie continued to attack him with her cannons.

Ness had his Shield up all the time, but each time that he was hit, any recoiled damage that was sent back at Sweetie Void was again absorbed by her shield.

It seemed like a hopeless situation for the boy, and he started to feel the effects of the many Offense Ups he cast on himself dissipating, and he doubted that he will have another occasion to recast them.

Having no choice if he wanted to have a chance to win, he stopped moving, letting himself being hit, and began to focus, his body visibly healing as he cast Lifeup, but he didn't stop with that. After a few seconds, he began to float, and an aura of psychic energy appeared around him.

And then, he unleashed everything at once.

Meteors from Starstorm began to rain everywhere, waves after waves of Psychic Energy from Rockin came out of him, and Fire, Freeze, Thunder, and even Flash were constantly fired at Sweetie Void in the form of a huge stream of fire, huge ice spikes, powerful thunderbolts, and exploding green lights.

All these attacks still boosted several times by Offense Up battered Sweetie's shield without stopping for several seconds. Mane and tail turning on fire, Sweetie Void put in more power to allow her shield to resist the onslaught. Even with that, a PK Flash eventually managed to blow open a hole, allowing some of the attacks to come through and to hit the filly.

This didn't last much longer however. After a few more seconds, everything stopped, and Ness dropped, absolutely exhausted. He really sent everything he had.

Some remaining meteors continued to fall for a couple more seconds before it really ended, and Ness looked at the smoke and cloud of dust left behind, waiting to see if Sweetie Void was out or not.

The next thing he knew, he was punched in the gut by the filly who didn't look hurt at all. However, she was breathing a bit heavily.

"That... was a good try... Phew!"

Ness finally lost consciousness and fell down.

"The victor is: Sweetie Void!"

"And now, we have our two fighters for the big final: Link and Sweetie Void!" Master Hand announced.

"First, what you did with the PK Thunder against Incineroar, and now coating your bat with the PK Freeze. You know, with some training, I'm sure that you could come up with more stuff," Sweetie Void said to Ness. "Maybe you should go talk to Red's Mewtwo. I'm sure that it will help you a lot."

"Okay."

"Before we start the Final of this tournament, let's have a five minutes break," Master Hand continued. "But before, I will reveal to you all the last arena. No selection. I already have a pre-selected arena for this one. BEHOLD!"

An image of the next arena was then shown.

A simple large platform floating in a multicolored void, with three smaller platforms floating above it in a now classic triangular formation. Nothing more. Nothing else.

"The Battlefield! And trust me, it will well deserve its name. Prepare yourselves!"

Author's Note

Me: reads all the comments about the final being another Sweetie versus Kirby.

Also me:

For the ones wondering how Sweetie could be a bit winded at the end, remember that she is fighting as she was before she ascended, and this includes the inability to absorb energy to have infinite stamina.

As for Kirby versus Link, for the ones wondering how Kirby could lose, a bit is already explained in the chapter. Lacking space and all that. Because the ground was made of stone, he couldn't also dig with the Animal Ability to get a few seconds of breathing to heal like he did against Sweetie Void. Right from the start, after he was so easily disarmed, Kirby understood that it would be suicidal to fight close in any way. The Fierce Deity is just a warrior TOO PERFECT for this. So, already a good half of his Abilities were a nono, most notably most Abilities that included weapons or close combat. So this left distance but, there too, the Fierce Deity could easily block, avoid, or destroy most projectiles, turning the battle into a stalemate (even when Link ran out of juice for his sharp energy waves). Then, Kirby was able to disarm Link and made the error of thinking that he was now vulnerable. Link proved him the contrary.

This is it for the Original Stages. More may come up in the future. I still have many ideas in mind that I wasn't able to include for now. Imagining Original Stages, or re-imagining the ones already existing into ones that work for 3D battles, is really difficult, but it's fun.

Chapter 120: Tournament Part 13: The Final

"So, ya've a plan ta defeat Link without going Void-mode on him?" Apple Death asked.

"Of course I have!" Sweetie Void answered while eating a piece of chocolate cake. "He has one glaring weakness, and I intend to exploit it."

"Let me guess. You will stop Link from putting the mask?" Phantom said.

"What? No! I want to fight the Fierce Deity! I want to fight Link at his most powerful! Or the victory wouldn't feel right! No. I have something else in mind. I may not even need to sing. It should be a piece of cake." She showed the piece of chocolate cake before gobbling it to make her point.

"Don't underestimate him," Sweetie's Rarity warned. "He defeated Kirby."

"I won't. I will take this fight very seriously. It's just that, when I said that I only intended to use my pre-ascension powers for this tournament, I never said that I would not include the powers that I had when I was in Soul-mode. You remember? The Soul-mode against which Kirby was almost powerless before he unleashed the Stella Knight. Technically, it's still pre-ascension power, so this counts. So, like I said, I shouldn't need to sing."

Soon after, Master Hand announced the end of the break, and everyone gathered before Master Hand opened the portals to transport Link and Sweetie Void to Battlefield.

From the spectators' perspective, Link appeared on the left platform while Sweetie Void appeared on the right one.

The two wordlessly exchanged a nod before Master Hand started the countdown to the start of the battle.

"Five! Four!"

Suddenly, a purple being looking like Donkey Kong but made of polygons and looking slightly off appeared on the top platform.

This got the two fighters, and most of the spectators, to say, "What?"

"Three! Two!"

Next appeared another polygonal purple figure, this time on the main platform, right under the top one, and this one looked like Pikachu but looked more like a real mouse. Another, this one looking like Samus but also off (the arm cannon looked more like an arm triangle), appeared under Link's platform.

"What the heck..." Sweetie Void said

"One!"

Yet another polygon figure appeared under Sweetie's platform, and this one looked like Mario but with a pointed head and pointed ears. Sweetie couldn't see it since it was under the platform she was on, but she heard it appear.

"Wait a minute!" Sweetie exclaimed.

"GO!"

Link immediately put on the Fierce Deity Mask just as the Donkey Kong wannabe jumped down from its platform toward him. At the same time, the Samus wannabe moved from under his platform, ready to jump to fight him while the Mario wannabe was doing the same from under Sweetie's platform. The Pikachu wannabe decided to target Sweetie Void and jumped to join her.

All four figures were destroyed in the following second by the two fighters, but this only allowed more of them to start to appear all over the arena, all of them looking like one of the fighters that participated in the tournament but with some details off, more or less obvious, like the Kirby one had some weird diamond-shape on its head.

"So Link and I have to fight each other while dealing with these guys?" Sweetie questioned while she cut into pieces the Kirby wannabe.

"Exactly! This is a Battlefield, after all! This arena demands action and chaos! So be ready to fight off an army of copies of EVERYONE! I must precise however that these copies don't have all their powers. They only know how to jump, punch, kick, headbutt, and use items."

And speaking of, an Apple Death wannabe (judging by the lack of wings and horn, but the bow looked merged to its head) got its hooves on a Smart Bomb and threw it right away on Link who was able to bat the bomb back at its sender before he jumped on the top platform to escape the huge explosion that followed and that caught a few of the polygon fighters.

At this moment, Link found himself surrounded by hundreds of beams all pointed at him.

"These things are just a nuisance!" Sweetie Void shouted while punching a Greninja wannabe (which didn't have its tongue-scarf around its neck). "Your adversary remains me!"

The Fierce Deity is strong and fast, but there's no way he can block all these lasers at once. He only has one sword.

But then, Link used Nayru's Love to surround himself with a diamond-shaped barrier just as Sweetie sent the lasers, and the barrier perfectly blocked all of them.

"Oh... I forgot he could do that... So much for that weakness. Well, I will have to wait until he runs out of magic."

Sweetie ducked to avoid the punch of a Sonic wannabe, grabbed it, and then threw it toward Link who cut it in two very easily. Sweetie flew after it with her ten swords. Link didn't mind the weapons and directly attacked the filly who was able to parry his sword with hers. Since she was holding her with her magic, they weren't sent away like Link didn't with Kirby's sword. Sweetie continued to block Link's swings, waiting for an opening to destroy Nayru's Love's barrier with a punch. Instead, she had to blast away a polygon Captain Falcon while Link didn't care about the attacking enemies. His barrier blocked all damage, so he simply continued his relentless assault on the filly.

Sweetie Void had to retreat when a Jolteon turned invincible by a Star attacked her, allowing her to see by the same occasion that a Yoshi got a piece of the Dragoon.

"Oh hay no!"

She destroyed the Yoshi (which looked more like a real raptor) and took the piece of Dragoon, then teleported away to avoid being sliced in half by Link.

Speaking of, he also cut the Jolteon whose invincibility wore off.

Sweetie Void decided to create copies made of solidified energy to take care of the polygon fighters, sending a Dedede, a Meta Knight, and a Bandanna Dee. With the three copies dealing with the polygons (creating even more chaos), Sweetie was able to focus back on Link just in time to block his sword with her own.

She didn't even attempt to create shields.

Seeing a second piece of the Dragoon, she grabbed it with her magic while continuing to block Link's attacks, still waiting for Nayru's Love's barrier to disappear. That barrier could last a while! And she still couldn't find an opening to destroy it with a powerful shield-destroying punch.

But eventually, the barrier started to flicker off.

Sweetie Void then decided to fly away, out of range of Link's sword. Time to force him to use his magic!

And bingo! Link attacked her right away with spinning sharp waves that she dodged.

The thing with the Fierce Deity was that he didn't really think. He just acted.

Meanwhile, the three copies made of energy continued to eliminated the polygons that constantly spawned. The Bandanna one even got its hands on the third piece of the Dragoon.

Sweetie got an idea seeing this and gave the copy Bandanna the two other pieces, allowing it to form the Air Ride Machine and to fly away into the void. At the same time, Sweetie Void prepared an Ultimate Doom Laser. Also, Link's barrier finally disappeared.

Just as the Dragoon returned, Sweetie fired her laser, and the two came at Link from opposite directions. But, with perfect reflex, Link was able to jump out of the way of both despite everything, and the laser ended up disintegrating the Dragoon with the Bandanna Dee copy riding it as well as the part of the arena it caught. Sweetie quickly moved the laser to follow Link only for him to send a sharp wave that forced her to stop and to move. Sweetie then continued to dodge the following waves while the arena regenerated.

"Come on... Come on... Continue to waste your magic... Screw this! It's taking too long and it's boring!"

Mane and tail turning into fire and her ten double beam swords gathering around her, she charged at Link who put up Nayru's Love again. Despite this, Sweetie still began to attack Link from all sides with her swords and various projectiles, hitting the barrier repeatedly while parrying Link's sword.

Still summoning projectiles to continue the assault on the barrier, Sweetie Void then flew a bit backward and gathered her ten swords back into a spear before she flew back at Link at a speed superior to the one of sound. The tip of the spear violently clashed against Link's sword, creating a powerful shock wave that blew away everything else on the arena excepted the copies of Dedede and Meta Knight who were able to resist. Link attempted to use the occasion to disarm her like he did against Kirby, but she held on firmly. Then, in just one second, Sweetie did a dozen thrusts with her spear, each blocked by Link before he attempted to punch her.

Sweetie avoided it and continued to do thrusts with her spear, this time using her magic to hold the weapon. While Link was busy blocking, Sweetie readied a hoof, accumulated energy, and punched HARD. This destroyed Nayru's Love's barrier like glasses, leaving Link finally vulnerable to all the projectiles still coming from all sides. Link did pay attention to them or the injuries they caused however. Instead, he grabbed Sweetie by the leg that just destroyed his barrier, holding so hard that he crushed her bone. And then he made it snap. It was so bad that a part pierced out of her skin.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!"

Despite the pain, Sweetie was able to send a powerful, freezing blizzard that trapped Link in ice, but the Fierce Deity had no problem breaking out of it. This still allowed Sweetie to heal herself before she glared at Link and began to slash the fabric of space to send space beams.

Link avoided them or cut them. Easily. Jumping from platform to platform, not even minding the polygons that were caught in the crossfire. He still took care of destroying the copies of Dedede and Meta Knight when he crossed them while regularly sending sharp waves at the filly.

Said filly created a huge blade of energy on her horn and brought it down toward Link who jumped out of the way, the blade cutting the whole arena in two, including an unlucky polygon Fox. After a second of separation, the two pieces of the arena reformed back into one.

"Wasn't the arena supposed to be, you know, indestructible?" Falco questioned.

"It is supposed to be," Master Hand confirmed. "It's just that Sweetie Void is so powerful that she is able to damage it despite my precaution. It means that she is at least my equal. Fierce Deity Link could probably damage the arena too if he put everything in his sword. Like he did when he cut Baby Bowser in two."

And speaking of, that was exactly what Link was doing. He accumulated a huge quantity of energy into his sword, creating a giant blade of energy that extended out of it. When Sweetie attacked him again with her horn-blade, he was able to parry it. The resulting clash shook the whole pocket dimension, spreading cracks all over its fabric.

Both blades then moved away from each other only to clash again, and again, and again. Link was then able to swing directly at Sweetie Void who dodged before she surrounded the whole arena with lasers. As they closed in on Link, the Fierce Deity simply destroyed a few of them with a swing before he moved through the newly-formed hole, avoiding all the rest.

Only to find himself covered in fire falling from above in a column.

But Link then spun very rapidly, creating a tornado that blew the fire away while also sending numerous sharp waves randomly in all directions. For Sweetie, it was like trying to dodge rain, excepted that, here, rain drops were big waves of energy that could slice you as if you were made of butter.

It lasted until Link seemingly ran out of magic, because waves eventually stopped coming while Link continued spinning for a couple more seconds. By then, Sweetie Void received more than her fair share of cuts that took a lot to heal to the point that she began to breathe a bit loudly.

When not absorbing energy from her environment to replenish herself, she had far less stamina than her unicorn Soul-self back when she fought Stella Knight Kirby. Souls really were stamina bags. Especially her Soul before it became Absolute.

With Link out of magic, she attacked again with her blade-horn. She should now be able to overpower his sword and, possibly, disarm him if she did it right. However, to her surprise, Link simply side-stepped the blade - which cut the arena in two again), sliced a polygon Empoleon, took off his mask, becoming his normal self, and then used his grapple which wrapped around her neck before bringing her back to him and slamming her against the side of one of the platforms. He then quickly put the mask back on and charged at her. She barely caught his sword between her front hooves while also blasting away an approaching polygon Empoleon. Link also had to back-kick a polygon Ness coming from behind him armed of a Beam Sword. But then, he was also blasted away by Sweetie Void, which made him let go of his sword which remained in Sweetie's hooves.

Now in possession of the infamous helix sword of the Fierce Deity, which was CRAZY HEAVY SERIOUSLY EVEN BULK BICEPS WOULD HAVE DIFFICULTY LIFTING IT, Sweetie Void charged at the recovering Hero of Time.

Only for said Hero of Time to duck her swing at the last moment before he grabbed her by the head and the back legs and snapped her spine on his knee. VEEEEERY hard. As in, it broke in two, which would have turned Sweetie's lower body definitively useless if it wasn't for her healing. Link then grabbed back his sword and was about to plant it into the filly, not minding receiving a punch from a polygon Luigi.

Despite the absolute pain she was in, Sweetie Void was able to teleport at the very last moment just as the sword started to penetrate her skin. Just as the sword planted itself into the floor instead, Sweetie then punched Link extra hard on the right leg, not only destroying his Tibia and Fibula (the bones under the knee), but also making him lose his balance so he was forced to put his weight on his sword to remain up. Sweetie then quickly used the occasion to punch the other leg, putting it in the same state.

Despite this, Link remained standing even when he pulled his sword off the floor, albeit wobbling a bit.

This disturbed Sweetie a lot. Any normal person would be down crying their mommy by now with their legs in this state. It hurt just to watch Link standing despite his legs being total wrecks. And contrary to Sweetie Void, he didn't have the luxury of having a mean to heal himself. By the way, Sweetie Void made sure to throw into the void the bottle with the trapped fairy in it that just appeared.

After they both took care of some more polygon fighters, Link wobbly walked toward Sweetie Void who continuously attacked him from all directions with her own beam swords, lasers, and other projectiles. But no matter how many times Link was cut, burned, or whatever, he continued his advance, barely keeping his balance.

Getting frustrated, Sweetie Void dodged several rapid swings of his sword when he was finally in range before she managed to punch him in the chest, cracking several of his ribs. Despite this, Link didn't even let out a groan of pain, only spitting some blood, before he punched her in return, on the head, strong enough to crack her skull. But Sweetie then caught the arm that just punched her (Link's right one) and snapped it. However, because of blood now covering her left eye, she didn't see a polygon DK coming and punching her, opening her to Link who pierced her with his sword.

She immediately punched Link on the face with a shield-fist coated in electricity, making him release his weapon. She also cut the polygon DK into pieces with her swords while she slowly pulled out Link's sword. When Link recovered from the punch, she sent a copy of Meta Knight to make diversion while she finished pulled off the sword. Once the weapon was fully out, allowing her to heal, she threw it into the void just as Link caught the copy Meta Knight's sword, forced it away from his hand, and used it to impale him, destroying him.

Of course, the copy's sword disappeared from Link's hand along with its real owner.

But then, with Link totally disarmed and unbalanced, Sweetie proceeded to pummel him all over the body with shield-fists. The assault quickly forced Link to drop on his back on the ground, but Sweetie continued for a whole minute. Any polygon fighter who tried anything during that time was promptly cut into pieces by a double of the filly who used her swords.

Sweetie Void then stopped.

Only to see that Link was still conscious, but couldn't move anymore because pretty much all the bones of his body were now dust.

"Huff... Huff... You won't give up... even in this state? I guess... that I have no choice," she said before she approaching the fallen warrior, turned her front hooves into hands, and began to forcefully pull off the mask.

Fierce Deity clearly didn't want that because he roared and struggled as much as he could in his state, constantly moving his head.

But after several long seconds, Sweetie Void succeeded. The mask came off, and Link returned to normal. He lost consciousness right away.

Sweetie dropped the mask.

"He... Hehe... Like I said, didn't need singing. Totally piece of cake," she muttered before she used her magic to clean herself of all the blood, fully healed.

"And the victor of this battle, and of this tournament iiiiiis... SWEETIE VOID!!!" Master Hand announced.

Both Sweetie Void and Link returned to the others, fully healed and with all their possessions. However, they were surprised to see someone absent.

"Where is Master Hand?" the filly asked.

"He disappeared just before you two appeared," Mario answered.

Just after he said that, a new rift opened, and Master Hand's voice came out of it.

"You who won this great tournament, you will have now the privilege of facing me. No use to wait. I know that you are as excited to fight me as I am to fight you, and that you are ready. So, come. Enter your Final Destination, and let's battle!"

"Does he have to be so dramatic?" Samus deadpanned.

Sweetie Void laughed. "Well. Let's not make him wait. He is entirely right. I want this fight now."

"At least, I doubt that it will be as violent as the one you just had against Link," a very sick-looking Rarity said. "Is... Is your spine alright?"

"Don't worry. It's as if nothing happened," Sweetie Void reassured.

Sweetie Void appeared at the extremity of a large octogonal, diamond-shaped structure with a flat surface that floated in space.

And appearing out of space, Master Hand came with a booming cackle. "MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!" Once he was done, the floating hand dropped at the opposite extremity of the arena.

"Nice entrance," Sweetie Void applauded.

"Thank you. I always practice the laugh. Now, before we start, let me tell you the specificities of this battle. First, there will be no items. Secondly, the Ring Out Barrier won't work for me. Some of my attacks ask a lot of place, you see? The only way you will be able to defeat me is by knocking me out. However, you can be Ringed Out."

"No problem."

"Good... Now... Readyyyy?

...

...

GO!!!"

As soon as he shouted that, both Sweetie Void and Master Hand flew at each other with a punch ready. After a violent clash that lasted a few seconds and that shook the whole dimension, they separated, and Master Hand pointed two fingers at the filly in a "finger-gun" mode before he began to fire giant bullets by pairs. Sweetie easily reflected them thanks to her mirror, only for Master Hand to come and poke the mirror with a finger, destroying it. He thanks caught Sweetie in his grip and tightened hard. After a second, the filly freed herself by unleashed a big explosion that blasted Master Hand away, and she quickly began to fire beams at him with her ten cannons plus her horn while he recovered.

After taking some hits, Master Hand materialized a huge hand that he used to deflect some of the beams back at the filly before he threw it right at her. Sweetie Void barely flew out of the way only to be slapped by the giant hand that came just after. Master Hand then sent out lasers from his five fingers that began to sweep around, mostly targeting Sweetie Void or to obstruct her, but the filly had no problem avoiding them while flying around and firing more beams at the hand.

She quickly had to teleport to avoid a punch, only for Master Hand to disappear into a rift and to come out of another right above where she appeared, and the filly found herself crushed between the top of the arena and a giant fist. Electricity then spread from Master Hand before she could free herself. Despite this, Sweetie Void was able to turn her fur into needles that pierced Master Hand all over his fingers and forced him to go away. Sweetie then made him pay the electricity by teleporting on his back before she planted two of her beam swords into him and unleashed electricity inside him from them.

To stop her, Master Hand fired a laser from one of his fingers into a rift, and the laser came out of another rift to hit the filly. Before it was a continuous laser, it continued to burn her until she decided to use a mirror again to reflect it back through the rift to burn Master Hand instead. However, Master Hand then turned himself upside down and slammed himself on the arena, crushed the filly between it and him again. This time, he didn't remain and took off fire into space, leaving behind a trail of flames which burned Sweetie Void.

As Sweetie was getting up, she then saw Master Hand flying back toward her from the side. Instead of getting out of the way, she readied herself to catch him to stop him. This worked, but not before she was pushed back almost to the Ring Out Barrier. She had to use a shield as a platform to help herself and stop in time. Once he fully stopped, she then slashed him several times with her beam swords before she blasted him away and readied her ten cannons to fire an Ultimate Doom Laser.

She fired, only for Master Hand to open a rift that sent the laser right back at the filly. Sweetie Void copied him and opened her own rift to send the laser back at him. The two then began to fly around attacking each other while constantly using rifts to change the Ultimate Doom Laser's trajectory to try to hit their adversary with it. At a moment, Sweetie Void passed under the arena, getting out of view of Master Hand. Once she reappeared and returned to attack again, she was then finally hit by the Ultimate Doom Laser.

Only for her to reveal to be a Mirror Copy which broke into several shards that went after Master Hand. Not expecting this, Master Hand quickly destroyed the shards with his finger-gun bullets only to be hit in turn by the Ultimate Doom Laser that the real Sweetie sent back at him.

As the arena became surrounded by a purple mist that obscured the space, with shooting stars in it, Sweetie Void grabbed Master Hand by one of the fingers before she threw him to crash on the arena. She then dropped on him like a meteor before she pummeled him with shield-fists.

Until he snapped his fingers, and a meteor suddenly crashed right on Sweetie Void. Master Hand immediately took the occasion to get up and to punch her away before he snapped his fingers again, and several copies of himself made of stone formed around him before they went after the filly.

Against this, Sweetie decided to move up a gear, turning her mane and tail into fire before creating copies of energy of Galacta Knight to counter them.

Pure chaos followed.

Sweetie Void avoided the sweeping lasers of a stone Master Hand that was then attacked by one of her Galacta Knights, then flew toward the real Master Hand who was in his "finger-gun" position, accumulating energy on his two fingers. Instead of firing bullets, he fired a big laser that Sweetie reflected with a mirror, not without some difficulty. Master Hand slapped the laser to send it toward one of the Galacta Knights, destroying the copy, before he snapped his fingers. The next instant, a giant sword like the one that Master Hand used earlier appeared above Sweetie Void. The sword remained above her no matter where she was flying, pointed down.

Briefly glancing up at the sword above her, Sweetie Void decided to not pay attention to it and to attack Master Hand who was sending cards made of pure solidified energy at her. These cards revealed to act like cutter blades. When Sweetie avoided them, they eventually flew back where they came from, so she had to avoid cards coming both from before and from behind. And then, the sword above her finally decided to drop down on her. Avoiding it, Sweetie Void managed to grab it, and then used it to destroy the cards while her ten cannons fired at Master Hand and his stone copies. Speaking of, one of them tried to punch her but ended up cut in half as a result.

Master Hand snapped his fingers, and meteors rained all over the arena and around.

In return, Sweetie Void materialized hundreds of beams in random places and made them fire at random directions, making them totally unpredictable. She also created little balls of energy that floated around for a couple of seconds before exploding. Many meteors were destroyed, as well as some stone Master Hands, before Sweetie Void finally formed a real wall of lasers that she sent at the real Master Hands. Thanks to the diminished number of stone Master Hands, some of the Galacta Knight copies also attacked him.

While he was hit from all sides and the arena entered a wormhole, Master Hand snapped his fingers and created icy winds that took the form of beasts that attacked the Galacta Knights and Sweetie Void. While the filly was busy dealing with them, Master Hand then grabbed the arena by its extremity and used it to slap everything before him into oblivion. Sweetie Void avoided being one of the victims by teleporting away.

She appeared right behind Master Hand and impaled him with his giant sword which she still had, making him release the arena. She then gave him a taste of his own medicine by grabbing the whole arena in her magic before she smashed him with it, more exactly with the pointed bottom of it. But Master Hand caught it, and the two began a struggle to gain control.

Until Sweetie Void cut the whole arena in two with a giant blade of energy, and gave Master Hand a bad slash by the same occasion. She then grabbed the two pieces of the arena with her magic and repeatedly slammed them into Master Hand from both sides.

But Master Hand revealed then that he could teleport too and eventually got away, reappearing not far before Sweetie Void.

"You are winning this one, Sweetie Void."

"Really? You give up?"

"Not at all. But as this is going right now, you have the advantage. It's a very good fight, and you are an amazing adversary." Master Hand gave her a thumb up to show his appreciation. "However, I want more. You are holding back, and I am holding back too. No more of that. I want to see everything you have. EVERYTHING. Show me that power that is ready to fight a whole multidimentional army.

Sweetie Void looked hesitant. "I don't know if-"

"You are scared of going all out against the Great me? You shouldn't be. Your objective is to put an end to the Subspace Army. Well then..."

Suddenly, something in Master Hand seemed to change. Sweetie Void wasn't sure what, but she suddenly felt a chill.

Then, as Master Hand continued to speak, his voice was now monotonous. "You shall not have any qualms to fight me at your most powerful. Because...

I...

AM...

THE SUPREME COMMANDER...

OF THE SUBSPACE ARMY!!!"

...

...

Master Hand's voice resonated everywhere.

And yet, everything became silent.

Sweetie Void, and even the spectators who heard everything, could only stare.

Energy began to crackle between Master Hand's fingers. "Now... GIVE ME YOUR ALL! PRINCESS OF THE VOID!!! OR DIE!!!"

Author's Note

Next chapter: the real final boss of the first Saga.

Chapter 121: The Enemy

Master Hand... was a member of the Subspace Army? And more exactly, the leader?

What?

Before she could even recover from the shock of learning that, Sweetie Void was suddenly punched by Master Hand who was coated in so much energy that an aura was visible around him, and the filly was sent away at a speed nearing the one of light.

If it hadn't been for her reacting at the very last moment and boosting herself defensively, she would have purely and simply exploded, and this would have been the end. Instead, she was merely flattened into a bloody pulp that still was alive enough that she was able to regenerate before she stopped her course.

She was still knocked so far away that she couldn't see the arena anymore. No doubt that she passed the Ring Out Barrier, but it was the last thing in anyone's mind right now. Also, the wormhole was gone, and Sweetie was back in the middle of space.

The punch knocked Sweetie Void out of her shock, which was replaced by anger and hate as everything finally settled.

Master Hand was the leader of the Subspace Army. He was the one who was putting in danger so many universes, so many lives. He was Porky's master, and so, indirectly responsible of what the brat did. Paula's death, Onett's state...

He was the Enemy to slain.

But then, Sweetie Void remarked something. She was trying to absorb energy from around to replenish what she used to heal herself, but there was nothing to absorb! Not even Void Energy!

"Judging by your expression, you found out," she heard from behind her. Quickly turning, she saw Master Hand now present. "This pocket universe is my personal sandbox. I can modify it as I wish. And right now, I made it so there is absolutely no energy for you to absorb. And don't try to escape out of this universe. Rifts and portals to exit it won't work, they will immediately disappear upon creation. Same for your friends actually trying to enter. No interference. This is between you and me."

"Oh... Buck... But I can do this!"

Sweetie Void teleported right beside Master Hand and proceeded to start absorbing his own energy. Master Hand quickly reacted to this however and tried to slap her away, only for her to teleport again to avoid it before she continued.

"As expected. But will absorbing my energy like that be enough? It's merely a river compared to the ocean that you need to fight."

Ugh... He's right... But at least, it was enough to replace what I used to heal, so it's not useless. Also, it weakens him a bit.

Suddenly, Master Hand snapped his fingers, and the next instant, they were in the middle of an asteroid field. Among them, the bigger ones were easily the size of mountains. Then, with a hand movement, he made all the giant boulders move to his right. They "miraculously" all avoided Master Hand, but Sweetie Void had to stop sucking up energy to deal with them. There were so many, and they were so fast, that it was impossible to avoid all of them, so she had to destroy some while keeping an eye on Master Hand who rose a finger.

The next instant, a blue supergiant star appeared above. Sweetie Void barely had time to augment her resistances before the heat of the star hit, stopping herself from being disintegrated like all the asteroids around. She then proceeded to heal her eyes which had been destroyed by the star's intense luminosity when it appeared.

The blindness, however, opened her enough that Master Hand cut her in half with a materialized sword like he used earlier.

"Rngh!"

The filly quickly glued herself back together before her mane and tail and even her eyes turned into pure darkness. Some darkness was even leaking out of her mouth. She was very close to turn into her Soul form.

Master Hand decided to launch the supergiant star at Sweetie Void before he disappeared. Instead of trying to destroy the star, which would ask a very powerful Ultimate Doom Laser and wast a huge quantity of energy as a result, she flew as fast as she could to avoid it. She didn't want to try her luck going through its core. At least, this star was one of these that didn't have a corona, or this would have been ugly. Blue and white stars didn't have coronae.

By the same occasion, she flew in the direction of where she felt Master Hand reappeared. Leaving the star behind to continue its course, she quickly approached Master Hand's position only to, in a flash, find herself facing a planet field. As in, a field not made of asteroids like earlier, but of boulders the size of planets. And they were all sent right toward her.

Not that this stopped her. Readying her ten swords, now darkness swords instead of beam swords, she continued and quickly reached the first planet.

The next instant, the planet was split in two.

The one that followed got the same fate. As well as the one after, and the one after.

Then, Sweetie Void reached Master Hand and, in a fraction of a second, slashed him. She opened a large gash at his side from which a jet of some strange black particles briefly came out before it closed.

"That's more like it."

Master Hand sent a storm of very powerful and fast waves in Sweetie's direction, and the filly had to teleport to avoid being cut into little cubes. They weren't waves of energy, they were literally waves of solidified space. However, when Sweetie Void reappeared further away, he then snapped his fingers and stopped time for the filly before he sent more waves. But Sweetie Void was able to break out of the time stop and teleported again, only getting a sliced leg that was quickly regrown.

When she reappeared again, Master Hand was nowhere to be seen, only for him to break through the fabric of space to punch her. But Sweetie was prepared and stopped him with her ten swords. After a bit of struggle, she was able to push him away before she slashed him several times and also hit him with dozens of beams fired from all around. But then, Master Hand took his finger-gun position and began to fire giant bullets at a speed close to a gattling gun.

And to make it worse, these ones were homing bullets, and very effective ones at that. They continued to go after Sweetie even when she teleported. She had no other choice but to destroy them to get them off her tail.

She decided to stop messing around and started singing. She intended to end the fight rapidly before her energy was depleted.

"The Enemy appears!
Rising up, I stand tall
I won't stop 'til you fall!

The Enemy appears!
Through the day, and the night
I'll continue to fight!"

She began by sending a double of herself using two of her cannons to destroy the bullets, allowing her to fully focus on Master Hand. Then, she readied her eight other cannons which were put into sword mode, accumulated energy into the blades for a few seconds, and launched herself toward her enemy.

Master Hand stopped firing his bullets and began to fly away from Sweetie Void while sending the planets that were still around at the filly from all directions. Sweetie Void didn't mind the planets as she chased Master Hand and began to attack him with all manners of projectiles. She also merged back with her double because she didn't have any use for it anymore now that the hand had stopped firing his bullets. Using her ten cannons, she fired beams powerful enough at the planets that were closing in to blow them up while also firing at Master Hand. This created a giant field of boulders of all sizes all around Sweetie Void.

Master Hand clenched his fist, making all the boulders rapidly move toward Sweetie Void only for her to teleport right before him before she slashed him, opening another big gash that leaked black particles before it closed too. He then retaliated by doing twirls with one of his fingers, making everything circle him, excepted Sweetie Void who was able to resist being manipulated around. The filly had to avoid or destroy the moving space boulders however, as a result, but it was no problem. But then, without warning, Master Hand began to twirl his finger in the opposite direction, making the boulders brusquely do the same, almost making Sweetie being rammed by one the size of Twilight's castle. Then, Master Hand changed his finger's direction again, only, this time, he made it so the boulders moved mostly vertically instead of mostly horizontally (from Sweetie's point of view. Directions didn't really in space). This time, it was a planet that was about to ram her from below only to be cut in two.

Having enough, Sweetie Void lit her horn and magically took control of ALL the boulders, including the planets, and threw them all at Master Hand. He was seemingly buried under billions of billions of billions of tons of rocks, but he then reappeared not far and punched the rocky agglomeration toward Sweetie Void. He wasn't prepared for the filly drilling her way through it and blasting out at blinding speed, and ended up with a big gash for the third time.

Before the wound could even close again, Sweetie then pierced Master Hand with her ten swords, turning him into a pincushion, and then punched him from below, the punch unleashing a huge amount of energy that blasted him very, very, VERY far away.

Gathering her ten cannons while still singing, she then readied her most powerful Ultimate Doom Laser and fired.

Far away, Master Hand barely moved out of the way of the laser.

Only for Sweetie to command the laser to explode.

The resulting explosion had the force of a supernova, and Master Hand was caught right in the center. The explosion even reached Sweetie Void who had to protect herself while everything around her was disintegrated.

When everything cleared, she was breathing heavily, but still teleported to Master Hand's position, seeing that he was still alive but very badly burned, and contrary to before, his injuries had difficulty healing.

And yet, he spoke as if he wasn't at death's doorstep.

"Amazing. For one who isn't even a God, your powers are breathtaking. I am not disappointed. I admit my defeat. Now I have no doubt, if we allied, our chances of victory against them would rise a lot."

"Them? Oh. You mean the God of Light and the God of Darkness?"

"So you somehow learned about them too. That's right. Galeem and Dharkon.

Respectively Light and Darkness, they are mortal enemies since countless eternities. They are opposites in almost everything. However, there are two things that they have in common: they are both evil, and they are both unbelievably powerful for First Category Gods. Their dimension-prisons are weakening as we speak, and when freedom will be theirs, calamity will befall countless universes. They must be stopped, one way or another.

So, I ask you, join me, you and your allies, so we can work together to end their threat."

Sweetie Void glared at Master Hand. "You really expect me to agree just like that? Your goal is noble, but so far, your army hasn't shown you to be any better. One of your subordinates used one of your bombs to trap a town in some pocket dimensional bubble and killed an innocent girl just for the heck of it! Explain yourself!"

"As I am, I am not powerful enough to face Galeem and Dharkon. In order to gain more power, I have to trap special places of interest into dimensional bubbles as you called it to use them as power boosters when the time will come. They will allow me to become even more powerful than I am now so I should be able to fight at least one of the Gods in a duel."

"Something tells me that, when you mean "special places of interest", you don't simply mean desert planets."

"You are right. The places in question must be fatefully important. Porky didn't target Onett just because he wanted to. Onett was the place where Ness was born and grew up, and where his quest started, ending up with him saving his universe. The town had a primordial role, and as a result, my power will be boosted a lot. Ponyville, Peach's castle, Dedede's castle, Corneria City, or even the Space Station ARK among many others will work just as well if I end up targeting them. And if these places have people in them, especially just as important people, then all the better. Ness' family, to retake the exemple of Onett, will help boosting the power output even more. The drawback is that these places will risk to be destroyed if I end up having to go too hard when I use them, but those are sacrifices that I am willing to make to save the decillions of lives that will be threatened by Galeem and Dharkon.

This is why I have Porky as a subordinate. "Villains" are generally very easy to convince. They lack the moral, and a few promises are all that are needed for them to agree to help. But once Galeem and Dharkon are either killed or imprisoned again, then I will eliminate them.

You understand, now? I'm not your enemy. Circumstances are just forcing me to take difficult decisions. I don't want to enter a war against you and your allies. I even promise you this: if you join me, then I will not target your universes. I will deal with Porky and any other villains currently working for me. I will even restore Onett. Just know that, if you decide to oppose me, then you will be at a terrible disadvantage. I now know the location of all your universes, and through this tournament, I observed everyone's abilities. We WILL be ready to face you. So, think well before you answer."

...

Sweetie wanted so much to say "No." She didn't want to join Master Hand in trapping people to be used to boost his power at the risk of killing them, even if it was to fight two Gods that threatened countless universes. But the others...

"Why not simply ask an omnipotent God to go deal with them?!"

"I would need to find an omnipotent God that would be willing to do it first, and the great majority of them only care for what happens within their universes. As long as Galeem and Dharkon don't threaten their universes, then they won't do anything. And Galeem and Dharkon know to avoid such universes until they manage to find a mean to actually deal with these Gods. Just so you know, we have such means."

Sweetie gulped. She could tell that he wasn't bluffing.

"I... cannot take this decision alone..." she eventually said.

"Understandable. I will let you return to your friends so you can all discuss this. I will give you one month, local world's time, to decide. I will await your answer."

At this, Master Hand snapped his fingers. Then, there was a flash, and Sweetie Void found herself back among her friends, in Sinnoh.

Master Hand was nowhere to be seen.

And everyone could only look at each others in total silence at this ultimatum.

Writer, I REALLY hate you!

Author's Note

Merry Christmas!

A short chapter this time, but very important.

For the lyrics, I thank The Kelduo, like always.

Chapter 122: Dilemma And A New Adventure

"CURSE THAT FIEND!!!" one of the Luna broke the silence with the Royal Canterlot Voice, making almost everyone put their hands or hooves on their ears. "THIS IS THE WORST THING HE COULD HAVE DONE!!!"

"Can you please turn off your Voice, Luna? You are deafening everyone!" Sweetie Void pleaded.

"Oh. Sorry."

"Yeah, I can't believe he played all of us for fools! He seemed so nice! And he was funny!" Little Ghost said.

"She wasn't talking about that, even if this is a very good reason to be angry, but of his ultimatum," Phantom said.

"Uh? Why? I mean, of course we won't join him, right?..... Right?"

"You shouldn't bet on this..." Captain Falcon said through gritting teeth. "Any leader worth their salt would pass the well being of their people before the rest. Some of us are here specifically because we thought that we would have no other choice but to work together to face the Subspace Army or risk becoming one of their many victims, but their leader just said that he won't attack our universes if we join him. And what do you think would be the less risky choice? Remaining with the barely forming alliance that is just starting to develop dimensional technology and that knows almost nothing of their enemy, or the obviously super powerful multidimensional army that now knows almost everything about us."

"....... Oh..."

"Captain Falcon perfectly resumed the situation," another of the Luna said. "As much as I despise the thought of joining them and helping them to invade other universes and use these bombs to potentially ruin countless lives, for the safety of our ponies, we may have no other choice. It's either that or we gamble everypony's lives on a weak chance of winning or on Master Hand being able to defeat these Galeem and Dharkon without having to go to the point that the places trapped by the bombs will be destroyed with everypony in them. Of course, that is assuming Master Hand told the truth, but after how he tricked us, I'm hesitating in trusting his words. After all, he was so good that he even managed to trick the three Applejack, so who knows if that's not another trick."

Phantom snorted. "It's not complicated to trick Applejack. Chrysalis did it easily at Cadance's wedding, and her acting was horrible."

The three Applejack glared at her, and one said, "Ah may be the bearer of Honesty and Ah may be good at seeing lies, but Ah'm not a lie detector! Ah just thought that it was the stress of the wedding, like everypony else! And how could Ah have seen that Master Hand was lying? He doesn't even have a face to read!"

"What she said," the two other said.

Zelda intervened. "But since we can't prove that he lied or he said the truth, then his words will successfully bring discord in our alliance. Leaders will want to join him, others will refuse, and others will hesitate. My father in the past version of Hyrule will certainly be among the first ones. I'm among the last ones, even if I want to be among the second ones."

"He really got us good, uh?" Falco said before he looked at Ness. "What about you, kid? Joining Master Hand would bring your hometown and your family back."

The boy had tears in his eyes as he took several seconds to answer. "I don't know... I don't know..."

Sweetie Void suddenly violently stomped the ground, creating some cracks, making some of her friends jump in surprise. "I refuse to join him! If I have to step down as queen, then I will, but I will NOT go around risking to kill innocents for some "Greater Good!" This is why I have been seeking allies! Master Hand thinks of fighting Galeem and Dharkon by himself, but I'm sure that we can win too without having to use these bombs or whatever if we work together! He gave us one month! That's one month to prepare!"

"But one month is a very short time," Jeff said.

"But a lot can happen in a month," Sweetie reminded. "We will continue to search for new allies, we will continue to study the technologies of the Ancients, we will train, we may even learn new stuff about the Subspace Army. Please, everyone, wait before deciding to give up."

...

"So... What now?" Luigi asked.

"Now... We just return to our respective homes, spread what we learned, and... I guess... we continue our lives," Gold said. "Of course, some of us will have a lot to think and debate about. I'm already seeing the many sleepless nights," he continued with a groan, and the other Champions present followed.

Blue chuckled. "For once, I'm glad to not be a Champion anymore. Sucks to be you, guys."

Fox sighed. "This will be a long month... Wait, no... It will be longer or shorter for most of us because of our universes' time speed compared to this one."

"Uh... That's right. I should maybe finally ask the three Discord to do something about that, like one did with Mario's universe," Sweetie Void said. "It will make things simpler."

"So, can you three do it?" the alicorn asked.

"Of course," one of the three gathered Discord answered.

"By uniting our powers..."

"Modifying time in all our current universes..."

"Will be doable."

"It will be tiring however."

Sweetie Void gave them a deadpan look. "You know, this is not because you three are like triplets that you have to speak like triplets."

"Aww... But this is so fun."

"Triple the chaos..."

"Triple the fun!"

Sweetie Void put a hoof under her chin and thought aloud, "Mmh... I wonder how long Twilight will last if you three do that while talking to her."

"Ooh! That's an excellent idea!"

"You are good!"

"We should make you a honorary member of our chaotic club!"

"I'm surprised we haven't already done that."

"Yeah, you are such a bundle of chaos."

"Literally and figuratively."

"This is why I shouldn't join you, guys. There would be too much chaos gathered in one place."

"There is never too much chaos!" the three Discord shouted.

"Tell that to Harmony!"

"Bleh!"

Later, Sweetie Void took a shower. She really needed one.

Unbeknown to her, a little device fell from her mane thanks to the water. The trackerbot Porky left on her.

She then stepped on it, destroying it.

Master Hand won't be able to follow her in new universes.

By the next day, the news of Master Hand's ultimatum quickly spread everywhere, and it had the expected political effect. The moral dilemma shook all the members of the alliance to the core and destabilised barely forming foundations. Samus' Galactic Federation already seemed to be on the brink of a civil war between the ones who wanted to refuse to join the Subspace Army and the ones who were willing to. The Galactic Federation from the F-Zero-verse didn't have this problem because it hadn't been contacted yet by diplomats so it wasn't on the process of joining the alliance, and Captain Falcon decided to remain silent, so they didn't know about the ultimatum. Mario's home world, Future Hyrule, and Corneria had serious doubts. They just came out of catastrophic events (the Cankens' invasion, Ganondorf's rule, and the Aparoid invasion) and were barely recovering, so they didn't really want to enter a war even if they didn't want to join the Subspace Army. Past Hyrule was barely stopped from agreeing to join the Subspace Army thanks to Past Zelda who was able to convince her father to take some time to think about it with the help of Impa and Link. Ness' home world was ready to join too, having already been victim of one of the bombs, and so, already having an idea of the power of the Subspace Army, and the poor Ness didn't know what to do. As for Mobius and the three Equestria (plus the allies of Phantom's Equestria), they decided to take a wait-and-see approach like Sweetie Void asked to do, especially the Equestria despite a few voices rising for or against joining. Most were simply scared of what the future will bring, no matter the choice.

But Sweetie Void decided to put all this in the back of her mind for now. She had a closer problem to deal with. More specifically, these vortexes that were sucking in people all over Popstar. Not long after speaking to the three Discord, as she was confirming the loyalty of the people of Floralia who agreed with her about refusing to join the Subspace Army (so that was already at least two confirmed countries that will remain loyal to the alliance (the other being New Halcandra, obviously, Magolor promised their loyalty)), she learned that Meta Knight disappeared too. So she decided to patrol Dream Land with Kirby and Bandana Dee, hoping to catch one of these vortexes. But it was up to luck because not even Galacta Knight managed to get one, and Void was still away rebuilding the second world-portal.

"At least, once we find Dedede and Meta Knight, I know that I will be able to count on them to back me up, no matter what," she said to Kirby and Bandana while walking on a road crossing Cookie Country. "So I can add Dream Land, and pretty much all of Popstar, in the list of the ones that will remain loyal against the Subspace Army."

"Of course!" Bandana exclaimed. "So, how long do you think it will take before we find a vortex?"

"I'm betting on one hour."

"I'm betting on ten minutes."

"Poyo poyo poyo."

And right on cue, several giant, star-shaped vortexes appeared in the sky and began to suck in everything. The pull was so strong that even pieces of the ground were teared off. Stuff like trees, star blocks, or simple people had no chance of resisting.

Sweetie Void had no problem resisting, and she made sure to keep a hold on Kirby and Bandana.

"Seems like Kirby wins the bet," she said while Bandana sighed and Kirby shouted in joy. "Alright, let's go inside one of them before they close."

Kirby and Bandana nodded, and Sweetie flew toward the closest vortex while levitating them at her sides.

"I wonder what awaits us at the other side," she wondered.

"We will find out soon enough. I just hope that King Dedede and all the others who got sucked in are alright."

"I hope too."

"This isn't too much for you?" Shadow Speedster asked.

"Not at all," Jeff answered. "Installing weapons in a vehicles is child's play for me, as long as I have the necessary materials, which is the case thanks to Magolor."

"Thanks Jeff. This will help a lot if I want to be useful against the Subspace Army. Racing is nice, but I doubt that this will help winning a war. And I don't think that the small training I got from her is enough for now."

"Well, you apparently managed to stop a villain from conquering an universe thanks to winning a couple of races, so who knows?"

"Good point. But no matter what will happen, I will be with Sweetie."

Meanwhile, somewhere at the outskirt of the Everfree Forest, not far outside of Sweetie Apple Acre, Black Apple planted a seed into the ground. Then, she placed her forehooves above the small mount of earth.

She took a big breathe and said, "Ah hope this'll work this time." before she began to pour energy from her hooves into the ground where the seed was planted.

And after a few seconds, a little sprout poke out.

Seeing this, Black Apple stopped, out of breath, and smiled.

"Finally!"

"WELCOME BACK, MASTER," a being entirely hidden under clothes welcomed Master Hand. The bottom of a purple robe was visible under a green cloak with a green pointed hat that had a green tissu partially surrounding the being's head head from behind. All the pieces of cloth had golden embroidery decorating them, and the cloak also had a golden brooch that consisted of a circular part with a blue center above an horizontal crescent. At both sides of the cloak were also two decorations that looked like giant red and golden arrow points with a large ring-like extremity, and the pointed hat had two ribbons flowing from the top. The only part of the being's body that could be seen were his large, circular, glowing yellow eyes, under his hat, and he was speaking with a robotic monotone voice.

They were both in a large, empty room that served only as Master Hand's place from which he exited and entered the universe while inside the Subspace Army's HQ.

"Minister, did anything happen while I was gone?"

"NO INCIDENT TO REPORT, MASTER. WE ARE APPROACHING ONE MILLION BOMBS PRODUCED, AND THE FIRST STABLE GALLEOM UNIT WAS SUCCESSFULLY CONSTRUCTED... DOES THIS MEAN...?"

"It took that long to successfully produce a Galleom, it would take too long to produce the necessary number. The bombs remain our best mean for me to gain the necessary power in time."

The Minister looked down in visible sadness, displaying emotion for the first time. "I UNDERSTAND. BUT THE PRODUCTION OF GALLEOM UNITS SHOULD ACCELERATE NOW. IT SHOULD NOT BE LONG BEFORE WE HAVE MORE OF THEM. SO LESS OF THESE BOMBS SHOULD BE NEEDED."

"That's right. In my side, I found potential new recruits. If they agree to join us, their backup will allow us to accelerate our operations. In case they refuse, I found a few villains while exploring their universes that should make up for it. I already entered in contact with them, and they agreed to join us. Surprisingly, some of the villains currently working for us come from some of their universes. Somehow, our roads were already crossing before the first encounter between them and Porky. I will have to avoid mentioning them to Andross or Eggman, or this would end badly."

The Minister tilted his head in visible wonder. "IT CAN'T BE A COINCIDENCE. THE POSSIBILITY THAT THIS HAPPENS THREE TIMES BY ACCIDENT IS INFINITELY CLOSE TO ZERO."

"This is definitively not a coincidence. They already knew about us, Galeem, and Dharkon. Someone who knows must have been guiding them."

"IT WOULD MEAN THAT THERE IS A MOLE AMONG US, THIS WOULD BE THE ONLY EXPLANATION, BUT IT CAN'T BE."

"I can't explain it either, but we will have to do a sweep of our ranks just in case, and tell your R.O.Bs to double their patrols, or even triple them."

"VERY WELL, MASTER."

Sweetie Void woke up on a small, empty beach, alongside Kirby and Bandana Dee, facing a forest. Groaning, she rubbed her head.

"Ugh... The inside of that vortex was wilder than I expected. It made the craziest rollercoaster seem like a carousel ride. Hey! Are you alright, you two?"

"Poyoooo..."

"F-five minutes... Please..."

Seeing that her two friends were alright, if still a bit dizzy, Sweetie Void looked around. "Uh. Just a simple a beach, like any other simple beach. I didn't expect to land in a place like that."

"Where did you expect us to land?" Bandana asked as he slowly sat up.

"In or not far of some fortress or whatever whoever created these vortexes uses."

"Well, maybe they're somewhere not far in that forest."

"Maybe. I don't know. I don't feel anything that would indicate the presence of something powerful enough to open vortexes."

Before long, the three friends were up and ready to go.

"Let's explore that forest. There's a path just before us," Sweetie Void said.

"Poyo."

"Yes."

They followed said path, entering the forest. While it was the middle of the day in whatever world they landed in, it quickly got dark once inside the forest, and the presence of a fog didn't help. And beside birds, they could hear nothing else.

Remaining on guard, they continued to follow the path, crossing a wooden log that formed a bridge over a small gap, passing beside some star blocks that must have landed here from the vortex, before they finally encountered their first local fauna.

The creature looked like some kind of orange canine about the size of Sweetie Void, Kirby, and Bandana. It looked very adorable, and Sweetie Void couldn't stop herself from letting out a "awwww!" However, upon hearing her and spotting her, the canine turned hostile right away and ran toward them with the clear intent to attack them. But Sweetie caught it with her magic and brought it to her before she began to hug it.

"Kiai!"

"I'm keeping you!"

"Uh... Sweetie Belle... I'm not sure that-"

Bandana stopped himself as the canine growled and bit Sweetie Void on the neck.

"Hey!" She punched the canine against the ground, knocking it out in one it. "Bad boy! Bad! No biting!"

"Let's... Uh... Continue."

Leaving behind the unconscious canine, the three heroes continued to follow the path between two cliffs, passing beside a lamp post and an empty soda can, much to their wonder. Before long, they reached the exit of the forest, and they could start to see something between the foliage.

And then, the three stopped and looked in awe as the forest left place to a modern city overrun by nature. The path they had been following turned into an asphalt road partially covered in grass, the road revealing to be an elevated one as it was just beside the roof of some buildings at the left which were also partially covered by plants. A guardrail was present at the left to stop people from falling, and a fence at the right was playing the same role, excepted that it was facing the cliff which continued there, with some electric poles present among them. The road itself wasn't flat anymore like it should be, bumps and irregularities having formed with times.

With all this, it quickly became obvious that this city was abandoned, leaving Mother Nature to reclaim her rights.

"Have we fallen into some post-apocalyptic world?" Bandana wondered. "I swear, if this is one with zombies..."

"Then we will just destroy them. This wouldn't be the first time I fight zombies."

The three resumed their exploration, following the road until they were at the base of a skyscraper. Here, they saw some beings that they knew very well: a couple of Blade Knights, a couple of Cappys, a couple of Bronto Burts, and a Kabu.

"It didn't take long to find some of the ones taken by the vortexes," Sweetie Void said.

"And they seem OK, beside how they are staring at us with hostility. They should be happy to see us! We are here to bring them back to Popstar, after all!"

"Poyo!" Kirby ran ahead and easily knocked out all them as they were beginning to attack.

"Inhabitants of Popstar being hostile to us just because they feel like having a fight? That's nothing new. But I wouldn't be surprised if this hostility is the resulting of some mind control or brainwashing. It happened often enough that this is very possible," Sweetie Void pointed out.

"True."

"Poy."

Continuing at the right of the skyscraper, they climbed on another building on which more enemies awaited them, including Poppy Bros. Jr. Traversing the roof of the long building, they then reached a billboard that had turned into a bridge toward another elevated road which was however blocked at both sides by barriers, grids, and vegetation. But, just at the opposite side, there was the entrance of another building, and judging by the name that they could read thanks to the translator, it was some automobile store. They decided to explore it.

Inside, not minding the shelves containing mechanical stuff, tools, and wheels, as well as the rusty blue car on a round platform that was in front of them, they continued to the right toward the rest of the building.

But then, the car shook, gaining the heroes' attention, and from behind the car jumped out three canines like the one they encountered earlier. As the canines ran toward the heroes, Kirby decided to get it over with rapidly and opened his mouth, sucking them up.

And sucking up the car by the same occasion.

Which may be too big for Kirby to eat without the Hypernova.

And yet, to Sweetie and Bandana's surprise, the car entered Kirby's mouth, the puffball stretching to make place for the huge object. But the car wasn't swallowed. Instead, it partially came back out, the bottom with the wheels, with Kirby's body covering the rest.

...

...

"Uh. That's new," Sweetie Void eventually said.

"Wh...? Ho...? Whe...?"

"Were you hiding some new ability from us, Kirby?"

Kirby shook his head, making the front of the car move left and right. Then, having a feeling, he tried something, and he was successfully able to control the car, making it advance.

"Mmh... I don't know when or how you got this, but let's make use of it." Grinning, she grabbed Bandana and jumped on the roof of the car where she dropped Bandana beside her. "Let's roll!"

"Wait! There are no belts!" Bandana shouted.

Only for Kirby to roll into the path at the right, full speed.

"WAAAHHH!"

"WEEEEEE!!!"

They passed under a metallic gate and slalomed between shelves, remains of cars, and other stuff, destroying blue crates, before they reached a cracked wall at the end. Sweetie and Bandana both braced themselves as Kirby smashed through the wall, landing behind the building, on another road. Kirby followed the road, everything standing in his way either getting flattened or smashed, until he rammed into a group of logs, making them fall and form a bridge toward the roof of a small building from which he jumped.

They then reached a raised drawbridge, and Kirby rammed it too, making it drop so they could continue to the next part of the city. But before Kirby could kick off again, Sweetie grabbed a boom box at the side.

"Nothing is better while travelling in vehicle than listening to some music!" she exclaimed before she turned it on, making Kirby bop to the music that started playing.

"Hey! It's really good! Let's go, Kirby!"

Kirby agreed with a small bounce before he took off, crossing the bridge with his passengers enjoying the view in music.

Not long later, they were leaving the city when they suddenly heard some shouts from above. Looking up, they saw dark blue birds transporting cages with Waddle Dees trapped in them.

"Not on my watch!" Sweetie Void shouted. "Continue without me!" she told to Kirby and Bandana Dee before she flew toward the birds and their cages.

What followed was a whole minutes of birds squawking in pain or confusion and of Waddle Dees shouting in joy while blue feathers began to rain all over the place.

Meanwhile, Kirby reached the end of the road. Or rather, the road continued a bit, but it was impossible to continue with the car, so Kirby was forced to spit it out and to leave it behind. So he and Bandana continued on feet and quickly reached where the birds with the trapped Waddle Dees were coming from.

It was a ruin fields, with destroying buildings everything, different from the buildings of the city they just left. These ones seemed to have an architectural style more familiar to Kirby and Bandana, the style found on Popstar. And among these ruining buildings, Waddle Dees were running around, trying to escape canines that were chasing them only to be trapped by birds dropping cages on them. The cages had a hole at the bottom to allow the Waddle Dees to enter them, and once the cages were full, the hole closed, keeping the Dees trapped.

There was another creature that tried to escape the canines. It looked like an adorable flying blue chinchilla with giant ears, smaller than the canines chasing it. It was quickly cornered, and three birds used the occasion to drop a golden cage that looked like the head of a lion on it, trapping it like the Waddle Dees.

Only for one of the birds to be hit by a laser from Kirby using the Laser Ability while also using the Archer Ability to fire arrows on other birds to make them drop their cages. Bandana Dee also entered the frail by targeting the canines, making short work of them. With only two birds, they couldn't lift the golden cage that was too heavy for them, so they were left at the mercy of Kirby who continued to fire at them. Having no choice, the birds left the cage behind and escaped along with other birds who didn't want to remain here. Some of them still transported cages, but they found themselves stopped by Sweetie Void who appeared before them.

Before long, all the animals were kicked out of the ruined town and were left to run or fly away with their tails between their legs, literally in the case of the canines, leaving behind many of the Waddle Dees that they attempted to capture as well as the blue creature.

"They are all gone. You are safe, now," Sweetie Void said while she destroyed the golden cage, freeing the blue creature. Sweetie remarked by the same occasion that the creature had a small hole in its right ear.

"You saved us!" one of the Waddle Dees exclaimed before he looked down in sadness. "I really thought that we were done for! However, they still managed to capture many of our friends before you came..."

"I can't believe the heroes of Popstar are here!" another shouted in joy.

"Ahah! Now, the Beast Pack is doomed!"

"It's over... Phew!"

"Thank you, heroes!"

"But now, we have to rebuild everything..."

"Doh!"

"Hey! Thank you for saving me too!" the little blue creature then said too once the Waddle Dees calmed down a bit. "We fought those beasts as hard as we could, but they kept coming back for more, and our number constantly diminished. But then, you arrived and stopped their assault when everything seemed to be over! You are very strong!"

"And you saw nothing!" Bandana boasted. "That barely counted as a warm up!" He then pointed at himself. "By the way, I'm Bandana Waddle Dee, or Bandana Dee, or just Bandana for short, the second in command of the Great King Dedede from Dream Land, on Popstar! Speaking of, have you heard of him? Is he here? He must have landed somewhere around like all these Waddle Dees."

The creature shook his head. "Sorry, never heard of him. He must have landed somewhere else. The vortexes randomly drop new people everywhere."

"Oh..."

Sweetie Void then presented herself in turn before pointing at Kirby. "I'm Sweetie Belle, but I'm going by Sweetie Void recently, and this is Kirby. Nice to meet you!"

"Nice to meet you! I'm Elfilin! And I'm sure that, with your help, we will be able to save all the Waddle Dees!"

"I don't doubt it. But first, how about you explain to us what's going on here? And also where we are?"

"Of course! But I don't really know everything. The Beast Pack - that's what these Awoofys and Clockers are part of - is hunting the Waddle Dees, but I don't know why. As for where we are, we are in what we call the Natural Plains. Uh... But if you ask about this country, or even this world, then sorry, I don't know their names, just that this world was once inhabited by an advanced civilisation, and they are all gone by now. They went to some other place in another universe."

"Really? No, wait, it doesn't matter right now. Why did this Beast Pack try to capture you?"

"I don't know, sorry. Maybe for the same reason that they capture Waddle Dees."

"Well, I guess that nothing can be done about this. We will eventually find out everything as we go after them. But before..."

Sweetie Void took her dimensional phone and began to text.

Sweetie Void:
Starting a new adventure in a new world. Finally caught one of these vortexes that sucked up people all over Popstar. Anyone interested to join me?

Object of this adventure: mysterious vortexes are sucking up people all over Popstar and dropping them all over this new world, and a group of animals called the Beast Pack is hunting Waddle Dees and possibly other beings for unknown reasons.

Objective of this adventure: explore the new world to save the captured Waddle Dees and other beings from the Beast Pack and discover the origin of the vortexes.

Length of this adventure: unknown. Will certainly last several days.

Warning: may somehow end up fighting something with cosmic powers or some abomination of that kind, or even a God. Adventures with Kirby generally end like that.

Confirmed allies: Sweetie Void (me), Kirby, Bandana Waddle Dee, Dedede (once found), Meta Knight (once found).

Author's Note

Happy new year!

With this, we end the First Saga and start the second one! Starting with something that many has been waiting for: Kirby and the Forgotten Land!

Also, in the video, imagine Sweetie Void and Bandana Dee sitting on Kirby being cute.

Chapter 123: Natural Plains Part 1

It didn't take long for Sweetie to receive an answer.

Rarity Void:
I suppose it means that you will not come home for dinner tonight?

Sweetie sweated. This wasn't the answer she expected.

Sweetie Void:
Sorry Rarity. I don't think that this adventure will end that quickly, unless we are lucky and find the Beast Pack's den and the origin of the vortexes right away, but I doubt. But do you girls want to come? It would be nice to have you with us. Have an adventure together.

While Sweetie was texting this, she received two other answers.

Sonic The Hedgehog:
Count me in! I'm never against some action! And I'm sure that my past self will want to come too!

Sonic The Hedgehog:
Count me in! I'm never against some action! And I'm sure that my future self will want to come too!

Sweetie sweated again. Past Sonic preferred to act instead of speaking, but he definitively still was the same Sonic than the other. They will have to do something about their pseudos, or this will become confusing.

Then, one by one, more answers came.

Sunburst was coming to Ponyville, so Rarity and the others couldn't come as they will instead spend some time with him.

Apple Death and Phantom didn't mind coming to experience a Sweetie-Void-and-Kirby-style adventure, and they wanted to help saving the Waddle Dees. Phantom was also interested to see what kind of powerful being they may end up fighting if it ended like Sweetie warned. Upon learning that the Waddle Dees had to rebuild their destroyed villages, the two's respective Mane Six also decided to come to help rebuilding it, having nothing better to do right now, but they will not follow Sweetie and the others in their adventure. Among Apple Death's friends, they all wanted to come, but only Little Ghost felt like she would be useful in this adventure, so she was the only one to come.

Mario and Luigi apparently went to the Beanbean Kingdom to recover a lost power that should help them become stronger, so they won't be able to come.

DK was coming, and he was bringing Diddy and Dixie. He was never against giving some deserved knuckle sandwiches.

None of the two Sonic's friends will come however. They were either busy (especially the Tails) or weren't interested.

Link wanted to come. This adventure should help him train a bit.

Marx was also coming, and he was bringing Dark Meta Knight. He didn't want to pass the occasion to have fun! And to Sweetie's surprise, the three Mage-Sisters wanted to join too. Zan felt that it was the perfect occasion to spend some time with Sweetie and the others, not having really gotten an occasion to bond since the battle against Void. She really wanted to know everyone better. Galacta Knight decided to come too.

Samus was sent in a mission by the Galactic Federation. They finally came to the decision that, for the sake of everyone, the Metroids had to be exterminated to the last, so they sent her to the planet SR388, the Metroids' world, to do the job, and this will take her some time. So, no, she couldn't participate.

The Star Fox team didn't feel like participating unless they were rewarded. They were still mercenaries after all. After some thinking, Sweetie Void decided to use the credits she got as a reward from helping against the Aparoids. The Galactic Federation credits she got after helping against the Phazon weren't yet compatible with the Corneria credits, so she couldn't use them, but this was okay. At this, the Star Fox team agreed to send at least Fox and Krystal (the more effective ground fighters) while the others will remain in the Lylat System. They estimated that this would be enough.

None of the (ex-)Champions wanted to come, without surprise. Red still contributed by sending his faithful Pikachu.

And speaking of Pokémon, Sweetie Void decided to leave all her Pokémon to guard the Waddle Dees' town in case it was attacked again while they will be busy elsewhere, and they will also help rebuilding it. But she will bring Anubis, the Lucario she saved from Team Rainbow Rocket. His aura sight should help them search the captured Waddle Dees, alongside Krystal's powers.

Captain Falcon was bounty hunting, so he won't participate.

And finally, Ness and his friends will be here. This adventure will help Ness clear his mind.

So, all in all, the hero team will be composed of Sweetie Void, Kirby, Bandana Dee, Elfilin (even if he will not really be fighting), Marx, Dark Meta Knight, Zan Partizanne, Francisca, Flamberge, Galacta Knight, Phantom, Apple Death, Little Ghost, Present Sonic, Past Sonic, DK, Diddy, Dixie, Link, Fox, Krystal, Red's Pikachu, Anubis the Lucario, Ness, Jeff, and Poo. Oh, and she almost forgot Spiky. Of course she will bring him. And this team may grow to include Dedede and Meta Knight.

Sweetie Void pitied the Beast Pack. These poor animals. They didn't know how doomed they were. Well, they were already doomed the instant Sweetie Void and Kirby landed on this world, but now... It's pretty much like adding an orbital laser on top of a meteor crash ON TOP of a nuke. And just to be sure, add in the Moon crashing, and all just to kill an ant. But it was to have fun among friends, so it was alright. A little adventure like this one was a good occasion.

She hoped that Fluttershy won't consider it as animal abuse.

And we will need something bigger than the Warp Star to transport everyone, even excluding the ones who can fly.

"WADDLE DEE SIGNATURES DETECTED AHEAD," the Lor Starcutter informed them as they approached a new city, this one abandoned and overrun by nature too.

"And we have a small welcome committee," Fox remarked, looking at the screen.

"It looks more like these animals and their allies are exploring around looking for more Waddle Dees, and they just saw us coming and are preparing themselves," Zan Partizanne said. The Jambastion Religion having been disbanded, she gave up her uniform for a yellow dress with light armor plates on the chest and the shoulders with lightning patterns. Her sisters were wearing similar outfits but with their respective colors and elements. Francisca also had a rose made of ice in her hair.

"Yeah. Less like a welcome committee and more like unfortunate souls at the wrong place at the wrong time," Marx said with a sadistic smirk.

"Some of these Clockers are already escaping with cages. I'm going ahead to stop them and to keep watch from the sky," Galacta Knight told jump before he exited the ship and flew away.

"And there is a Waddle Dee somewhere not far before us, hidden among these buildings," Krystal informed, eyes closed.

"Alright Lorry, drop us here," Sweetie Void instructed the ship.

DK hit his palm with a fist. "Finally."

They all jumped or flew out of the Lor Starcutter and landed not far outside of the city, just in front of a trio of Awoofies who were growling and ready to pounce at them. But when the three animals saw everyone that landed, their growls turned into whimpers, their ears lowered, and they backed down in fear.

"Aww... they are making me feel bad," Little Ghost said.

Dark Meta Knight rolled his eyes. "Let's just get this over with."

Before they knew it, the first Awoofy was punched by DK so hard that he was sent in orbit, the second was electrified by Pikachu, and the third was shot by Fox. Behind them, a Sir Kibble remembered that he had elsewhere to go, but was then hit from behind by a blue blur. Further behind, two big rabbits that Elfilin identified as Rabiroos, another Awoofy, another Sir Kibble, a Bronto Burt, and a Kabu managed to escape.

"Uh. This must be pretty bad is they decide to run away instead of fighting. This never happened before," Sweetie Void remarked.

"Duh. Have you seen our group?" Phantom said.

"I mean, until now, almost everyone we encountered in our adventures picked fights with me and Kirby despite knowing what we were capable of, even when they weren't forced to. I thought that this would still be the case despite our number. Well, maybe not the animals since they are from this world, but the Sir Kibbles, Bronto Burt, and Kabu, I really expected them to fight."

"Surprise surprise, they have a minimum of common sense," Marx said with a laugh. "Not that they will be able to go far."

Present Sonic stared at Marx weirdly. "Not that I disagree with you, but the way you said it sounded right out of a horror movie."

"Former villain," Marx immediately informed.

""Former"?" Sonic questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm not trying to kill you, no?"

"Right. At least, Joker, you seem to have a sense of humor, contrary to another former villain that I know."

"Oh! You have one too? I know my way around that kind of guy. Just ask Darky over there." Marx pointed at Dark Meta Knight who mumbled something not made for children to hear before he walked away.

Sonic shrugged. "I see that. Then I should present you to him. This should be fun."

Phantom smirked. "I don't want to miss that."

"I don't know who is this guy, but I already pity him," Diddy said.

Sonic shook his head. "You shouldn't. He wants nobody's pity. He would take that as an insult."

This made several either roll their eyes or chuckle.

At this, the group finally advanced and reached the city without encountering any other enemy. Kirby eyed a vending machine and decided to try something. Approaching it, he opened his mouth and was able to suck up the machine like he did the car earlier. His body entirely stretched around the machine, and the little dispensing door was now his mouth. Facing a metallic crate, Kirby then tried something else and successfully fired a soda can out of his mouth, destroying the crate. He jumped in joy at this.

"What the heck?" Fox exclaimed, putting into words pretty much everyone else's thought.

Bandana Dee shrugged. "That's something he seems to have unlocked while going through the vortex to this world. We aren't sure why or how, but it's nice."

"Yeah, that car ride he gave us earlier was fun," Sweetie Void said.

"That's awesome, Kirby!" Elfilin shouted with stars in his eyes.

A little bit further, Anubis pointed at a damaged shutter door. "There is a Waddle Dee behind this door, and several other creatures."

"Oh? Then let's knock on it so they can invit us in!" Flamberge said.

Behind her, Spiky cracked his nonexistent knuckles, and DK did the same.

After a few punches, they managed to destroy the shutter door, revealing an unique small room with a cage with a Waddle Dee in it, and hiding behind it or behind covered piles of planks of wood were Awoofies, Rabiroos, a Clocker, and some other creatures who were absolutely terrified.

But then, more Rabiroos as well as some Bronto Burts and a Buffahorn (a big buffalo-like beast) came and surrounded the heroes before attacking, the Buffahorn charging with his horns ready to impale them. Seeing the reinforcements, the ones that had been hiding in the room behind the shutter door decided to join in and attacked too.

The following battle didn't last more than five seconds, and the Waddle Dee was freed and transported back to the town through a rift opened by Sweetie Void.

"And that's one Waddle Dee saved!" Bandana Dee shouted.

"Who knows how many more to go," Jeff continued.

"It seems that we are done here. We should go further in the city," Krystal informed.

Kirby nodded and spat the vending machine. It was nice, but it greatly reduced his ability to move.

They eventually arrived on the roof of some building not far of a clock. Judging by the presence of Beast Pack members, it was the right direction. There were even Shotzos, not that the living cannons scared anyone. Sweetie Void still warned that these things were so solid that they were pretty much invincible, so no need to try to attack them unless you were one of the very heavy hitters, like Sweetie herself.

Further on the roof, Kirby ate a traffic cone, taking a cone form.

Not far after the traffic cones, the roof ended and left place to a dirt path where another group of enemies awaited them, including another Buffahorn on who Kirby tested his new form by doing a downward spike on the animal's back.

This made many in the group wince.

"This must hurt," Elfilin commented.

"I'm thankful that he didn't have that when I fought him," Link said.

"And I'm thankful that King Dedede let go of his grudge against him," Bandana said while rubbing the top of his head.

Dark Meta Knight snorted. "Wimps."

Marx kicked him on the back. "Be nice!"

Passing two Shotzos, Kirby used his downward spike again, this time on a damaged pipe to break it open and cause a stream of water to come out and to propel him up toward a balcony. Here, he found a cage. The now panicking Clocker probably thought that he wouldn't be found here. Looking down, Kirby indicated the presence of the cage with a move of his head, and Zan Partizanne joined him. She fried the Clocker with her electricity and freed the Waddle Dee which Sweetie Void sent to the Waddle Dee town.

After climbing a ladder (which forced Kirby to let go of the cone), the group then reached a large area where another clocker with a cage was awaiting them. Smelling the trap, the group still advanced and wasn't surprised when they saw an Awoofy and a Rabiroo come from behind a tree. What they didn't expect was the Gigant Edge suddenly jumping down from a neighboring roof, the huge knight now wearing some fur and having war paint to make him look 'wild'.

"PK Thunder!"

A powerful lightning bolt suddenly struck the Gigant Edge and fried him in his armor, knocking him down in one hit.

"Woah! Kid!" Flamberge yelled in surprise.

The Awoofy, Rabiroo, and Clocker looked at the smoking Gigant Edge with big, white, round eyes, then looked at Ness who had fired the bolt. The Clocker then attempted to escape with the cage, but found himself face to face with Marx in his bat form.

"And where do you think you are going?"

"Squawk?!"

"BWAAAAAHHHH!!!!"

Marx fired his giant mouth laser, entirely covering the Clocker but not touching the cage. When the laser disappeared, the now blackened and featherless Clocker coughed some smoke before he dropped with the cage.

"Overkill! Overkill!" Pikachu shouted.

Taking pity of the poor Awoofy and Rabiroo who witnessed that and... let go, Apple Death smashed them together, knocking them out right away.

"I'm glad I accepted to come! It's really fun!" Marx shouted.

Past Sonic congratulated Ness with a pat on the back. And Elfilin said, "You have impressive psychic powers!"

"Thanks."

"You know. I once... Uh... No, forget..."

"Uh?"

Meanwhile, Dixie freed the Waddle Dee who was now crying.

"I thought I was going to die!" he shouted.

Dixie patted him. "There there. Everything is alright. The crazy jester never wanted to hurt you. Sorry he scared you."

"That's the last Waddle Dee in this area," Krystal informed. She then pointed at the lake that could be seen behind the building they were on. "The next ones seem to be at the other side of this lake.

"Thanks. I'll call the Lor and she will drop us there.

They dropped at another part of the city, in some kind of park, with two buildings facing them. Each could be climbed by a ladder, and the left one had a traffic cone hanging beside it with a vine from a tree. So the group separated in two, each having to get pass a small group of enemies, including some kind of giant turtle using a slab of concrete as a shell, which Elfilin identified as a Tortorner. The slab was cracked, so DK easily destroyed it with a smash before he repeatedly pounded the Tortorner on the back. At the same time, the two Sonic attacked the head. Between all of them, the Tortorner was easily and rapidly defeated, allowing them to destroy a cage with a Waddle Dee that he had been guarding.

Meanwhile, Kirby climbed the left building and used the Sword Ability to cut the vine and free the cone, which he then sucked up to take his cone form again. At the same time, Phantom flew to the top of the right building where she found a dome. Having a suspicion, she used her powers to open it, revealing another captured Waddle Dee that had been hidden in it.

This left one last, bigger building before the group. And speaking of...

"Excuse me, but I see a bigger turtle on the roof of that building before us," Francisca, who had flown up to have a look at the environment, informed them. "And I think that I saw a golden cage inside the small building that it uses as a shell."

At this, Sweetie Void grinned, grabbed Kirby with her magic, and flew toward the roof of the last building, leaving the others to clear it of all members of the Beast Pack present inside it. She spotted the giant turtle, which Elfilin informed was a Tortuilding, and flew even further up, right above him. Then, she pointed Kirby toward the Tortuilding and threw the cone-shaped puffball toward him. Finally, she teleported inside the shell-building and teleported back out with the golden cage which contained three Waddle Dees just before Kirby crashed on the Tortuilding, annihilating the shell and pretty much destroying the turtle's spine.

"Woah... You defeated that Tortuilding in one hit! I didn't think it was possible!" Elfilin exclaimed. "They are so big, and they have a whole building on their back!"

"And this is nothing for us," Sweetie Void said before she gave a high five to Kirby once he spat the cone.

Meanwhile, the others already cleaned the building.

"You know, it feels nice to have it easy for once," Krystal said as she sat on a smoking Boofahorn a few floors down.

"Aye aye," Diddy agreed.

"But without the struggle, it feels less rewarding," Poo said.

"I don't care. It's always nice to have an easy adventure every once in a while," Bandana replied.

"And we really needed that after what happened with Master Hand," Present Sonic said, and others agreed with a nod.

It turned out that they freed all the Waddle Dees in this city, so they returned inside the Lor Starcutter and moved toward the next place that Krystal could feel contained some. This led them to a neighboring city. More specifically to a tunnel in the outskirt, which had apparently still been in construction or under renovation as there were scaffolding, barriers, and materials before it. The Lor detected several Waddle Dee signatures inside it, so it dropped them just outside of it.

Galacta Knight still decided to remain guarding the sky, just in case any Clocker decided to escape with captured Waddle Dees by the other side of the tunnel.

After dealing with some Cappys, a Hot Head, a Kabu, and a Bouncy that were guarding the entrance, they entered the tunnel proper by a small, narrow, circular corridor. Because of that, they couldn't enter all at once. Even inside the tunnel, they had to be careful as there were large gaps with narrow paths, metallic bridges, and small platforms to cross them, all of them guarded by enemies.

It seemed that the Beast Pack received the memo about the heroes, because there were more enemies, and they didn't try to escape upon seeing the large group of heroes arriving. In the contrary, they tried to use the environment to their advantage, trying to make the heroes fall into the pits or using the narrow paths to fight them one at once.

Which didn't work.

At the second pit, they found a switch hidden under a dome which opened a path to a secret room with a chest and many Awoofies guarding it. Link, Dark Meta Knight, Anubis, and Poo eliminated them, allowing Pikachu to open the chest to free the Waddle Dee trapped inside.

"Seriously?" Pikachu deadpanned. "Who is the genius who thought that it was a good idea to hide you in a chest?" he asked the Waddle Dee.

The Waddle Dee shrugged. "I heard that one of their bosses is an armadillo not all there in the head."

"Seems like a nice fellow," Marx said. "Can't wait to meet him."

Dark Meta Knight groaned.

Dixie looked at the dark knight with pity. "You, you need vacation."

"You. Have. NO! Idea."

After that, the heroes had to cross a catwalk patrolled by a Kabu to cross a last pit before reaching a door. Again, this forced them to be careful.

The next part of the tunnel was larger, but also had in the path rectangular structures moving up and down, some of them with Gordo Bars (cylindrical Gordos) floating on top.

After dealing with two Hot Heads and a Cappy, they arrived at a door with a Waddle Dee trapped behind, the Clocker guarding him sticking out his tongue at them, think that it was safe behind the bars.

He wasn't. Sweetie Void, Apple Death, and Little Ghost passed through the bars. They didn't even need to search the switch.

Depressed, the Clocker accepted his fate.

"Serve him right," Diddy said.

They then had to use some of the moving structures to climb until reaching the next door. Before that, Krystal fired a fireball at a bomb block to destroy a wall of iron blocks, revealing another hidden Waddle Dee with a Clocker.

The Clocker sighed. "I told them to hide the bomb..."*

After freeing the Waddle Dee, the heroes passed the door and arrived at an area with a familiar sight for the inhabitants of the Dream Universe: a cannon with a long fuse.

"I'm really wondering now, are we still in the Dream Universe, or are we in a different universe? The physic here is pretty close, but at the same time is different. There are no black doors, for example," Sweetie Void remarked.

"Maybe the physic of the Dream Universe is leaking to this one, like what happened to the other dimension?" Bandana proposed an explanation.

"Anyway. If anyone dreamed of being a cannon pony/man/fox/whatever, now is the occasion," the alicorn said. "Enter that cannon over there while we lit the fuse. Don't worry, it's almost without danger."

"Almost?" Ness questioned.

"Sometimes, the cannon explodes with you in it instead of firing you, and other times, it turns into a rocket and flies into the sky. But don't worry, I'm sure that this one is alright."

Before more could be said, DK jumped into the cannon and shouted a "Yeah!" while giving Sweetie Void a thumb up.

"Of course ya don't mind entering a cannon! Ya're used to that with those barrel cannons in yer island!" Apple Death said.

With DK in the cannon, Kirby lit the fuse. A few seconds later, the cannon fired the ape who broke several iron blocks before crashing into the ceiling. He then managed to fall back on a platform facing a narrow circular dead end corridor with a Clocker with a captured Waddle Dee hidden at the end.

The heroes couldn't see what happened (they had to defend against another group of Awoofies), but they heard some squawking, then some blue feathers flew out before DK jumped down with the Waddle Dee safely under his arm. Once the Waddle Dee was safe in the Waddle Dee town, the heroes then passed the door just after the cannon.

In the next area, after a Big Kabu, they reached a mobile staircase that Kirby sucked up, taking a staircase form. Not only the others could now climb on him, but he could also fall over at a side to crush anything present here, and he showed it by easily destroying a while of iron blocks that blocked the way, then by crushing a group of Kabus that approached. Link and Fox then climbed on him and used the elevated position to fire at the many enemies present with their bow and blaster.

Near the end, they reached another cannon. Elfilin immediately flew inside it.

"Fire me!" he shouted excitedly.

Grinning, Sweetie Void lit the fuse, making the cannon fire Elfilin through several iron blocks before he reached a platform that seemed to be the remain of some upper floor. He found a Clocker and a captured Waddle Dee hidden here, and he had no problem knocking out the bird before he grabbed the cage and brought it down so the others could open it.

"Good job, Elfilin!" Ness congratulated while clapped along with a few others.

"Thanks!"

The exit of the tunnel was just after, through another narrow circular corridor, forcing Kirby to leave the staircase.

Outside, they found Galacta Knight waiting for them among many knocked out Beast Pack members, the remains of a golden cage, and three freed Waddle Dees.

The next area to explore revealed to be some small rocky mountain in the outskirt of the same city, with some building at the top. The Lor dropped them at its base where there were lots of tall grass in which some Awoofies were ambushed.

Following the path, they then encountered a giant purple hedgehog that Elfilin knew as a Jabhog.

"Hey, a cousin of yours, Sonic," Fox said.

"Ahah. If that hedgehog is my cousin, then we encountered and knocked out dozens of yours since the beginning of this adventure. I don't know if you remarked, but these Awoofies look a lot like foxes."

"Hey, now that you remark, the Clockers could be Falco's cousins, and the Rabiroos could be Peppy's cousins," Sweetie Void said.

"Don't let Falco hear you," Fox said with a chuckle. "He would feel insulted being put in the same group than the Clockers."

Krystal giggled. "I wonder if we will encounter Slippy's cousins too."

While they talked, Kirby carefully approached the Jabhog who extended his quills once he was close enough, forcing the puffball to jump backward. The Jabhog then advanced toward the group only to be trapped in ice by Francisca who then pushed it aside, opening the way. But Francisca was then almost shot by some bipedal dog-like beast with long grey hair and using a blunderbuss while taking cover behind a rock. Link stopped the fired metal ball with his shield, protecting her, and Kirby then went to inhale the dog, getting a brand new Ability: the Ranger.

With this Ability, Kirby was wearing a red pith helmet and wielded a blunderbuss that he can use to fire at distant targets. After some testing, he discovered that he could even charge the shot to fire bigger, more powerful projectiles. To note that the projectiles weren't metallic balls like the dog fired, but stars.

Elfilin also revealed that the dog was called a Bernard, like the Saint Bernard dog breed, even if this dog didn't look at all like one.

Another Bernard was further ahead, but before he could fire at Kirby while he was testing his new Ability, Kirby fired at him, getting him in a couple of shots. He then got the Jabhog that followed with a single charged projectile.

"And just like that, Kirby gained more power," Sweetie Void commented. "Now, he will be able to use that new Ability whenever he wants, and I can only imagine what he will be able to do with it allied to his other Abilities."

"As if he wasn't already powerful enough," Apple Death said, remembering her fight against Kirby where he destroyed a whole planet (a small planet, but still a planet) with just one punch.

Elfilin put a paw under his chin. "Mmh..."

"Something in mind, Elfilin?" Jeff asked.

"Well, while observing Kirby, I have been wondering something... Wait a minute." He approached Kirby. "Hey, Kirby, I have been thinking, you can use different Abilities, like you can use fire, wield a sword, throw cutter blades, and now shoot with a gun. But can you use different versions of the same Ability? I mean, now you have a gun, but you know that there are several kinds of guns, right? Like, there's Fox's laser gun. Or, I know that there are guns that can fire faster. Same for the sword. There are small swords, big swords, long swords, one-edged swords, double-edged swords, curved swords, and so on. You see what I mean?"

Kirby tilted his head as he stared at Elfilin. He had honestly never thought of this, but he was right. Until now, he never thought "outside the box" like that and only used what came naturally to mind when you thought "Fire", "Sword", "Ice", and so on, but... Could he...? But then... What could he...?

Fire... Fire... Fire... What could be "Fire"? Wait... Of course!

Looking around, Kirby spotted a Cappy guarding a ladder just behind where the second Jabhog had been and ran toward him. When he saw Kirby approach, the Cappy looked worried and took a fighting position.

But he didn't expect what happened next.

At first, the usual Fire Ability hat appeared on Kirby's head, but then, it changed and turned into a hat made of lava and black rock. Then, Kirby fired a stream of volcanic pyroclast, and the Cappy's world became very hot.

Seeing what he did, Kirby jumped in joy, and even did a small dance.

As Elfilin observed Kirby in amazement, Sweetie Void approached him from behind and put a hoof on his shoulder.

"Good job Elfilin, you made Kirby at least ten times more OP. Thank you."

Embarrassed, Elfilin rubbed the back of his head. "That was nothing. It seemed normal to me. I'm surprised nobody thought of that before."

"Making Kirby reach new horizons with his powers is NOT nothing. And I guess that it was one of these cases where it was so obvious that it didn't come to mind. I'm sure that Void will bash his head on a wall when he will hear that."

Elfilin looked at Sweetie Void in shock. "Wait, Void?!"

"Uh? You know Void?"

"I heard about him!"

"Really? How?"

"The previous inhabitants of this world! They talked about a God named Void while speaking about the new universe they were moving to!"

"WHAT?!" pretty much all the inhabitants of the Dream Universe yelled.

"Wait wait wait wait wait! Does the name Halcandra ring any bell?" Zan Partizanne asked.

"Uh... Yes. I think that I heard this name being dropped a couple of times."

Sweetie Void stared at Elfilin silently for several seconds, then grabbed her phone.

Sweetie Void:
Magolor, you are not going to believe what I just learned.

Author's Note

*The Beast Pack members speak in their animal language, but since they are sapient, this language can be understood by the ones with the translator.

Chapter 124: Natural Plains Part 2

Magolor was very interested to learn about this mysterious civilization that seemed to have entered in contact with the Ancients and wanted to discover more about them. However, he couldn't come because he was super busy with some big project that he thought of after the tournament. So he instead asked Sweetie to do it for him as much as she could during her adventure.

And for this, she knew that she could count of Elfilin who was a direct witness of this civilization despite them having moved from this world an aeon ago. Darn, the little flying chinchilla was much older than he looked!

And Sweetie went to work right away by asking, "What did they look like?"

And in answer, Elfilin pointed at Link. "Like him."

"They were humans?!"

Elfilin nodded.

...

Sweetie Void:
They were humans.

Magolor:
What? Really?!?

Sweetie Void:
Yep!

Magolor:
Could they be the same humans that now live in the Dream Universe?

Magolor:
Wait, maybe those humans were created from the dreams of these humans when the Dream Universe was created!

Magolor:
But maybe they weren't and really are the descendants of these humans!

Magolor:
Oh my gosh! What if the humans worked with the Ancients? Maybe they were even part of the Ancient civilization! And if the humans of the Dream Universe really are their descendants, then maybe they know something!

Magolor:
I must go talk to the humans living on Popstar!

Sweetie Void:
Hold your horse. These ones don't know much of their past beside that they arrived on Popstar a few centuries ago. They won't be of any help. You will have to search for other humans, or directly explore Shiver Star. Maybe you will find some info there. We barely explored the planet back then, so there is a chance. You can also ask the robots living there to help.

Magolor:
You are right! I will send a team to Shiver Star right away!

Sweetie Void giggled, put away her phone, and finally focused back on the adventure. While she had been texting Magolor, the heroes had continued and passed several rolling boulders. They also saved a Waddle Dee that they found behind a wall of iron blocks that they destroyed by firing at a flying target defended by a couple of Bernards. And right now, they were climbing a slope with more boulders rolling down it from the building at the top of the small mountain for some reason. The boulders weren't a problem thanks to Apple Death who used her telekinesis to levitate them and throw them away, opening the way. While climbing, Kirby found a small path at the right that led to a ladder to climb a section of the building where there was a dome. He easily opened it, revealing another captured Waddle Dee.

Sweetie Void approached the Mage-Sisters. "So, Magolor thinks that these humans may have helped the Ancients or may even have been part of their civilization, and he is going to investigate this in hope of confirming that. Did Hyness say anything about humans?"

"Never. I don't think he knows," Zan Partizanne answered. "Even him doesn't know everything about the Ancients. A lot of information was lost following the wars."

And questioning Void and Galacta Knight didn't hold anything. They were both traumatised by the events of that era and didn't want to think about it for the moment. Maybe after a few years.

Having finally reached the building at the top of the small mountain, the group now had to circle it by the left. However, the building was built on top of cliffs, leaving very small space for the group. At a moment, they had to move against the wall one by one while being careful of more boulders rolling out of the building to continue (for the ones who couldn't fly or jump far enough), and after that, they had to pass a very narrow and dangerous bridge made of a simple metallic catwalk guarded by another Bernard.

Destroying a flying target destroyed a wall of iron blocks, revealing an entrance to the inside of the building and even creating a bridge of blocks leading from the catwalk to the door (which was just at the edge of the cliff, opening to the pit). Kirby entered the building with Elfilin, Fox, Krystal, and Jeff while the rest continued, having to jump on a very small ledge against the wall of the building before jumping again to finally reach the opposite side of the building from where they started.

They were at the top of another slope full of cracked rocks.

"I can see the rolling boulder coming from miles away," Link said.

"And I can see the boulder too. Look at the roof of the building," Anubis said.

At his words, everyone looked at the roof of the building and saw a giant boulder ready to roll down. Obviously a trap of the Beast Pack. There were probably animals behind the boulder waiting for them to start to go down the slope.

"Denied!"

Sweetie Void grabbed the boulder with her magic and threw it into orbit. The Mage-Sisters then flew to the roof to deal with any members of the Beast Pack present. While this happened, Kirby returned with the others and a Waddle Dee that they saved inside the building. They apparently had to destroy several flying targets to reveal the cage that had been hidden.

"We saw a giant boulder flying. Was that you, Sweetie Void?" Krystal asked with an amused expression.

"Yeah. Running away from a giant boulder is getting old. It was done, like, one million times."

"It says something that you immediately assumed that it was her," Bandana Dee said, making Sweetie Void giggle.

They moved down the slope, moving around or destroying the cracked rocks while fighting several members of the Beast Pack who tried to ambush them.

Once at the bottom, they arrived in the city, on a small park on the roof of a small building. Jumping down from it, they found themselves in a small parking with a single car.

"Oh! Great! Wait. There won't be enough place on it for everyone," Sweetie Void said.

"You can shrink everyone!" Marx proposed.

"No thanks," Fox, DK, Dark Meta Knight, and Link said at once, and many others agreed with nods, making Marx pout while Kirby sucked up the car and took his car form.

"Just have some climb on him, and the others will follow behind," Poo suggested, and everyone agreed.

Immediately, Marx climbed on Kirby, followed by Elfilin, Ness, Link, Little Ghost, and Diddy. Sweetie Void and placed Spiky in his smaller doll form.

"GO!" they all shouted, and Kirby rolled away as fast as he could under the laughter of his passengers, quickly followed by all the others.

The problem was that they were in a section of the city where the ground had partially collapsed, so Kirby only had one path to follow and it was just at the edge of a cliff circling a few houses, and he constantly had to hug the wall. This turned the fun ride into quite a scary one for a few of the passengers, and it didn't get better when Kirby reached a part with giant boulders rolling in the way and risking to crush them. But they quickly passed the dangerous section and Kirby then spotted a cracked building with a captured Waddle Dee visible through a window. Following a path allowed him to charge into the cracked wall of the building, destroying the wall and allowing them to enter the building. When they saw what Kirby intended to do, everyone on him braced themselves (excepted Little Ghost and Marx).

The Clocker with the cage attempted to escape through the hole created by Kirby, but Link caught him with his grapple.

With the Waddle Dee freed, Kirby jumped out of the building where some of the others already caught up, and Sweetie Void sent the Dee to the town.

Without waiting to see if the passengers wanted to come down, Kirby then rolled away again and reached an upward slope with three giant boulders like the one that Sweetie Void threw. Kirby wasn't sure how the animals managed to bring them here, but he had no problem avoiding them. He simply rolled at the left of the first one, and then between the other two before he reached the top of the slope where many members of the Beast Pack were present and defending a golden cage.

Kirby rammed all of them with the car, not even needing to fight, and his passengers got the Clockers.

Everyone then got down before Kirby spat the car so they could destroy the golden cage and free the three Waddle Dees inside it.

"It was fun, but it was scary," Ness said.

"I wasn't scared," Link said, but he fooled nobody as he was visibly shaking.

"Let's do it again!" Marx shouted.

"No!" Diddy yelled.

Little Ghost, Marx, and even Spiky looked down in sadness. "Aww..."

Before long, all the heroes gathered, the three Waddle Dees were sent to the town, and Krystal informed that they were done with this area.

"Did you save a lot of Waddle Dees?" Sweetie Void asked to Galacta Knight once they were inside the Lor.

"Yes. Five by now, without counting the three I freed at the other side of the tunnel."

"Uh. That's a lot less than I expected."

"These animals are smart. They quickly understood that it was no use to try to escape by the sky once I'm around, so they remain hidden."

Sweetie giggled. "And this becomes one big hide and seek game for us."

"WADDLE DEE SIGNATURES DETECTED," the Lor then announced.

Through the screen, they saw that they arrived at a huge mall somewhere inside the same city.

"What a huge mall!" Pikachu exclaimed.

"Alivel," Apple Death read at the entrance. "Well, let's enter it."

Like before, Galacta Knight flew to keep watch from the sky while the Lor dropped everyone else just before the entrance of the mall.

Once inside, they thankfully didn't have much to search. All the stores were locked behind shutter doors, so the heroes only had to take the escalators to the second floor, which were turned off. Anubis also confirmed that there was nobody hiding in the stores.

A large group of enemies was at the top of the stairs, including several Needlous. Again, they attempted to use the fact that the heroes could climb the stairs only two at a time (one by escalator), but this failed thanks to the flying heroes, and also thanks to DK and Link in his Goron form going first and ramming their way through the enemies. DK ended up stung by the Needlous' spikes, but he still forced his way through. Link didn't have this problem because he was rolling, and the skin of his back as a Goron was as solid as stone.

After a brief fight, the heroes left their enemies in a small pile of unconscious bodies and continued by following the only open path where many more enemies were present, from Awoofies to Gabons, passing by Poppy Bros. Jrs. and even more Needlous. Some were hidden inside cardboard boxes with the intent to ambush the heroes but were spotted by Anubis right away, others attacked from ledges above but were quickly eliminated by one of the many projectiles that the heroes could send. On the way, they had to choose between jumping on a scaffolding in the middle of a pit created by the floor that collapsed or using an escalator to a ledge to get around the pit continue. The less risking was the escalator, but Phantom still jumped on the scaffolding to destroy a small wall of blocks that were hiding a captured Waddle Dee.

"The architecture of the inside of that mall is very strange," Jeff remarked. "Why make these ledges?"

The others could only shrug.

"Maybe they thought it would add a special touch," Dixie said.

After the pit was an intersection, but they didn't need to choose because the door in front of them was blocked by debris. So they continued left. However, before the blocked door, Kirby spotted none other than an Invincibility Candy!

"Poyo!" Kirby ran toward the candy and ate it right away.

"Nice, Kirby! Now, go ahead! No need to share your invincibility with us! It would take too long!" Sweetie Void said.

"Poy!"

"To share the invincibility, he needs to give it to us by mouth to mouth," she explained to the many ones who didn't know, getting strange looks in return. "I'm not kidding. This is also the case when sharing the healing properties of the food."

"This universe is weird," Ness said.

"The Dream Universe is weird. This one is just a victim of the Dream Universe's physic."

While Sweetie explained the mouth to mouth thing, Kirby already used his invincibility to clean the path, including the many enemies that had been present on the roof of the stores at the sides ready to attack the group, especially with Poppy Bros. Jrs. that would have rained bombs on them. The Beast Pack was starting to come up with smart tactics to try to stop them. Also, he saved another captured Waddle Dee hidden up there.

"Mmh... Maybe we should start to make stocks of Invincibility Candies, and also of Stars from Mario's universe," Sweetie Void thought aloud. "They will come in handy against the Subspace Army."

"The Subspace Army?" Elfilin asked.

"It's... I will explain to you once we are done with this adventure, or if we take a break."

"So... Where do we go?" Pikachu asked.

The group arrived at a L'shaped hallway with a conveyor belt, and they now had to choose between three paths at the right, each one apparently leading to a different restaurant.

All the enemies were already knocked out and gathered in a pile out of the way.

So, now, all they had to do was to decide which path to go.

"Krystal?" Fox asked.

"There is a Waddle Dee in the middle path," she revealed.

"Nothing in the two others?" Phantom asked.

"I don't think so."

"Well, that settles it," Marx said before he moved toward the path that Krystal indicated, followed by the others.

They quickly reached the restaurant, which was a fast food mainly selling burgers and sodas. The restaurant itself was closed, like all the rest in this mall, but there were a few outside tables with Awoofies and a Cockler sitting around them happily munching burgers and fries or slurping soda out of cups with straws, and they were surrounding a cage with a Waddle Dee who looked at them enviously.

Upon seeing the heroes, the Awoofies stopped eating right away and ran toward them.

"PK Fire!"

POW!

"Yaaahhh!!"

"PikaCHUUU!!!"

Boom!

"ROAAAR!!!"

CRASH!

It was over in a few seconds.

The Clocker tried to escape with the cage, but where all the others failed, this one failed too.

After freeing the Waddle Dee and sending him to the town with a burger and a soda, the group then climbed a pair of escalators to the third floor where the three previous paths apparently joined back into one before they reached a long pathway that passed above a very large area.

There were two conveyor belts on it moving in opposite directions, and right after them was a squared area where the pathway turned left. But before they could continue, they had to deal with another large group of enemies led by a Mr. Frosty who looked like a cavewalrus with an unkempt appearance, torn up overalls, war paints, and a blue beard, and that even had his upper lips partially frozen so hanging icicles made him look like he had fangs.

The Mr. Frosty charged right toward Kirby who welcomed him with a giant rock punch that sent him flying through the roof of the mall while the others dealt with the Awoofies, Rabiroos, Kabus, and the lone Blade Knight and Needlous.

Leaving behind the defeated enemies, the heroes continued and passed a circular area where the pathway turned right. After passing beside a conveyor belt that transported cardboard boxes to the floor below, they then reached a section of the pathway that had two conveyor belts that moved toward the edge, so anything remaining on them and not moving would end up falling down below.

"Now this is definitively not normal. This is against safety codes. There aren't even guardrails to stop people from going beyond the edge," Jeff said.

"Yeah. I have nothing to say to justify that," Dixie said.

"I don't know. With that conveyor belt with the cardboard boxes, maybe this area is not for public? Look there is even a storeroom," Present Sonic pointed out.

"Even if it was just for staff, these conveyor belts are still wrong. And look, that storeroom opens right on the second conveyor belt! It just asks for something to go wrong!"

"Ohh Kirby and I saw worse, trust me," Sweetie Void said.

Some Bronto Burts attacked them while they walked on the conveyor belts, but they were just a minor annoyance. Even if someone was to fall, they would be caught by the ones who could fly right away. After the second conveyor belt, they passed beside a second storeroom before they had to jump on a higher platform to continue.

Now this really was a out of bound area as all that this platform contained was a large conveyor belt transporting more cardboard boxes to the floor below. However, this was a problem because the heroes had to pass this conveyor belt to continue, meaning that they had to be careful of not going beyond the edge while also dealing with the cardboard boxes that were hindring obstacles and the Bronto Burts that still attacked. And in addition of that, Awoofies fell from wherever the cardboard boxes were coming from and joined the frail.

Still, they traversed the conveyor belt and jumped down on a different pathway just in front of another closed store, and this pathway led to four conveyor belts moving toward each others, forming a square with a carpet of spikes in the middles.

"Aaaand... yeah... Nothing can explain THAT," Dixie said. "The conveyor belts like that would be a fun addition, but the spikes, less so."

"Also, this conveyor belt is just beside the edge, and there are no guardrails," Jeff pointed out.

While they talked, Zan pressed a switch at the top of a ladder behind a wall of burning logs, destroying a wall of iron blocks that hid a captured Waddle Dee. The Clocker transporting it had the idea of moving above the spikes, thinking that nobody could get him there, but too bad for him, he wasn't the only one that could fly.

The heroes passed a door at the opposite side from where they arrived and entered a huge room with a roof made of glass panels. This room seemed to be the core area of the mall because there were two elevator leading to it (obviously not working anymore, and they were blocked anyway), was surrounded by quite the number of stores, and even had six paths leading to restaurants. There were also two conveyor belts for people to move around.

Seeing that two of these restaurants were apparently bakeries proposing strawberry shortcakes, Kirby drooled.

Sweetie Void put a hoof on his head to keep him in place. "First we explore this place, then we can go to one of these bakeries."

Kirby pouted.

Not minding the Sir Kibbles, Awoofies, and lone Blade Knight that were now out, the group moved around. Krystal confirmed that there was a Waddle Dee in the bakery at the back left of the room, but before that, Anubis went to a little corner with green lockers and placed a paw on them.

With a Force Palm, he easily destroyed them and revealed a secret staff room with a lone Awoofy who was surprised to see him. Before the canine could recover from his shock, Anubis knocked him out and opened a cardboard box that he had been guarding that contained a tied and gagged Waddle Dee.

"Good job, Anubis! This one was well hidden!" Sweetie Void congratulated when she joined him. "So, I guess that we are done here."

Hearing that, Kirby ran toward the bakery at the back left and yelled, "Caaaake!!!"

By the time the others joined him, he had already knocked out all the Awoofies present before the bakery which had been eating strawberry shortcakes and doughnuts, and he was now happily gobbling the desserts, not even minding the trapped Waddle Dee that was on a small stage beside the bakery.

To note, however, that he left untouched an Awoofy that was sleeping on one of the chairs and that didn't wake up despite the commotion.

Sweetie Void only let out a sigh that was half exasperated and half amused before she went to free the Waddle Dee.

Bandana Dee also sighed. "Typical Kirby."

"Hey! Can I have some?" Marx asked.

Kirby pulled his current cake away from him. "Mine!"

"I advise against taking the shortcake, Marx. The last time someone took one from him... Well... Just ask the Squeak Squad. I think that they still have nightmares of that day," Sweetie Void warned.

Marx smartly decided to not insist. Behind Kirby, Ness and Diddy stopped reaching out for slices left on another table.

Once Kirby was done eating, the heroes climbed another pair of escalators, which eventually led to more escalators so they ended up in the sixth floor of the mall, in what seemed to be a dead end with some publicity boards and green lockers like the ones that anubis destroyed. There were stores at the left and the right, but they were closed behind shutters.

But there lockers were suspicious.

Before anyone could destroy them, Kirby put himself between them and everyone and rose an arm with a confident expression, as if to say "Leave this to me!" before he sucked up the lockers. Actually, he ended up being the one that moved toward the lockers before his body stretched around them. He then began to move back and forth to try to make them topple.

"These lockers are screwed to the wall. This won't work," Diddy said.

But Kirby quickly proved to him the contrary as he made the whole wall crack. Understanding what was about to happen, everyone moved away before Kirby made the whole wall collapse, creating a huge opening to some eating terrace area with a golden cage, three Clockers, and a Bernard.

The Bernard, who was on en elevated balcony accessible by a ladder, was firing at the sky, targeting Galacta Knight. As for the three Clockers with the Golden Cage, they were covering under the balcony, against a wall, terrified and hoping that Galacta Knight won't spot them.

Well, instead, they were spotted by the heroes, and the Clockers panicked, sweating profusely as they understood that they were doomed.

The Bernard heard the wall collapsing and looked back, and he hesitated between keeping firing at Galacta Knight or firing at the group. Before he could choose, Galacta Knight dive bombed him, dealing with him. The Clocker decided to take their chance and to fly away, leaving behind the cage, but the three Mage-Sisters each dealt with one of them before they could escape, leaving the others to free the Waddle Dees.

And with this, all the Waddle Dees of this mall were saved.

"I think that I saw something observing the mall from afar," Galacta said.

"Really?" Sweetie asked.

"Yes, but I decided to not bother with whatever it was. As long as it doesn't attack, I don't care."

"Mmh... I wonder what it is."

It took some time to reach the next destination, which revealed to be another mall in another city.

On the way, the Lor confirmed that something seemed to be following them from far enough, and somehow always managed to remain hidden so she couldn't exactly see what it was.

The mall was a smaller mall, so this one shouldn't take as long to explore.

However...

"HOSTILE SIGNATURE DETECTED ON THE ROOF," the Lor warned as the screen centered on a huge glaring figure standing menacingly on the roof of the mall.

Upon closer view, they could see that it was a HUGE ape with grey skin and black fur with a white mohawk. He had red war paint, a black ring piercing his left nostril, and a chain around the neck that held a golden cage.

Seeing that it was an ape, DK glared back at him through the screen, but also grinned. "Open the door!"

"Are you sure, DK? That ape if HUMONGUS!" Diddy said.

"The bigger they are, the harder they fall!" Donkey Kong replied while the Lor opened her door to allow him to leave. The ape began to throw boulders at the Lor, but she avoided them and approached the mall while circling it. Once he judged that they were close enough, DK jumped out while saying, "Beside, the Ghastly King was even bigger!"

He landed in a parking area just outside of the mall.

And the giant ape jumped down from the roof to join him.

DK just about reached his torso, but he wasn't scared.

After a silent exchange of glares, the two apes then pounded their chests and roared in challenge.

Before the fight could start, Galacta Knight came, sliced the chain around Gorimondo's neck, and took it with the golden cage away. This made Gorimondo angry, but he remained focused on DK.

Gorimondo went to punch DK, but the smaller ape jumped above the fist that planted itself into the ground and pummeled Gorimondo's face as much as he could before gravity forced him to return on land. He still managed to give one last powerful punch that sent Gorimondo on his back, and DK quickly used the occasion to climb on his belly before he repeatedly and violently slapped it.

Despite this, Gorimondo rapidly managed to recover and to grab DK before he hurled him at a wall. Then, Gorimondo began to grab big chunks of ground and to throw them one after another at DK. After shaking his head to recover his senses, DK saw the first chunk of ground coming just in time and jumped out of the way, then ran around eratically to avoid the following ones. Seeing that throwing pieces of ground wasn't working, Gorimondo instead jumped toward DK to smash him with his trunk-sized arms. DK barely avoided them by rolling out of the way, but then was hit by the shock wave that followed.

Gorimondo jumped again toward DK, but the smaller ape then had the idea of jumping toward him, taking him off guard, and successfully rammed him in the belly mid-air, making him crash on his back. DK then climbed on Gorimondo's belly again and slapped it repeatedly like before. And this time, when Gorimondo attempted to grab him, he jumped out of the way, letting Gorimondo get up.

The bigger ape outstretched his arms and began to spin while moving toward DK. Thankfully for DK, Gorimondo was moving rather slowly, and the parking was big enough, so he easily remained out of the way. After a few seconds, Gorimondo stopped spinning and shook his head to get rid of the dizziness, opening himself to DK's counterattack.

DK swept Gorimondo's legs. Then, as Gorimondo fell forward, DK punched him hard on the snout, sending him back up, only for DK to jump and to pummel his face. But then, Gorimondo clapped his hands on DK, stopping him, and smashed his fists on him to make him crash at his feet. Finally, Gorimondo rose one of his stubby legs, intending to crush DK under his foot, but DK caught it, got up, and spun around with Gorimondo. After a few seconds, he threw Gorimondo toward the wall of the mall, and he passed right through it, making a part of the building crumble on him.

DK approached to see what was Gorimondo's state, and could see the big ape half-buried under pieces of the mall, unconscious.

"And I WIN! YEAH!" he shouted while pounding his chest in victory. "No ape can beat me!

The Lor landed in the middle of the parking and opened her door, letting DK return under the congratulations of the others.

"I must admit, he fought well" he said while he rubbed his head. "I'm still feeling that hit."

Apple Death offered him a banana. "Here. Take this."

"Oh! Thanks!" DK took the banana and ate it, healing himself a bit. "Uh. Wait. A banana?" That was when he saw a big pile of bananas against a wall. "WOAAAH!!!"

"I know, right?" Diddy said in joy. "While you were fighting, some of us explored the mall and found what must have been this guy's hoard along with a few more captured Waddle Dees! They brought all of it here!"

"And it's all for you," Sweetie Void said.

"Aww YEAH!" DK shouted.

"Now, let's continue," Sweetie Void said.

"We aren't far of Everbay Coast, a large tropical bay with lots of islands and a huge beach," Elfilin informed.

"Yay!" Sweetie Void put on sunglasses, which weren't the ones she got from Spinni. "Let's prepare then. Does anyone want some sunscreen?"

Chapter 125: Everbay Coast Part 1

"WE ARE APPROACHING EVERBAY COAST. WADDLE DEE SIGNATURES DETECTED," the Lor Starcutter informed.

Everyone could see with the screen that the Lor was right. The vast expense of green with the occasional abandoned city or town, forest, and hill was replaced by an area with a more tropical climate and look. As both Elfilin and the name said, it was a large bay filled with a huge amount of islands of various sizes, with lots of beaches, tropical trees (mainly palm trees), rocky cliffs, and the occasional abandoned buildings. And some Clockers could be seen flying away with captured Waddle Dees.

Galacta Knight immediately exited the ship to chase them.

"Do you still detect that mysterious figure that followed us?" Sweetie Void asked.

"YES. THEY WENT AWAY AFTER THE FIGHT AGAINST THE APE, BUT THEY JUST RETURNED AND ARE NOW HIDING BEHIND THE CLIFFS."

"I don't like being stalked," Flamberge said.

"Bah. Let's leave whoever it is. If they decide to attack, then we will deal with them," Sweetie Void said with a dismissive wave of her hoof. "The more urgent is to save the Waddle Dees. Lorry, drop us near the nearest captured Waddle Dee."

The Lor dropped the heroes on a small beach at the extremity of the bay, just a few meters from the water.

Before they could even take a step, Apple Death received a call. "Uh. That's mah Twilight." She answered. "What is it, Twilight?"

She made sure to put on the speaker so the others could hear whatever the alicorn was about to say.

«It's to inform you that we were attacked by a huge ape, but that we managed to push him back. Also, Meta Knight arrived during the ape's assault and he helped us.»

«Not that we needed his help! We were totally kicking this ape's butt!» they heard a Rainbow Dash shout.

«The help was still welcome,» Twilight replied.

"Meta Knight is with you? Great!" Sweetie Void exclaimed. "Wait. A huge ape? Did he have a white mohawk haircut?"

«Yes, he had one. Black fur, grey skin, red war paint.»

"And ring piercing the left nostril?"

«Uh. Yes, he had one, now that you say it.»

"So that was Gorimondo? What the heck? We just defeated him! Well, DK just defeated him."

"Seems like he already recovered and went to recapture the Waddle Dees that we saved," Apple Death said. "Wait, Gorimondo?"

"Yeah, that was the name on his boss splash screen."

"What?"

"Forget about it." Sweetie snickered behind her hoof.

«Pinkie! You are a bad influence!» a Rarity shouted.

«Anyway, Meta Knight now wants to know where you are, because he wants to join you,» Twilight said.

"We're in Everbay Coast, a large tropical bay," Apple Death answered.

«I know which bay you are talking about, I flew over it,» Meta Knight then said. «I'm coming.»

"Ok! You won't mind if we don't wait you? You should still be able to find us easily. Just look for the Lor, and we shouldn't be far," Sweetie Void said.

«Yes, go on. It won't be a problem.»

"Alright."

«In other matters, the rebuilding of the town is advancing well, especially with the help of all the Waddle Dees you saved,» Twilight continued. «Many houses are already finished, as well as a couple of businesses. The Waddle Dees even built a house for you, Sweetie Void, as well as for Kirby and Bandana Dee, for if you need to take a rest. For the others, they are building a big inn. Among other projects is a coliseum, of all things...»

"That's not surprising. Fighting is pretty much everyone's favorite sport on Popstar, especially in Dream Land. Whenever there is a festival, you can be sure that there will be some fighting tournament, or something generally involving a lot of violence between participants, all in good fun."

"Wait. Why do you get your own house while we get the inn?" Phantom asked.

"Because almost everyone on Popstar pretty much worships Sweetie Void and Kirby, and Bandana Dee is known as THE sidekick, while you guys are just "the guys who accompany our heroes"," Marx explained joyfully.

"And it is also more likely that Sweetie Void, Kirby, and Bandana Dee will regularly spend time here while we will probably only visit occasionally at best," Francisca added.

"She is right. Since the Waddle Dees seem decided to settle here, then I can see myself coming back here from time to time, and this world isn't bad," Sweetie Void said. "And if you think that you will also return here, then I can ask the Waddle Dees to build a home for you too."

Phantom shrugged. "I guess that I will decide about it once we're done with this adventure."

"Well, thanks for the update," Apple Death said to Twilight. "And good job for pushing... Uh... Gorimondo back. Don't lower yer guard in case he comes back. See y'all soon." She ended the call and turned to the others. "Well, let's go. Meta Knight'll join us on the way."

"Yeah, uh... About that..." Present Sonic pointed at the water just a few feet away from the group. "I can't swim."

Phantom snorted. "That's an understatement." She looked at the others. "As soon as he enters water, he sinks like a brick. He can't swim at all even to save his life. The best he can do is walking at the bottom. Which, I guess shouldn't be a problem here. The water isn't deep."

"Yet," Present Sonic added. "Knowing my luck, we will eventually reach deeper water."

"But if the Dream Universe's influence toward this one is enough, then you won't have to fear drowning. In the Dream Universe, we can breathe underwater. I guess that I should test it," Sweetie said.

"No need!" Elfilin interjected. "I can already confirm that we can't breathe underwater in this universe. Well, I can, but normal animals can't."

Sweetie Void tilted her head. "Why can you breathe underwater? Do you secretly have gills under your fur?"

"Not at all! I'm just... biologically special? I can survive in every single environments I encountered so far, even in the vacuum of space, and I explored the whole planet, from the top of the highest mountain to the bottom of the deepest abyss."

Many around whistled.

Jeff was about to ask something, but he was interrupted by Elfilin who asked, "So, what are we going to do about the two Sonic?"

"Well, I guess that we will settle with the usual "walk at the bottom and get out of the water before drowning"," Present Sonic said. "At least, there are little pieces of land sticking out of the water here and there, so it shouldn't be a problem."

"I could also shapeshift into a boat to transport you," Sweetie Void informed.

Phantom rose an eyebrow. "You can shape-Of course you can..." She sighed. "Or I can materialize one."

"Or I can levitate you!" Little Ghost exclaimed.

"Ah can levitate ya too," Apple Death said.

"I think that we will settle with Phantom's boat," Present Sonic said, and Past Sonic nodded.

"We will also use the boat," Fox said for himself and Krystal.

"Us too," Ness said for himself, Jeff, and Poo.

"Alright then! One boat for anyone too lazy to swim, right up!" Phantom shouted while she cracked her knuckles. Then, she used her phantom powers to create a small fishing motorboat big enough for a dozen people.

The boat was also entirely black, had a red skull with two crossed red blades as a figure head, and was very angular with lots of spikes and, to put it simply, was the edgiest fishing boat anyone ever saw. It even had skeletal red wings sculpted at the sides!

There was a moment of silence, and then, about half the team burst into laughter, some falling over.

Phantom gave all of them an annoyed, not at all amused look.

"W-wow! You are giving Shadow a run for his money!" Present Sonic shouted between laughter, making Phantom glare at him.

She then saw Dark Meta Knight looking at the boat, the two exchanged a glance, and they gave each other a silent fist bump.

Once everyone calmed down, the two Sonic, Fox, Krystal, Ness, Jeff, Poo, and Pikachu climbed on the boat. Meanwhile, Link put on the Zora Mask and walked into the water, followed by the Kongs who didn't mind swimming, as well as Bandana Dee and Spiky. Kirby used the Water Ability to surf on it, Sweetie Void walked on it, and Anubis followed her example using his aura to form some barriers to walk on (so yeah, he was cheating). All the others were flying/floating.

They didn't have far to go however. After a few Blippers and a Glunk on a crate, they reached another small beach at the foot of a cliff with a single palm tree as well as a Foley and a Noddy. Behind the palm tree was a small wall of crates hiding a hole in the cliff with a Clocker with a captured Waddle Dee.

A big, black crocodile with a disproportionately large head (recognized as a Gnawcodile by Elfilin) with a Sir Kibble riding it came to stop them, but Link easily eliminated them.

"That was the only Waddle Dee in this area," Krystal informed. "The next one is some distance away in this direction," she pointed out.

"Alright. Be the guide," Bandana Dee said.

They eventually reached a cliff with several pieces of land, beaches or not, at its feet. On one of these pieces, a Bonkers with frazzled fur, red war paint, and a stone chisel for a hammer was waiting for them. Not far of him, against the cliff, was a large block of concrete with a wooden stake on top of it.

"This is a job for either Hammer, Stone, or Steel, unless we simply decide to pulverize the concrete," Sweetie Void said to Kirby.

As answer, Kirby went toward the Bonkers and observed him. More specifically, he observed the Bonkers' hammer while the Bonkers began to attack him. Kirby had no problem pushing back the hammer with his own Hammer, and after a few seconds, he closed his eyes. There was then a flash, and Kirby's usual Hammer attire was replaced by a frazzled haircut like the Bonkers' and his hammer was replaced by a stone chisel.

This surprised the Bonkers who took a few steps back, getting on guard. After admiring his new weapon a couple of seconds, Kirby charged it until it was set on fire, and then jumped toward the Bonkers and swung vertically. The Bonkers tried to block him with his own hammer, but Kirby's hammer smashed it to pieces and bonked his head so hard that the Bonkers was planted into the ground until only his head and his right arm remained out.

Needless to say, the Bonkers was out for the count.

Sweetie Void winced. "Ouch... I fear to see the Grand Hammer version of this one."

Meanwhile, DK took care of the concrete block by smashing the wooden stake, making the block lower into the water until it revealed a hole in the cliff with a Clocker and a captured Waddle Dee hiding in it.

The heroes then had to abandon the boat as they had to traverse a path into the cliff after some Scarfys. The path led to a basin surrounded by cliffs, so Phantom had to re-materialize the boat. Seeing the presence of many whirlpools, some of which were moving, she made sure that the boat will be able to resist the strong currents. No way it will be able to avoid them.

A bit further, on a ledge, Dark Meta Knight found a stake and called Kirby to come pound it, opening a secret path in the left cliff. Sweetie Void, Little Ghost, and Link entered it while the others continue, with the Mage Sisters dealing with a couple of Gnawcodiles. As the group reached the basin's exit path after a trio of whirlpools circling each others, Sweetie Void, Little Ghost, and Link returned with the news that they found and freed another Waddle Dee. They had had to pound another stake and reach the revealed Clocker and the cage before the bird could escape.

Again, before taking the path, the heroes had to abandon the boat, because it was on land.

It led through the cliff to another, larger basin with what seemed to be a partially submerged building complex. They first arrived on the roof of a hotel with the neon sign missing the O which was leaning against the ventilation.

It was finally as they were on the roof of this building that Meta Knight came from the sky. Instead of going right for them, Meta Knight went for the golden cage that the Clockers tried to hide behind and under palm trees at the other side of the basin. All the Beast Packs members around went to rescue them but were easily defeated either by Meta Knight or by Sweetie's group, including Kirby who used his new power to inhale the O and take a circular form with the mouth wide open. In this new form, Kirby functioned pretty much as a giant air slingshot. He inhaled a huge amount of air to inflate, and then expelled all of it in a powerful gust of wind that blew everything in its path. While Kirby was slow and had difficulty moving, like it was the case for most of these new forms this new power allowed him to take, Kirby frankly found it fun.

These forms were not as good as Kirby's powers at their full potential, but they were nice to play with, and against weak enemies like the Beast Pack, they added some fun to the adventure.

On the way to Meta Knight, Krystal pointed through a fence at an island out of the way. Little Ghost passed through the fence and flew toward the island where she found another cage hidden and guarded by three Gnawcodiles and a Chilly. She made short work of all of them and brought the cage back to the others.

With this, Krystal confirmed that they saved all the Waddle Dees around as the heroes gathered with Meta Knight.

"Nice to see you with us, Meta Knight," Sweetie Void said. "Any idea of where Dedede is?"

Meta Knight sighed. "Yes."

Sweetie groaned. "Let me guess. He is brainwashed or controlled or possessed or whatever makes it so we will have to fight him?"

"Yes."

Sweetie Void groaned again, joined by Bandana Dee while Marx laughed and said, "At this point, this is a running gag."

"And whatever brainwashed him also attempted to take possession of me, but I was able to resist them. But while I don't know what they are, I can already confirm that they are extremely powerful. Have your mental guard up at all time in case it attempts to do the same to you."

"You heard that, everybody? If you feel that you are being mentally attacked by something, warn us IMMEDIATELY!"

Everyone nodded.

"Dedede is at the extremity of this continent, in a frozen land, helping these animals in capturing the Waddle Dees there." At this, Meta Knight looked down, ashamed. "I failed to stop him."

A few seconds of silence followed. Kirby's jaw dropped.

"Are you saying that you fought the King... and LOST?!" Bandana Dee shouted in shock.

Even Dark Meta Knight couldn't believe it. "You lost to him?!"

Meta Knight silently nodded.

...

"What kind of world are we that Dedede won a fight against you?!" Sweetie Void exclaimed. "He never won a fight against you! You are Popstar's number one without counting Kirby's family!"

"Whatever took possession of Dedede made him more powerful," Meta Knight said. "Or... It would be more exact to say that it seems to have awakened in him some powers that he hadn't learned yet to use. Unless he was hiding them since the last time we saw him fight."

Sweetie snorted. "Dedede? Hiding new powers? He would have boasted about them to everyone willing, and even unwilling, to listen. Everyone on Dream Land would have learned about them within the day. How far are we of that frozen land?"

"We traverse this bay, and then a giant theme park, and we will reach it."

"Oh! I know this park! I can't wait to have all of us visit it! It's a really fun place!" Elfilin shouted.

"A giant theme park?"

"Yes, a giant theme park."

"That's a new one."

Present Sonic laughed. "For you, maybe, but not for me. Eggman loves to make giant theme parks in his likeness."

"Bowser too, from what Mario told me," Apple Death said.

"Seriously?"

"Yep/Eeyup!"

Sweetie Void sighed. "Villains and their ego..."

Aboard the Lor Starcutter, Krystal led everyone to a submerged industrial area, with lots of factories, silos, warehouses, and other such buildings which had their feet in the water if they were not entirely underwater. The most common sight out of the water were chimneys.

"I guess that I will get out the boat again," Phantom said.

Apple Death looked at a message she received in her phone. "Uh. Gorimondo attacked the town again."

"Already?! That ape must be as determined as Eggman!" Present Sonic exclaimed.

"Drop us on that building over there, Lorry," Sweetie instructed, and the ship complied.

The heroes didn't encounter much dangers at first. A lone Squishy, then a reddish-brown sea lion known as a Balloon-Meister which, as the name indicated, attacked by sending balloons, but what the name indicated less was that the balloons were explosive, before they reached a group of buildings with platforms moving back and forth between them. There, things already started to be a bit more dangerous for the ones continuing to swim as there were whirlpools around the buildings. On the building themselves, there weren't many enemies, but the moving platforms weren't that big so they had to be careful if they didn't want to fall into the water.

On the second building, on an elevated part, were Bombers that were ready to drop to explode. Krystal dealt with them with fireballs, Sweetie having told everyone about these dangerous enemies. With Krystal focused on the Bombers, the others who could send projectiles dealt with any other flying enemies while the ones swimming like the Kongs and Link dealt with the few Blippers around. Krystal also dealt with a third Bomber on a third building after two more moving platforms. Once the Bomber was eliminated, Past Sonic Homing Dashed a Balloon-Meister on the same building from the boat while Meta Knight and Dark Meta Knight each took care of a Glunk at both sides of the sea lion.

Once Krystal arrived on the building, she went to where the Balloon-Meister had been and pointed down at a crane that had the hook holding something underwater.

"There is a Waddle Dee underwater. Don't worry, I can feel that he's still alive."

Hearing her, Link plunged deeper into the water and came back out a couple of seconds later with a treasure chest that revealed to contain a Waddle Dee.

"Without Krystal, we may have missed this one," Jeff said.

"Smart hiding place," Poo agreed. "We will have to keep looking underwater for more hidden chests."

A bit further, on a circular building, they encountered a new mole-like enemy that Elfilin named Digguh. When Kirby inhaled one by curiosity, he got a whole new Ability: Drill, which came with a drill hat that allowed Kirby to dig and move underground.

"Better than the Animal Ability, I imagine," Sweetie Void said, and Kirby agreed with her with a nod. While the Animal Ability was nice to dig, it was much slower. The Animal couldn't also dig into concrete contrary to the new Drill, and this was a BIG plus on these buildings.

This new Ability had a lot of potential, and Kirby couldn't wait to test it more. It was already proving to be redoubtable against the Beast Pack members who couldn't do anything against him attacking from under their feet/paws, excepted the Digguhs. Flying enemies were more problematic, but if they were flying close enough, Kirby could still get them with a jump out of the floor. But against grounded enemies, it will quickly become an effective regular in his repertory. He was sure of it.

Meanwhile, the heroes passed a few more whirlpools and took care of avoiding Gordo Bars moving out of the water before diving back in. Arriving at another group of buildings linked by bridges (guarded by Gigatzos) in addition of a moving platform, they fought several enemies including ambushing Squishys before Kirby reached a scissor-lift that he thought he could inhale (or more like wrap around) to reach an alcove high above where there was apparently another Waddle Dee. But Kirby decided against it this time and directly flew to the alcove with Wing before he used Drill to dig out a treasure chest with a trapped Waddle Dee in it.

At the same time, Krystal pointed at another crane with the hook underwater, and Diddy plunged to get another treasure chest with a third trapped Waddle Dee. And also, Meta Knight flew to an island far out of the way to deliver yet another Waddle Dee that the Beast Pack probably thought that the heroes wouldn't spot there. The Awoofy supposed to guard him was even sleeping and hadn't even bothered to bury the chest. For this, Meta Knight decided to reward the idiot canine by not harming him.

And with this, Krystal confirmed that all the Waddle Dees in the close area were saved. She then pointed at a large cliff in the distance and said that the next Waddle Dees were just there. Sweetie Void looked toward the cliff, said, "I'll come back!" and flew toward it, reaching it in just a second. Seeing what there was, she teleported back to the others, and then teleported everyone on a ledge against the cliff that formed a path passing by several structures that moved back and forth in and out of the cliff for some reason.

The ledge was rather narrow, and even very narrow in some places. So, many of the group were forced to fly to not take place, or to ride on each others like Diddy on DK or Pikachu on Spiky's shoulder.

After passing a first narrow part (where they had to advance in line one at a time) and knocking out a lone Digguh that threw stones at them, they reached the first moving structure which was made of two levels. When the structure moved into the cliff, the top level went all the way into it, leaving only the bottom level out. However, the bottom level wasn't that large, so, again, the heroes were forced to advance in small numbers at a time when they couldn't go on the top level. To not help, there was a Gigatzo firing at the bottom level, but Little Ghost quickly got rid of it by levitating it and throwing it away. A Balloon-Meister also attempted to use the occasion to bomb them with explosive balloons, but Sweetie Void caught the first balloon and threw it back at the sea lion, dealing with it.

A second similar structure followed, excepted that the bottom level didn't go all the way to the other side so the heroes traversing it had to jump. Little Ghost and Apple Death threw away the two Gigatzos firing at the structure this time, one at each level, and Fox shot down the stone-throwing Digguh further ahead.

Finally came a third moving structure which was the beginning of a concrete path formed by a larger building that included a tower with a cracked section. This time, the bottom level of the structure was only a small platform while two Gigatzos fired at the top level. The two cannons were quickly thrown away like the others, so the traversing heroes didn't have to mind them, making all of it much easier. Apple Death, Little Ghost, as well as Phantom dealt with the many Gigatzos that followed and that were firing at the path ahead.

Sweetie Void was about to join in dealing with the Gigatzos but then saw that there was a Waddle Dee trapped behind a golden prison gate in the tower. Instead of destroying the gate, she looked around and spotted a blue pipe on top of a slope leading right to the cracked part of the tower.

Understanding, she grabbed Kirby and dropped him beside the pipe. She then pointed at said pipe and said, "Eat."

Kirby looked at the pipe, then back at Sweetie Void before he nodded in understanding. He then used his new power to inhale the pipe and have his body almost entirely cover it. Finally, he rolled down the slope, crushing everything in his path, before he jumped up the ramp at the end and crashed right into the cracked part of the tower, destroying it and entering the floor of the tower just above the one where the Waddle Dee was trapped.

Kirby was stopped by the still mostly intact opposite wall and he dropped on the floor right on a switch that opened the prison gate, allowing their friends walking on the path to free the Waddle Dees. At the same time, the flying heroes reached a tower structure at the end of the path on which three Clockers abandoned a golden cage with three Waddle Dees, judging that they would rather escape without the cage but alive instead of attempting to escape with the cage, which would end up in an obvious failure thanks to Galacta Knight patrolling the sky, or remaining there waiting for their doom.

"Smart birds," Marx said.

Krystal then confirmed that all the Waddle Dees in this area were saved.

And Apple Death then received a message saying that Gorimondo attacked the town yet again.

"Stubborn, the big fella."

"Like a fly repeatedly hitting the glass," Poo said with an exasperated shake of his head.

Author's Note

Did you know that the alphabet appearing in the game can easily be translated? Each symbol corresponds to a letter. You can already get many thanks to the subtitles of the opening, and the rest is easy to get. You can find the whole alphabet on the Internet, which I'm using to translate the various signs and billboards.

Chapter 127: Wondaria Remains Part 1

"I can't believe you defeated Tropic Woods by yourself! He is SO strong! The animals usually have to work in large group to even hope of reaching at least one of his delicious coconuts! You were so awesome! And were these meteors that you rained on him? I didn't know that you could make meteors rain!" Elfilin said very excitedly at one hundred miles a hour, stars in his eyes.

"Well... I learned not that long ago, thanks to Poo. He is much better at it however," Ness said bashfully.

"Really? He can do it too?" Elfilin questioned before he went to talk to Poo.

At the same time, Apple Death let out a groan after taking a look at her phone. "Gorimondo attacked the town YET AGAIN! How many time has it been already?"

"Uhm... Not sure... The seventh time? The eighth?" Pikachu proposed thoughtfully. "That's one determined ape."

"Stubborn, yeah. He's putting Bowser to shame," Apple Death groaned again, this time rubbing her face in annoyance. "At least, AJ and the others don't get bored, even if the Pokémon do most of the work."

"You want to spar with us? Are you sure, kid?" Meta Knight asked, standing beside Galacta Knight.

Link nodded. "Sweetie told me a lot about you, and... I'm sure that fighting you will help me get stronger, even if I end up losing."

"Unless you use THAT mask!" Sweetie Void shouted from a few meters away.

"I would rather not!" Link shouted back. "It would be like cheating!"

The two knights exchanged a glance, then Galacta said, "We won't mind sparring with you once the coliseum back in town is finished. Of course, it will only be one of us at a time. Duels."

"Thank you."

The Lor Starcutter, with everyone aboard, was advancing in the sky, leaving behind the bay and approaching their next destination, the next step of this journey. Thanks to the ship's speed, it didn't take long before said destination appeared in the horizon.

"APPROACHING WONDARIA," the Lor warned everyone while showing the approaching rides and attractions of the amusement park in the screen, under the sunset.

Many were awed.

"It's huge!" Sweetie Void shouted. "Bigger than any amusement parks I ever saw! Even Kirbyland!"

"I know, right?" Elfilin exclaimed. "I can't wait for us to visit it and do the rides! It really is the best place!"

As the Lor was approaching the park's entrance, everyone could see that it was a space-themed one. The rides had a futuristic look, and there were rocket ships, planets, and other space stuff decorating everywhere.

There were also statues and pictures of two dogs here and there, both white and egg-shaped with brown paws and ears. One had a blue nose while the other had a pink nose and a pink bow on its head (and had a more reddish brown than the other dog). They seemed to be the mascots of the park.

Nice touch, the park was entirely surrounded by a ring of water, excepted at the entrance. There were more circular artificial basins of various sizes here and there around, outside but also inside the park.

"Sorry, but remember that we are in the middle of a rescue mission. We don't have time for the rides," Fox reminded Elfilin (and some of the kids). "Beside, I doubt that the rides still work. This park has obviously been abandoned for a very long time."

"Oh, they still work!" Elfilin said before he looked down in disappointment. "But you are right. We still have the Waddle Dees to save."

"How can they still work?" Fox asked, bemused.

"For the same reason that many buildings and objects we came across still have working mechanisms despite how impossible it should be after all this time," Marx deadpanned.

"Heck, if the humans of this world are gone since as long as we think they are, there shouldn't even be any trace of civilization remaining, or barely any at least," Phantom added with a shrug.

"In other words, don't search logic," Sweetie Void said. "Remember. Dream Universe stuff."

The heroes (without Galacta Knight like usual now since he went to patrol the sky) dropped from the Lor right at the entrance of the park, and they barely landed that they were welcomed by several Awoofies running down the stairs at both sides of a large sculpture of the two dogs sitting on planets with a rocket ship flying around, above the letters spelling the name of the park, Wondaria.

A good part of the group looked around in wonder once they were done with the welcome comity.

"I'm definitively returning here once we're done rescuing the Waddle Dees!" Sweetie Void exclaimed, and some of the others agreed.

After climbing the stairs, the heroes saw at the right a wooden cut-out photo spot with an astronaut and an octopus-like alien side by side waving at the camera, and there were holes where their faces should be. Of course, some of the heroes couldn't stop themselves from going behind the cut-out and put their face in, taking turns to take photos.

They may be in a rescue mission, it didn't mean that they couldn't get some fun whenever they had the occasion.

Also, they helped a mother duck find its duckling scattered around, because of course they had to. It was in the hero's job description to do that kind of stuff.

They then crossed the bridge crossing the artificial river, observing a bit the few small boats looking like starships, and finally entered the park proper, passing under an arc and between two purple and yellow big tops.

Following the main path that passed between various rides and attractions, they quickly reaching a series of twirling star rockets that they had to cross to continue, being careful of pools of mud along the way. Stepping in them slowed most of the heroes down, which only asked to receive an attack from the various enemies present or to be rammed by the rockets as a result.

Electricity coursed the rockets, which gave Kirby the idea of using the Water Ability to make them short circuit (cleaning some of the mud by the same occasion), destroying them, much to Elfilin's sadness. Phantom joined in in destroying the rockets with her sword.

"Hey, the rockets are already busted anyway," Phantom comforted Elfilin.

Speaking of the Water Ability, Kirby got the idea of upgrading it by turning it into the Galboros Water Ability. So, the usual water hat was replaced by a hat looking like the head of the Water Galboros, and instead of sending a stream of water upward like a geyser, Kirby could send it right out of his mouth like a Pokémon's Water Gun. With the usual Water Ability, Kirby could only shoot pulses of water flowing along the ground.

Then, after passing the twirling rockets, the heroes encountered a new enemy that looked like a black creature with a small stick-like body and a big round head. IT didn't have any feet, but had two floating mitts for hands. Beside that, it only had two big cyan eyes partially hidden under an orange helmet. The body was wrapped in a ring-like suit with two shoulder pads bearing two mounted canons, one at both sides of the head.

"An Armoroid?" Sweetie Void questioned. She regularly saw these beings from afar, but that was the first time that she faced one in one of her adventures. "Hey, Kirby, I don't think you ever got the occasion to inhale one of these guys."

Kirby thought about it, then shook his head. She was right.

So he inhaled the Armoroid.

And gained an armored blue and white, futuristic helmet with an orange visor, mechanical gloves covering his arms, and mounted with a jetpack. Kirby quickly revealed that the jetpack was actually two cannons that he could position above his head to fire ahead, as he demonstrated on the following Rabiroos.

"Mecha!" he then shouted happily with a small bounce.

"Mmh... Yeah. With a hat and some accessories, I guess that this is the closest that you can be a mecha without actually becoming one or being in one," Bandana Dee said. "Still would have preferred if your whole body had turned mechanical. It would have been cooler."

Further ahead was a big open space with more mud, lots of enemies (among which were little apes armed with a wooden mallet frankly reminding of Oohroos that Elfilin presented as Mookies), and most of all, big parade cars (looking like evil robots and various forms of spaceships and flying saucers) rolling around in a convoluted path somehow by themselves, coming out of a gateway in a wall at the opposite end and disappearing through another gateway in that same wall.

Kirby decided to use the enemies to test more his new Ability, leaving the fillies and Spiky to destroy the parade cars so the heroes didn't have to worry about being rammed by them as they fought. A Clocker even used himself and the cage it was holding as bait as it thought that the heroes coming after it would get rammed by the cars passing around his position on an elevated platform at the right. Seeing that the cars with being destroyed by the fillies, the bird understood that its idea wasn't as good as it thought and tried to escape only to be caught by Meta Knight and Zan Partizanne.

At the end of the area, between the two gateways, was a tall pillar made of more twirling rockets, and beside them was a series of ladders to climb the wall toward the exit door. A switch present beside the last ladder opened a gate to another door locked behind a gate, above another ladder.

Kirby decided to enter that second door followed by the Three Mage Sisters, Apple Death, and Fox. The others went through the first door.

Kirby's group came nose to back with a line of Awoofies up a slope. The animals heard them, turned around, and upon seeing them, attacked.

One one-sided massacre of canines later, and the heroes saw that they were at the start of a roller coaster. This explained the line of Awoofies. The animals had wanted to have a ride before the heroes arrived and interrupted their fun.

"Well. Just a roller coaster," Flamberge said. "A waste of time."

"I don't think so," Fox said before he pointed at the grid that separated the starting area of the roller coaster from the ending area where a prison gate with a captured Waddle Dee was present.

Clever animals, they thought that the Waddle Dee would be well hidden here. It would have been easy to miss him.

"But where is the switch to open the gate?" Zan Partizanne asked as she looked around, both at the beginning area and at the exit area.

As an answer, Kirby approaches the spaceship sit and inhales to wrap it with his body, taking control of it and starting it off.

"Seems like Kirby thinks that it is somewhere along the track," Francisca said.

"Hey! If you're going on a ride, let me come too!" Flamberge yelled before she flew to sit on Kirby, making Zan sigh and Francisca giggle.

"Ya know, Ah could just turn ghost and phase through the gate," Apple Death reminded a bit too late as Kirby began to climb the first slope of the track. She shrugged, turned into a ghost, phased through the grid separating the two areas, and phased through the prison gate. Now with the Waddle Dee, she opened one of her own portals, allowing the Waddle Dee to go to the town. Meanwhile, Zan and Francisca flew around the grid to join her, Zan transporting Fox.

Not long later, the prison gate opened, and a few seconds later, Kirby arrived with a very pale and shaking Flamberge on him.

"Miss Flamberge, I didn't expect you to get so scared. I thought we would hear you yell in excitement instead," Francisca said.

"I would like to see you sit on this thing while it's constantly moving left and right barely avoiding dozens of Gordos placed in the air all over the track and not end up a shaking mess!" Flamberge yelled back. "I saw my life flashing before my eyes at least five times!"

Fox chuckled. "And you know what is the worst? It was totally unnecessary," he said before pointing at Apple Death who was still in her ghost form.

Understanding, Flamberge's eye twitched.

"Hey, ya were the one who was eager to go on the ride," Apple Death said with a shrug.

Zan Partizanne put a hand on Flamberge's shoulder to calm her down. "Let's just go, Flamberge."

While Kirby's group went through the roller coaster, Sweetie's group had to do a small detour around it. The second group then reached a new area of the park with spinning platforms just in time to be joined by the first as it wasn't far of the roller coaster's exit.

"We found and saved a Waddle Dee, and Kirby gave Flamberge the scare of her life," Apple Death resumed.

"We heard, and saw. She has one heck of a pair of lungs," Sweetie Void said.

"From the one who is always yelling, is it a surprise?" Marx teased.

"SHUP UP!!!" Flamberge yelled.

"Point."

The heroes reached the spinning platforms where quite a number of enemies awaited them, ready to throw off the heroes' jumps to make them fall into the water below. Gordo Bars were also placed on some of the platforms, and there were even twirling rockets on the last one, there of all places. The animals even brought many Scarfys to distract the flying heroes.

Dexterious jumps were needed under the cover of many projectiles. The Mookies were particularly nasty because they threw their hammers at the jumping heroes.

Once everyone managed to pass the platform, some were happy to return on stable floor.

Continuing to follow the path, they then reached a series of plazas covered in mud, asking for the Water Ability again. A pipe offered water at the right of the first plaza, and no doubt that Kirby could fill himself like a water balloon to clean the mud, but he decided to not do that. Water Ability was more than enough with Sweetie's help, until Link played the Song of Storms and cleaned everything in one go. Footholds were risen, twirling rockets were destroyed, wilted flowers were watered. Without counting the now wet enemies, everything that could have counted as an obstacle was now gone just like that.

The downside? The heroes were now wet too, and some didn't like it, especially Flamberge.

At least, cleaning the mud also lowered a part of another plaza, revealing a secret alcove in which a Clocker and its captured Waddle Dee were hidden, beside a last wilted flower placed there for some reason. Once the Waddle Dee was freed and sent to the town, Kirby, sad at the state of the flower, transported the flowerpot to the plaza and watered it too.

After this last plaza was a large fountain that the storm also cleaned from all the mud. It was a dead end, but the heroes remarked that the central water sprout was going all the way to an elevated platform from which they probably could have a good view of the park. Having a hunch, Sweetie Void flew to it and saw that there was a golden cage with three captured Waddle Dees.

Probably the Clockers thought that the heroes wouldn't think of looking there, but they were proven the contrary. The others joined Sweetie Void either by flying or by riding the water sprout. But from this platform, there was nowhere to go.

Which was alright because Krystal confirmed that there weren't any Waddle Dees left in this part of the park near the entrance, so they could move deeper in.

Not bothering to take the Lor -it was just a park after all, walking was more than enough, even if this park was bigger than normal-, the heroes continued further into the park toward the next area where Krystal confirmed the presence of Waddle Dees, starting by crossing a bridge.

A bridge that led to none other than a race track, with a car present before the starting line, as if waiting to be used by Kirby!

This time, Sweetie Void decided to shapeshift into a car, allowing the heroes who couldn't climb on Kirby by lack of place to climb on her instead. When you excluded the ones who could fly and the two Sonic who could simply run through the track in less than a second, there was more than enough.

And since it was a race track, then it was only natural to have a race!

"See you at the finish line!" Sweetie Void shouted as she started off.

Kirby couldn't really talk as he was, but his eyes said everything before he started off too.

The track revealed to have lot of mud on it, slowing down the cars rolling on it, so the race wasn't determined in the end by who was the fastest or who took better the turns, but by who managed to avoid remaining too long in the mud. The many enemies present on the track, however, didn't matter at all. They didn't even slow them down one bit.

Kirby was the one who won the race, barely. He had slightly more experience driving, and he managed to push Sweetie into the mud one more time than she did to him.

"Alright, you win this time. But it was only the first round!" the alicorn challenged.

"Without us next time," Jeff pleaded.

Leaving the car behind, they continued to a nearby doorway to a place with a heavy presence of Kabus, Poppy Bro Jrs. and Jabhogs and lots of stairways going down, perfect to play bowling by rolling some bombs down them into the enemies below. Hitting a switch at the bottom of a moving slope also opened a gate to a doorway out of the way, forcing the group to separate in two again.

While Kirby went to this door with Ness, Spiky, and Bandana Dee, the others continued ahead and passed another doorway a bit further, guarded by Bernards firing at them from covers. At least, their projectiles weren't hard to avoid.

After the doorway, they went up some stairs right to a makeshift arena where a Gigant Edge awaited them with two flying saucer parade cars circling him, sword ready. But then, Kirby, under the clear effect of an Invincibility Candy, ran out of the doorway, up the stairs, and rammed the Gigant Edge and the two flying saucers hard, sending them flying, ending the fight before it even started. And while he was at it, he continued to run and rammed the few enemies that had been waiting behind the Gigant Edge, also sending them flying. The heroes who went with Kirby came not long after with a rescued Waddle Dee ready to be sent to the town by Sweetie Void.

Kirby's Invincibility Candy ended just before the next doorway. Kirby just had time to clean the area of enemies.

Yep, they were definitely stocking up on Invincibility Candies after that.

Also, Pikachu found an open vent behind some high grass. The vent led to a storage room with a treasure chest containing a trapped Waddle Dee. Hurrying heroes would have missed this one.

Finally, they reached a second race track with another car conveniently waiting at the starting line.

"No racing!" Jeff shouted. "You will race next time without us on you!"

Sweetie sighed. "Alriiiight."

Sweetie found it too bad. This track revealed to be longer, with more turns (and sharper ones too) and jumps and even shortcuts, and they even had to roll alongside parade cars at the end.

A golden cage wasn't far of the finish line, on a higher place. A Needlous literally tried to get the drop on them, making itself pass for the bars of the ladder with its yellow strips, but it didn't work. The Clockers usually transporting the cages were nowhere in sight, having decided to abandon their charge and escape under the glaring eyes of Galacta Knight watching from up there in the sky.

Chapter 128: Wondaria Remains Part 2

The sun had almost entirely disappeared beyond the horizon by the time the heroes reached what seemed to be their next destionation.

"An alien-themed haunted fun house," Present Sonic said as he observed the giant big top which had for entrance the mouth of a huge four-eyed alien holding a rocket with that same dog they saw a bit everywhere in the park inside it. "Let's see who will be the first one to scream like a little girl."

Phantom snorted. "As if this will happen. We each went through so much that a haunted fun house will be nothing."

Present Sonic smirked at her. "You never know. A good jumpscare is always effective, no matter how tough you think you are."

They entered the fun house.

The inside was as expected with the theme. The surfaces were painted so it looked like they were in space, with planets and stars on them or suspended from the ceiling. It was rather dark, but there was still enough light supplied by hexagonal neons near the walls that they could still see where they were going. All of this put a very eerie ambience, in a fun way.

It wasn't long before the group reached a first turn and an alien board came out from behind the wall to jumpscare theme.

There were no scream, but because everyone was on guard due to the possibility of being ambushed at all moment, at least five different projectiles fired out of reflex destroyed the board.

Seeing the smoking remains of the board, the heroes exchanged looks, then some of them couldn't stop themselves from letting out a laugh while others sighed. They expected something like that, and yet, it got them good.

But the fun didn't last long. A group of one-eyed walking ghosts known as Spooksteps appeared and attacked them. Despite being ghosts, they perfectly could be punched, so nobody had problem fighting back. And the fact that they were ghosts spooked absolutely nobody.

"So that's ghosts from the Dream Universe? They look more funny than scary," Apple Death said.

"It looked like it came out of a kid's cartoon," Elfilin said with a giggle.

"Yeah, the Spooksteps are the funny ones, but just wait until you meet a Phanta," Sweetie Void replied.

They didn't have to wait long to meet one. As they traversed a small bridge of blocks that crumbled under their feet, another alien board came out of a slot in the wall and blocked their path. They quickly destroyed it to reach the other side of the bridge before it fully crumbled under them. At the same time, a round floating ghost with a skull mask appeared behind them and attempted to get them from behind only to be punched by Anubis.

"That was a Phanta," Sweetie said.

"Definitively looking less funny. Well, Ah guess that it depends of what's under that mask of theirs."

"Nobody knows."

A longer bridge of crumbling blocks followed, with more Spooksteps and Phantas attacking them while they were forced to destroy another alien board blocking the way. An Orabiroo then attempted to flatten them as they ran out of the bridge, before they were stopped from reaching a doorway by two more alien boards and more ghosts used the occasion to ambush them.

After the boards but before the doorway (and after passing a singly poor Sir Kibble guarding said doorway), a path at the right led to an imprisoned Waddle Dee placed on some pedestal. When the heroes went to save him, many ghosts appeared and surrounded them. There were as many ghosts as there were heroes, meaning that there was barely a fight.

At least, that was a good try.

The group then passed the doorway and entered a room with no apparent exit beside the path they came from. There was a giant light bulb on the floor and a solar panel in an alcove for some reason, under a screen with a sun symbol.

It wasn't hard to guess that they needed to use the light bulb to activate the solar panel and reveal the path to continue. The problem was that there was that the spotlight supposed to light the solar panel was broken, so they had to use another way.

Several solution presented themselves to the heroes:
-Kirby could use his new power to inhale the light bulb and use it;
-Kirby could use an Ability like Spark to create light;
-Sweetie Void could create light with her magic;
-Phantom could create a new spotlight with her phantom power;
-Apple Death, Little Ghost, Zan Partizanne, Pikachu, Ness, or Poo could use electricity to create light.

Kirby chose for them the first solution. He wanted to test the light bulb.

Flashing the solar panel for a couple of seconds charged a generator inside the screen until the sun symbol turned green. Then, the room revealed to be an elevator going upward until reaching a more darkened area of the fun house.

There was barely a light. Only a few weak neons here and there that didn't show much contrary to the other ones. Because of this, the heroes couldn't see anything.

Thanks to his light bulb, Kirby revealed that the area ahead was one huge seemingly bottomless pit with only a narrow path crossing it. Without a light, the fall was certain for the ones who couldn't fly. Everyone agreed to let Kirby take the lead while Phantom created flashlights for some of the others, and Sweetie Void went to the middle of the group illuminate everyone with her horn.

Despite all that, crossing the pit wasn't fun at all.

For starting, after passing an elevated section, they reached a wall beside which they walked. Of course, an alien board came out of it to block their path. But then...

"Wha-? Jump!" Fox shouted.

"What?"

"Wah! The wall!"

"Aaah!"

Part of the wall came out, pushing everyone before it. Anyone not jumping in time was pushed into the pit. Thankfully, the flying heroes reacted quickly and saved anyone who fell. It was quite the scare.

Then, a bit further...

"Careful, Kirby. The path stops before you," Meta Knight warned.

Kirby stopped just in time to avoid walking into the pit as the path stopped. No choice but to jump to the next part.

Sweetie briefly flew to a solar panel that was just after, out of the way, elevating out of the pit a section of floor that only transported some food.

Then came another section alongside a wall. This time, the heroes weren't tricked. Only Kirby advanced until an alien board came out to block the way. It was quickly destroyed while Kirby jumped on the section of wall that came out to push him into the pit. The others who remained behind either jumped on the section too or waited for it to return into the wall before continuing.

A bad encounter immediately followed.

"A Ghost Gordo? That's a first," Sweetie said.

A one-eyed, ghostly Gordo was present ahead. Being a Gordo, it was invincible, but contrary to normal Gordos who generally remained in place or moved back and forth in the air, this one flew toward the nearest hero upon spotting them thanks to the lights. This left most of the heroes no choice but to run away from it if it got too close.

Thankfully, the heroes had the Spirit of Death among them.

"Leave this guy ta me!" Apple Death exclaimed "Ghosts are my shtick!"

She easily used her Spirit of Death powers to take control of the Ghost Gordo and force it to leave them alone, allowing everyone to continue without having to worry about it.

Just beside where the Ghost Gordo was, there was another solar panel that Sweetie Void flashed, elevating another section of floor, this time with a trapped Waddle Dee.

Then, for the third time, they reached a section alongside a wall. This time, however, they only had to worry about another Ghost Gordo that Apple Death quickly took care of. Beside this wall was a staircase leading to a doorway, while the path continued to another solar panel.

While Kirby flashed the solar panel, revealing a series of platform forming another staircase to another doorway, Sweetie Void went to the first doorway with Anubis, Dixie, and Little Ghost. In the end, only Little Ghost was needed as she just had to pass through a grid to reach a trapped Waddle Dee.

The Clocker and Bronto Burts guarding him felt cheated.

When the four returned, Kirby was still flashing the solar panel. It turned out that the platforms were retracting into the wall from which they came out, so Kirby had to continuously flash the panel to allow everyone to pass.

Just before reached the second doorway, there was a side path leading to a small room with another solar panel guarded by two Ghost Gordos. After Apple Death took care of the two ghosts, Sweetie Void flashed the solar panel, opening a gate to another trapped Waddle Dee.

Finally, they passed the doorway and reached a more lit up part of the fun house, allowing Kirby to let go of the light bulb. He didn't have a choice anyway. To continue, they had to climb a ladder, which he couldn't do while his body covered the object.

After fighting a few more enemies, both ghosts and non-ghosts, the path split, with a treasure chest placed right in the middle of the right path.

The more observant immediately saw the trap. The more hotheaded, however, had to be saved from being crushed by what revealed to be an optical illusion painting that fell when someone got too close.

"Tricks like that should be illegal!" Diddy complained.

"Ya should pass more time with Mario. He often has to deal with that kind of stuff when he has to go through haunted places in his adventures," Apple Death said.

Little Ghost nodded. "The Boos love using and abusing this trick."

Another one came not long after. It looked like they had to climb a ladder to reach an elevated part, but they actually had to jump on several ledge to reach it. Again, some of the heroes had to be saved from the painting almost falling on them.

After passing another ambush caused by a large group of ghosts, the group reached another split in the path. This time, everyone waited that the more observants confirmed that, yes, the left path led to another painting. Sweetie Void then confirmed it by teleporting in front of the painting before teleporting away right away as the painting fell. However, to everyone's surprise, the falling painting revealed a small room with a vending machine beside a bench.

But Kirby decided to not bother this time.

Taking the right path, after two alien boards, they reached a mobile platform, a bit cramped with all of them on it even when subtracting the ones who could fly. As the platform moved, they had to deal with a few more alien boards coming out of walls and partially blocking the way, risking to push some of the heroes into the pit below.

They quickly had to get out of the platform before it passed under a wall, then they had to climb on another with more alien boards blocking the way. A Clocker with a captured Waddle Dee tried to trap the heroes by placing itself just behind where three boards would come out of the wall in quick succession, baiting the heroes so they would end up being pushed by the boards into the pit, but the boards were destroyed, and the trap thus failed.

A golden cage awaited the group after the platform. The Clockers probably thought that there was no way that the heroes would be able to reach so deep in the fun house with all the traps.

"That was fun, but this fun house could do without the deadly pits. But I'm still returning here with my friends once we're done with the Beast Pack," Sweetie Void said

Elfilin stared at what remained of the alien boards behind the group, sweating. "The alien boards will have to be replaced first however."

After exiting the fun house, the heroes walked to the next part of the park. By now, the sun had entirely set. It was the beginning of the night.

It was decided that they will finish exploring Wondaria, and then, they will return to the town to rest.

They seemed to approach a special section of the park that was separated from the rest. After following a road, they entered a building with a shutter and a switch.

Sweetie pressed the switch, turning on some lights inside the room. The shutter then opened.

Revealing the park now illuminated by countless lights, parade cars advancing on paths left and right, and a festive music that will remain in the head now playing. Far in the background, the ferris wheel and its rainbow lights was the master piece.

As the heroes passed an archway, many couldn't stop themselves from looking around in childish amazement. Most of the last ones then ran ahead of the others, impatient to see more of this parade.

Careful of the parade cars, they climbed a ladder and followed the main path while fighting the Awoofies and other enemies that were a little everywhere. While going up a series of slopes alongside the parade cars, they found ducklings that they led to their mother up some stairs.

After the mother duck, the heroes had to take the path on which the cars were rolling, up more slopes. This left them no choice but to destroy the cars so everyone could climb.

"We are ruining the parade..." Sweetie Void whined in regret.

Phantom shrugged, although she looked a bit sad too. "Gotta do what we gotta do."

Meanwhile, Meta Knight and Marx got a cage that almost escaped, just before the doorway to the next part of the parade. They were soon joined by the others who left behind a trail of destruction.

After the doorway, they found themselves on top of a series of large bridge covered in mud, with only some platforms allowing to traverse without getting bogged down. For once, the heroes' huge number was a major hindrance. And it didn't help that there were many Twisters and some Scarfys patrolling above the mud pits. At least, they didn't have to watch out for parade cars this time, excepted when they reached a tower where cars were rolling in circles on top of it. More cars were also circling around the doorway at the end.

Just before the doorway was another Clocker with a Waddle Dee. The bird tried to hide behind another, smaller tower, but Anubis spotted it.

Finally, they arrived at a large road that they had to travel up while parade cars were coming from the opposite direction. No choice again but to destroy them for all of the heroes to pass.

When they reached the end of the road, they had to follow a smaller path through more parade cars and metal crates until reaching a shutter door behind which Anubis revealed that there was a Waddle Dee, so they destroyed it to save him. Then, they climbed a ladder to reach another road with a shutter. After moving down the road a bit, the shutter opened to let pass many more parade cars that rolled after the heroes.

Lot of destruction followed. Also, they found another trapped Waddle Dee hidden inside a small hole.

Then, at the end of the road, they climbed a ladder to the top of a tower with a golden cage. The Clockers holding it escaped, leaving the cage behind. They saw the path of destruction the heroes created, no way they would remain after that.

"We are almost done exploring the park, and I already want to return," Elfilin said sadly.

"I know the feeling," Sweetie Void agreed.

The heroes were now at the opposite side of the park from the entrance, before a large circus big top that they entered.

They arrived by the rafters. As they walked around the seats, they could see the stage with a cloaked figure wearing a top hat on it.

"I have the feeling that another big bad is awaiting us. Whose turn is it?" Marx asked.

"Let's see first what it is, then we will decide," Present Sonic said.

They walked down the ramp and approached the stage.

Sweetie and Kirby decided to be the one climbing on it for now.

As they walked on the stage, the cloaked figure revealed itself to be an anthropomorphic female leopard.

To say the least, she got the eyes of some of the males among the heroes.

Before Clawroline could attack, Sweetie Void sent rolling a ball of yarn which the leopard began to play with.

"So, who wants to fight her?" she then asked as she turned to look at the others.

There were some exchanges of stares, some talks, it was quickly decided that some of the boys won't fight. In the end, Krystal decided that she will be the one fighting.

Clawroline was still playing with the ball of yarn when Krystal climbed on the stage. Rolling her eyes, she sent a fireball to burn the yarn, making the leopard jump back and yowl in surprise and fright.

"I'm your adversary, kitty."

Clawroline glared at Krystal, then extended her claws. Surprisingly, she could extend them a lot, easily a good foot.

Krystal looked at the blade-like claws with worry. "Leopard claws aren't supposed to extend that much!"

"And trees aren't supposed to throw giant explosive coconuts! Don't bother on these details!" Sweetie Void shouted.

Clawroline charged at Krystal and slashed her claws at her, first the left ones that Krystal dodged, then the right one that she parried before she attempted to kick the leopard on the chest. Clawroline jumped back to avoid the kick, and Krystal began to repeatedly fire fireballs at her, managing to hit her several times before Clawroline closed the distance in one jump and fell straight toward Krystal with her claws out. Krystal avoided the claws by jumping backward, only for Clawroline to wrap her tail around one of Krystal's legs to trip her, opening her to a second assault that didn't miss. Krystal's chest was cross-slashed.

Before Clawroline could attack a third time, Krystal fired a stream of ice that forced the leopard to get away before she could be frozen. Then, she resumed firing fireballs until Clawroline dashed at high speed back at her with her claws. Krystal was able to parry the two claws at once while keeping an eye on the tail. While struggling against the claws, she then quickly grabbed her blaster and fired at Clawroline in the blink of an eye, shooting her in the stomach. Thanks to the pain it caused to Clawroline, Krystal was then able to push back the claws before she repeatedly bonked the leopard on the head by twirling her staff. One strong hit sent Clawroline on her back, but she quickly recovered and got up, pressing her belly in pain.

She suddenly disappeared in a puff of smoke, then reappeared dashed back at Krystal like earlier. However, just before reaching Krystal who was ready to parry her again, Clawroline revealed it to be a feint as she quickly moved around Krystal and attacked from her left. This took Krystal off guard. She still managed to parry the claws but she was off balance, resulting in her getting pushed back before she ended up slashed again. Krystal then parried another swipe, countered only to be blocked too, got clawed on the arm as a result, and finally released a stream of ice that forced Clawroline to get away again.

Krystal then took her blaster and fired twice, one shot getting Clawroline on the right shoulder, and the other on the left thigh, forcing her to kneel while holding her injured shoulder.

Growling, Clawroline put herself on her four legs and yowled loudly, her fur standing on end, before she jumped despite her injuries toward the nearest metal structure surrounding the stage. She then took out seven knifes that she threw at Krystal one by one, forcing the vixen to run. When she ran out of knives, Clawroline jumped to another metal structure and repeated the process. Then took and threw even more knives until she threw a total of twenty one of them. All the while, Krystal fired fireballs whenever she could. She fired with the blaster at first, but Clawroline was able to use her knives to deflect the beams, so she stopped trying.

Then, Clawroline extended her claws and dove toward Krystal who barely dodged in time. This caused Clawroline to get her claws stuck into the stage, immobilising her, and she had to start to pull to get them out.

Seeing her opportunity, Krystal bounced on Clawroline to jump very high, readied her staff, and struck down the leopard with the powerful Ground Quack that she used in her fight against Link. The whole stage shook as the red pulse spread around Clawroline on the floor, and the part under Clawroline was even destroyed so she ended up partially buried in the debris.

And she wasn't moving anymore.

Seeing that Clawroline was defeated, three Clockers transporting a golden cage came from the ceiling of the big top and, scared for their life, dropped it beside Krystal before escaping.

Meanwhile, Present Sonic looked at the result of the Ground Quack, then stared at Link in disbelief. "How did you get up from that?"

Link shrugged.

Chapter 129: Night Rest. A New Enemy?

As planned, with the exploration of Wondaria over, everyone returned to the Waddle Dee Town through one of Sweetie's rifts, the Lor left to patrol the night sky wherever it judged good.

As they were told, the rebuilding of the town had advanced well. Many houses and business were already done, including Kirby's, Sweetie Void's, and Bandana Dee's house, and others in progress. Among the important finished structures were also the inn and the coliseum.

Say whatever you want about Waddle Dees, they worked fast. And helped by the ponies and the Pokémon, they worked even faster. All the while despite Gorimondo constantly attempting to capture them again.

Speaking of, the heroes arrived just in time to witness Gorimondo being blasted off again by the town's defenders.

"How many time has it been now?" Sweetie Void asked the nearest Waddle Dee (who wasn't Bandana).

"It's the thirty-first attempt," the Waddle Dee answered.

"We have a bet going on about how many times he will try before he either gives up or you guys manage to put a definitive end to this," another said. "I already lost mine at thirty."

"Hopefully, he will stop for the night," a third said with a sigh.

With Gorimondo gone, everyone separated for the night. Most went to the inn, with Apple Death and Phantom joining their respective set of Mane Six, while Sweetie Void, Kirby, and Bandana were led to their new houses. Sweetie's Pokémon wanted to sleep in her home too. It was decided that Link will have his spar with Meta Knight the morning next day. Meta Knight also wanted to have a fight against Kirby afterward while Galacta Knight expressed wanting to spar with Sweetie Void.

However, before sleeping, Sweetie wanted to spend some time with Kirby. She wanted to talk with him about upgrades for his Abilities. Share her ideas and brainstorm together to find more. So they went together to his home (which looked a lot like his house back on Pop Star), took some paper, sat on the floor, and began to note down upgrade ideas.

"I liked your upgrade for the Water Ability, but I thought of something that may be more powerful. Remember that whale we fought?"

Kirby nodded. "Poyo." He couldn't put to test the idea, but he had a good feeling about it and noted it. He then noted an idea for the Sword Ability and showed it.

"An upgrade based on the Gigant Edge? Not bad. Will be slower, but will pack more punch. And maybe you could use the Gigant Edge's shield thanks to it.

Kirby nodded.

"After, it's easy to come up with upgrades for the Sword. Longswords, broadswords, sabers, rapiers, daggers, scimitars... The Gigant Edge Sword. My Swords. Link's Sword. Even Meta Knight's Sword. There are dozens of possibilities.

Kirby nodded again as he noted down the ideas.

"And speaking of Knight, for the Spear, you could use Galacta Knight."

Another nod. Then Kirby noted and showed another idea, this time for the Hammer.

"A Toy Hammer? Uh. I guess that it will add speed. Nice. And what do you think of turning your fire into a Dragon?"

Kirby nodded excitedly at this.

Sweetie laughed. "Poor Meta Knight. He will serve of test dummy for all these ideas tomorrow. Oh! How about you turn your Mirror into a Mirror that can absorb energy projectiles until you release everything in one big projectile?"

Kirby immediately loved it.

"And Metal. How about turning it into a magnet? This could be very useful depending of the situation."

Kirby noted the idea down. However, after listening a bit more to Sweetie's ideas, he eventually stopped and looked at her before he called her. "Poyo."

"Uh? What is it, Kirby?"

"Poyo poyo."

"Master Hand?"

"Poyo poyopoyo."

"What? You already fought him?!" Sweetie exclaimed in surprise.

Kirby nodded and proceeded to explain. Apparently, back in the Mirror World, he encountered Master Hand.

It was quite the unexpected encounter. The five Kirbys had been exploring the Mirror World when, inside a cavern, they came face to face with a giant floating hand who gave a "dramatic villain laugh".

"You five seem very strong! I defy you!" the hand exclaimed before he attacked the Kirbys with his finger gun attack that they easily avoided.

Green Kirby charged at Master Hand with his Wheel Ability while Yellow fired with his UFO. The three others approached with Sword for Pink, Fire for Red, and Stone for Black, but they then had to scatter to avoid Master Hand dropping on them while turned into stone. They quickly used the occasion to attack him from all sides. But then, while still on ground, Master Hand suddenly charged forward, punching Red and making him lose his Fire Ability that he quickly inhaled back. All the while, Yellow never stopped firing at Master Hand as he moved, and Green rammed him repeatedly.

Master Hand "walked" on the ground with his fingers toward Pink and prepared to flick him. Pink readied to dodge, but at the last moment, Master Hand changed target and instead flicked Green as he had been about to ram him again, sending him flying and crashing into the wall of the cavern, which made him lose his Wheel Ability that he quickly recovered. Master Hand then flew toward Yellow to grab him, but the Kirby swiftly flew out of the way thanks to his UFO while still firing. Instead of attempting to grab Yellow again, Master Hand gathered rocks into a spherical boulder that he threw at him, almost getting him. Giving up on Yellow for now, Master Hand proceeded to fire lasers from his five fingers, sweeping the ground randomly with them and getting Black who didn't see one coming from behind him.

Red charged at Master Hand as a fire ball only to be caught midair. Master Hand then constricted him a bit until he lost his Ability before throwing him toward Yellow who managed to dodge again. He followed by slapping Pink who had jumped at him to slash him, only to receive a powerful rock punch from Black before being rammed by Green again.

Master Hand then stopped attacking and flew a bit away from the five Kirbys, facing all of them.

"Not bad! As I thought! You win for now, but I'll be back! I want to fight you again!"

The hand then disappeared inside a rift.

"He was clearly holding back," Sweetie said at the end of the story.

Kirby nodded. After watching Sweetie fight him, he understood that.

"But that's strange, he didn't seem to recognise you when you met again in the Pokémon World."

"Poyo." Kirby nodded again, agreeing. He found it weird too. That's why he wanted to talk to Sweetie about this while they were alone.

"And did you encounter him again after that?"

"Poyo." A few more times, and the Kirbs always managed to defeat him with more or less ease or difficulty depending of the Abilities they had at the time. Master Hand also displayed more and more power from fight to fight, always forcing the Kirbs to remain on guard as they attacked. Master Hand even managed to knock out Yellow in one of the fights.

"Poyopoyo." But then, Master Hand came for a last fight, and he wasn't alone.

The Kirbys were high in the sky of the Mirror World when they traversed one of the many mirrors that served as doors in this world. They then found themselves facing yet again Master Hand.

"MUA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!"

But then, from behind the Kirbs came a second laugh.

"MUA HA HA HA HO HA HA HE HE HE HE HEEE!!!"

Here came a second hand, a left one, with more chaotic finger movements.

"WHAT?! There's a second hand?!" Sweetie exclaimed in horror.

Kirby nodded.

The Kirbs looked back and forth between the two hands, watchful of who will be the first one to attack.

"You were right, Righty! This bunch seems promising! It's gonna be fun!" the new hand said.

"Told you," the other said. "Now, let's start!"

The two hands immediately attacked. Master Hand attempted to punch Black who dodged and riposted with his Spark Ability while the other hand threw bombs all over the area, forcing the Kirbs to move around to avoid them. Pink, who had the Cupid Ability, fired arrows back at the left hand, Red threw bombs at Master Hand, and Green used his Sword to send sword beams at the left hand. This left Yellow who had the Hammer Ability but was too far to attack both hand. Master Hand moved away before he could get too close, and he didn't dare approach the left hand while he was throwing his bombs. Master Hand then proceeded to fire his sweeping finger-lasers while the left hand attacked created a huge fireball that he smashed toward the nearest Kirby who barely avoided got out of the way of the resulting explosion.

For a while, this continued. The two hands threw attacks after attacks, forcing the Kirbs to constantly run around to avoid the attacks as much as possible. So far, the hands had mostly similar attacks, but the left one's more chaotic behavior made him more unpredictable. He was also more treacherous has he had the tendency to attack the Kirbys who were focused on Master Hand, taking them off guard. He also used more feints, to make it worse.

Clearly, this hand was the most violent of the two.

Then, the two began to use team attacks. They clapped. They played volley ball with a giant energy ball. Master Hand materialised a giant energy rope and made the left hand catch one of the extremities before they did jump rope.

For the first time, the Kirbs really had to work as a team to fight the two. Black used his Spark Ability to cover Pink's arrows, Red's bombs, Green's sword, and Yellow's hammer in electricity, improving the damage they caused. Pink placed himself so the others could bounce on him to get closer to the hands. Green used his sword to parry any attack he could to protect the others.

Thanks to that, they managed to avoid being knocked out despite the fight being much harder than when it had just been Master Hand.

Until the left hand materialised a giant gun and fired several energy balls. The projectiles immobilised themselves in the air, so about a dozen ended up floating around by the time he stopped. At the same time, Master Hand threw dozens of swords upward. As the weapons began to randomly rain all over the battlefield, the left hand changed his gun into a rocket launcher and fired a huge energy ball that created a huge explosion when it crashed into the ground. At the same time, the smaller fireballs that were still floating suddenly flew toward the nearest Kirbys to their positions. As the Kirbys were busy running away from the explosions while dodging the raining swords, most of them just couldn't manage to dodge that too. Pink easily flew out of the way, and Green and Yellow parried with their respective weapons, but Red and Black were hit.

And for Black, it was finally too much and he dropped unconscious.

Pink quickly transported him out of the way before he resumed firing at the two hands. By now, the Kirbys decided to mostly focus on the left hand who was the most dangerous of the two. Green was the only one still focusing on Master Hand. Thanks to his speed, Pink alternated between the two.

After Master Hand punched the ground, causing several spikes of rock to sprout out of it all over the area, the left hand did a horizontal karate chop alongside the ground. Not only this forced most of the Kirbs to jump, but it also cut some of the spikes at the base, making them fall around, some of them right of the jumping Kirbs who thankfully all managed to float out of the way.

One of the Kirbs then got an idea and quickly shared it with the others before they all agreed with a nod. The four (Black still being unconscious) then gathered and lifted one of the fallen spikes like lumberjacks lifted cut tree trunks, and then promptly threw the spike at the left hand, skewering him, causing some black stuff to briefly come out of the wound before it healed when the hand forced the spike out.

"Oogh! I felt this one," the left hand shouted in pain.

Surprisingly, this made Master Hand laugh.

"Yeah yeah. Laugh it up!" the left hand shouted, irritated. He then pointed a finger at the nearest Kirby and charged energy.

Only for Master Hand to come and grad the finger to point it toward the sky. The finger fired the energy, and the next instant, a giant explosion engulfed the sky. It would have disintegrated the Kirbs if it had been fired at them. Or at least, it would have severely hurt them.

"This is not that kind of fight!" Master Hand scolded.

"Oops. Sorry. I got carried away a bit."

"I think that we should end the fight now. Let's consider they won."

The left hand whined. "Buuut! Already? We barely started! Come on, a bit more. So I can at least return the favor for skewering me."

"No."

"At least, let's end the fight on something more spectacular than this simple spike combo. How about we do our special boom boom one?"

"Which one?"

"You know, where you fly up there and do your thing, then I fly up there and do my thing, and it goes "boom boom boom" everywhere. We haven't gotten to do this one since forever."

"Fine."

Master Hand then flew into the sky and, the next instant, a Moon appeared far up. Then, the left hand flew toward the Moon, which exploded, and meteors began to rain everywhere, causing "booms" wherever they crashed. The meteors were easy to dodge for the Kirbys, but their number countered it. All of them got hit at least once as a result, and Yellow and Red ended up knocked out too as a result.

When the hands returned once the attack ended, they were immediately attacked by Pink and Green, the last two still standing. Pink focused on the left hand while Green attacked Master Hand.

"Ok, you win, stop attacking," Master Hand said, ending the fight.

"Ooh alright," the other said. "I must say, I hadn't had that much fun in a long time. Thanks for the fight. With mister party pooper over there, I rarely get to do what I like, so I'm always bored."

Master Hand sighed and, if he had had eyes, he would have rolled them. He then snapped his fingers, and in a flash of light, a mirror shard as well as several Maxim Tomatoes appeared. "Your reward. Now, farewell."

At this, the two hands flew away, disappearing into the sky.

"And you never got this hand's name?" Sweetie asked.

Kirby shook his head. He never got Master Hand's name either. The left hand simply named him "Righty".

"Well, let's name him Lefty for now. So, there is a second hand, who may or may not be Master Hand's brother - it's only speculation - and who is generally more violent and chaotic while being just as powerful as Master Hand, making him even more dangerous. We will have to keep an eye open for him. Especially if he is a leader of the Subspace Army. Maybe he is even a co-supreme leader alongside Master Hand. Eh, or maybe he is Master Hand's right hand, which would be ironic since he is a left hand. Thank you for telling me about him."

"Poyo!"

"Now, let's resume our current task: make your Abilities even more overpowered. So, what do you think of this one for the Ghost?"

For the following hour, they continued to note ideas for Ability upgrades until Kirby eventually fell asleep, making Sweetie sigh in fondness. She then picked him up and levitated him to his bed, on which she saw Elfilin asleep curled in a ball at the foot. Somehow, the little guy managed to snick up into the house and onto the bed while the two were busy. Maybe it was during Kirby's story, and Elfilin ended up listening to a part of it.

Once she tuckered Kirby, Sweetie Void decided that she was too tired to go to her own home (even thought she couldn't really get tired) and jumped on the bed to sleep beside Kirby. She also held Elfilin to use him as a plushy.

Trying not to think of Master Hand, his brother(?) and the Subspace Army, she closed her eyes, nuzzling Kirby, hooves wrapped around Elfilin.

Author's Note

Happy Birthday to Windi0. My gift? Death by overcuteness.

Chapter 130: Morning Spars

Sweetie Void was the first to wake up, then teleported to her house and exited it, making it look like she slept in it instead of in Kirby's. She wouldn't hear the end of it if someone understood that she slept with Kirby. Her sister especially would be a nightmare.

She didn't know, however, that Smily, her Haunter, not seeing her coming to her house last night, went to look for her and found her. Grinning, he then searched around and returned with a camera with which he took several photos.

Sweetie teleported to Smily and shook him furiously. "Where are the photos you took last night?!"

"How do you-? I won't tell you!"

"Where are they?!"

Smily used Lick.

It didn't affect Sweetie Void.

Sweetie Void used Glare.

Smily ran away.

Like any good ghost, he simply disappeared. But Sweetie could still feel him, so it didn't work. She turned herself into a ghost and hunted him down. The town thus woke up to a ghost fleeing for his (after)life.

Then, once everyone was up and had breakfast, Link and Meta Knight agreed that it was time for their spar.

The coliseum's arena was a classic square surrounded by a pit. A bridge could extend to allow the fighters to reach it. It didn't take long for Meta Knight and Link to walk to it while the bleachers were filled.

Really, if everyone hadn't seen this coliseum it, they wouldn't believe that this coliseum was built in less than a day. The Waddle Dees really were full of surprise (even if the ponies' (mostly the Twilights') magic helped).

"So, I won't use the Fierce Deity Mask," Link said.

Meta Knight nodded. "I would like to see its power at the end."

"Alright."

Both adversaries grabbed their sword (and shield for Link) and readied themselves while the Commentator Waddle Dee shouted, "Ready? GO!"

Before Link knew it, he blocked with his shield a lightning strike that still almost made him topple with how sudden it was. Sweetie hadn't been kidding about Meta Knight's speed. He already saw it during this adventure, and yet he still got surprised. He quickly did a swing with his sword, forcing Meta Knight to get away, giving up the pressure. However, Link barely had time to react again as Meta Knight flew around him and attacked from behind, the boy doing a roll forward to avoid it. Link then had to immediately put up his shield again to block a couple of crescent waves sent by Meta Knight.

Link decided to go on the offensive and charged toward Meta Knight who parried the following strikes. While Link wasn't as fast, his strikes forced Meta Knight to remain on guard to avoid being disarmed. It was like the boy just knew how to attack to best break the enemy's defense, and he didn't hesitate to include the shield and even his feet to gain an opportunity.

"Not bad at all," Meta Knight congratulated. "And I was told you never really trained?"

Link answered with a shake of his head. "Never. It came naturally as soon as I held my first sword. Then the rest came with experience"

"Really impressive. You must be a sword prodigy. However..." Meta Knight then avoided Link's next strike instead of parrying it and hit the back of Link's hand with the pommel of his sword, making him drop his weapon. Meta Knight then caught the dropped sword midair and used it to force Link to block with his shield while he used his Galaxia to swing from the opposite direction. Link was able to duck to dodge it. "You still have a lot to learn."

"I know." Link quickly grabbed something from his pocket and threw it down, revealing it to be a Deku Nut. When it exploded upon impact with the ground, it released a flash that froze Meta Knight. Link immediately forced his sword out of Meta Knight's hand and followed with a Spin Attack that sent Meta Knight flying and crashing on his back. "But I have some tricks to compensate."

Link pressed his advantage by charging at Meta Knight to attack him before he could get up. However, Meta Knight flew away. Link expected that and he already had his bow out, firing an arrow that Meta Knight destroyed. The arrow was a distraction however as Link took out his Hookshot and caught Meta Knight with it by the foot, bringing him back to the boy. But Meta Knight reacted by parrying Link's following swing and then kicked him in the face, getting his foot released, before he flew away again. This time, however, he charged energy and planted his sword into the ground, releasing several tornadoes that swept Link into the air.

Link quickly put on the Deku Mask and used the giant flowers that the Deku form offered to remain in the air while he dropped a Deku Nut at Meta Knight who quickly got away to avoid the flash. Meta Knight flew toward Link but was then taken by surprise as Link suddenly changed mask to take on the Goron form, grabbing Meta Knight with his big hands before he dropped with the knight under him. He then rolled away and took off the Goron Mask. He quickly readied himself as, in the blink of an eye, Meta Knight got up and flew toward him while sending a single crescent wave.

The wave was blocked, but Meta Knight then rapidly flew behind Link who quickly rolled forward like before. However, it was a trap as Meta Knight didn't attack and followed Link. As Link got up, Meta Knight readied his sword, making the boy put up his sword to parry, only for Meta Knight to swiftly change position so he was now at Link's right, then left, right again, behind, forward left, and so on, destabilising Link. Meta Knight regularly did fake attacks, constantly tricking Link into rising his sword or shield to parry or block. Link eventually did another Spin Attack to force Meta Knight away, only for the knight to come from above while the boy was still spinning.

Link was kicked in the head again, losing balance as a result. Meta Knight used his ultimate move, the Upper Calibus, and dashed toward Link before he could recover and threw him into the air with a first strike, then slashed him several times midair in very quick succession, then tossed him at the ground with one last powerful hit.

To Meta Knight's surprise, Link got up and seemed ready to continue the fight despite being visibly in pain. He was impressed, again. An endurance far above average for a kid, just like Sweetie Void and Kirby. He wasn't a hero just thanks to his sword skills.

Meta Knight liked this kid.

"You are already a force to be reckoned. With some actual training, few would be able to surpass or even equal you. Let me help you."

At this, Meta Knight charged back toward Link, this time not with the intention to fight to win, but to fight to teach. And so, the fight turned into an unexpected training session for Link. They still went all out against each other, but Meta Knight now made sure that each attack had a purpose to help the boy get better while lacking the intention to end the fight.

Because of this, the fight lasted for many long minutes until Meta Knight decided that it was enough, when Link started to get tired.

"Let's end this. Show me the power of this Fierce Deity Mask."

"Don't worry! I will make sure that nothing bad happens!" Sweetie Void reassured from the bleachers when Link took the mask but hesitated to put it on.

Sweetie's words worked. Link knew that he could count on her to protect everyone. He will still try to be careful.

With this, he put on the mask.

Upon seeing the Fierce Deity Link, Meta Knight immediately felt like a mouse before a mighty tiger and even got the thought of giving up the fight, something that never crossed his mind until now unless he happened to lose his mask. The Fierce Deity Link had no opening. Approaching him was at your risks and perils. No matter what Meta Knight could think of, all of his plans ended in failure and in his defeat.

The perfect swordsman. Perfection that Meta Knight constantly worked to reach.

Meta Knight thought of charging, but he finally decided to lower his sword with a sigh. "I give up."

That was the power of the Fierce Deity Mask. Meta Knight just knew he had lost without even needing to cross swords, if such an occasion could even present itself if a fight had happened.

Link took off his mask, sighing in relief.

"You are a wonder, child," Meta Knight said. "Allow me to become your master. Before long, you won't need this mask to fight the strongest."

Link had a big smile on his face. "I would be honored! Thank you."

With this first spar over, they went right away to the next one: Meta Knight versus Kirby, after Meta Knight ate a Maxim Tomato.

Even before the fight started, Kirby revealed his brand new Meta Knight Sword upgrade, making Meta Knight stare at him in interest, curious to see how much of him this upgraded Ability copied. With this upgraded Sword, Kirby had Meta Knight's Galaxia, mask, and a couple of small bat wings.

"Ready? GO!"

In a flash, the two charged at each other and clashed. After a couple of seconds, they then jumped away from each other and both sent a crescent wave that destroyed each other. While Meta Knight sent more of them in very rapid succession, Kirby ran around to avoid them, using an upgraded version of his recently acquired Ranger Ability, what he and Sweetie called the Noble Ranger, allowing him to wield two guns (and to wear a fancy ship captain hat), to fire rapidly at Meta Knight. Some shots managed to pass Meta Knight's defense and to hit him despite his best attempt to parry or avoid them.

Meta Knight quickly stopped sending crescent waves and focused entirely on parrying the projectiles before he flew away, charged energy into his sword, and planted it in the ground, sending several tornadoes. Kirby fought the strong winds with his own Tornado Ability, upgraded to Storm Tornado, as in he had a hat with a black tornado with black clouds and even lightning flashing. The impressive power of Storm Tornado countered and canceled Meta Knight's tornadoes, and spun all the way to Meta Knight who barely had time to fly away, but not before he was struck by a bolt of electricity coming out of the hat. It was Storm Tornado, after all, and in a storm, there was lightning.

Before Kirby could stop spinning, Meta Knight levitated a boulder out of the pit surrounding the arena and dropped it on the puffball, crushing him.

This took everyone by surprise.

"You kept the telekinesis power given to you by the Jamba Heart piece?!" Bandana Dee yelled.

Meta Knight chuckled. "The heart never gave me that power, but the one to duplicate myself. Telekinesis came with hard training."

"What? But we thought... But then... Why didn't you correct us?!"

"Because your assumption advantaged me for my next fight against Kirby. I wanted to keep my telekinesis a surprise."

At this, Meta Knight levitated several more boulders that he rained all over the arena as Kirby got out from under the one that crushed him. He barely got out of the way of the first one, then it was a matter of randomly running and teleporting around. After a moment, Kirby took out a stone hammer like the ones that the brainwashed Bonkers used in this world, making it the Wild Hammer, and spun with it to hit one of the falling boulders like a bat, sending the boulder right at Meta Knight. The boulder was sliced in two, the two pieces passing at the left and right of Meta Knight and continuing to the bleachers only to be stopped by a shield put up by Sweetie Void.

The arena was now a field of boulders, and Kirby quickly disappeared behind one as Meta Knight flew toward him. When Meta Knight reached Kirby's last known position, the puffball was nowhere to be seen. However, one of the boulders suddenly shot out and almost crushed Meta Knight between itself and another one. A few others repeated the attempt until Meta Knight flew away and sent crescent waves all over the arena to cut the boulders into little stones. Out of one of the piles of rubble came Kirby, in his Ghost Ability, or rather, Poltergeist Ghost Ability, the upgraded version that allowed him to levitate objects. He looked more thorn up than usual, with dark, empty eyes with two little lights. Meta Knight then levitated the many rocks and threw them at Kirby, pelting him with them from all directions.

Kirby turned into Metal to let himself drop hard, avoiding a lot of the rocks while receiving less damage from the ones that hit. He then quickly used the Meta Knight Sword Ability again to intercept Meta Knight who charged at him, the two clashing swords again. They exchanged blows at impressive speed for many long minutes until Kirby breathed purple fire with the upgraded Dragon Fire Ability (getting a dragon claw with wings hat), forcing Meta Knight to fly away and to get rid of some flames sticking to him. While Meta Knight patted himself to extinguish the flames, Kirby used his new Galacta Knight Spear Ability to get Galacta Knight's spear (and mask and small wings). Then, he rose the spear and called for a bolt of electricity to fall from the sky right on Meta Knight. Despite being still focused on extinguishing the flames, Meta Knight still saw the move, recognised it, and was able to move out of the way.

Meta Knight decided to use his Upper Calibur and charged toward Kirby, only for him to intercept him with the Meta Knight Sword, and the two clashed again. This time, Kirby was able to disarm Meta Knight, sending his sword flying and planting in the ground, which also stunned Meta Knight. Kirby used the occasion to use the Upper Calibur too, charging at the stunned Meta Knight before sending him in the air where he repeatedly struck him until he sent him crashing with a last powerful blow.

This last blow even destroyed Meta Knight's mask. The fight was over.

This fight showed how monstrous Kirby became. Once upon a time, Meta Knight was Popstar's number one warrior. Kirby and Sweetie Void struggled to defeat him. But now, Kirby didn't even have to use all of his powers to defeat him. He didn't even need to use the Stella Knight form and its Super Abilities.

Kirby really wasn't in the same league anymore, like Sweetie Void.

Speaking of, it was her turn to spar against Galacta Knight. Well, after a quick fight between Meta Knight and Dark Meta Knight, that Meta Knight won no problem to Dark Meta Knight's frustration.

"Let's limit ourselves to the minimum. We don't want to destroy the coliseum. And the town. And the planet," Sweetie Void said when she faced Galacta Knight who agreed with a nod.

"Ready? GO!"

Galacta Knight took his Light form (his most powerful form currently). Sweetie Void's mane, tail, and eyes turned into pure darkness. And the two charged at each other. There was a clash between Galacta's spear and one of Sweetie's swords, a shockwave pushed everyone against their sits, and Galacta was almost propelled into the bleachers, stopping himself midair just in time. Galacta then called several waves of lightning that struck all over the arena before he rained sword-shaped beams. Sweetie countered the beams with her own beams before the two opened a rift in the fabric of space, both calling a space beam. The two beams collided, creating a huge explosion that annihilated the arena and forced everyone against their sits again.

In the cloud of smokes that followed, the silhouettes of Sweetie Void and Galacta Knight could be seen moving around very rapidly, clashing repeatedly. Each clash was followed by a small shockwave that pushed some of the cloud away, allowing everyone to eventually see what was going on again. With a big boum! Galacta Knight was then sent crashing into what remained of the arena. Sweetie Void went after him like a meteor, causing even more destruction.

The two flew around a bit, then Sweetie sent her ten swords to attack Galacta Knight who was sending projectiles of fire and ice. The swords destroyed some of the projectiles as they flew, then they assaulted Galacta from all directions. Galacta had all the difficulties to defend himself against all of them despite having both a weapon and a shield. Sweetie's speed and magical manipulation at using her weapons had only gotten greater since she ascended. Even Meta Knight couldn't keep up anymore. Sweetie firing dark beams from her horn and from the air didn't help.

Between two parries, Galacta Knight struck Sweetie Void with lightning, stopping her assault momentarily and allowing him some respite to charge at her and attack closely. Sweetie still recovered in time to block the spear with a shield, then countered with a punch that Galacta barely blocked with his shield. The shield was destroyed, and Galacta was sent flying almost to the bleachers, only stopped by Sweetie Void teleporting in his path before punching him again so he crashed in what remained of the arena. Then, she opened a rift that fired a powerful space beam that created a huge explosion.

When everything cleared, Galacta Knight was standing shakily, leaning on his planted spear.

"I give up..."

"It wasn't really satisfying not fighting you at your best. How about we do it again on a deserted planet once we have time?" Sweetie Void proposed.

"Yes. I agree. It still was a nice fight. I wouldn't mind doing more of them. Gonna keep my wits sharp."

Sweetie Void nodded.

In the end, the results of the spars didn't surprise anyone. Still, the heroes not from the Dream Universe were glad to see how powerful Meta Knight and Galacta Knight were, even if Galacta didn't show everything he could do. Elfilin couldn't stay in place with how the fights made him excited, and he was asking thousands of question to the fighters.

With this, the fights were over, and the heroes could return to their adventure. After some quick goodbyes to the ones that remained behind to continue building the town and fight off Gorimondo (who continued to attack the town this morning), the group returned to Wondaria and climbed back inside the Lor to be transported to their next destination that Elfilin happily described.

"Winter Horns is like the name says. It's like it's always winter there! It's always snowing! I love playing with the snow!"

"We return to the classic then," Sweetie Void said. "Good old snow area. At least, I will be able to keep us warm."

"Be careful. Remember that Dedede is there," Meta Knight reminded.

"Don't worry, we got this. No matter how many time Dedede gets brainwashed or whatever, he always lose in the end. This won't be different. And you really think he will be a problem against all of us at once?"

"The warning was more for your friends. Most of them won't stand a chance against him, and he could attack anytime."

DK pounded his fists together. "It's not a fat penguin that will scare me. Let him come."

Author's Note

If I had to name the league in which Sweetie Void and Kirby belong, it would be the God League, from Lower God (planet busters) to Omnipotent God, passing by Average God and Superior God.

Void would be Average.
Void Termina would be Lower.
Zanza (from Xenoblade Chronicles) wouldn't even be in the League despite being a God, it would be more the Half-God League or Under-God League, I don't know. Same for the Gods from Kid Icarus. They really are in a lower tier of Gods, more like super powerful mortals.
Arceus would be Omnipotent, obviously.
Sweetie Void would be Lower Average (close to Average).
Kirby would be Lower Average, Lower than Sweetie Void.
Master Hand and Crazy Hand would be Lower.
Fierce Deity Link would be Lower (he isn't a planet buster, but his godly sword skills allow him to be in this range).
Galacta Knight would be Lower.
Tabuu: ???
Galeem: ???
Dharkon: ???

Chapter 131: Winter Horns Part 1

It wasn't long after they left Wondaria that the grass left place to snow, and the architecture of the ruins changed greatly. Gone were the "modern" buildings and skyscrapers, at their place were buildings made of bricks, with many small windows, lots of chimneys, and almost no ornamentation. The buildings were geometrically simple, with either flat roofs or triangular roofs. Towers structures also had pyramidal roofs with a flat top. The most prominent colors, outside of the snow white, turned around of maroon and grey. This made the towns they passed look even colder and deader than they were.

"We must have entered what had been a different country with its own architecture," Diddy Kong commented.

"Probably. This is an architecture style that had been very common in the industrial revolution of Corneria," Fox said. "Seems like some places in this world decided to keep it despite the modernisation. I admit it has its charm, especially with the addition of the snow."

The group reached a city cut in two by a long bridge. Mist covered the lower streets, and mountains were visible far away. The Lor passed beside a clock tower and dropped the heroes on an elevated section of the city, on a plaza.

Members of the Beast Pack hunting for Waddle Dees were present in quite a number, and when they saw the Lor arriving, they positioned themselves, ready for the heroes to come. Among them were now present Cororis, small purple penguins native of colder regions of Popstar that formed and pushed giant snowballs. And with all the snow present on the floor, it was freestyle for the birds. They could try however, the heroes would just destroy the balls or send them back to the senders. They could have been distractive if the heroes had been lesser in number, or they could have even taken them by surprise with them being busy against other enemies, but as it was now, the snowballs were totally ineffective.

So the heroes moved up the boulevard lined with fences and trees beyond the plaza with nothing slowing them down, until they reached a staircase with a Cororis pushing snowballs down it. Fox dealt with the penguin, then reached a second part of the boulevard that was badly damaged, large pits littering it. Here, in a corner behind some metal crates, was a vending machine that Kirby hesitated to use before he shrugged and went with the fun. Bombarding enemies with soda cans was honestly hilarious, and the best was that they could drink the cans afterward.

Just after the vending machine was a series of small bridges linking pillars. Lots of Scarfys were present, forcing the heroes to advance carefully while defending themselves Cororis were also present pushing snowballs on them, so they dealt with them from a distance to stop them. There were two damaged shutter doors that the heroes had to destroy to find and free two Waddle Dees, one behind each door.

After that, it was a dead end, so they had to be picked up by the Lor to continue to their next destination. Krystal led them to a large river which had for some reason swaying buildings. Again, Cororis and their snowballs were present, and with the swaying structures, their trajectories constantly changed, forcing the heroes to be more watchful. The heroes who couldn't jump very high had to wait for the structures to fully sway one way or another to be able to reach the next structure (still or not), slowing them down a bit. It wasn't helped that the structures weren't that large, so the heroes couldn't go all at once. There was even the risk of sliding on them if they weren't careful.

"These penguins are starting to get seriously annoying," Dixie said. She didn't like penguins. After the Snowmads, the vikings that invaded her island several months ago, she had hoped to never see one again. At least, the Snowmads penguins hadn't been so annoying. Excepted the one with the mecha-thingy. This one gave the Kongs some intense scares before it got what it deserved.

Little Ghost giggled. "They are so cute!"

"Cuteness has nothing to do with annoyingness!"

"No, it makes it easier to forgive them."

Dixie snorted.

"Eh. Cute or not, they still get punched in the end," Marx said.

"Certainly not by you. You don't have any arms," Sweetie Void said. Then she remembered THAT time he had arms and shivered. Still top tier nightmare fuel even after everything.

After that first set of swaying structures, the heroes reached a large still building with a grid to open. To open it, someone had to fire at a flying target hidden at the side of the building, beside a bridge of crumbling blocks. A small group made of Kirby, Pikachu, and Diddy Kong then passed the door that had been behind the grid and entered the building while the others continued on a second set of swaying structures with more Cororis rolling snowballs on them, among other beings.

It wasn't long before Kirby's group returned with a Waddle Dee that they rescued by firing at a moving target to make a staircase leading to the Waddle Dee's cage appear. At the same time, the others also found a Waddle Dee in a fente in the wall of another building at the end of the second set of swaying structures. The Waddle Dee's cage was hidden behind a wall of metal blocks that they had to destroy by making a bomb block explode. The Clocker transporting the cage had been an idiot thinking that it was a good hiding place.

The heroes then just had to climb on a small pathway in the building to reach a door. At the other side, the group had to climb a series of walls by moving scaffold stairs to ladders while Cororis and Poppy Bros Jr. pushed snowballs and threw bombs down at them. Well, at first. The birds and elves stopped sending snowballs and bombs when the heroes who could fly dealt with them. Gabons were also throwing bones on the upper levels, but they were quickly eliminated too.

On the third level, the heroes didn't have to use a staircase as there were already scaffolds and a pile of materials present under the ladders leading to it. However, there was also a suspicious cracked section of the wall that Spiky and Dk destroyed, revealing a little section inside the wall with a trapped Waddle Dee hidden guarded by a single Buffahorn.

After a last staircase, normal this one, the heroes finally reached the roof of the building they had been climbing, where a lot of enemies awaited them.

Anubis shook his head in exasperation. "They never learn."

"Never," almost everyone else agreed. Pretty much everyone was used to enemies being darn stubborn despite said enemies constantly failing to stop them. They would gain so much time if the bad guys stopped sending minions to be slaughtered uselessly.

Needless to say, the battle that resulted was over quickly. Three switches then had to be pressed to make a walkway appear, allowing everyone to reach a golden cage with three Waddle Dees left behind by three Clockers that escaped, just beside another clock tower. It offered quite the nice view of the city.

The heroes' next destination quickly revealed to be a subway. The Lor dropped them just in front of the tube station.

"I don't know why, but I have a bad feeling," Present Sonic said.

He quickly found out why as the group entered the building and went down the stairs to the underground. It was badly flooded! Almost everything was under freezing water, leaving only some not that large elevated and partially crumbled walkways to allow the heroes to avoid getting wet. To make matter worse, parts of the ground were covered in ice.

"Anyone who don't know how to walk on ice without faceplanting, hold onto someone who knows," Meta Knight instructed.

"I don't think any of us has to worry about that, as long as we advance slowly and carefully," Pikachu said.

Thankfully, there weren't that many enemies, so the most the heroes generally had to worry about was to slide into the freezing water, or fall on their butt/face. At least, thanks to the total absence of snow since they were underground, there was a total lack of Cororis. However, there was the occasional Chilly and Balloon-Meister who were in their element.

After some scaffolds, they reached a section of walkway that had almost totally crumbled. A large gap separated the two parts, and for the heroes who couldn't jump far enough, they had to jump on much too small pieces at the left. A Balloon-Meister was present, ready to bomb the crossing heroes with its balloons, but it was eliminated from a distance before it could throw any. So the heroes could take their time while jumping.

After that, it was a narrow frozen section with lots of Balloon-Meisters throwing explosive balloons from the water. Pikachu and Zan Partizanne electrified the water, getting rid of all of them and allowing the heroes to continue without having to worry about balloon-bombs. They still had to worry about Bombers suddenly dropping from scaffolds above them however. And then there was a circular area where lots of enemies awaited them. Mookies attempted to use the lack of place and the heroes number at their advantage to rain mallets on the heroes who couldn't hope to dodge. Instead, the Mookies were the ones who had mallets rain on them and their friends thanks to Little Ghost and her telekinesis.

Finally, they reached the end of the tunnel, back on intact floor. After dealing with a few more enemies, Kirby pounded four nails, causing the floor to move to reveal a hole with a trapped Waddle Dee.

The group then climbed stairs, left underground, and entered a hallway that was also partially covered in ice, with falling icicles and many holes in the ground filled with water, and also with traffic barriers and lots of Mookies. Careful of the falling icicles, the heroes advanced and discovered more nails to pound to make pieces of wall move. A first one led to a small secret storeroom with another trapped Waddle Dee, and a second one led to another area down some stairs which seemed to be some underground mall. Kirby, Spiky, Fox, and Krystal took it, and the others continued.

In a side passage a bit further ahead, Sweetie Void destroyed some lockers, finding an Invincibility Candy. She took it and showed it to everyone else. "Who wants to have a turn at being invincible?"

Diddy immediately rose a hand. "Me! Me!"

Dixie lowered it however. "Nah. We already have the stars back home. Let another have it."

Link hesitantly rose his hand. "Hum? Me?"

"Ok." Sweetie tossed the candy at Link who ate it, becoming invincible. Putting up his shield, he then ran full speed and rammed all the enemies on the path as if they were pins. While Link did his carnage, Francisca flew to a chest on scaffolds and opened it, finding a Waddle Dee. They then reached stairs and returned underground to another flooded area with only some narrow walkway against a wall allowing them to avoid the water. However, there were huge containers moving back and forth on this walkway, so they had to watch out to not be crushed between them, using small ledges at the side to get out of the way when they had the occasion.

As it took some time for all the heroes to pass, they were finally joined by Kirby and the others bringing a freed Waddle Dee. This one had had to be saved by finding switches to open a gate keeping him trapped.

Kirby arrived just in time to find a cone on a ledge. With the cone inside his mouth, he destroyed some metal crates to reveal a switch that moved a couple of containers, revealing a crack in the ice covering the ground. DK destroyed the cracked area and revealed a hole with another Waddle Dee. At the same time, Past Sonic was the first to reach an area with shipping crates that started moving to push him into the water. Despite the ice, he was able to run to the other side of the moving crates, quickly joined by his future self. The others followed one by one, identifying the places where the crates didn't move all the way to the edge to rest until the crates moved away so they could continue.

On the way, Marx found a Waddle Dee hidden inside one of the crates at the top, behind cardboard boxes. If it hadn't been for Anubis, he would have missed this one.

Finally, after the crates were the stairs leading to the exit of the subway. They still had to do one last big jump to pass a large gap. The ones who couldn't do it either toughed it out and jumped into the water or let the others help. Once they were out, they found Galacta Knight beside a busted golden cage and a pile of defeated enemies.

"A job well done, Galacta!" Sweetie said.

The heroes quickly found that the worse still had yet to come. Krystal led the Lor to a part of the city that was flooded, leaving them no choice but to drop on damaged frozen rooftops barely pocking out of the water. And to not help at all, strong winds picked up.

So, they had to walk on roofs while watching out to not slide off into the frigid water while being careful of the wind that can cause them to miss jump, all the while dealing with the enemies crazy enough to stop them despite all this. Particularly, there were lots of Needlous rolling back and forth on these roofs, and the occasional Buffahorn charging at them. There was even a Gigatzo on one of the roofs.

Not far before reached a big frozen wall, Kirby found a pipe that he inhaled to roll on the roofs toward a cracked section of said wall, crushing all the enemies on the way and opening the way to the others. He then crashed into the cracked wall and revealed a hidden Waddle Dee. While Kirby freed the Waddle Dee, the others continued ahead along the wall until reaching a door.

The other side of the wall was as much flooded. And to continue, the heroes had no choice but to use boats. Kirby found a ring and a boat to use, transporting some of the heroes. Phantom rematerialised her edgy boat, but smaller to fit through the small pathways, transporting more. And Sweetie Void shapeshifted into a boat, transporting the last ones. All the rest could fly.

Apple Death sent wind into a fan, lowering a spiked wall to allow Kirby to pass and reach and destroy a cracked ice wall, opening the way to a Waddle Dee guarded by a pack of Scarfys. Not long after, they had to leave the boats, and Flamberge found another Waddle Dee behind a wall of ice blocks around a corner, on a ledge. Destroying the ice blocks was no problem for her.

Then they reached a dead end, and they wondered how to continue. In the end, Sweetie Void rematerialised her flying carpet to transport everyone while Krystal guided her. It quickly revealed to be a bad idea when the strong wind returned. Everyone had to land at the start of a long narrow path. While pushed by the wind, they avoided the potholes full of water and the Gordos, dealt right away with the few enemies that were present despite the wind, and freed a Waddle Dee hidden inside one of the holes.

The path ended suddenly in an area with lots of Gigatzos that Sweetie and the ghosts levitated into the water. Fighting the winds, the heroes had to jump on platforms one by one until they returned on the path where the holes were now bigger so there was now barely any ground to walk on. At the end of it, Krystal pointed to an elevated area, and Little Ghost flew to it to find another Waddle Dee.

At the same time, Marx headbutted an upside down switch to cause a piece of wall above a grid to rise. Through the grid, the heroes could see further ahead an ice pillar with a golden cage on it. It was too far to reach by jump, so Apple Death and Little Ghost worked together to levitate everyone to it.

They remarked that the ice pillar wasn't far of the bridge they saw at first when they arrived in the city. It really was a big bridge!

And when they were done rescuing the three Waddle Dees in the golden cage, Krystal pointed right at it.

Author's Note

I know the bridge we see in the background of the levels of Winter Horns isn't the same one than the one we cross in the fourth level, but I thought that it would be a nice touch.

For the ones wondering, no, the fight against Dedede won't be next chapter.

Chapter 132: Winter Horns Part 2 - The Battle of Blizzard Bridge

The Lor dropped the heroes before the bridge's entrance, and already, they understood that a big battle was before them. From the sky, they saw that the bridge was filled to the brim with enemies. It seemed like the Beast Pack decided to do a show of force. Unless it was Dedede? They must be getting close to him. Already, Awoofies were running toward them.

DK cracked his knuckles. "Aw yeah! Let them come! Let them come!"

Present Sonic stretched his legs. "Hold your horse! There will be enough for everyone this time!"

"You are the one who says that?" Pikachu asked. "You will leave us in the dust. I just know this."

Already, Fox fired at some of the closest enemies. "Just don't run in front of my blaster."

"Ooooh! Let's count and see who eliminates the most enemies!" Marx said.

Several of the others rolled their eyes.

"Just let's go already!" Flamberge shouted before she charged into the action, quickly followed by Phantom, and then by DK.

The battle wasn't hard, but fierce. The Beast Pack really was trying to get the heroes with their number, hoping to overwhelm them. Advancing on the bridge itself was very straightforward. It was just a bridge after all. No complicated platforming or twisting paths. Barely any obstacle beside bricks littering the floor. The heroes just had to advance forward while fighting the many enemies. There wasn't really any organisation. The heroes advanced, and fought, and when needed, helped each others. Even Elfilin helped where he could.

Just before reaching the first pillar of the bridge, they encountered a Gigant Edge that really stood out among all these small creatures that composed the enemies. As such, they saw him coming, and he received a few projectiles before Link intercepted him. The Gigant Edge could hit hard with a sword but was very slow, which was his downfall against Link. Even when the Gigant Edge put up his shield, Link simply rolled around him to hit him on the back, or leaped above him to hit him on the head. The Gigant Edge didn't last more than one minute against the boy despite some enemies trying to distract him.

"They should have sent more of these guys," Sweetie Void said. "Just one is as good as if they sent nothing."

"I don't think that they have a lot of these guys among their ranks," Link said. "They only have what the rifts brought to them."

"True."

When they finally reached the first pillar, the heroes remarked a hole in the wall at the left, and Krystal pointed at it. So Kirby went in and took with him the Three Mage Sisters. Inside, they found a cone wrapped in vines, above water with a platform moving left and right. Timing it right, Francisca cut the vine, making the cone drop on the platform where Kirby inhaled it. With it, he dropped another level, on another platform, and then destroyed a cracked section of floor to open a hole and reveal a treasure chest with a Waddle Dee trapped in it.

The small group returned to the others who were a bit ahead, and Sweetie Void sent the Waddle Dee to the town before she continued fighting. A new big wave of enemies with a Fleurina at their head was already coming.

"First a Gigant Edge, now a Fleurina almost right after... Oh. It's one of these moments," Sweetie Void said.

"What moment?" Ness and Elfilin asked.

"In almost all our adventures, at Kirby and I, there is a moment where we end up fighting all the big enemies of the current adventure one after another. If I'm right, then after this Fleurira, we will quickly encounter a Frosty and a Bonkers, not necessarily in that order."

"Seriously? Mid-boss rushes?" Phantom deadpanned. "They exist in real life? Button Mash would be happy."

"They are more common than you would think," Diddy said. "It happens to Mario all the time."

"Ah confirm," Apple Death said. "Ah went through a couple of them when Ah shared some of Mario's adventures. Bowser loves them, or even what ya'd call boss rushes."

Dixie was the one who ended up fighting the Fleurina. Whenever the bird wasn't spinning, Dixie jumped on her and slapped her with her hair. She had no problem dodging the small tornadoes she sent, and even baited her so the tornadoes ended up swiping other enemies.

When the Fleurina was defeated, the heroes continue to the next pillar where there was another hole in the wall, this time at the right. Kirby went in along with Jeff and Anubis, and he already understood that he had to use the Storm Tornado Ability on a fan in the middle of water to open a gate to a switch at the other side of that same water. Jeff fired at the switch with his gun, elevating some platforms and allowing Kirby to focus on inhaling a vending machine to destroy a shutter door with Anubis' help. Behind the shutter door was a Waddle Dee.

Back with the others, they saw that, after that second pillar, the bridge was broken. The heroes had to jump on pieces that remained to traverse the broken section, until they reached a new wave of enemies with a Bonkers. Spiky personally dealt with this one, with pure brute force and fire, which worked very well on the Bonkers' fur. The Bonkers had no chance.

Reaching the third pillar, there was a hole in the right wall. However, this time, it just led to a stake to pound, which opened a secret passage at the left. Kirby, DK, and Fox went in, entering an area where they had to pound more stakes to make walls on the upper level slide back, temporarily opening the way to a Waddle Dee trapped behind a grid and a cracked wall. To reach him in time before the walls slid back out, Kirby ran ahead while DK pounded the stakes and Fox dealt with the distracting enemies. Kirby then reached a car on the upper level and used it to roll rapidly to the cracked wall, saving the Waddle Dee.

Meanwhile, on the bridge, the others had to traverse another section by jumping on even smaller pieces. Meta Knight also found a well hidden Clocker with a Waddle Dee under the bridge. He was really thankful to Krystal and Anubis. By the time Kirby's group joined them, everyone was at the other side of the broken section, facing one last wave of enemies with two Frostys, just before the exit of the bridge.

Ness easily defeated the first Frosty while Francisca fought the second one. But then, Anubis pointed at the roof of the pillar at the exit of the bridge, making everyone remark the presence of a figure on it.

Despite the mist stopping from seeing too far, they could see that the figure was none other than a human!

"Uh? Who is this? I thought that all the humans were gone in this world," Sweetie Void wondered.

"Who am I you ask, little horse girl?" the figure asked back, taking a pose, before he rose an arm to reveal a green Clocker, then jumped. The green Clocker struggled to lift him as they slowly descended until the poor bird couldn't hold his weight anymore and they both suddenly dropped and crashed hard on the remaining Frosty, knocking him out right away. The human then quickly got up doing as if nothing happened, letting go of the green Clocker who flew away, and took another pose as he revealed himself in his full glory, twirling a naginata and doing some slow movements with his free arm.

The man was very tall and stout, wearing steel armor with red clothing and grey pants with red polka-dots. He also had multiple layered skirts, a belt with a monstrous face on the clasp, a red helmet with black horns and a tassel, and black and gold bracers and boots. His face was entirely white with red markings.

"I am the legendary world wanderer warrior! Through countless realms, I sought the greatest challenges and weapons! Armies and mountains crumbled before my might! This is me..." Dramatic pause. "Gilgamesh!!! I was starting to think that this world was empty of worthy challenge, but I finally found you. Now, it's go time!" Gilgamesh exclaimed before he dashed toward Meta Knight.

"Woah! Are you sure you want to take on all of us at the same time?" Sweetie Void asked as Meta Knight parried Gilgamesh's thrust, which packed a punch apparently.

"That's generally how it goes. Groups of heroes always gang bang on me. I'm just too strong for them to try their luck in a duel."

"If you want a duel, I can give you one," Meta Knight proposed.

"Wait, really?"

Meta Knight nodded.

"Ooohh! I like you, weird masked knight! Very well! Let's duel!"

Meta Knight nodded again and signed for the others to step back, which they did, some with reluctance. Instead, they circled the two to continue dealing with the enemies that were still around, although said enemies were also observing to see what the heck was going on. Some went to the bridge's exit not far behind and freed the Waddle Dees in the golden cage present. Kirby and others went on a walkway circling the right part of the pillar to find another secret passage and free another Waddle Dee with the help of the Ice Ability and a pipe.

The fight between Meta Knight and Gilgamesh turned at nobody's advantage. Meta Knight was fast and avoided Gilgamesh's thrusts and swipes with his naginata, but in return, the naginata's long range didn't allow Meta Knight to get close enough to slash Gilgamesh with his sword without risk of a counterattack. For Gilgamesh, the Galaxia was more like a dagger. Any attempt for Meta Knight to get in range to slash Gilgamesh was met with a swipe of the naginata. His speed still allowed him to land a few hits, but he got bonked on the side more than once in return or got punched with what Gilgamesh called Goblin Punches. Meta Knight wasn't sure what was the difference between a normal punch and a Goblin Punch, but it hurt all the same. He also avoided a Death Claw that seemed bad news.

So Meta Knight decided to attack with sword beams and waves, keeping his distance. When he flew to distance himself from Gilgamesh more, the man sent Wind Slashes which countered Meta Knight's own waves. Gilgamesh then sent, of all things, a Missile that Meta Knight barely avoided before he decided to use his telekinesis to pick up rubble and rain it on the man.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Telekinesis? What is stopping you from picking me up and throwing me into the water bellow?"

"You would just come back. It would be no use beside gaining some time."

Gilgamesh let out a relieved sigh. "Oh thank you! I hate when they do that!"

Missile!

Another missile was sent toward Meta Knight who quickly levitated some rubble in its path before he charged energy and planted his sword into the ground, sending tornadoes. To his surprise however, Gilgamesh ran right through the tornadoes and got him with a thrust of his naginata. "These tornadoes are mere breezes!" Meta Knight made him pay with a tornado of slashes, slashing Gilgamesh all over his body.

"Mmh. You are good, but you seem sadly limited in your abilities. Beside that telekinesis and these tornadoes, do you have anything else?" Gilgamesh asked.

Meta Knight remained silent at this.

"I see. Well then, let me show you."

Haste.

Protect.

Shell.

"See? Speed, defense, and magic defense increased! And I'm still just warming up!"

Meta Knight understood that he had a problem.

He began to send waves after waves, but Gilgamesh's increased speed and defense showed themselves. He barely felt the waves, and he rapidly moved after Meta Knight to constantly attack him. He still wasn't as fast as Meta Knight, but he was able to keep up with the regular Missile and even a Rocket Punch (which was just a boxing glove fired with a rocket). He also regularly Jumped at Meta Knight, threatening to crush him under his weight while closing the distance in one go. This continued for a few minutes until the effects of the spells seemed to disappear as Gilgamesh abruptly slowed down.

"Seems like it is time to end the warm up," Gilgamesh said.

Disable.

Somehow, Meta Knight couldn't attack anymore. He was now visibly sweating. He was so distracted by his now inability to do any action beside moving that he didn't see Gilgamesh that cast Haste on himself again coming until it was too late, and he was hit by a Death Claw. As a result, Meta Knight found himself paralyzed, and he felt that he was about to lose consciousness. One last thrust from Gilgamesh was all it took to knock him out.

"You lost! Not a big surprise. Ahah! Now, allow me..."

Gilgamesh promptly grabbed the Galaxia before he looked at the other heroes.

"So, who wants to try next? Unless you understood that I'm too strong for you and decide to do a one versus all. I won't mind. Well, a little."

"I'm next!"

Galacta Knight suddenly landed in front of Gilgamesh.

"Oh! Hello lady. Didn't see you."

Galacta Knight almost fell over. "I'm a guy! Didn't you hear from my voice?"

"Oh. Sorry dude. With unknown alien species, you never know. And, well, pink."

Galacta now glared at Gilgamesh.

"Let's just start this fight," Gilgamesh quickly said before he cast Haste, Protect, and Shell on himself again. "I have the feeling that I should start with this right away."

He was quickly proven right. Galacta Knight took his light form and rained lightning on Gilgamesh while also sending fire and ice projectiles.

"Oh. Lightning, fire, and ice magic. That's better."

Galacta then slashed open the fabric of space, sending a space beam. Surprised, Gilgamesh barely leaped out of the way.

"Woah! You can do that?! Seriously?! How is this possible?"

Missile.

Galacta Knight avoided the missile and sent a swiping laser from the tip of his spear. Tanking it, Gilgamesh charged at Galacta Knight who deflected the naginata and counterattacked by slashing several times, then barely avoided a Death Claw. Even with Haste, Gilgamesh received a real onslaught of slashes, sword beams, and lightning, and he barely managed to land a few hits in return, not even with anything dangerous like Death Claw. Quickly, Gilgamesh decided to cast Disable, stopping all actions from Galacta Knight who let out a growl at this.

"You definitively are a couple levels above the previous one. But I will give you a little secret of mine. This isn't even my final form! Gilgamesh, Morphing Time!"

Appearing out of nowhere, six new arms suddenly added themselves to the two he already had, giving him a total of eight arms each holding a weapon.

In addition of the naginata, he had two katanas, one of which was very long while the other had a red blade. He had what appeared to be a gunblade with a blue blade and a winged lion decorating it. Another was a purple-bladed scimitar with lightning patterns decorating it. The remaining ones were all swords, one of which had a black blade and a golden hilt, another was a beautiful sword that felt very holy, and the last one was a blue and silver sword with a silver sun on the hilt.

Holy.

Seemingly coming from the holy sword, a powerful light of holy energy was unleashed and hit Galacta Knight. Thankfully for him, in his light form, it didn't seem to be very effective, but no doubt that if he had been in his dark form, it would have hurt a lot. But in addition of that, Gilgamesh attacked right away by charging at Galacta and using his eight weapons, starting by firing with the gunblade. Against eight weapons added with Gilgamesh's increased speed, Galacta was quickly overwhelmed, even if he felt something wrong with one of them.

"That's strange. I barely feel anything when I'm hit by this sword," he said as he pointed at the blue and silver sword after flying away.

"You say you barely feel anything? This shouldn't be. This sword is the Sword of Legend! Excalibur! It should damage you beyond any other sword! Unless..." Gilgamesh stared closely at the sword. "Wait... Oh. Oh come on! Deception!" He threw the sword away. "I mistook an Excalipoor for the Excalibur! AGAIN! After all I went through to find it! Bah. No matter." He grabbed another sword from behind his back, one that looked like the ocean with a golden hilt.

From the moment he grabbed this sword, Gilgamesh seemed to better evade Galacta Knight's slashes and countered all of them. Galacta Knight made especially sure to avoid the purple scimitar. He had a bad feeling about this weapon. At the same time, the black sword cast Flare, creating a huge explosion that dealt a lot of damage. Galacta Knight returned the gift with several space beams and a rain of sword beams.

Pond's Chorus.

Gilgamesh suddenly did a weird song which the notes became visible and moved toward Galacta Knight. The next instant, Galacta Knight was transformed into a toad.

In this form, Galacta had no way to defend himself. He was then hit by a powerful cross slash with all eight weapons, followed by the spell Electrocute, and followed by a slash from the purple scimitar. Right after this last slash, Galacta Knight dropped unconscious. Gilgamesh then cast Panacea on him, returning him to his normal form before he grabbed his spear.

"You are a very powerful warrior, but you seem to not have any defense against magic. Because of that, despite all your power, you still are a pushover against me," Gilgamesh said.

Before he could call the next opponent, Fierce Deity suddenly appeared before him and slashed him hard.

"Ugh! Oh, you, you will hurt."

Sweetie Void quickly teleported Galacta out of the way as Link and Gilgamesh began a ferocious melee. Holy and Flare were cast, along with Electrocute and even a powerful Hurricane, but no matter what Link took, he continued to fight. It was the same for Gilgamesh who never seemed to get any closer to defeat despite the many powerful attacks he was hit with. Link especially hurt him a lot when he managed to land a hit, but Gilgamesh tanked and returned each hit just as badly.

Gilgamesh was the one to jump away from the melee before he cast Pond's Chorus to turn Link into a toad. However, this had no effect, to his surprise. Same when he cast Lilliputian Lyrics, and then Time Slip. Flash was also absolutely ineffective. Only Disable worked, but only temporarily.

"Could I finally have met my match?" Gilgamesh wondered as Link took another Flare but continued to fight as if that was nothing.

Then, Gilgamesh cast Break.

And a 10 appeared above Link's head.

"Oh! It works! Now, this fight is as good as over!"

As the fight continued, the 10 revealed to be a countdown that slowly went down. 9... 8... 7...

Sweetie didn't know what it will do once it will reach 0, but seeing Gilgamesh's confidence, she gulped. Will he really...? Will the Fierce Deity Link really lose?

After about one minute, the countdown reached 0, and Link was suddenly petrified.

It was over.

"And I win! Three zero! In the end, you still had a weakness. For your info, thanks to my Genji Armor, I don't have any! Now, how about we make it a four? This is a really good day to be me!"

"Not for long!" Sweetie Void shouted before she walked in front of Gilgamesh. "Your next adversary is me."

Behind her, Ness used PK Healing to turn Link back to normal. The boy took off his mask and sighed in defeat.

"Also, if I win, you will give back everyone's weapons."

"Mmh..."

"However, if you win, sorry to say that you won't be able to use my weapon. It works only with me. Instead, I will ask a friend to forge a weapon just for you."

"Really? A weapon just for me?" Gilgamesh sounded and looked like a kid. "Very well! I accept!"

At this, Sweetie Void revealed her ten beam swords and sent them at Gilgamesh who was very surprised. For the first time, he had less weapons than his adversary!

Haste! Protect! Shell!

It was hard to follow the melee that resulted. Too many weapons. But there were still the regular Flare and Holy, and Gilgamesh still was able to evade and counterattack many of Sweetie's attacks. Still, it was clear that he had the disadvantage, and not just because Sweetie had more weapons than him. For the first time, his adversary could heal. So, no matter what Sweetie took, it immediately looked as if nothing happened.

Gilgamesh tried his spells one after another. Pond's Chorus, Dancehall Daze, Lilliputian Lyrics, Disable, Time Slip, even Break. Either she was immunised to them, or she just transformed herself back to normal.

So Gilgamesh then tried more fancy-looking moves with his weapons while casting damaging spells like Electrocute, Hurricane, or Stone, but she tanked or evaded all of them. Now he knew that he met his match, for real.

But Sweetie was also surprised at Gilgamesh's endurance. He went through Meta Knight, Galacta Knight, Fierce Deity Link, and now her, without healing once, and it still was as if he just started fighting. Also, it was no wonder that heroes always attacked him in groups. Unless they were immunised or had ways to counter the petrification, the toad transformation, the sleep, the paralysis, and all the other stuff he can do, duels against this guy were impossible to win. Healers were obligatory to have. Sweetie tried herself to copy Gilgamesh and to cast the spells, but as Gilgamesh said, he was immunised to all of them.

Suddenly, Gilgamesh jumped away, caught the green Clocker in the air, and just... began to fly away while cackling, the Clocker struggling like before. He also dropped the Galaxia and Galacta Knight's spear.

Sweetie was so shocked by this sudden and unexpected action that she was speechless for several seconds before she recovered and yelled, "Hey! Are you serious?! You are just running away after all that?!"

Sweetie was answered by Gilgamesh and the green Clocker dropping into the water. Then the man just swam away.

"The nerve of this guy! He challenges us, and at the first real lost of advantage, he runs away! Without even saying anything like a "not bad" or a "sorry"! I almost want to chase him to give him the what for!"

"Still, to think that there is such a strong guy..." Bandana Dee said.

"At least, he showed that we don't have much defense against magic, as he said. We should find something against that," Meta Knight said, and she agreed. The only ones in this group who could do something about that were Sweetie Void, Ness, and Poo. And certainly Kirby with the right Ability. And maybe Phantom with her powers? It would need tests.

Twilight will have a lot of work.

Also, Sweetie had the feeling that Gilgamesh hadn't been giving his all in this fight, and that she will see him again.

Chapter 133: Winter Horns Part 3 - Roar of Dedede

Author's Note

I edited a bit of the previous chapter. I improved Gilgamesh's intro speech, and added a few stuff here and there during the fight, including one last sentence at the very end.

Chapter 133: Winter Horns Part 3 - Roar of Dedede

Putting Gilgamesh to the back of their minds, the heroes returned aboard the Lor who transported them out of the city to a nearby mountain. When they approached it, in the midst of a blizzard, they saw a path leading to the top of that mountain where, after several flight of stairs up a precarious cliffside, rested some kind of big decrepit cathedral that had been in the middle of restoration when it was abandoned.

"I have the feeling that Dedede is awaiting us inside this cathedral. Maybe you should remain in the Lor, guys," Sweetie Void said.

"No way!" Present Sonic exclaimed, and everyone else agreed. "Like already said, it's not a fat penguin who will scare us! Like, seriously, a fat penguin? That's the most ridiculous-sounding thing ever to be scared of!"

Sweetie sighed. "Be careful, at least."

The Lor dropped everyone on the path leading to the cathedral, before the stairs. Galacta Knight, like always, went to patrol the sky, leaving the others to climb the stairs as the cathedral, a silhouette in the blizzard, loomed over the group. Just at the beginning of the last flight of stairs before the entrance of the cathedral, two Awoofies were present as guards. Sweetie swistly dealt with them by grabbing them with her magic before knocking them together, and they continued, passing under several destroyed arches.

Before long, they entered the cathedral, arriving on some octagonal platform surrounded by a pit, surprisingly. The roof of the cathedral had collapsed, as well as parts of the walls, and there were cages placed on ledges on them.

Before the group were two Awoofies that were different from all the ones they encountered until now. These ones resembled more like wolves, bigger, with shaggier grey fur and longer limbs. All in all, they looked more intimidating.

Behind these Awoofies, back facing the hero, shadowed by a piece of what remained of the roof, stood Dedede who was signing to a Clocker to take away a cage with a Waddle Dee. The heroes let it go, knowing that Galacta Knight will intercept it.

From what they could see from the back, Dedede changed his usual red robe for a mottled orange leopard-skin one with more prominent fur and red feathers on the collar. Even if Meta Knight hadn't told them, Sweetie would have immediately understood that something was wrong. Dedede NEVER replaced his red robe. And this new one gave him a wild look, like the Bonkers, Gigant Edges, and Frostys.

Hearing the heroes arriving, also signaled by the Awoofies growling, Dedede dramatically turned around to face them.

The heroes immediately stood on guard. At this moment, they saw that Dedede's eyes were now red, and that he had red war paint on his cheeks.

Then he roared.

"ROOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Woah! He looks more intimidating than ever!" Sweetie Void exclaimed.

"So that's Dedede?" Fox asked.

"Yes, that's him," Bandana Dee confirmed, a bit scared.

Surprisingly, Dedede didn't move from his position. Instead, it was the two Awoofies who advanced toward the heroes to attack first. Dedede simply glared at the heroes, especially at Elfilin for some reason, making him hide behind DK in fear.

"That's our cue!" Present Sonic said before he and Past Sonic Homing Attacked the two Awoofies, knocking them out, before they began to circle Dedede.

"Wait! Come back!" Sweetie shouted, but the hedgehogs didn't listen.

Dedede remained surprisingly calm as he glared at the blue blurs circling him. Then, after a few seconds, Present Sonic and Past Sonic Homing Attacked respectively from the right and the left of Dedede. At this, Dedede lifted his arms, dropping his hammer, and intercepted the two balls with his hands. Despite the two Sonics shredding his hands, Dedede just let out a growl as he winced in pain. Then, with a mighty roar, Dedede slammed the two Sonics together, stopping their spinning, before he tossed them up, one under the other. He then grabbed his hammer, jumped, and hit the two of them midair with it, smashing them into the ground. This caused cracks to spread all around the two hedgehogs, and Dedede jumped away as they began to glow. Then, the cracks flared up, spreading ice and causing spikes of ice to sprout out. This sent the Sonics back in the air where Dedede met them again with a powerful swing of his hammer covered in ice that sent them crashing into one of the walls of the cathedral.

The Mage Sisters quickly stopped them from falling into the pit below, but they still were out of the fight, just like that. They still were conscious, but barely.

Phantom tsked as she shook her head while glaring at them. "Morons."

"He defeated the two Sonics so easily," Sweetie said in awe. "And since when can he use ice powers?"

"I wondered the same thing. It seems that being brainwashed somehow made him learn to use his environment to power up his attacks. Maybe it was some innate power that he had yet to discover," Meta Knight said. "Now, you understand how he defeated me."

"So, I guess that I will be the one dealing with the king," Marx said before he took his bat-like form. "All of you should go away, this is about to get intense."

Sweetie agreed and transported everyone to the ledges where the cages were placed on the walls of the cathedral, hoping that they were away enough. She also transported the two knocked out Awoofies. She then placed a shield to protect everyone from stray projectiles, knowing that Marx used a lot of them.

Marx began right away by randomly teleporting around while sending cutter blades. Dedede couldn't parry or avoid all of them and tried to attack Marx in return, but he couldn't manage to land a hit. Finally, Dedede inhaled the blades and spat them back at Marx when he reappeared nearby to attack again. So Marx stopped and flew up before he dropped seeds all over the arena to sprout his black vines of energy, one of which managed to get Dedede. But the penguin didn't let this get to him and threw his hammer at Marx who easily dodged it, only for Dedede to inhale. While Marx had no problem resisting the pull, he was bonked on the skull by the hammer returning to Dedede. The penguin then jumped right away before Marx could recover to grab the hammer midair before smashing him to send him crash into a wall.

Still against the wall, Marx fired hundreds of energy arrows upward, making them rain all over the arena. Dedede twirled his hammer to parry most of them, but he still ended up pierced by a few. After a second, Dedede inhaled the still raining arrows, then spat all of them at Marx like a gattling gun, forcing the jester to fly around to avoid them. While this happened, Marx dropped two black blobs that bounced after Dedede, then spat some ice bombs, spreading ice on the arena that forced Dedede to jump. However, while Dedede was jumping, he couldn't avoid the black blobs.

While Dedede recovered from the blobs, Marx disappeared, and a big shadow appeared under Dedede. Seeing this, Dedede jumped up and readied him hammer. Marx then flew up from the shadow, only to be smashed by the hammer, sending him crashing into the floor. Dedede then quickly did one of his big jumps to crush Marx, only for Marx to spit his big laser, totally engulfing Dedede with it who was sent backward in the air, dropping his hammer into the pit. Dedede bounced off a wall on his feet and jumped back on the arena only to be headbutted in the belly by Marx who, in return, was grabbed and violently slammed on the ground before Dedede kicked him.

Dedede then jumped on one of the ledges on the walls and picked up a huge pillar as if it weighed nothing, placing it on his shoulder before he faced Marx and roared.

"I didn't know he was this strong!" Marx shouted before Dedede jumped back on the arena.

Sweetie shrugged. "That's nothing new. Remember that he can lift a metal hammer full of gadgetry like a reactor, a flamethrower, and a rocket launcher with just one arm. Honestly, I'm not sure of which one is the heaviest, that hammer or this pillar."

Now armed of the pillar, Dedede had a much better range. Swinging it like it was a simple stick, he forced Marx to teleport more often to get away from it.

Marx was actually a bit scared of this pillar. Being smacked by it will pass being smacked by the hammer for a simple slap. At a moment, Marx got too close to the ground, and Dedede smashed the ground with the pillar, causing cracks to spread out in a cone, almost getting Marx with the ice sprouting out of them.

Trying to keep his distance, Marx made his eyes grow, turning them into giant balls with multiple pupils moving in all directions, and each pupil fired a laser that swept the cathedral.

Sweetie really did well to put up a shield.

Dedede didn't even bother to try to protect himself from the lasers. He pointed the pillar in Marx's direction and threw it HARD. Marx couldn't believe that Dedede threw a pillar like you threw a javelin, and he was rammed by it. The pillar was thrown so hard that it passed right through the wall of the cathedral with Marx, and the two disappeared into the blizzard outside.

After a few seconds, Marx teleported back in, very upset, and he spat his big laser again.

Only for Dedede to inhale the laser.

Marx's jaw dropped.

And Dedede spat the laser right back at him.

"GIAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!"

A blackened Marx was left behind, and before he could recover from what happened, Dedede picked up another pillar and jumped above Marx and did a piledriver with the pillar, slamming it hard right on Marx, destroying the pillar. Cracks spread all over the arena, and Dedede jumped back on a ledge before he admired his job as ice sprout out everywhere. Marx was sent in the air, then crashed back on the arena.

Unconscious.

Sweetie's jaw dropped. Dedede defeated Marx?! Not even Meta Knight managed to accomplish this feat yet!

But then, Dedede dropped on his butt, breathing heavily. He didn't come out of this fight unscathed. Eyeing the rest of the heroes, he seemingly understood that he didn't stand a chance and whistled, calling a flock of Clockers with ropes. He grabbed the ropes, and the Clockers managed to lift him with some difficulty before they escaped through a hole in the ceiling.

"We won't let him escape!" Sweetie shouted, only to be stopped by Anubis.

"Let's follow him instead. He will certainly lead us to the Beast Pack's stronghold, where all the Waddle Dees are kept prisoners."

"That's... a good idea. Alright. Let's do this. Meta Knight, you should go warn Galacta so he doesn't attack Dedede."

Meta Knight nodded and flew away, getting on the way a golden cage hidden in the roof. Before long, everyone returned inside the Lor who began to chase Dedede, toward the ocean. The occasion was used to heal everyone.

"Next time, don't charge head first into the fray! When I warn that Dedede is powerful, it's not for nothing!" Sweetie admonished the two Sonics who looked sheepish. Behind them, Phantom was amused.

Chapter 134: Originull Wasteland Part 1

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 135: Originull Wasteland Part 2

"So, let's think about it now, but once we encounter Dedede again, who will fight him? Unless we decide to say "screw it" and we all attack him at once?" Phantom asked.

"I'm thinking of letting Kirby do the job. If Dedede defeats Kirby, I'll eat all of Rarity's fabrics," Sweetie Void answered.

"No, I'll fight him again!" Marx exclaimed. "The first time, he took me by surprise! But it won't happen again!"

Marx's defeat was really sticking in his throat.

Meanwhile, Bandana seemed to hesitate to say something, unsure. He didn't have time to decide however as they already arrived at their next destination: a mall.

"A mall again?" Present Sonic asked.

Fox shrugged. "A mall again."

"And this one has its first floor almost entirely buried in the sand. I guess that we will have to enter by the second floor," Zan Partizanne said.

Before long, the Lor dropped them in front of the mall where a single Blade Knight was standing guard. As Zan said, the sand prevented from entering by the usual entrance, but luckily, a sand dune and a board allowed them to reach the second floor where a broken glass let them enter.

The inside was as full of sand as the outside, so the heroes couldn't go to the first floor as they passed beside the stairs while fighting the enemies present. This left them no choice but to pass through a door to a room that seemed to be staff only as there were lockers, shelves full of folders, and desks with computers, among other things. Spooksteps ambushed them but were quickly disposed of, and the heroes traversed the room, fighting more Spooksteps and even a Needlous falling from the ceiling on a safe.

Another door led back to the main part of the mall beside an ice cream stand. There was a decorative giant ice scream cone, and further away, in the wall, was a triangular hole, perfect for the cone to fit. Seeing as there were no other way to continue, Kirby inhaled the ice cream cone and put himself in the hole while the others protected him from the many Primal Awoofies present and trying to stop him. Kirby then had the idea of channeling his energy into the wall, making the part around the hole explode. Kirby discarded the cone by the same occasion.

"Put the right shape in the right hole. Literally child's play," Little Ghost said.

Traversing the newly created hole, they returned in the staff only section of the mall where Phantas ambushed them. Traversing a pit by jumping on a spinning platform, they passed beside another hole in the wall, this time a circle, and they could hear a Waddle Dee call for help behind it.

"A circle. We have to find a ring! Hihi! It's funny! It's like a game," Sweetie Void said.

They didn't have to search far to find the ring. Returning in the main part of the mall, they had to destroy a bomb block to destroy a small wall of iron blocks, revealing a small room with a ring. Kirby inhaled it right away and returned in the staff only section to put himself in the circular hole and destroy the wall. His gusts of wind (and the help of the others) made short work of the Phantas and Scarfys trying to stop him. At the other side of the newly created hole, back in the main section of the mall, was a Clocker with a Waddle Dee.

Continuing, they had to traverse a carpet of spikes by jumping on small moving platforms. And like before, they passed a hole, this time rectangular, with cries of a Waddle Dee that could be heard coming from the other side.

"Vending machine!" Ness exclaimed.

Fighting their way through hordes of Primal Awoofies, they arrived at a door leading back to the staff only section. But before, Meta Knight cut a rope at a corner, making a platform drop and revealing a hole leading to a part of the first floor that wasn't buried in sand. Here, in front of cardboard boxes, was a vending machine. Sweetie then teleported Kirby back to the rectangular hole where he destroyed the wall, not minding the Mumbies that came, and rescued the Waddle Dee at the other side in the staff only section.

Meanwhile, some of the others had advanced through the door and returned in the staff only section to clean from all enemies, especially the ghostly ones that appeared. As they traversed a small pit by going down some stairs before climbing back a ladder, they were joined by the rest, and they saw a door behind a grid, in a small side room. The only way to enter that room, beside teleporting, was through a small vent that only the smaller among the heroes could traverse. So Kirby passed through it with Poo and Apple Death, and they passed the door, returning in the main section of the mall where a Bonkers awaited them.

To make it harder, Gordos came and began to float in a square formation, delimiting an arena.

Poo began by sending a PK Thunder, shocking the Bonkers, and Apple Death followed by levitating the Bonkers before slamming him repeatedly on the Gordos until he was knocked out. Kirby then used his Wild Hammer Ability to pound two nails, opening a gate and allowing them to reach a treasure chest with a Waddle Dee trapped in it.

Meanwhile, the others returned in the main section of the mall where they found a treasure chest partially buried in a sand pile. Sweetie sent a gust of wind to blow out the sand, and Anubis opened the chest, freeing the Waddle Dee in it. At the same time, Past Sonic, who went ahead, spotted a large circular hole in the ground, as well as a smaller circular hole in a wall a bit further away. Thinking a bit, he pointed at a clock on a wall, and Meta Knight took the clock and broke it so only a ring remained.

When Kirby returned with Apple Death and Poo, he saw the ring as well as the two holes and inhaled it. He then had to carefully jump on a spinning + platform to reach the circular hole in the wall, destroying it and revealing a small room with a water pipe. Perfect! He drank the water, becoming a huge water balloon, and jumped back on the + platform to join back the hole in the floor and enter it, perfectly fitting. He destroyed the floor, and some of the heroes dropped into the revealed break room where several Beast Pack members as well as a captured Waddle Dee awaited them.

Once they were done here, they returned on the previous floor, some with the help of the others, and they all traversed the + platform as well as the second one that was after it. Seeing another triangle-shaped hole in the wall at the end, and seeing another stand of ice cream with another decorative ice cream cone, Kirby inhaled the cone and climbed to the hole to destroy the wall.

A balcony outside of the mall revealed to be at the other side. And on it was a golden cage with three Clockers that looked to be very surprised, obviously not expecting the heroes to blow up the wall.

And that was all the Waddle Dees in the mall.

The sun fully disappeared beyond the horizon by the time the Lor dropped the heroes at their next destination: a canyon at the extremity of the desert. They almost traversed it!

"Too bad we are a bit late. Sunsets, or sunrises, are perfect while we traverse canyons. Now, at least, it's cold," Sweetie Void said. "Be prepared for lots of dangerous platforming however. I already see some blocks that crumble under our hooves, or feet, or whatever."

"Dangerous platforming is our thing!" Present Sonic said with a thumb up for himself and his past self.

Others were less exuberant however...

It started alright, thankfully. They just had to scale a cliffside step by step, through narrow walkways and switchbacks, all the while dealing with the Beast Pack slowing them down. At least, the crumbling blocks reappeared after a bit. It still took a lot of time for all the heroes to reach the top of the path without falling. Here, they found themselves before the entrance of a cave that they entered once everyone was present.

Right at the beginning, a light bulb awaited for Kirby to use it to light the way alongside Sweetie Void while Phantom materialized lamps for some of the others. The cave was rather narrow per moment, so they had to advance mostly in a file, again, until they reached a solar panel switch like they already encountered in previous pitch black areas like the haunted house from Wondaria. Activating the switch opened a large metallic door, allowing the heroes to continue.

After the door was a very narrow walkway above an abyss that the heroes had to very carefully walk on in a file while Apple Death dealt with the Ghost Gordos present. After jumping up a step, they arrived at a section of the walkway where the floor was entirely replaced by crumbling blocks, forcing the heroes to go one or two at a time. More crumbling blocks were present after that here and there when the walkway made a loop, along with Gordos on the path.

A large area with two Gigatzos then came, and Sweetie Void barely saw a secret path behind the second Gigatzo that led to a solar panel switch. activating it would make a staircase platform come out of a wall, and they would have to hurry up to climb it to reach a Waddle Dee, but Sweetie simply flew to the Waddle Dee. Much faster and less risky.

The heroes reached a second narrow walkway.

"Watch out!" Phantom warned Kirby before a pillar fell on the walkway, destroying part of it. Dark Meta Knight then pointed at the right, revealing a secondary path that dit a small detour.

The same thing happened again afterward, this time two pillars destroying a staircase that led to a door. Thankfully at the left was a solar panel switch that made a slope rise out of the abyss with another captured Waddle Dee. The heroes then passed the door and reached a room where a huge metallic door opened, revealing the exit of the cave, and the canyon.

Under the moonlight, the heroes exited the cave and followed the path before they climbed a ladder. They then had to cross a series of narrow passageways with bridges of crumbling blocks, making the advance just as slow as in the cave. On the third bridge of blocks, on an out-of-the-way part, was a Clocker with a Waddle Dee, the bird probably thinking that, by luring the heroes there, they would fall into the abyss below due to a lack of blocks to walk on once they crumbled. Too bad for it, the blocks didn't work when the heroes could fly.

Lots of Scarfys and Mumbies were present, as well as some Gigatzos, especially on the bridges of crumbling blocks. This forced the heroes to quickly deal with them as they traversed.

The flying heroes reached a ledge where there was a scissor-lift. Not minding it, they pressed a switch that opened a gate to a door. Kirby, Meta Knight, and Marx went through it. In the new area it led to, Kirby would normally have to use another scissor-lift to cross another bridge of crumbling blocks to reach an elevated platform, but the three simply flew to reach the captured Waddle Dee on yet another bridge of blocks.

Back with the others, they continued on the passageway and bridges, reaching a part where a pillar falling caused a section to be destroyed. This forced the heroes who couldn't fly to either do long jumps, or let the flying ones transport them.

Finally, they reached some building that they had to climb with a long ladder to reach a door to enter it. After traversing the building, they exited it and entered a courtyard with an arch that Kirby inhaled to become a glider. Like the previous time this happened, Sweetie created a flying carpet to transport everyone else that didn't fly, and they followed Kirby and flew in the canyon.

They passed beside a lighthouse lying against the cliffside, then avoid several sets of falling pillars before they passed several destroyed wind turbines. Avoiding more pillars as well as sone Gigatzos, they then had to avoid an actually falling stone pillar, and then pass through an even bigger one, snatching a captured Waddle Dee at the other side. Passing not far of wrecks, Kirby then finally landed at the end of the canyon, in a valley not far of another lighthouse, where a golden cage was present, the three Clockers transporting it not expecting the heroes to come all the way here.

But it wasn't over. According to Krystal, more Waddle Dees were present further ahead in the valley. Sweetie had to use her flying carpet to transport everyone above the rocks until they saw a slope that descended toward a tunnel. So Sweetie made everyone land, and they followed the path in the tunnel.

However, something quickly felt wrong in this tunnel when they saw elements from previous areas they visited. Barriers, billboards, longing chairs, stuff from Wondaria, notably the dogs, gift boxes too, lockers from Alivel Mall, all that among many other things.

They then saw a wall on which was a lot of wanted posters of all the heroes, posters that they regularly saw as they explored the areas, but never in that much quantity.

"It seems that we're about to face that mysterious presence that has been following us since Natural Plains," Krystal said.

Present Sonic nodded. "Some kind of collector judging by all that junk, and also very obsessed by us. It gives me the chill."

Finally, they entered a large room in the cave with lots of handmade puppets of all the heroes hanging from the ceiling. Among them was a golden cage with three Waddle Dees that were knocked out.

"Now handmade puppets of us. Brrrr," Diddy said.

"That stalker wants to add us to his collection, it seems," Phantom said.

Carefully, the heroes approached the golden cage to free the Waddle Dee, only to be stopped by a boom! that shook the room.

They quickly turned around and saw, just behind them, a huge crazy-looking armadillo who was holding a cage. He swung, trying to catch Elfilin in the cage, but Sweetie Void immediately destroyed the cage with a beam, making the armadillo step back in surprise. The armadillo simply laughed at this.

He then grabbed another cage from his shell (which had street signs attached on it for some reason) and, now attempted to capture Jeff who quickly jumped away.

Present sonic and Past Sonic exchanged a look, then did a quickly rock paper scissor, which Past Sonic won.

"Alright, it's your turn," Present Sonic said. "Repair our broken pride that Dedede destroyed."

Past Sonic nodded, and then ran just in front of Sillydillo, making himself a target. To make sure that the animal would go after him, he showed his butt and slapped it while sticking his tongue out.

It worked. Frowning, Sillydillo swung his cage at him, but he easily dodged it and hit him with a Homing Attack on the head. Now properly angry, Sillydillo did some rapid swings to try to catch the hedgehog who continuously ran out of the way. When he had the occasion, Past Sonic did another Homing Attack, hitting Sillydillo on the head again.

While this happened, the others returned at the entrance of the room to watch the fight.

After a third Homing Attack on the head, Sillydillo rolled up into a ball and broke the floor, making Past Sonic and himself fall into another, larger room with an opening to outside the cave, the Moon shining through. Sillydillo then jumped away from Sonic and rolled up into a ball again before he rolled toward Sonic who ran out of the way with a "Olé!" Sonic then quickly rolled up into a ball too and began to charge energy. Sonic and Sillydillo then rolled toward each other, and Sillydillo was the one who found himself lifted off the ground like a pin by Sonic.

While Sillydillo was stunned as a result, Sonic quickly attacked him again with more Spin Dashes, sending the armadillo flying again repeatedly. Sillydillo eventually recovered his senses and landed on his feet before he tried to catch Sonic, to slap him, to punch him, to stomp him, but Sonic was just too fast for him. He missed all the time. Sillydillo then had the idea of placing his cage on Sonic's path, and Sonic ran right into it. Too bad for Sillydillo, Sonic's quills were strong enough to shred iron, so the hedgehog easily destroy the cage and freed himself, giving Sillydillo a Homing Attack in the face for his trouble.

Sillydillo glared at Sonic, observing him by the same occasion, then jumped and... did his own Homing Attack!

"Wha-?!" CRASH!

With a mighty crash that shook the cave, Sillydillo landed right on a very surprised Sonic, crushing him. Sillydillo then made sure to stomp for some extra hurt. He forgot however that Sonic, as a hedgehog, was very prickly, so he found himself holding his foot while jumping around yelling in pain.

Sonic quickly took the occasion to attack again with a Spin Dash right on Sillydillo's other leg as it landed after a jump, tripping him. Sonic then did several Homing Attacks on Sillydillo's head while he was down until Sillydillo got up. The armadillo then attempted another Homing Attack of his own, but this time, Sonic knew that it was coming, so he easily dodged it.

So Sillydillo pulled out of nowhere a female armadillo made out of junk and began to dance with it all over the room.

"Damn. Now, I pity the guy," Sweetie said from where the other heroes were looking in what remained of the previous room, up above.

"I don't know, I think that he's just super crazy," Present Sonic said.

After dancing for a few seconds, Sillydillo suddenly threw his "dancing partner" right at Sonic, the fake female continuing to spin. Instead of dodging, Sonic hit it with a Homing Attack that sent it right back at Sillydillo who had been about to throw another fake armadillo. Taken by surprise, he was rammed by the fake female, followed by a Spin Dash from Sonic that sent the three of them (Sillydillo and the two fake armadillos) flying to land in a pile. Sonic then attacked him with several Homing Attacks before he could get out of the pile.

With a screech, Sillydillo eventually fell unconscious.

Of course, the three Waddle Dees were already saved, and everyone congratulated Past Sonic.

"That armadillo fought well, but the result was obvious," Present Sonic said.

"That he was able to copy the Homing Attack still was surprising," Phantom said. "He must have some Pinkie Pie genes."

"So, now, we are done with this desert. But there are still Waddle Dees to save, right?" Fox asked to Krystal who confirmed with a nod.

"And let me guess, the next Waddle Dees are in the direction of the volcano?" Sweetie Void asked, and again, Krystal nodded.

Apple Death groaned. "Something Ah never missed in mah adventures with Mario are volcanic areas."

"Nobody likes them," Marx said.

"I like them!" Flamberge shouted.

"Excepted crazy fire mages," Marx added.

"Hey!"

Chapter 136: Redgar Forbidden Lands Part 1

While it was the night, nobody decided that it was time to rest. They were close to the end, they could feel it.

"We enter the Redgar Forbidden Lands," Elfilin informed. "Since the volcano erupted countless years ago, these lands have totally fallen under its wrath. Lava flows and lava ball rains destroy what remains of civilization. The sky is hidden by clouds of ash so it's always night. The chances of surviving here are very low. Why would the Beast Pack come here?"

"Mmh... And there are giant rock spikes everywhere, and what little space there is is taken by palisades the Beast Pack put up. No way for the Lor to get close to the ground. We will have to jump," Sweetie observed.

"Wow. It's as if they are at war. There are even spotlights following us," DK said.

"They may as well be. They are at war against us. They must have turned the whole region into a fortress," Galacta said.

"ALERTE!" the Lor warned before she showed images of Gigatzos firing at her.

"They even readied the artillery," Phantom said.

"Quick, Lorry! Get us to the nearest point that is good for landing!" Sweetie instructed.

The Lor flew toward a place beside a suspended roadway, in the middle of what remained of a city, surrounded by a palisade with spotlight towers and only one Gigatzo. Apple Death went ahead and took out the Gigatzo, and the others jumped from the Lor (excepted Galacta who still patrolled the sky). As they jumped, Primal Awoofies on the lookout of watchtowers were howling from all around, announcing the heroes' arrival.

From where they landed, there was only one exit, between two statues of a lion. It looked like the Beast Pack had planned that the heroes would land here, because there was a whole path ready, and many, many, MANY Beast Pack members were present and already coming to attack. Watchtowers with Gigatzos maned by Awoofies were at both sides, ready to fire once the heroes entered the path.

"Ready?" Sweetie said. "ACTION!" she then shouted before she flew to destroy the nearest tower while Phantom went to destroy another, allowing the others to enter the path and start to fight without worrying about the Gigatzos. As Sweetie and Phantom continue to destroy the towers, the Sonics were the ones starting the battle, like always, followed by Pikachu using a Thunderbolt, and then Ness using PK Freeze to freeze many enemies. It didn't take long for Sweetie and Phantom to join the brawl that began.

Once they passed under the suspended roadway, in addition of fighting, they now had to watch out for falling lava balls. Sweetie quickly blew them right out of the sky. There were less enemies present here, probably fearing the lava balls, but still a few.

Before long, they reached a watchtower with a Primal Awoofy that howled, calling a large group of its brethrens, including a Jabhog.

But before the heroes could deal with them, a figure suddenly dropped from the sky and did a dramatic hero landing right on the tower, destroying it and blowing out all the animals around.

A familiar eight-armed figure in armor who then took a dramatic pose.

"Oh come on! Him again? Already?!" Sweetie shouted.

The figure, none other than Gilgamesh, pointed his naginata at Sweetie Void. "I wasn't prepared the first time! But now, I'm ready! You, little horse girl, I challenge you! Just you end me!"

"We're busy with hero stuff here!" Sweetie said.

"Your comrades can continue without your help. They aren't babies. Well, some of them are still kids, but they are strong kids. I saw that. They can deal with what's ahead."

Sweetie groaned. "Fine! But once I win, you will leave me alone! I have innocents to save!"

"I give you my word that, for the remaining of your current adventure, I will not be a nuisance anymore! Once it's over, however, I make no promise."

Sweetie groaned again. "Go ahead guys. I will catch up once I'm done with him."

Despite some reluctance, everyone eventually agreed, and they advanced.

Then, Gilgamesh sat down, to Sweetie's surprise. "Let's wait five minute to make sure that they are far enough."

"Uh? Uh. Ok." She sat down too, the two of them not minding the heat and the dangerousness of the environment.

"By the way, little horse girl, can you give me your name?" Gilgamesh asked.

Sweetie nodded. "I'm Sweetie Belle. But I call myself Sweetie Void to differentiate me from other Sweetie Belles."

Gilgamesh nodded.

...

"You want a good duel, right?" Sweetie asked.

"Yes! The greatest duel ever!"

"Then to make it right, I promise you this: I will not regenerate my stamina. Once I start getting tired, I will remain tired. I will still heal, however."

"You can regenerate your stamina?"

"Yep. Meaning that, if I want to, I can fight indefinitely as long as you don't manage to kill me. Since this won't be a fight to the death, this wouldn't be fair to you."

"I thank you, Sweetie Void."

Leaving Sweetie Void behind with Gilgamesh, the heroes continued on the path which was being broken down by the lava balls, so they had to hurry up before the pieces fully sunk into the lava, all the while still fighting Beast Pack members.

On the way, they arrived at a second watchtower where a Primal Awoofy howled to call reinforcement in the form of a large pack of Rabiroos with an Orabiroo. They also had to find pieces of key inside crates on sinking pieces of ground to open a chest with a captured Waddle Dee. Without Sweetie present, Apple Death was the one sending the Waddle Dee back to the town with one of her portals.

Careful of the lava covering some of the floor, they climbed some steps and passed a door to enter a building. They traversed it and exited it at the other side where they needed to climb up a series of steppes. Many Rabiroos were hopping on them, ready to jump on the heroes. Some of the steps were also moving in and out, and many of them were very narrow. Halfway to the top was a grid with a Waddle Dee trapped behind.

"Yeah. No problem," Phantom said.

Sweetie Void and Gilgamesh were still sitting.

Then...

"IT'S TIME!"

Gilgamesh got up right away, used Haste, Protect, and Shell on himself, and charged at Sweetie Void who teleported out of the way. She appeared above him and attacked with her ten swords in double sword mode. To her surprise, however, this time, Gilgamesh was able to parry all of them with his eight arms. Then, he spun rapidly, creating a huge tornado that sent the ten weapons away.

"I told you! I wasn't prepared to face someone such as you before! I thought that I was facing easy preys! But now, I know better!"

Flare.

Sweetie quickly flew out of the blast radius of the explosion, only for Gilgamesh to jump toward her. She brought back her weapons to parry his eight arms, but he still managed to push her, and the two flew in the air away from where they started. Sweetie eventually pushed him back, forcing him to land on a spike of rock, and she went on the offensive with her ten weapons plus some others that she created by levitating and solidifying the lava. These weapon easily broke, but they still could do some damage if they landed a hit, and they otherwise made good diversions. However, Gilgamesh pushed her away by doing his tornado move again.

Gilgamesh continued by using Flash, followed by 1000 Needles from which Sweetie quickly protected herself with a shield. She then fired beams from her horn and her ten cannons, but Gilgamesh managed to deflect all of them with his weapons. Frowning, the filly gathered a lot of energy into a giant ball and sent it towatd Gilgamesh who immediately jumped on another spike of stone to escape it, then jumped on yet another spikes further away to get out of the blast radius.

Then, Gilgamesh readied his eight weapons.

Zantetsuken time eight!

He swung his eight weapons at once, sending eight powerful waves that cut everything in their way. Sweetie immediately teleported away. She felt that she HAD to avoid these. But she could also send waves, which she did, and Gilgamesh parried some before he jumped away to avoid the rest.

Electrocute!

A powerful lightning bolt blasted Sweetie Void from the sky. Despite being shocked, she had the idea of using a hoof to send some of that electricity toward Gilgamesh, electrifying him with his own attack. Sweetie then healed herself and, to her surprise, Gilgamesh cast Cura on himself, also healing himself.

Sweetie grinned. "This will last a while, uh?"

Gilgamesh grinned back. "Yes, it will. And that's good!"

"Well then... Time to do this."

At this, Sweetie Void cast on herself Haste, Protect, and Shell.

"Hey! That's my thing! And I didn't know you could cast them!"

"My specialty is to copy what I see! The instant I saw your spells, I identified what energy to use to cast them! Now, I can use them too! Also... Rocket Horn!"

Sweetie fired from her horn a horn-shaped projectile that Gilgamesh parried not without some difficulty.

"Totally based on your Rocket Punch!" Sweetie added with a cute smile. "Thank you!"

Gilgamesh laughed and fired his own Rocket Punch time eight for his eight fists, and Sweetie flew out of the way very rapidly thanks to her enhanced speed. Gilgamesh then jumped, lifted his arms, and gathered a lot of electricity where the tip of his weapons crossed before he unleashed it. With an "Eep!" Sweetie teleported away before the ball of electricity exploded.

The explosion could be heard all the way from where the others were. By now, they had reached the door at the top of the steps, and Apple Death had rescued the Waddle Dee behind the grid. They briefly stopped to look in the direction the explosion came from, then decided to not mind it before they passed through the door.

Only to discover that they now had to move along a VERY narrow path straddling a set of buildings. No choice, they will have to go in a file, one at a time while Phantom and Apple Death dealt with the falling lava balls.

Gilgamesh jumped several times in quick succession to avoid fireballs and lightning bolts while cutting ice balls. As he passed beside a river of lava, he used Aqua Breath on it, causing steam to rise and to turn into a fog in which he hid.

Sweetie stopped attacking and tried to use her ears to determinate Gilgamesh's position, but it didn't work well because of the sound stuff exploding and crumbling and of the rumbling caused by the volcanic activity. Thankfully, Gilgamesh was blinded too.

Quasar!

Suddenly, meteors began to fall all over the area! Sweetie had to slice them in two so the pieces fell around her. But then, one of the pieces was punched by Gilgamesh and it hit her. While she recovered from this, Gilgamesh picked a spike of stone off the ground and threw it at her. Sweetie caught the spike, spun with it, and threw it back where it came from, but Gilgamesh was already gone. By now, the fog was disappearing.

Spotting Gilgamesh, Sweetie levitated lava and threw a whole wave of it at Gilgamesh, but the made used Zantetsuken to slice the wave apart, creating an opening so the wave passed around him.

They both recast Haste, Protect, and Shell, and Gilgamesh sent an Electrocute that Sweetie avoided this time, only for Gilgamesh to cast a second Electrocute right away, followed by a Stone to stop Sweetie from sending electricity at him. Instead, Sweetie deflected the stone back at him and charged at him right after while still covered in electricity. While he destroyed the stone, Sweetie rammed him, violently pushing him back while electrifying him, and they both crashed into a building that toppled, blocking a river of lava as a result.

The others saw the building toppling, and some actually winced at this. That was too close.

They were in the process of traversing a larger part of the path where lots of lava balls rained, some of which destroyed sections of the path. Before that, as they had been on the narrow section, there were moment they had had to hurry up before parts were sinking into the lava because of the lava balls. At a moment, one such part sinking revealed a secret door that Kirby, Pikachu, and Flamberge passed, making them reach an area where they had had to dig to find pieces of key to open a gate to save a Waddle Dee. The problem had been that the structure on which the pieces were buried had been sinking into the lava, so they had had to hurry up, and Flamberge couldn't dig.

Now, continuing despite witnessing the result of Sweetie's battle on the environment, Kirby and Francisca had to use water to clean away some lava covering the path. Apple Death then rescued another Waddle Dee behind a grid, and just after him, they reached a golden cage with three Waddle Dee, finishing exploring the area.

So Phantom materialized a flying platform to transport everyone to their next destination.

Gilgamesh did a powerful swing with his black sword that sent Sweetie flying into another building despite her parrying the hit. Gilgamesh then sent an Aqua Breath at the building, water bubbles entering through the windows and exploding everywhere inside it, making the building collapse. But then, Sweetie appeared behind Gilgamesh pounded him with a giant energy hammer. Gilgamesh blocked it with his eight weapons, but a crater still formed under him, rapidly growing. And while he was busy holding back the hammer, Sweetie used her weapons to repeatedly slash him. Eventually, Gilgamesh was able to push the hammer back.

Revenge Blast!

Gilgamesh gathered energy into a red ball and sent it toward Sweetie Void who teleported away. Seeing where Sweetie reappeared, he sent a Zantetsuken time eight which Sweetie countered with her own waves, the two attacks destroying each others (and yet, Sweetie's waves could cut mountains!) before Gilgamesh caught a lava ball by planting his naginata into it. He then threw the lava ball at Sweetie Void who sliced it in half, the two pieces passing at her left and her right. An Aqua Breath came just after the ball, catching Sweetie in it, but the filly quickly sent a powerful gust of wind that sent the explosive bubbles back at Gilgamesh, and she added her own Aqua Breath to his.

Only for Gilgamesh to use Revenge Blast through the Aqua Breath, the red energy ball going through the bubbles and hitting Sweetie hard. Gilgamesh then healed himself, and Sweetie followed his example.

The two of them were starting to get a bit winded.

The others reached the foot of a tall tower. Already, they could see that they will have to climb it by following the path that spiraled around it. Many Gigatzos were placed in the tower, and many enemies were present. A lot of lava also covered the floor.

So they climbed. Apple Death dealt with the Gigatzos, and Kirby dealt with the lava. At a moment, they spotted a Waddle Dee behind a grid. A small path in the building led to him, but Apple Death passed through the grid; freeing the Waddle Dee easily. When they reached the top of the tower after crossing a bridge of crumbling blocks followed by a ladder, they had to fight a Frosty. Flamberge made short work of him with her powerful fire cannon along with Ness' PK Fire.

The Frosty had been guarding another Waddle Dee, and with this the heroes were done with the tower. So they climbed on another flying platform that Phantom materialized, and they moved toward their next destination, not minding the explosions they could hear in the distance.

The explosions were Sweetie Void using the Crash Ability repeatedly. The first one caught Gilgamesh, dealing heavy damage, but the explosions of the following ones were sliced apart by the Zantetsuken ability, allowing Gilgamesh to escape them. Seeing this, Sweetie Void went toward a nearby building and lifted it before throwing it at Gilgamesh who used Zantetsuken again to slice it in two.

Sweetie then came right out of the ground under Gilgamesh's feet and blasted him at blank point with her horn before she was hit by an Aera, a wind spell, followed by a Missile. Instead of avoiding or destroying the missile, Sweetie opened a rift, and the missile entered it. Another rift then opened behind Gilgamesh, and the missile came out of hit and hit him on the back. At the same time, Sweetie sliced open the fabric of space and fired a space beam that engulfed Gilgamesh who was barely recovering from the missile.

But again, Gilgamesh surprised Sweetie Void by jumping through the beam to reach her and slash her several times with all his weapons. Gilgamesh then used Disable to not allow Sweetie the possibility of counterattacking. Because of this, she could only fly away until the Disable disappeared, Gilgamesh closely following her while sending Missiles, Rocket Punches, Stones, Aqua Breaths, Aeras, Wind Slashes, and Electrocutes.

The heroes landed at the beginning of some partially crumbled suspended pedestrian road regularly cris-crossed by bridges and walkways, some of which were covered in lava and others were made of crumbling blocks. Lots of Gordo Bars were present both on the road and the secondary paths, and a captured Waddle Dee could be seen inside a building at the right. Apple Death went right away to rescue him.

Not minding the first walkway that led to th building's roof where there was an opening to enter the building, some of the heroes instead took the second walkway, with Kirby at the front so he would use water to clean away the lava on it. This walkway was much longer, and quickly turned into a bridge of crumbling blocks as it went from the road's right to the road's left. It led then to the roof of some building which had a cracked part, and there was another bridge, this time made of fire blocks, that led to the roof of a tower where there was a traffic cone for some reason. After crossing the bridge by cooling down the fire blocks, Kirby inhaled the cone and used it to destroy the cracked roof, entering a room with a door. Kirby entered it with Meta Knight and Diddy.

The three had to follow a long path to a new area where Kirby had to use his new powers on a dome, then lockers, then a scissor-lift to reach a captured Waddle Dee. Or he, Meta Knight, and Diddy (with his jet pack barrel) simply flew to him.

Meanwhile, the others reached the end of the road, climbed a ladder, and rescued another Waddle Dee that was down a chute before they passed a door, traversing a building, eventually joined by Kirby, Meta Knight, Diddy, and the Waddle Dee they saved.

Then, they reached an extremely narrow suspended path patrolled by Bernards and with lots of Shotzos and Gigatzos.

Many sighed.

"Okay guys," DK said. "Slowly. One by one."

Gilgamesh was running for his life as Sweetie Void was sending space beam after space beam at him while also firing beams from her horn and cannons. After a minute of this, Gilgamesh punched a building so hard that it toppled on, and he made sure that it toppled on Sweetie Void who cut it into pieces. Gilgamesh then cast Quasar followed by Aqua Breath repeatedly so while Sweetie was busy dealing with the falling meteors, she also had to shield herself from the explosive bubbles. Like previously, she quickly used a gust of wind to send the bubbles back at Gilgamesh, but then, the man did Hurricane, spinning to create a tornado that caught the bubbles which were then sent randomly in all directions.

Gilgamesh then jumped into the lava and did Hurricane again, not minding his burning legs. The resulting tornado lifted the lava, turning it into a lava tornado that projected lava in all directions. Sweetie twirled her weapons very rapidly to protect herself from the lava, and she also used her magic to gather more and more of it into a bigger and bigger ball. By the time Gilgamesh stopped his tornado and jumped out of the lava, Sweetie made a ball at least one hundred time bigger than him. Gilgamesh quickly used Time Slip on the ball, advancing its time until the lava composing it cooled down so it turned into a solid ball of rock. When Sweetie went to smash it into him, he then cut it into little cubes.

Which didn't work because Sweetie still had the cubes in her magical grasp, and she sent them to crash on Gilgamesh. Hundreds of cubes of rock attacked Gilgamesh from all directions, and even him couldn't stop all of them. Then, while he recovered from this, Sweetie sent her double beam swords to attack him, only for him to charge at her in one jump. Sweetie quickly put up a shield, only for Gilgamesh to easily destroy it with one punch before he Goblin Punched her hard. She was sent flying far, passing through several rocks and buildings.

Gilgamesh waited for her to return, and she did after about a minute. Or rather, two of her did, with their mane and tail made of darkness, who began to attempt to punch him. Their punches were even stronger than the one that Gilgamesh just gave, so they often had for effect to push his weapons out of the way so he found himself at the receiving end of a hoof. The two Sweetie Voids then morphed themselves into weird snake-things that wrapped around Gilgamesh and his limbs, restraining him.

In the distance, he saw a light.

And that light was none other than an Ultimate Doom Laser being charged by a third Sweetie Void.

The laser was fired, and Gilgamesh could only look in panic as it approached.

BOOOOM!!!

The explosion made the whole region shake and was seen from very far away. Some of the heroes almost fell off the path as a result as they were still slowly crossing it. It didn't help that Kirby had had to blow a couple of fans that made pieces of the path spin to reach a third fan that he blew too with a ring that he found a bit earlier. This last fan made a structure lise out of the lava further below, after the end of the path, and there was a treasure chest on it.

To reach this structure, however, there was only one boat that somehow didn't burn on the lava. Instead of dropping on it, Kirby left behind the ring and flew to the structure, followed by the others on a flying platform made by Phantom. Inside the treasure chest on it was a poor Waddle Dee who was very dehydrated.

On another building a bit ahead was also a golden cage, ending the exploration of this area.

Recovering from the laser, Gilgamesh cast Curaga, healing himself just in time as Sweetie, now only one of her but still with her mane and tail made of darkness, returned. They both recast Haste, Protect, and Shell, and started a good all exchange where weapons clashed faster than the eye could follow, with regular Flares and Holys regularly cast by their respective weapons. In addition of her ten double swords, Sweetie armed herself of a huge sword of energy that looked a lot like Kirby's Ultra Sword.

Sweetie eventually saw an opening and slashed Gilgamesh's chest with this energy sword, from right shoulder to left side of the belly.

Gilgamesh knelt, but he still went to cast Curaga again.

So Sweetie morphed her body so it wrapped around Gilgamesh before he could cast, then she lifted him high into the sky. Gilgamesh cast Electrocute on her, hitting himself by the same occasion, in the hope to make her release him, but it failed. Then, she rapidly flew back at the ground and they both crashed hard like a meteor.

When Sweetie let go of Gilgamesh, breathing hard, she looked at him, waiting for his next action.

Only to see that he was unconscious.

Sweetie sighed in relief plopping herself on the ground beside him.

"I win."

Chapter 137: Redgar Forbidden Lands Part 2 - The Beast Pack's Final Stand

Sweetie Void sent Gilgamesh back to the Waddle Dee town for him to recover, then went to search for her friends.

As she flew, she mumbled to herself, "Still, is that guy even human? How long has the fight lasted? Simple humans wouldn't have lasted that long. He was so strong and durable. He could probably beat up Master Hand. Maybe I should convince him to join us against the Subspace Army."

Following the nearest concentration of Dream Matter, she quickly found her friends as they flew on a flying platform, approaching a large power plant that was still operational.

"Hey guys! I won!"

"Hey Sweetie! It looked like it was a very intense fight!" Bandana Dee shouted.

"Yeah! When Gilgamesh fought you guys, he was barely showing his strength! He really took me by surprise! His punches hit worse than a train!"

Some of the heroes gulped at this.

"And where is Gilgamesh now? Did he run away again?" Fox asked.

"No. I knocked him out. This time he really fought to the end. So I sent him to Waddle Dee Town to be taken care of by the others. Anyway, you had any problem while I was away?"

"Nothing too bad," Zan Partizanne answered. "But things have really gotten dangerous in this region."

"We saved a lot of Waddle Dees!" Elfilin said. "And now, we're going toward that scary building..."

"What scary building? I don't see any scary building," Dark Meta Knight said.

"Yeah, it's just a power plant! Nothing scary!" Flamberge said.

"I agree," Poo said.

"Totally not scary!" Diddy shouted, not convincing anyone.

"Ok, tough guys, we understand," Dixie deadpanned.

"Well, welcome back, Sweetie!" Bandana exclaimed.

Sweetie Void nodded. "Now, let's continue! Into this power plant!"

At this, the heroes landed in front of the walkway leading to the power plant's entrance, quickly dealt with the two Primal Awoofies standing guard, and traversed the walkway.

Immediately, when they entered and Sweetie saw what was present, Sweetie understood that this building will be a major pain if nothing was done.

Crushers.

A long hallway made of crusher walls. Long crusher walls.

Traversing that with such a big group? No. Way.

So Sweetie decided to do something. She advanced and placed herself between the first set of crushers. Then, she punched them hard, destroying them. Then she did the same for all the following crusher walls, freeing the way from danger. For the last set, she had to press a red switch to make them retract before she could destroy them. A Waddle Dee was also hidden in the last right crusher.

So the group was able to advance without problem. Sweetie Void even dealt with the few enemies on the way.

"It feels so good to be able to do something. Crushers like these have always been a plague in our adventures," Sweetie Void said once the others joined them at the end of the hallway.

"I admit, I didn't look forward to traversing this hallway with these," Krystal said.

"Yeah, they are the worst," DK agreed.

Passing the door, the heroes arrived in a new room with more crushers, vertical these ones, on a first set of conveyor belts that they will have to walk on. These crushers weren't as large as the conveyor belts (excepted where it narrowed, about midway through), and the heroes could jump on them, so they weren't as dangerous. As such, they didn't need Sweetie's help against the crushers this time. Fighting the enemies and avoiding the Gigatzos, however, was rather annoying. Some of the enemies held pieces of a key that, once reformed, opened a gate to rescue a Waddle Dee.

There was a second set of conveyor belts after a small jump, much shorter, and with a crusher as large as them on it. These conveyor belts were faster, and this crusher couldn't be jumper on. So Sweetie destroyed it, allowing everyone to pass easily with some running and reach the exit door. There was a third set of conveyor belts with another unavoidable crusher. This set was thankfully not as fast as the second one, but the crusher, malfunctioning, was impossible to pass without finishing as a pancake. Lighting a lantern not far somehow repaired it, and the crusher slowed down enough that some of the heroes passed it to see what was at the other side. It turned out that the crusher was a staircase that they then climbed to reach a ledge with a second door just above the first one. Kirby, Poo, and DK passed it while the others passed the first door.

The side room consisted of a puzzle with a fuse and a staircase. Once the fuse was lit, Kirby had to inhale the staircase and move it around so it didn't block the flame. Then, once it was safe, he placed the staircase on a red switch to open a gate, then climbed to pass the gave and enter a cannon with Poo and DK. Once the flame reached the cannon, it blasted the three of them through several iron blocks, leading them right to a captured Waddle Dee. The three now four then returned to the previous room and passed the first door to catch up with the others.

They eventually had to jump down a chute, falling into an hallway where they found a destroyed wall of spikes and a real path of devastation, littered by unconscious enemies and destroyed wooden crates. Following it, they jumped down another chute and entered a second hallway with another destroyed wall of spikes and more devastation, this time with destroyed metal crates. At the end was a vending machine, but Kirby didn't pay it any mind. Then they fell in a third hallway with yet another destroyed wall of spikes, and they found their friends with Spiky in the process of destroying a shutter door beside another chute. The shutter door led to a little side room with another chute and a captured Waddle Dee. No matter which chute they took, they both led to the same room with a big open metal door.

Following the hallway behind the door, they eventually arrived at a platform above the lava. Further on the lava was a wall of iron blocks with a bomb block. Destroying the bomb destroyed the whole wall and revealed a more normal wall behind with a rectangular hole at the right.

Then this wall began to move toward the platform, ready to push them into the lava, and the only way to avoid it was to pass through the hole. The problem was that the hole was just too small for everyone to pass through in time.

So Sweetie created a bigger hole for everyone, then did the same for the walls that followed. Then came some moving floor that covered the lava. There was a golden cage on it, and the section of it made of stone instead of metal was cracked, so DK destroyed it to reveal a captured Waddle Dee. Krystal revealed that these four Waddle Dees were the last one in the power plant.

"Glad we're done with this place," Sweetie Void said.

"Poyo!" Kirby agreed.

"Really the worst," DK added.

Not wanting to bring the Lor where it would be fired upon by dozens of Gigatzos, Sweetie Void decided that using flying platforms was good enough to travel. Before long, they reached a long slope in a valley where they landed. The slope was filled with Primal Awoofies that immediately attacked when they landed. At the top of the slope was a staircase between two statues of a lion.

Once they were close enough, the heroes could see beyond the stairs the top of a certain gorilla.

"So that's why he stopped attacking Waddle Dee Town," Apple Death said when she recognised Gorimondo. "He's called as reinforcement."

"Well, he was already defeated once, I don't see why we couldn't defeat him again," Pikachu said. "Want to go again, Donkey Kong?"

DK gave a bored sigh. "Nah. Let's just get this over with."

The heroes climbed the stairs and arrived on some destroyed parking that Gorimondo chose as an arena. When he saw them arrive, Gorimondo pounded his chest and roared only to be interrupted by a magical beam and a PK Fire in the face, followed by a Thunder from Pikachu, blaster beams from Fox, and some Phantom Cubes from Phantom that made cannons materialize all around the ape before they fired. He was then slashed repeatedly by Sweetie, Meta Knight, and Dark Meta Knight before the Three Mage Sisters hit him with their combo fire cannon/water gun/thunder ring. DK, Spiky, and the two Sonics finished him with a punch in the face for the first two and with a Homing Attack for the last two.

In just a few seconds, Gorimondo was KO.

Leaving him behind, the heroes continued and reached a suspended winding road above lava with a car at the start. So while Kirby inhaled the car, Sweetie shapeshifted into one so the two could transport everyone, like they did in Wondaria. The road was too narrow for them to roll side by side, so Sweetie had no choice but to roll behind Kirby. To make it harder, lava covered part of the road, other parts were damaged, and more was destroyed by falling lava balls, sometime forcing them to jump. The many enemies present were of no importance.

At the end, Kirby crashed into a wall of logs of wood, making it fall to forge a bridge to reach another, smaller parking beside a small building, a captured Waddle Dee present on the parking. Instead of entering the building, they had no choice but to climb it with a ladder to reach a narrow valley that led to a series of short cliffs.

Jumping from cliff to cliff, they then had to climb another ladder to reach a new place covered in sand and surrounded by lot of stuff seemingly coming from Wondaria, and none other than Sillydillo was here.

"We defeated you, like, one or two hours ago," Sweetie Void said.

"Just let's defeat him again," Dark Meta Knight said with a sigh.

As Sillydillo screeched and pulled out from nowhere his "dancing partner", Anubis began the assault with an Aura Sphere, followed by blaster and gun shots from Fox and Jeff, dark lightning from Apple Death, fireballs from Little Ghost, and peanuts from Diddy's guns. Ness and Poo both used PK Thunder on him, then Sweetie and Kirby both attacked with fire. Marx sent his giant beam, Dark Meta Knight attacked with his giant swords coming out of mirrors, and Bandana threw several spears. Krystal sent ice from her staff, DK punched, Dixie attacked with her ponytail, and finally, Link turned into a Gorom and charged toward Sillydillo in a ball. This last attack sent Sillydillo flying and crashing right on a carpet of spikes that Phantom created after hitting the armadillo with a cube.

Sillydillo was out like a light.

With him down for the count, Kirby went to open a chest with a captured Waddle Dee. Then, once the Waddle Dee was back in the town, he went to inhale a pipe to roll down a long path full of holes where he had to jump, breaking lots of metal crates while crushing all the enemies in his way. The others did their best to follow him. Kirby eventually crashed through a long cracked wall, revealing a small room with a hidden Waddle Dee.

Once everyone caught up, they climbed a ladder and began to climb a long staircase to what seemed to be an off-shoot of Wondaria, lights of attractions now visible.

"I didn't know there was a part of Wondaria here!" Elfilin exclaimed.

"I'm not sure there is much left to visit," Sweetie Void said.

They reached the top of the stairs where a ramp led to a stage with Clawroline awaiting them, claws ready. However, the leopard was visibly shaking.

Sweetie frowned. "If you are afraid to fight us, then let us pass!"

Clawroline shook her head, then let a determined expression appear as she yowled. She then jumped on one of the metal structures surrounding the stage and readied herself to throw knives.

Only to receive a Thunder and two PK Thunder from Pikachu, Ness, and Poo as well as several shots and beams from Jeff, Fox, Krystal, Diddy, Sweetie Void, and also Kirby with his Space Ranger Ability. She fell, and Spiky caught her by the tail and repeatedly slammed her against the metal structure before he burned her with a fire breath. Spiky then threw her toward Meta Knight who got her with a tornado that sent her in the air where she was smashed by DK, sending her crashed into the stage. Phantom then turned into a giant and stomped her.

And it was already over.

Leaving the badly beaten up Clawroline, the heroes moved toward the beginning of a roller coaster while Meta Knight went to bring back a captured Waddle Dee that was on one of the metallic structures. Once the Waddle Dee was sent to Waddle Dee Town, Kirby inhaled the seat of the roller and started off, the others following him on a flying platform. On the way, Kirby hit several green switches. Once at the finish, one last green switch opened a gate to a captured Waddle Dee, just beside a golden cage.

"Fighting the three executives of the Beast Pack one after another. We are really reaching the end. They are sending the last of their forces. Whoever is their big boss must not be far. And Dedede too," Sweetie Void said.

"We are so close of the volcano now... And the lab..." Elfilin said.

"Almost there. Are you going to be alright?" Diddy asked.

"Yeah... Yeah. With you guys, I don't have to fear anything."

"Then let's go!" Bandana Dee shouted.

Not far, they reached a large broken entrance to some underground facility guarded by a lone Primal Awoofy that howled when seeing them arriving. They took him down, then descended a ladder to an elevator beside a large console. The elevator took them down, deeper into the facility.

After a long ride, they arrived before a huge metallic door that opened, revealing a large assembly of Beast Pack members composed of many Primal Awoofies, of Rabiroos, of Bernards, of Mookies, and a single Balloon-Meister. They awaited the heroes on some circular grid floor surrounded by "lavafalls".

Despite the animals' determination and readiness, they didn't last more than a few seconds before the heroes who rolled on them like a road roller.

Following the walkway that circled a large dynamo that used lava to create electricity, they reached a scissor-lift at the beginning of a long corridor spanning lava. Kirby inhaled the lift and began to slowly roll down the corridor, using barriers to cover himself from lava rocks spewed out of the lava while he counted on the others to deal with the enemies on the way. The corridor was very narrow, so they had to take their time to ensure that no lava rock hit anybody. On the way, they reached a structure with a captured Waddle Dee on it that the Mage Sisters freed. Then, they reached the end where Kirby lifted everyone on an elevated walkway. Once everyone was present, they passed a doorway, quickly dealing with the Needlous and the Orabiroo guarding it.

They entered a large hall where they immediately spotted a Poison Croakom surrounded by Rabiroos. A Clocker lifting a cage with a Waddle Dee was flying above the Poison Croakom. Kirby eliminated the frog while the others dealt with the rabbits, and Sweetie Void rescued the Waddle Dee.

More Poison Croakom were present further ahead, spitting poison on platforms that the heroes had to traverse. Sweetie and Kirby dealt with the frogs while Francisca used her water gun to clean the platforms, allowing the others to pass. All the way, they fought enemies after enemies. Rabiroos, Orabiroos, Primal Awoofies, Sir Kibbles, Blade Knights, Scarfys, and so on, in large numbers.

Rapidly enough, they reached the end of the hall where DK pressed a switch that elevated some cylinder at the beginning. Having nothing else to do, they returned to the entrance and left, dealing with more enemies that arrived. Back on the walkway outside, the large structure they entered lowered itself, allowing the heroes to continue.

On the path that opened was a vending machine that Kirby inhaled. From here, the heroes had to traverse a winding set of pipe bridges covered in grids with many enemies and metal crates on them. Buffahorns and Jabhogs were particularly present on the bridges.

Destroying a floating crates made a pillar with a switch on it fall, and hitting the switch made a moving grid rise out of the lava, serving as a barrier against spewing lava rocks to pass a bridge. The process repeated for another bridge, this one broken so they had to jump to reach the second part.

They then reached walkways with Sssnackers, and Sweetie Void rescued another Waddle Dee guarded by a Jabhog and a Twister on an elevated platform before the heroes reached the next structure standing in their way. The door to inside was closer and blocked however, so Kirby had to move a set of lockers guarded by a Buffahorn out of the way to reveal an entrance.

Entering a new hall, this one was more aquatic themed as it revealed a Gnawcodile in a small basin surrounded by Walfs, and like before, a Clocker holding a cage with a Waddle Dee was flying above. More Gnawcodiles were present in more water after that, among many whirlpools. Bronto Burts and Scarfys were also patrolling the air above.

After saving the Waddle Dee, Sweetie shapeshifted into a small boat, allowing some of the heroes to remain dry while they fought the arriving enemies. Link turned into a Zora to take on the crocodiles. And Krystal took care of a Balloon-Meister awaiting them at the finish with her fireballs. Behind the Balloon-Meister was a switch that they pressed to rise a cylinder at the start before they returned at there, again fighting more enemies that arrived.

Leaving the structure, the heroes waited as it sunk into the lava, revealing a huge number of enemies before an arch. Primal Awoofies, Sir Kibbles, and Jabhogs charged at the heroes, the later with their spines fully extended, but a PK Rockin from Ness took all of them down in one go. Kirby then inhaled the arch, becoming a glider, and the others followed him the usual way.

As they flew, Kirby had to spin to blow fans and open huge metal doors while the others dealt with the many enemies present as well in the air than on the ground. Gigatzos fired at them, Gordos and Gordo Bars blocked their path, and even Bernards fired at them by the dozens. Even Clockers were attacking them. Near the end, they had to be particularly careful as they went through a narrow opening in a crumbled structure, a Clocker with a Waddle Dee flying just here. At the end, huge shutter doors were closing, so they had to hurry up to pass before it was too late.

Once they landed before a HUGE mechanism, they were immediately welcomed by a red variant of the Big Tortuilding, a Big Red Tortuilding, that could spit debris on fire. Kirby flew above it, then went Stella Knight and used the Super Ability version of the Drill Ability, the Giga Drill, to drill through the building on the back of the Big Red Tortuilding. Then, using the Super Ability of Stone, the Stone Titan, he turned into a huge statue of himself and landed heavily on the tortoise, crushing it.

For a lot of the heroes, it was the first time that they saw Kirby's Stella Knight form and his Super Abilities, and they were very impressed, and also intimidated, by them. Even the Beast Pack members still present around cowered. Despite this, still determined, they fought the heroes, but were quickly defeated. Seeing that they lost, the three Clockers holding a golden cage that had been behind the Big Red Tortuilding let them get the cage before they escaped.

"It really was their final stand, uh?" Sweetie Void questioned.

"Yeah... They really sent everything they had this time," Ness answered.

Once they sent the Waddle Dee to the town, they flew further into the facility on a flying platform, eventually arriving in a hallway with giant ventilation propellers. Following a walkway, they arrived on an elevator that took them down in a long ride.

"So, we passed their executives, we defeated their main forces..." Meta Knight began.

"All that remain are their leader and Dedede," Bandana Dee concluded, gulping.

Before long, the elevator arrived at the bottom, and already, beyond a walkway, they could see a round arena with Dedede standing on it, back facing them. He seemed to be struggling with something on his face.

When they approached, he turned around to reveal that he was now wearing a wooden boar mask, and his eyes were glowing red. He then grabbed two hammers and roared.

"Hu ho. He is masked and he has two hammers. Now that's bad," Sweetie Void said.

Dedede began to repeatedly slam the ground with his hammers while advancing. Sweetie quickly put up a shield to stop him.

"Because that wasn't bad before?" Present Sonic said in disbelief.

"He wasn't serious. When he wears a mask and holds two hammers, this is when he is going all out. Thankfully, he doesn't have his mecha hammer. So, anyone wants to try their luck in a duel? Or do we release the Kirby?"

Kirby gave her a "seriously?" look.

Most of the heroes didn't want to even think of fighting Dedede alone or hesitated.

Until Bandana Dee advanced. "I will fight him!"

"Uhh... Are you sure?" Marx asked. "I know it's hypocritical of me to ask that, but are you mad? If he defeated me when he wasn't serious, he will gobble you whole!"

"I-I still want to try! As King Dedede's most loyal servant, it's my duty to help him! I have been constantly training hard in case something like that happened again!"

Sweetie sighed. "Well, it's your wish. Go."

At this, everyone returned on the walkway excepted Bandana Dee. All the while, Dedede constantly pounded the shield in the hope of breaking it, and he was actually making Sweetie sweat.

Once everyone was gone, Bandana Dee readied his spear. Then, Sweetie let go of the shield, and Bandana Dee charged toward Dedede who swung his hammers down toward him.

Chapter 139: Lab Discovera - Specimen ID-F86

Author's Note

Before we started, know that I added a little paragraph near the beginning of chapter 124:

Sweetie Void approached the Mage-Sisters. "So, Magolor thinks that these humans may have helped the Ancients or may even have been part of their civilization, and he is going to investigate this in hope of confirming that. Did Hyness say anything about humans?"

"Never. I don't think he knows," Zan Partizanne answered. "Even him doesn't know everything about the Ancients. A lot of information was lost following the wars."

And questioning Void and Galacta Knight didn't hold anything. They were both traumatised by the events of that era and didn't want to think about it for the moment. Maybe after a few years.

I hadn't thought about it at the time, but without this last paragraph in italic, there was a big plot hole. Magolor could have learned everything about the Ancients and the humans by questioning Void and Galacta Knight. Sometimes, simple stuff passes above my head. :facehoof: I hope that this quickly made up excuse works.

As for Two Planets Approach the Roche Limit, I will first put the first phase extended, then put the video with the transitions and let you choose which one you want to use (the timestamps are posted in the commentaries below by a @Flashkirby99), then put the video with phase two extended.

Also, don't ask me to make lyrics for this theme... I refuse categorically. Never. Such a musical chaos would be a major pain to write to. No need anyway.

Chapter 139: Lab Discovera - Specimen ID-F86

Something in the elevator's system detected the heroes' presence, because almost as soon as the doors closed, a feminine computerised voice announced, "Automatic language detection... activated."

Some of the heroes looked around in questioning or wonder. Elfilin looked distraught, shaking badly and remaining close to Sweetie Void and Kirby. He didn't like this place. Not at all. And he had a very bad feeling.

"Authentication system... activated." Something started, followed by bips. "Authenticating... Authenticating..." more bip sounds announced the end of the authentication. "Entry code approved. Initiating facility navigation protocol."

The elevator shook before it started its ascension, the lights turning on, before an upbeat music began to play followed shortly by the pre-recorded voice of a woman.

"Welcome, visitors, to the Dream Discoveries Tour of our science facility, Lab Discovera!"

"Great! Hopefully, we will learn more about this place," Present Sonic said.

"On this thrilling tour," the guide continued, "you'll be introduced to the ultimate life-form, specimen ID-F86!"

"I know a black hedgehog who would sue you," Phantom said.

"Specimen ID-F86?" Fox and Jeff both questioned.

"From the moment ID-F86 arrived on our planet, it began a campaign of destruction that threatened the native wildlife of our entire world," the guide recounted.

"An alien. Again. Darn, I hoped for an actual subject created by the humans from experiments gone wrong, for once," Sweetie Void said.

"Luckily, our research team managed to capture it before it could complete its invasion."

"Also, it's totally going to be what we'll end up fighting to save the world," Sweetie continued.

"Also certainly what brainwashed me and all the other Popstarlings," Dedede said.

"Once it was contained, our lab began studying ID-F86's spatial teleportation ability- research that laid the groundwork for the planetary warp technology we enjoy today!"

At this, everyone from the Dream Universe exchanged looks.

"So that's how the humans left this world?" Sweetie asked.

"Seems like it," Meta Knight said.

"Wait! Then, could the humans be the ones who gave the Ancients their warp technology?" Bandana Dee questioned.

Sweetie Void thought about it, having some doubts, and Galacta Knight seemed ready to say something, but before more could be said, they all fell silent as they saw, beyond the window of the elevator, a huge room with hundreds of Waddle Dees running on hamster wheels to generate electricity, obviously to power the laboratory.

"So that's why!" Bandana Dee shouted, angry at seeing his people enslaved like that.

"I'm going to help them!" Galacta Knight exclaimed before he flew through the window.

Then, the guide continued, taking a graver tone. "However, 30 years after our research began, a "warp-experiment incident" occurred in this facility. A new life-form, separated from the main specimen, escaped in the aftermath. That new subspecimen has yet to be recovered."

At this, everyone's eyes turned toward Elfilin who was shaking even more.

"Is... Is she talking about me?" he wondered.

At this moment, the elevator finally stopped before large metallic doors that opened, revealing a large hallway with big claw marks on a wall.

"In the time since, ID-F86 has shown no signs of activity."

The heroes left the elevator.

"It is now kept in a state of permanent stasis within the custom-made Eternal Capsule here on the top level of Lab Discovera."

The guide then marked a big pause as the heroes advanced in the hallway, not paying attention to the large city visible outside through the windows (unless it was just the complex of the laboratory itself that looked like a city), until another big metallic gate at the opposite end opened.

"And here we are! Let's meet the ultimate life-form: specimen ID-F86!"

A light stopped them from seeing what was at the other side of the door.

"Get ready, everyone," Sweetie Void said.

"Can't ya tell us what's awaiting us?" Apple Death asked to Dedede who shook his head.

"I never entered the laboratory. I don't know anything about this specimen ID-F86. But no doubt it's very powerful."

By now, Elfilin was glued to Sweetie Void. He probably just learned how he was born. And learning that he came from some evil alien that tried to destroy the world was not what he wanted. If it hadn't been for the heroes reassuring presence, he would have left right now.

The heroes entered the room.

The first thing that gained everyone's attention when they entered the room was the huge capsule with the strange entity contained inside it. The thing looked like a giant embryo that vaguely resembled Elfilin. Mostly pink with blue at the extremity of the ears, around the eyes, and at the tail that replaced the legs, what was clearly specimen ID-F86 had a huge heart-shaped head compared to their body, and their left ear looked half-melted. Energy was visibly coursing through their veins.

The thing chilled everyone, and most particularly Elfilin. They looked calm, sleeping in stasis, but they gave off a feeling of danger that raised all the red flags.

Everyone's attention was then diverted toward the huge cape-wearing anthropomorphic lion sitting on a throne of stone before the capsule, right leg crossed over the right one and head resting on his right fist. He was almost as huge as Gorimondo! And he was glaring at them.

Awoofys, Primal Awoofys, Rabiroos, and an Orabiroo were also present around him.

"Take a good look, intruders... Isn't this a beautiful sight?" he began. "You're not even seeing the Great One in full form. They're incomplete without their other half. Long ago, the Great One granted the people of this world a miraculous power... Those people left this world behind... and entered a land of dreams."

As we thought, Sweetie Void thought, deciding to let the lion do his expository monologue. It was always nice to be given more info about the history of the humans that confirmed theories and stuff. These humans really came to the Dream Universe and were certainly Adeleine's ancestors.

"Once the Great One is complete again... I know we will also receive this miraculous power. We, the one they left behind in this forgotten land. And now..." He eyed Elfilin. "the time has finally come! Give me the Great One's missing half, and we won't have to fight! We can finally help the Great One reach their complete form!"

"Why do you lose time ordering us something that you know we will refuse?" Fox asked.

Dedede laughed.

The lion sighed. "We have dreamed of this moment for so many years... If you dare to stand in our way...

We'll feast on your hides!"

These words were the cue for the Beast Pack members to attack, but the heroes easily eliminated them, and Sweetie Void teleported their unconscious bodies back to the desert where they won't bother anybody.

Seeing this, the lion sighed, then got up from his throne and threw away his cape while roaring.

"So, guys, duel or all versus one?" Sweetie Void quickly asked while the lion walked toward them, claws ready to strike. He was constantly eyeing Elfilin.

"Let's just quickly defeat him so we can deal with the alien abomination behind him," Phantom said, and everyone else nodded.

Leongar struck, and Link blocked his claws with his shield. Leongar showed to be extremely strong however and the boy was still sent sliding backward into Krystal who stopped him. Leongar was then hit by purple electricity from Apple Death, a PK Freeze from Ness, and a fire breath from Kirby's Dragon Fire Ability, but he tanked all of it, grabbed Dixie Kong who had been about to hit him with her hair, and threw her at Ness who barely jumped out of the way along with Fox who was behind him. Sweetie caught Dixie just before she could crash into the wall. With the strength she had been thrown, head first, she would have gotten a very bad concussion, at the very least.

Leongar's claws could shred metal, so getting hit by them was absolutely out of the question. But he was striking fast, with deadly force. Because of that, it was difficult for the close quarter fighters to approach him. They used their number at their advantage, but Spiky ended up taking a bad it. Being made of yarn, it was even worse for him. Sweetie had to knit some new yarn into his body. Even the Sonics had to be careful as any Homing Dash was welcomed by a swing of the claws, easy to intercept for the lion.

Leongar then slammed the ground with his fists together, sending a shockwave that forced everyone not flying to jump. And while everyone was jumping, he took the occasion to punch the nearest hero, which happened to be DK, while he was midair, sending him right through the window separating the part of the room they were in to the chamber with the capsule containing ID-F86. Thankfully, DK quickly recovered and returned to the brawl. He was hit by stronger punches than this one.

Eventually, Leongar jumped away from the heroes, then ran back toward them while dragging his claws against the ground, creating sparks. After a few meters, the claws ignited, and he did an upward swing, the fire boosting the damage it could give. Nobody wanted to be hit by this one, so everyone did their best to get away. But Leongar followed his escaping targets and ended up hitting Jeff, badly wounding and burning him. Sweetie Void and Link in Goron form both gave Leongar a mighty punch in return, distracting the lion so DK got Jeff away before Ness healed him.

Thankfully, as tanky as Leongar was, the wounds quickly accumulated, and he was eventually forced to place a hand on the ground to stop himself from falling, consciousness escaping him.

But then, he placed a hand on his head, seemingly getting a headache as purple energy escaped his body, before he roared loudly and revealed his now glowing purple eyes.

"This is NOT normal," Diddy said with worry.

"And I know what is causing this," Sweetie Void said as she glared at ID-F86. She could feel a lot of energy coming from them going toward Leongar. It wasn't the lion that they were fighting now, but the alien now possessing him.

Seemingly in pain, Leongar gathered purple energy into his hand and did a cross slash, sending it in the form of a cross-shaped energy wave. He repeated it several times, each time sending the waves at different heights so some could be avoided by passing under them while others had to be jumped above. But the waves were fast and took a lot of heroes off guard.

The heroes promptly resumed attacking Leongar while trying to avoid the energy waves until Leongar stopped, got on all fours, and ran toward the nearest heroes while chomping madly like a feral beast, turning the room into chaos as the heroes tried to avoid being bitten. He almost got Ness, but was stopped just in time by Dedede jumping heavily on him. Leongar then began swiping around with his claws, trying to get the heroes and stopping them from getting too close, before he jumped to get closer, forcing the heroes to run away to not be caught in the violent attacks of the mad lion. Remaining close to him meant being clawed or bitten.

The close quarter fighters didn't go too far however to continue to distract Leongar while the others pelted him continuously with their projectiles. The lighter heroes were also transported by the flying ones so they could be dropped on Leongar's back where they had less risk of being hit, allowing them to land a few hits before they had to get away. Sweetie eventually immobilised him by grabbing him by the neck with a shield-hand before slamming him against the group. Thanks to this, everyone could attack him while being careful of his claws as he was randomly swiping them around.

In this possessed state, he was even more tanky than before. Despite all the hits he took, he still was roaring to continue the fight.

Then, Leongar turned his head toward Sweetie Void and breathed a huge laser that made him roar in pain. Sweetie quickly put up a shield, only for the laser to break it after a few seconds and to engulf the filly who quickly flew out of the way, badly hurt. The laser continued its path through the wall and all surfaces present in its path until it disappeared in the sky.

Being hit by the laser made Sweetie release Leongar who jumped to a corner of the room and breathed another laser. He swept the room with the laser, forcing many heroes to leap out of the way as the laser caused a huge amount of damage to the room's structure. As the lion continued to breathe his laser, Phantom teleported just in front of him, under his head, and she kicked his chin, forcefully closing his mouth. The remaining energy of the laser exploded inside his mouth before he found himself at the receiving end of Marx's own laser, which slammed him into the room's corner.

Leongar quickly got up however and resumed running around wildly on all fours while chomping and swiping madly, this time randomly spitting energy balls between two chomps. Then, suddenly, choosing randomly a victim, he jumped toward Zan Partizanne and snatched her out of the air, biting down on her hard. Sweetie immediately teleported the girl away from Leongar's mouth and followed it by sucker punching the lion hard in the jaw, making him more back. DK then caught his tail and spun around for several seconds before he launched Leongar toward his throne, making him crash through it and through the window to the chamber to land right at the foot of ID-F86's capsule.

Finally, he lost consciousness.

Only to immediately wake back up, eyes still glowing purple, looking even more enraged.

"You... You dare..." he began. "Plan ruined. Important plan. Needed labor. Opened vortex. Found workforce. Brought here. And yet?"

"Uuh... Why is he speaking like a robot?" Bandana Dee asked.

"Because this is not the lion who speaks," Present Sonic answered as his eyes moved between Leongar and ID-F86.

"Error made," the possessed lion continued. "Irksome contaminants... Careful planning. Now wasted. No more planning. No more patience. Instead..."

ID-F86 suddenly opened their eyes.

"EVERYTHING. SHALL BE. CONSUMED."

The alien's eyes then lit up, and they broke the glass of the capsule, liquid spilling all over the chamber while Leongar's body dropped unconscious. ID-F86's body then turned into a blue gelatinous substance that lost form.

As the heroes readied themselves, members of the Beast Pack suddenly arrived into the room, ready to fight.

Sweetie looked at them in horror. "What are you doing here?! Go aw-"

"Watch out!" Link shouted.

A tentacle suddenly came out from the gelatinous mass that ID-F86 became and which had subsumed Leongar's body. The tentacle passed over the heroes and caught a Primal Awoofy before it brought the animal back to the alien's body to be absorbed, much to everyone's horror, both heroes and Beast Pack members.

More tentacles came out, and everyone tried to escape. While the heroes were successful in avoiding a gruesome fate, helping each others if needed, the animals were less so, and they all finished absorbed by ID-F86 who gained mass, grew, and turned into a horrifying amalgamation of everything they consumed, gaining the head of Leongar and of several of the animals. The ground, weakened by the previous fight, then collapsed, making everyone who wasn't flying slide to the floor below, just before a partially opened metal door.

ID-F86 tried to snatch Elfilin with more of their tentacles, but Elfilin escaped toward the door and signed for everyone to go through it, quick! The alien was hot on their tail!

The heroes who didn't slide because they were flying, Sweetie Void, Apple Death, Phantom, Little Ghost, Meta Knight, Marx, Dark Meta Knight, and the Three Mage Sisters, all were left behind and began to attack the mass from behind, failing to slow them down. Thankfully, Fox was able to close the metallic door, stopping ID-F86 from pursuing Elfilin and the others, but only for a few seconds. ID-F86 began to attack the door, giving it powerful hits that made the whole room shake. After a few hits, the doors bents. A couple more, and the doors were destroyed, allowing ID-F86 to finally enter the hallways Elfilin and the others had escaped into.

They were to big that they took the whole space as they slithered ahead. Sweetie and the others with her were right behind them, attacking them from behind, but beside some tentacles trying to capture them, Fecto Forgo didn't pay them much attention. Almost all of their focus was on Elfilin.

The hallway they were in was a very long one, and all the doors in it were condemned, so they had no choice but to run forward while dealing with the tentacles.

"I already had enough of all-consuming aliens with the Aparoids!" Fox shouted as he fired at Fecto Forgo with his blaster.

"Just one hour ago we were fighting cute animals! How did it lead to this?" Dixie asked.

"Welcome to my world!" Dedede said. "Now, run!"

"Sweetie warned us!" Link said before he threw a bomb at Fecto Forgo.

The alien was attacked both from before and from behind, but it was hard to see if they were taking any damage. Despite this, the heroes continued. Some of them like DK couldn't attack however because they didn't dare to try to see if the abomination could be punched without them being absorbed as a result of the physical contact. So the work was left to the other that could attack from a distance.

Every now and then, Fecto Forgo stopped slithering to grab and throw pieces of themself at the heroes before them, leaving slime puddles that the heroes avoided at all cost. They then resumed their advance, sometimes accelerating for a few seconds before slowing down. When a hero was too close, Fecto Forgo attempted to bite them with their Leongar head.

Sweetie Void was sending the most powerful beams that she could fire without risking the lives of her friends, blowing holes into Fecto Forgo, but the alien just reformed themself and continued their chase.

All the while, tentacles constantly went after Elfilin. The heroes did their best to destroy them and protect the little creature but...

What had to happen happened. Fecto Forgo had started to lose consistency, meaning that the heroes were getting close of killing it, but one of the tentacles successfully latched onto Elfilin and brought him into Fecto Forgo's body. The heroes could only watch as Elfilin turned into a light that merged with another light at the core of Fecto Forgo's body, which took a spherical form.

The sphere then flew away from the heroes as they began to attack again, passing above them and going through a hole in the ceiling at the end of the hallway.

"That thing got the little one!" Dedede informed Sweetie Void as the two groups of heroes gathered.

"Let's go after them!" Meta Knight said.

Climbing a pile of rubble, the heroes reached a catwalk that they climbed to the top of a skyscraper, one of the tallest of the complex.

As they climbed, they were joined by Galacta Knight.

"I saw some spherical thing fly to the top of this building. What happened?"

"It's the specimen ID-F86 as we heard from the recording, and they absorbed Elfilin!" Sweetie Void informed. "Your help will be welcome. That thing is powerful."

Galacta nodded.

Before long, they reached the top of the skyscraper, walking on a helipad before parabolic antennas. Above them, the sphere floated before the sunrise, surrounded by a ring of liquid, losing shape. After a few seconds, the ring took an orange color before it entered the sphere which metamorphosed.

The new being, curled up, opened their ear-wings, revealing themselves.

They looked like an "adult" version of Elfilin, majestic, menacing, with the addition of two golden horns that looked like halves of DNA, feelers at the sides of the head, and a fur collar. Then, they materialised a spear resembling a caduceus.

"So that thing is the ultimate life-form? Yeah, seems like Shadow has some concurrence," Present Sonic said.

Fecto Elfilis flew around the helipad, then created phantom duplicates of the spear that they sent at the heroes, starting the fight. Immediately, avoiding the phantom spears, the flying heroes went to attack Fecto Elfilis while the others who remained on ground either had to wait or attacked from a distance if they could.

Sweetie Void had her ten weapons ready in double sword mode, and she was the first one to attack Fecto Elfilis. They didn't even try to avoid or parry the swords. They went straight for the kill, thrusting their spear right at her brain at a speed faster than the eye can follow. Sweetie barely moved her head out of the way. Galacta Knight then came and slashed Fecto Elfilis, only for the alien to take the hit and to return it with a slash of their own. Galacta blocked it with his shield, but he was still sent flying far away to crash into a building below.

Fecto Elfilis was then sliced vertically in half by an Ultra Sword from Kirby in his Stella Knight form, but the two halves turned gelatinous where they were cut and glued themselves back together before Fecto Elfilis kicked Kirby away.

Oh. So this is how it is going to be, uh? Sweetie thought. Cutting you to pieces won't be enough to kill you.

Sweetie wasn't sure if Elfilin could be saved, so she tried to not think about him, but only of how to kill that thing they were fighting.

Fecto Elfilis saw Marx firing his mouth beam, and with a vertical slash, they cut the beam in two that went at their left and right while also sending an energy wave that sent Marx crashing into a building. Fecto Elfilis then flew away before they charged their spear and unleashed a powerful beam that swept around, causing a huge amount of damage to the complex below while going after the heroes, mostly targeting the ones that flew. Since Elfilis could only target one hero at a time while using the beam, the heroes used this to attack it at will. When the alien ended the beam, Sweetie hit them with a powerful punch that sent them crashing on the helipad, allowing the heroes stuck there to participate.

However, Fecto Elfilis quickly got up and spun around with their spear out, sending a small shockwave that sent everyone around that were too close away from them. Ness quickly cast PK Shield for everyone on ground as Fecto Elfilis began to swing their spear repeatedly, attacking everyone. They were fast, too fast, each swing ended up hitting someone. After a few, they then flew toward Little Ghost, not minding the fireballs she sent, and punched her hard. Their fist was easily as big as her! Despite her being a ghost, the attack hit her and sent her flying far.

Sweetie Void winced before she materialized hundreds of weapons of energy and sent them at Fecto Elfilis.

That thing is too powerful for them. They may be even more powerful than Galacta Knight. If only everyone could fly... Wait a minute.

Sweetie Void lit her horn, and everyone on ground was surrounded by an aura.

"You should all be able to fly now! Use your thoughts!" she shouted.

It worked.

Thanks to that, they had less problems avoiding Fecto Elfilis' strikes, but even then, the fight was still very difficult for them. Sweetie Void had to heal them a lot.

Phantom used the full power of her Phantom Ruby to materialized dozens of giant fireballs, more like small suns, that she threw at Fecto Elfilis, but they sliced all of them in half which continued their path around them to destroy the laboratory below. So Phantom materialized her lightning spear and sent lightning bolts from it at Elfilis while also materializing cannons.

Apple Death touched Elfilis to see if she could kill them this way, but it didn't work, and not even putrefaction worked. So she levitated a whole building and used it as a bat that Fecto Elfilis avoided. She was then slashed by them, only to send in return a wind as cold as death that froze Elfilis for a few seconds, allowing Kirby to hit them with the Monster Flame Ability. Sweetie then sliced them into little cubes. While the cubes reformed, Galacta Knight cut open a rift that fired a space beam, totally engulfing Elfilis.

When the beam disappeared, Fecto Elfilis remained floating there, taking more hits without replicating as they instead let out a screech that warped the sky into a dimension rift-like state.

Then they opened a giant star-shaped rift that threw huge meteor-like debris all over the complex.

"Well, they are angry," Dedede said.

"No, really?!" Marx, Flamberge, and Present Sonic shouted all at once.

Ness and Poo both used PK Starstorm to counter the debris, the falling stars destroying the ones falling toward the heroes. Meanwhile, the caduceus part of Fecto Elfilis' spear turned blazing red and they flew toward the nearest hero, Meta Knight, before they swung, the spear leaving behind a trail of flames. While Meta Knight parried the weapon, the flames got him and burned him. In return, Meta Knight caught one of the falling debris in his telekinesis hold and threw it at Elfilis, forcing them to get away only to be punched by DK. But then, Elfilis grabbed DK to keep him close, and skewered him with their spear.

Sweetie promptly beheaded Fecto Elfilis before she got DK away and quickly healed him. The wound would have killed him.

Meanwhile Fecto Elfilis curled into a ball with their wings and created two copies of themself, impossible to differentiate them from the real one. The three then moved at different directions, away from each others, and began to gather energy, a blue laser ring appearing and slowly closing in on one of them. The heroes quickly saw that only the real one had a shadow, and it was also toward this one that the laser ring was closing in.

"They're healing! We must attack the real one before that ring fully closes in!" Galacta Knight shouted.

No sooner said than done. Everyone attacked the real Elfilis and managed to cause enough damage to stop them from regenerating.

Flying away from the heroes, Fecto Elfilis opened another huge rift to make debris fall, then while the heroes dealt with the debris, they opened small rift before them and several bigger ones right above some of the heroes before they planted their spear into the small rift. The spear came out of the bigger rifts, all of them at once, as if the weapon had been multiplied, and they even came out bigger than the original. The heroes quickly moved from under the rifts to avoid being pierced by the spears. Fecto Elfilis repeated the attack a couple more time, targeting different heroes each time. They eventually stopped, seeing that it wasn't working and only opened them to attacks.

So Elfilis went for the classic swings, but this time, they sent energy waves with each swings, and energy spikes when they thrust. Needless to say, this time, it worked. The waves and spikes got a lot of the heroes, especially because they were very fast, and Fecto Elfilis was relentless, giving no respite to the heroes. Excepted whenever the giant rift closed, so they stopped to open it again, making it so it never stopped raining debris.

By now, the laboratory below was even more in ruin than before.

Sweetie had to save Past Sonic from being impaled before she resumed attacking with her ten double swords, avoiding Elfilis' swings and thrusts and the following energy waves and spikes. Kirby, Galacta Knight, Meta Knight, and Dark Meta Knight joining her made it easier. Link also decided to put on the Fierce Deity Mask and joined the sword fight too. Between all of them, Elfilis was badly overwhelmed. Dedede then bonked them hard on the head with his hammer, sending them crashing on what remained of the helipad. Kirby then slashed them one last time with the Ultra Sword, making them collapse on the ground, spear dropped.

A sphere of energy partially came out of Fecto Elfilis' back, and Elfilin was in it!

"Elfilin!" several heroes exclaimed.

Understanding what he had to do, Kirby inhaled and wrapped himself around the sphere before moving around to peel it off Elfilis. At the same time, Elfilis tried to resist Kirby and mentally controlled their spear to throw it at Kirby. Phantom knocked it away with her own spear, allowing Kirby to continue his job. And several long seconds, Kirby successfully peeled the sphere off of Elfilis. The sphere then disappeared, releasing Elfilin who regained consciousness.

Everyone was happy to see him safe and sound.

"You saved me!" Elfilin exclaimed.

"Poyo!"

"Oh, Elfilin, I'm so glad!" Sweetie Void said in joy.

"You're alright!" Link said.

"I really thought you were lost," Diddy said.

But the reunion was cut short as Elfilis got up, now in an unstable state. Their body was returning into a liquid form, looking like they were melting.

They then flew high into the sky and opened a rift that covered all of it. The next instant, it was as if gravity pulled everyone and everything both toward the ground below but also toward the sky, so everything began to float around as if weightless.

Thankfully, Sweetie's power still allowed everyone to fly, thus avoiding randomly floating around.

"Such incredible power!" Elfilin exclaimed. "Whatever it's trying to do, it's going to be pretty bad..."

It was then that everyone remarked what was at the other side of the rift.

"T-that's Popstar," Bandana Dee said.

'What? That's Popstar?" Fox questioned in disbelief.

"Popstar?!" Elfilin and several others exclaimed.

Planet Popstar was present beyond the rift, and that was when everyone saw that the planet was quickly approaching.

"They're pulling Popstar through that rift!" Sweetie Void shouted in horror.

"The two worlds will collide!" Meta Knight exclaimed, sweating.

"They can do that?!" Little Ghost asked.

Some of the heroes began to panic.

"Quick! We must stop them!" Present Sonic said.

At this, almost all the heroes flew toward Elfilis to attack them, but despite losing stability, the alien still was strong and resisted, attacking back.

Sweetie Void remained behind with Kirby to prepare an Ultimate Doom Laser, hoping to kill Elfilis in one hit. Kirby remained beside her.

But then, a Big-Rig truck dropped behind them on the helipad.

And they remarked that buildings and pieces of roads were beginning to form a path toward Elfilis.

Sweetie Void and Kirby exchanged a look, then they both grinned.

"Why do it the boring way?"

"Poyo."

"Can you even wrap something that big?"

Kirby got a determined expression. "Poyo!"

"Wait! Are you going to do what I think you are going to do?" Elfilin asked.

As an answer, Kirby left his Stella Knight form and approached the truck before he inhaled. He successfully wrapped the truck and took control of it. Sweetie then sat on the hood, bringing Elfilin with her, squealing very loudly.

Sweetie pointed at Elfilis and yelled, "Rock and roll!!!"

Kirby started off and sped through debris that blocked the way before he rolled on some giant beam that led to a first floating building. Elfilis saw this and materialized Beast Pack members with their head covered by some black mist, but Kirby simply rolled over them. Pieces of Popstar began to fall all over the place, some of them dropping on Kirby's path, but he rolled through them, easily destroying them. Kirby was unstoppable!

Kirby jumped from building to building, and when it looked like one was a bit out of place, Sweetie moved it. They then arrived at a piece of road that was slowly being destroyed by the falling pieces of Popstar, so Kirby had to be careful to not fall into the holes thus formed. When they were about to reach the end of the road, a debris fell and destroyed it, making Kirby fall to another road below. Sweetie's and Elfilin's heart almost jumped out of their mouth (or nonexistent mouth in Elfilin's case).

Still not minding the Beast Pack members and the pieces of Popstar still falling on the path, Kirby continued, jumping on another road, then on a building that came crashing at the right moment, followed by another. It was as if the universe itself was helping Kirby by forming a convenient path!

More buildings came crashing to form the path to Elfilis, who they were quickly approaching! The others still were fighting them, but more and more saw the Big-Rig approaching and began to get away!

"Are they serious?" Phantom questioned.

Dedede laughed.

"Yes! They are serious! Let's get out of the way!"

Eventually, a tired Elfilis was left alone, and they opened two rifts to call two huge debris that they threw at Kirby. He rolled under the first one while the second one destroyed the last building in the path, forcing Kirby to do a big jump. It was as if he was rolling in the air!

Fecto Elfilis opened an even bigger rift to call an as big debris and threw it at Kirby. Seeing the debris coming, Sweetie powered up Kirby, and Elfilin quickly followed her example. Fire was coming from the truck's back wheels! Kirby suddenly accelerated and pulverized the debris!

"WOOOOOHHH!!!"

"YEEAAAAHH!!!"

Kirby rammed Elfilis who tried to resist with their energy, but against a truck powered up like that, they had no chance. The vehicles charged right through them, totally destroying their body!

Kirby then continued into the sky and passed through the rift. He released the truck, and the three of them eventually landed on Popstar, Sweetie and Kirby recognising the landscape when they woke up.

"Is this... Planet Popstar?" Elfilin questioned.

However, despite Elfilis' death, they quickly saw that the rift was still open, and Popstar was still approaching the other world, with trees, blocks, and other stuff being pulled in.

"Everything is being pulled in!" Elfilin exclaimed.

"We must close the rift!" Sweetie Void followed before she flew toward the rift. Elfilin quickly followed her, leaving behind Kirby.

The two entered the rift, and they used all their powers to close it. By the time it was closed, it took a lot out of them, especially Elfilin who lost consciousness. Sweetie Void caught him, and she moved toward what remained of the laboratory where the others still were.

With the rift closed, the sky was back to normal, and objects stopped floating around. Everything was peaceful again.

The danger was destroyed.

They won.

Chapter 140: Peace... Or Not

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 141: Isolated Isles: Forgo Dreams Part 1

Author's Note

I made a list of everyone's Pokémon before this chapter in the comments of this blog: Link

I also made a list of everyone's nicknames in the comments of this blog: Link

I also advise to read this blog: Link

Chapter 141: Isolated Isles: Forgo Dreams Part 1

Sweetie Void, Kirby, Bandana Dee, and Elfilin landed at the beginning of the first island, on a beach that looked exactly like the beach on which the first three woke up when they arrived on the new world. They recognised it and the forest just beside it, and the path leading into it.

"If this place is really made from Elfilis' dreams... Seems like they were watching us from the moment we arrived," Sweetie Void said.

This chilled Bandana. "It doesn't reassure me to know that we have been watched all this time."

Surprisingly, Mookies awaited them just a bit further up the path.

"Seems like the areas aren't the only thing Fecto Elfilis recreated," Elfilin said.

"But the first time, we only encountered an Awoofy further into the forest. We didn't encounter Mookies until much later. It looks like the difficulty will be upped a bit," Sweetie Void said.

Kirby went ahead to deal with the Mookies, revealing a new upgrade of the Hammer Ability based on Dedede when he had been wearing that boar mask, holding two hammers capable of sending fire. The Mookies didn't stand a chance.

The others followed behind him and they entered the forest. Almost right away, they found some small floating ball of light.

Sweetie felt Soul Matter from it.

"What is it?" she asked after they dealt with the Mookies and other enemies present in the forest. Already, the enemies felt different from the real Beast Pack members. They worked as one entity, and they were much more brutal. Sweetie and the others will have to watch out.

"I don't know," Bandana Dee answered.

Kirby shook his head. "Poyo."

Elfilin approached the ball of light and touched it with a paw. "I... I think that it's a piece of Leongar's soul."

"A piece... of his soul?" both Sweetie Void and Bandana Dee asked in wonder.

"Yes. It... It seems like Fecto Elfilis broke it into pieces. But it doesn't seem like he is dead." Elfilin looked at his three companions, determined. "There are certainly more of these dispersed over these islands. If we find them all, we may be able to save Leongar!"

"Uh... Ok. Let me call a soul specialist," Sweetie Void said before she opened a rift back to Waddle Dee Town where many people were still around the tower¨looking at the vortex that was still opened. "Hey! Apple Death! We need you!"

Quickly enough, Apple Death came to the rift, followed by Phantom, Apple Death's friends, and all the others.

"What's going on?" Apple Death asked, and Sweetie Void silently pointed at the soul piece. Apple Death approached it and analysed it. "A piece of soul? And Ah think Ah recognize it... Leongar?"

Sweetie turned her hoof into a hand and gave Apple Death a thumb up. "You got it in one. It looks like we will have to hunt for soul pieces of Leongar to save him. Can you transport them?"

"No problem." Apple Death easily absorbed the soul piece.

"That's morbid as heck," Phantom said.

"Also, we definitively felt that this dimension is created by Fecto Elfilis. We may end up fighting them again sooner or later," Sweetie Void said. "And knowing how this usually goes, they may be even more powerful than before, somehow."

"More powerful than they already were?!" Diddy exclaimed in horror.

"Yep! So, will you come with me again? Warning, this place being created by Elfilis, they certainly prepared lots of dangerous obstacles to stop us. We barely started, and we already had to deal with a group of enemies largely made of Mookies. These enemies are more brutal and use perfect teamwork. They will force us to watch each others' back even more than before."

As if to prove her words, a new wave of enemies came. All the heroes entered the following battle and quickly saw what Sweetie meant. They attacked relentlessly. They used any openings they had. They didn't hesitate to sacrifice themselves to create one. They defended each others. Sir Kibbles and Blade Knight even used their blades to deflect projectiles and protect their comrades at the back like Mookies, Berdards and Poppy Bros. And a group even remained behind to defend a Big Kabu that constantly spawned Kabus. The heroes had to seriously fight together for what was certainly the first time since the beginning of this adventure. Not even the big battle on the bridge at Winter Horns had offered such a high difficulty despite the much bigger number of enemies there had been.

The enemies were that much better organised. They weren't acting like wild animals anymore, but like an actual experienced army.

Once all the enemies were eliminated, their bodies fading, the heroes all agreed to come. And since Waddle Dee Town won't be attacked anymore and had rebuilt well, both Applejacks, both Rainbow Dashes, both Twilights, and Sweetie Void's Pokémon wanted to join too.

Sweetie Void sweated. Will you be able to keep up, Writer? It was already limit before... Maybe I should try to limit the damage. She looked at her Pokémon. "Tank, in case Fecto Elfilis comes out of the vortex, I charge you and the others to continue guarding the town! If Elfilis does come out, then you will have to hold them off until I arrive to deal with them! Anubis, go with them. You did a good job helping search the Waddle Dees. Thank you." Should be good enough.

Tank saluted her. "Alright!"

Volta became sad. "Awww... But I wanted to go adventuring with you."

Some of the other Pokémon looked just as sad.

Damn it. You aren't making it easier, Writer. "Well... Alright. Any of you who want to join me, come. The others, return to Waddle Dee Town. Remember before you decide that the following battles will be very difficult and certainly life-threatening."

Volta bolted right away to join Sweetie Void, quickly followed by Tank. Eventually, Smily, Drako, Zephyr, Swirly, Scout the Furret, and Mothra the Butterfree decided to come, and Anubis wanted to remain with her.

"Okay then. But remember, the weaker remain close to the stronger."

The Pokémon who remained nodded. And at this, the other Pokémon passed through the rift to return to Waddle Dee Town where they joined the Pinkie Pies, the Raritys, and the Fluttershys as well as the Popstarlings and the Beast Pack members.

After some good lucks (and Sweetie reminding the Pokémon to train if they weren't busy), Sweetie Void closed the rift, and the large group of heroes continued in the forest. As they crossed the small gap with the wooden log forming a bridge, Sweetie destroyed a bomb block, destroying an iron block that revealed a soul piece. Another soul piece was then found behind a tree before the heroes reached the narrow path between the cliffs that Tank could barely enter. Dedede and Kirby pounded three nails to make another soul piece appear at the end of the path, and they reached the city where a welcome comity (again mainly composed of Mookies) awaited them.

It was a good occasion for the newcomers to prove themselves.

Mothra quickly discovered that Psychic moves such as Psybeam weren't very effective. The enemies being psychic constructs, it was kind of obvious after some thinking. Sleep Powder didn't work either. Stun Spore, however, quickly became best move. Not only it worked, but paralyzing the enemies made everyone's life much easier. Too bad she didn't know Bug Buzz yet.

Being a Ghost-type, Smily was particularly the one that was, to say it, super effective. He had lot of Ghost-type and Dark-type moves which caused a maximum of damage to the enemies and eliminated them pretty much in one it. Hex and Sucker Punch were the ones that he used as much as he could. He didn't know Dark Pulse yet, sadly. And thankfully, even if the enemies were psychic constructs, they didn't use psychic attacks so Smily wasn't worried.

Anubis, however, with his Fighting-moves... He needed to make his attacks hit extra hard to deal as much damage as the others.

Being a Pokémon could really lead to difficult situations. The other heroes didn't have to worry about their punches hurting less because they weren't effective against psychic constructs. They didn't work by these rules.

The healers were much appreciated.

The ponies from Phantom's universe were already used to fighting. They went through a war after all, they had the experience. The ponies from Apple Death's universe, however, had more problems. Beside Applebot, they weren't used to fights. They had to remain close to experienced fighters and learn, starting with Zapp learning to NOT charge headfirst into the enemies if she wanted to live!

Once all the enemies were eliminated, they arrived at the first skyscraper where they found a soul piece on a pile of crates with Mookies hidden behind them for an ambush that was failed by Anubis. A group of Buffahorns tried o use the distraction caused by the soul piece and the Mookies to charge at the heroes from the foot of the skyscraper, but they were stopped by Tank, Dedede, Spiky, and DK acting as a wall.

Many enemies followed as the heroes passed beside the skyscraper. Scarfys, Cappys, a couple of Bronto Burts, and many Kabus. As they fought, the heroes found five green star pieces, one of which was hidden in a giant nut, another in a crate, and a last one behind a bench at the end. Collecting all of them made three soul pieces appear on the roof of the building they had to climb to continue, before a ladder.

However, a problem revealed itself for Tank: his bulk didn't allow him to do big jumps. Thankfully, he could climb on the parts of roof that served as steps, he was big enough, and he could climb the ladder, but this will reveal problematic once they will have to jump above large gaps.

Once they all climbed the ladders, they dealt with Bernards that fired at them from behind the traffic barriers, including a stronger-than-usual Bernard with its head covered in black mist like back when Kirby used the truck and that released a soul piece upon elimination. Another soul piece appeared after pressing a switch on a wall down the first bridges further on the walkway, and yet another was found by destroying a large star block that formed another bridge.

After traversing the billboard that formed a bridge, they reached the building in which Kirby discovered his new power. Before entering it, the group fought two Bonkers guarding three more soul pieces. While they fought the Bonkers, more Bernards fired at them from behind fences at both ends of the road on which they were.

The building's door was locked close however, and Apple Death didn't feel any other soul pieces in the area. They will have to search further into the island.

So Sweetie transported everyone with her flying carpet and followed Apple Death's direction.

"Hey, we still don't know what to call you to differentiate you," Present Sonic said to the mares. "Beside the Rainbow Dashes. And even then, not everyone know or remember the nicknames you already choose."

"First, let me tell you that the ones wearing a yellow bandana are from Apple Death's universe, and the ones wearing a blue bandana come from Phantom's universe. And for the curious, the ones from my universe have red bandanas," Sweetie Void informed.

"Well, for all of us who wear blue bandanas. It's our name, or part of our name, preceded by Phantom. For exemple, for me, it's Phantom Applejack," Phantom Applejack said. "Apple Bloom, Rainbow Dash, and Sweetie Belle already called themselves this way, so we continued. Easy to retain."

"And so, for me, it's Phantom Dash."

"And me, Phantom Sparkle."

"You are right. It's easy," Ness said.

"For me, it's easy to guess, it's Applebot."

"I'm Zapp."

"For me, it's Sparky," the Twilight with the yellow bandana finished.

"These ones are easy too," Dixie said.

As they flew, the heroes saw that the island really was composed of parts of areas they traversed mashed together. The city suddenly ended to let place to a section of the tunnel, more exactly the one with the pieces of floor moving up and down. Further away, they spotted that mountain with the rolling boulders, and not far of it, they saw a piece of the Alivel Mall.

"At least, the newbies will see part of what we went through," Flamberge said.

"In worse," Zan Partizanne added.

They landed at the beginning of the tunnel section, and already, they were welcomed by some enemies, including some Jobhogs, and barely they finished defeating that first group that they were ambushed by Spooksteps. Then, when Apple Death went to collect a soul piece atop the first moving platform, she found herself surrounded by Phantas.

"We'll be ambushed by these ghosts during the whole tunnel section, right," she commented once she dealt with them.

"Seems like it," Poo said before he PK Thundered a Jabhog.

Getting another soul piece above the second moving platform caused more Spooksteps to appear, and while some of the heroes dealt with them, others destroyed a wall of metal crates, revealing another soul piece, and this time, Mumbies came to attack. Another ghost ambush happened halfway through the path made of moving platforms where the destruction of a metal crate hidden behind a barrier revealed a soul piece. On the second half, the heroes had to advance carefully as the platforms only connected at their corners. At the end of the path, they reached a large group of Kabus that defended more meta crates hiding three soul pieces

They passed the exit door and reached the mountain area. Already, they saw that there were more boulders to avoid as they advanced and fought Poppy Bros Jr. bombarding them from platforms made of iron blocks, guarding a soul piece. Some of the heroes like Applebot decided to destroy the boulders so everyone could advance without worry. Before the ladder, they had to destroy a bomb block guarded by a Gordo Bar and several Balloon-Meisters which destroyed a wall of iron blocks that had been hiding another soul piece.

After the ladder, they had to climb the long slope with all the rolling boulders from the building at the top. The heavy hitters were at the front, destroying the boulders (or Apple Death and the Twilights levitated them away), allowing the group to advance while being careful of the many Foleys ready to drop and explode on them. Near the end of the slope was a soul piece at the right, before the small path that led to the ladder to the roof of a section of the building.

They then followed the narrow path circling the building, advancing slowly to not fall while they fought the few enemies present. Arriving at the catwalk bridge, the flyers pressed three switches that destroyed a wall of iron blocks, revealing a soul piece. They then reached the gap with the narrow ledge, and the two Twilights worked together to create a bridge with their magic, using some of the rolling boulders. Tank appreciated that, because he wasn't sure if would have been able to walk on this ledge.

The heroes reached the second slope with all the cracked stones. Recognizing it, they advanced and waited for the giant boulder to appear before Sweetie Void sent it away, so they descended the slope without having to run away from it. Once at the bottom, they pressed two switches, making three soul pieces appear. Apple Death then passed through the cracked floor and came back a few seconds later, saying that another soul piece had been hidden under it.

Done with the mountain area, they used Sweetie's flying carpet to fly to the piece of Alivel Mall, landing at the beginning of the path with all the conveyor belts which were faster. Traversing them forced the heroes to pretty much run. And in addition of that, they also had to deal with twirling star rockets as if they were in Wondaria.

For the first soul piece, they had to traverse the first pair of conveyor belts, Sweetie destroying the star rockets on the way, before they destroyed a bomb block that caused the soul piece to appear on one of the first conveyor belts, the one that moved in the opposite direction.

The second soul piece was just beside twirling rockets at the first corner, just a bit further ahead. Sweetie destroyed the rockets and they Apple Death just had to grab it.

The third soul piece was also just beside a twirling rocket, at the second corner. This rocket was faster, but Sweetie still easily destroyed it.

The fourth piece was atop some iron blocks, blocked behind a wall, on a very fast conveyor belt. DK destroyed the bomb block that destroyed the iron blocks, making the soul piece drop on the conveyor belt. Apple Death was waiting for it at the end of the belt, before the soul piece could drop to the floor below.

Just after the fourth soul piece was the path partially formed of conveyor belts, and the fifth soul piece was just off the end of the first belt.

Not long later, they reached the large conveyor belt that transported cardboard boxes to the floor below in the real Alivel Mall. here, no boxes were present. Instead, the heroes had to destroy a Mookie with black mist around its head, making it release the sixth soul piece.

They then reached the section with the four conveyor belts forming a square, this time with the added difficulty of them being faster and of twirling rockets being present. Sweetie Void quickly destroyed the rockets, allowing the heroes to focus on fighting the enemies while collecting five green star pieces that destroyed a wall of iron blocks hiding the last three soul pieces of the area. The exit door was just after.

The heroes exited the Alivel Mall area and found themselves on top of buildings linked by narrow bridges formed of crumbling blocks.

"Uh. I don't remember going through that," Little Ghost said.

"So there are original areas," Krystal concluded.

"For this one, seems like we will have to go one at a time," Poo said.

"Ugh! This will take forever!" Diddy exclaimed.

But then, Phantom hit everyone with a wave of Phantom energy, and suddenly, the bridges of crumbling blocks were replaced by stone bridges large enough.

Phantom dusted her hands. "And there!"

"Good job, Phantom!" Elfilin congratulated.

"Now, we won't have to go one at a time," Tank added.

So they traversed the first few bridges, Kirby wrapping himself around a traffic cone on the way, and they reached a building where a bridge formed a loop. Kirby went on it and used his cone to destroy metal crates on it, finding a soul piece.

Further, after a few more bridges, the flying heroes dealt with a Poppy Bro Jr. having black mist atop a balcony, making it release another soul piece. More bridge later and Apple Death got a soul piece that had been floating against a "Book" sign down against a building while Spiky destroyed a lone metal crate on a precarious loop of crumbling blocks turned stone that contained another soul piece.

Finally, three more soul pieces were found inside another metal crate on another loop that passed under the main path. Apple Death confirmed that they were the last ones she felt in this area. So they flew using Sweetie's flying carpet, right toward a familiar mall.

And right there, on a familiar parking, a copy of Gorimondo awaited them. But this Gorimondo looked different, sporting glowing, bright cyan and magenta fur with cyan teeth. And his eyes had ring patterns.

Seeing Gorimondo, DK jumped from the flying carpet to fight him like he fought the real one.

"I'm not sure this is a good idea, DK!" Sweetie Void tried to warn, in vain.

Seeing DK landing in front of him and pounding his chest in challenge, the Gorimondo copy also pounded his chest.

Phantom Gorimondo went to punch DK who quickly jumped out of the way only for Gorimondo to change the trajectory of his punch at the last moment, and DK got punched. Very hard. DK was sent crashing through the mall's wall. Judging by the sounds, he crashed through more stuff inside the mall.

Sweetie Void winced. "Yeah. Thought so. Stronger versions of the enemies previously fought. Like in the other dimensions. Let's avoid duels. Woah!"

Sweetie barely made the flying carpet avoid a boulder that Gorimondo threw. She then made it move downward so everyone could jump from it safely. They then began to attack the gorilla all together. Mothra attempted to paralyze him, but it didn't work. Gorimondo threw punches left and right and created shockwaves by stomping his feet, and the heroes responded in kind. However, Gorimondo wasn't even flinching despite taking all these hits and he continued attacking again and again, but meanwhile, the gorilla's attacks hit like a train and caused many of the heroes to be badly hurt. Thankfully, they were healed right away.

DK then returned to join the fray, and with the others distracting Gorimondo, he was able to land some punches before he was punched away again.

Then, Gorimondo began spinning, arms out, creating a tornado that surrounded him. The tornado made boulders come out of the ground, which were also spinning, lifted by tornadoes of their own. These smaller tornadoes moved away from the big one, toward the heroes, wave after wave. Any hero swept by these tornadoes ended up hitting the boulders they lifted, making it extra painful. And when the tornadoes ended, the boulders crashed on the ground.

With pieces of the ground being moved, the arena changed as a result. Holes formed, the crashed boulders became obstacles, it became harder to move around.

Gorimondo continued spinning, not stopping. Any attempt to paralyze him from Mothra was blown away.

Until Sweetie put her hoof on the way of his fists, stopping him right then and there in his tracks. The others immediately ganged up on him. Fox shot him in the eyes. Pikachu and Volta hit him with their strongest Thunder. Jeff used a Bottle Rocket. Phantom dropped several spiked iron balls on his head. Little Ghost threw boulders back at him. And Galacta finished him with a rain of sword-shaped beams.

With a roar to the sky, Phantom Gorimondo fell and disappeared, leaving behind five soul pieces.

"Yeah. The real Gorimondo had nothing on this guy," DK said.

"This sets the tone. The fights are only going to get harder and harder from here," Phantom commented.

"And among these fights, there are two against me," Dedede reminded, making several heroes pale.

Next came the island based on Everbay Coast. Like usual, Sweetie transported everyone with her flying carpet.

"Ugh... I don't want to get my wings wet," Phantom Dash said.

"Depending of the sections we will traverse, you may be alright," Krystal reassured.

"You aren't the only one dreading this place," Present Sonic said. "And at least, you can fly."

"Me, I can't wait. Swirly and I will be in our element!" Tank exclaimed.

They landed on a certain beach, and already, they could see that the search for the soul pieces in this part will be fast, but without action. They already spotted three soul pieces and a black-misted Balloon-Meister, but Gnawcodiles were everywhere, and dozens of Chillys were standing on guard either on crates in the water or on the pieces of land, ready to freeze the water and anyone swimming in it.

So the heroes firing projectiles dealt with the Chillys from the beach while Zora Link entered the water and gained the attention of the Gnawcodiles. Others then followed and, together, they attacked the Gnawcodiles. As Tank said, he and Swirly were in their element and were very effective. Meanwhile, Apple Death collected the soul pieces. One was on the water. Another was on a barrel atop a pillar of burning logs. The third one was on a barrel floating in the water in the middle of a whirlpool. Then she eliminated the Balloon-Meister in the middle of some mud and took the fourth soul piece it held. Kirby then came and used water to extinguish some burning logs in the wall beside the Balloon-Meister, revealing a fifth soul piece. A sixth piece was among several spinning Gordo Bars a bit further ahead, and three more were guarded by a Gigant Edge on a small island just behind the Gordos. Galacta Knight sliced the Gigant Edge in half, allowing Apple Death to collect them.

One flying carpet ride later and they arrived at a section from the submerged industrial area. They immediately recognized that it was the beginning one.

So they landed on the same building they landed the first time and Phantom materialized her boat. The water wasn't as much guarded as on the previous section, mostly by some Glunks on crates, but there were more whirlpools, forcing Phantom to move the boat slowly.

This section revealed to be the occasion for gun users to shine because some of the soul piece appeared after firing at flying targets. Such was the case of the first piece. However, Bernards revealed to be present in huge number, and they had perfect accuracy. And Bronto Burts were here too to distract.

Phantom Applejack had the idea of using her lasso to catch the Bronto Burts and send them on the Bernards, and Applebot followed her exemple.

A second soul piece was under the first moving platform, above whirlpools, and a third was hidden inside a crate on the building just after.

After this building were more moving platforms above whirlpools, and there was another flying target moving in and out of the water guarded by dozens of Scarfys. While Phantom Sparkle caught the Scarfys in her magic and made them bump each others, Sparky fired at the target with a magical beam, making a fourth soul piece appear. At the same time, Apple Death collected another piece just above a fence post in a whirlpool at the right.

At this point, there were too many whirlpool for Phantom's boat to advance. The heroes had no choice but to swim. The Sonics were transported on Tank's shell.

Fox was able to hit a target in the distance that flew around a crane. Hitting it made the crane rise a platform out of the water with a treasure chest containing three soul pieces.

Done here, the heroes left behind these "concrete isles" and moved on to the next section, the one where they had had to climb a large building. But now, there was the addition of many, many, many rolling boulders. Climbing the stairs while dealing with them and the many enemies present slowed them down a bit, but they still advanced nicely. Before long, they found the first soul piece of the area in a corner, atop a safe. They had to be careful of the boulders falling just beside it as they collected it. Like it was usual now, Apple Death, Little Ghost, and the Twilights levitated them away.

The second piece was just a bit further ahead, under the floor of the level above, and the third piece was just on this very floor. Then, destroying a small bomb block at a corner revealed another piece.

Toward where the path looped to a catwalk bridge near the top of the building, another piece was inside a small hole in the wall. After the bridge, they found a treasure chest containing three more pieces.

No more pieces were on this building, so they flew to the next section coming right out of the waterworks.

It was more exactly the section with the giant whirlpools. But before, they had to pass the part with strong currents that looped. There were many many Gordo Bars and Blippers. Pikachu sent a Thunderbolt into the water to fry the fishes while Krystal sent a fireball to hit a switch at the right, destroying a wall of iron blocks that blocked the exit and making a soul piece appear on the water between the Gordo Bars. Apple Death collected it, then collected a second piece atop a stack of crates, then a third hidden behind a circuit breaker box at the exit.

Arriving at the first giant whirlpool, the ones swimming did their best to avoid its pull while avoiding the Gordo Bars and fighting the Blippers and Bronto Burts, including a black-misted Bronto Burt that released a soul piece. At the same time, Zapp and Dark Meta Knight each pressed a switch on the walls to destroy iron blocks blocking the exit and to make three soul pieces appear under a platform.

Then came the second giant whirlpool, also with Gordo Bars and more enemies. Apple Death immediately went to collect the soul piece at the corner while Scout riding on Tank reached a staircase at the right and reached a switch that made another piece appear on the water. Zora Link quickly caught it to give it to Apple Death. At the same time, Elfilin pressed another switch at the left to destroy the iron blocks blocking the exit.

Apple Death confirmed that they got all the pieces inside the waterworks, so they now had to leave, and for that, they had no choice but to advance, getting inside the pipe at the end. However, Tank and Dedede revealed to be too big to enter it. It had already been limit with Spiky's curent size and with DK the first time.

"No choice, I have to shrink you," Sweetie Void said.

"Isn't there another solution?" Dedede complained.

"It's the shortest path to exit this place so we can use the flying carpet again, so no. And yeah, this means that you have to get wet, you two," Sweetie said the last part to the Rainbow Dashes who were annoyed.

"I can dry you once we leave the water," Sparky reassured.

At this, Sweetie shrunk Dedede and Tank and they all jumped into the pipe.

Once they were out and back on a beach, they quickly dealt with the Mookies that welcomed them, then they flew away on the flying carpet.

Apple Death led them to a new section with strong winds and what seemed to be a veeeery long passageway. They will have to advance on the passageway with the wind pushing from behind.

"Pfff! That wind is nothing!" the two Rainbow Dashes said.

"For you, I don't doubt it. But for most of the others, this can be a problem," Phantom said.

They jumped on the passageway and began their advance. Already, they had to face enemies awaiting them, somehow not affected by the wind. Countless Gigatzos were also placed along, firing at the passageway from the left or the right. The alicorns and the ghosts had to work a lot to throw all of them into the water so everyone could advance without danger. Pits were also present however, so it still wasn't a walk in the park.

On a platform at the left was a bomb block that revealed a soul piece. After this platform was the end of the passageway, thankfully ending with barriers to stop them. However, now, everyone who couldn't fly was crowded against them, and this happening was inevitable because the path beyond the barrier, after a jump, was just a narrow passageway only large enough for them to go one at a time. Thankfully, a second, and then a third passageway were quickly coming at the right, all just as narrow, making it so there were three passageways beside each others, so the heroes won't be stuck in a single file.

They still waited a bit for the alicorns and the ghosts to throw the Gigatzos placed on the passageways, blocking them at places. Once the first cannons were in the water, the heroes began to jump one by one. Pushed by the wind, even tank was able to make this jump. Once on the passageways, they still had to be careful as the left one had a pit, and then, the left one and the right one both ended so only the middle one remained. Apple Death at least got a soul piece on the left passageway before it ended.

But then, the middle passageway also ended, also with a barrier, and the next passageway (thankfully much larger) only started after a big jump. Thanks to the wind, everyone was able to make it excepted Tank who had to spin midair in his shell and shot out water from the hole to propel himself and successfully land on the other side of the pit.

On this new passageway were platforms at the sides with fans. Kirby used his Dyna Wing Ability to blow them, getting three soul pieces this way. After the third piece, the passageway narrowed and the heroes were forced to form a line again. Ten Gigatzos were at the left, and the alicorns and ghosts quickly threw them into the water before the first heroes arrived.

The passageway ended so everyone had no choice but to jump into a big water tank full of Blippers and Squishys. Here, Kirby blew one last fan, opening a gate leading to three soul pieces, while Apple Death dealt with a black-misted Squishy, getting one last soul piece.

With this, the heroes were able to leave, flying away on the flying carpet.

And arriving to a certain island with a certain tree, this one with purple and magenta accents. And seeing them approaching, he roared already.

"Tropic Woods ahead!" Elfilin exclaimed.

"And I know how we will deal with him," Sweetie Void said.

Not long after, everyone landed or flew in front of the tree who readied his roots.

But among all the heroes, at the front were Sweetie Void, Stella Knight Kirby, Galacta Knight, Dedede, Apple Death, Little Ghost, Phantom armed of a huge flamethrower, the Twilights, Flamberge with her cannon, Krystal, and Ness.

"Fire brigade, FIRE!" Sweetie Void shouted, and everyone previously named sent fire (Dedede by repeatedly hitting the ground with his hammer).

"Wait. I thought that Dedede couldn't use fire outside of a volcanic area," Present Sonic remarked.

"I can use fire anywhere I want! It's just more effective in a hot areas! Same with ice and cold areas!" Dedede precised.

Tropic Wood screeched in pain as he was engulfed in fire.

"It worked perfectly against Whispy, no reason it doesn't work here!" Sweetie Void said.

But then, despite the flames, Tropic attacked by rising himself out of the ground with his roots and slamming his trunk on the group. The heroes quickly had to disperse to avoid being both crushed and burned. Seeing that Tropic was still going despite burning from roots to foliage, the heroes that could attack from a safe distance began to bombard him with all kinds of projectiles. In return, Tropic continued to slam his trunk around while also attacking with his roots, even using fences like in the original fight. Giant explosive coconuts rained around like rain along with giant Gordos, turning the arena into pure chaos.

Thankfully, the flames quickly weakened Tropic enough that he stopped moving after about one minute of this chaos. One more Monster Flame from Kirby and he faded away, leaving five soul pieces.

Sweetie whispered to Galacta Knight, "You see. That was much more exciting than slicing him in half like you planned to do."

Galacta Knight simply sighed at this.

Next destination: the Wondaria island, and they started by a section that had been near the entrance of the park the first time. The one with all the twirling rockets and the big area with the parade cars. And from what they saw as they arrived, there were also lots of Jabhogs.

So the heroes landed and dealt with a first wave of Jabhogs with some other enemies among them. Tank then went ahead and destroyed the first rocket, allowing Spiky to destroy a bunch of metal blocks in the ground to reveal a soul piece. Just beside that first rocket was a fake ice cream which Kirby inhaled the cone to use it to eliminate more Jabhogs and destroy more metal blocks at the second rocket which Sweetie destroyed. The blocks revealed another soul piece. Water was also used to clean mud present here and there on the ground.

A third rocket, a single metal crate in a hole in the ground that contained a third soul piece. Then, after some fighting, especially a group of Kabus, the heroes arrived at the area with the parade cars. While the heavy hitters destroyed the cars, the others explored around to eliminate the many enemies present, including a big number of Jabhogs, and search for the soul pieces. A first one in a metal crate in a corner, a second one was kept by a black-misted Jabhog that Ness eliminated with a PK Fire, and three more were in a treasure chest guarded by a Tortorner that Kirby defeated with his cone.

The heroes arrived at the tall group of twirling rockets that Sweetie destroyed while DK destroyed more metal blocks that hid a soul piece before they all began to climb a ladder, Kirby forced to leave the cone behind. After a second ladder, Scout pressed a switch that opened a gate atop a third ladder, opening the way to three more soul pieces before the heroes passed the exit door.

Entering the new section, they climbed some stairs and destroyed a group of three Mr. Frostys that guarded three soul pieces. While most of the heroes fought, Swirly went ahead to cool down some burning logs that were present just behind while eliminating some Bernards that used said logs as cover.

Eliminating these Bernards finally allowed Swirly to evolve into a Poliwhirl.

By extinguishing some of the logs at the right, Swirly revealed the vent that he was now too big to enter. So, once the others were done with the Mr. Frostys, Volta came and entered the vent. Inside the building at the right, she quickly dealt with a Sir Kibble that awaited her, then pressed a switch beside a duo of dog plushies that made some blocks and crumbling blocks appear above where they fought the Mr. Frostys, green star pieces on them. While the flying heroes collected the star pieces, Apple Death went to collect a soul piece above the water at the right of the exit. Then, once the five star pieces were gathered, they made three soul piece appear just before the exit. Once all the pieces were collected, they passed the door.

Now, they found themselves inside the spooky house, in the dark area. Kirby immediately inhaled the light-bulb to make light, which the Twilights and Sweetie Void also made. Like the first time, the light was used to charge a solar panel that made the ground rise. Once at destination, they immediately had to deal with a Buffahorn charging at them from the darkness.

At least, the soul pieces were glowing in the dark, so they knew where to go. Too bad they didn't remember the path. So the heroes had to advance slowly to avoid falling into the pit below, all the while dealing with more Buffahorns charging from the darkness. Gordos were also present in quite large numbers.

A first soul piece was collected on the way, then a second on a bridge of crumbling blocks after an alien board that Sweetie destroyed so it didn't stop them on a first bridge of crumbling blocks.

After a few more Buffahorns and Gordos, they reached a second alien board at the end of a third bridge of crumbling blocks, and Sweetie destroyed it too before a wall section pushed out. On this wall section was a third soul piece.

Following the path, they found a fourth soul piece guarded by a group of Ghost Gordos that Apple Death easily eliminated before she took the piece. Not far after was a solar panel that made a piece of ground rise with three soul pieces and a Buffahorn.

One more soul piece was on a staircase against the wall, guarded by some more Ghost Gordos, then they reached the end of the path where Kirby had to light a solar panel to make several platforms serving as steps come out of another wall. Kirby remained beside the panel while everyone climbed the steps, and once everyone passed, he climbed them too. Kirby then took a small path at the right before the exit to reach another solar panel that opened a gate guarded by more Ghost Gordos. Once Apple Death dealt with them, Anubis opened the chest they guarded, finding three more soul pieces.

Finally, they left this place.

And arrived at a section out of the Wondaria parade, the one on a wall covered in mud.

The Water Pokémon and Kirby worked hard to clean the mud as they advanced, quickly reaching a switch that made a soul piece appear on a group of iron blocks further ahead. However, the piece had to be reached before the blocks were destroyed by that same switch. For someone flying like Apple Death, that was no problem. Thankfully, because there were lots of Gordos and Gordo Bars blocking the way on the mud. The process was repeated with a second switch.

After that, Sssnackers made their presence known. Many of them were on the mud among Chillys and more Gordos, ready to attack the bogged down heroes. This would have been a problem if some didn't clear the mud.

Apple Death went to collect a soul piece in the hole inside the tower patrolled by parade cars while Meta Knight, Fox, and Dixie dealt with a black-misted Sssnacker that released another piece.

Arriving at the last mud section before the exit, the heroes had to collect five green star pieces while avoiding spinning Gordo Bars that were very long. Once they were collected, they destroyed some iron blocks and revealed a ladder and three soul pieces. One last piece was present on the path of parade cars that Sweetie destroyed.

"That's starting to be a lot of pieces. We collected over one hundred of them, we're nearing one hundred fifty, and we aren't even halfway," Apple Death said. "How can Leongar still be alive with his soul broken to that point?"

"Two words: Fecto Elfilis. I'm sure they must be keeping him alive for some reason," Sweetie Void answered.

They entered the exit and found themselves inside some maze with alien boards popping up to block their way. Well, once the boards were destroyed, that wasn't really a maze anymore. Thanks to that, once they dealt with the enemies present, it wasn't difficult to find all the soul pieces here.

Already, they found three pieces at the center of the maze, after the entrance, and another inside a chest at the left. One was behind a board at the right, another was found by pressing three red switches at the same time, destroying some iron blocks and dropping the soul piece. Another was behind a wall of iron blocks destroyed by a bomb block guarded by a Pacto, and a last one was in a small passage at the corner of the maze.

With this, they left the maze and flew toward the big top where awaited them a fight against a copy of Clawroline.

When they arrived on the stage, she revealed herself, this one having cyan fur with magenta spots and dark eyes.

Already, this one was more problematic because she revealed to be much faster than the original Clawroline, and she constantly disappeared in clouds of smoke to reappear elsewhere as if she teleported. Everyone on the arena could be attacked, not just the ones at the front line like against Gorimondo before he did his spinning attack. She was almost constantly moving around slashing with her claws, and when she didn't slash, she threw groups of knives. It was difficult to land a hit for many of the heroes. She was just a blur. Even Ness' and Poo's Pk Thunder couldn't hit her.

DK attempted to grab her to stop her, but she easily avoided him by jumping while slashing him. But midair, she couldn't avoid Dedede's vortex as he inhaled, and she ended up inside his mouth. He quickly spat her right at Ness' waiting bat, sending her in the air where she was kicked by Marx, then headbutted by Past Sonic. Meta Knight then caught her in a tornado of slashes before she was smashed and sent crashing into the ground by Sweetie Void. Before the heroes could gang up on her, she got up, got away, and created three illusory copies of herself.

Despite being illusions, these copies hurt just as much as the real one as they began to dash around too while slashing or throwing knives. Thankfully, one hit and they were destroyed, and before long, only the real Phantom Clawroline remained. Sweetie Void caught her with her magic, stopping her and allowing the others to attack her all at once.

Before long, she created three new copies which she sent to attack Sweetie Void, making her release her. Now free, she disappeared, reappeared elsewhere, and created three more copies before the four of them jumped on the four metal structures surrounding the arena. From them, they either dived at the heroes or threw knives. But while they were on the metal structures, they were immobile targets, making them easy to hit for the flying heroes and for the ones firing projectiles.

The real Clawroline was quickly forced to return on the arena where she was welcomed by a Sucker Punch from Scout. Kirby then caught her by the tail and slammed her around. Phantom used her Phantom powers to create spikes at the places on which she was slammed so she received even more damage. Kirby then threw her to a part of the arena where Dark Meta Knight waited her, making giant swords come out of mirrors to hit her strongly. Little Ghost then violently slammed her into the ground, and Krystal finished her with a Ground Quack.

Phantom Clawroline tried to get up, but eventually fell unconscious before she faded away, leaving five soul pieces.

"Next, Dedede," Sweetie Void said.

Several heroes gulped.

"Hey, if you don't want to fight him, don't fight him. This won't be a problem."

Chapter 142: Isolated Isles: Forgo Dreams Part 2

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 143: Isolated Isles: Forgo Dreams Part 3

"So. Dedede again, but this time, he's not alone. Still should be alright, right?" Present Sonic tried to reassure.

"Yeah, no problem. Just prepare for a world of butt whooping," Dedede said.

And right on cue, Phantom Dedede jumping toward the group, hammers ready, while Phantom Meta Knight flew toward the the nearest flying hero, who happened to be Marx. The heroes quickly scattered before Phantom Dedede violently crashed with his hammers, causing the arena to tilt, the part he crashing into sinking into the lava while the opposite suddenly rose out of it. Nobody had been yet on this part of the arena, but it was obvious that anybody on it would have been ejected. Still, many of the heroes ended up burned by the lava, and others were hit by the fiery shockwave sent by Dedede upon crashing. Phantom Dedede himself was unaffected by the lava. At the same time, in the blink of an eye, Phantom Meta Knight slashed Marx several times, then moved to Little Ghost and slashed her too before he was stopped by Galacta Knight blocking him.

Thankfully, Ness healed everyone in one go right away once the arena returned to its normal state, but they will have to be careful. They didn't have Sweetie Void's infinite pool of energy to heal them anymore. Ness will eventually tire out, and he was already getting tired after this adventure. He didn't have time to regenerate his psychic energy beside some minutes of rest here and there.

Phantom could heal too at least, they could count on her even if she was getting tired too. Everyone was tired. It had been a long and difficult adventure.

The heroes spread out all over the arena and began to attack the Phantom duo. Phantom Meta Knight was harder to reach since he was flying, so the heroes who couldn't fly and had no projectiles had no choice but to focus on Phantom Dedede.

At the beginning, the two fought on their own, using their respective moves without caring what the other was doing. Phantom Dedede threw Gordos at random while Phantom Meta Knight levitated lava into balls and rained them all over the arena. Phantom Dedede did his fire tornado attack (making the arena tilt down everywhere he was going and leaving lava on his path that Tank and Kirby cleaned), and Phantom Meta Knight sent countless waves from his sword.

But then, in the middle of Phantom Dedede's tornado move, Phantom Meta Knight suddenly targeted him with his waves. Instead of hurting Phantom Dedede, the waves were hit by his hammer and were divided into several smaller waves that were then sent in all directions. This resulted in hundreds of small waves flying everywhere randomly while Phantom Dedede continued moving around.

"We can do that?!" Dedede exclaimed while he twirled his hammer to deflect the waves flying toward him, using himself as a shield to protect others behind him.

Meta Knight watched the two Phantoms, then looked at Dedede. "Once this is over, let's train together."

Once their attack ended, Phantom Meta Knight landed at Phantom Dedede's side, and the two began to fight together, back to back, side by side, hammers and sword. One was swinging around giving powerful blows that cracked bones, the other slashing at the speed of sound, actually slicing off limbs. Phantom had to use her powers to reattach them. Only she could do something about that. At least, no head rolled off yet somehow... Galacta Knight, Meta Knight, Dark Meta Knight, and Fierce Deity Link were doing their best to limit the damage caused by Phantom Meta Knight. Kirby helped every now and then, his focus shifting between the two Phantoms.

Phantom Meta Knight eventually jumped on Phantom Dedede's head before the penguin began to spin, this time remaining at the center of the arena. The two blurred together in the tornado thus formed, and after a couple of seconds, fireballs and sword waves came out of it, flying in all directions.

Marx flew to Dedede. "Hold on tight!"

Dedede nodded and grabbed Marx' feet before Marx flew up, barely avoiding the Phantoms' projectiles. Once he was high enough, he said, "Go!" and Dedede let go, dropping toward the still spinning Phantoms. Readying his hammer, Dedede smashed the Phantoms hard, crushing them under his weapon and stopping their attack. Dedede quickly jumped backward to avoid a swing of his Phantom counterpart.

With the Phantoms stopped, everyone resumed attacking them, only for Phantom Dedede to do his move where he threw Gordos and hammers in the air to make them rain all over the arena. Excepted that, this time, instead of releasing ice upon exploding, the hammers released fire. Then, Phantom Meta Knight joined by hitting some of the Gordos, making them brusquely change trajectory as Phantom Meta Knight sent them toward heroes in random.

The heroes used the same tactic to hit the Gordos back at the Phantoms. They were pretty much playing tennis with dozens of spiked metallic balls. Hitting metal, however, hurt the physically weaker heroes who didn't have a weapon, like Scout or Diddy. Some didn't even try like Mothra and just avoided them as best as they could.

Phantom Dedede then threw more Gordos in the air, this time right above him, then he inhaled them before he spat them at the heroes like a cannon. Meanwhile, Phantom Meta Knight sent powerful X waves with his sword.

Phantom Meta Knight then suddenly tried to do the Upper Calibus on Fierce Deity Link, but when he charged at him, the two clashed and, in a flash, Phantom Meta Knight found himself without his sword. Before he could recover, he was punched by Spiky and was sent crashing on Phantom Dedede's head, interrupting him as he was hitting the ground to send little fire twisters. Marx then attacked them with his hundreds of arrow, followed by Ness using PK Rockin, then by Stella Knight Kirby sending a Flare Beam.

Phantom Dedede suddenly jumped away (making the arena tilt a bit where he landed) while Phantom Meta Knight flew. Phantom Dedede then went on all fours, Phantom Meta Knight divided himself into four copies, and the two (now five) roared.

"Oh, SERIOUSLY?! He has his ability to divide?!" Dedede shouted. "Prepare your butts, everyone. These copies are as powerful as the original."

"Well... Crap..." Fox said what almost everyone was thinking.

At this moment, one of the Phantom Meta Knights landed on Phantom Dedede's back, riding him as he began to run around, charging at the heroes. As Phantom Dedede passed beside the heroes, the Phantom Meta Knight slashed around, as if he was a knight on his mount. The three other began to attack too. One directly slashed at the heroes, Fierce Deity Link went to deal with this one, quickly stopping him. Another rained sword waves. The last one used telekinesis to rain lava balls.

"Hey, if there's a good thing about what's going on, it's that the copies share the damage they take. If you hurt one of them, you also hurt the others." Dedede revealed. "This should end the battle faster."

"Hearing that, the heroes divided themselves between the four Phantom Meta Knights and attacked (attacking Phantom Dedede by the same occasion since one of the Phantom Meta Knights was riding him). Kirby focused on the one riding Phantom Dedede, Galacta went after the one who rained waves, and Meta Knight used his telekinesis (less powerful but still working) to counter the one raining lava.

Then, Phantom Dedede roared and also made lava balls rain all over the arena, doubling the number of lava balls that rained. Not even Meta Knight could keep up with that, so Apple Death and Little Ghost joined him.

Until a giant lava ball came, crashed on the arena, and made half of it sink into the lava. The heroes were forced to gather on the half still out, and it was difficult to not slip into the lava. It didn't help that Phantom Dedede resumed charging at everyone while the arena was still tilted. It was hard to dodge him while keeping their footing. Thankfully, the arena returned to normal after just a few seconds.

Only for Phantom Dedede to jump at the extremity of the arena, making it tilt again, before he began to inhale. The Phantom Meta Knight on his back flew and joined his copies as they let themselves being inhaled. Once the four were sucked up, Phantom Dedede spat them one by one, the Phantom Meta Knights spinning with their swords raised forward while flying to random targets, like homing flying drills. Each of the Phantom Meta Knights was thankfully intercepted by one of the heroes: Kirby, Phantom, Fierce Deity Link, and Dark Meta Knight. They simply moved aside to let the Phantom Meta Knights pass, then hit them from the side.

Phantom Dedede resumed inhaling, and the Phantom Meta Knights flew out of the way this time. Resisting the powerful vortex while avoiding slipping was hard, made even worse when the Phantom Meta Knights began to rain sword waves on them.

Silently, Fox eyed DK and took a grenade. DK understood, and Fox threw the grenade at him before DK punched it right toward Phantom Dedede. The grenade exploded just as it entered his mouth, making him stop inhaling. The arena returned to normal, and one of the Phantom Meta Knights returned on Phantom Dedede's back before he resumed running around. This time, he also jumped regularly, causing the arena to tilt a bit while leaving behind some lava where he landed, without forgetting the shockwave he released each time. The three Phantom Meta Knights not on Phantom Dedede's back were again distracted by the swordmen heroes. Fierce Deity Link was particularly effective in causing damage.

The heroes were probably getting close to victory, but then, Phantom dedede moved at a side of the arena, and the four Phantom Meta Knights flew at the opposite side. The five then moved toward the center of the arena and Phantom Dedede jumped at the Phantom Meta Knights. they caught each others midair and began spinning, faster and faster while rising in the air. Sword waves and fireballs were sent in all directions, and they were accumulating energy.

The heroes had a very bad feeling.

"JUMP, EVERYONE!" Phantom yelled before she used her powers.

Almost everyone jumped and landed, not on the arena but on a brand new platform made under their feet by Phantom that immediately flew away from the arena. Galacta Knight grabbed Fierce Deity Link who hadn't jumped and flew away. Just in time as the Phantom Meta Knights pointed Phantom Dedede head down and piledrived him into the center of the arena, releasing a huge explosion taking the form of a large column of energy that covered the whole arena which sunk entirely into the lava.

"Holy... Celestia..." Zapp said, her jaw dropping, like almost everyone else.

Once the energy disappeared and the arena got out of the lava, the heroes quickly stopped gawking and jumped back on the arena to continue the fight. Phantom Dedede immediately recovered from being piledrived, moved at the extremity of the arena, and began to pound the ground repeatedly, sending dozens of small fire twisters at the heroes. The Phantom Meta Knights moved at his sides and planted their swords to send tornadoes.

Fierce Deity Link, upon being dropped by Galacta Knight, did one single horizontal swing, sending a wave that cut most of the tornadoes and also all the enemies who were perfectly lined up. This opened the way for the heroes to assault the Phantoms.

Without surprise, the Phantom Meta Knights were the first to fall. Dividing himself made him more dangerous, but also accelerated the damage he took. With four bodies sharing the damage, it was only a matter of minutes against all the heroes. Especially with Fierce Deity Link focusing on him.

With only Phantom Dedede left, the fight was much easier. He charged, clawed, bit, acting like a cornered feral animal.

But after only a couple more minutes, he fell too. He faded, and left behind five soul pieces.

"My king, I'm glad we never had to fight you and Meta Knight at the same time," Bandana Dee said.

Dedede laughed. "Maybe we could have defeated Kirby if this had happened."

"Do you think Sweetie has finished her fight?" Elfilin asked, a bit worried.

"If she had finished, she would have returned," Phantom answered. "This Gilgamesh must be giving her quite the workout."

In the void between the islands...

Thundaja! Thundaja! Aeroja! Zantetsuken! Electrocute! Rocket Punch time eight! Zantetsuken! Thundaja! Zantetsuken! Quasar!

Sweetie Void, mane and tail turned into darkness, was avoiding spell after spell fired by Phantom Gilgamesh. One of the Zantetsuken sliced the desert island in half. By now, part of the Redgar island was also destroyed.

Stop! Ultima!

Sweetie found herself time-stopped before Gilgamesh sent a giant blue sphere of energy. She thankfully was able to break herself out of the Stop and teleported barely in time, avoiding the Ultima. When she reappeared, she was immediately assaulted by Gilgamesh who flew at her weapons ready.

Thanks to a wind spell, Gilgamesh was able to fly, and his huge pool of mana allowed him to keep it even after all this time.

For what was probably the hundredth time since the beginning of this fight, Gilgamesh's weapons clashed with Sweetie's swords. At a speed that any normal person couldn't hope to follow, the two exchanged blows for a couple of minutes, Sweetie Void making sure to avoid any Zantetsuken, both the spell and the sword.

Stop! Zantetsuken!

Again, Sweetie was stopped only for her to break out almost right away, then she immediately teleported to avoid the Zantetsuken which had been at a millimeter from reaching her. She reappeared right behind Gilgamesh and promptly sliced him in half vertically. However, before the two pieces could separate, Gilgamesh used Curaja, healing himself.

Sweetie Void growled in frustration. This happened again and again. Gilgamesh refused to die!

Death Claw!

Sweetie ducked to avoid the Death Claw, parried Gilgamesh's weapons, then sliced Gilgamesh in half, this time horizontally by the chest.

Curaja!

And he healed himself right away, again!

"RAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!"

She sliced him again and again and again, cutting him to pieces repeatedly.

Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja! Curaja!

Reflect!

Having enough, Sweetie Void blasted him with a huge amount of energy only for it to be reflected. She still managed to break it, but she received a huge amount of damage in return, and the two fighters were turned into black husks.

And they both healed themselves.

Sweetie Void swung her swords and sent powerful waves that cut the very fabric of the dimension itself. Gilgamesh countered some of them them with Zantetsuken and avoided the others before sending another Quasar followed by a Flare. Sweetie avoided the Flare by teleporting, then countered by sending several giant fireballs that Gilgamesh sliced in half, destroying them.

Disable!

Sweetie Void found herself unable to attack.

Flash! Missile! Missile! Missile! Missile! Hurricane! 1000 Needles!

Sweetie Void found herself blinded by the Flash, and despite this, she flew erratically to avoid the following spells.

Once her vision was back, Sweetie Void then readied and fired an Ultimate Doom Laser that Gilgamesh avoided by flying away. The laser followed him, destroying many meteors that were floating around and even blowing up the Wondaria island.

Seeing that the laser wasn't working, Sweetie changed tactic. She used the laser as cover to send a small ball of energy toward Gilgamesh. The ball followed him and was so small that Gilgamesh didn't spot it. The ball eventually successfully entered its head.

And he exploded.

Sweetie Void sighed in relief and stopped her laser.

It wasn't her first attempt to blow him up, but it was the first one that succeeded.

The original Gilgamesh had been annoying to fight, but this one... Ugh! The original, at least, she had been holding back to avoid killing him. But here, she had actively been trying to kill him, repeatedly, but he always healed himself. And he never seemed to get tired. The fight would have probably lasted hours if she hadn't managed to do that trick. Blown up, there was no way he could heal himself.

But just in case, she remained here a few more seconds.

Seeing that he wasn't coming back, she sighed for the second time.

Yeah, this wasn't Porky.

At this, she teleported back to where she left her friends.

"Hey! Guess who's back! Are you done over there?"

"Yeah, we defeated them," Sparky said.

Sweetie Void looked at the tired faces of everyone around. "It wasn't an easy fight, uh? Do you want to return to Waddle Dee Town and rest?"

"I think that most of us wouldn't mind, yes. Some of us also have to recover from getting our limbs sliced off. That... was quite the experience..." Present Sonic said.

Sweetie Void winced. "I understand."

Author's Note

You know, I would like to make the characters do "bro moves" like Phantom Dedede and Phantom Meta Knight did in this chapter, or like the Mario Bros do, but I can't think of anything beside the few I wrote in this chapter. If you guys have any ideas...

Chapter 144: Final Battle Against The Ultimate Life-Form

Everyone was feeling tired after this adventure and all these difficult battles. Physically, mentally, or both. Even Sweetie Void and Kirby. But these two could and were ready to continue contrary to the majority of the other heroes. Galacta Knight, Bandana Dee, Dedede, Meta Knight, Marx, Dark Meta Knight, Phantom, and Apple Death were also coming. Apple Death was especially needed because she held Leongar's soul pieces. Elfilin, having not fought much during this adventure, also wanted to follow them despite the danger. He could always be of help.

Everyone else returned to Waddle Dee Town to recover.

Admittedly, Bandana Dee, Dedede, Meta Knight, and Dark Meta Knight wouldn't have been against a rest but they felt that they could continue, and the first three didn't want to leave Sweetie and Kirby while the last one was here essentially because of Marx and because he wanted to prove himself against Meta Knight.

So the smaller group of heroes flew to the laboratory island, passed through a hole, and landed directly in the hallway leading to the room that originally contained Elfilis, where they fought Leongar.

Echoes of the pre-recorded woman from the tour could be heard, repeating "And here we are" and "ID-F86" among other things. The air was orange and opaque as if there was a mist. Nothing but orange could be seen beyond the windows.

All of this gave off an atmosphere that chilled the heroes. Claustrophobic, uncanny, unsettling, ominous, disturbing... If the heroes weren't experienced warriors and adventurers, they would so nope the heck out of here. Everything screamed DANGER. Impending doom.

No doubt about it, Elfilis was close.

But despite all this, the heroes advanced, ready to face whatever awaited them. Before long, they reached the large door at the end of the hallway and entered the containment room.

And right here, floating inside some psychic bubble, was Leongar, curled up into a fœtal position.

The woman's voice still echoed in the air.

The heroes approached, and Sweetie Void looked at Apple Death.

"Go on.

Apple Death nodded and released Leongar's soul pieces. Three hundreds in total flew out of her body and entered Leongar's. The psychic bubble disappeared, and Leongar landed on his knees.

Then, after a few seconds, he got up and opened his eyes, looking at his paws, seeing that he was back to himself.

Most of the heroes still remained careful, but Elfilin and Kirby cheered, gaining Leongar's attention. Without saying a word, Leongar caught the closest heroes, which were Kirby, Sweetie Void, and Elfilin, into a hug.

This proved to the heroes that Leongar didn't mean harm anyone, and some began to release their guard.

Sweetie Void happily tapped Leongar on the chest. "Welcome back, big guy. Your friends miss you. Let's bring you to the town."

Leongar nodded with a small happy growl, only to release the three heroes and to hold his head in pain. A purple aura appeared around him, and he curled in pain, trying to resist something something.

"Yeah, that was too easy," Dedede said as he readied his hammer.

"Why couldn't it be easy for once?" Bandana Dee questioned with a whine.

"A huge amount of psychic energy is entering him. Elfilis must not be far," Sweetie Void said as she stepped back from Leongar.

The lion then opened his eyes, which now glowed purple like when he had been possessed the first time, and roared, energy coursing his body.

The following fight quickly revealed to be the same as the one they had when Leongar had been possessed the first time. He had the same powers, starting by the cross-slashes sending X-waves at various heights. The difference here was that the heroes were less numerous.

The three knights, Marx, and Apple Death flew to the ceiling to avoid the waves. The others either jumped aside, jumped above the waves if they were low enough, or ducked under them if they were high enough.

Apple Death was the first one to attack, sending purple lightning at the lion. Despite the painful electricity coursing his body, Leongar continued to send waves, then eventually stopped and went on all fours before he charged toward the heroes, fangs and claws ready to turn them into bloody pieces.

He targeted Sweetie Void and tried to bit her, the filly not moving from her position. Instead, she caught Leongar by the mouth and lifted him before she threw him head first at a wall. The others quickly used the occasion to attack him all together before he could recover.

Leongar eventually got back up and turned around, swinging his claws at Meta Knight and Galacta Knight, moving out of the way of a giant sword coming out of a mirror, breathing a powerful laser to counter Marx's own mouth laser. Phantom caught him in her power, and cannons appeared and fired at him from all directions. He could only tank them as he tried to stomp on Bandana Dee who rolled out of the way, then on Kirby who used the Dragon Fire Ability to burn him and to fly away from his stomping foot.

Leongar returned on all four and caught Dedede in his mouth by the left arm. He slammed him around, tried to slam him on the other heroes, then eventually threw him at Sweetie Void who managed to catch him before she healed him. Leongar then almost caught Phantom in his jaw but she teleported away before she made a giant spiked ball drop from the ceiling on his head. Sweetie Void then materialized a hand-shaped shield and used it to grab Leongar's muzzle and keep it shut. He fought the hold strongly, but she held on.

Now, they only had to worry about his claws, which Leongar was swinging around wildly, sometime sending energy waves from them.

Sweetie Void called her whip, cloaked it in fire, and attacked Leongar with it. Her weapon cracked hard on his fur, leaving behind burn marks and little flames.

"Release that lion, Elfilis!" she shouted.

She was answered by Leongar trying to claw her.

Apple Death used her powers to gather debris from all over the room and beyond to form a golem that she took possession of. The golem was as big as Leongar, and she caught the lion's paws in its hands, holding him in place. This left him totally open to everyone who attacked at will.

But then, a black mist appeared over Leongar and a ghostly version of Fecto Elfilis back in his larva form Fecto Forgo came out of it, eyes glowing like two lights and black mist dripping out of them.

"Here they are," Meta Knight said.

Before the heroes could attack, Fecto Forgo entered Leongar's body. The heroes all moved away from him as black mist covered his head, and he roared loudly, the hand-shield keeping his muzzle shut exploding.

"So, he is even more possessed than before?" Phantom questioned.

"Eeyup," confirmed.

"With Fecto Forgo now inside his body, it really is a full on, total possession," Galacta Knight said. "Now, he is even more powerful."

Leongar showed this as he brought his paws together into a ball and slammed them on the ground, sending a shockwave coursed with lightning bolts. Because of these lightning bolts, not even the flying heroes were safe. Thankfully, the lightning bolts didn't move along the shockwave, so passing between them was easy, especially if the heroes were far enough so the space between the bolts was wider. They still got Dedede and Apple Death's golem which were too close and too big.

Leongar slammed the ground a few more times, each slam more powerful than the last, releasing faster shockwaves with more lightning bolts. Then, he followed right away with a mouth laser that he swept outward quickly. The laser was even more powerful than before and damaged the ceiling, causing debris to fall all over the room.

Meta Knight and Apple Death used their telekinesis to grab the debris and to throw them at Leongar, burying him under a pile. Leongar quickly broke out of it with a roar, sending the debris in all directions. He then swung his claws around, sending energy waves that were faster and more powerful than before. One hit Apple Death, cutting her golem in two, another got Dark Meta Knight on the wing, making him crash. Galacta Knight managed to slice one apart, protecting Dedede.

Marx disappeared into the ground, and his shadow moved until he was right under Leongar. Seeing this, Leongar stopped attacking and waited, rising a foot. Just as Marx came out of the ground, Leongar brutally stomped on him. Everyone still used the opening to attack Leongar, starting with Sweetie Void giving the lion a big punch that sent him flying into the stone throne, saving Marx from under his foot.

Dedede cloaked his hammer in ice and slammed the ground, sending spikes of ice toward Leongar as he recovered from Sweetie's punch. Leongar tried to move out of the way, but Kirby, now in Stella Knight form, used the Grand Hammer to bonk the lion hard and keep him in place so he was hit by the spikes. Phantom then materialized some big robot with spiked gloves and made it punch Leongar repeatedly on the face alongside Apple Death's golem which the ghost reformed.

Leongar caught Phantom's robot and slammed it on Apple Death's golem, then let out a mouth laser on the two of them, destroying the two, only to receive a drop slash from Meta Knight which left him with a bad cut from shoulder to leg. Lightning then struck him from Galacta Knight. However, as electricity coursed Leongar, the lion caught Meta Knight, making him receive some of the electricity. Dark Meta Knight and Bandana Dee quickly made him release him with a double strike on the arm holding him. Sweetie Void then blasted Leongar through the window right into what remained of the Eternal Capsule that contained Fecto Forgo.

Getting up, Leongar held his head in pain. Then, Fecto Forgo's ghost came out of his body and charged energy while Leongar jumped back through the window and began clawing around, the claws leaving trails of fiery psychic energy. Every now and then, he also slammed the ground again with his paws gathered into a ball, sending shockwaves with lightning bolts.

While Leongar attacked, Sweetie Void decided to directly attack Fecto Forgo while they were still charging energy. She blasted them, but while the attacks definitively hit them, they didn't react.

Then, Fecto Forgo teleported right beside Leongar, in the middle of the heroes attacking him. Leongar jumped away. Once the lion was far enough, Fecto Forgo released a powerful blast of dark energy that extended to a large area. Some of the heroes were able to escape, but others didn't react in time or weren't so fast. The ones caught in the blast found themselves with their whole body hurting very badly.

Once the blast disappeared, Sweetie Void immediately healed everyone. It still left quite a shock, but they didn't have time to idle as Leongar attacked again with his mouth laser, and this time, Fecto Forgo attacked alongside him by firing dark energy balls. When these balls hit the floor, they released shockwaves.

Apple Death joined Sweetie Void in targeting Fecto Forgo while the others dealt with Leongar. Fecto Forgo randomly targeted the heroes, but Sweetie made sure to deflect the balls sent at her friends, letting them focus on Leongar. No matter how much Sweetie Void and Apple Death attacked Fecto Forgo, the ghost wasn't reacting, still sending dark balls.

Galacta Knight using his space beam finally seemed to be too much for Fecto Forgo and their hold on Leongar. The laser fully hit the lion and badly wounded him, sending him on his back. The Fecto Forgo ghost disappeared, revealing itself to just be a projection, and the real one came out of Leongar's body before he lost consciousness.

Fecto Forgo took a more solid form, gaining magenta and cyan colors. Their eyes then glowed, and their body turned into the same blue gelatinous liquid that the heroes had to fight when they chased Elfilin the first time, including the tentacles, but this time, they kept their form instead of becoming some blob.

The heroes readied themselves for what they hoped was the last fight against Elfilis.

But then, a butterfly came, distracting everyone including Soul Forgo.

"Wait. Is that...?" Sweetie Void began, recognizing the butterfly.

The butterfly landed on Soul Forgo's nose.

The next instant, Soul Forgo disappeared into particles of light which then gathered into the butterfly. Soon enough, the butterfly disappeared inside a ball of light which grew. After a few seconds, the ball exploded into butterflies of light, leaving behind a familiar masked being.

"Morpho Knight?!" Sweetie Void exclaimed.

"Who is this?" Elfilis asked.

"Wow. I didn't expect to see him again!" Bandana Dee exclaimed.

"Did... Did he absorb Fecto Forgo?" Phantom questioned.

I did, the butterfly warrior answered in their heads. Fecto Forgo... Fecto Elfilis... was at their most vulnerable, and it was time for me to intervene to put an end to their threat. Fecto Elfilis, like Void, is older than Death. The battle against them would have never truly ended. They would have always come back. Absorbing them was the only way to end this.

"Oh. Well, that's perfect. Thanks, Morpho," Sweetie Void said.

"Yeah. I had enough of that thing," Dedede said.

Behind, Apple Death, Phantom, and Elfilin could only watch in wonder.

"Can someone tell us what's going on? Who is this guy?" Apple Death asked.

"We... aren't actually sure who and what Morpho Knight is," Sweetie Void answered. "But do not worry, he isn't an enemy."

She is right. I do not intend to fight this time. I only came for Fecto Elfilis.

""This time?"" Phantom repeated.

Elfilis gulped. "Does this include me?"

No. As long as you don't follow the path of your other half, you won't have to fear me.

"Well, I guess that this is over then. Kind of anticlimactic in my opinion. Oh well," Marx said.

"Good," Dark Meta Knight said.

Now, with Fecto Elfilis' soul imprisoned within me for eternity, I shall bid you... Uh?!

Suddenly, Morpho Knight grabbed his head in pain and began to struggle, exactly like Leongar when he got possessed earlier.

"Uhh... Sir Morpho? Are you alright?" Bandana Dee asked worriedly, not liking where this was going.

"Oh no... You have got to be kidding. Please, tell us this is a joke," Sweetie Void pleaded.

Their... power... is... stronger... Can't... resist...

"Oh COME ON!!!" Sweetie yelled.

The struggle eventually ended, and when Morpho Knight opened his eyes, they now were glowing purple. The now possessed butterfly warrior then flew up, and his sword appeared in his hand.

"You just had to jinx it, Marx!" Sweetie Void shouted at the jester who simply laughed in return.

A shadow flew over her, and suddenly, Galacta Knight in his light form clashed with Morpho Knight. However, Morpho Knight immediately managed to push Galacta Knight's sword aside before he attempted to slash him. Galacta Knight avoided the slash and, in the blink of an eye, flew around Morpho Knight to attack him from behind.

Only for Morpho to turn around even faster and to attack first.

If it wasn't for Sweetie stopping him with one of her own swords, Galacta Knight would have received a very bad hit. At least, she was holding her sword with her magic, so Morpho Knight wasn't able to push it aside like he did against Galacta. And while this happened, Sweetie fired at Morpho with her nine other weapons in cannon mode. However, after a few hits, Morpho flew away, avoiding by the same occasion a swing from Dedede and cutter blades from Marx.

Phantom then sent some Phantom Cubes to catch Morpho Knight in her power, but to her surprise, he was able to destroy them!

"Oh, this fight will suck."

With this, Phantom had no choice but to materialize her sword to join the brawl more directly only to be overpowered and sent flying into Leongar's unconscious body.

Oh right, he was still here. They should get him out of here. Phantom promptly sucked him into a rift to Waddle Dee Town. Then she flew back toward Morpho Knight with her sword while the butterfly of doom was busy raining fiery sword waves on everyone else while regularly teleporting. The guy could even control the speed of these waves to trick them. Like, he first sent a couple of slow waves (still rather fast but not too fast), easy to avoid, but then, he sent a fast as heck wave that caught the target off guard.

At least, Sweetie was seeing the good side of this: they may be less numerous than the first time they fought Morpho Knight and they may not have the unifying power of the Friend Hears anymore, some of them became much more powerful since then. And Apple Death and Phantom were very good too. Defeating Morpho Knight should be... not too hard.

But then, Morpho Knight rose his sword and gathered energy before releasing it in the form of some ghostly construct shaped like Fecto Forgo. Morpho Knight sent a whole group of them that flew after the heroes. Thankfully, they were rather slow, and Sweetie Void was able to absorb them. Still, these ghostly things were enough distraction that it opened the heroes to Morpho's next attack: with one swing of the sword, he sent a whole fire wall, and he repeated it several times to send walls that were horizontal and diagonal (at various angles).

The heroes were almost hit by the first waves as Sweetie Void finished absorbing the ghostly Fecto Forgos, then they avoided the following ones as they approached Morpho Knight. Sweetie Void teleported to him followed by Phantom, and Morpho Knight was forced to stop sending fire walls to defend against them. As the others arrived one by one, he eventually disappeared.

For a couple of tense seconds, nothing happened. Then, Morpho reappeared behind Bandana Dee. The Dee barely rolled away in time, avoiding being cut in half.

Morpho then disappeared again, but this time, Sweetie was ready. As soon as Morpho reappeared again, this time behind Dedede, Sweetie teleported beside him and fired point blank a big beam that sent Morpho crashing into a wall. Kirby flew toward Morpho and used the Fighter Ability (no upgrade yet) to pummel him against the wall until he teleported and rammed Kirby from behind, crushing him against the wall. Marx then teleported behind Morpho and kicked him away.

Sweetie Void went full void mode and used her swords turned black to attack Morpho Knight, dealing huge amounts of damage with each successful hits. It wasn't easy, Morpho divided his sword into two bigger ones and was able to parry most of Sweetie's swings.

Morpho Knight then began to teleport around while fluttering his wings, sending these waves that turned the heroes against each others. Dedede was the first victim, followed by Dark Meta Knight, and then by Apple Death.

Thankfully, while they didn't have the Friend Hearts anymore, Sweetie Void could still use the corresponding energy to bring them back to their senses. Dark Meta Knight still almost skewered Marx with his giant swords popping out of mirrors before Sweetie sent the energy in a heart shape at him. But Marx, having spent most of his time with Dark Meta Knight, knew this attack and easily avoided it.

The real tragedy almost came when Apple Death almost touched Bandana Dee. He didn't have any power to resist her Death Touch. He would have been killed right away. Instead, Elfilin was able to push him back just in time, and he was the one who got touched in his place. Thankfully, the Touch didn't work on him.

Sweetie Void didn't lose time using the heart energy on Apple Death, leaving Dedede for last. Dedede only swung his hammer at Phantom who had no problem avoiding him.

Meanwhile, Morpho continued using the waves, but everyone was able to avoid them after that.

Meta Knight and Galacta Knight sent tornadoes around, one of them successfully catching Morpho Knight as he teleported to send more waves, stopping him. Recovering from this, Morpho Knight grew his swords until they were absolutely gigantic and began to swing them around. Their size allowed him to reach all the heroes, even across the room. Meta Knight parried one, but the force and the weight behind the sword still sent him flying into a wall. To make it worse, Morpho Knight used little vortexes to attract the heroes where he wanted them to be before he struck. And whenever he hit the ground or the walls, the swords created fire walls that moved around along the corresponding surface.

But after a few seconds of this, Sweetie Void parried one of his swords with her own weapon turned into a giant sword. At the same time, Kirby revealed a new upgrade of the Sword Ability to parry the other sword.

The Morpho Sword.

"Oh hey! You copied Morpho Knight! Good job, Kirby!" Sweetie Void shouted.

Dedede sighed. "I shouldn't be surprised."

Thanks to the Morpho Sword, while Kirby used one giant sword to parry one of Morpho Knight's giant swords, he used his other giant sword to attack Morpho Knight who teleported out of the way. Kirby also teleported, and the two began to clash around. Sweetie Void joined them. Between the two of them, Kirby and Sweetie Void were able to land some bad hits, and Sweetie Void eventually sent Morpho Knight flying toward Phantom.

Phantom immediately materialized some cubes and, this time, was able to hit Morpho with them, getting him in her power. She then caught him and slammed him into a carpet of spikes. But then, the next instant, Phantom saw her arm sliced off. Morpho Knight thus freed himself and followed this right away by an attempt to behead her. But Phantom teleported away and recreated her arm.

With Phantom gone, Morpho Knight targeted Kirby next and, in a flash, gave him a big burning slash. He did the same to Meta Knight, Apple Death, and Galacta Knight before Bandana Dee threw his spear at him. Morpho Knight flew aside to avoid it, only to be on the path of a sword wave sent by Dark Meta Knight which cut him. Sweetie Void then wrapped him with her whip, shocked him, and slammed him repeatedly on the ground. After that, Kirby sent a ghostly Fecto Forgo of his own that flew after Morpho Knight, but the butterfly warrior cut it in two, destroying it.

Both Sweetie Void and Galacta Knight opened a rift that fired a space beam. the beams crossed at Morpho Knight's position, but he teleported before they could reach him. Meta Knight then threw debris with his telekinesis, but Morpho Knight either avoided them or destroyed them, only to be hit from behind by Dedede who sent him crashing through the window into the part of the room with the Eternal Capsule. Sweetie Void fired another space beam after him, but Morpho Knight teleported again, avoiding the beam.

Sweetie Void then flew aside, just avoiding Morpho Knight's sword from behind before she punched him in the face. Morpho punched her back, then attempted to slice her only to clash with one of her swords before he found himself blasted away. Apple Death sent sharp bones at him, but Morpho recovered midair and sliced them.

Only to receive a big darkness-powered slash from behind from Sweetie Void which cut the fabric of space and time. This badly hurt Morpho Knight, leaving a big gash on him that leaked energy taking the form of butterflies, but it still wasn't enough to defeat him.

Morpho Knight planted his sword into the ground and created fire tornadoes that he manipulated so they went after the heroes. The tornadoes moved everywhere, and it was difficult to avoid all of them. But while Morpho Knight was manipulating the tornadoes, he had to keep his sword planted, leaving him totally open, and Sweetie used the occasion to slash him again, leaving another gash, and Kirby and Galacta Knight joined her in slashing him. Morpho Knight quickly let go of his tornadoes and teleported away from the assault, but they at least got time to very badly hurt him.

Where Morpho Knight reappeared, Meta Knight immediately sent sword waves by dozens, but only the first one hit him before Morpho Knight blocked the following ones, then flew out of the way of the rest, only to fly right into a giant sword coming out of a mirror. At this, Dedede inhaled Bandana Dee and spat him toward Morpho Knight, and the Dee's spear pierced right into him.

Morpho Knight suddenly began spinning, sending fiery waves in all directions at random speeds. Anybody getting too close would be cut to shreds.

So, instead of approaching, Sweetie Void gathered her ten swords into a single big sword of darkness and slashed the air. The slash cut Morpho Knight through his spinning, and also cut the whole room behind him, the chamber with the Eternal Capsule, including the fabric of space of the dimension.

This made Morpho Knight stop his attack, a big gash crossing his body. He seemed to barely hold himself together, but he was still continuing. He released a huge amount of energy that took the form of a powerful tornado surrounding him. The tornado quickly grew in size and finished to destroy the ceiling, sending debris flying in the sky. The heroes were ready to leave the room if the tornado continued to grow, but thankfully, it stopped before reaching the walls.

The tornado then disappeared, but now, Morpho Knight's swords were absolutely burning. He then sent a sword wave so fast that the heroes barely avoided it in time. The wave continued its course, slicing through the wall of the room and beyond.

Morpho Knight sent more waves, slicing through more of the building. Then, he rose his sword and brought it down, sending a vertical wave thar vertically cut the room, and the building behind, and the whole island beyond, in half.

Sweetie Void teleported beside Morpho Knight to attack him, but Morpho teleported away and sent ghostly Fecto Forgos flying everywhere in the room. He then teleported, sent more ghostly Fecto Forgos, and teleported again. The Fecto Forgos were now bigger and slightly faster, but they still were no match to Sweetie Void absorbing them. It still took some time, and some of the heroes were almost touched by these things.

Marx cried black blobs that bounced after Morpho Knight while Sweetie was busy absorbing the ghosts, but Morpho Knight destroyed them. They revealed to be a distraction however as Kirby teleported beside Morpho Knight with a giant sword ready and slashed down, vertically cutting the butterfly.

Seemingly ready to drop on the floor, Morpho Knight instead planted his sword into the ground. An orange glow spread all over the floor of the room, and the heroes understood that they had to leave, so they either ran out the door, teleported, or flew through one of the holes. Powerful flames then erupted from the glow, totally filling the room with them.

However, Morpho Knight kept his sword planted and spread the glow beyond the room, faster and faster. Soon, it was everywhere in the laboratory, and it continued spreading until reaching the limits of the island. Seeing the glow everywhere, Dedede filled himself with air and began to float away, taking Bandana Dee on his back. All the others were flying, and they all left the island. Finally, flames erupted and totally engulfed the island. Everything was put on fire. Nowhere was safe to land anymore.

Morpho Knight could probably turn a whole planet into hell this way, it was scary.

So Sweetie Void fired an Ultimate Doom Laser into the island and hoped that this will finally do the job. The whole island exploded.

They saw Morpho Knight propelled away by the explosion, crashing through several floating boulders before he stopped himself, still conscious, to everyone's surprise. However, he was visibly struggling even lifting his swords now.

Sweetie Void slashed him one last time, and this seemed to be it.

Morpho Knight's body began to glow, more and more rays of light coming out of it. Energy escaped him. He wasn't moving anymore.

I'm sorry.

Morpho Knight then exploded into energy shaping into butterflies that flew away and disappeared into the air. However, some of that energy remained and gathered back to reform into a figure that immediately teleported away.

Sweetie Void knew right away that that figure was Fecto Elfilis, but now, she felt some of Morpho Knight's energy within them.

She growled. "They escaped."

The whole dimension then began to collapse, like what happened to the other dimension after they destroyed the Master Crown.

"Seems like they left the dimension," Galacta Knight said. "We should leave too, quickly."

Everyone nodded, and Sweetie Void opened a rift back to Waddle Dee Town. Everyone flew through it.

Only to see that something was wrong. The sky was now like when they fought Fecto Elfilis, distorting and rippling, but it was grey now.

"They didn't lose time," Phantom said.

Everyone in Waddle Dee Town was looking at the sky, many of them in fear or in worry. The executives of the Beast Pack were around Leongar who was still unconscious. Clawroline had her arms wrapped around him.

"Hey guys! So, good news, as you saw, we saved Leongar. Bad news, Elfilis escaped," Sweetie Void said to the crowd. "And... Oh boy... They are close," she felt as she looked at the sky, above the coliseum. A white curled up figure dropped from the sky and revealed themselves.

"What? They remade their body?" Present Sonic exclaimed.

"Yeah. It seems like they absorbed Morpho Knight's power and were able to use it to create a new body. They... They are even more powerful than before," Sweetie Void said, looking very worried.

Now, Elfilis was almost as powerful as Void.

"Morpho Knight?" Ness questioned.

"Later," Phantom said.

Chaos Elfilis, instead of attacking, rose their now black and red spear with a golden spearhead at the sky. Then, a vortex opened.

With Popstar in it, the planet starting to approach, again.

"Right from the start?!" Dedede shouted. "We won't be able to defeat them in time!"

"Oh no!" Elfilin shouted.

Panic spread in the town. It looked like they were doomed.

Sweetie Void opened a rift to her Equestria.

"Everyone, escape through it!" she shouted.

Nobody needed to be told this twice, and they all ran toward the rift, the heroes trying to keep some order so they didn't run over each others while Gorimondo transported Leongar.

Without losing more time, Sweetie Void, mane and tail in darkness again, flew at Chaos Elfilis and engaged them in a terrible battle. Her ten double swords of darkness closed on them, only for them to teleport away before they slashed and sent fast and massive waves of red energy that Sweetie Void avoided. In the far distance, Sweetie Void saw the waves slice skyscrapers, making them collapse.

Already, objects were floating everywhere, attracted by Popstar, and pieces of Popstar were raining everywhere. It was only a matter of a few minutes before the two planets collided.

Dedede was right, there was no way Sweetie will be able to defeat Elfilis in time, especially now that they were so powerful. She may have to use her Soul form.

But then, Stella Knight Kirby, using the Ultra Morpho Sword, no doubt his most powerful Ability, arrived with an absolutely HUGE sword and slashed at Elfilis only for them to parry successfully with their spear. Sweetie Void then rammed into them, sending the both of them toward the abandoned city in the distance where there were less risks of accidentally killing someone. That city was the first city she traversed with Kirby and Bandana Dee after arriving on this world. She already felt nostalgic about it.

But it wasn't the moment to think about that. They crashed through several skyscrapers until Elfilis put their hand together into a ball and smashed Sweetie Void hard, sending her crashing into a road. Kirby then appeared and beheaded Elfilis, only for their head to reform, their body turning gelatinous for a bit. Kirby quickly teleported to avoid a thrust that would have impaled him.

Galacta Knight arrived in turn, still in his light form, and rained hundreds of Heart Spears at Elfilis in an attempt to seal them and end the fight right away, but Elfilis twirled their spear and knocked the Heart Spears away. Out of the rain, Sweetie Void returned and sent a wave that horizontally sliced Elfilis in half, as well as many skyscrapers behind them, but Elfilis didn't react to having lost their bottom and continued to twirl their spear to knock away the last few Heart Spears while their body reformed.

Once the rain stopped, Elfilis summoned dozens of purple outlined spearheads and sent them at their three enemies. They summoned a second wave of spearheads, then a third, then summoned more spearheads directly surrounding the heroes in circle formations, closing in on them, again, and again, and again.

"GILGAMEEEEEEESH... HERO TIME!!!"

Gilgamesh suddenly came out of a skyscraper and slashed Elfilis with his eight weapons. Sadly, the instant death effect of Zantetsuken was ineffective on the alien. It just sliced them in half only for them to reform again. Phantom and Apple Death followed, respectively slashing with a sword and piercing with a bone before they got away to avoid a counterattack, Elfilis regenerating again.

"Mmh... How do we defeat something that can't seem to be defeated?" Gilgamesh wondered when he landed inside a skyscraper.

"Each blow on Elfilis weakens them a bit," Sweetie Void said as she got close. "Just continue attacking. And thanks for helping us."

"Poyo!" Kirby suddenly gained everyone's attention and pointed at Popstar.

Popstar which was now very close.

However, while Earth was still approaching the vortex, it didn't seem to be the case for Popstar anymore. In the contrary, Popstar seemed to move back.

It was then that they saw none other than Void approaching.

Sweetie Void gasped in joy. "Void! He is here! He is finally back! Oh, now, Elfilis is screwed."

Void, with white wings with red extremities like Kirby had in his Stella Knight form, stopped approaching when he spotted Elfilis, and Elfilis quickly spotted him too.

Father... everyone heard a voice, certainly Elfilis, say with obvious spite.

Void just looked sad. "Elfilis. I hoped to never see you again.

..........

"COULDN'T YOU HAVE TOLD US THAT YOU HAD ANOTHER ROGUE CHILD?!!" Sweetie Void yelled. "I THOUGHT WE HAD DEALT WITH ALL OF THEM!!!"

Void divided himself into two copies, and one went to fight Elfilis while the other flew to the heroes. The Void that went to attack Elfilis began by sending a storm of lasers that Elfilis countered with their own giant laser.

"I'm sorry, Sweetie Belle, but Elfilis is a painful subject to me," Void said. "I tried to forget them, doing as if they never existed."

"Why? What is different between them and your other... uh... creations like Zero? You didn't care about them."

"That's because Zero and the others were born from my folly and hate, pawns to spread pain and destruction. Elfilis, however, was born out of love, like Galacta Knight, back when I was myself. What makes them very special, however, is that they were my very first creation. My firstborn. Created before everything else. I love them so much... And it made their betrayal all the more painful."

"Oh... Oh... I'm sorry..."

"Elfilis gained a hunger for power and began to absorb any other life-forms I created. I couldn't bring myself to destroy them, so I banished them to another universe. What a surprise it was to hear that the humans captured them and used their power to enter my universe. I thought that it was perfect. They were contained, they couldn't hurt anyone anymore, they were left behind forgotten, so I just let them like that and hoped that that was the end. Foolish..."

There was a moment of silence before Galacta Knight cleared his throat. "Ahem. So, how do we deal with them, father? Morpho Knight told us that they will constantly return, no matter how many time we defeat them."

"Mmh... Speaking of Morpho Knight, what happened with him? I can feel his power within Elfilis."

"He appeared and absorbed Elfilis, trying to keep them contained within his body. But Elfilis revealed to be too powerful and was able to take possession of him. We had to fight him to force Elfilis out of him, and it seems like Elfilis took the occasion to absorb his power," Sweetie Void recounted.

"I see. Then, it could be our chance. I can feel that Morpho Knight's power is fighting off Elfilis, making them very instable. It should take some time before they properly absorb it. So we can use the occasion to deal a fatal blow to Elfilis and leave their soul very weakened. Then... I guess that I could definitively destroy them..."

Void really looked sad at the prospect of destroying Elfilis for good.

"Ah could do it in yer place," Apple Death said. "Ah can do stuff with souls."

Void shook his head. "This is my burden."

They were interrupted by a gigantic shadow copy of Elfilis appearing behind the skyscrapers. The shadow swept its spear down at the copy of Void that they couldn't see behind the buildings.

"They have grown so powerful. They are very close to surpassing me in my current state."

Sweetie Void groaned. "If only you having feelings didn't make you weaker..."

Void smiled at her. "Don't worry about Popstar. Copies of me are pushing the planet away from the vortex. I shall send more copies to push this world away too. Good luck."

At this, the copy flew away.

"Well, at least, we won't have to worry about the two planets colliding," Phantom said.

"Did he say that he was pushing planets?" Gilgamesh questioned.

"Oh yeah. Void is a God. He can totally do that," Sweetie Void said.

At this, the group returned to fight Elfilis. Gilgamesh had to jump from building to building (or what remained of them after Void and Elfilis' passage). Contrary to his Phantom counterpart, he couldn't use the wind to fly.

They joined the battle just in time to see Elfilis fire a laser into a rift. That same laser then came out of another rift, and Void avoided it, only for the laser to enter another rift and to exit yet another. This repeated, the laser entering and exiting rifts while Void flew around to avoid it. All the while, Void used two swords to send waves of fire, ice, and electricity at Elfilis who constantly teleported out of the way.

Gilgamesh cast Haste, Protect, and Shell on himself and also on the others, which took some time, and they all attacked Elfilis.

Phantom began by sending a wave of Phantom energy. Elfilis prepared themself to cut the approaching wave, but Kirby then distracted them with his giant sword. As soon as the wave hit them, giant monsters appeared and began to throw at them the objects that were still floating because of Popstar's gravitation, including the buildings. However, this wave also hit everyone else, so Phantom had to be careful not to accidentally hit someone else with the thrown objects. At the same time, she attacked Elfilis directly with her own cannon.

Gilgamesh was impressed by Phantom's power, but he didn't let his awe stop him as he cast spells like Missile and Electrocute. Since Elfilis was flying, he couldn't use his swords unless he wanted to constantly jump from the buildings around, so he had no choice but to use long range spells.

Maybe he should have kept his guns and rocket launchers. At least, he had one of these gunblades.

After Elfilis avoided a thrown car, they used their giant shadow-self to horizontally cut one of Phantom's monsters in half while they clashed Galacta Knight, not reacting to the purple electricity sent at them by Apple Death. Then, they were punched in the face by Void. The punch sent them crashing into a building where Sweetie Void teleported and grabbed their head. She slammed their head on the building's surface and dragged them along it before she threw them at Kirby who slashed them. Again, they reformed.

Elfilis was readying themself to attack Kirby, but they then had to avoid a falling spear created by Void. More spears began to rain wherever Elfilis was, forcing them to constantly fly around. One spear got their left ear, but they still could fly thanks to their psychic power the time that it reformed. All the while, Phantom continued firing at them with her cannon, and Gilgamesh cast Electrocute again. Apple Death was now sending numerous sharp bones, and Galacta Knight, energy waves powerful enough to cut buildings to pieces.

By now, Earth and Popstar were rather far from each other, but the vortex continued to pull objects, so any building destroyed began to float around, ready to be used as projectiles or as platforms.

Annoyed, Elfilis flew at the ground and thrusted their spear into it, creating several giant tornadoes of red energy that began to move around, sweep anything they encountered. The tornadoes were as big as the buildings and caused huge amount of damage to the city, sending countless debris of various sizes to fly everywhere, risking to ram the heroes. Getting hit by something the size of a house was not on their agenda, so the heroes did their best to avoid everything while attacking Elfilis whenever they had the occasion. Gilgamesh actually used the flying debris against Elfilis by kicking them right toward the alien. Seeing him do it, Sweetie Void and Kirby copied him while Apple Death used telekinesis to throw them.

By the time the tornadoes disappeared, part of the city was transformed into a field of debris still flying around because of the vortex. At least, it wasn't raining pieces of Popstar anymore.

Kirby created a giant ghostly Fecto Forgo and sent it chasing Elfilis. The ghost thing passed through the flying debris, continuing its path toward its target.

Elfilis gathered energy into their spear and threw it before teleporting. The spear passed through the ghost, destroying it, and continued its course toward Kirby who quickly moved aside. The spear passed beside him and continued, eventually reaching a building that hadn't totally crumbled further away. The next instant, there was a huge explosion that engulfed a big part of the city. The heroes were caught in the blast and were blasted away, but they all quickly recovered, excepted Gilgamesh who crashed head first into the remains of a building.

Elfilis reappeared beside Void, ready to attack, but Void avoided the following swing and pierced Elfilis with his arm turned into a needle.

Phantom's monsters were still present, and one of them threw a floating building and threw it. Void quickly teleported away, but Elfilis didn't and instead sliced the building in two, the two pieces passing at their left and right. They then teleported further up in the sky, opened a portal, opened many more all over the city, readied their spear, and placed its head into the portal. Bigger versions of the spearhead came out of the other portals all over the city. Elfilis then charged a laser from the spearheads, and fired.

Giant lasers rained all over the city, each laser causing an explosion that destroying everything in a large radius.

Sweetie Void grabbed Gilgamesh and teleported. The others all either teleported too or flew away VERY rapidly.

Not much was left of the city once the deadly rain was over. Just a large area of pure devastation with floating debris everywhere. Some of it was being filled with the water of the large river that traversed the city.

Sweetie Void appeared not far above Elfilis and threw Gilgamesh at them. Gilgamesh used Zantetsuken with his eight weapons to cut Elfilis into little pieces, then was caught by Sweetie Void again who turned herself into a horse big enough for Gilgamesh to ride.

Inside his mind, Gilgamesh was squealing.

Before Elfilis could totally reform themself, Void materialized four Master Crowns that he put in a circle formation. The crowns gathered energy in the middle, then fired a huge laser that Void made sure was pointed at the sky and that it would miss Popstar. The laser totally engulfed Elfilis who screeched.

When the laser disappeared, Elfilis was left as a gelatinous mass that began to reform itself again.

While Elfilis reformed itself, Kirby came and sent several giant fiery waves that cut them to pieces again. Galacta Knight sent a space beam. Phantom pierced them with a giant thunder spear. Apple Death materialized a giant dragon skull that fired a large beam. Sweetie Void fired an Ultimate Doom Laser (making Elfilis screech again). Gilgamesh then jumped at Elfilis again and cut them with eight more Zantetsukens.

The gelatinous mass dropped to the ground, still reforming itself. However, something spherical, red at the exterior, yellow and cyan at the interior, now protruded out of their back.

"That's their Soul!" Void exclaimed.

"Uh. Doesn't look like before they were absorbed by Morpho Knight," Sweetie Void said.

"It must be the instability caused by them absorbing Morpho Knight's power," Apple Death said.

"It doesn't mean they won't be powerful once we get it out. Remain on your guard," Galacta Knight said.

"Wait. You mean we are going to fight their soul?" Gilgamesh asked.

Sweetie Void didn't answered and looked at Kirby. "Kirby, do your thing."

"Poyo!"

Kirby flew toward Chaos Elfilis and inhaled, wrapping himself around the orb, Elfilis' soul. He then began to pull while Void grabbed Elfilis' spear and stopped it from being mentally manipulated.

After some seconds during which Elfilis struggled, Kirby succeeded and fully pulled the Soul out, leaving behind a lifeless corpse. In addition of being red, yellow, and cyan, the Soul revealed to have a star-like core, like the soul pieces, but more intense.

The Soul remained floating above the body which turned blood red, gelatinous again, and disintegrated into several smaller orbs that began to orbit the Soul.

Suddenly, the sky took a dark purple hue and the Soul transformed into a powerful black hole. Everybody flew away from it right away, resisting its pull. Gilgamesh held on Sweetie Void hard. Debris in a large radius around the Soul were sucked in, disappearing inside the vortex. Even pieces of the ground were pulled in.

When the black hole disappeared and the Soul returned to normal (and the sky was grey again), everyone immediately went on the offensive. The Soul flew away, forcing the others into a chase. While flying, it erratically teleported, avoiding many attacks, before the red orbs grouped into two orbs which fired two powerful lasers at two random targets. The lasers were small, but powerful. Anyone hit by them found themselves with a hole in their body that Sweetie Void quickly healed. The lasers then continued their courses, even into the ground, leaving holes in the earth/rock.

The Soul fired, teleported, fired, teleported again... It was impossible to guess who will be fired at, so it was very difficult to dodge the lasers. And because of the Soul constantly teleporting and moving while flying away, it was just as difficult to land a hit.

So everyone who could teleport began to erratically teleport too, and the ones who couldn't simply flew at random very rapidly.

Gilgamesh hoped that this wouldn't last long because he was starting to feel sick.

The Soul stopped firing the lasers and teleported faster, this time teleporting randomly among the heroes chasing it. Then, they suddenly stopped, and the red orbs entered the Soul before they were launched out in the form of six red cutter blades that the target, Galacta Knight, barely dodged. The Soul then teleported again, this time near Phantom who immediately teleported to avoid the second set of cutter blades. The Soul teleported a third time, beside Void, and sent out this time two sets of cutter blades, one after another. Void didn't dodge. Instead, he sent his own cutter blades which countered the Soul's and even cut them, allowing them to reach and cut the Soul.

The Soul stopped using the cutter blades and teleported away of the group before the orbs formed a ring around it. Each orb them emitted a laser and began to move at random directions. The lasers were sweeping everywhere, back and forth, and keeping track of all of them was difficult. They were doing lots of damage to the landscape, leaving deep gashes everywhere, pretty much cutting down mountains in the distance.

Sweetie Void could swear that one of these mountains was the one that they traversed at the beginning, with all the rolling boulders.

The heroes constantly attacked while dodging the lasers. But then, the Soul suddenly stopped and turned back into a black hole, turning the sky dark purple again. The heroes almost flew into it, barely stopping in time.

While resisting the pull, Sweetie Void charged energy into her horn. When the Soul finished its attack and returned to normal, she unleashed all that energy in the form of a small beam that pierced it and exploded inside it. This didn't destroy the Soul, but it was quite damaging.

Suddenly, the Soul turned into a giant fireball, turning the sky orange, and charged toward the nearest mountain and totally shattered it, sending boulders flying everywhere, including toward the heroes. While the heroes avoided the boulders, the Soul, still a fireball, entered a portal and exited from another right behind the heroes, ending up ramming Void, Phantom, and Galacta Knight. The Soul then entered another portal and exited from yet another to ram the heroes again, but this time, everyone avoided it and even attacked it in return.

The Soul continued to attempt to ram the heroes as a fireball by entering and exiting portals, managing to ram Kirby at a moment, before it stopped and suddenly dissolved into countless paint-like orbs of energy that flew toward the sky which took a reddish tint. The paint-like orbs then violently rained on the heroes, but Sweetie Void and Phantom both put up a shield to protect everyone from it. The orbs still ended up destroying the shields, but by then, Gilgamesh cast Haste on everyone again, allowing them to move fast enough to fly away from the remaining orbs. Gilgamesh also took the occasion to recast Protect and Shell.

When the orbs stopped raining, the Soul reformed and, right away, surrounded itself in a blue aura, the sky turning blue too, before it began to bounce around, getting bigger and bigger with each bounce. After some bounces, once it was absolutely giant, the Soul crashed not far of the heroes, sending on the ground a shockwave with lightning bolts coursing it, similar to Leongar's attack. However, where the lightning bolts of Leongar's attack had been immobile, these ones moved counterclockwise, making it a bit harder to avoid them. The shockwave itself was also much faster than the ones released by Leongar. The Soul then crashed a second time, sending a second shockwave with lightning bolts that moved clockwise this time. Then, it did it a third time, this time with lightning bolts that moved both clockwise and counterclockwise.

While it bounced, the heroes continuously attacked it, but it was difficult to predict its movements so they missed a lot. When the Soul crashed for the last time, Void actually used the occasion to teleport right above it before crashing into it hard, crushing the Soul between himself and the ground. This kept the Soul immobile long enough to allow the others to land some big hits. Phantom pierced it from all directions with dozens of iron spears. Apple Death made bones come out of the ground to pierce the Soul from below. Galacta Knight sent a powerful wave that would have cut anyone else in two, the wave leaving a big gash in the ground behind the Soul. Gilgamesh cast Hurricane (once Void moved away). Sweetie Void caught a floating boulder from the mountain the Soul shattered earlier, sculpted it into a spike, and threw it at the Soul. Once the spike pierced the Soul, Kirby used the Grand Hammer to pound it further into the orb.

While everyone attacked, the Soul returned to its normal size, the blue aura disappearing and the sky returning to grey, and it emitted the lasers from its red orbs, forcing the heroes to move back. The Soul then flew away, resuming the chase. Once the Soul stopped sweeping the landscape with all the lasers, it resumed grouping the red orbs into two orbs from which it fired powerful lasers at the heroes while regularly teleporting.

Gilgamesh finally had the thought of casting Disable, stopping the Soul from attacking, and it couldn't even teleport anymore. However, the Soul quickly broke from it (as Gilgamesh expected). It still opened it long enough to allow Sweetie Void to form blades of energy on her right wing before she accelerated and cut the Soul with said wing, also allowing Gilgamesh to slash the Soul by the same occasion with his eight weapons.

When the Soul could attack again, it gathered all its red orbs into a single orb which moved under it while the sky turned black. A huge amount of energy gathered into the orb, and Void gasped.

"It will fire a beam powerful enough to blow up the whole planet!"

Hearing this, everyone attacked with everything they had, only for the Soul to fire its laser. However, Kirby teleported in the path of the laser and began to inhale, his mask moving to his forehead. In his Stella Knight form, Kirby's inhaling was as powerful as when he was Hypernova, so he was able to inhale the laser. The Soul continued to fire the laser for several seconds however, hoping that it will be too much for the pink puffball. But Kirby inhaled everything until the laser finally stopped.

However, the Soul decided that it wasn't done and already started to gather energy to fire another laser, which it fired just after Kirby spat the first laser back at it. This started a terrible clash between the two lasers, but Kirby will quickly lack juice to continue firing his, and the Soul didn't seem ready to stop firing his.

But then, Elfilin arrived and, with a determined scream, gave energy to Kirby, allowing his laser to overpower Elfilis' laser and to start to advance. Kirby was starting to feel that his laser was reaching the end however, and it won't reach the Soul in time.

Then came Void with a giant sword vertically slashing the Soul, including the red orb firing the laser. The red orb was destroyed, stopping it from firing the laser. Right away, Kirby's laser hit the Soul and, while not engulfing it as the laser wasn't big enough, pierced it. The laser continued its course toward the sky, toward Popstar.

Seeing this, Void panicked and quickly made his copies push the planet out of the way. He barely succeeded in time, and the God sighed in relief, along with everyone else.

Meanwhile, the Soul started to lose shape. Rays of energy escaping it appeared, its body began to glow, and the Beast Pack members Elfilis absorbed even appeared for a brief instant. The Soul began to shrink little by little until it disintegrated into particles, leaving behind only a very small orb of light. The orb floated here for a few seconds, then slowly moved toward Elfilin.

Elfilin only watched as what remained of Elfilis let itself merge with him.

Thus, the Ultimate Life-Form was whole again, but this time, Elfilin was the one in control.

Right away, Elfilin looked at the giant vortex in the sky and used his newly recovered powers to easily make it disappear while turning the sky back to normal.

The battle against Elfilis was definitively over, and they will never have to worry about them ever again.

Author's Note

-First of, I added Orbeetle to the list of Pokémon that Sweetie Void has, in the comment section of this blog. I had totally forgotten about this one.
-Secondly, the next chapter may take some time to get out. I have a bit of rewriting to do to add some stuff from the Kirby Return To Dreamland Deluxe game to A Sweetie Dreamland. I also wish to rewrite a bit of the Undertale arc, like I said previously I-don't-remember-where. The problem is that I feel lazy to do all that rewriting... So it may take some time to gain the motivation. 😅

Chapter 145: The Ultimate Life-Form's Sorrow

Author's Note

So...
First:
Starting from this chapter, this story is now a collaboration with Justalad 45. He will write some of the chapters like this one, and will help here and there. He is just much better than me at story telling, especially with dramatic moments. So applaud him for his marvelous job.
Second:
In A Sweetie Dreamland, I edited the chapter 73, where I added a paragraph in which Magolor recounts the events of the Magolor Epilogue. I also intend to rewrite chapter 71, but it's harder as the rewriting will include new lyrics for the fight against Magolor which will be longer.
In Ultimate Multiverse Explorers, I edited the chapters 27 (a new paragraph and some sentences here and there), 32 (a small change near the end), 33 (changed and added stuff here and there), 34 and 35 (rewrote big parts of them). I'm not sure if I rewrote these last two right, it's the first time that I rewrite chapters. If you see something wrong, don't hesitate to tell me.

Chapter 145: The Ultimate Life-Form's Sorrow

Seeing the sky back to normal, Sweetie Void descended to the ground to simply breathe.

Despite all her previous adventures with Kirby, this was by far one of her most challenging and intense battles against a Big Bad Final Boss in her relatively short life as an adventurer. And that was after she got this strong and with powerful allies!

A shiver ran down her spine, imagining how it would have been had it only been her, Kirby, Meta Knight, and Dedede, like in her more traditional adventures in the Dream Universe. She already saw she would have needed to go Soul Mode had Void not intervened.

But that was all behind her now, and she could begin to relax now that Fecto Elfilis was no more, having been absorbed by Elfilin and all…

Ok just so she can be sure this time…

"Hey Elfilin!" Sweetie void called for him, and he floated down to her.

"We all saw what was left of Elfilis enter you. Just to be completely clear, you…?"

"Don’t worry, I am in fact me," Elfilin reassured her. "That single piece was truly all that survived of their Soul. It didn’t really come with… a consciousness left." Elfilin said, struggling a bit to say the last words and Sweetie Void understood the meaning behind.

Fecto Elfilis was truly gone now.

Still, if not the consciousness…

"Then, what did they leave you with?" Sweetie Void asked, but before Elfilin could say anything a loud voice howled.

"OHHH YEEEAH!" Gilgamesh, having finally come from the rush of battle, shouted in celebracion as he dismounted from Sweetie Void. "Another grand victory delivered by yours truly!"

Sweetie void just looked at him with a look between annoyed and unimpressed.

Gilgamesh noticed her and quickly faked coughing on his fist, "...and of course, with the help of REALLY formidable allies. Thanks for acting as my steed back then, it was…quite the pleasant experience." He said. Sweetie Void just huffs before returning to her original filly self.

Then in came Kirby and Void, followed by the others. Sweetie Void extended her hoof and Kirby met it with his pink numb.

"Once more, you and your friends prove your might against the ghosts of my past. Thank you and sorry, again," Void said but Sweetie waved him off.

"It’s all fine. But Honestly now, we would REALLY appreciate you telling us beforehand about the threats of the Dream Universe and not just before the final battle against them," Sweetie Void said a bit annoyed. "Are there ANY more of your rogue children out there, trapped somewhere they WILL break out?" Sweetie void asked with an inquisitive look, making Void flinch a bit.

"Uh…I don't believe so? N-not that I remember at the moment. Even after all this time, there are still some blank spots in my memory, especially from the time I was corrupted. I can’t guarantee there will be no more threats made by me out there, but I do promise to be more transparent with anything I manage to remember," Void sincerely answered Sweetie Void, who just sighed tiredly.

"Honestly? Good. I don't have the mental energy to deal with it right now," Sweetie Void said, then though a bit before saying, "We should head back to Equestria with the others. No doubt a Victory Party is already underway."

Gilgamesh promptly showed interest. "Oho! A Victory Party! I love those! May I also come? Could use the rest before resuming my travels"

Sweetie Void looked at him up and down before smiling and shrugging. "Of course! You did good back there."

She then opened a portal to Equestria that Gilgamesh crossed, followed by Kirby, Void, and the others.

"Elfilin!" Sweetie Void called, stopping him in his tracks when he was about to follow. "...After the Party, if you’re up to it we…should have a talk."

Elfilin stood there, floating for a moment before quietly nodding and crossing the portal.

Back when Sweetie Void asked him what it was that Fecto Elfilis left him, she managed to feel something that…troubled her.

Since Elfilin absorbed that piece of Soul, she was able to sense how a latent psychic power came off Elfilin. She was able to tell that some if not all the power left from Fecto Elfilis had been in that piece of soul, but she's been calm since it seemed Elfilin had it in control.

What worried her was how after she asked Elfilin what his counterpart left him with, that psychic energy spiked, as if her words had alerted Elfilin.

"...No use in worrying about it, better to just enjoy the party for now and relax before confronting Elfilin about it," she said as she finally followed to Equestria.

She really hoped her friend was fine.

Closing the portal behind her, Sweetie Void looked up at the familiar sight of Twilight's castle.

"Wow, pretty castle you folks got! I’ve been in bigger ones, though. Not bad still," Gilgamesh appraised.

"Maybe you’ll find the one of the royal sisters in Canterlot more to what you’re used to, then. Or my own back on Popstar," Sweetie replied pointing her hoof at Canterlot in the distance.

"Mmm, indeed it seems more impressive-hol'up, you got a castle!? You’re some kind of princess too?"

"Queen-in-waiting, actually."

Around Twilight's castle she could see various Waddle Dees from Waddle Dee Town around, all seeming to be relatively unharmed. Various of the heroes were there too, Donkey Kong, Ness, Poo, Jeff, Link, Sonic, among others. The executives of the Beast Pack were also there.

They were attended by a pony who was currently looking over Leongar, Clawroline near him looking worried. So Sweetie approached the pony to ask about the state of everyone and him when their appearance made her stop on her tracks.

It was a blue Earth Pony mare, with a dark red and brown mane that was made into a single long braid that sat tall atop her head. On her midsection, she wears a green long skirt that covers her lower-half, leaving only her hooves visible. On one of her front ones, she had a single bracelet, made from copper if Sweetie had to say from the color, and another bigger one around her neck.

But what Intrigued her the most was the yellow and blue bird mask that she was wearing.

"I could swear she seems familiar, but from where…?" Sweetie Void muttered to herself.

“Mmh…” Phantom observed the pony. “Wait a minute… Could it be…?” she muttered.

In the end, Sweetie concluded she might as well directly ask her instead of just wandering around.

"Heya! Who are you? I don't think I have seen you around here before," Sweetie asked casually as she approached while the mare kept attending the great lion.

"Mmm, well that wouldn't be surprising. I haven’t been around in quite a long time…" the mare said, speaking with an accent Sweetie Void couldn’t quite place.

The mysterious mare looked at her and took out her mask, revealing her face and her greenish blue eyes.

"I believe you might recognize me in this era as… Mage Meadowbrook."

Recognizing the name, Sweetie Void, Phantom, and Apple Death got stunned for a moment.

But now that they did a double-take…

"Ah, the mask! I knew I saw it somewhere! And you…certainly resemble the images in the History books…b-but still! Wow! One of the Pillars of old Equestria here? How?"

At that moment, a familiar light shined and from it appeared none other than Sweetie’s Twilight Sparkle, having teleported.

She looked around until her eyes spotted Sweetie and she rushed to her side.

"Sweetie Belle! Thanks Celestia you’re alright!" Twilight said relieved, "The heroes that arrived here before already briefly filled me in on what happened. Good thing you seem to be fine. I suppose everything is taken care of then?"

"Sure is! Now though, I suppose I wasn't the only one in an adventure here," Sweetie said looking over at Meadowbrook.

"Ah! Of course! You wouldn't know about the Pony of Shadows! Come inside the castle, we will explain everything there."

"Hey! Excuse me, but I am looking for a party over here." Gilgamesh said on the side.

Twilight looked at him and smiled, "Of course, Mr…?"

"The Great Gilgamesh Sama!"

"....Great Gilgamesh…Sa-ma? The Pinkies are in Ponyville arranging it all near Sugarcube Corner. Everyone there knows the way," Twilight points at Ponyville behind her castle.

Grinning from ear to ear, Gilgamesh took off to the town. "Man, I hope they got some good alcohol there…"

Once he was gone, Sweetie Void looked at Twilight, "His name is just Gilgamesh. I don't think adulating him is a good idea."

"Mmm… maybe, he didn’t seem that bad," Twilight responded.

"Anyways, tell me more about this Pony of Shadows…" Sweetie Void said while entering the castle followed by everyone else. Mage Meadowbrook looked at Kirby, Void, Galacta Knight, and Elfilin with curiosity but she remained behind to continue to attend to everyone outside.

Inside the castle, Twilight Sparkle led Sweetie Void and the others to the throne room where the three sets of Element Bearers (minus the Pinkie Pies who were busy preparing the party), Sweetie Void’s Starlight Glimmer, and who Sweetie assumed were the remaining Pillars of Equestria as well as a seventh pony that she didn’t recognize were gathered, talking to each others.

First was a huge cyan Earth Pony stallion, even bigger than Big Mac. He had a lighter patch of fur forming a stripe from his forehead to his muzzle, and he had gamboge mane and tail as well as a beard and mustache with gold stripes running through them. A bit of his mane was braided, and he had grayish blue eyes. He was wearing brown leather clothes on his chest and legs and there was a metal plate tied around his chest. Finally, he had a headband on his forehead and another tying the end of his tail. His Cutie Mark was of a geometrical figure forming three superposing gray triangles.

His size was a huge giveaway of who he was. Sweetie Void remembered from the history books. This pony was none other than Rockhoof.

Then there was a light scarlet pegasus mare with a dark arctic blue mane and tail with turquoise stripes, and she had grayish blue violet eyes. Her mane was cut into a bob and was covered by a headdress of white fabric with a golden headband ornated with a crescent moon. Two more golden headbands tied her tail, one at the middle and one at the extremity. As clothe, she had a transparent veil cloaking her back, wrapped by a golden belt with holes for her wings. Sweetie Void couldn’t see her Cutie Mark which was hidden under her wings.

No doubt, she was Somnambula.

Next was another pegasus, this one a stallion with ember fur, red mane and tail, and turquoise eyes. He had light armor composed of mail and a gray helmet, including a red scarf, and he had a shield that seemed to be copper with a winged four-branched star above a laurel on it.

Flash Magnus. The one and only.

After him was an old unicorn mare. Right away, Sweetie Void noticed the long curved horn that ended at a point. Same for the ears. And she had cerulean eyes, light mulberryish gray fur lighter at the hooves, and a mane and tail that looked like the mist of the mountains, flowing behind her like a river current. She had a grayish green shirt with a lighter collar and a grayish yellow and blue belt with… whatever was that thing on it, and there was a turquoise flower pendant. Her Cutie Mark was a seagreen cloud.

The legendary Mistmane.

And last but not least, an old gray unicorn stallion with a white and gray mane, tail, and beard and a white crescent mustache. The mane and tail curled at their extremities, and he had blue eyes. A blue cloak with stars, crescent moons, and bells covered most of his body, and he also had a blue wizard hat also with stars, crescent moons, and bells.

Starswirl the Bearded.

As for the seventh pony, he also was a gray unicorn stallion with a very thin build, with short blue mane and tail with lighter stripes and blue eyes, wearing a brown cloak.

Starswirl noticed Twilight and Sweetie Void entering the room and addressed them. "Ah! You must be the young one we have heard so much about."

He, along with the rest of the Pillars and the pony she didn’t recognize walked over and stood in front of her.

She had to say, she never would have guessed that she's gonna get the chance to meet the most legendary heroes of Equestria's History in the flesh.

"Wow, it’s an honor to meet you all! The name’s Sweetie Belle. Although for certain reasons you may call me Sweetie Void instead."

At that, Flash Magnus snorts. "That should be our line kid, if what we’ve been told of you is to be believed."

"The tales of your might sound nothing short of a myth! Yet our friends here affirm it to be nothing but the truth. I myself had serious doubts that such an amount of power even existed," Rockhoof said next.

"Celestial beings able to re-shape the very cosmos and with power beyond comprehension defeated by you… It goes without saying your exploits far surpass anything we ever faced," Starswirl praised

Sweetie Void actually rubbed the back of her neck slightly embarrassed. Sure, she was aware of her achievements, but being praised by figures she grew up hearing tales about as if they were legends felt good anyways.

"Hehe, thanks for your words…" Then suddenly she remembered something. "Oh yeah, I've heard about all of you… except for him. Who's he?" she asked, pointing at the gray stallion that shrunk a little at being addressed.

"Ah, of course. It figures you would've barely heard of him before. His tale isn't quite the pleasant one…" Somnambula said.

"Indeed. You see young one, he is none other than the former vessel of the Pony of Shadows miss Sparkle surely mentioned to you on your way here," Mistmane said, surprising Sweetie Void who looked at the gray pony again.

Sighing, the gray pony seemed to steel himself and stood upright in front of her.

"My name Is Stygian. Long ago in the past I used to assist the Pillars in their endeavors, but due to some…misunderstandings I've ended up meddling with dark forces and almost doomed Equestria," he said, looking down after finishing. But then he felt something rest on his shoulder and turned to look at Starswirl who had put his hoof on his shoulder and was giving him a reassuring smile. The Pillars sported similar looks at him.

"Indeed. Due to my misplaced distrust and stubbornness the Pony of Shadows took hold of him, his power too great even for us. We had no other option but to banish them both to a limbo but we all also got dragged in, disappearing from the face of Equus. Due to the nature of the limbo, all of us retained our age at the moment, surviving even for thousands of years," Starswirl recounted.

"That is, until we freed them," Twilight said, proceeding to tell Sweetie Void all about said Adventure.

15 minutes later…

"Mmm, interesting indeed. I'm glad everything worked out in the end!" Sweetie Void expressed.

"Right? We are all already making plans to free the Pillars of our own Equestrias. And with the knowledge of this tale, we will be able to greatly speed it over!" Phantom Sparkle said.

"It sure would be fascinating, having two more of each of us. The things we could accomplish together…" Starswirl said, and all the Pillars started wondering about it.

Sweetie Void, for her part, smiled. The more potential allies, the better. They’re gonna need it.

Oh, right.

"I have to ask, were you all told about the current situation?"

At that, The Pillars looked at her, their faces becoming serious.

"We were told that a great calamity the likes Equestria-no, Equus as a whole has never faced before in its entire History. Also that you’re the one that could explain it all better," Flash Magnus said.

Sweetie Void sights. "Right, ok there it goes…"

Thus, Sweetie Void laid all she knew down to the Pillars. About the Multiversal Army and the Gods of Light and Darkness.

Another 15 minutes later…

By the end of it, the Pillars and Stygian looked positively worried, minus Somnambula, the ever-hoping legend maintaining positivity through it all.

"Our foes do sound mighty, but I'm sure your plan of uniting allies across worlds will bear fruit, Sweetie Belle."

"Thanks, If only I was able to convince multiple of our allies of the same…Since Master Hand's proposal spread, multiple factions are having second thoughts about the whole thing! I'm honestly not sure how to calm things out," Sweetie Void said with weight on her words.

"Do you want my honest opinion?" Chromatic Bolt, her Rainbow Dash, said as she approached and sat down besides her, one front leg wrapped around Sweetie Void.

"You need to relax first. You just came from yet another dangerous adventure away, so right now why don't you rather focus on the incoming party? It will do you good!"

Sweetie Void smiled at her and nodded.

"Yeah, You’re right. I sure need it," she said.

And right on cue, from the entrance of the room came in the three Pinkie Pies.

"Listen everyone! We announce the double Victory Of Sweetie Void Party/The Pillars Return Party has begun!" they announced.

At the same time, in perfect synchron.

"...Alright. Oh! I almost forgot! Before we go," Sweetie Void said as she turned to Kirby, Void, Galacta Knight, and Elfilin. The first three were content listening to both the story of the Pony of Shadows and the re-telling of the entire situation of the Subspace Army while Elfilin learned all that with worry.

"These are some of my friends from Dream Land. They’re Void, the Progenitor God from there. Kirby, his Youngest, Galacta Knight, his Second eldest, and Elfilin, his… We aren’t sure actually. His eldest? His grandchild?" Sweetie Void introduced the little family of deities to the Pillars who approached curiously, having eyed them up since they stepped in the room.

"Fascinating. So you truly are a foreign God! Do you mind some questions?" Starswirl asked Void, who smiled.

"Sure, just as long as they’re not too fast," Void replied, not-so-subtly looking at the Twilights who all at some point questioned him at speeds he wasn't exactly comfortable with. For their part, all three looked away embarrassed.

"Huh, I’ve also heard of your feats of strength alongside the ones of the filly. If you would, as much as I might be out-classed, I would like to test you to see it myself!" Rockhoof excitedly challenged Kirby.

"Poyo!"

Galacta Knight for his part just chuckled. "I would greatly advise against it, unless all of the beings here on this planet see themselves harmed for it."

Still, Rockhoof didn’t seem discouraged by his words.

"Well, Kirby can control his strength so it will be fine if he doesn't overdo it," Sweetie Void reassured all the ponies present. "Let's go to the party now, everyone should be waiting for us there," she said as everyone walked out of the Castle to go to Ponyville.

Outside the Castle, all the other heroes seemed to have recovered and left for the party already, having been told by the three Pinkie Pies on the way. They encountered Mage Meadowbrook who, with the help of Clawroline who searched and fetched her everything she asked for at literal blinding speed, had healed Leongar so now the big lion was both conscious and standing, although she warned him that he really wasn't in condition to do anything rash just yet. The Beast Pack executives celebrated the recovering of their leader regardless, leaving the healer with a satisfied look.

Thus, accompanied by the Beast Pack executives that Sweetie Void formally invited to the party too, everyone made their way to Ponyville.

Upon arriving, Sweetie Void took in the scenery of the party already in motion.

The party, thanks to the assistance of the Waddle Dees, the entire party-planning might of three Pinkie Pies and even the habitants of Ponyville, ended up expanding to practically include the whole town in celebration, making it seem as if a whole festival was taking place instead of just a party.

As the group traversed the streets, ponies and Waddle Dees and other Popstarlings could be seen interacting and partying among other members of the Beast Pack like Awoofys and Bernards, among others.

The group then finally reached Sugarcube Corner, the building and its surroundings being the heart of the party. Already multiple heroes could be seen partaking in multiple activities or chatting among themselves.

Sweetie Void's group then decided to branch out to different parts of the party, leaving her free to explore the party for herself.

She saw some groups already forming: there was Link talking with Meta Knight and Dark Meta Knight, the latter, as typical, seemed to be antagonizing Meta Knight.

There were also Marx and Little Ghost in some corner, looking at the entire party and acting real shady. She wondered whether to stop them or join in whatever prank they’re gonna come up with.

Donkey Kong and Gorimondo unsurprisingly were hitting it off well now that they weren’t fighting on opposing sides. They were chatting alongside Diddy and Dixie.

And then, surprising and not at the same time, there was Gilgamesh with none other than Berry Punch, both drinking straight out of barrels with what she guessed was wine.

And many others were interacting between them and overall having fun, Sweetie Void decided to look first at what the first group she spotted was doing.

As she approached, the conversation became clear.

"All I'm saying is that if you want to learn some really strong style, I would be better," Dark Meta Knight boasted, making Meta Knight roll his eyes.

"Oh yeah, really strong huh, that’s why you definitely won a duel against me before. Totally happened."

"Grrr, shut up! You and your rules, 'honor' and 'code' nonsense would only hinder the boy's potential! With me, he shall learn how to properly exploit his foes' weakness and become a way better warrior than if YOU teach him!"

"Don’t make me laugh, you lack way too much in proper technique and rely too much on strength alone. Besides, a proper hero like him surely would appreciate the ways of a true knight, unlike a berserker like you."

For his part, Link looked uncomfortable with the two discussing and because he got curious about Dark Meta Knight's teachings. He did value honor, but he couldn’t deny that when push came to shove it was better to bend things to secure a necessary win. He couldn’t really decide who he should go for and didn’t really want to lose the chance to learn from either.

Luckily for him, he saw Sweetie Void approaching and didn’t doubt she could come up with a solution!

"Alright, what is it with you two now?" Sweetie Void asked.

"Young Link and I were discussing the details of his incoming training when he came and, quite rudely I should say, butted his head where it wasn’t called," Meta Knight answered.

"Oh stuff it, I just overheard a bit and immediately gagged at how boring you were making it all sound. The kid doesn't need your rules, what he needs is to be taught all there is to REAL fighting!"

Seeing the two weren't gonna finish anytime soon, Sweetie Void sights.

"Alright, simple: just both of you teach him."

"What!?" Meta Knight said surprised.

"No way! I am not working with him more than I am forced to already!" Dark Meta Knight immediately protested.

"You don't have to: from Sunday to noon on Wednesday, Meta Knight can teach Link and past noon of Wednesday until Saturday it will be Dark Meta Knight's turn. You’re good with that, Link?" Sweetie Void asked the young hero, who nodded enthusiastically. Then she looked at both of the knights, who in turn looked at each other with contempt before both looked to the opposite sides.

"...I suppose it does sound like the fairer agreement," Meta Knight said.

"...Tch, whatever," was all Dark Meta Knight responded.

Friendship problem solved, Link thanked Sweetie Void before she walked away to her next objective of the party.

It seemed like Marx and Little Ghost locked the target on poor Flamberge, likely deducing her reaction to whatever they’re gonna do is gonna be the most hilarious.

In the end, rather than stopping them, Sweetie decided to go along. She deserved some mischief after all that happened.

Quietly approaching from behind, Sweetie Void got close without getting noticed.

"Boo!"

"AHH!-"

Marx panicked, thinking he got busted. Little Ghost however, who had done the same trick countless times had a way tamer reaction.

"Oh, hi Sweetie! Wanna join the fun?~"

Sweetie Void giggled at Marx, who in return pouted at her. "Yeah, I could use some harmless pranks for a good laugh. So, what are you guys up to?"

Little Ghost pointed at Flamberge and said, "We were thinking for a bit and came to the conclusion that dear Flamberge over there was just a bit too hot-headed, so we agreed that it would do good to help her 'cool down' with a refreshing bath~"

"Hehe, yeah! Just follow our lead!" Marx says, taking to the air with his wings to fly just on top of Flamberge.

Then, he spat an ice ball from his mouth which Little Ghost caught in her telekinesis.

Seeing this, Sweetie Void used her powers to augment its side about three times.

And finally, Little Ghost melted it, forming a rather big bubble before letting it resume its fall.

Flamberge, who was simply talking with her sister Zan Partizanne, didn’t notice the ominous shadow above her, contrary to her sister who simply dashed back as to not be affected.

SPLASH!

"GWAAA!"

Flamberge exclaimed, getting all wet over. Briefly panicked, she looked everywhere.

"W-we are under attack! Sister, warn everyone!-"

But instead, she was met with the giggling image of Zan Partizanne.

Then she remembered seeing her getting away just before she was splashed, her mind catching up.

"You traitor! You saw it coming and didn’t stop it or saved me! My own sister!" Flamberge said, angry and just a bit over dramatic.

Then she heard more voices giggling behind her, and turned around to see none other than the responsibles of her disgrace behind some bushes.

"Grrr, you want to laugh!?" She said as fire surrounded her, already evaporating the humidity in her wet clothes while she cracked her knuckles. "I'll give you a reason to laugh!"

What she planned to do to them wasn't, in fact, something to laugh for.

Marx and Little Ghost stopped laughing.

"Hey, Sweetie Belle, do you mind helping to calm-" Marx was saying before he and Little Ghost noticed that a moment after, Sweetie Void wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"Huh, I would be more hurt if it wasn't actually some really smart move," Little Ghost commented before she and Marx noticed the increasing heat, product of an angry Flamberge approaching them.

The two looked at each other for a second before taking out to the sky, flying and, to the frustration of Flamberge, laughed all the while.

"YOU JUST WAIT I GET MY HANDS ON YOU GOOD-FOR-NOTHING RASCALS!" she shouted, chasing after them.

Being lucky on not having gotten seen, Sweetie Void continued enjoying the party.

She was getting a bit hungry, so she decided to enter Sugarcube Corner and get something.

Inside, on the various tables she saw some interesting groups.

There were Void, Starswirl and the trio of Twilights conversing around a table, the later asking questions to their life-long idol at a (thankfully) moderate pace.

Also, in a quiet corner, Krystal was talking with Ness, Poo, and curiously enough, a NESP that seemed to have befriended them.

Then the rest of the tables were occupied by the trios of her sister's friends and her own sister accompanied by her counterparts talking about their interests. The Fluttershys talked about animals, the Applejacks about their lives on the farm and of course, her trio of sisters were talking about fashion and gossiping among them.

There also were the three Pinkie Pies who were coming from the kitchen, carrying all kinds of sugary treats to distribute outside.

Phantom Pie wordlessly gave Sweetie Void a slice of cake on the way outside.

"Thanks!" Sweetie Void said, accepting the slice.

Inside Sugarcube Corner there were also Magolor and Susie, who seemed to be looking up some holographic schematics.

Curious as to what they were working on, she approached.

"Hey guys! What's up?" Sweetie Void asked.

"Ah! Hello to you too Sweetie Belle!"

"Greetings."

Magolor and Susie greeted Back.

"Mmm… Aren’t you supposed to, y'know, not bring work to parties?" she asked the two.

"As much as I would like to indulge, it so happened that we were busy on a project back at New Halcandra," Susie replied.

"But since Void himself took the time to send a copy to tell us about it, we wanted to be present to the celebration!" Magolor said. "Plus, we were going to take a break from our main project to look at the world where the Humans that supplied the Ancients of their dimensional travel came from anyways."

"Yeeeah about that… I don't think there's much left to salvage back there."

"Oh we know, we were told the details of the quite destructive battle. Void already said he was going to look into simply reversing the destruction," Susie reassured Sweetie Void.

Right, they had a literal God on their side.

"Right. So what are you working on again?" she asked again.

"Nuh-huh huh, that would be telling~. I promise though, the wait will be worth it!" Magolor playfully waved a finger, with Susie nodding behind him.

"We can, however, tell you about what we’ve come up with for our new allies, this 'Beast Pack' we were told about," Susie said, intriguing Sweetie Void.

"Oh? What about them?"

"You see Sweetie Belle, in a effort to prepare for the war against the Subspace Army, and after, the one against the Gods of Light and Darkness, on New Halcandra we’re working on a program to better both train and weaponize Dream Land inhabitants, and this Beast Pack, more notably their executives, seems to have some unexploited potential."

Sweetie Void thought about it. Certainly, they could hold their own against some of the less powerful heroes, but it’s clear the difference they got compared to the bigger shots in the alliance. Still, she could tell that nobody in the Beast Pack ever had any kind of real training, and while the same could be say for some of her allies, they were still heroes that already got good experience, having go trough their own adventures whereas she doubted the Beast Pack had that much opposition before they arrived. Maybe some internal conflicts in the past but little else.

"Alright, sounds interesting. Have you thought of something?"

At that, Magolor and Susie changed the hologram of the schematics to instead display various statistics, with a holographic image of Clawroline.

"Thanks to the descriptions provided by Krystal, Donkey Kong, and the rest of the heroes earlier in the party, as well as what we gathered observing the executives when they arrived here, we were able to quickly determine possible ways we can capitalize on their strengths to make them more effective," Susie presented to sweetie Void. "This individual denominated 'Clawroline' for example shows formidable capabilities in both speed and agility, not to mention a capability with weaponry with her throwing knives and her natural extensible claws, without forgetting her ability to disappear in puffs of smoke. With the use of better weaponry as well as refining her agility she could prove quite the capable fighter."

"Which is why we have thought the best course of action would be to offer her to learn Ninjutsu under the tutelage of the Biosparks!" Magolor continued. "She seems particularly smart compared to her peers so it shouldn’t be complicated for her to learn her way through the weapons, her natural agility should make it so she doesn't have that much of a hard time with their trainings and the overall versatility Ninjutsu techniques provide would make her a fearsome foe!"

Sweetie Void let out a whistle at all that. "Impressive. Alright I’ll make sure to talk to her about it. What else have you got?"

Changing the holographics to now show Gorimondo, Susie continued the presentation.

"After discussing a bit, we opted to keep it simple with the big guy: the fact that it would just storm again and again Waddle Dee Town without even as much as really changing his strategy already shows it would be difficult to really teach him complicated combat techniques, so we scratched any of that. Instead we capitalize on his absurd willpower, resistance and strength. We are going to design a battle armor to enhance him physically and provide something easy and powerful as a weapon. Our Prime choice is a warhammer he would create powerful shockwaves with."

"Simple and to the point!" Magolor supplied. "With a combination of technology and brawn, we build him into a juggernaut capable of holding the frontline even if it's all by himself! We won't have to actually test that if we are lucky though."

This time, Susie changed the hologram to show Leongar.

"For him, we decided on the rather shocking data we received about him from Apple Death. Sweetie Void, did he truly get his soul torn apart into three hundred pieces and yet you were all able to bring him back alive?" Susie inquired.

"And without any mental sequels?" Magolor also asked.

The three looked out through a window of Sugarcube Corner and quickly spotted the enormous lion outside.

One of the Pinkie Pies, Surprise, was offering him cotton candy, which the lion gratefully took.

Then he gives it to Clawroline that was with him, the leopard eagerly biting into it with a content expression, which in turn made him smile too. Then Surprise offered him another cotton candy, surprising him a bit, but he took it nonetheless.

"... That’s not really something a normal being can achieve. Even just having your soul ripped into three or five pieces is potentially harmful in a permanent way, never mind three hundred!" Magolor said.

"Well to be fair, we do believe Fecto Elfilis was somehow keeping the pieces stable."

"Still an impressive feat nonetheless. We believe he could be adept in Soul Power, so we arranged for him to be trained by Knuckle Joes and other Popstarlings adept in the art. Their martial arts should also combine pretty fine with his powerful physique."

Finally, they showed the holographics of Sillydillo.

"And then him… It’s still a work in progress," Susie confessed.

Sweetie Void quirked an eyebrow at that.

"Huh? How so?"

"You see, there are various qualities he seems to possess, yet nothing seems to stand out. His back provides good defense, but his front is more vulnerable and heavy armor would hinder his mobility too much. He has good strength, but compared to Gorimondo or Leongar he doesn't really compare, and while he can be quite fast when he rolls, Clawroline still is faster and more agile, plus she can freely use her speed instead of having to roll," Susie elaborated.

"But that’s not to say it’s all bad! At least like Leongar, Sillydillo also doesn't have any major weaknesses like the lack of attack potency of Clawroline or the lack of speed of Gorimondo. You could say he is a Jack of all trades," Magolor said.

"Which also means he is a master of none, making it difficult to come up with something truly optimal for him," Susie said with some frustration.

"Eh, I'm sure you guys will come up with something. That was great! I'll make sure to tell them all to talk to you two with Elfilin as an interpreter," Sweetie Void praised the pair.

"That would be much appreciated," Susie said, bowing slightly.

"Well, I’ll get going and continue seeing the party around. It was nice seeing you!" Sweetie Void said goodbye to the pair who waved back and went out in her way.

Exiting Sugarcube Corner, Sweetie saw how the party progressed.

Now alongside Gilgamesh and Berry Punch was Rockhoof, he and Gilgamesh boisterously laughing, likely about tales about their adventures.

At some point, Vinyl Scratch had appeared and started animating everything with her music. This enthused Donkey Kong and Link, Donkey Kong taking out a pair of bongos and Link joining in with his ocarina. Vinyl nodded and expertly re-adjusted her music to be in tune with them, everyone quickly gathering to dance.

Smiling, Sweetie Void quickly joined in too. She even reunited with Phantom and Apple Death, along with the other CMCs of the other Equestrias and they all had fun together.

The party lasted long, everyone relaxing and celebrating. Eventually though, some started to get tired and retired and the party started to wind down.

Gilgamesh took a last gulp of his gourd. He, Berry Punch, and Rockhoof having finished the last drop of both wine and alcoholized cinder there was.

"Ahhh, now THAT’S how I like my parties~" he said, his voice slightly slurring.

"Indeed friend! There was nothing like a good feast and drink after a grand victory back in my homeland!" Rockhoof agreed.

Besides them, Berry Punch already laid sleeping.

"Well, it’s about time I take my leave," Gilgamesh said, standing up and saying goodbye to Rockhoof.

He then spotted Sweetie Void and walked up to her.

"Well I must say, this was all really fun! You people do know how to have fun around here," Gilgamesh said.

"Thanks! Do you want me to open you a portal?"

"Nah, it’s fine. I got my own way of getting around." he said. "Y'know, you told me that you’re all going to be fighting against some really busted multiversal army, right? I may know some people that would undoubtedly lend you a hand. Great warriors like yours truly, too," he offered.

"Oh, that definitely would be a great help! The only problem is that I don't precisely control the next universe I'm gonna land in. There's a chance I still meet them though!" Sweetie Void said.

"Mmm, indeed! After all, I do believe we coincided in the first place for a reason. Well then, may we cross paths again out there. Oh and if by chance you encounter a warrior named Bartz, tell him the Great Gilgamesh desires to duel him again and that I will definitely beat him! Until next time, Gilgamesh out!"

And with that, Gilgamesh left for the time being.

Sweetie Void then went to gather the Beast Pack executives and Elfilin to talk with Magolor and Susie who, with the help of Elfilin, communicated about the training plans.

All the executives were enthusiasmed at the idea of getting stronger, so all readily agreed.

Then she was approached by Fox, a serious expression on his face.

"What’s the matter?" she immediately inquired upon seeing him.

"We are having a reunion back at Twilight's castle. We are taking the chance of everyone being reunited to assert the current situation of the alliance as a whole in the brief days that have passed since Master Hand's proposal," Fox dutifully informed.

Upon hearing him, Sweetie Void’s face hardened and she nodded. "Alright, let’s go."

Thus, she and Fox walked back to Twilight's castle and into the Throne Room.

There, all the heroes were gathered around the Cutie Map, alongside the Pillars and the three Celestias and the three sets of Mane Six. Susie and Magolor also were here and from the Beast Pack only Carol was here (Clawroline who, with the help of Elfilin, revealed her true name) since she was the only one that didn’t took too much space and she also revealed that she was the one in charge of the Beast Pack's entire line of communication anyways.

Once everyone was confirmed to be present, Sweetie Void’s Twilight raised her hoof.

"Before anything else, I quickly want to address something. As some of you might know, I and the alternate versions of myself and my friends go by different nicknames to differentiate each others alongside bandanas of different color that we wear, so I wanted for a last time both re-introduce the nicknames that you may already know and the ones that you may not starting from my own."

Twilight then pointed at herself. "I go by Dream Warper. The me with the yellow bandana is Sparky, and the me with the blue bandana is Phantom Sparkle. My friends from my universe, who all wear red bandanas, are Rarity Void, Surprise for Pinkie, Chromatic Bolt for Rainbow Dash, Jackie for Applejack, and Timid for Fluttershy." She pointed at each ponies as she presented their nicknames. "The ones with yellow bandanas are Rareté, Smile, Zapp, Applebot, and Plushy. The ones with the blue bandanas are Phantom Rarity, Phantom Pie, Phantom Dash, Phantom Applejack, and Phantom Fluttershy. Oh, and let's not forget Phantom and Apple Death. Phantom is Scootaloo from the blue bandana universe, and Apple Death, Apple Bloom from the yellow bandana universe."

Everyone nodded in understanding as she finished.

That done, Fox then placed a device on the deactivated Cutie Map, an holographic device made by the Tails based on their phones, and from it, the holographic figures of General Pepper, Professor Oak, and Chairman Keaton were displayed.

Seeing everyone, Sweetie Void spoke.

"All right, now that everyone’s present I declare this reunion of the Alliance (name still temporary) started! Well then, who got something to report about the state of their universe?"

Sweetie Void’s Celestia spoke first. "All of the three Equestrias still hold our position of wait-and-see."

"Ditto from our Mobius too," Present Sonic said, his past counterpart nodding.

Chairman Keaton was next. He let go a heavy sigh. "Despite my best efforts, it seems that a considerable part of my peers still argue about whether to stick with this Alliance or to move on with the Subspace Army instead for a more guaranteed safety and I fear the discussions will stop being so civil in the near future…" he said.

Sweetie Void tsked. There went the first bad news of the evening.

Link talked next. "From what I remember just before I left, Zelda told me that the King was seriously considering joining them, but she managed to talk him out of it. Now they also are waiting and seeing. I also don't think the Future Hyrule is gonna want to get involved at all, as they’re still recuperating from Ganondorf's reign."

"The Mushroom Kingdom and the rest of its world are on the same boat as Future Hyrule," Apple Death also informed.

"Same goes for us, sadly. The damages the Rainbow Rockets did worldwide were not minimal and reparations are still underway," Oak added.

"And with Corneria that makes four factions unwilling to take any part on the conflict for the time being due to reconstruction," General Pepper said.

"Heh, you got lucky. Having an important political figure in your universe backing you up," Jeff spoke to Link, his eyes downcast. "Ever since what happened to Ness' hometown, our world is particularly terrified of the Subspace Army and rather than risking with us, they want to try to appeal to their mercy and join them. If we don’t show them something definitive that shows that we can beat them, there's nothing to do to stop them."

Sweetie Void pondered on this. Truly, if all they needed was an even greater show of power, that could be arranged.

"I see, what more?" she asked for the next representative to talk.

"Well, we on Popstar are firmly sticking with you!" King Dedede loudly proclaimed.

"No matter the odds, we refuse to back down," Meta Knight added.

"Indeed. I have total trust that my creations will pull through, and I will support them until the end," Void finished.

"Poyo!" Kirby let out with determination. Magolor and Susie also nodded firmly.

Sweetie Void gave them a grateful smile, and they all returned it with looks of conviction.

Now all the present had finished updating the state of their universes excluding Captain Falcon’s one since it had yet to be approached to join in, leaving Sweetie Void to think.

All in all, things weren't looking good. She should have known, maintaining an alliance this massive wasn't going to be easy by a long shot. She idly thought about how she understood more how the Celestias often seemed to get overwhelmed just managing Equestria. And now, like her, had this on top of that.

"Mmm, it seems there's not much we are able to immediately work on," she said.

"Understandable if you ask me. It has only been a few days since Master Hand's ultimatum was delivered," General Pepper said.

"True. However, there is something that we should address promptly before it worsens," Sweetie Void said.

At that, the most insightful in the reunion immediately turned to the one that reported the most dire news so far.

"Chairman Keaton," Sweetie Void addressed. "Your Galactic Federation is so far one of our greatest sources of military might. If that is compromised, it would be a blow too great. We need to prevent that."

"Agreed. From what I know, yours is one of the only factions here that has developed into space-travel, and currently the one with the largest army," General Pepper said.

"Thanks for the compliments. Indeed, sooner or later, I fear I will have a civil war in my hands. If that happens, our universe will also be out of commission, or at the very least, heavily weakened, with a great part of our forces cut and more strength for our enemy," Keaton said.

"Mmm…this is all because there isn’t enough trust that we will be able to stand in front of the Subspace Army, right?" Magolor asked

"The Subspace Army plans to sacrifice billions in order to realize their ambitions! Isn’t that enough?" Present Sonic said outraged, which made Phantom huff.

"Not everyone is this shiny beacon of justice like you are, Sonic," she rebutted him.

"Precisely, sadly. At least with the Subspace Army, many prefer the idea of making a great sacrifice to save the majority instead of risking the destruction of everything to the meager chance we would be victorious" Chairman Keaton confirmed.

"So in a nutshell, the alliance's current top priority is to convince and reassure everyone that we can indeed win this," Sweetie Void stated, and everyone in the room nodded.

"...Well, guess there's no option then," Magolor said, looking at Susie. "We will have to speed up the presentation of our projects."

"Yeah, it seems like it," Dedede agreed with him.

Discussions then started, and everyone ended up coming to a conclusion.

"We need to hold some kind of exhibition to the other factions about our advances. Both to convince those with doubts and to reaffirm everyone else that we got nothing to envy to the Subspace Army," Sweetie Void concluded.

"That sounds about right," Chairman Keaton agreed.

Then a date was set where the universes in the alliance will all showcase their might to the rest.

"And I guess that we will postpone the big meeting we had planned to after this exhibition, once we're sure that the alliance will stick."

Everyone agreed.

"Another thing is that I think that this could also be the perfect chance to start things right with Captain Falcon’s universe's own Galactic Federation," Sweetie Void added.

"Indeed," one of the Celestias said. "We were in deep thought about how to go about it since Master Hand's proposal, but this should be a good way to make them willing to join."

"Then it’s settled. Everyone, make sure that all of the scientists and researchers of your factions are made aware of this. The future of our universes depend on it! A showcase will be held, where we will then broadcast to the leaders of all the factions that doubt us just who the Subspace Army is dealing with!" Sweetie Void said with a conviction that was widely accepted.

"Well then, anything more that anyone wants to add?" she asked, waiting for a bit for anyone to say anything.

"Well then. With the permission of everyone present, I hereby declare this reunion of the alliance finished!" she said, and everyone cheered a bit, before starting to say their goodbyes to everyone and mobilize outside the castle to retire to their universes. The holograms of Chairman Keaton, Professor Oak, and General Pepper shut down and Fox retrieved the device.

"Good job! You made it great, considering this was one of the first reunions we undoubtedly will still have in the future," Fox congratulated Sweetie Void before he and Krystal were gone.

"Indeed Sweetie Belle," the Celestias approached her next, and Sweetie’s Celestia spoke. "It was really impressive the way you handled yourself throughout the whole meeting. Why, it seemed as if you already had a good deal of experience on it!" they all agreed.

"Hehe, that’s our future fellow royal to ya!" King Dedede proudly stated.

"Aww shucks, thanks!" Sweetie Void said a bit embarrassed by the praise. "Although, to be honest, I think I was lucky that things weren't all that heated or tense. After all we do have a good time left before the deadline Master Hand gave, so no one was particularly desperate for actions or decisions.”

"Mmm, true enough. Still an impressive demonstration for a leader so young," Apple Death's Celestia said.

"I still think I have a long way to go before I can properly call myself a leader of something like a kingdom or an entire alliance by myself, but thanks! I will try my best," Sweetie Void said sincerely.

"I'm sure the opportunity to prove yourself a really capable leader will come, my little pony," Sweetie Void's Celestia reassured her.

In the background, the three Pinkie Pies giggled for some reason.

Next, the three groups of Mane Six exited, both to help clean up the party and to return to their universes. Then the Pillars followed to seek where to stay for the time being. Twilight offered them some of the empty rooms of the castle.

Sweetie Void then looked around and spoted Elfilin and Kirby together with Void.

She knew what was coming now, knew she had to confront him about it.

Saying goodbye to the Celestias as they were gone, she approached Elfilin and co.

"Elfilin…" she quietly called him and he turned to her. "Are you ready?"

Elfilin looked at her. "I…Yeah, okay. It would be better if you all know now."

Magolor, who was just about to get out with Susie, turned around curious. "Oh? Something to reveal?"

"Well, yes. It has to do… with Fecto Elfilis."

That picked up the interest of everyone left in the Throne Room, who were all from Popstar by now.

Void in particular seemed interested, for understandable reasons.

Everyone gathered around Elfilin who looked a bit nervous at those around him. Sweetie Void gave him an encouraging smile, and with that, he decided to start.

"...When what was left of their soul united with me, Fecto left me with the last of what remained from their own self, the most persistent and enduring part of their being. That is…their memories, and their feelings. Feelings so profound that they refused to die out no matter what and memories that refused to be forgotten," he said.

However, just at his last words, something immediately worried everyone.

Elfilin, sweet and caring Elfilin, practically spat that last word with a particular bark in his tone. Everyone exchanged glances but let him continue.

"...I remember it, now clear as day, when I- them. They were born," Elfilin said pleased, as if nostalgic. "In the beginning, there was only Void and them, they were happy, they were content. They had all the attention and care of Father to them, and at the time, were truly at peace," Elfilin said with a wishful expression.

"Then," and the expression was gone. "Along came his first creations, the first life-forms after me, and before Galacta Knight and the others. At first I was happy. I truly was. The concept of brothers once filled me with such joy, even if we were… different. I… Elfilis was made to remain at Void’s side while these life-forms were made to spread out, to eat each others, to give birth to more life-forms, and some eventually began to form the first civilizations, well before what you now call the Ancients. At first, there weren’t many. These times were some of the more pleasant memories along with those with Father. But then, more came.”

There it was again, the uncharacteristic bark on his voice.

"Father was a young God. Filled with creativity and ever so eager to create. Soon, he filled out our universe with many more of his children, these life-forms, and said children then filled the universe on their own. That’s when everything changed. When they took-wait, that couldn’t-but they did-no! Err, g-give me a minute, everyone…" Elfilin said while he closed his eyes with a frown, everyone looking at him with concern.

"... The emotions. Fecto Elfilis' emotions are conflicting with Elfilin's," Magolor noted.

"Elfilin, hear my voice. Focus, and calm down. Remember those aren’t your own feelings," Sweetie Void said with a calm voice. Sure enough, Elfilin seemed to come to his senses.

All the while, Void remained very quiet.

"T-thanks. I umm…gonna continue now," he said. "... At first, it wasn't too bad, admittedly. 'Sure, let me finish this quick', 'sure, just a moment.', 'of course! As soon as I take care of this'. Little by little, as everything in our universe expanded and our brothers expanded, father became more occupied. He still had time for them, but soon all started to shift into 'sorry, I can’t right now', 'sorry, there's a problem in…’, ‘sorry, can't we leave it for another time?’ Sorry, sorry, sorry sorry sorry sorry stars-forsaken sorry‐……I even started actively helping him manage the universe, and for a moment it worked, again he had time for me- them, time for them again. Yet eventually, that too, wasn't enough."

As everyone listened, everything suddenly started to fit.

"I… I had no idea they felt that way," Void started. "I am truly sor-"

"If you dare finish that sentence, stars help me I SWEAR-" everything in the room started vibrating as if an earthquake was happening, but quickly, Elfilin closed his eyes, putting his paws over his head while shaking it.

"Breathe… Calm down… N-not my own feelings, not my own…" he repeated quietly, and sure enough everything started to calm down.

Sweetie Void wordlessly floated beside him and petted him reassuringly with her hoof. He looked at her with gratitude in his eyes.

"Thanks, I'm… better," he said. "... Eventually they, too, became so occupied with keeping the universe that they barely had time to do little else. And I think…that’s when everything started to go downhill. When the separation started."

Everyone got curious at what that meant.

"... The separation into two. What occasioned that Fecto Elfilis became Elfilin and Fecto Forgo respectively," Meta Knight quickly realized, and Elfilin nodded.

"Yes. When I too started to take care of other living beings, it was the first time the Heart and the Mind were at odds," Elfilin said with an ominous tone.

Void, who had been silent since he tried to apologize, spoke up. "To clarify, when I created Fecto Elfilis, they had two cores I built their body after: the Mind and the Heart. The Heart would fill them with love and kindness, make them a compassionate soul, while the Mind would give them unrivaled intelligence and wisdom, making them able to guide and teach without equal. It was the perfect synergy. The Heart would prevent the Mind from growing detached and uncaring, too cold and calculative while the Mind would shield the Heart from dangers it couldn’t detect, and would always find the best solutions when the feelings clouded a just judgment."

"But you failed," Elfilin harshly retorted. "When it came to your creations, they still grew distant with each other."

"I…" Void didn’t know what to say.

"As eons blurred in, the other children grew more and more. Always more complex in the way they were and acted. And soon enough, there began to be conflicts. Every time, it was as if the moment they solved anything, five more problems spawned across the universe. Then ten, then twenty, then forty, then more- and Father just wouldn't stop coming up with even more creations, despite the work they gave him. And the worst part was that despite it all he still looked so happy. How could he? The two of them barely had any time anymore for just themselves, and these… these usurpers were always so conflictive, always arguing and fighting over such meaningless things. What was it that kept them so content? This, all of this, was what the Mind couldn’t understand."

By now, everyone was completely entranced with the tale while at the same time growing more concerned for Elfilin.

How, exactly, could all this be affecting his sanity?

"The Heart, however, understood their Father: every time their siblings discovered and learned new things, every time they looked up to them with admiration-the same admiration they themselves looked up to Father… it filled them with pride, and every time they contently showed them their advancements and discoveries, it absolutely made their day. This all was what the Heart could understand," Elfilin kept narrating.

"More and more, the Mind grew jaded, wondering when will be the time everything would be back to what it was, when they would be free to play with Father again, when they could rest of taking care and resolving conflict after conflict. And soon enough they became resentful with it all: with the monotony, the conflicts, the siblings, Father-everything. And one day, it couldn’t take it anymore. They SNAPPED."

By Celestia… Sweetie Void couldn’t help but think for herself.

"B-but…why didn’t they say anything!? Surely, if they had-"

"THEY TRIED! They tried COUNTLESS TIMES! But every single TIME they did all you had for me were fake reassurances, empty promises! You would give me barely a spec of your time before something else took your attention off of ME!

"'An accident' they said, 'it wasn't on purpose', 'they just defended themselves' they tried to reassure themselves. But soon they came to realize it was anything but. It began simple enough, just yet another irritatingly petty conflict…or at least, that’s what they believed. Turns out, the inhabitants didn’t see it that way. They don’t even remember exactly what it was all about- Something about some piece of dirt-... Uh, territory I think. One that had held quite the value to both sides. They tried to convince each sides to make peace, searched for every diplomatic solution, but the greedy pests just wouldn't let go of even a single inch of their stupid land-err, I-I mean both sides seemed to regard it as a really, really important piece of their culture and identity! So yeah, no one seemed to ever be content with any arrangement. And since Father still was occupied with other things, they couldn’t consult him or ask him help. Then… then the worst happened," Elfilin said with a somber tone.

"As no solution seemed to come, both sides decided they had enough of pointless negotiations. War broke out, without Elfilis managing to do anything to stop them. Yet still, in my foolishness I still tried to help, still tried to get them to stop even in the midst of combat. They even resorted to actively holding them back, using their psychic powers to disarm and restrain. But then… then… Then one of them snuck from behind, and the TRAITOROUS VERMIN tried to strike ME! It didn’t do anything, predictably. But the sheer audacity, the sheer INSOLENCE. I was the firstborn of Father- I was smarter, stronger, I was SUPERIOR. Wasn't it enough I had to entertain your squabbles? Wasn't it enough that you robbed me of my happiness? That's it. No more. Not a single damned moment more…..S-so, they turned around and…and…"

"We can figure out what happened, no need to push yourself," Sweetie Void said.

"Alright…as you can guess, what happened…wasn't pretty. And the party that was the most horrified for it all after the victims themselves was none other than their own Heart. Every time they struck one of their siblings in the light of Father, their Heart ached with pain. Yet in the wake of their bubbled up anger and resentment, they didn’t care and pushed forward until the whole planet was barren of life at all, such was the extent of my wrath… O-of course, after all had passed, they were horrified by what they did! They didn’t know what to do! But they couldn’t reveal to anyone what they had done. So while the eyes of Father were away, they… Uh, disposed of the evidence-namely, blew the planet up and its debris- and hoped for the longest time it would go unnoticed. But ever since that fateful moment, nothing was the same: some time after, another conflict involved one particular individual as its root. If nothing was done about them, another war that this time would involve multiple planets would break out. So believing it would be for the best, they… consumed it. No one knew, and the war got averted. The nagging guilt of the Heart was ignored. And little by little, it became more frequent and they consumed more life-forms, it was… so horrible… So efficient… And eventually, they simply no longer cared. If someone was giving problems, they consumed them. If someone broke the rules and laws, I consumed them. And if they begged clemency, they squashed the Heart under their thumb and consumed them regardless."

While all this was told, Elfilin found himself surrounded by multiple arms, all hugging him.

Tears streamed in a constant flow from his eyes all the while.

"o-of course, w-with so many disappearances, it wasn't long until they were discovered by Father. Try as they might, they simply weren't rival for his might. Once defeated though, Father didn’t find it in him to just dispose of their firstborn, so they banished them instead. Battered and weakened from the fight, they wandered across whatever place they were banished. Eventually however, they soon found something they didn’t expect-a planet with life. they didn’t hesitate and quickly consumed until the last trace of life on it. Recuperated, they quickly traveled the new universe searching for any more life to consume. The universe they were in was Godless. If the God was eliminated, trapped, simply away for a time or just abandoned their creations-they didn’t care, they just relished in the fact all those weaklings were easy prey-... Eventually they almost ripped the entire universe barren, and only a single planet remained. They already were making plans to return to their own universe and have revenge when they landed on the blue and green planet of the yellow star. However things didn’t go as they expected, those little scummy bald primates were infuriatingly clever-the humans were more intelligent than they expected, and taking advantage of their hubris and confidence they trapped them."

"Then…the experiments began. Always pulling, probing, touching and testing-didn't they know who they were messing with!? To keep their FILTHY apparatuses to themselves!? Ohh but the worst wasn't that."

Over the course of the story, Elfilin had let out sporadic burst of potent psychic power both Sweetie Void and Void found themselves in need to suppress with magic and equal psychic power respectively, but now this one was getting particularly potent, making them put more effort in countering it.

"The WORST were THE VISITS. Every now and then in would come more of those PESTS accompanied by their even more repulsive offspring! They would point their flashy 'cameras', and exhibit me as some kind of ANIMAL! They would GLOAT and proclaim I 'was contained' and wasn't 'of no danger'. It was so degrading… And the voice, the stars-forsaken VOICE. 'aNd hErE wE aRe!' I wanted nothing more than to just reach with my powers and just make the head of that woman-.... Uh, y-yeah. It… wasn't pleasant. O-one day during experimentation, the humans discovered the cores, the Mind and the Heart and well-like the foolish beings they were, started messing with them-and well the… incident happened. That day I, Elfilin,The Heart, got divided from my other half Fecto Forgo, the Mind. After that I don't recall how much time passed, but eventually all the humans just…disappeared one day-The vermin migrated to another dimension using the power they ROBBED me, because apparently they were so much of a plague that they worned-out their own planet-and well… you might guess the rest-I was left behind, left to root in that stupid container, my other half missing and wandering the outside while I remained alone, abandoned, FORGOTTEN."

At that last part, Elfilin suddenly broke away from everyone and hovered at the side.

"Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, millenia, eons. Left alone,abandoned, FORGOTTEN."

Everyone was shocked. Elfilin's voice… There was now a second one talking in unison with it.

"... Guys, these memories, these feelings… I, they’re… mine too?" Elfilin said in his own voice, bewildered as if not understanding it himself. "Did I…also feel this alone before?"

Everyone was puzzled over Elfilin's voice switching between his normal one and his dual one.

"... Now I remember, yes. For the longest time… I felt incomplete. I traveled far and wide, without much of a purpose really. It wasn't bad, but I always still felt as if something was missing. And deep down I had always searched for it, longed for it, yet I didn’t really know why or what. Now I… I realize. I never really 'fit in'. I wasn't like any other creature. My colors were unnatural, I had capabilities that no one else shared, and I never fully resembled any creature I met," Elfilin said, looking at his paws contemplatively. "I didn’t fit in, and as such, even when others were friendly enough, I never felt quite pleased or comfortable with a group. Even during our adventure with all of our friends, I still felt like that-it’s just that over the years I’ve learned to live like that. I got so accustomed to that feeling it was really like it wasn't here, but it was. It was always here."

After that, everything fell into a sepulchral silence. Elfilin remained floating to the side, with his back turned to everyone.

It took a moment for everyone to get their bearings after hearing such a tale.

"...Wow, that’s one brutal backstory," Marx eventually said.

Sweetie Void then quietly and carefully approached Elfilin.

"…Elfilin, I think I know of something that could help settle all this."

Elfilin turned with curiosity.

"Really? You mean it?" he asked with hope in his voice.

"Yeah. It's a song that allows a soul to heal from their grievances. Maybe with it those emotions and memories of that piece of soul can stop hurting you so much and help you accept them to move forward," she offered him, and Elfilin nodded.

"I’ll try."

Sweetie Void nodded, and her horn lit alive with a powerful amount of magic as she closed her eyes and sang.

She sang the Song of Healing that helped her friend Link save Termina, recreating the power of the Ocarina of Time with her own.

"La la la, la la la, la la lala laaaa~.
La la la, la la la, la la lala laaaa~."

As she sang, everything banished around Elfilin, replaced by a black void.

Confused and a bit scared, Elfilin tried to look around and search for everyone.

Then, in the distance, he saw them.

His other half, in their incomplete form, was floating in the void across him, their piercing blue eyes glaring at him.

Immediately, Elfilin felt the need to run away, but then…

"La la la, la la la, la la lala laaa~."

Something was compelling him not to. Something told him that despite everything, he shouldn’t run away. Not from them.

"La la la, la la la, la la lala laaa~."

In fact, the more he heard the voice, the more he was convinced he should instead approach his other half.

So he did.

As he came closer, their glare seemed to intensify, and all at once Elfilin felt a wave of negative emotions assault him.

Resentment.
Fury.
Envy.
Hate.

It just kept coming more and more in greater volume the more he approached, and for a moment he thought he couldn’t keep up.

"La la la, la la la, la la lala laaaa~."

But despite all, he persisted, coming closer and closer. Eventually, he was just in front of his other half, their eyes glaring as if they wanted to murder him.

Yet the emotions that now were pouring from them…

Resentment.
Fury.
Envy.
HATE.

….Helplessness.
Abandonnement.
Sadness.
Loneliness…

".....” Elfilin looked at them, not uttering a word.

Then, quietly, he floated closer and closer…

And hugged them.

At once, the flood of emotions emanating from his other half stopped dead in its track. Then it shifted to only one.

Confusion.

Yet Elfilin kept hugging them, not letting go.

...Pain.
Shame.
Regret.
Understanding.

Their eyes ceased their glare.

A single, solitary tear rolled from each.

Elfilin felt his counterpart moving his own arms to embrace him back, and both of them closed their eyes. And at that moment, both let each other feel only one thing.

Acceptance.

Without Elfilin noticing, Fecto started to shine with a yellow glow, a comforting aura filled them both as light filled the void around them.

"La la la, la la la, la la lala laaa~"

Everyone looked on as Elfilin suddenly started shining, every time brighter and brighter as Sweetie Void kept singing.

Everyone shielded their eyes as the light became too brilliant to bear, and Sweetie Void, feeling she no longer had to, stopped singing.

When it subsided, everyone looked to see what happened to Elfilin.

Just to come face to face with Fecto Elfilis in their perfect form.

Everyone was silent and a little wary at the sight, not sure if it would suddenly attack them or something.

Sweetie Void looked at them, and seeing how they were just here without doing anything she tentatively asked, "Elfilin…?"

They blinked, then looked at themself-amazement quickly taking over their features as they looked at their whole body over. Finally, looking at them, they (he?) responded.

"Uh, Yes. It is I, indeed," Elfilin said-their voice was suddenly more mature and grown-up. He had a certain finesse in it too.

No one said anything for a moment.

"IT WORKED!" Marx loudly cheered and immediately everyone did.

All piled up on Elfilin for a group hug (even the edgelord Dark Meta Knight eventually gave in) at which his only response was to hug them back-with his new hands and arms, as well as his now way bigger ears. He embraced them all.

Eventually, everyone let go, and Elfilin then looked up at the only one that didn’t join.

He and Void looked at each other and for a moment everything was silent.

Everyone looked expectantly at the silent exchange with some tension. It was as if they were exchanging a million words with their gazes.

Then Void smiled, Elfilin seemed to cheer up, and both embraced each other.

The entire room erupted in cheers.

As they separated, Sweetie Void smiled at Elfilin.

"It’s good to see you are fine now," she said.

"And you have my gratitude for that," he responded. Then once again he looked at himself, at his outstretched hand. "... For the longest time, I've always had this unknown hollowness dwelling inside me, and the only thing I looked forward to was simply the next day. To just survive in a desolate land by myself even when eventually other creatures that could understand my words emerged. And looking back at the memories of my other half I realize that they, too, failed to properly enjoy their existence and lost themself to hate and envy. That’s why…" Elfilin said, clenching his hand into a fist and looking ahead with determination. "That’s why not only for me, but for them too, I will make sure to cherish this new life. I will keep seeing new sights, explore new lands, feel new experiences, learn new things and… make new friends to laugh with. In their memory, I will keep moving forward!" he promised to himself, and Sweetie Void could feel tears tearing at the edge of her eyes.

Again, she hugged Elfilin. “Together.”

Kirby raised an arm, agreeing. “Poyo!”

Everyone then separated, returning to their worlds. Elfilin decided to live with Kirby, and in order to fit into his house, he had to shapeshift and take back his smaller form.

Is it me, or did something feel new in the writing?

The night passed, then school.

Not long after the end of school, Sweetie Void received a message on her phone from Mario.

Mario:
We were told that your adventure ended, and that a lot happened. You seem like you need some time to de-stress, so Princess Peach invites you and your friends to have some tea at her castle. Apple Death, Phantom, and their friends are also invited. I'm sending the same message to them. Answer if you agree to come.

Sweetie Void smiled. Beside her, Black Apple and Shadow Speedster nodded.

"Ah'll have ta ask mah family, but Ah won't mind coming," Apple Death said.

"Same," Shadow Speedster said.

Sweetie Void nodded and answer the message.

Sweetie Void:
We agree to come. We should be there in an hour. See you quickly.

Just as she sent the message, she received another, this time from Red.

Red:
Very bad news. Giovanni's Mewtwo escaped. It's now somewhere in the wild.

Sweetie Void groaned. "Well, let's hope that it will remain by itself and not cause problem..."

"Ah wouldn't bet mah hoof on that," Black Apple warned.

Sweetie Void sighed. "I know."

Author's Notes:

Chapter 146: Bowser's Return

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 147: Escaping the Castle, Assaulting the Castle

Author's Note

I edited chapter 134 a bit to add the Sand Ability. I also changed all "Future" Sonic into "Present" Sonic. Also, remember that big meeting that was supposed to happen mentioned in chapter 99? Yeah, I had forgotten about it. So I added a little part in chapter 145 where it is mentioned that the meeting is postponed to after the exhibition.

A little part of this chapter is written by Justalad 45.

Chapter 147: Escaping the Castle, Assaulting the Castle

The airship took off, flying in the direction of Bowser's castle.

"We will reach Bowser's castle very quickly thanks to it," Mario said.

"I'm glad that we don't have to traverse the kingdom on feet for once," Luigi said.

"Hey, Mario, Ah have a question. How would ya have dealt with that mecha if we hadn't been here?é Apple Death questioned.

"Oh. Easy. Luigi would have taken one of his Mega Mushroom Pills and turned giant. I'm sure he would have won the fight," Mario answered.

"Or I could have given a pill to Mario so he would have been the one to turn giant to fight the mecha," Luigi said.

"Or both of you," Sweetie Ghoul pointed out. "No reason to leave out the other if one turned giant."

Suddenly, there was a wave of Phantom energy, and then, jet engines appeared on the airship which suddenly became several times faster. Because of the suddenness, nobody was prepared for the sudden acceleration and they all found themselves on the floor excepted Little Ghost. Meanwhile, Phantom was standing on the ship's bow, arms crossed, smirking, wind blowing her mane, facing the direction the ship was flying at.

"We were dragging our ass here! Now, it's better! We should arrive in just a few minutes!"

The next instant, Apple Death, in ghost form, was yelling at her ear. "NEXT TIME, WARN US!!!"

Phantom just returned a grin at this.

Without surprise, Peach and the others were spotted not even one minute after escaping the cell. There were minions absolutely everywhere so it was impossible to sneak around. So they did the next best thing and ran, attacking anybody getting in their way. At first, it was no problem as there were just a few Goombas here, a couple of Koopas there, a Hammer Bro around the corner, some Dry Bones guarding this hallway. But rapidly enough, as the news of the Princess' escape spread, more and more Koopa Troops came and the group began to be overwhelmed, so they put more effort into running and less into fighting.

All the while, they had to avoid traps and obstacles such as Thwomps, fire bars, lava pits, or Piranha Plants.

They saw over a dozen Koopa Troops led by a Magikoopa come from ahead, and the group was forced to climb stairs at the left. Once at the top, they took right to avoid more Koopa Troops coming from the left, knocking out a Goomba and a Spike on the way, then found themselves face to face with a Piranha Plant spitting fireballs at them from its pipe. More Koopa Troops were coming from ahead, and the group had nowhere to go.

"We are surrounded!" Phantom Belle exclaimed in fear.

Black Apple looked at the arriving Koopa Troops, then at the one coming behind them, then at the Piranha Plant who continued to spit fireballs at them, targeting the nearest which was Shadow Speedster.

Taking a decision, she quickly jumped on the pipe, making sure to land behind the Piranha Plant, and immediately placed her forehooves on its head. She then poured energy into it.

The Piranha Plant stopped spitting fireballs, taking in the energy with what seemed to be a blissful expression. As energy entered it, it grew a bit until it was two times the size of Princess Peach (it had already been slightly bigger than her before).

After a few seconds, Black Apple stopped pouring energy, a bit out of breath. "Ya want more? Then help us!"

Without hesitation, the Piranha Plant wrapped the filly in a root and placed her on its head before it pulled itself out of the pipe and jumped down, using its roots as legs.

Shadow Speedster approached it without hesitation while the others took a bit of time. But the Koopa Troops now were almost reaching them so they had no choice but to trust that Black Apple somehow tamed the carnivorous plant.

The Piranha Plant then charged toward the Koopa Troops while taking a big breath, and it breathed flames, burning Bowser's minions and forcing them to move away, opening the path a bit. As the plant advanced, everyone followed it, remaining close. The plant continued to breathe flames, occasionally forced to use its roots to deal with the Dry Bones against which the flames were ineffective, allowing the group to escape.

But the Koopa Troops quickly recovered and began to assault the plant, starting with the Hammer Bros and the Dry Bones throwing hammers and bones at it. Black Apple resumed pouring energy into the plant, not only strengthening it but also healing it. She had to do it in small doses however to recover her own energy. Thankfully, the plant reached the end of the large enemy group and they were able to get away, the Koopa Troops immediately chasing them. The fillies still had to knock away a few enemies, and even Peach had to bounce on a few heads.

"Was that what you were secretly training yourself to do all this time?" Shadow Speedster asked to Black Apple.

"Eeyup! After ya gained yer Cutie Mark, Ah really didn't want to be left behind, so Ah doubled on mah effort ta learn and find my own thing. So Ah asked Zecora for more demanding training from her. Ah no longer wanted ta just mess around with potions and their different effects, Ah wanted something for REAL combat! And let me tell ya, she even warned me 'bout how she'll not hold back on me and stuff, but I still agreed and dang she almost made me regret with how many hours she demanded Ah practice.

So long-story short, one day she began talkin 'bout how Earth Ponies got this untapped magical potential due to their closeness to the earth, nature and life compared to the other ponies, and that because almost all Earth Ponies ain’t interested in tha' arcane and that stuff almost never they discover it and then she guided through some exercises, meditation sessions, those kind of things and before long… Ta-da! Ah got this…"Geomantic" magic as she called it within me, helped a lot by mah energy. She says Ah'm still a bit of a novice in it, but Ah say it’s still pretty good."

"Awesome! Now I'm the one who'll have to keep up somehow!"

"Ya've yer machine and yer huge racing skills."

"Yeah, bur for fighting, I have nothing but my hooves and my energy balls. But you know what, I think that I know how I can improve my ability to fight."

"Ah can't wait ta see what ya've in mind."

The fillies and the princess continued to run. More enemy groups came but the plant dealt with them like the first one, and they were able to continue their escape, following Peach's directions.

The princess knew a good part of this castle like the back of her hand. Considering how many times she was kept prisoner here, that shouldn't be a surprise.

Phantom removed the jet engines to make the airship slow down as they approached Bowser's castle. When they got close, the Koopa Troops posted on the walls saw that the airship was transporting Mario and his allies and began to fire at it with the cannons, sending many Bullet Bills.

Phantom, Apple Death, and Little Ghost worked together to stop the Bullet Bills as well as the few flying enemies present and destroy the cannons, allowing Mario to land the airship not far of the castle. Everyone then jumped from the ship and entered the castle, fighting their way through some guards.

Peach wasn't the only one who knew the castle so well. After having raided it hundreds of time, finding the right path was muscle memory for Mario and Luigi, and even Apple Death's CMC were starting to know where to go without needing to follow the brothers. The only change was the placement of some traps and obstacles.

"So, do we first kick Bowser's butt and then save the prisoners, or do we first save the prisoners and then kick Bowser's butt?" Phantom asked.

"Depends of if we encounter Bowser before we reach wherever the prisoners are kept, which depends. Sometimes, Peach is kept in a simple cell. Other times, at the top of a tower. Other times, in a room made for her. It depends of Bowser's mood," Mario answered.

"So we randomly explore the castle until we either find the prisoners or find Bowser," Sweetie Ghoul said.

"If we're unlucky, it can take a while. As you saw, the castle is really big," Little Ghost said.

They continued to search the castle, not knowing that the prisoners weren't prisoners anymore.

The arrival of Mario's group into the castle was a huge relief for Peach's group. The number of Koopa Troops going after them diminished a lot, giving them more space to breathe. When they heard the guards shout that Mario was here, everyone's moral was also boosted.

That was until they found themselves face to face with a very angry Bowser upon entering a large, well-decorated room.

"I turn my back five seconds and already I got reports that you escaped. I suppose you pest equines are the cause of that. Peach never escaped by herself."

"Ponies, always ready to make a villain's life complicated one way or another," Shadow Speedster said.

"Next time, don't kidnap us!" Phantom Bloom shouted.

Bowser growled, then cracked his knuckles. "It doesn't matter. Your friends are here. I don't need you anymore. So I will take pleasure to turn your bodies into meat paste. You ponies have been a thorn in my side for too long."

"Hum... Can we defeat him?" Phantom Belle asked.

"We've no choice but ta try," Black Apple said before she sent the Piranha Plant to attack Bowser.

But before the plant could even approach, Bowser breathed fire at it, forcing it to retreat. Black Apple poured energy into it, making it grow vines that it sent to whip Bowser, but the Koopa King quickly caught them and pulled on them, bringing the plant to him. Before he could do anything bad however, Peach came, jumped, and kicked him on the cheek, so the plant ended up simply crashing on him, unseating Black Apple. The plant used the occasion to wrap its vines and roots around Bowser before it breathed fire on his face. Despite this, Bowser teared the vines and roots apart, dropping the plant from him. He then caught the plant by the stem and was ready to tear the head off too before he was stopped by an energy ball from both Black Apple and Shadow Speedster, one on the face and one on the hand holding the plant, making him release it.

The plant was quickly dragged away by Phantom Belle and Phantom Bloom, and Black Apple came to heal it with her energy. Meanwhile, Shadow Speedster continued to send energy balls and Peach jumped on Bowser's head whenever she had the occasion. But Bowser quickly breathed a fireball at Shadow Speedster who barely leaped out of the way. Then, he managed to catch Peach in one of her attempts to jump on him and he held her under his arm.

"Let me go, you brute!"

Bowser didn't pay her attention and sent more fireballs at the ponies who moved around to avoid them, excepted Black Apple who was back on the plant's head so it was the plant who was moving to avoid the fireballs. Bowser eventually stopped sending fireballs and instead jumped to send shockwaves, forcing the ponies and the plant to jump. He also threw hammers with the arm not holding Peach, one of which managed to hit Phantom Belle while she was jumping, giving her a concussion. Black Apple quickly made the Piranha Plant hold her so she wasn't hit by a shockwave.

Phantom Bloom grabbed one of the hammers on the ground, spun with it to gain momentum, and threw it back at Bowser, hitting him on the chest, which didn't do much. Then she immediately had to jump while running to avoid both a shockwave and a hammer. Phantom Belle recovered from her concussion, and Black Apple had an idea that she shared with her. While hesitant, she agreed. So Black Apple made the plant to Phantom Belle at Bowser, horn pointed toward him. Phantom Belle crashed on his head, and while her horn couldn't pierce his scales, it still managed to stagger him, making him drop Peach. But as Phantom Belle landed, Bowser immediately went to claw her. Peach, seeing this, leaped and caught Phantom Belle in passing, the two thus barely avoiding the claws. Bowser was stopped from attacking again by the Piranha Plant's vines whiping him, and Peach used the occasion to run away with Phantom Belle in her arms. She also used her powers to heal her from the hit she got on her head from the hammer while she was at it.

Bowser suddenly inhaled deeply, forming a powerful vortex that caught Black Apple and her plant. Unprepared for something like that, Black Apple found herself flying toward Bowser's mouth, ready to be eaten.

Phantom suddenly teleported beside Bowser and slashed him with her sword, stopping him. Apple Death then flew in and caught Black Apple. Bowser was then hit on the skull by an egg thrown from Yoshi from behind, followed by Mario coming, jumping, and bashing him with his hammer. As soon as he landed, Mario jumped away to avoid a counter attack, and he was joined by Luigi who had his hammer ready. Little Ghost then arrived with a dozen Koopa shells levitating around her, and she sent them at Bowser one by one, hitting him with all of them.

Bowser recovered from the onslaught and glared at Mario.

"Mario, you and company are finally here. Uh, I don't see the white one with the horn and the wings."

"Oh, Sweetie Void isn't here. You barely missed her when you invaded Toad Town earlier," Little Ghost said.

"That's a shame. I hoped to kill every birds with a single stone."

"What? You really think you can kill her?" Shadow Speedster asked, boasting for her friend.

"Now, I know that I can, thanks to this power that I received from a new friend I made. Watch!"

Suddenly, Bowser was engulfed in a purple aura of darkness. As the heroes watched in awe and horror, Bowser began to grow, doubling in size. His limbs became longer and less bulky, his fangs and claws and even the shell spikes sharper, his snout less rounded, his horns larger and longer, his hair spikier, and his feet larger. His eyes turned bloodshot, and his skin overall turned darker. When he finished transforming, the aura disappeared, but darkness energy could be seen escaping his hands and his mouth.

"PREPARE FOR YOUR DOOM, HEROES!!!"

Chapter 148: Versus Giga Bowser

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 149: The Fruit of her Training

Author's Note

Chapter written by Justalad 45. Thank you Justalad, and good job.

Chapter 149: The Fruit of her Training

On the airship back to the Mushroom Kingdom.

Cruck.

"Uff, mamma mia…" Mario groaned as he arched his back.

The group was making their travel all the way back towards the Mushroom Kingdom after yet another defeat of Bowser, as usual.

This time however, the usual feelings of victory and peace were gone, replaced by soreness and tiredness.

"I must say, this time Bowser definitely upped his game big time," Sweetie Ghoul said.

"You tell me… I don't even know how we would have gotten out of that one if it weren't for you all! Just even imagining it…" Luigi shivered and squirmed a little.

"Eh, don't sweat it. We couldn’t just let you handle everything if we were here to help," Phantom said off-handedly. But then she frowned in deep thought.

"...Hey, so let me get this straight: this kidnapping business you have with this Bowser character has been going on for a looooong time, right?" Phantom asked the Mushroom Kingdom locals.

"Since as early as our childhoods, yes," confirmed Mario.

Phantom nodded. "...And all these years, you guys haven’t found any way at all to just have him cease? To ensure he stays quiet?"

"Well, no… He's just too stubborn with wanting to conquer and marry Peach, no matter how much he fails at both," Luigi answered Phantom.

"But it doesn't make sense! You, Princess, be honest: you really wouldn't love him back ever, am I wrong?" Phantom asked Peach.

In response, Peach cringed slightly but was quick to nod, "Even if he didn’t kidnap me on a daily basis, I couldn't really see us having a future. I just don't see him that way. I care for him, worry about him, and despite everything he puts me, my friends and my kingdom through… I don't hate him. That said, I certainly can’t say I love him, at least not in the way he wants me to."

"And he never ever had ever won a single time against you, Mario?" Phantom this time asked Mario.

"We got a quite equilibrated score on sports, I give him that. But on actual dangerous adventures? Not once has he bested us," Mario said with confidence. "...Although, there had been a few close calls. This last adventure for example, if it weren't for you all helping us out… I don't like the odds we would have had," he confessed, sounding more unsure.

"Figures. Hadn't you considered something like locking or sealing him away?"

"We sometimes have considered, and in fact in no small number of situations he had indeed ended up stranded in places he seemingly had no way out. Yet every time, he either manages to escape or his ever loyal minions free him themselves. Bowser just always comes back no matter what."

Phantom thought for a bit more. "...And I suppose, in typical hero fashion, you neither considered a more…'permanent' solution, if you get?"

At that, Mario actually turned to face Phantom.

"Never," he said, a steely conviction Phantom had never heard before in his voice. "Bowser only ever had wanted to end me and those who opposed him, but no once he had gone out of his way to harm innocents. He scares or imprison Toads, but in all these years he has not produced a single death, only costly destruction. So we never would go that far."

"And also, Bowser is loved by his kingdom and his family. None of us would ever do that to Jr, the Koopalings or the rest of his kingdom… and neither will we allow it," Peach said, surprising Phantom slightly with how similar the conviction in her voice was to Mario's.

"...So, a villain that never gives up, isn’t enough of a monster to kill off but also not enough of a joke to treat lightly, can't be imprisoned and gets the full support of his people… Good grief, you seriously are planning to keep this up until your graves or what…?"

At that, no one had a really good response to that. Yoshi shrugged and resumed looking in the distance. Everyone followed his example and remained quiet for a while.

"...Bowser mentioned that someone gave him the power of that transformation. 'Crazy Hand' he said…do you think it has anything to do with Master Hand?" Peach mentioned after a while.

Phantom decided to go along with the topic, archiving the former for later.

"It’s the only thing that would make sense. Who else would be so powerful to give him such a transformation if not someone with a power comparable to him? Plus the name just makes it too obvious," Phantom said, agreeing with Peach.

"In that case, we better let Sweetie Void and the rest of the alliance know about this. Now there's possibly two incredibly powerful foes we need to take care of in the near future," Apple Death added.

Everyone agreed.

Finally, the heroes arrived at Toad Town, and after the quick greetings and cheers of victory from the Toads upon seeing their heroes and Princess return safely again from yet another Bowser kidnapping, they made their way to the castle.

"Oh, right! There’s something I wanted to tell you about regarding the Alliance," Peach said, suddenly remembering upon reaching her castle. "I know of another universe we can get help from."

"Wow really? Awesome!" Little Ghost cheered.

"You got a way we can directly go there?" Phantom asked Peach.

"Indeed, follow me to the Royal Library," Peach said and they did so, all the while Peach told them more about the universe.

"There’s a book that connects this world with an alternate version of the Mushroom Kingdom where their residents are made of paper," Peach explained.

"Hol' up, paper?" Sweetie Ghoul questioned a bit confused.

"Well, didn’t Sweetie Void mention once how in the Dream Universe they got a world of yarn? It’s likely something similar," Apple Death said.

"A world of yarn? Sounds fascinating, but indeed sounds similar to this. Some time ago, from the Paper Dimension, various of their habitants came to our world, and among them were paper counterparts of me, Mario, and also Bowser, the latter striking an alliance with our Bowser to kidnap both me and Paper Peach. Luckily, Mario and Luigi also allied with Paper Mario and together the three defeated the Bowsers and returned everyone from the Paper Dimension back home through the book. To ensure nothing like that happened again, we took the book on this dimension and safeguarded it here since then."

As Peach retold these events to the heroes, they all arrived at the Royal Library. She opened the two big doors and the heroes entered, seeing multiple rows of shelves packed to the brim with books and tomes both new and dusty-kind of old.

"Follow me, I know exactly where the book lies hidden," Peach said.

The group was then led by her through the library, until they stopped at a seemingly random shelf. Peach looked at it and then pulled a book from it but instead of taking the book, a Click was heard and Peach pushed the Book back.

Then the entire shelf started going underground, leaving a hole from where another shelf quickly emerged. From it, Peach took a book that this time did come out.

The book was considerably bigger than the average, colored in bright yellow and red with the Image of a mushroom in the front of the cover.

"Last time, because it was carelessly opened, paper versions of multiple habitants of the Mushroom Kingdom flooded our world, but I believe that with the help of the alliance it will be possible to properly use the book to travel to their world and ask for their help!"

"Neat! We must ask Magolor to look it up. If anyone could figure out how some magical artifact works, it would be him," Apple Death said.

Suddenly, Phantom noticed she was getting a call from her dimensional phone, and whistled upon seeing who it was.

"Speaking of the Devil…" she said and answered the call. "Sup, Magolor?"

"Ah, Phantom! Good thing you were available. Tell me, are you still in the Mushroom Kingdom?" Magolor asked.

"Yeah. Actually, there is something you have to know…"

Phantom then resumed to Magolor the kidnapping of Peach, Bowser's new form and the situation with the book to the Paper World.

"Wow, interesting! I am indeed curious about that book. I also will pass word about this mysterious Crazy Hand," Magolor said upon hearing Phantom resume her report. "Now, about why I contacted you in the first place, it’s because we could use an escort for a team from Mushroom Kingdom's portal to make a second one on Donkey Kong's Island so they have easier access to it. We contacted Sweetie Void first, but she is busy in Samus' universe so she told to ask Apple Death or you. With your help, not only the progress would be speeded up, but also the engineers will have complete protection against any unsavory individual that pops out."

Phantom thought for a moment before nodding. "Sure, I can spare the time."

"Excellent! Well then, I must go for now-recently there’s much to be done around New Halcandra! We will talk later." With that, Magolor cut the call and Phantom put her dimensional phone back to where it was.

"Well, it seems I have a job to do now. I'll take my leave, " Phantom said.

"Yeah, we probably should return back to our universe too," said Little Ghost.

"Of course! Thank you again for your help, friends." Mario said.

"Be safe!" Luigi said.

"You too!" said Black Apple.

With everyone saying their goodbyes, the fillies returned to their respective universes, with Phantom eventually flying towards Donkey Kong Island on the airship with the engineer team and their material.

"Ahhh, Home sweet home!" Black Apple exclaimed as she arrived just in front of the entrance of her Sweet Apple Acres. "Ready for your New Home, buddy?"

The Piranha Plant on her back nodded.

After the Defeat of Bowser, the plant seemed willing to follow her, and promptly snuck inside the airship. It then reunited with Black Apple just as she had been about to leave to her dimension. Seeing as it wasn't aggressive, Black Apple decided to keep it and Peach was even kind enough to give her a pot of dirt that the plant could use to rest in.

"Oh, and you absolutely must NOT attack ANYTHING unless I tell you so, 'kay?" she sternly told the Piranha Plant who was quick to nod, kinda worried.

The filly trotted content across the apple trees as she went home, Piranha Plant quiet in its pot on her back. On the way, she quickly encountered her sister Applejack, Jackie, bucking at trees and collecting apples.

"Apple Bloom! Yer back!" Jackie exclaimed upon noticing her. Black Apple quickly approached her but Jackie looked at the Piranha Plant on her back. "Apple Bloom! What in Celestia's name you got on yer back!?"

"Oh don't worry, it’s harmless!...Well, so long as I want it to," she confidently tells Jackie.

For her part, the apple farmer eyed the Piranha Plant, who attempted to please Apple Bloom by waving one of its leaves at Jackie.

It probably would have had a better effect if it didn’t also give her a wide, sharp smile showing its rows of sharp teeth on its attempt to appear friendly.

".…Uh-huh… And how was your… trip?" Jackie asked while still eyeing up the plant.

"Meh, it started well but then Bowser came and kidnapped Princess Peach, so we had to go and rescue her. However Ah… got taken too, along with Scoot and some others. We had to fight him and everything but we got out just fine!"

At that, Jackie sighed heavily and shook her head.

"Alright, so long as there’re others to help ya out and ya’re fine… Just be real careful, ok? Ah wouldn't really want to, but If Ah or the rest of the family think going to other worlds is too dangerous we’re going to have to forbid ya from traveling to them at least on your own." Jackie spoke firmly and honestly to her sister.

In the past, Black Apple may have complained, but after everything she had witnessed and especially after the recent battle with Bowser, she simply nodded.

"Actually, Ah wanted to show ya guys about-"

Tiling Tiling Tiling~

A bell started to sound, making both Jackie and Black Apple perk up.

"Dinner Time!" both sisters said excitedly.

"C'mon Bloom, ya can tell me later!" Jackie said as she was already on her way to the Apple Family house. "...And Ah guess that’s so long as it behaves, ya can bring the plant too."

"Right behind ya!" Black Apple replied.

On the way, both sisters encountered Big Mac, and after Black Apple briefly greeted him and presented him the plant (who Big Mac didn’t seem particularly worried about, much to Applejack's dismay), the trio arrived at the house from where the aroma the three were familiar was coming.

Black Apple was the first to enter the house and promptly sat on her usual spot at the eating table, putting the Piranha Plant beside her.

"Apple pie!" The filly shouted excitedly, knowing exactly what the meal was.

And sure enough, from the kitchen emerged Granny Smith, the Apple matriarch holding a trail with the apple pie in her mouth and promptly put it on the table. At the same time, both Jackie and Big Mac took their seats too.

Granny Smith looked at her grandchildren around the table one by one. It took her a bit to notice a "fourth" one that as far as she remembered, she didn’t have.

"Huh…do we have a visit? Who are ya?" she asked as she quite carelessly got up close to the Piranha Plant that turned towards her.

"Uhh, Granny…" Jackie tried to say as Granny Smith looked with squinted eyes at the plant who in turn was facing her.

Then, before anyone could do anything about it the Piranha Plant gave out a long lick with its tongue at Granny Smith, drooling her face.

Everyone got a bit worried, until they heard her laugh.

"Hehehe! Ain’t ya quite the curious fellow?" she said good-humouredly as she just casually pet the Piranha Plant, who accepted it.

"Although ya certainly are one weird dog."

At that, Black Apple couldn't contain herself and started laughing.

"Granny, that’s not a dog, it’s a plant! A Piranha Plant. Ah brought it back from the Mushroom Kingdom! Can we keep it? Pleeeeease Ah promise- No, Ah Pinkie Promise Ah'll be responsible and take care of it so please let it stay!" Apple Bloom pleaded, going so far as to use puppy dog eyes to seal the deal.

Granny Smith thought about it before finally nodding. "Eh, aight. But remember Apple Bloom, Ya better keep it outa trouble ya hear? And also if it’s gonna stay, it would be better ta give it a proper name."

Black Apple nodded. "Will do, Granny."

Jackie, however, still wasn't all that convinced. "Ah don't know…It still looks dangerous ta me," she said, not taking her eyes away from the Piranha Plant.

"Oh don't be such a worrywart 'bout it Jackie, if it was dangerous it would hav' done something already," Granny Smith easily abated her older granddaughter's worries as she went and washed her face off the Piranha Plant's drool and returned to the table and even took an additional plate and put it in front of the plant.

She promptly cut the apple pie, giving everyone including the Piranha Plant a slice.

Soon, the Apple Family was eating and animatedly talking about their day.

At one point, the Piranha Plant looked at its slice of pie, seemingly curious about it. Finally, it decided to pick it up between its teeth, throw it up in the air and catch it in its mouth, munching on it before swallowing.

As the meal ended, Black Apple remembered something.

"Ah, that’s right! Ah actually wanted ta show y'all what Ah've been learning with Zecora! It’s how Ah managed to get Pepe to be friendly!" she said to her family.

"Pepe?" Jackie asked Black Apple in confusion..

"Yeah! Ah didn’t want to go with something generic like "Pira" or "Planty" so Ah just picked the first original one that came to my mind. Do you like yer name, Pepe?" she turned and asked.

In turn, Pepe just liked her like it did to Granny Smith, leaving part of Black Apple's mane sticking upwards.

Black Apple giggled. "Aight, Pepe it is then."

After washing her mane and face, Black Apple urged her family that now officially included Pepe outside, the Piranha Plant proving that somehow it was actually able to move around on its own even inside its Pot.

A few minutes later Black Apple guided her family to the outskirts of the Everfree Forest on the same spot she's been Growing her tree sprout which was now almost fully grown.

"Well, this is it! Ah have been working for a time now in growing this one all with mah magic, and last time ah almost got it to fully mature."

"Mmm…'' Granny Smith hummed as she approached the tree, looking over it. She then gave it a really good buck for a mare her age. The Tree shook a bit and she nodded in approval. "Well, it grew well indeed, but Ah’m not sure of the quality of them apples if it was fully grown with that mumbo-jumbo Bloom," Granny Smith said, doubtful.

"Uhh, ya shouldn’t call it 'mumbo-jumbo' Granny, it’s a tad offensive…it’s "Geomancy", and don't worry! Ah fully believe Ah can make something good grow of it. Ah can feel it! But Ah wanted ta show somethin’ else first. Ah’ve been thinking a lot, ya see, and that’s why Ah trained ta use that power. Ya’ll see," Black Apple said as she took a few steps back from the seed and started focusing.

Feeling the energy both inside and around her, Black Apple channeled it all through her hooves into the ground and towards the tree.

Soon enough, The Apple Family looked with amazement as the tree fully matured in just a few seconds. Then, from one of the branches, a single apple started to grow at an unnatural speed, all the while Black Apple maintained a focused expression.

As the apple grew, the Apple Family noticed quickly that, obviously, something wasn't right: instead of the bright, red color a normal apple should have, the apple from the branch was a pitch, smooth black color.

Seeing this, Black Apple gave one last bit of energy so the branch extended and made it drop the apple on the ground before she made it return to normal.

Black Apple approached and picked the apple up, looking at it with a proud expression. "This… this is it, Ah did it. Ah really did it!"

The rest of the Apple Family approached but Black Apple was quick to stop them.

"Don’t. If it does what it’s supposed ta do…" she said.

She promptly threw the Apple far in the distance with all her strength.

As the apple hit the ground, a green cloud of smoke emanated from it around the zone of impact. It lingered for a moment before vanishing.

Black Apple and her family cautiously approached and stopped at a good distance to see the result.

Around the zone where the gas lingered, all the grass had shriveled up and died, and the earth was clearly discolored.

"My… that apple…" Jackie said in shock.

"...it was poisoned," Big Mac finished for her sister.

"Mmm… Eeyup, that’s a chunk o' land that is currently unable ta grow anything on it," Granny Smith confirmed with her expert eye.

"As Ah planned. Ya see what it means?" Black Apple said quietly.

"That you just learned how ta grow a legit dangerous weapon while ya are still a filly?" Jackie said with no small amount of dread.

Black Apple snorted. "We both know this is REALLY tame compared to what Sweetie can pull off as easily as she breathes, but ya're right. But also… This means Ah discovered mah way to fight!" Black Apple turned towards her family.

"It still needs work but with this power, Ah can do so much! Ah can control plants, grow mah own means of defense, pull mah weight for real in adventures! Ah will grow more of those apples with various effects as well as ingredients for potions! Between this and Pepe's help, y'all will no longer have to worry about me when Ah go out ta other universes! Ah will become a full-fledged Multiversal Explorer! This is the fruit of mah training!" Black Apple told them, excited by what she did.

And things would just keep getting better, as suddenly Black Apple's flank started to shine.

All the Apples were dead silent as this happened, so great was their shock.

On Black Apple’s flank, the characteristic Cutie Mark of an apple appeared but, very much like the apple of the tree she grew, this apple was completely black.

As the glow subsided, Granny Smith found her voice again.

"... Well, that settles it, then,” she said with a chuckle. "Guess that as long as ya keep up with school and help around the farm once in a while, ya're free ta go to yer little adventures like yer friend Sweetie Belle."

"FOR REAL!?" both Black Apple and Jackie said at the same time, though clearly with different emotions.

"No! Granny ya can't be serious! One thing it’s to let her visit friendly worlds, but to let her explore new, dangerous ones!?"

"Applejack, there’s nothing to do about it," Granny Smith said seriously. "Her Cutie Mark says that much, it’s her destiny. It would only worsen things to go against it. We don’t want her sneaking around to do so anyway, do we? B'sides," she said, this time looking fondly at Black Apple. "ya got friends, right? As long as they're by her side, Ah trust she will always come back ta us."

At that, Black Apple had no words to say, so she just rushed to hug her. "Thanks, Granny."

Granny Smith just smiled and hugged her back. They were quickly joined by Big Mac, and then Jackie herself did.

Black Apple looked at Pepe gazing at them. With a roll of her eyes and a smile, she called it. "And just who are ya waiting for? C'mere Pepe! You’re family now too!"

Unable to really deny it, Pepe quickly hoped near. It extended its stem and warped around the whole Apple Family.

Jackie was a bit uneasy at first, but finally gave out a sigh and addressed Pepe.

"Just… promise ya are gonna look after mah little sister out there, 'kay? Then we're cool."

At that, Pepe just licked her.

"...heh, good plant."

Chapter 150: A Royal Comeback

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 151: The S.S. World Eater

When exploring the flying saucer, the trio remarked that the hallways and the doorways to the rooms were all very large for some reason.

They found no map, so they settled to asking the direction from the Kremlings, after giving them a good beat down. Phantom also asked where the illusion disruptor was, and was answered that King K. Rool had it. Kremlings weren't that many compared to the Subspace creatures. About one to twenty, and often, hallways and rooms were empty of them, so the trio sometime had to wait to find one.

"The Kremling Krew isn't a big army, so that's normal," Diddy informed.

The Kremlings encountered were mainly beings known as Kritters, the bipedal dominant species of Kremlings. They were all wearing white futuristic armors, and the majority of them used laser guns of beam swords. Ones with electric brass knuckles and shields were a bit less common. And then, there were ones with rocket launchers or throwing grenades who were rarer. These two last ones were easy to deal with because DK could counter their projectiles by clapping his hands to create shockwaves, sending the projectiles away. Every now and then, the trio also encountered jetpack Kremlings who remained in the ship.

But the trio also encountered from time to time the Kritters' quadrupedal cousins known as Klaptraps, mainly used by the Kritters as attack dogs. Phantom quickly learned to hate these ones. They were fast, and at the first occasion, they jumped at you to bite your face off with their disproportionately huge jaw. They were particularly terrifying to encounter in packs.

"Welcome to the "we hate Klaptraps" club," DK said to Phantom.

But in the end, the Kremlings were the least of the trio's worries. The Subspace creatures really were the threats with their number and large diversity.

Primids were the main force, like always. All types were present. From the simple unarmed ones that could just punch and kick to the giant ones, passing by the metal ones and the ones that could breathe fire. They were easy to deal with, but their number always threatened to overwhelm the trio.

At the turn of a hallway, the trio discovered the annoyance that the trumpet-head creatures, apparently called Borboras, were. The Borboras blew air, forcing the trio to fight against the wind to advance. Since they were in closed space, no way to move around to avoid the blown wind, especially if they were numerous enough, they had no choice but to face it. So DK clapped his hands to create shockwaves that counteracted the wind, allowing the trio to advance. The shockwaves reaching the Borboras even stunned them. But while this happened, other enemies such as Primids and Kremlings armed of guns fired at will on the trio. Thankfully, DK had the idea of stealing a shield from a Kremling to use it as cover while Phantom and Diddy advanced behind him.

The hallways were particularly full of the wheel-like enemies. Glire for the ones that blew fire, Glunder for the electric ones, and Glice for the ice ones. Floating metallic spheres with four spinning blades known as Cymuls were also often encountered as obstacles. These ones had to be knocked either from below or from above, and DK was often left to deal with them. And of course, since they were in hallways, there were the one-wheeled motorcycles (Roaders) charging down them at full speed. The trio often had to plunge out of the way of these ones.

When the trio entered a room -not sure what it was for they didn't care-, they found themselves under fire by a living floating stationary turret with a skull-like face known as a Roturret. It was covered by quite a number of Primids, some clouds (Spaaks), and some ghosts (Floows), without forgetting that there were also some Kremlings. DK barreled right through the Primids to directly go punch the Roturret, making it spin around. While DK was busy with the turret, Phantom attacked the Primids and Kremlings while Diddy used his rocket barrels to fly toward the Spaaks and Floows to deal with them. Not long after DK destroyed the Roturret, metallic chicken-like enemies entered the room. The ape immediately targeted them.

Their destruction revealed that these chickens were actually some kind of mecha piloted by small yellow birds. DK made sure to punch them too to not let them escape so they could return with a new chicken suit.

Back in the hallways, the trio encountered two red armored robots on treads armed of a lance that Diddy identified as Autolances. These guys revealed to be quite troublesome to deal with because their armor was solid, and with their lance, they had a very long range. They could even launch the lances to attack from a distance. Thankfully, they revealed to have a weak point. DK knocked off the helmet of one of them, revealing a yellow emergency light. Destroying it destroyed the robot. Diddy was able to knock off the helmet of the other one, allowing Phantom to destroy it. DK had to protect them from a robot with a bucket (Buckot), and the trio had to destroy more of them afterward.

"We will have to warn everyone to be particularly careful of these Autolances. They are dangerous," Phantom said.

When the trio entered another room, they were almost impaled by some of the white birds, Auroros. While avoiding the diving birds, they also found themselves facing a real army of the multicolored balls that could multiply, Bytans. These balls were absolutely filling the room! Among these balls were some new floating enemies that looked like amalgamations of little black spheres forming a humanoid body around a red glowing core. These things, Shaydas, had two heads with small bright red eyes, and their arms ended in two-ended blades.

Seeing that there were too many Bytans to deal with all of them with just the three of them, the balls would multiply too rapidly, the trio decided to pass them and exit the room. The Shaydas followed them however, so the trio eventually fought them after exiting the room. The Shaydas revealed to be powerful enemies, probably elites of the Subspace Army, that were very deadly with their blades, and to top it off, attacks barely dealt damage to them. Thankfully, attacking the core revealed to be very effective. But it was very dangerous to reach it because of the blades.

"How I miss manipulating the sword with hands," Phantom said. "These guys would be no problem to me even without the ruby."

Once the Shaydas were eliminated, the trio continued, encountering more enemies. Countless of the stick figures (Mites). The fishes (Feyeshes). The ammonites (Armights). Some tanks every now and then (Armanks). Some pots on wheels (Greaps). Clawed wooden marionette puppets suspended on strings (Puppits). Black-and-burgundy enemies with a bomb as a head that threw the bomb and then ran away the time to regenerate a new one (Bombed). Some plants with a purple sack and large lips that attempted to kiss the trio to deal damage (Bucculus). Weird flying carpet enemies that attempted to force the trio on them to lift them and slam them hard on the ceiling (Trowlons). Large masks sitting atop four yellow bases (the bottom ones larger than the top ones), making them very tall enemies that fired lasers from their eyes (Gamyga). Despite their size, these ones were easy to defeat for Diddy who could fly to the head to attack it directly. The others had to destroy some of the bases to reach it.

The trio wasn't sure how far they were, and they were starting to feel tired, but they continued. However, in a hallway, they found themselves blocked by several blue and white enemies that had a rounded body. They revealed to act like sumos, attacking like one and even hitting the ground with their feet. They seemed easy to deal with, their attacks didn't hit hard, but they revealed to be rather resistant. But then, after receiving some damage, they rubbed their body and grew larger, turning yellow. They became slower, and they became easier to hurt, but in return, they packed more punch. Then, after they received more damage, they rubbed their body again and turned even bigger, becoming red. Now, the trio had to be careful to not be hit by them like that, but thankfully, they were very easy to eliminate in this form. Diddy identified them as Nagagogs.

Another new enemy followed not long after, something that resembled a large stag beetle, a Shellpod. It had a solid shell that took little damage, forcing even DK to hit hard. Eventually, the shell was destroyed, revealing that it was actually an aquamarine, banana-shaped creature. Without its shell, it was pretty much harmless.

And then, in a room, there was a large ram-like enemy with an angelic face, a Towtow. Despite what was going on, it was sleeping. However, it quickly woke up because of the noise of the fights, and its face turned more demonic. It then charged at the trio whilst emitting electricity. To defeat it, the trio had to wait for it to stop emitting electricity before they could attack.

The most important enemies were the Poppants, little black enemies with large red trousers full of healing sprays. The trio crossed them from time to time, healing the enemies while remaining in the back, away from the fights. If the trio approached, they tried to escape. So DK rolled through the enemy ranks to rapidly chase the Poppants and knock them out, getting their healing sprays. Thanks to these sprays, the heroes were able to continue to explore the flying saucer despite the many hits they took.

"I hope we aren't far from the core," Diddy said. "The jungle must be burning pretty badly below."

The trio continued to encounter every kinds of Subspace creatures. Roturrets were becoming more common as they advanced, and rocket launcher Kremlings also appeared more often. Real turrets appeared as they were approaching the core. DK had to use the shield he got from the Kremling against these, and to take them down, Diddy had to rapidly approach them by flying before he used his peanut guns to destroy them. It took many peanuts to destroy one however, so he eventually instead transported Phantom so she could destroy the turrets with her beam sword, more effective.

Then, after many more long minutes of fighting and advancing through hallways and rooms, they entered a large room and discovered why the hallways and doorways were so big.

Before them was a giant robot. Or was it a cyborg? Its purple hands, neck, and what could be seen of the head under a helmet looked organic. What was certain was that it looked like a giant ape covered from head to toe in a heavy mechanized arsenal. Some parts were purple-colored like the giant rocket launchers on its back, the sole of its feet, and the lines of its arm brasses over its bulky forearms. Its helmet was composed of a mask shaped like the head of an axe and had a spike on the top.

"Shit!" Phantom exclaimed.

"We just had to fall on a secret weapon!" Diddy said, shaking in fear.

DK growled at the robot and pounded his chest.

King K. Rool's voice resonated in the room.

"HAA HA HA HA HA!!! You have gone far, but let's see if you can pass THIS! I present to you the Subspace Army's super heavy assault infantry, the Galleom! It will pound you to next week! Galleom! Destroy them!"

With a metallic roar, Galleom began the battle by rising a foot to stomp on the trio (allowing the trio to see that there were jets under the feet). The foot was large enough to trample even DK, so the three quickly jumped away to avoid being crushed. They then began to attack Galleom, Phantom slicing the legs, DK punching the legs, and Diddy climbing it. Galleom being ape-like, it was hunched, meaning that Diddy could rest on its neck. He used his position to attack the head. Galleom attempted to grab him, but Diddy escaped its hands, using his small size to his advantage and moving all over the back.

Galleom's readied its fists and spun its upper body once. Again, Phantom and DK jumped away as Galleom punched the ground with its two fists. However, this created a shockwave that sent Phantom and DK crashing into a wall. Galleom then fired four missiles that targeted DK. The ape, recovering from the crash, used his shockwaves to send the missiles flying away.

Galleom attempted to punch DK when he got too close, but DK avoided it and, like against Gorimondo, he used the occasion to climb the arm to the back, joining Diddy. He then repeatedly punched Galleom's body until he was grabbed and Galleom tightened its grip to crush him in its hand. Diddy acted quickly and flew toward Phantom to grab her and throw her at the hand holding DK. Phantom then slashed the hand, making Galleom open it and release DK.

Still flying, Diddy began to use his peanut guns on Galleom, getting its attention as it tried to slap him like a fly. DK used the occasion to climb Galleom to attack the body again, this time bringing Phantom so she could also attack the body with her sword.

Galleom suddenly spun very rapidly, arms outstretched, almost getting Diddy who barely flew away in time. The spinning even created a vacuum that sucked Diddy in right toward its fists, and Diddy had to fight it to avoid a painful fate. Meanwhile, Phantom and DK tried to resist, holding on on Galleom's shoulders, but Phantom was rapidly ejected, and DK followed soon after.

Galleom stopped spinning afterward, and Phantom and DK rapidly recovered before they charged back toward the robot. But then, Galleom jumped high, and the jets under its feet activated, making it hover in the air. It moved right above Phantom, ready to drop on her with all its weight. She was saved by Diddy swooping in and grabbing her before getting away at the last moment.

DK approached Galleom, avoiding an attempt to stomp him, and resumed attacking the legs like at the beginning. If he could damage the legs enough, or even destroy them, it would be a huge handicap to Galleom.

But then, Galleom jumped and its body morphed. Its legs entered its body, its head entered its chest only showing the mask, the hands entered the arm braces which placed themselves against its sides, and the rocket launches retracted so they were smaller, glued on its back, and facing ahead. Landing (DK moving away to not be crushed), Galleom thus revealed its tank form, hovering above the ground. The jets then propelled it (revealing that the arms also had jets), and it rammed DK, sending him crashing into a wall. Phantom avoided the same fate by lowering herself against the ground so Galleom passed just above her. Diddy, still flying, thought that he didn't have to worry about it, only for Galleom to jump, taking him by surprise and successfully hitting him. After landing, Galleom went for another go at Phantom who, this time as the tank passed above her, pointed her sword upward. As a result, she left a big gash across Galleom's torso.

Galleom stopped moving and faced Phantom before it fired missiles at her. Phantom ran around to avoid them, sometimes using the tactic of avoiding them at the last moment so they passed beside her and continued their path, but Galleom continued to fire missiles. Meanwhile, DK climbed on Galleom's back and attacked the left rocket launched, quickly damaging it. He then grabbed it and pulled hard, ripping it off before he threw it away.

Galleom returned to its simian form, DK moving to be on its shoulder, and looked at where the rocket launcher was thrown. Getting angry, it roared, stomped around, let out smoke from various holes, and turned red.

It then spun while firing missiles with its remaining rocket launcher, missiles flying randomly in every directions by bursts of two. The heroes weren't locked on this time however, so the missiles didn't home in, allowing them to easily avoid them despite the randomness of their trajectories. But DK was still ejected from Galleom's shoulder.

Once Galleom stopped spinning, it ran toward Diddy and attempted to slap him again. However, it revealed to be faster in its angered state, and Diddy was eventually slapped and sent crashing into a wall. While Galleom had its back turned, DK ran toward Phantom, grabbed her, and threw her at the robot. She landed right on its back, and she went to attack the remaining rocket launcher, managing to slice it off. This disarmed Galleom who got even more angry.

Before Phantom could react, she was grabbed and slammed into the ground where Galleom threatened to stomp on her. But DK came and punched the foot, making it move aside so it stomped next to the filly instead of on her. DK then quickly grabbed Phantom and ran away as Galleom repeatedly jumped. Once it stopped, Phantom and DK returned to attack the legs, and Diddy also flew in to gain Galleom's attention by attacking its head. This failed however as Galleom instead attacked Phantom and DK with its fists, forcing them to adopt a hit-and-run tactic. It eventually punched the ground with its two fists, creating a shockwave. But this time, both Phantom and DK jumped above it despite it being more powerful.

Finally, with a last punch, DK damaged the right leg enough that it stopped working, smoke escaping it. This forced Galleom to balance on its remaining leg while dragging the other one. It decided to hop around, attempting to crush Phantom and DK with its remaining foot. Instead of running around to avoid being crushed, DK put Phantom on his back and jumped. Diddy caught him and used the momentum of the jump to throw him toward Galleom's back. The throw was a little short, but DK successfully clung to Galleom's shoulder and was able to climb. He and Phantom then resumed attacking the body.

Galleom quickly stopped hopping around and went to grab them, but to its surprise, Phantom changed target and instead slashed at the left upper arm which was pretty much just a stick linking the arm brace to the body. She successfully sliced it off, separating the left arm and thus stopping it from grabbing DK. The right arm still managed to grab Phantom and it began to crush her. DK jumped from the body and slammed his fists on the head hard, making sure to avoid the spike of the helmet. He hit the head with enough force to send it crashing on the ground, making Galleom open its hand and release Phantom.

Galleom recovered with some difficulty because of its damaged leg and destroyed arm, only for Diddy to attack its remaining leg, finally damaging it enough that it also stopped working. This pretty much immobilised Galleom until it decided to take its tank form. However, with only one jet remaining, the one of the right arm, it couldn't go far. DK grabbed Phantom and jumped on its back, and Diddy joined them before the three began to attack its body. Galleom retook its simian form to use its right arm to attempt to grab one of them, but Phantom sliced it off too.

Now, Galleom really was stuck, and the heroes were free to unleash their full might to destroy it.

It still took another minute of punching, kicking, and slashing before Galleom's body began to explode. The trio quickly escaped. As Galleom roared in agony, pieces of it were sent everywhere. Finally, the explosions stopped, and what remained of Galleom stopped moving, smoking heavily.

The three heroes were now breathing heavily, but they didn't have time to rest. They still had to defeat K. Rool before the flying saucer's cannon was repaired, and Phantom had to recover her powers so she could stop the fires on the island, destroy the Subspace Army's troops, and save the Kongs and the engineers.

"I hope we won't encounter another one," Diddy said.

Phantom glarred at him. "Don't jinx it."

"At least, I have some healing sprays I kept from the Poppants."

DK nodded. "Let's heal and go."

"It makes me think that we should start to bring potions from the Pokémon world, or mushrooms from this world. I never thought of it because I could just heal everyone with my powers, but in situations like these, it will save our lives," Phantom said.

DK and Diddy agreed.

"And you and Sweetie Void and Ness won't always be here to heal our butts anyway," DK said.

Chapter 153: Paper Mario And The Cursed Kingdom

Author's Note

I will say that the Discords synchronized everyone's clocks while they worked on synchronizing the time of all the universes, because I forgot to note the hour shifts between the various universes (like it's noon in Sweetie Void's universe, it's 5pm in Apple Death's universe, and it's 10am in Phantom's universe) and I'm not feeling like trying to remember. Beside, it would be logical to do that, right? Of course, for people being in the same universe but at different places, it's impossible to have synchronized clock, like the Mushroom Kingdom and DK's island. And then, there are planets where the clock isn't the same, like in Samus' universe.

Also finally changed the title of the story as I had planned.

Chapter 153: Paper Mario And The Cursed Kingdom

Hours earlier, in Magolor and Susie's lab.

"So this is the book," Magolor said, holding the book to the Paper World.

Apple Death nodded. "Uhuh. Remember, opening it'll release the paper inhabitants all over New Halcandra. So, avoid that."

"Alright, I will. Thankfully, I shouldn't need to open it to research its properties, and I already have ideas of what to do."

"Ya want me ta bring Twilight- uh, Blackhole Sparkle? She could help."

"Help is always welcome. She may have ideas on how to enter the world inside this book without causing beings of paper to fly everywhere."

"Okay."

So Apple Death opened a portal back to her Equestria and went to Blackhole Sparkle's castle. She flew straight into the library, the most likely place to find the alicorn. It was around the time for the evening meal however so she may be eating. Luckily, Apple Death did find Blackhole Sparkle in the library. However, instead of reading a book, she was writing in one. Starswirl the Bearded was also present, admiring the machine around the Crystal Mirror.

After returning from the party celebrating the defeat of Elfilis, Blackhole and the others went and freed the Pillars following what their counterparts from Sweetie Void's universe did, and they all then freed Stygian from the darkness of the Pony of Shadow (after convincing Starswirl to not send Stygian back in limbo). The Pillars and Stygian were then told everything, and they were currently resting in Blackhole's castle.

"Howdy, Twilight!"

Blackhole Sparkle didn't even raise her head from the book. "Hello, Apple Bloom. Wait a minute."

"What are ya doing?"

"Writing to a friend, Sunset Shimmer. I thought it was finally time to bring her up to speed. She could help us against the Subspace Army."

"Oh? she's powerful?"

"Yes. Very. Annd done." Blackhole dropped the feather and closed the book, revealing it to have a sun on the cover. "So, do you want something? Is there a problem?"

"Nah. No problem this time. We just found this book that contains a whole world, and we're trying ta figure out how to enter it without accidentally releasing its paper inhabitants into our world."

"A world in a book?" Starswirl repeated, having heard what the filly said.

"What? Really?! A whole world inside a book?! How is this possible?! I get it that simply opening it is a no go?"

"Nuhu. It apparently happened once, and it resulted in chaos. Magolor has the book right now, and he wouldn't mind the help ta figure it out. And Ah've no idea of how such a book exists. Mister Starswirl's could also come."

Blackhole Sparkle got an excited grin, but before she could say more, she was interrupted by someone clearing their throat. That someone revealed to be spike with a chef hat.

"Not before you eat, Twilight. It's dinnertime."

"Uh? Already? Ah guess that Ah should go to mah family then. Ah'll return once Ah'm done eating."

Twilight sighed. "Very well. But, you know, I should call the other Twilights. I'm sure they would want to participate."

"Good idea. And they could bring their Starswirls. That is if Dream Warper's Starswirl hasn't already moved away. He wanted to see how much Equestria had changed in his absence."

"Yes. This is also my intention, but this can wait a bit," Starswirl said. "And with all of us together, I'm sure that finding a solution for this book will be a matter of hours."

Dinner for Apple Death was spent recounting to her family her adventure in the Mushroom Kingdom, warning them by the same occasion about the new possible threat that this Crazy Hand was.

Once she finished, she returned to Blackhole Sparkle's castle. Blackhole and Starswirl were also done with their meal, so they were ready to go to New Halcandra.

So Apple Death opened a portal and transported Blackhole and Starswirl through it, right into Magolor's lab.

Once Blackhole and Starswirl were with Magolor, Apple Death went to bring the other Twilights and Starswirls to New Halcandra. Thankfully, Phantom Sparkle and company also freed their Starswirl, and Dream Warper's Starswirl was in Canterlot's Castle so it was easy to find him.

Once she was done bringing everyone to Magolor, Apple Death, having nothing more to do, returned to her family.

It was only a few hours later, just as Apple Death had been about to go to bed, that she received a call from Magolor asking her to return to New Halcandra.

Were they already done with the book?

It turned out, yes, they were already done with the book. When Apple Death arrived in the lab, she saw a portal with an addition compared to the usual ones made by the engineers: a chamber with the book inside.

"With all that help, we figured that book out almost right away," Magolor began. "Oh, before we continue, here are the Starswirls' nicknames. This is Starswirl the Gray." He pointed at Sweetie's Starswirl. "Starswirl the White." Apple Death's Starswirl. "and Phantom Starswirl." Phantom's Starswirl.

Phantom Starswirl nodded. "So, for starting, no, this book doesn't have a world in it. It turns out that this book is just a simple portal, like all the ones the people of New Halcandra are making, but in the form of a book. However, it's not as stable, since opening it causes the people of this Paper World to be sucked into our world."

"So in order to enter this world, opening the book isn't necessary. We just need to create a new portal," Dream Warper continued.

"The problem was opening a portal to this specific world, which we needed the coordinates of but we couldn't get without opening the book," Starswirl the White said.

"But then, the Twilights had a brilliant idea: using the book as a power source!" Magolor exclaimed.

"Like what we did with the book you saw me write in and the Crystal Mirror," Blackhole Sparkle said. "Well, this is not exactly the same thing. That book is linked to another in the human world and the Crystal Mirror was already a portal to this world, and using the book as a power source was to open the portal at will instead of waiting thirty Moons for it to open by itself. But this is close enough."

"So, by using the book to the Paper World as a power source, we can transfer the coordinates to the Paper World from it to the portal," Magolor finished.

"Uh. That's great!" Apple Death said. "So, does it work?"

"We don't know, we haven't tested it yet," Phantom Sparkle said sheepishly.

"And while the chances of the portal not working as intended as minimal, just in case, we want to send you. If something goes wrong, like the portal sending you at the wrong universe and closing behind you, you can always return with one of your own portals," Starswirl the Gray said.

"Sweetie Void is still busy with Samus, and Phantom is escorting the engineer team to Donkey Kong's island, so there is only you," Magolor said.

Apple Death nodded. "Alright. Ah understand. Ah'm going."

"Great! Now, allow me to open the portal," Magolor exclaimed.

He then turned to the portal and pressed a button.

"By the way, once we build a portal in the Paper World, we won't need this one anymore. What do you think we should do with the book, then?" he asked as the portal turned on.

"Ah guess we'll bring it back ta Princess Peach," Apple Death answered.

"Very well. The portal is open. Traverse it whenever you are ready."

Apple Death nodded and walked to the portal. Without hesitation, she traversed it.

At the other side, she walked on something that gave a bit under her weight. Looking down, she saw that it was green-colored paper. Thankfully, it was solid enough that she didn't pass through it. What was under it?

She inspected more her environment and saw that the green paper was supposed to be grass, and she wasn't far of a more yellow paper supposed to be a road. There were paper flowers, paper trees, paper bushes... Yep, no doubt, she was in the Paper World.

Not far, she saw a town surrounded by a moat. The houses weren't mushroom-shaped houses, but the familiar castle visible at the other side, surrounded by a wall, made it clear that it was Toad Town. Or whatever it was named in this world. Not everything was identical to the Mushroom Kingdom she knew.

Also, it was evening too here. The sky was darkening. Because of that, she wasn't sure if it was a good time to visit the local Princess Peach.

The portal behind her was still open. She traversed it to briefly say to the others that it worked but that it was evening so she will explore to see if it's okay. She will be back quickly enough. The others agreed.

So she returned to the Paper world and entered Toad Town. There were still some Toads and other creatures in the streets, and they all turned to stare at her in wonder. Yeah, she must be a sight. Something not made of paper.

She went straight to the wall surrounding the castle, encountering two guards at the gate.

"Sorry mister. Does the princess still takes visitors at this hour?"

The guards were as mystified by her as all the others, but one of them still managed to answer, the guard at the left.

"Sorry, but the princess isn't here actually. She took the plane with Mario to some ruined kingdom far away a few hours ago. She won't be back before a few days."

"Really? Darn! Okay. Thank ya mister."

At this, she returned to the portal and traversed it.

"Bad news, Princess Peach isn't even present. She took a plane and won't be back before a few days."

The Twilights sighed in disappointment, and Phantom Sparkle said, "Then I guess that we will have to wait."

"What is a plane?" Starswirl the White asked.

"A flying vehicle," Magolor answered simply. "Well then, let's rendez-vous next week. Princess Peach should be back by then."

"Wait. Maybe Ah can join her," Apple Death said, gaining everyone's attention. "If Ah can find out where she went, Ah could fly all the way ta where she's and talk ta her."

"This would gain us a lot of time," Magolor said, and the ponies agreed.

"Alright. But first, Ah should bring y'all back ta yer worlds."

They nodded, and Apple Death did so. Once everypony was back in their homes (or temporary residences in the Starswirls' case), she returned to Magolor's lab and traversed the portal back to the Paper World. She then returned to the guards.

"Hey! Ah'm back! Do ya know which direction the plane took off ta? Ah've a way ta fly so Ah could join the princess instead of waiting for her ta return."

"Why? What do you want with Her Highness?" the guard at the right asked.

"Ah just want to talk with her about forming an alliance with where Ah'm from. And Ah'd like ta see Mario too. There's a big threat that's coming, and his help'd be welcome."

At this, the guards exchanged glances.

Left guard eventually said, "Wait a moment," before he passed the gate and entered the castle. Apple Death waited with the remaining guard in an awkward silence. Minutes passed, and the other guard returned with a yellow female Toad with glasses. "This is the librarian. She knows about the ruined kingdom where the princess went to."

The librarian nodded. "Indeed. Greetings. I'm Toadila."

"Apple Bloom." Apple Death decided to not give her nickname for now. She would rather avoid scaring the Toads.

"So, you want to join the princess. Well, I can tell you that the ruined kingdom she went to is known as the kingdom of Felina. It's an ancient kingdom entirely destroyed by some unknown cataclysm."

"In which direction is it?" Apple Death asked.

Toadila pointed at a direction. "It's West from here, in this direction, over two thousands kilometers. When you reach a place where the sky is covered by thick black clouds, this is your destination."

"Thank ya. Ah'm going right away ta catch up to the princess quickly. See ya!"

Apple Death left the Toads and left Toad Town before she turned herself into a ghost and followed the direction pointed by Toadila. She flew as fast as she could, hoping to reach Felina rapidly. At her speed, she should reach in about an hour.

Since she flew toward the setting sun, the sky, which had been darkening when she began her flight, was lightening. Thanks to this, she was able to see when the sky brusquely darkened again until not a single ray of light could be seen, black clouds entirely covering it. This meant that she arrived at her destination, the kingdom of Felina. Thankfully, in her ghost form, she could perfectly see in the dark, but there wasn't much to see. Mostly black, leafless trees.

She quickly saw lights in the distances, and she flew in their direction, arriving at a camp just outside of a town in ruin. On the way, she saw many Boos and other ghosts flying around. They were like fishes in water. This ruined kingdom was very haunted.

Not far of the camp was a landing runway where Apple Death could see what was certainly Peach's plane. So Mario and Peach must be somewhere around.

Turning herself invisible, she explored the camp, which revealed to be full of archaeologists. Toads, Koopas, and some Goombas. Of course this kingdom was an archaeological site.

She found Mario and Peach, as well as Toadsworth and a mustachioed Koopa, inside the biggest tent in the center of the camp. They were around a table with what she presumed was a map of the kingdom. The town was marked near the center, not far of a manor and a castle. She could see some particularities on the map, like a large forest, and a mountain range.

The Koopa pointed at the manor. "This is where we're going. Are you still sure that you want to come, Your Highness? We will certainly encounter ghosts on the path, and while most of them are harmless and will do at worse a prank to scare you, some will be hostile."

Peach nodded. "I'm not worried. I know that Mario will protect me. And like I said, I really want to see why you called Mario here, in case I could help."

Beside her, Toadsworth sighed. "I really wish you would have said the contrary. This kingdom has dangers everywhere, and Master Mario may not be enough to protect you by himself."

But Peach didn't listen to him. "So, when are we going, Professor Kolorado?"

"Right now, if you want, unless you would prefer to rest a bit after your long journey? We already made a tent for you. Well, it was supposed to be Mario's but I'm sure he won't mind giving it to you, right Mario?"

Mario nodded.

"Don't worry, we will make a new tent for you and for mister Toadsworth so you can rest too if you desire," Kolorado added.

"Thank you," Toadsworth said.

"I wouldn't mind going now if Mario doesn't mind too," Peach said.

"No, I don't mind," Mario said.

Professor Kolorado nodded. "Then let's go. I will tell you more once we're in the manor."

As the group left the tent, Apple Death followed them, still invisible. She wondered how she will introduce herself. In the end, she decided that she will do it outside of the camp. So she went ahead, following the direction Mario's group was taking. Once outside the camp, she turned back to normal and waited. Before long, Mario's group exited the camp, Kolorado holding a lantern, and she approached them.

Thanks to the light of the lantern, the group saw her approaching, and judging by their reaction, they immediately saw that she wasn't what was considered normal in this world.

"Howdy!"

Kolorado was the first to talk. "Oh my! A being not made of paper! How is this possible?"

Peach gasped. "Are you from the other world? The one where not everything is made of paper?"

"Other world?" Kolorado said in wonder.

"Uh, kind of. Ah'm from a different world that is also not made of paper, but Ah know very well the one ya're talking about. Ah borrowed the book from the other Princess Peach to enter yer world."

"Well, it's very nice to meet you. What is your name, little one?"

"Apple Bloom. But it's better ta call me by mah nickname, Apple Death, because there're other Apple Blooms."

"Apple Death? Kind of ominous," Toadsworth said.

"Ah know. That's because Ah can turn into a ghost. Long story. That's how Ah came here all the way from the Mushroom Kingdom."

"And why are you here?" Toadsworth asked. "Wait, let me rephrase it. I'm guessing that you came here to see either Princess Peach or Master Mario, or both. So the question would be "why do you want to see them?""

"Well, Ah kind of feel bad to put this on yer plate now that ya seem to be at the beginning of a new adventure, so Ah'm not sure if Ah should tell the reason why Ah'm here now or later once we're done with this kingdom."

""We?"" Kolorado asked.

"Eeyup. Ah went on a couple of adventures with the other Mario, so Ah wouldn't mind joining you. Ah can help. Ah'm very powerful in mah ghost form."

"Is the reason you came to see us urgent?" Peach asked.

"A bit. The earlier Ah say it, the better. But if yer adventure's also urgent..."

"We don't know. Professor Kolorado sent a letter to Mario asking him to come here, saying that it was urgent, but he won't tell us more until we reach a manor," Peach said.

"Well, Ah guess then that we should go ta that manor and see what this is about," Apple Death said.

"Then let's go!" Kolorado said excitedly before he took the head. The others followed him, Mario, Peach, and Toadsworth talking with Apple Death to know more about her and where she comes from.

On the path, they were stopped by a single Boo that Mario easily eliminated.

Before long, they reached the manor. Once upon a time, it was a majestic oriental style one-story building made of several houses linked together by walls and covered passages, with the gray curved roofs supported by red pillars. However, a huge part of the building was gone now, replaced by piles of rubble, the rest was in bad shape, and the colors were faded.

Of course, Mario and the others couldn't see much in the dark. Kolorado's lantern didn't light far.

"Because we have so little writings about Felina, we don't know to who belonged that manor. However, we recently discovered something intriguing," Kolorado said.

They entered the manor and traversed it, moving around rubble and fighting a few more Boos as well as a group of Peepas (more classic-looking ghosts). Apple Death revealed her ghost form, scaring Toadsworth and Kolorado. Even Peach fought a bit against the Peepas, jumping on them.

Eventually, they reached a garden in the back of the manor, and Kolorado led them to a fountain that didn't work anymore. The fountain was decorated by several statues of humanoid cats. Kolorado revealed that the left arm of one of the statues could be lowered, and this made the whole fountain rise, revealing a hidden staircase going down.

"We only recently discovered this secret passage," Kolorado said before he descended the stairs, followed by the others.

More flights of stairs followed the first one, making the group go even further underground. After ten flights in total, they reached a small room that was totally empty, excepted for a single iron door at the opposite end, in an iron wall. It didn't have a handle. Instead, it had a small circular hole.

"And here's the problem: this door. As you can see, it needs something small and circular to be opened. And this is where we hoped that Mario could help us find it, and defend us by the same occasion as we explore the kingdom in search of it. Mario is good at finding things. And you never know, if the key is guarded by a powerful monster..."

"And in what way is this "urgent"?" Toadsworth asked.

"Well, this could be a major archaeological discovery! Who knows what is behind this door! It's important that we open it as soon as possible!"

...

"Well, young miss Apple Death, it seems that you will be able to tell us the reason why you came to us," Toadsworth said.

Kolorado turned a bit depressed. "C-come on. Please..."

"Don't worry Professor. We will still help you. But we will hear what Apple Death has to say first," Peach said.

Mario nodded. "We should return to the camp first."

"I agree," both Apple Death and Toadsworth said at the same time.

Kolorado sighed but agreed too.

The group left the manor and followed the road back to the camp. However, on the way, the group saw something that made them stop.

"Uh? What is that?" Toadsworth asked.

Not far outside the road, there was an anthropomorphic cat girl chased by a group of anthropomorphic felines riding on pink ostrich-like birds. The chasing felines and the birds all had something that emitted light around their neck, allowing the group to see them from a distance.

"Oh no! That girl is being chased!" Apple Death exclaimed.

"Let's save her!" Mario said.

Apple Death took her ghost form, and the two ran/flew toward the felines.

Left behind, Kolorado gave the felines a better look. "Wait a minute! Those are Felinois! Inhabitants of Felina! I thought they all disappeared after the kingdom's destruction?"

"Really?" Peach asked.

"Does this mean that there is a community of Felinois still existing somewhere?" Kolorado continued.

"It seems like it," Toadsworth said.

Meanwhile, Apple Death reached first the chased cat girl and placed herself between her and her pursuers. There were easily twenty of them, of various races. Cats, lynxes, cheetahs, leopards, black panthers, and so on. They were all wearing lamellar armors, and she could see that the things emitting light were stones. At their head was a top heavy tiger in more fancy armor.

The pursuers all stopped upon seeing Apple Death, and the cat girl stopped too in wonder.

The cat girl had blue-gray fur. Some of the fur on the head was longer, forming hair going to the shoulders. She was wearing a tattered blue oriental dress. She also had a small circular medallion around her neck.

Mario joined Apple Death not long after.

The tiger eventually advanced. "Who are you?"

"I'm Mario!"

"And Apple Death!"

The tiger acknowledged that with a nod. "I'm Qiang Claws! Captain of the Felinois! and I order you to get out of our way!"

"We won't let ya continue ta chase that girl!"

"You don't know what you're meddling with!" Qiang Claws shouted. "Last warning!"

Apple Death and Mario stood their ground.

"Very well. Soldiers! Attack! But remember, the girl remains the priority! If you can get her, do it!"

"Ah don't think so," Apple Death said before she sprouted bones just in front of the birds who crashed right into them as a result, stopping their charge and unseating the Felinois on them. The Felinois quickly recovered however and moved around the bones. Some went after Apple Death and Mario while the others went after the cat girl.

Apple Death flew right through some of the Felinois to get at the cat girl's side, freezing them by the same occasion. Mario got his hammer out and began to attack the Felinois while jumping around to avoid their weapons.

Apple Death attacked with purple fireballs. To her surprise, a different projectile, a black ball, passed beside her and hit one of the Felinois. Looking at her side, she saw the cat girl materializing and sending another black ball while holding a sword of the same color.

"Wait. Is that darkness?"

The cat girl nodded. "Yes, it is. Mew!"

Apple Death wanted to ask more, but she first had some Felinois to fight. She materialized and threw bones while using one as a club to knock out the Felinois that were getting near. One of the Felinois managed to hit her with his sword, but the weapon passed through her without hurting her at all, much to the Felinoi's dismay. The Felinoi was then slashed by the cat girl's darkness sword.

Apple Death suddenly used her telekinetic power to push the cat girl just as Qiang Claws still riding on his birds almost pierced her with his spear while the bird was running. The bird passed by where the cat girl had been a moment earlier and continued a bit, then did a U-turn and returned. Mario, however, jumped in its path and knocked it out with a strong hit of his hammer on the head.

Now without a mount, Qiang abandoned his spear and grabbed a sword before he attacked Mario who jumped and stomped him. Apple Death then hit him with purple lightning, and even the cat girl attacked him with one of her projectiles of darkness.

There were still some Felinois remaining however, and Apple Death stopped attacking Qiang so she could finish them, letting Mario and the cat girl deal with him. It didn't take long to knock all of them out until only Qiang remained, but even him was on his knees.

"Wait! Let me te-" Qiang began only to be knocked out by a bigger projectile of darkness sent by the cat girl.

With this, all the enemies were defeated.

Since it was clear, Peach, Toadsworth, and Kolorado approached.

"As always, splendid fight!" Toadsworth said.

"Thank you for saving me! My name is Ai Mew! Mew! Nice to meet you!" the cat girl presented herself.

Everyone else presented themselves.

"If you hadn't been here, they would have captured me again. Mew!"

"Why?" Apple Death asked. "What did they want with ya?"

"I have the key for them to get a very powerful artifact, and for the same reason, I'm a threat to their plan of conquest."

Apple Death rolled her eyes. "Figure."

"The Felinois want to stop me from doing my duty, which is to destroy that artifact, or I could use it to stop them. Mew!"

"What is that artifact?" Peach asked.

"There is a manor not far. Mew! Let's go there first. I will tell you more about it once we reach the secret room. Mew!"

"Are you talking about the secret room under the fountain, with the iron door?" Kolorado asked.

"Oh, you found it? Yes, it's this room! Mew! My medallion can open the door!" She showed her medallion.

Everyone looked at it.

"Well, we didn't even need ta search in the end," Apple Death said with a chuckle.

It didn't take long to return to the secret room. On the way, Kolorado talked about his surprise that Felinois were alive, and Ai happily told him that not all of them perished with the kingdom. Apparently, most went to hide in the mountains while Ai's ancestors hid somewhere else with a smaller group.

Once in the room, Ai put the medallion in the hole, then immediately took it out before the door opened upward, revealing a large room behind entirely made of iron surfaces. Immediately, as the group entered, their attention was taken by a basin in the center with a black liquid. Before it was a pedestal with a star-shaped hole.

"Is the artifact whatever is going in that hole?" Mario asked.

"Yes," Ai answered. "The Demon Star. Mew!"

"The Demon Star?" everyone else asked.

"Yes. And now that we are here, let me tell you everything. A long time ago, a powerful demon lived in this world: Pazall."

"Ah yes, I know about this demon," Kolorado interrupted. "His name and story appear in many narratives. He caused terror to reign wherever he went. Bizarrely, we never found anything about his disappearance of death."

"That's normal. Mew! Everything about his "death" had to be kept secret for the good of future generations. One day, powerful wizards, among them my ancestors, created a crystallised star to eliminate Pazall. Against him, they used the star which sucked all his powers, liquefying him. The liquid in the basin is what remains of him."

At this, Toadsworth and Kolorado moved away from the basin in horror.

"Don't worry, you don't risk anything. Mew!" Ai reassured them. "He is totally harmless in this state, as long as you don't fall in it. The star kept Pazall's powers trapped in it, becoming the Demon Star. Anyone getting their hands on it can use Pazall's powers. Its powers are immense. The state of the kingdom is proof of it."

Everyone looked at Ai chocked.

"This is why the star was given to my ancestors who became its gardians. Not only of it, but also of the remains of the demon in the basin. Everything went well for several centuries. The only ones who still knew about the star were my ancestors and the royal family of Felina. But one day, a new king revealed to be a power hungry tyran who wanted to conquer everything. Since he was of the royal family, he knew about the Demon Star, and he tried to take it by force. My ancestors, back then the father, the mother, and the daughter, fought as best as they could, but the parents were eventually killed. The daughter, filled with rage and hate, used the star. The result, you can see it outside. Almost all the Felinois were exterminated, and the kingdom was entirely devastated, eternally plunged in darkness. The daughter, horrified, broke the star into six pieces, the five branches, and a much smaller piece. She hid the branches all over the kingdom, and she secretly took the smaller piece with her as she and some other survivors left the kingdom. I actually possess this piece which was transmitted to me, which is how I could use this darkness power earlier."

"There are no... secondary effects, right?" Peach asked.

"Thankfully no. Mew!" Ai answered. "However, it turns out that the son of the tyran survived the destruction of the kingdom and hid in the mountains with a huge amount of the survivors. Now, his descendant seeks the pieces, and he even managed to get one, the piece that had been hidden in the mountains."

"So Ah guess that we will go fight him," Apple Death said.

"It's not that simple. Not only he has a strong army, he is also very powerful because of the piece he has. He also possesses the legendary Lìliàng Armor, an ancient armor that multiplies the powers of the user, and this includes the power of the star piece. This makes him almost invincible. If we want to defeat him, we will need the rest of the star."

Apple Death frowned. I doubt he is more powerful than me, but just in case...

"Is this why you said you want to destroy the star?" Toadsworth asked.

"Yes. My ancestor preferred to separate the star instead of destroying it because she thought that it could be useful. However, I wasn't so certain, so I came to Felina in order to gather the pieces and to destroy the star before it could fall into wrong hands. I know where they are, so it wouldn't have been hard. However, because of bad luck, I encountered Felinois that recognized my medallion, symbol of my family. Because of this, they captured me so they could force me to tell them where the pieces were. But I resisted, and I even hid that I possess a piece. Thanks to that, I managed to escape. And that's where I encountered you."

"And how do we destroy this star?" Peach asked.

"First, we must gather the pieces and reform the star. Then, we must throw the star into the basin. The star may be corrupted by the power of Pazall, it is still the star that is supposed to kill him. So throwing the star into the liquid should definitively kill the demon, destroying the star by the same occasion. So, can I count on you? Mew!"

"Yes!" Mario answered.

"Me too!" Apple Death said.

"Hum... I think that I will remain in the camp," Kolorado said.

"Me too. And the princess too," Toadsworth said. "Adventuring is not for us."

"Actually, we should all return to the camp so you can rest and Ai can use the map to show where the pieces are," Kolorado said.

Everyone agreed.

"And I really need a new dress! Mew!"

Meanwhile, two figures were standing over a crystal ball showing Mario and the others. These figures were Bowser and Kamek.

"Interesting story we heard, and this gives me a plan," Bowser said.

"Is it gathering the pieces of the Demon Star to use it to defeat Mario, kidnap Peach, and conquer the world?" Kamek guessed.

"ROAR! It's MY plan! I'm the one who should announce it!" Bowser yelled at the Magikoopa.

"Sorry!"

"Anyway, we should go without waiting. We don't want them to gather the pieces before us."

At this moment, a Magikoopa wearing a dark purple robe and a dark purple hat entered the room, flying on a broom.

"Did I hear that right? I just come here from retirement, and already you are leaving? Not even remaining five minutes to say hello to old Kammy?"

"Kammy? Hey! Long time no see! What is retirement doing to you?"

"BO! RING! We play Bingo ALL THE TIME! And when we don't play Bingo, we either nap or we remain sitting knitting. Ugh! I really miss the old days."

"Well then, why don't you come with us?" Bowser proposed. "Like the good time."

"Mmh... Normally, I would say that I'm too old to follow you. But now, I NEED excitement. So, very well. I'm coming."

"Great! Then you are remaining here, Kamek."

Kamek sighed. "Yes, Your Viciousness."

"So, what is it this time?" Kammy asked.

"Some star possessing the powers of an ancient demon called Papal or whatever."

"Pazall?"

"Yes, him. So whoever has the star can uses his power."

"Ooh! Interesting!"

"You idiot! Why didn't you tell them?" yelled a huge lion.

"I'm sorry Lord Bao Leo. When I was about to tell them, I was knocked out," replied Qiang Claws.

"She must absolutely not reunite the pieces! It would be a disaster!"

"I will do everything possible to prevent it my lord!"

Chapter 154: The Silent Hill And The Phantom Waterfall

"Sorry, but we don't have dresses," an archaeologist Toad said.

"Meeewww... Why?"

"This is an archaeology camp. The only dresses you will find are the ones found inside ruins, and we haven't found any in good enough state."

"Awwww... Then I guess that I will settle with whatever you can spare. Mew!"

A few minutes later, and Ai joined Mario and the others in the big tent in the center of the camp, now wearing an explorer outfit at her size (without a hat).

She took a pose. "Call me Professor Mew! Mew!"

This made some in the group giggle.

"Alright, "prof", where are these star pieces?" Apple Death asked.

Ai looked down at the map of the kingdom on the table around which everyone was.

"Well, you already know where one is: in the mountains, owned by the Felinois' leader, Bao Leo."

Kolorado nodded. "The Obscure Mountains."

"This is how you call them? They were once known as the Tiānkōng Mountains. Mew!"

"Oh, really? We thought that their name were lost to time!"

"Not for me! Mew! So, the Felinois' underground hideout is well hidden. But I remember where the entrance is, so I will be able to guide us to it once we have all the other star pieces. As for said pieces, one is inside the biggest hill south of here."

"Oh, the Silent Hill. There are lots of hostile Embers around that place, and this particular hill is the territory of a very large Ember who hates sound, because it always sleeps. Because of that, we weren't able to explore the place very much," Kolorado informed.

"Another is in that forest, East of here," Ai continued.

"The Black Forest. We avoid going there. Many entered it but never came out."

"A fourth piece is somewhere on the river that traverses the kingdom, behind a waterfall."

"The river is dried up. However, there is one place where a waterfall is still flowing, South West of here, water appearing out of nowhere at the top and disappearing at the bottom. No doubt the work of a powerful spirit. We call it the Phantom Waterfall."

"As for the last piece, it is somewhere in the ruins of the castle."

"Really? We explored the castle from top to bottom and haven't found anything."

"The pipe leading to the piece is hidden. The only way to reveal it is to find a hole for my medallion."

"Which must also be hidden," Peach said.

"That's right," Ai said. "This is actually the case for all the pieces. For all of them, we must use the medallion to reveal a pipe. Bao Leo used my medallion after he captured me to reveal the mountain pipe and get the piece he now has. Thankfully, the Felinois sleep a lot so I was able to get the medallion back as I escaped while many of them slept."

"So the medallion is the key you talked about," Toadsworth said.

"Exactly! Mew! Speaking of sleeping, I wouldn't mind resting a bit before we search the pieces. Last time I slept, it was in a cell."

"Understandable. A tent for you should be made by now," Kolorado said.

"Thank you! Mew!"

Ai didn't sleep long however, fearing that the Felinois would assault the camp to reach her.

Immediately upon waking up, she gathered Apple Death and Mario (who also used the occasion to rest a bit) to decide together which piece they should go after first.

"The closest is the castle, but I propose that we either start by the hill or the waterfall. They should be the easiest pieces to find. Mew!"

Apple Death and Mario agreed and decided to go to the hill first, which was the closest. So, after buying some Mushrooms for healing and some other objects, they left the camp by the South, Mario transporting a lantern. Apple Death and Ai could already see the hill in the distance (Felinois had good vision in the dark). It overlooked Felina's capital, which Ai said was named Māo Town.

"Open your eyes!"

He opened his eyes and gasped. The view from the top of the hill was magnificent!

"I love to come here," she said. "As you can see, the view is splendid. And it isn't far, and it's calm."

He nodded. "I love it. I will definitively come back here. It will be nice to be here, away from my father."

"This will be our hangout place, away from everything. But I have somewhere else to show you, and I'm sure that you will love it too."

"I can't wait to see it."

Before reaching the hill, the group traversed the river bed, with no bridge in sight only some stones that could be jumped on to reach the other side. Since the river was gone, they simply walked through.

As Kolorado said, Embers, ghosts that were floating blue fireballs (like Wisps), were numerous in the area near the hill. Being fireballs, physical contact with them was out of the question, or it resulted in bad burns.

When they arrived at the base of the hill, however, no more Embers came. Instead, total silence welcomed them. Well, it was very silent everywhere in the kingdom, but here, even ghosts didn't dare to make a sound.

Once they reached the summit of the hill, which only had a boulder, they encountered the reason that Kolorado warned about: the giant Ember. Who was sleeping, thankfully. Five times the size of Mario, with two long arms made of blue fire.

But as the group approached, the sound of their foot/hoofsteps awakened the Ember who immediately turned hostile and levitated countless stones, ready to throw them at the group.

As Mario grabbed his hammer and Ai readied her darkness powers, Apple Death turned into a ghost and stole the stones from the Ember's grip before she threw them at him, dealing a huge amount of damage. The Ember was then hit by some projectiles of darkness, and Mario ran toward him. The Ember, seeing him coming, went to punch him with his long arm, but Mario jumped, dodging the punch, and bonked the Ember on the head with his hammer. Apple Death then threw more stones at the Ember who dropped on the ground, eyes closed, weakened.

"It seems like he understood his lesson! Mew!" Ai said. "Now, time to put the medallion in the hole!"

"Ya already found it?" Apple Death asked.

Without answering, Ai skipped toward the only boulder present on the hill and placed the medallion in a hole. The next instant, a pipe came out of the ground beside the boulder.

"Yes, I did! Mew!"

"Ah should've guessed..."

"There they are!" they heard a shout from down the hill.

Looking down, the group saw a large group of Felinois led by Qiang Claws riding on birds approaching rapidly.

"Oh no! They found us! Mew!"

Apple Death groaned, but then stared at the defeated Ember. Then, she used her power on him, getting him under her control. She instructed him to deal with the Felinois.

"They found the pipe! Hurry up!" Qiang yelled.

The Ember placed himself between them and the heroes, stopping them.

"What?"

Then, the Ember levitated countless stones and threw them at the Felinois. Some used their arms to protect themselves from the stones only to be unseated by their birds that began to run around in panic. Others clung to their birds.

"Let's go while the Ember keeps them busy," Apple Death said.

"You are full of surprises, Apple Death. Mew!"

The three entered the pipe, leaving the Ember to fight the Felinois.

"No! Wait!" Qiang shouted, still on the back of his bird. He made his bird run toward the Ember, only for the Ember to breathe a stream of fire at it. The bird was covered in flames and escaped, and Qiang jumped from its back and charged toward the Ember. However, the Ember tanked his spear and countered with a powerful uppercut that sent Qiang flying far into the sky.

Seeing their leader defeated, the Felinois decided despite that to continue their assault. The Ember threw stones at them again, and while some were knocked out, others charged through and attacked the Ember. But the ghost spun with his arms out, sweeping the area around him with them and hitting all the Felinois, knocking even more out. The Ember dealt with the remaining ones by punching them one by one.

And so, the Ember won, but to really ensure his victory, he grabbed the Felinois, crumpled them into a paper ball, and made them roll down the hill.

The heroes jumped out of the pipe inside a large cavern. It really was just that: a big cavern. With glowing stones for the light. Nothing more.

Almost right away, they spotted the star piece, glowing black, embedded in a large boulder at the opposite side of the cavern.

Mario and Apple Death moved toward it, but Ai stopped them. "Wait! There's supposed to be a guardian!"

"A guardian?" both Apple Death and Mario questioned back.

At this moment, the boulder in which the piece was embedded began to float along with several other, smaller boulders. They then placed themselves against each others so they formed a humanoid body, with the largest boulder (with the star piece) being the chest. The newly formed stone golem towered over the group.

"And here it is! Mew!"

Apple Death sighed. "It would've been too easy, uh?"

"Mmh. The piece is what must be animating it, so if we manage to get it off, we will defeat it," Mario said.

"That's right! Mew!"

Apple Death turned into a ghost and blasted the golem with a shockwave of energy before it could do anything, causing the boulders forming it to separate and to crash against the wall behind them. The golem began to reform, its head floating up and firing black lasers from two holes forming the eyes, but Mario and Ai avoided the lasers and quickly jumped on its chest before it could get too high and worked together to remove it. It was very difficult, and Ai materialized a sword of darkness to use as a lever. After several seconds of struggle during which the golem finished to reform and threatened to pound them, the two managed to get the piece off. Almost right away, the golem collapsed.

"Well that was easy. I like it when it's easy. Mew!" Ai said. "And now, we have our first star piece! Or second, I guess, since I already have one."

Mario nodded. "Good job, Apple Death."

"Thanks!"

"And here it is!"

"It is... a waterfall?"

"That's right! Open your umbrella, we are going through!"

"Oh. So this is why we brought umbrellas? What, is there a secret cavern behind it?"

She giggled. "That's right!" She jumped through the waterfall.

He followed her, entering the cavern.

"Woah!"

"I know, right?"

"How did you find it?"

"When I saw the waterfall, I wondered if there was a secret cavern behind it like in stories. And look at that! There is one! Now, it can be our hideout! We will never be bothered by anybody here! I'm sure we will have lots of fun!"

"Yes! I'm sure!

They exited the pipe on the hill and left right away (Apple Death freeing the Ember from her control), their new destination being the Phantom Waterfall. It wasn't far, a bit more South and then West. To say the least, they quickly reached it. They first found the river bed, then they just had to follow it until they saw the waterfall. All the while, they fought various ghosts. Mostly Boos. Easily dispatched.

As Kolorado said, it was a waterfall. Just a waterfall. Without a river.

However, they were currently at the top of the waterfall, and there was no path leading to the bottom, so Apple Death levitated down Mario and Ai.

At the bottom. "Uh. After thinking about it, maybe the pipe is at the top of the waterfall. Should've searched first before levitating everyone down here."

"Nah. It's obvious that this waterfall is one of these waterfalls with a cavern hidden behind. Mew!"

"Ah guess that Ah should've guessed."

"But there is one problem: I don't like water! Mew! I don't want to be wet!"

"Because cats don't like water or because paper gets soggy?"

"Both! Mew!"

Apple Death giggled. "Then Ah'll create an opening in the water."

Apple Death then materialized a large pony skull and placed it in the waterfall, high up, snout pointed upward. The skull separated the water to the left and the right, creating a gap and revealing the cavern. There was some water dripping from the skull, but it shouldn't be a problem for Ai.

"Thank you! Mew! Well, time to go! Let's get another star piece!"

The three entered the cavern, remarking that the water that touched them disappeared immediately, leaving them entirely dry. However, they barely took a few steps into the cavern that they came face to face with a giant frog ghost.

"What are you doing in my home? Get out of here!" the frog shouted.

"Uhh... Sorry, Mr. Frog! Mew! We need to find a hole somewhere in your home!"

"Get out!"

"We won't be long! Give us five minutes!"

"I said get out! Last warning!"

Apple Death sighed. "Well, we tried to be nice."

The frog opened his mouth, ready to attack with his tongue.

But Apple Death attacked first the frog with dozens of beams of ghost energy, giving him no chance. Screaming in pain, the frog escaped into a wall.

The three waited a bit in case the frog returned for a surprise attack, but the frog seemed to be truly gone. Mario then pointed back at the entrance of the cavern, and they could see that the waterfall was gone.

So the frog was the one at the origin of the waterfall.

Ai found the hole for the medallion on the wall at the end of the cavern. Upon placing the medallion into it, the pipe appeared beside it. The three entered it.

Like for the first piece, the pipe led to a large cavern with glowing stones. Immediately, their attention was taken by a tree at the opposite end with the star piece embedded in it.

"So the guardian this time is a tree?" Mario questioned.

"Seems like it," Apple Death answered.

When the group approached, a root suddenly came out of the ground and wrapped itself around Ai's leg before it lifted her in the air upside down. Other roots attempted to do the same to Mario and Apple Death, but Mario avoided it by jumping while Apple Death turned into a ghost again. The root still wrapped itself around her ghost tail however, so she materialized a scythe made of purple energy and sliced it to free herself.

More roots came out of the ground and fired at the heroes black balls. Mario took a Fire Flower and absorbed its power, turning himself into Fire Mario. He then sent fireballs at the tree while avoiding the black balls. Ai materialized a black sword and cut the root holding her. Being a cat, she fell on her legs, and she immediately fired large black lasers at the tree. Apple Death used her purple scythe to cut more and more roots attempting to grab her and the others. Once roots stopped coming, she went after the tree itself and cut it down in one slash.

The tree down, the roots stopped attacking. Ai approached and materialized a black floating hand that she used to get the piece off of it.

"Yay! Now, we have three pieces! Mew! Three left! Halfway done!"

"It should take us no more than a few more hours," Apple Death said. "Where should we go next?"

"I think it's time we visit the castle. We will do the forest last. Mew! I have the feeling that the forest will be hard."

Mario nodded. "No doubt it will be easy to get lost in there. We will have to find a way to avoid this."

"I don't even have any idea where in the forest the hole for the medallion is. We may be in there for days."

"Don't worry. Ah'm sure we'll find a solution. For now, let's return to the camp," Apple Death said.

"I'm sorry my lord, I could do nothing."

Bao sighed. "It's not better in my side. Without the medallion, I couldn't reach the piece in the forest. And now, they must have gotten at least one piece, so you won't stand a chance against them anymore."

"Can I make a request, my lord?"

"Go on."

"Can I have the Lìliàng Armor? I should be able to defeat them with it."

Bao thought for a few seconds. "Very well. Take it. And you should probably await them at the forest."

"I will see first if they haven't gotten by the castle. If that's not the case, I could ambush them there."

"Yes. Go."

Chapter 155: Felina Castle

"So, we put that sword and that shield here and..."

The wall behind the armor opened, revealing the treasury.

"Tadaa!"

"Of course the treasure is in a secret room."

"Yeah. Father likes keeping his gold well hidden. But it means that nobody ever guards it, and servants rarely come here, so we can play here."

"Yeah. I will be the dragon hoarding the gold, and you will be the knight trying to slay me to get it back. Oh! Look! A crown!" She put the crown on her head. "Now, I'm the queen!"

He laughed. "If only."

Before long, Apple Death, Mario, and Ai were back at the camp. While they passed here, they took the occasion to tell everybody about their progress, and where they were going now.

"You are going to Felina Castle? Some of our guys are here, including Kooper and Goombella. They could help you search for the hole for the medallion," Kolorado said. "Actually, I could come with you and help too."

"Oki doki," Mario said.

"I wish to help too!" Peach said.

So, after convincing Toadsworth that it was alright for Peach to join Mario in exploring an ancient castle, the group exited the camp and went through Māo Town, having to fight some ghosts as always. They exited the town and followed the path to Felina Castle, a huge partially collapsed building which was missing the top floors.

A smaller camp was before the castle's entrance, which was actually empty.

"Uh? The camp is empty. Where are the archaeologists?" Ai asked. "Could it be that something bad happened to them? Mew!"

"Let's not jump to conclusion!" Kolorado said. "Maybe they are just inside the castle?"

"I hope this is just that," Peach said, worried.

At this, the group entered the castle.

"If there's anywhere we can find a pipe, it's in the basement. Mew!"

Kolorado led them to the stairs to the basement. They then explored the basement until they heard voices. Following them, they arrived to a storage room where there were nine archaeologists present, all turned toward an armor holding a sword and a shield. Around the armor, on the ground, were many more swords and shields of various quality. Just in front of the armor were a blue-shelled Koopa with a red bandana and a Goomba with a blond ponytail wearing a helmet and a matching outfit with a red scarf. The Koopa, took off the shield from the armor, and the Goomba, placed a new shield in its place.

A moment of silence followed.

"Still not it," the Koopa said.

Everyone else groaned, especially the Goomba.

"Kooper? Goombella? Everyone? What are you doing?" Kolorado asked, gaining everyone's attention.

"Oh! Professor!" one of the archaeologists began.

"Professor!" several others exclaimed.

"Professor and... Mario?!" Goombella shouted. "Oh my gosh! It is Mario! And Princess Peach is here too!"

"That's right. The professor told us that he invited you to come," Kooper said. "Well, you, Mario. Looks like the princess followed you here. Wait... Is that a Felinoi at your side?"

Ai waved at everyone. "I'm Ai Mew! Nice to meet you! Mew!"

"And who is the little horse at your side?" Goombella asked.

"Ah'm Apple Bloom! But call me Apple Death!"

"It's nice to see you again Kooper, Goombella," Peach said.

"Yes, nice to see you again miss Goombella," Toadsworth said. "And delighted to meet you mister Kooper. I heard a lot about you. I'm Toadsworth."

Once the reunion and presentations were done, Kolorado explained Ai and Apple Death's presence, then asked again what the archaeologists had been doing.

"We found the camp empty. For a moment, we were worried," the prof said.

"Well, you see, professor, we made a map of the castle," Kooper started.

"Thanks to it, we found out that there must be a hidden room in the basement," an archaeologist continued.

"So we searched around, and I discovered a hidden mechanism in this armor," another archaeologist said.

"It's really simple. If we put the right sword and the right shield on this armor, this should open the passage to the secret room," Goombella said. "So we transported here all the swords and all the shields we found in this castle and started to put them on the armor. But finding the right combination is revealing to be a very long task."

"Isn't there a clue somewhere that can help finding the right sword and shield?" Peach asked.

"We haven't found one," an archaeologist answered.

"We all try to think of something, but we can't find anything," another archaeologist said. "We examined all the swords and shields, but nothing."

"And we hope that the right sword and shield aren't buried under the rubble," yet another said.

"You don't have to worry about that. My ancestor had to enter the secret room to hide the star piece, so she had to have the sword and the shield," Ai said. "And speaking of..." She walked among the swords and shields until she picked up a wooden sword. Then, she moved more and picked up a wooden shield. "A wooden sword and a wooden shield. Isn't it suspicious among all these fancy swords and shields?"

"Told you," one of the archaeologists said to the others.

"No. It can't be that simple, right?" Goombella asked.

"Sometimes, solutions are simple," Mario said. "Let's test them."

Kooper took off the sword and the shield on the armor, and Ai placed the wooden sword and wooden shield in their place. There was a click! and the wall behind the armor opened, revealing a large room with a huge pile of treasures with some chests.

"Jackpot!" Kooper shouted in joy.

"So it really was that simple!" Goombella groaned.

"The wealth of Felina's royal family!" Kolorado exclaimed. "I can't believe we found it! Thank you, Ai!"

"And!" Ai walked to one of the walls in the new room and put her medallion in a hole, revealing a pipe. "The pipe to the next star piece! Mew!"

"I'm glad we found it so easily and rapidly," Peach said. "Now, I guess that I will await you here. Good luck."

Apple Death, Mario and Ai nodded before they surrounded the pipe, ready to jump in it.

"Wait!" Goombella stopped them. "Allow me to come with you! Like in good old time!"

Kooper nodded. "Me too!"

Mario nodded.

"Welcome to the group," Apple Death said.

At this, Apple Death, Mario, Ai, Kooper, and Goombella jumped into the pipe.

They arrived in a cavern and immediately saw what will certainly be the guardian: the skeleton of a dragon.

"Oh! A Draggadon skeleton!" Goombella said.

"I think that I see the star piece in its muzzle," Kooper said.

"Yeah, that's the star piece. Mew!"

"Well, be ready guys," Apple Death said.

"Don't worry. That's not the first dragon I fought," Goombella said.

The group approached, causing the skeleton to animate, its eyes glowing black. The dragon then took a huge breathe, and Apple Death quickly teared off a piece of the ground in order for everyone to take cover. The dragon then breathed black flames powerful enough to melt the ground. Thankfully, the piece of ground was enough to protect everyone.

"There is a problem," Goombella said. "We won't be able to reach its head if it is standing on its hind legs like that. At least, Hooktail and Gloomtail had been on their four legs."

Once the black flames stopped coming, Apple Death used ice to cool down the heated ground, then created for herself her own dragon skeleton which she took possession of. She then punched the Draggadon with its claws (the arms of her skeleton being much longer than the ones of the Draggadon), sending it crashing on the wall behind. Ai materialized a giant black fist and repeatedly punched the Draggadon with it.

The Draggadon recovered despite the punches and charged toward Apple Death, only for Kooper to enter his shell and charge into its leg, making it trip and crash on the floor. Mario immediately jumped, grabbed the star piece, and pulled, pressing his legs on the muzzle. Goombella jumped under him and bit into his overall to pull him down. They were quickly joined by Kooper who jumped and caught Goombella by the legs to also pull.

However, the Draggadon began to get up only for Apple Death to stomp on its skull with her dragon's leg, keeping it down. Ai materialized a smaller black fist and used it to help Mario removing the star piece. Too bad for the Draggadon that its arms were too small to reach and stop them.

With everyone's help, it didn't take long to remove the star piece from the muzzle, and the skeleton stopped moving. Mario, however, fell right on Goombella and Kooper, crushing the Goomba between his butt and the Koopa.

With their enemy defeated, Apple Death got out of her skeleton dragon which then disappeared, and she joined everyone.

"So that makes it four?"

"Yes. Two left," Ai answered. "Meww... But the last two pieces won't be easy..."

"Yeah. The forest will be hard," Kooper said. "But, somehow, I know that we will succeed."

Ai nodded. "To the forest! Mew!"

The group exited the pipe back in the treasury where they found the archaeologists busy examining the treasure. Princess Peach and Toadsworth were just observing while having small talks with them.

Kooper and Goombella told the archaeologists that they will continue following Mario and the others until their adventure ended, then they will return to help the archaeologists.

But before they could go to the Black Forest, the group had to escort Peach back to the camp.

So they left the castle.

However, they barely made a few steps that someone landed before them.

That someone was Qiang Claws wearing a white armor with a red half circle decorating the helmet, like a rising sun. This armor looked heavier than the ones usually used by the Felinois.

Ai gasped. "The Lìliàng Armor!"

"Uh oh." Apple Death immediately turned into a ghost.

"Isn't that the armor that makes you super strong?" Goombella asked.

"Yes, that's this armor," Ai said.

"I did well to wait here a bit," Qiang began. "Now, I finally have you. Prepare to return in your cell, Ai!"

Qiang suddenly charged toward Ai, spear pointed toward her, at a speed that took everyone by surprise. Ai barely had time to put up a shield made of darkness to stop the spear.

Everyone immediately went on the offensive while Peach and Toadsworth moved away. Apple Death sprouted bones under Qiang who jumped away only to be hit by Kooper in his shell. However, he was barely phased by it and he kicked the shell, sending it flying right toward Mario who ducked to avoid it.

Ai sent a big quantity of black fire at Qiang who twirled his spear very rapidly to repel them. Apple Death attacked with purple electricity which paralyzed Qiang, resulting in him getting burned by the black fire. When Ai stopped sending flames, this allowed Mario and Goombella to attack while Qiang was still paralyzed by Apple Death's electricity. However, after some hits, with a roar, Qiang broke out of the paralysis and punched Mario in the belly hard, sending him flying. He then countered one of Goombella's headbutts with his own headbutt that overpowered hers and sent her away.

Apple Death continued to send electricity, but Qiang was just ignoring it as he focused back on Ai whose shadow extended toward him. The shadow then came out of the ground in the form of a spike that Qiang blocked with his spear. Apple Death stopped sending electricity and instead began to send dozens of fireballs. Qiang was hit by some, but then, he charged toward Ai, spear ready again to pierce her, avoiding many of the fireballs this way. Like the previous time, Ai put up a black shield, only for Qiang to move around and attack from her left. Ai barely blocked him with a black sword, but Qiang still managed to knock her off balance. She was saved by forcing Qiang to jump away because of another shadow spike. She then sent more shadows at him, as well as black fireballs and black sharp wind-like waves.

Mario got him with his hammer, and Apple Death sent energy scythes. Kooper returned and rammed Qiang with his shell. Goombella headbutted him. Qiang twirled his spear to force them back, but they resumed their assault as soon as he stopped.

But then, Qiang talked to them. "Stop helping that girl! I don't know what she told you, but she is lying!"

"Do ya really think that we will believe ya?"

"You trusted her right away just because she looks like a frail young girl! But do you know that that same frail young girl is the one who destroyed Felina?"

This stopped everyone's assault as they all looked at Qiang in wonder, excepted Ai who looked at him in horror.

"No way!" Goombella shouted. "There's no way she is that old!"

"She who used the Demon Star was turned immortal by its power. Don't believe me? I'll show you!"

Suddenly, for the third time, Qiang charged toward Ai who quickly put up a black shield. Instead of moving around like before like Ai expected, Qiang jumped above her. Then, while in the air, Qiang threw his spear at Ai before he was hit by a shockwave of energy from Apple Death. In the blink of an eye, the spear impaled Ai. It went right through her and planted itself in the ground, some of the handle still poking out of her torso.

"AI!!!" everyone shouted, including Peach and Toadsworth.

Shock appeared on Ai's face as she registered what happened. Then pain. Then rage.

Then, she sent more sharp black wind at Qiang, pouring more power, so the wind formed a tornado that took Qiang off guard and sent him flying far in the horizon while cutting him all over his body.

Then, she fell on her side, losing consciousness.

"Ai!"

"Ai!"

Everyone ran toward her. Mario broke the spear and carefully removed the handle from Ai's torso.

"She is just unconscious," Toadsworth observed. "She shouldn't be alive. The spear went right through her heart. How is this possible?"

"Now is not the moment to ask questions," Peach said. "Ai needs to be healed. Do we have a 1up Mushroom?"

Apple Death shook her head. "No. The archaeologists don't sell them."

"Uh. Look. The wound is disappearing," Kooper said, and everyone saw that the hole in Ai's torso was closing, little by little.

Everyone exchanged glances.

"Now that I think about it, the few wounds she got until now are all gone, and she didn't even eat a Mushroom," Mario said.

"Then... I guess that we will just have to wait for her to wake up. Let's transport her to the camp," Goombella said.

Everyone else nodded.

Chapter 156: The Black Forest

Ai woke up inside one of the tents in the camp, with Peach at her side.

"Where am I?"

"Ai!"

"Princess Peach?"

"Yes. It's me, Ai. Are you alright? The spear pierced you in the heart, but the wound closed off, and somehow..."

"Y-yes. I'm alright."

"I'm glad. We transported you back to the camp where we waited for you to wake up. The others are just outside the tent. We were all very worried."

"And I'm sure you are also waiting for me to say why I am still alive. Has Qiang told you the truth? If I am immortal, then does it mean that I really destroyed Felina?"

By then, everyone outside heard Ai and Peach's voices and looked into the tent or just listened if there was no place.

Ai sighed. "Yes. What he said is true. I am the girl who destroyed Felina all those centuries ago. And yes, I am immortal. Well, he was wrong about why I am immortal. This isn't because I used the Demon Star's power, but because I had on me a piece. But since I didn't want them to know about the piece I had, I let them believe that."

"Why not tell us?" Peach asked.

Ai started to cry. "Isn't it obvious? I was scared of how you would react. I destroyed a whole kingdom. Killed thousands of people. This is not nothing. All because I couldn't contain my anger and hate after my parents were killed. Who would want to help someone who committed genocide?”

Peach didn’t say anything while deep in thought, then resumed talking. "I do understand your point. Nevertheless, you’re mistaken."

Ai looked confused at Peach who then gently took her paws with her hands.

"Ai, your story is a tragic one indeed, and I wouldn't have thought any less of you if you'd told it. You want to make things right after all, don’t you?"

Ai looked shocked at Peach for a moment, but sure enough she nodded her head.

"I…I hurt so many… Ending this once and for all is the very least I could do to even start making up for my sins."

"Then that’s all. We can't help our past, but you still can decide your future. And who knows, maybe someday…"

Peach then lightly brushed her finger on Ai's tear-stained cheeks.

"You will learn to forgive yourself."

Ai looked into Peach for a moment more, then gave a weak smile.

"Yeah, I… would like that."

Then suddenly, she embraced Peach, and the Princess got startled at first but she was quick to return the hug.

"Thank you forever for this, Princess."

Peach chuckled softly. "Any time."

The others all smiled and agreed with what Peach said. Despite what Ai did, they will still help her. As everyone talked, however, nobody saw the doubt hidden behind Ai's smile.

Once they were done talking, the group decided that it was time to go to the Black Forest. So they left the camp, leaving behind Peach and Toadsworth, and went East.

After walking about one hour, following a path, the group reached a small village that they traversed before they reached the forest just beside it. The forest revealed to be the most gloomy place in Felina that Apple Death saw until now. It was entirely made of dead black trees, and of course, since there was no light, it would be easy to get lost in the dark. And it didn't help that it certainly was very haunted.

"So, still no idea of how we'll find the pipe in there?" Apple Death asked.

"Actually, I can help. Mew!" Ai said. "You see, since I'm the one who used the Demon Star, I'm also the one who broke it into pieces that I hid all over the kingdom. So I know the path to where the pipe is. I can lead you there."

"Oh, thank the stars," Kooper sighed in relief.

Ai giggled. "You know, it actually helps me that you found out about who I really am. I didn't know how I would have explained knowing the path, or how I would have led you through the good path without revealing that I knew it."

"This is what ya've done all this time, uh?" Apple Death asked.

"Uhuh! Mew! So, follow me!"

Ai led the group, not into the forest, but along it, seemingly looking for something.

"Will you tell me where you are leading us?" she asked.

"I told you, it's a surprise," he answered. "Just know that I found it during father's last hunting game. You will see, you will love it. Ah! Here it is!" He pointed at a tree with a hole just at the edge of the forest. "From this tree, we go... this way!" He took a random direction and walked into the forest.

She followed him wordlessly, curious.

Ai pointed at a tree with a hole at the edge of the forest. "The first landmark! From this tree, we go this way! Mew!"

The group entered the forest. A few minutes later, various ghosts began to attack them. Boos, Dark Boos (purple Boos that were stronger than normal Boos), Embers, Broozers (ghosts with feet and boxing gloves), Peepas, and Greapers (Shy Guy ghosts with a scythe). Despite this, Ai made sure to never lose the direction she was walking in.

Eventually, they arrived at a rock.

"Second landmark. This way."

Ai moved to the left of the rock and continued until they reached a giant tree. From it, she took right.

"Are we there yet?" she asked.

"Almost. Oh! I think that I'm seeing it!"

Not long after he said that, they reached a clearing. Her eyes immediately sparkled upon seeing all the flowers that were everywhere.

"Woaaah... Oh my gosh! It's beautiful!" she shouted before she ran among the flowers and sniffed them. "They smell sooo good! And there are so many colors! Thank you! You were right! I LOVE this place! It's the most beautiful place of Felina!" She then began to chase a butterfly, laughing, while he observed with a large smile.

The group arrived at a clearing, as empty of life as the rest of the kingdom. Not a blade of grass. Not a flower. Not a butterfly.

Upon seeing the place, Ai sighed, then shook her head before she began toward a rock near the center of the clearing on which a hole could be seen.

Only to stop upon seeing two figure beside the rock. The smallest one, flying on a broom, used her scepter to light the area. This allowed the group to see that the two figures were Bowser and Kammy. Kammy had a crystal ball floating before her, and she was moving her hand not holding her scepter over it.

"Bowser? What is he doing here?" Goombella wondered.

"Uh. Who's this old Magikoopa beside him?" Apple Death asked.

"That's Kammy," Mario answered. "I hadn't seen her in a while."

"Who are they?" Ai asked.

"Bad guys who do their best to ruin everyone's day," Apple Death answered.

"They always kidnap Princess Peach, and sometimes try to conquer something. Generally the Mushroom Kingdom, or some other place, or even the whole world," Goombella answered.

"Oh, I see." Ai glared at Bowser and Kammy. "And now, they seem to be after the star pieces. How did they learn about them?"

"Probably spied on me with a crystal ball," Mario said.

The group approached Bowser and Kammy, the two not spotting them asKammy was busy looking at her ball while Bowser looked at her. As the group got close, they began to hear them.

"-can confirm it, it's under us," Kammy said.

"Alright, but then, how do we reach it? Seems like we need to put something in that hole," Bowser said.

"Yes. Maybe Mario knows what. Should I spy on him?"

"Either that or we dig, and I would rather not."

So Kammy looked into her crystal ball as she continued to move her hand over it. "Then let's see what Mario is doing................... Mmh? Apparently, he is... beside us?"

There was a moment of silence, then the two looked at the group.

"Since when are they here?" Bowser asked. "Bah! No matter! MARIO! Here you are! BWAHAHAHA! That's unexpected, but I guess that it means that I will get to tear you apart sooner, you and your friends!"

Apple Death turned into a ghost. "Ya don't stand a chance against us, Bowser!"

"Wait, before we start, how many star pieces have you gathered?" Kammy asked.

"Four," Ai answered.

Kammy gulped, but Bowser laughed. "BWAHAHAHAHA! That's nothing worrying! We will still totally curb stomp you! And then I will take the star pieces from you!"

Kammy put away her crystal ball and readied her scepter only to be blasted out of her broom by Apple Death, sending her crashing into a tree all the way at the edge of the clearing.

This took Bowser by surprise, but he immediately went on the offensive by breathing fire at everyone. Kooper entered his shell while Mario and Goombella jumped away. Apple Death simply flew around. As for Ai, she materialized black wings and used them to fly around too to avoid the flames.

Ai used multiple shadow spikes to attack Bowser, stopping his fire breath. This allowed Mario to attack Bowser with his hammer while Goombella headbutted him and Kooper rammed him with his shell. Apple Death also sent bones at Bowser.

Despite all the attacks, Bowser raised a foot and then stomped right on Kooper's shell, immobilising him. He then punched Goombella away and tried to also punch Mario who jumped to dodge. In return, a big black fist from Ai punched Bowser in the face.

A magical beam suddenly came and hit Apple Death. Kammy entered the battle on a new broom and fired a second beam at Ai who dodged. Ai then formed another black fist, bigger, and used it to uppercut Kammy, sending her flying far in the sky. However, Bowser used the occasion to grab Ai before he slammed her on the ground. However, since he had to move to reach her, he freed Kooper from under his foot, allowing him to resume his ramming attack.

Growling, Ai used strength boosted by the demonic power of the star pieces to free herself before she repeatedly fired black beams right in Bowser's face, making him step back. Apple Death then blasted him from behind, sending him on the ground on his belly. Before he could get up, Mario grabbed him by the tail and spun.

Apple Death got an idea, and she quickly used her powers to levitate a tree. Seeing this, Mario undertood what she wanted to do and threw Bowser at her. The filly then used the tree as a baseball bat and swung as hard as she could, hitting Bowser and sending him flying far away, ending the fight.

"We haven't heard the last of him," Apple Death said.

Ai groaned. "As if we haven't enough with the Felinois."

"Just a new obstacle, and he won't really be much of a problem," Kooper said.

Ai sighed. "Let's just get the next piece."

At this, she put the medallion in the hole in the rock, and the pipe appeared. After taking some mushrooms to heal the few damage they took, the heroes jumped into the pipe.

They entered the cavern, which revealed to have the particularity to have less glowing stones, making it darker. Despite this, it wasn't difficult for the heroes to spot the star piece floating in the air at the end of the cavern.

"It's floating?" Goombella questioned.

"Be careful. The guardian is obviously invisible."

Apple Death glared at the floating piece. "Yeah. Ah can feel it. There's something."

When the group approached, a chain attached to the piece appeared. Then, a skeletal left hand holding the chain appeared. Little by little, the rest of the entity revealed itself, a giant reaper-like ghost, holding a scythe in its right hand.

"Oh... It's floating high above the ground. I won't be able to attack it the usual way," Kooper warned.

The reaper raised its scythe and attacked, only to get blocked by a scythe of purple energy materialized by Apple Death. Mario then jumped and hit the reaper on the head with his hammer while Ai attacked with black fireballs. The reaper retaliated by levitating stones and throwing them at the group. It also breathed black fire, forcing everyone to move away.

Apple Death zapped it with her purple electricity, hurting it a lot and making it stop its attacks. Ai then used a giant black fist to punch it and send it crashing into the wall of the cavern. But the reaper recovered and levitated Ai in a black aura and moved her before its face. The reaper then inhaled, and something blurry, transparent, without distinct shape began to come out of Ai and went toward the reaper's skeletal mouth.

"It's sucking her vital energy!" Goombella exclaimed.

The reaper was slashed by a purple scythe of energy from Apple Death, stopping it for a moment. Mario attacked it with his hammer. Goombella then had the idea of jumping at the star piece to grab it with her mouth, dangling from it. This gained the reaper's attention who then tried to get her off, releasing Ai. The reaper was slashed again by Apple Death, and Ai attacked with black beams.

Mario jumped and grabbed Goombella's feet, and Kooper was able to grab Mario's feet without jumping. He then pulled, trying to make the reaper let go of the star piece. The reaper attacked them with its scythe only to be blocked by Apple Death again. The reaper threw rocks instead, but the heroes resisted.

Apple Death slashed the reaper, and finally, it let go of the chain, making Mario, Kooper, and Goombella fall on the ground. Ai then quickly grabbed the star piece from Goombella's mouth and used it right away along with the others to fire a giant black beam on the reaper, sending it crashing on the wall of the cavern while dealing a huge amount of damage.

The reaper then disappeared, giving up the fight.

Ai teared the piece off the chain, finally adding it to her collection.

"With this, only one piece remains," Ai said.

"Bao Leo's."

"Don't worry. Now that we have all the other pieces, we are totally ready to fight him. Mew! And also Bowser if he appears again!"

Chapter 157: The Last Star Piece

The trip to the mountains was rather uneventful, much to everyone’s relief. The group made their way to one of the mountains under Ai's guidance who led them to a seemingly dead end, a big boulder sitting in front of a wall.

"Mmh, let me guess: the entrance is blocked by the boulder, isn’t it?" Apple Death asked.

"Right on it!" Ai confirmed.

Apple Death then turned into a ghost and made a big skeleton hand sprout out of the ground and push the rock aside before returning to normal, letting everyone enter a cave that went inside the mountain.

The group walked through the tunnel until they reached the very heart of the mountain where the Felinois' hideout was.

Upon arriving, a town inside the very mountain extended before them, the houses and establishments all resembling that of a town from China. There were even some suspended and built into the walls, connected between them and to the ground by bridges, elevators, and ladders. And in the town, other Felinois of various ages, sizes, and shapes could be seen from afar, going on with their day.

"Wow, this is amazing! A whole Felinoi town hidden in the mountains!? The historical research that can be done here is…!" Goombella couldn’t help but squeal upon seeing everything with sparks in her eyes.

"Now now, don’t get too caught up on the sights, this still is enemy territory. No doubt they will be ready for our arrival, mew." Ai reminded her, making Goombella calm down, though she was still visibly excited.

"Mmm, still, maybe after all it’s said and done it wouldn't be so bad to look around this place. It looks nice," Kooper said.

The group descended upon the town, first encountering a Felinoi kit playing outside with a ball.

Upon seeing them, he stopped and looked at the group with curiosity.

That’s it, until he was promptly swept away by a female, older looking Felinoi who held him between her arms, looking back at them with fear before she ran away in the opposite direction.

This action repeated more times as the group made their way across the town. People running away, locking themselves in their houses and shops all the while looking terrified of them.

"Sheesh, so much for a welcome…" Apple Death said.

"Don’t hold it against them, they probably were told beforehand that we were coming and were 'dangerous'," Ai said, even though she herself looked saddened by it.

"Hopefully, it will change once they know what we really are gonna do!" Kooper said.

"Indeed, it would be difficult to learn about this place if everyone ran at our mere sight," Goombella agreed.

Everyone made their way across the town to the center where an imposing palace stood before them, its design and structure once again reminiscent of those from ancient China.

"So this is it. Looks like we reached the end of our journey," Mario commented while looking at the palace. Ai nodded, before turning around and facing everyone.

"I just…wanted to thank you everyone, before going in. Truth to be told, I honestly didn’t expect you to actually help me when we first met, much less that you would stick around to support me on this, and even less that even after knowing that I kept important details and information from you all you still want to be on my side. It… it means a lot. I haven’t trusted this much on anyone else since… s-since…"

"Hey, it’s okay. We get it. wherever this takes us, we choose to trust you will do the right thing. We're friends after all!" Apple Death said.

Ai was surprised a little, but then she gave a fond, sincere smile. "Friends… Yes, thank you. From the bottom of my heart."

However, the moment didn’t last long, because as they were about to move inside, the doors of the palace swung open, multiple Felinoi soldiers spilling out in formation and quickly surrounding everyone. They had a variety of weapons like swords,Lances,Axes,Clubs and so on.

Then from the palace came Qiang Claws, though this time without the armor from last time.

"So, even knowing the truth of who she is and her actions, you still choose to be by her side…" he said solemnly.

"Yeah, and if you would just let us, we promise we can solve everything! Just give us the chance!" Apple Death said, hoping that maybe he would listen.

Qiang Claws just scowled in return. "A chance at what? At her to once again destroy everything we hold dear? That we fought so hard to recover? Not a chance! I'm done trying to reason with you outsiders! If you won’t stay put, I will not hold anything back! Men, give your all! We are not letting them reach the throne room until the last of us fall!"

The soldiers all roared, motivated, and the fight started.

Immediately a lancer stepped in and tried to attack Mario but he jumped in the air and countered by stomping him on the head.

Two more approached with axes intent in beheading him as he landed before they were intercepted by Goombella and Kooper who headbutted one and charged at the other while spinning in his shell respectively.

Apple Death, meanwhile, kept the actual bulk of the soldiers away, sweeping their ranks with wide attacks and gathering most of their attention.

This left Ai With a mostly free path towards the palace, defeating any guard on her way until Qiang Claws intercepted her, making her pause in her advance. Ai barely had time to generate a darkness sword to intercept him and the two started to clash.

"Witch! In the name of his majesty Bao Leo, I will not let you in even if I have to give my life! You will not steal the Felinois’ future again!"

Ai gritted her teeth. "I will not let you gather the pieces of the Demon Star and conquer the world! So I will defeat Bao and destroy the star for good!"

Qiang Claws just tsked in response. "You fool, there's no destroying the Demon Star for good, you will only resurrect that abomination and destroy us all again! And why should we even believe those are your intentions in the first place!? You already used this star once to destroy our ancestors! You could very well do it again!"

Sadly for him, he not only didn’t possess the Lìliàn Armor that previously granted him strength, but Ai had grown much more powerful with all the additional Demon Star pieces she and the group collected by now.

Ai's vision darkened, and a saddened sight left her lips.

"You are right. I caused so much suffering…" Channeling more power from the pieces of the Demon Star, Ai quickly overpowered Qiang Claws, making his weapon fly out of his hands.

"...This is why I must end this, once and for all," she said before she blasted Qiang Claws with a ray of darkness that launched him towards the wall of the Palace, cracking it before he fell to the ground, still conscious.

Ai approached him and released a weak blast to his face, rendering him unconscious without giving him time to say anything more.

Meanwhile, multiple guards realized she had defeated Qiang Claws and rushed towards her.

With a single swipe of her paw however, a wave of darkness pushed all of them back in the fray with Apple Death, Mario, Kooper, and Goombella.

"GUYS!" Ai shouted over the battle. "I will go ahead to confront Bao Leo myself! Don't worry, I got this! You all focus on finishing and then catching up! Mew!" she said.

"Will do!" Apple Death shouted back before blasting away another group of guards, the rest of the heroes all giving each their signals of agreement

With that, Ai ventured into the palace ready to face whatever was to come.

She found the big, majestic doors of the Throne Room…

With a little smirk, she blasted them open with a ball of darkness, making a lot of noise. She then quietly entered the Throne Room.

The place looked sophisticated, with opulent tapestries hanging from the ceiling and vibrant colors all around. Then there was the throne itself, elevated high at the other side of the room with stone steps leading to it. It was a fine thing, made out of pure gold. Perfect for any monarch.

Sitting on it, with one paw clenched in a furred fist he was resting his head on and a leg crossed over the other was none other than Bao Leo himself wearing the Lìliàn Armor. He had his eyes closed, seemingly unperturbed by Ai's entrance.

Ai regardless stepped forward, looking at him for a moment before deciding on how to go about this.

Striking a dramatic pose, she raises her voice. "Bao Leo! Your reign of terror has ended! I, Ai the Felinoi, will strike you down and stop your evil plans of world domination! In the name of the Moon, I will punish you! Mew!" she said, a fairly dramatic tone all the while.

For a moment, the room was in complete silence. Then, Bao Leo finally opened his eyes and looked down at Ai, his stare giving nothing away.

Then he curled up a single eyebrow. "....Have you seriously been acting like that this whole time to keep up appearances to your allies?"

"Pfff, of course not! But, you know, given our positions right now, I couldn't resist."

"Mmph, you really haven’t changed…Ai."

"Oh believe me, I am certainly not the same Ai you knew. I just have an immaculate sense of humor! "

Bao Leo snorted. "Sure, sure… and… could these changes include the possibility that you stop this foolishness?"

And just like that, the confusingly pleasant ambience was gone in an instant, replaced by a tension so thick it could be cut by a knife.

"I have all the other pieces of the Demon Star, only yours is missing. I will not back down now."

"Ai please, you have to learn to forgive. The future of our people is-"

"Shut up, Bao." Ai said with an edge. "Nothing you say now is changing what is about to happen. I made my decision. I will see this path to its very end."

Bao Leo simply stayed still, not saying anything. He then stood up and sighed.

"...Qiang Claws told me a bit about your allies. Right now they must be outside dealing with the town's forces aren’t they? Tell me, do they mean anything at all? What are they gonna think of you after this? Or do you simply not care what even becomes of them?" Bao Leo asked, searching for anything on Ai.

Ai didn't even respond, instead she just fiercely glared at him.

For a moment, her fists were shaking, yet just as quickly, she tightened them, making her resolution clear and absolute.

Bao Leo saw this, and simply exhaled tiredly. "So that’s how it is…"

Without much warning, he gave a mighty jump, landing in front of the foot of the stairs and a few meters in front of Ai. His form towering a bit over hers.

"Ai, you leave me no choice now. I can't let you go through this, and so I will strike you down. Prepare yourself for I, Bao Leo, shall put your hurting soul to eternal rest!"

Bao took a sword and charged darkness into it before he released it in the form of a wave with a vertical swing. Ai jumped aside to avoid it, the darkness wave continuing its path through the Throne Room’s entrance and cutting through a wall further behind. She then materialized a sword of darkness of her own.

Bao followed it with an horizontal swing that sent two waves this time, one above the other, and Ai used her sword to slice them apart before she jumped to avoid a third wave. Once at the top of her jump, Ai charged darkness into a large ball that she fired at Bao who cut it in two with his sword still enveloped in black energy, destroying it.

Ai landed and sent right away a giant black fist to punch Bao who countered it with his own punch. However, he couldn’t stop a second fist, followed by several others very rapidly. Bao eventually countered by raising his sword, charging more energy into it, before releasing it to create a large black tornado that successfully swept Ai, sending her flying and crashing into the ceiling.

She quickly recovered however and propelled herself from the ceiling with a small shockwave, crashing right into Bao. The two found themselves punching each other on the ground, against the stairs to the throne, Ai on top of Bao. Ai attempted to use the occasion to take Bao’s star piece, which was part of a pendant around his neck hidden under his armor, but Bao pushed her back with two black beams from his eyes.

The lion quickly got up and repeatedly swung his sword to send many waves of darkness. Ai avoided them or sliced them as best as she could while firing her own projectiles. Eventually, she began to approach to start another attempt at the pendant, but she couldn’t get too close.

Bao had the same regeneration as her, so hurting him until he falls unconscious won’t work. She had to find an opening to get the star piece and end the fight while making sure that Bao didn’t get her pieces.

Bao suddenly charged toward her, ready to cut her in half. Ai ducked and blasted Bao toward the throne. He crashed into it hard, destroying it. However, he quickly got up and jumped before he sent dozens of energy balls toward Ai who ran to avoid them, Bao remaining in the air. All the while, she charged energy before she sent it in the form of a huge and powerful wave that destroyed the energy balls and hit Bao, making him crash into the wall behind the throne, near the ceiling.

Ai propelled herself toward Bao right away, hoping to get the pendant before he could recover, but Bao recovered too fast and caught her arm before he jumped from the wall, put Ai under him, and fell on her with all his weight. With Ai pinned down under him, back up, Bao began to search her for the pieces and almost managed to find them in one of her pockets, but Ai then blasted the ground under her, sending herself and Bao in the air, freeing herself.

While in the air, she turned around and sent a black spike from her hand toward Bao’s head. Bao put his sword in the way however, resulting in him simply being pushed back by the spike before they both landed back on ground.

Ai slammed a foot on the floor, sprouting black spikes that Bao avoided with a jump before he sent a horizontal wave with his sword. Ai jumped too to avoid it, then sent powerful black winds that Bao countered with his own wind, the strong currents pushing each other. Ai’s gained the upper hand and reached Bao, cutting him several times, though the Armor protected him well.

Bao decided to stop defending himself and charged into the wind, toward Ai. She barely reacted in time to avoid being sliced in half by his sword, jumping away at the last moment. The weapon still left a big cut on her. But then, the lion breathed darkness right into her, the darkness engulfing half of her body while she was mid-jump. Ai screamed in pain and crashed on the floor, badly injured.

Bao approached and was about to take Ai’s star pieces when she put her hands before his face and blasted him, sending him on his back. She then ran after him before he could get up, moved over him, and blasted his face again, and again, and again. She then charged energy for several seconds and gave one last, giant blast that made the whole palace shake.

Part of the floor of the throne room collapsed, and both Bao and Ai fell into the castle’s basement. Ai fell on Bao who groaned. Breathing heavily, she quickly grabbed the pendant around his neck and pulled until it broke, allowing her to get the last star piece.

“No…” Bao said weakly.

“Sorry Bao,” Ai sighed before she got up and looked down at the last star piece. “Finally, I have all the pieces. Now, I can-”

Suddenly, there was a shadow, a gust of wind, and right under her nose, the star piece was snatched.

“Wh-? Hey!” She looked toward where the figure that took the piece went, recognising Kammy on her broom. “Give it back!”

Then, something crashed through the ceiling of the Throne Room and almost fell on Ai who quickly jumped away. Instead, Bowser crushed Bao.

“BWAHAHAHA!!! Good job Kammy! Now, give me!” Bowser said in joy.

Kammy flew toward Bowser. Ai immediately fired at her, making her panic. She flew erratically to avoid the projectiles and managed to reach Bowser who took the star piece from her.

“YES!” Bowser shouted, only to be hit by a powerful ball of darkness that sent him crashing into the debris of the Throne Room’s floor. Thankfully for him, he didn’t let go of the star piece. “I still have it!”

“Give me the star piece!” Ai shouted.

Bowser got up. “No can do, girly. Give me your pieces instead.”

“No way!”

“Have it your way.”

At this, Bowser breathed in, then released a powerful stream of darkness that Ai barely avoided by jumping aside. She returned fire with projectiles of darkness that Bowser tanked before she had to avoid a magical beam from Kammy. The Magikoopa readied another beam, only for Mario to suddenly stomp her, followed by Goombella, then Kooper, then Apple Death. Kammy fell from her broom as a result. Apple Death then turned into a ghost and grabbed the broom before she smashed it on Kammy’s head, knocking her out.

“One down,” she said. “One to go.” She turned to look at Bowser. “Of course we’ve to fight ya again. Most stubborn bad guy ever. Never know when to quit.”

“But this time, I have an advantage!” Bowser said before he showed the star piece. “Now, darkness is mine to use as I wish!”

“Power ups never worked for you. This one won’t be different,” Kooper said. “This one doesn’t even turn you invincible.”

Bowser winced. “It gives me regeneration!”

“Not the same,” Goombella said. “Punching you still works.”

“They say that folly is doing the same thing again and again and hoping for a different result,” Mario said. “It’s even worse when your current attempt is not as good as previous ones.”

“Hey! Give me a break! It’s not my fault if I haven’t yet found an artifact that will turn me invincible! Maybe if you let me have the full Demon Star…”

“In your dreams!” Ai shouted.

Bowser groaned. “Let’s just start the fight…”

Apple Death shrugged. “Ok. But ya already know how this will end.”

“But first, let’s move this guy out of the way,” Kooper said, pointing at Bao who was still on the ground where Bowser crushed him earlier.

“Fine,” Bowser said. He and Mario then both grabbed Bao, by the head and the feet, and transported him to the nearest corner of the room they were in. Bao was so weakened that he didn’t protest.

He actually looked… older. His face had wrinkles that weren’t present before.

Meanwhile, Kooper did the same with Kammy.

They then returned to their previous positions and readied themselves.

Bowser started by breathing darkness into the group, making everyone scatter. Bowser then began to throw darkness balls from his hands, targeting the heroes randomly, but mostly Mario.

Apple Death and Ai both sent projectiles, respectively ice and darkness, which stopped Bowser, allowing the others to approach him. Kooper rammed him inside his shell, Mario jumped and bonked him on the head with his hammer, and Goombella headbutted him.

Bowser entered his shell and began to spin while darkness surrounded him like a tornado, forcing everyone to get away. He then charged toward Mario and rammed him, sending him flying and crashing into a wall. Mario quickly ate a Mushroom, then returned in the battle.

The star piece’s regenerative effect was already working on Bowser. No matter how many times he was hit, his wounds healed. Like against Bao, the fight could only be won by taking the piece from Bowser’s hand.

A giant black fist punched Bowser hard and sent him flying, but he didn’t let go of the piece. He quickly got up and jumped repeatedly, sending black shockwaves upon landing, forcing everyone who wasn’t flying to jump.

Apple Death flew directly to Bowser’s hand holding the piece and tried to pry it off forcefully.

“Hey! Hands off! Uh… Hooves off!” Bowser shouted, moving his hand away from her.

Mario then came and hit Bowser’s hand with his hammer, almost making him open it. Almost.

Bowser breathed darkness at him. Mario was too close to dodge. Thankfully, Apple Death levitated him away. In return, Bowser breathed darkness at her, and she was briefly engulfed before she flew away in pain. While she flew away, she sent big bones at Bowser to make him regret hurting her.

Ai charged toward Bowser and cut him with her black sword. While he recovered from that, Goombella headbutted his hand, failing to open it. She had to jump away to avoid a kick from Bowser. Mario used the diversion to grab him by the tail before he spun and threw him, sending him crashing into a wall where Apple Death zapped him with purple electricity.

Despite that, Bowser got up only to be blasted by Ai. This time, Bowser flew toward Kooper’s position who used the occasion to try to open his hand, but he firmly kept it closed. Bowser got up again, covered his claws in darkness, and slashed Kooper before he fired black lasers from his eyes at Ai, hitting her.

A giant bone suddenly sprouted right from under Bowser and sent him crashing through the ceiling back to the Throne Room, only for him to be caught in Apple Death’s telekinetic hold. She then pulled him back and slammed him hard on the floor back in the basement. Ai finally sent a giant stream of darkness that engulfed Bowser.

When the darkness disappeared, Mario hit Bowser’s hand with his hammer, finally opening it and getting the star piece away. Ai immediately went to grab it.

“No…!” a much older, white-maned Bao weakly said from his corner. “Don’t let her…”

But it was too late. Ai took the piece, finally getting in possession of the full Demon Star.

"Yes, finally!" she exclaimed with utter glee. "After all this time, I have it all back… And it’s all thanks to you guys!"

Apple Death smiled at her. "Great! Now we can destroy it, right? What's next?"

At that, Ai looked at her for a moment. She was still smiling brightly at her.

…Yet her smile didn’t seem to reach her eyes as she spoke next. "Mmm… What’s next indeed… Let me see…" she said, putting one claw to her chin as she seemed to think about it with a clueless expression.

Then, she suddenly snapped her fingers as if she had gotten an idea. "Oh! I think this is just the part where we say farewell. Forever."

"....What?" was all Apple Death said back.

"Oh don’t be like that, truly! We had such a fun time together! But well, everything has to come to an end and-"

"SHE'S LYING! She never planned to destroy the Demon Star! She’s gonna revive Pazall and destroy the world! Cough cough…" Bao Leo said, as patches of his white mane started to fall off.

Visibly angry, Ai snapped her fingers and a hand of pure, solid darkness grasped and lifted the now frail-looking lion. Ai turned to look at him as the hand squeezed him, making him cry out in pain.

"Oh for the love of-damnit Bao! You ruined my great villain plot-twist! Why couldn’t you ever play by a single one of my antics to the very end!? You absolute joykiller! Meow!"

"Hol' up! Hol' up! what is the meaning of all this!?" Kooper said, completely lost and slightly panicking.

Ai then slowly turned around, hunching slightly making her face and expression be covered up by her hair.

Then she straightened up, and what everyone saw left them shocked.

Gone was any trace of her bubbly joy or the spark in her eyes. Instead, she looked dead serious, and her eyes were sharp as those of a beast even glowing a bright yellow.

"Mph, so… It seems cat's out of the bag~. That’s right. Sorry for this but well…I sorta used y'all~" she said in a melodic, eerie tone.

"So it was all a lie? Those words you said back at the camp at Peach…!" Mario said, getting visibly angry by the second. "How could you take advantage of the Princess like that!"

"Oh?" Ai inquired, twisting her head to the side in quite an unnerving manner, her bright eyes concentrated on Mario with great intensity with her mouth slightly agape. "But whatever could you mean, dear friend?"

Then in an instant, her whole mannerism changed, and suddenly, she was back to what everyone was familiar with. "I'm just Ai, your sweet, poor wittle Felinoi ,don't you see, meow?"

Then she got back to her true self. "But alright, I do guess I owe you the truth, which is that yes and no. Yes, I mostly acted my entire personality with you. But no, it wasn't all made up, I did share genuine parts of my true self. Yes, what I said to the Princess was true… mostly-but no, I didn’t tell the whole thing."

Apple Death interrupted her at this point. "So you were only on half-truths and withholding key information to make everything fall into place, basically," she said with a neutral expression.

Ai nodded. "I honestly half expected someone to catch me sooner than later, and I really started sweating bullets the moment that Qiang Claws let out the fact that I don't die. But hey, if it’s any consolation to any of you, as short as it was I… I really…"

For a moment, something seemed to shift, but as quickly as it was, it was gone.

"UGH! No, that’s enough chit-chat. I can’t afford to lose any more time now that y'all are aware! I'll tell you all what's gonna happen next: I’ll use the Demon Star, I'm gonna bring back Pazall and finish what I started. And nothing will stop me. You, Apple Death, right? Anyone can tell you really aren’t from around here, so if you appreciate your own life, you will do well in returning from whence you came from! I’ll even let you take your friends here. Ain’t I generous~?"

Apple Death just looked at her unimpressed, sighing and shaking her head.

"...Well, this was rather disappointing. Guess that next time Ah’ll think it over before helping strangers running from a group of armed people. Lesson learned! Now…" she said, a scythe appearing between her hooves, purple fire coming out of its blade.

"Can you please tell me what it is that makes you think you’re leaving?” Apple Death said, her voice as if she was coming from beyond the grave for Ai's soul.

Ai, however, simply crossed her arms, a downright smug smile adorning her face.

She did a peace sign, and in a flash of darkness, she was gone.

".... Oh for-DID SHE REALLY JUST TELEPORT!?" Apple Death shouted angrily as she threw the scythe to the side, where it promptly dug into the wall.

"Damn, this is bringing back bad memories of that guy…" she said as she rubbed her temple with a hoof.

"COUGH COUGH! Uuugghh…." Bao Leo cried out, laying on the ground now that the hand that had him suspended in the air disappeared.

"Oh shoot! the King!" Apple Death realized, rushing to him alongside the other heroes.

Bao Leo laid on the ground, the top of his head now bald, with a few spots on it. His breath was labored.

"W-wow, he aged incredibly quickly! But how…?" Goombella wondered.

"Coff coff…T-the Demon Star… Without its shard, I am immortal no longer… No longer… immune to the hands of time who rush at me…" Bao Leo spoke in a soft voice.

"Uhh, yeah about that, for all that matters, we're sorry for that. We trusted Ai but then it ended like this and…" Apple Death said uncertain, rubbing the back of her head.

To her surprise however, Bao Leo just lightly chuckled. "Oh, Ai… Always the cunning, brilliant one… Rest easy, for I hold no ill will against thy, outsiders. I know-cough cough-that you were only doing what you believed to be right in your hearts… Ai… She too… b-believes this is what she must do… My only regret is that I never… n-never managed to convince her otherwise, never managed to teach… to forgive…"

A single tear rolled from his now graying eyes. "I failed her… as her friend…"

Suffice to say, the mood around the heroes was at an ever declining low.

"H-heroes… Now you must find strength… Ai is about to unleash an untold calamity upon this world. You must stop it, not only for the future of my people, but for our whole world. Please…if it is your wish to make amends… you must do this…!" Bao leo managed to say with a surprising amount of force, though his voice still was rather soft.

At that moment, someone else entered the room, jumping down from the Throne Room above.

"YOUR MAJESTY!" a loud voice all but howled out, immediately running towards them.

It was none other than Qiang Claws, who immediately put himself on his knees beside the dying lion.

"No, no no no… I woke up too late… Your piece of the Demon Star was taken! Damn it! I WASN'T STRONG ENOUGH! This is all my-" Qiang was saying, getting more and more agitated, but suddenly stopped.

Bao Leo lifted his claw, now frail and skeletic, and put it on Qiang Claws.

He smiled softly at him. "Qiang, do not blame yourself for this no longer… You did what you could… None could predict the intervention… of these travelers, but we must not focus on that. Right now, Ai is on her way… to awaken Pazall, and with that, doom the Felinoi race and the world with it… So, with what’s left of my strength, I give you one final command as your King. Guid these outsiders to Ai… Aid them in stopping this accursed Evil that has stolen so much from us… Can you do it?" Bao Leo said.

His mane had completely fallen out, his skin was full of spots, his face looked skeletal and heavy bags decorated his eyes.

"... Yes, I promise- I swear I will do as you command, my liege," Qiang Claws said, his face completely serious.

"Then…take this armor out of my remains when I am gone… It shall aid them in the final battle… Don't worry, I insist you do…" Bao Leo said, his voice barely a whisper now.

He took his hand out of Qiang Claws's head and laid it out on the ground.

He closed his eyes.

He inhaled, then exhaled.

Thus, King Bao Leo of the Felinoi drew his last breath.

At once, time fully seemed to engulf his being, as in front of everyone present, his body immediately crumbled to dust.

Everyone looked down at Bao Leo’s remains.

Everyone except for Apple Death, who looked up instead.

For in front of her, invisible to everybody else, Bao Leo stood floating, his form ethereal, resembling his young self.

He nodded at Apple Bloom."I leave everything else to you now, young one. May you succeed where my ancestors failed and weave a brighter future to us all."

Apple Death nodded back."Leave it to us."

Without more, his spirit ascended, was covered in bright light, then faded away.

"... Wow, wasn't that something? Sheez…." a new voice said, making everyone jump a bit.

Looking back, everyone saw Bowser, still conscious, rise from where he was.

"Oh, right. He was here too," Kooper observed.

"Huh!? What gives with that reaction!? Surely I am not that forgettable!" Bowser huffed, offended. "But anyways, that crazy cat lady sure pulled a fast one on ya, right? Oh yeah, I heard all that! Honestly, It’s hilarious how you goody-two-shoes fall for that kinda stuff. Even I would have noticed something wasn't right with how much of a cuckoo she was hiding behind all that glitter and rainbows! Bwahahahaha!"

Everyone just looked at Bowser with an annoyed look ,and a bitter one from Qiang Claws.

"You, can't you see how disrespectful you’re being…!? You’re sulling the memory of my King with your insipid words! Why, I should-"

"HOOOWEVER…!" Bowser suddenly said really loudly, silencing him. "I have to ask: is sulking around all y'all gonna do? If I understood that right, Cat Lady is about to let out some Big Bad out there. BAH, this world only got space for ONE guy like that, and you’re staring right at him! So, I don't know about ya, but personally I am gonna march right up to her and whoever this guy is and give them both a piece of my mind of their whole world-ending business! You may stay where you are, it just makes it all the easier for me when I go on to dominate the world I'm gonna take from those two! Bwahahahaha!"

Everyone looked at him but this time with looks of surprise and mouths slightly agape.

"... Uhh, why are you looking at me like that?" he asked,a bit unsettled by their stares.

Finally, Apple Death was the one to talk first. "Huh, so ya really DO have a nicer side. Or at least the Paper you does. Peach sure knows you well…"

"… Huh?" Bowser said, confused.

"Woah, that got to be the nicest thing you ever said aimed in my general direction, Bowser." Mario said next.

"Huh!? Now wait a moment-" Bowser was trying to say.

"Awww, that’s so surprisingly sweet of you!" Goombella said.

"Wut- huh- but- how- I- me- WHAT!? S-SWEET!?" he said, now really scandalized.

"Yeah! Didn’t know even you could be cool like that!" Kooper agreed.

"OK, THAT’S IT, ENOUGH THE LOT OF YOU! I have NO IDEA what even is what y'all are hinting at, but I definitely am not NICE, I definitely am not SWEET, and I definitely am… Ok I am cool but for some reason I don't like the way YOU said it! Ugh, I'm outta here!" Bowser said, stomping his way out of the room.

However, just when he was about to leave he suddenly noticed that instead of actually advancing forwards he was going… upwards.

"What the…!?" He said, panicking a bit.

"Do ya even know WHERE is the place ya want ta go to?" Apple Death said while lifting Bowser with telekinesis, and promptly put him back to where he was before.

"Of course I… Uhhh… Ok I do not," he grumpily admitted.

"Thought so," she said flatly.

"Mmm, do you all recall the basement of the mansion?" Kooper asked and all the heroes nodded.

"That's where Ai is. We better hurry now, I don't know how much time there's left before she does it. Ah'll make a portal to go straight there," Apple death said.

"Then do, there's no time to waste," Qiang Claws said as he turned to what was now the dust of Bao Leo and the Lìliàn Armor.

Careful to take the armor and taking out the dust he made the mental note of finding where to put the dust later and looked around with the armor in his claws.

His eyes finally settled on Mario.

"You. Yes, you. You must put this on," Qiang Claws offered the armor to Mario.

"Eh? Why me? Wouldn’t it be better if you do so?" he asked Qiang Claws.

He shook his head. "As she is now, I am no rival to that dark sorceress Ai, and much less I stand any chance against the Great Demon Pazall. With this legendary armor, you will have greater chances than I in bringing down the beast," Qiang Claws spoke with conviction.

"... Still, I don't know…" Mario said, clearly a bit uncomfortable about wearing the armor after Bao's death.

"Nonsense! His Majesty ordered me with his last strength to assist you!" Qiang said as he quickly shot out a claw to Mario's arm who didn’t expect it and pulled him closer as he started to put the armor on him with refined speed and precision. "And I, Qiang Claws, shall honor him to the last! Done!" he said as he put in place the last part of the armor on Mario, who looked perplexed at it.

"Well, that was fast," Bowser commented, mildly impressed.

"This is sadly all I am able to do for you, other than wish you all good fortune. King Bao Leo decided to trust you, so I'm sure you will be victorious," Qiang Claws said and saluted them.

Everyone nodded at him, then looked back as Apple Death opened a portal.

"Alright everyone, this is it. Be ready," she said as she was the first one to cross. The rest followed her in.

Chapter 158: The Demon

The group passed the portal which closed behind them. Now, they were back in the secret underground room with the demonic pool. Ai was nowhere to be found. Instead, they heard the pool’s liquid move. Upon closer look, they saw that Ai was sitting in the center of the pool, holding the now reformed Demon Star, which the blackness was graying, then turning white. The pool’s liquid was entering her. Ai's body was more and more engulfed by a black aura that eventually hid her completely.

“What is she doing? That’s not reviving Pazall, right?” Goombella asked.

In a few more seconds, the pool was entirely emptied, and there was a flash of light before the black aura abruptly disappeared. At the same time, Ai flew up, her body now possessing wings of pure darkness. Her fur was now black, and her eyes were glowing red. She had long, very sharp claws, the ones of her feet going through her shoes, her tail was pointed like the head of a spear, and she had a crown of black horns on her head, the horns on her forehead longer than the others on the sides.

The Demon Star, now a pure white, was left in the middle of the pool, on the ground.

As she flew, Ai looked down at the group, smirking.

"Pfff, revive him? Now why in this world would I do that?" Ai responded with a grin.

"Huh? Ain’t that what you’re just doing?" Bowser asked, confused.

"Oh c'mon, do you believe for a moment a creature like Pazall would spare me just because I revived him? I am NOT setting myself up to be just another bad guy that gets taken out by the bigger bad one! Nuh-huh! Screw Pazall!" Ai said in a fit of anger, getting her hair spiky, then she quickly summoned a hair comb of darkness to smooth her hair.

"No… I am not a moron. I have a way better idea," she said as she finished combing her hair back and discarded the comb. "I am going to TAKE Pazall's power for myself! I am gonna be the new Pazall, entirely in control of my own actions, and I am gonna bring destruction with my own paws! Nyahahahaha!"

"But I don't get it! Why!? Why would you do this all in the first place? What could bring you to go through all this?" Goombella asked with desperation, wanting to reason with her.

"Yeah, what was yer deal with Bao Leo? He called you a friend and yet…" Apple Death also questioned Ai.

Ai let out a dark chuckle. "Why indeed…? Then, if it would ease your souls before your demise, I guess I got time to humor y'all with a tale. Care to hear it?"

The heroes all looked at each other, then Apple Death nodded.

"Sure, there's no rush to kick yer butt," Apple Death replied.

Ai's right eye twitched a bit. "Cocky little.... Ahem, alright! If you want to know, this is the whole truth."

Ai looked at them for a moment before starting.

"So, like I said before, the truth is mostly what I already told you all before but with things either skipped or just sliiiightly changed… For once, yes, Bao Leo was in fact my friend. Childhood friend to be precise. The greedy, power hungry ruler I talked about? That actually would be his father, who at the time was the actual emperor of the Felinois."

"So he was your friend for so long, and yet you…" Kooper said, his fists tight.

"I did what I had to do, now shut up and let me keep going,"Ai told him, cutting him, but not meeting his eyes.

"Anyways, one day, Bao told me about his father's intentions with the Demon Star, so naturally, I told my parents who by the way were its Guardians, meant to keep it safe from 'the wrong hands'.... Heheheh… Nyahahaha!" Ai said, starting to laugh as if she just heard a joke, unnerving some of the heroes.

"Guess what?~ Turns out, said wrong hands were way closer than anyone could have anticipated… They were none other than those damned, hypocrite LIARS! These very Guardians were conspiring with the emperor to fully abuse the star’s power to rule with iron fist, and none would have realized it until it was too late! Hah, who would have thought? Hehehe…. heh."

Ai looked at the heroes, her expression… hard to comprehend.

".... Still, innocent and dumb as I was back then, I tried to do 'the right thing' and stop them. I ignored the words they were trying to convince me with, lied and told them I was with them, and when they let me attend the reunion where they were going to give the emperor the Demon Star to kickstart their plans, I leaped out for the Demon Star and used a shockwave to stun everyone and made a run for it. I thought…I really thought I could just do it y'know? Get away with the Demon Star and hide until Mama and Papa stopped thinking and saying mean, hard to understand words and just… wait until they were nice again. Damn I was such an utter idiot!"

A really bitter tone could be picked up in her voice.

"Turns out I didn’t make that far before being surrounded by a whole platoon of corrupted guards that didn’t think twice about skewering a little girl for power, and leading them were none other than that megalomaniac emperor and my own parents. They literally were going to stand there as right in front of them their own daughter was about to get killed, and they had the GALL to look completely guiltless! I WAS GOING TO DIE AND THEY JUST CARED FOR THEIR STUPID POWER! I-I was!- And they just-ugh!..."

Ai suddenly turned around, not looking at anyone.

A single sob was heard.

Then Ai continued, her voice completely neutral. "And that moment… was when I was shown the Truth! The Demon Star… its power… it showed me ALL the truth of this world!"

She turned around, but this time, her bright yellow eyes glowed brightly, and her grin was wild and unrestrained, showing a pair of sharp canines. "This world we are in is filled with filth and corruption! Nothing but people that would sell their very souls at the promise of absolute power! Even the brightest souls can be corrupted…" Ai said, looking at Mario, who just looked back defiantly.

"...And the vilest of villains will stop at nothing for their ambitions, no matter how hard and how many times they have to try." She wiped her head to look at Bowser this time, who looked at her not with the same confidence for her words struck true, yet still he didn’t yield his gaze.

"So I just said screw them!~ They want the world that bad?~ Well then, why don't I just BREAK IT BEFORE THEIR EYES!? AND BREAK IT I DID! ...Shame tho, the ever total softy he was, Leo just had to come and caught me off-guard at the end just as I was gonna move on to the actual rest of the world. He got the Demon Star shattered and me locked away. But hey, at least I got back to the emperor and those traitors…."

Ai then became silent for a moment, just looking sinisterly at everyone before her, how she 'got back' to them going unsaid…

She then spoke again. "And after that? I snuck in a piece of the Demon Star that I managed to hold on, and because nobody hardly knew anything about it, everyone assumed that using its power once granted me immortality. And then Leo… After everything, could you believe he still visited me in my cell? We talked a LOT across the years, and soon enough it was just too easy to snuck details out of him. Hah! And I am the foolish one? He just let out after long enough that the places he hid the Demon Star were none other than our old hangout spots! Really, he was just too… too… trusty and… sentimental. Kinda like you were…" she let out in a softer voice.

She shook her head. "Anyway, there you got it. The whole, unadulterated truth. So? Maybe with this, you can understand what needs to be done? I give you one more, LAST chance: turn back now or… I am not gonna take responsibility for what happens to you all," she said, looking at them. And for a moment, there was a glint of hope behind her eyes.

But everything she got back was the same from everyone: defiant, determined stares.

"So that's it? You think you have the right to be the judge and executioner of this world just because it wronged you?" Apple Death said

"Yeah! What gives? I ain’t gonna lie: what you went through is something I can't begin to imagine… but to say the entire world deserves to be destroyed for that? That can't be right!" Kooper said.

"There's way too many good people out there! Mario, Princess Peach, the Professor, all the friends I've made… They deserve to live too!" Goombella said.

"Not to mention, even we bad guys have those we look out for! Those parents of yours? Real garbage, not discussing that. But I personally would pummel ANYONE daring to touch my Junior! And I also got my kingdom! So I am stopping you right here and now for them!" Bowser said.

"We cannot just allow ourselves to get lost in the dark, because of everyone that is counting on us. You aren’t the first to threaten us and I am positive you aren’t the last. We are beating you all the same!" Mario said.

Ai Looked down, her gaze downcast and, for a moment, she seemed to falter. Yet quickly she scolded and looked back at them with renewed anger. "Then so be it! If you wanna hold and stick to those pathetic ideals, you can do so from your graves! Come at me if you dare!" Ai said, ready for battle.

"With pleasure!" Apple Death said, she and the heroes equally prepared for blows.

Apple Death began the fight by firing a large purple beam that Ai avoided by teleporting before she sent two giant balls of darkness. The group quickly dispersed to avoid them, the balls exploding upon impacting the ground.

Because Ai was flying, there was no way for most of the group to reach her. However, thanks to the Lìliàn Armor, Mario was able to jump high enough to hit her with his hammer, and he hit her with such force that she was sent crashing into the floor. While Ai recovered from her crash, Goombella and Kooper took the occasion to attack her. Bowser also breathed fireballs at her.

Ai got up and sent a small shockwave that pushed Goombella and Kooper back. The wounds she gained closed in a few seconds. She then materialized two black swords that she swung to send black waves, targeting everyone randomly. Apple Death sent sharp bones to destroy the waves targeting her, then sent many more at Ai. Despite her attempts to avoid them, there were too many, and some of the bones pierced her. Ai quickly removed them however, and again, her wounds healed rapidly.

“Regenerating is cheating!” Bowser shouted. “How are we going to defeat her if she constantly regenerates?”

Apple Death rubbed her chin, then looked at the pool, at the Demon Star. “Ah think Ah know how! The star!”

“Oh! Of course! The Demon Star was made to fight Pazall. We can certainly use it to defeat Ai,” Kooper said.

“I heard you, you know?” Ai shouted at them before she moved closer to the Demon Star. “I won’t let you get it!”

At this, Ai sent a powerful shockwave that covered the whole room, sending everyone crashing while attacking and weakening the surfaces. The whole room began to shake, and pieces of the ceiling began to fall. Quickly enough, the pool, and the Demon Star, was buried under a pile of debris, pieces of the manor above. Ai then teleported out before she was herself buried.

“She’s collapsing the whole place!” Goombella shouted.

“Let’s get out of here!” Mario said.

Apple Death grabbed everyone in her telekinetic grip as she opened a portal leading to in front of the manor, and threw them in as she flew through as well. Kooper and Goombella landed roughly on their backs, Mario managed to catch himself with a handstand flip, and Bowser was sent sliding in his shell until he was suddenly lifted into the air in a massive hand of shadows surging up from the ground. The ebon limb threw the paper Koopa King at Apple Death who stopped him in her telekinesis, correcting his position to place him on his feet.

While this happened, Ai reappeared in the sky above the heroes, her right eye twitching as she trembled in barely contained fury. Mario drew his hammer, Apple Death manifested her scythe, and Bowser readied himself, as Kooper managed to convince Goombella they’d be better off trying to dig out the Purified Demon Star, when they could reach the manor.

With a growl, Ai shot towards the ground like a comet, causing a wave of dark flames and dark spikes to erupt around her on impact, the heroes running, jumping and floating as able to avoid it.

Bowser spat fireballs at the fallen Felinoi, only for a dome of darkness to appear around her, blocking the blasts. The flame still obscured her ability to see Apple Death’s approach, the ghostly filly breaking the shield around Ai with the tip of her scythe, only to be parried by Ai with a sword made from darkness. The two exchanged strikes and parries for a moment, only for Mario to strike Ai with a horizontal hammer swing from behind, sending her flying, thanks to the added strength of the Lìliàng armor.

Recovering midair, Ai then sent a storm of sharpened waves of darkness-infused wind with swipes of her claws, Apple Death quickly summoning a bone wall to protect the others while she approached the Felinoi from beneath.

Just as Apple Death was about to hit her, Ai teleported back to the ground, threw her arms to either side, charging dark lightning into orbs in her hands, then launched it as a beam putting her hands in front of her.

Apple Death managed to shield herself from the blast long enough to teleport herself back down to the ground as well, but she still had to recover from a nasty shock as she reappeared on the ground as well.

Princess Peach sipped her tea, only to nearly drop it as she heard a sound like the crack of thunder, despite the lack of a storm.

Looking towards the sound, she saw what appeared to be a giant beam of black and purple lightning coming from somewhere around the old manor!

Oh no, the Princess thought, as she began to run towards the battle, hoping she could do something to help.

As Apple Death shook off the dark electricity, Mario and Bowser charged at Ai, dodging and deflecting Dark Fireballs and boulders covered in dark energy. The paper plumber reached her first, jumping up to smash her with his hammer, only to strike a dark shield summoned by Ai. The Felinoi forced him to jump back to dodge a dark fireball, only to herself be forced to jump away by Bowser attempting to crush her from above, avoiding the shockwave by launching herself into the air.

Apple Death managed to intercept her with a slash from her scythe, sending her sprawling to the ground. As Ai got up from the strike, the heroes regrouped behind her, facing the Felinoi’s back.

Ai turned around slowly, revealing the glowing slash mark along her left eye just as it finished healing.

With a small growl, Apple Death sent waves of purple energy from her scythe while Boswer kept breathing fire at Ai while Mario jumped up to strike from above. Jumping over the barrage, the Felinoi clashed a large fist made of darkness against Mario’s hammer, interrupting the clash with an uppercut from the other hand made from darkness.

Apple Death then took pieces of the destroyed manor and sent them at Ai, only for her to teleport to avoid them, reappearing next to Apple Death with a sword of darkness in hand.

As the two started exchanging strikes and parries with their respective blades, Princess Peach came running up, desperately calling out.

“Wait! Ai, ple-” But her words were cut off by a loud crashing sound, as Kooper could (barely) be heard in the manor beyond.

“WE’RE ALRIGHT,” he called out, despite the remnants of the manor falling around them.

Ai’s eye’s widened as she heard that, realizing that they were going for the star, but before she could react to stop them, Apple Death and Mario struck from both sides, the filly impaling the Felinoi through the torso on her scythe, as the plumber slammed her head from the other side.

Forcing the two away with a quick burst of dark flame, she broke the scythe still impaled on her with a darkness-covered limb, then pulled the tip from the other side of her body, then threw it at Apple Death while sending more dark flame at Mario, only to be forced to teleport away by Bowser trying to ram her in his spinning shell.

Reappearing as her wound finished healing, Ai then heard Princess Peach calling out.

“Ai wait! Please listen to me!”

The Felinoi turned to Peach while sending a wave of dark fire with her arm at her, the Princess jumping back to dodge it, as she yelled her response. “You’re just like me all those years ago! So naive, thinking things can be settled easily and peacefully!” She was forced to turn her attention to Bowser, who had taken the time she was talking to Peach to approach Ai and try to punch her.

Blocking the punch with a darkness-enlarged arm, she then began an exchange of blows with the paper Koopa King, the two trading fists at rapid speed for a moment before Ai sent Bowser flying with a powerful punch. Princess Peach then looked at her with pain and confusion in her eyes, asking, “What do you mean? Why are you doing this?”

The Felinoi swung a sword of darkness at Peach, only for Mario to parry it with his hammer. Following his parry with an overhead swing, Ai dodged it with a slight jump back before sending a dark fireball at the plumber. Destroying it with a hammer swing while Apple Death reengaged Ai with a new bone scythe in hoof, Mario then took a moment to explain what Ai had told them about her history.

Princess Peach was heartbroken by what she learned, but also affirmed in her sudden resolution that she needed to talk Ai out of her end goal.

While Mario recounted Ai’s story, Apple Death and Bowser continued the fight, gaining Ai’s attention. Bowser constantly breathed fireballs while Apple Death sent spinning scythes made of purple energy. Ai either dodged or blocked all that before she countered by growing dozens of spikes out of the ground, forcing Bowser to jump and Apple Death to fly up. Teleporting behind Bowser, she put her fists together in a ball and slammed the back of his head, causing a burst of dark energy and sending him crashing to the ground.

She then spun to dodge a spinning scythe from Apple Death, sending a dark fireball back at her. Intercepting the fireball with one of her own, the filly charged at Ai with a hoof covered in purple fire, slamming it into her jaw and sending her crashing into the ground right next to Bowser, as he was recovering.

Taking a quick moment to stop coughing and get the dust out of their eyes, Ai and Bowser noticed each other, and Ai jumped back as Bowser spat a fireball where she just was.

“AI!” The Felinoi heard Princess Peach call her name as she landed and looked at her.

“You don’t need to do this! What happened to you is horrible, but it doesn’t mean you need to punish everyone for the actions of a few people. I know the past can’t be changed, but we can still make sure there’s a brighter future for all! And we can do it together!” The princess called out, hoping that Ai would listen.

Ai gritted her teeth, looking aside a bit before she glared at Peach. “I’m working for a brighter future where the world will be free of everything that is wrong!” She punctuated her statement with a lunging punch at the Princess, only to be intercepted by Mario, the plumber swiping the punch away with one arm as he swung his hammer with the other, sending Ai stumbling with a blow to the side of the head. She recovered in time to block a fireball from Bowser then dodge a spinning scythe of purple energy with a jump.

Jumping back to avoid the scythe himself, Mario jumped above Ai to stomp on her head, only for her to shift slightly, letting him drop past as he swung his r wave of earthen and dark spikes around her, forcing the heroes to jump over it.

“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! I can’t go back now! I’ve come too far to start having second thoughts. Now that I have lost my best friend… This is all I have left!”

With that, Ai teleported next to Princess Peach, dark sword in hand. With a cry, the Felinoi swung for the Princess’s neck.

Only for her blade to snap as it made contact, with a burst of pink magic coming from the Princess.

The magic sent Ai reeling with a hiss of pain, covering her eyes with one arm.

As the magic faded, Ai saw the Princess standing before her, still smiling her hopeful smile.

“It doesn’t have to be.”

Everyone was silent as Ai stared at the princess, panting as her body healed.

Peach held out her hand.

Ai reached forward to take it.

And fell forward with a cry of pain, the darkness she commanded now seeming to rebel against her.

As suddenly as it started, it stopped a moment later.

Ai stood up and opened her mouth to speak.

What ended up speaking didn’t sound like Ai.

“Her intent for my power was humorous, but this farce has gone on long enough.”

It was a dark, booming voice, not at all what usually comes out of the mouth of a young girl.

Suddenly, Ai’s body was entirely covered by the same liquid darkness that had been in the pool in the underground. The liquid solidified into the shape of a humanoid male body three times the size of Ai, keeping the same body elements that she gained upon absorbing it-the crown of horns (bigger), the wings (larger), the pointed tail, the sharp claws-but removing any presence of fur or hair. Two eyes that were nothing more than glowing yellow lights appeared, and a mouth of sharp fangs formed. It didn’t have any clothes.

The demon admired his claws. “Aah. It’s good to be back.”

“The heck happened?” Bowser asked.

“It seems… that Pazall took over Ai’s body,” Apple Death answered, glaring at who she presumed was Pazall.

The demon grinned at her. “The equine is right. I am Pazall. The Living Calamity. And this pawn turned out to be a disappointment. I thought that I would be in for a show, letting her use me to do my job, but in the end, she was too weak. As they say, you are never better served than by yourself.”

“Let her go!” Peach yelled.

Pazall laughed. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t let her go. Her body is now mine. She is stuck with me for eternity.” He then looked at the heroes with sadistic glee. “And she will get to witness as I finish what she started and destroy this world once and for all.”

“We won’t let you!” Mario said.

Pazall looked at him with amusement. Then, he raised a hand toward the sky and sent an electric ball into the dark clouds. A rumbling followed, and suddenly, black lightning began to rain all over the kingdom. Unbeknownst to the heroes, the dark clouds began to expand beyond the borders of Felina.

“I would like to see that. I’m immortal. And as long as I’m alive, this world’s time is limited. Already, as we are speaking, my clouds are spreading destruction.”

“We have the Demon Star!” Apple Death exclaimed.

“Which is still buried under the manor, and I doubt that your two friends will manage to get it by themselves. There are tons of debris on the way.”

Oh, he had a good point.

“Ah’ll need to go help them get the star,” Apple Death whispered to Mario and Bowser. “Ya’ll have ta fight him without me for a small while.”

Mario and Bowser both nodded.

Pazall grinned, hearing her. “Oh? You three already had difficulty against the girl. How can you think that these two will last even five seconds against me by themselves?”

“Well, ya’ve the same powers than Ai, since she used yer powers, so the fight shouldn’t be harder.”

Pazall chuckled. “With these powers, she was like a baby. I’m a fully experienced adult. Observe.”

He then stomped his foot on the ground, and the next instant, dark fire spread out, then gathered and elevated before spinning, forming fire tornadoes that began to move in circles around him. Mario quickly lifted Peach bridal style before the three heroes jumped (or flew in Apple Death’s case) away to avoid one of the tornadoes. With a wave of his arm, birds of dark electricity flew after the heroes, forcing Apple Death to intercept them with her own electric blasts, only for them to be caught from below by shadowy tendrils coated in spikes.

Pazall tightened the tendrils’ hold, then made them slam everyone on the ground three times before they disappeared. Mario quickly took out and ate a Mushroom, then gave one to Peach before he went to give one to Bowser. Meanwhile, Apple Death made bones come out of the ground under Pazall, making the demon fly up only to find himself in the path of purple fireballs, getting hit by several of them.

Pazall quickly recovered however and sent spears made of dark ice at the heroes. Peach ran away, allowing Mario to dodge the spears while Bowser destroyed them by punching them. But then, Pazall created wolves made of darkness that began to attack the heroes while they were still busy with the spears. So Bowser placed himself between Mario and the spears, shell facing them so they shattered on it, allowing Mario to focus on the wolves alongside Apple Death. Constating that his spears weren’t working, Pazall stopped sending them and instead materialized dark hands to throw pieces of the manor, so both Apple Death and Bowser had to work to destroy them and protect Mario as he dealt with the wolves. With his hammer, Mario only needed one hit to destroy them. When only one remained, Mario grabbed it by the tail and spun before throwing it toward Pazall who had no problem dodging it.

Apple Death suddenly teleported beside Pazall with a bone scythe, and the demon quickly materialized a trident made of darkness to block her. Pazall then created a second trident in his other hand to attack her, only for Mario to jump and hit him with his hammer on the head, sending him crashing. Pazall got up, only to be rammed by Bowser in his spinning shell.

Pazall got up again, now getting annoyed, only to be engulfed by a laser coming from… Magolor, surprising everyone, especially Apple Death.

“Magolor? What are you doing here?”

“What? Not even a thank you for the help?” Magolor asked jokingly.

“Uh… Thank you. So, uh, why are you here?”

“I decided to check your progress. You have been gone for a while. So, since you went after Peach, I asked where Peach went, followed the direction, saw the fight, and decided to join. You looked like you were doing alright, but the more the merrier.”

“Actually, we really need the help. This guy is one of these guys who can’t stay down, and we need some special artifact to deal with him for good, so Ah must go search for it in these ruins. But Ah couldn’t leave Mario and Bowser alone. But if ya’re here now, Ah can do that now. Uh, watch out, Pazall has finished regenerating from yer laser.”

Magolor looked back toward the demon and saw that Apple Death was right. The laser wounded him very badly, and yet, here he was, as if he didn’t just take a super-powerful laser to the face.

Magolor deadpanned. “Oh. I don’t think that I will like this guy very much.”

“Opinion shared. Stupid regeneration,” Bowser said. “I don’t know who you are, but you have come at the right time. Now let’s kick him to next week.”

Pazall sent fire shaped like dragons, and everyone worked to avoid them, excepted Magolor who used his Ultra Sword to cut the dragons in two. Bowser fired back fireballs, and Mario tried to approach Pazall to hit him with his hammer. Apple Death flew into the ruins of the manor as soon as she could to help find the Demon Star. Pazall teleported into her path to stop her, but she simply teleported to pass him. Before Pazall could give chase, he had to create a dark shield to avoid being cut in half by Magolor’s sword.

Giving up on Apple Death who was gone by now, Pazall made his palm face Magolor and made tendrils of darkness come out of it to wrap Magolor and slam him right into Bowser’s fireballs. Pazall then threw him toward the approaching Mario who caught him.

Pazall then gathered darkness into a ball and sent it toward the heroes, the ball beginning to suckup everything, revealing itself to be a black hole.

“Hey! That’s my move!” Magolor shouted.

Everyone had to run or fly away from the black hole to avoid being sucked in. Bowser was revealed to be too slow to escape, so he entered his shell and moved in it, which was faster.

While they moved away from the black hole, Pazall attacked them with projectiles of darkness that snaked toward them. They didn’t do much while Bowser was in his shell, but Mario had to avoid them while running, and Magolor simply decided to disappear into a space hole to get away from all that. Then, once the black hole disappeared, he returned, moved close to Pazall, and created his own black hole. However, Pazall easily avoided it by teleporting away.

Pazall created a giant ice ball that he sent to the sky before he threw an explosive dark ball at it. The dark ball made the ice ball explode, dividing it into countless smaller ice balls that rained everywhere. Bowser took a deep breath and let loose a powerful stream of flame that he swept across the sky, destroying enough of the ice balls to allow Mario to make a charge for Pazall.

The demon simply raised an amused eyebrow before, with a clap, producing a dark gale which started sending the debris scattered around the battlefield flying around him, Mario and Bowser being forced to cling to pieces of the debris or be swept away in the gale.

Magolor had the advantage of flight, and utilized it and his magic to combat the wind, and approach Pazall enough to impale him from below with a Spike of Dark Matter, then unleash a storm of electricity focused through both the spike and the demon.

Apple Death found Kooper and Goombella in what remained of the room with the pool. The two were currently trying, in vain, to move the debris from on top of the Demon Star.

“Oh, hey! How are things going out there?” Kooper asked as he noticed the ghostly filly.

“MOVE ASIDE!” Apple Death shouted, the paper Koopa and Goomba barely jumping out of the way before she blasted the debris with a blast of telekinetic power.

Also sending the star itself flying into a small hole in the floor, by accident.

“MOTHERBU-”

Pazall teleported to escape the spike as he shook off the electricity. Immortality did not include pain immunity, but he had a high tolerance for it.

Raising his fist to the sky, the demon charged dark electricity within it, then with a wave of his arm, sent a wall of dark lightning at the heroes, the ground tearing apart where the wall met it. Magolor managed to dodge it with a space hole, but Mario and Bowser were forced to tank the hit, but managed to make their way through, powering through the wind to approach Pazall.

At that moment, a wail could be heard from the ruins of the mansion, the volume of which sent even Pazall for a loop.
“MOTHERBUCKER!”

Shaking off the wail (he’d heard similar in his time as a salesman in that other Dreamland, and quite a bit), Magolor sent a trio of spiraling fireballs at Pazall, struck the demon in the eyes, and sent him stumbling into an uppercut swing from Mario’s hammer, with Bowser crashing into the back of his legs with a spinning shell tackle to send him crashing to the ground.

With a growl, the demon turned over and slammed fist into the ground, sending pillars of dark flame and lightning alternating in a wall, the lightning arcing between the fire.

Bowser went onto his shell and spin-charged through a pillar of fire, slaloming between the alternating walls while Magolor carried Mario up and over the walls, about twice as high as the demon itself. Magolor coated Mario’s hammer with electricity and tossed the plumber towards Pazall to attack from above while he dove to attack from behind.

Their attempted assault was thwarted by the demon summoning a new hurricane around him with a roar of fury, the summoned dark beasts now coming in tandem with the attack, and empowered by them.

As Bowser mowed his way through pack after pack of dark wolves, Mario and Magolor worked their way through the dark birds and Pazall’s own attacks, still managing to strike the demon every so often, but his regeneration kept him in top form, despite their tenacity.

But Pazall, though powerful beyond his opponents highest potential, was still beginning to lose his patience.

Within the demon’s body, another fight was playing out.

One between the Demon and the one who he overtook.

Ai struggled within the demon, each successful strike against Pazall allowing her to fight back more.

It would still take a long while before she could help in any manner, however.

Apple Death searched the small cave at the bottom of the hole the Demon star had fallen into. Looking high and low, she couldn’t see any sign of it.

However, a glint of light then caught her eye. Turning towards it, she spotted the Demon Star now floating and approaching her.

She took the artifact in her hooves, and felt herself warped to the remains of the room with the pool.
Not losing time, she teleported back up to the battle, hoping to get it to Mario.

Kooper and Goombella, meanwhile, blinked the spots out of their eyes, and wondered what just happened with the bright flash of light they just saw.

Reappearing in the front of the manor, Apple Death took stock of the situation.

Pazall was in the center of a massive hurricane throwing fire, lightning, ice and dark beasts at the heroes, who were trying to do their best to fight back.

The Demon Star suddenly burst into a bright light, banishing the gale, and forcing the demon to recoil as its light washed over him.

Spotting the Star and filly, Magolor shoved Mario in Apple Death’s direction, then charged and fired a beam at Pazall, hoping to keep his attention away from them.

Apple Death caught Mario with her telekinesis and put the Demon Star in his hand. As soon as the star touched Mario, it brightened even more.

“As Ah thought, the armor is multiplying the star’s power. Now hit Pazall as hard as ya can with it! We’ll do our best to help ya.”

Mario nodded, and Apple Death let him drop back on ground before she flew toward Pazall, quickly followed by the plumber on ground.

Seeing Mario approach with the Demon Star, Pazall panicked and teleported away before he unleashed hell to stop him.

“I won’t let you come close to me with that thing!” he shouted as he sent another hurricane filled with ice, fire, and electric projectiles, without forgetting the dark beasts.

However, he was so focused on Mario that he didn’t see Apple Death teleport behind him and blast him toward Mario who almost hit him with the Demon Star. However, he was able to put up a dark shield that the star touched instead. The shield was quickly destroyed by the star, but it gave Pazall enough time to teleport away. He then resumed trying to stop Mario from approaching, but this time, he kept an eye on the others, calming down from his panic.

Magolor created a black hole that sucked up Pazall’s projectiles, but there were still many for Mario to dodge. Bowser got an idea then and approached Mario, running alongside him.

“Climb on me,” he said before he entered his shell. Mario understood and jumped on the shell, and Bowser began to move as rapidly as he could while in his shell. He also moved left and right to avoid the projectiles.

Pazall flew backward to keep his distance, but he was then stopped by both Apple Death and Magolor who moved in his path and attacked him. However, instead of remaining to deal with them, he teleported away again. But Apple Death teleported after him and sliced him in half with a scythe. Surprisingly, however, while Pazall’s lower body dropped, the upper body continued to fly and blasted Apple Death before it flew away, starting to regenerate. Mario hit the lower body with the star just in case it could regenerate too, destroying the darkness covering it and leaving behind Ai’s lower body which was back to normal (without the black fur and all).

Pazall avoided Magolor trying to ram him, then sent more projectiles at Mario and Bowser before he had to block Apple Death’s scythe with a trident, only for her to hit him with purple eye beams. Pazall decided to teleport again, but this time, he teleported far away from the manor, attempting to escape.

“I will destroy this star another time. For now, I will focus on destroying the world,” he said before he began to fly away, only to suddenly stop. “Ugh… W-what? What’s going on? Why can’t I move?”

“I won’t let you!” came a female voice from within him.

“Girl? How are you-?!”

His arm suddenly began to move against his will, palm pointed toward the sky. Dark energy charged into a large ball that was sent, and the ball exploded not long after.

“Everybody should be here before long, now.”

“Stupid girl! If I die, you will die too! Let me go!”

“No! I refuse! Return to the hell you come from, demon, and leave this world in peace!”

At this moment, a portal opened not far, and out of it came the heroes, as well as Peach, Mario still riding on Bowser’s shell. It didn’t take them long to spot Pazall, and they immediately moved toward him. Pazall tried to move, to teleport, but nothing worked.

“NOW!! KILL HIM!!!” Ai yelled.

“RAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Pazall roared as he used everything in him to free himself.

“NYAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Ai roared as she used everything in her to remain in control.

It didn’t take long for Mario to be close enough to jump and reach Pazall.

“Let’s GO!”

The Demon Star hit Pazall right in the torso, and right away, the star exploded, liberating a huge quantity of energy that engulfed the area in light.

“NOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” the demon’s screech of agony was heard all over Felina and even beyond.

The dark clouds in the sky began to disappear, and the light disappeared, leaving behind nothing of Pazall. For the first time in over one thousand years, the sun shone on Felina.

All that remained of Pazall’s body was Ai who began to fall, but she was quickly caught in Apple Death’s telekinesis. The filly slowly moved her down toward the ground where everyone waited.

Ai stirred slightly, slowly managing to lift herself up.

Mario went and helped her stand, bracing one arm over her shoulder.

Ai looked at him and then passed her gaze over Apple Death, Princess Peach, Bowser, and even Magolor, and said, “Thank you.”

Apple Death looked at her with a somber smile, answering, “We wouldn’t have been able to get him if ya hadn’t fought back like ya did… Though I think we should go back to the Felinoi settlement n’ tell ‘em that Pazall’s dealt with.”

Ai nodded, her muzzle slowly acquiring tinges of grey, “You’re right. My aging should be prrr-oof enough for them that the Demon is no more…”

Apple Death gave a side eye to Bowser, who simply kept panting, seemingly oblivious to her gaze, then opened a portal back to the Felinoi settlement’s Throne Room, where Qiang Claws was still waiting for their return, having put the dust of Bao Leo into an urn and now simply sat in front of them.

Hearing the portal opening, he turned his attention to the heroes, gaining a light glower at the sight of Ai, but also seeing the signs of age taking its toll on her, just as it did his liege, he understood the answer to his question.

“The demon is gone? Pazall is no more?”

Apple Death turned back to her filly form and answered. “Yes. He is.”

QIang Claws put one hand on his heart and kneeled before the heroes. “You have done my people a service that can be repaid in no small measure. You have our thanks and our aid, if ever needed.”

As Qiang stood upright, Ai started to cough, dust coming from her body. She looked Qiang in the eye as best she could, in her state.

“I’m sorry for what I did. But I’d like to tell you my reason for my actions, if you’ll hear me out.”

Qiang Claws eyes narrowed, then he nodded, “Very well.”

“Without me,” Bowser said. “I’m done here. Where did you put Kammy? The world isn’t threatened by some schmuck anymore, so it’s time for me to go.”

Qiang told Bowser the directions to the chamber where he placed the still unconscious Kammy, and Bowser left without another word.

“Thank ya for yer help!” Apple Death shouted after him.

“I DIDN’T HELP YOU! OUR GOAL JUST HAPPENED TO BE THE SAME!” Bowser yelled back.

It wasn’t long before a Koopa Clown Car flew out of the palace.

Within ten minutes, many in the town were told the tale of what truly happened on the night Ai summoned the demon Pazall, the corruption of Bao’s father, her own parents’ betrayal, and the Demon Star itself compelling her to break it.

At the end of her tale, Ai was now at the end of her life.

“Well this is it… Eh… This adventure really gave me gray hair, uh? Eheheh… I’m really sorry… for everything I did…” a very aged Ai said to the heroes and Peach, on a bed in the palace.

“It is alright. In the end, you did the right thing. This is what matters,” Peach reassured.

Ai chuckled before coughing. “If only… I had known you… earlier… Bao... I'm so sorry... I can't wait to see you again... old friend..."

As she said these words, she faded to dust, the final word echoing throughout the room.

Chapter 160: Arrival On Zebes

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 161: Spice Up Your Life

Author's Note

Chapter written by me and Cyrus Colter.

In the previous chapter, I added a little something. I discovered that the weird statues that activate when Samus grabs the Morph Ball upgrade are called Komas, so I added their name.

Chapter 161: Spice Up Your Life

After getting back up to the cavern above, after jumping on some ledges and entering a small passage blocked by stones destroyed by the Morph Ball Bombs, Samus and Sweetie Void were met with a nasty surprise in the form of some more Subspace soldiers! Coming through the walls were also swarms of shadow wisps that began grouping up into two humanoid forms with two heads each, pink lights in their chests and massive blades in hand.

Samus dodged the blade of one of the two-headed enemies by turning into her Morpho Ball, then rolled around to drop bombs at the feet of the soldiers, easily avoiding their attempts to stop her. The bombs exploded, blasting the soldiers, but it wasn’t enough to kill any of them, so Samus left the Morpho Ball and fired at the soldiers, eliminating them one after another while keeping an eye on the two-headed enemy that attacked her. Meanwhile, Sweetie attacked the second two-headed enemy and quickly discovered that attacking the pink light, obviously a core, was very effective and caused heavy damage in addition to causing it to stumble, opening it to more assault. Thanks to that, Sweetie was able to eliminate her target without allowing it time to counterattack.

The last two-headed enemy got close enough to Samus to force her to stop targeting the remaining soldiers and jump away. She saw how the core was its weakness, so she fired a missile at it, stumbling the enemy and allowing her to take more distance. She then fired beam after beam at it as it recovered from its stumble and approached her. As it got close, she fired another missile at the core, and it was enough to finish it off. The last few soldiers were easily eliminated by Sweetie Void cutting them to pieces with her swords.

Sweetie Void huffed as the two relaxed from the fight. “Looks like we’ll have to stay alert, if they’re able to cut us off like that.”

Samus nodded, adding “We’d better get moving. No telling what could be waiting. And I’m not just talking about these Subspace goons.”

Sweetie Void nodded in turn, and the two turned back to the wall they had passed by several times since they arrived, finding that they could now bypass it, thanks to the Morph Ball bombs, and saw another blue door… as well as more of those black wisps that seemed to be forming into something else.

A large quadruped creature with a body that was a dark brown on top with a horn and yellow eyes, and lighter brown on the underbelly. Its legs, curiously, were a pale green that seemed to come from inside the body, rather than being attached to it.

One blast from Sweetie Void was enough to clarify that by revealing the ‘body’ to be a shell, hiding the slightly smaller actual body of the creature, which gave a high pitched roar and charged at the filly and Bounty Hunter…. Only to trip over its own feet and land face first on the cave floor.

Samus put the thing down with a missile and they moved on through the blue door behind it.
Entering the room beyond, the pair found it to be a slanted room with tall fungus-like growths… as well as those flying bots with buckets full of hot bricks.

With a deadpan look, Sweetie Void ping ponged an energy ball between them, while Samus went down and collected an energy tank at the bottom of the path.

“Well, that’s another energy tank, at least. Shouldn’t be too long before I’m up to snuff,” Samus said as Sweetie Void punted the last bot into a wall.

“Let’s hope,” the filly said as Samus opened the door, only to come face to face with a Space Pirate, this one in green armor. The pirate recoiled, clearly not expecting them, allowing Samus to send it flying into the wall behind it with a missile, also smashing the scramble that had been on its back and sending another Pirate that had been clinging to the wall tumbling to the floor with it in a heap of tangled limbs. As Sweetie giggled at the sight, she charged a blast of energy in her horn then blew the still living pirates head off, while Samus took care of the last two in the room.

Just when they thought they could relax, however, a faint screaming could be heard coming… from the walls? Turning towards them, the two saw four of those shrieking patchwork shadows with three of the blade wielding ones! The two prepped their weapons, and opened fire, only stopping once all the shadowy beings once more dispersed into the shadowy wisps.

After a minute or so of nothing else coming, Samus and Sweetie relaxed, turning their attention to the red door at one end of the bottom of the shaft, after gathering the energy to replenish Samus’s missiles. Opening the door, the two found a hallway with what seemed to be lights interspersed throughout the floor and ceiling.

Making their way through the room, the two passed the blue door at the other end to find themselves in a more natural appearing cavern as opposed to the metal construction of the hall behind them.

In front of them was a large statue, yellow in color, in the shape of four beings, three of which Sweetie Void hadn’t seen before.

A fat dinosaur-like creature that seemed to have three eyes.

A creature that seemed like a mix between a seahorse and a jellyfish.

A more squidlike one that seemed to only have one eye.

And perched on top was the statue whose likeness Sweetie recognized all too well.

Ridley.

Samus explained before Sweetie could even turn to ask. “On my first mission here, there was a statue, similar to this one, that blocked me off from reaching the end of my mission until the ones it resembled were dead. Given how things have gone so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case here, as well.”

Sweetie Void nodded. “So those are our targets? I recognise Ridley, but who are the three others?”

Samus pointed at the fat dinosaur-like creature. “That’s Kraid, I fought him the first time. The last two, however, I don’t know who they are.”

“Well then, now we know what to do, and where to go once we’re done with these four guys. I can’t wait to play with Ridley again. Let’s go.”

At this point, Ridley decided to try to talk Kraid into running with him.

They returned to the shaft and, this time, passed the blue door at the opposite side. They then traversed a cavern with more fungus-like growths, ignoring the Silver Geemer and the hive-like things named Kago, before they passed another blue door and reached an elevator that led them down back to Brinstar, this time in the middle of a jungle as Samus warned there were.

“Now this is the real Brinstar,” Samus said. “Prepare to encounter many hostile insects and plants.”

Sweetie nodded before the two jumped down from the elevator and moved down the shaft formed by the vegetation. Already, they had to deal with large crawling yellow insects named Zeelas and a red Ripper known as a Ripper II. Before long, they reached two red doors and opened one, entering a metallic room with two Zeelas and a smaller version of the Sidehoppers known as a Small Sidehopper. Sweetie Void easily dealt with it while Samus eliminated the Zeelas.

Samus identified a part of the opposite wall that could be destroyed with the Morph Ball Bombs, discovering a passage to a secret blue door to another map room.

“Great!” Sweetie Void exclaimed. “We will get a map of Brinstar!”

“Yes, and very early at that. This will help a lot,” Samus said.

A few moments later, they left the room with the map and returned to the shaft (after opening the metal door that blocked the way by killing all the insects present in the room) where they opened the other red door.

The new room had a pipe from which came flying red beetles known as Zebs. No matter how many the two eliminated, there were always more coming from the pipe. So the two stopped minding them and jumped to the top level of the room only for the floor to crumble under them, dropping them to a section with a Missile Expansion. They then had to blast a wall with a bomb to return to the beginning of the room. Seeing that Samus couldn’t outrun the crumbling floor, the two returned to the shaft.

Further down was a third red door to a recharge station, allowing Samus to replenish her missiles.

Then, even further down, at the bottom of the shaft, there were two more red doors. One led to a room full of brambles and of firefly-like creatures known as Firefleas. The Firefleas were the only source of light in the room, so the two avoided killing as many as they could as they jumped from ledge to ledge to avoid the brambles and reach a blue door. After the door was a recharge unit for Super Missiles.

“Well, I don’t have them yet, but it’s nice to know that I will be able to recharge them here,” Samus said.

Back in the shaft, they opened the last red door and entered a long cavern full of Zeelas and Reos as well as Subspace soldiers, three two-headed humanoids made of shadow wisps, and two of these one-eyed wheel-like enemies spewing electricity that moved on the ceiling and the walls.

Sweetie Void and Samus didn’t mind the wheels, which were still rather far, and instead eliminated the closest enemies which were the Zeelas, a Reo, several soldiers, and a two-headed being. Sweetie personally dealt with that last one which was the bigger threat while also taking care of the Reo with a large beam. The filly then went to deal with the remaining two-headed beings, always targeting their cores with her beams and her swords, while Samus fired at one of the wheels which had gotten close, not giving it time to spew electricity. She had to duck to avoid a boomerang thrown by one of the soldiers, then she fired at it as its weapon returned to it. By now, Sweetie Void had eliminated all the two-headed beings, allowing her to focus on what remained, like the last wheel. She also sliced in two a Reo jumping toward Samus before she disintegrated the last Reo at the end of the cavern. Samus finished the last soldiers, ending the battle, but one of the soldiers with a gun got a lucky shot on her.

Not like Samus cared, she still had a lot of energy left, and she recovered it right away thanks to the energy left behind by the enemies.

Samus identified the wall at the back as destructible by the bombs, so the two destroyed it, revealing more of the cavern leading to a blue door with Metarees, more dangerous versions of Skrees, guarding it. The girls easily killed the annoying bat things and passed the door, entering a very large cavern where they could either jump up or go down a hole.

“Up or down?” Sweetie asked.

“Let me see the map. Mmh… It seems that, if we go up, then we will eventually loop back to the bottom of this cavern, so let’s go up.”

So they climbed, passing a pipe from which Zebs were coming out, but also fighting more Subspace soldiers as well as a couple more two-headed humanoids and even a floating skull turret. They also had to be careful of more wheel-like enemies, of fire, ice, and electric variants, patrolling the walls, as well as Reos. At the top of the cavern, there was another pipe with Zebs that they didn’t mind as Samus found a small passage with some stone blocking it that she bombed, discovering another room with a recharge station.

Energy and ammunition full, Samus and Sweetie Void returned to the cavern and opened a red door leading back to the jungle where some kind of green hybrids between mantis and wasps assaulted them. These things, Green Kihunters, were fast and, after some shots, if not killed right away, lost their wings. This resulted in them jumping around and beginning to spit acid. So Samus decided eventually to use her missiles to eliminate them with a guaranteed one shot.

Once all the Kihunters were dead, the girls advanced until reaching a flashing door in the ceiling that they opened. They jumped through it and entered a room that was practically overgrown, a giant plant thing hanging from a vine attached to the ceiling. The plant was circular, covered in spikes, and had what seemed to be a jaw separating it in half.

As the two looked at what Samus identified as a Spore Spawn, the door closed, revealing a green door.

Samus blanched at the door. “That’s a problem.”

At that moment, the Spore Spawn began to swing as if under its own power, releasing spores that did not seem like a good idea to touch. One slightly dissolved hoof for Sweetie Void confirmed that, as she drained the nearby heat to fuel her healing.

Samus fired at the plant while the two avoided it as it moved around, but its hide revealed to be too thick for even her missile to do any damage. Sweetie, however, didn’t have this problem as she made her beam pierce it very easily. The Spore Spawn continued to swing, releasing more spores that Samus decided to fire at instead to destroy them. Eventually, the plant opened its jaw, revealing some kind of… pillar core structure. Samus immediately saw her chance and fired missiles at it until the plant closed its jaw and resumed swinging around.

As Sweetie continued to damage it with her piercing beams, the Spore Spawn began to turn brown and gained speed. Samus saw that the Spore Spawn never reached far enough to the ground to be a threat to Sweetie Void, so she had the idea of turning into her Morph Ball so she didn’t have to avoid the plant, and so, she just had to worry about the spores.

The Spore Spawn opened its jaw again, allowing Samus to fire missiles at its core before it closed. Sweetie Void didn’t give it time to open it another time as she fired more beams that revealed to be too much for it. The Spore Spawn retracted to the center of the room and withered, fully turning brown with all the vegetation of the room.

“Ew. Now, the place is depressing,” Sweetie Void said. “Now, how do we leave? We don’t have what is needed to open the green door.”

A faint rumbling from above answered her. The two looked back to the Spore Spawn as the stone at the cave ceiling gave way, dumping both stone and the Spore Spawns remains on top of the door, and revealing a cavern above.

The two looked at each other, then burst out laughing at the timing of events.

As they recovered their breath, the pair climbed on the Spore Spawn and jumped up to the upper cavern, which seemed to lead higher up to a metal platform and was also covered in withered vegetation.

Reaching said platform with a shield courtesy of Sweetie Void, the two came to a blue door and in the room beyond there was a pipe that seemed to endlessly spawn Zebs and a pipe cover at the back that the Scan Visor identified as weak enough that standing on it would collapse it.

Seeing no other way to go, the two topped off their energy (as much as Sweetie Void could with those energy drops, anyway) and stepped onto the collapsing pipe cover… only to land on the shield Sweetie Void had summoned right below.

With a smug side-eye from Sweetie Void, the two gently floated down to the bottom of the… surprisingly deep pit.

At the bottom, Samus remarked while getting off the shield, “Falling would have been faster.”

Sweetie looked down in disappointment, “And more fun, looking back.”

Spotting a Chozo Statue with an Upgrade Orb, Samus burst it open, revealing a missile tank that had a green tip, instead of a red one like the normal missiles.

“Behold the Super Missile, a piece of artillery meant to do the job of five missiles for the price of one.” Samus said as she took the tank, arming herself with five Super Missiles, “With the drawback of being a separate weapon system to both the normal missiles and my beam weapons, so we’ll need to keep track of that as well. More used to a different configuration, but we’ll get that sorted later. Luckily, it’s also what we need for those green doors, if my memory on that system is accurate.”

Sweetie Void sighed as she and Samus turned to the blue door. “Let’s hope so, otherwise we're getting nowhere fast.” Going through the door, they saw some Zeelas on the ceiling, some pipes spawning Zebs and a green door at the other end.

As Sweetie Void cleared out the bugs, Samus launched a Super Missile at the door, the missile flying faster than the standard variety, with a detonation that shook the room, knocking the Zeelas loose, one landing onto Sweetie Voids back, but a saddle of spikes made short work of it.

Gathering the dropped energy into small clusters, Samus made sure to note for Sweetie Void the Super Missile energy drop (a gray cylinder like the standard missiles but with a green tip, instead of red), then Sweetie Void decided to comment, “Those Super Missiles are no joke. And you said these are a different configuration than you're used to?”

Samus gave a chuckle. “Yeah, the ones I’m more used to using are called a Charge Beam combo. Speaking of which, it was disabled with the rest of my gear, so hopefully we can find a replacement.”

With that, the pair passed through the door. Then, Samus had to use a Super Missile to destroy some stone blocking a passage back to the big cavern they climbed earlier. As soon as they arrived, Sweetie Belle suddenly felt an energy signature below them. Descending to check it out, the two found a Missile Tank… but Sweetie felt the energy coming from slightly further down.

A quick glance round with the Scan Visor allowed Samus to see a patch of stone that could be destroyed with her bombs. Doing so, the two found an entrance to a small section of cavern that the Pirates hadn’t been able to map out.

“Aaaand that’s probably the replacement Charge Beam I mentioned,” Samus stated upon spotting a Chozo Statue with an Upgrade Orb. Blasting it open confirmed her suspicion, Samus collected and tested the Charge Beam, blasting a stalagmite with a charged shot.

“We probably should have looked for that before facing the Spore Spawn,” Sweetie Void commented.

Samus was silent for a second before her suit’s system filled in the blank with the Spore Spawn’s database entry, highlighting the name in particular. “Oh. Yeah, it would have been helpful.”

They returned to the big cavern and moved through a small passage, finding a green door that Samus blasted with a Super Missile. They arrived in a large room filled with vegetation and with some pipes out of which came insects with large heads known as Geegas. Before the girls on an opposite ledge was a yellow door that they couldn’t open yet. So, instead, they moved down the room, jumping from ledge to ledge while fighting the Geegas, some Small Sidehoppers, and the few Subspace soldiers that were present.

As they fought and descended, Samus remarked that there was a pipe from which no Geegas were coming. The pipe was a bit too high for her to reach however. She pointed at it and said to Sweetie, “Can you give a look inside this pipe? Something tells me it’s hiding something.”

“Okay!” Sweetie nodded and flew into the pipe, coming out a few seconds later with a Missile Expansion, grinning at Samus.

Samus gave her a thumbs up. “Good job.”

Not long after that, they reached the bottom of the room where a metallic gate blocked the way, guarded by two fat chicken-like enemies. Sweetie and Samus each eliminated one, revealing the chickens to be suits out of which came little yellow birds that Samus blasted. She then fired at a blue light on top of the gate, opening it, then killed a Small Sidehopper behind it while Sweetie dealt with two others on the ceiling, and fired at the blue door at the end.

In the next room, they were greeted by walking cacti in addition to Zeelas. The cacti, Cacatac, gave Super Missiles upon death, recharging Samus’ ammunition. Once all enemies were gone, the girls jumped to the room’s upper level and advanced, only for the room to crumble under their feet, making them fall to the lower level, and no way they could jump because of spikes in the ceiling.

Samus sighed. “We will have to run.”

They returned to the upper level and ran as fast as they could, reaching the end of the room successfully. After eliminating another Cacatac as well as a being inside a giant pot on wheels armed with two scythes, Samus blasted the green door, and they advanced to the next room, which was a shaft made of red walls.

“Yep, we are still in Brinstar,” Samus said. “We just exited the jungle area.”

Again, they had the choice between climbing and going down. However, the ledge was too high for Samus to reach, so they had no choice but to go down. After a bit, fighting some Geegas on the way, Samus had to use her bombs on the floor to discover a path to go even further down and reach the bottom of the shaft. They moved down slowly on Sweetie’s shield because there were many Rippers on the way.

At the bottom were two doors: a green door leading to what Samus called a Power Bomb Recharge Unit (“I can’t wait to have my Power Bombs back,” Samus said with a sigh), and a blue door leading to a room half filled with water.

“I don’t have the right suit to move correctly in water, so I would rather avoid falling in it for now,” Samus said.

“Well, one big jump to that platform over there and you should be alright,” Sweetie said, pointing at a metallic platform out of water a bit further ahead.

As the filly said, Samus reached the platform with just one big jump. They then shot at some Skrees before they jumped again, above thorns underwater, and reached the blue door at the end of the room.

Again, there was water in the next room, and they spotted right away, in the water, a worm-like enemy called a Yapping Maw. Samus’ map said that this room had an upper level, and Samus did spot a stone that she could fire at in the ceiling, revealing a secret passage, but she couldn’t reach it yet, so she noted that for later. Instead, they jumped above the Yapping Maw which Sweetie easily killed while Samus fired at a Cacatac on a red stone out of the water. After getting on the red stone, the two jumped again above another Yapping Maw to reach the blue door at the end.

The next room was very small, with walls made of blue-green stones. One blue door later and they found themselves in a glass tube that traversed a cavern underwater.

Samus nodded. “Yeah, here you have a preview of Maridia. I hope we find the correct suit before we enter these caverns, or else, I won’t be of any use. At least, it seems like we are just passing through for now.”

At this, they continued and left the tube, then traversed another room like the previous one before they reached an elevator. Samus’ Scan Visor saw right away that the opposite wall could be destroyed with Super Missiles, so she blasted it, revealing a not-so-secret room (since she could see it in her map) the entrance to a passage inside the mouth of the sculpted head of some nightmarish creature.

“If this doesn’t scream “here’s one of your targets”...” Sweetie Void said.

“As much as I want to rip a new one to whatever we will encounter behind this passage, I would prefer to see first if we can’t find more upgrades, being as prepared as possible, so let’s take this elevator. It doesn’t seem like I can reach that head anyway,” Samus said.

“Alright.”

So they took the elevator, which descended into a new, very sinister cavern where they both felt that the temperature was higher.

“And now, we are in Norfair. I don’t like being here with my basic suit. It just asks for me to get cooked alive,” Samus commented.

“So like for the underwater, we need to find a better suit so you can resist high temperatures?”

“That’s right. So I don’t feel that we will be able to go far.”

“Let’s explore what we can then.”

So they descended the shaft, fighting Sovas (Geemer variants that looked to be on fire), and tested the doors they found. A green one led to a metallic room with gates that closed when they entered. They were able to run fast enough to pass under the first door, but not the second one, so they ended up trapped between the two door. Thankfully, part of the floor could be destroyed, allowing them to enter a secret passage that led back to the beginning of the room.

At the opposite side of the green door was a blue door that led to a room where the temperature was too hot for Samus. Considering the presence of magma in the room, it wasn’t surprising. So they left right away.

Further down in the shaft was a yellow door, then there was a red door and another blue door. They tested the blue door first and entered a room with a recharge station. After the station was another blue door to a long tunnel that was a dead end, Samus not having the means to destroy the wall at the end.

The red door, finally, led to a small room with an Energy Tank. It seemed that that was it, but then, Samus saw that parts of the ground could be destroyed, revealing a passage leading, after a small drop, to a blue door. The room after it was very small, but Samus and Sweetie Void were able to blast part of the metallic wall, near the ceiling, revealing a secret part of the room with a Chozo statue holding an Upgrade Orb. Samus opened it, revealing a pair of boots.

“The Hi-Jump Boots. They will allow me to jump higher. Great! And I know right away where to use them. Let’s return to Brinstar, to that submerged room before the passage through Maridia.”

Thanks to the boots, Samus was able to reach the high ledges in the previous room to return to the shaft, getting a Missile Expansion on the way. However, the exit door was blocked by a metal door, and the girls had to kill all the Sovas in the room first. Once back in the shaft, Samus found out that the ground was fragile, so she destroyed it with her bombs, revealing a last blue door. They didn’t go far however before they were blocked by a metal gate. So they returned in the shaft and climbed back to the top, fighting more Sovas as well as two two-headed humanoids and a few fire-breathing red Subspace soldiers before they took the elevator.

Back in Brinstar, they backtracked through the glass tube and returned to the room with the Yapping Maws. Here, Samus used her new boots to jump through the hole where she destroyed the stone previously, then jumped again to reach the top of the room where there was a passage for her Morph Ball (after destroying the stones blocking it). This led to a small metallic room with a green door.

After it was a room with a Chozo statue offering another upgrade: the Spazer Beam.

“Aww yeah! Now, my cannon is a shotgun! The beam is split into smaller but more powerful beams that spread, so I have a better range. I won’t need to aim that much anymore,” Samus said, almost cackling.

“Nice!”

“Now, whatever we will fight behind that passage will be in for a bad time.”

So they returned to the elevator room and jumped into the mouth of the sculpted head with the help of the Hi-Jump Boots. They then passed the blue door behind the passage.

Meanwhile in Kraid’s room

“You don’t understand. She is like a force of nature with the emotions of a child, and the powers of a god!” Ridley, now without cybernetics, yelled at Kraid as three other beings watched on in interest.

Well, interest for two of them, terror for one. The beings in question were…. Odd.

One was a tall blue humanoid with a small strip of hair for a beard on either side of his mouth wearing a suit that had a clock seemingly built into it. In his right hand was a tuning fork like device that was more like a staff in size.

One was a floating mask with brown fur, glowing eyes and bones strung to its sides and one at the top.

These were the two looking on in interest.

The one looking on in terror was a small man with a large head, a white coat with black undershirt, pants and boots and yellow gloves and skin. The spikes of hair that on either side of his head were laying flat against his head as his body trembled.

“If what your colleague says is true then it would most definitely be in your best interest to heed Master Hands' call for a meeting.” The blue skinned man spoke up.

Kraid, looking exactly like the statue of himself but much, much, much taller and bigger, spoke in a deep voice as he turned an amused glance at his smaller progeny (technically clone, but Kraid was so heavily mutated at this point, it didn’t matter) “Hmmph, or mayhaps the Phazon took his rational mind with it. Regardless, if you leave, it is witho- What is that sound?”

With a start, everyone in the room noticed a subtle rhythm coming from seemingly nowhere.

Ridley’s face paled as he turned to the door. “Oh no. I think that’s-”

The door blasted open as a song played at a volume that seemed just on the edge of unbearability, revealing a young girl in a Parade Masters uniform lip synching to the lyrics of the music she was undoubtedly responsible for, her pink and purple hair and green eyes telling Ridley exactly who this was.

As their attention was drawn by Sweetie Void, Samus, under the effects of an Invisibility spell the filly had cast on her to bypass the lot of them and check the room behind, did exactly that, though she did stop to enjoy the show a couple times.

As Sweetie Void stepped forward, she locked eyes with Ridley. With a twirl she pointed behind Ridley to between him and Kraid, and without even a flash as they all turned, there she was dancing in place as she continued her performance.

Pointing next to the Mini Kraid, she appeared there and did a little tango with it before snapping its head off.

Six of those two headed shadow beings rose from the floor around her as she appeared in the center of the room, now doing a step dance sort of routine. As they moved in to slash her, she blew them away, expending little energy to turn the shadow wisps into bouncy balls.

Kraid growled in rage and turned to Ridley, “If you intend to leave, do so now. I will keep her here.”

Ridley just kept panicking as he kept trying to start the portal device Master Hand had supplied all of the officers. Just as he got it working, the yellow skinned man came spinning past him, stumbling through it, with the dragon himself following immediately after, nearly tripping over him on his way.

“That’s our cue to leave, unless you’d like to stay and face her, Mighty Uka Uka,” the blue skinned man said with a mocking tone at the end.

Looking back to Sweetie Void, as she began to use Kraid’s own bioenergy to turn him into…. rose petals? The mask deadpanned at the blue skin man as they both approached the portal. “You’re lucky Master Hand has no tolerance for infighting, otherwise I would have destroyed you and simply kept Cortex. Now let’s go, N. Tropy.”

The music came to an end as Sweetie Void twirled the petals into a frenzy, before turning to the portal with one hand pointed at it like a gun.

“See ya~ Hold Tight!”

BANG!

The portal closed right before the shot could reach it, instead flying into the wall behind it.

Meanwhile, Samus clapped her hand against the side of her arm cannon in applause as she said, “When you told me you could take care of Kraid, while I checked the room behind him, I was not expecting that kind of show.”

Sweetie Void bowed as she turned to Samus, turning back into her filly self as she stood back up to see the hunter now clad in the Varia suit she had worn during the Team Rainbow Rocket conflict.

“I thought it’d be fun,” she said in explanation.

I hope you're happy, Writer. No one else at home will likely get the reference.

Chapter 162: Crocy

“... And regardless of who those three were, the fact that Ridley got away means we’re SOL on opening the statue,” Samus said as she and Sweetie Void made their way back to the elevator to Norfair.

“I can just tear it out from the ground, but first we should at least get the majority of your gear back. At least enough to where water won’t be a limiting factor,” the filly said in retort as she threw a soldier in green at a flying bucket bot. “Also, we should still check Ridley’s room for whatever’s absorbing Void Energy faster than I can use it.”

"Yes. Also, I found a console from which I got some interesting files. From now, I will know the names of the Subspace creatures we encounter."

"Great!"

Before exiting Kraid’s lair, they arrived at a metal door that was now flashing. Passing it, they arrived in a small, empty room that seemed to have nothing of interest except for Beetoms that were easily killed. Samus used her Visor and found a fragile part of the ceiling. She fired at it, revealing an Energy Tank. Sweetie Void flew up to grab it real quick and then the two departed the now empty room, climbing back up to the blue door above and passing through it and getting as far as the floor beneath the creepy head formation when a loud shrieking sounded off, as four of the patchwork shadows with glowing red eyes came out of the walls! Samus identified them as Floows. She was able to withstand the painful keening to blast one with a charged Spazer Shot, the energy tearing through it and causing it to disperse as Sweetie Void blasted the rest with her cannons, achieving a similar result.

Taking a moment to regather their composure and let Samus restore her suit's energy and heal using the energy drops, the two soon went to the elevator and rode it back down to Norfair, deciding to check the superheated room that Samus couldn’t go in initially. Seeing that they couldn’t readily move forward, Samus took a quick look around with the Scan Visor, allowing her to identify a section of ground that could be easily blasted open. Doing so and dropping down, the girls found themselves on a bridge above lava, surrounded by a horde of the fire breathing Subspace soldiers which were apparently called Primids. These red ones were specifically called Fire Primids.

"Nice to know the name of these soldier things," Sweetie said.

The closest ones immediately breathed fire at the two, and Sweetie quickly put up a magical shield. She then absorbed the heat and released it back as a wave of fire that sent the closest Primids flying in addition to burning them, giving the two some space. Thankfully, these Fire Primids weren’t invulnerable to fire even if they breathed it. Some of the Primids fell into the lava and burned to death even if they resisted it a bit.

Samus fired with her Spazer Beam, the wide range allowing her to deal damage to many enemies at once. Since they were on a bridge, the enemies were all assembled before her, the ones that had been at her sides having fallen into the lava, so she just had to fire in the crowd without thinking. Sweetie joined her with her cannons, firing dozens of beams of magic and fire at the enemies, rapidly eliminating them one after another.

Like all other Subspace beings, the Primids disintegrated into these shadow wisps upon dying, Shadow Bugs apparently, which themselves disintegrated into what Sweetie could feel was pure Void Energy which was then quickly absorbed away by whatever absorbed all the Void Energy in and around the planet. With her supply of energy limited because of that, Sweetie Void decided that she should absorb this Void Energy before it was absorbed away, replenishing her reserve a bit. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t a lot, and a lot of the energy still ended up absorbed away, but it was still better than nothing. She will have to remember to do that each time they kill a Subspace being.

To Samus and Sweetie’s surprise, the remaining Fire Primids gathered and breathed fire into a ball that grew to giant proportions before they sent it at the girls. Sweetie Void placed herself before Samus, covered her legs in energy, and smacked the ball up into the air before she jumped and slapped the ball back at the enemies like in volleyball. The ball exploded among the enemies, sending all of them flying, some of them right into the lava. The remaining Primids were badly hurt and rapidly killed.

“Alright, back on track,” Samus said as she and Sweetie turned their attention to the upper sections of the cavern room. With the filly providing a shield to ride on, the two found that the majority of the room was as it seemed, only finding a red missile door that they opened and passed through, entering the next room to be greeted by a swooping creature that looked like a Reo that Samus quickly identified as a Geruta that she took care of with a quick volley from her arm cannon. Surveying the room, the two saw that its layout would be tricky, consisting of a set of pillars that served as the path forward.

Sweetie Void decided to simply use her magic to summon another shield for them to ride across the room, Samus taking care of another Geruta that tried to attack them.

“Platforming can be fun, but time consuming,” the filly said, thinking out loud more than anything.

“Speaking from experience?” the hunter replied half-cheekily, though still curious.

“My first adventure, I had to ride on Kirby across the wide gaps while he floated over them,” Sweetie explained with a chuckle. Samus had to stifle a laugh at that.

Reaching the other side, Sweetie and Samus spotted a green door below them. Landing in front of it, Samus shot a Super Missile at the door to open it, shaking the room on impact. However, as the girls passed through the door, the shaking continued for a bit, as the room in front of them filled with a small pool of lava on the floor, leaving only the raised pillars and platforms to stand on safely. Samus decided to jump her way across, dodging the jumping creatures in her path, known as Squeept and the spraying of the seahorse like creatures called Dragons while Sweetie flew across and took care of the enemies, including those wheels that seemed to expand and spit fire, which were known as Glires ("At least, we can guess its element from its name," Sweetie said). The filly went after those ones with a slight priority, seeing both them fade into those shadowy wisps and any chance to restock on Void Energy as a good one.

Making their way to the other side, the pair noticed what looked like solidified bubbles with a greenish tint surrounding the door. Passing through the door, the two entered a room that seemed…. covered in whatever this stuff was.

Sweetie wanted to ask what it was, but she preferred not to lose time. Who knew what the pirates were doing to the baby Metroid right now.

So they explored the room, or what they could explore of the room right now at least. The upper part of the room couldn’t be accessed from where they were. After defeating a waver, some kind of flying insectoid enemy inside what looked like a clam, they found two parts where the floor was fragile. One was two blocks between two dragon-like busts that Samus presented as Komas too, and the other was a metallic floor under where the Waver had been. They tested the passage under the blocks first, but they quickly found out that it was a one way passage for the Morph Ball so they decided to take it for last.

So they went for the fragile metallic floor which collapsed under their weight. They had to destroy more pieces of metallic floor as they descended to reach a small side room surrounded by metallic surfaces and purple stone with a Ripper II and some spikes. At the other side of the spikes was a Missile Expansion that Sweetie grabbed for Samus. Back in the main room, they tested the blue door above where they came from and found a room with a recharge station.

This left the passage under the block where they had to bomb some rocks and kill some Sovas blocking the way before reaching a room among purple rocks with two blue doors, including one in the floor.

Sweetie Void voiced a question, “Why are there doors in the ground of one floor and the ceiling of the one below it?”

“Because a majority of the Chozo either could fly or were excellent jumpers,” Samus clarified.

“Huh. Still kinda weird,” the filly replied

“I never fully understood the choice myself, honestly,” the hunter said as they tested the blue door facing them first and entered a cavern with another blue door at the opposite side which led, from what Samus’ map said, to the same blocked tunnel behind a room with a recharge station they entered earlier, so it was a dead end. Back in the cavern was a fragile ground that they destroyed, reaching a lower level of the cavern with a metal gate blocking the exit. With nowhere else to go, they returned to the room with the purple rocks and took the door in the floor.

They arrived in a shaft and quickly found a blue door to a small room with a nest of red beetle-like enemies called Gamets, allowing Samus to replenish her missiles. At the bottom of the shaft, after killing a few more red Subspace soldiers, they took another blue door to a cavern full of lava.

In this cavern, Sweetie decided to transport the both of them on her shield so they didn’t have to jump from stone pillar to stone pillar while avoiding bouncing red living fireballs named Multiviolas and chunks of lava thrown at them by what looked like living lava named Magdolites sitting in the lava. Samus took care of the Multiviolas while Sweetie killed the Magdolites who were more resistant.

Another shaft followed, with little blue living balls named Violas circling the stone ledges. They didn’t find much in this shaft however, a blue door at the opposite side of where they arrived, a passage to a metal gate that they couldn’t open from this side, and a yellow door at the bottom. So they passed the blue door.

Another cavern with lava rising. Not wanting to see if the lava will stop before reaching them like last time, Sweetie Void and Samus hurried up toward some kind of monster in the wall opposite of them named Fune which spat a blue fireball when they approached. They avoided the fireball and Sweetie killed it, allowing Samus to find a passage for the Morph Ball under it. At the other side of the passage, Samus identified a fragile part of the ceiling and fired at it, allowing the two to jump to the upper level. As they looked down, they saw the lava fill their previous location, then stop rising.

Samus sighed. “I hope to find a better suit so I won’t have to worry about lava anymore.”

“Well, we have to find one so you can move underwater. Maybe this same suit will allow you to go under lava,” Sweetie said.

“Yes. And I think that I know which suit it will be: the Gravity Suit. It gives free movement underwater and protects against lava.”

They were now in another shaft where they had to jump from ledge to ledge while dealing with more Funes before they reached a blue door and entered another cavern with lava, this time not rising. There were spikes under metallic walls hanging from the ceiling and Rippers with platforms on them (known as Trippers) as the only apparent means to traverse. In the middle of the room were metallic pillars, some of which had more spikes on them, and there was even a metallic gate opening and closing from the ceiling that would block her jump if she jumped at the wrong time.

This was one of those rooms. Yes, those rooms. Those rooms that would make Samus groan… if she was alone. Thankfully, she had Sweetie Void and her shield with her, so she simply let herself be transported from one end of the room to the other. She had to turn into her Morph Ball to pass the lower spikes, but reaching the end of the room was easy and stress free thanks to her filly friend.

After a blue door, they entered yet another shaft where they had to fight Fire Primids, Glires, Multiviolas, and Dragons with legs named Alcoons. The first blue door they encountered led to a large room that was, however, a total dead end from where they were. Besides encountering a Kago and one of these tanks with a green blob inside, an Armank, there was nothing. Samus didn’t have any difficulty fighting the Armank. As soon as Sweetie destroyed the arm and opened the tank, Samus fired a Super Missile at the green blob. Sweetie then finished it with a mega punch. They did find a piece of ceiling that could be destroyed at the end of the room, but it led to nothing. So they left the room and climbed the shaft until reaching a red door.

It led right back to the large room, but on a ledge further up. Before them, at the other side of a gap, was a metal gate. In between them, in the gap, were weird green platforms that moved up and down. A Fune was present under them, ready to spit fireballs over the platforms. But rather than doing some platforming, the girls used Sweetie’s shield again, Samus firing at the light above the metal gate to open it. Samus grabbed the Missile Expansion behind it, then looked beyond to spot a red door at the other side of another gap with spikes at the bottom. However, this gap didn’t have green platforms. Instead, there were blocks in the ceiling that Samus identified as grapple points, meaning that she would need the grapple to cross.

Since they weren’t able to reach the red door, they returned to the shaft and climbed to the top, fighting more Primids, Multiviolas, and Alcoons, finding a small passage that Samus couldn’t enter and a blue door. The presence of green bubbles indicated where the door led back to without even needing Samus’ map.

Back in the room with the bubbles, they climbed the small tunnel they were in to the top of the room, killed a Red Cacatac and a Waver, and used a Super Missile on the green door just in front. Still in a room with bubbles, they killed some Skrees as well as a robotic orb with spinning blades known as a Cymul, then identified some bubbles that could be destroyed in the ceiling and fired at them. Climbing the revealed passage and destroying more bubbles, they reached a blue door as well as a pipe out of which came Gamets which Samus killed to replenish her ammunition.

“What’s with these pipes that always spawn bugs?” the filly wondered.

“Scans indicate a nest that actually goes into the stone surrounding the pipe. The ones coming out are likely guards acting on protective instinct, with us essentially standing on their nest,” the hunter replied.

They passed the blue door and entered a tunnel with suspicious blocks in the floor. Samus scanned them and found out that they were fragile to the point that they would certainly collapse under their weight. So Samus ran as fast as she could while Sweetie flew, not minding any of the critters on the way. They passed more and more of these collapsing blocks as the tunnel went down and down and down again, the lowest level having lava, before they reached the end where the green bubbles returned.

Before Samus fired missiles at the red door, she spotted a suspicious hole in the ceiling and scanned in it, identifying a bubble that could be destroyed. She fired at it and revealed a Missile Expansion. Finally, they passed the red door and entered a small bubble room with a Chozo statue holding an orb. Samus fired at it and took the revealed upgrade which was a Speed Booster.

Before Samus could say a word, the room suddenly began to shake and lava began to rise under them, which they could see through some holes in the floor. They quickly left, but the lava in the tunnel was also rising, so they ran and flew. But now, Samus, after one or two seconds of gaining speed, was running much faster, leaving afterimages, so it wasn’t long before they reached the beginning of the tunnel and passed the door. Back in the previous room, Sweetie blocked the pipe so they wouldn't be disturbed by the Gamets.

She grinned at Samus. “So the Speed Booster allows you to run faster. Who would have guessed?”

Samus laughed. “Yes, who would.”

Sweetie Void began to think. “So, places where you need to run faster… Oh, right, there was that room at the start of Norfair.”

Samus nodded. “And one back in Brinstar. And remember that blocked tunnel that leads back to a recharge station? I think that the Speed Booster is what is needed to open the passage.”

“Oh, so we can use that tunnel as a shortcut to return to the start of Norfair!”

“Exactly.”

So they returned to the large bubble room, jumped down from the upper level to the lower one with the Komas, fought a small ambush of Primids and little robots with buckets known as Buckots ("Buckot, seriously?" asked Sweetie Void), then moved through the small passage again to return to the purple room, then took the blue door opposite of the passage’s exit. Back in the cavern with the metal gate in the lower level, they took the opposite blue door, finally returning to the blocked tunnel where Samus was able to confirm with a scan that the Speed Booster was needed. So she ran and rammed the wall at the end, destroying it. She ran through everything in the way until there was nothing left when she reached the other side of the tunnel.

With that, they were back in the recharge room, then in the shaft to the elevator back to Brinstar. From the shaft, they took what had been a green door, returning in the metallic room with the closing metal gates. Without losing time, Samus began to run, passing the first closing gate, then successfully passing the second gate, reaching the end of the room, Sweetie Void behind her.

Under them was a fragile piece of floor. However, after destroying the top part, the lower part revealed to need something Samus didn’t have yet to be destroyed. Above them was a fragile piece of ceiling that, once destroyed, revealed an upper level with a secret Morph passage back to the beginning of the room. This upper level also had a fragile ceiling, but they will need to walk on it to make it collapse.

So this left the blue door at the end of the room, which led to a room filled with lava. Trippers were present to transport them from platform to platform. However, when Samus tested one, the Tripper sank under her weight. So Samus let Sweetie transport her with her shield.

Passing the blue door at the end, they entered a shaft where the floor was a footbridge above lava, and they had to jump from footbridge to footbridge to reach the top while dealing with Funes. In front of the blue door at the top was a piece of floor that could be destroyed, revealing a hole back to the bottom of the shaft. Sweetie flew down into it and found a secret passage to a room. She told Samus about it, and Samus had to drop in her Morph Ball to enter the passage. Once in the room, they passed the blue door in it and entered another room with a Chozo statue holding an orb. Samus fired at the orb and grabbed the upgrade: the Ice Beam.

“Sweet. The Ice Beam. Now, I will be able to freeze enemies. I will even be able to use the frozen flying enemies as platforms to reach new heights.”

“If the enemies are frozen, how do they remain in the air?”

Samus shrugged.

Back in the shaft, instead of dropping down the hole and climbing back the shaft, Sweetie levitated Samus in her Morph Ball to the top. Here, they passed the blue door, entering another room filled with lava. In it, weird blobs that looked like viruses, Boyons, jumped out of the lava. Samus, wanting to test the Ice Beam, froze the first Boyon and jumped on it, then did the same with the second one and the third one. The third one was at the right height to allow Samus to enter a small passage for her Morph Ball.

The passage led to a twin room also filled with lava, but this one had a Ripper II on the lava. Samus froze it and used it to cross the lava. The blue door at the end led them right into a drop where they fell and landed on a floor that collapsed under them. This repeated until they fell back where there was the passage to the beginning of the room with the closing gates. From here, they returned in the shaft with the elevator to Brinstar.

“So, I guess that we did everything we could do for now in Norfair, right?” Sweetie asked.

“Seems like it. And I guess that we will have to explore around until we find the right path or upgrade to continue.”

So they returned to Brinstar, traversed the underwater glass tube, and backtracked all the way to the red shaft. Here, Samus could use the Ice Beam to freeze Rippers and use them as platforms to climb back to the jungle section of Brinstar. Instead, she let Sweetie transport her. But when they reached the door back to the jungle, instead of passing it, Samus used her Hi-Jump Boots to reach ledges above them, then used the Ice Beam on more Rippers near the top. When they reached the ceiling, Samus fired at a suspicious part of it, successfully destroying it. So they reached the top of the shaft where a blue door awaited them.

The new room was filled with thorns and strange big red flowers nicely named Samus Eaters ("I feel honored that they made such flowers" Samus said with sarcasm) out of which came flying insectoid enemies called Zebbos, in addition to Zeelas patrolling the ledges. It was a matter of killing all insects present before jumping to the next ledge until reaching the end of the room.

They then entered another red shaft, the door closing behind them being yellow, and Samus identified right away a piece of ground that could be destroyed. But first, they explored up, killing Cacatacs, and found a blue door that led to a recharge station. Then was a green door to a room with thorns on the ceiling in which the floor could be destroyed by something that Samus didn’t have yet. They had to kill three Sidehoppers (big ones, not the small ones encountered until now) to unlock the door and leave. Back in the shaft, they then discovered a small passage to a blue room with a metal gate blocking the way. Finally, at the top of the shaft was an elevator back to Crateria. They decided not to take it and to explore down the shaft, starting by destroying the floor.

As they descended, they had to kill giant slugs named Zeros (Sweetie internally laughed at the feared Zero sharing his name with slugs) before reaching a green door to a metallic room with thorns and Samus Eaters thankfully containing nothing hostile this time. However, above the flowers were Boyons ready to jump if the girls approached. Sweetie destroyed them, opening the path for Samus to reach a Chozo statue holding an orb that Samus destroyed, giving her something that made her grin: the Power Bomb.

“Yes!” Samus pumped her arm. “The Power Bombs! Now we are talking!”

“Aah. The famous instruments of doom I heard so much about. I can’t wait to see them in action,” the filly said with a grin.

“And you won’t have to wait long. Scan indicates that this wall right here is weak to the Power Bombs. You should take your distance.”

“No need.” Sweetie put up a shield all around her. “Go on.”

So Samus curled into her Morph Ball and released a spherical bomb that remained for a second before it exploded in a huge explosion that covered a large part of the room, destroying the whole wall. This revealed a Missile Expansion.

“You weren’t kidding. These bombs pack a punch,” Sweetie said.

“And now, we will be able to open these yellow doors.”

So they returned in the shaft and Samus used a Power Bomb on the yellow door, unlocking it. However, instead of taking it, they climbed the shaft back to the room with the floor that could be destroyed. As Samus thought, it needed the Power Bomb, so she used one. Thankfully, the floor had little holes that allowed her to see where she needed to jump to to avoid falling into the thorns and the Samus Eaters that were below. Inside most of the flowers were Yapping Maws ready to drag them into the thorns, but there was one flower that didn’t have any worm. Instead, there was a hole leading to a Power Bomb Expansion.

“So soon after getting them. How lucky,” Samus said.

Back in the shaft, they decided to take the elevator back to Crateria. They arrived in a room with a yellow door in the ceiling and Samus used a Power Bomb on it before they jumped through it. After it, it was a short climb, fighting some critters and wheels spitting ice known as Glices before they reached a cavern with a blue door and a yellow door.

Samus pointed at the blue door. “The map says it leads back to the ships.”

So they took it first, traversed a tube, and exited. Now outside for the first time in a while, the acid storm now gone, Sweetie took a big breath of fresh air before they advanced only to meet a wall that could be destroyed. Instead of destroying it right away, Samus returned to the door, which was green on this side, opened it with a Super Missile, and returned in the tube. From the tube, Samus began to run while Sweetie kept the door open. Gaining enough momentum, Samus was able to activate the Speed Booster’s effect and ran into the wall, destroying it all in one go. Behind the wall were the ships.

Samus entered hers and recharged ammunition and energy.

“We can go,” she said once she was out.

They returned into the cavern and opened the yellow door with a Power Bomb only to find a room filled with water where Samus had to use the grapple to reach the other side. Sweetie still flew to get a Missile Expansion in the middle of the room. That was that done.

“So, where do we go, now?” Sweetie Void asked.

“I have a gut feeling that we should return to Norfair. I think that the next step of our journey is there.”

“Alright.”

With this, they returned to Brinstar and backtracked through the two red shafts. On the way, midway through the second shaft, Samus used a Power Bomb to destroy a piece of wall and open by the same occasion a yellow door hidden behind it. However, it led to a room filled with spikes in which Samus needed the grapple to continue.

Before long, they were back in Norfair, and in the elevator shaft, Samus used a Power Bomb to open the yellow door, entering Norfair’s map room, to both Sweetie and Samus’ relief. Now they will have a better idea of where to go.

Samus led Sweetie back to the room with the closing metal gates. At the end of the room, where the floor collapsed to reveal a part that could be destroyed by what revealed to be a Power Bomb, Samus destroyed it.

They dropped to a room below where they had to fight their way through many critters and Primids as well as what looked like puppets hanging from strings armed with very sharp claws, Puppits ("They didn't search far for this one..." Sweetie commented). The strings were hanging from nothing, as if an invisible entity controlled the Puppits. Sweetie stopped the Puppits and the small Desgeegas from approaching while Samus used a Power Bomb to deal damage to everything in a large radius, hurting and killing a lot of enemies. It was very easy to eliminate the rest.

Taking the blue door at the end of the room, they entered a shaft where Samus identified right away a piece of wall that could be destroyed. Firing at it revealed a Missile Expansion. The ledges, however, collapsed right under Samus’ weight, making her drop along with the Sovas present, so Sweetie was the one grabbing the Missile Expansion. Once at the bottom of the shaft, Sweetie gave the Missile Expansion to Samus before they passed the blue door.

Next was a long tunnel filled with red Space Pirate and Multiviolas. Samus simply ran until the Speed Booster kicked and ran her way through the enemies who exploded in a gorish way when she rammed them. Sweetie decided to kill any pirate that wasn’t killed by Samus. The less pirates were alive the better. Samus also ran her way through rocks blocking the way and over a bridge that collapsed after her before she ended in a shaft with a green door in the floor and a blue door in front of them.

Samus’ map said that the blue door led back to the two levels cavern with lava at the bottom and a metal gate blocking the path at the lower level, as well as the shaft before the room with lava rising, and climbing the shaft led back to the elevator shaft. So the way forward was the green door. But before that, she opened a blue door above that led to what she had guessed was a recharge station. Finally, she opened the green door with a Super Missile.

And both Samus and Sweetie dropped in a cavern, right in front of a creature that looked like a mix of Ridley and Kraid, smaller than both prior mentioned, but still large enough to block off the cavern behind it. Its head tilted as it stared at the pair while they kept weapons ready. Seeing that it wasn’t attacking, Samus scanned the creature, as it continued to stare at them.

After a few more moments, Samus let out an aggravated sigh as she lowered her cannon, causing Sweetie Void to turn to her in confusion.

“It’s a mineral eating creature called a Crocomire, and this one has been heavily experimented on, likely to weaponize it. It’s bigger, tougher, and deadlier than normal Crocomires. As you can see, they look intimidating, but according to the scan data, they only attack in retaliation, meaning the space pirates likely tried to override that part of them, but couldn’t and just left this guy here,” the hunter explained.

“Oh,” Sweetie said as she turned back to the creature, whose attention had turned to one of Sweetie’s cannons, looking at it like it was a toy. Floating the cylinder off to the side, Samus and Sweetie saw the Crocomire’s head follow it.

Sweetie Void then tossed the whip section behind her, grabbing Samus and turning the two intangible as the large reptilian creature charged for the cylinder like a dog after a stick, barreling through a wall of spikes that had been behind the girls without harm as it nearly crushed the device trying to grab it. The Crocomire then shuffled back over to Sweetie Void and dropped the cannon, looking at her with a playful spark in its eight eyes as it panted with its tongue out.

Samus deadpanned at the dog-like behavior of the creature while Sweetie took the cannon section (reinforcing it with her magic, this time) and tossed back toward the other end of the cavern, the creature shoving Samus into the wall to get at it.

Sweetie smiled as the creature once more returned the cannon, then she proclaimed, “I’m keeping you,” as she gave it a hug.

Rarity Void hummed a song as she worked on a dress, her best work this month so far, for a mare from Manehattan that was very influential (and rich). She couldn’t wait to see the sumptuous, marvelous thing finished.

Suddenly, she heard screaming from outside and she sighed, wondering what was happening this time. A stampede of some creatures from the Everfree Forest? A monster attack? The Flower Sisters being overly dramatic?

As Rarity left her boutique, she immediately saw the reason, and it seemed that the answer was: a monster attack. Right before her was a horrifying giant red lizard with eight eyes and two very long arms. Some of its scales looked as if they melted.

The lizard looked right at her, and she was about to scream when it opened its mouth and dropped a piece of paper before her. Holding her scream at this, Rarity carefully levitated the piece of paper while keeping an eye on the lizard, then read.

Hi Rarity! I present to you my new pet! Say hello to Crocy the Crocomire! Don’t worry, he may look scary, but he is a good boy. He eats minerals, so you don’t have to worry about him eating Opalescence. So I hope he won’t be a problem. I will take good care of him.

Sweetie Void.

Rarity looked bemusedly at the letter, then at the Crocomire, Crocy, and sighed, rubbing between her eyes with a hoof.

“Sweetie… What will I do with you?” She sighed again and looked at Crocy. “I guess that I will have to introduce you to everyone.”

Chapter 163: Friendly Critters, Hostile Ghosts

With Crocy safe in her universe, Sweetie Void moved with Samus toward the part of the room that Crocy discovered by destroying the spiked wall, after retrieving for Samus an Energy Tank at the other end of the room, beyond a large gap with grapple points. They jumped on some pillars in the middle of the acid below to reach a blue door at the end.

“I still can’t believe what happened,” Samus said, making Sweetie giggle.

“Honestly, me too. But I won’t complain. It’s nice to not fight for once.”

Entering the next room, they found themselves on a ledge overlooking a lower level and facing another ledge with a red door. Moving back and forth under the ceiling was a yellow Ripper. Under their ledge was one of these weird green platforms, and they could also see a pipe as well as a blue door in the floor.

Having no way to reach the opposite ledge, they jumped down, eliminated the Gamets coming out of the pipe, and spotted another blue door just under the ledge they came from. This door led to a recharge station which wasn’t really needed for now. So they passed the blue door in the floor and entered a shaft, landing on a ledge with a blue door right away. Passing it, however, led to a metal gate that blocked the path, so they returned in the shaft and jumped down from the ledge.

After a long drop, they found a red door that they passed, entering a room with acid rising and lowering regularly. To advance, they had to wait for the acid to go all the way down before they could follow the tunnel. At the end were pillars, some of which had spikes. Instead of jumping on them, Sweetie flew to the other side and retrieved the Missile Expansion there.

Back in the shaft, they moved down, dealing with Violas and Primids until reaching a blue door in the floor that led to a cavern above more acid. The cavern was long enough that Samus could run with the Speed Booster, but large stones here and there prevented that. And yet, Samus saw that she had to run in order to do a big jump above the acid and reach the other end of the cavern. Thankfully, a Power Bomb was enough to destroy all the obstacles, including a group of Mellas (bugs that looked like Mellows with fire on them), allowing her to run. With a big jump, she reached the ledge at the end where there was a blue door. Here, she and Sweetie saw many yellow Rippers flying back and forth between their position and another ledge at the other side of the cavern where there was a Missile Expansion. Sweetie flew to it to retrieve it.

Passing the blue door, they entered a shaft with a Chozo statue holding an orb. Like always, Samus fired at the orb, revealing an upgrade that made her grin: the Grappling Beam.

“Now that I have the grapple, I can explore almost everywhere as long as it’s not underwater,” Samus said.

“About time we found it. It didn’t take that long to find it the previous time I was with you. It was even one of the first upgrades.”

Samus shrugged. “The order changes from one adventure to another.”

They spotted grapple points in the ceiling of the shaft, however, they were too far for Samus to reach from where she was. Thankfully, there were small ledges leading to them with some careful jumps. Once at the top, she was able to use the grapple on the grapple points to reach the blue door.

The next few rooms were more tests for Samus to master the Grappling Beam. The first room was full of water, with a gap between the two ends of the room. Because of the water, Samus couldn't hope to reach the other end of the room even by jumping from the bottom of the gap, so she had to use the grapple.

Then came a shaft with Funes that Sweetie eliminated along with Primids and Cymuls. Once all enemies were gone, Samus had to jump to reach the grapple points in the ceiling with her grapple.

Finally, there was another room filled with water, large with two gaps bigger than previously. Again, Samus had to use the grapple to traverse the gaps. The second gap was too large to traverse in one swing, so she had to grapple a first point, swing, then grapple a second point to reach the other side and the metal gate there, which was the same metal gate that had blocked their path previously. A Super Missile to the green light above it opened it and they were back in the first shaft after Crocy’s room.

A jump through the door in the ceiling and they were back in the room with the green platform which they used to reach the ledge to Crocy’s room. But before passing the door, Samus pointed her cannon toward the yellow Ripper and used the Grappling Beam on it. The grapple successfully latched on the Ripper, allowing Samus to reach the opposite ledge with the red door. Passing it, they entered a room with a Power Bomb Expansion.

After that, they returned to Crocy's room and jumped through the door in the ceiling, the one from which they fell into the room. Back in the shaft before Crocy’s room, they had to fight some Primids and Floows.

“The Grappling Beam opened many paths for us. I think that it is time for us to explore a bit before we continue to the next step of our adventure. Let’s start with Norfair since we are here already,” Samus said.

“Alright. You definitely need Super Missile Expansions. We haven’t found a single one since you got them.”

“Exactly. Let’s start by seeing if we can open a shortcut to the elevator shaft.”

“Right. The door at the top of the shaft leads back to it, but I remember that there is a metal gate that we couldn’t open from the elevator shaft side.”

So they climbed the shaft and opened the blue door at the top. Finding themselves in a large cavern with lava, they eliminated a Dragon before they climbed a series of ledges and killed a Geruta at the top. Here, Samus used the grapple on a long series of grapple points doing like back in the water-filled room, reaching the ledge with the metal gate where a Missile Expansion awaited her. She opened the gate by firing a Super Missile at the green light above it.

“We should now open the other metal gates. We can reach two of them from the blue door at the bottom of the previous shaft. This way, we won’t have to do detours when we explore Norfair,” Samus said.

Sweetie nodded, and they returned to the shaft above Crocy’s room. After the blue door at the bottom, they traversed a cavern with lava where they had to fight red Subspace soldiers and wheels spitting fire. At the end of the cavern were two blue doors, one in the wall and one in the ceiling. They took the one in the wall first, entering a room with a Power Bomb Recharge Unit. They took the door on the other side and entered another cavern with lava. This one had to be traversed with the grapple. The blue door at the end led to the first metal gate.

Back in the cavern where they fought the Fire Primids and Glires, they took this time the door in the ceiling and climbed the shaft to the two levels lava cavern with the metal gate which they opened.

“And now, I know where to go. Follow me,” Samus said.

They climbed to the upper level and returned to the purple room under the large bubble room. From here, they had to redo all the detour back to the large cavern with the green platforms where they had opened a metal gate and gotten a Missile Expansion the first time. On the way, in the shaft with the passage to the metal gate they opened earlier, they opened a yellow door, entering a purple cavern filled with lava where they could do nothing (there was a passage for the Morph Ball, but it led to a dead end). Once in the cavern with the green platforms, Samus, this time, was able to use the grapple to reach the red door at the end of the room, at the other side of a gap with spikes at the bottom. The door led to a room with a Chozo statue giving the Wave Beam upgrade.

“This beam will allow me to hit targets behind obstacles. Nothing is safe from me now,” Samus explained.

“Sweet!”

From here, they returned to the large bubble room and climbed to the top where Samus used the grapple to reach the green door and enter a lava bubble room with a Missile Expansion. It wasn’t over with the room however as Samus spotted with the scanner a bubble that could be destroyed with a bomb, so she used a Power Bomb to destroy it. The Power Bomb also caused a metal pole to rise from the lava, allowing Samus to reach the hole she created with her Morph Ball. The hole led to a lava purple room filled with Dragons and Sovas. Instead of crossing it with risky jumps above the lava, Sweetie flew to retrieve another Missile Expansion as well as an orb that contained what revealed to be a Reserve Tank.

“This tank contains spare energy that will fill my own if I drop to zero, saving my life if the worst case scenario happens,” Samus explained.

“I doubt it will happen, but it’s always good to have.”

“And with that, I think that we are done with Norfair. Let’s return to Brinstar.”

It didn’t take long for them to return to the elevator shaft, having to fight some Subspace enemies (Primids, Floows, and Cymuls) on the way. They took the elevator back to Brinstar and Samus told Sweetie to follow her before they traversed the glass tube. They returned to the first red shaft and climbed back to what had been the yellow door to the room with all the spikes. When they entered the room, this time, Samus was able to use the grapple to traverse it, avoiding to kill the Firefleas to keep some light in the room. Once at the end of the room, they opened the red door.

In the next room, Samus spotted a metal pole that could be moved up with a bomb. She used it to reach a passage for the Morph Ball leading to a Chozo statue giving the X-Ray Scope upgrade.

“Aah. This will be very useful. With it, I will be able to see through the walls to find secret passages. It will also show me weak points in our enemies. From now on, each shot will be lethal.”

Right away, she used it to find a secret passage behind the wall going under the floor and leading back to the beginning of the room. To enter it, she had to bomb an elevated part of the wall with her Morph Ball.

Before long, they were back in the red shaft and they climbed it until reaching and passing the door back to the jungle section of Brinstar. They traversed the first room, running on the floor that crumbled under them. They entered the second room and found themselves blocked by a metal gate.

A metal gate that was supposed to be open.

“Are you telling me that these gates close back after a moment? Does this mean that we opened all these gates in Norfair for nothing?” a very annoyed Sweetie Void said.

Samus sighed. “Seems like it. Thankfully, with the Wave Beam, I will be able to open them even if we are on the wrong side. Well, the ones with the blue lights. The ones with the green lights can only be opened with Super Missiles so I can’t open them with the Wave Beam.”

She was able to open this gate, allowing them to continue. They crossed the room and jumped to the yellow door that they hadn’t been able to reach the first time. Samus’ map said that they entered the same cavern as the one where they found the Morph Ball upgrade, but they were in a different part. After eliminating some Sidehoppers, they found a secret passage leading to a Power Bomb Expansion. Samus then used a Power Bomb to destroy the wall separating this part of the cavern to the part with the Morph Ball upgrade, thus getting a shortcut to Crateria.

They moved to the other side of the elevator to Crateria and returned to the room where they got an Energy Tank. Here, Samus used a Power Bomb to clear the way and discover a small shaft. However, she had no way to reach the top of the shaft, so they left and returned to the elevator room.

However, instead of taking the elevator, they returned to the jungle and took the blue door at the end of the room. In the cavern behind it, Samus led Sweetie back to the room with the Charge Beam upgrade and used a Power Bomb to destroy a section under the statue and reveal a secret passage. They moved down the cavern behind it and entered a room with water. In this room, Samus had to use the Speed Booster, but because of the water, she couldn’t reach her max speed. Thus, it was a dead end.

Back in the previous cavern, they climbed until reaching a yellow door that Samus opened with a Power Bomb. They entered a room where a Sidehopper and two Small Sidehoppers welcomed them. Once the creatures were dead, Samus used the Grappling Beam on a grapple point and swung until she could jump to fire at a metal gate at the top, reaching the gate’s blue light at the other side and opening it. Samus then had to grapple and jump in the same way to pass the gate and reach the other side of the room where a gate leading to an Energy Tank awaited them.

Back in the previous cavern again, they climbed a bit more until reaching grapple points leading to a Missile Expansion. Here, Samus found a wall that could be destroyed with a Power Bomb, leading to a secret door to a room filled with Sidehoppers with some spikes to make it a bit harder. Sweetie Void decided to cut all of the Sidehoppers to pieces with her swords, allowing Samus to find and destroy a piece of the floor with a Super Missile. They dropped to the room under, where a Power Bomb Expansion awaited Samus. She had to fire at a gate to reveal the entrance to a secret passage to the room’s exit, having to bomb a pole to make it rise on the way.

Back in the large cavern again, they climbed and took the blue door just above where they found the previous Missile Expansion which had been the cavern’s entrance the first time they arrived here. Back in the tunnel linking the cavern to the main shaft of Brinstar’s jungle. Here, Samus identified that part of the ground could be destroyed by the Speed Booster, so she did so, making the both of them drop down a shaft to a different tunnel where they found some kind of wingless green bird the size of Samus, like an ostrich. Not far from it was a nest with an egg.

“Well, Fluttershy would love this discovery, but now how are we supposed to get out of here,” the filly wondered. The ostrich creature let out a cry and seemed to gesture for them to clear the path between it and the shaft,

“Looks like this one wants to show us something,” Samus observed, as they moved to the sides, only for the land avian to cry out again, look at the hunter and gesture its head next to it, maintaining eye contact.

…

…

…

“Do…. you want me to... follow your lead?” Samus asked the bird, hesitantly. The bird nodded while giving another cry. “O…K.”

After stepping in line next to the creature, both Samus and Sweetie were startled when the creature suddenly just ran off, following its cue, despite their confusion, only for it to turn to wonder as both Samus and the creature started glowing as both entered the Speed Booster state.

The creature suddenly crouched as it entered the shaft, retaining the Speed Boost state, then jumped, rocketing back up towards the top of the shaft.

Having stopped due to her shock of the bird having a Speed Booster state of its own, Samus doubled back to the end of the tunnel with the egg, then got a running start, following the actions of the bird, crouching as she stopped dead with the shaft above her. Pushing off the ground, she found herself rocketing back up to the top of the shaft, just like the creature had.

The bird seemed to cheer at Samus’s success as she slammed into the cavern ceiling, Sweetie Void following quickly behind.

After landing beside the bird, Samus gave it a Chozo salute, bowing her head with her hand on her heart. “Thank you, Dachora, for your teaching.”

The Dachora cried, then jumped back into the shaft. Samus decided to jump back in it to pass the blue door at the end of the tunnel only to discover that it led just in a room with a Power Bomb Recharge Unit. Still useful. So they returned in the tunnel, bid the Dachora farewell, and Samus used what she called the Shinespark to leave while Sweetie followed her by flying. Samus will have to be careful as she used the Shinespark however, it drained her energy. They then moved down the tunnel back to the jungle’s main shaft.

Here, Samus used a Power Bomb to reveal a secret area of the shaft leading further down. As the filly and the bounty hunter jumped down, they passed a metal door. At the bottom, Samus’ X-Ray Scope found a secret passage that was, however, blocked from this side, so they took the blue door instead. They entered a small room where they killed some Beetoms before they passed another blue door to a metallic room.

They immediately spotted an Energy Tank at the other side of the room before a green door. However, before it was a hole so Samus had to jump to reach the tank. They then opened the green door and entered a room with, finally, a Super Missile Expansion.

“Finally!” Samus exclaimed. “It was really annoying to just have five Super Missiles. Always having to be careful. Not being able to use them when I want.”

“It’s still just ten Super Missiles. I wouldn’t be against finding one or two more expansions.”

Returning to the previous room, they jumped down the hole, went through a floor that crumbled under them, and landed back in the jungle before a blue door to a recharge station. To continue, Samus had to curl into her Morph Ball to roll under thorns, reaching a part of the room that was filled with more thorns both on the floor and on the ceiling. There were also Beetoms and pipes out of which came Zebbos. So Sweetie used a shield to make the two of them cross the room while they eliminated all the enemies attacking them. Once at the end of the room, they passed the blue door.

Now, they were at the bottom of a shaft and found themselves before three little monkey-like creatures with blue fur and two antennas.

Samus looked up at the shaft. “Mmh… I won’t be able to use the Shinespark here.”

“Then how will we get up there?” Sweetie wondered.

Chirping gained the two’s attention, and they looked at the little monkeys who looked back at Samus before they turned to face the shaft’s wall. While facing the wall, one of them looked back at Samus and gestured at the wall. Samus nodded, indicating that she followed. Then, one by one, the monkeys jumped toward the wall, then pressed themselves against it, then jumped from it toward the opposite wall above Samus and Sweetie Void. The monkey repeated the operation, jumping from wall to wall and climbing the shaft.

After observing the monkeys a bit, Samus nodded and jumped toward the wall, repeating the monkeys’ movements. She pressed against the wall, then jumped, and jumped, and jumped, successfully climbing the shaft. Sweetie Void flew to follow her. Once at the top of the shaft, Samus landed on a ledge beside the monkeys who waited patiently for her. She then bowed her head at them, hand on her heart.

“Thank you, Etecoons, for your teaching.”

The Etecoons chirped, then jumped back into the shaft.

Seeing the passage for the Morph Ball in the opposite wall, Samus jumped toward it and turned into her Morph Ball midair, entering the passage leading to a small room with a Power Bomb Expansion.

They passed the blue door back to the jungle’s main shaft (the metal door they passed previously). Then, Samus made them climb the shaft all the way to the top most pair of doors, one of which led to the Brinstar map room. The other led to the room with the crumbing floor where they got a Missile Expansion. This time, Samus used the Speed Booster to run, outrunning the crumbling floor and passing under the closing gates, reaching the other end of the room where there was a red door.

They opened the red door and entered a room with a Chozo statue holding an orb containing a Reserve Tank. Under the statue was a tube leading to another room with a Missile Expansion. Another Missile Expansion was behind the wall. A Power Bomb was enough to destroy the wall so they could reach it. Back in the room with the crumbling floor, Samus fired at a part of the ceiling, destroying it and revealing a secret upper level with a Super Missile Expansion.

“I think that we are done with Brinstar. Now, Crateria. I think that this is where we will find the next step of our adventure. But before that, there are a couple of places to explore,” Samus said.

So they returned to the jungle shaft and took the elevator to Crateria. They then backtracked until they returned to the shaft above the old Tourian escape shaft. Here, they passed the blue door under the one to the recharge station and entered the room with the passage blocked by stone. Samus bombed them and they reached a blue door to a Missile Expansion.

Back in the shaft, they then went to the old Tourian escape shaft and went almost all the way down, fighting some of these two-headed things which revealed to be called Shaydas, until reaching the secret passage to a yellow door. The room behind was a long corridor with acid leading to a shaft. Careful of the acid, Samus ran to use the Shinespark to reach the top of the shaft where she got a Super Missile Expansion. Then, moving through a Morph Ball passage, they entered a spiked room where Samus had to use the grapple to traverse and reach the blue door at the end. From it, they returned to the escape shaft through the secret passage at the top.

They then returned to Mother Brain’s room where, after dealing with some pirates and Primids, Samus used a Power Bomb to destroy the floor under Mother Brain’s broken glass capsule, finding a small secret room with a Missile Expansion.

“That’s everything I can think of to explore. But you remember that small shaft we found back in Brinstar which I couldn’t reach the top? I think that I can now thanks to the Shinespark.”

“Let’s return to Brinstar again, then. Lucky us, the elevator leading to there is not far.”

So they left Mother Brain’s room and took the elevator back to the caverns of Brinstar where they returned to the room where they found an Energy Tank. Samus placed herself against the wall and ran, then used the Shinespark to jump up the small shaft. At the top was a blue door to a watery room with spikes with no visible way to reach the other side. Thankfully, the X-Ray Scope found an invisible platform. However, it was too high to reach with a jump from the water. Samus needed the Gravity Suit.

“I guess that’s it. Let’s return to Crateria and continue our adventure,” Samus said.

So they returned all the way to the ships, fighting more Subspace beings, mainly Primids. Samus used the occasion to replenish her ammunition before they moved to what had previously been a green door and traversed the tube behind it.

They traversed the cavern, eliminating Keyhunters, and passed what had been a yellow door to return to the watery room with the grapple points. They remarked, however, that some of the points were cracked.

“I will have to be quick,” Samus said before she used the grapple. As she said, she had to hurry up when she reached the cracked points so they didn’t break. She successfully reached the other side where they passed a blue door.

Back outside, they found themselves before a large lake, before what revealed to be a large spaceship that was in a very bad state, partially sunk.

“That…. was there before I was brought here… they never let me explore it.” Samus said.

“I would say, understandably, just looking at it,” the filly replied.

“This is actually the ship from which the Chozos arrived on Zebes. It crashed a long time ago for mysterious reasons. Apparently, the ship’s energy was just… sucked away. Many died in the crash, and because of that, it was a place of respect for the Chozos, and few entered it. The more spiritual ones could feel that the souls of the dead remained behind for some reason.”

“Ooh. A haunted ship. What are the chances we will encounter hostile ghosts?”

“I don’t see why the ghosts of Chozos would attack us. There is no Phazon to corrupt them. I think that we will just find it overrun with critters. And maybe security bots.”

“Yeeeeah… I won’t bet on that. Haunted place: hostile ghosts. It always worked like that for me.”

“We will see soon enough if you are right. Let’s go.”

Many scaffoldings were between the girls and the ship. Samus had to use the grapple to go from one to another, either with grapple points or with a yellow Ripper. Before long, they reached the ship’s entrance: a green door. One Super Missile later and they entered a long corridor with conveyors on the floor and ceiling and many cylinder-shaped canisters containing ore in the walls with Sbugs (small insects) scurrying away.

The corridor was entirely plunged in darkness, so Samus and Sweetie both used lights to light the way. Samus identified the cylinders as Zebetites, powerful energy sources of Chozo origin, but they were currently turned off, like the conveyors.

“Zebetites were Mother Brain’s power source,” Samus explained. “I had to destroy them to weaken her. They are hard as heck to destroy. The glass regenerates if you don’t quickly destroy the ore inside.”

Sweetie raised an eyebrow. “How does this work?”

Samus shrugged. “No idea.”

They advanced in the corridor and reached the end where they passed a blue door. They entered what revealed to be a stairwell, and right before them upon entering was another blue door to a recharge station. However, like everything in the ship, it was turned off. As they returned in the stairwell and headed down, they were surprised to see an entity appear behind them, where they had been a moment ago.

Whatever that thing was, it looked like ethereal skulls glued together floating in the air. One scan identified it as a Covern, a cluster of corrupted souls that died in the ship, Chozos, but also other creatures. The Covern disappeared not long after Samus finished scanning it.

Samus sighed. “You were right…”

Sweetie giggled. “Told you. Whenever I enter a haunted place, there are always hostile ghosts.”

They quickly moved away as another Covern, or the same one, appeared where they had been. This time, the girls attacked it, successfully sending it to the afterlife. As the two descended the stairwell, another appeared behind them, eliminated the same way. At least, they gave Samus new missiles upon elimination.

“Seems like we should avoid idling as long as these things are around,” Samus commented.

“Yeah.”

As they descended again, they arrived at a metal door that remained closed because it wasn’t powered.

“So we will have to find whatever is draining the ship’s energy if we want to fully explore it,” Sweetie Void guessed.

“Seems like it. And with our luck, this will be some bigass ghost.”

Sweetie and Samus moved aside to deal with a Covern appearing.

“Oh I’m scared. So scared that I will giggle at it like Pinkie Pie would say,” the filly said.

Further down, Samus found a part of a wall that could be destroyed with a bomb. This led to a secret room with conveyors and spikes and a Missile Expansion at the end. Since the conveyors were turned off, getting the expansion was as easy as taking a lollipop from a baby.

In the stairwell, they descended to the bottom where there was another metal door and a secret passage that led, however, to a dead end for now. Part of the stairwell’s floor could be destroyed, so Samus used a Power Bomb, finding a secret section with a green door in the floor.

Going through the door, they landed in a big room with a blue door at the end, beyond an inactivated Work Robot (a cylindrical robot). Taking it, the girls found the ship’s map room, but it was also turned off. Back in the previous room, beyond a second inactivated Work Robot, Sweetie found a passage on ground level leading to a smaller room with a one-eyed monster door, like the one leading to Kraid’s room.

“Oh! So will we find one of our four targets behind this door?” Sweetie questioned with a grin. Finally some real action!

The door fired a plasma ball at Samus who easily avoided it before answering with a missile in the eye. The door closed its eye in pain and Samus waited for it to open again to fire a second missile, then a third one, destroying whatever that creature was as it left behind a simple blue door.

They passed it and entered an empty room, nothing present in it. Sweetie and Samus remained on guard however as they looked around.

Then, blue flames began to appear in the air above them, forming a circle, before they rotated around and closed in on each other. Once they reached the center of the circle, they faded away, and in their place materialized… a giant head which seemed to have a single eye which was currently closed. The head was transparent, and looked like a cephalopode, having two tentacles. Then, it opened its eyes, which revealed to be inside its mouth. As soon as the eye opened, the creature turned tangible. Some appendage holding the eye came out of the mouth, making the eye come close to the girls, before it roared. The eye then returned inside the mouth which closed, and immediately the creature turned intangible again before it disappeared.

Samus still had enough time to scan it.

“Phantoon. A spectral entity living in another dimension. What we are seeing is just its head, and the eye is what serves as the connection to the corporeal world, so it is its weakness. It’s an energivore and gains power the more it absorbs. It seems to be the reason why all these souls are stuck here and corrupted.”

“A real piece of work,” Sweetie said as blue fireballs began to appear and drop out of thin air.

“As long as its eye is closed, it’s intangible, meaning we can’t damage it. But in return, it can’t attack us directly.”

“Only with fireballs, uh? Should be easy. But you are wrong about one thing,” Sweetie said as she eyes Phantoon, the specter appearing before her but remaining intangible. She then flew toward it, wrapped energy around her hoof, and punched Phantoon hard, sending it flying through a wall while it screeched. “I can hurt it even with its eye closed, as long as it’s even partially in our dimension.”

Samus clapped. “Nice.”

Phantoon returned and opened its eye, screeching, before it tried to slap Sweetie with one of its tentacles. Sweetie caught it and pulled, bringing Phantoon to her before she punched it in the eye, making it crash on the wall before it fell on the floor where Samus fired a Super Missile at its eye. She only had enough time to fire one before Phantoon closed its eye and turned invisible for a couple seconds.

It turned visible near the ceiling of the room and sent spheres of blue fireballs interspaced by fireballs that homed in toward the girls. The fireballs in sphere formations were fast, so it wasn’t easy to avoid them, and the homing fireballs didn’t help even if they were slower. At least, the girls discovered that the homing fireballs could be destroyed.

After avoiding two spheres of fireballs, Sweetie Void fired from her horn a large beam that hit Phantom right in its closed mouth/eye, making it screech and stop attacking. Phantom disappeared and reappeared a few seconds later beside Samus who jumped away, avoiding some fireballs. Phantoon then opened its eye, becoming tangible, and swung a tentacle at Samus who jumped above it before she fired a Super Missile at the eye at the same time that Sweetie fired another large beam at it.

Phantoon immediately closed its eye and moved around while dropping homing fireballs in great quantity. Sweetie flew right through them, destroying them, and punched Phantoon several times before she turned one of her hooves into a blade and pierced the specter with it right in the mouth.

Phantoon screeched even louder than before and stopped moving. It then faded in and out repeatedly before it finally dissipated. The ship’s lights turned on right away, indicating that Phantoon was gone.

“I’m not sure that it’s dead,” Sweetie said.

“Maybe not, but it’s certainly not likely to return,” Samus replied, making Sweetie roll her eyes. “Come on, let’s get whatever we can from here and move on. No telling when the Pirates or Subspace Soldiers could come poking around.”

Chapter 164: Exploring the Wrecked Ship

Sweetie Void and Samus exited Phantoon’s room and returned to the previous one where they took note of the waves that were sparking now that the current was back. They will have to be careful of such wires to avoid a nasty shock.

They moved through the small passage to the main part of the room and saw that the robots were now reactivated, walking around and randomly firing shots before them without any targets. Sweetie decided to destroy them, less risks. There were also Atomics now present, flying toward the girls.

They returned to the Map Room to download the ship’s map.

“The Coverns have stopped appearing. Phantoon really had something to do with them,” Samus said.

“Or maybe it’s because the lights are on,” Sweetie Void guessed. “Ghosts tend to not like lights.”

“True.”

They returned to the stairwell and, after climbing a bit and fighting some Floows, took the first door that was now unlocked, entering a room with a Super Missile Expansion, careful of all the sparking wires.

Then, they took the passage that had previously been blocked and entered a new room with conveyors (that were now activated), robots, spikes (at both ends of the conveyors, of course), and some kind of floating spherical plants, Bulls, that revealed to be rather solid as the girls fired at them to stop them from ramming them. At the end of the room, they found a secret passage leading to another Super Missile Expansion.

Climbing the stairwell again, fighting more Floows as well as a couple of little black creatures with bombs for heads known as Bombeds (“Again a name they didn’t have to think long…” Samus said) while also killing some Atomics on the way, they arrived at another unlocked door that led to a room full of water. Because of the water, Samus couldn’t jump high enough to reach the other side of the room, so they had to leave it for now.

Above the room was the recharge station now activated, allowing Samus to replenish her energy and missiles.

Finally, after more climbing, killing more Atomics, Floows, and Bombeds, Sweetie and Samus reached what seemed to be the top of the stairwell, only for Samus to reveal that part of the ceiling can be destroyed, revealing a passage to another level of the stairwell that wasn’t even mapped. So they climbed again until reaching a blue door in the ceiling.

In the room above, they found themselves surrounded by Kihunters, yellow ones no doubt stronger than the ones the girls encountered until now. Atomics and colored one-eyed balls, Bytans, were also present, as well as pillar pods on the floor and suspended from the ceiling, cylindrical with broken glass domes that were sparking. The sparks even rained down from the suspended ones. And to make it worse, the entrance door locked itself with a metal door behind them.

The Kihunters were the closest threat, so the girls attacked them first before they could even do their swoop attacks. Once the closest Kihunters were eliminated, Sweetie and Samus targeted the Atomics and Bytans that were coming too close, targeting especially the Bytans who were multiplying fast. Sweetie quickly had to change targets to kill more Kihunters approaching. Thank the stars Samus had the Ice Beam to freeze the enemies and stop them from approaching too much. Finally, the room was cleared of all hostile life, and the doors were unlocked, both the one they came from and two others at both ends of the room.

Not minding the Zebetites present in the back of the room, they took one of the unlocked doors and entered a room with conveyors, lots of sparking wires, spikes at the bottom of gaps between the conveyors, and Work Robots firing right toward the entrance. Sweetie destroyed the robots right away, opening the path to the end of the room where a Missile Expansion awaited them.

Back in the previous room, they now took the other unlocked door which led them outside the ship where they spotted right away platform Rippers flying back and forth beside a wall. Having some suspicion, Sweetie flew toward the wall and fired at it near the highest Ripper, discovering a Missile Expansion that she then brought to Samus.

After that, they dropped from the door’s platform to find another blue door back into the ship. However, it led to a room that revealed to be a dead end, so they left and went instead to explore the large ledge which was actually the roof of the cavern with the scaffoldings. At first sight, there was nothing, but one scan later and Samus discovered two points in which the ground could be destroyed. So Samus and Sweetie separated to see where these passages led. Sweetie ended up finding a Missile Expansion while Samus found, after a water-filled room, a bridge to a door leading back to the ship guarded by a single Metal Primid.

Inside the ship again, they found themselves in a spike-lined room with grapple points to traverse and reach a Chozo statue. This statue was different from the others. Instead of sitting, it was up. A metal door closed behind the girls.

Samus used the grapple to reach the statue, having to hurry up in the second half of the room because some points threatened to crumble under her weight. Once they were both before the statue, Sweetie Void wondered what to do. The statue’s hand was outstretched, and yet, it wasn’t holding anything.

“The statues are all holding an orb, so this is probably what this one is waiting for,” Samus said. “I think I know what to do.”

At this, Samus jumped on the hand and curled into her Morph Ball. After a few seconds, her idea seemed to work because the statue activated and began to walk on the spikes. Sweetie followed after it.

Eventually, the statue reached a secret staircase among the spikes and descended to a room below where it eventually released Samus right before a blue door. Samus landed on a piece of floor that collapsed under her, revealing more damaged floor that could be destroyed. Wanting to see where it led first, she took the revealed passage instead of passing the blue door. The passage led to a dead end, but Samus guessed that it wasn’t the end of it, so she used a Power Bomb to reveal the end of the passage.

The girls were now before Work Robots that Sweetie destroyed, allowing Samus to reach a Chozo statue with a Missile Expansion, careful of the gaps with the spikes. The statue was quite damaged however, so Samus scanned it and found out that it could be destroyed with a Power Bomb. This revealed a secret room with a conveyor and a small shaft at the end.

Samus guessed that she had to use the Shinespark, however, because of the gaps, she didn’t have enough space to activate the Speed Booster. Thankfully, Sweetie was here.

“Can you put shields on the gaps so I can run? Normally, I’m guessing that I should have used the robots to step on, but since you destroyed them…”

“Yeah, sorry. Alright! Shields coming right up!”

This worked, and Samus was able to use the Shinespark to jump up the shaft and reach the top. From here, she quickly found a room with a Reserve Tank. After getting it, she just had to fall down a hole and through some floors that collapsed under her to return to the room with the conveyor. Then, it was just a matter of using the Speed Booster again (with Sweetie’s shields again) to break a wall and return in the passage to the room with the statue.

They took the blue door and entered a small room with a single upgrade orb in the center. Samus opened it and screamed in joy right away upon seeing what was inside.

“The Gravity Suit! Finally!”

She grabbed the Suit, and in a flash of light, her orange Suit turned purple.

“So, now, no limit?” Sweetie asked.

“No limit. I can go everywhere except in the most potent acids and in the most extreme heat.”

“So Maridia is now open to us!”

At this, they left the room by the opposite door and exited the ship. After a small drop, they returned into the ship by the long corridor with all the Zebetites, which were now activated and glowing green. The room was also now full of Primids. They then returned to the room with the water where Samus was now able to jump high enough to reach the other side (after killing a Bull).

Another room with water, with spikes and bottom-spiked platforms dropping from the ceiling. Samus had to carefully jump on the platforms to avoid the spikes and reach the other side of the room.

After a door, they reached another stairwell with water. They climbed it and fought more Floows as well as a Shaydas to reach a door that led outside the ship, into a submerged cavern with scaffoldings. Deciding to not go there right now because it was probably the path to Maridia, they returned in the ship and continued to climb the stairwell until reaching the top where a Power Bomb revealed another level with a red door to a submerged room.

grapple points and green platforms were present to reach an Energy Tank. Instead, Sweetie flew to it to bring it back to Samus.

With this, the exploration of the ship seemed to be over.

“And now, we can continue,” Samus said.

Sweetie nodded, and so, they returned to the cavern with the scaffoldings, ready to go to Maridia.

Back in Ponyville, with Crocy.

The last thing Dream Warper was expecting when Rarity Void asked her and the girls to meet her at Timid’s house, considering the chaos in town, was a peaceful creature that looked like it would be carnivorous shoveling iron ore into its maw. That said, she wasn’t against a creature being peaceful despite its look.

Though there was the matter of one question that she needed to ask, “So Rarity, where did you say it came from?”

“Sweetie Void sent him over, something about not having time for proper presentations, though I am quite relieved that I won’t be having to upscale my own mining trips to include a supply to feed him,” Rarity Void answered with a breath of relief. “Though, that does raise the question of where Pinkie got the amount of ore she did,” she then continued as both she and Dream Warper looked at the pile of ore that easily equaled the creature itself in height.

Dream Warper looked between it and Surprise, the pink pony currently hauling another duffle bag full of ore from… wherever she’s getting it, then said, “Probably better that we don’t ask.”

“Yes, you’re probably right about that, darling,” Rarity Void replied as she adjusted Spiky, whom Sweetie Void had left in her care, while he napped on her back.

Meanwhile, a little white rabbit hopped its way up to Crocy, then gave the much larger creature a stink eye. As the rabbit pulled out a carrot, Timid pulled it out from its paw.

“Angel, be nice, he’s just staying here until Sweetie Void comes back,” the typically shy pegasus scolded as the rabbit crossed its forelegs.

Discord, who had managed to keep quiet for this amount of time (moreso because he was still laughing at the panic of the ponies in town), then spoke up, “Ah yes, well speaking of which, it is getting late, so while Fluttershy and I get Crocy settled mayhaps the rest of you get some well needed rest? Besides, something tells me that Sweetie Void isn’t the only one to get a new pet.”

“OH! By the way, my Pinkie Sense went off while I was on my way here, and Jackie hasn’t gotten here yet, so do you think you can make it to Black Apples cute-ceañera and her new friend’s “Welcome to Ponyville” party tomorrow?” Surprise suddenly burst out loud to everyone.

…

…

…

“Black Apple got her Cutie Mark?” Everypony asked at once as Discord opened a viewing rift and Crocy just stared at Surprise in… surprise.

“And a new Fri~end!” the pink pony replied, chipper as ever. “Ooh speaking of friends, Crocy, meet my pet gator, Gummy.” Surprise said, following with her placing her pet toothless alligator on the Crocomire’s head.

Their eyes moved to meet, Gummy’s two eyes each meeting four of Crocy’s, the two staring at one another, as the larger reptile swallowed its current mouthful of iron.

Later that night

Shadow Speedster lay in her bed, trying to sleep. Trying being the key word.

Ideas of how she could catch up to Sweetie Void and Black Apple in fighting ability spun through her mind as quickly as her beloved Shadow Raven. Finally, with a resigned groan, Shadow Speedster threw her sheets off of her, went to the desk in her room, laid out a sheet of paper, and began jotting down notes, muttering to herself all the while.

By the time she was finally tired enough to go to sleep, she had a solid idea of what she could do to have her own way to fight. Now she just needed some help to make it real.

Chapter 165: Maridia

The path to Maridia was revealed to be linear. From the moment they entered the cavern with the scaffoldings, they just had to follow the path while fighting the various hostile critters, starting with Choots. These green creatures were more a nuisance than a problem. They remained dormant wherever they were, waiting for a prey to approach. If something got too close, they jumped, then used their flat, parachute-like body to sway from side to side as they glided down with the goal to land on the prey to devour them, their mouth being in their underside. This made them easy to eliminate. Even if one managed to fall on Samus, she could easily counter them with a melee attack.

The scaffoldings led into water. With the Gravity Suit, Samus didn’t have any problem moving in it, allowing her to easily avoid and kill some fishes with bony frames named Skulteras. They exited the water at the end of the cavern by jumping on ledges to reach the exit door.

They entered a shaft that was empty except for two Cagos. It led to a partially submerged tunnel with many small passages for the Morph Ball, making it maze-like, but not really because the path was rather forward. Scisers, crab-like creatures already encountered here and there in Crateria, were present in the passages, forcing Samus to deal with some of them with her bombs unless she let Sweetie do the job. These passages led to a door to a small room with a yellow door in the ground. After the yellow door was an elevator.

They arrived in a shaft with Rippers present right away.

“And here is Maridia. Be careful with these tunnels. The hardened sand is fragile. It shouldn’t be long before we find water,” Samus said.

“If I have to, I can turn the sand into glass.”

Under the elevator was a narrow tunnel going down. Inside it were more Rippers that Sweetie eliminated to open the way and allow them to jump. They landed before a red door to a recharge station. Another jump down and they reached the bottom of the shaft which was submerged (“Told you we would quickly find water.”) with a spiked-shelled creature named Owtch. It was buried in the sand so it tried to ambush Sweetie and Samus, but as soon as they saw it come out, they moved aside and killed it.

Passing the door, they entered a partially submerged tunnel with lots of platforms made of grass with Choots and weird elastic yellow blobs named Puyos (on which a melee counter worked very well). Numerous Primids were also present, as well as flying cyclops fishes and a couple of golden-helmeted flying ammonites, respectively known as Feyeshes (Sweetie laughed at that one) and Armights. Sweetie had the idea of controlling with her telekinesis the javelin-swords of the Armights to attack the others while Samus fired at anything that got too close while avoiding the Feyeshes’ projectiles.

“I would think they’d be a little less organized with their commanders gone,” Sweetie Void commented.

Samus gave a chuckle at that. “Well, I can’t say for the Subspace creatures, but I have it on personal experience that the Pirates have spent enough time without Ridley to stay organized until he returns. Under normal circumstances at least.”

The filly chuckled at the bounty hunter’s reply.

After the tunnel was a small room with quicksand underwater out of which came blue shrimp-like creatures, Zoas, that swam backward toward Samus and Sweetie Void. There were also two Yapping Maws coming out of the sand, trying to drag the girls into it. The girls easily eliminated all of them and jumped above the quicksand to reach the other side where they took the exit door.

They arrived in a cavern with a shaft in the ceiling and two holes into water before the girls. There were some Choots and a few Puppits. When Sweetie and Samus jumped into the water, they were welcomed by Skulteras and Feyeshes. This underwater section led, after a couple of Owtches, to a tunnel passing under it and to another shaft leading out of the water. They explored the tunnel first, leading to a door to a small room which, according to the map, was just under the quicksand they passed earlier. The exit was blocked by a metal door however, so this was a dead end.

So they went to climb the shaft out of water and entered a small tunnel to a green door in the ground.

As they approached the door, however, they walked near a red thing poking out of the sand. Suddenly, something jumped out of the sand and Sweetie found herself with a pair of spiky lips on her face.

“AAAH GETITOFFMEGETITOFFME GET IT THE F#$% OFF OF ME!” the filly said as she tore the thing apart to… well, get it off of her. Samus helped by grabbing the plant-like creature attached to the fillies’ face and pulling as Sweetie shredded the lips of the creature. The two then took a moment to breathe as the sudden encounter processed for the both of them.

Samus started chuckling at Sweetie Void’s reaction, until the latter glared at her, silencing the laughter.

“What was that thing?” the filly asked.

“It’s called a Bucculus, it apparently absorbs life energy to fuel an organ of some kind. They also tend to hide in ambush,” Samus answered as she suddenly blasted a section of the floor with a charge shot, sending another Bucculus into the air and onto the ground, where it flopped around for a bit before jumping at the girls. Sweetie promptly skewered it on an energy blade and absorbed what she could of the fading Void Energy.

“Moving on,” the filly said before turning back to the door.

“By the way, did you seriously censor yourself?” Samus asked.

“Well, I’m still a filly. What would Rarity think if she heard me say that?”

Also, Writer, I’m totally somehow getting you back for that.

Looking at the door, they decided to not take it right away, instead climbing the shaft to the top to see where it led. At the top, after fighting an Armight, was a pit which led to the top of the first shaft they saw earlier in the ceiling of the cavern. Riding on a shield as they descended into it, they found a metal door. With all paths but one blocked by metal doors, this forced the girls to take the green door which revealed to lead into a vertical tube.

They jumped into it.

They fell down the tube for a while before they were launched out at the other side, right into a shaft in a purple metallic structure which was underwater.

We must have gone through all of Maridia with this tube. It will be a nice shortcut from top to bottom, Sweetie Void said through a telepathic link now that they were underwater.

Samus nodded. I confirm, we are at the bottom of Maridia. The map says we are above Kraid’s lair.

They moved to the bottom of the shaft where Samus used a bomb to destroy part of the floor, allowing them to enter a corridor where they had to choose between two blue doors.

Samus pointed at a door. This one leads in the direction of the glass tube before the elevator to Norfair.

Then let’s see what we have this way first.

So they passed the door, exiting the purple structure and entering a big underwater tunnel full of quicksands and sandfalls.

Samus groaned. Sandfalls. They will hinder my jumps.

Despite this, they advanced, carefully jumping on purple blocks and pillars while being mindful of the sandfalls. Giant armored gray crayfish-like creatures (without the pincers) named Evirs that didn’t seem natural were present. They didn’t seem natural because their tail was a cannon launching spiked balls of the same color, so they were probably a result of pirate experiments. Maybe they even served them. Now that they remembered, one of the golden statues showed one such creature, pretty much confirming this hypothesis.

The Evirs were hidden in the sand and jumped out to fire with their cannon. In addition, their armor was solid so only Samus’ missiles worked on them. Thankfully, the Ice Beam could easily freeze them, turning them into easy targets. But supporting them were more Feyeshes and some Puppits, so they were priority after freezing the Evirs. After all these obstacles, they arrived at the exit door which led to a small tunnel with a single red Sciser, then to a room with two broken pipe halves, as if there had once been a glass tube here but it was now destroyed. There were two purple blocks under which was a hole. After dealing with Scisers, they took the door in the opposite broken pipe halve only to enter a tunnel blocked by a metal gate which the Wave Beam couldn’t open, meaning it must have a green light that needed a Super Missile to open on the other side. A small red robotic helmeted tank was here, launching a lance at them. Sweetie stopped the lance with her magic while Samus fired at it, destroying the helmet and revealing a yellow light. Guessing that it was the tank’s weakness, Sweetie pierced it with her swords, destroying the tank which Samus revealed was an Autolance.

They returned to the previous room and dropped down the hole under the blocks, Samus having to be in Morph Ball to reach it. Entering another purple metallic room with some Scisers and a wheel expelling electricity known as a Glunder, they found themselves having to choose between a blue door and a red door. They opened the red door first which led to Maridia’s map room.

Samus groaned. According to the map, the door we haven’t taken leads to a dead end with probably an upgrade.

Sweetie Void sighed. And the area before we fell down that hole, we can’t return there, unless you want me to teleport us.

No, we will certainly manage to return there eventually.

Ok.

They left the map room and took the blue door, entering a tunnel out of water with uneven floor divided into pits, some of which had Boyons and Zebbos. After traversing a first part of the tunnel, they reached a metal gate that Samus opened with a Super Missile, allowing them to continue into a similar second part of the tunnel where, in addition to the previous critters, there were also Feyeshes. At the end, Samus jumped into a small hole which led back into the passage between the glass tube and the entrance to Kraid’s lair with the elevator to Norfair.

"And now, watch the magic," Samus said before she led Sweetie into the glass tube.

Then, she used a Power Bomb. When it exploded, it destroyed the glass tube so, now, they were underwater..

Nice! Sweetie shouted.

Now in a shaft, Samus moved down toward a red door to a recharge station. Then, they climbed the shaft and entered a much bigger shaft with diamond-esque structures with a square pattern in the background and a red door right at the bottom. The door led back to the metal gate they couldn’t open back then.

So, time to see what is behind that door, Sweetie Void said.

Samus nodded. Even if it means traversing that sand room again.

So they returned to the purple shaft (fighting more Feyeshes) and took the door they didn’t choose earlier, entering another sand room with larger sandfalls, larger gaps between pillars (too large to cross in one jump), and more Evirs and Feyeshes as well as several Cymuls. Because of the large gaps, Samus had no choice but to go in the sand.

After that was a small purple room with more sand and a single grapple point which was damaged. A door led to a similar room, but without a grapple point. Instead, in this room, the ceiling could be damaged, but it led to a dead end where the ceiling would collapse under someone’s weight. Back in the room with the grapple point, Samus had an idea and used the grapple. However, this time, she remained attached to the grapple point until it was destroyed by her weight. This left a hole through which she could jump, entering a shaft.

She had to wall jump to reach the top of this shaft, exiting the water. There were many flying robotic bugs called Menus swooping at them, but Sweetie easily eliminated them, allowing Samus to land safe and sound. They then dropped on a metallic purple floor which collapsed under them, making them drop to another purple floor with a Puyo. This repeated a couple more times, fighting a Glunder, until they landed in a room with a blue door.

Behind the door was a partially submerged room with some spherical robot with two arms ending in excavating gears. The robot, a Shaktool, wasn’t hostile, it just moved around in the room, so Samus decided to leave it alone and to scan the room which seemed to be a dead end. However, this revealed to not be the case because the back wall could be destroyed with a Power Bomb. And the Shaktool wasn’t even affected by the bomb.

Destroying the wall revealed a wall of sand toward which the Shaktool moved. The robot then began to break through it, opening the way. It took some time to move through what revealed to be a tunnel filled with sand, but they eventually reached the other side where two snail-like creatures with pincers, Yards, awaited them. Once the snails were killed, Sweetie and Samus moved around the Shaktool and exited the room.

In the next room was a passage for the Morph Ball leading to a Chozo statue holding an orb containing the Spring Ball upgrade.

“Something I would have loved to have right from the start. Now, I will be able to jump while in Morph Ball,” Samus said.

“Great! No need to use bombs anymore! Well, now that we are done here, I guess that we can return to that shaft that we haven’t explored yet.”

“Yeah.”

So they returned to the underwater shaft and climbed it, dealing with more Scisers and a Skultera before they reached a tunnel with a blue door. However, it led to another shaft that was a dead end with a Floow welcoming them, so they returned to the previous shaft and continued to climb, dealing with more Scisers, Skulteras, Feyeshes, and a couple of Shaydas. At a moment, Samus’ scanner revealed a ceiling section that could be destroyed only with the Speed Booster, meaning that the Shinespark had to be used.

“Oh. We have to return to the tunnel with the gate,” Samus said. “That tunnel is the only place in this area where I will be able to activate the Shinespark.”

So they returned at the bottom of the shaft and opened the door, then the gate. After dealing with all the Scisers in the tunnel, Samus went to the end, then began to run. Just before reaching the door back to the shaft, she stopped to charge the Shinespark. She then went through the door, then went to a precise spot right under the ceiling section that could be destroyed, and jumped. She was successful, getting a Missile Expansion. With that done, they resumed climbing the shaft which was narrowing. At the top was a blue door.

They now entered a huge cavern with the same mysterious background as in the shaft. There was a huge gap with three rock formations above which with floating balloon-like creatures called Powamps. To traverse the gap, there were grapple points. Instead of traversing it, Samus jumped into the gap and landed on the first rock formation from which she spotted a small passage into the wall beside the formation. Before jumping into it, they had to deal with Feyeshes and Floows and even a skull turret known as a Roturret. They had to be careful to not fire at the Powamps. Once done, Samus curled into her Morph Ball and jumped toward the wall so she could enter the passage which led to a Super Missile Expansion.

Leaving the passage, she ignored the blue door in the floor at the bottom of the wall, Wall Jumped to return to the rock formation and jumped on the two other formations to join another blue door in the floor. In the cavern under, which was a succession of pits, they faced more Skulteras and encountered pink Space Pirates that revealed to resist everything that Samus possessed except the Speed Booster and something called the Charge attack which puzzled Samus. This left Sweetie to deal with the pink Space Pirates while Samus searched what was the Charge Attack within the database of the Suit.

She found it.

Huh. Listen to this. Apparently, I can charge my beam, and then spin jump which results in a weaker version of the Screw Attack. Why am I learning that only now?

You never give a look at your database, uh? Sweetie asked.

Samus sighed. I never bothered.

Well, it’s nice to know that you have this option until you find the real Screw Attack.

Yeah.

With all the pirates eliminated, they found a tunnel leading to a red door. Behind was a large room with a high ceiling. Far near the top, they could see a single grapple point, and Samus identified a piece of wall that could be destroyed. Those were too high for her to reach however.

Before them was a large tortoise-like creature currently in its shell which was covered in mushrooms, around which were a bunch of smaller turtles.

Tatoris. If I manage to make the mother angry, I could stand on its shell while it’s spinning and make it jump very high to reach that grapple point, Samus explained.

And the best way to make a mother angry is to attack its children. No! Way! Let’s use one of my shields.

So they used one of Sweetie’s shields to move up and reach the grapple point on which was an Energy Tank. On the way was another Roturret. Samus then destroyed the fragile piece of wall and got a Missile Expansion.

They found nothing else in this room, and there was no other exit, so they left and returned to the cavern with the three rock formations. Here, after dealing with more Feyeshes and a couple of Glunders moving around the rock formations, careful again to not hit the Powamps, Samus used the grapple on one of the Powamps so it could transport her to the grapple points. They then reached a door in the ceiling to a small shaft with a red Skultera that revealed to be a shortcut to Brinstar, passing by that room with a metal gate they hadn’t been able to open back then, beside the red shaft with the elevator to Crateria, behind a small passage for the Morph Ball.

They didn’t want to return to Brinstar however so they returned to the cavern and traversed the gap to the blue door at the end, entering a purple metallic structure with a Sciser. Here, part of the ground could be destroyed, but first, they climbed the shaft to a blue door in the ceiling, leaving the structure and returning to the top part of Maridia with the hardened sand, in a different cavern just beside the one with the tube they took.

Still underwater, after dealing with some Skulteras, Feyeshes, and an Owtch, they found a Missile Expansion. After that, they exited the water, dealing with some Choots before they took a blue door to a tunnel partially submerged. Some Menus and lots of Owtches were present but were easily dealt with. At the end was a shaft leading to a blue door.

They followed a passage with two fissures out of which came Geegas and eliminated two Bucculus before they reached another shaft leading down to a Missile Expansion and a Super Missile Expansion back underwater defended by a well placed Choot.

How is it that these expansions seem specifically placed? Sweetie Void asked, thinking out loud through the telepathic link.

Knowing the Chozo, they likely hid them here for me to find, in their ‘infinite wisdom," Samus replied, a mix of nostalgia and annoyance in her voice.

I’m surprised the pirates didn’t remove them.

Fair enough. Some of the Missile Expansions, at least, I can confirm, are from the Pirates’ own munitions, so make of that what you will.

What about the upgrades? Kraid’s room was just beside the Varia Suit.

They couldn’t open the orbs, so they didn’t know what were in them, and so, they didn’t care about them.

There were no other paths, so they returned to the purple structure and, this time, destroyed the fragile floor to reveal a secret room filled with Scisers with a green door.

Behind it was a small room with a piece of floor that could be destroyed with the Power Bomb. They dropped down the formed hole and found themselves in front of a red door leading to a recharge station. Back outside, they followed the corridor to a giant room, Sweetie dealing with the Yard in the way.

It was surprisingly cold here, icicles had formed on the ceiling. The tube they used earlier could be seen in the center of the room, between two walls made of grapple points. Three Roturrets were present, as well as Glunders, an Autolance, two red monocycles known as Roaders, Feyeshes, Floows, and Armights. Sweetie Void had to get out her ten cannon to deal with all of them while Samus used Power Bombs, dealing heavy damage to groups. The Roturrets were too far above ground to reach even with the Power Bombs’ explosions, so Sweetie was the one destroying them, targeting them rapidly to stop them from firing.

After all the enemies were gone, some exploration revealed the presence of a section that could be destroyed with the Shinespark, so Samus ran and jumped, reaching a secret room with a Missile Expansion and a Super Missile Expansion. Samus then let part of the floor collapse under her to lead her to another small room with a blue door which led to a dead end with sandfalls.

They returned to the giant room through a tunnel and Samus bombed a part of the floor to reveal a hole leading to a section under the room with two quicksands. Nothing was here however. So they returned to the room and Samus climbed the grapple point walls, then used the Grappling Beam on more grapple points in the ceiling to reach a blue door.

They were now in a narrow passage with pipes blocking the way. Parts of the pipes could be destroyed, only to reveal what looked like Metroids, but with a single nucleus and a lack of muscle-like tissues above the fangs. The Metroid lookalikes were very easily killed, showing that they were very fragile compared to actual Metroids.

Samus scanned one and tsked. Damn. They already cloned it. These things are failed clones of the baby. Mochtroids.

I guess that this is bad. At least, you have the Ice Beam if we encounter successful clones.

As they advanced in the passage, destroying more pipes and killing more Mochtroids, they encountered Puyos before reaching the door at the end.

The new room was rather small but had lots of holes in the green, porous wall at the left. There was a pipe in the back with cracks. out of one of the holes came an orange sea-serpent that swam around a bit before entering another hole.

A Botwoon. It can fire spores from its mouth, Samus described.

Not a problem then, Sweetie said as they avoided said spores fired by the Botwoon’s head poking out of a hole.

Samus fired a Super Missile at the head before it could return in the hole, dealing a lot of damage. This repeated a couple more times, the snake’s head poking out of a hole to fire spores only to be hit by a Super Missile from Samus and a beam from Sweetie. The snake then came out to swim around, trying to ram the girls.

As the snake passed beside Sweetie, the filly turned into a human two times Samus’ size and grabbed it. Then, she used it as a rope to do some jump rope.

Why miss an opportunity to have some fun at work? she questioned.

Samus laughed. It kills the monotony. Hey, how about you throw it at this pipe? I have a feeling.

Okay.

So Sweetie stopped and threw the Botwoon at the cracked pipe, destroying it and stunning the no doubt dizzied snake by the same occasion. Before it could recover, Samus approached the head, opened the mouth, and fired Super Missiles in it until it died.

The destroyed pipe revealed another part of the room with a blue door.

Something to hide? Sweetie Void questioned with a big smile.

Certainly. Either a big upgrade or a target. Maybe both, Samus said.

They traversed the newly revealed section of room and took the door, entering a long corridor with some Puyos easily killed. After advancing a bit, they encountered quicksands and a wall blocking the path unless Samus curled into her Morph Ball which would be risky because of the quicksands. If the map was right, the quicksands would make them fall into the dead end room with the sandfalls after the giant freezing purple room. Not that it wasn’t freezing here too. It hadn’t stopped freezing since they left the room. It seemed like everywhere inside these purple ruins was freezing.

The wall could be destroyed by the Speed Booster, but before that, Samus spotted above the entrance a passage for the Morph Ball. The problem was that the entrance was right above the quicksands. So Samus would have to do a big jump and turn into her Morph Ball midair to enter it.

She was successful and she ended up finding an Energy Tank. Not only that, but the passage continued above the quicksands and went all the way to the other side, meaning that they didn’t have to destroy the wall.

So they left the passage and took the blue door at the end of the corridor, entering a shaft with walls made of grapple points and some Mochtroids. Mid-climb, there was a metal door. They will have to return here later. Before climbing, they found a small passage leading to a corridor with, at the end, a room with a Super Missile Recharge Unit. To return to the shaft faster, they could destroy part of a pipe and use the Speed Booster to run through more pipes.

At the top of the shaft, they left by a blue door and entered a large and especially long room filled with quicksands and with many grapple points, many of which formed walls. More Mochtroids were present here. Traversing the room asked for a lot of precision with the Grappling Beam and some jumps for Samus who had to be careful of some spikes while Sweetie dealt with the Mochtroids, but they eventually reached two doors: a red one at the top and a green one at the bottom, both in the opposite side of the room from the entrance.

The red door led to a recharge station and a Power Bomb Recharge Unit while the green door led to the next step of the exploration: a shaft with spikes. Among them was a hole to descend. There were also grapple points leading to a Missile Expansion. At the bottom of the shaft was one of these one-eyed door-creatures. Some missiles in the eye and they entered.

They arrived on a ledge in a large room, at the top. The room’s floor had sand, thankfully not quicksand, and was littered with dried husks of Scisers as well as pipes half burried. In the wall facing them, they could see two turrets, including one that was already destroyed and that sparked electricity as a result. There were some boxes floating in the background, in the darkness.

They saw right away the giant ape-like purple robot, or cyborg?

They jumped from the ledge, spotting two more turrets in the wall under it. Samus immediately worked to destroy the turrets with her missiles so they would stop firing electrical bullets at them while Sweetie attacked the robot. While this happened, dark green Evirs came and began some sort of dance across the room, not attacking the girls for some reason.

Sweetie quickly cut one of the robot’s arms while it fired homing missiles from rocket launchers on its back. She then grabbed the arm in her magic and slapped the robot with it. With such huge hands, the robot was sent crashing on its side, crushing one of the dancing Evirs.

Oops.

The remaining Evirs scattered, and suddenly, a much bigger Evir, several times bigger with a green outer shell (with screaming faces on the forehead!), a big, yellow, soft stomach, big, round, bloodshot eyes, and a round mouth full of fangs, swam hastily toward Sweetie Void, pushing the robot out of the way. Sweetie slapped the giant crayfish with the robot’s arm, sending it crashing on the robot.

It’s our target, Samus said. Draygon. Seems like she’s the mother of all these Evirs.

Sweetie Void winced.

The weakpoint is the belly, but it’s still hard enough that I will need Super Missiles, Samus continued.

Darn. If she wasn’t working for the Space Pirates, I would feel bad. Well, I do actually feel bad about accidentally killing that dancing Evir.

Samus sighed. Let’s just get this over with. You deal with the robot, which is a Galleom by the way, and I deal with Draygon. When you finish the Galleom, I wouldn’t mind the help.

Give me one minute.

At this, Sweetie Void threw the arm at the Galleom who just got up, sending him crashing again. Meanwhile Samus gained the attention of Draygon by firing a Super Missile at her belly.

Sweetie Void flew toward the Galleom, avoided one of his punches, and fired a point blank blast at his face. The Galleom tried to smash her but she easily flew out of the way and cut his other arm. The Galleom quickly turned into a tank and flew farther away to fire missiles. Very quickly, Sweetie kicked the missiles to turn them toward the Galleom so they flew toward him. While the Galleom recovered from getting missiles in the face, Sweetie levitated his arms and used them to repeatedly punch him. The Galleom tried to escape but Sweetie held him in place with his arms, allowing her to pierce him at several points with her ten swords. From these points, she slashed him. The Galleom began to explode, pieces flying around until what remained dropped, not moving anymore.

Her enemy destroyed, Sweetie Void turned around to see how Samus fared and saw her held by Draygon who swam around very rapidly. Acting quickly, Sweetie punched Draygon in the face with one of the Galleom’s arms, making her drop Samus.

Thanks for the save, Samus said. That thing can secrete sticky mucus that slows me down, allowing her to grab me. I wouldn’t have loved what would have come next if you hadn’t stopped her.

Alright. Be careful of sticky mucus. Understood. What else?

So far, nothing else. She just swims very rapidly to try to ram me. Because of that, I have very little opening to fire at her belly. Still managed to land a few Super Missiles.

Then count on me!

At that, Sweetie Void used the Galleom’s hands to hold Draygon in place, giving to Samus all the time to fire at her in the world. Draygon secreted her sticky mucus, but besides slowing their movements, it did nothing to help her.

After many Super Missiles, Draygon’s stomach burst open and Sweetie released her, allowing her to sink into the sand until only her head remained out as she closed her eyes and expired. Then, the dark green Evirs returned and burrowed into the sand with her body in silence, leaving nothing behind.

Sweetie sighed sadly, then shook her head. This had to be done. She was a Space Pirate.

Samus nodded.

The metal door at the end of the room was now unlocked and they passed it, entering a room with a Chozo statue holding a new upgrade: the Space Jump.

Now, I can pretty much fly, Samus said. Now I really can get anywhere.

I guess that my shields will be less useful now, Sweetie said with a chuckle.

Chapter 166: Lower Norfair

Samus had to use the Space Jump right away to reach the ledge from which they entered Draygon’s room. After that, it was a matter of backtracking until reaching the shaft with the walls made of grapple points where a metal door now unlocked awaited them. Now that Samus could “fly”, it was very easy. But Samus not having yet the Screw Attack, she had to drop on whatever surface she could so she could fire at the Mochtroids. At least, Sweetie had her back so such stops didn’t happen a lot.

In the shaft, they took the metal door and entered a large room with lots of spikes where Samus had to use the Space Jump to go through the passages while Sweetie defeated the Blue Cacatacs. Before long, they reached the exit, entering a shaft with more Cacatacs. At the bottom, they took the door and found themselves back in that small room under the quicksand in upper Maridia where a metal door had blocked the path. One door later and they were back in the cavern leading to the tube.

Hey. Thanks to your Space Jump, you will be able to reach that metal door up there, Sweetie exclaimed, remembering said metal door they briefly saw the first time.

That’s right. And I think that I will love the upgrade that is certainly hidden behind.

So they returned to the part of the cavern out of water and, from here, Samus Space Jumped until reaching the metal door after which was a shaft full of Choots and Puyos. Reaching the top, again, was very easy thanks to the Space Jump while Sweetie eliminated the critters in the way.

At the top, they entered a small tunnel with a colony of Puyos before they reached a room with Pink Space Pirates. Sweetie began to deal with them while Samus dropped until reaching a Chozo statue holding what revealed to be the Plasma Beam. Samus had an evil smirk at that.

She immediately turned around and fired at a Pink Space Pirate. The beam proved to be stronger than the armor, and the pirate was dead in one hit, Ice Beam deactivated.

“Ah! Feeling less smug now, right motherfucker?”

And so, after a jump to reach the level above, she began to fire around to help Sweetie kill the pirates still alive, which weren’t many.

Once all the pirates were dead, Sweetie asked, “New beam?”

“Yes. And probably the most powerful one I will ever find in this mission. There aren’t many who can survive the Plasma Beam, as you saw. Those pirates never stood a chance.”

“Mmh… I think that this is everything in Maridia. Unless I’m missing something.”

“Well, actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those quicksands lead to secret caverns, but I don’t feel like re-exploring Maridia all over again to test the quicksands one by one.”

“Fair enough. Then, what next?”

“Next… Back to Norfair. Now that I can go into the lava, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a new path, and I think that I know where to search.”

“Mmmmmh… That suspicious room full of lava that had been behind a yellow door at the bottom of a shaft?”

“That one.”

“Ok.”

So they returned to the tube, back to the underwater section of Maridia. After many Feyeshes, Armights, Puppits and a couple of Shaydas, they dropped back to the tunnel leading to Kraid’s lair and went on the elevator to Norfair.

Back in Norfair, they descended the elevator shaft, finding Cymuls, before they passed the door to the recharge station (the more direct path at the bottom of the shaft was blocked by the metal gate which had indeed closed and could only be opened by a Super Missile on the other side). After using it to replenish ammunitions, they took the opposite door to the long tunnel that had been blocked which was now full of Subspace creatures, starting with a giant horned beetle-like enemy with strange green legs, a Shellpod, which the shell was destroyed after a bit to reveal a weird creature that was easily defeated after that. Several chickens, named Tickens, followed, then a second Shellpod, then a sleeping ram-like enemy that was awakened by the noise of the battle against the Shellpod and went on the offensive by charging at Samus whilst emitting electricity. Sweetie stopped the ram, a Towtow, with a shield in its path. More Tickens followed along with Metal Primids before the girls finally reached the exit which was guarded by an Autolance.

They traversed the following cavern, then entered the purple room under the large bubble room, then descended the shaft under it before they traversed the lava-filled tunnel that followed, fighting Primids, including Fire Primids, on the way. Finally, they were back in the shaft leading to the room which was their objective. After fighting more Primids and Tickens as well as a couple of Floows, they entered said room.

Before jumping into the lava, Sweetie said, “I remark that we are fighting more and more Subspace minions. They are really sending everything now.”

“Yeah. Not that they last long against you and me now that I have the Plasma Beam.”

Sweetie giggled. “Too bad Ridley escaped. I would have loved to see him facing the both of us.”

At that, they jumped into the lava, which revealed to be full of cousins of the Funes, Namihes, which were totally invincible to the Plasma Beam, meaning that Sweetie had to be the one dealing with them. Once at the bottom of the lava lake, Samus used the Space Jump to get back out on the other side, reaching a sculpted head of Ridley leading to an elevator. At the other side of the elevator was a door to a recharge station in case Samus needed to replenish. They took the elevator.

They arrived in what must be a really old temple deep underground (the pillars were cracked). The temperature here was suffocating, and instead of lava, there was acid.

“Welcome to Lower Norfair. When I think of Hell, this place comes to mind,” Samus said.

Sweetie looked around, especially at the cavern glowing red and even seemingly moving because of the heat visible beyond the temple’s wall. “I went through my fair share of hellish places, but I think that this one takes the cake. I doubt anyone would survive without your suit or my powers.”

“It shows how determined the Chozos were to build a temple all the way down here. I question why they did that.”

“If even you don’t know, then the only ones who would know are the Chozos themselves. Anyway, which direction?”

“This place isn’t mapped. We will have to go blind and choose.”

At that, Samus faced one direction randomly and walked this way. The chosen path revealed to lead to a platforming section with black Dragons firing fireballs from the acid and fire jets on some pillars. Fire Primids were present on the pillars that didn’t have fire jets. Samus simply Space Jumped near the ceiling, passing above the obstacles while Sweetie eliminated the Dragons and Primids.

In the next room was a large gap filled with acid. No choice but to use the Space Jump to reach the other side. Once there, a scan revealed a wall that could be destroyed with a Power Bomb, revealing a Chozo statue standing, like in the wrecked ship. So Samus curled into her Morph Ball and jumped onto the statue’s hand which lowered like a lever. The room then shook, and the acid drained until none was left, revealing a small passage at the bottom.

“What’s with these statues that affect the environment? We’ve seen a few of them now,” Sweetie Void asked.

“Chozo security measure. They may have overlooked the fact that Urthic ore is renowned for its stability for construction, but is not exactly well known for or even really that good at suppressing warping tech of any kind,” Samus explained. “Still useful for keeping areas closed off to outsiders, obviously.”

After going through a Morph Ball passage, they reached another platforming section on pillars above acid. However, this time, there were a Magdolite and flying round horned one-eyed robots about Sweetie’s size named Holtz. These last ones seemed to have heavy armor, but thankfully, the Plasma Beam made short work of them.

In the next room was a Missile Expansion. However, it was revealed to be at the other side of a part of the floor that collapsed so, while Samus fell, Sweetie flew to the expansion and took it.

Samus fell in a large, empty room. At the end was a metal door. Samus took the Missile Expansion from Sweetie, then walked toward the metal door. Suddenly, Sweetie’s whip was wrapped around Samus’ waist, and she was pulled back before a Chozo statue dropped from the ceiling where she had been.

Understandably, this statue was revealed to be a Torizo.

A Golden Torizo.

“Aw shit,” Samus groaned.

“So, how bad is it?” Sweetie asked.

“Watch.”

Samus fired a Super Missile only for the Torizo to catch it before throwing it back at Samus who jumped away to avoid it.

“Oh, ok, it can casually catch missiles,” Sweetie said as they moved away from the approaching Torizo.

“Yeah, and Super Missiles are the best way to damage it. Without them, the fight will last a while.”

“Well then…”

In the blink of an eye, Sweetie Void suddenly charged right through the Torizo, leaving behind a large hole in its torso. The Torizo stopped moving, then exploded. Sweetie shook off the liquid that had been inside the robot.

“There we go,” she finished.

Samus, immobile, stared at her in amazement.

“Come on, I’m sure it was guarding something,” Sweetie said, waving at Samus to come after her. She then moved toward the metal door which was now unlocked.

Samus shook her head to recover her senses. “This filly scares me.”

Before leaving the room, Samus scanned around, like always, and found a piece of the ceiling that could be destroyed. She fired at it until she had enough space to be able to land after jumping there. Then, she used a Power Bomb to find a Super Missile Expansion

Once done, they left the room and found themselves before a Chozo statue holding an orb.

This orb revealed containing something that made Samus whoop: the Screw Attack. She almost wanted to cackle.

“Now, I will be unstoppable,” she said instead.

Sweetie grinned. “Now, they shall run in fear of not only me, but you too.”

Samus used the Screw Attack right away to destroy the ceiling, revealing a shaft with a blue door to a Power Bomb Recharge Unit. Back in the shaft, Samus destroyed the ceiling with the Screw Attack again to reveal a small room with a blue door.

In the next room, filled with acid, were very fast Ripper II that Samus shredded with the Screw Attack. After them was a metal gate with a green light, meaning that she had to use a Super Missile to open it. A blue door followed, leading to a small room with another blue door and a destructible part of the ceiling leading to a shaft after destroying the floor with a Power Bomb. At the bottom of the shaft was a blue door leading back to the elevator room. At the top, under Chozo statue heads with their beak open, was another blue door that the girls decided not to take, taking first the blue door in the room at the bottom.

The next room had rising acid. Samus used the Screw Attack to go through pillars and reach the exit door. Entering a shaft, Sweetie killed the Namihe while Samus used the Screw Attack to shred through Gold Space Pirates and Shaydas before going through the ceiling to a second section of the shaft where there were more Namihes and Gold Space Pirates. Instead of taking the door, Samus went through the ceiling again to enter a small room with a part of the floor that could be destroyed.

After destroying another floor, they landed on a floor that collapsed under them. Just before it collapsed, they saw a small passage. Sweetie went into it and returned a few seconds later with a Missile Expansion. After that, they went through more floors with Multiviolas and Roturrets before reaching a corridor with Desgeegas (large ones, not the small ones encountered in Upper Norfair) and Metal Primids. Plasma Beam and superpowerful magical beams made short work of them.

“They really don’t want us going any further, do they?” Samus thought out loud.

“Not exactly surprising. Escalation of enemy numbers tends to happen to me a lot. You should have seen the amount of stuff we had to fight by the end of the adventure with the Beast Pack,” Sweetie replied.

“Well, to be fair, by the time I got that message, I was in the middle of fighting a Zeta Metroid, which is much harder to fight than a normal Metroid,” Samus explained.

They were back in the shaft with the door they hadn’t taken earlier, from the top. From here, they returned to the shaft with all the gold pirates which was now filled with Shaydas easily shredded by the Screw Attack. At the top of the shaft, they took the door they passed by earlier.

They entered a large room filled with Gold Space Pirates, Shaydas, and little white and blue sumo-like enemies that Samus said were named Nagagogs. They didn’t have time to fight them however because acid was rising. So while Samus climbed the room to reach the exit, Sweetie Void eliminated them with piercing beams, not giving time for the Nagagogs to become their giant red selves.

They entered the next room which was a small one with two Chozo head statues. A blue door was on the opposite side, and parts of the floor could be destroyed. They decided to destroy the floor first to see where it led to and they discovered a new shaft with Red Kihunters (which were surprisingly resistant to the Plasma Beam but were killed in one hit by the Screw Attack), Fire Primids, Shaydas, large Chozo statues that were different from the usual ones (some of which had their head destroyed), and toppled columns. After exploring it completely, discovering a blue door midway through and a passage at the bottom, they decided to take the door at the top first to see where it led.

They entered a cavern with a large monster head that may or may not be Ridley sculpted into the rock, mouth open with a passage in it guarded by a Fune that Sweetie quickly eliminated. It was colder here for some reason, so it wasn’t glowing hot red. Fireflies were present, indicating that the cavern would certainly be dark without them. There was also a path passing above the head.

“Before going up, I think that we should go down first. We must not be far from the bottom of these caverns,” Samus said.

“But first, let’s see where this passage in the mouth leads. I’m feeling an Energy Tank under us,” Sweetie Void said.

So they jumped above spikes and entered the mouth, reaching a drop to a giant sculpted three-clawed arm. Another drop and they reached a platform above spikes, and from it, they could see another platform with the Energy Tank Sweetie felt. The filly went to grab it before Samus used the Space Jump to climb back to the entrance of the cavern.

They returned in the shaft with the statues and toppled columns and, this time, after fighting more Shaydas, they tested the door in the middle, entering a recharge station room. Finally, they took the passage at the bottom, leading to a Koma statue that Samus was able to destroy, revealing a room with more Komas and a yellow door in the floor. The following Power Bomb destroyed all the Komas.

Taking the opened door, they dropped right on a large Chozo statue surrounded by jets or fire and spikes and two alcoves. Samus spotted hidden among the spikes a pole that she fired at to make it rise so she could land on it without touching the spikes. She then bombed the suspicious alcove that was just beside it, revealing a passage to a large room with Desgeegas, Nagagogs, Shaydas, and some kind of purple portal dropping little green, yellow, and red stickmen, Mites, in great numbers.

“The portal is somehow solid, it can be destroyed,” Samus revealed.

Sweetie destroyed the portal right away, stopping the influx of Mites while Samus began to shred the Shaydas and Desgeegas with the Screw Attack. This left the Mites and Nagagogs to Sweetie who easily eliminated them with her swords despite the Nagagogs growing to their giant red selves.

Chozo head statues decorated the room under the ceiling, and there were three large statues at the end, including one that was partially destroyed. A scan revealed that a Power Bomb could fully destroy this last statue, revealing a secret passage. There was also another passage under a rock that could be bombed at the end of the room leading to a Power Bomb Expansion.

Destroying the statue revealed a narrow shaft with spiked platforms. In order to go down, Sweetie Void and Samus had to go on these platforms, wait for them to drop down, then move out of the platform as it went back up before going down to the next platform. They had to be careful of spikes present on the walls alternatively left and right. At the bottom, they also had to be careful to not fall into the acid.

A green door led to the next room, which revealed to be a monitor room with two Silver Space Pirates. These ones were revealed to have armor too resistant for Samus, even against the Screw Attack. In addition to that, while these pirates didn’t fire lasers, they instead used martial arts and threw their claws rapidly and repeatedly. Thankfully, a scan revealed that their armor had a flaw: it occasionally weakened to allow the pirates to do their more acrobatic moves, such as a diving kick, leaving them vulnerable. Even with the armor weakened, they still asked only Missiles, Super Missiles and Charged Shots (not Screw Attack surprisingly) to damage them.

Samus took one while Sweetie took the other. Even Sweetie had difficulty overpowering the armor. It took her a lot of energy to get the necessary power to break through, energy that was still limited. So she managed to behead the pirate with her sword, but at great cost.

For Samus, it was a matter of patience, dodging the pirate’s attacks until the armor turned golden and firing Super Missiles at him.

Once the pirates were dead, Sweetie looked at the monitors and giggled. “I’m sure that Ridley watched us through them.”

“And you gave him quite the scare.”

Eliminating the pirates unlocked the metal door at the end, allowing them to go to the next room which had acid and was full of Holtz and of Zebbos coming out of three pipes. The Screw Attack made short work of them while Samus traversed the room.

Next room was a platforming section above acid while eliminating Violas and Zebbos. Again, Screw Attack worked well. At the end was one of these monster doors, indicating that the next room would have certainly been Ridley’s room if he hadn’t escaped.

As they entered the room, they discovered that the fight against Ridley would have been difficult for Samus. The prepared arena was very small, a command could make acid rise, and there was a lot of space for Ridley to fly.

“What an awful fight it would have been,” Samus said.

“Not with me around,” Sweetie reassured. “Even with my limited energy, it would have been easy for me to defeat him.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Let’s go to the next room. I can feel the Void Energy moving there, and a lot of heat coming out.”

They passed the exit door and entered a small room with a broken capsule and a two-pronged machine. One of the prongs absorbed Void Energy, and the other released heat. Because of that, the room was scalding hot, hotter than anywhere else, to the point that everything was melting.

Sweetie destroyed the machine right away.

“And I’m back in action!”

“You are already in action.”

“You know what I mean!”

Samus then looked down at the broken capsule. “This is the capsule that contained the baby.”

“Well, we estimated that it was somewhere behind these golden statues. We didn’t expect to find it here in Norfair, even if it would have been logical to hide it in the deepest part guarded by Ridley.”

“Well now, just one place to explore before we return to the statues.”

“Yeah, let’s return to that room with the giant head.”

But before they left the room, Samus found an Energy Tank in a wall under the door.

The backtracking had lots of fights, mainly against Fire Primids and Shaydas, but also some Silver Space Pirates, Red Kihunters, Zebbos, Tickens, Bytans, creatures with trumpets for heads blowing air to push them into the acid named Borboras, and an Armank in the room with the three Chozo statues.

Back in the cavern with the head, they took the path above, avoiding (or destroying) rolling boulders while Sweetie killed Funes. At the top was a door leading to a dead end, so they took the small tunnel to another door. After it were spike pits with Alcoons, Buckots, and a Borboras blowing strong winds at them to push them into the spikes, before a shaft with Glires and Bombeds. At the top, instead of taking the door, they took a tunnel to a metallic structure with a Missile Expansion.

Behind the expansion were several pieces of wall that could be destroyed. Samus destroyed all of them with a Power Bomb, revealing a Morph Ball passage into the structure. At the other side was a blue door in the floor between two Komas. The door led to the room that had been a dead end, but on the other side of the wall. They were able to destroy the Komas here, then jump on the walls to make them collapse and reveal a Power Bomb Expansion.

They returned to the top of the shaft, fighting more Bombeds, Buckots, and Fire Primids on the way, before they took the door they had ignored earlier.

Now, they were in a room with acid rising and lowering, and Komas sending fire. They had to wait for the acid to lower to go through a Morph Ball passage and reach a shaft. Before climbing it, Samus found a secret passage leading to a Missile Expansion. They were just under the room with the Wave Beam upgrade!

“I think that I know where we are going,” Samus said.

They climbed the shaft, fighting Red Kihunters, Fire Primids, Bombeds, Glires, and Cymuls, before they went through the ceiling and found a blue door. They then followed the path, went through collapsing floors, destroyed walls, until reaching a Morph Ball passage leading back to the shaft to the upper level of the large bubble cavern.

“And now, we are done exploring,” Samus said.

“Next stop, the golden statues.”

Chapter 167: Mother Brain

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 168: Trial

Author's Note

Chapter written by Justalad.

Chapter 168: Trial

Back when Bowser was defeated…

A portal appeared in front of a giant floating white left hand, and from it came a less than happy Bowser.

"So, that suuure went great…" the hand said with totally not obvious sarcasm.

"And who's fault is that, Crazy Hand!? This supposed 'ultimate power' wasn't enough!" Bowser complained.

"Oh no it wasn't! I may be crazy, but don't take me for a fool. You wanted to crush those plumbers and I made sure to give you enough so there was NOTHING they could pull off to stop you. Not my fault you didn't know how to deal with the interlopers," Crazy Hand answered. "What's the deal with them anyways? I must say, I was impressed how they trashed you like that even with what I gave you."

Bowser grit his teeth in anger, but he eventually responded.

"Hell if I know. One day the yellow one dropped out of nowhere and started messing with my plans and assisting those pesky plumbers, then suddenly the other two came with her! I mean sure, they did appear at a convenient time to stop some triangle-headed buckos, but now they're gone it’s just more problems for me!"

Crazy Hand looked at Bowser as he rambled on about how much he despised the trio of fillies, and eventually lost interest in whatever he was saying. Instead he turned around and opened a window portal to check the place where Bowser was defeated, hoping to catch more about them.

Fortunately for him, he actually managed to catch the fillies just as they departed from Bowser’s castle on an airship they stole with the Mario Brothers and Princess Peach.

He silently observed for many minutes, listening as they talked about Bowser and him, mentioning an “alliance”, then arrived at Peach's castle where the princess talked about an alternate universe, then Phantom received a call (Crazy couldn’t hear what the caller was saying), then they separated. Eventually, Crazy Hand began to say, "Interesting… Very, very interesting… Oí, Koopa Monarch! Quit your talk and come look here!" before he pulled Bowser close with an invisible force and put him in front of the window portal.

Bowser was about to say something about being rudely Koopa-handled before he saw through the window portal how Phantom was loading some kind of machinery and pieces onto the airship stolen from Bowser with a team of creatures he never saw before they took off and flew in a certain direction.

"Eh? Where is she going with all that junk?" he asked confused.

Crazy Hand manipulated the window portal to see where Phantom was heading at her current trajectory, and, after a while, showed Donkey Kong Island.

"Huh, now what in the Star's name does she want with the primates, if this is really where she is going?"

"That's exactly what I want to know. An “alliance” was mentioned. Prepare the best you got in spies. I want to keep tabs on them very closely… And if we are lucky we will even know where she and her friends come from! " Crazy Hand said with glee.

"Prepare yourselves little ones, I am on you now… Muahahahaha!"

Elsewhere in the Omniverse… Later…

In a dark room, two reptilian-like beings were unceremoniously thrown onto a cool floor. Both started to get up while groaning.

"Ugh… Was that really necessary? You could have been gentler…" the first one, a crocodile with a crown and a red cape said.

"Shut up, utter fool… You’re making it worse for us with your complaining…" the second one, a purple space dragon, said while he stood up.

Both of them looked around to see that they were in a completely dark room except for a single light cast above them.

Then, another light was cast somewhere else far away revealing another individual.

"Well well well~. Looks like some overgrown lizards got naughty. And you know what that means… Time for some spanks!" Porky Minch said, sitting on an ornamented chair.

"Mph, such a childish threat. Let me at them and I will show you some real punishment," a way more grave voice said, and another light lit up opposite of Porky's.

There, on an identical, bigger chair sat none other than Ganondorf himself. This, however, wasn't the same incarnation of the Gerudo King, as this one wore a different outfit and had a different hairstyle, including a beard, along with a different body. This Ganondorf would later come to be referred to as 'Twilight Ganondorf'.

"Bah, what purpose would that serve? The resources they wasted would stay so! I say we should put them to good work for the rest of their lives!" another voice said, and another light appeared in the room. This time revealing the hologram of Andross's head.

"Mmm, I really don't care either way," another voice said just beside him. The light revealed that this was none other than Wolf, representing his band of mercenaries.

"Ohh how little vision you have there. I for once agree with the floating head: I already have ideas flowing for how to use their bodies with some… modifications. Maybe with them I could finally get rid of that damn hedgehog!" Present Eggman said, a light revealing him in yet another chair.

"Heh, I like your style, old man." Porky said from his place.

"Pfff, how the two of you believe they're of any use is beyond me: their flesh is nothing against the certainty of steel and software! Why bother doing anything with them!?" another voice, and another light, this time revealing another scientist. This one was a middle-aged man with clear skin, a prominent chin, bushy gray eyebrows and mustache and with a bald top head and gray hair at the sides. He wore a white scientist coat and shirt with a red tie with blue jeans and brown shoes. This was none other than the mad scientist Albert W. Wily or Dr. Wily for short.

"H-hey! Genetics are totally valid too! Don't underestimate what a good mutant is able to do!"

This time, the light revealed a familiar short man with yellow skin and an oversized head with a N on his forehead. Dr. Neo Cortex.

"Shut up. Don't think you got any right to go around sharing your rather unimportant opinion with your track record, doctor," the voice beside Cortex said, turning out to be a sentient, floating giant tribal mask of great power known as Uka Uka. "And don't think you’re any better, N. Tropy. It Is rather baffling that even with control over time itself you still can't get rid of the meddlesome Bandicoot."

"Ok, first of all, rude. Second of all, you ALSO didn’t manage to beat him when you confronted him, so it's not like you’re better than us on that front," the so-called N. Tropy said from Uka Uka's other side.

"God, all this talk-can we get on with this already? I would rather if this didn't drag on more than necessary," the last of the mysterious voices said impatiently. Sitting on his own chair was Black Shadow, in his dark purplish attire with horns and a long black cape, along his pointed and split boots that made him resemble a bull.

Everyone was seated in a circle surrounding both Ridley and King K. Rool. And above them a last light revealed what seemed like the seat of a judge. And from the light descended Master Hand himself, beside him stood a figure in an ornate robe on a floating mechanical platform, the Ancient Minister.

"Yes. I believe that's enough introduction, and there’s much to do still-specifically, cleaning the mess these two just made of this army. So without further ado,"

Master Hand then summoned a gavel and grabbed it.

"I declare the military trial of Ridley and King K. Rool started," he said and then slammed the gavel in the sound block, producing a loud noise and officially starting the trial.

"Minister, the opening statement," Master Hand said and the Ancient Minister nodded.

"TODAY, WE ARE REUNITED TO JUDGE RIDLEY AND KING K. ROOL FOR THE CRIMES OF MISHANDLING ARMY'S RESOURCES, DEFYING ORDERS AND PERFORMING POOR TACTICAL DECISIONS THAT LEAVES US EXPOSED TO OUR RIVAL FACTION 'THE ALLIANCE' PUTTING AT RISK THIS ENTIRE ARMY'S MISSION."

Master Hand for his part looked at both of them in silence. He then pointed at them with his gavel, "And you two, how do you declare yourselves in front of these crimes?"

K. Rool was quick to blurt out, "I-innocent! Completely innocent! It’s all a misunderstanding you see…!"

At that, a few like Porky couldn’t help but snicker maliciously while others like Ganondorf simply glared.

"Ridley?" Master Hand asked next, seeing him with his head down.

Ridley then suddenly lifted his gaze, quickly looking at each of the officers of the Subspace Army before looking at Master Hand.

"Guilty of all charges," he said simply.

At that most looked at him with surprise, and even Porky whistled a bit.

Lizard got a brain… he thought amused.

"Mmm, I see," was all Master Hand offered as a response. "Then, let's present the evidence of these charges."

"Oh, with pleasure!" Porky said with a big smile as he pulled out a remote control and pressed a button, making holographic pictures appear in the middle of the room.

"See, back then I was quick to notice one of the Galleoms had gone missing from the storages, and it was easy to track the last person that entered before it had gone missing… That is you, Mr. Crocodile~"

King K. Rool gulped and tried to say something. "W-well I… You see the thing is… Uhh…"

"But anyways, where this one lost one Galleom… Mr. Purple Dragon got TWO of them destroyed!" Porky said, smirking at Ridley.

He met his gaze right back.

"But there's something to note about this incident however." Wily was the one to speak next, and the images in the hologram shifted to show the silhouettes of the three Galleoms that got destroyed. One was colored red, while two were gray.

"Only a single one of them was actually manually activated, while the other two weren't. So despite the major loss, it is true that this Ridley fellow stuck to orders of merely storing them," he said.

At that, Ridley took the chance to talk. "Of course, I know the importance of this army's resources. I wouldn't just foolishly use them carelessly without confirming if it is fine to do so," he said with a grin, side-eyeing King K. Rool who glared at him.

"Now, why you little-!" he was about to say before a loud BLAM was heard across the room.

"Order. You all will remain civil in this trial or I will make you," Master Hand said after slamming the gavel on the sound block.

"Next to discuss is how both of you made horrendous tactical decisions that left us all looking like fools!" Andross shouted angrily. "First you Ridley: care to explain why you deliberately stole that… thing," Andross said as the hologram presented the images of the baby Metroid. "and made yourself a target? You wouldn't be in this mess if you kept hiding until you were told it was the moment to act!"

Ridley for his part didn't say anything at first, but eventually he spoke. "Look, that wasn't actually my fault. Mother Brain forced me to do her bidding. I was powerless to her and thus I had no option but to get the last Metroid for her that Samus Aran had left alive. Yet, to be fair, I was aptly prepared for the arrival of that bounty hunter… but I wasn't ready to deal with that demon in infant skin," Ridley said, a little shiver going through him at the last part.

"Pffff BWAHAHAHAHA! Oh don’t tell me you're afraid of that little horsie! I can't-hahahaaa!" Porky couldn’t stop laughing, kicking his feets on the chair.

"Grrr, EASY TO SAY WHEN YOU CAN'T DIE, DAMNIT!" Ridley roared.

"But if you were able to run away, why didn't you do so earlier?" Present Eggman inquired.

"Her control was too strong. It was only when she got distracted with the heroines that my survival instinct was able to repel her control," Ridley lied as naturally as he breathed.

"Regardless of any of that, the most aggravating thing in my eyes is that you dared to run away. You call yourself a warrior if you just left without a fight!?" Twilight Ganondorf called out.

"Hell no! Screw that warrior mentality-nonsense! Can't keep count of the many idealistic fools I have crushed the skull of that came at me with that mindset. I am and will always be just one thing: a survivor. I kill to live and live to kill more. That's the only rule I have followed my entire life, and will keep doing so until my bitter end."

"Mmm, gotta agree. Nothing matters in the end if you get killed," Present Eggman nodded.

"Yeah I agree too," Willy said.

"And me!" Cortex said.

"Spineless cowards, the lot of you," Twilight Ganondorf grunted.

"FINALLY, THE LAST THING TO ADRESS ABOUT RIDLEY'S FAILURE IS THE GENERAL LOST OF RESOURCES. THIS INCLUDES:
-THE TWO AFOREMENTIONED GALLEOM UNITS. CONSIDERATION WILL BE PROVIDED SINCE ORDERS WERE TECHNICALLY FOLLOWED AND EXECUTED.
-THE LOST OF ALMOST THE ENTIRETY OF THE SPACE PIRATES. CONSIDERATION WILL BE PROVIDED SINCE MOST LOSSES WEREN’T OF THE SUBSPACE ARMY ITSELF.
-THE BREACH OF VITAL INTELLIGENCE ABOUT THE SUBSPACE ARMY'S VARIOUS MODELS OF SOLDIERS AND COMBATANTS, PROVIDING THE ENEMY VALUABLE INFORMATION ABOUT OUR WEAKNESSES."

"Wait! That last one- if memory serves, wasn't it reported that this buffon also let intel to be retrieved about the Army!?" Ridley unashamedly excused.

"GASP! How dare you!? You wanna fight, isn't it!?" King K.Rool said and was about to jump at Ridley, but a quick glance at Master Hand and his gavel raised high in the air menacingly quickly discouraged him.

"Didn’t the horsie and the blond chick also retrieve way more detailed info from the database of YOUR base?" Porky pointed out.

For once, Ridley was at a loss of words. Nothing he came up with sounded good enough to get him out of this one.

"...Alright, I've heard enough. I am ready to declare the first verdict of this trial to the accused Ridley," Master Hand said with finality.

Ridley started to get desperate, trying to come up with anything, trying from any angle, but it was useless. The Cunning God of Death had the mind blank. Nothing seemed to be able to get him out of his fate. And at his side, King K. Rool couldn't help but smirk.

"Ridley, by my authority as Supreme Commander of the Subspace Army. I declare you are sentenced to be demoted from your current rank and penalized. Black Shadow, you now are in charge of Ridley's previous rank," Master Hand said and loudly slammed his gavel.

"Hell yeah!" Black Shadow shouted in victory.

All at once, it was like Master Hand's words returned Ridley's soul to his body. "...What?" Was all he managed to say.

"You’re free to go now, Admiral. Do remember you’re not getting off this easy if you dare fail me a second time," Master Hand said, letting the gavel down for a moment before snapping his fingers.

A hole appeared just below Ridley without much of a warning, and he promptly fell without time to use his wings. The hole closed as soon as Ridley disappeared in it.

"Now, upon the judgment of the second accused," Master Hand said, taking back his gavel.

King K. Rool looked blankly at the hole that Ridley disappeared into.

"So… that's it? If you’re found guilty you just get demoted??" he said, feeling relief fill him.

That's not so bad. Sure, it sucks that now I'm gonna have even less authority but well, I can handle it… he thought.

To his dismay however, his hope was a short-lived one as Porky's loud laughter filled the room once more.

"HAHAHAHAAA!....My oh my, you sure are a SLOW one ain't you?"

K. Rool started to get nervous again. "W-what do you mean!?"

This time now it was Wily who couldn’t help the chuckles that escaped him. "Did you seriously forget the very start of this entire trial? Ridley already declared himself guilty from the start! His wasn't a case being made of whether he was guilty or not!"

"... Huh? Then what was it for!? Why show and tell all that about his errors!?" King K. Rool demanded to know.

Present Eggman rubbed his hand over his face, tired, fed up with the crocodile's cluelessness. "Sentence reduction. By declaring himself guilty of all charges from the very start, Ridley transformed his trial from one about proving his guiltiness to one to reduce and mitigate his sentence, a thing that he successfully accomplished. Damn you really never got arrested before haven’t you? Then again, I doubt most here would have."

"You on the other hand declared yourself innocent, thus you shall be judged to prove so. And in case you fail and are found guilty, you face the full sentence," Twilight Ganondorf said with finality.

King K. Rool went to multiple shades paler in an instant.

He looked at everyone around him. Some looked at him with amusement, hiding a sadistic glee. Others with stoic neutrality, their eyes glaring and judging.

At that moment, the full scope of his hopeless situation landed at last on his mind.

"... A-and…"

Mere moments after this Trial…

"What w-would… that s-sentence b-be?..."

King K. Rool would come to realize that, in more ways than one…

"... Heh, yeah Mr. Hand Boss, why don't you tell us Croco-King's fate if he's found guilty~?" Porky said, his grin so wide it threatened to split his face.

Master Hand, in turn, only uttered a single word. Unmoving, uncaring.

"Death."

He was the one to dig up his own grave from the start.

Chapter 169: Cute-Ceañera

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 170: En Taro Adun

The previous night.

Crazy Hand looked down through his portal as people stopped going to and coming from the Alliance’s portal in the Mushroom Kingdom for the night. There was still the occasional person, but rarely. Behind him were Bowser and a group of ten Koopas with shells of various colors. They were all wearing civil clothing, some with hats.

“You know what you must do?” Bowser said to the Koopas.

The Koopas all saluted, a red-shelled one advancing and saying, “Yes sir! Infiltrating this “alliance” and gathering information!”

Crazy Hand turned toward them. “It seems to be time to send you. But first…” He sent a beam of energy which entered the ten Koopas. “Now, I will be able to follow you when you go to other universes. You will be my eyes and my ears. And if you want to talk to me, call me. Now, go!”

He opened a portal, and the Koopas immediately jumped into it, entering the bunker where the Mushroom Kingdom’s portal was placed. Nobody was around for now. Crazy Hand’s portal closed.

The ten Koopas turned to face the Alliance’s portal.

“So,” began the same red-shelled Koopa who talked earlier. “Let’s see how it works.” He approached the portal and began to press buttons on the terminal. “Ah. Choosing the portal. Let’s see. Portal Island (Pokémon Universe)... New Halcandra (Dream Universe)... Ponyville (Void Equus Universe)... Uh. There are quite a lot of universes to choose from, more than our number. Mmh… Some of these universes seem to be variants of the same one. Let’s first go to universes that are different from each other. I will go to this Pokémon Universe. Number Two, go to the Dream Universe. Number Three…” One by one, he gave each of the Koopas an universe. “Understood?”

“Yes, Number One!” the other Koopas all shouted, saluting.

And one by one, they entered the portal to their designated destination.

One of the Koopas was sent to Past Hyrule, and he arrived during the night just outside of the town. Because it was the night, the drawbridge was raised, much to his annoyance. Instead, he remained at the portal where he slept.

Just as the sun rose, he was awakened by a rooster, which was also when the drawbridge lowered. Immediately, he entered the waking town, intending to talk with the locals. It was hard to ask the right questions without sounding suspicious. He wanted to ask about the Alliance, but he knew that it would be weird for him to ask that here when he could ask back home, and everybody certainly knew about the Alliance by now so it would be even weirder for him not to know.

So he started by asking what was good to visit in this place. There was the market, there were places to play games to gain prices, there was the Temple of Time where the Triforce was…

“The Triforce?” he asked.

“Yes, an artifact that grants you a wish, left behind by the Golden Goddesses. It is the symbol of our kingdom,” the pointed-eared woman said.

“There are Goddesses here?”

“Oh yes! The Golden Goddesses, Farore, Nayru, and Din, are the Goddesses who created our universe. There are other Gods, like the Goddess of Time, among others.”

The Koopa started to sweat. Crazy Hand may need to avoid messing with this place to not get these Goddesses angry, unless they are the kind of Gods who prefer to remain in the backseat and let things go on without their influence unless absolutely necessary.

“The Triforce is actually in another realm, but the entrance is in the Temple of Time. You can only open it thanks to some artifacts, one of which is currently kept by this young boy, Link. So you can say that the Triforce is well guarded despite the lack of guards around the Temple.”

“I see. Are there any other places of note?”

“The castle, obviously, but you can enter it only if you have an authorization. And right now, it’s difficult to get one because they are about to deal with this horrible Ganondorf character and security is tighter because they expect Gerudos to attack.”

“Ganondorf?”

“The Gerudo King. He coveted the Triforce to take over Hyrule. He passed himself for an ally but Link revealed his machinations. He is now in jail, but not for long. He will be executed.”

The Koopa was thinking. It wasn’t what Crazy Hand searched for, but it may interest him.

The Koopa exited the town and went to an isolated part of the field before he called, “Crazy Hand?”

A portal opened beside him, and on the other side was Crazy Hand.

“What is it?”

“This universe has one thing or two that may interest you, but it may be dangerous. There are Gods watching over it.”

“I don’t care about the Gods. Tell me anyway.”

So the Koopa told him about Ganondorf and the Triforce.

For Crazy Hand, it was very, very, VERY interesting information.

“You did well. Continue gathering information.”

“Yes sir!”

The portal closed.

Crazy Hand thought aloud. “Ganondorf… I wonder if…”

Black Apple and Shadow Speedster’s cute-ceañera ended some time in the afternoon, the guests leaving one after another. Shadow Speedster returned to her garage, and Black Apple to her tree, leaving Sweetie Void alone with Apple Death, Phantom, and Rarity Void.

“I’m guessing that you will go exploring another universe,” Rarity said.

“You guessed right. I will actually return to an universe I briefly went to before I arrived in the Pokémon Universe. I think it’s time that I finally try to get in contact with them,” Sweetie Void replied before she looked at the two other fillies. “Will you come?”

“Of course!” they both said.

“What can you tell us about this universe?” Phantom asked.

“Not much. I didn’t remain long last time. I just saw a battle between two alien species, one with advanced technology and the other more primitive-looking.”

“So there may be a war. Yep, I’m in,” Phantom said.

Apple Death groaned.

Sweetie Void opened a rift, allowing them to jump through.

They came out of the rift in a city, on the roof of a golden-looking skyscraper. It was at least a yellow metal. Sweetie Void wasn’t sure what.

“Well, I doubt we’ll witness a battle in this place,” Apple Death said.

“Well then, let’s go talk with the locals,” Sweetie Void said.

From what they could see from the top of the skyscraper, the city seemed to be divided into sectors, each with its own architecture. In the center of the city was a HUGE pyramid.

The fillies flew down to the streets of the city, seeing that the locals were tall gray-scaled humanoids with glowing eyes, but no other orifices. Like the architectures, there were different fashions, some preferring golden clothes while others wore purple, and more had red. There were also robots among them, looking exactly like the organic ones.

The fillies immediately gathered attention.

The locals’ eyes quickly settled on Sweetie Void, some stepping back, others more curious.

One of the ones wearing darker clothes approached, then gave a slight bow. En taro Adun, Void Bearer. Welcome to Aiur.

Ooh! Telepathy! That was how they could communicate without a mouth. Psychic users! Uh. En taro Adun? I’m Sweetie Void. And my friends are Apple Death and Phantom. Nice to meet you.

“Howdy.”

“You know you can talk normally, right? I’m sure that they can hear you alright even without ears,” Phantom said.

Your friend is right, young one. We hear through our skin. You don’t need to use telepathy.

“Alright. So… Where could we meet your leader? I’m guessing the big pyramid over there?”

The alien nodded. The Aiur Assembly Nexus. You will find the Hierarch Artanis.

“Thank you.”

So the fillies said goodbye to the alien and began to walk toward the pyramid, looking at the buildings and saying hello, or rather “in honor of Adun” (the translator translated “En taro Adun” into it. It didn’t work when telepathy was used), to the aliens they passed. A good number of them replied.

Before long, they reached the pyramid’s entrance where a pair of guards let them enter with a small bow. Inside, a female alien guided them.

“Sorry, but what are you?” Apple Death asked.

We are Protoss, the alien answered.

“Thanks.”

The building was very large, so it took some time to reach a room with a round table near the top. Standing beside the table was a single Protoss.

He was a male Protoss that was slightly taller than his peers, garbed in highly decorated armor and exuding an aura of power that drew attention and respect from those observing.

En taro Adun, young ones. I am Artanis, the Hierarch of the Daelaam.

“In honor of Adun,” the three fillies replied.

“I am Sweetie Belle, nicknamed Sweetie Void, Alicorn Princess of the Void and Queen of Floralia, also leader of a multiversal Alliance I’m forming.”

“Apple Bloom, nicknamed Apple Death. Spirit of Death in my universe.”

“Scootaloo, Phantom.” She shrugged. “No title in particular.”

“We are here to talk about possibly allowing your people to join our Alliance to face a common threat that could potentially threaten your universe,” Sweetie Void continued.

You bring worrying news. What is this threat you are talking about?

“Actually, there are three threats,” Sweetie Void started before the fillies went to explain about the Subspace Army and the Gods, Galeem and Dharkon. The Subspace Army didn’t seem to worry Artanis a lot. The Gods, however…

I see… Galeem and Dharkon… They may be forces to be reckoned with. Having fought a god, I know what I’m talking about.

“There are Gods here?” Apple Death asked.

Were. The Xel'Naga were considered as gods, but they left our universe long ago. We had to fight one a few years ago however. They are the ones who created the Protoss.

“If they were your creators, why did you have to fight the one you did?” Phantom asked.

Artanis locked eyes with her bearing a hard look in his gaze that caused Phantom to regret her question. (Not that she would admit it.)

That is a lengthy tale, and one that, to many among the Daelaam, is far too fresh a set of scars for casual conversation.

Silence followed until Sweetie Void said, “So… What do you think about joining us?”

I will have to talk about it with my people. Entering a multiversal organization is a huge step to take, and we are still rebuilding from recent events that cost us a lot. I will also want to know more about this Alliance.

Sweetie Void nodded. “We understand. Take your time. By the way, are you at war?”

Artanis tilted his head. No. Why?

“You see, I entered this universe once previously, and I saw a battle between what I’m guessing were your troops and an alien race of nightmarish creatures.”

Ah. I understand. You witnessed one of the many skirmishes between us, the Zerg, and the Terrans. We try to keep peace, but such incidents happen. But no, we are not at war with them.

Sweetie was glad there was no war, but at the same time, she internally groaned. A war would have been easier to deal with.

“Then… Maybe I can go talk to them? Maybe we can work together to ensure that these skirmishes don’t happen anymore.”

I am not sure if you will be able to help. Our three races just have difficulty with each other because of various reasons. We are hoping that time will eventually allow us to form a true peace.

“Yeah, I know that you hope that things can be sunshine and rainbows, Sweetie, but sometimes, things aren’t that easy,” Phantom said.

Sweetie Void knew that. Not everything could be solved by talking or by beating up the bad guy. It frustrated her.

She sighed. “I could still go talk to them and propose to them to join the Alliance too. Maybe being together in the same organization will help.”

Artanis nodded. There is merit to what you say. If you really want to talk to the Zerg and the Terrans, then I can ask for a meeting with Overqueen Zagara and Emperor Mengsk. I’m sure they will want to hear about your proposition.

“We would be thankful if you could do that.”

Meanwhile, how about you talk with my advisors? And once they come, with the leaders of the tribes? They will want to know more about you.

“Ok!”

Dream Warper entered Past Hyrule’s Hyrule Castle Town, followed by the Rainbooms of the human world parallel to hers. They wanted to visit the other universes, and they started with Past Hyrule because there wasn’t much to visit here so it would be fast.

The Rainbooms still couldn’t help looking around, not used to the very medieval setting. They especially looked at the castle in the distance. They already saw Twilight’s castle and Canterlot Castle (from a distance) in Equestria, but it was still something.

Outside of the town, however, in the field…

A large army gathered. Gerudos, but also Goombas, Koopas, and other members of the Koopa Troop Army. Airships were flying above them. At their head were Koume and Kotake, as well as Bowser, Bowser Jr., Kamec, and the Koopalings.

In the Lon Lon Ranch, Malon saw that and immediately warned her father who evacuated with the horses and Ingo. As soon as they entered the town, Talon yelled, “The town is attacked!”

Author's Note

If there are any Starcraft fans out there, tell me if I did something wrong.

Chapter 171: The Battle of Past Hyrule

Author's Note

Chapter made by me and Cyrus Colter.

Chapter 171: The Battle of Past Hyrule

Dream Warper and the Rainbooms were just getting to the drawbridge leading to the town when a pair of horses carrying three people between them came rushing past, shouting out that there was… an attack?

Looking back to the way they came from, the group, at first, saw nothing. Then, they saw something in the skies.

Rainbow Dash squinted at the thing in the sky before her eyes widened and she called out to the group, “RUN FOR IT!”

As the group fled towards the main place of the town, a bunch of large bullets with eyes and arms impacted the ground behind before exploding, sending debris flying, the girls crossing as the drawbridge began to rise. They scrambled into the crowd as the guards moved them towards the center of town, explosions now boarding against the closed drawbridge.

After a moment, the explosions ceased. A moment of tense silence, with only the marching boots of the guards as the background noise. Then, a shadow came over them all as the crowd and guards looked up…

… to see a set of airships flying over the town. A bellowing laugh and a roar sounded off before an army descended on the town as more of the bullets impacted the buildings. Winged enemies also passed above the walls while mages teleported in. Chaos quickly followed as civilians panicked and guards moved to get them to safety or to attack the invaders.

Fights started between them and the guards. Turtles armed with spears were mainly the ones attacking, backed by little brown mushrooms, turtles throwing hammers, and the mages. The guards were much taller and had the advantage in one to one, but against such numbers, the odds were against them. Turtles then managed to lower the drawbridge, allowing the rest of the attacking army to enter the town, including Gerudos.

Enemies were everywhere. It didn’t seem like there was anywhere safe in the city. That left the castle.

“Go to the castle! I will remain here to help the guards!” Dream Warper said to the Rainbooms.

“I’ll stay too! I can fight!” Sunset said.

But before more could be said, two laughs resounded above them. They looked up and saw two old witches flying on brooms.

“The Twinrova Sisters!” someone yelled.

Civilians immediately moved to get as far away from them as possible. Dream Warper stepped forward to join the fight, only for another turtle to land in front of her, the alicorn letting off a magic blast on reflex. The turtle simply crossed its arms in front of itself and tanked the blast, despite being sent sliding back. Lowering its arms, Dream Warper’s eyes widened as she recognized him from the descriptions Sweetie Void had given. Morton yelled while pounding his chest, before pulling out a wand and swinging it in a sweeping motion in front of him, summoning a set of tall thorny creatures made from segmented balls that he then proceeded to launch at random. Dream Warper caught several in her magic before they could harm the civilians and sent them back to strike the Koopaling, but she quickly had to raise a shield to block a fireball, magic blast and a straight up Bob-omb, causing a smoke cloud to obscure her vision.

As the smoke cleared, Dream Warper felt her confidence drop when she saw all 7 Koopalings surrounding her with Bowser himself and his son right in front of her.

Looking at the alicorn with a derisive snort, the Koopa King gave his orders. “Junior, you and the Koopalings take out this little pest. Koume, Kotake, you two go nuts. I’ve got business elsewhere,” he said before jumping in the air and clear over the majority of the crowd, his landing causing a quake that shook the town and palace. Dream Warper took quick stock of his direction before being forced to defend herself from Morton’s charge, quickly teleporting out of the way before quickly taking into the air and launching a magical beam at Ludwig, who launched a magical blast that clashed hers briefly before bursting as her own continued on to impact the floating Koopaling, only for him to burst into a puff of smoke, revealing it to be a double.

It was then that Dream Warper realized she was surrounded by three more Ludwigs. Before she could do anything, she had to avoid rings thrown by Wendy. The Ludwigs used the distraction to fire at her with their wands while they floated upward. Dream Warper had to put up a shield around her, repelling the projectiles, but then, Roy came and punched the shield, cracking it, to her surprise. Another punch, and the cracks spread. Before Roy could throw a third punch, Dream Warper made the shield disappear and blasted Roy point blank, sending him flying, only to be hit on the side by a fireball sent by Larry with a tennis racket. She quickly recovered and avoided another fireball, then fired a beam to blow up a spiked ball on which Lemmy was walking. Iggy then came riding a Chomp, forcing Twilight to fly to avoid being bitten by it. That left Bowser Jr. flying in his clown car approaching her to try and punch her with boxing gloves coming out of said car, which she avoided.

Meanwhile, the Rainbooms watched, wanting to help but hesitating.

“Should we go to the castle?” Fluttershy asked.

“We can’t leave Pony Twilight!” Rainbow Dash said. “Let’s help her!”

She prepared to run toward Larry, but she was then pushed aside by Sunset Shimmer just before a stream of ice came from above, almost freezing her solid.

“Hehehehehe! Look what we have here, Koume,” Kotake said.

“Visitors wanting to play heroes!” her sister, Koume, said.

“You…!” Sunset shouted, pointing her horn toward Kotake. Her magic fizzled a second before sparking to life as a fireball leapt from the horn, flying at the witch only to be intercepted by Koume catching the fireball in her wand then sending it back at the unicorn. Sunset raised a barrier to block it, only for the sisters to strike it at the same time, shattering it and sending Sunset reeling back as she rubbed at her temples, stumbling over her hind hooves, before falling on her flank, a sharpened shard of ice just barely grazing the tip of her horn before impacting the ground between her and the Rainbooms. Sunset tried to roll back to her hooves, but ended up rammed by the cryomancer witch and sent flying to her friends’ feet. She struggled back to her hooves before Fluttershy picked her up while Rarity and Sci Twi summoned a diamond barrier and levitated debris over to act as a shield. “OK, maybe we should run,” the unicorn said.

“I hate to say it, but she’s right, sugarcube,” Applejack said, mostly to Rainbow Dash.

Giving a growl, the athlete begrudgingly agreed as they turned to get away, Sci Twi throwing the debris in her grasp towards the witches to hopefully buy them a little time as they ran. While it somewhat worked, it wasn’t long before the twin laughs of the witches echoed behind the group as they fled for the castle.

Link heard the explosions before a guard came and screamed that they were attacked. Immediately, he stopped his training and exited the castle, seeing the airships above the town. Guards were already running toward the town. He quickly took his phone and texted all the heroes. Link then decided to use the Goron Mask to roll, being faster this way.

He reached the town in record time and immediately saw Dream Warper’s fight against the Koopalings and Bowser Jr. However, before he could join her, he saw Bowser going toward the Temple of Time and immediately understood that it took priority.

Because Bowser was going after the Triforce.

Sweetie Void, Phantom, and Apple Death received the text. However, they were too busy talking to Protoss Clan Leaders to look at it.

Meanwhile, Bowser stood before a large temple that seemed to radiate an aura of power. He was impressed, but not deterred as he reached up to push open the doors.

Only for something to collide with the back of his head, more annoying the Koopa King than hurting him. Turning around, he saw his attacker: a young boy in a green tunic and hat. Bowser took a long look at him.

Then nearly doubled over in laughter. “You’re the local hero? You don’t look much older than my own son!” At that, he calmed down and gave Link a fierce glare. “But that don’t mean I plan on going easy on you. You wanna play hero? Then let’s play. SHOWTIME!” He said as he unleashed his flame breath on him.

Link pulled out his Mirror Shield to block the flame being launched at him. To Bowser’s surprise, the shield sent the flames back at him. He quickly put his arms before his head as he was burned.

Link then ran toward him, sword ready. Bowser went to punch him, but Link jumped on the fist and used it to jump above Bowser while he slashed, cutting Bowser on the head. Link landed on Bowser’s shell and was about to attack again, but Bowser entered his shell and spun rapidly, launching Link away, into the temple. The boy rolled then stopped on his feet like before the stele where the Spiritual Stones were supposed to go to open the door to the Master Sword’s chamber. Link took his bow right away and fired an ice arrow at Bowser as he got out of his shell only to duck to avoid it.

With one jump, Bowser cleared the distance between them and attempted to claw Link who rolled aside before he gave three slashes at the Koopa King. He then had to jump away to avoid the claws again.

Bowser jumped, sending a shockwave above which Link jumped. More shockwaves followed in short succession, almost getting the boy who took the hookshot midair and used it on Bowser as he jumped again to move above the shockwaves and get close to him. Immediately as he got close, Link attacked Bowser as they both dropped on the ground. Bowser still sent a shockwave upon landing that hit Link, sending him on the ground.

Bowser then threw hammers at him before he could get up. Link, seeing this, rolled aside to avoid them, then got up and used his shield to protect himself from the following ones. Bowser grabbed one of the hammers and slammed it on Link’s shield, overwhelming Link with his strength to the point that the boy buckled under him as he resisted. While Bowser pinned Link down with his right hand holding the hammer, he readied his left to slash with his claws.

Link took out the Goron Mask and put it on. Bowser watched in fascination as the mask seemed to become a second skin, and suddenly, the hero was a Goron. He didn’t have his shield anymore, but he had enough strength to push back the hammer with his bare hand. He then jumped back to avoid his claws before he curled into a ball and rammed Bowser, sending him crashing on the wall of the temple.

Bowser roared, got up, and transformed. Now Giga Bowser, he dwarfed Link even in his Goron form. Link still rolled toward him to attack again, but Bowser stopped him easily, grabbed him, and threw him toward the door to the Master Sword. Bowser then moved in the center of the temple and charged toward Link, destroying the stele. Link quickly took off the Goron Mask and slid between Bowser’s legs. The Koopa ended up destroying the door, entering the Master Sword’s chamber.

Link took out the Fierce Deity Mask and put it on. Immediately after becoming the Fierce Deity Link, he took his sword and sent a horizontal wave of energy that Bowser avoided by jumping through the roof. Bowser then landed right behind Link and punched him with his fist cloaked in darkness. Link just had time to turn around and block with his sword, Bowser’s strength still causing him to slide into the Master Sword’s chamber. Bowser then ran toward Link.

Link jumped back, landing right beside the Master Sword. He then held his current sword with just his right hand while he grabbed the Master Sword with his left hand and took it out of the plinth. Now dual wielding, he readied the swords as Bowser approached. The two then clashed, swords against claws covered in darkness.

The Rainbooms were running for their lives from Koume and Kotake on the path to the castle, protecting any escaping civilians they can with their powers, Sci Twi and Applejack moving things around, occasionally tossing some debris at the Twinrova sisters, only for the witches to blow them away with their respective magic or dodge on their flying brooms. Rarity and Sunset were making shields to protect against any blasts. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy kept running, not able to do much currently, especially since the latter was still carrying Sunset.

Rainbow Dash saw an opportunity and took it, super sprinting ahead, jumping off of a ruined cart, then, using her momentum, ran up and along a cliff face and jumped off it, tackling the passing by Kotake almost out of the air.

“Unhand my wand and get off of me, you delinquent!” The witch shouted as Rainbow Dash attempted to get the wand out of her hand.

“Let me help, sister!” Koume said as she fired a fiery blast toward them. The athlete jumped at the last second, getting a bit scorched as the fireball impacted and detonated against Kotake.

“OWOWOWOW! Careful, Koume!” The Ice Witch cried out as Rainbow Dash rolled along the ground, her jacket extinguishing before she stood back up. But before she could keep running, a projectile of pure light shot past her and impacted against the Fire Witch, sending her careening through the air before she recovered. Looking back to where it came from, the girls saw a young blonde girl in what looked like royal garb, Rarity gasping upon recognizing the styling of it.

“Is that-” she said before the Twinrova Sisters interrupted with their laughter.

“Ah, the young Princess Zelda,” Koume said as the two began to spin around each other.

“How fortunate would it be for you to arrive,” Kotake said as the two were engulfed by a flash of light, forcing everyone to cover their eyes.

As the light faded and they all looked back, Twinrova stood in all her glory before them.

“Now to end your meddling life!”

*Meanwhile, in the dungeons*

The last of the guards poured out of the dungeon area that held all of Hyrule's prisoners.

Yet there was only one being in that prison, at the moment.

A tall man, his dark skin, red hair, and style of clothing marking him as Gerudo. This was the sole Gerudo male among their kind. This was the man who attempted to crush Hyrule under his iron fist.

This was Ganondorf Dragmire.

As he looked to the last of the leaving guards in confusion, his chains allowing him little in the way of movement, a rift opened directly in front of him, a large floating hand coming out from him. Ganondorf could sense the power this being wielded, and wondered what it wanted.

“Hey! Yo-” The hand snapped its fingers and the guard fell to the floor, dead as a stone.

“I’m here to make you an offer. You give me a show when and where I want it, I’ll break those chains and grant you what I can tell you desire most from what I’ve heard of you,” the hand said.

Ganondorf glared at the being before speaking. “You are a being with madness that even I can see is beyond quenching. What is it you think I desire?”

The Hand curled into a fist as its voice growled worse than any demon the Gerudo King had ever heard. “You wish for the power to conquer this realm. I am willing to give it to you, IF you agree to work with me.”

“And if I refuse?” At that, the hand simply touched Ganondorf on the forehead.

And with that touch came a pain worse than any Ganondorf had ever endured. The scorching sun and blistering winds of his homeland could not be compared to the pure undiluted PAIN that was suddenly coursing through his being.

For the first time in his life, he screamed in agony. After what felt like minutes (but in truth was mere seconds), the hand pulled back with a psychotic giggle as he said, “Then that will tickle in comparison. So, what do you say?”

Dream Warper groaned. She got hope that the fight would go better when Impa joined her. However, the Sheikah quickly found herself busy fighting a Gerudo in green who was clearly the Gerudo leader under Koume and Kotake. Again, Dream Warper had to fight Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings eight to one.

She was flying, avoiding the magical projectiles and fireballs fired by her enemies. She thankfully destroyed Bowser Jr.’s clown car, so she didn’t have to worry anymore about that. Ludwig, however, was still floating with his doubles, so he was the biggest danger. Without forgetting Lemmy, Larry and Iggy seemingly juggling Bob-Ombs and normal bombs through the air.

After sending another blast at one of the Ludwigs, popping the double, Dream Warper suddenly found herself nearly crushed in the jaws of the jumping Chain Chomp that had gotten loose during the battle. She just barely caught the beast’s jaws, holding it there in spite of the intense strain on her muscles as they both dropped back on the ground. She then lifted it with her magic, and hurled it straight at Morton and Roy, forcing the two to dive to the sides to avoid getting crushed.

Before anything else could be done, a bursting sound caught the attention of Bowser Jr. and Dream Warper. Looking at the direction it came from, they saw what looked like… fireworks?
Wait, Dream Warper thought, Isn’t that-? She was forced to dodge a blast from Ludwig, interrupting her thoughts.

“Looks like it’s time for us to go, Your Highness. Apologies for the first impression,” he said with a smug look on his face as he and his remaining double landed on either side of Bowser Jr.

With a mischievous grin, the Koopa Prince pulled out a whistle and blew hard on it, at which the attacking force began to draw back, the airships ceasing their fire as they turned back towards the horizon. But through it all, Dream Warper could only think of one thing as she galloped as best as she could on sore legs towards the palace. More specifically, towards someone who could lead her to the dungeons.

Please let me be wrong, please let me be wrong, please let me be wrong.

The battle between the Fierce Deity Link and Giga Bowser had been as brutal as it was destructive. Giga Bowser threw Link into the wall of the temple, receiving a nasty stab on his wrist in return. Link, after extracting himself from the wall, began charging energy into both his blades, then began rapidly swinging them in alternation, the first few energy blades cut into Bowser, forcing him to withdraw into his shell to protect himself.

Bowser then suddenly rocketed forward as his shell spun, surrounded by icy mist. Slamming into the wall, and Link, the battle once more spilled outside the temple, or what remained of it.

As Bowser came back out from his shell, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Fireworks. With a growl, he knew that was the signal.

It was time to go.

Looking back to the recovering Fierce Deity Link, Bowser said, “Show’s over, tough guy,” before unleashing a practical firestorm from his maw, obscuring the hero’s vision as he changed back to his normal form. A rift then opened on a bit of rubble next to the Koopa King and he traversed it, the rift closing just before the Fierce Deity’s sword impaled the stone behind it.

With a flash of light, Link took off the Fierce Deity Mask and fell to his knees.

Why do I have a bad feeling about this?

The Rainbooms and Princess Zelda stood their ground against the Sorceress of Ice and Flame, Twinrova. But it was pretty clear that they were barely managing to stay in the fight.

Rainbow Dash was zipping around the battle, jumping off debris to strike Twinrova and then run for it, only to circle back once her attention was drawn elsewhere. Applejack, Sci Twi and Sunset were sending debris and magic bolts at the witch, who managed to either dodge or block most of them before she attacked Zelda who Applejack tackled to get her out of the way of the large fireball. Pinkie Pie had, somehow, acquired a cart full of baked goods and began throwing them at her, the magic of her geode charging them into magical explosives. The look of indignation on Twinrova’s face when that first pie detonated in her face was quickly followed by Princess Zelda sending another light blast at her, finally sending her to the ground.

Letting out a roar of frustration as she unleashed a burst of elemental magic in a shockwave around her, sending all the Rainbooms flying through the air before they hit the ground or side of the canyon, the witch leered at Past Zelda before the sound of fireworks drew their attention towards the castle.

With a malicious smile, Twinrova flew up into the air and, with one last elemental blast to cover their retreat, flew off as she separated back into Koume and Kotake.

“Why did they just run? Not complaining, just asking,” Rainbow Dash asked.

“These fireworks came from the castle and seemed to be a signal to retreat! An enemy must have infiltrated the castle!” Sci Twi said.

Past Zelda gasped. “Oh no! Father!”

She immediately ran toward the castle, quickly followed by worried Rainbooms. Once inside, they found the king in the Throne Room, with the captain of the guards talking to him..

“Father! Are you alright?” Zelda asked.

“Zelda? Where were you? We couldn’t find you!” King Liam replied.

“Link and Impa went out to defend the town, and I… decided to follow him. I wanted to protect our people too.”

“You put yourself in harm’s way?!” the king yelled, getting angry.

“I encountered these people! They protected me against Twinrova!”

King Liam looked at the Rainbooms, eying Sunset particularly, before he looked back at Zelda and said, “We will talk about it later. Meanwhile, go to your room.”

Zelda sighed. “Yes, Father.”

The king looked back at the Rainbooms. “I must thank you for protecting my daughter. I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost her.”

As the Rainbooms replied with “You are welcome” and “That was nothing, some of them sheepishly, Zelda talked again.

“Before I go, Father, what happened here? We saw the fireworks. An enemy was here?”

The king looked somber at that. “Yes. Someone infiltrated the castle while the majority of the guards went to defend the town. They went to the dungeon and freed Ganondorf.”

Chapter 172: Meeting the Terrans and Zerg

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 173: Zerg Are Scary

Sweetie Void’s group stepped out of the rift before Dream Warper’s castle. She turned to Karax and Matt Horner and spread her forehooves.

“Welcome to Ponyville, Equestria, Equus! Well, my version of Equus, which we are calling Void Equus. Over there,” She pointed toward the portal. “is the portal that we use to go to other universes. Over there,” She pointed toward the Lor Starcutter. “is my dimensional spaceship, the Lor Starcutter. And behind me,” She pointed at the castle. “is Princess Twilight Sparkle’s castle.”

“A giant crystal tree?” Matt asked.

Phantom shrugged. “Magic. Get used to it.”

Sweetie Void giggled.

Karax looked at the tree. Impressive. I can feel the power radiating from this tree. It rivals our Nexus. Maybe it even surpasses them. So this is magic?

“If ya’re impressed by just this tree, then wait until ya see its source,” Apple Death said.

I can’t wait to study it and possibly incorporate it into our technology.

“And we can’t wait to see what your technology will bring to the Alliance,” Sweetie Void said. “Anyway. Let’s meet Twilight, or Dream Warper as we call her to differentiate her from the other Twilight Sparkles.”

As they entered the tree, Matt asked, “There are no guards?”

“Dream Warper isn’t comfortable yet with employing servants and guards,” Sweetie Void answered. “It was just a few years ago that she was just a lonely bookworm. She still has to get in her head that she is now royalty.”

“She wasn’t always?”

“Nope,” Apple Death answered. “In Equestria, when ya ascend into an alicorn, like Sweetie, ya immediately become a royal.”

“I’m kind of an exception because I already was the queen of another kingdom before I even ascended,” Sweetie Void specified. “So I’m not a royal of Equestria. But because I’m still just a filly, I have someone managing Floralia in my place, which allows me to go on adventures.”

Following Dream Warper’s magic, Sweetie Void was able to guide the group to her. To the fillies’ surprise, she wasn’t in her library, but in a large empty room with the Rainbooms.

Rainbooms who were training to use new powers they seemingly obtained. Dream Warper herself was taking notes.

“Uh? What have we missed?” Sweetie Void wondered.

“A whole battle,” Phantom said. “But what the heck happened in it for them to obtain new powers?”

“Is it even related? Why would the Rainbooms be in a battle in Hyrule?” Apple Death asked.

“I remember Dream Warper saying that she would give a tour of the different universes to them. I guess they were in Past Hyrule,” Sweetie Void said.

At this moment, Spike, who was beside Dream Warper, saw the group and gained the alicorn’s attention. Seeing them, Dream Warper stopped taking notes and approached them. One by one, the Rainbooms stopped training to look.

“Hello you three. I see that you are bringing guests. And… Uh… What is that?” she asked upon seeing Void Heart.

“A Zerg. A Broodmother Larva that their Overqueen gave to me so we will have a brood in the Alliance. Her name is Void Heart. Also, I present to you Admiral Matt Horner from the Terran Dominion and phase-smith Karax from the Daelaam of the Protoss. Both factions agreed to join our Alliance. Matt, Karax, this is Dream Warper.”

“Welcome! I’m glad to hear that we have new friends.”

“It’s my pleasure to be here, Your Majesty,” Matt said.

En Taro Adun, Princess Dream Warper.

Dream Warper looked at Karax in surprise. “Is that telepathy?”

Karax looked amused. As you can see, our race lacks what you call a mouth. We can’t talk the normal way. Thankfully, we are powerful psychics.

Before Dream Warper could say more, Phantom cleared her throat. “Ahem! Before you start Twilighting on us, what happened in Past Hyrule?”

“Oh right. Well, Bowser joined forces with the Gerudos and attacked the capital. However, it turned out to be a diversion to allow someone to sneak into the castle and free Ganondorf. They fled as soon as they received the signal that their objective was accomplished, leaving the town very damaged but with very few deaths. It went so fast that reinforcements arrived only after they left.”

“And so, we end up with Crazy Hand now with Ganondorf working for him, and also Past Eggman. Apple Death, you should go look at your museum just in case he tries to recruit Thanatos,” Sweetie Void said.

“Oh buck…” Apple Death opened a portal and left right away.

“I think that I should also visit Grogar and the others to make sure that they don’t get the idea to join him if he comes,” Sweetie Void said.

Phantom smirked. “Thankfully, I don’t have to worry. Grogar is still trapped wherever he is. The Changelings have developed too strong a friendship bond to betray the ponies, and Tirek is dead. It’s Apple Death who should worry, again. Her Tirek is still alive and her Chrysalis is still an enemy.”

Dream Warper nodded. “I will talk with Blackhole Sparkle once I have the occasion.”

“Who is this Crazy Hand? Anything to do with Master Hand?” Matt Horner asked.

“Certainly, but we aren’t sure how much,” Sweetie Void answered. “The two worked together when they fought Kirby, without forgetting that they are both giant hands, a right one and a left hand, so maybe they are brothers or something like that. But does this mean Crazy Hand is part of the Subspace Army? Not sure.”

“Since he just attacked us for the second time despite the non-aggression pact, we are even less sure,” Dream Warper said. “He could be a rogue element like K. Rool, but after the first time, Master Hand should have kept a leash on him.”

“If he can. If they are equal in power, I’m not sure if Master Hand would be able to do something,” Phantom said.

“So, in the end, we don’t know,” Sweetie Void said. “But it means that he is a more immediate threat than the Subspace Army, and we will have to find a way to deal with him if he continues his attacks.”

“And with how he recruited Ganondorf and Past Eggman, known enemies of the Alliance, I’m sure that we will see him again sooner than later,” Phantom said.

Matt and Karax exchanged a glance, then the Terran said, “Then I think that we should hurry to see the leaders of this Alliance so we can formalize our arrival in it and allow our armies to help you.”

Karax nodded.

“Right. Of course. Let me warn everyone,” Dream Warper said.

“No need to send a message to Chairman Keaton,” Sweetie Void said. “I intend to see him to ask him something. I can tell him about Matt and Karax on the same occasion.”

Sweetie Void came out of a rift on Daiban, before the Federation Meeting Assembly Hall. Before long, she arrived at Keaton’s office.

“Welcome, Queen Sweetie Void. To what do I owe this visit? Does this have something to do with what happened in Past Hyrule?” Keaton asked while he eyed Void Heart in curiosity.

“Actually, first I’m here to tell you that we have new allies. The Terrans and the Protoss. Representatives are in my Equestria, waiting to talk with you.”

“I see. Thank you for telling me. You said there is something else?”

“Yes.” At that, Sweetie Void showed Void Heart. “This is Void Heart, a Zerg from the same universe as the Protoss and the Terrans. She is a Broodmother Larva who will be able to build a hive once she reaches maturity. Once the hive is formed, they will be able to help us against the Subspace Army. But for that, she will need biomass. So I ask for a planet where she will be able to develop, with enough lifeforms, under the watchful eyes of the Galactic Federation. Don’t worry, I imprinted my telepathic signature to her so she will obey me. As long as I tell her to not attack anyone, she will remain docile. They won’t be like the Metroids.”

“I see. How much of a formidable ally will they become?”

“I haven’t learned much about Zerg, but they are pretty much insectoid, and like insects, I’m guessing that they can grow and spread very rapidly. Back in their universe, they are one of the three major races controlling their sector of the galaxy, alongside the Protoss and the Terrans. Yes, despite not having any technology, they developed space travel, and they can rival species who developed such technologies. They only care about growing, survival, and evolving however, so I wasn’t able to convince them to join the Alliance against the Subspace Army because the Subspace soldiers don’t offer any biomass. Their Overqueen still gave me this larva to do as I want with her.”

Keaton nodded. “I think that I know which planet to give to her.”

Planet Etera.

A very hostile planet entirely covered by jungles, full of huge, powerful predators.

One such predator attacked Sweetie Void who easily stopped it with her levitation. It was a Dertilga, a ten foot tall, four-armed gorilla-like creature with black fur. Considering that the trees on this planet were also huge, it had no problem balancing from branch to branch to drop without warning on unexpected prey.

And yet, when Sweetie Void placed Void Heart inside it and commanded it to feed, the larva devoured it from the inside in a matter of seconds, already giving her enough biomass to be able to grow into a not mature yet Broodmother, but mature enough that she will be able to lay eggs of the smaller Zerg.

“Ok, listen to me,” Sweetie Void began once the Broodmother was before her. Even if she wasn’t fully mature yet, she was still towering over her. “You are Void Heart, a Broodmother Zerg. Your mission is to feed on the lifeforms of this planet to develop a hive. Don’t attack anything else unless I say otherwise. Humans, especially, will eventually come to bring more biomass for you to spread your hive, so don’t attack them. Outside of that, do as you want.”

“Very well, my Queen.”

“Before you go…” Sweetie Void began to create a clone of herself, not of magic or energy, but of flesh and blood. She duplicated her own flesh, something like mitosis, causing a second Sweetie Void to sprout out of her body. However, she made sure that this Sweetie Void wasn’t alive. Also, she didn’t have her Cutie Mark. “Eat her. This way, you should gain magic. A gift from me.”

“Thank you, my Queen.”

Void Heart easily devoured the clone.

“Now go. Build your hive. And once the time comes, I will call for your help,” Sweetie Void said.

“Very well, my Queen.”

After that, the Broodmother disappeared into the jungle. Sweetie Void then flew and went to rest on a cloud, wanting to remain and watch a bit.

It was only a few minutes later that she saw trees being cut down, allowing her to see Void Heart, now fully mature, surrounded by a brood of a few dozen individuals of various shapes and sizes. Among them was a partially yellow Zerg that then disappeared inside a cocoon which rapidly began to grow. For the following minutes, the cocoon grew, grew, and grew, becoming very huge, until it hatched.

What came out of it was… hard to describe. It was a giant… spiked… mass of flesh. It looked like a volcano, but the chimney was a mouth with fangs and surrounded by spikes, or tusks, or bone-like mandibles. Very hard to say. From the top came what looked like tunnels out of which larvae came out almost right away. These larvae then quickly turned into cocoons which soon hatched into grown Zergs, including another yellow one, and more larvae came out to replace them. The yellow Zerg then moved away, then turned into a cocoon to form a new “building”.

Also, this… hatchery, released some weird purple organic thing that spread on the ground a large distance around it. The yellow Zerg forming the second “building” made sure to do it on this purple thing.

Sweetie Void continued to watch as the Zerg devoured, built more hatcheries, one of which evolved to eventually turn into the hive itself, hatched thousands of individuals, and all that in less than an hour. A huge part of the jungle was already gone, and a larger part of it was now covered in that purple organic thing.

It was… scary. Sweetie Void didn’t expect the Zerg to spread that fast. At this pace, they will colonize the whole planet in less than a month.

Also, she could see that Void Heart now had a horn on her forehead, confirming that she now had magic.

Sweetie Void decided that she saw enough, and she opened a rift, returning to her Equestria to rest. Another adventure awaited her tomorrow. After school, of course.

In school.

“So, how was the world you went to yesterday?” Shadow Speedster asked.

“Actually, where I went, I ended up in a civilization that developed space travel, so I was able to visit a couple of planets,” Sweetie Void answered. “I encountered three races cohabiting more or less with difficulty. One, of course, were the humans. The other two are known as Protoss and Zerg. I arrived in the Protoss world.”

She went on to describe the Protoss, their world, their technology, their architecture, and so on. Shadow Speedster and Black Apple were entirely focused on her words, fascinated.

“The Zerg, however, don’t use any technology at all. Everything with them is purely organic, even their “buildings”. They are very insectoid. They have a hivemind, and they are ruled by a queen, known as the Overqueen. They aren’t as friendly however. They only care about gathering biomass to multiply and evolve. I wasn’t able to convince them to join us because of that, but the Overqueen still gave me a larva so I can have my own brood. As for the humans, known as Terrans, I wasn’t able to see much of them, but their technology is slightly less developed than the Galactic Federation. Their guns still fire simple bullets.”

“Oh, they’ll love the Galactic Federation’s energy guns,” Black Apple said.

“Both the Terrans and the Protoss sent a representative with me to properly enter in contact with the Alliance. One is Admiral Matt Horner. The other is phase-smith Karax.”

“Phase-smith?” Shadow Speedster asked.

“It’s the Protoss name for engineers. They work on everything. Weapons, armors, and spaceships. You should see Karax. He has robot arms.”

“Ooh!”

“Cool! Uh. Where is Karax right now?” Shadow Speedster asked.

“He remained in Dream Warper’s castle, and right now, I think that he is exploring Ponyville. I saw him earlier before Sugarcube Corner. He is interested in moving to New Halcandra later today. You want to see him?”

“Yes.”

“Then don’t worry, he should still be here when school ends. I can bring you to him before I start my next adventure.”

As soon as school was over, Sweetie Void did so. She easily found Karax’ psionic energy before Dream Warper’s castle and teleported to him with Shadow Speedster. She then said “Good luck,” to her friend before she teleported away, letting her talk to Karax.

After that, she gathered with Apple Death and Phantom, only to find that Phantom had two guests.

Phantom looked annoyed.

“They insisted on coming,” she said.

Present Sonic grinned at her. “Hey, come on, you aren’t the only one who loves to go on adventures. I’m really curious to discover a new world.”

Past Sonic nodded.

Sweetie Void shrugged. “The more the merrier. Alright then. But then, let’s cover more ground. Half of us go to explore a world, and the other half go to explore another.”

They all thought for a bit, then agreed, Apple Death saying, “Ok.”

“I agree,” Present Sonic said.

“Then, you, you, and you,” Sweetie Void pointed at Apple Death, Phantom, and Present Sonic. “You will go together. I will go with Past Sonic.”

“Sweet!” Present Sonic put an elbow on Phantom’s shoulder, annoying her even more. “I like to be with my pal.”

Phantom silently glared at him.

“Then time to go,” Sweetie Void said before she opened a rift. “Team One, it’s for you.”

But before the three could go through the rift…

“WAAAIIIIIIT!!!” A familiar voice suddenly yelled, gaining everyone’s attention.

Approaching them were Present Amy and her past self.

“Amy? What are you doing here?” Present Sonic asked.

“I heard that you and your past self intended to go explore a new world. And if you are going, then we are coming too!”

That made the two Sonics groan, making Phantom chuckle.

Sweetie Void grinned. “Like I said, the more the merrier. Welcome. Present Amy, you go with Team One. Past Amy, Team Two, with me and Past Sonic.”

Both Sonics found themselves hugged by their Amy.

“Me and Sonic! Exploring a new world!” Present Amy began.

“So romantic!” Past Amy finished.

Phantom laughed. Sweetie Void giggled. And even Apple Death was amused by the Sonics' misfortune.

The rift opened… and Apple Death, Phantom, Present Sonic, and Present Amy dropped right away into the ocean.

For Sonic, this adventure started really badly.

Author's Note

Tell me if I do anything wrong with the Starcraft characters.

Chapter 174: The Great Sea

“Of all places, why did we have to drop in the ocean?!” Amy yelled once everyone swam back to the surface after the surprise of falling in the water passed.

“I would say it’s bad luck, but apparently, DD is the one choosing the destinations of Sweetie’s rifts,” Phantom said with visible annoyance.

“Uh…” Apple Death looked at Phantom, then at Amy, then around, searching for something. “We’re missing a hedgehog.“

At that, Phantom and Amy looked around. Amy then shouted, “Sonic!” while Phantom facepalmed.

“Right… He doesn’t know how to swim.”

She then disappeared underwater. Several seconds later, she returned with Sonic on her shoulder, the blue hedgehog coughing water.

Once he stopped and took several big breaths, he said, “The one time I decide to go on an adventure, we drop in water. I can’t believe it.”

“Seems like DD wanted to mess with you,” Phantom said with a smirk.

Sonic groaned. “Let’s get out of this water, please.”

“We are just beside a tower,” Amy said. “We will have to swim to it.”

Phantom chuckled, then used her powers to materialize the same ship she used back in their adventure with Kirby and the others, but smaller. Apple Death then turned into a ghost and levitated everyone on it.

“No need to swim,” Phantom said.

Meanwhile, Apple Death looked around. “Ah can see islands in the distance. We really are in the middle of the ocean.”

“Just my luck…” Sonic said. “Just an ocean and islands too small to have a good run. I hope other me has better luck.”

“Don’t worry Sonic! I’m sure that we will still have a good adventure despite that!” Amy tried to reassure him.

“We will see…”

They then all looked at the tower beside which they were. It was a large and very tall stone tower, right in the ocean, not even on an island. there were weird circle and line markings here and there on its surface. At its foot, starting from the tower itself, was a wall with arches that surrounded the entrance.

“Let’s start by exploring this tower. If we appeared beside it, there must be a reason,” Phantom said.

So they passed through one of the arches and entered the tower. Inside, they arrived in a submerged hall.

At their right were two walkways, one at their level, and one higher. There was also a submerged hallway to an unknown destination.

At their left was a wall with three arches. They couldn’t see what was on the other side.

Before them was a golden mural with a face. Under the mouth was a doorway, at the same level as the second walkway of the right. Behind the mural, at the left and the right, were two waterfalls. Before it was a small red boat with the head of a dragon with yellow horns and white hair.

“Is it me or is it bigger inside than outside?” Sonic questioned.

“It’s not you,” Amy said.

Suddenly, the level of the water rose to the level of the doorway, allowing them to see that, at the other side of the wall at the left, there was another walkway with a staircase.

“And now, the water level rises when it’s supposed to remain at sea level,” Apple Death said. “Ah don’t think we’re in the same dimension as outside.”

“A pocket dimension, uh? This tower must be very special,” Phantom said.

“It is,” a deep voice replied.

The heroes looked around, searching for the origin of the voice. Amy then pointed at the red boat and shouted, “Look! The boat!”

The red boat was, indeed, now looking at them.

“You are in the Tower of the Gods,” it said. “Where the Chosen One must prove his courage to the Gods.”

“A living boat?” Sonic asked. “What the heck?”

The level of the water lowered.

“You should not be here,” the boat continued. “Link is already passing the trials of this tower as I talk. They are not for you.”

“Link?” Apple Death questioned before the heroes exchanged glances.

Phantom stared at the boat. “Boy in green? With a sword and a shield?”

The boat raised an eyebrow. “You know him? You do not seem to be from around here.”

“We know another Link. One of our friends,”Apple Death explained before she looked at the others. “Seems like we’re in an alternate Hyrule.”

“With Hyrule nowhere to be seen since we are in the ocean,” Sonic said.

The red boat looked in awe. “Dimensional travelers?”

“That’s right!” Amy exclaimed. “And since we are here, then we are going to help your Link!” She gasped. “Oh! We should bring Link here! I want to see the two Links working together!”

Phantom shrugged. “Maybe later. For now, we must discover more about what is going on here.” She looked back at the boat. “Anyway. I’m Phantom. This is Apple Death, Sonic, and Amy. Whatever problem you have that requires your Link to go through these trials, we can help.”

The boat shook its head. “I am the King of Red Lions, and-”

“Red Lions?” Sonic asked. “Uh… You don’t look like a lion.”

The level of the water rose again.

The King of Red Lions cleared his throat. You could see some sweat pearling from his head despite him being a boat. “Some help would be welcome, but for now, Link needs to pass the trials of this tower alone to prove that he is worthy. So you will have to wait here.”

“Alright. Meanwhile, you can explain to us what is going on,” Amy said. “In order to help, we need to know what the problem is in the first place.”

“Well, you already know a Link, so must I presume that you also know a Ganondorf?” the Red Lion asked.

Everyone frowned. Phantom asked, “So Ganondorf is a problem here too?”

“Yes. A long time ago, Ganondorf took over Hyrule only to be defeated by the Hero of Time. The Hero left, and time passed, but eventually, Ganondorf freed himself and brought disaster to Hyrule again, with no Hero this time to stop him.”

Everyone winced. “We’ll have ta keep an eye on the seal in Future Hyrule,” Apple Death said.

“One Ganondorf already escaped prison, we don’t need another one coming loose,” Phantom agreed. “Especially the one who already possess the Triforce of Power.”

The water level lowered.

“Bah. If he escapes, we can just defeat him and send him back to his hole,” Sonic said.

“So it means that this world is the future of Future Hyrule?” Amy asked.

“Yeah,” Phantom said.

The gears worked inside the Red Lion’s head. “The Link you know is the Hero of Time?”

They nodded.

“And you talked about two Ganondorfs?”

“Yeah. The one Link and Sweetie Void sealed in Future Hyrule, and the one Link sent to prison in the Hyrule they were sent back to once their adventure was over,” Phantom said.

“So the Hero was sent back in time? I guess it is no wonder he never returned,” the Red Lion said sadly.

“What happened to Hyrule?” Amy asked. She was scared to know, but they needed to know.

“You will find out soon enough, once Link reaches the top of this tower. It shouldn’t be long now.”

Right on cue, as the water level rose again, a bell sounded from the top of the tower.

“That’s him,” the boat said. “Now, we have to wait for him to return.”

It didn’t take long, thankfully. Link suddenly appeared in the doorway in the mural beside the Red Lion in a column of light.

Without surprise, he looked a lot like the Hero of Time, and he was even the same age.

“I did it!” he shouted. “Now what?”

“Climb,” the Red Lion instructed. “You have opened the path. I will guide you to it, just outside the tower.”

“Ok!”

With a jump, Link climbed on the Red Lion. It was only then that he saw the other boat at the entrance of the tower, and everyone on it. He was so surprised that he yelped and fell on his butt. It made everyone laugh.

Phantom grinned. “Hello Link. We are new friends. We will help you against Ganondorf.”

Link looked at them, mouth wide open.

The Red Lion chuckled. “Let’s exit the tower.”

While they did so, the heroes used the occasion to present themselves again.

Once they said that they knew the Hero of Time…

Link gasped. “You know the Hero of Time?!”

“Yep! That’s right!” Sonic said.

Link gasped again. “Oh my god! Can I see him?! Please?!”

Apple Death laughed. “Yes.”

“Oh my god! I can’t believe that I will see the Hero of Time!”

“Aww. That’s cute. Link has a fan,” Amy said.

“When he’ll learn that there’s a whole legend about him…” Apple Death said.

“We have arrived,” the Red Lion said.

They were now just before the entrance of the tower, before a circle of light in the water.

“So the gods have acknowledged you to be a true hero,” the boat said to Link. “But this does not mean your trials have ended here… Once you take your first step into the world beyond the ring of light you see shimmering in the waves before you, your true trial will begin.”

“Aw man…” Link said.

“Are you ready, Link?”

Link sighed. “Yeah. I am. I guess.”

The Red Lion then advanced into the ring of light… and sunk into the water?

Left behind, the heroes could only watch.

“We have to go in the water?” Sonic groaned.

“Well, submarine time,” Phantom said before she transformed the ship into a submarine. Apple Death decided to turn back into her living form to be with the others inside.

They followed the Red Lion underwater, the boat and Link being inside a column of light. They descended, Link discovering that he could somehow breathe underwater.

Then… There was no water anymore.

The Red Lion continued to descend slowly thanks to the column of light, but the heroes’ submarine didn’t have such luck. It plummeted until Phantom turned it into a helicopter, to everyone’s relief.

As they descended, they finally saw, to their surprise, a vast land. There was a castle on a cliff beside a giant lake. Beside the castle were ruins. Everything was various shades of gray.

The Red Lion descended into a small garden on a roof of the castle, with a pond and some trees. Because there was not enough space for the helicopter, the heroes were forced to jump from it before the vehicle disappeared.

Link was now on a walkway leading to an entrance to the castle.

“Where are we?” he asked. “Is it…?”

“Yeah… It looks different from the Hyrule we know, but it is Hyrule,” Sonic said. “But what the heck happened? Why is it underwater? And why is it so gray?”

Phantom pointed at a small waterfall that poured out water from inside the castle.

The waterfall… The water… Nothing was moving.

“Time is stopped. Seems like the gods have something to do with it. I can see only them doing something like that.”

“Woah… It’s chilling!” Amy said.

“You guessed right, Phantom. But unfortunately, I do not have time to explain,” Red Lion said before he looked at Link. “Once you find the item hidden inside this castle and strike down Ganon with it, everything will be made clear to you. Trust in my words! See what awaits you in the castle!”

Link nodded. “Alright.”

So the group entered the castle, entering a giant hall. The first thing they saw upon entering was an anthropomorphic pig in the position of attacking them, frozen in time. Many other pigs, and also knights, were present all over the hall which was very damaged. Quickly, everyone’s attention went to a statue of Link, the Hero of Time, present in the center of the hall, on a pedestal.

Sonic eyed the closest pig. “I’m guessing they are the bad guys.”

“They are,” Link said with a nod. “They are Ganondorf’s top soldiers.”

“And something tells me they won’t remain frozen in time for long,” Phantom said.

Link pointed at the pig. “Moblins can be tricky, but they should be rather easy to fight if you know how to approach them without being hit, and they are very stupid.” He pointed at one of the knights in the distance. “Darknuts, however, are more problematic. Their armor is very solid. They have a shield and a large sword that can destroy pillars, and they know martial arts. Their only weakness is a seam in the armor in the back.”

Sonic shrugged. “This shouldn’t be a problem. I can shred metal, easy.”

“Yeah! Bring it on!” Amy said.

They advanced in the hall, descending a couple of staircases until reaching a part where the floor was slightly lower than the rest, with the Triforce symbol in the center. Three stone wedges were around, two placed against each other.

A chiming suddenly sounded from Link, and he took out of his pocket a glowing blue gem wrapped in some golden string. Out of it came the voice of the Red Lion.

“All right, Link… I’ll need you to listen to me for a moment. The item you seek is hidden somewhere in this castle. To find it, you must find the entrance to the basement. But… that entrance has been blocked by a mighty threshold, firmly sealed to prevent evil from ever gaining access. Do you know what to search and what you must do to open the hidden way? You will find a clue in the shape of the heraldry near where we arrived at the castle.”

Phantom gave the stone a deadpan look. “He makes it sound like this is a puzzle only a genius could solve. All you have to do…” She pointed at the wedges. “is place these wedges on the triangles of the Triforce symbol in the floor. A toddler could solve that.”

“A bit dramatic the Red Lion, uh?” Sonic said with a laugh. “Alright. Let’s place these wedges.”

Working together, it didn’t take long to place the wedges on the three triangles of the Triforce symbol. Once done, the wedges sunk into the floor, and the symbol began to glow. Then, the pedestal with the statue of Link moved backward, revealing stairs to the basement.

“Time ta find out what this item is,” Apple Death said.

They descended into the basement where they could see a beam of light shine on a sword planted in a pedestal, surrounded by five giant statues of knights and stained glass windows depicting the sages of Future Hyrule. They had to descend more stairs, then climb one last staircase, to reach it.

“Excellent, Link. To perceive such a puzzle and decipher it is no small feat,” the Red Lion said from Link’s gem.

Everyone gave it a deadpan look.

The Red Lion cleared his throat. “Now, take the sword that lies before you. It is none other than the Master Sword… The blade of evil’s bane. It is the only sword that can banish Ganon from the world above.”

“Wait… When Link, the Hero of Time, took the Master Sword, he was forced into a seven year sleep because he was too young. Won’t the same thing happen here?” Phantom asked.

The Red Lion seemed lost for words. “Hum… I do not think this will happen this time. The Hero of Time had been too young to accomplish his destiny, but I do not think that Link here is too young to accomplish his.”

Amy eyed the stone weirdly. “What is the difference between the two Links that one was too young but not the other?”

“Uh…” Link gained everyone’s attention. “Maybe the Hero of Time wasn’t strong enough? Or he didn’t have enough motivation? I have to save my sister, and I trained hard for that. I’m very determined.”

Phantom shrugged. “Fair enough. Wait, your sister?”

Link nodded. “She was kidnapped by Ganondorf.”

“Oh… Then we will free her, don’t worry.”

“Yeah! She will be out of his clutch before you know it!”

“You must be so worried!”

“Then we should hurry out of here.”

Finally, Link went to pull the sword out of the pedestal. It took some effort at first, but once the sword moved a bit, pulling the rest out was very easy. Light came out of the pedestal, and one by one, the statues lowered their swords to form a circle with them above Link. The beam of light then gained in intensity until everyone was forced to close their eyes. When the light disappeared and everyone could open their eyes again, they could see that the colors had returned to the world.

“And time has returned,” Apple Death said.

“Meaning that a big battle awaits us back in the hall,” Amy said.

“Eh. Finally some action,” Sonic said.

Link looked at the sword, feeling its power. Then, he looked at everyone. “Let’s go.”

They exited the basement which closed behind them…

Gaining the attention of all the Moblins and Darknuts in the room.

Phantom materialized her sword, and Amy took out her Piko Piko Hammer.

The battle that followed was intense, but short. Link faced a Darknut and was able to roll around him while avoiding his sword before he cut the seam on his back, causing him to lose his armor. Before he could attack the Darknut, he had to face a Moblin attacking him from behind. He used his shield to parry his spear, then jumped and planted the sword in the Moblin’s skull, killing him. The Darknut now without armor used the occasion to attack him, but Link jumped from the Moblin’s head above the Darknut and hit the back of his helmet, removing it and revealing that the darknuts were some kind of bipedal dog. He then attacked his back repeatedly, killing him in a few hits.

Sonic curled into a ball and charged before he blasted toward a Darknut, shredding his armor easily before sending him on his back where he was hit by Amy’s hammer. Sonic then repeatedly Homing Dashed a Moblin on the head. The result wasn’t nice to see. Amy easily sent the enemies flying with her hammer, not even the Darknuts’ armor resisting her.

Phantom had no difficulty cutting through the Darknuts’ armor, cutting them and the Moblins to pieces. As for Apple Death, she simply touched them to kill them.

Before long, all the enemies were dead, Link killing one last Moblin by slashing him repeatedly after avoiding his spear.

Link looked at his sword, grinning. “It’s much easier to kill them now! Now I’m sure that I can save Aryll!”

“I guess that we are done in this castle,” Sonic said.

“Eeyup. Time ta leave,” Apple Death said.

“But really, guys, you are very strong!” Link said. “These Darknuts meant nothing to you!”

Sonic gave him a thumbs up. “I wreck armored robots regularly. These doggys were nothing.”

Amy smiled at him. “Eheh. Yes. It was very easy.”

They exited the castle where they were welcomed back by the Red Lion. Link climbed back on him and they moved into the ring of light. Once inside, the column of light returned and transported them back to the surface. Apple Death simply opened a portal to allow the heroes to follow them. Once at the surface, Phantom rematerialized her ship for everyone.

“So, our next stop is the Forsaken Fortress. Am I right?” the Red Lion asked.

Link nodded. “Yes. Time to save Aryll and the other girls.”

“Count on us!” Sonic said.

At that, Link took out a baton that he used as a conductor to change the wind’s direction to northwest, to the heroes’ wonder. Then, they sailed.

Somewhere in the sky above the ocean, as the sun was setting, a portal opened.

Out of it came none other than the legendary Pokémon, Mewtwo.

“Bring me this universe’s Triforce!” a voice said from the portal, annoying Mewtwo. “Beside that, you have carte blanche to cause as much chaos as possible. There are humans here, do what you want with them.”

The portal then closed.

Mewtwo sighed.

A slave, again…

At least, this new master gave it power and freedom to take revenge on the cruel humans.

It looked at the fortress beside which it appeared. Apparently, the first piece of the Triforce was there.

Well, it had to follow the orders.

Actually, if the power of this Triforce was so great, maybe it could use it to gain total freedom, and make its tormentors pay by the same occasion.

Chapter 175: The Battle of Forsaken Fortress

As the sun was setting, Phantom’s boat soared across the ocean, islands barely visible in the distance as they passed.

Amy gave a loving sigh. “It’s so romantic. Don’t you think, Sonic? Well, it’s not a cruise, but good enough.”

“I prefer when we are surrounded by ground, not water,” Sonic replied.

Amy pouted. “Way to ruin the moment.”

“I see it!” they suddenly heard Link yell from the Red Lion beside their ship. The boy was looking through a red telescope. “I see the Forsaken Fortress! We are arriving!”

At this moment, the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, darkening the sky.

“Finally!” Sonic shouted.

As the two ships approached, they could see more and more the Forsaken Fortress, which was revealed to be an ominous natural fortress sculpted in the stone of the island. It was surrounded by cliffs, there were searchlights watching the water, and there was a large tower structure with the bow of a wooden ship at the top and a large nest on a stone extension with a large masked bird sitting in it. For some reason, there were anchors hanging from all over the tower, and there was also a half-sunk ship beside the fortress.

“You never judge a book by its cover, but this fortress really screams that something wrong is there. Also, nice vacation spot,” Sonic said.

Link pointed at the tower. “My sister and other girls are locked inside this tower.”

“Then we have our goal,” Phantom said.

Suddenly, the half ship on the tower exploded. Link immediately pulled out his telescope again to see what was going on. Phantom copied him by materializing one.

Out of the explosion came none other than Mewtwo in its merged XY Mega form.

“What is Mewtwo doing here?!” Phantom exclaimed in surprise.

“Mewtwo?!” everyone else except Link and Red Lion shouted.

“And somehow, it still has its XY Mega Evolved form.”

At this moment, a giant beam came out of the cloud left by the explosion and almost struck Mewtwo who teleported just in time. Mewtwo then reappeared and gathered energy into a ball that it fired at the cloud, striking something that roared.

Little by little, the cloud cleared to reveal a giant bipedal pig armed of two swords.

“That’s Ganon!” the Red Lion shouted.

“Just our luck,” Apple Death said.

“Actually, it’s perfect. While these two fight, we will be able to enter the fortress and save the girls without encountering problems,” Phantom said.

As she said that, the giant bird rose from his nest and went after Mewtwo, attacking it with his claws.

“Still, what is Mewtwo doing here? That’s Giovanni’s Mewtwo, right?” Sonic asked.

“Only his Mewtwo could Mega Evolve into both its X and Y form at once,” Apple Death said. “But how can it do it with Giovanni gone?”

“I have a bad feeling,” Phantom said.

“So you know about this creature attacking Ganon?” the Red Lion asked.

“It’s a creature called a Pokémon, once forced to work for a despicable man named Giovanni,” Phantom explained. “Last we heard of it, it escaped the laboratory where it was kept after Giovanni’s defeat. Also, it’s extremely powerful.”

Link, witnessing the power of both Ganon and Mewtwo as they fired powerful projectiles at each other, Mewtwo targeting the head and the tail, gulped. He thought he had been ready to fight Ganondorf, but seeing his Ganon form firing huge beams that could probably blow up whole islands, it made him understand that he may be in over his head. How did the Hero of Time defeat that thing? And that Mewtwo creature was giving back blow for blow. It was like watching two titans fight.

They found the fortress’ entrance, a large wooden gate defended by cannons which Link easily destroyed with his own cannon firing his bombs. He then blew up the gate, allowing them to enter the fortress.

They approached a little dock to disembark, with some stairs leading to the fortress’ central yard where two searchlights were moving around.

“Be careful,” the Red Lion began. “Even if Ganon and the Helmaroc King are kept busy, their minions will still be everywhere in the fortress.”

“Nothing to worry about,” Sonic said. “These girls will be saved before they know it.”

They climbed the stairs, and Apple Death and Phantom decided to deal with the searchlights right away, flying to them and dealing with the Bokoblins (tall blue-skinned imp-like enemies) manning them.

Meanwhile, as Link, Sonic, and Amy approached the stairs to the second floor of the fortress, Amy ready to hit the stakes blocking the path with her hammer, they were stopped by a laugh suddenly resonating from nowhere. Then, suddenly, an armored ghostly dark figure with blue markings, a horned helmet, and a cape appeared behind them. The figure floated away and readied a ball of blue energy that it fired at Link. The boy readied his sword and hit the ball, sending it back toward the ghost who hit the ball back toward Link.

As the two hit the ball back and forth, Sonic and Amy looked in confusion.

“Seriously? A tennis match?” Sonic asked.

Before more could be said, Apple Death suddenly teleported behind the ghost and touched its back. The next instant, the ghost yelled in pain as it began to burn, purple flames engulfing him. Before long, nothing remained of the ghost.

A chest then appeared in the middle of the yard, but Link didn’t go to open it right away, more busy looking at Apple Death in shock.

“You… You defeated it so easily!”

“Ghosts are mah specialty.”

Amy was the one opening the chest, revealing a large hammer with a skull decorating it.

“Ugh. What an ugly hammer. I prefer my Piko Piko Hammer. I think it’s for you, Link.”

She gave the hammer to Link.

“Thank you.”

“Well, now that we are done here, time to enter this fortress,” Sonic said.

Just as he said that, they heard “Nyeh Na!” and “Deh Dank!” sounds, and suddenly, they found themselves swarmed by a large number of little imp-like creatures with large heads. They quickly revealed to be very easy to kill, but their number seemed infinite, so the heroes decided to move on while dealing with them.

Now that Link had the hammer, he could hit the stakes blocking the stairs to the second floor.

“I remember the path to the girls. It’s this way,” he said.

He hit the stakes, planting them into the ground and opening the path.

Meanwhile, in the sky, Mewtwo hit the Helmaroc King with another ball of energy which revealed to be too much for the bird who flew into the sky in pain before he exploded into a cloud of darkness, dying. In return, Ganon fired and hit Mewtwo with another laser, but the Pokémon immediately healed before it focused back on the pig.

The heroes quickly climbed the stairs and entered the fortress. From there, it was a matter of crossing rooms and outside hallways while dealing with Bokoblins (especially green-skinned ones) and Moblins, Link and Amy planting the stakes whenever there were ones blocking the path. Link often had to use a giant leaf as a parachute to cross large gaps between platforms to reach the other side of the rooms.

Eventually, they reached a staircase to a door guarded by two Moblins, easily killed. They passed the door and were back outside the fortress where they had to climb more stairs while dealing with the Miniblins again.

Following the path circling the fortress’ tower, they eventually reached a part where there was just a very narrow ledge against the wall forming the path, which would force Link who couldn't fly or jump far enough to press himself against the wall to cross. Instead, Apple Death levitated him while the others dealt with the Miniblins.

There were two such sections one after another before they reached the end of the path, before a door to inside the tower. Link had to hit a switch with his hammer to open the door.

Inside the tower, they found the cell holding the girls (and also seagulls for some reason). With the Helmaroc King dead, Link didn’t have to worry about the bird suddenly swooping down from the top of the tower to stop them freeing them, so he directly ran to his sister while yelling, “Aryll!”.

Aryll, a blond girl in a cyan dress with orange flowers, was sitting against the bars of the cell when she heard her brother. She immediately turned around and saw him coming.

“Big Brother!”

This gained the attention of the two other girls held prisoner in the cell, a rich-looking blond girl in an extravagant pink dress with a fan, and a poor-looking black-haired girl in patched up clothes.

“You're okay! I was… worried,” Aryll said.

“Aryll, are you alright?” Link asked. “Don’t worry, I will get you out of here.”

He then went to open the door, but failed because it was locked.

Before Phantom could tell him to let her handle it, a girl suddenly said from behind them, “The cell won’t open that easily!”

The origin was a tan blond girl with a pink shirt under a blue vest, with a red bandana around her neck. She had a red sash over a white pants, with a scimitar at her side, and sandals at her feet.

At both sides of her were two huge, muscled men, one with a green shirt, dark red bandana and sash, and white pants, the other bearded with a blue tank top, a belt, and brown pants.

“There you go… Acting before you think, as usual… I know that the bird is gone, but it’s not like Ganondorf will drop on us right now.”

“Who are you?” Phantom asked.

“Oh, you have friends with you this time? I’m Tetra, nice to meet you.”

One by one, the heroes presented themselves.

“I think we talked enough. Let’s free these poor girls. I can see that Link has enough to wait,” Tetra said as she saw Link regularly look at his sister. She then saw Link’s sword on his back and was very surprised. Meanwhile, Phantom destroyed the cell’s door, freeing the girls.

“... That sword! Where did you get that?! Are you… Is it even possible…?” She then smiled and shrugged. “... How could it be?”

“Ya know about the Master Sword?” Apple Death asked.

Before Tetra could answer, the whole island suddenly shook, causing some to stumble while they heard Ganon’s roar of pain.

“Ganondorf is losing…” Tetra said. “I don’t know who this creature attacking him is, so I have no idea if this is a good thing or a bad thing.”

Phantom interrupted. “I guarantee you, if Ganondorf loses, we’re next, so let’s call it a bad thing.”

“Then let’s hurry to get these girls out of here,” Tetra said.

At that, she signed to the two men with her to take the girls.

“We leave you to it. Meanwhile, we will have to join the big battle up there,” Sonic said.

Link nodded, then looked at Aryll. “Listen, Aryll, I know we just reunited, but I have to go and deal with the bad man who took you. Trust in these pirates, they will bring you back to grandma. Be nice to them, okay?”

Aryll hesitated, but she eventually nodded. “Okay Big Brother.”

“Wait! Listen!” Phantom suddenly shouted, silencing everyone.

…

Tetra understood. “The sounds of the battle have stopped!”

Apple Death turned into a ghost. “Let’s go right now!”

Instead of climbing the wooden walkway that spiraled to the top of the tower, Apple Death levitated all the heroes.

“Wait! Take me with you! I can fight too!” Tetra said.

Apple Death nodded and levitated her too, leaving the two burly men to take the girls out of the fortress.

The heroes flew up to the top of the tower where they saw the remains of the destroyed ship here and there on the roof. Flying to where it had been, they saw Ganon knocked out on the ground, Mewtwo floating beside him, beside his right hand.

Mewtwo held its paw forward, and out of Ganon’s right hand came a golden triangle. It flew to Mewtwo’s paw, and Phantom, Apple Death, Sonic, and Amy gasped. They immediately understood what happened.

Meanwhile, Ganon glowed and shrunk, returning to his usual Ganondorf appearance, revealing a dark-skinned man with red hair and beard in a black kimono.

“Oh… This is bad,” Phantom said.

Apple Death dropped everyone beside Mewtwo and Ganondorf, ready to face the Pokémon.

The ghostly filly felt at this moment something within Ganondorf’s soul. Something evil. But she put it in the back of her mind as she had a more immediate problem.

Mewtwo looked at them with surprise. You are here. How curious. The possibility for us to encounter each other in the same universe is infinitely small.

“Yeah. How curious,” Phantom said, already suspecting DD to have something to do about it. “What are you doing here?”

I was charged to get the Triforce of this world.

The heroes groaned.

“Let me guess,” Apple Death said. “Crazy Hand?”

That’s right.

“Ugh… Of course he recruited Mewtwo,” Phantom said.

“I’m guessing this is bad news,” Tetra said as she took out her scimitar.

“Very bad news,” Amy said.

But first, to eliminate the lot of you, the Pokemon said as psychic energy coursed like lightning across its body, before it rocketed forward slamming into a barrier of bone raised by Apple Death as Phantom teleported behind it, sword in hand. She slashed at Mewtwo’s neck, only for the blade to shatter after cutting through an inch. This annoyed Mewtwo who immediately healed with Recover.

Mewtwo elbowed Phantom, then caught her and slammed her on the ground before throwing her away. It then fired a Psybeam at her only for Apple Death to use a skull shield to defend her. The shield was destroyed, but it allowed Sonic to get Phantom out of the way in time.

Amy came to hit it with her hammer only for Mewtwo to catch her weapon with its psychic power. Before it could do anything, Tetra kicked it on the head. It still reacted quickly enough to catch Tetra with its right paw while it threw Amy away.

“L-let me go!” Tetra shouted.

Suddenly, the Triforce on the back of its paw glowed, surprising it.

You… You have a piece of the Triforce.

“Wha… What do you mean…?” Tetra asked.

Before Mewtwo could answer, Link came and cut its paw only to get stuck within an inch, forcing it to release the girl as it held its bleeding appendage after Link let go.

Your sword… Somehow, it hurt me more. But still not enough!

Again, it healed.

Link stepped back. “It… The Master Sword… isn’t enough…”

Ganondorf suddenly groaned, showing that he was conscious.

“Your blade doesn’t have its power anymore. It is useless as it is,” he said.

“It was still able to hurt Mewtwo! It’s better than nothing!” Phantom said before she sent cubes toward Mewtwo who teleported around to avoid them.

It was then hit from behind by a Homing Attack from Sonic, but Mewtwo barely stumbled before it turned around and used Psystrike on him, knocking him unconscious right away.

“Sonic!” Amy yelled.

Mewtwo looked at her and used Psychic to send her flying beyond the edge of the tower. She was quickly caught in Apple Death’s telekinesis and brought back on the roof.

Mewtwo then turned toward Tetra and used Psychic again to bring her to it only to be finally touched by one of Phantom’s cubes. The next instant, it was transported into a reality where it was attacked from all sides by powerful cannons.

Once it returned to normal reality, Mewtwo quickly healed again, then flew up and used a very powered up Psystrike down on the roof, destroying all of it. Apple Death was able to teleport everyone, including Ganondorf, back to the yard of the fortress, avoiding the terrible attack.

Mewtwo teleported to them and used Flamethrower on the whole yard. Thankfully, Phantom materialized a stone shield all around them. The stone, however, was quickly melting into lava, so she quickly acted and threw a spear right through the shield to pierce Mewtwo. However, the spear barely planted a few inches into Mewtwo’s body before it shattered. It still was enough to make Mewtwo stop, and Apple Death appeared beside it to slash it with bone claws. The claws shattered too, but they still hurt the Pokémon more.

Mewtwo used Ice Punch on her, but Apple Death dodged and blasted it toward the ground where it was welcomed by Link slashing it, only for his sword to get stuck again after a few inches. Tetra quickly got him away.

Mewtwo healed.

“There is no end!” Amy shouted.

Mewtwo used Blizzard, starting to freeze everyone. Phantom turned her body into fire and rammed Mewtwo, stopping it. Again, Link used the occasion to cut it, quickly getting his sword unstuck to get away.

After healing again, Mewtwo used Thunder, striking Link, Tetra, Amy, and Phantom with lightning bolts, knocking Tetra and Amy out, then teleported to avoid a scythe from Apple Death before it blasted her with Psystrike.

Suddenly, a huge red dragon came and breathed fire on Mewtwo. Link, on his knees, was surprised to see him.

“Valoo?”

“We arrive just in time, it seems,” a voice said.

Link looked and saw two birdmen, one younger than the other, just out of childhood.

“As I thought, things went wrong, but not in the way I expected. I did well to ask Valoo for help,” the eldest one said.

“Quill! Komali! Oh, thank you! Your help is welcome!”

Valoo was suddenly struck by a ball of energy, stopping him from breathing fire. Out of the flame came Mewtwo, burned, but still conscious and healing quickly. However, it was starting to breathe heavily. It then showed the Triforce of Power, calling its power.

Then, Mewtwo turned giant, as if it was Dynamaxed.

That’s enough! Your attempt to stop me is futile! With the Triforce, I will defeat you, then I will exterminate humanity from this world and pass to the next one! Not even Crazy Hand will control me anymore! Now, die!

It rose into the sky and gathered energy into a giant ball.

“It is about to blow up the island!” Phantom shouted. “We must go! Let’s return to Hyrule!”

“Wait! Before you teleport us away, take Ganondorf with us!” Apple Death said.

“What? Are you serious?”

“Ah’m feeling something in his soul. I think that his case may be more complicated than we thought.”

Phantom groaned. “Alright.”

Mewtwo sent the giant ball, and Phantom teleported everyone, including the Red Lion, back to Hyrule.

The ball then hit the island, and everything disappeared in a huge explosion.

Chapter 176: The King And The Princess

Author's Note

Chapter written by Justalad.

Chapter 176: The King And The Princess

Back at Hyrule, Phantom had teleported everyone. Tetra and Link laid on the King of Red Lions in the water and everyone else on the floor nearby. Valoo was sitting on the roof of the castle. As they got up, Sonic regained consciousness.

“Ugh… What happened?” he asked.

"Ok, this is bad. Mewtwo managed to take the Triforce of Power and is now incredibly strong," Phantom said, not answering Sonic’s question. Apple Death was the one who briefly summarized what happened since he was knocked out.

“I can’t believe something so powerful that isn’t a god exists,” Komali said.

“We will have to find a way to defeat that thing,” Quill said.

"The Master Sword… It barely did anything. How?" Link asked, still hardly believing the sword of legend he grew up hearing about was unable to do anything.

"Cough… Didn't I tell you already, kid?" Ganondorf said as he lay still injured, "The blade has lost its power, it’s but a shadow of its former self now. It will not stop someone wielding the power of the Triforce."

"Well shucks, so much for getting it," Apple Death said.

At this moment, Tetra started waking up.

"Hugh…oww…Link? Link!" she said upon seeing him. "Are you ok? Where are we?" she asked as she looked around, then her eyes laid on Ganondorf. "Ekk! And why is Ganondorf here too!?"

"I also would like to know why," Phantom said, eyeing Apple Death.

"Look, all Ah can really say is that there's a distinctively dark shadow creeping behind his soul. It feels hella ancient, and very evil. That kind of stuff messes up someone. Other than that Ah don't really know much," Apple Death let out.

"So what? He's cursed or something like that?" Sonic asked.

"Mmm… Pretty much." Apple Death looked at Ganondorf. "Do ya know anything about yer predicament?"

Ganondorf groaned as he tried to recall any time he could have fallen to such darkness. “Not offhand. Though, remembering further would go *Cough**Cough* more smoothly without the broken ribs and such.”

Link wordlessly pulled out a bottle with a pink fairy.

"Hol'up," Phantom said, looking at Ganondorf. "How do we know you aren't trying anything the moment you’re healed?"

Ganondorf grunted a little before answering. "Honestly, I only got my word to reassure you. But I will say so long that… thing has the Triforce of Power, betraying you doesn't serve my goals at all."

Phantom looked at Ganondorf a bit more before letting out a sigh. "Alright, yeah, I can tell he's serious. We are safe… for now."

Link threw the bottle to Ganondorf who easily caught it with one hand, and took out the cork with his thumb.

The fairy flew around him for a moment before disappearing. Not long after, Ganondorf rose to his full height, rolling his shoulders.

"Ahh, much better… As for your earlier question…" he said as he brought a hand to his chin thinking. "I can't say I know anything about this so-called curse you talk about. Although since young, I tended to have… peculiar dreams, and sometimes even when I'm alone I could swear I hear a voice. It always sounds so… angry. It deeply irritates me sometimes…"

"Ok yeah, that not only sounds like a curse but low-level possession," Apple Death asserted.

"Regardless, it’s clear to me that as I am now I stand little chance against that thing who usurped my Triforce, nor you all together if your performance against it while it was powered by it is anything to go by, so I propose a truce."

The heroes looked a bit surprised, not expecting Ganondorf to be this… reasonable.

“Having Ganondorf as an ally is not something that I had expected to happen ever,” Quill said.

“With a greater evil appearing, there is no other choice,” Valoo said, speaking Hylian, which Link and the others on the surface weren’t speaking.

Before the heroes could question Ganondorf further, Link jumped surprised and then pulled out the blue glowing gemstone from where a voice came out.

"Link! What are you doing? You must come to the room from where you got the Master Sword!" the voice said.

"Who is using that stone…?" Tetra asked, confused. "Who are you? Link and I are the only ones who can speak through this stone! How dare you use what’s not yours?!"

"... Your name is Tetra, right? You must come with Link to see me at once! And the others can come too."

The blue gemstone then stopped glowing and Link put it back where he had it.

"Hmph! Well, don't you sound important!... Fine, we're on our way. Just hold your horses, whoever you are," Tetra said.

She then jumped from the King of Red Lions and into the water, then turned around towards Link.

"Link, what are you waiting for? You heard the stone. You’re supposed to show me how to get where that voice is!" she said.

Link nodded and jumped too, then they went up the stairs nearby.

"So, you guys are coming too?" he asked everyone.

"I'd rather stay behind," Ganondorf said. "Whoever he was, I don't believe he would react too well upon seeing me. He aided you in getting the Master Sword in the hopes you would end me after all, didn't he?"

"Huh, right…" Link said.

"If he stays, then me too, no way I'm letting him out of our sight just yet," Phantom said, looking at Ganondorf.

Ganondorf simply huffed. "Suit yourself."

“I will remain here too, with Valoo,” Quill said.

“Me too,” Komali followed.

With that, everyone except them moved on back to the chamber where Link got the Master Sword. Apple Death transported Amy who started to wake up as they arrived at the stairs leading to the basement. Apple Death quickly told her everything that happened.

Upon arriving at the room, a figure in red with white at the top stood in the middle with his back turned to the heroes.

Tetra then stepped forward. "Are you him? Are you the one who was speaking through my stone without permission? Answer me!" she demanded.

The figure, still back facing them, answered. "That stone is an enhanced version of the Gossip Stones long spoken of in the legends of the Hyrulean Royal Family. I am the one who made it."

The heroes were surprised upon hearing his voice, and his words made some start to realize who the figure was. Tetra however just laughed.

"You made it? Royal family gossip stone? I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about."

"Haven’t you heard the tales? Tales of the kingdom spoken of in the legend of the great hero… The place where the power of the gods lies hidden…" the figure kept talking. "This place, where you now stand, is that kingdom. This is Hyrule, and I'm its King: Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule."

Then, the figure finally turned around, revealing his appearance.

"Link, do you not recognize my voice?"

Link thought about it for a bit, but he quickly realized it. After all, it was a voice he had been hearing practically from the start of his journey. His face morphed into one of shocked surprise.

“You are…!”

"Indeed, I am the one who guided you here. I am the King of Red Lions."

"Wow, but you were a talking boat!" Link said surprised.

Daphnes chuckled a bit. "There was no need for me to reveal my true identity to you so long as that blade, the Master Sword, could defeat Ganon."

"But now he got the Triforce taken from him, and a new foe we call Mewtwo no doubt will use it in his place to stir up trouble," Apple Death said.

"Truly, the situation has somehow become even more dire than I could have ever expected. I can only ask all of you for your assistance in vanquishing this new threat from these lands," Daphnes said.

Sonic gave Daphnes a thumbs-up. "You can count on us, Your Majesty!"

"Yeah! We aren't letting Mewtwo get away with whatever he plans to do!" Amy said.

"Yeah!" added Apple Death.

"Thank you, valorous heroes. Link, Tetra, you must now listen to me."

Daphnes then started to explain. "Once, long ago, this land of Hyrule was turned into a world of shadows by Ganon, who sought to obtain the power of the gods for his own evil ends. My power alone could not stop the fiend, and our only choice was to leave the fate of the kingdom in the hands of the gods… When the gods heard our pleas, they chose to seal away not only Ganon but Hyrule itself… And so, with a torrential downpour of rains from the heavens, our fair kingdom was soon buried beneath the waves, forgotten at the bottom of the ocean.

Yet all was not lost, for the gods knew that to seal the people away with the kingdom would be to grant Ganon's wish for the destruction of the land. So, before the sealing of the kingdom, the gods chose those who would build a new country and commanded them to take refuge at the mountaintops. Those people were your ancestors. Hundreds of years have passed since then… So long as Ganondorf was not revived, Hyrule would remain below, never waking from its slumber."

Daphnes finished telling his story, letting everyone present think about his words.

"Huh, so that’s what would have happened to Future Hyrule once Link was sent back to his own time…" Apple Death said.

Daphnes then looked at Tetra. "Tetra, come to me."

Tetra, still a bit stunned by the whole tale, simply complied and approached him.

Daphnes extended his hand, and a shiny golden 'V' appeared floating on it. A similar golden light shone for a moment from Tetra's chest.

"This necklace you wear is part of a sacred treasure called the Triforce of Wisdom, which has been passed down for many years within the royal family of Hyrule. Your mother passed this down to you and instructed you to treasure it… and to guard it with your own life. Am I not correct?

The Triforce of Wisdom is none other than the sacred power of the gods that we kept from Ganon's clutches for many long years. The gods placed upon your ancestors the task of protecting it from evil's grasp. You too, must abide by the laws of the past… and so the time has come for me to teach you the fate into which you were born–the very reason you live."

Daphnes then held up his other hand, a tiny yellow triangle appearing on it.

The triangle and the V slowly floated to each other spinning, then flawlessly the triangle fit itself into the V forming a familiar, bigger golden triangle.

The now reformed Triforce of Wisdom spun between Daphnes's hands and shone greatly, rays of golden power bathing the room in their shine. Everyone had to cover their eyes to block the light.

After a moment the light disappeared and the heroes looked back at Daphnes and Tetra.

Except…Tetra's clothes and appearance had greatly changed. her pirate clothes were changed for a fine pink and purple dress, long white gloves adorned her arms, her hair once held in a kind of ponytail now laid down her back and even her tanned skin now was fair and clean.

She turned around slightly, looking at the back of her hand. Her head was now also adorned with a golden Tiara with a purple gem and her face had a bit of make-up.

Wow, I WISH changing up and getting pretty was that easy… Amy thought with a touch of subtle jealousy.

On Tetra's hand, the symbol of the Triforce shone, the right triangle shining the brightest.

It was at that moment she herself noticed her change of outfit and gave a tiny yelp, looking herself over.

"My… fate…" she let out.

"You are the true heir of the royal family of Hyrule… The last link in the bloodline. You’re Princess Zelda," Daphnes said.

'Zelda' simply looked back at Daphnes, not knowing what to say.

"...Zelda? I'm… a princess?"

"You are confused, aren't you? I suppose such is to be expected. Link! I'm terribly sorry that you got caught up in these events. And you travelers, even if now another evil is threatening our world, it is best if you still are wary of Ganondorf. It is unlikely the fiend gives up that easily on his plans, so even if you aren't at odds at the moment, do keep your guard up."

Apple Death, Sonic, Amy and Link pointedly looked at each other, then at Zelda.

"Yeah, don't worry," Apple Death said.

"Very good. Link! I have a suspicion about what has caused the Master Sword to lose its power. I need you to come with me back to the lands above the water and return the power to repel evil to the Master Sword!"

Link nodded.

Daphnes looked back at Zelda. "Zelda… It is far too dangerous for you to join us in this task. If that being from before was able to overpower and defeat Ganondorf while he had the Triforce of Power, then for no reason we must risk it getting to you and stealing the Triforce of Wisdom too! It may make it truly unbeatable! Fortunately, this sacred chamber is not yet known for that being. It is my wish that you wait here in hiding until we return."

Then, in front of everyone, Daphnes disappeared, catching everyone off-guard.

"Link! Travelers!," the voice of Daphnes was heard behind everyone. They looked just in time to see Daphnes disappear again and reappear again further up the stairs leading up outside the chamber. "We must go!" he said before disappearing again.

Without more, Link and the heroes started to make their way back up.

"Link…" Zelda said, making Link stop on his tracks to look at her.

"I don't know how to say this… Everything that's happened to you and your poor sister… It's all my fault. I'm so sorry…"

Link simply smiled and waved her off. "Hey, don’t worry Te-uhh… Princess Zelda? I don't blame you for anything. We are gonna beat that Mewtwo fella and save everyone! So you just stay safe ok? See ya," Link said, and with that he ran off to catch up with the heroes.

Zelda just saw him run off, waving her hand in goodbye.

"Link… Be careful…" she said.

Link joined everyone just as they were going back outside the ruins of the castle. There they found Quill, Komali, and Valoo waiting for them. Daphnes too had re-possessed the boat and was the King of Red Lions again.

There was also Phantom, glaring at Ganondorf as he sat cross legged on the floor with his hands on each knee, his eyes closed.

The moment the heroes approached, Ganondorf opened an eye to look at them, and Phantom turned her head.

"So, what happened?" Phantom asked.

They then gave everyone a summary of what happened, and what Daphnes revealed about the story of the world.

Upon finishing, Ganondorf tsked, and looked at the King of Red Lions.

"Of course that's the way you see the fact. Your gods essentially damned you all."

The king growled. "Say what you want fiend, but one day the people will prosper and together they will build a new and prosper future!"

"Future?... What Future? Oceans… Oceans… Oceans as far as the eye can see. They're vast seas… None can swim in them… They yield no fish to catch."

Ganondorf rose, his face and voice increasingly angry.

"Hah! How ridiculous… So many pathetic creatures, scattered across a handful of islands drifting on this sea like fallen leaves on a forgotten pool… What can they possibly hope to achieve? Don't you see? All of you… Your gods destroyed you!"

"Enough! Cease your slander you vile beast! The gods have done everything to ensure Hyrule lives on. It was none but your own hunger and malice that brought this!"

"STOP!" Apple Death shouted, ceasing their back and forth."This literally isn’t helping anyone! Mewtwo's out there and if we don't stop it, who knows what will be of the people back at the surface!"

Ganondorf and the King of Red Lions glared at each other for a moment, then finally Ganondorf looked away and turned around.

"Good. Now first things first," she said, still looking at the king. "how do we return the power to the Master Sword?"

The king sighed before answering. "Yes. The loss of its power suggests to me that something happened to the Sages who infused the blade with the gods’ power."

"Oh, yeah. I killed the Earth and Wind Sages," Ganondorf just said casually.

Everyone just looked at him.

"... What? The sword was a liability I didn’t want to risk dealing with, so I just got rid of the problem it represented."

"Of course you fucking did…" Phantom growled out.

"Ok, is there ANY way we could restore its power still?"

"Mmm… Something could be done if we could enter the Temples of the Sages, the Wind Temple to the North and the Earth Temple to the South, but a powerful barrier erected by Ganon prevents them from being accessed through Hyrule."

"Which normally wouldn't be a problem for me to deal with, but alas, without the Triforce of Power, it’s no use," Ganondorf said.

"And so, our only option is to access them through the surface."

"Well, guess it’s better than nothing. There's a thing though," Phantom said. "While we search for a way to the temples, Mewtwo will no doubt mess up the surface real good. It isn't… too fond of humans although for good reasons. The little people that live on the islands of this world are gonna suffer from its wrath."

The King of Red Lions looked pensive. "Then, in that case… the best would be to somehow bring them down here so they hide with Princess Zelda. But to manage such a feat-"

"We can do it," Phantom and Apple Death said at the same time.

“And we will help,” Sonic and Amy said.

"W-well then…" the king said.

"Also, Ah think it may be good to call for a bit of backup, and Ah know just the right hero to help us out," Apple Death smirked.

Phantom looked at her for a moment, then looked back at Link and smirked too.

"Yeah…I think I know who you’re talking about…"

Link had expected his day to be more of the same, simply enjoying his days with Hyrule at peace, helping repair the town after the Gerudos and Bowser’s army’s passage.

Then, a message arrived, saying that Phantom and Apple Death had encountered an alternate Hyrule and that they requested his help.

Now while he enjoyed helping in the repairs, he had to admit the prospect of a new adventure simply sounded more exciting. Plus, defeating evil was helping out too! Definitely it wasn't that he was bored out of his mind and itching for adventure.

So he told everyone where he was going, went to search for his gear and weapons, and went to reunite with Apple Death who was at the town’s exit to the castle, beside the portal that would take him to this new Hyrule.

Upon arriving, he looked around at the ruins of what he recognized as Hyrule's castle. Well, the castle looked different, but it was still a castle, so certainly Hyrule’s castle.

There, he saw Sonic, Amy, and Phantom, along with a dragon who sat on top of the castle, two birdmen, Ganondorf (good thing they told him about their truce beforehand, as he definitely would have jumped to attack him in an instant) and…

"Oh… OH, FOR THE GODS! Is he really…!?" the one he recognized as 'his other him' said, sounding very excited for some reason.

Phantom nodded. "Yup, the Hero of Time in the flesh kiddo," she said.

Other Link’s mouth opened, but no sound came out except a squeak. Then, he took a big breath, and… “OH MY GOD!!! THE HERO OF TIME!!!” Other Link ran to face Link, looking like he was about to bounce in place. Link started to feel awkward. “Ican’tbelieveIgettomeetyou! Iheardsomuchaboutyou! You’remyhero! Canyousignmytunic? You’resoco-”

“YOU!!!” Ganondorf yelled as he approached, only to be levitated by Apple Death who used her powers to keep his mouth shut.

“Let them have their moment. Wait for yer turn.”

Ganondorf’s outburst calmed Other Link down, but he still looked at Link like he was God incarnate.

Link slowly raised a hand and hesitantly said, “Uh… Hi.”

Other Link squealed. “He talked to me!!!”

Link took a step back, getting freaked out.

“Best day of my life!” Other Link shouted.

Phantom, finally deciding it was enough, put a hand on Other Link's shoulder.

"Hey kid, trust me when I say I KNOW how you feel, but don't you think you should focus? People are in danger still. You don't want to disappoint the Hero of Time by not knowing how to focus, do you?"

He looked at her, then at Link, then a blush made his way in his face.

"Y… yeah! You’re right. I'm sorry! Mr.-"

Ouch, Link thought. He wasn't anywhere near old enough to be called "Mr."

"-Hero of Time! I promise I will focus now!" he said with a serious face.

"... Just… call me Link," Link said.

"Yes! Whatever you say Mr. Li-"

"Drop the Mr. Just Link," Link said dryly.

"Right, Link… But wait! My name is also Link! Wouldn't that be confusing…?"

Apple Death hummed. "Mmm… Good point. We gotta come up with another nickname for him."

Apple Death looked at both Links for a moment.

Looking at them side by side, she couldn't help but notice how… cartoonish he looked when compared. Now that she thought about it, if she compared this universe's Zelda with the other one she came to the same conclusion.

"How about… Toon Link?" she said.

"Toon?" The newly named Toon Link asked.

"Mmm, yeah, I see what you mean," Phantom said.

"Huh, yeah… They kinda look like that," Sonic agreed.

"Well, fine by me I guess," Toon Link said.

"That means this universe's Zelda would be Toon Zelda, and Ganondorf would be Toon Ga-"

"I will NOT be called such a childish-sounding nickname," Toon Ganondorf growled out.

"Yeah well, we didn't ask your opinion. There's other versions of you out there and we need to tell you apart if they show up," Phantom said.

After that, silence settled for a bit, then Toon Link yawned.

"Man, all this talk made me sleepy…"

The King of Red Lions hummed. "It is quite late now indeed. Maybe it would be wise to rest before resuming our quest."

"Besides, Mewtwo too should need to rest after battling Ganondorf and then us right after and expending so much power."

"Well, since I just arrived I’ll stay guard while you all rest. Just in case," Link said.

With that, everyone searched for a place to sleep in for the night in the castle.

The next morning, everyone reunited again in the same place outside, ready to continue the adventure.

"Again, I must request that I stay behind. People will be less apprehensive and more trusting if you don't tag along with someone of my infamy," Ganondorf said.

"Hold on, you mean leaving you with Princess Zelda!? No way!" Toon Link said.

"I agree with the kid," Phantom said.

"I too have my concerns about that…" Link added.

Ganondorf rolled his eyes.

Valoo spoke. "If you worry for her safety, then rest assured, I will make sure Ganondorf does not try anything."

"And I will help too!" Quill said.

"Mmm, Ah have an idea. How about we use that gossip stone to communicate with Zelda? She has to call us through it once in a while to tell us she's fine. That way we got nothin' ta worry about." Apple Death suggested.

"Ah, a most excellent idea, I agree," The King of Red Lions said.

"All right then everyone, get ready. We're leaving," Phantom said as she used her powers to materialize a boat for the Heroes to hop in, while Toon Link hopped in the King of Red Lions.

"Be prepared ta receive any civilians we send here, ok?" Apple Death said and Valoo, Quill, and Komali nodded.

With that, the heroes made their way out of the ruined castle and back to the surface.

Chapter 177: A Broken Man

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 178: The Earth Temple

The group teleported to Headstone Island and entered the cavern with the stone tablet for the Earth God’s Lyric.

Toon Link took out the Wind Waker and faced Medli who readied her harp.

“Here we go. Ready?” Toon Link asked.

Medli nodded. “Ready.”

So they played the Earth God’s Lyric. As soon as they finished, the tablet cracked in two, light came out of the crack, and the stone crumbled, revealing the passage to the temple, with a staircase leading to a circular hole.

Link looked at everyone except his counterpart.

“Is this your first time exploring a temple?” he asked.

Sonic rubbed his head. “I explored temples in my adventures, but I’m guessing that it is not the same style.”

“I’m talking about exploring temples Link’s style.”

“No, we haven’t,” Phantom said.

“Well, there are three main objectives when exploring temples Link’s style: finding the unique item to add to Toon Link’s arsenal, finding the golden key, and finding the door with the golden lock, all to fight the big bad guarding the temple. These temples are trials to test Toon Link’s courage, wisdom, and power so he can grow as a hero, so while we can help him, no using your powers to bypass everything, like blowing up the locked doors or whatever. If we encounter puzzles requiring the temple’s unique item, then we wait to get that unique item before we solve them even if you have the power to solve them beforehand. And against the big bad, don’t overpower it. Give Toon Link a chance to fight it. Understood?”

“Understood,” everyone said.

“Certainly not my style, but let’s see how this goes,” Sonic said.

“It will be nice to slow down,” Amy said.

“I’m sure it will be fun with all of us together,” Makar said.

At that, the group approached the hole and, after Medli gave Toon Link a confident nod, they jumped in it one by one. Thankfully, like in the ice island, some power allowed them to land nicely.

Already, Toon Link found himself facing his first obstacle: a gap (not deep, thankfully). He had to somehow reach the other side to reach the door (which had a nice giant horned skull decorating it at the top, and it was surrounded by brambles).

Medli quickly understood what to do. She flew, and she let Toon Link grab her feet so she could transport him.

Apple Death looked at Link. “If she’s allowed to do it, we can do it too, right?”

“I guess,” Link answered. “Seems like this room is telling us that teamwork will be needed in this temple. By the way, I will also need someone to transport me. I can’t jump that far either.”

“Allow me,” Apple Death said before she used telekinesis to send Link to the other side of the gap.

Sonic looked at Makar. “Will you need help too?”

“No need,” Makar replied before he took out a large leaf that he used as a propeller to fly. “This is how us Koroks can move around rapidly.”

“Cool!”

They passed the door and entered a large room with a staircase and two large pillars, and a few broken smaller ones. Also, there were three Modlins patrolling, one on the stairs, one near the broken pillars, and one near the exit door which was behind bars. Toon Link went to fight the one on the stairs, Link took on the one near the broken pillars, and Amy opposed the one before the door.

Toon Link easily defeated his, already used to fighting them. Link took a bit more time, not having the Master Sword but still a very good sword. Amy easily avoided the spear of her Moblin and crushed its head with her hammer.

Defeating the Moblins didn’t unlock the door, so they had to search the room. Apple Death quickly found the solution: two switches, one on each of the large pillars. She tested one and discovered that they had to be pressed at the same time.

It was easy to understand that Medli would have to transport Toon Link from the top of the stairs to the first switch, then fly to the second switch. Instead, Apple Death pressed the first one while Medli flew to the second, unlocking the door.

The next room was smaller but had the particularity of having a beam of light in the center. As soon as they entered, they were ambushed by many ChuChus of the red, green, and purple varieties. The Red and Green ChuChus were easily killed, even Makar killed one by repeatedly jumping on it, but the purple ones revealed a nasty surprise: they reformed after being attacked. Nothing worked on them.

But then, Link looked at the beam of light and got an idea. Going in the light, he used his Mirror Shield to reflect it on the Purple ChuChus which had for effect to turn them into stone.

Link pumped his arm. “Yes!”

With the ChuChus in stone, it was easy to destroy them, unlocking the exit door which had been behind bars. Link also discovered that the light could destroy the weird elephant statues at the right of the room. There was also a weird distortion in the air on an elevated platform, so Link reflected light on it and revealed a chest.

“Light puzzles then,” Link said. “I guess that the unique item here will be the Mirror Shield. But how would you have reflected the light if I hadn’t been here?”

Medli showed her harp. “My harp’s golden surface can reflect light.”

“Am I the only one already seeing the teamwork puzzles where Toon Link will have to reflect light into Medli’s harp, or vice-versa?”

“No, you aren’t,” Link said.

“This temple really is for Medli,” Makar said.

“I understand the light puzzles for the harp, but the ones where I have to fly… It’s as if the fact that the next sage would be a Rito was planned,” Medli said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the case,” Sonic said.

Meanwhile, Toon Link opened the chest, finding the temple’s map, to his surprise. “Already?”

“Ah. I like it when we find the map right from the start,” Link said.

Amy looked at a jar with a wooden lid. A green mist escaped it. “What is this jar?”

“Oh, it’s a teleport jar. I jump in one, I go out of another in the same dungeon. We just have to destroy the lid and then find the other one,” Toon Link answered.

“A nice shortcut then,” Apple Death said before she destroyed the lid.

They then passed the door and entered a large room with a tall statue with a large cloud of blue fog covering the ground in front of it. The statue was very creepy, with a large head with two large round eyes and a large fanged grin. In the eyes were two suns.

Link nodded. “Yep. Light puzzle. Reflect light into the suns. I got a similar one in the Spirit Temple.”

“And I’m guessing that entering this fog is not advised…” Toon Link said.

There were two beams of light in the room, and two doors, one at the left which was locked and one at the right which was blocked by bars. They could see nothing that would remove them.

“There must be something hidden in the fog,” Phantom said.

At that, Medli went into the right light beam and used her harp to reflect light into the fog, clearing part of it. However, if Medli moved the light away, the fog returned. Still, she searched in the fog until she found a stake. Amy went to pound it with her hammer right away, passing by the path in the fog cleared by Medli’s light. Hitting the stake unlocked the right door. They passed it.

They were now in a long room with two coffins.

“There are undead in this world, right?” Sonic asked with a resigned sigh.

“Oh, yes, many,” Link answered. “Bubbles. ReDeads. Poes. And the worst of all: Dead Hands.” Link shivered at the last one.

After advancing a bit, the coffins opened. However, instead of ReDeads like Link expected, Bubbles came out. Red ones. They were easily killed.

Beyond the coffins, on a small platform, was another distortion in the air, but no beam of light to reflect on it. They spotted, however, a large cube near the top of a ladder at the left. Pulling it revealed a hole in the wall out of which came light. Medli immediately reflected the light into the distortion, revealing a chest containing a key.

As soon as they got the key, some kind of black hole appeared on the floor behind them. The hole was approaching the nearest person, which was Makar. Phantom placed herself between him and the hole, and when the hole got close enough, out of it came a black hand that went to grab her. Phantom easily sliced it in half, killing it.

“It looks like a Wallmaster, or Floormaster, I guess,” Link said. “They look very different from the Floormasters I know.”

They saw a second hand at the beginning of the room, and Link went to kill it. Meanwhile, Toon Link went to walk on a switch near a blocked door at the right of the room. Walking on the switch slid down the bars, but as soon as he moved away, the bars returned. Someone had to remain on the switch.

“If it had been just Toon Link and Medli, Medli would have been forced to remain on the switch, so Toon Link would have been forced to continue alone,” Phantom said.

Apple Death went to look at what was behind the door, seeing only a small room with a beam of light and a couple of symbols on the wall. She returned.

“A light puzzle that will need the Mirror Shield. It’s a dead end.”

So they backtracked to the room with the fog and the statue, and they used the key to open the locked door.

ChuChus dropped from the ceiling right away, including two purple ones, and no beam light in sight. They noticed some light through a curtain, so Toon Link used a Fire Arrow to burn it, revealing light. While Medli used the light to turn the Purple ChuChus into stone, Link tested the two switches in the center and saw that they were the kind that don’t remain activated if you walk away from them.

He quickly shouted, “Don’t kill the Purple ChuChus!”

When everyone looked at him, wondering why, he pointed at the switch.

“Oooh!”

They lifted the petrified ChuChus and placed them on the switches, causing a piece of wall to lower to become stairs to a blocked door. More Purple ChuChus then dropped from the ceiling.

“Incredible!” Toon Link exclaimed. “You found the solution so easily!”

“You would have discovered it eventually,” Link replied.

Not minding the ChuChus, they climbed the stairs, and then pulled a large cube off the edge onto a switch, causing the bars on the door to slide off.

The next room had a Floormaster easily killed, two cubes, including one with an elephant statue on it, and weird symbols on some of the bricks forming the walls, like in the dead end room that Apple Death saw.

They pushed the cube that didn’t have a statue on it to a switch against the wall, opening shudders in the ceiling and revealing light. Medli and Link both went in it to reflect it into the statue and the symbols on the walls, destroying the statue and parts of the walls. This revealed a third cube and a jar with purple mist.

They pushed the second cube on a switch against the wall, revealing a chest on the elevated part of the room at the end. The third cube was pushed to a switch in an opening against the elevated part of the room, unblocking the exit door there. Link and Toon Link were able to use this cube to climb while the others flew or jumped. They opened the chest and obtained the compass.

The next room had two Moblins and two blue masked ghosts holding lanterns, Poes. The Poes were intangible, but that wasn’t a problem for Apple Death. There was a beam of light on a ledge, and Medli reflected it on some statues at the opposite side of the room to reveal a chest containing some butterfly pendant.

On the wall under the beam of light was a symbol like in the previous room, but Toon Link will need the Mirror Shield to reflect the light reflected by Medli to reveal what was behind it.

When all the enemies in the room were eliminated, the back wall lowered to become stairs with a locked door at the door. Climbing the stairs, they found another, unlocked door at the left.

Behind it was a crypt full of coffins against the wall in a lower section. Approaching the coffins caused their lids to fall, revealing what was inside: three ReDeads, a yellow rupee, and a key.

The ReDeads were expected, and Link told everyone what they did if you approached them, so as soon as the lids dropped, everyone moved away before even finding out that there were indeed ReDeads inside the coffins.

The ReDeads looked different from the ones Link knew. Their body was gray-blue, they had no mask on their head, and they had earrings. Also, while the top of their body looked like a normal zombie, their bottom was more skeletal.

Toon Link plugged his ears with his hands and approached one of the ReDeads. Once it finished screaming, he attacked, killing the ReDead in a few slashes. Sonic killed a second one before it even had time to scream by Spin Dashing into it. Phantom threw her sword right into the head of the third one. Its death had the effect of lowering a ladder so they could climb back to the entrance of the room.

“They aren’t a problem once you know how to deal with them,” Link said.

Toon Link nodded. “Easy!”

They grabbed the key and left the room, opening the locked door of the previous one.

They entered another crypt, this one with just two coffins, and bars blocked the door behind them. However, as they expected ReDeads to come out of the coffins, instead, they got a skeleton coming out of the ground, a Stalfos, which held a heavy spiked club. It was so heavy that the Stalfos was dragging it on the floor. It also had… hair?

“Uh. Not at all like my Stalfos,” Link said before he looked at Toon Link. “Go on. It shouldn’t give you any problem.”

Toon Link nodded and approached the Stalfos which swung at him with difficulty. Link jumped back to avoid the club, then used the opening to attack the Stalfos. He quickly moved away to avoid a second swing, not trusting to be able to block it with its weight, then resumed attacking. The Stalfos exploded into pieces, but it wasn’t over. The head, still alive, began to jump around, avoiding Toon Link who quickly went after it.

With some difficulty, Toon Link caught the head and attacked it. It surprisingly took many hit from the Master Sword to finally destroy it, killing the Stalfos.

But it wasn’t over. The coffins opened, revealing two more Stalfos.

Link decided to take on one while Toon Link took on the other. Toon Link actually had the idea of grabbing the club of the first Stalfos before throwing it at the new one, making it explode into pieces. Toon Link had some difficulty catching the head, but easily killed it afterward.

As for Link, he threw a bomb at his Stalfos, making it explode, then used his boomerang to stun the head before he killed it.

Toon Link looked at him in awe.

“You really did good,” Link congratulated his counterpart, making him squeal.

Killing the Stalfos had the effect of lowering a wall, forming stairs to a chest that contained the Mirror Shield. Shudders then opened in the ceiling, allowing Toon Link to test his new shield to reflect light on a sun above the entrance, unlocking the door.

They returned where they fought the Moblins and Poes and Medli went to reflect the light on Toon Link who reflected it on the wall under the beam of light, destroying it and revealing a secret passage.

Inside it was another symbol on a wall and an elephant statue. There was also a beam of light at the end, allowing Medli to reflect light on the statue only to reveal a blue rupee. Toon Link reflected the light on the wall with the symbol, revealing MORE rupees, four blues, four yellows, and a red one, for a total of eighty rupees.

They passed the door at the end of the passage and found themselves on a ledge above the tall statue with the fog, at its left. Medli flew Toon Link to the part of the room without the fog, and the others followed.

They briefly returned to the room where they fought the first two Floormasters where Toon Link entered the small dead end room to reflect light on the symbols, destroying the wall and revealing a chest containing a butterfly pendant.

Back in the room with the statue, Medli and Toon Link reflected the two beams of light into the eyes of the statue, lighting the head and turning it into a large sun. This totally cleared the fog and caused part of the floor to lower to become stairs to a door.

Behind the door was a curved staircase to a room with a bridge above a fog, with two Blue Bubbles, Bubbles emitting the same blue fog as before. Toon Link had the idea of using his Deku Leaf to clear the fog around the Bubbles, allowing the heroes to touch and kill them.

At the other side of the bridge was a stone tablet like at the entrance of the temple, forcing Toon Link and Medli to play the Earth God’s Lyric to destroy it and reveal the door behind.

In the next room, they killed two ReDeads and Toon Link used a light to destroy three elephant statues, a small one on a cube that they could push to reach a locked door, and two large one blocking doors at the left and the right. For the left one, he had to deflect the light on a large mirror into the statue because it was behind a pillar.

“According to the map, the right door leads to a dead end,” Medli said.

“Let’s start with it, then,” Apple Death said.

They entered a room with a part filled with fog. They had no choice but to enter the fog to traverse the room and reach a chest containing a key. On the way, they had to avoid Floormasters, the fog stopping the heroes from attacking somehow.

As soon as they obtained the key, the fog disappeared, allowing them to kill the Floormasters, no less than six! Killing all of them revealed a chest containing a treasure chart.

Back in the previous room, they could use the key on the locked door, but they decided to first see what was behind the other door, behind the pillar.

They entered a hallway with a lower section filled with fog. Floormasters revealed to be in this fog. Avoiding them was almost impossible.

They had to bait the Floormasters out of their hole, and then attack the hands that poked out of the fog from a distance while avoiding the skulls they were throwing. Medli and Makar were the ones who flew to bait them out, letting the others attack. Once all the Floormasters were killed, they traversed the fog and pushed a large mirror into a switch beside a grid that blocked the path. The switch opened shudders, letting light enter and hit the mirror. The light was reflected through the grid.

Done in this hallway, they returned to the previous room and passed the locked door, entering the room that had been behind the grid. Red Bubbles and Poes welcomed them, but thanks to the light from the mirror behind the grid, it was easy to deal with the ghosts. The light turned them solid. Then, they used the light to destroy giant elephant statues, revealing a door.

Behind was a hallway full of coffins, and also some Keeses. They had to carefully advance to avoid the lids falling on them. Of course, in some of the coffins, there were Redeads, but also a Stalfos. At a dead end was a chest containing a red rupee.

The exit was blocked by another stone tablet, forcing Toon Link and Medli to play the Earth God’s Lyric to reveal the door.

Behind, they descended a staircase that curved left, then right, before they arrived in a large circular room that consisted of a staircase hugging the wall to go down at the left, and a teleport pot with yellow fog at the right, blocked by a boulder. There was also a platform on the opposite side of the room with the door with the golden lock, they will have to fly to reach it. Toon Link destroyed the boulder with a bomb.

They saw that the stairs eventually stopped only to restart further down, with ivy between them to go from one to another. Instead, Apple Death levitated the Links to the bottom floor, before the exit door.

They entered a very large room, the largest of the temple. There was a large platform with a switch in the center, and Medli flew to it to step on the switch, opening shudders to let light through.

Seeing where the light was going, Toon Link pushed a mirror at the right into the beam. Using Mirror Shields and harp, the Links and Medli reflected the light into an elephant statue and symbols on the wall, revealing two mirrors that Toon Link pushed and pulled until they reflected the light in a zigzag pattern, the last one reflecting the light through the central platform.

Now on the left side of the room, they had to repeat what they did on the right. They pushed a first mirror to reflect the light, then used Mirror Shields and harp to destroy statue and wall to push and pull two more mirrors. Thanks to that, the light reached elevated platforms from which Toon Link and Medli could reflect it into the eyes of a statue like in the first floor, revealing a door. Two chests were also revealed, and a last wall was destroyed.

In the chests were a purple rupee (fifty rupees) and a butterfly pendant.

They went into the little passage behind the destroyed wall and entered a room with three coffins, each containing a Stalfos. Toon Link copied his idol and used a bomb and the boomerang to kill one while Apple Death and Amy killed the others.

A chest containing a treasure chart appeared.

Returning to the previous room, they took this time the door they revealed by lighting the statue’s eyes and entered a room where the entrance barred behind them. A Darknut awaited them. When they approached, two Blue Bubbles also awakened, and Apple Death used wind to blow their fog away so they could be killed. Meanwhile, Link decided to try his luck against his first Darknut.

The Darknut didn’t last long. Link practically danced around him.

The monster’s death unlocked the door and opened the way to a large, ornate chest containing the golden key.

“All that remains is the big bad,” Phantom said.

“My bet on an undead,” Link said.

“Not taking the bet,” all the others said.

So they returned to the circular room and flew to the platform with the golden-locked door.

“Here we go,” Link said.

“Ready!” Medli exclaimed.

“Yeah!” Makar shouted.

Toon Link unlocked the door, and they entered the last room of the temple.

It was a circular room surrounded by spikes, including columns of spikes, there was the Triforce symbol in the center, and the room was full of Poes of various colors, fifteen in total. They were running around in panic in the light of the room. But then, they stopped and all turned as one to face the heroes.

Creepy.

But it only caused them to panic even more, running around.

Until the light disappeared, causing the Poes to turn intangible. Then, a large mask appeared in the center, and all the Poes immediately flew to it, and entered it. A giant ghostly body then came out of the mask.

A giant obese Poe with an orange vest.

Jalhalla

He materialized a lantern in his right hand, then cackled.

Beams of light appeared here and there in the room, and the heroes immediately understood what they had to do.

Apple Death decided to remain out of it. It would be too easy with her.

Toon Link, Link, and Medli ran toward one of the beams of light while Jalhalla sent fireballs from his lantern. They quickly used their Mirror Shields and harp to deflect light into the ghost, turning him solid and stunning him.

Looking at the columns of spikes, Toon Link then had the idea of lifting the heavy ghost and sending him rolling into one of the columns, causing his body to explode into the fifteen Poes that began to run around in panic as the room was suddenly plunged in light. The heroes then quickly went to kill the Poes, managing to kill five before the light disappeared and the mask reappeared, the Poes immediately floating into it to reform Jalhalla.

The ghost, however, barely had time to send a stream of fire from his lantern at Toon Link before Medli and Link stunned him with light again. Toon Link immediately lifted him and threw him at the spikes, causing him to explode again.

Five more Poes were then killed before the obese ghost reformed again.

There was only one beam of light now, but it was enough as Medli used it to stun the ghost for the third time. Jalhalla was then lifted and thrown, he exploded, and the last five Poes were killed.

The last Poe dead, the mask reappeared only to discover that nothing was left to reform its body. Jalhalla then tried to escape, but he had the bad idea of flying right under shudders that opened, letting in a beam of light right on him. The mask found itself stunned, and it fell to its death, the mask exploding upon crashing on the ground.

The central triangle of the Triforce in the center began to glow blue.

“Gosh. This fight was too easy even without Apple Death,” Phantom said.

“Three light benders may have been a bit too much,” Sonic said.

Medli laughed. “That’s true.” She then laughed at the blue light. “I guess this is it, then.”

Toon Link nodded. He planted the Master Sword in the center of the light. Then, he took out his Wind Waker, Medli readied her harp, and they began to play.

Rapidly, Laruto appeared beside Medli, playing too.

As they neared the end, the Triforce on the ground began to glow golden.

Finally, as they finished, power accumulated into the Master Sword.

As Toon Link went to grab the sword, Laruto disappeared.

Toon Link looked at the sword, wondering what changed. He then suddenly felt something great in him as the sword’s ‘wings’ opened.

As he admired the sword again, he said, “Halfway done.”

Medli nodded. “Yes. The power to repel evil is not yet fully awakened.”

Makar jumped. “Now, it’s my turn! To the Wind Temple!”

Medli nodded again. “Step into the light. Return to the surface. Go to the Wind Temple. I will remain here and continue to pray. You must hurry!”

Everyone agreed, and they stepped into the light.

“And, Link!” Medli continued. “Um… About Prince Komali… Please watch over him for me.”

“Will you be alright here by yourself?” Sonic asked, looking at all the skull littering the ground.

“Yes. Don’t worry. The monsters are all gone now.”

And with that, they began to float in the light before they disappeared.

"Good luck."

Chapter 179: The Wind Temple

Author's Note

I forgot to tell about it, but for the ones who read chapter 177 in the ten or so hours after I published it, Justalad added a part to the dialogue with Ganondorf.

Chapter 179: The Wind Temple

They appeared outside the mountain, before the entrance to the cavern to the Earth Temple.

“That was easy,” Sonic said. “A bit boring.”

Phantom rolled her eyes. “You want Mewtwo to attack us while we explore the temple?”

“Well… It would have certainly made bringing Medli to the praying room more interesting.”

“And more difficult and dangerous, and then, Mewtwo would have constantly targeted Medli even after reaching our goal of making her pray for the sword, so we would have been forced to remain here to protect her. I know that, with Link, we have better chances against Mewtwo, but no thanks. Let’s wait until we get the full powered Master Sword before we try our luck.”

At that, they returned to the King of Red Lions and teleported to Gale Island. After receiving news from Zelda, they went to the cavern. Once inside the cavern, before the stone tablet, Toon Link and Makar looked at each other, nodded, and played the Wind God’s Aria. Once done, like with the Earth Temple, the stone tablet crumbled, opening the path to a hole, the real entrance of the Wind Temple.

They dropped in a room like the one at the entrance of the Earth Temple, and the group passed the only door, entering a door with a pit separating it in two, cyclones coming out of a grid in the ceiling making it impossible for Toon Link to reach the other side with his Deku Leaf. There was still a spring for him to take height for the leaf.

At the bottom of the pit were two small patches of dirt with a hole in the middle, another spring, and some kind of bird wizard that appeared and twirled a wand. Toon Link called it a Wizzrobe. The bird eventually sent fire that the heroes easily avoided before he disappeared only to reappear and repeat his actions. Phantom beheaded him. But then, a Stalfos came out of the ground, and Phantom blew it up with a bomb of her own creation before she grabbed the skull and crushed it in her hands.

She saw by the same occasion, hidden behind a wall, that there was a teleportation jar, so she destroyed the lid. Meanwhile, Apple Death saw a switch at the other side of the room.

“A Wizzrobe and a Stalfos right from the start. This temple will be more dangerous than the Earth Temple,” Makar said with some worry.

“It still shouldn’t be a problem,” Apple Death said before pointing at the switch and shouted, “Hey! Phantom! Can ya press that switch?”

Phantom gave her a salute and flew to the switch, pressing it, causing the cyclones to disappear. Thanks to that, Toon Link was able to use the Deku Leaf to reach the other side after using the spring (he had to use his boots to press it) to gain height. Meanwhile, Makar descended to the patches of dirt and planted seeds into them, growing two small trees in a few seconds (the trees had faces!). The next instant, a chest containing an orange rupee appeared. Once he was done here, Makar used his leaf to fly to the other side. At the same time, Apple Death levitated Link, Sonic, and Amy to allow them to pass the pit.

Next room, they found themselves face to face right away with two living one-eyed statues known as Armos. Between them was a propeller, the kind that had to be blown by wind.

The Armos were easily destroyed, their weakness being their back. Once the statues were gone, Toon Link used the Deku Leaf to blow wind at the propeller, rotating the wall at the back so it was now a part of the ceiling. This revealed a Blade Trap, two switches, one pressed and one not, and two patches of dirt before the exit door which was barred.

They tested the switch, causing the wall to rotate again, closing behind them, and now, they had to press the other switch to rotate it again. Makar planted seeds into the patches to grow trees, causing the bars on the door to disappear.

“And again, the temple was made with a Korok in mind,” Sonic said. “As Medli said, as if it was planned.”

“Maybe Hyrule had people to see the future,” Amy proposed.

“If that was the case, then they would have seen Ganondorf coming,“ Phantom said.

Amy shrugged. “Maybe they could only see specific things.”

They saw that the room had an upper level, and Apple Death went to look only to see that Toon Link will be needed, and he couldn’t go there yet. There were weird targets on the walls.

“Oh, I think that I know which item we will find in this temple,” Link said. “It comes really late compared to me.”

They went to the next room. Right away, there was an exit door at the right, behind bars. Before them was a pit separating them to an upper level section. Between them were two ledges. They could see patches on them, and at the other end of the room, another barred door.

So Makar went to plant seeds again, one on each ledge and one at the end of the room. As soon as he planted the last seed, causing the bars on the doors to disappear, four Floormasters appeared and threatened to capture him. Phantom, Apple Death, Sonic, and Amy intervened right away to stop them, each killing one.

“Thank you!” Makar said. “You saved me!”

“No problem,” Sonic said.

Toon Link couldn’t climb on the ledges and reach the other side, so the group had no choice but to take the door at the right.

They were now in a large room with a circular floor similar to the wall they had to raise earlier, signifying that it probably could be opened too some way. There were some targets present on the walls, sculpted columns at the left and right, head statues with similar targets on walls, and weird flying spiked orb enemies with one eye and using leaves as propellers. Toon Link said they were Peahats. Link was surprised because they didn’t look at all like the Peahats he encountered. At the other side of the room was a door guarded by statues larger than the Armos, Armos Knights.

The Links killed the Peahats with their bows, then approached the center of the room, allowing them to see the rest of it.

At the left was a prison cell with the exit blocked by a heavy statue head with a target, like the ones on the walls but larger.

“This is probably where the Floormasters planned to bring Makar after capturing him,” Phantom said.

“And without you guys, they would have succeeded,” Toon Link said.

At the right of the room was a ledge with two more columns, a switch, a jar, and a door. The switch was probably the one opening the floor, and it looked like it would need something heavy to press it.

Since Toon Link couldn’t get on the ledge, they went to the door at the other end of the room, the Links destroying the Armos Knights by throwing bombs into their mouths once they opened it. They had to be careful of the statues as they attempted to ram them with their spikes before they exploded.

The next room had more Peahats and a Blade Trap. There was another rotating wall in the middle of a pit, and two squared holes in the ground, the left one blocked by a cracked tile that, surprisingly, couldn’t be destroyed by a bomb. Some testing revealed that the boots were the item needed to destroy it.

They descended to the lower section of the floor where a Floormaster awaited them beside a spring. It was quickly killed, allowing Toon Link to use the Deku Leaf on a propeller to rotate the wall so it was now a bridge to the other side of the room. In the lower section, it also revealed another spring, but using it would only lead them to hit the bridge. They would have to rotate the bridge back into a wall first to use it.

So they used the first spring (or flew) to return to the upper level where they used the bridge to traverse to the other side where they had to kill more Peahats while avoiding another Blade Trap. There was also another propeller to rotate the bridge, but they left it alone for now. In an alcove at the left, there was also a chest containing a butterfly pendant.

At the end of the room was a stone tablet for the Wind God’s Aria. At its left was a door. Before Toon Link and Makar could play it, Apple Death talked.

“So… Makar should be captured. So should we explore what’s behind this stone tablet?”

Everyone looked at Link, waiting for him to answer.

“Mmh… I want to avoid doing things out of order…”

“But we could give it a look?” Makar questioned.

Link was silent for a moment, thinking, before he nodded. “Alright.”

So Toon Link and Makar played the song, destroying the stone tablet and revealing a door. They passed it, entering a small room with three Darknuts, two with white armor and one with black armor. The door barred behind the group after they entered, leaving them no choice but to eliminate the enemies.

Toon Link took on the black on which was clearly stronger, letting the others deal with the white ones. In the end, killing the black Darknut took just a bit longer than usual. The method was the same, but he took more hits. He also attacked faster.

Once all three Darknuts were killed, a door at the end lifted, revealing a familiar fancy chest. Opening it indeed revealed the golden key.

“Yeah, definitely out of order. No way we would get the golden key so early,” Link said.

“Well, at least, we won’t have to return here,” Amy said.

“I love avoiding backtracking,” Sonic said.

They left and took the remaining door in the previous room.

The next room was one where the Deku Leaf was king. Toon Link had to use a cyclone while gliding with the leaf to gain height and reach a ledge with a switch to rotate a grid and advance. Then, after killing a Wizzrobe, he had to use more cyclones while gliding to reach a dead end with a chest containing the map, then to reach the end of the room where another Wizzrobe and two Peahats were present.

To gain time, Phantom pressed the switch at the start, then Apple Death went to open the chest to get the map. At the end, Sonic Homing Dashed on the Peahats to reach the Wizzrobe and kill him.

Passing the door at the end, they arrived on the ledge of the room with the prison cell and the circular floor that could open. Toon Link used the boots right away to press the switch here, opening the floor. Link, meanwhile, burned the lid of the jar.

Toon Link then jumped into the revealed pit, using the leaf to glide down after dropping far enough. On the way, Apple Death opened a chest on a platform, obtaining the compass.

The pit had many such platforms against the wall, many with a target above them, either directly on the wall or as part of a statue head on the wall.

At the bottom, after dealing with Peahats, they looked around and saw two doors. One was locked, and one could be opened right away. There were also two patches of dirt under the platform with the chest.

Makar planted seeds in the patches, growing two trees. It had the effect of activating a giant fan under the floor, creating a large cyclone to propel Toon Link upward to climb back up with the leaf.

They then took the only accessible door, entering a room with five cracked tiles before a ledge with spikes. Choosing a tile randomly, Toon Link went to the one at the very left and used the Iron Boots to destroy it, dropping to a lower section of the room with two blocks, one of which had a spring on it. There were also three Armos that didn’t come to life and a group of Red ChuChus that dropped from the ceiling.

The ChuChu were quickly killed, and the heroes saw that they had to push and pull the block with the spring under a hole at the end of the room so Toon Link could go on the ledge above. They also had to bring the other block beside it so Toon Link could use it as a step to reach the spring.

Once on the ledge, Toon Link opened the chest, getting a key. The spikes lowered immediately.

But it wasn’t over. The compass said that another chest was in the room. Something told the heroes that it had to do with the remaining cracked tiles, so Toon Link destroyed them one by one, each tile causing a new group of enemies to appear, including causing the Armos to come to life. Once all five tiles were destroyed, the second chest appeared, containing a treasure chart.

Key in hand, they returned to the previous room and opened the locked door, entering a large arena room where a Wizzrobe not like the others welcomed them. This one had an orange robe instead of a dark one with a red hood, and he had some kind of tribal crown or mask, or both at once.

The Wizzrobe laughed and summoned a normal Wizzrobe with a yellow hood and a golden-armored Darknut.

“An enemy that can summon other enemies? Wow, that’s harsh,” Link said. “You fighting him alone would have been very difficult.”

And to make it worse, the summoned Wizzrobe with a yellow hood could also summon enemies, weaker ones, like Peahats, while sending fireballs.

Toon Link focused on the orange Wizzrobe, searching where he teleported by following the weird sound he made each time he appeared. So, while the others took on the various summoned enemies (prioritizing the yellow-hooded Wizzrobe), Toon Link used his bow to fire at the orange Wizzrobe. When he had the occasion, like when the Wizzrobe appeared above the floor, Toon Link charged at him and attacked him with his sword until he disappeared.

After a long battle, the Wizzrobe was killed. The remaining enemies were quickly eliminated after that.

Once the last enemy was gone, a chest appeared in the center of the room.

And as Link guessed, it contained the hookshot.

Toon Link used it right away to reach a platform to use the hammer on a stake, unlocking the exit.

Now done with the basement floor for now (the map said that there was more, but they couldn’t find the door to the rest yet), Toon Link used the giant cyclone to climb back to the first floor where he landed before the cell. Here, he used the boots and the hookshot to remove the statue at the entrance, allowing him to enter the cell and reach a chest containing a pendant.

Finally, they returned to the room where Makar almost got captured by Floormasters where Toon Link could now use the hookshot on the trees to reach the other side of the pit. A yellow-hooded Wizzrobe was now present to make it difficult, but he was quickly killed by Phantom before he could even summon something.

They passed the door at the end of the room, entering a room that was very similar except that there were Blue Bubbles. Toon Link quickly discovered that he could use the hookshot to bring them to him while removing by the same occasion their blue fog, turning them harmless.

As soon as the floating skulls as well as a Floormaster at the end were killed, Makar went to plant seeds to grow trees that Toon Link could use to reach the end of the room with the hookshot.

Passing the door, they were back in the main room of the temple, with the giant cyclone. They had to press two switches to rotate the grid blocking the way. They quickly found out that it opened part of the floor on the fan, meaning that there was an even lower section of the room than expected.

Before going to see what was there, Toon Link went to open a chest at the left, containing a pendant. Then, seeing the door at the other side of the room, they went to see what was behind it, which was supposedly a dead end with a chest.

The new room revealed to have no less than seven Armos. The seven members of the group each took on one, even Makar who flew and dropped behind one of the statues before he headbutted its weak point hard. Once all the Armos were destroyed, a door opened, revealing the chest which contained a key.

Now done with the second floor, they returned to the main room and returned to the basement floor where they waited for the fan to stop for a moment to jump through and reach the lowest section. Here, they found a locked door.

The new room after it was circular, had many platforms with targets against the wall, had two Stalfos, and had one yellow-hooded Wizzrobe.

The Wizzrobe was killed right away by Apple Death, letting the others deal with the Stalfos. Once the enemies were dead, Toon Link had to climb the platforms to reach a switch that had to be pressed with the boots to unlock the exit.

It wasn’t over. The compass said that there was still a chest. So they searched.

Some of the targets above the platforms were statues, so Link used the boots and the hookshot to remove them to see if it did anything. Some of them were revealed to hide Bokoblins that were quickly killed. Once they were all dead, a chest containing a treasure chart appeared.

In the next room, they were welcomed right away by four green Bokoblins, followed by two Armos Knights. At the other side of vertical cyclones were Peahats and a Floormaster.

The room itself was composed of two spurs of rock facing each other surrounded by a pit. Between them were the cyclones.

Once all the enemies were dead, Makar flew above the cyclones and planted a tree in a patch at the extremity of the second spur, causing the disappearance of the cyclones and allowing Toon Link to cross the gap between the two spurs.

After the exit door was a room with three horizontal cyclones facing the heroes when they entered. There were also three blocks, three Blade Traps, and a small trench.

It took some thinking, but the heroes eventually understood that they had to use a block to block the first two blades against the wall, then a second block as a bridge in the trench, then the third block to block the third blade, using the second block to traverse the trench, all the while resisting the strong wind. Toon Link had to use his boots. Apple Death had to use her powers to bring Link to the end of the room.

Beyond the doorway at the end was a stone tablet, meaning that Toon Link and Makar had to play the Wind God’s Aria to destroy it and reveal the room hidden behind. In this room were the last jar and the door with the golden lock.

“So, wanna bet on what we will fight?” Phantom asked.

“Some giant bird controlling the wind?” Sonic proposed.

“Eh. We already got the giant bird, even if we didn’t get to fight it thanks to Mewtwo,” Apple Death said.

“Something requiring the hookshot, that’s for sure,” Link said. “Maybe a dragon? You didn’t get to fight one yet, right?”

Toon Link shook his head, worried. A dragon didn’t sound nice to fight.

He unlocked and opened the door, and everyone entered the last room of the temple.

The room was absolutely HUGE and had sand, surrounding a round platform with the Triforce and Hyrule symbol. They jumped down from the ledge they were on, and almost immediately, the room began to shake.

Then, sand began to fall from the ceiling, and the sand level of the room began to rise, burying the platform. After a few seconds, the sand in the center rose, forming a sand dune.

Then, before the heroes, out of the sand flew a giant sandworm, the gigantic beast screeching while flapping its mouth. The thing flew around for a few seconds before it dove back into the sand.

Thus, the battle against the mighty Molgera began.

“A sandworm. Didn’t expect that,” Phantom said.

“It’s huge! Will we defeat it?” Makar wondered.

“Bring it on!” Sonic shouted.

Molgera’s head came out of the sand, revealing its blue tongue. Toon Link understood right away what he had to do and used the hookshot to grab it so he could attack it. That really hurt Morgera who vomited green blood. The sandworm then released several smaller worms before returning into the sand.

While the heroes were busy dealing with the worms, the sand under Toon Link’s feet lowered, turning into a sand pit. Toon Link saw that and quickly escaped just before Molgera’s head came out of the ground, almost eating him. Again, Link used the hookshot on its tongue, attacking it until Molgera vomited more blood and returned in the sand after releasing more worms.

“This is already a bit more difficult than the ghost,” Amy said.

“But it remains easy for now. These worms are nothing,” Sonic said.

Suddenly, Molgera flew out of the sand, screeching. As the heroes finished the worms, Molgera flew around a bit, then dove right toward Makar, mouth wide open.

Makar yelled in terror, but he still quickly acted and planted many seeds into the sand, forming a wall of trees between him and Molgera. Apple Death still came and took him away just before Molgera rammed the trees, destroying them but also stunning it, its long body sprawling on the sand. Amy ran before its head and crushed its tongue until Molgera vomited green blood and buried itself into the sand, releasing more worms.

“Ew! I have green blood all on me!” Amy shouted.

“Worry about that later,” Phantom shouted while she killed one of the worms that had been about to attack Amy.

Molgera began to trick them. One moment, the sand was lowering under Amy, the giant worm seemingly targeting her, the next, the sand lowered under Link, then under Toon Link, then under Makar, then under Sonic. Not knowing when Molgera would come out, the seemingly targets were forced to run.

Finally, Molgera came out under Phantom who decided to not escape. The jaw closed around her, only for her to turn giant and to keep the jaw open with her own feet while she materialized a lightning spear and threw it right into the mouth, dealing huge damage to the sandworm and stunning it. Toon Link took the occasion and used the hookshot to bring its tongue to him to attack it.

With one last hit, Molgera vomited more green blood and screeched loudly before he sank into the sand.

Then, Molgera flew out of the sand screeching in agony, flying erratically until it eventually stopped, its body turning into sand before exploding.

The sand level of the room then lowered, revealing the circular platform where the triangle at the center of the Triforce began to glow blue, like in the Earth Temple.

Makar then joined Toon Link before the light, violin out, ready to play.

“Let’s do it, Link.”

Toon Link nodded. “Yeah.”

He then planted the Master Sword in the center of the blue light, then took out the Wind Waker, and they began to play the Wind God’s Aria.

Fado eventually appeared, playing alongside Makar.

What happened in the Earth Temple repeated here. The Triforce on the ground began to glow golden. Then, power accumulated into the Master Sword. Toon Link then went to grab the sword while Fado disappeared.

As Toon Link looked at the sword, he felt power within him as the sword itself glowed, its holy power restored.

Toon Link couldn’t help but admire the sword. “So this is the real Master Sword? Wow…”

“Yes,” Makar said. “The power to repel evil is now fully restored to your Master Sword… And my ancestors are most satisfied.”

“Finally,” Phantom said.

A light appeared on the Triforce.

“I shall continue praying to the gods here,” Makar said. “Please step into the light and return aboveground.”

“Now, Mewtwo won’t stand a chance against us!” Amy exclaimed.

“Yeah!” the others said in return as they all stepped into the light.

“May the winds of fortune be at your back,” Makar said before they disappeared.

They appeared outside the mountain, before the entrance to the cavern to the Wind Temple.

“Aww yeah! Now, let’s find Mewtwo and kick its butt!” Sonic said.

“It shouldn’t be hard to find him, right? Apple Death wondered.

“Or we make it find us. We make something big that can be seen from very far, and it will come to us,” Phantom said.

“Before we search for it, there is one last thing we must do!” the Red Lion shouted at them from where he was.

Everyone looked at him, then approached him.

“What do you mean?” Toon Link asked.

“We must search for the Triforce of Courage. It should give Link the edge needed to get the upper hand. Also, it’s preferable that we get it before Mewtwo gets it.”

The heroes looked at each other, then back at the boat.

“Alright then. Where is the Triforce of Courage, if you know?” Sonic asked.

“Divided into shards, here and there. We will have to find charts indicating the location of some of them, and someone to decipher them for us. Sadly, I don’t know where the charts and shards are. We will have to search all over the islands.”

Everyone groaned.

Chapter 180: Shard Hunting

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 181: Blowing Wind

Author's Note

Justalad wrote some of the scenes at the second half of the chapters.

Chapter 181: Blowing Wind

After following a path where they had to fight some enemies guarding it and jump/use the hookshot/levitate to pass some gaps, the group entered Ganon’s Tower, Ganondorf’s fortress within Hyrule.

The first room was revealed to be simple. A stone bridge leading to a large stone pillar above lava with another stone bridge leading to the exit door.

Ganondorf chuckled and said to Toon Link, “I had something in mind for this room. I would have used my powers to add four wings, each based on one of the four dungeons you had to explore where I had a hand; the volcano, the jungle, and the temples. Each would have ended with you forcing to fight the guardians of said dungeons for the second time. A mere nuisance to you now that you have the fully powered Master Sword, but still a nice obstacle just to see how much you have advanced since the first time you fought them.”

“The guardians… You mean, like, that giant centipede or the carnivorous plant?” Toon Link asked. “Wow. With the Master Sword, they wouldn’t last one minute.”

“Especially now that you have us,” Apple Death said.

With that, they passed the exit door and climbed some stairs before they arrived at a room with a large doorway before them and two smaller doors at the left and right. Ganondorf pointed at the left one.

“The moment you took the Master Sword, you gave me the possibility to create a portal between here and the Forsaken Fortress. I would have made a little puzzle to open it. I didn’t get the occasion however. Now, follow me.”

Ganondorf moved toward the right door, to everyone’s confusion.

“Shouldn’t we pass the big doorway that is obviously where we must continue?” Sonic asked.

“Not if you want to get the Light Arrows. They are in the tower’s basement, and the fastest way to reach it is this way.”

At that, they entered the room beyond the right door, where they found themselves face to face with a pit.

“Now, we have to jump,” Ganondorf said.

“Eh. Fastest way indeed,” Phantom said.

Apple Death levitated everyone down into the pit, eventually landing in a room with four doors at the four cardinal points.

“Now, we are in a maze. If someone hadn’t killed Phantom Ganon, his sword would have guided us. Thankfully, I know the way.”

And so, Ganondorf led the group through random doors until entering a room with a single exit door and a chest in the middle. Ganondorf waved at it.

“For you, boy.”

Nodding, Toon Link opened the chest, getting the Light Arrows.

“So, I guess that I have everything now,” Toon Link said.

Link nodded.

“And now, we just have to reach the roof of the tower,” Ganondorf said.

“Are there many obstacles to reach it?” Zelda asked.

“None. I didn’t get time to post guards. Not that they would have held you back long with the Light Arrows. Anything of evil origin hit by them is killed right away.”

“Really? Wow!” Toon Link said.

They passed the exit door, and they were transported back to the room with the big doorway.

“Now, a special door would have blocked this doorway. Phantom Ganon would have been the guardian if he hadn’t been killed. I probably would have recreated him if I still had my powers.”

They passed the doorway and climbed a long series of sets of stairs until they reached a big red and golden door, the gold forming the image of Ganon’s head.

Behind the door, they arrived in a large circular room with water covering the floor in the center. There were rafters very high up. Too high to reach with the grapple or the hookshot. And yet, they could see the exit up there. And no stairs in sight.

“I didn’t put stairs here because I didn’t need to. I could float at will, and I would have made a way for you, certainly after a long and difficult fight against something I would have made to face you,” Ganondorf said.

“Well, at least, I can make stairs,” Phantom said.

“Or Ah can make us float up there. It’ll be faster,” Apple Death said.

And she did so. Quickly enough, they reached the exit, and then, they were on the roof.

Almost all of Hyrule could be seen from here, to some of the heroes’ amazement.

“Ok, now, how do we bring Mewtwo here?” Amy asked.

“The Triforce,” Ganondorf said, gaining everyone’s attention.

“Uh?”

“Use your Triforce pieces as a beacon that the creature will be able to see from the surface.”

Toon Link and Zelda looked at the back of their hand, at their Triforce, then exchanged a glance.

“I think that I know what he means,” Zelda said. “Come with me, Link.”

Zelda then walked toward the center of the roof, quickly followed by Toon Link. Once they were in the center, Zelda raised her right hand, and Toon Link followed her example by raising his left hand. Zelda then grabbed Toon Link’s hand and raised it above their head, willing the triforce to do what they wanted.

The Triforce pieces on the back of their hand glowed, then emitted a light that turned into a column of light that enveloped the two of them and a large part of the roof. The column of light went through the water above them and continued into the sky.

Mewtwo saw it right away and immediately understood what it was. It could feel it with its Triforce. It teleported to it, then flew into the water.

Zelda and Link stopped emitting the light, then quickly moved toward the others, Zelda shouting, “Be ready! It’s coming!”

“We’ll need a plan of attack,” Amy said.

“I have a plan. Attack,” Sonic replied just as Mewtwo arrived.

Sonic then ran toward Mewtwo, then suddenly circled it before he Homing Dashed at its back. Mewtwo, however, stopped him with its telekinesis, keeping him in the air.

Phantom facepalmed.

Mewtwo didn’t lose time. It used its Triforce right away to gain size while taking on its Mega Evolved XY form.

Link quickly took his Fierce Deitiy Mask, not putting it on yet. “If this is like when I fought Ganon, then try to hit its head or its… uh… head appendage. Everywhere else, it will be invincible. The Master Sword and Light Arrows will be the only things effective. Everything else will only distract it at best.” He then gave his bow and Light Arrows to Zelda. “Take these. I won’t be able to use them in my Fierce Deity form.”

Zelda took the bow and arrows. “Thank you.”

Link nodded, then put on the mask, turning into the Fierce Deity Link. Right away, he attacked by sending cutting waves of energy at Mewtwo’s head, forcing it to use its arms to protect it.

Ganondorf, two swords now in hands, talked. “Actually, the creature isn’t protected by evil like I was. You were able to attack it even in its base form, which wouldn’t have been the case with me. So attacking it will be effective, no matter what.”

“Good to know,” Phantom said.

Meanwhile, Mewtwo threw Sonic at Toon Link, seeing that he had the Triforce of Courage, but the hedgehog was caught by Apple Death who dropped him.

“Phantom, Link, Zelda, and Ah will attack from the front.”

Meaning that Toon Link, Ganondorf, Sonic, and Amy will attack the head appendage. They understood that.

Mewtwo, still protecting itself from Link’s waves, casted Protect. The created shield quickly disappeared after stopping only one wave however, but then, Mewtwo casted it again, and again, and again. Normally, spamming the move would cause its success rate to drop, but because of the Triforce of Power, Mewtwo didn’t seem to have this problem, allowing it to continuously cast it to stop Link’s projectiles.

Mewtwo quickly understood that it couldn’t remain on the defensive forever however, so it stopped casting Protect and instead levitated Link to throw him away, only for him to be caught by Apple Death.

At the same time, Zelda fired a Light Arrow at Mewtwo’s head, stunning it. Toon Link’s group immediately took the occasion to attack its head appendage, effectively hurting it, especially the boy in green. Mewtwo quickly recovered however and turned around to attack them. Toon Link fired a Light Arrow to try to stun it again, but Mewtwo used Protect, blocking the projectile.

Mewtwo then put its paws at its side and accumulated energy. Phantom quickly teleported before it and threw a lightning spear at its head, electrifying it. This gained Mewtwo’s attention who targeted her instead, firing a powerful beam of energy that Phantom avoided by teleporting. The beam continued its path and caused huge damage to a mountain in the distance.

While Mewtwo had its back turned, Apple Death attacked the appendage with purple electricity, hurting Mewtwo a lot. Link also sent his waves, and while the first ones hit the appendage, the following ones were blocked by repeated Protect. It also used Recover, healing all damage it took, to the frustration of everyone.

Mewtwo then levitated beyond the edge of the roof, facing it, meaning that Toon Link and the others who couldn’t fly couldn’t reach the head appendage anymore.

“Now what?” Sonic asked.

Phantom smirked. “Behold! The Phantom Ruby’s power!” she shouted before she sent a wave of phantom energy. The next instant, there was a path that extended from the roof and circled Mewtwo, allowing everyone to reach the appendage. To this, Mewtwo answered by floating away, but the path changed shape at the same time so it continued to circle it while still extending from the roof, so the heroes could always reach the appendage. Mewtwo blasted the path, but it just reappeared with a glitch.

Mewtwo glared at Phantom and sent a powerful psychic attack at her, attacking directly her mind. It was stopped, however, by a Light Arrow from Zelda, stunning it. Everyone immediately attacked the head and the appendage before it recovered.

Immediately upon recovering, Mewtwo targeted Zelda, sending a very powered Aura Sphere toward her. She was saved by Sonic who took her out of the way. The Aura Sphere, however, hit the roof instead and destroyed a huge part of it that, thankfully, quickly rebuilt thanks to Phantom’s power.

The filly also materialized a laser machine gun, firing hundreds of beams in a matter of seconds. Mewtwo quickly put a hand before its head, not even Protect able to defend it against that. It then raised the other hand, and storm clouds materialized above it. The next second, lightning rained all over the roof. Almost everyone ended up hit by a lightning bolt at least once.

Apple Death flew into the cloud and used her powers to take control of it and redirect its lightning toward Mewtwo, hitting it with countless lightning bolts. Mewtwo had to use Recover several times, and Phantom used the occasion to heal everyone who had been hit. She had to wake up Zelda who had dropped unconscious.

Mewtwo eventually sent a shockwave that cleared the clouds and sent by the same occasion Apple Death flying very far. It then attempted to directly crush Link under its paw to stop him from sending his waves, but Link avoided the paw and actually used it to climb on its arm. Once he was close enough, Link jumped toward Mewtwo’s head and planted his sword into its forehead.

At the same time, Ganondorf jumped on the appendage and began to repeatedly stab it. Mewtwo trashed its head to get rid of them, but they held strong. It eventually grabbed Link and removed him before throwing him far, only to be hit by a Light Arrow from Toon Link, stunning it.

Sadly, as soon as it recovered after another general assault, it used Recover, healing itself again.

“Will this ever stop?” Amy wondered.

“We need a decisive blow,” Zelda said.

Apple Death returned, Link levitating behind her, and also a giant boulder that she threw at Mewtwo’s face. In return, it sent a shockwave that sent everyone flying off the roof. It even was able to remove Ganondorf from its appendage. Apple Death had to catch everyone with her telekinesis and bring them back on the roof, except Phantom who just floated back and used her power to grow to the Pokémon’s size. She then began to punch him in the face only to be hit by a giant spoon materialized by Mewtwo in return. Zelda sent a Light Arrow, but Mewtwo blocked it with the spoon.

Apple Death entered the spoon and took possession of it, levitating it out of Mewtwo’s paws and repeatedly bonking Mewtwo on the head with it. Mewtwo, however, eventually caught it in its telekinetic hold and teared it apart, forcing Apple Death out of it.

Tearing the spoon apart seemingly gave Mewtwo an idea, because it then took hold of everyone and began to do the same. Apple Death, spared from this due to being a ghost but still trapped in Mewtwo’s power, used her own telekinesis to grab Zelda’s bow and Light Arrows and fired one at Mewtwo, stopping it.

Link quickly recovered from being almost teared apart and grabbed his toon counterpart, to his surprise. He then threw him toward Mewtwo’s head. Toon Link crashed into it, but as he was sliding down, he understood what he had to do and quickly planted his Master Sword into Mewtwo’s forehead.

Mewtwo screeched in pain like never.

Despite that, Mewtwo raised its paws and gathered energy into a ball, ready to end everything. Its head was raised also, in pain, allowing Toon Link to stand on it to remove his sword. He then raised it above him, the Triforce of Courage on his hand glowed, and he replanted the sword into Mewtwo’s forehead.

Mewtwo’s following screech was deafening, and the energy ball dispersed before the Pokémon began to drop, crashing at the tower’s foot with Toon Link still on its head.

Zelda jumped from the roof and, midjump, teleported with her magic and the help of her Triforce of Wisdom to appear just beside Toon Link. She then grabbed the hilt of the Master Sword, which was still in Toon Link’s hold, and together, they removed the sword, raised it, Triforce pieces glowing, before they replanted it again with all their strength.

As Mewtwo screeched again, its body began to glow before it returned to its normal size. Seeing this, Toon Link removed the Master Sword and moved away with Zelda.

Back to normal size, Mewtwo got up with difficulty, a paw on its head.

It used Recover.

This is not over! it said as it raised its right paw, showing its Triforce of Power to use it again to return giant.

Only for Toon Link to cut the paw off in the blink of an eye. It took Mewtwo several seconds to register what happened, and when it registered, it was ugly. Holding its stump, it knelt in pain. It then began to use Recover, but the move just couldn’t regrow its now missing limb, no matter how many times it used it.

Meanwhile, Apple Death levitated everyone else down from the roof, and as soon as he landed, Ganondorf walked toward the cut paw. Seeing this, Mewtwo levitated the paw only for Amy to hit the Pokémon with her hammer, stopping it. Ganondorf then grabbed the paw and removed the Triforce of Power from it, back into his own right hand. He then threw the now useless paw away.

Ganondorf then began to walk toward Mewtwo with a scary expression, swords ready to end it.

Mewtwo could still fight. Thanks to Recover, it was still in full health despite its missing paw, and thanks to the Triforce of Power, it still had all its stamina. A battle of attrition would begin.

But Mewtwo knew that it stood no chance against all the heroes now that they had the three pieces of the Triforce, so it decided instead to escape, opening a rift. With a last look of utter hate at the heroes, it passed through, ending the battle.

Some of the heroes breathed in relief at avoiding a battle that would have promised to be very long. Link took off his mask.

Ganondorf snorted. "Good riddance…"

He then turned towards the heroes.

"Well, guess it is time. You two, come. We must make-" he was talking, referring to Toon Link and Zelda when suddenly he fell to his knees, clutching his chest.

"Grrraaa…" he growled in a low voice.

Everyone immediately turned towards him in both worry and wariness.

"Huff… This pain… Is this… that curse?" he said in-between labored breaths.

"Seems our 'friend' is finally breaking out of my binds. It sure took him time," Apple Death said.

"If I had to wager, I'll say Ganondorf getting the Triforce back gave it the power to start its push," Link said.

"So it seems… Quickly! T-The wish is our best bet now to get rid of it! Bring your Triforces and let’s unite them!" Ganondorf said with desperation, his grip getting tighter and his face constraining as the pain seemed to augment.

Toon Link and Zelda nodded and quickly came beside Ganondorf while lifting their hands, their Triforces glowing in the back of them as Ganondorf repeated the action.

"Wait!" a voice spoke, and everyone saw King Daphnes materializing.

"...I have a confession. When you first arrived at our shelter in the ruins of Hyrule. You said something I… have to recognize as true: as it is now, with its people separated in an empty sea, there's… little hope for the future. Which is why I must ask of you: please, also wish for the future of the people!"

Ganondorf met the King's eyes, and didn’t say anything. Then, with a solemn nod he said, "You can count on it," and gave a small smile.

Daphnes was surprised at first, but quickly, his expression turned to one of peace and gratitude. With that, he vanished.

Toon Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf thrust their fists with the Triforce forward in a triangle formation, their Triforces shining with a golden light until, from their fist, beams of light connected above them and a familiar set of three golden triangles manifested above them.

It then descended and each wielder clutched to the triangles.

In his mind, Ganondorf could hear the loud shouts and banging of what he had known all his life to be that who talked when no one was around. Who he saw in every dark corner, and that when he was taken by strange fits of rage he saw just in the corner of his vision, smiling viciously.

"NO, NO! YOU MUST LISTEN TO ME.

HYRULE COULD BE YOURS FOR THE TAKING NOW! JUST SMACK ASIDE THE LITTLE PESTS AND GO FOR THE WISH! THE OTHERS WILL NOT HAVE TIME TO STOP YOU!"

Shut up.

"Gods, hear what we have to say! W-we wish f-for… h-hope! Hope for these… souls a-adrift on this endless s-sea! A-a-and for… for…"

"FOOL! YOU THINK I WILL LET YOU RUIN WHAT I'VE BEEN WORKING SINCE THE VERY START OF THIS WORLD!? SUBMIT TO ME! YOUR FATE ISN'T OTHER BUT TO BE MY PUPPET!"

"...for…"

"YOU WERE AND ALWAYS WILL BE BORN, AGAIN AND AGAIN, AS THE INSTRUMENT, THE CARRIER OF MY WILL. DEFYING THAT IS LIKE-"

Toon Link and Zelda shouted with all their force, "Grant our friend Ganondorf his freedom and restore his will! Destroy his curse!"

"NOOO!!"

At once, the Triforce shone with fierce golden light and a column of light formed around Ganondorf, lifting him from the ground.

"GRYAAAA!!" he shouted as a figure started to come out of him, his and the being's voice overlapping each other less and less as it exited his body.

"NO! LIKE I WILL LET IT END LIKE THIS! STUPID GODS, YOUR POWER CAN'T SNUFF MY ETERNAL HATRED!"

The figure started thrashing as it was getting out of Ganondorf, seeking with desperation to exit the pillar of light.

"Tough luck, fella," Apple Death said, getting in front of him.

"Y-YOU…!"

"Aww, you remember me!" she said in a cheery mode.

The next instant she made hundreds of spectral chains bind the curse.

"Ya ain't getting away. It’s only right that as Death Ah see vengeful spirits like ya get sent to where they deserve," Apple Death said with a wink.

"YOU… D-DAMN YOU!! I WILL NOT FORGET THIS! I AM DEMISE! AND NO MATTER WHAT I WILL BRING DESTRUCTION TO-"

Demise didn’t get to say more as he finished separating fully from Ganondorf and was promptly and quite eagerly smitten into oblivion by all the gods in the pantheon of this universe.

Ganondorf was brought back to the floor, seemingly unconscious. The pillar of light that engulfed him promptly disappeared too.

The Triforce was gone.

The next instant, torrents of water began to fall everywhere, whatever keeping it up there having disappeared.

Everyone looked around in wonder, or in panic in Sonic’s case.

“Hyrule… It’s…” Link began.

Suddenly, Daphnes was here, looking up at the falling water. “It’s disappearing. For the future of everyone living on the surface, the divine force keeping this sea bare had to disappear, meaning the end of this fallen kingdom. Fishes will come and populate it. The islands will prosper as a result. Don’t worry, everyone will safely return to the surface. The gods won’t let you and them drown.”

Sonic sighed in relief.

“I guess we'll just have to transport them back to their islands,” Phantom said.

“What about you?” Apple Death asked.

Daphnes closed his eyes. “I’m just a ghost of the past, who lived in regret, bound to Hyrule, like Ganondorf. But where Ganondorf was able to move on, my place remains in the past. I will disappear with Hyrule, and finally find peace knowing that I have helped the future.” He looked at Toon Link and Zelda. “There may be nothing left for you... But despite that, you must look forward and walk a path of hope, trusting that it will sustain you when darkness comes. Farewell…”

“W-wait!” Zelda exclaimed. “You could… You could come with us! Yes, of course… We have a ship! We can find it. We WILL find it! The land that will be the next Hyrule! So…”

Daphnes smiled. “...Ah, but child… That land will not be Hyrule. It will be YOUR land!”

And at that, the group was entirely submerged. Wrapped by some kind of bubble, they began to float back to the surface. Toon Link tried to reach for Daphnes’ hand, and the King even went to grab his hand, but at the last moment, he lowered it, accepting his fate. And so, he disappeared in the depths of the ocean.

Apple Death, who was left behind, gave a last look at him and nodded before she followed the others to the surface, seeing that Zelda transformed back into Tetra.

As soon as Phantom arrived at the surface, she created a ship for everyone. Then she went on to search and help the inhabitants of the surface who had been hidden in the castle and who must now be at the surface of the ocean too, near the Tower of the Gods. There, she found the dragon Valoo as well as what seemed to be a giant anglerfish, except that he looked more like a whale, and his light was actually a lantern. Both creatures had people on their backs, but many others were still in the water. Phantom didn’t lose time creating ships for all of them.

Meanwhile, the heroes were approached by a pirate ship which Tetra was very happy to see. Toon Link too when he saw that his sister was on it, waving at him. Present on it were also Medli and Makar.

Suddenly, something else came out of the water: the King of Red Lions, now lifeless. This saddened Toon Link before Sonic put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him.

Everyone climbed on the pirate ship, Toon Link attaching the Red Lion to it. Apple Death levitated the still unconscious Ganondorf on it. The pirates were surprised to see him, but Tetra quickly reassured them. They then proceeded to hug her like the big softies that they were.

Ganondorf then woke up, and Link proceeded to tell him what happened, about Hyrule disappearing in the water. Ganondorf let out a sigh, but accepted it.

“From now on, I shall live on… Free…” he said before tears began to flow from his eyes.

In the following hours, everyone returned to their islands, and when morning came, rebuilding began. Windfall Island received some damage from Mewtwo. Outset Island, not as much.

Toon Link’s grandmother hugged him and his sister as soon as she saw them.

Everyone congratulated Toon Link and the heroes for defeating The Beast.

The pirates remained at Outset Island as the heroes discussed what was coming next in Toon Link’s house, his grandmother serving tea to everybody.

“Let’s remain here a few days to rest and gather provisions,” Tetra said, and the pirates agreed. “Then, we will leave the Great Sea in search of new land.”

Toon Link nodded.

“It will be a long journey,” Ganondorf said. “I… honestly can’t wait to see what we will discover. All this time, I only had my eyes on Hyrule, never bothering to look at what was beyond. It… will be a welcome change.”

“You won’t get bored! The world is a wonderful place, there is so much to see!” Amy said.

Toon Link’s grandmother wasn’t happy to hear that her grandson will soon leave to explore the world, and Aryll was sad too, but they accepted his decision and decided to spend as much time as possible with him in the following days, together as a family. They probably won’t see each other for a long time, if ever.

Phantom cleared her throat, gaining everyone’s attention.

“I guess it’s time for us to tell you why us, outsiders, came to this world. We are actually in search of help for a coming war. You see, there is this army…”

Phantom then proceeded to tell everything about the Alliance, the Subspace Army, Galeem, Dharkon, and the war that was approaching against them. She also told about their current problem with Crazy Hand, the one responsible for Mewtwo.

“So we came to this world in search of allies to fight them. So, Toon Link, Tetra, Ganondorf, will you join us? Or at least join the Alliance? If you don’t want to be part of the war, then we will understand, but we can help you if you encounter problems in your journey, or even when you will start building your new kingdom.”

Toon Link, Tetra, and Ganondorf exchanged glances.

“Well…” Toon Link began. “I don’t mind joining this war. It is the right thing to do, to defend innocents from what Master Hand has planned and save whole universes. Also stop Crazy Hand and the villains he has recruited.”

Tetra winked at him. “As expected from you.” She looked back at the heroes. “And yes, I want to join too and offer my help when possible.”

Everyone then looked at Ganondorf who remained silent.

Then, after a few more seconds, he said, “I had hoped for peace, but… this counterpart of mine who has joined Crazy Hand… I want to help him. And if these two want to join, then I guess that I have no other choice. I’m in.”

The heroes thanked them.

"Before any of that however, I have a favor I would like to ask," Ganondorf said, looking at Phantom and Apple Death.

Then at Link.

For a moment, Ganondorf stood completely still, his eyes hardly believing it.

Behind him, Tetra looked around with curiosity, while Toon Link…

"This is SO COOL! We're in the real, non-destroyed HYRULE!" he said, excited.

Indeed, the heroes were right now in the middle of Hyrule's plains. The sun was setting, and a comfortable breeze washed over everyone.

"My, what an incredible view!" Amy said.

"Yeah, I've seen my fair share of sunsets and I must say, this is easily on my top ten!" Sonic said.

"Hehe, thanks. How about it, Ganondorf?" Link asked him.

"...It’s… simply perfect. Thank you… truly thank you, for accepting my request."

"Don't sweat it. Ya're one of us now! We do anything for Ah friend,"Apple Death waved him off.

Ganondorf for his part just sat on the grass. At each of his sides, Link and Tetra did too. The rest of the heroes similarly each sat at either side, taking a moment to just appreciate the moment.

There, for the first time in his life as a truly free man and with friends at his side.

"Such a strange concept still… but not an unpleasant one."

The former Gerudo King couldn’t help but close his eyes and smile the most pleased, genuine smile he could muster. Completely free of any malice.

"The wind… It blows…"

Chapter 183: Grustport

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 184: Retaking Grust

Author's Note

Justalad wrote some of the scenes, and Cyrus wrote the descriptions of the characters.

Sorry it took so long. I had some difficulty with this chapter. It will probably be the case with the following ones too.

Chapter 184: Retaking Grust

Sweetie Void:
Hello Tails. Can you and your counterpart prepare the deroboticizer? We need it. Prepare also material to build a mobile workshop with self-producing electricity for it. I am currently in a medieval world in the middle of a war against Eggman, so electricity isn’t available and the deroboticizer will need to move a lot. Also, bring something to immobilize the roboticized without having to kill them. Reply once everything is ready.

Sweetie Void sent the message to Present Tails.

“There. Message sent. It will probably take Tails an hour or two to prepare everything, so it means that it will take a few days here. No choice but to wait.”

At least, she chained all the roboticized to ensure that they wouldn’t move, so they won’t be a problem. It was just a matter of defending their position while waiting for Tails.

“It will be nice to have Tails with us,” Past Amy said happily. “He will be very helpful against Eggman.”

Past Sonic agreed with a nod.

“These will be some difficult days, remaining in position doing nothing but resisting the repeated assaults of the robots,” Marth said. “But to save these roboticized people, we will do it.”

“Don’t worry, if any dragon appears, I will be here to deal with them,” Sweetie Void said.

Marth showed his sword. “Thanks to Falchion, I can also kill them easily. You can count on me.”

“And us too!” Amy said for herself and Sonic.

With that, everyone got ready just as transport ships arrived.

The days passed on as the heroes waited, thankfully without any major incident outside the occasional attack from Eggman's army.

Past Amy was taking a stroll around, enjoying her current free time outside battle when suddenly she heard someone talking rather loudly. Curious, she approached the sound of the voice and saw a group of the local warriors talking with each other.

The one that the loud voice she heard before belonged to was a blonde guy with green cloth armor with strips of hardened leather and patches of steel plate and a gameson wrapped around his waist speaking to a group of companions:

A man with red hair, an eyepatch over his right eye, a metal spaulder over his right shoulder, a leather pauldron over his left, otherwise dressed in light armor meant for mobility.

A woman with long purple hair that reached past her shoulders, a cloth wrapped around her head, though why, Amy couldn’t tell from her current position. Her garb seemed more accurately described as a dress with a purple fabric tied to her right hip than armor, save for the single spaulder on her left shoulder. A sword rested at her side, tucked within its sheath, yet still showing its gentle curve.

A tall man with a horned helmet and a breastplate and spaulder on his right shoulder and a green cloth over his left. As he turned to look at the woman, Amy spotted a large mustache across his face.

And, finally, another blonde man, dressed in a hardened leather chestpiece, a blue shirt underneath, with green pants and a pair of blades hanging off his back and belt.

The loud blonde was apparently trying to convince them minus the red-haired one of something.

“Let me tell you, it’s a great opportunity! Our country is completely made by and for mercenaries, with all the accommodations we could ask for. Doesn't it sound appealing? What say you, Ogma?” the blonde asked.

The other blonde, Ogma, crossed his arms with a serious face.

“Mmm, it does but… what would that even entail?” he asked.

At that, the blonde smirked and gestured to the red-haired with the eyepatch. ”Tell'em, Saber.”

Saber nodded. ”For starters, it would be primarily a safe place. No more just being on the run looking for jobs or being chased by enemies made on said jobs, our country is a place where we could genuinely settle down and have a home. We all watch each other's backs,” Saber said. The blonde then continued,

“And not to mention, it would also be a place with all kinds of accommodations for us! Bunches of armories and stores for gear, guilds to facilitate finding jobs and recruiting companions to take on bigger jobs, we even plan on having something like a kind of school,but apart from regular things, we teach the populace the arts of combat so even those that don't want to take part on the mercenary life at least know to defend themselves, should the need arise.”

By the end of his talk, they all seemed more or less convinced.

Then, the big man with the mustache and the helmet talked,

“Mmm, aight listen you, uhh…”

“Jesse, my good sir,” the blonde said.

“Yeah Jesse. Now don't get me wrong, and maybe I ain't the smartest guy around but… what you say sounds good, too good in fact… I ain't sure me and my daughter Malice can exactly trust it,” he said, the woman with purple hair, Malice, nodding.

“I share the same sentiments as Dice,too,” Ogma said.

“Ah, do not worry, it’s normal to have doubts. Why, I myself would be skeptical too-but fear not, Saber and I can assure you it’s all gonna be real! Already we have gathered a good amount of good people to our cause, not to mention we count with the blessings and support of Their Majesties King Alm and Queen Celica. Already our country is starting to take shape, a pretty little thing that will grow in the future,”Jesse said.

He then looked at Malice, and after some thinking he got a knowing smirk.

A smirk his companion Saber knew all too well.

“Jesse, don't-” he hissed at him, but Jesse was already talking.

“What says you, dear Malice? If you would have me, It would be an honor to show a lady of your beauty around our country once this dreadful war is over.”

Malice looked at Jesse as if he just grew a second head, and Dice only arched an eyebrow.

“Ex…cuse me? Me… a beauty?” she said.

“Why yes! you are quite easy on the eyes if I say so myself, you have such nice hair, and great figure! While most men would think bad of muscles on a woman, I can appreciate how they make you look fierce and exotic, like a glorious battle maiden! And I've seen how you fight before, the way you effortlessly weave through these metallic foes is as if you were dancing, an incredible dance that-”

But before he could say more, Jesse suddenly found himself with Malice having drawn her blade and in less than a second she had it mere centimeters of his neck.

Immediately, everyone was alerted, and Saber couldn’t help but sigh.

Damn, he just never learns… he thought before he started to look for how to calm the situation.

But then, just as quickly as she drew it, Malice sheathed her blade back.

“S…sorry,“ she said. ”It’s… a bad habit.”

Jesse, still a bit shocked, looked at her.

She was visibly blushing.

Did she really just… threaten me because she got embarrassed!? he thought with no short amount of disbelief.

“Ahem!I… guess that since you’re offering… I could at least go see this country of yours…” Malice said.

“Uhh, sure. It’s a date then-”

This time, Ogma did Jesse a favor and held Malice's arm in place just as she had her hand on the handle of her blade. His arm was visibly bulging with strength however.

“Y-yeah… A-a date…” Malice said.

Through the whole exchange, Dice just looked on with some amusement.

Hah! Seems you don't know just where you landed yourself on laddie. Let's bet how much you last… he thought to himself.

Saber, for his part, could hardly believe what he was seeing. He knew Jesse was a hopeless flirt, and never could have predicted that the day would come he would see a woman actually fall for his silver tongue.

Jesse too could hardly believe it himself, and was heavily debating with himself.

This woman seems… complicated but… well I wasn't lying-she IS really pretty. But is it worth it? hmmm… Big blade… but pretty lady… Could easily shred me into pieces… but pretty lady…

Past Amy, who spied on the whole thing only uttered three words at the end of it all.

“Oh… my… GOSH!” she said, eyes sparkling.

Present Tails:

Everything is ready. We are even bringing some help.

Sweetie Void:
Ok, I’m coming. Where are you?

Present Tails:

In New Halcandra, before Magolor’s laboratory.

At that, Sweetie Void opened a rift, shocking all the locals.

“I don’t know how long I will be gone, probably several hours. Hopefully, I return before Eggman’s next assault,” she said before she jumped into the rift.

She appeared in New Halcandra before Magolor’s laboratory where she found the Tails as well as Susie beside the deroboticizer and all the material needed to build a small mobile workshop for it. There were also several Haltmann Armors (Invader Armor was out of fashion since they stopped invading).

“Susie? You are the help they are bringing?” Sweetie Void asked.

Susie bowed. “Yes. I will build the workshop with my crew and help stop Eggman. Technology against technology. I’m going to show the locals that not everything is bad about it. The first impression may be ruined, but the second impression can still save the day.” She then brought out a gun. “Also, I have something to immobilize the roboticized. This gun can shoot electric projectiles. Nothing too bad, just enough to make them stop moving long enough to…” She showed a strange round device with a single red button. “put this on them. This little baby will destroy whatever program is forcing them to act and will allow them to regain their free will.”

She pointed at two groups of crates. “These crates are full of these guns and devices. Enough to equip hundreds of people. And there is more!” She pointed to more crates. Many more crates. “Modern weapons to better equip this medieval army of yours. Familiar weapons so training won’t be needed. Beam weapons and energy bows. The robots’ bodies of steel won’t be a problem anymore.”

Sweetie Void grinned. “Thank you, Susie! The soldiers really had difficulty cutting the robots, and let’s not talk of the archers. These weapons will make the battles much easier, and dragons won’t be a problem anymore too.”

“Dragons?” Past Tails asked.

“Yeah, Eggman now has an army of roboticized dragons.”

The two Tails gulped at that.

“Well, time to bring all that stuff to Archanea. Time passes much faster there, and Eggman could attack anytime. I want to be there when this happens. So, without losing time, Higitus Figitus!”

A wand suddenly materialized in Sweetie’s hoof, and she began to repeatedly wave it along with her other forehoof before the deroboticizer, material, and crates began to float in line toward a rift that she opened, sometimes shrinking so they could pass through.

The Tails gawked while Susie giggled.

They then jumped through the rift, the Armors coming just after them.

Back in Archanea, the army could only look in awe at the procession of floating objects coming out of the rift and settling nicely before them. Sweetie Void, the Tails, Susie, and the Armors then came out of the rift before it closed.

Susie clapped her hands. “Alright boys, let’s start. We have a mobile workshop to build.”

The Armors immediately went to work while Sweetie Void and the Tails moved toward Marth, Caeda, Alm, and Celica.

“Nothing happened while I was gone?” the filly asked.

“Nothing,” Alm answered.

“Great!”

Sweetie Void proceeded to present everyone. Then she and the Tails showed the roboticizer before they opened the crates to present their contents.

“The taserguns will need some training, but the rest shouldn’t be a problem,” she said.

“And if there is not enough for everyone, we can always build more using the remains of the robots we destroy, and also pieces from the factories,” Present Tails said.

Kris grabbed one of the beam swords, which were just cylinder devices while turned off. As instructed, he pressed a button, and the sword activated. He then tested it, carefully swinging it. It was much lighter than a normal sword. It will take some time to get used to that, but it was very good. Not cumbersome at all. He will just have to be careful not to touch the beam blade when activated.

“Eggman will have a nasty surprise,” he said.

Many were grinning, agreeing with his words.

The workshop was built in a few hours, looking like a large caravan. The deroboticizer was immediately installed, ready to be used.

Merric was the first to use it and return to normal. As soon as he exited the workshop, Marth embraced him.

“It’s good to see you again, Merric.”

“I’m glad to be myself again. My Excalibur is yours, again.”

One by one, the roboticized they captured were turned back to normal, all people who fought the robots and avoided being killed, but were captured and turned into killing machines. They immediately wanted to join Marth’s army. Marth welcomed them with open arms.

And with that, the battle to retake Grust was able to restart. It was a very long battle that lasted for weeks because, contrary to normal wars where the enemy army could surrender when the leader is defeated and/or the capital is taken over, here, it wasn’t the case. The robots will never surrender. The heroes had to defeat them all over the country, base by base. Factory by factory.

Thanks to the new weapons, fighting the robots was much easier. It now only took one hit or two to destroy them where, before, you needed a weapon like a hammer or an Armorslayer to have such results. The archer could finally deal real damage to robots other than the flying ones. Even the dragons (mostly earth dragons, proving that what Gotoh said was true) weren’t as scary anymore.

The newcomers were of course able to show their worth. The Tails zipped around thanks to their tails, smashing robots left and right and using gadgets when needed.

Susie showed that she wasn’t part of the Kirby Crew for nothing. With a press of a button, she materialized her armor that destroyed waves after waves of robots, and wherever she was, she was followed by the Haltmann Armors who, while not as powerful, still pulled their weight (and they were very heavy), even if one ended up destroyed by a dragon.

Any roboticized encountered was tased, freed, and turned back to normal before they joined the army.

What was worrying was that no village remained. They were all destroyed.

The lands were also starting to get mechanized. The forests were destroyed. The fields were gone. There were railways everywhere with trains transporting materials and weapons.

Then, they saw Grust’s capital, and the horror grew.

Instead of a nice medieval city with a castle, there was a huge futuristic metropolis with buildings reaching the sky which was covered by a black cloud coming from the countless chimneys. It was still in the process of being built, some buildings not finished yet. Eggman’s image was everywhere. The land around was totally dead.

It was very certainly in this city that all the inhabitants of Grust, from the destroyed villages and towns, had been gathered.

Jubelo, the young prince of Grust who was part of Marth’s army despite being only sixteen years old, was devastated. Anybody from Grust was in a similar state.

The others from Archanea weren’t better once they understood that what they were seeing was probably the case everywhere else on the continent. Altea. Macedon. The Kingdom of Archanea.

The ones from Valentia were just as horrified. The same could have happened to their continent.

Before, they just had an idea, but now, they knew. They knew what they had to stop.

And it will be very difficult for Archanea to recover from that. Thankfully, Susie reassured them that she could do something about the pollution. The forests will have to be regrown the normal way however. The metropolis will obviously have to be destroyed. It was too pollutant. Not environmentally friendly at all.

But before that, they had to take it over, and it was clear that it would be easier said than done. The city was guarded by an important army of robots. They could already see thousands of them outside the city, so they could only imagine how many there were inside. And that wasn’t counting the dozens of dragons and the many airships.

Among the robots, they spotted humanoid ones that seemed to be copies of the various classes among the heroes’ army, like how there were robot mages before. It seemed to be an attempt from Eggman to use their own might against them, like how he used Sonic’s might with Metal Sonic. There was everything, from the heavily armored generals to the mighty heroes, passing by the terrifying dracoknights (yes, they even had robot wyverns). There were even bishops ready to heal the roboticized if they were hurt in their organic parts. And all these robots were of course armed with energy weapons, like beam swords.

They were dangerous robots, but robots that the locals knew how to fight. They shouldn’t be problematic.

Sweetie Void created two dozen clones, the maximum she could currently hope to control. Because of the roboticized among the robots, she won’t be able to use AoE attacks to destroy thousands of robots in one go before the battle even starts, so she had no choice but to do it the old fashioned way. She will at least target in priority the dragons and airships. That will be two less problems to worry about.

“Let’s free Grust, everyone!” Marth yelled.

And with that, the battle began.

Sweetie Void and her doubles were the first to go, entering the fray to destroy as many enemies as possible before the others reached them. Sonic and his friends arrived just after, quickly destroying a large number of robots too thanks to their experience. After eliminating hundreds of robots, some of the Sweeties went to kill the dragons and destroy the airships. Others used electricity to shock the roboticized, leaving them behind spasming on the ground for Marth’s army to save.

Finally, Marth and the others reached the robots, and the battle truly began.

Because of the presence of robot archers (snipers, horsemen, and even some warriors and generals), the pegasus knights and other flying units had to be careful. To help them, the ally archers eliminated these robots in priority. Mages were important targets too, their magic being dangerous, especially to knights and generals (or barons if they were from Valentia). Bad news, a few enemy mages had Meteor and Swarm tomes, allowing them to attack from very far away. The allies tried to remain out of range of these robots. Eventually, Sweetie Void spotted them and destroyed them or shocked them if they were roboticized, removing the tomes out of their possession. The filly gave these tomes to allied mages, allowing them to attack robots from far away. It was a huge help.

Malice found herself separated from Dice in the chaos of the battle, and before she knew it, she was surrounded by the enemies. Jesse saw that, and he jumped and ran on the robots to join her. She was surprised to see him, and in return, he grinned and asked, “Need help?”

“Don’t expect me to jump in your arms.”

“I would never.”

The two then worked together to cut the robots around them, watching each other’s backs, until Saber, Dice, and some soldiers led by Celica managed to break the encirclement.

Meanwhile, Ogma found himself facing two roboticized warriors who looked identical that he recognized very well.

“Cord… Bord… To see you like that… So Talys has fallen too. Of course…”

Needless to say, he quickly used the tasergun to stun them before putting the device on them, freeing them from their program.

Once they woke up, they immediately sprang up, ready to fight.

“Ogma! Thank you for freeing!” Cord said.

“Now, time to fight together, like in the good old times,” Bord said.

“Without Barst.”

“We will have to do without him.”

“Glad to have you back,” Ogma said.

The three then fought the robots together, working together in perfect synergy.

Cord and Bord will have to wait until the end of the battle to be deroboticized.

At this moment, roboticized wyverns arrived faster than the speed of sound and fired homing missiles at the army, killing many. Sweetie Void never expected that, so she wasn’t able to react in time. To stop this from repeating, she sent her doubles after the wyverns to kill them before they could return.

Eventually, the army was able to enter the metropolis where the hardest part started: fighting the robots, building by building, while being careful not to hurt the civilians. Thankfully, there were no dragons, and all the airships were destroyed, so Sweetie Void was able to destroy the robots without interruption. However, it was much harder to keep an eye on everyone with them being inside buildings half the time. If only she could destroy the buildings to take all the robots inside, but there were civilians inside them too. Thankfully, there were less roboticized because the majority of the robots present in the city were fresh out of factories.

As the battle continued, a transport ship eventually arrived outside the city, releasing many robots including one that was very special. It was a humanoid robot of the hero class, with a large shield of the hardest metal Eggman could get and a powerful beam sword.

Eggman named it the Egg Achilles.

The robot raised its sword, charging energy into it, then swung down, releasing a powerful vertical wave of energy toward the city, cutting everything in its path. Sweetie Void quickly sensed it and immediately acted, teleporting in front of it and stopping it with her own swords with difficulty.

The energy used was the same energy that Metal Sonic used.

The filly went to deal with the Egg Achilles before it could send another wave, but the robot revealed to not be just powerful, but also very skilled with its weapon. It could easily rival the likes of Meta Knight. But against Sweetie? That was nothing. She easily passed its defense and sliced it horizontally in half before she crushed its head.

It still worried Sweetie Void. If Eggman had more robots like this one, then Marth and the others may need some training, just in case they ended up encountering one and she wasn’t around for one reason or another.

For the rest of the battle, a few more wyverns came, but Sweetie Void destroyed them and their missiles before they could kill anyone. After several long hours, all the robots were destroyed and the factories were stopped.

The city was now in the hands of Marth’s army.

Malice found herself alone after the battle, deciding she needed some time to short out her own feelings.

Should I really follow through with this…? I mean this Jesse fellow ain't bad-looking I suppose but… she was thinking.

Suddenly, she heard steps behind her and quickly turned around with her hand preventively reaching for her blade, but quickly relaxed seeing it was just Amy.

“Ah, one of the foreigners,” she said. ”You know, aren't Y'all awfully young to fight in wars?”

Amy just giggled a bit. ”Well, I mean, you saw us fighting, no? And Sweetie Void's pretty much carrying us through this.”

Malice sighed, but then smirked. ”Heh, can't argue with that. So, what’s it, lassie?”

“Oh, my name is Amy, miss! I just wondered why you would come here alone. I actually saw you in the battle of today and I must say, I'm impressed with how you fight with such grace!”

Malice for her part rubbed the back of her head. ”Aww, thanks. You also looked good with that hammer. You and your friends all seem really strong actually! And as for what I am doing here I just…I don't know, needed to think about some things. Nothing a young one like ya should worry, I'll be fine.”

At that, Amy seemed to think of something, then said, "Well, while me and my friends are around I don't mind if you ever feel like talking about it with me. I like making new friends! How about it, miss…?” Amy said, extending her hand.

Malice took it. ”Call me Malice and, well, not sure if I could talk about what's on my mind with you but I don't mind being your friend too.”

As they shook hands, Amy was delighted that the first step of her plan was a success.

“Don't worry Miss Malice, you will be reunited with your true love! I'll make sure of it…”

Chapter 185: Chiasmir Bridge

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 186: Khadein

The army walked in the direction of Khadein, stopped every now and then by the robots. It wasn’t long before they reached the desert that spread over most of the northwest of Archanea, which Khadein was part of.

The heat immediately hit the army hard, but thankfully, Sweetie Void was able to help by covering them with a giant magical shield not letting the sun’s rays pass. She then gave an ice enchantment on everyone at once, keeping everyone fresh.

Thanks to that, the army was able to advance with the only difficulty being the sand slowing them down.

They reached an oasis where they took the chance for a small break before resuming the march.

Sweetie Void was flying around, keeping watch like always in case Eggman decided to throw in a surprise attack. However, she started to notice an odd thing: every now and then, one of the warriors of this world would observe her flying by, her gaze following her. She didn't mind at first, but then she noticed that she seemed worried over something as she saw her.

Thus, she decided to just descend and ask her what's the matter, which it seemed she didn’t expect, surprised as she saw her approach.

“Hi! I noticed you have been observing me for a while, what's your name?” Sweetie Void asked.

The warrior, a woman with long green hair and a white bandana, responded, “Oh, my name is Palla.”

Sweetie Void nodded. ”Palla. You seemed rather worried, so I mean to ask if I can help with whatever it is.”

At that, Palla shook her head a bit. “No, it’s nothing, just… I've noticed that since you arrived here, you haven’t really taken any breaks at all. Look, your wings are all ruffled, your mane looks wild, and you certainly could use a bath in my opinion.”

Sweetie Void arched an eyebrow and looked at herself, summoning a mirror. Sure enough, she had not really been taking care of herself lately, and she was rather dirty.

“If you will, I can assist you. As a falicorn rider, I know my way in taking care of winged, horned equines. It’s the least I could do as a thanks for all your hard work.”

Sweetie Void thought it over. Sure, she could easily decline and just wash herself over with a wave of a hoof, but at the same time it did sound rather nice. She didn’t remember last time Rarity had taken her to the spa back at Ponyville, plus If Eggman did launch a surprise attack, one of her doubles could warn her and she would be there in an instant.

“Mmm, you know what? Sure! I could use a break.”

Palla's face lit up. ”Excellent! Follow me, please.”

And so Palla brought Sweetie Void near the pond of the oasis, getting ready to wash her.

However another woman, this one with short blue hair, a white bandana and armor identical to Palla's appeared shortly after they arrived.

“Sister, I’ve been searching for you-oh, what are you doing?” she asked upon seeing her and Sweetie Void, the latter finishing taking her usual attire for adventures off.

“Ah, Catria! Good timing. I offered to help one of the warriors from another world to have a break and tidy up. Care to join me?”

Catria looked a moment at her sister, then at Sweetie Void, and couldn’t help but approach with curiosity.

“Wow, she is really similar to a falicorn…” Catria said.

“Where I come from, we call ourselves alicorns. We also usually are all princesses although my case is… a bit special,” Sweetie Void said.

“Princesses? Huh. Well, falicorns are rarer than pegasi, but they can be both male and female. Both them and pegasi do have a quirk in that they almost never like human males which is why only females ever become pegasus knights,” Catria said.

As they conversed, both Palla and Catria began to go on washing Sweetie Void, taking special care with her wings and mane. They certainly knew what they were doing, and Sweetie had to admit there was a strange but pleasant feeling with their fingers going through them.

By the end of it, Sweetie Void felt really refreshed. It was almost as good as the trips to the spa!

“Now then, let’s get you dried up and take care of that mane!” Palla declared.

Yet again, more women suddenly appeared in their spot by the pond. This time it was Caeda, accompanied by a girl of striking features with wavy blonde hair, wearing a dress that seems to act as a gambeson and bits of armor on her extremities with shoulder pads and some kind of helmet that let out her hair.

“Ah! Here you were! I wanted to catch up with you for the longest time now,” the blonde said.

“Clair! It is good to see you well. And Your Majesty? What are you doing here?” Palla asked.

“Well, Clair here was looking for you and I just happened to see you two coming here. Then she started to ask questions about you and how you were in past wars, and…” Caeda was saying before Clair spoke up.

“We just hit off quite well! And so I thought it would be fine to bring her along and… Oh heavens! Now what do you have here!” Clair said upon laying her eyes on Sweetie Void, quickly approaching and crouching down. ”Awww, what a cute falicorn filly!”

“She's Sweetie Void, she's one of the warriors from another world. She also says she's an ‘alicorn' “ Catria said, sighing when Clair seemed to keep gushing over Sweetie instead of listening to her. Sweetie for her Part couldn’t help but Giggle.

“Oh! Her mane needs brushing,” Clair noted. ”Why, I’ll make sure it looks absolutely divine!” she said with conviction.

“We actually were just about to, though we don't mind if you join. What about Your Majesty? You used to also be a pegasus knight before switching to wyverns,” Palla said, and Caeda nodded.

“Sure, I don't mind.”

Thus the four went on brushing sweetie's mane and tail, even managing to give them its characteristic curls. All the while, they kept talking. Apparently, Palla and Catria knew Clair since way back and even were part of a war on Valentia.

“Really? What were you guys doing on another continent?” Sweetie Void asked.

“Oh that's easy, we were there initially to rescue our dear sister Est-” Palla was saying, before suddenly going quiet.

Likewise, Catria tensed up.

“Oh, yeah! Now that I remember, weren't you three? What happened to-" Clair was saying but then saw Caeda shaking her head.

“Oh…” was all she said.

The mood visibly soured, and Sweetie Void even heard Palla sniffing, starting to tear up.

She decided to get off her lap and look up to her.

“H-hey, it’s fine. Sorry I asked, I-”

“No, it's fine. You wouldn't know your question would bring… Est up.”

Seeing Sweetie Void's lost expression, Catria signed. ”A couple of years ago, our sister Est went missing without a trace. Before that we used to be inseparable: both in and out of battle. We had quite the reputation actually. These years without her have been… hard.”

“Oh, Est…!” Palla kept lamenting, and both Clair and Caeda moved close to comfort her.

Catria grimaced. ”Palla's been taking the worst of it, being the oldest. she thinks Est's disappearance is in part her fault to this day,” she said this time whispering to Sweetie Void.

For her part, Sweetie Void didn’t know what to think of this. For a moment, she thought of what it would be if one day she disappeared too, what would be of Rarity.

She decided that she should do something nice for her after this adventure.

“And no one has been able to find her or a clue of where she went?” Sweetie asked after a time.

Catria shook her head. ”Her Husband was the first to go out to search for her, but he too ended up disappearing, never to be heard of again.”

Sweetie Void grimly nodded. She really hoped and wished that somehow they were fine.

Palla, who seemed to have calmed down, said, ”Apologies, for letting you all see me in such a state…”

“Hey, none of that now! I have a sis too, and so do my friends. Tell you what: after this war, I will look out all over the world for your sister. Who knows, she and her husband could actually be fine! So don't lose hope just yet okay? I’ll find them no matter what,” Sweetie Void said, and she meant it. Whatever the state they were in, she would make sure that at least they knew.

At that, Palla couldn’t help but let out a little laugh. ”Hehe, well, you’re certainly optimistic. She… Est… She was also like that. So bright and cherry. Somehow… you remind me of her…”

Sweetie Void decided to get on Palla's lap, and let the woman idly pet her mane for a while. All while the others kept her company.

Eventually, the break in the oasis came to an end, and the army had to resume the march.

The good news was that there were practically no bases in the desert. The army didn’t encounter any as they traversed it. As such, the robots weren’t as many, resulting in just a few skirmishes.

The bad news: they reached Khadein.

Only to find the city in ruins, entirely destroyed. Nothing was left. Eggman didn’t even bother to build a base or a new city in its place.

Merric was devastated by that, as well as pretty much all the mages in the army that were from Archanea. Seeing the City of Magic itself, such an iconic part of Archanea, gone…

They couldn’t get closer to the city to see if there was anything to save however. A huge number of robots was present, obviously waiting for them.

Among them, Sweetie could feel the presence of a robot with the energy like Metal Sonic, or the one she destroyed back in Grust, or the giant Death Egg Robot.

There were many mages among the robots, defended by archers. No doubt these mages had Meteor or Swarm, ready to take advantage of the fact that the sand slowed down the army so they would have difficulty reaching them, and the archers were to keep away the flying units.

Thankfully, the army could fight fire with fire with their own mages using Meteor and Swarm tomes taken from the defeated enemies. Hopefully, Eggman didn’t manage yet to build robots resistant to magic like how mages were generally resistant to it.

And of course, there was Sweetie Void. No matter how good Eggman’s strategies were, as long as he didn’t find a way to deal with the filly, they would all fail spectacularly.

The battle began, and the filly went ahead like always to deal with the dragons and the mages suspected to have Meteor and Swarm tomes. One of the doubles also went to deal with the super powerful robot she felt, which revealed to be another mage, a sorcerer.

The Egg Merlin, cloaked in red and near the frontline, held a Meteor tome which it used as soon as it was in range. It summoned many meteors over the army, so powerful that they passed through the shield that protected them from the sun. The meteors caused huge damage to the army as a result, killing many soldiers, especially knights, generals, and barons, which were very weak to magic.

Seeing that, Sweetie sent doubles to defend the army from the meteors and to heal the wounded.

Thankfully, the Egg Merlin had no way to defend itself once Sweetie got too close, so she was able to destroy it very easily despite its power. The snipers surrounding it reacted too late, and were useless against the filly anyway.

The problem with the Meteor and Swarm tomes was that they only worked long distance. Get too close, and these mighty spells become harmless.

She quickly understood that the snipers were also a priority target. The sand really slowed most of the army down, so the flying units were the ones they had to count on, but because of the many snipers present, they couldn’t do much currently, to their frustration. The mages, which weren’t slowed down by sand too, understood that and targeted them in priority with the Meteor and Swarm tomes. They had to be careful to remain out of the range of the robots, or at least close enough to the others so they remained protected.

Once enough snipers were eliminated, the flying units were able to swoop down on the robots, destroying many of them. So far, they had been limited to fighting off the enemies’ flying units, far above, out of range of the snipers.

Caeda, Palla, Catria, and Clair targeted the remaining dragons, wanting to destroy their threat first before moving to the rest. They worked together to defeat them one by one, helping Sweetie Void reduce their number. They regularly had to fly back to be healed by the healers in the army before returning to the front.

Eventually, all the dragons were killed. Thankfully, no wyverns came to fire missiles at the army. And with most of the robot mages using Meteor and Swarm destroyed, with Sonic finishing the remaining ones, the offensive truly started. Everyone charged to destroy the robots and recover the roboticized.

Merric found himself face to face against a roboticized man that he was happy to find: Arlen, a blond man with a red cloak. Merric’s ancient rival. He possessed the powerful lightning spell Thoron, making him dangerous. He was able to fire the spell at Merric, hurting him rather badly, but he resisted and countered with his tasergun, ending the brief fight.

There were robots inside the remains of Khadein, so the battle turned into an urban one where the buildings had to be cleaned one by one. This allowed the heroes to see that the city had been entirely plundered of everything about magic. The city’s great library was now empty.

It saddened Merric, but it also gave him hope. It meant that the books were still probably intact somewhere else, certainly at Eggman’s HQ. They could be recovered, and Khadein could eventually recover its greatness.

The last robots in the city were eventually destroyed, ending the battle.

“Those special robots are really dangerous,” Alm said. “We lost a lot of good men today because of this one.”

“I’m sorry. It caught me off guard,” Sweetie Void said sadly.

“We can’t hold it against you. You are always doing your best to protect us. But you are not perfect. Things can always go wrong, no matter what. Let’s continue to do everything in our power to minimize the damage,” Marth said before he looked around at his men. “With Khadein destroyed, there is nothing for us to do here. Time to go to Altea.”

Chapter 187: Altea

From Khadein, the army walked south, eventually reaching the end of the desert before they crossed a bridge to the island nation of Altea, fighting robots on the way like always.

Upon crossing, they spotted a village not too far from the bridge.

The village was easy enough to liberate, once again Eggman’s forces temporarily weakened due to the Doctor certainly accumulating a heavier army at the capital ahead to try and defeat them.

The army was tired, and thus, it was decided they were to take rest at the Village, the freed people more than happy to accommodate their saviors.

That night, at the local pub, many warriors were celebrating their spectacular turnabout in the war thanks to Sweetie Void and her friends.

Jagen, Archanea's oldest serving knight and close advisor to King Marth, decided to exit and take a bit of fresh air, looking at the star-filled sky.

“Quite the sight, eh?” a voice nearby said.

Jagen looked to the side, encountering none other than Mycen. Praised all across Valentia as one of the strongest even at his advanced age, he too was taking a break from the celebrations.

Jagen, a bit surprised at first, was quick to respond with a smile. ”Indeed. Mmm, we haven't had the chance to properly meet, have we? Jagen, paladin of Archanea.”

Mycen nodded. ”Mycen, gold knight of Valentia. Heh, I can tell we're fairly similar with all but a glance.”

Jagen arched an eyebrow. ”You mean, aside from the fact we're a tad too old to keep going on the battlefield like this?”

Mycen simply laughed good-humoredly. ”Hah! Talk for yourself! I am still in my prime! ...But yes, apart from that. You’re quite close to that Marth lad, and I can see he respects you a whole lot.”

Jagen looked to the side and smiled fondly, memories crossing his mind. ”I have been alongside His Majesty since he was but an infant and I a young newly assigned captain. Getting to see him grow into the fine king he is and getting to support him in his now third war is my greatest gift to this day.”

Mycen nodded with eager approval. ”Right? I myself helped raise Alm and Celica, and I took care of them as though they were my own grandchildren. Mm, even though we have a… complicated story and I am not really, y'know, their actual grandpa, they still call me that. There's nothing I wouldn't give for these too…”

At that last phrase, Mycen's face lost some of its joy, and his expression darkened.

“...I hear that when we were off to resurrect the fallen at the magical fountains of your continent, one compatriot of yours had to stay dead,” Jagen said, his tone getting serious too.

“Aye. Nomah, old friend. Helped raise Celica until she reached adulthood. He was among the first, buying time so everyone else could escape in time from these “Machines”. There was nothing I could've done, there was nothing that could've been done.”

Both became silent for a bit before Mycen continued. ”...Still, it was for the best; he would've been positively devastated to learn that a younger, full of life warrior was sacrificed only for him to live longer when he didn’t have much left. He's always been like that…”

“And are you any different?” Jagen asked, looking intently at Mycen.

Mycen smirked. ”No point in being coy around us old dogs I suppose. Indeed, if there’s a need I would save another's life in exchange of mine without a regret. These people deserve it.”

Jagen looked at Mycen, then nodded. ”We have already lived our lives to the fullest, it's no use trying to extend and delay the inevitable at the exchange of others. In both previous wars, I was ready to lie down my life but survived. And this time I am not different. But… that said, we would be causing far too much grief with our passing still.”

“Aye, these kids can't help but care too much.”

“Even for a pair of old-timers.”

Both Jagen and Mycen laughed.

Mycen then thrusted his arm forward, hand stretched. ”Then how about this: let us work together and see if we have what it takes to live after this war too.”

Jagen looked at Mycen's hand as resolution filled him, and he finally took and shook it. ”We watch each other's backs and ensure each other lives. For their sake.”

“Always for their sake.”

The army began their task of freeing Altea, village by village, base by base. Thankfully, Altea wasn’t big, so it didn’t take as much time as Grust. And in just a matter of days, they were before the capitale turned into a metropolis like in Grust, confirming what Marth feared.

Not even Altea’s castle remained. Marth’s childhood home, so full of memories, gone.

Because of how the area was actually composed of several islands linked together by bridges, the metropolis spanned several of these islands.

Like in Grust, the city was still under construction, but it was more advanced.

And of course, the totality of Eggman’s army in Altea was gathered there, ready to protect it.

Sweetie Void remarked that there were more bishops than usual among them. The robots couldn’t heal each other, only the roboticized, but it looked like Eggman finally decided to experiment with the staves.

Not all the staves were for healing. There were some to repair stuff, some to warp people, some to raise strength or defense or speed, and so on. It seemed that Eggman had overlooked that, but finally decided to give it a try in the hope of defeating the heroes.

Which definitely wasn't good news for the heroes. Well used, a staff can become very problematic.

Of course, Sweetie felt that there was another robot possessing that destructive energy somewhere in the city.

This robot was a red-colored swordmaster that was built for speed. Tall, slim, with long legs. It also had the particularity of having four arms, each holding a beam sword.

The Egg Shiva.

Around it were several robot bishops.

Right away, Sweetie Void and her doubles went after the Egg Shiva as well as the many airships and dragons present everywhere.

However, three of the bishops used the Defense, Strength, and Speed Staves on the Egg Shiva, buffing it. Then, another bishop used a very rare staff to warp the Egg Shiva right in the middle of Marth’s army as they were charging toward the robots. That took the filly by surprise.

Of course Eggman got, or even created, a Warp Staff. With all the magical knowledge taken from Khadein, it should have been obvious.

Of course, the Egg Shiva proceeded to slaughter the soldiers surrounding it with its four swords, also sending sharp energy waves to kill even more. Sweetie Void and some of her doubles quickly teleported to the robot to stop it and its waves, clashing with it.

Not surprisingly, it was revealed to be very skillful with its swords, surpassing even the Egg Achilles. Sweetie Void was still superior with her ten double beam swords and managed to land several hits. The Egg Shiva eventually lost its buffs which disappeared quickly.

Then, one of the bishops that had been around the Egg Shiva used a Rescue Staff, warping the Egg Shiva back to the robot. A bishop with the Hammerne Staff then proceeded to repair the Egg Shiva.

The Hammerne Staff was a staff that could repair objects, mainly used to repair rare and powerful weapons about to break.

Of course it could be used to repair a machine. Eggman found his own healing staff for his robots. Thankfully, the Hammerne Staff was rather difficult to produce, so not many of them should appear, and it was quick to break, so the robots will have to use them with parsimony. Eggman thought about that however: there were two bishops with Hammerne Staves. They could repair each other and also the other staves in addition to the Egg Shiva.

As the bishops with the Strength, Defense, and Speed Staves buffed the Egg Shiva again, Sweetie Void teleported to its position. However, before she could attack it, the Egg Shiva was warped again.

Right to Marth’s position.

“Buck!”

While Sweetie Void destroyed the bishops to stop them from using their staves on the Egg Shiva, she sent one of her doubles to deal with the robot itself right away.

When the Sweetie double teleported to the Egg Shiva’s position, she saw it in the middle of fighting Marth as well as Alm, Celica, Kris, Jagen, and Mycen. Merric and Jubelo also backed them up with their magic. The robot was powerful, but thanks to teamwork, they were able to hold their own together.

Marth and Kris were attacking it from before while Alm and Celica attacked from behind. The robot was able to fight the four of them with its four arms. This left it at the mercy of Jagen and Mycen who both used lances which had the advantage over swords. The two cavaliers charged from the left and right simultaneously, forcing the robot to choose between defending itself from them or the sword users. In the end, the cavaliers were able to pierce the robot, badly damaging it. And then, Merric was able to damage it even more thanks to his Excalibur spell. The robot, however, jumped away to avoid Jubelo’s Thunder spell.

Sweetie Void finally intervened while the Egg Shiva was mid jump. She charged toward it with two swords. The robot saw her coming and formed a X before itself with two of its swords. The weapons clashed, and Sweetie was able to push the robot back, sending it crashing back toward Marth and the others. It quickly recovered however, and it was able to resume fending off the heroes before receiving any hit.

The Egg Shiva jumped again to avoid another charge from Jagen and Mycen, this time managing to slash Jagen, leaving a large gash in his chest, only to be sent crashing again by Sweetie Void. This time, Marth was able to slice its inferior left arm before it could recover, leaving it open to be pierced by the Hero King. Alm, Celica, and Kris then proceeded to pierce it too, the robot ending up with four swords planted in its torso.

Mycen finished it by piercing its head with his lance.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Void quickly healed Jagen.

“I’m really getting too old for that,” Jagen said.

Marth went to his side, kneeling. “Are you alright?”

“I’m already better than five seconds ago. Thanks young one.”

“You are welcome. That was quite the scare for a moment,” Sweetie said.

“That wasn’t so bad. It missed all the vital organs. I just had to worry about blood loss. With all the healers around, that wasn’t a problem.”

“You shouldn’t take being almost killed so lightly, Jagen,” Marth said.

“Eh,” Mycen chuckled. “Us fossils can joke about our mortality.”

The others all sighed while Sweetie giggled.

While the Egg Shiva was destroyed, the battle continued. Wyverns came and were destroyed like usual. The Sweetie doubles destroyed airships and dragons left and right. The soldiers had to deal with buffed robots (including robots with better resistance to magic thanks to ward Staves). And occasionally, there was even a robot using a Silence Staff, temporarily stopping everyone in the battle from using magic, except Sweetie Void because she didn’t need to chant to use magic. Because the robot was able to communicate with the other robots in the battlefield, it was always able to use the Silence Staff at the worst moment, like when a mage had been about to save a life only to suddenly not be able to cast the spell. It was especially bad when healers needed to heal the ones that were badly wounded.

Eggman really showed how the correct use of staves could turn a battle to hell.

Thankfully, the heroes had staves too, and the ones from Valentia were even able to cast spells without them, so they were able to send buffed units too. Nobody dared to use a Warp Staff however. Also, they only had one Hammerne Staff in the whole army so they were forced to use the staves sparingly.

Sweetie Void solved this problem by giving the two Hammerne Staves that the bishop robots had possessed.

Eventually, the army was able to enter the city where Kris encountered his roboticized childhood friend, a pink-haired girl named Norne who had also helped Marth in the previous two wars. Marth and the others hadn’t been able to get to her village as they escaped Altea. Kris immediately rescued her.

Amy also found inside one of the buildings another ally of Marth, an old bishop named Wrys. Like with Norne, his monastery had been out of the way, so Marth and the others hadn’t been able to reach him while escaping. But while Norne defended her village and became a target of the robots, leading to her being roboticized, Wrys understood that it was no use to try to stop the robots so he remained passive, waiting for Marth to return. Amy guided him to the nearest healer who gave him a staff so he could join the battle.

Because the city spanned several islands, the army had to cross well-defended bridges that made the conquest of the city slightly harder. Sonic and his friends helped a lot, and Sweetie Void once she finished all the airships and dragons.

By the time the sun was setting, the battle was over, and Marth had a heroic welcome

As Marth was welcomed back by his people and freedom’s return was celebrated, Sweetie Void looked at her Pokémon in one of the emptier streets.

Since the beginning of this war, they fought very well, and many of them even evolved. Draco finally evolved into a Dragonite during this battle! Drako thus became a real juggernaut who could kick the butts of the dragons of this world, even roboticized, despite being much smaller.

All her Pokémon became very strong thanks to this war, and Sweetie was very proud. They will be ready to face the Subspace Army.

Sweetie Void suddenly stopped and did a double take. She looked at her left and saw Volta talking to Scout the Ferret. She then looked at her right and saw… Volta on Drako’s head.

“The buck?”

It couldn’t be a Ditto. She didn’t have one.

She immediately grabbed the two Voltas with her telekinesis and placed them side by side before her.

The two Voltas were surprised to see each other. They hadn’t noticed the presence of their double among all the Pokémon.

“Eh?! Why is there another me?!” the Volta at the right asked.

“W-where do you come from?! There is only one me! Who are you?” the Volta at the left asked.

“I’m Volta! The REAL Volta!”

“No! I am the real Volta!”

By now, all the Pokémon were looking at the two in wonder, wondering what was going on.

The two Voltas were ready to start a fight, electricity showing up in their cheeks.

“Ok! That’s enough!” Sweetie Void shouted before she looked at the right Volta. “You can stop. I know you are the fake one. I can read your mind.”

The fake Volta looked disappointed. “Aww… That’s cheating.” Her body then glowed, and in a flash, a man was standing in her place. “Well, it was fun while it lasted.”

He was a cheery looking man in a fancy red tunic and shorts with striking red hair contrasting with his mirthful blue eyes. At his waist, a medium sized blade hung in its scabbard.

“After I heard about you from Gotoh, I got curious,” he said. “I’m Xane. Nice to meet you, Sweetie Void.”

Sweetie Void giggled. “It was a nice try. Nice to meet you. So you are a shapeshifter?”

“That’s right. I can turn into anyone and copy pretty much everything from them. I guess this makes me a jack of all trades.”

“I’m guessing you are an ally of Marth.”

“Yes. I helped him in the previous wars. I wasn’t able to join him in his escape, sadly, so I remained hidden until Gotoh told me that he was back. I immediately went to await him in the most likely place where I would find him: Altea.”

“Then let me guide you to him. We can talk on the way.”

“Very well.” Xane looked at Volta. “No hard feelings?”

“None. Now that I know it was a prank, it was actually funny,,” the Pikachu replied.

Xane smiled back at her before he and Sweetie walked away, leaving the Pokémon behind to participate in the celebration.

As the two walked, they talked to each other, learning more about the other.

Thus, Sweetie discovered that Xane was one of the few remaining divine dragons left after the war against the earth dragons, like Tiki and Gotoh. He didn’t have his stone however so he couldn’t take his dragon form. That was why he used shapeshifting instead.

And yes, his shapeshifting was as OP as Gandrayda’s. He could copy everything from whoever he turned into. Now, Sweetie wondered how much he could copy from her. Even a fraction of her powers would be very useful on the battlefield. However, he couldn’t shapeshift into something too big compared to him, like the dragons, and he needed to be given the weapons. Like, if he copied Marth, then he would need to be given a sword.

Strange. He could copy the clothes, but not the weapons? Sometimes, powers were weird.

Before long, they reached Marth who was in the middle of a crowd, reassuring everyone that the nightmare was over, that Eggman would pay, and so on. Sweetie Void and Xane waited for him to end his little speech, then approached him. Once Marth spotted them, they got out of the crowd and entered a skyscraper, going to an empty apartment.

Once they were alone, Marth looked at Xane. “I’m glad to see that you are alive, Xane.”

“It’s not these mindless things that will kill me,” Xane said. “And I bring some good news too. Elice is alive, and she is kept in Eggman’s main fortress in Thabes.”

Marth’s shoulders visibly relaxed in relief. “Thank you. That’s the best news of this war, beside the arrival of Sweetie Void and the others.

“Eggman made her the holder of the Aum Staff. If he is ever killed, she will bring him back to life with it.”

“I would rather avoid the staff being wasted for someone so vile.”

“So I guess that we will have to avoid killing Eggman before we recover the Aum Staff if we ever encounter him before we reach Thabes,” Sweetie Void said. “Which may happen sooner or later. Sonic and the others told me that Eggman is the kind who loves to fight the heroes himself instead of waiting in his base for them to arrive, taking matters into his own hands. The only reason why we haven’t seen him until now is probably because he wanted to test these special robots and see how they would fare against us. Or I guess he wants to avoid me. He barely escaped me last t-”

She was interrupted by Past Tails entering the apartment, looking worried. “Oh! I finally found you! You should come out, quick!”

“What is going on?” Marth asked.

“Eggman released the Death Egg.”

Marth and Xane looked at Tails with bemused expressions as they both repeated, “Death… Death Egg?”

Sweetie Void groaned.

Quickly enough, everyone exited the skyscraper and looked at the sky where they could see the moon-like space station with Eggman’s head.

Nobody could believe what they were seeing as everyone looked in worry.

Sweetie Void groaned again. Of course Eggman would build a Death Egg.

“Let me take care of it,” she said before she called her ten cannons and flew toward the sky. She stopped above the city and readied the cannons around her horn before she fired an Ultimate Doom Laser at the space station.

The instant the laser reached it, it disappeared in a spectacular explosion.

Sweetie Void snorted. “Eggman. You should have known better. Wait, oops, what if he had been inside?”

Eggman looked at the explosion in the sky and groaned. “I should have known better. At least, I wasn’t in it.”

Chapter 188: Gra

Marth and the others learned one thing that day: Sweetie Void was scary. They already knew that she was powerful. She killed dragons(enhanced dragons) like they were ants and rained destroyed airships all over the battlefield, without forgetting how she made fighting these super robots look easy when the heroes had had to go seven to one to destroy one, and even then, the filly had helped them. Also, she destroyed Eggman’s flying city like it had been nothing.

And now, she destroyed this Death Egg so easily. It had been hard to judge the Death Egg’s size, but they had been able to understand that the space station had been VERY big. Certainly miles big. Like a small moon made of metal, certainly full of defenses and robots and whatever other horrors Eggman had prepared inside it.

And Sweetie Void destroyed it with just one beam.

And it didn’t even look like she had had to strain to fire this beam. When she landed, she looked like usual, as if she had fired a simple fire ball.

Terrifying.

But it also proved how much she was a precious ally, and that the chances of losing this war were close to zero with her at their side. Unless Eggman was able to create a weapon as powerful, but so far, those super robots seemed to be the limit.

Everyone was filled with hope. More than ever.

“What was that?” Marth asked once the filly was before him.

It was Past Tails who answered him. “The Death Egg. Eggman’s ultimate fortress. With it, he would have been able to send countless robots at us from the sky or fire at us with very powerful lasers. It would have meant the end of the war for us. I don’t know if we would have managed to find a way to go up there to destroy it ourselves.” His attention moved to Sweetie Void. “Good job destroying it.”

“Thank you for destroying that thing,” Marth said.

Sweetie Void grinned. “You’re welcome. I wish I could have seen Eggman’s face. With some luck, he will give up this war and flee to another world.”

“I doubt that. He is very stubborn,” Past Tails said.

Sweetie Void sighed.

Villains…

With that, the army rested in or around the city a bit, gathering provision and training while the Tails turned the roboticized back to normal.

Inside a local fortress a chunk of the army was resting in, a girl was walking with a stack of tomes at a quickened pace, the stack high enough she had a bit of difficulty looking ahead.

Which was what led her to slip and nearly fall with all the tomes falling on her.

“Woah there!”

Luckily for her, someone just happened to be here and prevented her fall even if some tomes still fell.

The girl looked upon the one that saved her apologetically, a long-haired blonde young man.

“Oh. Thank you for that, Arlen,” the girl said.

Arlen looked upon the purple short-haired girl and smiled. ”Think nothing of it, Katarina. Here, let me help you carry this.”

Arlen took the tomes that had fallen on the floor and a few of Katarina's own.

“Err, but… You really don't need to… I was the one that-" Katarina tried to say.

“Oh come now, nothing bad with a little help. We will arrive faster this way,” he insisted, making Katarina accept in the end with a sigh.

“...You know, there's no need to push yourself that hard all the time,” Arlen said eventually as the two walked, making Katarina pause.

“I… I just don't know. Even though I have been serving Marth for a time and even fought in this war, it still doesn't feel enough… What I did in the past, the people I hurt…” she said, looking down…

Arlen nodded. ”Yeah, I get it… I also did my fair share of stupid stuff in the past… But the reality is that there’s nothing one can do about that, so there’s no point in lamenting on it. I pushed others away for a major part of my life, almost ended a friend over jealousy, and who knows where I'd be now hadn’t my teacher finally talked some sense into me. I say we are lucky there’s still those that still care for us like that.”

Katarina became silent at that, and remembered when she first met Kris.

The good moments with him and the seventh platoon.

When she betrayed them during the assassination attempt on Marth.

The times Eremiya's forces put him and Marth’s army in tight spots.

And their final confrontation where Kris simply refused to give up on her, finally making her yield.

Returning to the present, she smiled. ”Mmm… Indeed, you’re right. Thanks, I… I really needed to hear that.”

Arlen chuckled a bit. ”Hey, us atoning reformed gotta stick with each other.”

With that they both fell silent until they arrived at their destination.

Pushing the door open with his body, Arlen, followed by Katarina, entered a studio where the most prominent mages in the army were residing.

"Ah! You have arrived, and with Arlen too!” Merric said happily. ”Good, I have just prepared everything. Have you brought it, Katarina?”

Katarina nodded, setting her own stack on a nearby table and pulling a tome from it. Arlen too put his own tomes down.

However, unlike most tomes, this one looked rather plain without a design and with a completely gray cover.

“Yes. As requested, a blank tome,” she said.

“Excellent! Everyone, feel free to take the other tomes. We are approaching Eggman’s main base with each passing day, and it wouldn't do to have worn out our tomes by then,” Merric said as he took the blank tome and went to work on it while the other magic users in the room approached the rest of the tomes.

A red-haired man with long hair made into a ponytail and dark-colored clothes, Etzel, approached the pile and inspected it, picking one up. ”Elfire… Yes, these will do…” he said, picking some different ones.

Another much younger mage and Prince of Grust, Jubelo, picked another. ”Umm, t-thank you…” he said, looking at Arlen and Katarina.

Arlen looked at him. ”...Aren't you gonna pick more?”

Jubelo started to fidget a bit. ”A-ah! Well I just, y-you know, don't want to t-take too many of them! Everyone needs them and I… You would use them better anyway-”

“Please, young Prince.” Arlen said, picking some Tomes himself and putting them in his hands. “Do not sell yourself so short. You’re young and still full of potential, yet already you can keep up for the most part. Why, with some practice you will make a fine wizard equal if not greater than us in a few more years.” Arlen said, and from where he was Merric couldn’t help but nod too.

Jubelo, flustered by the praise but grateful, smiled sheepishly. ”T-t-thanks Mister Arlen. I swear to try my Best!,” he said with some conviction entering his voice, and Arlen nodded approvingly.

A bright green light then illuminated the whole studio for a moment before it died out.

“Aha! There it is!” Merric shouted excitedly, turning toward everyone.

In his hands, the previously blank tome now sported a finely designed cover familiar to various present in the room.

“Excalibur…” Arlen breathed out.

“Indeed. My previous one was already nearly depleted so I needed a new one quickly,” Merric said, turning the tome to look at it.

“You know, we are all extremely lucky Sweetie Void and her allies arrived when they did, as Eggman had already learned enough from all other tomes to try and learn from me how to replicate something of the complexity and potency of Excalibur next. Then she arrived and his focus shifted completely on stopping her, then finally I was freed from his control.”

Etzel hummed. ”Mmm, quite lucky indeed. We certainly don't need that man with a battalion of mages with Excaliburs at his disposal.”

Jubelo shivered. ”N-not even the most magically s-sturdy falcon knight or Archbishop would survive long…”

Everyone agreed on not elaborating further into the scenario.

“Still, even if it’s our enemy, I have to admit this Eggman is quite the impressive foe,” Etzel said. ”These metal golems of his aren't like anything I've ever seen in my travels, and the fact they aren't even powered by any magic at all that I could detect…”

“Apparently they call them ‘robots’.” Katarina said. “And there’s also all that mysterious machinery that Eggman has been spreading all around, it’s so puzzling…”

Arlen crossed his arms. ”Puzzling AND dangerous. I've seen how many of these structures spew smoke that poisons the air and makes anyone that breathes it for too long ill, and viscous substances that dirty rivers and kill the fish, making them inedible.”

Merric looked visibly troubled at that. ”Oh my, that sounds completely awful!”

“Quite so, I agree,” Etzel said.

Katarina was about to say something more when she noticed that Jubelo looked like he wanted to speak, but was hesitant to say it.

“Everyone, wait,” she said and everyone turned towards her. “Jubelo… Is there something you desire to say?”

Everyone turned their attention towards him, in turn making him very nervous all of the sudden.

“Err, n-n-no I… I j-just.. Uhh…”

Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder, and looking at his side he saw Katarina smiling kindly at him. ”It's fine, take your time.”

Jubelo looked at her for a moment. ”...A-apologies. I swear I had gotten better at this since the last war… but I'm just so worried about my sister recently and… Ahem!” he cleared his throat.

“What I was gonna say is, although you are right that this strange… ’tech’ as those from other worlds call it is dangerous, it’s also n-not that b-bad? I-I mean! We all stand more of a chance because of tech too right!?”

At that, Merric started to think deeply. "Mmm… You raise a very good point there, young prince. There’s no denying that this new power can also be used for a great deal of good.”

“I suppose that being fair, magic is pretty much the same. That fiend Gharnef caused great suffering with his dark powers and robbed many lives,” Etzel said.

“Oh! A-and that warrior named Tails! He also fights with this t-tech alongside us! It’s definitely something that can be good too!” Jubelo said

“And I must say, there seems to be even good ‘robots’. That girl Susie is really pleasant to converse with,”Merric said.

“Hum, to be fair, she also seems a lot more… sentient than the others,” Arlen added.

Merric hummed and then nodded. He then looked at everyone. ”Well, it seems we all agree then! Yes, this tech’s potential for destruction is great… But so is its potential for good, like magic itself. Personally, I want to learn more about it. Who knows the kind of things that would be possible if we combine the two…”

Merrick's words opened a whole new can of worms the magical scholars were all too content to openly and extensively discuss, wondering of the possibilities. Even Jubelo eventually lost the shyness and conversed casually with everyone.

All the while, Katarina smiled contently for herself. All the worries and doubts about herself were forgotten for a while.

Arlen glanced at her, and he couldn't help but smirk.

The army was eventually ready and departed from the city to free the rest of Altea. It was a small country thankfully, so it didn’t take long to destroy the remaining robot bases. The army then had one last stop at the Altean metropolis before departing east to Gra, again traversing a bridge that was well guarded. Sweetie Void also left behind a double to guard the kingdom.

As the first people walked on the bridge while fighting the robots, Palla, who was flying beside the bridge, saw bombs placed under it and immediately warned everyone. Sweetie Void teleported everyone on it away from it, just in time before the bridge exploded.

With that, the army was stuck in the Altean side while a large number of robots remained in the Gran side.

Sweetie Void promptly built a new bridge with her magic. It wasn’t perfect. It was quite unstable. But she managed to keep it up long enough to allow the army to traverse while they defeated the robots.

With that, the army was able to enter Gra and start the process of freeing it. Gra was just as small as Altea, so it wasn’t long before they reached the capital, again transformed into a metropolis still being built, but slightly more advanced than the Altean metropolis.

By now, it was expected.

What was less expected was the amount of traps and obstacles placed all around the city. There were spikes regularly coming out of the ground, electric walls, spinning cannons spewing fire in four directions, and cannons loaded with missiles ready to be fired, and those were the obvious ones. Sweetie Void wouldn’t be surprised if there were pits with spikes at the bottom. It was a good classic after all.

It meant that the soldiers would have to watch out where they were stepping while fighting. Joy.

Thankfully, most of these traps and obstacles could be destroyed, so the filly went with her doubles to destroy some of them and make it easier for everyone. However, her priority remained the airships and the dragons, and their number only increased from battle to battle.

Surprisingly, she couldn’t feel the special energy of a super robot this time. However, a robot just as problematic quickly revealed itself.

The Egg Mole was like the name said: it was a mole. A giant mole. It didn’t have that special energy because it didn’t need it. It was digging underground, causing the ground to collapse with everyone on it. Then, it jumped out, sending several soldiers flying before it crashed on others, returned underground, and resumed digging.

And there were several of these moles digging around, spreading chaos. Some of the Sweeties went after them, chasing them underground.

Thankfully, Merric and the other mages acted quickly to destroy these robots. As the moles jumped out, the mages immediately fired their spells at them, causing huge damage. Archers also fired at them, but unless they managed to hit specific points like the head, they were less effective.

Alm managed to destroy one. When a mole jumped from under him, he managed to cling to its head as it crashed and resumed digging. Alm was then able to plant his sword repeatedly into the head, destroying important components that eventually made the robot stop for good. Sweetie Void then came and teleported Alm out so he wouldn’t remain stuck underground.

Once all the moles were destroyed, the most dangerous part of the battle was over. The soldiers did their best to avoid the traps, destroying some of them if they had the occasion. The airships were all destroyed. Lots of dragons remained however, but they didn’t last long against Sweetie Void and the most experienced members of the army.

In the city, they found an old ally: Marisha, a young girl with purple hair and a white dress, a bishop. As soon as she was given a staff, she joined the battle.

The soldiers were also joined by a thief: Rickard, another old ally. With a simple kitchen knife, he was able to slash from behind the robots at the joints in the blink of an eye. He was quickly given a sword, thankfully, so his effectiveness multiplied even if he wasn’t that strong.

The battle then continued for hours as they had to destroy the robots building by building until, eventually, all of them were gone, and it was over.

Chapter 189: Dolhr

They didn’t remain in Gra for long. They didn’t have much provision to gather, and it didn’t take long to free the rest of the island, finishing with a small port-turned-base. From this port, Sweetie leaving behind a double to guard Gra and teleporting the ships they left in Grust because none had been left here by Eggman, they sailed to their next destination: Dolhr, one of two nations part of a much larger island south.

Dolhr was… quite special compared to the rest of Archanea. It was an empire, second largest nation behind the Kingdom of Archanea, and it was the home of the Manaketes, the dragons who turned humans to not turn mad.

It was actually founded by the greatest enemy of Archanea: Medeus. Seeing his people persecuted, a very hateful Medeus gathered all the Manaketes of the continent into this very hostile empire before he worked to conquer mankind no less than three times.

Needless to say, the relations between the Manaketes and the rest of Archanea weren’t… very good. Many Manaketes hated humanity for all the horrible things they did to them through the centuries, and in return, humans hated the Manaketes for all the suffering they caused in the three wars.

Still, with Medeus dead, hopefully for good, there was hope that things could start to get better. With Dolhr now being part of the united Archanea, it was a good start.

Despite that, there was quite a number of people among the army not happy about rescuing the Manaketes. Marth quickly reminded them that they had a common enemy, so if they weren’t happy, alright, as long as they continued fighting the badniks. And he made sure to tell everyone to NOT do anything to the Manaketes. Not even insult them. He didn’t want to turn the Manaketes hostile. Well, more hostile than many of them already were toward humans. And the last thing he wanted was for Manaketes to attack them while they were already busy fighting the robots because some idiot(s) did something hurtful to them.

They will still have to keep an eye for Manaketes who may attack them out of hatred without provocation. But killing them will only be a last resort. An ABSOLUTE last resort!

Thankfully, the Manaketes were much less dangerous recently. Bantu, a Manakete allied to Marth, sealed the power of the dragonstones which allowed the Manaketes to temporarily turn back into dragons. So the Manaketes were stuck to using weapons like any human.

And so the army sailed toward Dolhr, quickly approaching its coast.

The army currently found itself separated in multiple ships while traveling the ocean, its sheer size not fit for them all to travel together. Above them, like always, Sweetie Void remained vigilant over the fleet of ships.

On one of the ships, among other troops, was traveling a particular group of the most notable barons and generals of the army, most of their heavy armor stored away for commodity but with some pieces still on in case they needed to put them on quickly in case of an attack.

Forsyth, A Valentian baron, was in the middle of a conversation with his comrade Lukas on the deck when they both heard someone calling everyone in the ship to attention.

“Ok everyone!” Darros, a pirate of Archanea who was currently in charge of the ship, said. ”We need some volunteers to re-organize and move around some supplies. Anyone who thinks they're strong enough, raise your hands.”

Of course, both Forsyth and Lukas raised their hands, as did various others.

After that, they and the other volunteers moved on to get to work, Darros indicating to them where to move what.

“Ale-hop!” Forsyth said as he easily lifted a barrel on his back. ”There we go.”

Lukas does the same. “Let's go,” he says.

They both walked and along the way, they encountered a familiar face.

“Hey, good to see you two!” a fellow baron greeted them.

“Valbar! Good to see you too, friend!” Forsyth greets.

“Indeed, it’s such a relief seeing you alive again,” Lukas says.

“Oh it’s nothing. I was all ready to go out without regrets. That said, now that I got this second chance, I gotta use it to the max now.”

“Well said, fellow resurrected,” another voice said, approaching. The man it belonged to was carrying a barrel on his back too.

“Ah, you were revived too? What's your name?” Valbar asked, curious.

“My name is Horace, Archanean general at your service,” Horace presented himself.

“Archaean, eh? Good,” Valbar said, seeing they have reached where they got to put the barrels down. They all dropped them there and kept talking.

“I was always curious about your continent, wanting to see for myself how it was. Alas, it never came to be due to… certain circumstances.”

“I see. Hopefully once the current war is settled You get the chance to come over,” Horace offered with a smile.

At that moment, two other volunteers arrived with barrels of their own and dropped them along with the others and one of them looked a bit winded.

“C'mon now Roger, this should be light work for people of our standard,” one of them said to the other.

“S-shut it Draug, I'm fine! I'm just… slightly out of form still. But I'm far from over,” Roger said.

“Oh, guys! Hey, come here!” Horace called out, seeing his fellow generals.

Draug and Roger did so, approaching with smiles.

“Horace! You look good. Thank heavens you were able to come back to us. Ah, who are they?” Draug asked, curious about the other users of heavy armor.

The barons and generals walked back to move more cargo, getting the chance to talk and meet each other on the way.

This time, they all had to lift some rather heavy boxes below deck.

Valbar was first, picking up the box with both hands and lifting it over his head. Following him, Lukas and Forsyth managed the same albeit with slightly more difficulty. Next, Draug picked up his as easily as Valbar, while Horace and Roger had needed more wind up to pick up theirs, but were holding them easy enough. Then they all made their travel below deck.

“Man, these boxes sure are heavy,” Forsyth said half-way through.

“They sure are. Still, They’re a nice training if you think about it! We got to stay in shape if we are to move around in our armors,” Valbar said.

“Eh, if you say so…” Forsyth said.

“Come now, it isn't that bad,” Lukas said as he passed Forsyth by.

He frowned, and immediately went on passing Lukas by.

“Easy for you to say. Even when the war for Valentia ended you didn't take a free day, training as if war still went on.”

Lukas passed him by again.

“It’s our duty to always be ready for conflict, no matter if there’s peace.”

Forsyth did the same again.

“Well, sorry for wanting to take things at least a bit slower.”

Then unexpectedly, Draug passed both of them by.

“If you will, I personally believe you both make fair points. It’s important to balance life and duty appropriately.”

Then Valbar passed them all by. “Indeed! Well said my fellow.”

And now Roger was the one to take the lead. ”Huff! Can all of you stop doing that?”

“But you just did the same…” Horace said. He too went and passed Roger.

Sparks flew through the air as all the barons and generals looked at each other.

“...I'm arriving first!” Forsyth said as he sped up, gripping his box with great strength.

“Think again,” Lukas said, doing the same.

“Hey now, we must be careful with these!” Horace said. Despite his words however, he followed suit and tried to pass them both, Roger and Draug following close.

The rest of the volunteers looked perplexed at them, and a few even tried to join them in.

In the end, both Valbar and Draug ended up arriving at the spot nearly at the same time first, with Lukas and Forsyth following suit, Forsyth arriving a bit earlier than Lukas much to the latter's frustration. Then finally Horace and Roger arrived with Roger arriving last.

“Damn…” Roger huffed out.

“Ah… ha ha, did you see that?” Forsyth asked Lukas, his tone smug.

Lukas tsked. ”Don't get ahead of yourself. While you have always been the faster of us two, I still got you beat in other areas.”

Valbar for his part laughed. ”Hahaha! That was a good competition!” He then turned to Draug.”I commend you for putting up a good fight! Archanean Generals sure are tough!” he said, extending his hand to him.

Draug smiled and took his hand. “You Valentian barons aren't bad yourselves.”

They all smiled for a moment.

“Alright people, we are almost done! Keep at it!” Nearby, Darros still managed the volunteers.

“...Hey, y'all up for a rematch race back up?” Horace proposed with a smirk.

Everyone smirked back at him.

As expected, all the ports were destroyed and replaced by complexes producing aquatic vehicles, robots, material, and so on. The whole coast was heavily guarded, so no matter what, the army had to fight to land. They attacked one of the bases and pretty much repeated what happened when they arrived at Grust. From there began the process of freeing Golhr like they freed the other nations until now, base by base.

They started west. The capital was east, near the frontier with Macedon. It meant that the majority of the country will be freed by the time they reach the giant city Eggman certainly built in its place. While Manaketes weren’t many, there were numerous humans who lived in Dolhr. Humans who respected the Manaketes and decided to live and work for Medeus, seeing the dragonkin as the superior species.

As expected, because of how large Dolhr was, it took a few weeks to reach the city. They still had the southeast of the ancient empire to free. All the while, wyverns constantly attacked them from Macedon.

The city itself wasn’t that large compared to the size of the empire. Actually, it was the smallest one encountered until now. And contrary to all the previous cities, this one was finished.

Apparently, there were many barbarians in the mountains of the border between Dolhr and Macedon. It looked like Eggman decided to not bother with them and killed all of them, or the city would be larger. Unless they were roboticized? The army didn’t encounter any roboticized barbarian for now. Maybe they guarded the city. If that was the case, then the army won't bother either and kill them. The barbarians were a nuisance better left dead.

Even without the barbarians, the city was still surprisingly small. While the Manaketes were few in number, they weren’t THAT few.

The traps and obstacles were present again, more numerous. The army was used to them now, so they didn’t worry. It still was more work for Sweetie Void who had less and less doubles to contribute.

There was also the presence of a giant black robot dragon, thrice as big as the roboticized dragons, possessing that destructive energy that promised death if it wasn’t stopped right away.

The Egg Ancalagon

“A robot dragon guarding the dragonkin. Of course,” Jagen said.

Sweetie Void flew toward the dragon in the hope of destroying it before it could attack. She was planning to ram into it and blow it up from the inside.

The dragon slapped her like she was a fly at a speed too fast for almost everyone to follow, sending her crashing several hundred meters away, destroying a few robots and traps.

She groaned as her body twitched. “Ooowww…”

The Egg Ancalagon then opened its mouth and charged energy, ready to fire at the army, only for another Sweetie Void to come and force the mouth closed. The robot barely had time to compute what was about to happen before its head exploded.

Sweetie Void huffed. “Serve you right, you overgrown tin can lizard.”

Another Sweetie Void grinned. “I guess that it got a taste of its own medicine.”

Yet another Sweetie Void giggled. “An explosion of flavor.”

All the Sweetie Voids laughed, even the ones not present.

Thankfully for the army, they were too far to hear the jokes, or many would have groaned.

The battle really began soon after. For once, the barons and generals led the initial charge. They were given by Susie a new device that coated their armor in a shield that should protect against the robots’ energy weapons, and magic by extension.

Yeah, the armors they used weren’t really effective against energy weapons. It was like fighting with cardboard armors against normal weapons. So the barons and generals’ most effective attribute, physical defense, was pretty much useless against the robots, rendering these classes rather ineffective on the battlefield. They really needed this device.

“So, how did she say they worked?” Valbar asked.

“Just tap the Shield Cloak once and it activates,” Lukas answered.

“Remember, the shield lasts one minute, then it needs two minutes to recharge,” Roger said. “We will need to rotate.”

All the others nodded before some of them advanced and began to fight the robots. The Shield Cloak quickly revealed to work very well. The enemies’ energy weapons were only doing minimal damage. Forsyth even took a Meteor in the face and was barely hurt. Usually, he would be on his knees after being hit by one such spell. Eventually, the minute passed, the shield disappeared, and the first line quickly retreated to let place to the second line who activated the device in turn. All the while, Susie was taking notes between punching robots with her armor.

Thanks to that, the army was able to use the usual working strategy of letting the generals and barons gain the attention of the enemy and tank the attacks, allowing less risks of serious injuries or death. Long range badniks tried to do the smart thing and targeted the barons and generals in the back who were waiting for the device to recharge, but mages took care of them with spells like Meteor, and flying units even used the distraction to approach and destroy them quickly.

As the battle continued, they encountered many roboticized Manaketes but, as already explained, they weren’t a problem because they couldn’t transform into dragons anymore. The number of roboticized Manaketes explained why the city was so small. Many of the Manaketes fought back Eggman’s robots and got either killed or roboticized for that. The ones who decided to not fight were a minority.

Keeping an eye on everyone to ensure that nobody ended up killing a roboticized Manakete was impossible. Marth and the others still tried their best.

As expected, there were also many roboticized barbarians. These ones, the heroes didn’t hesitate to kill. The mountains will be safer to traverse.

While the roboticized Manaketes were the ones who had been willing to fight, it didn’t mean that the remaining ones didn’t want to fight, as the heroes eventually found out when they entered the city. When they encountered non-roboticized Manaketes, most of the laters asked them for weapons so they could help. The reason why they didn’t fight until now was because they preferred to wait for a better occasion to push the robots back that wouldn’t result in them becoming slaves or being killed.

None of the Manaketes gave the army a mean look. They all perfectly understood that the enemy of the enemy was a friend, and that they needed their help. The worst the army got were looks of uncertainty. It was clear by how the Manaketes approached the soldiers slowly that they were careful. Some soldiers almost proved them right but were silenced by others before they could say one word.

Once they were given weapons, the Manaketes began to fight the robots, fighting side by side with the humans for the first time in history.

Among these Manaketes was Bantu, a Manakete who allied himself to Marth in the previous two wars. He was also Tiki’s guardian, so he really wanted to make the robots pay for taking her.

With their help, the remaining robots in the city were quickly destroyed, ending the battle.

Marth was surveying the situation as the army calmed down from the fighting. He then spotted a commotion a short distance.

Getting closer to it, Marth realized what he was looking at…

And nearly gave a growl of frustration as he spotted one of the low rank soldiers standing off with a Manakete.

“What are you gonna do, Drake-Blood?” He could hear the soldier ask smugly. “Cut me down?”

“I will, if you don’t stop antagonizing our allies,” Sweetie Void’s voice sounded off from above, causing the two to jump apart in shock.

The soldier pointed at the Manakete, filled with rage. “But, these monsters-!”

“Monsters?” Marth interrupted. “Where do you see monsters? I only see beings of flesh and blood capable of love like you and me.” Marth raised a hand to stop the soldier before he could speak again. “Yes, they caused untold sufferings under Medeus’ reign, and it can’t be forgiven, but this is no reason to start acting like savages. And you seem to forget that people like YOU are why the Manaketes were so hostile in the first place. I thought that I already told you before the battle: I will not allow any name-calling or any form of violence or provocation toward our new allies. If I hear anything, then depending on the severity, the culprit will be accordingly punished.” He glared at the soldier. “You are lucky that we are severely in need of men for this war, or I would have made you leave this army. Instead, I will think of something else. Until then, you are dismissed.” He looked around at the soldiers who were watching. “This is a reminder! Be sure to spread the word!”

He saw a Manakete who looked smugly at the humans. “This is also the case for the Manaketes. While you are in this army, I don’t want to hear any incidents. We have a common enemy, so let’s remain civil while we work together. And hopefully, by the end of this war, our two peoples will be close to form a long lasting friendship. Bantu, I count on you to keep an eye.”

“Of course.”

“Me and my doubles will also be here in case anything happens,” Sweetie Void said.

“Thank you.”

With that, the incident was closed.

It was only the beginning however. Despite the warning, more such incidents happened here and there, both from human and Manakete origin. By the end of the day, Marth wanted to bash his skull against a wall.

It promised some long weeks to come.

Sweetie Void looked in the distance in reflection.

This all was too similar to the tales of how ponies used to be before the foundation of Equestria, and even that only resolved ponies' issues with their own kind. Even today there were still some that misjudged other races like dragons, changelings and so on, though Twilight made a great effort in amending this.

“Mmm, we are gonna have to work this all out going forward considering the Alliance has countless species all around…” she mused to herself. "I can only hope there's no incidents like that when the military exhibition comes around.”

Author's Note

The last scene has been written by the three of us.

Chapter 190: Macedon

Author's Note

Sorry for the long wait. This one really gave me difficulty. Also, I added a little thing in the previous chapter, Sweetie Void teleporting the armada from Grust because I doubt that Eggman would leave ships for the heroes to use.

Chapter 190: Macedon

The army, stronger with thousands of Manaketes, pretty much the totality of them, descended south to free the rest of Dolhr while moving toward Macedon and its capital by the same occasion. Thankfully, while most of Macedon was covered in mountains, there weren’t any in the way, so the path to reach the capital was easy.

Along the way, the army made a stop to rest briefly before resuming the march.

In an open space nearby, the sounds of a blade weaving through the air in a series of wild, yet precise and trained slashes and strikes could be heard. Kris, Altean knight and the shadowy right-hand of King Marth, found himself training like he was used to, using his regular sword as opposed to the beam one provided by Susie.

Suddenly, he felt a presence behind him and was quick to retaliate instinctively. His sword was met by the sharp end of a lance.

“Good to see you now keep yourself alert at all times even during training, Sir Kris,” a familiar voice spoke to him, and Kris took a moment to look at the one that voice belonged to.

Kris was quick to recognize the man. ”Sirius! It’s you… just like that one time…” Kris said, remembering the only time he ever saw his face before.

He chuckled. ”Indeed. Although now I suppose it is no use anymore to hide myself under a fake name so you may call me Camus now, as it is my birth name.”

Kris nodded. ”Right, Camus… Even though I heard the story from His Majesty himself, it’s all still complicated.”

Camus agreed. He really would have preferred his whole ordeal remained a secret at least while he still lived.

That had ended when both Continents were brought together and he was inevitably spotted, making questions fly around.

“Sir Kris, I was hoping you would do me the favor of answering some questions of mine. About how everything went after…after last time.”

Kris regarded him for a moment, but finally agreed. ”Of course, I can do that,” he said. Both him and Camus then moved out of where Kris was training to a more comfortable and private space where both sat down to talk.

Kris hummed. ”You know, all things considered, I now understand why you wanted me to tell no one about your true identity back then.”

Camus sighed, not for the first time regretting his whole story had to come out like this.

During the War of Shadows, Camus was a knight of Grust and the leader of Its most important order of elite knights, the Sable Order.

During the war, it was him who took the role of occupying the Kingdom of Archanea and held captive the woman who at the time was the Princess of the Kingdom, Nyna. Despite this, both were quick to develop mutual feelings for each other. It helped that Camus was a true knight through and through, refusing to put the kingdom and its people through any more unnecessary pain and going out of his way to ensure they lived as good as they could given the circumstances. When the time came, however, he refused to betray his country to the end, leading to him and Marth to meet in combat and be defeated, disappearing from the continent in the process.

That was how he ended up washing ashore in Valentia in the coast of Rigel, miraculously still alive and able to be rescued by a woman named Tatiana who was a healer that nursed him back to health. Camus, having lost his memory due to his harsh journey, took the name of Zeke and promptly he and Tatiana ended up falling in love. In the face of his lost memory he still retained his peerless skill, which was why he later was blackmailed into supporting the rigelian army during Valentia's own war when a witch named Nuibaba kidnapped Tatiana, and she even intended to absorb her lifeforce to live longer. Luckily she was rescued by Alm and once he learned of this, he immediately joined him, helping to end the Fell Dragon Duma and bring peace to Valentia.

He would have lived peacefully after that…if it wasn’t for him eventually recovering his memories. Despite wanting to hide this from Tatiana and keep living in peace, he was unable to hold himself the moment news of a new war was brewing in his home continent and left to once again support Marth under the guise of Sirius, a mysterious knight with his own reasons to support the at the time prince of Altea. Being a key figure during the war by snapping Princess Nyna out of Gharnef's mind control and helping vanquish the fiend once and for all, in the end his love for Tatiana won out against Nyna's choosing to keep his identity hidden until the end and return to Valentia.

Now, here he was. Unable to just use a mask again when both armies of each continent encountered each other and he was recognized, the questions everyone had left him no option but to let the truth out in the open.

“...Tatiana and I haven’t exchanged a single word since then. I don't believe she hates me, I don't think she ever really could…but it is clear the truth upsetted her greatly, and is focusing solely on this war both to keep the topic out of her mind and to… evade me. She never comes out of the medical bay,” Camus said.

“Mmm. Tatiana, your partner right? Well I don't know all that much about love but… when someone is upset about something, they just need time. To get it out of their system, you know?” Kris said.

Camus nodded. “I believe so too, which is why I don't push the issue. Still, if only my grievances were just that…”

“Oh, you mean about the Sable Order," Kris said, understanding what he was saying.

“During the War of Heroes, Belf, a subordinate of mine, also was made aware of my true identity and had been trying to defend me but… at best, most of the Sable Order are still unsure how to feel about it all while there's those that even openly feel betrayed and are keen to remind me so. To see those that I once considered my brothers-in-arms threaten me so coldly… And even then, I can't say I blame them one bit.”

Silence hung between the two of them, before Camus shook his head.

“Enough of that. I did drag you here for some questions, didn't I, Sir Kris?”

Thus, Kris and Camus started conversing, with Kris more than willing to tell him about what had been of most everyone since the War of Heroes. It warmed Camus's heart to learn Jubelo and Yuliya had been leading a good life up until now (it also mortified him the fact that she was still yet to be rescued) and that in his absence the Sable Order continued to tend to their duties with diligence.

Then eventually, he asked about Nyna.

“Kris… I’ve got to ask… Princess Nyna. What has become of her?”

Kris looked down for a moment before turning to look at him straight in the eyes.

"She disappeared after the last war. Seeing as none of the Valentians seem to know, one can only assume she either fled to somewhere else or..."

Camus closed his eyes and sighed deeply. Neither he or Kris said anything for a while.

"...I see. Thank you kindly, Sir Kris. I… needed to know. About her and the others. Wherever she is… I just hope she found peace."

"I'm sure she did."

Camus looked at him, and smiled.

Despite his smile, Kris still saw the melancholy behind his gaze.

“Well, that’s about everything I had to ask of you. Thank you for your time, Sir Kris.”

“Any time, Camus. Now, how about we spar?”

Camus got caught off-guard by his words.

“I… beg your pardon?”

“You hear me. C'mon, I've heard the stories. Any aspiring knight in our continent has, about how ‘the grand Camus of the Sable Order is the most able warrior alive’. What, you think it will be the same as when we first meet? Heh, let me tell you're dead wrong there! I have gotten stronger like you wouldn't imagine since then!”

Camus only looked at Kris for a moment before lightly chuckling to himself.

“It’s good to see you still remain as ever Sir Kris. Very well, let us duel.”

“Alright! And you better not hold back, I'll notice!”

Returning to where he was training before, Camus behind him, Kris smiled to himself.

During their duel, he saw none of that melancholy plaguing his eyes.

They reached Macedon’s capital, replaced by yet another megapolis of steel and pollution, this time defended by many roboticized pegasus knights and dracoknights, pegasi and wyverns included. There were also countless robot dracoknights, including one with the destructive energy among them, Sweetie Void could feel.

And that wasn’t counting the regular flying badniks that were like a dark cloud surrounding the city.

Incoming aerial battle.

“Archers, be ready! Flying units, be careful!” Marth said.

“And of course, they are smart enough to spread the roboticized so I can’t blow up huge chunks of the cloud in one go,” Sweetie Void said. “Well, I guess that I will blow up small chunks instead.”

But before that, she sent a double to deal with the robot possessing destructive energy, the Egg Alexander. Like in all the previous battles, she also sent several doubles to deal with the dragons, and also to destroy some of the traps present all over the battlefield.

Without surprises, there were also many wyverns without riders coming from all over Macedon to unleash missiles on the army. Sweetie made sure to deal with all of them and to leave a double to defend the army with a shield whenever one of the many missiles wasn’t destroyed in time.

At least, the wyverns with riders didn’t have missiles, but they had laser breaths, which was actually worse. It was harder to deal with lasers, especially that many. And since most of them came from the sky, the generals and barons couldn’t get in the way to tank them with the Shield Cloaks. As a result, the healers had to work extra hard to heal the many who were hit by those lasers and survived.

Sweetie Void still made sure to deflect the laser from the Egg Alexander using her most powerful mirror. The Egg Alexander avoided the deflected laser, and Sweetie had to deflect it again to stop it from hitting the top of a skyscraper behind the dracoknight. The Egg Alexander’s wyvern then strongly flapped its wings, creating a powerful tornado that caused huge collateral damage to the robot army while it moved toward Marth’s army. Sweetie quickly countered it with her own more powerful tornado that she then dispelled once it swallowed the other, not wanting to accidentally kill a roboticized. Meanwhile, the Egg Alexander readied its spear, accumulating energy, before he threw it toward the filly. The spear immediately broke the speed of sound, and Sweetie barely had time to react before she caught the spear between her hooves with a mighty shockwave. She still flew backward a long distance before she stopped, the spear piercing her by a few millimeters.

As soon as she stopped, Sweetie Void used her magic to turn the spear around before throwing it toward the Egg Alexander. The robot tried to dodge it, but Sweetie used her magic to change the spear’s trajectory so it still ended up piercing it right in the head. The wyvern opened its mouth to fire another laser, but the alicorn crushed its head with her magic, stopping it.

The Egg Alexander destroyed, she could focus on the other robots.

Meanwhile, while the archers and flying units were fighting off the flying robots as best they could despite their overwhelming number, the rest of the army still had the ground robots to destroy. While these robots were less numerous than the flying ones, there were still thousands of them helped by the traps that Sweetie hadn’t destroyed, plus some remaining dragons.

Kris and Camus decided to take on the dragons together, killing them one after another very easily thanks to their futuristic weapons and their teamwork, while the others eliminated the robots that were in the way. The mages helped a lot.

Thanks to that, more of Sweetie’s doubles were free to take on the robots, especially the flying ones, or protect the army from the lasers.

Soldiers eventually encountered roboticized barbarians, like in Dolhr, and like in Dolhr, they didn’t bother trying to save them. They were less numerous than in Dolhr however.

Thanks to Sweetie, the flying robots were all eliminated before the ground robots, and after that, it was only a matter of time before the troops entered the city to liberate the citizens. Like all the previous times, a long and intense urban battle began, but the heroes were used to it by now.

During the battle, Frost, an old bishop ally of Marth, joined them once given a staff.

The city was eventually taken without problem arising.

Chapter 191: The Kingdom of Archanea

The battle of Macedon’s capital was just the beginning of the liberation of the kingdom. Macedon was a crescent going from south to east of Dolhr along the coast of the island, and the capital was at the south extremity near the border with Dolhr, meaning that the totality of the kingdom still needed to be freed, starting from south, going east a bit, then north.

Over the next week, they destroyed base after base, not meeting much resistance, the totality of the robots having been sent to defend the capitals of Dolhr and Macedon. All that was left were the newly produced robots and some roboticized, plus some traps and dragons.

Between two battles, they encountered Jake, an old ally of the previous wars, and his wife Anna, hidden in one of the latter’s secret shops. Jake personally came to meet them and guide them to the shop where they had been hiding since Eggman’s invasion. After that, Sweetie Void teleported Anna to safety in Macedon’s capital while Jake joined the army.

Once Macedon-and the island-was entirely freed, they went to the east coast where Sweetie Void teleported the armada again, ready to go to the Kingdom of Archanea.

As the army boarded the ships, getting a bit cramped with all the additions they got since first arriving in Grust, Sweetie Void left behind four doubles to guard the island and patrol the sea around it. They will search if there are any submarine bases and destroy any aquatic robots left.

Finally, they sailed to Archanea. They were going north, intending to arrive at the top northwest coast of the largest kingdom of the continent so they could start to free it from north to south. They will arrive just east of Gra.

Of the various ships sailing, there was a special one that always remained dead in the center surrounded by the others while on the sea and was looked after for.

This ship was the one transporting the majority of the injured soldiers and fighters of the army, where in tow came the best of healers who attended to them until their recovery with a few varied soldiers for their protection.

On the lower part of the ship was the medical bay where the injured were attended. Here, a woman with long light green hair just finished attending to a man with a slash-like injury across his chest.

“There, now you just need to rest,” she said to her current patient who nodded and closed his eyes, falling asleep not long after.

With a smile, she looked around the medical bay, satisfied that for now, everyone was attended. She left and went to the break room where the other healers were, having finished attending to everyone on the ship.

“Ah, Tatiana! Good to see you join us,” another woman, this one with short, light blue hair and similar clothes to her own greeted her. ”Here, lunch is ready.”

She gestured to a big table where another four individuals sat, waiting to start eating.

“Thanks, Silque. It smells amazing!” She said, going to the table and taking a seat.

“That would be my doing, I hope you like it,” a woman, this time with red shoulder-length hair said.

“I bet she will, Lena! Your food was always so good back at the War of Shadows,” another redhead, this one younger and with shorter hair, said.

“Aww, you flatter me your majes- I mean, Maria,” Lena said, dropping the formalities when she caught a sign of Maria's annoyed expression.

“Mmm-hmm! I'm not only a warrior like you but a comrade of a past war and your friend! There's no need for titles here,” Maria reaffirmed.

“Hehe, good to see you remain lively as ever,” the last person, who was none other than Wrys, said, being the only man present.

Tatiana looked around the table, noticing that someone was missing for lunch. ”Hey, haven’t you seen-”

Suddenly, the door of the room flew open, revealing another woman with long light blond, silver-like hair.

“Uff, apologies if I made you wait. I was up in the docks since I finished early and got lost into thinking without realizing it was time for lunch already.”

“Oh don't worry dear Faye, Tatiana here just arrived as well,” Wrys said. Faye nodded and took a seat as well.

The six of them then said their prayers and conversed while they ate their food in peace.

“It’s really fortunate we are nearly done with this dreadful war. There's not that many territories left to liberate in the continent, and with this winning streak there will soon be none,” Wrys said with a pleased smile.

“All thanks to those mysterious new allies. Their arrival has also greatly reduced the amount of losses in the army, alleviating a great deal of work off our shoulders,” Silque said.

“Indeed! Oh, I really can't wait for everything to return to normal. Before the war started, Minerva had promised me to take a break from her duties to have a picnic with me! How dare this Eggman fellow get In the way like that, the nerve!” Maria complained with a pout, much to the amusement of everyone.

“Yeah, I too want things to go back to normal soon,” Faye said, bringing some food to her mouth and chewing on it.

Silque looked at her for a moment before she asked, ”Mmm, speaking of which, how's the family, Faye?”

Faye paused mid-chew, looking at Silque who simply returned her stare with a pointed look.

Faye swallowed her food before letting out a sigh. ”They're doing good. Things have been… improving. Thanks again, Silque.”

Silque smiled, pleased with herself. "Remember I will always be here if you need to talk things out.”

“Yeah…” Faye said, the two looking at each other for a moment before returning to eating.

“...What was that just now?” Maria asked

“Oh, nothing you should trouble yourself with. Let's just say that I've been helping her these past years get some things straight within her household,” Silque responded.

Maria looked on with some wonder, before deciding that ultimately it wasn’t polite to pry.

The lunch proceeded like normal after that until everyone was near finished, until Lena noticed something.

“Umm, apologies Miss Tatiana,” she said, making Tatiana look up to her. ”Maybe the food wasn't to your liking after all? Sorry if that's the case, I can do something different if you like.”

Tatiana looked at her confused for a moment before looking down, realizing that she hadn’t actually eaten that much of her meal.

“O-oh, no no it’s actually good! I just…” Tatiana tried to say but was interrupted.

“Mmm, you have been eating less recently. You also have been pretty silent this whole time,” Silque said.

“H-have I…?”

“And you also have spent a lot of time on duty, miss, even after most of us already stopped for the day,” Wrys said, looking at her with worry.

Said worry now mirrored in the gaze of all other four healers looking back at Tatiana.

Silence reigned in the room before, bravely, Silque was the one to address the elephant in the room.

“This recent mood of yours is because of Sir Camus, isn’t it?”

Tatiana looked down with her eyes closed, not meeting anyone's eyes.

Silque and Faye both moved to both her sides, putting their hands on her back and giving her the strength to raise her head.

“I…I just don't know how to feel,” she started. ”Zeke- I mean… Camus, I just… When I rescued him all that time ago, there were clues: his clothes were way too fine for someone of a simpler lifestyle, and he also was… very well built physically,” she said as a blush crossed her face

"And there is also the fact he had such skill In combat and knew to mount a horse when the rest of his memories were gone-I knew he must have been some renowned fighter. One with a past… a past I've secretly hoped never would have come to him.”

Maria looked confused for a bit, but then caught the meaning behind her words. ”You… You didn't want him to recover his memories,” she stated.

Tatiana looked down in shame.

Suddenly Lena got up from her seat. ”Wait, Tatiana! If it is guilt you feel, then don't! I don't fault you for your feelings. You… You cared for Sir Camus, didn't you? I see no shame in wishing you both kept having peaceful days together, that Sir Camus didn't return to risk his life fighting!”

But Tatiana only shook her head. ”Oh if it was so simple… But no, there's something else that's been eating me inside,” she said.

“I don’t know how, maybe it was a coincidence or somehow I could feel it deep inside his heart but… I always suspected - nay, I was terrified that he already had a lover waiting for him… That was why beyond anything I didn’t wish him to recover his memories - so that he… never returned in her arms and left me behind…”

“Tatiana…” Faye said, feeling for her fellow Saint’s lament.

“And guess what? I was right… He did have someone,” Tatiana said, her voice wavering.

“What's more, apparently he… Camus, he still chose me before her and she… she just disappeared. Just like that.” This time, her hands were shaking.

“And the worst part of it? The worst part… is that the first thing I felt was relief-even when I said to myself I would accept it if he wanted to go back to her, that I only wished for his happiness… I couldn't help the wave of utter relief of knowing that not only I was the chosen but that the poor girl was gone. I felt so, so bad-I'm a Healer! A saint for Duma's sake! I shouldn’t feel in any capacity good about the ill fate of another and yet… And yet I…”

By now, tears streamed freely from Tatiana's face.

“I'm such a despicable woman… Camus, he… I don't deserve him, I don't deserve being the one that won his heart… Maybe if-”

“Tatiana,” Silque’s voice rung out. ”Please, stop. Stop hurting yourself like that.”

Tatiana looked up, still crying and with her voice wobbly. ”B-but I…”

“There is nothing wrong with what you feel, miss,” Wrys said, looking at her. ”Take in from someone people confess to: the heart, by nature, is a complicated and selfish thing. No one is completely free of guilt, even the best of us. That by itself doesn't make us a bad person.”

Lena nodded. ”What matters the most is our actions. We all can feel or think things we shouldn’t, choosing whether or not we act upon them is what determines who we are in the end however.”

Maria approached Tatiana, taking her hands with her own, making her look at her. ”Tell me, if it was up to you, would you have made her disappear? Would you have wanted to, if it had been your choice?”

“W-what!? No! Of course not-I can't never just do such a thing to anyone!” Tatiana said, horrified at the prospect.

Silque smiled. ”Then there you have it. Regardless of how you feel, you don't even want to harm her. Do you even hate her? The other woman?”

Tatiana shook her head. ”I don't even know her…”

“Then what's so bad about how you feel? You don't hate her, and don't want to harm her. Tatiana, you’re a good-natured, amiable and selfless soul that loves helping others. No one will judge you if for once you put yourself before another person.”

Faye spoke next. ”Heh, if anything you’re better than me. I… tried to compete for someone else’s heart, once. Even knowing from the start I already lost. And as a result I… wasn’t the best of friends towards someone that never held it against me. I am getting better, so trust me when I say it: the heart is a Egoist bitch, don't feel bad for what it makes you feel.”

Maria gasped.

Lena was quick to act. ”Miss Faye! Such foul language is not only unnecessary but quite unbecoming of the people of our station!”

Wrys only laughed out loud.

Seeing the scene before her, Tatiana couldn’t help the smile slowly creeping up her face.

“...Thank you,” she said, making everyone look at her.

“Thank you all, sincerely. You’re all so kind…”

Maria giggled at that. ”We're healers, we dedicate ourselves to help others even in the middle of a warzone-it would be hard being one without some kindness.”

“Too true, young one,” Wrys agreed.

Tatiana felt Silque grip her shoulder. ”Tatiana, listen to me. You should talk to Camus about your feelings. I've encountered him a few times when he would come looking for you at the medical bay, he clearly wants to talk to you. Trust me, he loves you. And if it's true then even after knowing your feelings he will still do so,” she said.

Tatiana thought for a bit before nodding, whipping her already drying face as a look of determination set in her eyes. ”Yes. You’re right. I love Camus, even after learning everything, and if I want us to be together then he needs to learn everything about me too,” she said with conviction In her voice.

Groowwwl.

Tatiana's whole face became red like a tomato.

Lena couldn't help but smirk. ”Well, you have been eating less recently have you not? Feel free to dig in, you still have your meal mostly intact.”

Shooting her a grateful glance, Tatiana started to eat with gusto.

They arrived at the northwest coast of Archanea, having to fight through many aquatic robots to reach it.

They then proceeded to repeat what they did until now: moving around destroying bases to stop the production of robots and booting Eggman out of this world piece of land by piece of land.

It became quickly clear however that Eggman made the Kingdom of Archanea pretty much a second HQ. The bases were bigger and more well defended, and there were many, many, many robots everywhere. The heroes had to fight hard to advance one kilometer.

There was especially a large network inside the mountains. Sweetie Void was able to find an entrance behind a boulder, and what followed was days and days of constant battle inside kilometers of hallways, mines, laboratories, and factories of all kinds. Thankfully, there were no dragons in there. Instead, there were traps everywhere, and it was a real giant maze.

Sonic and his friends felt right at home, except for the robots with swords and magic.

At least, there was no self-destruct that activated as they fought. Sweetie Void had been ready to teleport everyone out of there during the whole battle. Still had to be careful to not destroy anything that looked like it would cause a chain reaction leading to the destruction of the whole complex while they were still inside. Present Tails only made the whole place blow up once they made sure that every roboticized present was saved. They didn’t even have to fight the giant robot that guarded the main reactor. Tails used a computer.

Seeing the whole mountain range explode was certainly something.

After that, it wasn’t long before they reached the capital where now stood the largest city built thus far, and probably the largest city of the continent considering that the Kingdom of Archanea was the most populated.

It saddened the majority of the heroes from Archanea (the continent) to see the Palace gone. Archanea Palace had been an architectural wonder with a lot of history and pretty much the core of the continent. Its loss was a huge wound that will never close, and another reason to defeat Eggman.

A huge amount of robots had already been destroyed with the network under the mountains, so there were less robots guarding the city than usual. Dragons made up for it. Too many of them. The heroes had their work cut out for them. Without forgetting the airships that will force Sweetie Void to deal with them instead of helping the army.

Also, Sweetie Void could feel two robots with destructive energy. Oh boy…

Both used a Warp Staff right away to warp in the middle of the army just before they could charge into the robots, revealing themselves to be a hero and a warrior. They were respectively the Egg Arthur and the Egg Ragnar. The two could cut soldiers by the dozen to shreds with just a swing, and the Egg Arthur even had a powerful energy shield protecting it while the Egg Ragnar towered above everyone else.

Tatiana and Silque immediately summoned phantom pegasus knights and dread fighters to serve as shields against the two robots. They didn’t last long, but they gained enough time to allow strong fighters to arrive to fight them.

Navarre arrived first against the Egg Arthur, the two clashing. Before the Egg Ragnar could attack from behind, it was pierced in the back by an arrow from Tobin, stopping it. Roderick then arrived on his horse and charged at the Egg Ragnar, forcing it to block his spear with his axe while it slid backward from the force of the hit, away from the other robot. Celica (thanks to Swap), Etzel, and Ogma then joined Navarre against the Egg Arthur while Minerva and Lukas joined against the Egg Ragnar.

Tatiana and Silque, after being healed, summoned phantoms again to make diversion, and the other healers were ready to help too. Already, Lena had to heal Navarre who got a very bad slash across his torso. Celica saved him by casting Ragnarok Ω, badly damaging the robot thanks to the resulting explosion that didn’t allow it to protect itself with its shield. Wrys then quickly healed her. Meanwhile, Faye stopped the Egg Ragnar from hurting Minerva by casting Sagittae, raining arrows on it.

Suddenly, the Egg Ragnar took a bow and shot an energy arrow at Faye. A blue blur took her out of the way, the arrow continuing its path. Any soldier in the way was taken away by the same blue blur. One of Sweetie’s doubles eventually appeared in its path and ate the arrow which exploded inside her, causing her to inflate briefly. Sonic gave her a thumbs up.

Thankfully, the Egg Ragnar didn’t get another occasion to use its bow. The ones fighting it made sure of that. Tatiana and Silque constantly summoned new phantoms.

The robots resisted, and there were many close calls, but they were eventually destroyed, first the Egg Arthur thanks to another Ragnarok Ω, then the Egg Ragnar.

While the fight against the two robots happened, the battle began, Sweetie Void sending most of herself against the airships and sending the rest against the dragons. There wasn’t enough of her however to fight the dragons, so the army had to deal with a large number of them.

The soldiers pretty much let Marth and his close allies do the work. They were the best of the army. Killing dragons was Thursday for them. The soldiers were content to deal with the robots.

Suddenly, a giant beam came from the sky right on one of the Sweetie Voids fighting the dragons. Another of the filly destroying the airships saw the twinkle in the sky, allowing her to react just in time.

She absorbed the beam. Since it was made of energy, she could do that.

The beam continued to come for several seconds, disappearing into her horn, before it eventually stopped.

She then released all that energy into a beam of her own right back toward where it came from.

Thus, Eggman’s orbital cannon was destroyed.

With that, the two main dangers of this battle were gone.

Not that there weren’t other dangers. While Sweetie Void was dealing with the airships and some of the dragons, the heroes had to face the majority of said dragons, and the healers had to work extra hard as a result. More than once, someone almost died.

As the battle advanced, more and more roboticized allies were encountered and saved. The fact that there were so many of them showed how important the Kingdom of Archanea was. Many lived here.

There was Castor, a young blue-haired horseman from Talys who had needed money for his ailing mother and who joined the Archanean Rangers after the last war.

Jeorge, the best sniper of the continent, making him a real danger in the battlefield as an enemy. Archer-captain of Archanea, he founded the Archanean Rangers. He was also the holder of Parthia, a legendary bow, one of the Three Regalia of Archanea, although Eggman certainly had the bow and the other Regalia now. Forsyth was the one who saved him thanks to the shield device.

Linde, a sage who worked in the magic academy founded by Merric.

Midia, paladin of Archanea, Captain of the Archanean Knights.

Astram, hero of Archanea, member of the Archanean Rangers, holder of the sword Mercurius, one of the Three Regalia, and Midia’s lover. Marth personally faced him.

Dolph and Marcellan, ancient knights who looked very similar. Marcellan was instead a member of a band of watchmen near the border that he formed.

Sheena, ancient queen of Gra.

And Samson, an ancient mercenary hired by Sheena as a bodyguard in the last war, becoming her lover.

And when the army entered the city, they were also joined by Caesar, a mercenary whom nobody had been sure where he had been after the last war.

The battle lasted a whole day. Needless to say, the heroes were very tired by the end of it.

In the aftermath, the celebration didn’t last long. Yes, they freed Archanea, that was a huge step in retaking the continent, and they deserved that after such a battle, but the heroes were too tired, so after the initial cheers and thank yous of the crowd, they went to rest.

However, despite the fatigue, some were restless.

Jubelo was one of them. He hoped to find his sister who had been studying in the magic academy when Eggman invaded, but he could find her nowhere. Nobody reported having rescued her. He was so worried, he was starting to fear the worst.

“You look worried, Jubelo,” he heard a woman say with an artificial voice, stopping him from looking around in the street.

Before him was Linde, still roboticized, but freed from Eggman’s control. With everyone resting, they had to wait to deroboticize everyone.

“L-Linde! Do you know where Yuliya is? You were with her, right? Is she-”

“She is alright, don’t worry. Well, as alright as you can be when you are under Eggman’s control. He took her with him to be one of his personal healers.”

Jubelo sighed in relief. His sister was alive.

“Thank you.”

Linde advanced toward him and put a hand (or rather a claw) on his shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t worry, we will save her before you know it.”

It was the only good news. At the same time, Ryan learned from Jeorge that his brother, Gordin, was killed in the defense of Archanea. He was devastated.

Marcellan also said that Tomas, an ancient Archanean archer knight who had joined him as a watchman, was dead. And Marth also suspected that another ancient ally, Horace, was dead too, because he was nowhere to be seen. He was an Archanean noble, so he should have been one of the roboticized, and he doubted that Eggman would take him to somewhere else.

Learning of these deaths really dampened the good mood.

Chapter 192: Pyrathi and Talys

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 193: Aurelis

Author's Note

Before we start this chapter, for the ones who haven't seen the last blog, Apple Bloom's Mansion is being adapted into a comic.

Link.

Chapter 193: Aurelis

The army took a long rest after this battle. They needed it. Really. This long battle took a lot.

They gathered provisions, trained new recruits, turned the roboticized back to normal, and repaired the ships that had been damaged. There wasn’t much wood to use however, the forests having been razed, but Sweetie was able to materialize materials. They even took a couple of Eggman’s own ships left in the port. The armada was getting very cramped. They were getting new recruits faster than they were losing soldiers on the battlefield.

Days passed.

Once again, in-between the days the army rested, another, bigger event took place.

Needless to say, the army's spirit and morale reached its maximum point: death has been minimal for a long while now, and in a whopping comeback thanks to their new allies, nearly the entire continent was freed of Eggman’s influence. It came to no surprise when an early celebration party was suggested to and then approved by Marth, who wanted everyone to be at their best both mentally and physically for the final stretch.

That's how Sweetie Void found herself wandering about in a great party, held in the middle of an open area. The people of Talys also came and both helped set it and partied with the army. It was already nighttime and the party was in full swing with everyone dancing, drinking, talking, and simply having a good time.

Even the humans and Manaketes that previously were mutually problematic had somehow reached a non-verbal agreement to keep to themselves or brood with a drink in a corner while everyone else had fun, which in her opinion was progress at least.

She looked around and saw various of her Pokemon playing around with the kids of Talys. Among them were Tank, Volta, Smily, Zephyr, Scout, and Mothra. Not seeing why she shouldn’t, she joined them and played around a bit before deciding to leave them as she wanted to look around some more.

There was a group that caught her attention quickly: it was Susie, talking with Merric and other mages. And by her side were some of the barons and generals of the army. Intrigued, she approached them.

“...Ah, my apologies. So you aren't actually akin to these robots?” Etzel asks.

Susie waved her hand in a dismissing manner. ”Not at all. My species possesses a combination of both organic and inorganic traits that make us appear machine-like, but majorly we are just like any other living being. I had a father after all,” she said and Etzel hummed.

Susie then noticed Sweetie Void and waved at her. ”Ah, good evening Sweetie.”

Sweetie nodded. ”Good evening. Enjoying the party?”

“Certainly.”

“Hey there!” Valbar, one of the barons, greeted. ”Name's Valbar. Nice to meet you little miss! You and your friends sure have helped us big time!”

“Indeed,” Draug, a general, said. ”Archanea-no, our whole world is in your debt.”

Sweetie waved them off.”Eh, no need for that- like I've said before, it’s just what we do. Anyways, what are you guys up to here?”

Merric looked at her, excitement clear in his eyes. “We were discussing with your friend about those force field-producing devices the armored units have used since Dolhr. Somehow taking their physical defenses and producing a defensive barrier that matches it…”

“It’s nothing short of fascinating, a complete revolution in warfare for us,” Arlen, also here, continued. ”We were interested if somehow the reverse could be done. That is, somehow taking our spellcaster's magical resistance and somehow converting it into physical protection.”

Susie nodded. ”An entirely possible thing. Likewise I was interested in this world's brand of magic. Turns out that by using a special kind of empty book and different sets and kinds of runes, inscriptions, and even materials, it is not only possible to recreate any existing tome, but also to create any spell imaginable and infuse it on one too.”

Linde then said. ”Of course, the more powerful and unique they are, the rarer and more costly everything needed to make them is. With the possibilities of other worlds with more and likely unheard of materials for tomes? The possibilities are more endless than ever!”

“What I'm interested in is if there’s a way to infuse spells in something other than books. Valentians are able to cast magic directly with their bodies, so casting without tomes is possible…”

“Aaand that's kinda our cue to go,” Forsyth said. ”We only came to share our opinions of the devices. We aren't all that into magic.”

“Yes, your experience is insightful. Thank you for your time,” Susie said politely and waved as the barons and generals went off to join the rest of the party.

“Mmm, I should be going too. Gonna look at the rest of the party,” Sweetie Void said.

“Enjoy yourself! This was all possible thanks to the help of you guys. Say hi for me if you find Marth!” Merric said.

“Will do!” Sweetie Void said, saying goodbye as she wandered again.

She saw how the archers had set up multiple targets and instead of bows, they practiced with knives for fun at Jeorge's suggestion. They quickly got the hang of it, some faster than others. The people saw them and even a few volunteered to throw one or two.

Jeorge then said he knew a neat trick, and that he needed one of the archers to shoot an arrow. Ryan offered, and when he fired, Jeorge quickly threw his knife, intercepting the arrow and cutting it in half. The small crowd cheered and praised him for his trick. Sweetie looked on some more before going elsewhere.

Again, she saw more of her Pokemon. This time there was a a big water tank provided by Susie where the Water-types like Swirly (now a Poliwhirl), Calypso, Nessy, and her Gyarados, Boss (formerly the Magikarp she got before she fought Groudon), put up a show by doing various tricks assisted by Mesmer and her Orbeetle, Dexter, who used their psychic powers to put up floating hoops and to levitate the water in the air, producing a spectacle that had most of the party mesmerized. She saw two people that, thanks to the stories told about them by both Archanean and Valentian soldiers, she recognized as Jagen and Mycen. They sat on a nearby table as they drank and enjoyed the show.

It was all well when suddenly a Valentian came and started telling others something with enthusiasm that instantly took her attention.

“The blue blur and Lady Clair are gonna race!”

Sweetie Void, alongside a good portion of the presents soon followed the guy to an open zone a bit apart from the party, where Past Sonic was doing some stretches and Clair readied her Falicorn. With them were various of the mounted units, both flying and on land, as well as Past Amy. Sweetie Void approached them.

“Hey! What's this about a race?” she asked Amy after greeting her.

“Well, you know Sonic. Both of them: speed is kind of their deal, so he was gathering attention showing it off…”

“And then some of our guys from the Zofian Army let out that they don't believe anyone is beating a mounted Clair in speed. Stuff predictably escalated into this,” Python finished for Amy.

“I see. Well, this is gonna be interesting…” Sweetie Void mused, seeing how both racers seemed to be finished. To their credit, she could definitely say high-tier warriors of this universe were no slouches. She had seen the fastest ones being able to frequently dodge lightning and even light-based attacks (which while it didn’t make them THAT fast, it was still quite the feat) and among them the mounted ones were the fastest in both movement and combat.

All that said this still was Past Sonic they were talking about. He wasn’t as fast as his future self, but let's just say he was well on his right to be at least somewhat confident in his speed.

“Let’s give it our all, little guy!” Clair said in a friendly tone.

Past Sonic smiled and gave her a thumbs-up. With that, he got into position while Clair mounted her Falicorn. Then Cecil stepped up with a flag in her hand.

“Alright, listen up! Your goal is to make it all the way to the eastern edge of the island, then make it back here. First one to arrive wins it all!” she said, and both runners nodded.

“Mmm, I think I can help you guys with this,” Sweetie Void said as her horn ignited with magic. Then, a floating screen showing Clair and Sonic popped into existence, startling a good amount of the presents. ”With this we will be able to see them all the way,” she explained.

“Huh, magic is so mysterious… So, is everyone ready? On your marks! Set!” And so, Cecil brought the flag down. ”GO!”

In an instant, both Sonic and Clair bolted with great speed, even breaking the sound barrier and producing a great wind that everyone had to brace for to resist.

On the screen, it showed how Sonic started out in the lead, but then Clair started to catch up to him. They were both incredibly fast, and the public started cheering them on with Past Amy and Clive being the most enthusiastic, Amy cheering for her crush and Clive for his sister.

Sweetie Void quickly noticed that Sonic was at a disadvantage, being earthbound and having to follow the landscape that unfortunately was filled with Eggman’s buildings. Although he handled it well by getting through small openings and jumping, most of the time he had to deviate to advance. By comparison Clair had an easier time as she just had to fly, occasionally evading particularly tall buildings.

To make matters worse, halfway through, the shape of the island made it so Sonic had to deviate to the side while Clair could go right through in a straight line due to her flying, making it so she arrived at the edge of the island first, taking the lead.

Sonic was surprised at this, and seeing how once again Clair could go in a straight line through the island summarized that he was going to lose.

That is, if he kept his current pace.

“C'mon Sonic! You can do it!” Amy cheered him on, seeing him through the screen.

For his part, Sonic acknowledged the challenge and once he reached the edge he got into position, then went all out.

Immediately the change was noticeable, and many of the warriors from the army were left speechless. Sonic used his speed to run directly to the top of a building and started jumping from one to the other, making his path easier this time. In a moment Sonic was side by side with Clair and then surpassed her, jumping to the next building. looked back mid-jump and saw her dumbfounded expression, making him smirk.

Clair quickly recovered however and snapped her reins, motivating her Falicorn to also go with everything.

Both were fast approaching the finish line, Sonic leaping through at great speed and Clair flying with her Falicorn with remarkable skill.

Alas, this skill wasn’t enough to surpass Sonic once he took the lead, and she arrived just after he did.

Immediately, the crowd came to celebrate.

“Amazing! What a race!” Cecil cheered.

“Soonic~! I knew you’d win!” Amy said, running up to give Sonic a hug. She then separated with a light blush in her face.

“You did good, Clair,” Clive congratulated his sister

For her part, Clair dismounted her worked-up Falicorn, patting her side before approaching Sonic.

“Well, can't say I'm too bummed out by it. You truly are fast! Beat me fair and square even with unfavorable terrain. Well met, mister,” she said, sticking out her hand which Sonic was quick to shake.

While she did see Sonic winning coming, Sweetie Void too had to admit it was a good race.

The race finished, everyone went back to the main party soon enough, although some called it for the night.

Upon coming back, Sweetie Void started to get hungry, so she decided to go look for something to eat and approached the party's buffet.

Unsurprisingly, she found more of her Pokemon there, stuffing themselves full on it. Ratzo and Drako in particular seemed quite pleased simply devouring everything in front of them to the point the healers, who were in charge of cooking everything, had to come and scold them. Lena in particular was giving them quite the earful while they looked down with an apologetic look. In contrast, her Noctowl (formerly Hoothoot), who was named Night Wind, Amanita, and Anubis were content with eating their servings calmly and politely, earning them headpats from Maria which Anubis seemed to try and play off as if he didn’t mind even though it was noticeable he liked it. She just looked on amused as she ate.

More importantly, she found Marth, Alm, Celica and Caeda eating and talking together at a nearby table.

Alm noticed her and invited her over. “Hey, Sweetie Void! Wanna accompany us? We got a spot left.”

Not seeing why not, Sweetie came and sat on the chair.

“So, how are you liking the party so far?” Caeda asked her.

“Pretty good! Normally these come after the defeat of the bad guy, but I’m not complaining,” she said.

“Huh, it sounds like you’re pretty used to it,” Alm said.

“Yeah, pretty much. There's this friend of mine called Pinkie Pie-she is a renowned party planner, and always looks for the slightest justification to throw a party. The success of one of my adventures is a regular one as of late.”

“Is that so? You must have many a tale to tell for this to be a regular thing,” Celica said.

“Oh boy, you don't know half of it…” Sweetie Void said and then began to narrate to them various tales of her adventures not only across the multiverse, taking the occasion to tell them a bit about the friends she made there (and that they could meet and fight besides if they decided to join), but even old ones of her time on Popstar, including how she ended up in that universe that fateful day. Of course, grossly skipping over the details as to not make each story too long, and more than once she had to give them brief explanations whenever she mentioned technology they didn't know of.

“...Incredible… That was beyond anything I could imagine,” Marth said.

“Yeah! Like… I'm still processing all that. It’s just… wow,” Alm agreed.

“I still got more, like the most recent one I had with Kirby and everyone where we fought Void's first kid who got divided into a good and an evil half who tried to destroy Popstar. In the end though they made up,” Sweetie said.

“To think you have lived all that at such a young age, even younger than Jubelo and Yuliya…” Caeda said.

“Agree. Sorry if this makes you uncomfortable but… are you sure you're fine, Sweetie Void?” Celica asked her.

Sweetie opened her mouth to answer, but then closed it. For some reason she paused and actually thought it over. That question…

“Are you sure you're fine?”

Was she really?

“...Yeah, as much as I can. Like, I know it has been a lot…” Nightmare, Marx, Star Dream, Sectonia, Dark Matter…

…Zero…

“But in the end, I can only keep pushing forward. And hey, I still get to live my childhood out… Even if it is with some of the innocence off,” she summarized.

For the sake of not completely souring the mood, she left out how there were other kids on the Alliance that had to go through getting parts of their childhoods robbed, including alternate versions of her closest friends and variants of herself.

They kept talking, Sweetie Void recounting more fun and light-hearted parts of her time on Popstar. She eventually finished eating, and then went on where people were all dancing together to the music of a local band.

After a while though, they started to play slow music, and sure enough the people started to either pair up or leave the stage.

Marth went on with Caeda, and Alm with Celica.

Near them, Jesse looked at Malice, bowing slightly and offering his hand with a flourish.

“May you concede me a piece, ma'am?” he said with a smirk and a wink.

Malice rolled her eyes. Nonetheless, she took his hand, much to Jesse’s marveling.

Faye gave Tatiana a little push, and she collided with Camus' back. She looked back and glared at her a bit before turning towards him, who also turned to look at her.

They both looked at each other, not knowing what to say. Then, Camus extended his hand. ”Would you… like to dance?”

Tatiana closed her eyes and huffed, then opened her eyes and smiled at him. ”Quite so, yes.”

Roderick kept switching between looks at Cecil and at Mathilda and Clive, the latter two simply giving him a thumbs-up.

Letting out a sigh, he finally decided to go for it and approached her.

“Cecil. Would you… like to dance…?” he asked her.

Cecil blinked once, then twice.

“Huh? Me? B-but… er, I don't… I don't really know how to…” she said.

“Eh? Really now?”

“I was always too busy training to learn! And I never thought it was something worth learning…”

“Mmm… Well, I taught my younger sisters, so… I could teach you,” he said.

Cecil went silent for a bit, before answering. ”...Sure. That's fine.”

And so, more pairings filled in and slowly danced to the music.

Sweetie Void let out a yawn and rubbed one eye, her mental fatigue catching up.

“Well, I think that's it for me tonight. Gonna resume watch duty with the doubles tomorrow…”

And so, she simply retired to sleep.

Eventually, they were ready, and for the last time, the army sailed. Their destination was Galder Harbor, the most eastern port of Archanea, just west of Talys, which was part of no kingdom, a region known as the borderlands. Of course, when they arrived, nothing was left of the port, replaced by a base.

From here, they journeyed through a path that Marth knew very well to reach Aurelis, passing by the Samsooth Mountains, also known as the Ghoul’s Teeth, previously home to many bandits.

No bandits were left. Instead, they found more bases defended by the roboticized bandits.

After traversing the mountains, they reached the plains of Aurelis.

They still had a long road to reach the capital. The kingdom was vast, and the capital was all the way west. All the while, they had to explore to find all the bases on the way so they wouldn’t leave one behind.

They didn’t bother to explore the north of the kingdom. It was part of the huge expense of the mainland of the continent. Sweetie Void intended to send her doubles to deal with that, not expecting to find many robotocized beside barbarians over there. The northeast of the kingdom would especially force the army to do a huge detour along the coast, losing a lot of time.

Eventually, they reached the capital, finding the last city.

Already, countless robot paladins were galloping in the plain surrounding the city, charging toward the army, and Sweetie Void could feel that one of them had destructive energy. She could easily see it too.

Indeed, the Egg Roland was three times as big as the other paladins. It towered above the others, and it was faster. The other robots were making sure to not be in front of it to not be trampled, until it eventually reached the front of the army, thus heading the charge.

No doubt it would destroy any obstacle Sweetie would put in its way to try to stop it and the other robots, so the filly began by trying to destroy it with large and powerful beams. However, the Egg Roland dodged the beams by making its horse move left and right, annoying her.

So she teleported right before the Egg Roland, avoided the spear, and tripped the horse, making it fall. This caused a chain reaction in which other paladins behind the Egg Roland tripped on it, and then other robots tripped on them, causing dozens and dozens of robots to fall, disorganising the robotic army.

Such chaos. Discord must be proud.

Of course, before they could get up, Sweetie destroyed as many of them as she could, Egg Roland first, avoiding the roboticized.

Not all the paladins were stopped however, many continued their charge, so the barons and generals placed themselves at the front of the heroes and readied their shields with their Shield Cloaks, forming a wall. That stopped the robots.

Many robots at the front suddenly stopping because of them ended up impaled by the spears of the robots behind. The barons and generals touched still slid backward by the force of the hit.

With the paladins stopped, the heroes attacked them, starting with mages using long distance spells.

Many horsemen followed the paladins, firing arrows at the army. Again, barons and generals worked together to tank them and allow their friends to reach and attack the horsemen.

Among all these paladins and horsemen, the heroes encountered three roboticized friends: Wolf, Sedgar, and Roshea, the first two horsemen and the last one a paladin.

Like always, Sweetie Void took care of the airships and most dragons. She also intercepted some wyverns.

Because the plain was left for the cavalry to charge through, not many obstacles and traps were placed, making it easier to advance. There weren’t many staff users either, leading to less problems while fighting. All that made the battle rather easy once the cavaliers were dealt with.

But then, a second cavalry army came from their flank, taking the heroes by surprise. The barons and generals didn’t have time to get in place, so this new army succeeded in its charge, trampling and piercing many soldiers. Once the charge was over, the paladins began to hack and slash wildly with their swords while horsemen rained arrows.

In the chaos it caused, it was hard to see what was going on. Sweetie Void quickly came to help, and Sonic was running around trying to save as many soldiers as possible.

One paladin charged towards Jesse who was already fighting one. Before it could pierce him in the back, Saber came in and tackled Jesse away. Unfortunately that left him at the mercy of the two paladins who were quick to finish him while on the floor.

“SABER!” Jesse screamed and quickly got up. Luckily for him, Saber's sacrifice gave those near him time to react and back him up, but it was too late.

“Why…?” Jesse asked a dying Saber.

“Cough… Listen, you're a good one Jesse. Despite your flaws, you actually… made me hope for something great… My life hasn't been all that great anyways… You? You're young… And now there's someone there for you ... Don't let it go to waste, ok?” Saber said, his voice getting weaker.

Jesse said nothing, and simply closed Saber’s eyes with his hand.

He left his body, aware that the fight was not done yet. ”...I promise,” he said to himself, then went back to fighting with renewed vigor.

In the end, all the robots were destroyed, and the heroes were able to enter and conquer the city.

But as they discovered after the battle, the robots’ successful charge wasn’t without its heavy consequences. Many soldiers died.

In addition of Saber, Lena, Ogma, and Arlen were also killed.

Chapter 194: Thabes

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 195: The Creation

Author's Note

It came to me that Grima didn't have a name yet at the time of Marth and was just known as the Creation, so I changed a bit the end of the previous chapter.

Chapter 195: The Creation

“Uh… Who, or what is this dragon??” Sweetie Void asked as she eyed the black roboticized dragon before her. “Seems bad news.”

Glaring at the dragon, Gotoh recounted. “Long ago, a mad alchemist named Forneus used Divine Dragon Blood to create this abomination. When Duma discovered that, it was one of the main reasons why he destroyed the city. He found the Creation deep underground and fought it, only to be forced to escape.”

“You are saying that that thing is more powerful than a Divine Dragon?” Marth asked with dread.

“And probably even more powerful with how much time has passed. It is bigger than what Duma told us it had been back then. It is still growing,” Gotoh said. “It’s probably even more powerful than Medeus now.”

“And that’s not counting the augmentations Eggman gave to it,” Sweetie Void said. “Including that purple destructive energy, which it has a lot of, much more than the elite badniks.”

Eggman laughed. “Oooohohohohoh! Seems like I really hit the jackpot with this one! Soon, this world and many others will be mine! And yes, I gave it the battery with all the remaining energy that Crazy Hand gave to me! That makes it my most powerful creation ever! Or second best. My God Emperor Death Egg is probably still at the top. Hard to say.”

“Of course this energy is Crazy Hand’s. I should have guessed,” Sweetie Void said with a growl. “What is Crazy’s deal, anyway? Is he working for the Subspace Army?”

“The what? No idea what you are talking about. Crazy Hand just wants to spread chaos and destruction across the multiverse, and he recruited me and a few others for that. He never talked about being part of an army. He doesn’t seem to be the kind to take orders.”

Well, that was good news and bad news. Good news: the Subspace Army didn’t seem to be involved. Bad news: that was a new faction to deal with, preferably before the start of the war against the Subspace Army, or else… As to how they will deal with Crazy Hand… Sweetie Void didn’t have the foggiest idea. Finding the universe where Crazy was hiding was impossible.

Unless DD could do something about that? she thought.

I’m already participating. I did send you to this world to stop Eggman. And I sent your friends to another world where another of Crazy’s minions was sent to. However, you will have to find him yourself, she was answered.

Ok. What about you, Writer?

She received no answer. She sighed.

I guess that you are already working on it. You will eventually make it so I end up fighting Crazy, but probably not before some more adventures. But please, do that before the war against the Subspace Army. I don’t want to fight both the Army and Crazy at the same time.

While she was thinking, Marth said, “So all your actions since your arrival in our world are the will of this Crazy Hand?”

“That’s right! But it helped a lot that I saw this as the perfect occasion to begin my empire without that pesky hedgehog interfering,” Eggman replied before he glared at Past Sonic. “But somehow, against the odds, here you are! I just can’t figure how you found me! There is no way you could have known that I was in this universe! And there is no way that you found me by chance! So, tell me, HOW did you find me?”

“As if we will tell you, Eggman!” Present Tails said.

While they talked, more and more heroes entered the room. The flying ones were even arriving through the windows.

Not all could come however. Many were still fighting the dragons outside the walls, or the robots inside the fortress. Two of Sweetie’s doubles were still helping them, but she may be forced to call them if Eggman’s last toy revealed to be as powerful as she feared. Should she send someone to bring the Chaos Emeralds?

No, wait, they were probably scattered all over Mobius. She was told about this little habit of theirs, so nobody would overuse their power. Once, Tails got the idea of gathering them in advance at the Shrine of Angel Island, the only place where they never scattered, to have them ready for the next time they would be needed, but then, it allowed Eggman to come and grab the seven emeralds AND the Master Emerald to power his God Emperor Death Egg. Needless to say, Sonic and co didn’t repeat that mistake.

Eggman glared at Tails, then yelled, “It doesn’t matter! With the Egg Jörmungandr, I will finally be rid of you forever! I won’t have to worry anymore about you ruining my plans!”

“Don’t think you have won yet!” Marth shouted. “Your evil will end today!”

Eggman grinned. “Then come.” Then, with a snap of his fingers, he said, “Attack!”

And the robots attacked. The Egg Zeus, Egg Hades, and Egg Amateratsu fired superpowerful versions of Thoron, Glower, and Elfire.

Thoron sent a beam-like thunderbolt that a general, Draug, was able to get in the way of to tank with his Shield Cloak. Despite the device, however, the superpowered Thoron still hurt a lot, and Draug dropped unconscious, at Death’s doorstep.

Elfire sent two fireballs toward the ceiling, the fireballs gaining in power and falling back toward the target in the form of a column of fire. Because of Crazy’s energy, the column was more powerful and much larger than usual. The target, Wolf, had no chance. All that remained of him and his horse when the column disappeared were ashes. Others around were forced to run away to avoid being caught in the spell. The column ended up blowing a hole in the ceiling.

Glower manifested the hieroglyph of an eye beside the target, Marth himself. The eye glared at him, creating light around him. Marth observed the eye and, just as it shattered, he rolled, the light exploding where he had been the previous instant. He had no doubt that this spell would have killed him right away if he had been hit. He wasn’t even sure if anything would have remained of his body. He knew the spell very well, he learned to dodge it, but not everyone will be like him, especially the ones from Valentia.

Meanwhile, the Egg Jörmungandr opened its mouth and charged energy. Feeling the energy’s power, Sweetie Void immediately teleported before the dragon just as it fired. The powerful purple beam of pure destruction hit the filly who absorbed it.

Pain. Intense pain. She could feel her body tearing itself apart from the inside as the energy settled. She was countering it with her healing, and the pain was slowly diminishing, but it left her paralyzed on the floor.

The Egg Jörmungandr went to devour her, but thankfully, Sonic was here. He took her away while her doubles fired a concentrated beam at the roboticized serpentine dragon, sending it crashing with a roar of pain. It quickly recovered however, and holes opened in its back. Out of them came dozens of missiles flying in every direction, each targeting a different hero.

It then glared at the Sweetie doubles and fired lasers from its horns, forcing the doubles to fly around to avoid them while they destroyed as many missiles as they could with Sonic’s help.

Marth suddenly jumped on its snout and planted the Falchion in its head, making the dragon roar again, making the whole tower shake.

While this happened, Gotoh attacked the Egg Amateratsu with Shaver, a wind spell, damaging the robot. However, Yuliya repaired it right away with a Hammerne Staff.

Marth jumped away from the Egg Jörmungandr, but then, Elice healed it with a Recover Staff.

Jubelo tried to approach his sister to rescue her, but he had to leap to avoid a Thoron fired by the Egg Zeus who placed itself beside the young girl.

The Egg Amateratsu fired its Elfire on Wrys. Seeing this, Maria quickly used the Rescue Staff to warp him away from the spell, beside her.

The Egg Hades used Glower on her to stop her from using the Warp and Rescue Staves. Seeing the eye, Maria panicked. But then, she was pushed out of the way just in time by Minerva who took the spell in her place as a result. As Marth had guessed, nothing of her remained after the spell, and a huge chunk of her wyvern also disappeared.

“MINERVAAA!!!” Maria yelled in despair.

Palla, seeing her state, quickly flew beside her and placed her on her falicorn before flying away. At the same time, filled with cold anger, Michalis charged toward the Egg Hades with his wyvern, mindlessly avoiding a Thoron from the Egg Zeus before he pierced the black-robed robot with his lance.

The Egg Amateratsu readied itself to kill him even if it meant destroying the Egg Hades.

Gotoh made a decision, and he raised his arms above his head. He roared, his robe beginning to float in a wind coming from nowhere. Then, light gathered between his hands, forming a ball which then unleashed a powerful beam of light toward the Egg Amateratsu. The beam hit, and the robot disappeared in a huge explosion.

Gotoh dropped on his knees, breathing heavily.

He wasn’t able to avoid the Thoron fired at him as a result.

Marth looked in horror as Gotoh died, but he shook his head and focused back on the Egg Jörmungandr who continued to fire many missiles while flying around. Then, with a roar, it created a black hole.

Sweetie Void, who recovered from absorbing Crazy Hand’s energy, flew into the black hole right away, making it explode from the inside before anyone could be sucked up into it.

Her doubles and Sonic continued to attack the dragon who resisted, even using shields of energy to protect itself.

Sweetie Void gathered her ten cannons into a single weapon to make a giant beam sword, wanting to slice it in two in one go, but then, the Egg Jörmungandr teleported, and in turn, Sweetie Void had to teleport to avoid its jaw closing on her.

The Egg Jörmungandr then opened its mouth again and gathered energy. Marth immediately acted and ran toward the dragon and jumped, slashing at its torso. This made it stop gathering energy as it roared in pain, now with a huge gash crossing its torso.

Elice healed it.

Before the Egg Jörmungandr could attack Marth, Sonic jumped and hit Eggman’s cockpit, Sweetie Void planted her ten swords all over the dragon’s body, and her two doubles fired beams. But then, the dragon created many purple beams that it rained all around it, forcing everyone around it to escape. Sweetie Void had to use powerful shields to protect the others more than once.

It then resumed gathering energy in its mouth. Again, Marth approached, only for it to teleport. Sweetie Void teleported after it and kicked it under the chin, moving its head upward so it ended up firing its laser breath toward the ceiling which then exploded. The explosion sent everyone on the floor.

Afterward, there was no ceiling anymore. The top of the Eggman head of the tower was entirely gone.

Everyone quickly recovered and resumed the battle.

Michalis was able to destroy the Egg Hades, leaving only the Egg Zeus, however, it wasn’t letting anyone get close to it. Yuliya remained close to it, repairing it each time that it was damaged because of a spell or an arrow.

Mycen suddenly galoped toward it. As expected, the Egg Zeus fired Thoron at him, piercing him with the thunder beam.

What the Egg Zeus hadn’t seen, however, was that above, Clair was approaching, using the diversion Mycen created. But then, as she was just above the robot, Clair and her falicorn transformed, and suddenly, she was Marth, sword in his hand. The Egg Zeus found itself sliced in half vertically.

When the two pieces of the robot dropped on the floor, Marth transformed, and in his place was Xane who sighed.

He looked toward the now dead Mycen, beside whom Alm and Celica were kneeling and crying, and silently thanked him. He easily put the program-destroying device on Yuliya afterward.

Seeing his robots destroyed, Eggman made the Egg Jörmungandr teleport above Elice, remaining close to her. The robot then began to gather energy in its mouth again, not minding the Sweetie Voids and Sonic attacking it as Elice healed it anyway. But then, without warning, it suddenly stopped and fired eye lasers toward the approaching Marth.

Nobody had time to react. The lasers hit Marth in the head, killing him right away.

The battlefield suddenly became silent as everyone saw the now lifeless king drop like a puppet with its strings cut. Everyone could only look in shock and horror.

Except Eggman who laughed.

“MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Got you! Your leader is dead!”

Elice saw her brother dead, and she became immobile. Despite the programming, she yelled, and then she ran toward his body, yelling his name.

This surprised Eggman. “Uh? She was able to fight the programming? I guess that love is really that strong. Well then.” He began to fly toward the sky. “Time to end this!”

Finally, Sweetie Void got back to her senses, and she glared toward the Egg Jörmungandr. Then, mane and tail turning into pure void, she and her doubles flew after it.

While it was flying, the Egg Jörmungandr was gathering energy in its mouth. Then, once it was high enough, it turned around and fired a large beam at the fortress.

Sweetie Void was ready and fired her own beam, the two beams clashing and exploding. The resulting explosion could have wiped out the fortress if it had been on the ground.

Eggman growled.

Sweetie Void and her four doubles, having called the two that had still been fighting the dragons and robots, flew through the smoke resulting from the explosion and charged toward the Egg Jörmungandr. They surrounded it.

The dragon charged energy again and fired another beam toward one of the Sweetie Voids who teleported. The beam continued its course toward the horizon, eventually hitting the ground and causing a huge explosion. Eggman made the beam go to the next Sweetie Void who flew away, causing the beam to sweep the horizon, spreading the explosion.

Eggman then saw something behind him and immediately made the Egg Jörmungandr teleport, barely avoiding a large beam fired by a double, the beam hitting the ground far away and causing another explosion.

When the Egg Jörmungandr reappeared, it immediately flew away, breaking several times the speed of sound and disappearing in the horizon in just a few seconds. A few seconds later, it returned, energy covering its wings. The resulting wing blades, spreading left and right at least one kilometer, were cutting the very air itself.

Sweetie Void and her doubles flew up or down, avoiding the wing blades as the dragon passed, then it disappeared in the horizon again, only to return for the second time.

But this time, Sweetie Void was ready and placed herself right in its trajectory. The Egg Jörmungandr ended up ramming her snout first, and the filly opposed it with all her strength. To Eggman’s surprise, his Egg Jörmungandr slowed down, then stopped.

Keeping hold of the snout, Sweetie Void then spun with it until she threw it up in the sky. She and three of her doubles then fired a beam at the same time, and they exploded upon hitting the Egg Jörmungandr, creating a small sun for a few seconds. After that, they saw the dragon dropping for a few seconds before it recovered.

The Egg Jörmungandr then roared, making the world shake as dark clouds appeared and covered it, purple lightning beginning to rain everywhere.

At this moment, Sweetie’s fourth double arrived.

With the Falchion.

Sweetie Void herself had her ten double beam swords ready, surrounding her, glowing black.

The Egg Jörmungandr gathered energy, then fired, and the five Sweetie Voids scattered, the beam hitting the ocean and causing a huge explosion. Having missed, the dragon flew away, followed by the filly.

As they flew at what was probably Mach 20, Sweetie Void moved ahead and began to slice open holes in the fabric of space, the holes firing space beams in the Egg Jörmungandr’s path. The dragon tanked the beams and fired back its own beam at Sweetie Void who flew away, the beam following her. Again, the beam caused huge explosions whenever it hit the surface.

As the Egg Jörmungandr continued to fire its beam, one of Sweetie’s doubles rammed it from the side, sending it out of control right into a wall of spikes of ice made by a second double. The dragon crashing into it caused it to explode. A beam was then fired at its back from a third double. Finally, the fourth double, the one with the Falchion, came and sliced off the first left wing in the blink of an eye.

Roaring, the Egg Jörmungandr created hundreds of beams in the air that it fired in every direction. Sweetie Void and her doubles, however, simply avoided them by teleporting before they began to ram the Egg Jörmungandr again and again and again, Sweetie Void cutting it repeatedly with her beam swords while the double used the Falchion. The dragon quickly found itself missing all its right eyes and its second right wing.

Suddenly, the dragon began to gather energy, again.

A lot of energy.

And it began to fly toward space.

“What? I didn’t order it to do it! And that’s too much energy!......... Oh! It is gaining back control! The pain is turning him berserk! It will destroy this world!” Eggman shouted in panic.

Sweetie Void immediately stopped attacking and gathered her ten cannons, beginning to charge her Ultimate Doom Laser.

The Creation stopped ascending and turned around, facing down the planet.

Then it fired.

Sweetie Void fired.

The two beams clashed high in the atmosphere, blowing away the dark clouds.

The clash didn’t even last one second before Sweetie Void’s beam overpowered the Creation’s. Rapidly, the filly’s beam was gaining ground.

Seeing the beam approaching, Eggman grabbed some kind of device and pressed a series of buttons. The next instant, he disappeared, just a few seconds before the beam reached the Creation.

The dragon quickly put up the most powerful shield it could create.

And it was engulfed by the beam.

With a roar of defiance, the Creation began to fly into the beam. His shield quickly shattered, but it continued.

Sweetie Void stopped the beam only to see the Creation still alive, even if very badly burned, and quickly approaching. Dismissing her ten cannons, she grabbed the Falchion from her double, and then she charged toward the Creation, putting energy into the sword.

The Creation charged energy, then fired again, a less powerful beam.

Sweetie Void pointed the Falchion forward, and the beam hit the tip.

The beam scattered all around Sweetie Void as the filly continued to fly forward into it.

She eventually reached the Creation and flew right into his open mouth. In a flash, she was out the other side.

One by one, each of Sweetie Void’s doubles, the twenty three of them, came, armed with an energy sword, and they each sliced the Creation one after another. All twenty four Sweetie Void then gathered above the falling Creation, and in another flash, the twenty three doubles planted their swords on the dragon. Sweetie Void herself ended it by planting the Falchion right on the Creation’s head, between the eyes.

With one last world-shaking roar, the Creation crashed onto the ground.

Still on the dying dragon, Sweetie Void removed the Falchion.

To her surprise, the Creation chuckled.

“Enjoy your victory, because it is only temporary. One day, I will come back, and then… this world… will…”

The dragon couldn’t say more. It breathed its last.

As the wind blew the last clouds of dust away, Sweetie Void could feel a foul air around the corpse.

Sweetie Void teleported back in the tower. There, to her surprise, she found Marth, alive, sitting on the floor.

Then she saw Elice beside him, beside a depowered staff, and she understood.

The Aum Staff. Elice used it to revive her brother.

The two were hugging when they saw the filly approach.

Tears in her eyes, she said, “It is over. Eggman has escaped, but he has left this world. We won.” She then presented the Falchion. “You still fought at my side. This is as much your victory as mine.”

Marth smiled at her, then silently petted her in thanks before he grabbed the Falchion and got up.

He raised the sword and yelled, “You heard that, everyone? The war is over! Eggman is gone!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!” everyone around screamed in victory. Screamed for the end of this nightmare. Screamed for their well earned freedom.

They saved the world.

Many were crying while screaming.

Chapter 196: Rebuilding a Scarred World

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 197: Attack of the Clones

Crazy Hand stared at his generals. Bowser, Past Ganondorf, Past Eggman, and Mewtwo were standing before him, the Pokémon clutching its stump where its paw had been cut off. Meanwhile, Eggman was sweating.

Even if he didn’t have lungs, Crazy Hand took a big aspiration, then expired.

“Ok. First of all, Eggman. Not a bad performance. Pretty good start. Conquered a whole continent, enslaved its whole population, forced into servitude all the dragons… Not bad at all… Could have done better, like, you know, conquering the whole world. And you lost all the dragons, which would have been fun to send to spread destruction into other worlds. Especially that black one you had at the end.”

“I was winning! They were at my mercy!” Eggman yelled. “But then, they arrived! Especially that filly! And that pesky hedgehog! Why?! Why were they there?!”

“That’s a good question. We will search for the answer right away. Anyway, I give you a four out of ten. Now… Mewtwo…”

Mewtwo glared at Crazy Hand without a word. The hand approached it and touched it on the forehead. The next instant, the Pokémon found itself paralyzed by intense pain, dropping on the ground.

“Absolute failure. The best you did is some property damage and blowing up an island that nobody will miss. You could have at least blown up Windfall Island even if they had all escaped. See how happy they would have been with no home to return to, but no. You failed to do any lasting damage that would have mattered, you failed to get the Triforce, and you even got yourself crippled. FAILURE! Now, go get yourself a prosthetic from Eggman. I don’t care that he is human, DO IT!”

Mewtwo shakily got up, then silently nodded.

“Eggman, I have a desert world with lots of resources for you to rebuild your army rapidly. I want it ready by the time this Alliance has their little military expo.”

“You want me to attack them directly?” Eggman guessed.

“Yes. I don’t know how they know which worlds I’m sending you, but they are starting to get me angry. It’s time to give them a little visit. It’s our turn to be the party poopers and make them understand that they should stop messing with me.”

Eggman grinned. “With pleasure.”

Sweetie Void, as a mare, sighed, moving her empty glass toward Phantom who immediately filled it with some strong alcohol thanks to her Phantom powers. Around them were all the other CMC, and they were inside the alicorn’s universe’s clubhouse.

“War sucks,” Sweetie Void said.

“We know,” the CMC from Phantom’s universe replied.

“I knew wars sucked. This isn’t the first war I have gone through, and I always felt sad that so many people died each time, but…”

“This is the first war where you lose people you became close to, with whom you spent time,” Phantom said. “And an actual friend with Ratzo. Clearly an eye-opener.”

Sweetie Void nodded. “And the worst past is that it was ‘just’ Past Eggman. The Subspace Army will be much worse. We WILL lose friends. But now, I fear how much we will lose… What will be the price of doing the right thing?”

“Costly… Very costly…” Apple Death said. “And contrary ta mah universe, Ah doubt we’ll be lucky enough ta have our friends remain as ghosts, at the very least. Just, remember, as long as Ah’m here, nobody’ll be really gone.” She suddenly became thoughtful. “Uh, actually, Ah wonder if Ratzo went ta the Pokémon World’s afterlife, or ta that universe’s afterlife. Ah may have ta give a look and see if Ah can… transport his soul from one universe ta another. Wow, mah work as the Spirit of Death just became much heavier if this is the case.”

Tears appeared in Sweetie Void’s eyes. “Take good care of him, please.”

Apple Death put a hoof on the alicorn’s foreleg reassuringly. “Ah will.”

“So…” Sweetie Ghoul then began after a few seconds. “That makes four villains working for Crazy Hand?”

Sweetie Void finished the alcohol and threw her glass before she turned back into a filly.

“That’s right. Bowser, Past Ganondorf, Past Eggman, and Giovanni’s Mewtwo. Bowser has his giga form, Past Eggman includes Crazy’s energy into his machines, and Mewtwo can take its XY form by itself. We still haven’t seen Ganondorf, but I’m ready to bet that Crazy will be able to give to him his Ganon form without needing the Triforce of Power. Hopefully, he won’t have his annoying near invincibility.”

“If Crazy could grant invincibility, he would have done it to his minions by now,” Phantom said. “I don’t think that we have to worry about that, as long as they don’t get their hands on a Triforce of Power or some similar artefact, but I have no doubt that DD will send us to the right universe to ensure that-”

She was interrupted by Sweetie Void receiving a call.

“Sorry,” the alicorn said before she answered the call. “Yes? Dedede? Uh? A surprise? Alright, I’m coming.”

She ended the call.

“So, Dedede apparently has a surprise for me and the Alliance and asked me to come. Wanna see what it is?”

“What do you think it is?” Shadow Speedster asked.

“Something tells me that it has something to do with him studying Kirby’s Abilities. I swear, if he somehow managed to make a perfect robotic copy of Kirby capable of using all his Abilities…”

“Eh. Having our own metal copy of a hero would be nice,” Phantom said.

“Especially one as powerful as Kirby,” Phantom Bloom said. “Metal Sonic’d stand no chance.”

Sweetie Void opened a rift. “Let’s not wait any longer. Dedede told me to find him at his castle’s Throne Room, so we can go there right away.”

One by one, the fillies went through the rift, arriving in Dedede’s Throne Room, before the king himself.

Beside his throne was some kind of barrel-shaped machine in Dedede’s colors. It had wheels, a chimney, a crank, and a triangle-shaped door in the middle.

Dedede looked absolutely proud of himself.

He wasn’t the only one present in the room. There were several members of his army, including Bandana Dee and Cape Knight. Also present were Kirby and his family, as well as Meta Knight. There were even some robots from Shiver Star.

“Good! Everyone is here!” Dedede exclaimed once the rift closed. “So it’s time for me to reveal my latest invention which will win the war against the Subspace Army!”

“That machine over there?” Scootabot asked, pointing at the machine beside the throne.

“Exactly! Behold! The last few weeks, I have been constantly studying Kirby and his Abilities, every minute details about them, and this is the result! I won’t say the name yet, I will let you discover what it is!” He looked at Bandana Dee. “Bandana! Crank it! I want a classic Sword!”

Bandana saluted. “Yes, my king!”

The Waddle Dee then ran to the crank and turned it as fast as he could. As soon as he began, the machine started to glow in multicolor. After a few seconds, the triangle door opened, and in a puff of stars, out came…

A blue Kirby with the Sword Ability.

Everyone’s jaws dropped. Yes, they could see that behind Meta Knight and Galacta Knight’s masks.

“Is… Is that a Kirby cloning machine…?” Sweetie Void eventually asked, not believing it.

“Hehehehehehe! I call it the Kirby Printer! Crank it up, and out of it comes a clone of Kirby with the Ability you want! Hammer?” Bandana cranked the machine, and out of it came a yellow Hammer Kirby. “Bomb?” Same, and out came a green Bomb Kirby. “Crash?” Again, with a red Crash Kirby. “Or even Ghost?” Yet another Kirby, a Ghost one, came out. The Ghost Ability made Kirby white, so it was impossible to tell what was this Kirby’s real color. “Ask it, you have it! The only downside is that they can’t shift Abilities contrary to the real Kirby, and they can’t use the Super Abilities. Also, they disappear if they are badly damaged. But good luck landing a hit on them! They are as strong as the original! Want proof?” He pointed at Meta Knight. “How about you fight the Sword Kirby and see for yourself?”

Meta Knight stared at the Kirby clones, then at Dedede, and nodded. “Very well.”

Dedede smirked. “Alright everyone! Make space!”

Everyone moved away from the center of the room. To give even more space, Phantom used her powers to make the room bigger. Then, Sweetie Void made a shield surrounding the arena, protecting the spectators from any stray projectiles.

Meta Knight and the Sword Kirby both prepared themselves.

Then, they both sprinted toward each other and clashed in the center of the room.

What followed was an exchange that not many in the room were able to follow. Both Meta Knight and Sword Kirby’s swords broke the sound barrier with each swing, causing countless small shockwaves as they attacked, parried, and counterattacked.

Meta Knight eventually flew away and planted his sword, sending tornadoes toward Sword Kirby, but the puffball easily dodged them by rolling left and right, sending sword beams between two rolls. Meta Knight then flew up before Sword Kirby could get too close and continuously sent waves, forcing Sword Kirby to run. After several seconds of that, Meta Knight stopped and charged toward Sword Kirby. At the last moment, he flew around the puffball, dodging his swing and attacking him in his blind spot.

“Woo! Yeah! You go, Meta Knight!” Shadow Speedster shouted. “He is so awesome!” She saw some of the other fillies looking at her knowingly, and she blushed. “Of course, not as awesome as Rainbow Dash.”

“Still, it’s really impressive ta see him fight right before us,” Black Apple said.

“It’s the first time many of us are seeing him fight,” Phantom Belle said before she looked at her undead counterpart. “Am I right?”

Sweetie Ghoul nodded.

Sweetie Void grinned. “Once upon a time, he was known as the most powerful warrior of Popstar. He always trains hard, and he constantly seeks new challenges to improve himself. He is so fast that untrained eyes can’t follow him. And he is very chivalrous, never doing any dirty moves. You can count on him to give a spectacular fight. Although…” She looked around. “There is nothing for him to use his telekinesis.”

Suddenly, Sword Kirby was able to disarm Meta Knight, stunning him. This allowed the puffball to slash him several times before he recovered and took out a more normal-looking sword.

And then, the Galaxia began to levitate, to everyone’s surprise, except Sweetie Void, Void, and Galacta Knight.

Sweetie Void smirked. “Ah. I wondered when he would learn to do that.”

Sword Kirby found himself having to defend against two swords at the same time, which revealed to be very difficult even for him. Meta Knight first attacked with the floating Galaxia, then used the opening as Sword Kirby parried to attack him with his normal sword. Sword Kirby was hit almost every time.

Sword Kirby eventually learned, parrying the first sword, then dodging the second sword, but then, Meta Knight flew up and sent waves while distracting Sword Kirby with the Galaxia. The poor puffball didn’t know what to do, running away from the waves, or parrying the floating sword. Again, Sword Kirby learned, dodging both the waves and the sword, but Meta Knight clearly wasn’t finished.

He revealed a third sword.

Now, Sword Kirby was always on the defensive, and it was only a matter of time before the fight ended. To end the fight, Meta Knight did his signature move. As Sword Kirby was dodging and parrying the two floating swords, Meta Knight swooped without warning and caught the puffball, sending him in the air. Meta Knight then repeatedly pierced Sword Kirby with his three swords. Mid-move, Meta Knight changed sword, exchanging his normal sword for the Galaxia. Then, he slammed Sword Kirby with a first sword, sending him slamming into the ground only to bounce into the air where the second sword was ready to do it again.

Meta Knight himself, with the Galaxia, then prepared himself to do it a third time. However, he was accumulating energy into his sword at the same time. So, when he smashed Sword Kirby, he created a large tornado that sent him flying and crashing into the ceiling.

Meta Knight landed and did some circles with the Galaxia while his normal swords floated at his left and right. Then, behind him, Sword Kirby crashed into the ground and exploded.

Silence followed.

Then Kirby applauded, followed by Sweetie Void, then by more and more people in the room. Sweetie Void removed the shield, and Phantom returned the room to normal.

Meta Knight huffed. “This Kirby wasn’t as strong as the original. Kirby would have known what to do against three swords, even with just the Sword Ability.”

Dedede sighed. “Alright, I admit, the clones’ strength is proportional to how fast the Printer is cranked.”

Bandana Dee bowed. “Sorry, my king, I did my best.”

Dedede waved at him dismissively. “I will just see if a Bonkers will work best.”

Void then advanced toward the Hammer Kirby and admired him. “I see,” he said after a few seconds. “They are constructs of Dream Matter. Not really alive, but enough to have some independence. Impressive.” He laughed. “Magolor and Susie will be green.”

Dedede grinned. “And you haven’t seen the best part yet. Bandana?”

Bandana saluted and cranked the Kirby Printer again. It took much longer however. Out of the Printer then came an orange Kirby with none other than the Morpho Sword. By the end, Bandana was breathing heavily.

Everyone gawked again.

Dedede was so smug…

“The Printer also does Kirbs with evolved Abilities. Everything that came out of Kirby’s imagination and that he allowed me to study is in there. And let me tell you, that puffball has a LOT of imagination. Hehehehe! Now, I have the most powerful army ever! Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!”

Sweetie Void flew to him, poking him on the side. “Well, look who found a way to beat almost everyone without moving from his throne. Just find a way to automatise the production of Kirbs, and you will be settled for life.”

“Eh, the problem is that if the cranking is done by some mindless machine, then the Kirb coming out will be random. Almost all of Kirby’s Abilities are good, but let’s admit, we would much prefer to have an army mostly made of Morpho Sword Kirbs.”

“Don’t forget that diversity is also good. Ninja and Ghost Kirbys will be very good for infiltration, for example.”

Dedede raised an eyebrow. “When will we need to infiltrate something?”

“You never know. Also, a machine would be very good to crank the Printer very rapidly and produce the most powerful Kirbys possible.”

“True.”

“Any other secret the Printer has?”

“Not the Printer itself, but I do have a trump card related to it, but I will keep it warm for when it will be needed.”

“However…” Void suddenly began, sounding serious. “the Kirby Printer has one serious weakness. As I stated, it needs Dream Matter to create the clones. Without Dream Matter, it won’t work. So outside of the Dream Universe, it will be useless. We won’t be able to bring it with us to the battlefield to produce Kirbys directly there.”

“Yeah, we have to wait for the egg to do his job and produce these Matter Generators he has been talking our ears off for months now. Unless we bring the Printer into the Lor Starcutter,” Dedede said.

“Lorry would have to remain landed so the Kirbys wouldn’t have to jump off from hundreds of meters in the sky, but it means that she wouldn’t be able to help us in the frontline,” Sweetie Void countered.

“She is very powerful. She will be needed in this war,” Meta Knight said.

“So I guess that the Printer will remain here for now,” Dedede said with a shrug.

“You should actually find a secret location to store it, so it won’t be destroyed if the castle is destroyed,” Galacta Knight said.

Black Apple nodded. “It happened in the past, it can happen again.”

“It will need to be somewhere not obvious like my castle in Floralia or Meta Knight’s HQ,” Sweetie Void said.

“Building a secret lair shouldn’t be a problem,” Dedede said. “It will need a portal so the Kirbs can jump from there to anywhere in the known Omniverse. I will talk with the egg about it.”

“And rub in that you made such an awesome invention?”

“Of course! Ahahah!”

“Well, since it seems that we are done here…” Sweetie Void looked toward where she spotted Broom Sunglasses in the crowd of Dedede’s minions in the room.

A bell with eyes materialized beside her.

“Time to have some fun, meow.”

Dedede paled.

That day, Dedede and every member of his army present in the Throne Room almost died.

Broom Sunglasses spent the next few days in a coma.

The Fatal Cutie struck again.

Sweetie Void, Phantom, and Apple Death were in Sweetie Void’s Canterlot Castle’s Throne Room, facing the three Celestias who were standing side by side. Thankfully, the Celestias had the colored bandanas with the same colors used previously. Red for Sweetie Void’s universe, yellow for Apple Death’s, and blue for Phantom’s. Respectively Solis, Boreas, and Phantom Celestia. Also present were the three Twilight Sparkles.

Solis, in the center, advanced.

“My fellow Celestias and I have discussed for a while and came to the conclusion that we should tell you about a legendary location of our world.”

“Where you will find very powerful potential allies,” Boreas continued.

“But that will be very difficult to convince to come to our help,” Phantom Celestia finished.

Now, the three fillies and Twilights were interested.

“What is it?” Sweetie Void asked excitedly.

A dramatic silence followed, making Sweetie Void roll her eyes in her mind.

Eventually, Solis answered: “Our birthplace, Skyros.”

Chapter 198: Skyros

“I can’t believe it! A land of alicorns!” Dream Warper exclaimed as she, Sweetie Void, and Solis flew away from Canterlot. “Why isn’t there anything written about it?”

“The alicorns are isolationists,” Solis explained. “They wouldn’t like having ponies coming to them to worship them, so I’m keeping any record of them close to me. They rejoice in their daily routine away from the problems of the world. Their queen, Cosmo, only intervenes when absolutely necessary. This is why it will be difficult to convince them to help.”

“Being invaded by a dimensional army and potentially sacrificed as a battery for their leader risks not being enough to convince them?” Sweetie Void asked.

“Truthfully, this war is a bit our fault. The Subspace Army wouldn’t be targeting us if we didn’t personally make it an objective to stop them. Once we explain everything, Queen Cosmo may think that this is not our problem and try to convince us to stop this foolishness, getting us out of this war. She only has the good of our world in mind, nothing else.”

“Uh, this may complicate things, yes,” Dream Warper said.

“I’m sure we will find a way,” Sweetie Void reassured. “How many alicorns are they, by the way?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been there in a while,” Solis answered. “However, the birth rate among the alicorns is extremely low, so I doubt that more than a few alicorns have been born since I left. So they are probably a bit over two hundred now.”

Sweetie Void whistled. “This may not be a lot, but considering how powerful a single alicorn is, two hundred is still very good. And if Phantom and Apple Death manage to convince them in their universes too, the number will climb to over six hundred.”

“Remember that not all alicorns are of equal power. Most only have dominion over a single element while others are best with just an emotion. Barely any of them know how to fight, barely being better than Cadance.”

“Elemental specialists would still be very useful. The emotional ones at least have raw magic. Are there other alicorns specializing in celestial bodies like you and Luna?”

“Yes, the planets. Like Jotunn who controls the far away icy planet of the same name, giving to her mighty powers over the ice.”

“One per planet?” Dream Warper asked.

“Yes.”

“So, eight in total?”

“Actually, you forget our own planet, Equus, which is overseen by two alicorns: Gaia, the ground, and Ouranos, the sky. They are my parents.”

Dream Warper became silent, gawping. “You… You mean we will see your parents?!”

“Certainly.”

“Oh-oh my gosh! The princesses’ own parents! I can’t believe it!”

“Only now you freak out? Not at the idea that we are gonna see the queen of the alicorns? A being certainly far superior to Celestia to whom we should show absolute respect?”

Before Dream Warper could freak out even more, Solis chuckled. “Actually, in the alicorn society, you both deserve as much respect as her. Your domains are pretty much equal.”

Dream Warper gawked again. “What?”

“In Skyros, there is a hierarchy. Elemental alicorns are at the bottom. Emotional ones are the equivalent of high class citizens. The ones who control celestial bodies are nobility. And then, there is Queen Cosmo, royalty, who has dominion over a primordial concept, like you two. Where you two are Magic and Void, she is the Cosmos.”

“I could have guessed it,” Sweetie Void deadpanned.

“You… You mean that in Skyros, I would be a queen?” Dream Warper asked.

“Yes,” Solis answered.

Dream Warper seemed lost after that.

“What can you tell us about Queen Cosmo?” Sweetie Void asked.

“She is as old as the universe, and she created everything as we know; Equus, the planets, the sun, the moon, the stars, and so on. Her dominion over the Cosmos allows her to connect with the universe itself, allowing her to see everything that the universe was, is, and will be. She thus made it her role to ensure that everything would go as planned or to stop something that would destroy the world, and ONLY if it threatens the world and there is nothing planned to stop it. This is why she let us deal with Tirek, she knew that we would prevail.”

Sweetie Void snorted. “Then comes DD, ruining everything.”

“You becoming the Alicorn of the Void certainly wasn’t planned. It will be quite the shock for her. Also, because of DD’s influence, she probably can’t see the past and the future anymore.”

“So she has no way to know how this will go with the Subspace Army, Galeem, and Dharkon,” Dream Warper said.

“With all the new universes coming, it would be impossible to predict anyway. There are constantly new variables,” Sweetie Void said. “And Queen Cosmo could only see what would happen in our universe. This war is beyond even her.”

“Which is why she may think that it would be best to give up. While she may want to stop them as much as us, she will see how risking it will be, and for the better of Equus, she may try to avoid the bloodshed. Worst case scenario, she will join the ones who want us to join the Subspace Army,” Solis said.

“Well, she will find a terrible opponent with me. I refuse to take the risk of sacrificing countless innocents for a plan that may or may not work. If she doesn’t want to join us, then alright, but if she wants to make us join the Subspace Army, then she will find out the hard way that she isn’t alone in taking decisions for this world anymore.”

At that, Sweetie Void took her phone and sent a message to Apple Death and Phantom.

Sweetie Void:
Be ready to have a serious debate with the Alicorn Queen.

Phantom:
I know, Celestia just warned me.

Apple Death:
Me too. I think that I already know what I will tell her to convince her. Good luck girls.

Sweetie Void:
Good luck.

Phantom:
Good luck.

After a long journey, above the ocean, the three alicorns reached islands floating in the air. The islands were of various sizes, at various heights. Some had rainbow-colored rivers and lakes, with waterfalls disappearing into the ocean below, others had forests, or mountains. Rainbows weren’t rare to see.

All of it was extremely breathtaking.

“It’s beautiful,” Dream Warper said.

“Yeah. I know that everything is possible with magic, but I still never expected to see floating islands on Equus,” Sweetie Void said.

“It’s a very unique landscape even in our world,” Solis said. “Queen Cosmo made it this way to keep the alicorns isolated. The islands are also constantly moving above the ocean, so even if you manage to find them once by luck, if you don’t know better, you won’t find them again.”

Before long, they were starting to see houses on the islands. Small hamlets of four or five houses. Very simple ones made of wood and stone. They also saw a farm or two. They then saw their first alicorns, flying between the islands or doing some activity, like painting or sculpting or sharing a meal.

The islands were very well decorated now that they paid more attention. Gardens not unlike in Canterlot, with lots of flowers and columns of marble and sculptures and fountains.

As Sweetie Void and Dream Warper looked around in awe, the three were quickly spotted by some of the alicorns, some of which immediately approached them.

“Is that you, Celestia?” a brown male alicorn, an Alicorn of Water judging by the Cutie Mark, asked once he was close enough.

Before Solis could answer, another exclaimed, “It is her! Celestia, you are back!”

“Hey! Everypony! Celestia is back!”

“Oh! Look at you! All grown up!”

“Welcome back, Celestia!”

“I LOVE your mane!”

“How is Luna?”

“Oh! You have two more alicorns with you! Where do they come from? I don’t remember seeing them before.”

Celestia chuckled. “Everypony, calm down, please. I’m happy to be back and to see all of you again. Let me presen-”

She was suddenly interrupted by a cold voice. “Well well well… Look who's back around town…”

The voice revealed to be an alicorn with a deep purple coat and white mane with sky blue highlights. Her blue eyes looked at Solis with disdain.

“So, trouble in Paradise oh chosen one? Why would you leave your cushy life of being worshipped by mortals if not?” she said with venom in her voice.

Dream Warper and Sweetie Void looked at Solis and were surprised to see her actually stay silent and shrinking back, looking uncomfortable.

She looked at the other alicorn, but before she could say something, another alicorn spoke.

“C'mon Opaline, that’s mean. Why the cold shoulder?” a male alicorn with a bright yellow coat and spiky blue mane said. By his Cutie Mark, Sweetie Void deduced he was an electric alicorn. “You guys and Luna were like, the only foals to be born since forever ago back then. We're quite close too, so why don’t you chill?”

That seemed to end Opaline's patience. With one last resentful look at Solis, she turned around and flew off.

The alicorn shook his head in an unconcerned way. ”Eh, she will bounce back. Little Opal always was kind of a grumpy foal.” He turned to look at the group. “Good to see you again Celestia, and you newcomers, welcome to Skyros! Name's Storm Chaser,” the alicorn presented himself.

Solis smiled at him. “I’m glad to see you again, Storm Chaser. Let me present to you Twilight Sparkle and Sweetie Belle. They are unicorns who ascended into alicornhood.”

The alicorns began to talk excitedly at that.

“Oh! So it is possible to ascend!” Storm Chaser exclaimed. “It was pretty much a legend here in Skyros. What are you two the alicorn of? It’s difficult to say with your Cutie Marks.”

Sweetie Void grinned. Dream Warper hesitated. The filly hit her on the rib. “Go on!”

Dream Warper glared at Sweetie Void, then took a breath and said, “Magic.”

The alicorns all gasped at that.

Sweetie Void’s grin grew. “Void.”

Silence followed. You could hear a grasshopper chirp.

Storm Chaser laughed. “Eh, good one! I almost fell for it!”

“They aren’t joking,” Solis said. “I can confirm what they said. They are respectively the Alicorn of Magic and the Alicorn of the Void. The six-branched star in Twilight’s Cutie Mark is magic’s symbol. Ask around and you should get confirmation. Sweetie Belle’s black blotch represents the void.”

At once, Storm Chaser's layback attitude was gone and he looked at Solis with a serious look in his stormy blue eyes.

“Celestia… If what you… What they say is right, you know what that-”

“I know Storm Chaser. I know.”

Storm Chaser looked at her, then at Sweetie Void and Dream Warper.

Just like that, his previous attitude came back as if it never was gone.

“Weeell that sure was a surprise! No problem I suppose. I think you three are gonna need to talk some things out with the queen tho… But why don't I show you around Skyros before that? Celestia here hasn't been around since she was a foal and I'm sure you two would appreciate a look around before diving into business. So whaddya say eh?”

Both Sweetie Void and Dream Warper looked at Celestia who nodded. “Very well. We can take some time.”

“Great! Well then, follow me!”

At that, they began to fly around, following Storm Chaser and leaving behind the other alicorns who started to spread the unbelievable words.

They flew toward the largest island which seemed to be the main inhabited island.

“What has Celestia told you about Skyros?” Storm Chaser asked.

“The hierarchy of the alicorns,” Sweetie Void answered.

“Good start. Alright, so, at the bottom are Elemental Alicorns like me. Ten different elements in total: fire, water, wind, earth, ice, lightning, metal, wood, light, and darkness. There can be more minor elements such as sand or magma, but these ten elements are the ones that come most often. And so, there are ten districts for us, more or less big. Without surprise, the four main elements, Ignis, Aqua, Geos, and Aero, are bigger. Cryo, Fulgur, Ferrous, and Silva are much smaller. Lumen and Umbral are the smallest ones.”

One by one, Storm Chaser showed the districts. They looked identical except for details like the heavier presence of chimneys in the Ignis District, more fountains in the Aqua District, more statues in the Geos District, and so on. The Ferrous District was also loud with the sound of smithing.

“As you can hear, the Metal Alicorns are our smithies. Wood Alicorns are generally the ones who build our houses and other buildings. Wind Alicorns blow wind into the mills, Earth Alicorns are the farmers, Water Alicorns make sure that we are never thirsty, Fire Alicorns warm us up during Winter, Ice Alicorns cool us down during Summer…” He chuckled. “Also, their elements can show up in their personalities. Fire and Electric Alicorns can be very hot headed while Ice Alicorns tend to be cool. And the Darkness Alicorns, eh… They are so edgy that it’s funny.”

Storm Chaser then pointed at a neighbouring island that had more houses, surrounded by beautiful gardens beside a large lake at the foot of a mountain with snow at the top. The houses were bigger.

“There is an eleventh district for the Emotional Alicorns on this island, Motus. All emotions are welcome there. Joy, sadness, anger…”

“Anger? Wouldn’t they be… problematic?” Sweetie Void asked.

“You would expect that, and they know that, so they keep a leash on their emotions and try to remain calm. However, if you anger them, run. It makes them very good fighters. Thankfully, the Joy Alicorns are very helpful in keeping them from exploding. Such happy-go-lucky fellows, it’s impossible to get angry at them.”

“Eh. Pinkie Pie would love them, I’m sure.”

“It isn’t without problem with all these emotions clashing. Fear, jealousy, anxiety, disgust… But we do what we can to avoid things from going too badly. Thankfully, there isn’t a Hate Alicorn… yet.”

“Excuse me,” Dream Warper suddenly said, raising a hoof. “Where does this liquid rainbow come from? I have been wondering that since we reached this place.”

“Oh, easy. It just magically appears. You can thank Queen Cosmo for that.”

“I heard rainbows taste spicy,” Sweetie Void said.

Storm Chaser laughed. “Not this rainbow. It’s just rainbow-colored water. It tastes like different fruit juices depending on the color.”

“What is it about all these decorations?” Dream Warper asked.

“They are just a way to pass time. We constantly build and destroy and rebuild. We have various activities, like music, or fighting.”

“Fighting?!”

“Just for fun. Nothing bad. Besides, if anypony is hurt, there are many healers on these islands. The Light Alicorns are especially good at it, as well as the Water and Wood Alicorns. Joy Alicorns are also good at healing, but they are more mind healers.”

“I see…”

“We also do contests of all kinds. Anything we can think of, it generally ends up being a contest, like flying, running, swimming, fighting, sculpting, eating, drinking, playing music, and so on. I remember Celestia winning a cake-eating contest,” Storm Chaser finished with a shit-eating grin at Solis who blushed.

Sweetie Void laughed. “I’m not surprised!”

Even Dream Warper couldn’t stop a giggle that she tried to hide.

“What about the Celestial Alicorns?” she changed the subject.

“They are over there, behind this mountain.”

Storm Chaser flew toward the mountain beside the Motus District, and the visitors followed him. They flew around the mountain, eventually seeing a group of islands that were very different.

There was an island that was one giant farm with a small jungle and a small volcano, and it was quite windy there. Another island was covered in ice while another had volcanoes, and another was very stormy with winds going at hundreds of kilometers per hour. Another was just a floating rock with nothing on it, and another was a desert.

There were probably more islands, but they couldn’t be seen. However, in the center was a large island with a beautiful castle not unlike the one in Canterlot. The castle even had a waterfall and a giant tree coming out of one of its towers. Another tower was like a prism reflecting the sun into rainbows.

Storm Chaser pointed at the islands surrounding the one with the castle.

“These are the home islands of the Celestial Alicorns. Each island represents the planet they have dominion over.”

“I think that I recognize all of them!” Dream Warper exclaimed before she pointed at the islands one by one. “This one must be Equus. So, here we have Jotunn, Pyros, Stratos, Lythos, and Mars. The remaining planets, Hydros, Diamond, and Neptune are certainly behind the island with the castle.”

“You got all of them right!” Storm Chaser congratulated.

“And I conclude that the island with the castle is Queen Cosmo’s,” Sweetie Void said.

“Exact!”

Solis looked at the island representing Equus with a smile. “This island is my childhood home. This is where my parents like. Mostly my mother, but my father comes there regularly. Yes Twilight, I grew up on a farm. Mother is actually the best farmer of Skyros. Her products are the absolute top quality you can find in this world.”

Sweetie Void giggled. “Of course. She is the planet, including all the plants growing on it. She is pretty much the incarnation of Mother Nature.”

Solis laughed. “That’s right.”

“Want to go visit them now?” Storm Chaser asked.

Solis shook her head. “After our talk with Queen Cosmo.”

“Very Well. I can confirm that she is in her castle. However, I have no idea where exactly in the castle she is. Try the Throne Room first. It’s where we generally find her, but we also often find her in the Rainbow Tower, or in the Tree Tower.”

“Thank you Storm Chaser. We will see you again soon.”

“Goodbye, thank you for the tour,” Dream Catcher said.

“Bye!” Sweetie Void said with a wave.

The three then flew toward the castle. They easily entered it, but now, they had to find the Throne Room, and the castle was empty of servants and guards. Thankfully, Solis knew the way.

The inside of the castle was huge and full of decorations, statues, including ones of what seemed to be Cosmo herself, and tapestries of various things.

Eventually, they reached the giant doors to the Throne Room with, on them, the picture of a sparkling galaxy.

Solis opened them.

And there, sitting on a large throne at the top of stairs, in front of a banner with that same sparkling galaxy, was Cosmo herself.

She was an alicorn as black as space, with an ethereal mane and tail that were like the cosmos itself, full of stars and nebulae and Sweetie could swear she even saw a shooting star. Her eyes were also sparkling like the stars, and her Cutie Mark was exactly like the picture on the doors and banner. She was also very tall, easily double the size of Solis.

The three advanced into the room, Solis at the lead.

Once they were in front of the stairs, Solis bowed down not unlike ponies did to her, Sweetie Void and Dream Warper following suit.

Once she got up, Solis spoke. ”Queen Cosmo, we've come to share with you news of vital importance not only to Equestria but all of Equus, and even more.”

Cosmo just looked at Celestia, then everyone heard an ethereal voice directly speak into their mind.

Long have I anticipated so, young sun. The constant fluctuations into the fabric of reality alerted me there was a frequent traveling between dimensions.

As she said this, her actual mouth didn’t actually move. She then got up and started descending from her throne. And with each step she got closer, both Sweetie Void and Dream Warper could see more and more of her sheer size.

And while I remain thankful to the cosmos nothing dangerous has come out of it, I remain concerned for one single detail…

Finally, Cosmo came down and stood just in front of the trio who had to step back and crank their necks in the case of Dream Warper and Sweetie Void to look at her properly.

Cosmo looked at them. First at Dream Warper at one side, then at Solis in the middle, and finally at Sweetie Void.

And her gaze stood there.

Slowly, Cosmo crouched down and lowered her neck almost unnaturally so she and Sweetie Void were looking face to face.

If she were any other filly, she would have likely fainted at this point. Even ignoring all that Cosmo was, she was still a giant of a mare that towered even Celestia. Her head alone was nearly the size of her entire body!

Sweetie Void just stared back, an innocent smile on her snout.

Finally, after what appeared to be several tense minutes for Dream Warper and Solis, Cosmo stood up and stepped back with her eyes still on Sweetie Void. Her gaze narrowed ever so slightly.

...Foreign. That which you carry is the reason why the curtains of time have been closed to me.

Sweetie Void rubbed the back of her head. ”Yeah, sorry. Not much I can do about it. It was not on purpose and if I ever knew how to, I would like to revert it, for what it's worth.”

Cosmo didn’t say anything for a bit, then her gaze softened back to normal. ...I know, Sweetie Belle. You never are that kind of pony.

Sweetie Void's eyes widened slightly before something clicked and she relaxed. ”Oh, right. You… used to know the future.”

I know the fate of all that lives in Equus, and am the sole protector of it… Or at least, that’s how it was meant to be. You have neither the fate you were supposed to have nor other acceptable variables… Instead when I gaze into you all I feel… is an emptiness not unlike that that stretches beyond the universe, Cosmo said.

“Now, I believe you have come to say something before me. Does this ties with the fluctuations in reality or where you got such a… troublesome influence haunting you?”

Sweetie Void nodded. ”Yes. It’s a bit of a long story, but basically…”

And so, Sweetie Void, alongside Dream Warper and Solis, explained to Cosmo all about DD, about the two Gods of Light and Darkness, and how Sweetie came to be the Alicorn of Void.

“So yeah uhh, Dream Warper and I here wanted to know if there wasn’t going to be any… problems?” Sweetie Void was saying when she noticed Cosmo’s face.

She was frowning. It was a rather small frown admittedly but still noticeable at a first glance. She looked to the side, and saw that Solis seemed to be silently panicking while Dream Warper was openly worried.

“Uhh… Queen Cosmo? Is everything alright?” Sweetie Void braved.

still frowning, Cosmo looked to the side and spoke into their minds again. Nothing to worry about, vessel of emptiness. It has just been a long, long while since the last time I've been left deep in thought… Cosmo said.

She turned back to them.

‘Devourer’... Such a terrifying concept, yet one I can still picture in my mind. I can only hope we manage to somehow prevent such danger to claim our universe in the future.

Solis nodded. ”We will do everything we can, Queen Cosmo.”

Cosmo continued. And while unexpected, I can’t say I'm displeased all that much with your current path, Sweetie Belle.

“Umm, actually I go by Sweetie Void now to not confuse me with the other two Sweetie Belles. Actually… We may need to come up with names for you too Queen Cosmo!”

Cosmo hummed. We may. We may not. You should know, there exist an infinite amount of universes out there. In some, I am bound to not even exist, or at least not as I am now. I can only pity all those Equus left without a guardian…

Sweetie Void thought a bit about that. True, Solis said that was what she did. For a moment she wondered just how many times Cosmo possibly saved her own Equestria from doomed timelines. How many of those happened before that fateful day she walked in on one of Twilight’s experiments with magic.

What could she have ended up being…?

Deciding that was a line of thought she would very much rather NOT dive into, she said, ”Well before we arrived at Skyros we got confirmation that in the other two Equestrias you do exist, so yes, we will need the nicknames.”

Cosmo looked at her, then nodded. ”Very well. That leaves the last thing you came here to say which is…”

“About the Subspace Army, and about the Gods of Light and Darkness,” Sweetie Void said and looked at Cosmo, who looked back.

“Queen Cosmo, the Alicorns would be a great addition to the Alliance. YOU alone would already help us greatly! They dwarf the average pony in all categories, and with control over elements and emotions to boot? We would really value it if you would fight with us.”

Cosmo looked at Sweetie Void for long, agonizing moments. She looked to the side, and Sweetie Void looked up close.

It was actually a bit fascinating to look at. Cosmo was about the most ancient being in her universe and she could see how a million thoughts and ideas just came and went per second through her eyes.

“...Prove it.”

It was small, barely audible.

But for a moment, Sweetie Void could have sworn she actually just heard Cosmo speak with her actual voice.

Prove it, then. She didn’t have time to think much about it though as Cosmo immediately went back to speak directly to everyone's mind. You say you have felled mighty deities, right? I myself am aware of the limitless potential that the primordial element of the void possesses. A power greater than even my own… So, I will give you one chance, only to you: prove yourself to me, and I shall agree to lend you the strength of the alicorns, and mine, Cosmo spoke, her ethereal mental voice speaking with a tone that left it clear she will not renegotiate a different deal.

Sweetie Void stared at Cosmo in the eyes and simply said, “I agree.”

Cosmo nodded, then immediately teleported both Sweetie Void and herself somewhere in space, far away from Equus. Cosmo then looked behind Sweetie Void, and her horn lit. The next instant, a yellow star came from behind the filly, flying above the two. Then, the star began to shrink.

Before Sweetie Void’s amazed eyes, in the next few seconds, the star went from the size of a normal yellow dwarf to a planet, then to a moon, then it continued to shrink, smaller, and smaller, and smaller.

Until it was the size of Sweetie Void.

Then, Cosmo solidified space into a club with a chain that she put into the star. Grabbing the club in her magic, she began to do circles with the star.

I’m Cosmo, queen of the alicorns, and I have never known defeat.

Sweetie Void shook her head, then chuckled as her mane and tail turned into pure void and she grabbed her whip. There’s a first time for everything.

Cosmo narrowed her eyes.

Author's Note

The scene with Opaline and the one with Cosmo are written by Justalad.

Chapter 199: Void Versus Cosmos

Author's Note

The three of us worked on this chapter. Enjoy!

Chapter 199: Void Versus Cosmos

Dream Warper and Solis stared at where Sweetie Void and Cosmo had been, then the lavender mare sighed.

“Of course Sweetie ends up fighting Queen Cosmo… Of course…” She then looked at Solis. “While they have their fight, we should do something else.”

Solis agreed with a nod. “Yes. Their battle could last a while.”

“So… Who was this alicorn who talked badly to you? Opaline?”

Solis was silent for a moment, then sighed. “Our mistake, both to me and Luna. You know this by now, we are just ponies, like you, so we made lots of them throughout our life. Opaline… is our first really bad one.”

“How so?”

“When we were fillies, we were close friends. But then, Luna and I got our Cutie Marks. Suddenly, we were worshipped, it got to our heads, and we rejected Opaline.”

Dream Warper gasped.

“We… weren’t really good fillies once we got our Cutie Marks. Starswirl helped us a lot with that once he took us to our destinies. But by then, it was too late to ask for forgiveness from Opaline.”

Dream Warper raised an eyebrow. “What stopped you from returning to Skyros and talking with her?”

“...Guilt, I guess. Shame.”

Dream Warper sighed. “Let’s go then. You have a friend to ask for forgiveness.”

Solis nodded sadly. “I don’t know if she will forgive me after all this time, but I guess that we can at least try.”

At that, the two mares left the Throne Room.

With a mighty swing of her flail, Cosmo sent a volley of starfire at Sweetie Void, who shifted her whip to a staff and twirled it before her, blocking the firebolts. Another swing of the flail was blocked, but even so, Sweetie was sent flying from the force of the blow, the star on the head growing in the moment of impact before shrinking back down. The filly loosened her staff back into its whip form and cracked it against the head of the flail as Cosmo brought it in for another swing, only for a swarm of nearby asteroids to begin crumbling and swarming her. Sweetie Void raised a shield to defend herself from the onslaught of stones, but this only lasted until Cosmo herself punched the shield, shattering it, and sending Sweetie Void flying once more.

It then became clear that Sweetie Void was not going to win in terms of sheer strength and raw power. Luckily, she could tell that each blow was causing the Alicorn Queen to tire, something that the filly didn’t need to worry about.

She just started however, and she could tell she was gonna have to try to completely tire her out.

A quick hummed tune allowed Sweetie Void to charge a blast which she split into multiple beams sending them to swarm Cosmo, only for the beams to miss their target and suddenly turn back towards the filly, much to her shock.

Sweetie Void quickly teleported to avoid the beams only for Cosmo’s morning star to come where she appeared right away. She quickly sent her whip to counter it, her weapon clashing with the star. The two weapons then clashed several more times until Cosmo took Sweetie by surprise by wrapping her chain around the whip before pulling it out of the filly’s grasp, disarming her.

Sweetie Void caught her weapon in her telekinesis and pulled back, trying to get it back, but Cosmo’s magic was much stronger and Sweetie Void was losing ground. But then, she smirked, and the next instant, taking Cosmo by surprise, the whip divided into its ten parts which began to float around before they fired beams at the mare.

Only for the projectiles to be stopped and sent back at the cannons, to Sweetie’s frustration as she made them dodge.

Cosmo then advanced toward Sweetie Void. They were far from each other, so the filly prepared herself. But then, Cosmo brusquely accelerated, looking as if she teleported when she was actually moving very, very, VERY fast. This caught Sweetie Void off guard, resulting in her getting a light speed boosted punch in the face, sending her flying very far away.

But then, Sweetie Void hit what seemed to be solidified space that acted like a trampoline, sending her flying back toward Cosmo who readied her weapon. Sweetie Void curled into a ball and surrounded herself in energy before she crashed into the star, making it explode. She then caught the chain with her hoof and transformed into pure electricity, moving up the chain until reaching the club beside Cosmo where she solidified back into her filly-self and blasted the mare with her horn, sending her away. Surrounding herself with her ten beam swords, she then flew after her.

Cosmo saw her coming. Looking quickly to the side, she saw a Moon. Using her power, she destroyed, then reforged, the Moon into ten swords to match Sweetie Void's, each sword possessing the magical properties of a Moon.

The twenty swords clashed with a force that sent ripples across the nearby space. A look of focused glee contrasted with a stone-faced glare of determination as the very fabric of reality around them seemed to momentarily crack between the blades. Cosmo swiped away Sweetie Void and her blades, clapping her hooves together, then pulling them apart as what seemed to be a white fireball spawned between them. The Alicorn Queen then raised the ball above her in one hoof before it grew.

Into a white dwarf star.

Well, shi-

Language, DD interrupted Sweetie Void’s expletive thoughts.

Cosmo sent the star flying at Sweetie Void, who teleported out of its way just before impact. With another wave of her hoof, Cosmo collapsed the star as Sweetie Void popped out of her teleport, causing a Supernova that Sweetie Void managed to regenerate herself through. As the supernova condensed into a black hole, the Alicorns of the Cosmos and Void stared each other down.

Yours is a will stronger than steel, Cosmo noted through telepathy.

I prefer to call myself, ‘stubborn,’ Sweetie Void replied with a physical chuckle.

Whether willful or stubborn, it is useless if you are unable to fight, the Alicorn Queen said as divine energy wreathed her form. The same energy suddenly started to flow out of the black hole and darted like a swarm of snakes towards Sweetie Void’s limbs, only for the filly to absorb the energy on contact. The sight and feeling of her power being absorbed stunned Cosmo long enough for Sweetie Void to rush her and tackle them both into a nearby planetoid, just beyond the range of the newly formed black hole. The impact of the two combatants crashing into the planetoid nearly shattered it, a dust cloud visible from orbit forming and then clearing as the alicorns returned to swordplay and hoof-to-hoof combat.

Suddenly, Sweetie Void felt as if some of her swords hit a wall while the others became immobile. Then, Sweetie Void felt herself not able to move anymore. The next instant, Cosmo repeatedly punched her in the face, Sweetie’s body not reacting to them, before Cosmo blasted her with a giant beam.

Time then resumed for Sweetie who took everything at the same time, receiving several dozen punches to her face at once while her body burned as she was propelled several hundred meters away. Once she crashed, she quickly shook her head to recover her senses before she got up, her body healing.

Cosmo then repeated what she did, stopping time for the filly to attack her repeatedly. However, Sweetie Void pushed all her will and her power into her body, and with a roar, she broke out of Cosmo’s power before she put energy into her hoof and countered Cosmo’s punch with her own.

The two hooves clashed, creating a huge shockwave that destroyed the planetoid, the nearby black hole, and even the fabric of space and time in the whole area.

Cosmo overpowered Sweetie Void, sending her flying away. Sweetie Void turned herself into a full grown adult and clashed again with Cosmo, this time the two of equal strength. They then began to fly and teleport across the galaxy, repeatedly clashing, each clash creating a shockwave that destroyed everything around.

Cosmo then made several stars and planets and countless meteors orbit her before she threw everything at Sweetie Void.

Sweetie Void slalomed as best she could between the celestial bodies, having to blast a few apart, before managing to catch sight of Cosmo herself and charging an Ultimate Doom Laser. But before Sweetie could fire, Cosmo teleported right in front of her and punched her in the chest.

And suddenly Sweetie Void was looking at her own body from behind it.

Wat?

She was then pierced by a small beam where her heart should be. It didn’t bleed however, but it hurt like Tartarus, and the resulting hole was closing VERY slowly, even with her best healing.

You are now at a disadvantage. Your soul is exposed to me, and as you can see, the damage taken by it is harder to recover from. I suggest you give up.

Sweetie Void looked down at herself, seeing that she was transparent and back to her filly-self, and entirely black, like a filly-shaped hole in reality. Exactly like when she unleashed her Soul, except that she was still herself, so her Soul wasn’t unleashed even if it was out. It felt as if her brain and heart were still part of her.

She then looked back at Cosmo and glared.

I’m not scared of my soul getting hurt, or even being destroyed. I faced death countless times before I even became an alicorn. What you did to me doesn’t scare me.

So be it.

At that, Cosmo levitated Sweetie Void’s body and trapped it inside a sphere of solidified space that she shrunk and put into her mane.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Void divided herself into two dozen doubles. Being a single soul divided into twenty four parts, it could be seen that the doubles were linked together by an ethereal black web of strings coming out of their backs.

I just have to avoid being hit. Easy peasy.

At that, all twenty four Sweetie Voids charged toward Cosmo who threw planets and stars at them.

With the help of some alicorns, Dream Warper and Solis found Opaline’s house, alone on an island.

It really saddened Solis to see what her old friend became because of her.

The two alicorns landed before the door, and after a few seconds, Solis hesitantly knocked on it.

After a long moment, the door opened, revealing Opaline.

Opaline took one look at Solis, frowned, and slammed the door shut.

Solis cringed, and Dream Warper sighed.

“Alright, I guessed it was not gonna be so simple…” Dream Warper said as she knocked on the door.

Opaline opened the door again and looked unimpressed at Dream Warper.

“Do you mind? I'm trying to have peace and quiet here,” Opaline said, annoyed.

“Listen, Miss Opaline. You can call me Dream Warper. I'm So… Celestia's student and Princess of Friendship-”

“Your mortal-hooved titles mean nothing to me. Now please scram,” Opaline said coldly as she was about to slam the door again but Twilight stopped the door with her magic.

“J-just listen! I know both of you have problems, and Celestia made mistakes! All I ask is that you give her one chance, just one!” Dream Warper pleaded to her.

Opaline looked at her for a moment, then at Solis. She then groaned loudly.

“If it gets the both of you to leave me alone… enter. BUT, once you’re done with whatever you wanna say, you go immediately, capisce?” she said as she reluctantly let them in.

Solis and Dream Warper walked into the living room, and looked around.

The walls were deep purple with golden pillars. The ceiling and the floor were a lighter, lavender color. The furniture was all the same purple as the walls with golden designs.

The decoration was minimal save for some flowers, a photo of who Dream Warper presumed must be Opaline's parents and… a stone statue of Opaline Dream Warper had to admit was very well made. She even had a crystal chandelier!

“One moment, I have to go get something from the kitchen… Gonna need it…” she said and, without another word, opened a door and went in, closing it behind her.

Left alone and without anything to do, Dream Warper decided to look at the photo hanging on the wall.

There were three alicorns. The first one she noticed was Opaline herself, much younger and… happier-looking.

Behind her and to her right was a crimson red alicorn mare with lidded, lighter red eyes and a white mane like hers. She had a modest smile.

To her right was a light green alicorn stallion with deep blue eyes and blond mane. His smile was a bit wider.

“So, these must be…” Dream Warper was asking.

“Ruby Arcana and Demethreus, Opaline's parents,” Solis confirmed. ”Good folks, both of them. Their farm happened to be on an island next to ours, and as the only two couples that had foals in Skyros at the time, both our parents became fast friends, and we followed suit.”

“A farm… So Demethreus is an Earth Alicorn?”

“And Ruby is an Anger one. If there was one mare who had us three collectively terrified of getting into too much trouble, it was her.” Solis laughed a little with nostalgia in her voice.

“They were good, simpler times.”

“Well, you didn't seem that fond of said memories last time I saw you,” Opaline’s voice cut through the air, snapping Solis out of her memories.

In her magic was a cup of steaming tea.

Solis sniffed once, then said, ”That aroma… It is-”

“Father's brand of tea. It helped mother whenever she had to deal with unpleasantries. Amazing, you remember even that…” Opaline said, sitting on the couch of the living room, her tea floating beside her.”Well then, go on. Say your piece so you can leave already.”

Solis looked at Dream Warper, who nodded and smiled reassuringly at her.

Taking a deep breath, Solis looked straight at Opaline.

“Opaline… I'm sorry. Really, truly sorry. I know I should have said this too long ago but truly, the way Luna and I treated you after we got our Cutie Marks was neither right nor the way true friends treat each other, and I understand that you felt hurt, used even. And it shames me even more the fact it took the current events that made me return to Skyros to come up and say this to you now, hundreds of years after the fact.

I will understand it if you never forgive me, we don't have to be friends again. I Just…wanted you to know this.”

For a moment, no one said anything. Both Dream Warper and Solis simply stood there looking at Opaline, expecting.

“...Ha. Haha, seriously? That's it?” eventually came Opaline Voice. Instantly, both alicorns could tell something was not right.

“you…think, that after all this… millennium of the both of you being gone,” Opaline began, rising from her couch.

Dream Warper noticed that the temperature of the room was rising.

“That you could just come here… and apologize? To me? Do you seriously expect I would just take that? Call it quits and just clean the slate?”

Solis tried to reason with her. ”Opaline, I know it's not fair for you, I get that, but I’m really just-”

“Fair for me? Get it!? No, Celestia… You don't, you don't get it at all!” Opaline roared, and all at once, the interior of the house caught fire with intense blue flames. Immediately, Dream Warper covered herself with a shield to protect herself.

“You have no idea how it was for me all these years! All this fury and resentment and… sadness! Festering decade after decade! You don't know how it was, having to see you both be praised to no end while you forgot about me!” she said, her anger seeming to feed the flames.

Solis just bore it all, her eyes never leaving Opaline’s.

“How could you!? Did all we had matter that little!? And after, you two left with that stupid mortal to be praised even more! To live and rule as deities for beings that would kiss the very ground you step on!”

All those words, all their feelings, their pain, both the ones they caused and the ones they carried, Solis stood there and took them all.

“YOU… You… y-you two were my only friends… No, you were like the sisters I never-”

Opaline didn’t utter another word before she felt herself be embraced by Solis, who hugged her tightly.

“I know. I…we know. And we're sorry. Truly, genuinely sorry. Please… Just stop…Don’t hurt yourself further,” Solis said, her voice tearing up.

Opaline just stood there. Then slowly, the fire around started to get cooler and cooler. It went from blue to red, then it got smaller and smaller until it extinguished itself.

Opaline let herself be held by Solis for a moment more…

Then started thrashing to get off.

“What the-ow,” Solis said as one of Opaline's hooves ended on her cheek.

Once they separated, Opaline looked at her.

“S… s-sorry, but I don't… feel right with that just yet.”

Dream Warper looked around, surprised to find that the room had actually little to no damage!

“But-how is the room still standing!? Those flames should have collapsed the whole place in seconds!” she said.

Opaline rolled her eyes. ”Pfff, hello? Alicorn of Fire? You think I wouldn't fireproof my own house? Every centimeter is enchanted by Water Alicorns.”

Opaline then looked at her cup of tea. Or rather, her empty cup of tea.

“Ugh, great. Gonna have to make more…” she said, walking to the kitchen before stopping and looking at Solis and Dream Warper expectantly.

“...Well?”

“Uhh, well…?”

“Do you have anything else? I am kinda busy, so go already.”

Not knowing what more to say or do, Solis and Dream Warper started to walk and go outside Opaline’s house.

“Oh! And next time, bring Luna here,” Opaline said casually, making the both of them stop.

“After she comes here herself and apologizes on her own… both of you will have to make it up for me BIG… Then and only then I will entertain the mere idea of forgiving you two. Hmmph!” Opaline said as she entered the kitchen and closed the door with a slam.

For their part, Solis and Dream Warper got out of her house and gently closed the door behind them.

“Well, that was… I guess that uh, Friendship Mission accomplished?” Dream Warper said tentatively.

Solis couldn’t help a little laugh escaping her muzzle.

“Yes, Twilight. And thank you for being there, I don't think I would have had the courage to even come on my own.”

“It’s nothing, I’m only doing my duty. Talking about that… we need Luna to come.”

“That we do. For the time being, how about we go back to Queen Cosmo’s castle? Something tells me her duel with Sweetie Void is coming to an end.”

“Sounds good! I hope the queen is fine however.”

“...Twilight, like you, I know Sweetie Void is a fearsome foe. That said, growing up in Skyros with Cosmo as the champion of my people still makes me wonder if maybe we are underselling how much of a task beating her will be for Sweetie.”

Twilight thought a bit before smiling and shaking her head. “I know how you feel, but my friends and I have watched Sweetie defeat beings beyond our comprehension many times before, and I'm confident this time will be no different even if it’s someone like Cosmo. I'm sure that right now, Sweetie Void has everything under control.”

Reality-shattering explosions littered the universe as the battle between Sweetie Void and Cosmo continued.

I have NOTHING under control! Sweetie Void thought after another clash with Cosmo ripped another tear in the fabric of the universe.

The Sweetie Voids avoided celestial bodies and lasers while they chased Cosmo and attacked her with anything they had. They regularly found themselves hindered by space walls, and if one of them was getting too close, most of the time, they were time-stopped, or Cosmo accelerated her own time to gain speed. The filly, however, dodged almost everything that was sent at her.

Almost. She still received some damage that was difficult to heal for her soul, but nothing threatening yet.

Most projectiles fired at Cosmo were sent back, but between the twenty four Sweetie Voids, some still managed to pass and to hit the mare. However, she wasn’t the Alicorn Queen for nothing. Without surprise, she was good at healing.

But then, Cosmo suddenly said, This is getting nowhere, before she disappeared.

Sweetie Void stopped and looked around, trying to feel where Cosmo reappeared, but she felt her nowhere. Did she teleport to the other side of the universe?

Then, before the filly’s eyes, some of the galaxies began to move. It looked like they followed the curves of… a leg?

Yes, a leg formed out of space and galaxies.

And that leg, obviously, was attached to a barrel, with more space and more galaxies.

Sweetie Void looked up, and there she saw the head, with two large galaxies forming the eyes.

A being easily millions of lightyears tall was before the filly, looking down at her.

She… had to admit that if she hadn’t been just a soul currently, she would have peed.

On Equus, everyone could see the being in the sky, but nobody could comprehend what they were seeing.

Behold, my true unbound power. No being before managed to push me this far. For that, you have already earned my eternal respect.

Sweetie Void saw the massive Cosmo get on her hind legs, her front ones raised high.

Worry not, for even if you perish all it would take me is reversing the hooves of time to bring you back. Then I'll share the memories of your demise to your past self.

Until then, Sweetie Void.

And with that, Cosmo's front legs came at her, fast.

All of the Sweetie Voids merged back into one. Then she closed her eyes.

And she sang.

“Mistress of the planets and stars
But who has no scars
You never met
You just don’t get
What it’s like to face a real threat.”

As soon as she started, an astronomical quantity of energy gathered inside her. Then, she gathered her ten cannons into a staff that she grabbed. The staff became the handle of a giant void sword that she readied above her.

Then, just as a titanic hoof was about to strike her, she swung, and the sword clashed with the hoof.

After a couple of seconds, the sword sliced through the hoof, cutting open the fabric of reality and opening a giant gash.

WHAT?!

Cosmo immediately pulled her hoof back, staring at the slowly closing gash in shock. It wasn’t that big compared to her, but it was still several lightyears long.

“I faced monsters greater than me
I seemed like a bee
Impossible
Unstoppable
But we made it possible.”

A galaxy suddenly levitated beside Cosmo, and she covered it in energy before sending it toward Sweetie Void who readied her sword as it became bigger and bigger.

Then she sliced the galaxy in half, cutting the fabric of space again. And yes, she sliced the black hole at the center.

Cosmo couldn’t believe what she saw.

“Desperate battles
And a lot of travels
Made me grow as a pony
From the shadows I became me
Friends and rivals alongside me.”

Sweetie Void flew toward Cosmo, repeatedly teleporting very long distances to travel the lightyears separating her and her foe faster.

Cosmo recovered from her shock and sent more galaxies while firing countless galaxy-sized lasers. The filly slalomed between them, slicing one in two every now and then.

“So, do not think you have won yet
This battle’s conclusion is not set
Prepare to get the shock of your life
As I will win this strife!”

Cosmo stopped time, but it didn’t hold Sweetie Void for long. She extended space between herself and the filly, but she could only do it so long before the universe threatened to be torn apart like an elastic band that you force too much, especially with how much damage it was taking in this battle.

“To win! For my friends! Everyone, I will fight!”

Cosmo gathered several galaxies into a giant sword that she brought down on Sweetie Void. Her own sword clashed with it, making the whole universe shake.

“Mistress of the planets and stars.
I’m the superstar!”

Then, Sweetie Void’s sword cut right through the other, destroying it, before she began slicing the leg holding it as she flew around it, cutting it to pieces from hoof to elbow. The pieces broke apart, leaving behind galaxies, or pieces of galaxies.

“I am the void
You can’t avoid
Victory, you’ll be devoid.”

Sweetie Void flew to Cosmo’s torso and sliced it open, entering the giant construct. The inside was entirely empty. In its very core was the real Cosmo who could only look in horror as the filly approached.

Then Sweetie Void slashed at Cosmo’s torso, almost cutting her in two. All around her, the construct disintegrated, the galaxies composing it resuming their previous activity of floating in the vastness of space, letting gravity do its job.

Cosmo put a leg on the gash across her torso to limit the bleeding as she began to heal it.

You… You win…

Cosmo teleported the cage where she put Sweetie Void's body in and freed it from the solidified space, letting her soul return to her body.

Sweetie Void felt for a moment a great exhaustion before her energy began to refill immediately.

She looked at Cosmo who had finished healing, but looked completely tired. Her eyes were shining way less and even multiple of the stars in her mane were either off or sparkling less.

I… have no words, truly. You really have come a long way. I recognize it now… You're even stronger than me, and have defeated me.

Sweetie Void looked at her with a small smile. She flew towards her and put a hoof against her, restoring Cosmo's energy with her own.

At once, Cosmo’s eyes and mane started to return to their original, radiant state.

“Thanks, but… if I'm honest? You kicked my flank back there. If the power of the void didn’t just grant me infinite energy I wouldn't have liked my odds back there,” Sweetie Void said.

Cosmo hummed, I have lived and seen more than any living being in our universe, and had long ago reached the peak of my capabilities. In time, you would not only reach that same level, but surpass it to a point I couldn't ever hope to reach in eternity. Such is the potential of the void.

Sweetie Void only nodded, then looked around and saw the multiple tears in reality she and Cosmo left in the wake of their fight.

Cosmo also looked at them.

…It will take me some time to fix them all. I will not risk otherworldly beings slipping through.

“Want me to help? I think between the two of us we can finish it quickly and return to Equus by the end of the day.”

Much appreciated, Sweetie Void. Let's begin.

Chapter 200: Dinner With Celly's Parents

Sweetie Void and Cosmo appeared in Skyros’ Throne Room. Solis and Dream Warper were present, waiting for them.

Sweetie Void waved at them. “Hey!”

“How did it go?” Dream Warper asked.

Cosmo answered. She proved herself. She defeated me. I threw everything I had at her, and she came out on top.

Solis stared at Sweetie Void in awe while Dream Warper sighed in relief.

“So that means…”

Cosmo nodded. Indeed. The alicorns will join the war.

“I admit, she gave me some scares,” Sweetie Void said. “She is probably the most powerful being I ever fought. Even more powerful than Craakthulx. She really could have defeated me. I don’t know if you saw her final form…”

“Her final form?” Dream Warper asked.

“It was so big that it could certainly be seen from Equus.”

Solis shook her head. “We were probably in the Throne Room, so we couldn’t see it.”

“Did you remain in the Throne Room all this time?”

“No,” Dream Warper answered. “We used the occasion to solve a little Friendship Problem, but we returned to the Throne Room as soon as we were finished.

Sweetie Void raised an eyebrow. “Was it with that meanie, Opaline?”

“That’s right. She and Solis needed to have a talk.”

“I see.”

Cosmo became thoughtful. I guess that this is that future down the drain, not that it would have probably happened with all these changes.

…

“Opaline was supposed to have a major role in the future?” Solis asked.

Yes, but now that you had a talk with her, it has certainly become impossible.

Solis sighed. “Seeing what she became, I fear to know what this role would have been… And it is still not certain that it is gone. Luna still has to talk with her.”

Dream Warper put a reassuring hoof on her. “But your talk with her was the first step to a brighter future for both you and her. Hopefully, you three will be friends again before long.” She then looked at Cosmo. “So, what now?”

Now, you should rest. I’m sure that Gaia and Ouranos won’t mind having you for tonight. Tomorrow, I will announce to the alicorns about us joining your Alliance.

“Thank you, Queen Cosmo,” Solis said with a bow, followed by Dream Warper and Sweetie Void.

After that, the three left the Throne Room, and the castle, seeing that it was evening. Probably just in time for dinner. Solis guided them to the island with the farm.

“As the queen said, Mother and Father will welcome you with open forelegs. Mother loves having guests. And wait until you taste her cooking.”

“I can’t wait to taste it,” Sweetie Void said.

“I can’t believe I’m going to see your parents, Celestia,” Dream Warper said, nervous.

“Don’t be scared. They are very nice ponies,” Solis reassured. She then winced. “Just don’t talk about what happened between me and Luna one thousand years ago. It… wasn’t a pleasant day when they appeared before me and asked why Luna was trapped in the Moon.”

“Not that the day was pleasant for starting, with you having just banished your own sister,” Sweetie Void said.

Solis winced again.

They reached the island and flew to the house near its edge, not far from the jungle.

They landed just before the entrance, and before Solis could knock, the door opened, revealing a sky blue stallion with a cloud-like mane and gray eyes, a bit taller than her. He had for Cutie Mark the curve of the planet showing the atmosphere.

He smiled warmly at Solis. “We expected you sooner, Celly.”

“Sorry Father. There were other matters to settle first.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. You are just in time for dinner. We have food ready for you and your friends.”

“Thank you.”

The two then became silent as they stared at each other. Then, they hugged.

“I missed you,” Solis said.

“It’s nice to see you again, Celly, especially after last time.”

“And my plan worked. She is back. We are together again.”

“Glad to hear,” Ouranos said before he broke the hug and walked out of the way. “Enter.”

Solis, followed by Sweetie Void and Dream Warper, entered the house.

Dream Warper then bowed. “It’s an honor to meet you, Mister Ouranos. I’m Twilight Sparkle, but call me Dream Warper.”

“Please, no need to bow, I’m not royalty. And you can forget the ‘mister’, just call me Ouranos.”

Sweetie Void raised her hoof toward him. “Nice to meet you, Ouranos. I’m Sweetie Belle, but call me Sweetie Void.”

Ouranos hoofbumped her. “Hello, little one. Nice to meet you.”

Sweetie Void looked around at the house. It reminded her a lot of the Apples’ house, but with more plants decorating it, with some cloud decorations here and there.

They were in a hallway linking several rooms, with a staircase right before the entrance leading to a second floor.

Just to their right was the entrance to the Dinner Room where a brown mare with a green mane that looked like a bush and red eyes was present, placing plates full of food on the tables. She had for Cutie Mark Equus itself. She was the same size as Solis.

Veggie pot pie. It smelled divine.

Once she finished setting everything, Gaia looked at Celestia and said, “Welcome back, Celestia. Come, before it cools down.”

Solis nodded. “Yes, mother.”

She then entered the room, followed by Dream Warper, Sweetie Void, and Ouranos.

“Hello. Dream Warper and Sweetie Void, right? I’m Gaia. Celestia’s mother. Welcome to our home.”

“Thank you for hosting us,” Dream Warper said with a small bow.

“Yes, thank you,” Sweetie Void said.

With that, everypony sat around the table, the couple side by side with Solis beside her mother.

Without waiting, Sweetie Void tasted the pie and hummed. “Mmmm! It’s delicious! The Apples would be jealous.”

Dream Warper tasted the pie too, and got the same reaction. “Oh my gosh! This is the best pie I have ever eaten!”

“I’m happy to hear that you appreciate my cooking,” Gaia said with a giggle. She then looked at Solis. “I’m glad to see you are well. How is Luna?”

“Despite some difficulty, she perfectly adapted to the modern days, and the ponies love her. She is going very well,” Solis answered.

“Glad to see that everything ended well between you two.

“I’m glad too.”

Ouranos suddenly grinned. “So, still single?”

Solis swallowed the wrong way and coughed, making Ouranos laugh.

Once she stopped coughing, Solis glared at her father. “Yes, I’m still single. With my duties, I was never able to find a stallion or a mare.

“Now that Luna is back, you don’t have this excuse anymore,” Gaia said. “You share duties now, and she can take over for a few days while you search for your soulmate.”

Solis sighed. “It is difficult to find something when everypony, at best, sees me as a mother figure, at worst, worships me.”

“Dream Warper is getting better. She doesn’t call you ‘Princess’ half the time,” Sweetie Void said with a knowing grin.

It was Dream Warper’s turn to swallow the wrong way, making Ouranos laugh again.

“C-Celestia is like a second mother to me!” the lavender mare eventually said once the coughing stopped. “I could never…”

Sweetie Void’s grin widened. “Ask Cadance about the fanfiction she wrote a few weeks ago. You will be surprised.”

Both Dream Warper and Solis’ jaws dropped.

“How would you even know that she wrote something?!” Dream Warper almost yelled.

“She shared it with Rarity, and of course, I secretly read it. It is really passionate, if you see what I mean. There was a lot of tong-”

“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR THIS! LALALALALALA! Not hearing!” Dream Warper yelled while she plugged her ears with her hooves.

“Then you used a spell to turn yourself into a stallion and-”

The filly suddenly couldn’t talk anymore because of her mouth being kept closed by Solis’ magic.

“No need to say more, young filly.”

“But I want to hear more!” Gaia whined. “It was starting to reach the interesting part.”

Solis facehooved.

Sweetie Void gave her best trollface before a new mouth appeared on her left cheek. “You two fucked. Then Celestia got pregnant.”

“AAAAARGH!!!” Dream Warper yelled before she hit her head on the table while Solis put her hooves on her eyes.

Ouranos exploded into laughter to the point of hitting the table with his hoof. “This filly is a riot! I like her!”

Solis groaned. “I will have some words with Cadance…”

“Can you bring her story to us? I want to read it,” Gaia said.

Solis hit her head on the table. “Mooooom…”

Dream Warper glared at the filly. “Thank you, Sweetie Void.”

Sweetie Void smiled innocently. “I just shared a story that I found interesting. Nothing wrong with that.”

“You are a demon.”

“I know.”

Ouranos looked at his wife pleadingly. “Can we adopt her?”

Gaia looked up in thought. “I guess that Celestia and Luna won’t mind a little sister.”

“She has parents!” Solis exclaimed.

Sweetie Void laughed. “Not a problem. I can just make more of myself.”

At that, she made a double which spoke. “I can be your annoying and adorable little sister.”

The first Sweetie Void spoke in turn. “While I can continue to be Rarity’s annoying and adorable little sister. Everyone wins.”

Ouranos and Gaia both grinned.

Sweetie Void grinned back.

Solis hit her head on the table again.

The next day, Cosmo was on a balcony of the castle, facing all the alicorns of Skyros. Solis, Dream Warper, and Sweetie Void were at her side.

Most of the alicorns looked worried.

I know that this is scary. We never went to war before. We never even faced actual danger. But for the sake of our world, of our home, and of everypony we love, we must fight. So, are you with me?

Almost immediately, the noble alicorns, the ones who had dominion over the planets, all yelled their agreement. Bolstered by the nobles, the others joined one after another, even if some hesitated.

Cosmo smiled. Thank you. Then go and prepare yourselves, because soon, Skyros will be at war.

With those words, the alicorns saluted and went to their respective islands.

Soon, the sounds from the forges in Ferrous District flared to life once again, but instead of tools, armors and weapons were created with the alicorns’ might.

Battles sparked in the usual designated spots, but instead of light duels, entire groups went through drills and rigorous training.

…And the Alicorns of Fear and Anxiety in the Motus district made plans and handled logistics for every possible scenario… with Joy Alicorns filtering out the actual plausible plans from the rest.

All around Skyros, everyone did their part to prepare for what was coming.

Before long, the three returned to Equestria where Sweetie Void returned to Ponyville. She entered the Carousel Boutique, finding Rarity in the process of using the sewing machine.

“I’m back.”

“Welcome back, Sweetie. What did you do this time?”

“I went with Dream Warper and Solis to a place called Skyros to convince the alicorns there to join us. I had to fight their queen, but we succeeded. Then I got myself adopted by the princesses’ parents.”

Rarity moved the dress she was sewing the wrong way, ruining it.

She didn’t mind it as she stared at her sister with an unamused expression. “Pardon?”

Sweetie Void, in return, gave her an innocent expression. “I’m now Celly and Lulu’s little sister.”

Rarity took a big breath, putting her fore hooves together before her face. “What about mom and dad?”

“They are still my parents.”

“You can’t have more than one set of parents. Unless they are divorced and they both marry again, which isn’t the case here.”

“I have mom and dad, but myself now has Gaia and Ouranos as parents.”

Rarity gave her sister a deadpan look. “Please, make sense, and DON’T quote Discord.”

Sweetie Void laughed. “I left a double at Skyros to be Gaia and Ouranos’ new daughter.”

Rarity silently stared at Sweetie Void.

The alicorn put a hoof under her chin as she muttered to herself, “Should I leave a double at daddydede’s castle?”

Rarity was feeling a migraine, and she rubbed her forehead with a hoof. “I… I can’t, Sweetie. I can’t.” She walked toward a cabinet and used her magic to open it and levitate out a bottle. “One day, you will be the death of me. I swear.”

“I love you too. Oh, also, Cadence will probably hate me.”

“...”

Meanwhile.

Cadance found herself face to face with Solis. Before she could ask what she was doing here, the oldest alicorn said, “Cadance. We must speak about this story you wrote about me and Twilight.”

Cadance immediately teleported out of here. A vacation to some random desert planet in Samus’ universe sounded good right now. Shiny could take care of little Flurry for a week or two, or forever.

Discord never felt so proud of somepony before.

“I think that I will adopt her too.”

The next instant, a rift opened next to him, and Sweetie Void dropped a double.

“Have fun with your new daughter!” she then said before she closed the rift.

Discord lifted the double and wrapped her in his arms. “You and I will have so much fun together.”

Sweetie Void grinned. “Wanna tell Celly and Lulu that you are now technically their stepfather?”

“You speak my language, my little bundle of chaos.”

“When will Fluttershy become my mommy?” Sweetie Void then asked innocently.

Discord spluttered.

Sweetie Void was sitting at a table at Apple Death’s Sugarcube Corner, with her fellow CMC, including Little Ghost who was pretty much an honorary CMC by now. The ones who were still alive were having a milkshake.

“So, how did it go? I had to beat Cosmo to prove to her that she could trust me with the fate of the universe,” the alicorn said.

“Was that giant thing in the sky her?” Black Apple asked.

“Yep. Literally threw galaxies at me, and even used a galaxy sword. That was crazy.” She looked at Apple Death and Phantom. “What about you?”

Phantom snorted. “You had it easy. For all I know it's a toss-up whether she will join or not.”

Apple Death sighed. ”Ah at least convinced her ta seriously consider it.”

Earlier, Apple Death's universe.

“Ah'm telling ya, Miss Queen! Yer help could help us prevent many deaths!” Apple Death said.

If we were to win, yes. But if not, it would spell the doom of us all. Even if we win now, the battle against these Gods you speak of would still be on the horizon.

“...Ah know. And believe me, Ah wouldn't want to put anypony at risk if we didn’t need to. Despite being still kinda new to the role, Ah do and wanna take mah job as the new Death seriously! Our universe deserves it after having to put up so long with Thanatos-a Reaper that actually looks out for the living too. If ya wouldn't trust me, at least trust that Ah also want the best fer us as a fellow keeper of the natural order.”

Cosmo looked at Apple Death for a moment, then closed her eyes and let out a sigh.

….I admit, it is actually pleasant having someone sensible as Death for once.

She opened her eyes. And I understand your plight, Apple Bloom. Mmm, you say something about a military expo?

“A-ah, yeah! And it’s happening quite soon actually.”

Then I shall see for myself the might of your army, and make a decision.

Apple Death quickly bowed. ”Thank you! And Ah promise, we actually have a chance here! Ah swear in the name of ma’ family as the Apple Ah am!”

At that, Cosmo couldn’t help the small smile that adorned her muzzle.

…Yes, this is so much better than dealing with Thanatos. Little snake thought I didn’t see his futile attempts at getting enough power to challenge me… Foolish. And for the record, I do lament I had to let him get his way that long so you could accomplish your destiny, Apple Bloom.

Apple Death simply shook her head. ”Eh, complaining or getting angry now ain't undoing anything he did. Besides, who knows what more misery he would have spread had he remained the Spirit of Death.”

…Well-

“No, please don't actually answer that.”

Sweetie Void nodded. ”I see. Seems like you replacing Thanatos as Spirit of Death earned you brownie points.”

Apple Death chuckled. ”Something like that. So, what about ya, Phantom?”

Phantom was spacing out, thinking of something when she heard her name. ”What?”

“How did it go convincing your Cosmo? Not that good, by what you said before,” Sweetie Void said.

“Right. Ugh, well for starters I'm not like either of you. Cosmo wasn't… interested in a fight with me-"

“Not that you would've won. If it was that hard for me, she would've mopped space with you.”

Phantom shot Sweetie Void a stink eye before continuing. ”and I wasn't some Spirit of Nature, so I had no specific to play at. ’sides, I may have been kind of… irritated at the time with some implications about her.”

Sweetie Void and Apple Death looked at each other, then back at Phantom.

“Then what did ya do?” Apple Death asked.

Phantom looked to the side.

“My best…”

Earlier, Phantom’s universe.

“...So, I want to know one thing: you see the future, right?”

Indeed, that was an ability I possessed before that variant of your friend Sweetie Belle brought with her that foreign influence that destroyed past and future as constructs of this universe.

“When Sweetie Void arrived… So that means you knew, didn't you? About Eggman? The war?”

I saw the horrors he would bring to this land, as I saw his downfall by your friends and your very own hooves. There was nothing I was needed for.

At that, Phantom, who was in her anthropomorphic form, tightened her hands into fists at her sides.

“Nothing? NOTHING!? You call a WAR nothing? All those deaths nothing!? If you would have done something, Eggman would have been dust the moment he stepped on Equestria! Yet you stayed here and let him do whatever he wanted! How can you call yourself the protector of our universe when you let something like that happen!?”

Beside her, Phantom Sparkle and Celestia were dead silent, too stunned by how Phantom just addressed Cosmo.

As for Cosmo herself?

…..

She just looked at Phantom, her stoic expression not betraying a single thought.

Then, she walked forward and disappeared. Not teleported, just faded into nothing and then reappeared behind everyone. Hearing the clop of her hooves behind them, everyone turned and saw Cosmo behind them, not facing them.

…So, you consider that I should have dealt with Eggman and his invasion personally, correct?

Phantom growled. ”Of course I-”

Then, would you say I also should have stopped the Changeling Invasion in Canterlot? Cosmo said, turning her head to look back at Phantom.

Discord's attempts at taking over Equestria? King Sombra's rule over the Crystal Empire? Nightmare Moon?The Sirens? Wendigos? Should I have stopped all those too?

Cosmo fully turned, and started to walk over to them slowly.

I could have. Quite easily to the point of triviality too. And why stop at that? Every day, ponies and other creatures abuse either their status, skills or power to do wrong. Not only in Equestria, but all over Equus too.

As she approached, an oppressive aura emanated from Cosmo. Celestia was already full-on trembling,with Phantom Sparkle hiding behind her.

If I had it my way, I can make the entire world be just like a Skyros. A perfect utopia… For my alicorns it is at least. However, powerful as it is, Friendship alone doesn’t have the power to change all hearts on Equus. If I'm in charge, there's gonna be rules. Rules I will not be lenient with…

Finally, Cosmo arrived in front of Phantom. Her giant figure casting an ominous shadow that covered her, helped by her pitch-black fur.

So, I guess it depends on if you consider the price to be worth it. So tell me…

She looked down at Phantom. Her galaxy-like mane expanded to cover the vision of the ceiling and her eyes turned completely white, glowing.

Would you trade your free will in exchange for a paradise?

Phantom held her ground for a while, but Cosmo saw the doubt creeping her eyes.

With that, her eyes and mane turned back to normal, the pressure she exuded relenting. Without a word she faded again and reappeared on her throne.

I decided. Equus and Equestria will not take part in this War.

Phantom didn’t say anything at first, but eventually found her voice again.

“...No, Skyros will not take part in this war.”

Pardon?

“You hear me. I don’t care what you do, not anymore, but us? It’s too late already: all of Equestria already declared they will take the Alliance’s side. The Subspace Army already sees us as another enemy, and we think the same. There's no way for us out of this. So how about this: you don't want to be on our side? Fine. Stay out of it. Not like we needed you anyway.

But you better not try to stop us. Because then you would be against us and believe me, you will not like it.”

After saying that, Phantom stormed out of the Throne Room, leaving a stunned Phantom Sparkle and Celestia.

Unknown to everyone, Cosmo only said something to herself in response to that.

“...Mmph, spunky brat…”

And despite the thought, she couldn’t help the tiniest marks of a smirk crossing her features for a second.

All the fillies stared at Phantom. Some of them facehooved. Others sighed. Phantom Bloom and Phantom Belle simply put a hoof on Phantom’s shoulders.

“Well, let’s just hope that she will give it some thought,” Sweetie Void said.

“Worst case scenario. You beat her up like you beat up our Cosmo,” Shadow Speedster said to Sweetie Void.

“I would rather try to convince her the nice diplomatic way before going the hard diplomatic way.”

“Maybe the other two Cosmos could talk to her?” Little Ghost proposed.

“Maybe,” Apple Death said. “Or maybe she’ll show up ta the expo like ours.”

“Wait and see,” Phantom said with a shrug.

“Well, with that done, I’m thinking of having one last adventure before the expo. Want to come with me, you two?” Sweetie Void asked Apple Death and Phantom. She then looked at the rest. “If the next universe isn’t dangerous and if it won’t cause problems, I could even bring all of you.”

“Yay!” all the fillies except Apple Death and Phantom said.

“Ah don’t mind coming with ya. Maybe we’ll meet another of Crazy Hand’s villains,” Apple Death said.

“Wanna bet on who we will meet?” Phantom asked.

“Ganondorf? He’s the only one we haven’t seen yet.”

“Sounds safe.”

The fillies then finished their milkshakes and left the bakery. Before it, Sweetie Void opened a rift.

Waving goodbye to the fillies who were remaining behind, Sweetie Void, Phantom, and Apple Death jumped into it.

Chapter 201: Familiar World, Different Timeline

The rift dropped the three fillies on what quickly revealed to be the roof of a skyscraper in the middle of a city.

"Okay. Now let's see what this world has for... Uh?" Sweetie Void got silent when she spotted, not far in the distance, a familiar mountain. Having lived at the foot of the mountain for a whole month, she could easily recognize it.

She smiled. "Woah! What are the chances? Mount Ebott! Again!"

"Ya recognize this place?" Apple Death asked.

"Yup. I already went to an alternate version of this universe. I had a nice, fun adventure, made a lot of friends, and helped freeing a whole civilization trapped under that very mountain," Sweetie Void recounted before she put a hoof under her chin in thought. "Mmh... I wonder if they're already freed in this universe... Darn, I would have loved to arrive at the time of the war to stop the humans from trapping them."

"And who are "them"?" Phantom asked.

"Monsters. Friendly ones," Sweetie Void answered before she explained with a scoff. "Humans imprisoned them under the mountain because the monsters could absorb their SOULs to become more powerful. I understand that fear, but the monsters are just too nice to do that in normal time. Even the jerk ones are lovable. Beside, the monsters are also very weak compared to the humans. The humans were just idiots."

Phantom rolled her eyes. "When aren't they? So I take it we're going to free the monsters if it's not already done?"

"Yup! I refuse to leave them under that mountain! I will teleport us to the entrance."

Sweetie Void immediately did so, and they appeared beside the hole that served as the entrance to the Ruin, where everything began. In less than one second, she felt the presence of the Barrier.

"Mmh... Barrier still present. This means that they're still trapped."

"Wowee! That's some powerful magic right there! Ah can feel it!" Apple Death exclaimed.

"Me too," Phantom said with a frown. "I don't think that I could destroy it even with my powers."

"Normal. We need to be the equivalent of a God to destroy it. And for this, we would need to absorb human SOULs. A monster would need to absorb seven. I personally only needed to absorb two to reach the needed power."

Sweetie Void received some stares at that.

"I didn't need to kill anyone!" she quickly corrected. "The monsters had already gotten their hands on six human SOULs. I just had to take them."

"Wait, so you mean that, in this universe, we would just need to kill a bunch of humans to become Gods? It would be THAT easy?" Phantom asked.

Sweetie Void answered with a nod.

"... Do you imagine how a multiversal organisation like the Subspace Army could abuse this?"

"Yeah... Why do you think I haven't included the alternate version of this world I first went to to the Alliance yet? I even told their Alphys, the biggest egghead of this world, to put on hold turning on the portal she is building. Also, maybe the effects of the SOUL absorption are only limited to this universe and its alternate versions, but this needs to be tested, and for that, we need SOULs, which the locals humans aren't really willing to give."

"Ah see..." Apple Death said.

Sweetie Void looked back at the hole and smirked. "The last one at the bottom is a snail! Geronimo!" she shouted before she jumped in the hole as if she was doing a bomb at a pool.

She landed on the bed of golden flowers without receiving any scratch only to find out that Apple Death and Phantom were already present, the two of them giving her a smug smile.

"Ya should've said "no teleportation" Miss Snail," Apple Death said before giving Phantom a hoof/fistbump.

Sweetie Void gave a huff but couldn't stop a smile. "You're no fun. Now, Apple Death, there is normally a body buried under these flowers. Can you verify if it's still here?" she asked. Upon seeing the weird look she got in return, she quickly said, "Long story."

Apple Death shrugged. "Sure."

Turning into her spectral form, Apple Death phased through the ground under the flowers. A couple of seconds later, she came out and shook her head.

"Nothing. Not even a bone."

"So we arrive right when Frisky is awake..." Again... Writer, are you already running out of material? Or do you want Apple Death and Phantom to live through the same adventure as me to see how they will react? Unless you have something else planned? I'm almost afraid to discover what.

"So there's a zombie running around?" Apple Death asked.

"Uh... Not a zombie. It's... complicated. Let's advance. I will explain on the way. Oh and Phantom. If monsters attack you, please, don't attack them in return."

Sweetie Void quickly understood that something was wrong when they found the remains of the dummy. Frisk had told her that Toriel had made her talk to the dummy, not fight it. Frisk had no reason to destroy it. And yet, here it was, in pieces.

Then, in that room with all the spikes, they found a pile of dust...

And Sweetie Void really hoped that it was just a pile of dust and not what she was thinking it was.

But more piles of dust followed this one...

And not a single monster was in sight.

The most dust she saw, the more her mood dropped, and when she explained to Phantom and Apple Death what the dust may be, their mood also dropped.

No monsters but piles of dust everywhere. It wasn't hard to put two and two together even if Sweetie Void still hoped deep down that she was wrong.

But then, they reached Toriel's house, also empty, and they found a big pile of dust before the door to the exit of the Ruins.

A pile of dust with a familiar purple robe, which had a big gash.

This confirmed her fear... Or it was a very, very bad joke.

Anger filling her eyes, she blasted her way right through the two doors leading out of the Ruins without warning, not hearing Apple Death yelling, "Hey! Wait for us!"

Snowdin quickly revealed to be the same spectacle. She saw more and more piles of dust on the path, some of which had clothes and accessories she recognized like Doggo's pink shirt or Lesser Dog's armor with the shield and the sword, without forgetting the Ice Caps' hats or the Chilldrakes' sunglasses. Even that defenseless Snowman had been destroyed.

When she reached Snowdin Town, she found it entirely empty. Thankfully, there were no piles of dust, so they probably evacuated before the massacre could happen.

But then, in the clearing outside of the town where she and Frisk fought Papyrus, she found another pile of dust with a certain chest plate and a certain orange cape.

She stopped to look at it, not believing what she was seeing.

Even Papyrus... Probably the most innocent cinnamon roll in the world... Even him was killed...

Why...? Just... Why...?

Apple Death and Phantom caught up to her at this moment, but before they could ask anything, she teleported the three of them directly to New Home.

There, too, the streets were empty, but judging by the absence of dust, the city had evacuated too.

She then guided them to Asgore's house where she found the chain normally blocking the access to the stairs unlocked, confirming that Frisk had already passed by here.

However, before they could advance further, the world turned black. The next thing Sweetie knew, she was back in Snowdin, in front of Papyrus' dust, alone again.

"What the..."

Apple Death and Phantom then joined her again.

"Sweetie Void, could you avoid leaving us in the dust... Huh... No bad pun intended," Phantom said.

"Girls... Do you remember that I just teleported us to the monsters' capital?" Sweetie Void asked.

"Uh?" Apple Death and Phantom exchanged a look before they both shook their head.

"So that was a RELOAD..." Sweetie Void immediately concluded before a smirk appeared on her muzzle. "Seems like someone is having a bad time. And it seems that I retain my memories when this happens. It must be thanks to my time as a God in the other universe."

"What are you talking about?" Phantom asked.

Sweetie Void stared sadly at Papyrus' dust before sighing. Then, she looked back at her friends. The next instant, both Phantom and Apple Death flashed.

"There. Now you will remember everything if the RELOAD happens again. Darn... I really need to get better with my time powers. It was difficult. To put it simply, in this world exists a power that allows its user to SAVE their progress and to LOAD back to that SAVE if they want, rewinding time back to it. Like a video game. Even if that person dies, they just have to RELOAD and they will be as good as new. And of course, since time is rewound, then most people don't remember whatever happens between the SAVE and the RELOAD. And it seems that only one person in the whole world can use this power at once. The one with the most Determination."

Phantom groaned, rubbing her face with a hand. "And let me guess. The one responsible for this..." She waved at the pile of dust that had been Papyrus. "is the one now possessing this power?"

Sweetie Void sighed again. "Yeah..." She still didn't understand. Why would Frisk...? Of course, this wasn't the same Frisk as the one she knew. These weren't the same monsters, the same Toriel, the same Papyrus... But she still felt incomprehension and betrayal. And anger. A LOT of anger. She wanted to find Frisk, to punch her in the face until all her teeth were knocked off, and ask her why she did this. Why such a sweet, innocent child would go on a murderous rampage and kill all these monsters? And of course, force her to RESET to bring everyone back. But she was also scared. After all, if this Frisk could do this, then the Frisk she knew could do it too.

But there was no way. The last time she saw her, Frisk was happy with her family at the surface. There was no way she would throw all this in the trash like that.

But this Frisk... What happened?

Well, the best way to know was to get the information from the human's mouth. They had to find Frisk.

One thing was certain, she was in New Home, somewhere after Asgore's house. Then, there were three possibilities. Either she was in the Judgement Hall, she was in the Throne Room, or she was in front of the Barrier. The Throne Room was their best bet thanks to Asgore.

Who else could give Frisk a bad time than the powerful king of the monsters?

"I think that I know where she is. I will teleport us in front of the Throne Room, in the capital."

"But wait. How will we stop someone who can rewind time at will?" Apple Death asked.

"I have several ideas," Sweetie Void answered with a smile that said that these ideas will definitively make Frisk regret what she did.

Then they teleported to the hallway leading to the Throne Room, not far from its entrance. Sweetie Void then motioned for Apple Death and Phantom to remain silent as she silently went to look at the Throne Room from behind the wall. There, she saw Asgore looking down at who she recognized was Flowey crying. The flower was pleading him to take the six human SOULs, but the king remained grimly silent.

Darn, if even Flowey was in this state, then the situation must be really bad.

Sweetie Void returned to her friends and whispered, "Frisk is not here yet, so she must be in the Judgment Hall, over there." She pointed toward where the hallway turned left.

With a nod, they all moved and followed the hallway. Before long, they began to hear sounds, and soon enough, they reached the entrance to the Judgment Hall.

Before entering, Sweetie Void used a Notice-Me-Not spell on the three of them, not wanting yet to be spotted.

Then they entered the hall.

Just in time to see Frisk being disintegrated by a powerful laser beam fired from the mouth of some kind of skull. A dragon skull maybe?

Frisk's SOUL immediately broke, and the next instant, the world turned black. This time, Sweetie Void ensured that she and her friends weren't brought back to Snowdin.

When the world returned, they were still at the end of the hall, and they could see Frisk at the other end, beside a box and, Sweetie could now see, a sparkling yellow star. A Save Point.

Frisk then advanced, and the more she approached, the more Sweetie could see details about this version of her friend.

She was holding Chara's worn dagger as well as the locket around her neck. She had some dust on her clothes, and a lot of it on her hands and shoes. Her eyes were shadowed by her hair as she looked a little downward, and her mouth didn't show any emotion.

When she reached a certain point, she stopped as, suddenly, Sans was present in front of her.

"hmm. that expression... that's the expression of someone who's died twice in a row. suffice to say, you look really... unsatisfied. all right. how 'bout we make it a third?"

Frisk's SOUL then came out, and after a simple "ready?" all Tartarus broke loose. Sans used the Blue Mode to violently slam her on the ground only for the human to immediately jump to avoid being impaled by a group of bones suddenly coming out of it. Her SOUL then returned to its red color and Frisk had to carefully move in a small tunnel made of bones before she had to avoid four waves of beams fired by these skull cannons.

Sweetie Void was impressed. She had guessed that the skeleton had been holding back in their fight, but he really had well hidden his game. These skull cannons seemed very powerful.

And then, Frisk attacked, and Sans easily avoided the swing. And the fight continued like that. Sans attacked, Frisk avoided his attacks as best as she could, and once she had an opening, she attacked, only for Sans to avoid the knife.

"He is doing really well on his own, but it's clear he won't win. Frisk will just RELOAD again and again until she hits him," Phantom said.

"Eeyup. He needs help," Apple Death agreed with a nod.

Sweetie Void agreed with a nod too. "But first, I want to observe. Also, please, you two... Remain out of this."

She said that last part while looking at them with her best impression of Pinkie Pie in one of her... bad mood. The two other fillies could only accept.

And so, they continued to observe the fight. After a moment, Sans attempted to convince Frisk to spare him as he was beginning to tire out, but it failed. After that, Sans used his weird teleportation power to teleport Frisk randomly in the room, right in the middle of attacks, leaving almost no time for her to react. He also used a lot more his skull cannons, and he even began to rapidly slam Frisk around with the Blue Mode, each slam rapidly followed by the human jumping to not be impaled by bones poking out of the ground/wall/ceiling. But eventually, Frisk wasn't able to jump in time and was killed.

It wasn't quite as messy as it could have been. Not a single drop of blood came out of the wounds, and all the organic matter composing Frisk's body began to turn into dust, only leaving the bones. The process had only started when her SOUL broke and the RELOAD happened.

Knowing what Sweetie knew about Frisk, it wasn't surprising. Frisk's body was actually made from Chara's corpse which, after all these years, had been only bones. All the rest, the skin, the hair, the organs and so on, came from magic. And so, like a monster whose body was entirely made of magic, Frisk's body partially turned into dust when she died, leaving only the bones, the only part not of magical origin.

Despite her certainly painful death, Frisk still showed no emotion when she came back, not even anger or frustration. Sans then reappeared, made a comment about Frisk having died three times, and began the fight exactly like before, exactly with the same attacks.

And there the ponies saw the reason that will lead to Sans' defeat: he didn't remember the previous attempts, and thus, repeated his attacks. It was just a matter for Frisk to learn the patterns until she could dodge them perfectly. Thankfully, even with that, Sans still managed to get some more kills in the second part of the fight where the attacks were more wild and harder to dodge even when Frisk already knew about them.

But eventually, Frisk managed to survive until Sans was too tired to continue. The skeleton still had a last ace up his sleeve: he used his teleportation power to stop Frisk from approaching him, leaving them in a stalemate. But the ponies knew that it wouldn't work, and Sans confirmed it when he began to fall asleep.

"Guess it's my turn," Sweetie Void muttered. "Show time."

Frisk patiently waited as Sans slowly closed his eyes, his exhaustion after this fight catching up.

There. It was time.

Step by step, careful to not make any sound, the human approached, readying his knife.

And he swung.

He saw Sans open his eyes, about to dodge, only for a metallic staff to appear out of nowhere and to block the knife.

For the first time, Frisk showed emotion at that. He hadn't expected something like that to happen. At all. Nothing ever changed. Sans would wake up, dodge the first swing, start a taunt, only to finally be hit by a surprise second swing of the knife, killing him. Nobody ever came to protect Sans.

And so, he couldn't stop himself from letting out a chocked "What?" almost at the same time as Sans who also hadn't expected to be saved.

All eyes then turned at who was holding the staff: a little white horse that seemed to be a cross between a unicorn and a pegasus. And it had a black SOUL?

Frisk quickly stepped back, not knowing at all what to expect for the first time in a long time.

But it wouldn't matter in the end. Frisk didn't know how this little horse ended up here, what caused this change, but it will get the same fate as all the others. Even if it managed to kill him, he would just RELOAD, again and again, until it would die. There was no stopping this.

"Heya! Sorry for not coming earlier Sans!" the horse, who was a filly if he judged right by the voice, then said as she looked back at Sans. "I was waiting my turn and I didn't want to spoil your hour of glory. Beside, it was fun to watch you kicking Frisk's butt over and over again."

She knew his name? Nobody in the Underground knew his name! At least not in this timeline!

Sans raised an 'eyebrow' in wonder. "uh. you kinda have me at a disadvantage there. do i know you?"

"Kind of. I already met an alternate version of you in another universe where Frisk here was much nicer and, apparently, of the opposite gender. Seriously! If it wasn't for the Writer, I would have never known that you're a boy! Darn your androgynousness!" the filly ranted at him before she quickly calmed down and looked back at Sans. "Anyway, ice meeting you, I'm Sweetie Void. I will take your place from now, you can rest."

Wait, she said what?

"you're a visitor from another world?" Sans asked in disbelief. "well... that's... unexpected..."

"I know, the visitor from another world saving the day at the last minute is like the worst deus ex machina, but hey, such is life," the filly said with a shrug. "If you want to complain, you can do so to the guy who's dictating my life. Oh, and yeah, I know about my LOVE. Don't worry, I'm not hurting innocent."

Her LOVE? Frisk immediately CHECKED her.

*SWEETIE BELLE (SWEETIE VOID) 19076 ATK 58 DEF 855 LOVE
*Wait what?!

What the heck? How could someone get such a high amount of LOVE? And that ATK... Now, Frisk was actually scared.

"Mmh... It climbed quite a lot since last time. Not a big surprise," the filly commented at that with another shrug.

Sans now stared at the filly as if she was the Devil. "how..."

"Killed some cosmical abominations... Blew up a planet-sized mothership... Eradicated a few armies," she listed as if they were everyday exploits.

Oh... Frisk was so screwed...

"you aren't kidding, huh?" Sans asked with a deadpan look.

"Not at all. After all, I'm a foal, not a kid."

This got a surprise laugh out of Sans. "oh gosh! you got me!"

Sweetie Void grinned. "You have nothing to worry from me. Like I said, I avoid hurting innocents. I only kill if there is no other options. Like, in this case, if I can convince Frisk to give up, then all the better. If not, well..." She gave another shrug. "My LOVE may climb a little more."

"i see. okay. are you sure you can deal with mister pokerface over there?"

"Don't worry for me. Go lie down against a pillar and enjoy the show," Sweetie Void said before she materialized a bag of popcorn and tossed it at Sans. "There, for you."

"cool. thanks," said the skeleton as he caught the bag.

"Nope, they're warm."

Again, Sans laughed, only to stop when he suddenly flashed, and he felt something. "what did you do?"

"I made sure you won't reset each time Frisk will RELOAD after death. That's the main reason you lost your fight. Frisk died and died again, but he learned your patterns."

This surprised Frisk. "You know?"

"Of course I know. Like I just said, I know an alternate version of you. You can SAVE your progress and LOAD each time you die. It's like a video game for you. Too bad, this won't work with me. Time stuff is one of my maaaany talents even if I still have a long way to go before I can do something like you can do. I won't be able to stop you from RELOADING, but I won't do the same error as Sans."

......... Crap.

Sans' smile became wider and he chuckled. "uh oh, someone's in trouble. welp, i will leave this fight to you then, kiddo." At that, Sans went to sit beside a nearby pillar, beginning to eat his popcorn.

"So, how about we start our dance? And you know what? Since I'm a good sport, I will let you have the first move. What do you risk?"

The way she smiled clearly indicated what will be the outcome if he attacked, but what choice did he have? He could RESET, but Sweetie Void would probably still be here, ready to greet him again. And sparing the monsters was out of question because of...

He was stuck.

So, having no other choice, he attacked, swinging his knife at the filly.

Then, with her bare hoof, Sweetie Void deflected his knife, sending the object flying.

"My turn."

Before he knew it, Frisk's head was rolling on the floor.

His SOUL broke.

Everything became dark.

And Frisk appeared beside the Save Point beside the entrance of the hall.

Sweetie Void was still sitting in the middle of the room, smiling sweetly, as if she hadn't just beheaded a child.

Sans dropped a popcorn he was about to eat in shock.

Frisk could only stare in disbelief as the filly showed a sword made of ice that hadn't been present before he attacked.

Sweetie Void then gave a sadistic smile that sent chills down his back.

"Let's see how DETERMINED you are."

Frisk gulped, but readied his knife.

Chapter 202: Stronger Than You

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 203: Strength of Will

Frisk walked out of the rift, Sweetie Belle, or Swetie Void as she now called herself, on her shoulder, shrunken, no bigger than a newborn foal.

She wanted to hug the filly so badly, but she resisted. Sweetie Void had asked her help, so it wasn't the time.

She eyed Chara, not without some apprehension.

She knew how strong Chara was. In her home dimension, Chara, along with Sweetie Void, Sans, and a few others, fought a lot of humans attempting to harm the monsters, revealing her magical prowess as well as her... murderous side, especially at the beginning when the monsters just got out. More than once, Frisk and the others had to stop her from killing someone.

Chara really hated the humans... But thankfully, it dampened with time, and with the help of the love of her family.

But she was still the first to jump into a fight when the situation called for it, even if she was now less violent.

To put it simply, Chara was the monsters' Sword.

And now, Frisk was about to fight said Sword sharpened by LOVE and possessing no inhibition. This Chara will have no remorse murdering her, like he had no remorse murdering the monsters and making this Frisk suffer.

Or this was what it looked, but Frisk refused to believe that this Chara didn't still have some love, at least some for the Dreemurrs deep down in his SOUL. The monsters who took him in, who made him a part of their family when he had nowhere to go, no hope left, no will to live anymore...

Frisk hoped to bring this love back out. And Sweetie Void hoped that she will succeed.

This was why Sweetie Void came to ask her help.

And the filly was very clear. If THIS didn't work...

Well...

Sweetie Void didn't say what she would do, but Frisk at least understood that it would be very BAD for Chara.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Void dismissed the clone that she had sent to keep Chara occupied, letting the boy rest and finally notice Frisk's presence.

"So this is your last plan?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yup!" Sweetie confirmed with a nod. "I clearly can't convince you to stop. I'm more a filly of action than of words, but when kicking your butt over and over doesn't work and you're too stubborn, or determined, to listen, then I have no choice but to bring out the big gun: Frisk. If someone is good at knowing what to do to stop someone from fighting without bloodshed, it's her."

"And you really think that this Frisk will succeed where my Frisk failed?"

"Well, yes. After all, contrary to your Frisk, she never harmed anybody, so you have no reason to not listen to her. Also, she knows you better, having lived at your side for a few months. After all, in her universe, you're her mommy."

Chara groaned. "I don't think that I will ever get used to it..."

This made Frisk giggle. "You will." She then took a more serious expression. "Sweetie Void told me everything. It... scares me to see how things would have gone if... if she hadn't appeared..."

"So you admit that you would have become like my Frisk if things had happened differently?" Chara asked.

"Yes... Knowing myself... In the hope of saving Asriel... I would have probably ended up doing this too..."

Just thinking about it made her teary eyed, but she quickly composed herself as she smiled at Chara.

"But it never happened and it will never happen."

"Good for you. Too bad my Frisk couldn't settle like you," Chara said with a mocking shrug. "But are you sure that you want to try to... talk me down? I can feel that I still have control over the timeline. If I kill you, you won't be able to LOAD like in your universe. You will be dead. For good. Return to your universe, and forget about this one."

Frisk looked at Sweetie Void who nodded back at her. This filled her with Determination, and she stared back at Chara. "I won't die. And I won't return to my universe yet. Not until this universe is saved. Not until everybody in it is saved. And this includes the Frisk of this universe... and you."

Chara smiled creepily, and several red knives materialized around him. "I don't need to be saved."

Frisk glanced briefly at Sweetie Void again before she replied, "You need. Trust me, you need to be saved."

Chara answered with a scoff before he sent the knives toward Frisk who expertly dodged them. More knives came, in greater number, but Frisk still dodged them. But then, as Frisk was busy dodging the red knives, Chara suddenly rushed toward her and swung his knife. Frisk saw him at the last second...

And a red golden flower suddenly materialized in the path of the knife and blocked it like a shield.

Chara didn't seem that shocked to see Frisk using magic.

"So you learned to use magic? I guess that I should have expected this since you now live with the Dreemurrs."

Frisk giggled as she rubbed her flower necklace with a certain red orb.

"I actually cheated. I found this Magicord and I could do magic as if I had done it my whole life... Uh... Since I was just one day old back then, I think that this phrasing doesn't work. You see what I mean!"

Chara actually frowned at that, looking annoyed. "So you are telling me that you were able to get your hands on the red orb behind that door in the room with the piano puzzle? My Frisk was never able to! That stupid mutt always came and took it under his nose! And even when I intervened, I failed to take it!"

Frisk smirked. "Well... Doggone it."

Sweetie Void made the badumtss soundtrack, and Sans laughed while Apple Death rolled her eyes, Phantom groaned, and Chara... didn't react.

"Geese... Tough crowd, huh?" Frisk asked.

"You spent too much time with Sans, Frisk," Sweetie Void said.

"And my Chara, and Grandma Toriel, and you when you were-"

Frisk interrupted herself to materialize another flower to intercept Chara's knife as he suddenly swung again. Chara attacked several more times only for Frisk to either shield herself or to dodge not unlike Sans earlier. After a while, Chara sent more of the red knives while still attacking with the normal one, and Frisk countered by materializing a flower that fired seeds at them, destroying them.

Then, a vine wrapped itself around Chara's right ankle, almost causing him to fall and stopping his assault. However, he quickly used one of the red knives to slice it, freeing himself. This still left enough time for Frisk to gain some space to plan what to do, and what to say to Chara to convince him to stop.

She started by forcing him to retreat by sending more vines. He first sliced a few with his knife, but seeing their number, he eventually jumped back and instead decided to attack by sending his sharp waves of red energy. They cut the vines more effectively, but Frisk avoided them either by sidestepping the vertical ones or by jumping over or ducking under the horizontal ones, depending of their height.

One came that she couldn't avoid in time however, a diagonal one.

And she made a vine suddenly shoot out to pierce the wave, breaking it apart.

Chara was impressed. "You are good. It's... as if you already fought me."

Frisk gave a bright smile at the praise. "Thanks! My Chara trained me hard!"

"Hehe, I guess that this explains."

Chara proceeded to continue his attacks by sending red knives and red waves in various patterns that Frisk avoided or destroyed.

"I'm one of the favorite targets of the monster haters," Frisk began. "You know, because I'm a human living with the royal family of the monsters. So Chara made sure that I could protect myself. Almost everyday, as soon as we had the occasion, she led me into the forest where she spent several hours training me. She... She really cares about me, despite her tough exterior."

Chara remained silent, continuing his attacks.

"Training is not everything we do together however. We spend a lot of time gardening with Grandpa Asgore. It's really relaxing. She also taught me how to bake with Asriel's help. Well, actually, I asked her for this. She didn't want at first because of the... buttercup pie incident, but I managed to convince her. She's actually rather good. But I think that Asriel is the best baker of the two."

"Why not simply ask Toriel? She's the master baker of the Underground," Chara wondered.

"Because I wanted to spend time with Chara and Asriel. But if it can reassure you, Toriel was watching us to make sure that no accident would happen, and she helped when it came time to use the oven."

Chara surrounded Frisk with knives, the toy ones, to limit her movements before he sent several more red waves that were all destroyed like before.

"Gardening with Asgore, baking with Toriel, playing with Asriel... Don't you miss all this? The hugs? The love?" Frisk asked.

Frisk watched carefully Chara's face to see if her words gave any reaction. This Chara wasn't her Chara, but he was still Chara, and after living with her a few months, she more or less learned to read her. Chara tried to hide it with that creepy smile, but Frisk saw for a fraction of a second in his eyes longing and hesitation. However, in a blink, they disappeared.

Literally, his eyes became black and began to leak a black stuff.

In Frisk's mind, these were like the eyes of a demon, full of hate, of malice, and of sadism.

"No. I don't care about these trivialities anymore," he said in a dark growl before he closed the toy knives surrounding her on her.

Frisk quickly put herself in a cocoon of vines that stopped the knives, only for the ground under her feet to glow red, and she immediately understood that red knives will come out of it and she will have to jump.

But she may not be able to jump high enough, and she didn't have time to move out of the way.

Sweetie Void became worried for a short moment and thought to intervene.

But she didn't need to worry in the end.

Frisk grinned, and suddenly, her SOUL turned blue before she jumped just before the knives came out of the ground. She jumped as if she was on the Moon and landed a few meters in front of a gawking Chara (who didn't have the black stuff anymore), and she smiled smugly at him.

"You can use the Blue SOUL Mode?" Sweetie Void exclaimed in wonder.

Frisk giggled and nodded. "Chara recruited the others after a while to help me."

Sweetie Void whistled, understanding what she wasn't saying by using the word "others."

"She really went all out to ensure that no jerk would harm you."

"She's taking her role of mother very seriously."

She then jumped to the right, barely avoiding a giant glove almost punching her. She then jumped left to avoid a giant ballerina shoe almost crushing her. Finally, Chara attacked directly with his knife, and Frisk had to duck to avoid the swing before she turned Chara's SOUL blue and sent him on the wall at the beginning of the room, beside the Save Point.

Already very used to this thanks to Sans, Chara quickly recovered and rushed back toward Frisk while sending red knives and hateful words from two magically materialized notebooks. But Frisk then turned Chara's SOUL green, stopping him right there and leaving her to worry only about the projectiles that she dodged or destroyed. Her SOUL eventually turned yellow, but instead of grabbing it, she gathered yellow energy in her hands before she fired two powerful yellow projectiles at the notebooks, destroying the two of them in one shot.

"Sweetie Void could give you your own body. You wouldn't have to possess this Frisk anymore. You would be able to live peacefully with the Dreemurrs again, even with Asriel, without forgetting Frisk. You would never be alone again."

Frisk took an object out of one of her pockets and revealed it to be a heart locket like the one that Chara possessed. She showed it to Chara before she opened it, showing to him that there was a heart-shaped photo inside with Frisk, Chara, and Asriel in a group hug while facing the camera. A music box integrated in the locket started to play a certain song.

"You, Asriel, and Frisk could be a family, Best Friends Forever," she continued before she took a sadder expression. "I understand that your Frisk did horrible things, and in return, you did horrible things to him and to the others... But... You can still have this happy ending."

Chara scoffed before he used the gun to fire at Frisk several times. Seeing the gun, Frisk turned her SOUL purple and created several purple magical threads. Thanks to her purple SOUL, she was able to move from thread to thread almost instantaneously, very close to teleporting, letting her dodge the bullets.

"I don't need a happy ending. I'm not asking for one. And this Frisk certainly doesn't deserve one after killing all these monsters. All I need... All I want... is power."

Frisk frowned as she had to avoid fire sent from a frying pan like a flamethrower. She used the Blue Mode for this, sending herself to the ceiling to be out of reach of the flames.

"Sweetie told me that you want power to stop suffering... I guess that... you suffered a lot, uh? My Chara never told me, or anyone, about her life before the Underground, but it isn't hard to guess that you had a terrible life... Was... was it because your parents beat you? Or at least one of them?"

Chara stiffened, indicating to Frisk that she got it right. But then, the black eyes and the black stuff returned, and with a snarl, Chara attacked with his seven weapons at once, his attacks becoming very intense and difficult to avoid even with the SOUL modes. Frisk got hit, several times, but only minor injuries that were quickly healed with green seeds.

"It isn't just this however, uh?" Frisk eventually asked. "That hate of humanity wouldn't come from just your parents. Were you bullied? Did you have a friend who betrayed you? Asriel doesn't count."

The attacks stopped as Chara suddenly became immobile, looking down, teeth clenched as all the black stuff disappeared again.

"You want to know? Fine! I will tell you!" he then shouted before he sent dozens of red waves in very quick succession. "My mother died when giving birth to me!" Red knives rained all over the hall. "After that, my father became a drunkard! But at least, he took care of me! But then, as I grew up, I apparently began to look like my mother, and this drove my father crazy!" Giant knives came out from under Frisk, forcing her to use the Blue Mode again and again. "He started to treat me like trash! "Stop looking like her!" he said as he punched me! "Stop making me suffer!" he said as he kicked me in the belly! It's not like I had a say in how I looked!" Two giant notebooks almost crushed Frisk. "And after a few months of this, he began to blame me for her death! "It's your fault that she's dead!" "You should never have been born!" Father of the year, right?" He gave a bitter laugh at this before he sent ballerina shoes in a deathly dance to crush Frisk. "Then, one day, it got really bad, and I thought that I was about to die. Desperate, I grabbed a knife..." He pointed his knife toward his heart (not his SOUL). "and planted it right there. He spent his last moments strangling me, calling me a demon."

Frisk felt chills. So Chara killed before coming to the Underground? In retrospect, it wasn't surprising then that he/she had so little scruples killing humans to get their SOULs and break the Barrier. Even when you hate someone or something, killing is a whole other matter, especially for a child. His/Her LOVE was already above 1.

And she had the feeling that it was just the beginning.

At this point, Chara stopped attacking, his eyes closing as he lost himself in his past.

"I ran away, and I discovered the wonderful world of the streets. I won't bother you with every little tales of my misadventures in them, just know that what happened with my father pretty much continued in there. I was hurt a lot... and I hurt a lot. It was hell... And nobody cared. Anybody could have just extended a hand to help me, but nobody came. My only escapes were the library and the patch of golden flowers in the center of the town. And eventually, I decided that it wasn't worth living for this, and I wanted to disappear. So I went to Mt. Ebott... and you know the rest. The monsters took me in, and in return, I got in my head the stupid idea of giving up my life for them. But in the end, it was for naught... Again, I was hurt... and I ended up hurting them... Asriel dying... Mom and dad separating... The monsters losing hope... And the next thing I knew, I was in someone else's head and I could only watch as said person killed the monsters. And the power filling me at each kill... It felt so nice... I felt so guilty at first but..."

Chara's creepy face suddenly returned again, with the black eyes and the black stuff.

"Since I am so good at hurting others, then I should as well continue! And continue to gain this wonderful power of LOVE to ensure that I will never, NEVER be hurt ever again! I would stop caring for others and only care for myself! I would become what my father called me: a demon! THIS will be my happy ending! After all, in this world, it's kill or be killed, and nothing would be better for me than to remain the killer."

Frisk stared at Chara with a perfect poker face, not saying anything as he finished.

"So? You still think you can 'save' me?" Chara asked.

Without a word, Frisk grabbed Sweetie Void from her shoulder and placed her on the ground. Then, she began to walk toward Chara, not stopping looking at him and keeping her silent poker face.

This surprised the boy. He hadn't been expecting that.

"What are you doing?"

Frisk continued to advance.

"You know you will just die if you continue to approach me, right? Are you suicidal?"

She continued.

"Fine! I don't care anyway! Die!"

Chara began by sending red energy waves that were promptly destroyed by vines, and Frisk continued to approach, still with that poker face.

He stepped back.

"Damn it! Say something! Show something! Why are you approaching me?!"

He sent everything he had, the red knives, the toy knives, the gloves, the shoes, the notebook, the frying pan, the gun... But with the help of the SOUL Modes, Frisk avoided or destroyed most of them, and the few hits she took were healed with green seeds. She didn't even show pain in these cases.

Meanwhile, Chara continued to step back, only for his SOUL to turn green, stopping him.

He swung his knife at her as she got in range, but she dodged it before a vine wrapped itself around his wrist, stopping him from using the knife again. A red knife materialized in his left hand and he swung again only to be stopped by a flower before his left wrist was wrapped by a second vine.

Another red knife sliced the vine holding the right wrist.

But before he could attack, Frisk wrapped him in a hug.

He was so shocked by this that he simply stopped moving.

Then, she heard her beginning to cry before she said, "I'm so sorry..."

This got Chara out of his shock, and the eyes returned to normal. "Are you... serious?!"

"You... You aren't a demon, Chara!" Frisk managed between sobs.

"You really think so? Allow me to prove to you the contrary!" Chara countered as he raised his knife behind Frisk's back.

Sweetie Void readied herself to intervene.

Frisk then began to rub his back, which froze Chara again.

She then took her locket again and opened it, making it play the song.

"You are not a demon," she repeated. "You are one of the most wonderful, most caring person I know. You have so much love for others, to the point that you sacrificed your life for the ones you care. But each time that you loved someone, it ended badly for that person and for you. Life has been unfair to you. But... But I promise you... You can still be happy with the monsters. Toriel and Asgore would welcome you back with open arms and joy. Asriel... He still loves you despite everything. Even as Flowey, he still cares about you despite not having a SOUL anymore. You still have a loving family, and you have the occasion to return to them."

Between the rubbing, the song, Frisk's words, and the memories they were bringing back, Chara was beginning to struggle with his emotions, his body shaking.

"N-no... I won't!" he shouted firmly, teeth clenched. "I... don't need them! I'm very good alone!"

"Are you really? Doesn't the loneliness... hurt too?"

"Stop that!"

"You think that this power of LOVE will protect you from the hurting, but it's just making it worse. Exterminating the people that welcomed you... Lying to yourself that you don't care about them anymore... It only causes your heart to ache, without stopping. And there is no greater pain than a heartache."

"Stop... Please..."

"You may not feel it, buried under lies, hate, LOVE... Hidden behind the most solid dam in the world... But I know that it is here. And no dam, no matter their solidity, is eternal. Eventually, it will break... And then..."

"I... don't want... to..." Chara was losing the battle as said dam was already cracking, getting tears in his eyes.

Which was contrary to Frisk whose emotions were calming despite still feeling sad for Chara. "The path you are taking will only result in what you want to avoid in the long term. Please, give up LOVE, and give another chance to love. My Chara did, and she is the happiest she has ever been." Frisk moved her head away from Chara to look at him in the eyes with the most loving expression she could give as the locket continued to play the song. "You won't regret it. I promise."

She grabbed Chara's own heart locket and opened it, revealing the photo inside it. The photo was of Asriel and Chara, both holding a bouquet of flowers. The human had his face hidden behind his. Behind them were Toriel and Asgore, but the top of their bodies couldn't be seen.

"Despite everything, you still love them. Or else, you wouldn't have this locket with you."

The dam finally broke.

And Chara knelt, breaking into a mess of tears and sobs. His knife dropped on the ground behind Frisk.

Frisk knelt with him, hugging him again while whispering soothing words, and this time, he returned it.

Their SOULs returned inside them.

Sweetie Void sighed in relief, discreetly using her magic to make the knife disappear.

"welp, seems like she did it. to be frank, i had heavy doubts," she heard Sans say as he approached from behind with Apple Death and Phantom.

"I admit that I had some too," Sweetie Void replied. "But I knew that she had a chance to succeed."

"So, what now?" Apple Death asked.

"Now, we let them have their moment before we have a talk. There is still the case of Frisk, the one of this dimension, to discuss. Then, he must RESET to bring everyone back. After that, I will do like in the other dimension: I will help Frisk in his adventure, break the Barrier, give Chara a body and Asriel a SOUL, and finally help the monsters to integrate with the humans. Will you want to keep your memories of this timeline?" the alicorn asked Sans.

"well, one of us will need to keep an eye on Frisk and Chara once you will be gone, and for this, i will need my memories so i can remember what they can do," the skeleton answered.

Sweetie Void nodded before she looked at Apple Death and Phantom. "Will you want to join me in freeing the monsters after the RESET?"

"Of course!" Apple Death answered.

"You shouldn't even need to ask this question," Phantom said.

Later, after what felt like hours but actually were just a few minutes, Chara calmed down.

"Can... Sniff! Can I really...?"

Frisk nodded firmly. "You will see. Everything will be alright."

"Once you RESET," Sweetie Void finally decided to step in, gaining the attention of the two humans. "I'm really glad that Frisk managed to convince you to stop this folly, Chara. I really didn't want to do what I had planned to do if she had failed."

"What... did you have planned?" Chara hesitantly asked.

"You don't want to know," Sweetie Void answered with a creepy smile and empty eyes.

Chara gulped. "C-come on. I think it's good for me to know how screwed I would have been if I had continued."

Sweetie Void put a hoof under her chin in thought. "I suppose that you need an incentive to definitively convince you that this path would only lead to a life of eternal suffering for you."

And in a blink, Chara found himself with his SOUL out again with a claw of darkness coming from Sweetie Void's right foreleg ready to tear it off. It took a few seconds for his mind to catch up with what happened, and he could only look down in horror and panic at the claw around his SOUL.

"I could have ended this fight before it would have even started. I could have absorbed your SOUL right here, right now, without giving it time to break for you to LOAD. You would have ended up trapped in my mind alongside Frisk, at my mercy. For. E. Ver." The filly then gave Chara her sweetest smile. "Lucky you that I am such a nice Goddess-in-the-making."

Chara became very pale, Frisk gave the filly a deadpan look, and Sans externally kept his cool while he internally both was creeped out by Sweetie Void and amused by Chara's expression.

"Okay, you can put away this claw. I think he gets it," Phantom said with a grin.

Sweetie Void did so with a giggle.

"Sometimes, ya creep even me out, Sweetie. And yet, Ah saw some very nightmarish stuff," Apple Death commented.

Meanwhile, Chara said, "P-point taken..."

Chapter 204: RESET

“So then, after this RESET and after freeing the monsters and helping them settle down… What's next?” Phantom asked. ”More specifically-what to do about him?” She waved in Chara's general direction.

Sweetie Void hummed. ”I… don't think there is anything left to do? We more than taught him his lesson, and he promised to fix things up. So unless he further messes up, we leave things be.”

Phantom tsked. ”That's-”

“The fair thing to do,” Frisk spoke up. ”If one is willing, they should always have the option to make up for their mistakes.”

“And it's not like there’s a completely blameless party here,” Apple Death said. "The Frisk of this timeline just wanted a way ta save his Asriel, but nonetheless he committed great sins in trying ta. Chara, for all the wrong he did by sabotaging Frisk's second Pacifist Run and pressuring Frisk on a second Genocide, was ta an extent rightfully angry that Frisk thought himself ta be above consequences for his actions and could just have his happy ending completely scott-free.”

Sweetie Void nodded. ”Yeah. So all in all, I am willing to give them another chance in the new timeline. Again,so long as they never do something like that again.”

“Me too,” Frisk agreed.

“Mmm… Ah’m a bit on the fence with this one, but not entirely against the idea,” Apple Death said.

Phantom crossed her arms. ”Well I'm not. And you better watch yourself, I’ll be keeping an eye on you both,” she said as she sent a glare at Chara making him flinch.

Everyone then looked at Sans, being the only one left yet to voice his opinion.

Sans just sighed, sounding tired.

“look kid, i could be all threatening and stuff too but… honestly, at this point, i don't feel like beating on a dead horse,” he said, chuckling a bit before talking seriously again.

“i don't know if i ever feel like forgiving ya and you definitely never have my trust again-not to the degree I once had it anyway, although some serious talk could help. All that's to say that for the sake of everyone else, i'm at the very least willing to remain civil. how stuff goes after that, it’s all on you.”

Chara nodded. ”Ok. Frisk agrees too.”

Sweetie Void smiled. ”Well, guess it’s time for the Reset now.”

Chara nodded. Then, his body glitched back into Frisk’s body, and Frisk dropped on his knees before it could register to him that he had control again.

Then, he stared at the other Frisk for a moment before he jumped on his feet and wrapped her in his arms, crying. “Thank you!”

Smiling, Female Frisk wrapped her arms around her counterpart and gently patted his back. “There, there. It’s over now. Now, please, RESET. Let’s make things right.”

Male Frisk nodded, then released his counterpart.

“Wait,” Sweetie Void suddenly said before she looked at Female Frisk. “Don’t you want to return to your world first?”

Female Frisk giggled. “And miss all the fun here?”

Sweetie Void grinned. “Good point. We will have to find a nickname for you then. Well then, everyone who doesn’t want to be RESET, gather around me. Frisk, do your thing.”

Male Frisk, who rubbed his cheeks to remove the tears, nodded and walked away from everyone who gathered around the alicorn.

Sweetie Void lit her horn, creating a field around her.

Male Frisk RESET, and the world disappeared, then reappeared.

Any damage taken by the Hall was gone. Male Frisk was also gone, obviously back to the starting point, in the Ruins.

Sweetie Void removed the field she created, and Sans immediately stepped away from her, waving his arm above him.

“welp, i’m returning to my job. see ya once you step out of the ruins.”

With that, he walked behind a pillar and disappeared.

Sweetie Void looked at Apple Death and Phantom and smirked. “Hey. How about we turn into humans?”

Frisk had to put a hand on her mouth to stop herself from laughing. “Five humans at once. Everyone will lose their mind. Especially Papyrus. And Undyne may go Super Sayian, literally.”

“If her hair turns golden, I’m calling dibs,” Sweetie Void said before she looked back at the fillies. “So, what do you think, you two?”

Phantom gave a very evil grin. “Why not? Let’s turn this place crazy.”

Apple Death laughed. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

At that, Sweetie Void turned herself and her friends into humans. Remembering the tradition that children wear striped clothes, she gave herself a black sweater with white stripes, gave Phantom a black one with red stripes, and gave Apple Death a red one with green stripes. Sweetie then eyed Frisk’s sweater and decided to reverse its colors, turning it purple with blue stripes.

“To better differency you from your twin.”

“My twin? Oh, I guess that we needed an excuse for the two of us looking similar.”

“Exactly. Any nickname in mind?”

“Mmh… Kris?”

“Ooh! An anagram of your name, without the F! Not bad! Well, I guess that that’s everything. Time to go. Frisk must be waiting for us.”

“And I don’t feel good leaving him alone for too long,” Phantom said.

“I don’t think that we will see him killing monsters anytime soon, don’t worry,” Sweetie Void reassured. “Now, let’s go.”

At that, she teleported the group to the start of the Ruins, at the patch of Golden Flowers under the hole. Here they found Frisk who was sitting on the flowers.

He smiled at them. “I thought that you wouldn’t appear before Toriel’s arrival.” Then he got a good look at them. “You turned yourselves into humans?”

“To see everyone’s reaction when they see us,” Sweetie Void said.

“Chaos worthy of Discord incoming,” Apple Death said with a chuckle.

Frisk then looked at his counterpart. “And you changed your sweater?”

“To make me look different from you. Also, call me Kris. Let’s make it short for Kristina. And think of me as your twin.”

“Alright. Wow. Papyrus will drop his jaw, literally.”

This made Sweetie Void and Kris laugh.

“And Undyne may take her Undying form,” Frisk continued.

This made the two stop and look at him in confusion.

“Undying form?” Kris asked.

Frisk got excited. “That’s right, you never saw it since you never did a Genocide. When I was about to kill Monster Kid, she jumped between me and him and was hit in his place. I gave all my killing intent, so she was a goner in just one hit, like Toriel and Papyrus before her. But then, instead of dying, she was suddenly filled with Determination and made a whole speech about how I will destroy everyone’s hopes and dreams, both humans and monsters, and she will not let me. Then she transformed, and she kicked my ass. That was awesome! Even Chara got huge respect for her!”

Everyone stared at him in awe.

“So, let me get this straight,” Kris began. “Undyne was dying, but then gave a heroic speech, said “NO” to Death, and turned Super Sayian before killing you, the bad guy, like a real heroine?”

“Yes! It took me so many tries to kill her the first time! She really became the heroine of monsterkind at this moment.”

Phantom whistled, then looked at Sweetie Void. “We should invite her to the Alliance.”

Sweetie Void looked down sadly and shook her head. “Undyne’s transformation is not without consequence for her. Determination is very bad for monsters. If they get too much of it, their body melts and loses physicality. If they don’t find other monsters to merge with, their body gives out, resulting in their death. So, even if Undyne had won, she would have eventually died. Unless she absorbed Frisk’s SOUL, but knowing Undyne, she would have left it for Asgore and let herself die with a big smile knowing that she did her duty and saved and freed monsterkind.”

“Oh… She really is a heroine. Selfless to the end.”

“Yeah.”

Kris changed the subject. “And then, there is Mettaton. I can’t imagine what-”

She was interrupted by a gasp.

They all looked at the exit of the room where they saw Toriel herself now present, hands on her mouth.

“F-five humans?!”

Sweetie Void gasped. “A goat woman!”

Toriel slowly approached the children, not wanting to scare them. “Hello my children, do not be scared. I am Toriel, the caretaker of this place, the Ruins. I come here everyday to see if humans like you have fallen. Are you alright? Are you hurt after this drop?”

Frisk got up from the flowers and shook his head. “No Miss Toriel, we are alright. Nobody is hurt.”

“Glad to hear.”

Kris then approached. “Hello gran… Miss Toriel. Nice to meet you. My name is Kris, and this is my twin brother, Frisk. And these are my friends… Uh…” She pointed at Sweetie Void. “Elize.” She pointed at Apple Death.

Apple Death spoke before the girl at time to say something. “Jacqueline. Call me Jackie for short.”

“And I’m Ruby,” Phantom said.

“Nice meeting you, my children,” Toriel said. “Welcome to the Ruins. Now, let me guide you through the catacombs.”

“Of course,” Apple Death said.

Toriel moved toward the exit, and the children followed her. She guided them through the first puzzles, taught them to talk to a dummy, and scared away a Froggit who attacked them. Then, they reached a long room where Toriel asked them to walk to the other side by themselves to test their independence, much to the children’s amusement. She was such a mom. It got a bit on Phantom’s nerves to be treated like a toddler.

After that, Toriel gave them a very old phone that Kris took and left them alone, asking them to remain in the room and to wait for her.

“I tried waiting for her once,” Frisk informed. “However, an annoying dog stole her phone and kept her chasing it as long as I remained in the room.”

Frisk’s face suddenly changed, his eyes opening fully and pink appearing in his cheeks. “It’s this same dog who was stealing the red orb from us, no matter how much we tried to get it.”

Kris snorted. “Toby is a good boy, but I agree that he can be very annoying. Papyrus agrees too. Sans is pretty much best pal with him.”

“Not a big surprise,” Chara said with a flat look before he left his place back to Frisk.

“By the way,” Frisk then began before he looked at his counterpart. “Is it me, or you almost called Toriel “grandma”?”

“Well, she is my grandma,” Kris answered.

Sweetie Void chuckled. “Remember what I said? Chara and Flowey slash Asriel are your parents. By extension, Toriel and Asgore are your grandparents.”

Chara returned, looking angry. “That’s right! Where is that weed? I want to say two words to him!”

“I’m right here!” they heard from the exit of the room. There, they saw Flowey.

He was visibly shaking.

“YOU!” Chara yelled before he began to stomp toward Flowey, raising his stick.

Apple Death quickly grabbed him from behind, stopping him. “Woah there! Don’t do something ya’ll regret!”

“I won’t regret what I want to do to him! Let me go!”

“Nope!”

“He made me a father! At ten years old!”

“And it’s worth it,” Kris said before she began to massage his shoulders. Immediately, Chara stopped moving and began to melt with a moan. “You will see, once you two have your own bodies, you will have a lot of good and fun time together.”

While all this happened, Flowey observed, stopping shaking.

Sweetie Void placed herself in front of Chara. “You don’t seem to be surprised to learn that Frisk is your son.”

“...I saw part of your fight against Chara, hidden behind a pillar. I was there when you revealed to him about Frisk. Hehehe… That was… quite the world-shaking news. That whole fight has been a roller coaster of emotions. Learning about that and also about Chara killing me and seeing him being so easily and brutally killed by you and his past. You can say… that I need to have a talk with my brother.”

Kris stopped massaging Chara and stepped away from him. Sweetie Void also stepped away, and a calmer Chara approached the flower before sitting down in front of him.

The two stared at each other in silence.

The silence was suddenly broken by Toriel calling and telling that she would take longer than expected, asking them to wait a little longer as a result.

Chara and Asriel didn’t mind this.

Asriel then took a big breath. “Listen. Yes, I’m mad that you killed me in previous timelines. Several times apparently. And you were about to do it again. But, it’s like I told you back then. The two of us were the same. I… certainly would have done the same to you.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Chara suddenly said. “You still idealized me. A world without me would be too boring. You would have never killed me, unless I stopped being the Chara you thought I was. The cruel, broken, “kill or be killed” Chara. Which, I guess, would have never happened back then.”

“But me? I made you sacrifice yourself for nothing… I made us fail in freeing the monsters… I made the monsters suffer so much. Our parents… Of course you would still be mad at me. But this is why I adopted your “kill or be killed” vision! I turned myself into you, so I wouldn’t be this weak crybaby anymore! So you would be proud of me!.......... Seems like it wasn’t enough…”

Chara chuckled. “I actually forgave you. A long time ago.”

“What?”

“Back when Frisk did a Pacifist for the first time. You absorbed everyone’s SOULs and revealed yourself to be Asriel. Then I saw your pain, all that suffering that I caused you… And I decided that our death wasn’t your fault, but my fault, so I forgave you. You did the right thing, stopping me from killing the humans.”

Flowey stared at Chara in confusion. Did he hear it right? Chara said that he did the right thing? That it was okay that he let his weakness speak and caused the both of them to die?

“All that anger and hate that I had toward you and monsterkind… I redirected them toward myself. I accepted that I wasn’t the angel of the prophecy, but a demon only made to make others suffer, and I accepted my fate as a voice stuck within Frisk’s head, only spectating as the monsters settled into their new life of freedom without me. It was okay that I remained alone.

But then… Frisk RESET and eventually began killing monsters, and I felt the power of LOVE rush to me. And the more I took, the more I wanted. Monsters became nothing more than a stepping stone, you included. If I was good only to make others suffer, then let them suffer, and use that suffering to become greater. I didn’t kill you because I was angry at you for betraying me. I killed you because you were just one of many in my way to the absolute. Then I would finally leave this world of suffering behind.

But as Kris said, deep down, I still cared for you and for everyone. That thirst for power was just a way for me to hide myself. To hide the love I still felt for all of you. And the shame that I still felt for what I did, and what I was doing. I just… didn’t want to suffer anymore.

But now… I guess that I’m ready to give another chance to this world. No more “kill or be killed”.”

Flowey remained silent after Chara stopped talking. Toriel called again before the flower finally gritted his teeth and muttered, “”No more “kill or be killed””, uh?” He then glared at Chara and yelled, “Are you kidding me?!”

Chara didn’t even react to that.

“Since the day I found you, you constantly told me that the world is “kill or be killed”! You mocked me for my weakness and tried to shape me to become like you! Then I proved to you that you were right when I killed the both of us because of said weakness! So I adopted your vision, “kill or be killed”, and made it my whole life! My motto! All my actions turned around that! I turned into what you wanted me to be! And now, you are telling me “no more”?!”

Chara sighed. “I just want that cycle of hatred and suffering to stop.”

“THEN WHAT THE HELL WAS THE POINT OF EVERYTHING I DID?!!”

“Nothing. There was no point. Like I said, you were right to stop me. I was the one in the wrong.”

“There is no way! Come on, you get beat up, then you get hugged, and suddenly everything is different? But what about everything that happened to you before you came to the Underground? Don’t tell me that the world is not “kill or be killed” after all that! You killed your own father who had been about to kill you, damn it! This is proof!”

Chara looked down, his hair shading his eyes. “..........You are right. This world is messed up. There are moments where it is “kill or be killed”...” He looked back up at Asriel. “But it isn’t everything there is. When I was with you and the monsters, at no moment, there was that. There was only love. The only one who poisoned the underground with that vision was me, and look where it led us. It only brings suffering. It made you suffer. It made mom and dad suffer. It made the monsters suffer. But, no. More. While “kill or be killed” won’t be avoided on the surface, let’s avoid it as much as possible. Let’s rather “love and be loved”.

“BUT YOU KNOW I CAN’T LOVE! SUCH A WORLD IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME!”

Chara pointed at Sweetie Void above his shoulder. “Apparently, give her a couple of SOULs, and she will be able to help you about that.”

That made Asriel stop and give Sweetie Void a hopeful look before he shook his head, his eyes closing. “But then, what? Do we forget everything that happened?”

“No… It will be impossible to forget…”

“You are right. It doesn’t change the fact that… That… That you turned me into… that, FOR NOTHING,” Asriel said before he opened his eyes, now crying. “I wish that you had let your father strangle you.”

Then, he burrowed into the ground and disappeared.

Silence followed.

Chara closed his eyes, tears appearing. “Sweetie Void? Once you get the SOULs… Instead of giving me a body… send me to Hell. That’s all I deserve.”

Chapter 205: Fun In The Ruins

Chara retreated into Frisk’s mind after that and wouldn’t come out no matter what the others said. After a few minutes, Kris sighed in sadness.

“Let’s give him some time. We should go.”

The others agreed.

As soon as they left the room, they received a call from Toriel asking them if they left the room, warning that there were puzzles ahead and that it could be dangerous to try to solve them by themselves.

Kris reassured Toriel that they will be alright before the call ended, then approached the Froggit in the room at their left.

Then she began to talk to him with perfect ribbits, having no problem understanding in return what the Froggit was saying.

Reminder, Kris didn’t have a translator like all the members of the Alliance now had, and she didn’t have Chara to translate for her.

Frisk was very surprised.

Sweetie Void grinned. “You became very good in Froggit, you were still struggling when I left.”

Kris smiled back at her, then giggled. “I still have some difficulty, like differentiating ‘ribbit’ and ‘ribbit’.”

“You will get it eventually.”

Frisk approached the Froggit to try to talk to him, however, he couldn’t understand his ribbits, and Chara in his head wasn’t even translating for him. He sighed.

“So many RESETs and I never bothered to learn Froggit.”

“Once you settle on the surface, it will be part of your education,” Kris reassured.

“Eh, there’s another Froggit approaching,” Phantom warned.

She did right, because the Froggit attacked them. revealing Apple Death and Phantom’s SOULs to be respectively an Integrity blue and… a mix of Bravery orange and Justice yellow.

Phantom shrugged. “I’m a being born from the merging of two others. The orange is probably Scootaloo’s while the yellow would be Infinite’s.”

A couple of ‘ribbits’ from Kris were enough to convince the Froggit to stop while his whole face became red.

Sweetie Void gasped. “Kris! What if Chara heard you? You would be so grounded!”

Kris stuck out her tongue. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt.”

Phantom burst into laughter, and Apple Death facehooved.

Of course, poor Frisk was left out of the loop, but he could swear that he heard Chara chuckle in his mind. He pouted.

They went to the room behind the first Froggit to take some monster candies, then went to the exit. On the way, Frisk and Kris both saved, having the exact same level of Determination. Then, they encountered a Whimsun, a moth-like monster, that they scared away to tears without meaning to.

“No matter what I do, they always fly away in tears,” Frisk said.

They reached a corridor with cracked floor and two holes in the left wall. Kris used her magic to create a bridge over the cracked floor with her vines, passing this ‘puzzle’.

In the next room, which had a rock and a switch before a row of spikes, they got a call from Toriel asking if they preferred cinnamon or butterscotch. The children answered one or the other before ending the call. Surprisingly, Toriel guessed that Frisk preferred cinnamon, as if remembering getting this info in the previous timeline.

“Yeah, these déjà vu happen when I don’t do a TRUE RESET,” Frisk said.

“A TRUE RESET?” Kris asked.

At this moment, Toriel called again, asking if they wouldn’t mind having whatever they didn’t prefer. They all answered that they didn’t mind before ending the call.

Frisk then answered Kris’ question.

“Yeah. You see, a normal RESET leaves some traces, as you could see with Toriel remembering my taste from the previous run. However, when I manage to free the monsters and RESET, everything is forgotten. Even Flowey doesn’t remember anything. I call these TRUE RESETs. I don’t know why this happens.”

“This power should be studied,” Phantom said.

“It would be very hard once we reach the surface. Beside RESETTING, it pretty much disappears,” Frisk informed. “No Save Points appear there. We would have to return to the Underground, but with the CORE turned off, nothing would work anymore down there. We would need to bring our own generator.”

Kris shook her head. “I went to look after a while, the Save Points in the Underground eventually disappear. I don’t know when exactly they disappear however.”

“Darn,” Apple Death said.

“So we would need to study this power before freeing everyone, which may take a while,“ Sweetie Void said.

“Which may mean living down there in the Underground for who knows how long, avoiding Asgore and his Royal Guard,” Frisk said.

“And who knows how many monsters would fall down before we find every secret of this power,” Kris said. “Let’s just forget about that.”

All the others agreed, and with that, Frisk pushed the rock onto the switch to lower the spikes blocking the way.

A huge part of the next room had the floor cracked. Thankfully, Frisk knew the way by heart and guided them through it, Kris complimenting a Froggit on the way to stop her from attacking.

Next room had three rocks to push on switches.

To the fillies’ surprise, Kris went to the rightmost rock and began to talk to it.

“Excuse me, can you go on that switch over there and remain on it, please?”

“Since you are asking so nicely, pumpkin,” the rock answered before it moved on the switch by itself.

“What the fuck?” Phantom almost shouted.

Sweetie Void giggled. “Rock monsters.”

Phantom eyed the rock in the middle, then approached it. “Hey, can you move to the switch, please?”

…

Frisk put a hand on his mouth to hold back a laugh. “It’s just a rock!”

Phantom threw up her arms. “Oh come on!!!”

Everyone else burst into laughter, making Phantom blush and cross her arms before she turned her back on them.

After that, they pushed the two remaining rocks, lowering the spikes.

As they passed the spikes, they encountered two Moldsmals, slime-like monsters, and both Frisk and Kris wiggled their hips, followed by Sweetie Void. Apple Death and Phantom looked at them as if they were crazy.

The Moldsmals wiggled back, and that was the end of the encounter.

Then Sweetie Void began to move her hips with her hands above her head while music blasted from her horn. Everyone stared at her before the Moldsmal began to wiggle at her sides. Kris laughed and joined her, then Frisk and Apple Bloom both shrugged and joined too. Phantom hesitated, then rolled her eyes, smiled, and joined in the end.

One by one, monsters passing by the room joined too, finding it fun, although the Whimsuns hesitated a lot before joining.

After a few minutes of that, Sweetie Void couldn’t hold it anymore and fell on ground in laughter, the music stopping. The others all laughed too, some sitting down to recover their breath. The monsters, once they calmed down, gave to them a lot of gold before they went on their way.

And yes, Frisk really heard Chara laugh this time.

“What the hay was that?” Apple Death asked.

“Well, Discord showed me this dance with this song and… when we wiggled our hips, it reminded me of that and suddenly, I wanted to do it.”

“You are becoming as random as Pinkie Pie,” Phantom said.

“Thanks.”

With that, they left the room and entered a corridor with a Save Point, a table with cheese on it, and a mouse hole. They SAVED and continued their way.

Next room, they found Napstablook on the ground, lying down on the ground. As soon as they saw them approaching, they began to repeat ‘z’, wanting to make them believe that they were asleep, but it wasn’t working because their eyes were open.

Kris approached the ghost and smiled at them. “Hello. You are Napstablook, right? I heard that you make nice music. Can I hear it?”

Napstablook blushed. “ooooh….. my music isn’t that good. but… if you want to hear it…” They revealed a CD player. “i have my latest creation on me.”

“Yes, please!” Kris said.

The others all agreed. “ooooh…….. okay.”

At that, Napstablook pressed the start button, and the player began to play music.

“Hey, it’s very good!” Apple Death said.

“oooh… thank you.”

Sweetie Void then began to accompany the music with her voice. Apple Death and Phantom exchanged glances at that, then the latter materialized an electric guitar while the formed sprouted bones that she made form a xylophone, and the two began to play too.

Seeing the fillies having fun, Kris became sad. “Aww… I wish I had my flute now.”

The next instant, a flute materialized in front of her. Gasping, Kris grabbed it and began to play.

Now, it was Frisk’s turn to be sad, having never learned to play an instrument. Then, he heard Chara say something, and he left his place to him.

“Can I have a piano?” Chara then asked, and a piano materialized right away. Chara sat down and began to play.

This music section thus turned into a real concert, with monsters entering the room and listening to the performance. In just a few minutes, the majority of the population of the Ruins was gathered here.

After a few more minutes, Sweetie Void estimated that it went long enough, the music getting repetitive, so she nodded to Napstablook who turned off the player, ending the concert.

The monsters cheered and applauded (or wiggled excitedly in the Moldsmals’ case), throwing gold.

The children bowed, except Chara who retreated inside Frisk’s mind, so Frisk was the one bowing, starting after the others.

“that was very good,” Napstablook said.

Frisk smirked at them. “What are you still doing over there? Come bow with us. It is your music that they love.”

Napstablook blushed. “oooh… oh gee…”

Hesitantly, they approached the children, then faced the public of cheering and applauding monsters and bowed.

“Napstablook! The one who made the music you just listened to!”

The applause intensified.

“oh gee… th… thank you everyone... i didn’t think you would love it so much… or that you would love it at all…”

“Of course they would love it,” Sweetie Void said. “What is not to love in your music?”

“w-well… it is not… good…”

“Well, this public seems to think the contrary.”

“oh gee… i don’t know what to say…”

“Have more confidence, dude,” Phantom said.

“i… will try…”

With that, the monsters began to disperse, leaving the children alone with the ghost.

“i usually come to the ruins because there’s nobody around…” Napstablook then said. “but today, i met nice people, and i found out that monsters love my music… it was… fun. thank you, my f… oooh…”

“Ya can call us yer friends,” Apple Death said. “We consider ya our friend now.”

“really?”

“Yeah!” Sweetie Void shouted before she hugged Napstablook.

The ghost blushed. “oh gee…”

Frisk and Kris giggled.

“i guess it’s time for me to return home. if you pass by waterfall, come visit me, if you want… i-it’s ok if you don’t… i won’t mind… that’s if you want… no pressure…”

And with that, Napstablook disappeared.

“I never thought of making him play his music to make him move out of the way,” Frisk said.

“Yeah, Napstablook really loves music,” Kris said. “Easy way to become friends with him.”

The group continued, Frisk entering the room just in front of them where he bought a spider donut.

He showed it to the others with a smirk. “This will help us pass Muffet without fighting her.”

“What? Really?” Kris asked.

“Yeah. You will see.”

And so, they continued through the Ruins. Thanks to the concert, they didn’t have to fight at all. Whenever they encountered a monster, they wanted an autograph instead. Thanks to that, they traversed the Ruins much faster, only having to deal with the puzzles.

Down a hole under cracked floor, Frisk found a ribbon that he put to his hair, even if he didn’t think that he will need it. Through the RESETs, he became very good at dodging, as long as he wasn’t facing Undyne the Undying and Sans. As for the others, Kris proved herself in her fight against Chara, and he didn’t think that he had to worry about the fillies.

But just in case, he still took it.

Before reaching Toriel’s house, Frisk looked toward the corridor leading to the balcony over the ancient capital, Home, where he knew that the toy knife could be found, but he decided against going there.

He will not fight.

Finally, they reached a large black naked tree where they found Toriel as she was about to call them. She was very surprised to see them here, but when she saw that they weren’t hurt at all, she was very impressed. She then guided them to her house.

When they entered, there was a delicious smell, and Toriel said, “Do you smell that? Surprise! It is a butterscotch-cinnamon pie. I thought we may celebrate your arrival. I want you to have a nice time living here. So I will hold off on snail pie for tonight.”

The fillies looked disgusted at that.

“Here, I have another surprise for you,” Toriel then continued before she moved toward the hallway at the right. There, she guided them to the first door at the left. “A room of your own. I hope you like it! I sadly have only one bed, so I had to do some makeshift ones until I can buy new ones. And I guess that five in the same room is too much, but I thankfully have a second room that I am not using. Once I finish renovating it, it will be to whoever will want it. Until then, please, be patient.”

At that, she rubbed both Frisk and Kris’ hair.

Then, she smelled the air. “Is something burning…? Um, make yourself at home!”

And with that, she ran to the kitchen.

“She really considers this place as our new home,” Phantom said.

Frisk sighed. “She is very lonely, and she wants to protect us. Beyond the Ruins, the monsters will actively hunt us for our SOULs, so she thinks that keeping us here is for the best, and for good reason considering that the six humans before me all died. She will need to be convinced to let us go. I never found a way to avoid a fight.”

“Well, together, I’m sure that we will find a way,” Kris said before she opened the door so they all entered the room where they sat on the makeshift beds made from a king-size mattress and covers placed on the floor. They then began to plan how to convince Toriel to let them go without a fight.

After a few minutes, Frisk told them that they should pretend to sleep. This way, once Toriel enters the room, she will leave plates with pieces of pie and leave them alone for several hours so they will have more time to plan.

Frisk let his counterpart take the bed.

Frisk was right. A few minutes later, Toriel entered the room with a tray full of plates each containing a piece of pie. Seeing them asleep, she placed the plates on the floor, then turned off the lamp before she left the room. After a few seconds, once the children judged that Toriel was far enough, the children opened their eyes, took the plates, and began to eat while they continued to plan.

Frisk and Kris eventually really felt tired, so the children went to sleep for real, empty plates beside the beds.

A few hours later, Sweetie Void was the first to wake up. She silently left the room with her empty plate in her hand and went to the living room where she found Toriel reading a book on a chair beside the chimney.

“Up already, I see?” Toriel said.

Sweetie Void nodded. “Uhuh. I don’t sleep a lot. Jackie should be up soon too. She lives on a farm, you see.”

“Ah, I see, yes. Farmers wake up very early to do their tasks.”

Sweetie Void nodded again, then presented the plate. “It was very good. Thank you for the pie.”

“You are very welcome, my child.”

Toriel took the plate and went to the kitchen before she returned and sat back on the chair.

“I will do the dishes once the others wake up and give me their plates.”

“Ok.”

“Um, I want you to know how glad I am to have someone here. There are so many old books I want to share. I want to show you my favorite bug-hunting spot. I’ve also prepared a curriculum for your education. This may come as a surprise to you… But I have always wanted to be a teacher… Actually, perhaps that isn’t very surprising. STILL. I am glad to have you and the others living here.”

Aww… Sweetie so wanted to hug that woman.

“Hey, do you want to know what we did yesterday on the way to your house?” she asked.

“Oh? What happened?”

“We encountered this ghost, Napstablook, who looked very sad. Then, they made us listen to music they made. It was very good, and I couldn’t stop myself from singing along. Kris had a flute with her, so she began to play. This turned into a concert with most of the Ruins monsters present. When it ended, they all applauded. Napstablook couldn’t believe that their music was so appreciated. They then returned to a place called Waterfall. Hopefully, they will have more confidence in themself after that, and it was really fun. The monsters were constantly asking us for autographs after that.”

“Napstablook. Yes, I remember them. They have a snail farm. If there is one monster that wouldn’t hurt a fly, it would be them. So they come to the Ruins? I’m so happy that you helped them. So you sing?”

“Uhuh.”

Before more could be said, Apple Death arrived.

“Howdy.”

“Ah, hello Jackie. I hope you had a nice sleep despite the makeshift beds.”

“Ah slept like a rock.”

“Glad to hear.”

“Meh, I wouldn’t use that expression. You don’t have a sedimentary life. Sleeping like a bear would be better. You are as strong as one, and you give the best bear hugs.”

Toriel suddenly snorted before bursting into laughter.

Apple Death rolled her eyes, but still snorted. “Ah’ll show ya a bear hug, it’ll be spine-breaking.”

“I still want to use my legs, thank you.”

“Anyway, how about we make breakfast before the others wake up?” Apple Death proposed.

Toriel calmed down and nodded. “You are right. The others should wake up by the time I finish. Wait, “we”?”

“Of course. Ah’m good at cooking. And it’s not something as simple as a breakfast that’ll give me problems. Ya don’t mind?”

“Oh! Not at all! I would be happy to have someone prepare breakfast with me. What about you, Elize?”

Sweetie Void shrugged. “I can make breakfast too, but three in the kitchen would be too much. I can wait here. I will just read a book.”

“Very well.”

At that, Toriel and Apple Death entered the kitchen.

During the following minutes, Phantom, Kris, and Frisk woke up and entered the living room, going to the kitchen to give their plates. Soon after, they ate breakfast. There weren't enough chairs for everyone however, so some of them had no choice but to eat while standing.

“I will get more chairs as soon as possible,” Toriel said.

“That’s okay, we won’t be here much longer anyway,” Phantom said.

Toriel stopped eating, staring at Phantom. “Why do you say that?”

“We have to return home. Everyone will be worried.”

“...It is your home here.”

“It is a nice place here, but not really home material for children. The Ruins aren’t very big, there isn’t much to do here, we would get bored quickly. Even your home isn’t made for so many of us at once. And like I said, we have our families and friends waiting for us. Do you know how to get out of here?”

Toriel was silent for a moment, then got up. “I have to do something.”

Then she walked toward the stairs leading to the ‘basement’, at the entrance room.

The children immediately followed her.

They quickly caught up to her.

“You wish to know how to return “home”, do you not? Ahead of us lies the end of the Ruins. A one-way exit to the rest of the Underground. I am going to destroy it. No one will ever be able to leave again. Now be good children and go upstairs,” she said before she walked.

The children silently followed her.

“Every human that falls down here meets the same fate. I have seen it again and again. They come. They leave. They die. You naive children… If you leave the Ruins… They… Asgore… Will kill you. I am only protecting you, do you understand?... Go to your room.”

“Then what? You will keep us trapped in this prison for the rest of our lives?” Phantom asked.

Toriel missed a step, then looked at Phantom in horror. “This… This is not a prison! It is just… the only safe place in the Underground. Outside, you will be hunted. There will be no respite. There will be no safety. And it will only end badly for you.”

“We managed ta reach yer house without a single scratch. This must count for something,” Apple Death said.

“I admit, this is impressive, but the Ruins monsters are among the weakest you can find in the Underground. Outside, it will not be as easy. Especially against the Royal Guard.”

“But there is one thing that we have that the previous humans didn’t have: number. The previous humans were alone, right?” Frisk asked.

“Well, yes, but…”

“But we are five. With all of us working together, I’m sure that we can traverse the Underground and remain safe.”

“And we managed to befriend the monsters here, so I’m sure that we can befriend the monsters outside too,” Sweetie Void said.

“Even if you somehow manage to traverse the Underground and avoid being captured or killed, you will still have to fight Asgore,” Toriel said. “He is the most powerful monster, you will never be able to defeat him, and he will WANT your death.

Sweetie Void looked sadly at Toriel. The reality is so different…

“Maybe if we befriend enough monsters, they will be able to convince him to not kill us?” Kris proposed.

Toriel became thoughtful. “I guess that it could work, but it would be very difficult… I… I guess that I should tell you. There is a Barrier keeping us trapped down here. The only way to destroy it is to collect seven human SOULs. By now, they have six SOULs.” Toriel stared at the children with a deep frown. “Your plan means that you will have to convince the monsters to not kill you, and so, to remain trapped here. To give up their freedom, which they have been longing for so long.”

“Then… Maybe we can find a way to destroy the Barrier without us having to die?” Sweetie Void said.

At this moment, Toriel looked very tired. “There is no other way. Seven human SOULs, or nothing.” She then looked pleadingly at them. “There is one last thing. If you wish to return to your home, you can’t traverse the Barrier by yourselves. You will need to absorb the SOUL of a monster, and only boss monster SOULs remain long enough to be absorbed, and only two boss monsters remain in the Underground: me, and Asgore. Even if you kill both of us, three of you will remain trapped.

“Well, we don’t want to kill anybody, not Asgore, and especially not you,” Phantom said. “I guess that's more reason to find a way to destroy the Barrier.”

“I want to believe that we can find a way,” Frisk said. “They have scientists, right? Maybe if we let them study us.”

Toriel sighed, then knelt in front of the children, staring at them in the eyes. “You really are set on leaving.”

“Or at least, make it so we can explore the whole Underground without having to remain trapped in the Ruins,” Kris said. “And if we can help the monsters, all the better.”

Toriel got tears in her eyes. “Oh, my children.” She hugged all of them. “You have such good hearts. V-very well. I will trust you. But please, be careful. I… I have a friend who will keep an eye on you. H-hopefully, with him, everything will be alright.”

After that, Toriel led the children to the door leading out of the Ruins, opening it.

Sweetie Void stared at her. “You know, if you are worried about us, you can come with us.”

Everyone looked at her in surprise.

“W-wha-?” Toriel began.

“I mean, if you come with us, then you will be able to protect us, and you will be able to help convince the monsters to not kill us.”

Toriel hesitated. “I don’t know…”

“Come on. I’m sure that it will be better than remaining here all alone.”

Sweetie Void then gave Toriel her best puppy dog eyes. Kris quickly did the same, followed by Apple Death and Frisk.

Toriel sighed. “Very well.”

The children without Phantom cheered.

Phantom rolled her eyes. “Alright, but please, give us some space. We don’t want you to scare the monsters like you scared away that Froggit, or we won’t be able to make friends, even if they attack us.”

“I will try, my child…”

Chapter 206: Fun in Snowdin

A door opened, and five children and a goat woman passed it, entering Snowdin Forest.

Sans had expected the children, but not the goat woman.

There goes the script…

At least, Sans could see that the little demon went good on his promise. Lv1. Not a single speck of dust on him. Not that the others would have let him. He could tell that he was feeling guilty about that. He was a bit withdrawn compared to the others, partially hiding behind the goat woman, who was clearly the queen, and the old lady that he befriended through the door. He was scared of meeting him, for good reason.

Compared to him, the other Frisk was a ray of sunshine who was almost skipping. She was very excited, and she even waved at the camera in the bush, probably giving Alphys quite the fright.

The queen was Mama Bear mode, looking around ready to assault anything that looked threatening to the children. If only she knew how much they didn’t need her to defend themselves. But it meant that Sans won’t be able to do his whoopee cushion routine without probably receiving a fireball in the face. Or he will have to modify it to look less threatening, but it would ruin all the fun.

In the end, Sans decided to wait at his station.

Now, how to make Papyrus not say that he wishes to capture a human to send to the king…?

“I never loved this part of the forest. These trees make it look so unsettling,” Toriel said. “And it does not help that it is the most remote area of the Underground. Nobody ever comes here. It would be easy to fall into an ambush.” She shook her head. “How did I ever think that it was a good idea to let the children go alone with this area being the first in their journey? Thankfully, my friend should not be far.” She frowned. “It is also cold here. I should have given you warm clothes.”

“It’s okay, Toriel, it’s not that cold,” Kris said.

“I see something ahead,” Phantom said.

As she said, ahead of them, they could see a small bridge passing between bars. The bars were too wide apart to stop anyone. Well, Toriel may have to duck a bit.

Toriel got confused. “Why are there bars?”

The children shrugged, even if three of them knew the answer.

They traversed the bridge and passed the bars, arriving at a station where they found Sans sitting and drinking ketchup.

He lazily waved at them. “oh, heya. didn’t expect someone to come out of this door.”

“That voice.” Toriel approached the skeleton. “Would you be…?”

“hey. i recognize your voice too. so ya decided to come out? name’s sans.”

“Hello, I am Toriel. Nice to finally see you face to face.” She looked around at the station. “What is this place?”

“a sentry station,” sans answered. “my job is to look out for humans, but don’t worry, i’m too lazy to run after them. they risk nothing from me.” He winked. “and i gave you my word.”

Toriel sighed in relief. “Thank you, Sans.”

“my brother, papyrus, however… well, he isn’t officially a sentry, but he is the captain’s protegee, and he really wants to capture a human to join the royal guard. but don’t worry, i already told ya ‘bout him, he doesn’t have a mean bone in him. ya’ll see, he will sooner befriend the little ones.”

“I can’t wait to finally meet him.”

Frisk pointed down the path beyond the station. “I think that I see him approach. Tall skeleton with an orange-red cape and a white armor?”

“yup, that’s him. be ready.”

Sans barely said that that Papyrus arrived at the station.

“what’s up, bro?”

“YOU KNOW ‘WHAT’S UP’, BRO-OH, YOU HAVE COMPANY! WAIT A MINUTE…” He looked alternatively between the five children, focusing more and more, approaching them, rubbing his chin, bending, approaching his head to the point that he was almost invading their personal space. Then, he gasped. “SANS! OH MY GOD! ARE THEY… HUMANS?”

Sweetie Void waved at him. “Hello, Mr. Papyrus! Yes, we are humans. Nice to meet you!”

Papyrus gasped again. “OH MY GOD!!! AND FIVE OF THEM AT ONCE! THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!”

Toriel held back a laugh.

“Wow! Mr. Papyrus! You look so cool!”

The compliment took Papyrus by surprise. “NYEH?” Then, he took a pose, hand on his hip, cape floating to the wind. “OF COURSE! I’M THE GREAT PAPYRUS AFTER ALL! I DO MY BEST TO BE AS COOL AS POSSIBLE!”

Phantom took a pose. “I’m cool too!”

Papyrus stared attentively at her, then nodded. “YES. YOU ARE COOL. PAPYRUS APPROVED!”

“Ya must be very strong,” Apple Death said.

Again, Papyrus took a pose. “I TRAIN EVERYDAY WITH UNDYNE, THE CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD HERSELF!”

“Uh… Can you show us?” Frisk asked.

“OF COURSE!”

The skeleton then proceeded to show some impressive attack patterns with his bone projectiles. The children all applauded.

“That’s impressive, Papyrus,” Toriel said.

Papyrus was suddenly reminded that the children weren’t alone, and he blushed. “OH, THANK YOU, UH… ASGORE? SINCE WHEN DID YOU SHAVE?”

Toriel made a fake cough. “Actually, I am his ex-wife.”

“REALLY?! WOWIE! EVERYONE THOUGHT YOU HAD DISAPPEARED!”

“I went to hide, but I decided to come out of hiding. I am Toriel, nice to meet you, Papyrus. Your brother told me a lot about you. And I am glad that you are going along with my charges.”

“YOUR CHARGES?” Papyrus asked before he looked at the humans. “OH! THEY ARE WITH YOU! I GUESS THAT I SHOULDN’T CAPTURE THEM, THEN.” He then sighed in disappointment. “MY FIRST HUMANS, AND I CAN’T EVEN TRY TO CAPTURE THEM. I WILL NOT BE A ROYAL GUARD ANYTIME SOON. AND I REALLY WANTED TO TEST THE PUZZLES WE MADE.”

Sweetie Void patted his arm. “How about you still try to capture us? But if you win, you give us back to Toriel? We will say to Captain Undyne that you managed to capture us.”

“REALLY?! CAN I?!” Papyrus asked pleadingly to Toriel with puppy dog eyes.

Toriel sighed fondly. “Yes.”

“YES!!!” Papyrus shouted to the point that the whole forest probably heard him. Then, he cleared his throat. “HUMANS! YOU SHALL NOT PASS THIS AREA! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL STOP YOU! PREPARE TO BE BAMBOOZLED BY THE TERRIBLE PUZZLES THAT SANS AND I PLACED IN YOUR PATH! AND THEN! YOU WILL BE! CAPTURED! CONTINUE, ONLY IF YOU DARE!!! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!”

The children applauded.

“Good speech,” Phantom complimented.

“THANK YOU! I REPEATED BEFORE THE MIRROR A LOT!”

“he waited for this moment for a long time,” Sans said.

“INDEED! NOW, TIME TO GO! THE PUZZLES WILL NOT SOLVE BY THEMSELVES!”

“Mr. Papyrus?” Kris called.

“PLEASE, STOP WITH THE ‘MISTER’. JUST CALL ME PAPYRUS.”

“Okay. Papyrus?”

“YES, LITTLE HUMAN?”

“My brother is feeling a little down. Can you give him some Special Papyrus Therapy, please?”

Frisk stared at her in shock. “What?”

Even Sans looked at her weirdly.

“OH! I SEE! YES, I CAN DO THAT!”

Then, Papyrus picked Frisk up and put him on his shoulders. “Wah!”

“FEELING DOWN? UP YOU GO! THAT’S MY MOTTO!”

Frisk looked down at Papyrus, then looked at Sans and gave an apologetic smile and shrug.

Sans silently sighed.

“NOW, ONWARD!” Papyrus exclaimed before he began to advance, followed by the children, then by Toriel, then finally by Sans.

Toriel caught up with Papyrus. “Papyrus, do you know what a skeleton tiles his roof with?”

“HMMMM… SNOW-PROOF ROOF TILES?”

“No, silly! A skeleton tiles his roof with…”

Toriel, Sweetie Void, Kris, and Frisk exclaimed at the same time, “SHIN-gles!!!”

Sans held back a laugh.

Papyrus got a funny expression. “I CHANGED MY MIND!!! THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!”

“Come on, Papyrus, where is your funny bone?” Sweetie Void asked.

“he must have lost it by working himself down to the bone,” Sans said.

“Come on guys, throw him a bone, he puts a lot of backbone into his work,” Kris said.

Sans stared at Kris as if he was a proud father.

“STOP IT!!!”

“Come on, stop giving them the cold shoulder,” they suddenly heard.

Everyone looked in the direction of the voice and saw Snowdrake who winced.

“Y-you know, because it’s cold, and…”

Sweetie Void and Kris laughed and applauded, the latter saying, “Great pun.”

“I would even say, cool pun,” Frisk said.

Snowdrake stuck out his tongue. “Bleh. This one has been done again and again.”

“You don’t beat a classic.”

“True.”

“NYEEEH!!! I’M OUTTA HERE!!! COME, LITTLE HUMAN, WE HAVE SOME PUZZLE TO PREPARE ANYWAY!”

At that, Papyrus ran away, Frisk screaming on his shoulders. The scream quickly turned into cheer.

Sans laughed, then stopped once he understood that his brother was now alone with the little demon.

“i will keep an eye socket on them,” he said before he moved behind a tree and disappeared.

The group then continued, passing beside Papyrus’ station, then encountering Doggo with whom they played fetch and who they petted before Toriel had time to attack him for saying out loud that he would kill a human.

Doggo may have a tough look, but like all dogs, he was a big softy.

They showed an Ice Cap that he didn’t need a cap to be appreciated, they took a piece of the Snowman, and they caught up with Papyrus, Sans, and Frisk for the invisible electricity maze.

Once Papyrus explained the rule, Toriel got worried.

“Will the electricity hurt?”

“OH, DO NOT WORRY, THE SHOCK IS NOT WORSE THAN A JOY BUZZER.”

“Uh, Papyrus? You should give the orb to them,” Frisk said.

“OH, RIGHT! GO ON, MY LITTLE PUZZLE ASSISTANT! GIVE THE ORB TO THEM!”

“Mmh… There is only one orb for four of them. Three of them will not be able to do the puzzle.”

“EASY! THEY GO ONE AT A TIME! ONCE ONE PASSES, YOU GIVE THE ORB TO THE NEXT ONE.”

“But then, the ones who aren’t going first will know the path.”

“THAT’S TRUE. HMMM… HOW TO SOLVE THAT?”

“How about we close our eyes?” Phantom proposed.

“GOOD IDEA, COOL KID! ANYTHING ELSE?”

“Nothing else comes to mind,” Frisk answered.

“GOOD. THEN GIVE THEM THE ORB!”

At that, Frisk took the orb and went around the maze, thus not leaving any print in the snow to reveal the path.

“You aren’t making it easy for us, uh?” Kris said jokingly as she took the orb.

At that, Frisk stuck out his tongue before he walked back to Papyrus and Sans.

Papyrus rubbed his hair with a “GOOD JOB!” In return, Frisk gave him a big proud smile.

Kris, holding the orb, slowly entered the maze, the others closing their eyes. She didn’t remember at all the path from back in her universe. She ended up touching a wall, making the orb shock her. Her body shook because of the electricity and she quickly moved away from the wall. Then, she shook her head to recover her senses and continued into the maze.

Toriel stared at the whole process in thought. “Is not a puzzle supposed to be able to be ‘solved’? How do you ‘solve’ this maze? I do not see any way you would be able to traverse it without being shocked.”

Papyrus raised a finger and opened his mouth only to say nothing. He lowered his finger, then rubbed his chin. “THAT’S A GOOD POINT. A PUZZLE SHOULD BE FAIR. YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO TRAVERSE THIS MAZE WITHOUT BEING SHOCKED, BUT UNLESS YOU ALREADY KNOW THE PATH, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. I WILL HAVE TO THINK OF SOMETHING.”

“How about a device that beeps when you get close to a wall?” Frisk proposed.

“THAT’S AN EXCELLENT IDEA! I’M GOING TO ASK THE GREAT DR. ALPHYS AS SOON AS I HAVE THE OCCASION! I’M PROUD OF YOU, MY LITTLE PUZZLE ASSISTANT!” Papyrus congratulated before he rubbed Frisk’s hair again. “WE WILL MAKE A PUZZLE MASTER OUT OF YOU, YOU WILL SEE!”

After that, Frisk was positively shining, making Toriel smile fondly. Sans, however, wasn’t very happy to see his brother get close to his murderer, but there was nothing he could say about it without sounding crazy. Also, Frisk had to get his perfect ending, which included befriending everyone in the Underground, or else, he ran the risk of events repeating.

Kris reached the end of the maze, then Frisk took the orb from her and went to give it to the next kid. Then, he saw the footprints left by Kris in the snow and quickly went through the maze to cover them.

“I DIDN’T THINK ABOUT THE FOOTPRINTS! GOOD THINKING, MY LITTLE PUZZLE ASSISTANT!”

One by one, the kids completed the maze, all of them laughing by the end of it. Apple Death tried throwing snow at the walls, only to discover that the walls weren’t physical so you could simply traverse the area if you didn’t have the orb. This got her a pat on the head and a “WELL TRIED!” from Papyrus once she reached the end.

“YOU ALL MANAGED TO ‘SOLVE’ THE MAZE! GOOD JOB! BUT BE PREPARED! THE NEXT PUZZLE IS MADE BY SANS! IT WILL BE SO DASTARDLY THAT I’M SHIVERING!”

“it must be the cold,” Sans said.

“IMPOSSIBLE! WE SKELETONS DON’T FEEL COLD! NOW COME, MY LITTLE PUZZLE ASSISTANT! SANS!”

Papyrus then put Frisk on his shoulders and grabbed Sans by the hood before he ran away, cackling. Frisk laughed too, but for a different reason.

“He certainly has a lot of energy,” Toriel said.

Continuing their journey, they bought some Nice Cream, keeping one for Frisk. Then they played a little golf game, getting a blue flag and winning 2 golds.

They reached Papyrus, Sans, and Frisk, with the Word Search. The kids easily solved it, but Sweetie Void pointed out the error in it that made it impossible to solve normally, making Papyrus yell at Sans. They then agreed with either Papyrus or Sans whether Junior Jumbles or Crosswords are harder before Papyrus ran away with Frisk and Sans again.

They ate the spaghetti that Papyrus prepared. Toriel warmed it with her fire magic. It tasted… not good, but they still managed to eat everything. Phantom especially didn’t mind. As Infinite, she had had to eat really questionable stuff to survive.

They encountered Lesser Dog, and like with Doggo, they played fetch and petted him. They petted him to the point that his neck reached the cavern’s ceiling.

They ditched Jerry. He was a lost cause.

They easily found the secret switch indicated by the map hidden under the snow, allowing them to continue and encounter Dogami and Dogaressa. Again, this ended in another session of fetching and petting.

The X to O puzzles weren’t a problem, although, with the help of Frisk, Papyrus had been able to make his puzzle look like his face in time, which made it better. Papyrus was also very happy to know that they ate his spaghetti.

Then came the puzzle with the colored tiles, which ended like it ended every time before: with a straight line of pink surrounded by red.

A very disbelieving Papyrus silently left, followed by Frisk and Sans, under the hidden laughs of the children and Toriel.

They undecorated Gyftrot. Toriel wanted to have two words with the teens that did that to him.

They encountered Greater Dog, which ended like with the other dogs. This time, Sweetie Void and Kris made him pick them up, putting them on his shoulders. In his armor, he was big enough that a child could sit on a shoulder. After that, the dog agreed to accompany them, the children remaining on his shoulders.

They traversed the long bridge and found Papyrus, Frisk, and Sans at the end.

“I HAD SOMETHING PLANNED FOR THIS BRIDGE, BUT THEN, MY LITTLE PUZZLE ASSISTANT POINTED OUT THAT IT WASN’T A PUZZLE BUT AN OBSTACLE COURSE, WHICH IS NOT AT ALL MY STYLE. AND I AGREED. SO, NOTHING TO SEE HERE!”

Greater Dog barked.

“GREATER DOG! I SEE THAT YOU MET THE HUMANS! DID YOU CAPTURE THE ONES ON YOUR SHOULDERS? I HOPE NOT! I’M THE ONE WHO IS SUPPOSED TO CAPTURE THEM!”

“No, he didn’t capture us, he is just a good boy who is guiding us to Snowdin Town,” Sweetie Void explained.

“Also, you should have said to the dogs on the way that you had dibs on us, they all tried to capture us,” Phantom said.

“AH… SADLY, I HAVE NO SAY IN WHAT THE SENTRIES DO. YOU SEE…” He took a pose. “WHILE UNDYNE IS TRAINING ME, I AM NOT YET PART OF THE ROYAL GUARD, SO EVERYONE, INCLUDING THE SENTRIES, OUTRANK ME. BUT IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE UNDYNE MAKES ME ONE! I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AFTER ALL! AND CAPTURING YOU WILL BE THE PROOF THAT I’M READY! BUT NOW… THERE ARE NO PUZZLES LEFT. SO I GUESS THAT IT IS TIME FOR YOUR FINAL CHALLENGE: ME!!! YOU WILL FIGHT ME, AND IF I WIN, THEN I CAPTURE YOU!”

Phantom grinning, remembering how tough Papyrus was as he showed at the beginning of the forest. “Bring it on!”

“Oh… I’m not sure if…” Toriel began in worry only to be stopped by Apple Death patting her side.

“Don’t worry, Toriel, Ah’m sure that he’ll be careful. Even if we’re hurt, it’ll all be in good fun. And we can always heal after with some food.”

Toriel sighed. “Very well…”

“AS SOON AS YOU REACH THE END OF SNOWDIN, THE CHALLENGE WILL BEGIN!” Papyrus announced before he looked down at Frisk. “IT MEANS THAT IT’S TIME FOR YOU TO JOIN YOUR FRIENDS SO YOU CAN FACE ME! WE HAD A GREAT TIME TOGETHER, BUT WE MUST PART WAY!”

“Okay.”

At that, Papyrus ran toward the town.

Sans, who was left behind, looked at them. “i guess there is no avoiding it. but don’t worry, he isn’t dangerous. as the one with the bow said, it’ll all be in good fun.” He eyed Frisk. “i will still keep an eye socket to ensure that there are no… accidents.” With that, he walked away.

The group followed him into the town and, deciding to get it over with, went straight to the end of Snowdin, Greater Dog leaving them before Grillby’s. They entered a fog and found Papyrus there.

“HUMANS! YOU HAVE ALREADY COME! YOU MUST BE AS EXCITED FOR THIS BATTLE AS ME! BUT BEFORE THAT, ALLOW ME TO SAY SOMETHING. SINCE THE INSTANT WE MET, YOU HAVE BEEN NOTHING BUT NICE TO ME! YOU SOLVED MY PUZZLES WITH JOY AND LOVE! YOU ATE MY SPAGHETTI! WE HAD… FUN! BUT… HERE COMES SOME COMPLEXE FEELINGS. YOU SEE, AS A ROYAL GUARD APPRENTICE, IT IS MY GOAL TO CAPTURE A HUMAN. WHY? I DON’T KNOW, WE JUST DO THAT. BUT AS A RESULT, WE AREN’T SUPPOSED TO GET ‘BUDDY BUDDY’ WITH HUMANS. BUT AFTER ALL THIS NICE TIME WE SPENT TOGETHER, I… I REALLY WANT TO CONSIDER YOU MY FRIENDS. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?!”

Sweetie Void grinned while she used the cover of the fog to prepare something. “Listen to your heart!”

“MY HEART? I’M A SKELETON, I DON’T HAVE A HEART!”

“Alright. Listen to your SOUL, then.”

“MY SOUL? HMMM…”

Suddenly, Sweetie Void threw something at Papyrus. What she threw hit him right in the face.

“NYEEEH?!!”

“SNOWBALL BATTLE!!!” Sweetie Void yelled.

The kids cheered and began to prepare snowballs.

Papyrus was speechless. Then, he glared at Sweetie Void. “SO YOU WANT THAT KIND OF BATTLE, UH? YOU DO KNOW THAT IT MEANS THAT I WILL OFFER NO MERCY, RIGHT?”

“Do yer worst!” Apple Death said.

“IF YOU INSIST. DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, NEVER LOST A SNOWBALL BATTLE! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!”

Thus began an epic snowball battle, Toriel remaining on the sideline with a hand on her mouth. Sans eventually appeared and took Frisk by surprise by throwing a snowball at him from behind, the skeleton giving him a shit-eating grin. Frisk grinned back, then threw a snowball, only for Sans to dodge it.

Sans was so focused on Frisk that he didn’t see a snowball hit him from the size. Surprised, he looked and saw the responsible: Kris, who was smirking while tossing a ball repeatedly.

Sans’ eyes turned black. “this is on, kid.”

In the chaos, nobody saw Sweetie Void slipping away, back toward Snowdin. Once in the middle of the town, she screamed, “SNOWBALL BATTLE! AT THE EXIT OF SNOWDIN! COME QUICK!”

Many monsters, especially children, cheered and ran to join the fun. The dogs, who heard her, exited Grillby’s and ran to join too, wanting to play.

Chara, with Frisk’s permission, used the cover of the fog to take his place and participate, his need to join in the fun eventually winning out.

And so, the epic snowball battle became legendary, lasting for a whole hour. The fog made it even funnier because it was difficult to see who was who, so teams rarely lasted long.

“So, what does your SOUL say, Papyrus?” Sweetie Void eventually asked when she found herself right beside the tall skeleton as if by chance.

“IT SAYS… THAT PROTOCOLES SHOULDN’T STOP ME FROM MAKING FRIENDS!”

“Exactly! And don’t worry about Undyne. I’m sure that she will see the Friendship Side quickly enough.”

Chapter 208: Battle in the Void

Undyne pointed a spear toward the skeleton. “Who are you?! Where are we?!”

The skeleton chuckled, his voice coming again from everywhere.

“✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ ✌︎☼︎☜︎ ✋︎☠︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ✞︎⚐︎✋︎👎︎📪︎ 🕈︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ✋︎💧︎ ⚐︎🕆︎❄︎💧︎✋︎👎︎☜︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎☼︎ 🕈︎⚐︎☼︎☹︎👎︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ 💧︎☜︎🏱︎✌︎☼︎✌︎❄︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ✋︎❄︎ ☞︎☼︎⚐︎💣︎ ⚐︎❄︎☟︎☜︎☼︎ 🕈︎⚐︎☼︎☹︎👎︎💧︎📬︎ ✌︎💧︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ 🕈︎☟︎⚐︎ ✋︎ ✌︎💣︎📬︎📬︎📬︎ ✋︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎☠︎😐︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ☞︎☼︎✋︎💧︎😐︎ 👍︎✌︎☠︎ ✌︎☠︎💧︎🕈︎☜︎☼︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎💧︎ ✈︎🕆︎☜︎💧︎❄︎✋︎⚐︎☠︎📪︎ (YOU ARE IN THE VOID, WHAT IS OUTSIDE YOUR WORLD AND SEPARATING IT FROM OTHER WORLDS. AS FOR WHO I AM... I THINK THAT FRISK CAN ANSWER THIS QUESTION,)” he answered before he looked at Frisk.

Frisk gulped. “You are… Dr. W.D. Gaster?”

Undyne gasped. “No way! He disappeared long ago!”

The skeleton chuckled again. “✋︎ ✌︎💣︎📪︎ ✋︎☠︎👎︎☜︎☜︎👎︎📪︎ ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎📬︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☼︎⚐︎✡︎✌︎☹︎ 💧︎👍︎✋︎☜︎☠︎❄︎✋︎💧︎❄︎ 👌︎☜︎☞︎⚐︎☼︎☜︎ ✌︎☹︎🏱︎☟︎✡︎💧︎📬︎ (I AM, INDEED, GASTER. THE ROYAL SCIENTIST BEFORE ALPHYS.)”

“DAD?” Papyrus asked.

Gaster now looked at Papyrus. “☟︎☜︎☹︎☹︎⚐︎📪︎ 💧︎⚐︎☠︎📬︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎🕯︎☼︎☜︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎ ☝︎☼︎⚐︎🕈︎☠︎ 🕆︎🏱︎📪︎ ☠︎⚐︎🕈︎📬︎ (HELLO, SON. YOU'RE ALL GROWN UP, NOW.)” But then, he looked back at Sweetie Void. “🕈︎☟︎✋︎☹︎☜︎ ✋︎ 🕈︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎👎︎ ☹︎⚐︎✞︎☜︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 👍︎✌︎❄︎👍︎☟︎ 🕆︎🏱︎📪︎ ✋︎ 💣︎🕆︎💧︎❄︎ ☞︎✋︎☼︎💧︎❄︎ ❄︎✌︎☹︎😐︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ⚐︎🕆︎☼︎ ☹︎✋︎❄︎❄︎☹︎☜︎ ✞︎✋︎💧︎✋︎❄︎⚐︎☼︎📪︎ 💧︎🕈︎☜︎☜︎❄︎✋︎☜︎ 👌︎☜︎☹︎☹︎☜︎📬︎ (WHILE I WOULD LOVE TO CATCH UP, I MUST FIRST TALK TO OUR LITTLE VISITOR, SWEETIE BELLE.)”

Toriel looked at Gaster questioningly. “Sweetie Belle? You must have it wrong. Her name is Elize.”

Gaster chuckled again. “💧︎☟︎☜︎ ☝︎⚐︎❄︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ ☝︎⚐︎⚐︎👎︎📪︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎☼︎ 💣︎✌︎☺︎☜︎💧︎❄︎✡︎📬︎ (SHE GOT YOU GOOD, YOUR MAJESTY.)”

Sweetie Void frowned at being forced to ruin her cover, then looked curiously at Gaster, or at least, at the piece of him that he used as a physical avatar so they had something to look at when they talked to him. “What do you want with me? Also, could you use Sweetie Void, please?”

Toriel looked at her in shock.

“✌︎💧︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ 🕈︎✋︎💧︎☟︎📪︎ 💧︎🕈︎☜︎☜︎❄︎✋︎☜︎ ✞︎⚐︎✋︎👎︎📪︎ (AS YOU WISH, SWEETIE VOID,)” Gaster replied. “✌︎💧︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ 🕈︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ✋︎ 🕈︎✌︎☠︎❄︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎📬︎📬︎📬︎ ✋︎ 🕈︎✋︎💧︎☟︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎☼︎ ❄︎🕈︎⚐︎ 💧︎✋︎👎︎☜︎😐︎✋︎👍︎😐︎💧︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☹︎☜︎✌︎✞︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎💧︎ 💣︎🕆︎☹︎❄︎✋︎✞︎☜︎☼︎💧︎☜︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☠︎☜︎✞︎☜︎☼︎ ☼︎☜︎❄︎🕆︎☼︎☠︎📬︎ (AS FOR WHAT I WANT WITH YOU... I WISH FOR YOU AND YOUR TWO SIDEKICKS TO LEAVE THIS MULTIVERSE AND TO NEVER RETURN.)”

Sweetie Void tilted her head. “And why would we do that, Doctor?”

“✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ ✌︎☼︎☜︎ ✌︎☠︎ ⚐︎🕆︎❄︎💧︎✋︎👎︎☜︎ ✋︎☠︎☞︎☹︎🕆︎☜︎☠︎👍︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ✋︎💧︎ ☼︎🕆︎✋︎☠︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ 💣︎✡︎ ☜︎✠︎🏱︎☜︎☼︎✋︎💣︎☜︎☠︎❄︎📪︎ (YOU ARE AN OUTSIDE INFLUENCE THAT IS RUINING MY EXPERIMENT,)” Gaster answered.

Everyone raised an eyebrow at that. “What experiment?” Apple Death asked.

“Wait a minute. Are you saying that this brat is from outside our world?” Undyne asked. “And who are you calling her two sidekicks? There are five of them.”

Phantom sighed, then took Apple Death by the arm before she said, “That would be us.” Then, she glared at Gaster. “And I’m not liking where this is going.”

Sweetie Void advanced, getting in front of everyone. “What experiment are you talking about?”

Gaster chuckled again. “👍︎☟︎✌︎☼︎✌︎👍︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ 💧︎❄︎🕆︎👎︎✡︎✋︎☠︎☝︎📬︎ 🕈︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ☟︎✌︎🏱︎🏱︎☜︎☠︎💧︎ 🕈︎☟︎☜︎☠︎ ✋︎ ☝︎✋︎✞︎☜︎ ✌︎ 👌︎☹︎✌︎☠︎😐︎ 💣︎✋︎☠︎👎︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ✌︎👌︎✋︎☹︎✋︎❄︎✡︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 👎︎⚐︎ 🕈︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✡︎ 🕈︎✌︎☠︎❄︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎⚐︎🕆︎❄︎ ✌︎☠︎✡︎ ✌︎🏱︎🏱︎✌︎☼︎☜︎☠︎❄︎ 👍︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎☜︎✈︎🕆︎☜︎☠︎👍︎☜︎📬︎ ✋︎❄︎ ✋︎💧︎ ✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎📪︎ ✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎ ☞︎✌︎💧︎👍︎✋︎☠︎✌︎❄︎✋︎☠︎☝︎📬︎ (CHARACTER STUDYING. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I GIVE A BLANK MIND THE ABILITY TO DO WHAT THEY WANT WITHOUT ANY APPARENT CONSEQUENCE. IT IS VERY, VERY FASCINATING.)”

The children’s eyes widened at that.

“You are the one who gave that power?!” Frisk asked in shock.

“How?!” Kris asked.

“👌︎✡︎ 💣︎✌︎☠︎✋︎🏱︎🕆︎☹︎✌︎❄︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 👍︎⚐︎👎︎☜︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎💧︎ 💣︎🕆︎☹︎❄︎✋︎✞︎☜︎☼︎💧︎☜︎📪︎ (BY MANIPULATING THE CODE OF THIS MULTIVERSE,)” Gaster answered as he pointed at the zeros and ones floating around.

Sweetie Void wasn’t sure what to think about that. On one hoof, it caused Frisk to have his little genocide phase, but on the other hoof, it allowed Frisk and Kris to survive being killed by the monsters. However, she didn't like that her friend was a guinea pig without her knowledge and consentment.

“Well, Doctor, sorry, but I refuse to leave the friends I made in this multiverse,” she eventually said. “And if I end up returning to another world in this multiverse, then I will still help it like I did for the previous one and I’m doing for this one. I don’t care about your experiment.”

Gaster chuckled yet again. “☜︎☟︎📬︎📬︎📬︎ ✋︎ ☜︎✠︎🏱︎☜︎👍︎❄︎☜︎👎︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 💧︎✌︎✡︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎📬︎ (EH... I EXPECTED YOU TO SAY THAT.)”

Suddenly, Sweetie Void’s black SOUL came out of her chest, revealing that a battle was being initiated.

Immediately, she prepared herself. No matter how much she was close to invincible, if her SOUL was destroyed, she would die, simple as that, and she had no idea what to expect from Gaster.

Also, unless she could talk Gaster out of it, she couldn’t make him stop this battle. Again, the Gaster she was seeing was just a piece of him. Attacking it would do nothing to Gaster himself, scattered through space and time as he was.

“I will not let you hurt her!” Toriel exclaimed before she sent several fireballs to Gaster, only for him to glitch when he was hit before he reformed, proving Sweetie’s point.

Gaster chuckled. “💧︎☟︎☜︎ 👎︎⚐︎☜︎💧︎☠︎🕯︎❄︎ ☠︎☜︎☜︎👎︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎☼︎ ☟︎☜︎☹︎🏱︎📪︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎☼︎ 💣︎✌︎☺︎☜︎💧︎❄︎✡︎📬︎ 💧︎☟︎☜︎ 💣︎✌︎✡︎ 👌︎☜︎ ✌︎ 👍︎☟︎✋︎☹︎👎︎📪︎ 👌︎🕆︎❄︎ 💧︎☟︎☜︎ 🏱︎☼︎⚐︎✞︎☜︎👎︎ ☟︎☜︎☼︎💧︎☜︎☹︎☞︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☠︎⚐︎❄︎ 👌︎☜︎ ✌︎💧︎ 🕈︎☜︎✌︎😐︎ ✌︎💧︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎☠︎😐︎📬︎ (SHE DOESN'T NEED YOUR HELP, YOUR MAJESTY. SHE MAY BE A CHILD, BUT SHE PROVED HERSELF TO NOT BE AS WEAK AS YOU THINK.)”

Suddenly, a dozen giant skeleton hands with a hole in the palm appeared all around Sweetie Void and began to fire symbols at her. Sweetie Void immediately turned herself back into her pony form and began to fly around to dodge the projectiles, making the monsters gasp.

Apple Death materialized a giant skull cannon and fired a beam at one of the hands, destroying it only for it to reform.

“What is the point of this experiment?” Sweetie Void asked. “Why is it so important for you?”

Gaster chuckled. “👍︎🕆︎☼︎✋︎⚐︎💧︎✋︎❄︎✡︎📬︎ (CURIOSITY.)”

Sweetie’s eyes widened. “That’s it?!”

“✌︎☞︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ ✋︎ ☞︎☜︎☹︎☹︎ ✋︎☠︎❄︎⚐︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 👍︎⚐︎☼︎☜︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ ☞︎⚐︎🕆︎☠︎👎︎ 💣︎✡︎💧︎☜︎☹︎☞︎ ☜︎✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎🕈︎☟︎☜︎☼︎☜︎📪︎ ☜︎✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎❄︎✋︎💣︎☜︎📪︎ ☜︎✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎ 💧︎☜︎👍︎⚐︎☠︎👎︎ 👌︎☜︎👍︎✌︎💣︎☜︎ ✌︎☠︎ ☜︎❄︎☜︎☼︎☠︎✋︎❄︎✡︎📬︎ ✋︎ ✈︎🕆︎✋︎👍︎😐︎☹︎✡︎ ☞︎⚐︎🕆︎☠︎👎︎ ⚐︎🕆︎❄︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ✋︎ 👍︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎👎︎☠︎🕯︎❄︎ 👌︎☜︎ 🏱︎✌︎☼︎❄︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🕈︎⚐︎☼︎☹︎👎︎ ✌︎☠︎✡︎💣︎⚐︎☼︎☜︎📪︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ 💧︎⚐︎📪︎ ✋︎ 👍︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎👎︎☠︎🕯︎❄︎ 👌︎☜︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎ 💣︎✡︎ ☞︎✌︎💣︎✋︎☹︎✡︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ 💣︎✡︎ ☞︎☼︎✋︎☜︎☠︎👎︎💧︎ ✌︎☠︎✡︎💣︎⚐︎☼︎☜︎📬︎ ✋︎❄︎ ✈︎🕆︎✋︎👍︎😐︎☹︎✡︎ 👌︎☜︎👍︎✌︎💣︎☜︎ ✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎ ☹︎⚐︎☠︎☜︎☹︎✡︎📪︎ (AFTER I FELL INTO THE CORE AND FOUND MYSELF EVERYWHERE, EVERYTIME, EVERY SECOND BECAME AN ETERNITY. I QUICKLY FOUND OUT THAT I COULDN'T BE PART OF THE WORLD ANYMORE, AND SO, I COULDN'T BE WITH MY FAMILY AND MY FRIENDS ANYMORE. IT QUICKLY BECAME VERY LONELY,)” Gaster began.

The hands disappeared, and instead, Sans’ skull cannons came one after another, rapidly firing one by one at Sweetie Void.

“☟︎⚐︎🕈︎☜︎✞︎☜︎☼︎📪︎ ✋︎❄︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎⚐︎🕈︎☜︎👎︎ 💣︎☜︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 👎︎✋︎💧︎👍︎⚐︎✞︎☜︎☼︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ⚐︎🕆︎☼︎ 🕆︎☠︎✋︎✞︎☜︎☼︎💧︎☜︎ ✋︎💧︎ 💣︎✌︎👎︎☜︎ ⚐︎☞︎ 👍︎⚐︎👎︎☜︎💧︎📪︎ ✌︎💧︎ ✋︎☞︎ 🕈︎☜︎ ✌︎☼︎☜︎ ✋︎☠︎💧︎✋︎👎︎☜︎ ✌︎ 👍︎⚐︎💣︎🏱︎🕆︎❄︎☜︎☼︎📬︎ ✈︎🕆︎✋︎❄︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🏱︎✌︎☼︎❄︎✋︎👍︎🕆︎☹︎✌︎☼︎✋︎❄︎✡︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ☼︎☜︎✞︎☜︎✌︎☹︎☜︎👎︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 👌︎☜︎ 👌︎☜︎☠︎☜︎☞︎✋︎👍︎✋︎✌︎☹︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 💣︎☜︎📪︎ ✌︎💧︎ ✋︎ ✈︎🕆︎✋︎👍︎😐︎☹︎✡︎ 👎︎✋︎💧︎👍︎⚐︎✞︎☜︎☼︎☜︎👎︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ✋︎ 👍︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎👎︎ 💣︎✌︎☠︎✋︎🏱︎🕆︎☹︎✌︎❄︎☜︎ ✋︎❄︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 👎︎⚐︎ ☜︎✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎❄︎☟︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ✋︎ 🕈︎✌︎☠︎❄︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🕈︎⚐︎☼︎☹︎👎︎ ✋︎ ☹︎☜︎☞︎❄︎ 👌︎☜︎☟︎✋︎☠︎👎︎📬︎ ✋︎ 👍︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎👎︎ 👍︎☟︎✌︎☠︎☝︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☼︎🕆︎☹︎☜︎💧︎📪︎ ✋︎ 👍︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎👎︎ ✌︎👎︎👎︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎☠︎☝︎💧︎📪︎ ☼︎☜︎💣︎⚐︎✞︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎☠︎☝︎💧︎📪︎ 💣︎✌︎😐︎☜︎ ✋︎❄︎ 💧︎⚐︎ ☜︎✞︎☜︎☠︎❄︎💧︎ ☠︎☜︎✞︎☜︎☼︎ ☟︎✌︎🏱︎🏱︎☜︎☠︎☜︎👎︎📬︎📬︎📬︎ (HOWEVER, IT ALLOWED ME TO DISCOVER THAT OUR UNIVERSE IS MADE OF CODES, AS IF WE ARE INSIDE A COMPUTER. QUITE THE PARTICULARITY THAT REVEALED TO BE BENEFICIAL TO ME, AS I QUICKLY DISCOVERED THAT I COULD MANIPULATE IT TO DO EVERYTHING I WANT WITH THE WORLD I LEFT BEHIND. I COULD CHANGE THE RULES, I COULD ADD THINGS, REMOVE THINGS, MAKE IT SO EVENTS NEVER HAPPENED…)”

Gaster’s smile then widened as he began to send bones at the filly.

“💧︎⚐︎ ✋︎ 💣︎✌︎👎︎☜︎ ✋︎❄︎ 💧︎⚐︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 💣︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎💧︎ 🕈︎⚐︎☠︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🕈︎✌︎☼︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ ☟︎🕆︎💣︎✌︎☠︎✋︎❄︎✡︎ 🕈︎✌︎💧︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ⚐︎☠︎☜︎ ❄︎☼︎✌︎🏱︎🏱︎☜︎👎︎ 🕆︎☠︎👎︎☜︎☼︎☝︎☼︎⚐︎🕆︎☠︎👎︎📬︎ (SO I MADE IT SO THE MONSTERS WON THE WAR AND HUMANITY WAS THE ONE TRAPPED UNDERGROUND.)”

“WHAT?! Then why the heck are we still underground?!” Undyne yelled.

“❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ 🕈︎✌︎💧︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☞︎✋︎☼︎💧︎❄︎ 🕈︎⚐︎☼︎☹︎👎︎📬︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ⚐︎☼︎✋︎☝︎✋︎☠︎✌︎☹︎ ⚐︎☠︎☜︎📬︎ ✌︎❄︎ ☞︎✋︎☼︎💧︎❄︎📪︎ ⚐︎🕆︎☼︎ 💣︎🕆︎☹︎❄︎✋︎✞︎☜︎☼︎💧︎☜︎ 🕈︎✌︎💧︎ ☺︎🕆︎💧︎❄︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎📪︎ ✌︎ 💧︎✋︎☠︎☝︎☹︎☜︎ 🕆︎☠︎✋︎✞︎☜︎☼︎💧︎☜︎📬︎ (THAT WAS THE FIRST WORLD. THE ORIGINAL ONE. AT FIRST, OUR MULTIVERSE WAS JUST THAT, A SINGLE UNIVERSE.)”

The hands returned, firing symbols at the same time as Sweetie had to avoid bones and cannons.

“☟︎⚐︎🕈︎☜︎✞︎☜︎☼︎📪︎ ✋︎ ✈︎🕆︎✋︎👍︎😐︎☹︎✡︎ ☝︎☼︎☜︎🕈︎ 👍︎🕆︎☼︎✋︎⚐︎🕆︎💧︎📪︎ 💧︎⚐︎ ✋︎ 💣︎✌︎👎︎☜︎ ✌︎☠︎⚐︎❄︎☟︎☜︎☼︎ 🕈︎⚐︎☼︎☹︎👎︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ 👌︎☜︎☝︎✌︎☠︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☜︎✠︎🏱︎☜︎☼︎✋︎💣︎☜︎☠︎❄︎📬︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ 👍︎⚐︎🕆︎☠︎❄︎☹︎☜︎💧︎💧︎ ☜︎❄︎☜︎☼︎☠︎✋︎❄︎✋︎☜︎💧︎📪︎ ✋︎ ❄︎☜︎💧︎❄︎☜︎👎︎📪︎ 👍︎☟︎✌︎☠︎☝︎✋︎☠︎☝︎📪︎ ✌︎👎︎👎︎✋︎☠︎☝︎📪︎ ⚐︎☼︎ ☼︎☜︎💣︎⚐︎✞︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎💧︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ 💧︎☜︎☜︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ 🕈︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ 🕈︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎👎︎ ☟︎✌︎🏱︎🏱︎☜︎☠︎📬︎ (HOWEVER, I QUICKLY GREW CURIOUS, SO I MADE ANOTHER WORLD AND BEGAN TO EXPERIMENT. FOR COUNTLESS ETERNITIES, I TESTED, CHANGING, ADDING, OR REMOVING THIS AND THAT AND SEEING WHAT WOULD HAPPEN.)”

Gaster regularly changed his patterns, forcing Sweetie to adapt.

“❄︎☟︎☜︎☠︎📪︎ ✋︎ ☹︎⚐︎⚐︎😐︎☜︎👎︎ ✌︎❄︎ ✌︎☹︎🏱︎☟︎✡︎💧︎ ☝︎✋︎✞︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ 👎︎☜︎❄︎☜︎☼︎💣︎✋︎☠︎✌︎❄︎✋︎⚐︎☠︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ✌︎ ☞︎☹︎⚐︎🕈︎☜︎☼︎📪︎ ✌︎👍︎👍︎✋︎👎︎☜︎☠︎❄︎✌︎☹︎☹︎✡︎ ☝︎✋︎✞︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ☹︎✋︎☞︎☜︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ✋︎❄︎📪︎ ⚐︎☠︎☹︎✡︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ ✋︎❄︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 😐︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ ✋︎❄︎💧︎☜︎☹︎☞︎📪︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ ✋︎ 👎︎☜︎👍︎✋︎👎︎☜︎👎︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☝︎✋︎✞︎☜︎ ✌︎ 💧︎🏱︎☜︎👍︎✋︎✌︎☹︎ 🏱︎⚐︎🕈︎☜︎☼︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ✋︎❄︎📬︎ (THEN, I LOOKED AT ALPHYS GIVING DETERMINATION TO A FLOWER, ACCIDENTALLY GIVING LIFE TO IT, ONLY FOR IT TO KILL ITSELF, AND I DECIDED TO GIVE A SPECIAL POWER TO IT.)”

Sweetie Void glared at Gaster. “The SAVE power, right? Do you have any idea what he did with it?!”

Gaster chuckled. “⚐︎︎☟︎︎📪︎︎ ✋︎︎ ☟︎︎✌︎︎✞︎︎☜︎︎ 🏱︎︎☜︎︎☼︎︎☞︎︎☜︎︎👍︎︎❄︎︎ ✋︎︎👎︎︎☜︎︎✌︎︎📬︎︎ ✋︎︎ 💧︎︎✌︎︎🕈︎︎ ☜︎︎✞︎︎☜︎︎☼︎︎✡︎︎❄︎︎☟︎︎✋︎︎☠︎︎☝︎︎📬︎︎ ✋︎︎ 💧︎︎☜︎︎☜︎︎ ☜︎︎✞︎︎☜︎︎☼︎︎✡︎︎❄︎︎☟︎︎✋︎︎☠︎︎☝︎︎📬︎︎ 🏱︎︎✌︎︎💧︎︎❄︎︎📪︎︎ 🏱︎︎☼︎︎☜︎︎💧︎︎☜︎︎☠︎︎❄︎︎📪︎︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ ☞︎🕆︎❄︎🕆︎☼︎☜︎📬︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ✋︎☠︎💧︎❄︎✌︎☠︎❄︎ ✋︎ 👎︎⚐︎ 💧︎⚐︎💣︎☜︎❄︎☟︎✋︎☠︎☝︎📪︎ ✋︎ ✋︎💣︎💣︎☜︎👎︎✋︎✌︎❄︎☜︎☹︎✡︎ 💧︎☜︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 👍︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎☜︎✈︎🕆︎☜︎☠︎👍︎☜︎💧︎📬︎ ✋︎❄︎ 🕈︎✌︎💧︎ ✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎📪︎ ✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎ ✋︎☠︎❄︎☜︎☼︎☜︎💧︎❄︎✋︎☠︎☝︎📬︎ (O︎H︎,︎ I︎ H︎A︎V︎E︎ P︎E︎R︎F︎E︎C︎T︎ I︎D︎E︎A︎.︎ I︎ S︎A︎W︎ E︎V︎E︎R︎Y︎T︎H︎I︎N︎G︎.︎ I︎ S︎E︎E︎ E︎V︎E︎R︎Y︎T︎H︎I︎N︎G︎.︎ P︎A︎S︎T︎,︎ P︎R︎E︎S︎E︎N︎T︎,︎ AND FUTURE. THE INSTANT I DO SOMETHING, I IMMEDIATELY SEE THE CONSEQUENCES. IT WAS VERY, VERY INTERESTING.)”

Sweetie looked at Gaster in outrage. “But… All the suffering he caused!”

“✋︎❄︎ 🕈︎✌︎💧︎ 🏱︎✌︎☼︎❄︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☜︎✠︎🏱︎☜︎☼︎✋︎💣︎☜︎☠︎❄︎📬︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✋︎☼︎ 💧︎🕆︎☞︎☞︎☜︎☼︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎⚐︎🕈︎☜︎👎︎ 💣︎☜︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☹︎☜︎✌︎☼︎☠︎📬︎ (IT WAS PART OF THE EXPERIMENT. THEIR SUFFERING ALLOWED ME TO LEARN.)”

Sweetie Void fired a beam at Gaster, only causing him to glitch.

He chuckled. “👎︎⚐︎☠︎🕯︎❄︎ 👌︎☜︎ 💧︎⚐︎ ✌︎☠︎☝︎☼︎✡︎📬︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎💧︎ ✋︎💧︎ ☺︎🕆︎💧︎❄︎ 💧︎👍︎✋︎☜︎☠︎👍︎☜︎📬︎ ☟︎⚐︎🕈︎ 💣︎✌︎☠︎✡︎ ❄︎✋︎💣︎☜︎💧︎ ☟︎✌︎✞︎☜︎ ✌︎☠︎✋︎💣︎✌︎☹︎💧︎ 👌︎☜︎☜︎☠︎ ❄︎⚐︎☼︎❄︎🕆︎☼︎☜︎👎︎ ✋︎☠︎ ✋︎❄︎💧︎ ☠︎✌︎💣︎☜︎✍︎ ☟︎🕆︎💣︎✌︎☠︎💧︎ ☜︎✞︎☜︎☠︎ ❄︎⚐︎☼︎❄︎🕆︎☼︎☜︎👎︎ ⚐︎❄︎☟︎☜︎☼︎ ☟︎🕆︎💣︎✌︎☠︎💧︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 👎︎✋︎💧︎👍︎⚐︎✞︎☜︎☼︎ ✋︎💣︎🏱︎⚐︎☼︎❄︎✌︎☠︎❄︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎☠︎☝︎💧︎ ✌︎👌︎⚐︎🕆︎❄︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎💣︎💧︎☜︎☹︎✞︎☜︎💧︎📬︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎💧︎ ✋︎💧︎ ☟︎⚐︎🕈︎ 💧︎👍︎✋︎☜︎☠︎👍︎☜︎ ✌︎👎︎✞︎✌︎☠︎👍︎☜︎💧︎📬︎ (DON'T BE SO ANGRY. THIS IS JUST SCIENCE. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE ANIMALS BEEN TORTURED IN ITS NAME? HUMANS EVEN TORTURED OTHER HUMANS TO DISCOVER IMPORTANT THINGS ABOUT THEMSELVES. THIS IS HOW SCIENCE ADVANCES.)”

Gaster suddenly turned Sweetie’s SOUL blue, forcing her to land on whatever invisible floor there was and to jump and move back and forth to avoid the projectiles. Gaster was also now putting blue and orange magic.

“👌︎🕆︎❄︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 💣︎⚐︎💧︎❄︎ ✋︎☠︎❄︎☜︎☼︎☜︎💧︎❄︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ✌︎👌︎⚐︎🕆︎❄︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎💧︎ ☜︎✠︎🏱︎☜︎☼︎✋︎💣︎☜︎☠︎❄︎ ✋︎💧︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🕆︎☠︎☜︎✠︎🏱︎☜︎👍︎❄︎☜︎👎︎ 👍︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎☜︎✈︎🕆︎☜︎☠︎👍︎☜︎ ✋︎❄︎ 👍︎✌︎🕆︎💧︎☜︎👎︎🖳︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 👌︎✋︎☼︎❄︎☟︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ✌︎ ☟︎✡︎👌︎☼︎✋︎👎︎ ☟︎🕆︎💣︎✌︎☠︎ 💣︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎ ✌︎ ☠︎☜︎✌︎☼︎ 👌︎☹︎✌︎☠︎😐︎ 💣︎✋︎☠︎👎︎📬︎ ✌︎ 👍︎☟︎✋︎☹︎👎︎ 💣︎✌︎👎︎☜︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☼︎☜︎💣︎✌︎✋︎☠︎💧︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ✌︎ ☟︎🕆︎💣︎✌︎☠︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🏱︎✋︎☜︎👍︎☜︎💧︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ✌︎ 💣︎☜︎☼︎☝︎☜︎👎︎ ☟︎🕆︎💣︎✌︎☠︎ 💣︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ 💧︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎📪︎ ☝︎✋︎✞︎☜︎☠︎ 👎︎☜︎❄︎☜︎☼︎💣︎✋︎☠︎✌︎❄︎✋︎⚐︎☠︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ 💣︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ ☜︎💧︎💧︎☜︎☠︎👍︎☜︎📬︎ ✌︎ ✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎ 👍︎🕆︎☼︎✋︎⚐︎🕆︎💧︎ ⚐︎☠︎☜︎📬︎ (BUT THE MOST INTERESTING ABOUT THIS EXPERIMENT IS THE UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCE IT CAUSED: THE BIRTH OF A HYBRID HUMAN MONSTER WITH A NEAR BLANK MIND. A CHILD MADE OF THE REMAINS OF A HUMAN AND THE PIECES OF A MERGED HUMAN MONSTER SOUL, GIVEN DETERMINATION AND MONSTER ESSENCE. A VERY CURIOUS ONE.)”

Everyone’s eyes widened, for different reasons. The children immediately knew who he was talking about while the monsters were surprised to learn of such a being. Toriel, also, understood which human remains and merged SOUL he was talking about.

Gaster chuckled. “✋︎ 🏱︎☜︎☼︎💧︎⚐︎☠︎✌︎☹︎☹︎✡︎ ☠︎✌︎💣︎☜︎👎︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎💣︎ ☞︎☼︎✋︎💧︎😐︎📬︎ (I PERSONALLY NAMED THEM FRISK.)” He looked at Frisk and Kris. “✋︎🕯︎💣︎ ☼︎☜︎💧︎🏱︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎✋︎👌︎☹︎☜︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✋︎☼︎ ☜︎✠︎✋︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☠︎👍︎☜︎📪︎ ✌︎☞︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎📬︎ (I'M RESPONSIBLE OF THEIR EXISTENCE, AFTER ALL.)”

The monsters stared at Frisk in shock. Frisk and Kris were also shocked, but about learning that they owed their life to this guy.

“❄︎︎☟︎︎☜︎︎✡︎︎ 👌︎︎☜︎︎👍︎︎✌︎︎💣︎︎☜︎︎ ❄︎︎☟︎︎☜︎︎ 🏱︎︎☜︎︎☼︎︎☞︎︎☜︎︎👍︎︎❄︎︎ 💧︎︎🕆︎︎👌︎︎☺︎︎☜︎︎👍︎︎❄︎︎📬︎︎ ❄︎︎☟︎︎☜︎︎✋︎︎☼︎︎ ☠︎︎☜︎✌︎☼︎ 👌︎☹︎✌︎☠︎😐︎ 💣︎✋︎☠︎👎︎ 💣︎☜︎✌︎☠︎❄︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✡︎ 👍︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎👎︎ 👍︎☟︎⚐︎⚐︎💧︎☜︎ 👎︎✋︎☞︎☞︎☜︎☼︎☜︎☠︎❄︎☹︎✡︎📪︎ ☹︎☜︎✌︎👎︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ 🕆︎🏱︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 👎︎✋︎☞︎☞︎☜︎☼︎☜︎☠︎❄︎ ⚐︎🕆︎❄︎👍︎⚐︎💣︎☜︎💧︎📬︎ 💧︎⚐︎ ✋︎ 💣︎✌︎👎︎☜︎ 💣︎⚐︎☼︎☜︎ 🕈︎⚐︎☼︎☹︎👎︎💧︎ 🕈︎☟︎☜︎☼︎☜︎ ✋︎ ☼︎☜︎🏱︎☜︎✌︎❄︎☜︎👎︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☜︎✠︎🏱︎☜︎☼︎✋︎💣︎☜︎☠︎❄︎📬︎ ☜︎✌︎👍︎☟︎ ❄︎✋︎💣︎☜︎📪︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎☠︎☝︎💧︎ 🕈︎☜︎☼︎☜︎ ☝︎⚐︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ 👎︎✋︎☞︎☞︎☜︎☼︎☜︎☠︎❄︎☹︎✡︎📬︎ 💣︎⚐︎☼︎☜︎ ⚐︎☞︎❄︎☜︎☠︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎☠︎ ☠︎⚐︎❄︎📪︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✡︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎☜︎👎︎ 🕆︎🏱︎ 😐︎✋︎☹︎☹︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ❄︎⚐︎☼︎✋︎☜︎☹︎📪︎ 👌︎🕆︎❄︎ ✌︎ ☞︎☜︎🕈︎ 💣︎✌︎☠︎✌︎☝︎☜︎👎︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 🏱︎✌︎💧︎💧︎ ☟︎☜︎☼︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎⚐︎🕆︎❄︎ 😐︎✋︎☹︎☹︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ☟︎☜︎☼︎📬︎ 💣︎⚐︎💧︎❄︎ 🕈︎☟︎⚐︎ 😐︎✋︎☹︎☹︎☜︎👎︎ ☟︎☜︎☼︎ 👍︎☟︎⚐︎💧︎☜︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☼︎☜︎☹︎⚐︎✌︎👎︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ❄︎☼︎✡︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 💧︎🏱︎✌︎☼︎☜︎ ☟︎☜︎☼︎ 🕈︎☟︎✋︎☹︎☜︎ ⚐︎❄︎☟︎☜︎☼︎💧︎ 👍︎⚐︎☠︎❄︎✋︎☠︎🕆︎☜︎👎︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✋︎☼︎ 🏱︎✌︎❄︎☟︎📬︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✡︎ 🕈︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎👎︎ 😐︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ 💧︎⚐︎💣︎☜︎ 💣︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎💧︎📪︎ 💧︎🏱︎✌︎☼︎☜︎ ⚐︎❄︎☟︎☜︎☼︎💧︎📪︎ ☝︎☜︎❄︎ 👎︎✋︎☞︎☞︎☜︎☼︎☜︎☠︎❄︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎✋︎☠︎☝︎💧︎📬︎ 💣︎⚐︎💧︎❄︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎☠︎ ☼︎☜︎❄︎🕆︎☼︎☠︎☜︎👎︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ❄︎☼︎✡︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 💧︎🏱︎✌︎☼︎☜︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 💣︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎💧︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ ☝︎☜︎❄︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🏱︎☜︎☼︎☞︎☜︎👍︎❄︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎✋︎☠︎☝︎📬︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎☠︎📪︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ ⚐︎☠︎☜︎ ☼︎☜︎✌︎💧︎⚐︎☠︎ ⚐︎☼︎ ✌︎☠︎⚐︎❄︎☟︎☜︎☼︎📪︎ 💣︎⚐︎💧︎❄︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎💣︎ ☼︎☜︎❄︎🕆︎☼︎☠︎☜︎👎︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ ☜︎✞︎☜︎☠︎❄︎🕆︎✌︎☹︎☹︎✡︎ ☝︎⚐︎❄︎ ✋︎☠︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✋︎☼︎ 💣︎✋︎☠︎👎︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 😐︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 💣︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎💧︎📬︎ (T︎H︎E︎Y︎ B︎E︎C︎A︎M︎E︎ T︎H︎E︎ P︎E︎R︎F︎E︎C︎T︎ S︎U︎B︎J︎E︎C︎T︎.︎ T︎H︎E︎I︎R︎ N︎EAR BLANK MIND MEANT THAT THEY COULD CHOOSE DIFFERENTLY, LEADING UP TO DIFFERENT OUTCOMES. SO I MADE MORE WORLDS WHERE I REPEATED THE EXPERIMENT. EACH TIME, THINGS WERE GOING DIFFERENTLY. MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, THEY ENDED UP KILLING TORIEL, BUT A FEW MANAGED TO PASS HER WITHOUT KILLING HER. MOST WHO KILLED HER CHOSE TO RELOAD TO TRY TO SPARE HER WHILE OTHERS CONTINUED THEIR PATH. THEY WOULD KILL SOME MONSTERS, SPARE OTHERS, GET DIFFERENT ENDINGS. MOST THEN RETURNED TO TRY TO SPARE ALL THE MONSTERS AND GET THE PERFECT ENDING. THEN, FOR ONE REASON OR ANOTHER, MOST OF THEM RETURNED AND EVENTUALLY GOT IN THEIR MIND TO KILL ALL THE MONSTERS.)” Gaster chuckled. “✋︎❄︎ ✋︎💧︎ ✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎📪︎ ✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎📪︎ ✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎ ✋︎☠︎❄︎☜︎☼︎☜︎💧︎❄︎✋︎☠︎☝︎📬︎ (IT IS VERY, VERY, VERY INTERESTING.)”

Kris was shaking. “H-how many times have you repeated this?”

“💧︎☜︎✞︎☜︎☼︎✌︎☹︎ ❄︎☟︎⚐︎🕆︎💧︎✌︎☠︎👎︎💧︎📪︎ (SEVERAL THOUSANDS,)” Gaster answered. “⚐︎☞︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☞︎☼︎✋︎💧︎😐︎💧︎ ✋︎ 💣︎✌︎👎︎☜︎📪︎ 🗄︎📬︎🖮︎🕭︎ 💧︎☜︎❄︎❄︎☹︎☜︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎ ✌︎ 🕯︎☠︎☜︎🕆︎❄︎☼︎✌︎☹︎🕯︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎✋︎☠︎☝︎📬︎ ✌︎☠︎✡︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✡︎ ☝︎☜︎❄︎ 🕈︎☟︎☜︎☠︎ ✌︎ 💣︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎☜︎👎︎ 🕆︎🏱︎ 👎︎✡︎✋︎☠︎☝︎📪︎ ✋︎☠︎👍︎☹︎🕆︎👎︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ✌︎💧︎☝︎⚐︎☼︎☜︎ 🕈︎☟︎☜︎☠︎ ☟︎☜︎ ✋︎💧︎ 😐︎✋︎☹︎☹︎☜︎👎︎ 👌︎✡︎ ☞︎☹︎⚐︎🕈︎☜︎✡︎📬︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☼︎☜︎💣︎✌︎✋︎☠︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ 🖲︎🗐︎📬︎🗏︎🕭︎ ☞︎☼︎✋︎💧︎😐︎💧︎📪︎ 📂︎📬︎🗏︎🕭︎ ☝︎⚐︎ ☼︎✋︎☝︎☟︎❄︎ ✌︎🕈︎✌︎✡︎ ⚐︎☠︎ ✌︎ ☝︎☜︎☠︎⚐︎👍︎✋︎👎︎☜︎ ☼︎✌︎💣︎🏱︎✌︎☝︎☜︎ 🕈︎☟︎✋︎☹︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ⚐︎❄︎☟︎☜︎☼︎💧︎ ❄︎☼︎✡︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 💧︎🏱︎✌︎☼︎☜︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 💣︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎💧︎📪︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☞︎✋︎☝︎☟︎❄︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎ ✌︎💧︎☼︎✋︎☜︎☹︎ 🕈︎☟︎⚐︎ 👎︎☜︎💧︎❄︎☼︎⚐︎✡︎💧︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 👌︎✌︎☼︎☼︎✋︎☜︎☼︎📬︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎💧︎☜︎ 🖲︎🗏︎🕭︎ ☞︎☼︎✋︎💧︎😐︎💧︎📪︎ 📂︎🗄︎📬︎🖲︎🕭︎ 💧︎☜︎❄︎❄︎☹︎☜︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎💧︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ 🕈︎☟︎✋︎☹︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☼︎☜︎💣︎✌︎✋︎☠︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎ 🕆︎🏱︎ ☝︎⚐︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ☝︎☜︎☠︎⚐︎👍︎✋︎👎︎☜︎📬︎ ✌︎☹︎💣︎⚐︎💧︎❄︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎💣︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎☠︎ ❄︎☼︎✡︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 👎︎⚐︎ ✌︎☠︎⚐︎❄︎☟︎☜︎☼︎ 🏱︎✌︎👍︎✋︎☞︎✋︎💧︎❄︎ ✌︎☞︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ⚐︎☠︎☹︎✡︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☝︎☜︎❄︎ ✌︎ ☠︎✌︎💧︎❄︎✡︎ 💧︎🕆︎☼︎🏱︎☼︎✋︎💧︎☜︎📬︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ 💧︎⚐︎ 💣︎✌︎☠︎✡︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎💣︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎ 🕆︎🏱︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ 🕈︎✌︎✡︎ 💧︎✌︎✡︎💧︎ 💧︎⚐︎ 💣︎🕆︎👍︎☟︎📬︎ (OF ALL THE FRISKS I MADE, 5.7% SETTLE WITH A 'NEUTRAL' ENDING. ANY ENDING THEY GET WHEN A MONSTER ENDED UP DYING, INCLUDING ASGORE WHEN HE IS KILLED BY FLOWEY. OF THE REMAINING 94.3% FRISKS, 1.3% GO RIGHT AWAY ON A GENOCIDE RAMPAGE WHILE THE OTHERS TRY TO SPARE ALL THE MONSTERS, ENDING WITH THE FIGHT WITH ASRIEL WHO DESTROYS THE BARRIER. OF THESE 93% FRISKS, 15.9% SETTLE WITH THIS ENDING WHILE THE REMAINING END UP GOING GENOCIDE. ALMOST ALL OF THEM THEN TRY TO DO ANOTHER PACIFIST AFTER THAT ONLY TO GET A NASTY SURPRISE. THAT SO MANY OF THEM END UP THAT WAY SAYS SO MUCH.)”

Frisk winced.

“⚐︎☞︎ 👍︎⚐︎🕆︎☼︎💧︎☜︎📪︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☜︎✠︎🏱︎☜︎☼︎✋︎💣︎☜︎☠︎❄︎ ✋︎💧︎ 💧︎❄︎✌︎☼︎❄︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☝︎☜︎❄︎ ☼︎☜︎🏱︎☜︎❄︎✋︎❄︎✋︎✞︎☜︎📪︎ 💧︎⚐︎📪︎ ☼︎☜︎👍︎☜︎☠︎❄︎☹︎✡︎📪︎ ✋︎ ☟︎✌︎✞︎☜︎ 👌︎☜︎☝︎🕆︎☠︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 👍︎☟︎✌︎☠︎☝︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 💧︎☜︎❄︎❄︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 💧︎☜︎☜︎ ☟︎⚐︎🕈︎ ✋︎❄︎ 🕈︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎👎︎ ☝︎⚐︎📬︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ ☜︎✠︎✌︎💣︎🏱︎☹︎☜︎📪︎ 🕈︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ✋︎☞︎ 👍︎☟︎✌︎☼︎✌︎🕯︎💧︎ 🕯︎😐︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ ⚐︎☼︎ 👌︎☜︎ 😐︎✋︎☹︎☹︎☜︎👎︎🕯︎ 💣︎✋︎☠︎👎︎💧︎☜︎❄︎ 🕈︎✌︎💧︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 💣︎✋︎☠︎👎︎💧︎☜︎❄︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🕈︎☟︎⚐︎☹︎☜︎ 🕆︎☠︎👎︎☜︎☼︎☝︎☼︎⚐︎🕆︎☠︎👎︎✍︎ ⚐︎☼︎ 🕈︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ✋︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☼︎⚐︎☹︎☜︎💧︎ 🕈︎☜︎☼︎☜︎ 💧︎🕈︎✌︎🏱︎🏱︎☜︎👎︎✍︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ 💧︎⚐︎📪︎ ✋︎ 💣︎✌︎👎︎☜︎ 👎︎✋︎☞︎☞︎☜︎☼︎☜︎☠︎❄︎ 🕈︎⚐︎☼︎☹︎👎︎💧︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎💧︎☜︎ ✈︎🕆︎☜︎💧︎❄︎✋︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎ ✋︎☠︎ 💣︎✋︎☠︎👎︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ 🕈︎✌︎❄︎👍︎☟︎☜︎👎︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☼︎☜︎💧︎🕆︎☹︎❄︎📬︎ ✋︎❄︎ 🕈︎✌︎💧︎ ✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎📪︎ ✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎ ✋︎☠︎❄︎☜︎☼︎☜︎💧︎❄︎✋︎☠︎☝︎📬︎ (OF COURSE, THE EXPERIMENT IS STARTING TO GET REPETITIVE, SO, RECENTLY, I HAVE BEGUN TO CHANGE THE SETTING TO SEE HOW IT WOULD GO. FOR EXAMPLE, WHAT IF CHARA'S 'KILL OR BE KILLED' MINDSET WAS THE MINDSET OF THE WHOLE UNDERGROUND? OR WHAT IF THE ROLES WERE SWAPPED? AND SO, I MADE DIFFERENT WORLDS WITH THESE QUESTIONS IN MIND AND WATCHED THE RESULT. IT WAS VERY, VERY INTERESTING.)”

Suddenly, in a flash of ones and zeros, a gray version of Asgore appeared. However, this one looked more evil than the Asgore they knew.

“☠︎⚐︎❄︎ 💣︎✌︎☠︎✡︎ ☞︎☼︎✋︎💧︎😐︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎☜︎👎︎ 🕆︎🏱︎ 💧︎🕆︎☼︎✞︎✋︎✞︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ✌︎☠︎ ✌︎💧︎☝︎⚐︎☼︎☜︎ ✌︎👍︎❄︎🕆︎✌︎☹︎☹︎✡︎ ☝︎⚐︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎ ⚐︎🕆︎❄︎📬︎ (NOT MANY FRISK ENDED UP SURVIVING AN ASGORE ACTUALLY GOING ALL OUT.)”

Suddenly, the Asgore revealed a scythe before he sent an absolute bullet hell of fireballs that Sweetie Void had a lot of difficulty avoiding in addition to Gaster’s own attacks.

Then, in another flash of ones and zeros, Sans appeared, followed by a Papyrus, a Chara, and an Asriel, all clothed like him, Papyrus even smoking.

“✌︎☠︎👎︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ ❄︎☟︎⚐︎🕆︎☝︎☟︎❄︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ 💧︎✌︎☠︎💧︎ 🕈︎✌︎💧︎ 💧︎❄︎☼︎⚐︎☠︎☝︎📪︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎☠︎ ☟︎⚐︎🕈︎ ✌︎👌︎⚐︎🕆︎❄︎ 🏱︎✌︎🏱︎✡︎☼︎🕆︎💧︎📪︎ 👍︎☟︎✌︎☼︎✌︎📪︎ ⚐︎☼︎ ☜︎✞︎☜︎☠︎ ✌︎💧︎☼︎✋︎☜︎☹︎ ✋︎☠︎ ☟︎✋︎💧︎ 🏱︎☹︎✌︎👍︎☜︎✍︎ (AND YOU THOUGHT THAT SANS WAS STRONG, THEN HOW ABOUT PAPYRUS, CHARA, OR EVEN ASRIEL IN HIS PLACE?)” Gaster asked with a chuckle.

At his words, Asriel revealed a SOUL that he absorbed, becoming really monstrous. Meanwhile, Papyrus revealed many skull cannons while Chara materialized red knives.

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO FEEL ABOUT SEEING ME BEING LAZY,” the real Papyrus said. “AND I THINK THAT WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING TO HELP SWEETIE VOID! SHE WILL NOT LAST LONG AGAINST ALL OF THEM AT ONCE!”

Toriel glared at the alternate Asgore, then sent fireballs at him, actually hurting him.

“These summonings can be hurt,” she said. “We can deal with them. Will you help us, Captain?”

“Of course! This guy is toying with our lives! I refuse to let it continue!” Undyne yelled. “Papyrus, you’re in? I know he’s your father, but he must be stopped!”

“I KNOW…” Papyrus said with some hesitation. Then, he resolved himself. “YES! TO SAVE EVERYONE, I MUST FIGHT HIM! BUT HOPEFULLY, WE CAN MAKE HIM STOP WITHOUT HURTING HIM…”

“Ah don’t know how we’d be able ta hurt him. As long as he’s pieces scattered across space and time, he’s invincible,” Apple Death said before she turned into a human version of her ghost form.

“We would need to put him back in one piece, but I have no idea how we would do that,” Phantom said before she used her phantom power to turn herself back into her anthro form and materialized her red sword.

While Toriel faced Asgore, Papyrus, Undyne, Apple Death, and Phantom went respectively against Papyrus, Chara, Sans, and Asriel.

However, Gaster wasn’t done yet and summoned more and more monsters, threatening to overwhelm everyone.

Gaster grinned. “✌︎☠︎👎︎ ✌︎💧︎ 🏱︎🕆︎☠︎✋︎💧︎☟︎💣︎☜︎☠︎❄︎📪︎ ✋︎🕯︎💣︎ ☼︎☜︎💣︎⚐︎✞︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 💧︎✋︎✠︎ 👍︎⚐︎☹︎☹︎☜︎👍︎❄︎☜︎👎︎ 💧︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎💧︎📬︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 💣︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎💧︎ ✋︎☠︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎💧︎ 🕈︎⚐︎☼︎☹︎👎︎ 🕈︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ ☼︎☜︎💣︎✌︎✋︎☠︎ ❄︎☼︎✌︎🏱︎🏱︎☜︎👎︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ ✈︎🕆︎✋︎❄︎☜︎ ✌︎ 👌︎✋︎❄︎ ☹︎⚐︎☠︎☝︎☜︎☼︎📬︎ (AND AS PUNISHMENT, I'M REMOVING THE SIX COLLECTED SOULS. THE MONSTERS IN THIS WORLD WILL REMAIN TRAPPED FOR QUITE A BIT LONGER.)”

“You can’t do that!” Kris yelled.

To that, Gaster remained silent, but his grin widened.

Sweetie Void gritted her teeth. “If only I could absorb two SOULs, I would be able to put Gaster’s pieces back together.”

At that, Frisk and Kris exchanged a glance before Kris said, “Then take ours.”

The filly looked at her in shock. “Are you sure?”

“We have no choice,” Frisk said.

Sweetie Void hesitated, but then, she looked at her friends who were fighting a losing battle against all the summoned monsters, and she growled.

“Fine!”

Frisk and Kris nodded, then let out their SOULs. Sweetie Void grabbed the two of them, absorbing them. The two humans immediately dropped dead.

Like the first time she did that, Sweetie Void’s Cutie Mark spread until covering most of her body.

Then, she could immediately tell where the pieces of Gaster were in this void. They were little codes among the codes that made the worlds of this multiverse. There were a lot of them. However, thanks to her now near omnipotent powers, she could easily gather them. She mentally took one of the pieces of code, tore it off of the larger code, and sent it toward the piece of Gaster that had been used to talk to them, making it look a little more solid.

Gaster was very surprised. “🕈︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ✌︎☼︎☜︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ 👎︎⚐︎✋︎☠︎☝︎✍︎ (WHAT ARE YOU DOING?)”

“What does it look like?” Chara said back through Sweetie’s mouth while the filly sent another piece of code into Gaster.

“💧︎❄︎⚐︎🏱︎ ✋︎❄︎✏︎ (STOP IT!)”

Gaster’s attacks became more erratic, making it harder for Sweetie to dodge. She was supposed to be invincible in her current state, but against Gaster, she wasn’t willing to test it. With his ability to manipulate the code, he could make it so he could hurt what is supposed to be invincible.

Two more pieces of code disappeared inside Gaster who became a bit more solid. The bottom of his body was beginning to reform its legs.

“💧︎❄︎⚐︎🏱︎ ✋︎❄︎✏︎✏︎✏︎ (STOP IT!!!)”

But Sweetie Void, Kris, Frisk, and Chara didn’t listen. They put more pieces back into Gaster, turning him more and more solid. Little by little, his body was reforming. The black blob that his body had been now formed back his clothes, a black smock and black pants. He had legs again, and real arms too instead of the stubs coming out of his body that he had before.

The more he reformed, the weaker his attacks became as he could less and less manipulate the code to create them. Now, he had to use his own pool of magic, making them more limited.

“💣︎✡︎ ☜︎✠︎🏱︎☜︎☼︎✋︎💣︎☜︎☠︎❄︎📬︎📬︎📬︎ (MY EXPERIMENT…)”

“Ends now,” Sweetie Void, Frisk, Kris, and Chara all said at the same time.

One by one, the summoned monsters disappeared.

Finally, the last piece was put back in place.

Now, standing before them was a skeleton taller than Papyrus, all in black, who looked really angry.

“✡︎📫︎✡︎⚐︎🕆︎📬︎📬︎📬︎ (Y-YOU…)” Then, he lost his will and fell on his knees. “✋︎ ☺︎🕆︎💧︎❄︎ 🕈︎✌︎☠︎❄︎☜︎👎︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 👍︎⚐︎☠︎❄︎✋︎☠︎🕆︎☜︎ 💣︎✡︎ ☜︎✠︎🏱︎☜︎☼︎✋︎💣︎☜︎☠︎❄︎💧︎📬︎📬︎📬︎ (I JUST WANTED TO CONTINUE MY EXPERIMENTS…)”

“You were playing with the lives of whole worlds,” Sweetie Void said.

“You thought that you were above consequences,” Chara said.

“But you were not,” Kris said.

“Now it’s your turn to learn what us Frisks had to learn all this time,” Frisk said.

“You reap what you sow,” the four of them said at once.

Chapter 209: Unforgivable

For a minute, Gaster just stood there, processing what just happened. Meanwhile, Apple Death returned to her human appearance as the fights were over, the summoned monsters disappearing into ones and zeros.

“📬︎📬︎📬︎✋︎ ✌︎👎︎💣︎✋︎❄︎📪︎ ✋︎ 💣︎✌︎✡︎ ☟︎✌︎✞︎☜︎⑤︎ ☝︎⚐︎☠︎☜︎ ⚐︎✞︎☜︎☼︎👌︎⚐︎✌︎☼︎👎︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎ 💣︎✡︎ ☜︎✠︎🏱︎☜︎☼︎✋︎💣︎☜︎☠︎❄︎💧︎📬︎ (...I ADMIT, I MAY HAVE… GONE OVERBOARD WITH MY EXPERIMENTS.)”

“Understatement of the century,” Phantom scoffed.

“👌︎☜︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ 💧︎⚐︎ ☹︎⚐︎☠︎☝︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎⚐︎🕆︎❄︎ ✌︎ ☼︎☜︎✌︎☹︎ ☠︎⚐︎❄︎✋︎⚐︎☠︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎✋︎💣︎☜︎📪︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ 💣︎✡︎ ✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎ 👌︎☜︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ 💧︎🏱︎☼︎☜︎✌︎👎︎ ✌︎👍︎☼︎⚐︎💧︎💧︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎☹︎☜︎💧︎💧︎ ✞︎⚐︎✋︎👎︎ 👎︎✋︎👎︎☠︎❼︎❄︎ ☟︎☜︎☹︎🏱︎ 💣︎✡︎ 💣︎☜︎☠︎❄︎✌︎☹︎ 💧︎❄︎✌︎❄︎☜︎ ☜︎✋︎❄︎☟︎☜︎☼︎📬︎ 👌︎🕆︎❄︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ 💧︎✌︎✋︎👎︎📪︎ ✋︎ ☼︎☜︎👍︎⚐︎☝︎☠︎✋︎☪︎☜︎ 💣︎✡︎ ✌︎👍︎❄︎✋︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎ 🕈︎☜︎☼︎☜︎ 💧︎❄︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ 💣︎✡︎ ⚐︎🕈︎☠︎📬︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎📪︎ ✋︎ ✌︎🏱︎⚐︎☹︎⚐︎☝︎✋︎☪︎☜︎📬︎ (BEING SO LONG WITHOUT A REAL NOTION OF TIME, AND MY VERY BEING SPREAD ACROSS THE ENDLESS VOID DIDN’T HELP MY MENTAL STATE EITHER. BUT THAT SAID, I RECOGNIZE MY ACTIONS WERE STILL MY OWN. FOR THAT, I APOLOGIZE.)”

“MMM, YOU DID TEND TO BE A BIT ‘OUT OF IT’ WHENEVER YOU RETURNED HOME AFTER DAYS OR WEEKS AWAY AT YOUR LAB” Papyrus said. ”TO MULTIPLY THAT BY… HOWEVER LONG YOU'VE BEEN LIKE THIS…”

“Well now, none of that matters. First, you're stopping these experiments of yours. No more resets nor true resets,” Sweetie Void said, looking Gaster in the eyes, who only nodded in defeat.

“And second… You're coming out of here and returning to reality.”

Gaster paused at that.

“👍︎⚐︎💣︎☜︎ ✌︎☝︎✌︎✋︎☠︎✍︎ 📬︎📬︎📬︎✡︎⚐︎🕆︎🕯︎☼︎☜︎ ☼︎☜︎✌︎☹︎☹︎✡︎ ☺︎🕆︎💧︎❄︎ ☹︎☜︎❄︎❄︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ 💣︎☜︎ ⚐︎🕆︎❄︎✍︎ (COME AGAIN? ...YOU'RE REALLY JUST LETTING ME OUT?)”

“Sure, why not? It wouldn't be just leaving you here even more trapped than before. Like with Frisk and Chara, so long as you don't do anything bad, I have no problem handing out second chances!” she said with a smile.

Gaster didn’t know how to react at first. Then slowly, a small smile formed on his face.

“❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ 🕈︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎👎︎ 👌︎☜︎ ☠︎✋︎👍︎☜︎ ✋︎☠︎👎︎☜︎☜︎👎︎📬︎ 👌︎☜︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ 👌︎✌︎👍︎😐︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☼︎☜︎✌︎☹︎✋︎❄︎✡︎ ✌︎☞︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ 💧︎⚐︎ ☹︎⚐︎☠︎☝︎⑤︎ ✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎ 🕈︎☜︎☹︎☹︎📪︎ ⚐︎☠︎ 💣︎✡︎ 🏱︎☼︎✋︎👎︎☜︎ ✌︎💧︎ ✌︎ 💧︎👍︎✋︎☜︎☠︎❄︎✋︎💧︎❄︎ ✋︎ 💧︎🕈︎☜︎✌︎☼︎ ☠︎⚐︎❄︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☟︎✌︎☼︎💣︎ ✌︎☠︎✡︎⚐︎☠︎☜︎ ☠︎⚐︎ ☹︎⚐︎☠︎☝︎☜︎☼︎📬︎ (THAT WOULD BE NICE INDEED. BEING BACK TO REALITY AFTER SO LONG… VERY WELL, ON MY PRIDE AS A SCIENTIST I SWEAR NOT TO HARM ANYONE NO LONGER.)”

Gaster then frowned slightly

“☟︎⚐︎🕈︎☜︎✞︎☜︎☼︎📪︎ 👌︎☜︎☞︎⚐︎☼︎☜︎ ☝︎⚐︎✋︎☠︎☝︎⑤︎✋︎ ☟︎✌︎✞︎☜︎ ⚐︎☠︎☜︎ ☹︎✌︎💧︎❄︎ ☼︎☜︎✈︎🕆︎☜︎💧︎❄︎📬︎ 💣︎🕆︎👍︎☟︎ ✌︎💧︎ ✋︎ ✌︎💣︎ 🕈︎✋︎☹︎☹︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ❄︎🕆︎☼︎☠︎ ⚐︎☠︎ ✌︎ ☠︎☜︎🕈︎ ☹︎☜︎✌︎☞︎📪︎ ✋︎❄︎ 💧︎☟︎✌︎💣︎☜︎💧︎ 💣︎☜︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☠︎⚐︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☹︎☜︎❄︎ ✋︎❄︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎ ☝︎⚐︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 🕈︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎📬︎ 💧︎⚐︎ ✋︎☞︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ 💣︎✌︎✡︎📪︎ 👍︎✌︎☠︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ 💧︎🏱︎☼︎☜︎✌︎👎︎ 💣︎✡︎ ☜︎💧︎💧︎☜︎☠︎👍︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎☼︎⚐︎🕆︎☝︎☟︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ✞︎⚐︎✋︎👎︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ ✌︎ 💣︎⚐︎💣︎☜︎☠︎❄︎✍︎ ✋︎ 🕈︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ ☠︎⚐︎❄︎ 👎︎⚐︎ ✌︎☠︎✡︎❄︎☟︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ 👌︎✌︎👎︎📪︎ ✋︎ 💧︎✋︎💣︎🏱︎☹︎✡︎ 👎︎☜︎💧︎✋︎☼︎☜︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☼︎☜︎❄︎☼︎✋︎☜︎✞︎☜︎ 💧︎⚐︎💣︎☜︎❄︎☟︎✋︎☠︎☝︎📬︎ (HOWEVER, BEFORE GOING…I HAVE ONE LAST REQUEST. MUCH AS I AM WILLING TO TURN ON A NEW LEAF, IT SHAMES ME TO NO END TO LET IT ALL GO TO WASTE. SO IF YOU MAY, CAN YOU SPREAD MY ESSENCE THROUGH THE VOID FOR A MOMENT? I WILL NOT DO ANYTHING BAD, I SIMPLY DESIRE TO RETRIEVE SOMETHING.)”

Sweetie Void thought about it for a moment before she granted his request, making Gaster disappear.

A moment later, before her, a box not unlike the one Frisk used to store items manifested alongside a TV with a VCR and a remote control.

Gaster then manifested in his physical form. ”👎︎⚐︎☠︎☜︎📬︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ 💣︎✌︎✡︎ ☼︎☜︎👍︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎❄︎☼︎🕆︎👍︎❄︎ 💣︎☜︎ ☠︎⚐︎🕈︎📪︎ (DONE. YOU MAY RECONSTRUCT ME NOW,)” he said and Sweetie Void did so.

Gaster approached the box and pulled out one VHS tape with the label that said ‘NE-#7’

“What is that?” Chara asked from inside Sweetie Void.

“🕈︎☟︎✡︎📪︎ 💣︎✡︎ ☹︎✋︎☞︎☜︎🕈︎⚐︎☼︎😐︎ ☞︎☼︎⚐︎💣︎⑤︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎💧︎ ❄︎✋︎💣︎☜︎📬︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎☼︎☜︎🕯︎💧︎ ☠︎⚐︎ ❄︎✋︎💣︎☜︎ ☠︎⚐︎🕈︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 💧︎☜︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎💣︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎📪︎ 👌︎🕆︎❄︎ ✋︎ 👌︎☜︎☹︎✋︎☜︎✞︎☜︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎ ✌︎☹︎⚐︎☠︎☝︎💧︎✋︎👎︎☜︎ ⚐︎❄︎☟︎☜︎☼︎💧︎ 💣︎✌︎✡︎ ☞︎✋︎☠︎👎︎ 💧︎⚐︎💣︎☜︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎💣︎ ✈︎🕆︎✋︎❄︎☜︎ ☜︎☠︎☹︎✋︎☝︎☟︎❄︎☜︎☠︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ 🕈︎☟︎☜︎☠︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ❄︎✋︎💣︎☜︎ 👍︎⚐︎💣︎☜︎💧︎📪︎ (WHY, MY LIFEWORK FROM… ALL THIS TIME. THERE'S NO TIME NOW TO SEE THEM ALL, BUT I BELIEVE YOU ALL ALONGSIDE OTHERS MAY FIND SOME OF THEM QUITE ENLIGHTENING WHEN THE TIME COMES,)” Gaster said as he put the VHS in the VCR and took the remote, turning the TV on.

Immediately, they saw Frisk walking up to the exit of the underground. The moment they were about to cross, everything started to go white before suddenly there was darkness.

Then, they heard a ringtone…

…

When the recording ended, everyone was at a loss for words about what they just saw.

“W…what was that…?” Toriel muttered, completely frozen.

“☠︎☜︎🕆︎❄︎☼︎✌︎☹︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ☠︎🕆︎💣︎👌︎☜︎☼︎ 💧︎☜︎✞︎☜︎☠︎📬︎ ⚐︎☠︎☜︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 💣︎✌︎☠︎✡︎ 🕆︎☠︎✋︎✞︎☜︎☼︎💧︎☜︎💧︎ 🕈︎☟︎☜︎☼︎☜︎ ☞︎☼︎✋︎💧︎😐︎📪︎ 🕈︎☟︎✋︎☹︎☜︎ 💧︎❄︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ 😐︎✋︎☹︎☹︎✋︎☠︎☝︎📪︎ ☼︎☜︎☞︎🕆︎💧︎☜︎👎︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 👍︎⚐︎💣︎💣︎✋︎❄︎ ✌︎ ☞︎🕆︎☹︎☹︎ ☝︎☜︎☠︎⚐︎👍︎✋︎👎︎☜︎📬︎ ✋︎☠︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ⚐︎☠︎☜︎📪︎ ✌︎💧︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ 💧︎✌︎🕈︎📪︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✡︎ 😐︎✋︎☹︎☹︎☜︎👎︎ ✌︎👌︎⚐︎🕆︎❄︎ ☜︎✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎ ✋︎💣︎🏱︎⚐︎☼︎❄︎✌︎☠︎❄︎ ☞︎✋︎☝︎🕆︎☼︎☜︎💧︎ ✋︎☠︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🕆︎☠︎👎︎☜︎☼︎☝︎☼︎⚐︎🕆︎☠︎👎︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ 👍︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎👎︎ 👌︎☜︎ 👍︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎✋︎👎︎☜︎☼︎☜︎👎︎ ✌︎ ☹︎☜︎✌︎👎︎☜︎☼︎📪︎ ☹︎☜︎✌︎✞︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☼︎☜︎💧︎❄︎ ⚐︎☞︎ 💣︎⚐︎☠︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎😐︎✋︎☠︎👎︎ ✌︎✋︎💣︎☹︎☜︎💧︎💧︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ ☟︎⚐︎🏱︎☜︎☹︎☜︎💧︎💧︎📬︎ ✋︎☠︎ ✌︎ 🕈︎✌︎✡︎📪︎ ✌︎ ☞︎✌︎❄︎☜︎ 🕈︎⚐︎☼︎💧︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎☠︎ 👍︎⚐︎💣︎🏱︎☹︎☜︎❄︎☜︎ ☜︎✠︎❄︎☜︎☼︎💣︎✋︎☠︎✌︎❄︎✋︎⚐︎☠︎📪︎ ✡︎☜︎❄︎ ⚐︎☠︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✡︎ ☝︎⚐︎❄︎ ✌︎🕈︎✌︎✡︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎📬︎ (NEUTRAL ENDING NUMBER SEVEN. ONE OF THE MANY UNIVERSES WHERE FRISK, WHILE STILL KILLING, REFUSED TO COMMIT A FULL GENOCIDE. IN THAT ONE, AS YOU SAW, THEY KILLED ABOUT EVERY IMPORTANT FIGURES IN THE UNDERGROUND THAT COULD BE CONSIDERED A LEADER, LEAVING THE REST OF MONSTERKIND AIMLESS AND HOPELESS. IN A WAY, A FATE WORSE THAN COMPLETE EXTERMINATION, YET ONE THEY GOT AWAY WITH.)”

Needless to say, even Sweetie Void was genuinely disturbed by this one. And for someone who saw as much as she did, that was saying a lot.

Gaster just wordlessly took the tape out and put it back on the box before taking another one. "❄︎☟︎✋︎💧︎ ✋︎💧︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☹︎✌︎💧︎❄︎ ⚐︎☠︎☜︎ ✋︎ 🕈︎✌︎☠︎❄︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 💧︎☟︎⚐︎🕈︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ ☠︎⚐︎🕈︎📬︎ 🕈︎☟︎☜︎☠︎ 🕈︎☜︎🕯︎☼︎☜︎ 👌︎✌︎👍︎😐︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☼︎☜︎✌︎☹︎✋︎❄︎✡︎📪︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ 👍︎✌︎☠︎ 👍︎⚐︎💣︎☜︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 💣︎☜︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ ✋︎ 🕈︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ 💧︎☟︎⚐︎🕈︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ 💣︎⚐︎☼︎☜︎📬︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ ☠︎⚐︎🕈︎📪︎ ✋︎ 👌︎☜︎☹︎✋︎☜︎✞︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎💧︎ ✋︎💧︎ ⚐︎☠︎☜︎ ☟︎☜︎☼︎ 💣︎✌︎☺︎☜︎💧︎❄︎✡︎ 🕈︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎👎︎ 🕈︎✌︎☠︎❄︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☹︎⚐︎⚐︎😐︎ 👍︎☹︎⚐︎💧︎☜︎☹︎✡︎ ✌︎❄︎📪︎ (THIS IS THE LAST ONE I WANT TO SHOW YOU FOR NOW. WHEN WE'RE BACK TO REALITY, YOU CAN COME TO ME AND I WILL SHOW YOU MORE. FOR NOW, I BELIEVE THIS IS ONE HER MAJESTY WOULD WANT TO LOOK CLOSELY AT,)” Gaster said, looking at Toriel before putting the VCR labeled ‘NE-#4’ In.

The TV lit up again, and the same happened up until the moment of the call. Sweetie Void gave a little smile when Sans mentioned the snowman, but after that…

…

While reactions across the room were overall better, it was not by much with the ending still having a melancholic tone.

“❄︎☟︎✋︎💧︎ ⚐︎☠︎☜︎ ✋︎💧︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☼︎☜︎✞︎☜︎☼︎💧︎☜︎👎︎ 💧︎👍︎☜︎☠︎✌︎☼︎✋︎⚐︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☹︎✌︎💧︎❄︎ ⚐︎☠︎☜︎📬︎ ☟︎☜︎☼︎☜︎📪︎ ☞︎☼︎✋︎💧︎😐︎ 👎︎✋︎👎︎☠︎❼︎❄︎ ☟︎✌︎✞︎☜︎ ✋︎❄︎ ✋︎☠︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎💣︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 😐︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ ✌︎☠︎✡︎⚐︎☠︎☜︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ❄︎☟︎⚐︎💧︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✡︎ 👌︎☜︎☞︎☼︎✋︎☜︎☠︎👎︎☜︎👎︎ 🏱︎☜︎☼︎💧︎⚐︎☠︎✌︎☹︎☹︎✡︎📪︎ ✡︎☜︎❄︎ ☟︎✌︎👎︎ ☠︎⚐︎ ✋︎💧︎💧︎🕆︎☜︎💧︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ ☜︎☠︎👎︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ✌︎☹︎☹︎ ❄︎☟︎⚐︎💧︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✡︎ 👎︎☜︎☜︎💣︎☜︎👎︎ ❻︎💧︎❄︎☼︎✌︎☠︎☝︎☜︎☼︎💧︎❼︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎✡︎ ☟︎✌︎👎︎ ☠︎⚐︎ ☼︎☜︎✌︎☹︎ 👍︎⚐︎☠︎☠︎☜︎👍︎❄︎✋︎⚐︎☠︎ ❄︎⚐︎📬︎ 🕈︎☟︎✋︎☹︎☜︎ ☠︎⚐︎❄︎ ✌︎💧︎ 👌︎✌︎👎︎ ✌︎💧︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☹︎✌︎💧︎❄︎ ⚐︎☠︎☜︎📪︎ ✋︎❄︎ ✋︎💧︎ 💧︎❄︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ ✈︎🕆︎✋︎❄︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 👌︎☹︎☜︎✌︎😐︎ ☞︎🕆︎❄︎🕆︎☼︎☜︎📬︎ ☜︎💧︎🏱︎☜︎👍︎✋︎✌︎☹︎☹︎✡︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ ✌︎☠︎✡︎ ☟︎🕆︎💣︎✌︎☠︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ✋︎💧︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☞︎✌︎☹︎☹︎ ✌︎☞︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ ☞︎☼︎✋︎💧︎😐︎⑤︎ ✌︎☟︎📪︎ 👌︎🕆︎❄︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎🕯︎💧︎ ✌︎ 💧︎❄︎⚐︎☼︎✡︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ ✌︎☠︎⚐︎❄︎☟︎☜︎☼︎ ❄︎✋︎💣︎☜︎📪︎ (THIS ONE IS THE REVERSED SCENARIO OF THE LAST ONE. HERE, FRISK DIDN’T HAVE IT IN THEM TO KILL ANYONE OF THOSE THEY BEFRIENDED PERSONALLY, YET HAD NO ISSUES FOR ENDING ALL THOSE THEY DEEMED ‘STRANGERS’ THEY HAD NO REAL CONNECTION TO. WHILE NOT AS BAD AS THE LAST ONE, IT IS STILL QUITE THE BLEAK FUTURE. ESPECIALLY FOR ANY HUMAN THAT IS TO FALL AFTER FRISK… AH, BUT THAT'S A STORY FOR ANOTHER TIME,)” Gaster said.

Out of all the ones present, Toriel and Undyne were the ones left with the most to think about.

Undyne had conflicted feelings: for one, it was quite the moral boost knowing she was so strong she could actually beat a Boss Monster!

But after that? Asgore dying, her taking charge of the Underground, and the fact she gets that much more ruthless… If she was being fair, she certainly got where the her of that world was coming from; even if she didn’t quite see eye to eye, she knew herself enough that she would've done it all in her place.

She only hoped that at least she got to be a good ruler for the monsters. Because if she wasn’t…

Toriel, once again, was hit with the realization that she made more mistakes than she used to take credit for. Thinking that she greatly misjudged her people was one thing, but actual confirmation of how much they could come to despise her ideals to the point of rebellion, all because she didn’t properly analyze the situation…

It was a hard pill to swallow.

“✋︎ 👌︎☜︎☹︎✋︎☜︎✞︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎🕯︎💧︎ ☜︎☠︎⚐︎🕆︎☝︎☟︎ ☞︎⚐︎☼︎ ☠︎⚐︎🕈︎📬︎ ✌︎☝︎✌︎✋︎☠︎📪︎ 👍︎⚐︎💣︎☜︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 💣︎☜︎ ✋︎☞︎ ✋︎❄︎❼︎💧︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎☼︎ 🕈︎✋︎💧︎☟︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☹︎☜︎✌︎☼︎☠︎ 💣︎⚐︎☼︎☜︎ ✌︎👌︎⚐︎🕆︎❄︎ ☜︎✞︎☜︎☼︎✡︎❄︎☟︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ 👎︎✋︎👎︎☠︎❼︎❄︎ ☝︎☜︎❄︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 💧︎☜︎☜︎📬︎ ☠︎⚐︎🕈︎📪︎ ☹︎☜︎❄︎ 🕆︎💧︎ ☼︎☜︎❄︎🕆︎☼︎☠︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🕆︎☠︎👎︎☜︎☼︎☝︎☼︎⚐︎🕆︎☠︎👎︎📬︎ (I BELIEVE THAT'S ENOUGH FOR NOW. AGAIN, COME TO ME IF IT’S YOUR WISH TO LEARN MORE ABOUT EVERYTHING YOU DIDN’T GET TO SEE. NOW, LET US RETURN TO THE UNDERGROUND.)”

“But before…” Sweetie Void began. “I have a couple of SOULs to give back.”

Then, she expelled Frisk and Kris’ SOULs out of her body, returning herself to normal. The SOULs flew right to their respective bodies, entering them. A few seconds later, the humans woke up.

As she got up, Kris said, “It felt weird not being in my body.”

“Welcome to my world,” Chara replied to that through Frisk’s mouth.

Once the two were up, Sweetie Void opened a rift, surprising the monsters except Gaster.

“Come on, let’s go, it leads back to Waterfall,” the alicorn said.

Phantom and Apple Death jumped into it right away, followed by Gaster, then by Frisk and Kris. Papyrus trusted Sweetie Void, so he didn’t hesitate long before jumping through. Toriel then followed, and finally, Undyne did too, leaving Sweetie Void to close the march.

At the other side of the rift, back in the corridor which was now without a gray door, Sweetie Void was welcomed to the sight of two individuals present in addition of everyone else: Sans and Flowey. Sans was looking at Gaster as if he saw a ghost (considering the presence of monster ghosts in the Underground, this may not be the right expression to use) while Flowey looked at Frisk with a relieved expression.

Obviously, when the door disappeared, Sans and Flowey must have come here wondering what happened to their respective brother.

Despite being soulless and despite their earlier argument, it looked like Flowey still cared about Chara enough to worry about him disappearing through a mysterious gray door.

Or did he develop some attachment toward his son? Sweetie Void wasn’t sure.

Then, Sans says, “father?”

“💧︎✌︎☠︎💧︎📪︎ (SANS,)” Gaster replied, his smile gentler. “✋︎🕯︎💣︎ 👌︎✌︎👍︎😐︎📬︎ (I’M BACK.)”

“LOOK SANS! OUR DAD IS BACK!” Papyrus exclaimed with clear joy.

Sans continued to look at Gaster, then he stared at Sweetie Void. “what happened?”

“A lot,” Sweetie Void answered. “And I think that everybody has a lot to talk about. We should go to Undyne’s house. Or Alphys’ lab; she will want to meet her predecessor. I can teleport us there. And yes, this includes you, Flowey. You may want to hear what we learned while in the void.”

Flowey looked at the filly suspiciously, but then agreed, along with all the others. So Sweetie Void plucked him from the ground and placed him in a flower pot, then she teleported everyone into the lab, the sound of the teleportation making Alphys jump out of her chair in surprise. The doctor had been looking at the large screen, probably trying to find the children. Of course there were no cameras in that corridor that Gaster created for his gray door.

As some recovered from the teleportation sickness, Sweetie Void briefly resumed the situation to Alphys while she was getting up.

“We found a door that led us to the void, and there, we found your predecessor, W.D. Gaster. There is a lot to talk about.”

Alphys looked at the talking alicorn filly in awe. Then, what she said caught up, and now, she was looking at the skeleton in black in both awe and shock.

“D-D-D-D-Doctor Gaster?! THE Doctor Gaster?! Who made the CORE?!”

Gaster chuckled. “✋︎☠︎ 💣︎✌︎☝︎✋︎👍︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ 👌︎⚐︎☠︎☜︎💧︎📬︎ (IN MAGIC AND BONES.)”

Sweetie Void summoned a table big enough and enough chairs for everyone to sit on.

“I hope you don’t mind if we settle here for our little discussion.”

Alphys looked back at the filly, in awe again at her magic prowess. She nodded. “O-of course! I will heat some cups of noodles for everyone.” And she went to do that as quickly as she could, taking cups of noodles in the fridge and heating them in the microwave, rather clumsily in her haste as she took too many cups in her arms at once, almost dropping several.

Undyne quickly went to help her, taking some of the cups from her arms and making her blush.

Eventually, the cups were heated and distributed around the table, Alphys looking in shock at Flowey, finally noticing him. Alphys and Undyne then joined the others and sat down, beside each other. Finally, Undyne removed her helmet and placed it on the table.

“So…” Sweetie Void began while everyone began to eat with more or less difficulty using the sticks to pick up the noodles. “Let’s start by recounting to Sans, Flowey, and Alphys what happened in the void.”

And so, Gaster recounted what happened to him, from the moment he fell into the CORE and got scattered across space and time to when he fought Sweetie Void, telling everything about his experiments.

When he was done, Sans, Flowey, and Alphys were left speechless.

Gaster then looked at Alphys. “✋︎ ✌︎👍︎❄︎🕆︎✌︎☹︎☹︎✡︎ 🕆︎💧︎☜︎👎︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎☼︎ ☜︎✠︎🏱︎☜︎☼︎✋︎💣︎☜︎☠︎❄︎ 🕈︎✋︎❄︎☟︎ 👎︎☜︎❄︎☜︎☼︎💣︎✋︎☠︎✌︎❄︎✋︎⚐︎☠︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 👍︎☼︎☜︎✌︎❄︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 💧︎✌︎✞︎☜︎ 🏱︎⚐︎🕈︎☜︎☼︎📬︎ 👎︎☜︎❄︎☜︎☼︎💣︎✋︎☠︎✌︎❄︎✋︎⚐︎☠︎ ☝︎✋︎✞︎☜︎💧︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ ⚐︎☠︎☜︎ 🏱︎⚐︎💧︎💧︎☜︎💧︎💧︎✋︎☠︎☝︎ ✋︎❄︎ 🕈︎✋︎☹︎☹︎📬︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🕈︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☹︎✋︎✞︎☜︎📪︎ ✌︎💧︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ 👎︎✋︎💧︎👍︎⚐︎✞︎☜︎☼︎☜︎👎︎📪︎ 👌︎🕆︎❄︎ ✌︎☹︎💧︎⚐︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🕈︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 💧︎🕆︎👍︎👍︎☜︎☜︎👎︎📪︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🕈︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ ❄︎⚐︎ 👍︎☟︎✌︎☠︎☝︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🕈︎⚐︎☼︎☹︎👎︎📪︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 🕈︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ☠︎☜︎✞︎☜︎☼︎ ☝︎✋︎✞︎☜︎ 🕆︎🏱︎📬︎ ✋︎ ☝︎✌︎✞︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎💧︎ 🕈︎✋︎☹︎☹︎ ✌︎👍︎❄︎🕆︎✌︎☹︎ 🏱︎⚐︎🕈︎☜︎☼︎📪︎ ❄︎☟︎🕆︎💧︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 💧︎✌︎✞︎☜︎ 🏱︎⚐︎🕈︎☜︎☼︎📬︎ (I ACTUALLY USED YOUR EXPERIMENT WITH DETERMINATION TO CREATE THE SAVE POWER. DETERMINATION GIVES THE ONE POSSESSING IT WILL. THE WILL TO LIVE, AS YOU DISCOVERED, BUT ALSO THE WILL TO SUCCEED, THE WILL TO CHANGE THE WORLD, THE WILL TO NEVER GIVE UP. I GAVE THIS WILL ACTUAL POWER, THUS THE SAVE POWER.)”

“What experiment with Determination is he talking about?” Undyne asked.

Alphys panicked. “Uh… W-w-well… Uh… Y-you s-see… Uh…”

“my guess is that it has something to do with the fallen monsters that entered her lab but never came out despite her saying that they were now alright somehow,” Sans said.

Alphys panicked even more, not able to say a word anymore.

Undyne began to rub her back. “Hey hey hey! Whatever happened, it’s alright.”

Sweetie Void nodded. “I know what happened, and it isn’t your fault. You were simply following Asgore’s instructions to find a way to destroy the Barrier without a seventh SOUL. Your experiment was made with good intentions, and you did end up saving these monsters’ lives. That’s what matters, even if they are now… that… Do you want me to tell everyone what happened? This will be a huge weight off your chest.”

Silently, Alphys nodded after a few seconds of hesitation.

“Alright. So, the gist of it is that Alphys injected Determination into the fallen monsters in the hope of making their SOULs last after death, so they would eventually get enough monster SOULs to get the equivalent of the seventh human SOUL needed to destroy the Barrier. However, this had the unexpected effect of giving the fallen monsters the will to live, saving them from certain death. However, the monster body isn’t made to hold that much Determination, so they began to melt and merge together to form what we call Amalgamates.”

“A-a-and… feeling ashamed of what happened… I-I kept them trapped in my secret lab since then, telling nobody, withdrawing into myself...” Alphys took over, not daring to look at anyone.

“And losing confidence in herself,” Sweetie Void finished.

Undyne sighed. “This explains so much…” She then hugged the lizard monster. “It’s okay. Nobody is holding it against you. Just, uh… Once we are done with this discussion, let’s bring these monsters back to their families, okay?”

Alphys gulped. “O-o-okay.”

“Ahem! Back on topic,” Flowey suddenly said before he stared at Gaster. “So, I owe my life to you? You are the one who allowed me to come back from death when I killed myself?”

Gaster nodded. “❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎🕯︎💧︎ ☼︎✋︎☝︎☟︎❄︎📬︎ (THAT'S RIGHT.)”

“......You should have let me die. It would have been better for everyone.”

“NO!” Frisk, or rather Chara, yelled. “Alphys gave you another chance to live after I killed you! You will NOT waste it! Once Sweetie Void absorbs SOULs again, she will turn you back to normal, and you will live with Asgore and Toriel again, happily ever after!”

“I don’t deserve that after everything I have done…”

Chara slammed Frisk’s hand on the table. “Like hell! It’s my fault you did all that! And you couldn’t help yourself without a SOUL! If Frisk deserves a chance after what he did, then you deserve it too! The only one who doesn’t deserve one is me…”

Toriel’s eyes widened, several key words having allowed her to reach a conclusion. “Another chance to live”, “turn you back to normal”, “live with Asgore and Toriel again”.

But first, she needed to ask: “Excuse me, but what has Doctor Alphys done to… Flowey, was it?”

Alphys answered. “Oh, well, I needed a receptacle for the monster SOULs I would collect, so I injected Determination into the very first Golden Flowey that grew in Asgore’s garden after… that day, thinking that something neither human nor monster would be able to hold all of them, but it gave nothing, so I put the flower back in its place. It’s only later that I learned that the flower was gone. It seems that giving Determination really gave it life, like I had expected, but it took some time for that to happen. But…” She looked at Frisk/Chara. “What do you mean I gave him a second chance at life?”

Chara looked at Alphys, then at Flowey, then at Toriel, then at Flowey again. “Do you want to tell her, or do I do it?”

Before Flowey could answer, Toriel asked, “You are Asriel, am I right?” surprising him and shocking many of the monsters.

Flowey sighed, not looking at Toriel. “Yes…”

Toriel stopped herself from going to hug the flower, then looked at Frisk with hope. “Chara?”

Chara immediately withdrew into Frisk, so Frisk was the one who nodded, making Chara curse him inside his mind.

Papyrus gasped. “SO MY FRIEND FLOWERY IS THE PRINCE! I HAVE BEEN FRIEND WITH THE PRINCE ALL THIS TIME! AND THE PRINCE IS NOT DEAD! THIS IS THE BEST NEWS EVER! MAYBE EVEN BETTER THAN IF UNDYNE TOLD ME THAT I’M FINALLY PART OF THE ROYAL GUARD!”

“Wait wait wait! How is this possible?! How are the dead princes alive?” Undyne asked.

“Uh… Chara isn’t really alive,” Frisk said. “He is more… a passenger in my body.”

“As for me, when the good doctor over there injected Determination into the flower, it gave my dust, my essence, the will to live,” Flowy said. “Remember that the first Golden Flower seed fell into the garden with my dust, so it was covered in it.”

“As for how Chara ended up in my head…” Frisk began.

“HAS IT TO DO WITH WHAT DAD SAID ABOUT YOU? ABOUT YOU BEING A HUMAN/MONSTER HYBRID?” Papyrus asked.

Toriel remembered perfectly what Gaster said. Apparently, Frisk was born somehow thanks to Asriel, from the remains of a human, a merged human monster SOUL, and monster essence, plus that Determination that gives the will to live.

She always wondered how the Golden Flowers appeared above Chara’s grave, but now that she knew that there was a living Golden Flower who was actually Asriel reborn, it wasn’t hard to guess that Asriel found Chara’s grave and left some seeds on it.

And if the seeds had Asriel’s essence and Determination…

And when Asriel died, the pieces of his merged SOUL broke and fell right on Chara’s body, so they ended up being buried with him in the Ruins.

The conclusion was quite the shock.

“You are Chara’s body given life with Asriel’s essence and their SOULs.”

“Asriel’s blank essence actually,” Sweetie Void corrected. “The flowers contain only blank essence, like in newborn monsters.”

“That’s incredible!” Alphys said in awe as she looked at Frisk.

“Calm down, Alph. “Remember that he and his counterparts caused untold suffering across many worlds and timelines,” Undyne said while she glared at Frisk, making him want to shrink.

“C–COME ON, UNDYNE, OTHER FRISKS MAY HAVE DONE BAD THINGS, BUT MAYBE THIS ONE HASN’T,” Papyrus tried to reason.

Sans stared at Frisk, and the boy sighed before he said, “I did… I wanted to find a way to save Asriel, and I thought that LOVE would be the solution…”

Undyne facepalmed. “LOVE is NEVER the solution.”

“I know that, now. But what I gained each time that my LOVE increased… It really felt like I would be able to do anything once I gained enough.”

“Yeah, LOVE is one hell of a drug. It still doesn’t excuse killing innocents.”

“I know…”

“However, while you and the flower have caused a lot of problems…” The Captain’s gaze turned to Gaster. “you are still the one who puppeteered everything, and so, the one responsible for all that happened to these other worlds and timelines, and this is unforgivable. You did a lot of good for the Underground, like the CORE, and nothing bad happened in our timeline. Heck, you even created our world, and it’s thanks to you that the princes are among us today, but it doesn’t change the fact that countless monsters have suffered because of you.”

Gaster lowered his head. “✋︎ 😐︎☠︎⚐︎🕈︎📬︎📬︎📬︎ (I KNOW…)”

“BUT NOW, WE CAN WORK TOGETHER FOR A BETTER FUTURE!” Papyrus said. “STARTING WITH DESTROYING THE BARRIER!”

“Which I will be able to do using the same method I used in the void,” Sweetie Void said.

Now, all eyes turned to Sweetie Void, Phantom, and Apple Bloom.

“So, you three are from another dimension?” Toriel asked.

“That’s right,” Apple Death answered.

Phantom pointed a thumb at Kris. “And her too. She is an alternate Frisk.”

“And if it can reassure you, she never did any harm,” Sweetie Void said.

“And why are you here instead of being in your worlds?” Undyne asked.

Sweetie Void pointed at herself and the other UME. “The three of us are world explorers. We are here by ‘luck’. Kris however…”

Kris sighed. “The timeline preceding this one was a genocide one, where Frisk was killing all the monsters that crossed his path. The problem was that it was because of Chara killing everyone he befriended to punish him for having killed everyone in a previous timeline, so Sweetie Void asked my help in trying to convince Chara to stop. Then, when they were about to RESET to save the monsters this time, I wanted to come along for the fun. The first time I went through the Underground, it was very nice, so I wanted to do it again. I really couldn’t wait to go through Papyrus’ puzzles again, or Mettaton’s shows. Yes Alphys, I know what you were planning to do.”

Alphys blushed and hid her face behind her claws.

“NYEH HEH HEH! I’M HAPPY TO HEAR THAT YOU LOVED MY PUZZLES SO MUCH THAT YOU WANTED TO DO THEM AGAIN!”

“And we needed to keep an eye on Frisk and Chara,” Phantom said. “In case they had any idea.”

“And once you are gone, what would be stopping them from going on a rampage again?” Undyne again.

“Frisk and Chara looked genuinely sorry for what happened. And they know that, if I return and find that something is wrong, then they’re gonna have a bad time. Also, I’m planning to give Chara a body of his own, so he won’t have the SAVE power anymo-Oh… Wait…” She looked at Gaster. “You removed the six human SOULs that Asgore collected.” She looked at Frisk. “And while collecting two SOULs is enough to get the power to destroy the Barrier, I need three to have the necessary power to manipulate SOULs to give Asriel and Chara a new one. Even if I take Frisk and Kris’ SOULs again, I still need a third SOUL, and I don’t feel like taking the SOULs of all the monsters in the Underground.” She looked at Kris. “Would your Chara agree to let me take hers?”

Kris nodded. “I’m sure, yes. She trusts you.”

“Good,” Sweetie Void said before she sighed. “It’s sad however, I won’t be able to bring the dead kids back to life this time without their SOULs, and I’m not sure that creating new SOULs would help because humans don’t have essence retaining their memories, so the revived humans would be like newborns with no memories of who they were, and their original selves would still be dead.”

Gaster looked very sorry at that, and this saddened Toriel and Papyrus a lot.

“can’t save everyone,” Sans said.

“I know.”

After that, they ended the discussion, and it was agreed that everyone will go to New Home to witness the destruction of the Barrier and talk to Asgore about everything that happened. Gaster decided to leave the tapes in the laboratory.

Before they left, Toriel hugged Frisk who had Flowey in his hands.

“You three may have done horrible things, but know that I love you.”

Chara took over Frisk’s body and glared at her. “So you are ready to forgive us despite us killing the monsters again and again, and yet, you aren’t ready to forgive Asgore for just killing six humans. It’s not because we are children that we must be forgiven everything, you know?”

“...I… didn’t say that I was forgiving. I said that I still loved you.”

“Then what is stopping you from loving dad?” Flowey asked. “ You talk about him as if he is the Devil, when we should be the ones receiving such names. Hypocrite. Let’s go Chara.”

Chara left Toriel’s arms and walked away, leaving behind a woman who couldn’t say anything in return.

Author's Note

This one was hard. Justalad made the first discussion in the void.

Chapter 210: Wrapping Up

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 1: The First World

Author's Note

Here's my Christmas gift, everyone! The much awaited sequel to all my stories (mainly A Sweetie Dreamland for now)!
Warning, OP Sweetie, so be prepared to see a lot of one-sided fights, and even more when she will be joined by the heroines of my other stories.
Reminder: even if the universes explored will mainly be from video games, many mechanics proper to the game format won't be present. For example, 2D games won"t be in 2D here, but in 3D, because the universes are in 3D. No turn-based fights. No limits in the number of attacks that can be used like in Pokemon. No Mario suddenly forgetting that he can punch his enemies instead of just jumping on their head. And so on and so on.
For the ones who saw the previews, some things will probably be different. The previews really were just prototypes.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1: The First World

About two years ago, the young filly named Sweetie Belle had been accidentally sent to another dimension by Twilight Sparkle. In this dimension that had been given the name of Dream Universe, Sweetie Belle landed in the castle of the self-proclaimed king of Dream Land: King Dedede, on a star-shaped planet named Popstar.

She began working for Dedede who trained her to fight in the hope of defeating the local hero, Kirby. But the filly ended up having many adventures beside said hero, making many friends, saving the kingdom, the world, and even the universe, becoming Queen of the sky kingdom of Floralia, and gaining powers beyond anything she had imagined.

After saving the God named Void from his hate, Sweetie Belle was able to return to Equestria aboard the dimensional spaceship Lor Starcutter of which she had become the captain, and there, she protected the kingdom from a bunch of villains before she returned to Dream Land, ready to accomplish her original goal: defeating Kirby.

In the following cosmic fight, Sweetie Belle ascended and became the Alicorn of the Void.

After accomplishing her goal, she returned to Equestria for a well deserved rest.

Her classmates had watched the fight against Kirby, so they already knew that she had ascended, but they still congratulated her, going a little too far as they now considered her a princess, like all the other alicorns. She had to remind them that she was already queen of another kingdom and that she wasn't intending to become a princess of Equestria, and so, that as long as she was in Equestria, or even anywhere else outside of the Dream Universe, she shouldn't be considered royalty.

There was also a little jealousy from Diamond Tiara who had been really shocked to see Sweetie Belle reach her dream. But knowing that the filly now could destroy a whole planet as if it was nothing, she controlled herself and remained friendly enough. Besides, antagonizing Sweetie Belle would also antagonize Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, which she didn't want to after they helped her discover her real talent.

A platform for the Lor Starcutter was built beside Twilight's castle, and beside it, there was now also a portal to Dream Land, built with the help of Magolor using the technology of the Ancients, the civilization that created the Dream Universe long ago.

Scootaloo took a very close interest in this advanced technology. She just found it very fascinating and regularly talked of how she could improve her scooter with it. Or, heck, how she could build an actual spaceship which would be MUCH better than a simple scooter!

Sweetie Belle began to teach her friends and a few others how to use their inner energy. She would call it Soul Energy, but this wasn't the same Soul Energy as in the Dream Universe. The Dream Universe's Soul Energy didn't exist in Equestria. But at least, the energy that replaced it was close enough, and the way to discover it was pretty much the same as what Sweetie Belle did the first time. It took however longer for many to discover it, but once they did, it wasn't long before they all could call it. Creating and throwing energy balls, however, was still above their level.

As a result of her over a year of being away, Sweetie Belle was behind everypony else in classes, so she studied a lot to catch up. She also studied magic with the help of Twilight and Starlight, to get inspirations for... tricks she could do in the future, with magic or other energies. She couldn't wait to see her future enemies' reaction when she will turn a simple stone into a gun. She had certainly loved to see Twilight's face when she did it in front of her! Of course, there wasn't any bullet, so it was okay. Sweetie Belle conveniently forgot to say that she could simply fire beams with it but, oh well, it wasn't as if she hadn't already a beam gun constantly on her forehead (the horn), and that she could fire more beams just from the air around her. Anything could be used as a weapon by her. Especially since she became an alicorn.

Which meant that she had to relearn to control her powers. She controlled them perfectly... before, but as an alicorn, if she didn't watch out, she could disintegrate a whole mountain very easily, forcing her to be very careful around everything whenever she used even an ounce of her powers. She went into the Everfree Forest to learn to control her powers without risking anypony's life, but after leveling a big chunk of the forest, she began to use a deserted planet in the Dream Universe as her training field. Void also helped her a lot.

It still took several months before she felt comfortable enough with her new powers that she dared to use them in the middle of Ponyville. Until then, the magic lessons with Twilight and Starlight weren't even in the castle, but in that cavern where a dragon had slept a few years ago, in a nearby mountain.

A few more months later, she felt that she was ready. That she had enough control to do what she wanted to do: go out and explore the Multiverse, or rather, the Omniverse, as it was really called. But since the majority knew it as the
Multiverse, even most Gods, then she will stick with it for now.

She was really missing going on adventures. She gained a taste for them in the Dream Universe, and she loved discovering new stuff and making new friends.

She wanted more.

So, like she said back on Popstar, she waited for a week-end and warned everypony that she would go. Rarity accepted after a resigned sigh, knowing that there was no changing her mind and that, anyway, she should worry more for whoever or whatever would try to hurt her. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo wanted to come, but their families refused, having no idea if the universe Sweetie Belle will find herself in will be dangerous or not.

"I promise that I will try to find a safe universe so I can bring you next time," Sweetie Belle said. "If that's alright," she then said while looking at Applejack and at one of Scootaloo's aunts.

They both nodded with Applejack saying "If that's safe, then alright, sugarcube." This brought back a smile on Apple Bloom and Scootaloo's muzzle.

"So, you will be taking the Lor?" Scootaloo then asked.

"Uh-uh," Sweetie Belle answered with a shake of her head before she smirked, materialized an energy sword, and used it to cut the space open, creating a rift.

"Show off," Apple Bloom said with a giggle, and Sweetie Belle answered her by sticking out her tongue at her.

"Anyway, I will try to come back before the end of the week-end, but Void told me about how some universes have their time passing faster or slower than ours, so I have no idea when I will be back. Say sorry to miss Cheerilee for me if I don't come back in time. Oh! I almost forgot!" A small earpiece device appeared beside her, and she quickly put it on. "He also told me that I was lucky to fall into an universe where the inhabitants were speaking the same language as me, but it won't be the case for all universes, so Magolor created this multiversal translator for me. Don't ask how it works, please. Ask Magolor directly if you want to know. Hey! Look! It can even turn invisible!" she shouted as she proceeded to demonstrate by pressing a small button on the device.

Twilight nodded in understanding. "Like this, the natives will ask less questions if... when they see you. I suppose it's why you aren't wearing your uniform too."

Sweetie Belle, who was indeed not wearing clothes, nodded. "Yes, so they won't think directly that I'm some alien and panic. They may just think that I'm an unknown species of animal or whatever."

The filly then exchanged some quick hugs with Rarity, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo before she stepped through the portal which closed behind her.

Sweetie Belle stepped out of the portal on some extend of rock full of cliffs and ledges and small mountains, without any sign of life.

Yeah, this was a bad start.

She still decided to fly up to get a better view, just in case, and, behind a plateau, she saw giant quadrupedal golden machines with glowing blue parts. She couldn't see much of their legs, but she could see that they were supporting a giant body that could rotate as they looked down. Sweetie Belle counted seven of them.

Then, the sides of the body revealed powerful laser cannons that they used to sweep the ground, and whatever they were targeting, Sweetie Belle could hear them yelling in pain and agony, but the filly couldn't identify the sources (but they seemed monstrous). One of the machines eventually fell and exploded, but soon enough, the screams stopped, and the machines advanced again toward, Sweetie Belle could see in the distance, what seemed like structures made of flesh with disgusting... things flying above and between them.

So, it seemed like she stepped in the middle of a war-zone between a technologically advanced species and another that used buildings of flesh. She wasn't sure what was going on, and she didn't want to judge. Beside, she wanted to find a safe place for her friends to join her, and she didn't want to lose time dealing with a war. So she opened a new portal and flew through it.

This time, she landed in a place she was more familiar with. It seemed to be a valley between two mountains, with grassy fields, a lake, a few trees, and a road climbing several ledges before reaching a building just between two cliffs. In the opposite side, there were some stairs leading to a city that was rather small but had some skyscrapers.

She landed beside the lake and looked around at the strange animals she could see. Where the flora was very familiar, the fauna was very different, and yet still reminded Sweetie Belle of animals from her universe. Like, not far, she could see a group of birds with brown heads and tails, pinkish-red wings lighter at the tips, black backs, and beige, striped underside. They were nothing like any bird she knew.

Among the grasses, she spotted purple rodents scurrying around, and on the trees, there were weird spherical white monkeys with pig-like snout for nose.

This seemed safe so far, but Sweetie Belle decided to walk around a little more, even approaching the animals to see how they reacted to her. So far, they didn't attack her, but some clearly looked at her warily.

She discovered a few more species of animals as she explored around, and she was curious to discover more of them. For a moment, she thought about going toward the city, but then...

"Hey! What's that?!" someone suddenly shouted, gaining Sweetie Belle's attention.

There, further away, pointing at her, was a human, different than the ones she knew from the Dream Universe. In it, the human adults like Adeleine were about the size of Dedede, so about the size of a grown stallion, but this human was even taller, about Celestia's size! And judging by the voice she heard, this human didn't even seem to be fully mature yet!

He clearly was a male with short brown hair wearing a white shirt with a drawing of a ball with a red superior half, a white inferior half, and a white circle in the center, black shorts, and white and yellow shoes along with a backpack. Beside him was another male human, a little smaller whose hair were hidden by a red hat while he was also wearing a green shirt, a yellow short, and white shoes, and like the other, he had a backpack. The both of them also had a belt with six balls like the one in the drawing of the shirt of the first human.

Here we go, thought Sweetie Belle as the second human got out some red device which he seemed to use to scan her.

"Uh... It says it's unknown," said the second human as he looked at the device.

The first human immediately looked excited. "An unknown species of Pokémon?!"

"Seems like it. Where does it come from? I didn't think it was still possible to find new species in Kanto."

The first human shrugs. "Who knows what unknown can come out of these tall grasses and trees. We haven't really bothered searching for a long time."

"Let me guess. You will catch it?"

"Of course I will! You imagine how everybody will react when they will see that I have caught a new species of Pokémon? And I will so catch the Elite Four off guard with it! It may be my key to become the Champion!"

Sweetie Belle wasn't sure what they were talking about, but it seemed like there was a competition relating to these Pokémon. In which way, she didn't know. But these guys were taking her for one of these Pokémon and wanted to catch her to use her for this competition.

But what was a Pokémon? They talked of species of Pokémon, so... was that a kind of animal that she coincidentally looked like? She will find out soon enough.

"Mmh... It looks like a small winged Ponyta, without the fiery mane and tail," said the second human.

"Yeah, it reminds more of the Ponytas from that region... Uh... Galar. They have similar colored manes. You think it may be a new species born from the Ponytas/Rapidashs that flew all the way from Galar to Kanto?"

"Maybe. I'm sure prof. Oak will be able to answer this. That is if you catch it."

"Ah! Just watch me!" shouted the first human as he took one of the white and red balls which grew in his hand before he ran toward her. "Nidoking! Go!" he then shouted before he threw the ball. When it hit the ground, the ball opened and unleashed some red energy that quickly took the form of an animal before it solidified and gained colors.

The animal didn't look AT ALL like Sweetie Belle, so not all Pokémon looked like her.

Nice to know, thought Sweetie Belle as she looked up and up at the giant purple reptile a little smaller than the humans that somehow came out of a ball the size of a hand. The thing was clearly made for battles. It had sharp teeth, sharp claws (but weird hands), a sharp horn, even sharp spines on its back, and a big tail that could easily send her flying into a tree. So, I presume that this competition is about battles with these Pokémon. Alright. If it's a battle he want..."

"Nidoking! Use Megahorn!" shouted the boy.

The Pokémon, Nidoking, lowered its head, horn pointed toward Sweetie Belle, and charged toward her.

It must not be comfortable to run like that with the head lowered so much... Sweetie Belle thought as she smirked. Readying her hoof, she avoided the horn and punched the Nidoking on its left cheek, sending it flying right into a tree that fell on it. It wasn't moving anymore.

Too easy.

The two humans were totally in awe, the first one having his jaw dropping.

"Wa... Was that Pound?" asked the second human. "It KOed a Nidoking with just a Pound?! Uh... Ed... I think you should give up. This Pokémon is clearly too strong for your Pokémon."

"That's impossible! I defeated the eight Gym Leaders! My Pokémon are the top of the top! It's not some random wild Pokémon, new species or not, that will defeat me! Come back, Nidoking!" shouted the first human, Ed, as he pointed the ball out of which Nidoking came at the unconscious Pokémon, and a red beam hit it. The next instant, the Nidoking was turned back into red energy that returned inside the ball. Ed then took a second ball and threw it. "Go! Gyarados!"

Like before, an animal, a Pokémon, came out of the ball in the form of red energy before solidifying, revealing itself to be a very huge serpentine blue and yellow Pokémon with an air of dragon that looked really pissed off. The yellow was mainly the underbelly, but it also had yellow spots at the sides. The presence of fins on its head, its back, and its tail also indicated that it was aquatic. The water serpent easily dwarfed anything she had seen in this world until now, and it was just with its upper body standing up, which was about one third of its full body.

The bigger they are...

"Gyarados! Use Hydro Pump!"

The Gyarados opened wide its huge mouth and blasted from it a powerful stream of water toward Sweetie Belle. The filly teleported just to the side, avoiding the jet, and sent electric bolts into it. The electricity spread up the stream into the Gyarados' mouth, electrifying it. The Gyarados was able to resist, but before it could do anything else, Sweetie Belle teleported in front of its face and punched it, sending the Gyarados flying above the shocked humans to land further behind them.

The humans didn't move for several seconds before the second human began to talk.

"Holy Arceus... Teleport, Thunderbolt - or maybe even Thunder -, Teleport again, and Pound, all in just a few seconds. Ed, I'm... I'm starting to think that we're facing a Legendary."

Ed groaned, putting a hand on his face. "Just my luck..." But then, he smiled again. "That's even better!" He took his four remaining balls after calling back the Gyarados. "An unknown Legendary Pokémon! My name will remain in the story books! I must catch it!" He then threw all four balls, releasing the four Pokémon in them.

The first was a bipedal red creature with yellow flame patterns at the bottom of its body. The tip of its tail was on fire, and it also had fire on two lumps above its eyes. It had a beak, and yet, it clearly wasn't a bird as it had hands and feet with claws, and it even had red scales on its arms. That thing really didn't look like any animal she had seen before, near or far.

The second was a canine-like animal, quadrupedal with yellow fur and white ruff around its neck, very spiky as if the Pokémon had received an electrical shock.

The third was a humanoid Pokémon with bluish-grey skin and four very muscled arms. It also had black skin resembling briefs, and it was wearing some golden belt.

The last Pokémon was also bipedal with a roundish, dark purple body and scary red eyes above a big, sinister grin. It also had several spikes on its back and its head, had a tail, and digits on its hands and feet.

Pokémon really come in all forms, uh? So, what, it's the name given to all the animals in this world? Although I wonder about some of them being animals, like this purple one.

By now, Sweetie Belle remarked that a small crowd of humans, some with a Pokémon (again different species than the ones she saw until now), had gathered around them, looking in wonder at what was happening.

"Magmar! Jolteon! Machamp! Gengar! Use Fire Blast, Thunder, Dynamic Punch, and Shadow Ball!"

A Mirror appeared in front of Sweetie Belle, deflecting the Fire Blast, Thunder, and Shadow Ball back where they came from. The filly then immediately lowered the mirror and stopped the Machamp just before it could punch her, keeping it levitated. She then punched it on the face, sending it to crash right into the Magmar as it was recovering from the Fire Blast.

"Uh, this looked like Mirror Coat, but more effective. It didn't even took damage from the attacks. An unique move proper to this Pokémon only? And Telekinesis... That's a lot of Psychic-type moves. Is it a Psychic Pokémon?" wondered the second human.

Ed didn't answer, too focused in the fight as he barked "Jolteon! Quick Attack!" while he called the unconscious Machamp back in its ball. "Gengar! Sucker Punch!"

Sweetie Belle quickly jumped to the side to avoid the Jolteon charging at her and, seeing the Gengar approaching, readied herself to punch it while avoiding its own punch. However, to Sweetie Belle's surprise, her hoof passed through the Pokémon. But before Ed could order Gengar to do anything, she fired with her horn a powerful beam that caught it and sent it flying.

"A Psybeam?" shouted the second human, as shocked as the others watching the fight. "Wait, no, that looked more like an Hyper Beam, but that's impossible. Hyper Beam can't hit Ghost-types, and that Pokémon didn't even charge it."

Ed growled as he called back the knocked out Pokémon. "Jolteon! Magm-"

Before he could even finish his order, Sweetie Belle caught both the Jolteon and the Magmar with her telekinesis and made them crash into each other violently, head first. The two Pokémon were instantly KO, ending the fight.

Ed fell on his butt in shock, his whole team, which had defeated the eight Gym Leaders (whatever they were), defeated like they were nothing.

A chubby bearded man then walked beside him and said "Call back your Pokémon, kid. My turn. I just know what to do to defeat it." His smile then grew, and it took one of his own red and white balls. "Electrode!" he shouted as he threw the ball, and out of it came... a much bigger red and white ball with a face. However, the red half was at the bottom, and not at the top.

What the hay?

The humans seemed to understand what the chubby one was planning, because Ed quickly called back his unconscious Pokémon, and everybody moved away.

"Use Explosion!" yelled the chubby man.

And the Electrode began to glow, before it unleashed a huge explosion, covering the area around it in smoke.

"Ahah! Take that!" shouted the man victoriously. But when the smoke cleared, his expression changed to confusion, "Uh?" And then to shock.

The Electrode was KO, but Sweetie Belle had disappeared. Where she had been a few seconds earlier, there was now a hole in the ground.

"What?! Are you kidding me?! It can use Dig?!"

Underground, Sweetie Belle laughed. Deciding that she played enough, she then teleported into a nearby bush, then teleported behind a tree further away, and finally, turned herself into one of these humans. She had seen a few girls that seemed to be about her age, so she used them to determinate her look. A simple twelve years old human girl, with pink and purple hairs, a white shirt with pink sleeves, a pink skirt, and purple shoes. She also added a red headband in her hair to add some style and... Aww, why not. She saw an adorable little yellow mouse-like Pokémon with pink cheeks and black parts on the hears, around the neck, and on the tail on the shoulder of one of the youngest humans, so she added a picture of it on the shirt. Oh, and let's not forget the backpack. Everybody seemed to have one here.

After looking at herself to ensure that everything was alright, Sweetie Belle smiled and said to herself, "Time to go find more information on this world. I have a feeling that Apple Bloom and Scootaloo will love here. I should especially look into that competition, it may be interesting."

At this, she walked from behind the tree toward the city not far, not minding the humans still looking into the tunnel she left behind, waiting for her to come out.

Chapter 2: We All Live In A Pokémon World!

Sweetie Belle was glade for the little translating device Magolor made for her. As she walked in the streets of this small city, she did a quick test without and discovered that the inhabitants really didn't talk the same language as her. As a bonus, the translator even translated what the Pokémon were saying!

However, something that the translator couldn't do was translating written words... As a result, even thought Sweetie saw the sign with the name of the city, she couldn't read it. Same for the signs with the name of the streets, the publicities, the names of some buildings that she could only guess, and so on.

So much for going into a library to learn more about this world the easy way...

But she didn't really mind as she learned a lot simply by eavesdropping and observing both the humans and the Pokémon. This city seemed to be a key place for Pokémon trainers. A lot of them were gathered, talking with each others about how to defeat this famous Elite 4, exchanging strategies and Pokémon, or training by fighting each others with their Pokémon. There were also talks about the local Gym Leader, a guy named Blue.

Curious, she managed to find the building where this Blue guy worked, and entered it as a visitor just in time to observe a battle between a trainer and Blue, a guy with long spiked brown hairs.

Why he was called a Gym Leader, she didn't know as Pokémon battles had nothing to do with gymnastic, but she quickly understood why this guy was one of the big bosses of this competition. He had one heck of a team. Well, the trainer she defeated seemed to have too one heck of a team since he apparently managed to beat this guy, so it didn't mean much against her, but against lambda trainers, she knew now that the trainer hadn't been a small fly, and so was Blue.

Where many trainers seemed to love to specialise in one or two Pokémon-types (she briefly saw a fight between a girl who used mostly plant-like Pokémon and a boy who used bird Pokémon), Blue had a very diversified team containing a lot of types, even if there were some Pokémon which Sweetie could only guess the types, like that Rhydon Pokémon.

The trainer clearly had come prepared as he used some butterfly-like Pokémon (named Butterfree) to easily defeat a Pokémon that looked like a fat palm tree with the coconuts as heads (which had the very nice name of Exeggutor...). But Blue showed that he wasn't Gym Leader for nothing by sending that Rhydon (a Pokémon that looked like a bipedal rhinoceros with a very mean-looking horn) that used an attack named Stone Edge to make short work of the butterfly.

At this, the trainer sent a jellyfish-like Pokémon that looked more like a sea monster (with a name that went well with its look: Tentacruel), only for Blue to smile and to immediately shout "Earthquake!"

Darn! These Pokémon can do some serious stuff! thought Sweetie Belle. Not everything could create earthquakes like that.

The next instant, the Rhydon stomped the ground, causing the building to shake. This led to the Tentacruel losing its balance before being hit by pieces of ground. It didn't quite knock it out, but it seriously hurt it.

"Use Surf!" immediately yelled the trainer, and the next instant, the Tentacruel created a huge wave of water that seemed impossible to avoid.

Blue smirked at this. "Thunder!"

"What?!"

Before it could be hit by the wave of water, the Rhydon fired a huge lightning beam at it. The electricity spread, hitting the Tentacruel who lost control of the water, and the wave collapsed before the Pokémon fell unconscious.

Blue chuckled as he showed some disk. "Sorry. I equipped my Rhydon against water-types. Using only Pokémon with type advantages won't work against me. I only let you defeat my Exeggutor easily to lower your guard."

"Shit..."

Blue shrugged. "I'm an ex-Champion, what did you think? Trust me, if you don't use more your head, the Elite 4 and Gold will eat you. The Elite 4 may be type specialists contrary to me, but it doesn't mean that it will be easy. And Gold... Well, it's not for nothing that he is still Champion even after all these years. The other Gym Leaders only were a foretaste to ease you in the world of Pokémon battles. Starting from me, you enter the real professional Pokémon battles. The ones where shouting attacks isn't enough."

And from there, Blue demonstrated what he said by totally wiping the floor with the trainer's team. Blue would not only attack, but also use moves to prepare traps, to up his Pokémon's defense or attack, to slowly damage by poisoning or burning, by forcing the trainer to lose time to heal his Pokémon...

The trainer still managed to knock out one of Blue's Pokémon, a Pidgeot (a large bird Pokémon with a long colored crest), but in the end, he didn't stand a chance.

The trainer could only sigh in defeat. "No wonder Kanto produces some of the best trainers in the world with someone like you as a Gym Leader. Why aren't you a member of the Elite 4?"

"Meh. I think that being a Gym Leader is a better place to give important lessons to trainers like you. It's not for nothing that TMs exist. You must learn to use them to your advantage, and not just the attacks that your Pokémon naturally learn. You will be less predictable, and you will be able to put into place some serious strategies for all situations. This is how you become a Champion. At least, here in Kanto. I advise you to find out what moves your Pokémon can learn with TMs and to prepare a strategy against me before coming back."

The trainer nodded and shook Blue's hand. "Thank you. I will follow this advice. I don't know when I will be back, but when I do, this time, I will defeat you."

Blue chuckled. "That's what I hope."

As the trainer left, Blue then turned to look at Sweetie Belle. "Hello, little one. Want to be the next to challenge me?"

Sweetie Belle shook her head. "Sorry, I don't have any Pokémon yet. I was just observing. It was really an awesome fight."

Blue's eternal smirk morphed into a smile at this. "Thank you. If you have no Pokémon but are planning to start your journey in the Pokémon League, then I suggest for you to go visit my grandfather, the Professor Oak, in Pallet Town further south. He will give you a Pokémon of your choice among the three Starters."

Sweetie Belle didn't know what were the Starters, and wasn't sure if she should ask. In the end, she just decided to thank Blue and to exit the gym. But before she could leave, Blue received a call from some portable device, and he answered it. After a small talk, he then went to exit the gym too.

"You may want to follow me, little one. Something interesting is happening," he said as he passed beside Sweetie Belle who looked at him.

She raised an eyebrow before answering "Alright." She then followed him out of the gym (which he closed), and through a few streets until they reached the South edge of the small city where some people were gathered around what Sweetie Belle recognized were journalists who seemed to be interviewing the trainer she fought, who was beside an old man in a white lab coat who was holding a notepad on which he seemed to draw something.

"-before the Explosion, it used Dig and didn't come out. It either continued to dig or teleported away," finished the trainer, Ed.

"And so, you think that this new Pokémon may be a Legendary?" asked the woman who was interviewing Ed.

"We're almost certain!" shouted the second trainer who had been with Ed. "I mean, only a Legendary could defeat such a strong team so easily, right?"

"That's a good point," said the woman before she remarked Blue's presence. Seeing that she reticed him, Blue joined them. "Oh! It seems that we are joined by the famous Gym Leader of Viridian City! Blue Oak!"

"Hey gramp'! A friend told me that you were around! What is the news?" asked Blue to the old man.

"A potential new Legendary Pokémon," answered the old man before he put a hand on Ed's shoulder. "This young trainer fought it in Route 22 only to be easily defeated."

Blue raised an eyebrow at this as he looked at Ed. He remembered Ed. He gave him the last badge only yesterday. The guy proved to be champion material. "How easily?"

"It one-shot my Nidoking with just a Pound on the cheek, sent my Gyarados flying with another Pound, and defeated my four remaining Pokémon in less than one minute despite me sending all of them at once."

Blue whistled. Around them, the people listening seemed shocked and excited.

"I was called as soon as he said that he may have encountered a new Legendary Pokémon," said professor Oak. "I couldn't pass beside this opportunity, so I took my bicycle and rolled all the way from Pallet Town in a few minutes. It's not everyday that a potential new Legendary is discovered. And given the description, we may be dealing with a Pokémon linked to Keldeo. Maybe a new member of the Swords of Justice."

"I don't know, prof, this Pokémon didn't use any sword-related moves," said Ed.

"Maybe it judged that it didn't need to use one. I mean, with how easily it defeated your Pokémon..." said the second trainer.

"I suppose this is what you're drawing, gramp'. Can I see it?" asked Blue.

"Of course," said the prof before he gave the notepad which contained a drawing of Sweetie Belle along with several info that had been gathered from Ed's testimony. The prof had even used colors so the drawing wasn't just a sketch. Professor Oak was very thorough.

Upon seeing the appearance of the Pokémon, Blue immediately raised an eyebrow, remarking the similarities between it and a certain little girl. The exact hair/mane color and style. Blue could't help but move his eyes to have a look at said girl.

Oops... thought Sweetie Belle at this. I should have changed the color of my mane. But it didn't matter in the end for Sweetie Belle who silently giggled, smiled at Blue, and waved at him.

"What are your thoughts about this Pokémon, Mr Oak?" asked the journalist.

"Please, just Blue. And my thoughts? Well, knowing the ardor of some of the trainers, I wouldn't be surprised if upon learning of the existence of this new Pokémon, many will want to try to catch it. But, from what Ed said, this Pokémon was barely warming up against his team, and yet, Ed managed to defeat me, an ex-Champion, and had been about to challenge the Elite 4. This Pokémon is clearly beyond the level of the majority of the trainers of the world. So I would advise against attempting to catch it, unless you want to know a crushing defeat. Besides, good luck finding it. It could be anywhere." He then gave a smirk, both at the camera and at the young girl. "It may even have the same power as Zorua and Zoroark and have the ability to turn into a human. Who knows. It may even be here, among us."

"What makes you say that it may have this rare ability?" asked the journalist.

Blue shrugged. "Well, we know nothing about this Pokémon, not even its types, so anything is possible." He then looked back at the drawing. "I wouldn't be surprised however if it is a Fairy-type. It has the look. And with all these Psychic-type attacks it used, maybe also a Psychic-type."

"This is what I thought," said Professor Oak. "A Legendary with a double type Fairy/Psychic. If only I could encounter it to confirm it..."

"I know someone who may be able to find it, fight it, and give the answer," said Blue, again with a knowing smirk as he looked at the camera. "Don't you think, Red?"

"Red? The ex-Champion?" asked the journalist. "You think he may be able to defeat this Pokémon?"

"I don't know. I just know that he is not against a real challenge, and that he has the team to answer said challenge. And I'm not talking about his usual team. He has another team... that he never used, because he thought that it would be unfair on other trainers. Even Gold wouldn't stand a chance against it. But if this Pokémon is as powerful as we think..."

"Oooh I think that you just hyped the majority of our audience, me included. I now want to see this battle if it ever happens," commented the journalist before she turned to face the camera. "I think that this concludes this special flash. I have no doubt that Professor Oak will continue to research this new Pokémon, and that soon enough, we will have a new entry in the Pokédex. Until then, I know that hundreds of trainers and specialists will roam the roads of Kanto, and probably Johto, in search of this new Pokémon despite the warning of Blue. We will probably be witness to many battles against this new Pokémon in the future. And maybe, as Blue said, Red will join in the fun to give us a Legendary battle. That was Susana Eleor announcing a potential new Legendary Pokémon. See you soon!"

The cameraman turned the camera off, and after some thanks, the journalists walked away while the crowd dispersed. Only Sweetie Belle remained to talk with Professor Oak. Blue did say that she had to talk to him to receive a 'Starter'. She wasn't ready to start this Pokémon League or whatever, she wanted to do it with her friends, and it would certainly take a whole vacation to explore the whole region to get all the badges, but she wasn't against receiving her first Pokémon now before returning to Equestria.

Well, she still had a couple of days to explore this world. The week-end just began, and she was in this world for only about an hour.

"Excuse me, Professor?" she called, gaining the attention of the old man. "Blue told me that I had to see you to receive a Starter."

She saw Blue raise an eyebrow at this, probably wondering why a Pokémon wanted to become a Pokémon trainer, and judging by the expression of surprise from the prof, he also put two and two together. She really should change the color and style of her hair.

Grandson and grandfather exchanged a look before Blue simply gave a small smile followed by a shrug.

"Hum... Certainly! But you will have to follow me to my laboratory in Pallet Town. I don't have the Starters on me right now."

"Alright. South, right? You can go ahead, I will probably take my time on the way."

Professor Oak nodded. "Very well. I will see you in my laboratory then. What is your name?"

"Sweetie Belle."

"Well, Sweetie Belle, I... may have a few questions for you once you reach my lab. I hope you won't mind."

Sweetie Belle giggled. "I don't. But I hope you won't mind if I am vague. It wouldn't be fun if I gave you all the answers like that. See you at the lab."

She then walked away, direction the South, leaving behind a perplexed Gym Leader and professor.

"Well, this will be interesting," said Blue.

"Yes. Very," said professor Oak. "I'm curious to see where this will go."

"Me too." Blue then laughed. "Poor Red. I wonder how many times he will pass beside her without knowing that she's the Pokémon that he searches."

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle was walking down Route 1, taking her time as she said as she looked around at the wild Pokémon, this route having some new ones compared to the previous one.

Seeing nobody around, she turned back to her pony form and walked among the tall grasses, only to see among the grasses a strange Pokémon that looked like a pink cat with a very long tail who was looking at her curiously.

Sweetie Belle looked back at it, smiled, and waved. "Hello!"

The Pokémon waved back with a small "Hello!" before it disappeared with a giggle. Thinking that the Pokémon was gone, Sweetie Belle entered the tall grasses only to feel something pat her on her side. When she looked, she saw the Pokémon again, the pink cat rapidly flying away into the tall grasses giggling. Understanding what it wanted, Sweetie Belle ran after it, turning invisible.

Thus, the two began to playfully chase each other in the tall grasses.

Chapter 23: A Filly, A Human, And Two Skeletons

Author's Note

I know that Frisk and many other characters of Undertale don't have a gender, and while some are understandable like the ghosts, others won't work in this story. So Frisk and some other usually genderless characters will be given a gender here.

Chapter 23: A Filly, A Human, And Two Skeletons

Sweetie Belle stared at the skeleton, not sure what to do. He seemed clearly hostile, and she could feel that he had done something to her, but so far, he hadn't attacked yet, or attempted to.

"LOVE? All capitalized?" she asked eventually, not answering the skeleton's question yet.

"yeah, it's an acronym," answered the skeleton, without even questioning about the fact that she saw that he said LOVE with capital letters. "it stands for Level Of ViolencE. to put it simply, it measures someone's capacity to hurt others, to distance themselves from what they do. and i can see that you have a very worrying high level. you have killed a lot, huh? one does not reach 483 LOVE just like that. so, what is your explanation, little night-mare?"

"Not sure if I should validate that pun. I'm not a mare, I'm a filly, and while you may think that I am a nightmare in coming, I reassure you, I am not. That pun would really work on Luna however, but I advise to not call her that, so she won't get morally hurt and so you won't get physically hurt. You don't want her to have a bone to pick with you."

The skeleton held back a laugh, and his eye stopped glowing, making the weird feeling inside Sweetie disappear. "good one. classic, but effective. but, uh, could you answer my questions? i need to know if i have to take... violent measures against you. i generally don't care, but with that much LOVE, i can make an exception."

"Alright. Alright. My name is Sweetie Belle, and I'm an alicorn pony. And, yes, I have killed a lot. But if it can reassure you, I avoid killing innocents, and even villains sometimes. I really kill only if I feel that there is no other choice. Like, not long ago, I had to face an army to save a kingdom. You can probably guess that just with this, my LOVE raised a lot."

"so... you're some kind of hero? that's what you're telling me?"

"Yup!"

"and what is a hero like you doing in the underground? is there some supervillain running around?"

Sweetie Belle shook her head. "Uhuh. I'm just here to explore new worlds and make new friends. And help if needed. You know, you talk very funny. Excepted for when you use the word LOVE, you don't use any capital letter in your speech."

"well, that's because i'm a lazybones."

The filly's giggle made the skeleton grin.

"it's always nice to meet someone else who shares my sense of humor. by the way, the name's sans, and as you can see, i'm a comic."

...

...

"Sorry, I don't get this one," said Sweetie Belle.

The named Sans looked a little depressed at this. "i waited so long to make this joke..."

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle looked up, seeing there wasn't a sky up there, but the ceiling of a cavern. A HUGE cavern.

"So you said that we are underground?"

"yup," answered Sans. "the underground. home sweet home to us monsters. to be more exact, you are actually in snowdin." He then pointed to Sweetie's left. "in this direction is a door that can't seem to be opened from this side." Then, he pointed to Sweetie's right. "and in this direction, after a small trek, is snowdin town. after it is waterfall, hotland, and our capital called new home."

...

"New Home?"

"yup."

...

"Seriously?"

"yup."

...

"Why?"

"our king is great with names."

Sweetie Belle let out a small giggle at this. "Anyway. What was that thing with your eye? I could feel that you were doing something to me."

"oh, just a little magic trick," answered Sans before his eye glowed again, and Sweetie had that feeling again. "look down at your chest."

Sweetie Belle did, and she saw that there was now on her chest a blue heart. Tilting her head in wonder, she asked, "What is it?"

"this is your SOUL, your very essence," Sans explained.

"SOUL? All capitalized again? Is it another acronym?"

"maybe, but this one is up for debate. just know that this is the source of everything you are, and that if it is destroyed, then it's game over for you. as for my little trick, as you can see, it turned your SOUL blue. a nice trick if you want my opinion. thanks to it, you can only do three things: move toward me, more away from me, and jump."

"Oh I see! If you had decided to attack me, then I couldn't have moved to the sides to dodge! Tricky. Very tricky," commented the filly before she tested the magic and saw that it did stop her from moving to the sides.

Sans' eye then stopped glowing, releasing her SOUL which turned black before disappearing in Sweetie Belle's chest.

"a black SOUL, uh? that's a new one. i'm not one to judge on that kind of stuff, but i hope that this is not a reflection of who you truly are," said Sans with some threat in his voice again, but this time without the glowing eye.

"You're not sure if I am telling the truth then," Sweetie Belle said matter-of-factly.

"do you blame me? when facing someone with that much LOVE, it's normal to be wary. you could be a mass murderer with very good manipulation skills for all i know. and it's not because you're a child that i will let my guard down."

"Trust me, if I was as evil as you think I am, I would have already killed you and moved on. Also..." Sweetie Belle pointed to her left. "We have a visitor."

From his position, Sans couldn't see where she was pointing at, so he had to move from the wooden structure to look, making sure to have Sweetie Belle in his field of view and revealing by this occasion that he looked paunchy, that he had a blue hoodie on a white shirt, black shorts, and a pair of pink slippers.

Further away in the pointed direction was a small bridge above a pit and passing through some kind of wooden gate or barrier, the bars too wide apart to stop anyone from passing. And there, on this bridge, was a young human child with yellow skin, brown hair, and blue clothes with purple stripes. It was hard from here to see if the child was a boy or a girl, but they looked as if they were caught with a hand in the cookie jar. They probably expected to not be remarked from there, eavesdropping on their conversation.

"well, look at that, a human. surprises sure don't stop today," Sans exclaimed. "heya, kiddo. don't ya know how to great a new pal? approach and shake my hand," he finished as he extended his hand.

Cautiously, the human approached, the skeleton barely taller than them. For some reason, the human's eyes were constantly closed, or were so narrowed that they looked as if they were closed, and even as they approached, it was still hard to determine their gender. However, they clearly looked more wary of the skeleton than of the little equine, and they couldn't be blamed for it. A skeleton will always look scarier than an adorable little horse.

But the human still approached Sans and slowly put their hand on his.

Only for a farting noise to be heard.

And all tension instantly disappeared.

"heheh... the old whoopee cushion in the hand trick. it's ALWAYS funny."

This got a laugh out of both the human and the filly despite the last one glaring at the skeleton. "Hey! Why do they get the whoopee cushion and not me?"

Sans glanced at the filly. "kinda forgot with all that LOVEly stuff we have been talking about."

Sweetie Belle then saw something behind Sans. "Hey! Another skeleton is approaching!"

Sans looked over his shoulder to see that the filly was right. "oh, that's my brother, papyrus. huh... human, you should go hide behind that conveniently-shaped lamp over there."

The human looked questioningly at Sans before they nodded with a small "Okay..." and walked behind the lamp which was just exactly shaped like their body.

Papyrus then arrived, easily two times as tall as his brother, very slander-looking with a white chest plate, an orange cape, blue briefs with a golden belt, orange gloves, and knee-high orange boots.

And he looked at Sans with an annoyed expression while the smaller skeleton moved close to him, still keeping Sweetie Belle in his field of view. Papyrus didn't seem to have remarked the filly yet.

"sup, bro?"

"YOU KNOW WHAT 'SUP,' BROTHER! IT'S BEEN EIGHT DAYS AND YOU STILL HAVEN'T... RECALIBRATED. YOUR. PUZZLES! YOU JUST HANG AROUND OUTSIDE YOUR STATION! WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING?!?"

"talking with our new guest."

"A GUEST?" asked Papyrus before he finally remarked Sweetie Belle. "UH? WHO ARE YOU? I DON'T THINK I HAVE EVER SEEN A MONSTER LIKE YOU AROUND HERE. AND I KNOW EVERYONE!"

"That's because I'm a pony," answered Sweetie Belle.

"A PONY? MMH... I DON'T THINK I HAVE EVER HEARD OF A CREATURE LIKE YOU. ARE YOU SURE YOU AREN'T A HORSE? YOU DO LOOK LIKE AARON. ONLY YOU ARE SMALLER, WHITE, DON'T HAVE HIS SUPERB MUSCLES, DON'T FLOAT, DON'T SMELL AS BADLY AS HIM, HAVE BACK-LEGS, WINGS, AND A HORN. AND THOSE WEIRD BLACK MARKS ON YOUR POSTERIOR."

"We are not the same. Horses and ponies are both equines, but we aren't the same species."

"she isn't a monster, i can assure you," said Sans. "she dropped here, and we have been talking since."

Papyrus gasped. "YOU MEAN SHE COMES FROM OUTSIDE THE UNDERGROUND?! OH MY GOSH! THIS IS ALMOST AS GOOD AS IF A HUMAN HAD ACTUALLY DROPPED HERE! IT IS A GREAT OCCASION TO PUT OUR PUZZLES TO TEST!" he shouted before he glared at Sans. "PUZZLES THAT YOU HAVEN'T RECALIBRATED! YOU HAVE JUST BEEN HANGING AROUND OUTSIDE YOUR STATION, BEING YOUR LAZYBONES-SELF!"

"come on, paps. i've gotten a ton of work done today. a skele-ton."

Darn, Sweetie could almost hear the badumtss. She held back a laugh, and Papyrus loudly groaned. "SANS!!!!"

"come on. you're smiling."

"I AM AND I HATE IT!"

Sweetie Belle muffled another laugh. "He threw me some bones."

"OH NO!! NOT YOU TOO!!! SANS!!! IS IT YOUR DOING?!!"

"nope. she just has amazing joke tastes, like me."

Papyrus groaned louder at this. "WHY ME?!"

"Geese! Chill! Want some snow?" asked Sweetie Belle as she grabbed some snow from the ground.

"papyrus doesn't need to chill," replied Sans. "he's already very cool."

"Good point." She dropped the snow. "By the way, ice to meet you! I'm Sweetie Belle!"

"she has been a real sweetie."

"I haven't yet gotten an occasion to foal around."

"well, hold your horse."

"NYYEEEEEEHHHHH!!!!! SOMEONE HELP, PLEASE!! THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!" suddenly yelled Papyrus.

And then, someone burst into laughter, and the human dropped from behind the lamp, clenching their belly as they began to roll on the ground.

"Oops. Seems like someone couldn't hold in longer," said Sweetie Belle.

Papyrus suddenly gasped again. "OH MY GOD! SANS? IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS?! A HUMAN?!!"

"seems more like a hyena right now."

"OH? SO THAT'S NOT A HUMAN?" Papyrus asked disappointed. "UNLESS THIS IS A HUMAN IMPERSONATING A HYENA? THAT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE A HYENA."

"you have never seen a hyena."

"TRUE."

"but you got it right for the human impersonating a hyena."

"OH MY GOD! SO THIS IS REALLY A HUMAN?!"

"yup."

"OH MY GOD! THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!"

Sweetie Belle finally lost it too and began to roll on the floor in laughter. These two were impossible!

"and the pony is impersonating a hyena too now."

Papyrus looked worried now. "OH, I HOPE THIS ISN'T A NEW SICKNESS."

"don't worry. it'll quickly pass. give them a few seconds. look, the human is already getting better."

"HEY! YOU'RE RIGHT! SO THEY WILL BE ABLE TO TRY MY PUZZLES? NO NEED TO BRING THEM TO OUR HOME TO TAKE CARE OF THEM UNTIL THEY AREN'T SICK ANYMORE?"

"it should be okay, yes. and look, the pony is getting better too. that hyena sickness is already gone."

"Please, you two, stop! Or I will start again!" shouted Sweetie Belle as she calmed down.

"STOP WHAT? WE HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING! ESPECIALLY SANS. HE NEVER DOES ANYTHING EXCEPTED NAPPING, EATING, AND JOKING," deadpanned Papyrus as he glared at Sans.

"that's still a lot."

"ANYWAY! NOW THAT THE HUMAN ISN'T SICK ANYMORE..." Papyrus began before he cleared his throat as he turned toward the approaching human child. "HUMAN! YOU SHALL NOT PASS THIS AREA! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL STOP YOU!!! I WILL THEN CAPTURE YOU! YOU WILL BE DELIVERED TO THE CAPITAL! THEN... THEN!!! I'M NOT SURE WHAT'S NEXT. IN ANY CASE! CONTINUE... ONLY IF YOU DARE!!! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!" he finished with a loud laugh as he ran away excitedly.

"well, that went well," commented Sans before he turned to fully face Sweetie Belle and the human. "with all this, i couldn't present myself. i'm sans. sans the skeleton. and, well, you just met papyrus, my little brother."

"Wait! HE is the little brother?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"you shouldn't judge someone on their appearance," Sans replied to this with a wink at the filly.

"Well, as for me, I'm Sweetie Belle. Sweetie Belle the alicorn pony."

"Uh... And me, I'm Frisk," said the human before giggling. "Frisk the human."

Mmh... From the voice, Frisk seemed to be a girl. But at her(?) age, it could be hard to say sometimes. Some boys could sound very effeminate before they reach their teens. And her(?) appearance didn't help at all.

"Sorry to ask this, but are you a boy or a girl? I really can't tell," she asked.

"Uh... I'm a girl," Frisk answered.

"Okay. Nice meeting you, Frisk. Now, Sans, what was it about capturing Frisk?"

Sans sighed. "it's a long story. i will make it short for you. a long time ago, humans and monsters lived peacefully on the surface, but one day, war broke out, the humans won, and they trapped us here, in the underground, putting a powerful magical barrier. now, the only way we found to break the barrier is to collect seven human SOULs. i'm a sentry, so my job is normally to capture any human i may encounter but... heh... i'm not up for it. however, papyrus is a human-hunting fanatic. as you saw, he is very excited about this. don't hold it against him, he doesn't know about the whole SOUL part. he probably just thinks that the captured human will either get a chamber at the castle or be allowed to exit the underground. for him, this is just a game, and a mean to be recognized and to reach his dream: becoming a royal guard."

"I see..." said Sweetie Belle. "Seems like a complicated situation... But... Maybe I can help? I don't know how powerful a human SOUL is, let alone seven, but I'm very powerful too. Maybe I can break this barrier.

"sorry to say this, but i doubt. only a god could be that powerful, as this is exactly what collecting seven human SOULs does."

"What?"

"yeah, i forgot to mention this. collecting the SOULs and throwing them at the barrier isn't enough. instead, the SOULs must be absorbed by a monster. any monster absorbing seven human SOULs becomes a god, and their power can destroy the barrier."

Sweetie Belle looked at the skeleton in wonder. "Wow! Uh... Wow! Like, if any monster kills seven humans, they become a god? Just like that?"

"yup. just like that. but it's not as easy as it sounds. a human SOUL is as powerful as almost all the monster SOULs put together. for a monster to kill a human is already a miracle. so, seven? it's pretty much impossible. and of course, you must ensure that the human SOUL doesn't break, which is not always easy. uh... i think we got off track here. all this to say that unless you are a god, i don't think that you will be able to break the barrier."

Sweetie Belle shrugged. "I can still try. I'm not a God, but I'm as powerful as some, so maybe I can still do it. It really depends of what kind of God you're talking about."

Sans stared at the filly with a deadpan expression. "ya're not foaling with me, uh?"

"Nope!"

Sans stared at Sweetie Belle a few more seconds before he shrugged. "welp, i'll have to believe your words. we've nothing to lose if you can't destroy the barrier, excepted some hope maybe. well then, i'm gonna await you beside papyrus at the first puzzle." He then walked toward a tree, went behind it, and disappeared.

"Uh? He can teleport? He seems to have more hidden tricks than that blue SOUL thing," Sweetie Belle commented before she turned to look at Frisk. "So, you don't mind if I tag along? I could help you through these puzzles and defend you if monsters attempt to capture you."

Frisk nodded. "I don't mind."

The two then began to follow the path Papyrus took, reaching an area with a box where the path forked. Before continuing, Frisk suddenly stopped, looked at her left, and reached out to touch... nothing, seemingly. But Sweetie Belle could feel something resonating at Frisk's touch, and an energy coming out of the human to answer this.

"Uh? Is there something invisible here?" she asked.

"Well... You will think that I am crazy if I tell you..."

The filly let out a giggle before replying. "Don't worry. I have seen a lot of crazy stuff."

"Uh... Well... I have a power... I can't explain it... If I die, then I just... reload. And here..." She waved at where the invisible thing was. "There is a Save Point. So, now, if I die, I will reload here, and everything that happened between the moment I touched the Save Point and the moment I died will have never happened. I don't know why I have this power, I just know that it works because I have a lot of determination."

"So, if you die, then you reload the timeline to the Save Point? That's one OP power that you have. I will have to make sure that if you die, then I won't be caught in the reloading. I don't want to forget everything."

"So you believe me?"

"Of course! Like I said, I saw a lot of crazy stuff. A human child with the power to reload like in a video game just by sheer determination is just one more among all the rest. After all, like I said earlier, I'm a filly with powers that can compare to Gods. If you're crazy, then I am too!"

This made Frisk laugh.

"So, by the way, what are you doing in this place?" Sweetie Belle suddenly asked once Frisk stopped laughing.

Frisk had been expecting a question like this one, but she remained silent several seconds before she answered. "I would rather not tell..."

Sweetie Belle eyed the human before shrugging. "Okay."

They then walked toward the box beside which was a sign that said that anything that was placed in this box could be recovered in the other boxes like this one a little everywhere in the Underground. Frisk opened the box and found in it a pair of gloves. After staring at them, she put them back in the box and placed in a few other objects before closing it.

"A very useful box," commented Sweetie Belle. "I should note this idea. Boxes or chests spacially connected to each others would be great to transport objects through dimensions without using portals."

"So you come from another dimension?" asked Frisk. "I suppose that I should have guessed, after everything you said."

"You don't seem shocked by this."

"I can reload timelines. Compared to this, a being from another dimension is lame."

"Touché."

After that, they were approached by what looked like a big duck with a giant snowflake on their head and some reptilian parts like a scaly belly. The duck didn't seem to want them any harm, but suddenly, Sweetie and Frisk's SOULs appeared on their chests, the human's SOUL revealing to be red.

"Ice to meet you." he then said before crescent-shaped projectiles appeared here and there and began to fly in different patterns.

Carefully moving to avoid the projectiles, Frisk whispered to Sweetie Belle "Laugh," before she began to laugh at the duck's joke.

Sweetie Belle glanced at Frisk while she used a small shield to protect herself from the projectiles, and began to laugh too. The duck looked proud at this.

"See?! Laughs! Dad was wrong!"

In thanks, the duck gave Frisk some gold coins before running away happily, shouting "I did it! I did it!"

Sweetie Belle looked after him as the duck disappeared into the woods, her SOUL disappearing back into her chest (as well as Frisk's). "Erh... What happened?"

Frisk giggled. "Snowdrake must have been very nervous about his comedian skills, so it triggered his magic to attack us. In truth, he only wanted recognition. It seems that inexperienced monsters' magic can easily be triggered for various reason, especially when they get close to me. But when they're calm, they're okay to approach. They generally don't mean harm."

"Uh... that's... inconvenient. Wait, how do you know his name?"

"When I have an... encounter with a monster, I can CHECK them and learn who they are and some other information. It's also how I understood that to calm Snowdrake, we had to laugh at his joke. Again, I don't know why I can do this. There's just this voice in my head and... Well..."

"It gets weirder and weirder, Frisk..." said Sweetie Belle with a raised eyebrow at the human. "So, does this mean that you can... uh... CHECK me, right now?"

"Uuhhh... Right now, no... But maybe if you attempt to attack me..."

Sweetie Belle nodded and made her horn glow while facing the human. It seemed to work because their SOULs appeared on their chests again. Frisk stared at her and then gasped.

"Woah! You weren't kidding about your power! That's a lot of ATK you have! And the voice seems shocked by the amount of LOVE you have."

"483 LOVE Sans said if I remember correctly."

"Yes, that's as the voice said," confirmed Frisk. "And you have 17909 ATK and 56 DEF. And the voice says that you are a powerful being from another dimension wanting to make friends and have fun."

"Nice!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed before she giggled. "Of course, that's not taking into account my weapon, my armor, when I let my power fully out, and when I use my singing to boost myself."

Frisk gulped. "I don't think I want to know."

"Don't worry, as long as you don't start killing innocents left and right, you have nothing to fear from me."

Chapter 31: MTT Resort And The Core

After climbing some stairs, Sweetie Belle and Frisk arrived at an intersection with, at the left the stage where Mettaton did his musical show, at the right the last elevator (R3), and in front another staircase leading to the top of a cliff. From where they were, they could see the top of a building poking out.

The Nice Cream seller was here, looking very happy, and not far from him were the two Royal Guards from earlier, without their helmets, happily eating ice creams together.

"Oh! That's you!" the seller shouted upon seeing them. "I must thank you! I followed your advice and moved to Hotland, and you were right! My sales were so good that I'm now out of ice cream! These two actually bought most of my stock just by themselves. So, next time, I will give you free ice cream! As much as you want!... Within reason."

"Thanks!" both children replied with big smiles at the thought of getting free ice cream.

They then waved at the two guards, the rabbit waving back, before they climbed the stairs.

They then arrived at a purple area where they had a full view of the building: MTT Resort. A tall, large building with a MTT sign above the entrance, two little winged Mettatons at the sides.

And, unexpectedly, Sans was here, in front of one of the bushes that were beside the door.

"hey," he began. "i heard you're going to the core. how about grabbing some dinner with me first?"

Well, that was even more unexpected. But after a brief glance at each other, both Sweetie Belle and Frisk accepted.

"great, thanks for treating me."

Of course...

Sans then moved toward the alley at the left of the building. "over here. i know a shortcut," he said before he entered it.

With raised eyebrows, they followed him.

Everything turned black, and the next thing they knew, they were inside a fancy restaurant with tables looking like Mettaton, each ones having a candles and sets of cutlery but with no chairs. There weren't much decorations however, mainly some potted plants against the walls. Speaking of, there were even some vines on them, where there weren't screens showing Mettaton and boards full of photos and messages (there again, from Mettaton).

It didn't even feel like a teleportation. They had just moved from the alley to around a table with for only transition that moment of blackness.

"well, here we are," Sans began before he looked at Frisk. "so. your journey's almost over, huh? you must really wanna go home."

"Uh..."

"hey. i know the feeling, buddo. though... maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you. down here you've already got food, drink, friends... is what you have to do... really worth it?"

Frisk looked down. "I really want to know who I was before waking up in the Ruins."

Sweetie Belle mouthed "Amnesiac" to help Sans understand what she meant.

"i see. but by doing so, you may discover something about your past you may not like. after all, for what reason would a kid like you... end up climbing that mountain in the first place? maybe it could just be curiosity... or maybe it could be something more... sinister. i am, after all, aware that mt. ebott is reputed for being a mountain where people climbing it disappear. the kid falling before you gave the monsters this information before... well... becoming the sixth SOUL in the king's collection. So, for what reason do you think you climbed the mountain, probably knowing about this?"

Frisk didn't answer, biting her lip instead as she looked at the table. Sans had a good point... She didn't know what to say.

"... ah, forget it," Sans eventually said. "i'm rooting for ya, kid."

Frisk gave Sans a small smile at this. "Thanks."

Sweetie Belle just remained silent, observing the conversation. It was the first time that these two had a real talk, and she didn't want to ruin it.

"hey. let me tell you a story. so i'm a sentry in snowdin forest, right?"

And at Waterfall's entrance, and at Hotland's entrance, and beside the elevator R2, Sweetie Belle thought with an amused smile. Sans winked at her, apparently guessing what she was thinking, before he continued. "i sit out there and watch for humans. it's kind of boring. fortunately, deep in the forest... there's this HUGE locked door."

Frisk perked up at this. "The one to the Ruins?"

"yes, this one. and it's perfect for practicing knock knock jokes. so one day, i'm knocking 'em out, like usual. i knock on the door and say "knock knock." and suddenly, from the other side... i hear a woman's voice."

Frisk now listened intently, knowing who Sans was talking about.

""who is here?"" Sans said, imitating a woman's voice. "so, naturally, i respond: "dishes." "dishes who?" "dishes a very bad joke.""

Both Sweetie Belle and Frisk held back a laugh at this.

"then she just howls with laughter. like it's the best joke she's heard in a hundred years. so i keep 'em coming, and she keeps laughing. she's the best audience i've ever had. until you two came. then, after a dozen of 'em, SHE knocks and says... "knock knock!" i say "whos there?" "old lady!" "old lady who?" "oh! i did not know you could yodel!"

This time, Sweetie Belle and Frisk couldn't stop the laughs from coming out.

"wow. needless to say, this woman was extremely good. we kept telling each other jokes for hours. eventually, i had to leave. papyrus gets kind of cranky without his bedtime story."

This got a giggle from the girls.

"but she told me to come by again, and so i did. then i did again. and again. it's a thing now. telling bad jokes through the door. it rules." Sans did a pause before he said the next part. "one day, thought, i noticed she wasn't laughing very much. i asked her what was up. then she told me something strange. "if a human ever comes through this door... could you please, please promise something? watch over them, and protect them, will you not?" now, i hate making promises. and this woman, i don't even know her name. but... someone who sincerely likes bad jokes... has an integrity you can't say "no" to. do you get what i'm saying? that promise i made to her... you know what would have happened if she hadn't said anything?"

Whatever Sans wanted to say next, he stopped himself as he eyed Sweetie Belle who seemed to have understood where he was going with this.

"well..." He winked at Frisk. "let's just say that our first encounter would have been less funny..."

"And I probably would have ended up kicking your butt," Sweetie Belle said.

"yeah... seeing how you played with undyne... probably. needless to say, i would have given a violent first impression. which would have been bad! after all, don't we say that the first impression is the most important? at least, you have your own personal body guard now, so i didn't need to worry about protecting you."

"And all free of charge!" Sweetie Belle said, making both Sans and Frisk chuckle.

"heh." Sans then moved away. "well, that's all. take care of yourself, you two. especially you, frisk. 'cause someone really cares about you," he said before he moved to the back of the restaurant...

And disappeared.

They hadn't even eaten any dinner.

"I guess that we can thank Toriel," Sweetie Belle eventually said. "I don't know why you climbed the mountain, but... If the reason you did it is... bad, then at least, you have her."

Frisk nodded with a fond smile thinking about Toriel.

Yes, if... If she didn't have a mom, then...

They both left the restaurant, passing beside a stage where they encountered who they identified was the father of Snowdrake who was a comic working here.

But he wasn't funny at all...

They then entered the lobby of the resort. The center piece here was an indoor fountain with a statue of Mettaton spitting water... on the floor. There were some monsters here, complaining about the elevator here (apparently leading to New Home) not working. There was also a fast food, and Frisk decided to go and see what they were selling.

The seller here, some kind of brown cat-like bipedal monster, clearly didn't love this job. His smile was the most forced smile Sweetie Belle had ever seen. But once they bought some stuff from him (a Starfait and a Glamburger, a burger made of edible glitter and sequins, seriously), he was more than happy to talk to them.

The poor guy had a very pessimist vision of life, or at least of his life. He wanted to be an actor, and so, went to Mettaton, only to end up working here. And now, he considered that he had wasted his whole life, that he was fated to work at this place forever. Unless Asgore managed to get the seven SOULs to break the Barrier, so he may have a chance to start anew. He also didn't seem to believe in love and friendship as he had had some poor experiences with them, especially with two girls that had apparently settled shop in the alley at the right of the building, ending up with him being nicknamed Burgerpants.

Also, he hated Mettaton, a lot, and was clearly very jealous of him.

So they exited the resort and entered the right alley, finding the two girls Burgerpants talked about, Bratty and Catty, respectively an alligator-monster and a cat-monster.

Their specialty was to sell stuff found in the Garbage Dump at especially high price. As a result, they had some quite unique items such as a gun (empty), a cowboy hat, and a key to an unknown location. Frisk hesitated for a moment before buying the key, thinking to giving it to whoever had lost it if they managed to find them. As a result, however, she couldn't buy the hat, but she didn't mind. Yes, the hat offered a little more DEF, but it didn't heal like the apron.

Bratty and Catty seemed to be the kind of girls who loved to gossip and were big fans of Mettaton. They often finished each other's sentences, and had the tendency to say the same thing at the same time. They didn't know that Mettaton was actually a ghost in a robotic body, thinking that he was just a robot built by Alphys to impress Asgore, which got her the post of Royal Scientist. Alphys, Bratty, and Catty apparently once had a great relationship too, but apparently, since she became Royal Scientist, they hadn't seen each others, Alphys becoming a recluse for some reason. Also, Alphys had been friends with Mettaton, but it seemed that, now, that friendship was stained.

That looked like the kind of Friendship Problem that Rarity and the others were used to deal with. Alphys clearly had problems, and Sweetie Belle now needed to find what to help her fix her friendships.

They ended up talking about Burgerpants and... Well... After some back and forth between the two shops, they helped clarify the situation between the three, and Burgerpants now had a date with the girls.

Hopefully, he will stop being so pessimist. However, the newly-formed relationship didn't look very healthy...

Now that they were done playing Cupids, having nothing else to do, they took the exit of the resort toward the entrance of the CORE, which was just behind.

The bridge leading to it was... weird. The first part was made of planks, but the end was made of pipes.

And at the end, they spotted two silhouettes entering the CORE.

Alphys called.

«Huh? Who are they? N-nobody else is s-supposed to be here... oh well! We can't worry about that now!»

And she hung up.

Sweetie Belle and Frisk exchanged glances.

"Not sure if this is part of the 'play' or if she's genuinely surprised to see someone here," Frisk said.

"This could be another move from our anonymous enemy. We will have to remain on guard," Sweetie Belle said. But she was starting to have suspicions of who this 'anonymous enemy' could actually be.

As they entered the CORE, they found themselves at the lobby, facing an elevator with two path, one at both sides. And Alphys called again.

«Ready? This is it! Take the elevator up to the top of the CORE!»

So they went to take the elevator only to discover that it wasn't working! What a big surprise...

«What? The elevator should be working... W-well then! Go to the right and keep heading up!»

Following her instruction, they moved to the right path only to reach a dead end above a fiery pit.

«Alright, now just keep heading up!.......»

"Uh..." Frisk began to say.

«That pit... Isn't on my map. Forget it! Let's try the left side!»

"How is this possible for a map of a building to be wrong?" Sweetie Belle asked. "Is it a bad map that you have?"

«W-well, um... You know, the CORE is designed so that the rooms can change position and the layout can be altered. Someone must have done this without me knowing. But normally, it's forbidden as it would be an inconvenience for the workers. It's mainly for defense purpose. But who would do this? And why?»

"It seems that our mysterious anonymous enemy has decided to step up his game," Sweetie Belle said.

«Huh, w-what do you mean by "Mysterious anonymous enemy?"»

"During our journey through Hotland, an unknown monster sent other monsters after us. He notified the Royal Guard about Frisk and payed Muffet to kill her. Now, it looks like he changed the layout of the CORE and brought some... friends to deal with us."

«Oh... Oh no! I didn't know! I should have payed more attention! I'm sorry!»

"Hey, don't worry! We will go through this! It's not this that will stop us! Right, Frisk?"

Frisk nodded determinedly.

«But... With the rooms and layout changed, I won't be able to guide you...»

"That's okay. You have been a great help for us. Thank you," Frisk said. "But I guess that we will have to traverse the CORE by ourselves."

«I will at least try to find something. Be careful.»

After Alphys hung up, Sweetie Belle and Frisk took the left part where they were assaulted by a Madjick, a monster looking like a wizard with two orbs floating around him. He spoke using magic words, but upon spotting Frisk's stick and Sweetie Belle's horn he began to talk normally, thinking that they were fellow wizards, and left them alone. Apparently, he had a high opinion of wizards.

After the Madjick, they reached a path blocked by a forcefield, and there was a switch on the wall before it. However, they could see some of those devices creating lasers, actually turned off, beside the path.

«Looks like you can't proceed until you hit the switch. B-but, those lasers will activate when you do. Ummm... Looks like they'll come in this order: Orange. Orange. Blue. G-got it? Move until the third one!»

"But what if the mysterious monster also changed the order of the lasers?" Sweetie Belle asked.

«Uuh... Good point. They may have done it too. Then, uh, maybe they inverted it to take you off guard. So the order would be: Blue. Blue. Orange. But if that's not that, then, uh...»

"Then I suppose we will have to use our reflexes."

Sweetie Belle then pressed the switch. Like expected, it deactivated the forcefield, but activated the lasers that began to rapidly move toward them. As they thought, the order had been changed, and Alphys had been right as it was now blue blue orange. So they remained immobile for the first two lasers and moved through the last one.

«Yes! That's what I call a good teamwork, girls! Now, you can continue!»

Next was a crossroad. with the layout having changed, Alphys let the girls decide, and they took the path at their left only to reach a dead end where they were assaulted by a Knight Knight, a huge knight monster with a horned helmet with a crescent Moon as the visor and a great staff with a Sun symbol as a weapon. While the mouth of the helmet regularly opened, Knight Knight actually had a second face on her torso, an avian one with an eye inside the beak. As a result, it was hard to tell which face was the right one.

Not sure how to convince this monster to stop attacking them as she seemed determined to do her work as a hired mercenary, the girls eventually remarked the monster yawning, apparently not having slept much recently. So they began to sing a lullaby, and the knight eventually fell asleep.

They quickly left her and took the other path, leading to a bridge with more lasers. However, there were so many lasers that it seemed impossible to cross the bridge, especially a section where there were only immobile blue lasers.

«M... more lasers... Okay, I'll deactivate them so you can pass...... They're... They're not turning off... I can't turn them off, I... I-i-it's okay! I have this under control! I'm going to turn off the p-power for that whole node. Then you can walk across.» After a few seconds, the whole area turned dark, and the lasers deactivated. «Okay, go!»

With a nod, Sweetie Belle and Frisk advanced on the bridge until...

«W-WAIT! STOP!» Alphys suddenly yelled.

The girls immediately stopped just in time as the power returned, reactivating the lasers. Now, they were trapped right in the middle of the long series of immobile blue lasers. They couldn't move at all.

"Uh, what now?" Sweetie Belle asked.

«It looks like our mysterious enemy also thought about this. But d-don't worry! I will just turn the power off again! When it turns off, move a little, and then STOP. OK? Y-you won't get h-h-hurt.»

So the crossing of the bridge turned into a kind of green-light-red-light game, the girls carefully advancing when the power was off before stopping a few steps further. Before long, they managed to cross the bridge without harm.

«S-see? I've got everything under control. Everything's under control!»

After that, they reached another crossroad with a Save Point, and there were two screens serving as signs on the walls.

«So, um, I guess that from now, you're on your own... I have no idea what direction you must take. Maybe you should go read these signs.»

They did so. The right sign informed that the North path was named the Warrior's Path and that the West path was the Sage's Path, and that they both led to The End; and the other sign pretty much said that if they didn't take any of the path, then they just needed to wait to continue.

To put it simply, to reach their destination, they needed to take one of the two paths or just wait a moment. The Warrior's Path probably had lots of enemies waiting for them, and the Sage's Path some puzzles.

They decided to take the Sage's Path.

As they took the left path, they were greeted with the sight of the big ice blocks coming from Snowdin being transported on a conveyor belt before dropping into the pit below the floor level where they finally melted, apparently to cool down the CORE. But Sweetie Belle questioned how these ice blocks could be enough seeing the size of the building.

After that was the puzzle, which was just another of these puzzles with blocks to be moved to fire at an opposing ship. It was quickly solved. After looking around, they found no other puzzles (but they found a Glamburger in a trashcan), so they took the now unblocked East path without minding the Warrior's Path.

They finally traversed a bridge where they encountered a few more monsters, different versions of a Froggit with protrusions, round ones with a single eye that could become a fanged mouth (this reminded Sweetie Belle of Master Crowned Magolor), and little flying ones in armor armed with bows.

Finally, at the end, they reached another Save Point in front of an elevator leading back to the entrance of the CORE, now working. Beside the elevator was the door to the next part of the CORE, their destination.

After a quick SAVE, they passed the door.

And in the room behind, they found Mettaton waiting for them, his lights now all red.

"OH YES. THERE YOU ARE, DARLINGS. IT'S TIME TO HAVE OUR LITTLE SHOWDOWN. IT'S TIME TO STOP THE "MALFUNCTIONING" ROBOT... NOT!!! MALFUNCTION? REPROGRAMMING? GET REAL. THIS WAS ALL JUST A BIG SHOW. AN ACT. ALPHYS HAS BEEN PLAYING YOU FOR A FOOL THE WHOLE TIME. AS SHE WATCHED YOU ON THE SCREEN, SHE GREW ATTACHED TO YOUR ADVENTURE. SHE DESPERATELY WANTED TO BE A PART OF IT. SO SHE DECIDED TO INSERT HERSELF INTO YOUR STORY. SHE REACTIVATED THE PUZZLES. SHE DISABLED ELEVATORS. SHE ENLISTED ME TO TORMENT YOU. ALL SO SHE COULD SAVE YOU FROM DANGERS THAT DIDN'T EXIST. ALL SO YOU WOULD THINK SHE'S THE GREAT PERSON... THAT SHE'S NOT. AND NOW, IT'S TIME FOR HER FINEST HOUR. AT THIS VERY MOMENT, ALPHYS IS WAITING OUTSIDE THE ROOM. DURING OUR "BATTLE," SHE WILL INTERRUPT. SHE WILL PRETEND TO "DEACTIVATE" ME, "SAVING" YOU ONE FINAL TIME. FINALLY. SHE'LL BE THE HEROINE OF YOUR ADVENTURE."

"... We knew," Frisk said.

"WHAT?"

"We understood, right after the quiz show, that all of this was fake, but we decided to play along. If this is what she wanted... Then we didn't mind."

"... AHAHAHAHAH!!! WHAT A TWIST! SO I GUESS WE WEREN'T SUBTLE ENOUGH, UH?

"Well, we learned who you actually are before encountering you, so we knew that you weren't just a brainless robot following some malfunctioning program," Sweetie Belle said.

"AH... SO YOU KNOW ABOUT MY TRUE ORIGIN..."

"Yup!"

"WELL, GOOD FOR YOU. IT'S NICE OF YOU TO HAVE PLAYED ALONG ALL THIS TIME JUST TO PLEASE ALPHYS, BUT AS YOU PROBABLY GUESSED BY NOW, I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS PREDICTABLE CHARADE."

"Yeah, that became more and more apparent as you were putting less and less effort in your shows. Knowing your profession, it clearly wasn't because you didn't know how to act."

"EXACTLY. WHILE IT WAS SOMEWHAT FUN AT FIRST, I QUICKLY GREW BORED OF THESE SHOWS. THE TRUST IS THAT I HAVE NO DESIRE TO HARM HUMANS. FAR FROM IT, ACTUALLY. MY ONLY DESIRE IS TO ENTERTAIN. AFTER ALL, THE AUDIENCE DESERVES A GOOD SHOW, DON'T THEY? AND WHAT'S A GOOD SHOW... WITHOUT A PLOT TWIST? AND THE ONE YOU JUST GAVE ME DOESN'T COUNT BECAUSE THE CAMERAS WEREN'T ON YET."

Then, the door behind the girls closed.

"H-hey!!! Wh-wh-what's going on!? Th-th-the door just locked itself!" Alphys shouted from behind.

Red lights then turned on on the floor, and a stage light focused on Mettaton as he took a mike.

"SORRY, FOLKS! THE OLD PROGRAM'S BEEN CANCELLED!!! BUT WE'VE GOT A FINALE THAT WILL DRIVE YOU WILD!!"

The floor then began to rise, revealing itself to be an elevator.

"Woah!" Sweetie Belle shouted as she did her best to remain on her legs because of how sudden it was, using her magic to help Frisk not to fall.

"REAL DRAMA!! REAL ACTION!! REAL BLOODSHED!! ON OUR NEW SHOW... "ATTACK OF THE KILLER ROBOT!""

And the real battle against Mettaton began.

Mettaton attacked by sending weird blocks that could be destroyed with magic and the Yellow Mode, and as the girls defended themselves, he continued to talk.

"YES, I WAS THE ONE THAT RE-ARRANGED THE CORE! I WAS THE ONE THAT HIRED EVERYONE TO KILL YOU! THAT, HOWEVER, WAS A SHORT SIGHTED PLAN. YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE A HUNDRED TIMES BETTER? KILLING YOU MYSELF!!"

"But you just said that you didn't want to harm humans!" Frisk said as she sent red-colored golden flower seeds to destroy the blocks.

"A BAD FOR A GOOD! YOU AREN'T THE FIRST HUMAN TO COME HERE, AND YOU PERFECTLY KNOW HOW THEY ALL ENDED. AND ASGORE WAS THE ONE WHO KILLED ALL OF THEM. DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT YOU CAN SUCCEED WHERE THE OTHERS FAILED? ASGORE IS POWERFUL AND VERY SKILLED! HE WILL CRUSH YOU! AND THEN, HE WILL TAKE YOUR SOUL AND USE IT TO BREAK THE BARRIER AND DESTROY HUMANITY. BUT IF I GET YOUR SOUL, I CAN STOP ASGORE'S PLAN! I CAN SAVE HUMANITY FROM DESTRUCTION!"

He began to diversify his patterns, now sending robotic arms made of magic that they had to avoid or shoot at at yellow spots to make them move out of the way.

"THEN, USING YOUR SOUL, I'LL CROSS THROUGH THE BARRIER... AND BECOME THE STAR I'VE ALWAYS DREAMED OF BEING! HUNDREDS, THOUSANDS... NO! MILLIONS OF HUMANS WILL WATCH ME!"

Now he was sending bombs that exploded if they were fired at, forming explosions shaped like crosses.

"GLITZ! GLAMOUR! I'LL FINALLY HAVE IT ALL! SO WHAT IF A FEW PEOPLE HAVE TO DIE? THAT'S SHOW BUSINESS, BABY!"

Well, here was a big problem. Mettaton had been totally blinded by stardom, becoming an egocentric selfish jerk. Pretty much Rainbow Dash if Mare Do Well hadn't knocked her down a peg. Now this guy needed his own Mare Do Well.

Alphys then called.

«U..uh... I can't see what's going on in there, but... D-d-don't give up, okay!? Th... There's o-one l-l-last way to beat Mettaton...» She clearly was forcing herself to say this. It seemed that she still considered Mettaton a friend despite everything. «It's... um... It's... This is a work in progress, so don't judge it too hard... But, you know how Mettaton always faces y-y-you? That's because there's a switch on his backside. S-s-so if y-y-you c-c-can turn him around... um... And, umm... press th-th-th-the switch... He'll be... um... He'll be... Vulnerable. Well, g-g-gotta go!»

When she hung up, Sweetie Belle and Frisk stared at each other in shock.

Was she telling them that they should destroy Mettaton?

...

Well, maybe she didn't think that there was a way to spare him, but they hoped to find one!

And pressing the switch may help them, so...

"There's a mirror being you!" Frisk shouted.

"OH??? A MIRROR??? RIGHT, I HAVE TO LOOK PERFECT FOR OUR GRAND FINALE!" Mettaton then turned around, revealing his switch. "HMMM... I DON'T SEE IT... WHERE IS IT...?"

Sweetie Belle quickly flew to the switch and flipped it, and Mettaton stopped moving.

"DID YOU. JUST FLIP. MY SWITCH?"

Mettaton then lost control of himself, his lights going wild as he was holding his head.

Then, there was a flash.

And...

When the flash disappeared, everything was plunged in darkness. Smoke then came from nowhere before two stage lights turned on, showing a humanoid silhouette through the smoke.

"Ohhhh my," a robotic voice from the humanoid silhouette began. "If you flipped my switch, that can only mean one thing. You're desperate for the premiere of my new body. How rude... Lucky for you, I've been aching to show this off for a long time. So... as thanks, I'll give you a handsome reward. I'll make your last living moments..."

The smoke suddenly disappeared, and the room was fully lit again, revealing Mettaton's new body in its full glory. Mettaton now looked like a human, with black hair with a long fringe hiding his right eye. He had a pink chest piece with a speaker and a knob as well as black shoulder pads above his arms which remained the same. The waist had a box contraption with what seemed to be a heart-shaped core inside, and his black-clad legs ended in pink high-heeled boots.

"ABSOLUTELY beautiful!"

"Oh boy..." Sweetie Belle muttered.

She remarked at this moment the presence of a screen that showed the ratings. Actually, it showed that about four thousands televisions were broadcasting the fight.

And Mettaton began to take various poses.

So he wanted to give the audience a show? Very well! They will give the Underground the show of its existence!

"Lights! Camera! Action!" Mettaton shouted before he sent magically-materialized legs, like the arms earlier, excepted that these ones could directly be fired at to make them move back and forth, or to stop them from moving.

They made sure to avoid the legs as dramatically as possible, making close calls, taking poses, using teamwork! Judging by the ratings slowly climbing, the audience loved it, and words about the fight were spreading rapidly!

When Mettaton stopped sending legs, the girls jumped above the last one before landing back to back, arms crossed, looking smugly at the robot. Sweetie Belle even got out her sunglasses.

"Is that all?" the filly boasted.

"Trying to outshine me? I love this! But don't think I will let you do this without a fight!" Mettaton replied before he sent bombs and little versions of his box-like self that sent heart-shaped projectiles. The mini-Mettatons could be destroyed however, but they had to be careful not to fire at the bombs.

After a few more attacks, Mettaton let his ego get the better as he did a quick pop quiz asking "What do you love most about Mettaton?"

Well, for the show...

"Your look," Sweetie Belle quickly answered.

Frisk hesitated a little longer before answering. "That you entertain the monsters, that you make their life brighter like the star that you are."

"Oh... My, I'm touched... But don't think that it will convince me to spare you. Well, since you showed everyone your heart, how about I show you mine?" Mettaton said before his heart-shaped core came out of the box and began floating left and right while sending waves of lightning bolts in all directions.

Maybe if they damaged it enough...

They fired at it with their Yellow Mode while avoiding the projectiles of the mini-Mettatons. Before long, the heart returned inside the box.

"Oooh, I'm just warming up!" the robot said.

"Then what are you waiting?" Frisk asked provocatively, and Sweetie Belle nodded, faking yawning.

"Be careful of what you wish for!" Mettaton replied before the number of mini-Mettatons doubled, and the magical arms and legs became faster. Against the barrage of projectiles that followed, Frisk used a giant golden flower to protect Sweetie Belle, and Sweetie Belle shielded Frisk.

"You can't win against the Power of Friendship!" Sweetie Belle shouted.

"If you say so, but can you win on the dance floor?" Mettaton asked before a disco ball appeared in the air and began to rotate, sending sweeping lasers in all directions, some of them blue, others orange, and more just white. Shooting at the ball caused the lasers to alternate between the colors from white to blue to orange and back to white, so they had to use it in case they weren't able to move out of the way of a laser in time. They made sure to do this with dancing moves followed with poses.

Mettaton was impressed.

When he stopped using the disco ball, Frisk finished her dance by spinning before sending dozens of red petals to rain everywhere in the room. She then materialized a red golden flower and threw it toward Mettaton. The robot wasn't able to stop himself from doing a somersault to catch the flower in his mouth by the stem before dramatically landing on a knee. Mettaton caught up with what he did and grinned at the human.

"Clever girl."

This made Sweetie Belle laugh.

But the fight continued, the attacks becoming more intense and diversified as Mettaton used different combinations of projectiles. Eventually, probably because that was a TV stuff, he called a short breaktime before continuing the fight by sending his core against them again.

This time, the heart core was surrounded by blocks rapidly circling it, so Sweetie Belle and Frisk had to destroy them first before hitting the heart. Periodically, the heart sent the non-destroyed blocks around in attempts to hit the girls before calling new ones to protect it again.

But eventually...

BOOM! As the heart returned in the box, Mettaton's arms detached themselves from the body in an explosion.

This actually shocked him, but Mettaton quickly hid his shock behind his usual smile, albeit strained.

"A... arms? Wh... who needs arms with legs like these? I'm still going to win!"

Then he sent walls of bombs with a single block as weak point, so Frisk and Sweetie Belle had to destroy the blocks to pass the walls while being careful NOT to fire at the bombs as it would create a painful chain reaction. Then, suddenly, the attack rewound, the walls of bombs returning from behind. This one almost got them, and Frisk ate the Starfait. Somehow, this helped boosting the ratings, the audience probably recognising that it was MTT brand.

The attacks, from here, became very difficult to avoid, the number of projectiles reaching records.

Darn, for an entertainment robot, Mettaton sure showed signs that he could actually be an anti-human robot.

But now, Mettaton was losing patience. "Enough of this! Do you really want humanity to perish!?... Or do you just believe in yourself that much?"

"The second option," Sweetie Belle replied.

"Haha, how inspiring! Well, darlings! It's either me or you! But I think we already know who's going to win. Witness the true power of humanity's star!"

Mettaton then sent his heart core again, this time surrounded by bombs. This meant that they had to fire at the heart without touching the bombs. It wasn't easy, and more than one bomb exploded, but they still managed to avoid the resulting explosions, which wasn't easy as Mettaton also sent legs from the left and the right to hit them.

And after a few seconds, the heart returned in the box, and Mettaton's legs dropped, leaving him as just a torso with a head. He was very shocked, but he wasn't done for!

"... Then... Are YOU the stars? Can you really protect humanity!?"

And he sent the heart again, without protections, making it just move erratically while it sent electricity directly at the girls.

"I don't want anyone to get hurt!" Frisk said. "Humans and monsters! I will destroy the Barrier, and then, I will help the monsters live peacefully with the humans!"

"... Eh. You really think that it's possible? After what happened? Peace between humans and monsters is not possible. It would be too risky to trust the humans not to start a second war. As soon as the monsters will be free, the war will restart. And as the king, it will be Asgore's duty to protect the monsters, and so, to eradicate humanity. And with six human SOULs already in his possession, it will be a piece of cake for him. So, do you REALLY believe that you can avoid that?"

"I... I want to try... At least... I don't want to leave the monsters trapped here," Frisk replied after some hesitation.

"At worst, I have some emergency solutions at hooves, or hands, or whatever," Sweetie Belle said with a shrug.

Mettaton sighed. "You really are just kids..." Then, he saw the screen showing the ratings, which were now at 10081 and still slowly climbing. "OOH, LOOK AT THESE RATINGS!!! THIS IS THE MOST VIEWERS I'VE EVER HAD!!!"

Uh, he returned to fully-capitalized sentences. Was this way of talking another act?

"WE'VE REACHED THE VIEWER CALL-IN MILESTONE! ONE LUCKY VIEWER WILL HAVE THE CHANCE TO TALK TO ME... BEFORE I LEAVE THE UNDERGROUND FOREVER!! LET'S SEE WHO CALLS IN FIRST!" Ring! "HI, YOU'RE ON TV! WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ON THIS, OUR LAST SHOW???"

Then, a voice that Sweetie Belle and Frisk recognised began to talk through the phone. «..... oh........ hi... mettaton... i really liked watching your show... my life is pretty boring, but... seeing you on the screen... brought excitement to my life... vicariously. i can't tell, but... i guess this is the last episode...? i'll miss you... mettaton...... ... oh.... i didn't mean to talk so long... oh...........»

Mettaton recognized the voice as the one of Napstablook. "NO, WAIT! WAIT, BL... H... THEY ALREADY HUNG UP." He looked down, saddened, for a few seconds. "...I'LL TAKE ANOTHER CALLER!"

«Mettaton, your show made us so happy!»

«Mettaton, I don't know what I'll watch without you.»

«Mettaton, there's a Mettaton-shaped hole in my Mettaton-shaped heart.»

This clearly had an effect on Mettaton. He was now realising how wrong he had been. He was remembering that it wasn't just him. Sweetie Belle and Frisk watched with smiles as this happened, observing as the Mettaton-centred world he had built in his head was disappearing.

"AH... I... I SEE... EVERYONE... THANK YOU SO MUCH." Mettaton then looked back at the girls, giving them his warmest smile. "... DARLINGS. PERHAPS... IT MIGHT BE BETTER IF I STAY HERE A WHILE. HUMANS ALREADY HAVE STARS AND IDOLS, BUT MONSTERS... THEY ONLY HAVE ME. IF I LEFT... THE UNDERGROUND WOULD LOSE ITS SPARK. I'D LEAVE AN ACHING VOID THAT COULD NEVER BE FILLED. SO... I THINK I'LL HAVE TO DELAY MY BIG DEBUT."

"And you won't have to wait long," Sweetie Belle said.

"MAYBE, MAYBE NOT. I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU PLAN TO DESTROY THE BARRIER BUT... I WANT TO TRUST YOU. I WANT TO TRUST THAT A PEOPLE WON'T NEED TO BE DESTROYED TO ENSURE THE SURVIVAL OF THE OTHER. HA, HA... IT'S ALL FOR THE BEST, ANYWAY. THE TRUTH IS, THIS FORM'S ENERGY CONSUMPTION IS... INEFFICIENT. IN A FEW MOMENTS, I'LL RUN OUT OF BATTERY POWER, AND... WELL. I'LL BE ALRIGHT," he reassured when he saw the girls' expressions. "KNOCK 'EM DEAD, DARLING. AND EVERYONE... THANK YOU. YOU'VE BEEN A GREAT AUDIENCE!"

Mettaton's eyes then closed, ending all this. The elevator returned in its place, and the door unlocked, letting Alphys enter.

"I... I managed to open the lock! Are you three..." the scientist began as she approached before she saw Mettaton's state. "Oh my god. Mettaton! Mettaton, are you..."

"Don't worry, he's just out of juice," Sweetie Belle said.

"Oh thank GOD. Mettaton, if you were gone, I would have... I would have..." Alphys stopped herself as she saw the girls' expressions. Clearly, she had been about to say something not good at all. "... I m-mean, h-hey, it's no problem, you know? He's just a robot, if you messed it up, I c-could always... J-just build another."

"... Alphys, you can stop," Frisk said.

"Uh?"

"We know... Everything. All this time, we knew. About Mettaton being a ghost. About all this just being a show."

"O-oh... I-I see...... and you still went along? Why?"

"Well, at first, it was just because, why not?" Sweetie Belle answered to this. "It would be fun, and all. But after a time, we saw how it helped you, and so..."

"Oh... I don't k-know what to say..."

"You don't need to say anything. That's what friends are for."

Alphys looked at her in shock. "You... You still consider me a friend despite everything? Despite me... manipulating you?"

"We never stopped. Like I told you, we knew from the beginning, and from the beginning, you were our friend," Frisk said.

"But in the future, maybe you should avoid using manipulation. Some may not be as understanding as us," Sweetie Belle warned playfully.

"..... I... I... I don't deserve this... Such kindness... After I lied to you... After I manipulated you... after what I did... to them... I..." Alphys grabbed Mettaton and stepped back. "Th-there's something else I lied to you about. A human SOUL isn't strong enough to cross the barrier alone. It takes at least a human SOUL... And a monster SOUL. If you want to go home... You'll have to take his SOUL. You'll have to kill Asgore. I'm sorry."

And she ran out.

"Wait!" they both shouted, but it was too late.

Yes, it was a bombshell that she just dropped on them. And it could have been really bad for Frisk if she had been alone, having to choose between remaining stuck here or killing Asgore to escape. But with Sweetie Belle, it didn't change anything. And anyway, they wouldn't have gotten mad at Alphys for keeping this info to herself. They understood that she was desperate.

"We must help her!" Frisk said.

Sweetie Belle nodded.

Chapter 52: G.F.S. Valhalla

The ship flew up into space above the Pirate Homeworld while Sweetie Belle went to put the Sweetie Bot Armor back in the Lor Starcutter.

The fight between the Federation and the Space Pirates wasn't quite over yet, and the Lor was still supporting the Marines, attacking any pirates that it could reach. Sweetie Belle found it dispatching a group of Aerotroopers, Gandrayda in the filly's form blowing up a Berserker Lord with two Berserker Knights not far.

After leaving Sweetie Bot in it, Sweetie Belle left the ship continue the battle and teleported into space. Then, she searched for the nearest source of Phazon and flew toward it, finding Samus' ship as she stopped it and left it in stationary. The filly then teleported inside it just in time as AU 242's hologram appeared.

"Samus, Sweetie Belle, you have successfully destroyed the last remaining Seed as detected by our systems."

"Yay!" Sweetie Belle cheered.

"The spread of Phazon corruption has been stopped. This is a great day for the Federation."

"Re-yay!"

"However, there is one more mission to complete: SkyTown's Aurora Unit 217 reports that it has discovered the origin of the Leviathan attacks," AU 242 explained as the hologram showed three lines coming from Bryyo, Elysia, and a third planet (probably Norion) ending at a same point represented by a big crystallised mass of Phazon.

Sweetie Belle was about to shout again only for Samus to lightly tap her on the head, making the filly glare at her.

The hologram zoomed on the mass of Phazon, information about it appearing, as AU 242 continued. "It appears that this is where Dark Samus and her main pirate force are stationed. Destroying them will require a full-scale attack. Unfortunately this location is so far away it cannot be reached by conventional space travel. We must instead create a wormhole to reach it."

The hologram then shifted to show a Leviathan. "The pirates have constructed a Leviathan battleship, which is in orbit around the planet," the AU informed as the hologram then showed the Leviathan move around the Pirate Homeworld. "If we can board this battleship, we may be able to force it to open a wormhole. Large energy surges consistent with a warp device are traveling between the pirates' planet and the Leviathan battleship. It appears the pirates are using this warp device to link to the ship."

The hologram shifted back to the AU. "We will upload the coordinates of this device to you now, Samus."

Samus confirmed with a nod that she got them, and the hologram disappeared.

So they returned on the planet and landed back in the Pirate Command facility, now partially controlled by the Federation. However, the marines here warned them that there were still some pirates, so they had to remain careful. And to not arrange matters, Phazooids appeared following the destruction of the Leviathan.

Samus' map indicated that the path to the given coordinates was through a transit station behind the command center. It wasn't long before the girls reached the room in question where Samus had to destroy the organic mass with the pink crystals with the Hyper Grapple to reveal the door to the station.

The tram led them right next to the room with the portal to the Leviathan battleship. however, when they entered the room, they found out that the portal was protected by an energy shield. But the source of its energy was easy to find. It was right behind another energy shield, and Samus was able to reach it by using a vent. She then used the Grapple Voltage to drain the energy, removing the shield.

And so, they used the portal to warp into the Leviathan battleship which was, to put it simply, a Leviathan with some mechanical parts, terminals, computers, and other stuff like a normal spaceship. The room where they appeared was right in front of the Core of the Leviathan, with the control terminal before it. Optical organs were in the walls around, observing Sweetie Belle and Samus.

However, when Samus went to use the terminal, she discovered something: they needed codes.

"Damnit..."

"And where will we find these codes?!" Sweetie Belle asked to nobody in particular.

AU 242 gave them a trail. They still had to explore the G.F.S. Valhalla. Maybe they will find information htere. Maybe even something about the codes.

"What are our chances of encountering vengeful spirits in the Valhalla?" Sweetie Belle asked on the way back to Samus' ship.

"Pretty much non-existent," Samus answered. "The only times I encountered ghosts were on Zebes and on Tallon IV. The Chozo being highly spiritual, their spirit tend to remain in this plane after their death for various reasons, like watching over artefacts or guiding someone - me - to someplace. And the only time I ended up fighting ghosts was because, on Tallon IV, some of the Chozo spirits had been corrupted by the Phazon. It turns out that Chozo are so vulnerable to Phazon that even dead they were affected by it. I never encountered actual vengeful spirits however, but I wouldn't be surprised if I encounter some in a future mission. But I doubt that there will be some in the Valhalla. I never saw the ghost of a human."

"Okay. Just asking. It wouldn't have been the first time that I go to some place where a tragic event happened and was full of hostile ghosts and undead beings as a result."

"You mean you fought zombies?"

"Yup! And skeletons! And mummies! Haven't gotten to fight vampires yet however."

"Eh. The worst part is that I wouldn't be surprised if someone created a vampire somewhere out there. The wonders of science."

When they reached the ship, they entered it and took off from the Pirate Homeworld. However, instead of going toward the coordinates of the Valhalla, Samus decided that it was a good occasion to do something else before.

"I'm guessing that I have gotten all the upgrades in this mission. I'm surprised that I haven't found some classics like the Super Missiles or the Power Bombs, but I doubt that I will find them now. I haven't seen anything that would require them anyway. So I'm thinking of exploring what we haven't been able to explore yet on the other planets. To find as many Expansions as I can," she informed as she moved the ship toward the first destination she had in mind.

"Alright. I remember that there's still a part of Bryyo that we haven't explored. And you told me about Norion too. And there was that Phazite panel in the Observatory on Elysia."

"Exactly. And our first stop will be Norion."

"Great! I will finally get to see what it's like!"

Back in the Federation System, the ship approached a mostly green planet. When it went down toward the surface, Sweetie Belle saw that the green was actually a forest that pretty much covered the whole planet, with rivers and lakes here and there, as well as at least one sea from what she had seen.

"It would be so easy to get lost in a planet like that," Sweetie Belle commented as she looked through the window at the ocean of trees that continued beyond the horizon.

"Thankfully everybody stationed on this planet is equipped with GPS. And if you want to know, originally, this planet was originally barren and inhospitable. The Federation terraformed it into what you see, with the Aurora Unit of the local base leading the project."

"Amazing!"

A few seconds later, they reached the base and landed. Traces of the battle from one month ago could still be seen, with the feds still busy repairing the damage and removing the carcasses of ships that had crashed below the base.

Since Samus hadn't returning here since the battle, there was a lot of Expansions to find a bit everywhere. A Spider Ball track here, a White Blast Shield there, and once they confirmed with the data they had gotten from Elysia that they had everything, Samus repaired a circuit board in the central area of the base, unlocking a door beside it that led to the only area she hadn't been able to explore back during the battle: the path to the generator B, Rundas having been the one to take care of it back then.

A marine standing beside the door warned them that the area behind it was full of spent Phazon from the battle, which may be why the welding engineers hadn't fixed the board yet.

Samus reassured him that they will be alright, and he simply shrugged.

They passed the now unlocked door and entered a room with a turbine behind glass, a path circling around it. A Morph Ball tunnel followed the path in the wall at the left, with randomly moving air-circulation pistons in it. At the end of the tunnel was a Missile Expansion, so Samus had to enter it. She had to be careful, the part of the path beside the tunnel had super hot floor, so if she was pushed by the pistons then she would fall on it and burn. Thankfully, Sweetie Belle kept an eye, catching Samus with her magic each time that the pistons managed to get her.

Not a trace of Phazon in the room however.

But in the room that followed...

"What the-" Samus shouted.

They were suddenly attacked by nothing else than a living puddle of Phazon firing a toxic chemical at them and spawning Phazon Grubs. Of all things... And it was freaking fast! And hard to hit because it could alter its shape to avoid the projectiles fired at it!

At least, it only took a few shots to destroy it.

"Attacked by a puddle... When has my life gotten so weird?" Samus wondered.

"I got worse. Were you attacked by axes on legs? No? Thought so."

Samus stared at Sweetie Belle, wondering if she was messing with her or not.

More living puddles of Phazon followed as the two continued. The room was actually just some hallways, one at the beginning leading to a dead end with the corpse of a marine while the one they were following led down to a lower level, shorter hallways starting from it. Most of these smaller hallways led to more dead ends, but one led to a White Blast Shield, the room behind it having some terminals containing information about the Olympus, Bryyo, and SkyTown.

At the end of the hallway was a Blue Door that led to a room in exterior that served as a bridge to generator B and as a dock. However, when they passed the door, an Invincible Blast Shield locked it behind them, and they found that the door at the other side of the dock was blocked by a mass of Phazon full of big fungi and small tendrils. Out of it came several small shelled creatures that hopped on four legs, and a quick scan from Samus revealed them to be mutated Metroids!

"What are Metroids doing here?" shouted Samus as she began to fire Ice Missiles at them. While these Hopping Metroids still were weak to cold, their shell revealed to give them a better protection as it took more missiles to freeze them. The Nova Beam worked well too, surprisingly. But then the Metroids revealed to be able to enter Hypermode, making things a bit harder.

"A gift left by the pirates, maybe?" Sweetie Belle wondered while she made one of the Metroids explode. "But really, they don't look at all like the Metroids we saw. If it hadn't been for your scan, I would have never guessed that they are Metroids."

"The Metroid Prime actually looked a lot like these things, but much bigger and with a much harder shell. I'm till wondering how a Metroid could mutate so much."

More Hopping Metroids continued to come out of the mass of Phazon as the girls killed them. But eventually, it stopped, and the mass of Phazon broke into three of these living puddles that were quickly destroyed. This revealed the door it blocked, which had a Multi-Lock Blast Shield on it, and it activated the beacons on the dock, meaning that Samus' ship could now land on it. So Samus called it, so they won't have to traverse the base again.

Samus then used the Seeker Missiles to destroy the Blast Shield, and they continued to the next room. It was another hallway, but a gate blocked it. Thankfully, a Morph Ball tunnel allowed them to reach the door to generator B at the other side.

Smashed glass containers were present in this room, in the part locked by the gates. The Metroids they fought may not have been a gift left by the Pirates in the end, much to Samus' surprise. The last thing she would expect was to find Metroids kept in containment by the Federation. Why would they do this?

Putting this at the back of her mind, she opened the door.

The first thing she and Sweetie Belle saw when they opened it was that the generator was overrun by Phazon. When they advanced, an Invincible Blast Shield locked the door behind them, and a huge security gate closed on it, trapping them in the room.

Then, the masses of Phazon on the walls glowed blue, and the next instant, a Metroid Hatch came out from the hole in the center of the floor.

Samus used the X-Ray Visor and the Nova Beam to one shot it, which made the masses of Phazon explode and expose a Morph Ball tunnel to the control center of the generator where they could see an energy Cell.

"Okay. We did well to come. That thing would have overrun the base with its spawns," Sweetie Belle said.

Samus nodded before she entered the tunnel and grabbed the Energy Cell at the end. Thankfully, the generator didn't need it to function, it just deactivated the gate and the Blast Shield blocking the exit door.

So Samus and Sweetie Belle exited the generator and returned to the dock. But before entering it, Sweetie Belle teleported to the marine who had warned them earlier.

"Hey! We dealt with the Phazon. We even dealt with some Metroids that were there, including a Hatcher that would have been really bad news for the base. Good luck with the reparations. Ciao!"

And she teleported back to the ship, leaving the marine to stare down where she had been.

...

"Wait, there were Metroids all this time?!" he eventually said in horror.

Bryyo.

After ensuring that they had everything in the areas already explored, Sweetie Belle and Samus returned in the hangar bay where they had originally upgraded the ship to have missiles. From here, they began to explore what they hadn't been able to explore before, beyond the Orange door.

The door led to a very short hallway, back to Bryyonian ruins with a Bryyonian Blue door at the end. In the corridor that followed, a few Hoppers attacked them but were quickly killed before they were able to continue.

Finally, they entered a room with a large pool of Fuel Gel with three falls that poured it too rapidly for Ice Missiles to work on them. Three golems were present in the room, including one in an upper level, and the three had something blocking the Morph Ball slot in them. Beside the entrance were two slots and the start of a series of inactivated Spider Ball tracks that led to a Missile Expansion, and at the other end of the room, there was a large gate sealed shut, the seal vulnerable to temperatures higher than what Samus' beams could give. Then, between the two statues at the lower level, there was another of these locks where Samus had to fire at panels to reveal a mural.

After dealing with some weird creature on three legs with a large jaw from which it spawned a swarm of little flying creatures that flew toward them in suicide courses (respectively called Fargul Hatcher and Fargul Wasps), Sweetie Belle and Samus worked to unlock the Morph Ball slots in the golems. One was covered by a metal that needed to be melted, another was covered by a clamp that needed energy, and the last one on the upper level had a casing that could be broken by an Ice Missile.

Apparently, from what Samus got with her scan, each of the golems emitted the respective element that had been needed to unlock their slot: fire, electricity, and ice. So activating the golems respectively allowed Samus to respectively melt the seal of the gate, opening the way to another Orange Door, power the two slots beside the entrance to activate the Spider Ball tracks and reach the Missile Expansion with the help of some bombs and boosts, and freeze the falls of Fuel Gel to jump on them and reach a Blue Door.

Finally, they opened the panel lock to reveal the mural behind it.

Contrary to what they expected, it wasn't a mural from the prophetess depicting what happened to her after the last Lord of Science's death, but one that simply depicted how the Lords of Science lost the war because the war and its devastation robbed them of the resources they needed to fuel their machines. This left them vulnerable to the armies of Primals, and the Lords of Science who survived fled to the now polluted wastelands, the Primals not daring to follow them there. However, there was no victory as everyone realised that, as a result of the war, Bryyo was on the verge of death.

After this sad reminder of what happened to this place, Sweetie Belle and Samus now had to choose which door to take between the Orange one and the Blue one.

They took the Orange Door and entered a small round room in open sky from which they could see a colossal war golem that missed its head. In the room was a cage with a Missile Expansion for the ship as well as a large pile of collapsed stones that blocked the exit door.

Beside the entrance was another mural, which told how the last Lord of Science, who worked tirelessly to craft magics and machines to bring life back to the wastelands, discovered Fuel Gel and used it as a new source of energy and vowed to atone for what the Lords caused. Meanwhile, with no Lords of Science left to hunt, the Primals turned on each others, beginning wars between tribes and falling into barbarism and savagery.

Sweetie Belle and Samus backtracked to the room with the three golems and, this time, took the Blue Door in the path from the frozen falls. This led to the entrance of a series of Morph Ball tunnels in a rock face. Exploration of the tunnels, destroying some Fuel Gel crystals blocking the path and being careful of Venus Flytrap-like plants that had to be used as platforms but which retracted their leaves when they were rolled on, they reached a part with a golem embedded in the rock with a Missile Expansion on its mouth (its upper head being gone). After taking the Expansion, they reached an industrialized part of the tunnels, plated over by metal structures, clearly made by the Federation, and rather old. Beyond it was the exit, reaching a small room with another panel-lock.

Opening it revealed another mural that told that a number of the last Lords of Science, regretting having ignored the Chozo's warning, began to work together to preserve what remained of Bryyo as the contaminated areas were spreading, threatening the last few fertile lands. So the Lords of Science created their last machines that they launched to the sky, whatever they were but judging by the drawing of the mural, they were some kind of ships of satellites.

Sweetie Belle and Samus then passed the Blue Door beside the mural and found themselves back in the room where they had had to free a giant restrained golem. They were in a small space behind a gate door they had spotted previously but hadn't been able to open from the other side. Here, they were able to fire at the locking mechanism, opening the gate. From it, they were able to reach a Grapple Point and used it to land on a path that led to the Orange Door in the room. But before opening it, they jumped on the U-shaped path the giant golem had previously created after they had freed it, and Samus was finally able to reach a Missile Expansion using the Boost Ball on it.

Then they passed the Orange Door and entered a long hall, in open sky again, with a few Hoppers present. At the other side was a Morph Ball tunnel to a second part of the room where there were more Hoppers as well as another mural.

It said that the machines the Lords of Science launched were able to absorb the toxins and pollution, saving the remaining fertile lands of Bryyo, but they could do nothing about the planet having one side stuck facing the sun and the other stuck facing the cold of space. However, the launching of the machines revealed the presence of the Lords of Science to the Primals who sent their warriors to hunt them.

Sweetie Belle and Samus then passed the Blue Door at the end and found themselves in another room in open sky with a large pool of Fuel Gel, with two falls coming from spouts. In the pool was a huge golem head that had a hook on it, meaning that the ship could lift it.

They guessed that it was the head that the colossal golem from earlier missed and that they needed to bring it to it.

So Samus called her ship which lifted the head, revealing another fall of Fuel Gel as well as a hidden cave in the pool. First, they froze the falls to reach an alcove where they found a Missile Expansion. Then, Samus jumped into the pool, the Hazard Shield protecting her, and went into the cave to retrieve another Missile Expansion.

They returned afterward to the room with the colossal golem and Samus commanded her ship to place the head on it. This activated the golem which, out of control, brought its fist on the room before deactivating, destroying the debris blocking the door as well as the cage, letting them take the Ship Missile Expansion and continue.

The next room was separated in two by a large chasm, with grids stopping any possibility to use the Screw Attack to cross. Before the girl was a Spinner that rotated the grid beside it and made the first half of a bridge come out. Two Wall Jump Surfaces in the middle of the room also began to alternate between moving close to each other and spreading apart, and Samus had to use them to reach an Energy Tank.

The other side of the room was still blocked by a grid however.

This meant that they had to go to the jungle region to make the full bridge and get the other grid out of the way.

So they returned to the ship and took off before landing in the jungle. Then, they returned all the way to where Sweetie Belle had destroyed one of the pirate cannons, where a big generator had been blocking the path to a door. Samus had to use the ship to lift it and reveal the path that had been hidden under it. The door at the end led to the other side of the room with the bridge. From here, Samus activated a second Spinner, rotating the grid and putting the second half of the bridge in place.

Now, they had to find a place to drop the generator, or they won't be able to leave the planet.

They already had a place in mind. There was that huge Fuel Gel pumping crane back in the room with the previously restrained golem that missed a battery. The generator should do the job.

So they traversed the bridge and returned to the room in question where Samus commanded her ship to drop the generator beside the crane, reactivating it. This made a part of it spin, and the girl spotted an Energy Cell in it, now facing another path. To reach it, Samus had to use again the U-shaped part, this going taking the direction opposite from where she got the Missile Expansion previously. She then followed the path until reaching the energy Cell which she took.

This made eight Energy Cells.

With this, and the confirmation from the map that they had gotten all the Expansion on Bryyo, they left the planet.

There wasn't much to say about Elysia since they already had explored and gotten everything. They simply returned to the Observatory to use the X-Ray Visor and the Nova Beam on the Phazite Panel, revealing a chamber in the main cylinder with a Hand Scanner. Samus used it to manually update the Observatory's records to locate the Pirate Homeworld before sending a satellite. This gave her the map data with the location of the Expansions on the planet so, once they will return there, they will be able to search any Expansion they hadn't managed to find yet.

Finally, they flew to the G.F.S. Valhalla, finding the ship in the coordinates given.

Already, they could see how much of a wreck the ship now was. It looked exactly like the G.F.S. Olympus, excepted that it was very obvious that the ship had been victim of a pirate assault. The ship was pretty much cut in half, there were holes everywhere on its hull, debris of the Valhalla and of other ships floated around, and many parts of it were extremely damaged.

Only one docking bay was still intact enough to allow Samus' ship to land, letting them start their exploration.

The silence... The utter, total silence... It was suffocating. And that feeling of loneliness... It wasn't the first time that Sweetie Belle explored the wreckage of a ship, but it was the first time that she explored the wreckage of a ship in space, and it was an unique experience that just couldn't be compared. Sweetie Belle was glad that there was Samus at her side.

"I felt exactly what you are feeling right now when I explored my first wreckage," Samus informed.

"These feelings never leave, right?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Never. But you learn to better deal with them."

They advanced in the docking bay toward a blast door with a Hand Scanner beside it. The Hand Scanner, however, lacked power, and there was an Energy Cell Station at the left of the door.

At the right, there was a crashed ship where they found a ninth Energy Cell, and Samus immediately went to put it in the slot of the station, powering the Hand Scanner. They used it to open the blast door and enter a hallway separated in two by a gap. A bridge previously connected the two parts, but it was now destroyed. A flock of little creatures that looked like smaller versions of Metroids flew through the gap to the right, to another area out of access where lied a Stiletto-class fighter ship (a small ship like Samus').

A cargo truck had smashed into a platform at the right of the entrance, a dead marine was present against the wall, and there was some kind of flying robot terminal floating beside. Once scanned, the robot gave information about the Energy Cell they got on Norion, in the generator. At the other side of the gap, hanging from the ceiling, were Phazon Shriekbats that the girls killed before they could dive bomb at them.

Two other marines were present before the exit door, but like the pirates back on Elysia, they were like statues. One had been in the middle of operating a Hand Scanner while the other had been trying to forcefully open the door.

They had been drained of their energy.

Metroids. Again.

Samus joined the other side of the gap with the help of the grapple while Sweetie Belle flew to it and used her magic to get rid of the corpse before the Hand Scanner, allowing the Hunter to access it and open the door, making the other corpse crumble into ash.

Right at the other side were Phazon Metroids along with a large flock of these smaller Metroids they had seen earlier. This time, Samus had time to scan them, revealing them to be the infant versions of Phazon Metroids called Miniroids, totally inoffensive. They didn't even attempt to defend themselves as Samus killed them.

Another destroyed Stiletto-class fighter was in this room, and the presence of damaged mechanical arms revealed that the room had been a repair bay. An unstable electric current was created from the fighter.

As they destroyed a crate blocking access to a Blue Door at the right, a puddle of Phazon like on Norion came out of it and it was quickly destroyed.

Behind the door was a room had apparently access ramps to the upper level, but one was broken and the other was deactivated. Two Energy Cell Stations were present, but they first had to melt metals blocking access to them before they could place two Energy Cells in the slots. This activated the ramp, but also let out more puddles of Phazon, these ones quickly revealing to be a different kind as they had a physical body that could come out of the puddle to fire Phazon blasts. When this happened, Sweetie Belle and Samus could use the occasion to kill them with the grapple and the whip.

"Strange. These things looked a lot like a kind of Ing I fought back on Aether," Samus said. "Even their name, Phaz-Ing. I don't think this is a coincidence."

"Well, Ings were born after a Leviathan hit Aether," Sweetie Belle remarked. "In a way, I guess that the Ings were cousins of these creatures of Phazon."

"Probably," Samus said before she scanned another bot that gave info about the Energy Cell they found in the hangar on Bryyo.

After climbing the ramp, they found a terminal that contained a log summarized the incident of Tallon IV like Samus had told Sweetie Belle, that the planet had been hit 50 years ago by a Leviathan, that the Chozo managed to stave off the spread of Phazon before the survivors fled the planet, and that Samus came and saved the day.

They then opened a blue door that led to a rather small room with a window with a Missile Expansion right in the center and with another bot giving information about the Energy Cell that they found in the docking bay. However, in the end, the room was just a dead end.

So they returned in the repair bay where, this time, they climbed through some platforming to the upper level of the room, Samus having to wait for the electric current to turn off a bit to continue at a moment. Eventually, they reached another Blue Doorto a security station. After killing a Phaz-Ing, and ignoring the marine corpse at the entrance, they blew up the glass so they could enter the biohazard scanning chamber.

In the chamber were a marine corpse and a pirate corpse, but Sweetie Belle and Samus ignored them as they blew up a part of the opposite access door so they could pass to the other side (Samus having to enter Morph Ball). Then, after killing another Phaz-Ing, they passed the exit door, entering a hallway where they could choose to go left or right.

Choosing randomly, they took the right path where they found another bot informing them about the Energy Cell of the Fuel Gel pumping station from Bryyo. They then passed the door beside it and entered a medlab extremely damaged where there was another bot informing about the Energy Cell of SkyTown where they first fought Phazon Metroids.

Using explosives, they destroyed several obstructions, opening the way to a Morph Ball tunnel. But before, they had to deal with what looked like Hopping Metroids covered in crystallized Phazon. A quick scan revealed them to be Phazon Hoppers, and they were much more resistant, but they still quickly were killed with some Phazon beams.

Samus then pulled off a grating blocking the entrance of the tunnel before they entered it, finding a Missile Expansion at the end of it.

There was no other paths accessible from the medlab however, so they returned in the hallway and took the other way to another Blue Door, encountering more Phazon Hoppers on the way.

They entered a lift that was powered down. Pulling a panel revealed an Energy Cell Station where they placed one of the Energy Cells they had, powering the lift. After activating the lift, Samus entered a Morph Ball tunnel, having spotted a Missile Expansion at a dead end inside it. After obtaining it, she returned on the lift and they passed the Blue Door here.

Now in a small hallway, they had to pass debris blocking the way (with a pirate crushed under them) through a small opening before they reached the next door which led to an observation deck. There was a door lacking power at the right with an Energy Cell Station, and further was a security gate with a multi-target lock. Many Phazon Metroids attacked them here.

Opening the security gate caused a marine corpse that had been behind it to float toward them. They avoided it as they went toward the Blue Door that had been behind.

They entered the upper level of some laboratory, a hallway that circled it. In it, they found another bot, this one informing about the other Energy Cell of SkyTown, obtained in the room where they fought the Defense Drone and a Steamlord. Samus then blew up a damaged security shutter with an Ice Missile so they could reach the laboratory itself where they had to kill more Phazon Hoppers and an Atomic. Another bot was in the lower level, beside two generators, giving information about one of the energy Cells from the Pirate Homeworld, the one from the courtyard.

They then had to power one of the generators by placing two Energy Cells in it, opening an access to a tunnel where they briefly saw a Ship Missile Expansion before it was pushed by an air current as air entered the tunnel. So they entered the tunnel and went after the Expansion, ignoring the asphyxiated marine on the way.

The tunnel led them through several rooms before they got the Ship Missile Expansion about midway. After blowing some debris blocking the way, they then continued, going through more rooms, before they were back in the hallway between the medlab and the lift. The husk of a pirate drained of his energy blocked the way to the exit of the tunnel but it crumbled to ash like all the others upon physical contact.

They took the lift again and returned to the observation deck, this time placing an Energy Cell in the station beside the deactivated door to power it and enter another corridor with more Phaz-Ings. Many corpses, mainly marines but also a pirate or two, were in it. The marines fought a lot here.

Opening a Blue Door at the right on the way caused a marine drained of his energy at the other side to crumble to ash. Sweetie Belle and Samus waited for the ash to fall on the floor before they continued, the room revealing to be a locker for ammunition with an Energy Tank beside another drained body.

Back in the corridor, they passed a Green Door at the end and entered room with a very resistant puddle of Phazon on the way. Two dead troopers were also present, their body being absorbed by the Phazon, one of which was Phazon coming right out of his PED tank. Samus cremated them.

They then took a door at the left and entered what revealed to be the chamber of the Aurora Unit of the ship. There were two stations that needed Energy Cells but that were blocked by damaged security hatches and a bot giving information about the Energy Cell of the quarry in the Pirate Homeworld. A lot of Phazon infested the room.

They followed the pathway and found another bot, this one informing about the energy Cell of the room in the Pirate Homeworld where Metroids had been contained and studied. They arrived at a point where they could see the security hatch control mechanism behind a hole in the wall, and Sweetie Belle fired at it, loosening the jammed parts. This got the hatches on the stations out of the way. Placing the Energy Cells in the stations lowered several bridges and activated a lift. However, this made a Metroid Hatcher come out of the chasm in the room.

Sweetie Belle killed it by pulling its four tentacles at the same time with her magic.

Now that the bridges were lowered and that the lift was activated, Sweetie Belle and Samus followed the pathway to the end, passing by the platform where the Valhalla's AU had been, below the shattered structure that was what remained of its tank and the AU's severed cables. At the end of the pathway was a Blue Door.

In the following room, a Phazon Metroid carrying a dead pirate was slowly flying in their direction. The girls didn't lose time killing it as well as the ones that followed. Once all the Metroids in the room were killed, they then reached the next Blue Door without more problems.

They then entered a room with many corpses of marines and pirates littering it, and a pirate boarding pod was embedded in the wall. There was also a terminal with a log summarizing the incident of Aether. It also informed that the Federation sent a ship called G.F.S. Anhur to deal with the pirate base, helping the Luminoths in dismantling it. It was at this moment that the crew found and collected the Phazon that will lead to the development of the PED technology.

As they looked at the corpses, they found a malfunctioning PDA displaying the code "78356". Samus entered it in a nearby terminal, activating a flickering holographic message from the AU of the Valhalla.

"Data log entry 2467.3. This will be the last communication of the G.F.S. Valhalla. Our efforts to repel the Space Pirates boarding force have failed. They have successfully removed the primary mounting structure around our stasis tank. It is obvious now that they intend to extract us from the Valhalla. It is vital that the Federation receive this transmission... Severing main power... A large bioform is creating a wormhole... Implant into... Sentient planet which is the source of Phazon... Darkness coming."

And the message ended.

...

"And we will certainly end up having to destroy it now that he is a part of Phaaze..." Sweetie Belle said sadly.

Samus nodded before she moved to the pod and entered it. Using the Grapple Voltage, she gave energy to a terminal in it, making one of these pirate terminals where she had to use the X-Ray Visor to enter a code come out.

Thanks to it, she got a pirate code.

AU 242 confirmed that it was the pirate code needed to take control of the Leviathan battleship.

"Finally," Samus said with a sigh.

"Great! Now let's go. I can't wait to leave this place," Sweetie Belle said.

Back in the Pirate Homeworld, now totally in the hands of the Federation, Sweetie Belle and Samus explored it to get the last few Expansions they had missed now that they had the data of their location thanks to Elysia. Then, once they got everything, they used the portal to return inside the Leviathan battleship, and Samus used the code to give the Federation control of it.

A transmission from Admiral Dane confirmed it, and confirmed that the fleet was ready to depart to Phaaze.

"Hum... I would like to have a word with Admiral Dane before we go," Sweetie Belle said with some hesitation.

"Mmh? Why?"

"Well... Let's just say that I have a plan that should avoid putting the fleet in such a high risk and that should save, as a result, many lives. I mean, what do you think would be the chances of the Federation fleet against a pirate fleet powered by Phazon?"

"About fifty-fifty I think. Very well, let's go to the Olympus. If your plan will avoid sacrificing lives, then I'm sure that Dane will accept it after some grumbling."

Chapter 71: Crakkthulx

It only took a few seconds before Crakkthulx recovered enough of his senses to stop himself from being dragged away from the planet by Sweetie Belle. He did so by grabbing her in a telekinetic hold before sending her away. The planet could still be seen far in the distance, still far too close in Sweetie's opinion but she understood that getting Crakkthulx further away won't be as easy now that his guard was up.

"W̷̰̠̞̣̬̔͆͐H̷͔̠̩̦̖͖̜̾́̍̚͝ͅO̵̤̳̰̗͈̎ ̵̛̻̮̝̫̻́͋̔̂̅̕͝A̶̗̯͕̬͂R̶̹̺̪̤̬̃̈́E̸̛͈̼̗̙̩͗̅̌̔̐̔̈́ ̸̩̀̿̑̐̊̌Y̷̞͗͜O̵̧̺̩͂̆͂̄͆̚U̸͇̟͋̏̆̚,̸̤̫̣̫̞͖̄̌̑̈́̕͝ ̵̡̪̗͇͔̬̃̏̒̍̓Y̶̢̺̱̳͔̤̮̗͗̚Ỏ̵̰͈̤̬̭̆̚͠U̶̡͍̹͖͍̣̞̮̅̈ ̸̱̖͈̤͛͛̃͝W̶̮̘̖̱͖̉̈́͐̋̅̅̕͠H̸̲̗̥̏͑̂̊͒̄̍͘Ǫ̸̊ ̵̫̼̱̃́͆́̓̅͆͝P̶̖̹̱͗́̋͑I̴̖̋́̑̑̑̓̈́̀T̴̺̜͓̑́̏́̉̐͝ͅĪ̷̱̟̺̳̱̹͋̈́̇͒͑ͅF̶̡̭̦͉͕͈̦̽́̄̉͆̕͝Ư̶̻̯̬̇̍́͑̅͊͠L̸̰͚̝͈̫̟͖̹͂L̷̡̳̼̞͌̕͠Ÿ̵̡̠͉̠̊̋̆͒͝͝ ̶͖̗̘͚̍͗̌̓̌͊͋Ḋ̵̢̨̙̱͈͌͑̈́̕Â̵̘̑R̷̬͈̝̯͙͍̀͊Ę̴͎̹͆̓͊͂̄̎̑ ̷̛̦̀̈́́͝T̷̤̏́́̈́̈͠O̶̡͉͍̠̓̂͐̇͠͝ͅ ̷̹̄͂͠F̵̞̪̥̳̈́͆͗͠A̶̛̻̪̝̲̪̤̼͊C̵̠̹̽̒͘͝E̵̠͇͎̻̖͈̭̽ ̴̪̥̪͈̗̀͗̅̇ͅM̵̘̳͕̆́́̓̓È̶͇͎͕̽̂͝ ̵͉͇̳̳̑̀̒̅̽̀̈́́W̴̭̫̒͒̿́ͅH̸̗̗̪͖͍̾È̴̱͔͙̗̝̼͕̓̂̈́͒͌̚͠Ņ̸̹̗̣͈̠̠̿̀͂͜ ̵̳̺̹͎̙̥̂̾Ỳ̴̰̠̦̲͖̉͂͆̈́͜Ó̸̪͙̯̣̝̳̑̏̃̄̀̅U̴̢̥̓̄̀͂͒̽͋R̷̨̛̼͇̲̫͖̀̿̽͒̽̾̕ ̵̤̱̽̓F̴̬͈̖̆̉̃̈́̀̄̂A̸̬̖͇̥̒̋̏Ţ̵̹̭̳̽̈͋̏E̶͔͍̟̋̌͑̈̒̐̍͘ ̷̻̳͇͆̾͋̓̃̒̊I̶̢̘̝͔̬̙̙͑S̶̮̱̬̦̐̐́̃ͅ ̵̘͇̺̟͉̳̊̓̏̈́Ä̸̧͕̮̟̙́͛̉̿́͜L̷̨̯̩̿̄̇͒R̷̤͈̘͚͌̈́̈Ȩ̷̮̮͓̤͖̽̍̒̀̏̓͘͝A̴̳̟̬̘̻̳̋̿͜Ḑ̸͙́͒̾̔Y̵̩̝̪̙̼̻͊́͑̏͑̍̽͘ ̶̺̈͊W̴̡̧̻͔͖̙͙͆̎̒̊R̶̲̤͖͚͐͠͝I̶̝̜͍̯̬̫̲͋̉̎́̒͠T̷̮̠͓̬̅̅̾͒͘͜T̷̨̹̭͙͇̙͔̄̇̈́Ę̶͙͈͍̃͌́̌̍̑͝N̸̨̫͓̯͍̆̈́̐̐̚?̸̡͓̝̳̘͍̈̐̈́͗̃̿"

Sweetie Belle gave him an overly dramatic bow. "I am Sweetie Belle." She looked back up at Crakkthulx, eyes now nothing more than two black holes. "The filly who will tear you to pieces."

"B̷̛̖͓̙̹̌̍́̾̒͘ͅO̵̢̖͔̓̈́͜L̶̺̈́D̴̢̝̥̤̤̝̗̯͌̉͝ ̸̱̟̹̯̫̱̱̼̽̏̅͋̊̉C̴̡̧̹̩̣̎̇̄͂̃̂͊̕L̸̛͚̤͂̈́̈́̈̊̈́͠Ā̵̖͋̏Į̸̥͇̲͕͉̬͊͒M̷̤̰̠̈́͐͛ ̴̥̰̺̤̩̳͊̌͛͒͘͘͜͠C̴̡͇͚̘͔̜͉̙̾̓̅Ȯ̶̼̥̇̏͘̕͝M̸̢̛̪̙̘̏̎̓͗̏ͅĨ̷̧̡̡̘̫͚̪̰N̷̛͈̻͗̃̚̕G̷̺̫͓̽̃̆̾̄̈́ ̴̗͉̩̹̺͖̒̒̑̆̇́͛F̶̬̰̲͈̳̗͍͐R̴̤̲̮̲͚̈́́͜O̶̜̞̝̔̆͘M̶͎͓̓̅͂̈ ̸̋̇̒͜A̸̬̥͍͌͂͋́̽̐̓̕ ̵͇̦̙̬̃̽̃͑̕M̷̙̂̕I̸̡̭̝̭̦̓Ć̸̥̻͍̗͎́̒̓̃ͅR̵͕̱̼̭̝͇̈́O̶̢͈̟͙̯̥̦̯̚B̸̢̭̤̀͊͝Ĕ̴̫̦̘̗̲́̕ ̸̢͕̪̭̤̑̿W̶̧̺̜̞͙͚̪͎̎̅̊̓H̴̬̘̰͇̄͆͋̒͒̈́̓͂Õ̵̡͙̗͎͓̏ ̸̨̞͚̯̈́̇͌̂͊I̷̧̅͂̎̃͗Ś̵̥̮̖̠́͗͑ ̶̨͉̰̥̰̞̒͠ͅͅA̷̡̛̫͙̲̝͒̀̄̊̇̔̈B̴̥͗̔̍̏̋̄͌͘Ǫ̵̼̳̹̭̔̃̓̅̈́́̉͘U̴̢̟̩͔̬̱͒̂̈́̄̂̕̕͜T̷̤̦͋ ̵͇͙̱̼̱̙̖̹̇̀̽̈́̽͊T̴̮͕͈͇̓̈́͠Ǫ̸̜̫͚́̈́̈́͋͌͐̕͝ͅ ̵̬͚̔̅̑̒͘͝͝F̸̯̜͙͈̠͛̈́̂͌Ì̶̧͎̥̤̟͈̥̿̎̇G̵̬̘͈̪̍̂͑́̓͝H̵̺̫̤̣̳̯͍͝Ţ̷͚͕̦̓̀̈́ ̶̡̟́͂͋̈́̒̈́A̷͎̔̿̐͐̊͒̀ ̶̝͖̭̗̜̈͗͌́̌̊͛͝G̶̰̜̓̈́̽͐͐͝Ơ̷̫̟̦̘̦̋̓̅Ḑ̸̙͈̹̩͓̔̌ ̶̝͙̪̋̄̈A̷̡̘̞͙̬̯̼̜͋͘Ļ̶̛͎̩͈̝͐̾̕͠Ö̸̫̝̰͎̗̩͐̍̃̏̚N̸̨͈̪͔̣̣͕͂̏͒̀Ę̸̣͖́̽.̶̟̀́̂"

Sweetie Belle rubbed her head "Ugh. Could you stop speaking, please? Your nonsense is giving me a headache. A God? Really? You're just an idiot with too much power. And I know what I'm talking about because I'm also a God wannabe. I encountered and fought real Gods and they would roll their eyes at you."

"I̷̡̡̻͇͚̱͌̋ ̴̩͍͓̩̫̾̅͜A̵͎̳͓͋͠M̴̤͓͇̞̩͔̅͆ ̶̛͚̤̳̃͊͠͠Ǎ̷͔̯̄͝ ̸̡̞̗̫̪̳̮̍̑̃ͅG̵̨̨͎͍̾̒̀̅̍̔̕͠Ǫ̵͔̰͔͕͉̐͊D̷̻͓͐̑̿̕͠,̴̱̹̬̋͂͋͌͂̋͝ ̸̖̳̟̩̈́̃͊̽̌Ÿ̴̨͕̲͎̠͚̱͎O̴̫͉̤̫͌̌͛͌́U̶̜̞͈̰̰̙͋͂̇ ̷̻͙̩͔̥̪̞̲͋̔́͊͗̚F̴͇̟͕̃̿̊̇̚Į̷̭̠͕̗͉̳̞̽̎̓̇̽́̏͝L̵̨̫̼̼͈͙͉̇̿̿̚T̷̡͇̝͓̮̪́̓̓́̒͊ͅH̵̢̳͚͇͖̟̆́͊̍̓͜Y̸̧͓̮̫͋͝ ̶̡̢̜̬̝͓̓ͅG̸̦͑͊́A̸̡̩͑̏͊̽̐͂͝R̸̟͙̰͍̰̿N̴̛͉͖͎̏̐͑̇͒͐͆!̷͈̣͈͓́̓̒̒̿̈́͘ ̸̫̖̺̪͛Ṅ̵͉̱̩̜͗̈̀̊̕͠Ő̷͍͔̮̯̻̘͔̱͛̇̊͝͝B̶̛̪̿̇̿͐͑̕O̷͔̼̊̄D̸̫͔͕́Ý̷̻̈́͒͊ ̷̛̗͎̣͍̝̜̍̏̾̅͒̇͜͠Ṯ̴̡̪̳̫̙͗A̸̛͓̩͙̲̎̄̉̇̕L̶̜͉͍͈̺̬͐̾̌ͅĶ̵̣͍̺̖̼̽́̅̈́͜S̶̛̫͉͓̲̮̓̏̊̇̆̕ ̷̢̩͋̾̃̽̚͘͜͝Ţ̶̠̙̩̤̻̰̫́̎O̷̦̥̰̗͌͒̀͒͛͋̊ ̸̛̙̫̪̗̎̑̋̇̂͛̚M̴̹͎̗̲͑͘͝E̸͚̗̱̪̞͗̅̒̃̑̉̓ͅ ̵̡͉͍͓̯̉͑̿L̵̢̮̙̘̜̙͓̭͘͝I̷̢̢̛̹͈̳̲͚͂́̓̇̈́́̾Ḱ̵̛̠̖͆̋̐̽̒͝E̸̩̠̭̽͒͑͂̑̃̾͘ͅ ̵̗̺͔̀͌͂̊̊T̸̙̯̏͒͌̒̑͛̚H̵̜͖̪̆A̶͍̾́͑͆̽̋͜T̷̢̡̝̙͔̰͎͐̾͂̕̚͠ ̶̧͚͙̾̎̒̀̆̉Ą̷̱̣̏̿̆͋Ǹ̶̡̯̫̮̲̄̽̐̀D̵̨͔̟̥̫͓̀̑̿̾̊̓͝͝-!̷͙̰̊"*

Crakkthulx's rant was interrupted by Sweetie Belle using one of her fist-shields, an XXXXXXL version, to punch him right in the eye.

"I told you to shut up! I don't care if you are a God or just an oversized ugly mutant squid, it won't change that your existence will end tonight!"

Space suddenly distorted and shook before the filly's head began to hurt as if it was about to explode.

"Ì̸͎̅̏̏̑̈̈ ̸̱̓͆͑W̶̨̲͎̭͛̇ͅȈ̵̢̫͙̺̄̓̋͝L̸̡̞̬͚͍̲̱͂Ļ̵̻͍̙̺̈́̎͌̂͊ ̶̢̮̤̙͇̳̻͊B̷̛̜̻̯̭͍̠̪̏̿̔̈́̀͋͝R̶͍͈͑I̸̢͙̟͍̒̓͂͌ͅN̴̼̝͉̭̬̍̊͆̽̾̉̎͘G̷̢̻͎̭̯͚͔̈́͌ ̷̨̨͚͓̳͈̈͌͘͠Y̸̻͉̟͋O̶̢̜̬͍̦̽̈̕͠U̶͓̓͑̍̋́͝R̶̢͈̯̟͖̻̈́̈́̏͐̌͑͜͝ ̷̩̀̾S̸͓͉͂O̴̘̭͛̃͊́̂̎̋̌U̷̼̫̻̬͓̜̒͑̌̑͑̌̀͝L̵̢͉̈́͆̎̒̉͒̆̕͜ ̴̫̣̕͜Ḕ̷͙́͛͂̇̕͘T̸̡̨̹͍͚̫͇͌͘Ȩ̶̛͈̫͎̻̜͉͌́̃̂͑͒͝R̷̖͚͍͓̣͒̈N̷̨̢̹̩̓̓͜Á̷̙͕̣̾́̍̈́̾͂͘L̸̻͔̤̰̱̖̥̎͆͝͠ ̵̡̧̡͖͎͕͖̀̂͆́̀͗͝Ḁ̸̭͑͆̿͋̓͌̚G̵̡̳̻̺̝̦̤̈́̍̃̈͊̂́ͅƠ̸͎̌N̷̡̰̲̝̭̆̚ͅŸ̵̦̙͓̻͖̭́͋̀̇!̷̨̱̪͕̻̣̟̇̾̃!̸̹̈!̴̥͍̅̽͋̂̓͝͠"

Sweetie Belle felt him try to enter her mind, and she quickly worked to strengthen her walls to keep him out. She quickly felt that this guy was on a whole other level than Mewtwo as her defenses crumbled one by one. So, instead of remaining in the defensive, she gathered her ten cannons in a circle around her horn, unleashed her full power (making her mane and tail turn first into fire, then into a black nothingness), then quickly sang a brief "Ah ahah ahaah~ Ah ahah ahaah~" to power herself up before she unleashed the most powerful Ultimate Doom Laser she ever unleashed, more powerful than the one she used against Dark Samus by far. So powerful that nothing could stop it. NOTHING. Excepted the most powerful Gods.

Crakkthulx's head was utterly disintegrated. By the time the beam was gone, nothing remained above the shoulders. Even part of the shoulders and of the torso were gone.

However, the ten cannons were now red, overheating, and Sweetie Belle was forced to put them back in her personal pocket dimension to let them cool down.

At least, the assault on her mind had stopped.

But she hadn't won yet. Crakkthulx's body began to regenerate. While this happened, she rammed into him again at full speed and dragged him further away from Mario's planet. She also constantly fired from her horn beam after beam into him. Every now and then, they passed beside groups of planetoids of various shapes and sizes and even crashed into a few of them, pulverizing them with their speed and Crakkthulx's mountainous size, the bigger ones hurting him. But eventually, Crakkthulx recovered his senses again as his head finished to regenerate, and he caught Sweetie Belle in a telekinetic hold for the second time, this time throwing her into a nearby planetoid that was just a giant ball of lava that exploded when she crashed into it.

Despite the heavy burn she took, she charged right back at Crakkthulx only to teleport when she was almost hit by a tentacle. Because of the smaller eyes on the small tentacles on his head, he had no problem spotted where she appeared and immediately attempted to slap her with another tentacle. She avoided it, materialised a very long sword of energy, and sliced it, making Crakkthulx growl in both annoyance and pain. Sweetie Belle followed this by firing beams at him, and used her sword to open holes in the fabric of space and fire even more beams. But quickly, Crakkthulx used space-bending to close the holes before they could fire their beams, and used his tentacles to protect himself from the rest.

Crakkthulx gathered three of his tentacles and created from their tips a giant dark ball of energy that he sent at Sweetie Belle. The filly easily avoided it, then sliced another tentacle that attacked her. But then, a tentacle slapped the dark ball back toward her, and she barely avoided it again, taken by surprise. Crakkthulx continued to slap the ball back and forth with his tentacles like a game of pong, the ball gaining in speed and in power each time. Eventually, Sweetie Belle had enough of this and punched the ball to send it toward Crakkthulx's face. You could almost see the "!" above his head before the ball hit him. When he recovered, the first thing he saw was a cloud of hundreds of little energy balls that flew toward him and exploded all over him upon contact.

Then, he was vertically sliced in half by a sharp wave of energy, followed by several others that cut him into multiple smaller pieces.

However, as Crakkthulx put himself back together, he began to fire continuous beams from the tips of his tentacles. Sweetie Belle had to slalom between them to avoid being turned into ashes, even using black holes to intercept some, before she eventually called back her cannons - which had cooled down - and used them to fire another full-powered Ultimate Doom Laser. Seeing that she was prepared the same laser than earlier, Crakkthulx concentrated his own beams into a single point before his big eye, and fired another, more powerful laser from said eye into it. From that point then came a huge laser that went toward Sweetie Belle as she fired.

The two lasers clashed.

Resulting in an explosion worthy of a supernova. Sweetie Belle barely escaped it with a teleportation, still getting some very bad burns. Crakkthulx had to shield himself with all of his tentacles, his arms, and his wings while he was blown away, losing a huge part of his body that slowly regenerated.

As soon as the explosion was over, Sweetie Belle came back and pressed the occasion by constantly firing beams, by piercing him with thousands of space-spikes, by cutting him into pieces with weapons of energy or fire or ice or whatever, and by punching him with giant fist-shields. As soon as he recovered enough, Crakkthulx returned fire with his lasers again while he raised his arms and materialised above thousands of balls of energy that he rained everywhere around him. Some of them hit Sweetie Belle while she tried to dodge them, and she eventually decided to just send her own energy balls at them, the energy balls causing huge explosions that decimated dozens of Crakkthulx's own balls. Because of the diversion, however, she was almost burned to ashes by one of Crakkthulx's lasers and she barely escaped. She made him regret this near death experience by gathering a lot of energy into a ball before she teleported it inside Crakkthulx's head. The ball then exploded, blowing up the head.

Crakkthulx's grabbed the fabric of space with his claws and stretched it, intending to tear Sweetie Belle apart. The filly countered this simply by cutting space open, the tears making so the space Sweetie was in wasn't stretched anymore. Better, since Crakkthulx's didn't immediately stop pulling, the tears grew huge and the space-beams that came out of them were devastating.

Then, a wave of familiar energy hit Crakkthulx, and the next thing he knew, a small star appeared out of nowhere and dropped right on him, very badly burning him before he managed to destroy it.

"Uh, you joined me?" Sweetie Belle asked, immediately knowing what happened.

"Of course!" Phantom answered as she flew to her side. "You really thought that we would remain there waiting for you to finish this guy? But damn. This star took a lot of energy to create, and this guy destroyed it so easily! If only I had the Chaos Emeralds."

"Where's Apple Bloom?"

"She's coming. She wanted to do something first. Aaand I think that's her."

Sweetie Belle was about to look at where Phantom was looking, but before she had time, Crakkthulx was suddenly punched in the face by a colossal pony-golem seemingly made from various planetoids.

Sweetie Belle and Phantom whistled.

Apple Bloom punched Crakkthulx a few more time before he recovered his senses and punched back, his punch blowing a big hole in the golem's head. Apple Bloom then sent in return powerful bolts of purple electricity, but despite this, several tentacles wrapped themselves around the limbs of her current body.

"Come on, girls! Don't leave me hanging!"

Almost immediately, the tentacles wrapped around her limbs were sliced off, freeing her.

"Of course!" four Sweetie Belles shouted at once. "Let's kill a "God" together!"

A huge laser cannon appeared above Phantom's shoulder. "Heck yeah!" And she fired.

Sweetie Belle smirked.

"You think of yourself the most powerful
But I think that you're very pitiful
You're the boss because your name's a mouthful
But you are nothing more than a big fool."

"You think it's the time to- Uh?" Phantom interrupted herself when she felt something within her.

Apple Bloom could also feel it.

And they quickly understood, the two of them grinning.

Phantom laughed. "Are you serious? You can sing to boost us?"

"Eh. Mah Sweetie Belle can do the same, but it isn't as powerful," Apple Bloom said.

"You destroy universes because you can
Too bad for you that I am not a fan
In this goal, you corrupted a whole clan
But after centuries, we'll end your plan!"

As Sweetie Belle continued to sing, Crakkthulx sent his lasers toward the three fillies, the laser easily burning through the giant golem. Apple Bloom didn't mind this, grabbed one of the tentacles, and made it face Crakkthulx's chest, causing the laser fired from the tentacle to pierce him. Meanwhile, one of the four Sweetie Belles teleported behind Crakkthulx and grabbed one of his wings with her magic before she reaped it off from his back while the three others sliced the tentacles to reduce the number of lasers.

As for Phantom...

With one giant wave of Phantom energy, she materialized a whole armada of futuristic spaceships, the best of Eggman, that began to fire at Crakkthulx.

"You can create your own army?!" one of the Sweetie Belles asked in surprise.

Phantom grinned smugly at her. "As easy as I breathe."

"Ah can have mah own army too! But Ah never tested this... Well. Ah guess there's a first time fer everythin'," Apple Bloom said before the golem's eyes glowed with more intensity. "Y'all who became Crakkthulx's puppets, return to us and help us give the one y'all called "Lord" a one-way ticket to the same afterlife ya went to because of him!"

And in the following seconds, a huge army of ghostly figures slowly appeared like a mirage behind the golem, with at their head six beings that Apple Bloom and the others fought and killed not even an hour ago.

Cankentriops (back in his first form), the Branches of the Pentacle, and their army of Cankens, now all real ghosts instead of just being ghostly.

And they now all obeyed Apple Bloom.

"Attack!"

And Crakkthulx found himself under the assault of two armies, plus the three fillies. The armies were quickly reduced in numbers however as Crakkthulx easily destroyed them with his overwhelming powers. Still, they were a good diversion that gave the fillies several openings to land their deadlier attacks. One of the Sweetie Belles fired her full-powered Ultimate Doom Laser for the third time, disintegrating Crakkthulx's head again. Phantom sent another star that left almost nothing but bones by the time Crakkthulx managed to destroy it. And Apple Bloom turned two of the golem's legs into something like spears before she used them to impale Crakkthulx repeatedly, the "spears" letting out electricity each time that they hit.

"What will it take for him to die?" Phantom asked.

"Either we manage to destroy his whole body in one go so there's nothing left to regenerate from, or we do like against Cankentriops and attack until he loses all his juice," Sweetie Belle answered. "But it may take some time... He still has a lot left, I can feel it. At least, he isn't regenerating his energy like I do."

"Well, I still have plenty of energy too, so I'm ready to continue the fight for hours if I have to," Phantom said.

"Me too!" Apple Bloom shouted as she impaled Crakkthulx again while firing lasers from the golem's eyes. "But Ah wouldn't mind if we end it right now! Too bad mah Touch of Death doesn't work on him. Ah tried."

"Touch of Death? Like, you can kill people just by touching them?" Phantom asked.

"Eeyup! Remember, that's how Thanatos killed mah Sweetie Belle. And since Ah took his powers, then Ah got it too. Haven't used it yet."

Suddenly, Crakkthulx managed to plant one of his claws into the golem. From where he planted it, energy began to accumulate. Apple Bloom understood what he was doing and immediately flew out of the golem, just a couple of seconds before it exploded.

"Consarn it!" she exclaimed before she looked around at the Cankens. "Time ta take another trick out of Thanatos' book..."

She called upon the Cankens who gathered around her. Seeing this, Sweetie Belle and Phantom did their best to make diversion so Crakkthulx didn't attack her. Little by little, the Cankens assembled to form a giant body that looked like a purple pony skeleton enveloped in a cloak of black mist. Then, a giant scythe made of bones materialized in the skeleton's hooves.

The result wasn't as huge as the golem she previously possessed, but it was certainly more powerful.

And she showed it as with some swings of her scythe, she sent powerful spinning crescents of energy that cut through Crakkthulx like through butter (helped by Sweetie's boost since she was still singing). In return, Crakkthulx fired from his big eye a powerful laser that Sweetie Belle intercepted with a portal. Another portal opened right beside Crakkthulx's head, and the laser came out of it with no chance for him to dodge. Then, giant chains appeared and wrapped themselves around Crakkthulx before they pulled him into a giant shredder made of several rollers of seesaws.

"Geeze! Hardcore much?" Sweetie Belle asked to Phantom as she couldn't stop a wince. She saw some gorish stuff since she started her adventures, sometimes caused by herself, but she wasn't used to THAT level of gore.

"It's effective. That's what counts."

Crakkthulx wasn't halfway through the shredder that he managed to destroy it with the lasers from his tentacles. While he regenerated from this, he decided to fly away, forcing the fillies to fly after him, which is what he wanted as he began spinning while firing his lasers from his tentacles. This made them terribly hard to avoid, especially for Apple Bloom. The chase didn't last long however because one of the four Sweetie Belle quickly teleported in Crakkthulx's way and stopped him with a mighty punch. At the same time, another Sweetie Belle rapidly caught up with him and sliced him in half, and Apple Bloom followed by cutting several of his tentacles with her scythe. Finally, several giant spears appeared from nowhere and turned him into a pincushion, followed by two small stars. Sweetie Belle even readied another Ultimate Doom Laser, and Apple Bloom was ready to destroy anything that would remain after that.

Crakkthulx quickly teared open a hole in the fabric of space to escape into the void. The two stars collided and exploded, part of the explosion going through the tear and badly injuring him. But then, one of the Sweetie Belles appeared before him, to his surprise.

"Where do you think you are going?" she said in an amused tone before she punched him and sent him back through the tear where he was welcomed by the Ultimate Doom Laser.

In return, Crakkthulx sent purple lightning from one of his claws at the Sweetie Belle who fired the laser, getting her only for Phantom to stop him by materialising mode giant chains and wrapping them around his arm before using them to violently pull and tear it off. Crakkthulx made her pay this by slapping her with one of his tentacles, sending her flying very, very far. But then, Apple Bloom pierced him from behind with her scythe, and Crakkthulx suddenly felt an intense burn spread to his whole body, feeling as if his insides were melting. Probably some kind of powerful poison of something like that. He could even see his skin start to decay around the wound inflicted by the weapon. It was slow thanks to his regeneration, but it was still spreading.

"Do ya fear Death?" Apple Bloom asked, still behind him.

Crakkthulx answered by pointing a tentacles at the area that was decaying and fired a laser with it, the laser burning said area and destroying the scythe as well as a part of Apple Bloom's body. This stopped the decay from spreading, and he soon stopped feeling the intense burn. But all the while, the four Sweetie Belles didn't stop from attacking him from all sides.

And then, Phantom returned, charging toward Crakkthulx with a copy of Eggman's Death Egg at a dangerous speed. The Death Egg collided nose first with him like a meteor before Phantom made it explode. The explosion propelled Crakkthulx backward right into a group of giant energy balls that exploded when he crashed into them. Crakkthulx recovered and surrounded himself in a sphere of thousands energy balls that he sent in all directions, followed by a second wave that homed in on the fillies. Apple Bloom, however, was able to grab several of them into a telekinetic hold and merged them into a bigger ball before she sent it back at their maker. However, Crakkthulx copied her and sent the ball back at her, only for her to cut it in half with her scythe, the two halves passing at her left and right. He still got himself cut into pieces - again - by the four Sweetie Belles. Apple Bloom then planted her scythe right into the big eye and did like earlier, spreading some poison that decayed the organic tissues around. And in the eye? It was absolutely Hell, even for Crakkthulx.

His shriek forced Phantom and the Sweetie Belles to cover their ears, the one singing even stopping because of this. Apple Bloom, however, was unaffected and planted the scythe deeper into the eye. Thanks to the huge pain Crakkthulx was in, Sweetie Belle (ears plugged with cotton) was able to do what couldn't until now: she began to absorb Crakkthulx's energy right out of his body. It wasn't the miracle solution however. It was like pumping the water out of the ocean. While she managed to drain a huge quantity in just a few seconds, it would probably take many, many long minutes before she would be done. And it wasn't made easy by Crakkthulx constantly trashing from the pain and randomly firing lasers and other stuff in all directions. Phantom helped with this by wrapping the tentacles together with huge chains she made.

Draining Crakkthulx's energy at least seemed to have the effect of accelerating the spreading of the decay. Already, the big eye had turned into a mush that seeped away into space, and the skin around began to disappear to show the skull which also showed signs of decaying. Before long, nothing was left but a giant hole where the eye had been, and the majority of the skull was in the open air, slowly breaking down.

Of course, Crakkthulx was still alive and his regeneration was still attempting to fight off the decay, but he was losing more and more the battle. After two minutes, the head was entirely gone, and most of the upper body was already following, Apple Bloom always making sure that her scythe was in contact with a part of him. The arms and the wings were eventually left to float by themselves, and the Sweetie Belles threw them into a star that Phantom materialized just in case the decay would stop spreading on them so Crakkthulx would be able to regenerate from them. After a few more minutes, all that was left were the tentacles, and Phantom simply sent the star at them. Sweetie Belle had to quickly teleport Apple Bloom away before it hit.

The tentacles disappeared into the star before they could start to regenerate or do anything.

The star exploded.

And nothing was left.

Unbeknown to the fillies however, one of the smaller "head-tentacles" had managed to fly away as the fillies had been busy dealing with Crakkthulx and his attacks while he trashed around, a small pair of wings having formed on it. Once it judged that it was far enough, it began to regenerate.

It judged wrongly.

Sweetie Belle teleported not far behind it, front legs crossed as she gave it a deadpan expression. Then, she used all the energy she absorbed from Crakkthulx to fire a single giant purple beam that engulfed the tentacle and left nothing of it.

Sweetie Belle was joined by the two others, Apple Bloom letting the Cankens return to the afterlife now that the fight was over, and the three hugged with shouts of victory.

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS, GOD SLAYERS! YAY!!!" They clapped their hooves/hand together at the last part.

"Technically, he wasn't really a God, but close enough I guess," Sweetie Belle said with a giggle.

"Ah can't believe we were able to defeat this guy! He was so powerful!" Apple Bloom exclaimed.

"We are powerful too," Phantom said with a grin. "Good job with that whole decay stuff by the way."

"You weren't bad either, throwing stars and a freaking space station at him and all," Sweetie Belle said before she felt something. "Uh, something is coming."

She looked in the direction from which she felt whatever was approaching and saw a comet coming. She immediately knew that it wasn't an ordinary comet.

Soon enough, the comet stopped not far of the trio, revealing it to be some kind of starship which had for main structure something rather similar to the pods from SkyTown back in Samus' universe. It was peach-colored with purple outlines, and it was divided in two, with the upper part being a tall and round roof-like structure ending in a spire surrounded by two rings of platforms while the lower part had what seemed to be the engines (three smaller ones surrounding a bigger one in the center). Between the two parts was a purple star-like reactor that was itself surrounded by a ring of platforms. A few more platforms were floating around some remaining in place while others circled the star-like reactor, and domes were visible here and there, including two that were part of the spire on the two top rings. The bigger ring seemed made of different matters as there was an area made of earth while there were others made of different metals or stones. There was even a dome at the end of a pathway out of which water came and disappeared into space into two waterfalls. Also, only the top ring was closed, the two others being open, and there were a few different structures present here and there, like what seemed to be a library.

At first, everything was closely clustered, but once the ship fully stopped, everything deployed into their places.

"We're okay girls. That's just the Observatory Comet. Mario and the others told me about it," Apple Bloom informed. "Obviously, our fight gained Rosalina's attention."

"Who is she?" Phantom asked.

"Ah don't know much about her. She's apparently some kind of guardian of the cosmos."

"This is a good summarization of what I am," a monotone, reverberating feminine voice suddenly said from not far, taking them by surprise.

The origin was a very tall (for a human of Mario's kind) and beautiful woman that the fillies swore wasn't present here the previous second. She resembled a lot like Peach, but had a paler skin and platinum blonde hair reaching her waist and obscuring her right eye. She was wearing a cyan dress and had a star-shaped silver brooch as well as earrings. She also possessed a silver crown, and even had a wand that ended in an hollowed star.

And she was floating, so she at least had the ability to levitate. And probably teleport.

Behind her were several little chubby star-like beings, mostly yellow-colored.

"I am Rosalina, and I thank you, in the name of everyone, for saving our universe. I witnessed the battle from afar. As much as it was my wish to intervene, I understood that I would have only bothered you. I was still ready to step in if it had taken a turn for the worst, at least as a diversion or to gain time. Thankfully, it never came to this."

"With the three of us together, there was no way we would have lost to that thing," Phantom said.

"Exactly! And I still had some aces up my sleeves, as well as a joker," Sweetie Belle said.

Both Phantom and Apple Bloom raised an eyebrow. "A joker?"

The alicorn simply answered with a wink.

Rosalina's smile became a bit bigger. "You are from Earth? Allow me to bring you back there. Come on the Comet."

"Thanks!"

Author's Note

*Garn: Winged two-headed bird-rat-like creatures about the size of a big cat and flying in large groups of hundreds of individuals, known for their very shrill screeches that can make you deaf. They were from some planet in some universe destroyed by Crakkthulx millions of years ago.

To give you an idea of the scales, for the ones who played Wonderful 101, you remember the final battle between Platinum Robo and Jergingha's planet destruction form? Well, that's pretty close.

Chapter 89: Ghetsis

Magolor, at the head of his little group that had been resting on the beach and that was quickly growing, being joined by others that were around and that saw or heard the Rockets warp in, faced the small army of Rocket grunts led by Ghetsis without showing any fear despite the rockets outnumbering the beings present on the island. Counting Magolor's kin and the humans but not the Pokémon, they were a good total of over sixty. The Rockets, however, visibly numbered well over two hundreds, and Magolor had the feeling that many of these grunts were the elite ones with very well-trained teams of Pokémon that could go toe to toe with the best teams from Gym Leaders.

This was an assault group sent here to absolutely crush any resistance encountered and either take over or destroy the complex and the portal.

Ghetsis walked to be at the front of the grunts and to face Magolor, looking down at him with amusement. "So you are the aliens. I'm disappointed. I expected you to look more impressive and threatening. You are nothing more than floating eggs."

"Hey! You know what he says the floating egg?!" one of Magolor's group shouts angrily as he raises a hand only to be stopped by Magolor placing his hand between him and Ghetsis.

Then, giving his best impression of a host, Magolor calmly said, "Before we give you the welcome esteemed guests such as you deserve, can I ask why you are here?"

Ghetsis smirked. "We simply got interested in this portal you built and wanted to have a closer look at it. Study it. Add its technology to what we already have. And just so you know, we won't take "no" for an answer."

"Oh, don't worry. I don't intend to say "no". I will just say that you are making a terrible mistake and that you should leave while you still have the occasion. I don't expect you to listen but at least people won't say I didn't try to be nice. And you never know, you may be one of the very rare smart ones. But I seriously doubt."

Ghetsis chuckled. "You talk a lot. Enough losing time."

At this, Ghetsis signed with a little movement of his head to his men to start the attack. The next instant, they began to spread out, forcing Magolor's group to spread too to intercept them and stop them from reaching the complex. The humans in the two sides then sent out their Pokémon, and even some of Magolor's friends sent a few that they captured while they were building the portal. However, like with the grunts, the Pokémon in the Rockets' side greatly outnumbered the Pokémon in Magolor's side despite many of the trainers having brought more than six Pokémon now that the League had removed the restriction.

And to make it worse for Magolor's group, the Rockets' Pokémon were clearly better trained than most Pokémon in Magolor's side, a good tenth of them were Ultra Beasts, and about one fifth of them were Shadow Pokémon including the totality of said Ultra Beasts.

Seeing Shadow Ultra Beasts scared many trainers in Magolor's side, not prepared at all to face such monsters.

The Rockets really had all the advantages. There was no doubt they would win and take over the complex, probably turning it into some outpost for them.

That would have been the case if they had been facing only trainers.

But they were also facing Magolor and others descendants of the Ancients, all more or less great mages.

Especially Magolor as he quickly proved by teleporting among the grunts and their Pokémon before opening a black hole that sucked in many of them, taking them off guard. But many Pokémon quickly reacted and successfully escaped the pull of the hole by running or flying away, and the bigger and heavier Pokémon weren't much affected by it so they didn't have to do anything. After a few seconds, everyone that was trapped inside the hole was violently thrown out, either colliding with other grunts or Pokémon or crashing into the sand of the beach or into the ocean, heavily injured. All the grunts victim of it were either knocked out or too hurt to get up. However, that wasn't the case for most of the Pokémon, especially the Ultra Beasts.

However, the Shadow Pokémon of the grunts that were out immediately started to go on a rampage, attacking both friends and foes. This started the hostilities, the grunts ordering to attack the defenders and the rampaging Shadow Pokémon, the defenders doing the same, and the rampaging Shadow Pokémon attacking everything that moved, even other Shadow Pokémon.

Needless to say that it was chaos, but as everyone thought, the Rockets quickly took advantage over the defender trainers. Magolor and his mages, however, quickly proved to be superior as they could send various elemental projectiles, create shields, teleport, and heal for the few that knew how to use healing magic. And Magolor, who had a great mastery of the Dark Matter Energy also known as the Void Energy, quickly showed that he definitively not harmless.

Well, after the black hole he created, the grunts had already understood that they had underestimated the aliens, but he made it even more clear as he caused spikes of dark energy to sprout out of small portal-things in the ground right under half a dozen Pokémon, choosing ones that were weak to Dark-type moves. Then he used an Ultra Sword (that he believed was counted as a Steel-type move) to slash at a good number of Pokémon that had surrounded him before he teleported away, causing the Pokémon to hit each others when they attacked back at him. Magolor read about the types so he knew that he had to choose carefully which attack to use depending of which Pokémon he was facing. He didn't know the types of all the Pokémon he was facing but most of them were obvious.

A bird? Flying-type. A fish? Water-type. Something that looked more or less like a bug? Bug-type. A Pokémon that looked like a boxer, a wrestler, or a user of some martial art? Fighting-type.

After, secondary types were less obvious most of the time, which caused problem... And there were Pokémon like the Ralts evolution line where he was less sure of their types. He was certain that the Gallade had the Fighting-type, and Gardevoir looked like the kind to be a Fairy-type, but these Pokémon used a lot of Psychic-type moves so he wondered if they were actually Psychic-type Pokémon despite not looking at all like they were Psychic-types.

The Shadow Pokémon generally being dark purple and light grey/white made it even less obvious for many of them. If he didn't already know that Ampharos were Electric-types, he wouldn't have known just looking at it. Usually, the yellow color of Ampharos was a clear indication (generally, when a Pokémon was yellow, they were Electric-type) but, as a Shadow Pokémon, it didn't have that color anymore and there was nothing else indicating that it was an Electric-type contrary to, like, a Pikachu with its lightning bolt-like tail.

So, after a moment, and especially after taking a lightning bolt on the back followed by some Shadow move he couldn't identify, he went "screw it!" and began to attack with everything he had without caring. He rained dark orbs on the Pokémon AND their masters before he teleported high in the sky and, by the time the enemies spotted him, was able to fire one of his giant laser beams down at them. When the beam hit the ground, it caused a huge explosion that propelled many Pokémon and grunts in all directions. It wasn't as powerful as when he had the Master Crown so the explosion wasn't that big, but it still did its job in clearing a small part of the beach of enemy presence.

All kinds of Pokémon that could fly, however, immediately went after him and he quickly disappeared before they could start peck or scratch or do whatever else to him from all sides. He then reappeared where most of them had gathered and opened another black hole. But after the first time, the surprise wasn't here anymore and many of the Pokémon avoided being sucked in. Still, it forced them to disperse, allowing Magolor to take them down one by one for a time until they reorganized themselves.

Many Pokémon then began to fire at him from the ground and he was almost hit by a stream of fire before he teleported away, back to the beach. He appeared right above a Shadow Tyranitar where he charged a huge dark orb before he smashed it on the Pokémon's skull in a small explosion. It didn't do much to it however as it just stumbled forward a bit before it recovered. Seeing this, Magolor quickly materialized his Ultra Sword again before the Tyranitar could turn around to attack him and slashed its back, making it roar in pain. He then quickly teleported before the Pokémon and slashed again, this time at its belly, and the Shadow Tyranitar fell unconscious.

Before Magolor could enjoy his victory however, he was rammed from the side by a Buzzwole, one of the Ultra Beasts that looked like a giant buffed mosquito. It was a Shadow Pokémon so most of its form was a dark purple with some white parts here and there, but the sacs full of fluid that looked like its muscles were still red. As soon as Magolor recovered, he turned to face the Ultra Beast and attacked it with waves of sharpened wind that counted as a Flying-type move before he was tackled from the side by a Shadow Guzzlord, another Ultra Beast that was a huge obese looking beast that actually had two heads, a small one on top that looked like the head of a stereotypical dark lord while the second was its huge spherical belly which had a very, very big mouth with lot of sharp teeth and no less than three tongues including two long ones with pincers at the extremity. One of the most dangerous known Ultra Beasts because it made Kirby pass for a light eater. Seriously, from what Magolor read about it, it could eat mountains!

Dark and Dragon types... What was it weak to again? Right, it was especially weak to Fairy-type moves, but Magolor wasn't sure if he had anything in his repertory that could count as one. Instead, he used a smaller version of the Grand Hammer that he used while controlled by the Master Crown, so he hit the Guzzlord with a huge hammer that spread ice from the impact point, something that could probably count as both a Fighting-type and an Ice-type move which the Guzzlord was also weak to, but less than Fairy-type moves. This sent the Guzzlord on its back, terribly hurt, but it got up ready to continue the fight.

And then, the grunt possessing it called it back and used one of these Dynamax Capsule on it before sending it out of the now bigger Poké Ball, the Guzzlord now being the size of a building. A few other grunts repeated his example and Dynamaxed one of their Pokémon, most of said Pokémon being Shadow ones.

Wrong moves, Magolor immediately went after these grunts and started to knock them out, causing the Dynamaxed Shadow Pokémon to start a rampage and to attack each others and anything else that moved. Their attacks were apocalyptic and caused huge damage in large areas, greatly reducing the number of enemies.

However, Magolor remarked then that almost all his allies were out. Thankfully, one of them had used a phone to warn the League so reinforcements were starting to come, starting with people using Teleport to appear directly on the island. No doubt that dozens of other trainers were currently coming on the back of Pokémon that could fly or swim.

It was just a matter of holding on until they arrived.

But Magolor was worried, and not just because of the Dynamaxed Shadow Pokémon. Ghetsis hadn't intervened yet. He had remained out of the way of the battle, simply watching the chaos. Magolor had no doubt that he possessed a very powerful team that will certainly include at least one Legendary, probably from Unova. So, either Reshiram, Zekrom, or Kyurem, or maybe two of them or even the three of them. And there was the possibility that he merged either Reshiram or Zekrom to Kyurem to become the powerful White Kyurem or Black Kyurem.

In any case, the moment Ghetsis would decide to intervene and to sent his Legendary certainly turned into a Shadow Pokémon, things will go very wrong. No doubt about this. Especially if Ghetsis Dynamaxed it. This island could get the same fate than the one with the Rockets' hideout.

So Magolor went to do the smart thing: he teleported out of view of everyone to not be interrupted as he charged another laser to fire directly at Ghetsis, hoping to get rid of him before he could send his Legendary. And hopefully, this would convince the grunts to give up. However, one of the grunts spot him and immediately orders his Shadow Stakataka that he just Dynamaxed to protect Ghetsis and, with just a jump, the Stakataka reached the Rocket leader, its body above him and its four legs around him. The Stakataka being a massive Rock/Steel Ultra Beast that looked like a walking tower made of stone bricks (the stone bricks actually being stone lifeforms stacked together), its Dynamaxed form had no problem resisting to the beam which was considered as a Normal-type move which wasn't at all effective to it.

Magolor let out a curse but quickly went for a different plan, attempting to skewer Ghetsis with one of his dark spikes. However, Ghetsis was now on his guard and saw the portal-thing out of which the dark spikes come under him before he avoided it with a plunge. Magolor had to avoid massive boulders hurled at him by the Stakataka* before he continued to attempt to hit Ghetsis with his spikes, but Ghetsis then took out one of his Master Balls and sent a Shadow Cofagrigus, a sarcophagus-like Pokémon with four ebony hands made of shadows coming out of it. Ghetsis then immediately ordered the Pokémon to use Shadow Ball (the Ghost-type version) on Magolor, but the mage had no problem avoiding the attack by floating aside only to be hit by a boulder from the Stakataka.

Recovering from this, Magolor got the idea of teleporting right under the Stakataka to battle directly Ghetsis. There was no way the Stakataka would dare to try anything to him like crushing him under its body with Ghetsis here.

He had to hurry, the defenders were being utterly slaughtered by the Dynamaxed Shadow Pokémon despite the reinforcements.

Ghetsis looked very angry that Magolor had dared to target him. "You are proving to be more annoying than initially expected. But your end is coming. Cofagrigus, use Shadow Wave!"

The Cofagrigus sent shadowy waves that went toward Magolor who put one of his star-shaped shields to defend himself before he attacked with several of his dark orbs. They all hit and were super effective to the Cofagrigus. Before Ghetsis could order something else, Magolor then hit the Cofagrigus with a dark spike that sent it on the ground before he teleported right above it and sent more dark orbs at it until it was knocked out.

Making an annoyed sound, Ghetsis called back the Cofagrigus and sent a Bouffalant, a large bovine-like Pokémon with an affro. "Shadow Rush!"

Exuding a shadowy aura, the Bouffalant charged horns first at Magolor. Instead of moving out of the way, Magolor materialized his Grand Hammer again and smashed it on the Pokémon's head, crushing it against the sand of the beach and freezing it a bit with the hammer's ice. Magolor thought that that was it but then, the Bouffalant's eyes opened and, without even waiting for an order from Ghetsis, covered its horns in a shadowy aura before it attempted to skewer Magolor with them. Magolor barely avoided it but the Bouffalant then moved its head to the side so one of its horn hit the mage like a blunt weapon. Magolor was still able to grab the horn with one of his hands to avoid being sent flying before he placed his other hand before the Pokémon's head and sent fireballs at point blank one after another. The fireballs exploded on the Bouffalant's head again and again and again, each explosion making it step back with a bellow of pain. Magolor only stopped when it fell and stopped moving.

But Magolor then got hit by a bolt of dark electricity. to his surprise, Ghetsis already sent his next Pokémon, an Eelektross, a levitating eel-like Pokémon with clawed, paddle-like arms. Since it was levitating, then any Ground-type move, the only weakness of Electric-types, were totally ineffective to it. Magolor will have to play it violent to knock it out, but he was starting to feel weak after all the hits he took. Shadow Moves really hurt.

But Magolor continued to fight, sending dozens of his dark orbs at the Shadow Pokémon while avoiding another Shadow Bolt.

The Dynamaxed Stakataka was still above them. It looked like its master decided to leave it here, probably to ensure that nobody would mess with their leader's battle.

But then, something came from the sky and slammed violently into the Stakataka, sending it flying far into the ocean to everyone's shock, stopping all battles excepted the few Shadow Pokémon still rampaging because their masters were knocked out. The culprit then landed beside Magolor, revealing herself to be Sweetie Belle.

"I knew that I felt Void energy being used and immediately knew that it was you."

Magolor was very surprised to see her. "Sweetie Belle? You are back?"

"Yep! I was about to send Apple Bloom and Scootaloo back to Equestria when I saw the news. I immediately went to help. I didn't know the exact location of the island so I had to search a bit before I felt all the energies being used here."

"Well, your help is more than welcome."

"I saw that. Rainbow Rocket really upped its game since last time. But now-" Sweetie Belle was suddenly hit by a Shadow Bolt from the Eelektross, interrupting her. She didn't let out a scream like one would expect but Magolor could see everything in her tighten in resistance to the pain. When the electricity disappeared, she breathed out loudly, smoke coming out of her nostrils, before she glared at Ghetsis and the Eelektross. "Do you mind?!"

Ghetsis was impressed at her resistance to a Shadow Move but quickly hid this behind a smirk. "You seem strong, little one, but don't think that-"

A huge laser suddenly engulfed his Eelektross and passed right beside Ghetsis, interrupting him. The laser continued behind him, engulfing more Pokémon and some unlucky grunts before going above the ocean and disappearing beyond the horizon.

Black husks barely alive were all that were left of its victims.

Part of Ghetsis' cloak was scorched just by the laser grazing it. His eyes slowly moved, terrified, at where the laser had been, then at the scorched part of his cloak, sweating. He looked back at Sweetie Belle who looked smugly at him. Clenching his teeth, not even calling back his Eelektross (or the Bouffalant which was still out too), he then grabbed two Master Balls and sent a Shadow Bisharp - some humanoid Pokémon that looked like a soldier with an armor with blades on its helmet-like head, around its torso, and on its metal glove-like hands - and a Shadow Hydreigon - a three-headed draconic Pokémon with six thin wings, the middle head being bigger than the others -.

Before he could even open his mouth to give them orders, Sweetie Belle suddenly appeared right between the two Pokémon and extended her forelegs, turned into big claws, to grab them before repeatedly smashing them into each other before she released them. The Bisharp was already out, but the Hydreigon was slowly getting up. Sweetie Belle stopped it by giving the middle head a powerful iron hammer kick on its skull, burying the head into the sand. The two other heads slumping onto the sand eyes closed indicated that, this time, it was out too.

Ghetsis was now growling in rage as he grabbed his last Master Ball, again not bothering to call back his Pokémon. He then broke open a Dynamax Capsule, Dynamaxing the ball and the Pokémon inside.

"Masuryu! Turn them into dust!" he shouted before he threw the ball.

What came out of it was a HUGE (normal since it was Dynamaxed) oriental dragon of the same dark purple than other Shadow Pokémon in addition of a white-grey underbelly. It looked very old, had a very long white beard, and had very long white hair that floated despite the absence of wind, not unlike Celestia and Luna's mane, reminding of these stereotypical old martial art masters. The dragon was so big that its body was at least one hundred meters in length so it curled in the sky like a snake.

Everyone was impressed and scared by the huge dragon, excepted Sweetie Belle who was thoughtful.

"Masuryu? I don't think I saw anything about it in the books or the Pokédex."

Ghetsis couldn't believe that the filly wasn't even reacting to the Legendary the way he thought she should. "You wouldn't. Masuryu is the legendary Original Dragon from Unova. The very one that separated itself into Reshiram, Zekrom, and Kyurem a long time ago. All informations about it were lost excepted some mentions in legends."

"Ooh! This explains it. So you reformed it? Not bad."

Everyone, both defenders and Rocket grunts, quickly moved away from the direct area around Sweetie Belle and Masuryu. The defenders made sure to move the ones who were unconscious, even the grunts and their Pokémon, even the Shadow ones, when they could. Some of the grunts actually followed their example and moved their comrades.

Only Magolor remained beside Sweetie Belle but he was slowly floating backward as he said, "Have fun!"

Sweetie Belle nodded at him, grinning, before she flew up to face the dragon. She then surrounded herself in Dynamax Energy and grew until she was the size of a building like all other Dynamaxed Pokémon, to everyone's shock, again.

She waited for Ghetsis to give an order but the man remained silent. So she pointed her horn at Masuryu and fired a giant purple beam. To her surprise, however, Masuryu easily avoided it and readied one of its claws surrounded with a shadowy aura as Ghetsis finally yelled, "G-Max Shadow Pressure Hailstorm!"

Before Sweetie Belle could react, she was hit a first time by a claw, then a second time a split of a second later, then a third time, and before she knew it, she was hit all over her body by what looked like a dozen claws. When the attack ended, she collapsed on the beach in insufferable pain and her body refused to move, totally paralysed, and she couldn't even breathe. Even her magic was disabled.

Thankfully, she had other things than magic so she easily healed herself and made it so she could move again, allowing herself to get up.

This really annoyed Ghetsis who yelled again, "G-Max Shadow Pressure Hailstorm!"

So Masuryu repeated his attack. This time, however, Sweetie Belle was prepared and was able to parry and block every single strikes, making Ghetsis stare in disbelief before he growled and repeated, "G-Max Shadow Pressure Hailstorm again! Don't stop!"

Masuryu obeyed and continued his strikes that were continuously countered. Ghetsis yelled the move again and again, more and more frantically until, "Max Wyrmwind!"

This came so out of nowhere that Sweetie Belle was almost hit by it but she flew backward just in time as a pair of giant draconic wings came out of the ground and spun, creating a powerful tornado where she had been one second earlier.

"Max Shadow Breath!"

Masuryu fired a huge blast of shadow breath at Sweetie Belle who fired back a beam that immediately overpowered it and hit the dragon, causing a huge explosion that sent Ghetsis flying. Both him and Masuryu got up, hurt but ready to continue.

Enraged, Ghetsis revealed a bracelet with a certain black crystal before he moved like Giovanni did on the hideout island. An aura appeared around him and Masuryu before he yelled, "Z-Max Shadow Core Breaker!"

Sweetie Belle didn't like how it sounded, especially when Masuryu readied its whole fist, not just a claw. Then, in a blink of an eye, Masuryu approached her and struck, only for Sweetie Belle to teleport at the last microsecond. She then reappeared lining against Masuryu, smiling smugly at it.

"Miss."

She was joking, but deep down, she was sweating. She felt that this attack had been targeting her spiritual core, the very essence of her being. If it had hit, she wasn't sure if it would have killed her, but she would have definitively felt it. It would have damaged her soul, probably causing her to become instable or something like that, and she wasn't sure how long it would have taken for it to heal.

Yep, an attack to avoid at all costs. It could very well spell Game Over for her.

Without giving time for Masuryu and Ghetsis to react, she then punched the dragon right where she determined was its diaphragm, cutting its breath as it doubled over in pain.

"Once we turn you back to normal and free you from your jerk master, I would like you to teach me how to hit pressure points like you did. I already know some martial art, as you can see. I had a good teacher."

"What are you waiting for?!" Ghetsis yelled. "Attack! Do something! Kill her!"

Masuryu went to attack with one of its claws again, but Sweetie Belle avoided it by flying down before she grabbed the dragon by its very long beard.

"So much facial hair! It just asks me to do THIS!"

She tugged on the beard, bringing Masuryu's head to her.

"Try to dodge THIS!"

She punched it on the muzzle, propelling the dragon away. However, she kept a grip on the beard and tugged again. She punched it, tugged, punched it, and repeated this a few more times before she spun it around and threw it into the sky.

So, if Sweetie Belle guessed right, Masuryu seemed to be a double types Dragon/Fighting. A quick reminder of what were weak and what were strong against Dragon-type and Fighting-type and she concluded that Masuryu had a double weakness to Fairy-type and was also weak, but less, to Ice, Flying, Psychic, and Dragon.

Well then...

Sweetie Belle teleported on Masuryu's path and stopped it with a punch covered in ice on the face before she used a Max version of Fleur Cannon at point blank. Masuryu quickly recovered and used its G-Max Shadow Pressure Hailstorm without Ghetsis ordering it (being too far below to be heard now). Again, Sweetie Belle countered all the stabs only for one of them to pass through her defense and to hit her on the heart, causing a heart attack. Sweetie Belle immediately restarted it but the distraction allowed Masuryu to hit her more times before he fired a Max Shadow Breath, also at point blank. But before Sweetie Belle could be propelled too far away by the attack, Masuryu wrapped her with its serpentine body and began to squeeze hard, threatening to break her backbone.

But Sweetie Belle teleported and appeared right above Masuryu before she turned one of her hooves into a giant claw and grabbed the dragon's head. She then flew down toward the ocean and used her powers to turn where they were about to crash into ice. So she slammed Masuryu's head against the ice before she dragged it violently on it following a trail she was creating. At the same time, she was attacking it with beams filled with love and other positive feelings that could count as a Fairy-type move. But after several seconds of this, Masuryu was able to hit the back of her claw with one of its own claws, apparently touching another pressure point that forced her to release it. Immediately, it flew away from her to gain some space, returning above the island, before it fired another Max Shadow Breath. But like the first time, Sweetie Belle countered it with a beam of her own that overpowered it and exploded on the dragon.

This time, Masuryu fell on the island, out, to Ghetsis' visible horror as he watched it return to its normal appearance.

It was revealed that, when it wasn't in its Dynamax, or Gigantamax form, Masuryu looked like an eastern dragon like most other dragon Pokémon or the ones back on Equus. It was however smaller than other Dragon-type Legendaries and, like in its Gigantamax form, looked very old, keeping its beard and its hair. It also looked very frail and decrepit. A very misleading appearance as its fight against Sweetie Belle reminded. This old dragon was dangerous, especially as a Shadow Pokémon.

Sweetie Belle, back to her normal size, landed before it and looked at it thoughtfully.

"Now, how to free its heart...?"

She began to more her horn to it faced its heart only for Ghetsis to jump at her in rage, dagger in hand.

"I won't allow you!!!"

Sweetie Belle easily deflected the dagger and sent it flying out of his hand before she grabbed him on the neck with her magic. She then levitated him a few centimeters above the ground as he struggled.

"Let me go you little...!"

"You are in no position to order me around," Sweetie calmly said.

Ghetsis glared at her, and then at the grunts that were still up and just looking in fear. "Why are you doing nothing?! Come and help me!"

In turn, Sweetie Belle glared at them too, daring them to try anything. And none of the grunts were up to the challenge. Sweetie Belle also spotted some Gym Leaders, Elite Four members, and even Victor with his Eternatus - a giant Pokémon that vaguely looked like the skeleton of a dragon but was dark-violet-colored with red highlights - out. Probably he rode on it to reach the island. Looking around, she saw more and more trainers approaching the island from the air or the ocean to help against the Rockets, including Gold on his Lugia. Many others were still appearing with Pokémon using Teleport. With Ghetsis and his Masuryu out of the game and with them witnessing her power, the grunts knew that it was no use fighting anymore even if they could still battle all these trainers. It seemed that they still had many Dynamax Capsules as well as healing items such as Potions and Revives so they really could continue the fight.

Speaking of, she put Ghetsis upside down and shook him violently, making him drop all the objects he had excepted his Master Balls which were firmly clasped on his belt under his cloak before she grabbed the objects that fell in her magic and levitated them away. She won't give him the occasion to heal Masuryu.

"Damn you!" Ghetsis growled as his cloak covered his face.

"That was very impressive," Victor finally said as he approached Sweetie Belle. "So you are Sweetie Belle?"

"Yes, that's me. Is everyone alright?"

"Nothing that some Potions and some rest won't heal," Victor reassured.

But then, Sweetie Belle felt something from the sky and looked up to see a Dynamaxed Shadow Mewtwo now present, paw raised and creating a huge ball of shadows that was growing more and more. This gained everyone's attention, and the trainers immediately recognized what was going on.

"That's Giovanni's Shadow Mewtwo! And it's using its Z-Max Shadownova! It will destroy the island!" Victor shouted in panic.

Sweetie Belle groaned. "Oh, come oooon..."

She then dropped Ghetsis and flew toward the Dynamaxed Shadow Mewtwo to stop it. Immediately, Ghetsis got up and called back all his Pokémon before he warped away without even bringing the grunts with him. However, more warping followed as the grunts were called back to wherever their HQ was. But many left their Pokémon behind, having not gotten time to call them back.

Many let out a curse at the Rockets escaping again.

The Mewtwo then threw its Shadownova at the island before Teleporting away, and Sweetie quickly called her ten cannons before she fired an Ultimate Doom Laser at the giant ball. Her laser made the ball explode, saving the island, but this still caused dark clouds to cover the sky to pour the hurtful dark rain and Sweetie had to destroy them too.

Once she was done, she returned to the island only to look upset when she saw that the Rockets escaped. And already, the leftover energy of the warps was gone so she couldn't follow it to wherever their HQ was.

"Stupid Giovanni doing diversion with his stupid Mewtwo..." she grumbled. She started to wonder if she should do like Phantom and if she should have just twisted Ghetsis' neck.

At least, many Pokémon were left behind by the Rockets, and Sweetie got her hooves on several Dynamax Capsules for the eggheads to study. If they could reproduce them, then the trainers could fight fire with fire, and the only advantage the Rockets would still have would be the Shadow Pokémon.

Author's Note

*Seriously, only one Max Move per type without counting the G-Max Moves? For diversity's sake, and because I doubt that Rock-type Dynamaxed Pokémon only have the ability to sprout a giant pillar of stone to crush their opponent before summoning a sandstorm, I'm making up a plethora of new Max Moves for each types.

Some justice for you who probably suffered at Ghetsis' Hydreigon.

Why were the Rocket grunts warped but not their Pokémon? That's because the grunts all have a device on them that gives their position to the HQ, allowing their warping machine to pick them up. Their Pokémon don't have this. The leaders all have a device that allows to warp themselves and others.

Information on the Original Dragon: Masuryu (masutā (master) and ryū (dragon))

Types: Dragon/Fighting

Ability: Inner Control: Is not affected by moves or abilities that could cause it to become scared, angry, sleepy, infatuated, etc...

Other info:
Height: 2,3m (7,5f)
Weight: 223,8kg (493,4lbs)
Dex Entry: ???

I haven't come up with a Dex Entry yet, neither with a movepool and base stats. I'll let you guys fill these infos.

Original Move: Pressure Strike: Physical Fighting-type move that bypasses all physical defenses to directly hit one of the pressure points of the adversary with one lightning-fast stab with one of the claws. Inflicts damage equals to Attack multiplied by 2 without taking into account the Defense and the type(s) of the adversary (unless the adversary is a Ghost-type). Causes x4 damage if the type is weak to Fighting-type.
Shadow equivalent: Shadow Pressure Stab. Covers the claw in a shadowy aura so the user can hit even ghosts. Becomes very effective to all types (so damage=Attackx4 to all types). If striking at the wrong place, the attack can terribly cripple, or even become mortal.

Rapid Pressure Barrage: Z-Move version of Pressure Strike. Gives one hundred Pressure Strike stabs on the adversary's Pressure Points. Inflicts damage equal to Attack x4 plus paralysis no matter the adversary's Defense and type. x8 if the adversary's type is weak to Fighting-type. Doesn't work on Ghost-type.
Shadow equivalent: Shadow Rapid Pressure Volley. Is extremely dangerous to the victim's life.

G-Max Pressure Rainstorm: Gigantamax version of Pressure Strike and pretty much has the same effects than Rapid Pressure Barrage, excepted that damages are multiplied by 2 if the enemy is Dynamaxed. So, if the adversary is weak to Fighting-type and is Dynamaxed: damage = Attack x 4 x 2 x 2. Also rises user's Attack.
Shadow equivalent: G-Max Shadow Pressure Hailstorm. Deadly.

Z-Max Solar Strike: the user puts all their force into a single strike to the Solar Plexus (or whatever equivalent) of the adversary. OHKO no matter what. Attack raised.
Shadow equivalent: Z-Max Shadow Core Breaker. Instead of targeting the Solar Plexus, the user goes directly for the kill by targeting the spiritual core of the adversary, their very being, and destroy it in a single cold-blooded strike, in addition of all the damage it causes to the body to reach it. No chance of survival if it hits something with a 'weak' soul (so anything below divinity level at least), and even if it doesn't kill, it can seriously damage the soul.

I came up with the idea that, since Reshiram, Zekrom, and Kyurem represented the Yin and the Yang, then the Original Dragon was probably a Pokémon that represented both, thus being pretty much like these old martial art masters that achieved the perfect balance, obtained the inner peace, and all that stuff like in Kung Fu Panda or Lego Ninjago. So here you have a dragon that represents this, hence the Fighting-type.

In its normal form, which actually looks like the statue seen in the Champion Room in Black and White 2, Masuryu is pretty small compared to other legendary dragons, even compared to Reshiram, Zekrom, and even Kyurem. Again, it's pretty much because of how we tend to represent old masters in fictions. Yoda, master Shifu, Kamé Sennin, and many others. This is why it also has a long beard and long hair and why it looks very old, and it is entirely grey with a lighter grey underbelly.

Masuryu isn't physically that strong, both in attack and defense, and it isn't even that fast, but it makes up for it with a very high dodge rate. Its main strategy is to dodge the enemy's attack to then hit it with its feared move: Pressure Strike.

It turning into an oriental dragon when it Gigantamaxes also comes from the whole martial art part. Representing balance, peace, and all that stuff.

There is still a lot of holes and stuff I'm not certain, but that's pretty much the gist of this Pokémon. But I don't mind the help in filling these holes and change stuff that you feel should be changed, like the name if you think you have one better. It's my first time creating a fakemon.

Thanks to The Kelduo for helping me with the moves.

Sorry to ky-nim. I had already pretty much finished the chapter by the time I received your answer, so I had already written most of the fight against Masuryu. I highly advice people to go to his page. His Original Dragon is very good.

Chapter 99: Knights And Princesses

When Shadow Speedster told everyone the next morning what happened (after the three Rainbow Dash and a few other pilots who drank too much got over their hangover), many of them could barely believe it.

Phoenix rubbed his face. "The Creator... So that was where They were... To think that They were the one behind all this... When the boss will learn about this..."

The ponies, meanwhile, all congratulated the pegasus filly, especially Chromatic Bolt who was very very very proud that she beat a God in a race. That was, like, the ultimate achievement for a racer. For a moment, Pinkie Pie wanted to restart the party only to be reminded that they all had to return to their respective Equestria. They still got an animated breakfast with the pilots that remained in the bar/inn, getting something close enough. They now pretty much considered Shadow Speedster one of them despite having never raced against them (unless they counted that last race of the Grand Prix in Phantom Road for the ones among them who had still been running then, but this had been more a race against Black Shadow than anything else) and couldn't wait the next Grand Prix.

Sweetie Void also confirmed that the Champion Belt was now nothing more than an accessory to show off. She could feel no power remaining in it. That force she felt really had been the Creator Themself. Well, at least, it fixed the problem of having to constantly win the belt to ensure that it wouldn't fall into wrong hands. Now, the only reason why the pilots will have to ensure that villains won't win the Grand Prix was to avoid that they win the prize money. Because money was a form of power, and with one billion, any of them could become much more dangerous than they already were.

Some wondered however what happened to the Creator. They flew away and disappeared, and no news from Them since. Will They retry Their little scheme?

"Well, at least, we now only have this... present to monitor if They decide to show Themself again," Phoenix pointed out, not without a sigh at remembering that the timeline outside of the current present was gone.

"... Right... I have to talk to DD about this," Sweetie Void said. "I can ask them now actually. I know that they know. They are always watching."

"And I will deal with this "problem" soon enough, don't worry," an androgynous brown-haired human in simple everyday clothes that hadn't been present on a chair beside Sweetie Void's two seconds ago said. Their sudden appearance made several jump out of their chair when they remarked Their presence, stopping all activities in the room. "By moving the Time Patrol HQ to a new timeline that I will recreate from the one that collapsed. However, through your influence, Time Patrol is now an anomaly too. This means that, through them, the new timeline would collapse too. So, to avoid that, I will have no choice but to erase all anomaly influence from them. In other words, they will live as if they never met you and the others. They will remember the events you just went through as if you and the others never appeared. As they will remember it, Captain Falcon will be the one who managed to win the Grand Prix with the Time Patrol's and everyone else's help. Captain Falcon will be the one who defeated Deathborn and the Creator. Not your pegasus friend. And Phoenix and the other time travellers will never be able to return here, in this present, ever again."

......................

"Isn't there... another way?" Sweetie Void asked.

DD shrugged. "Leaving things as they are. Or changing the timeline into one of these that branch out instead of being rewritten. But due to the Time Patrol being now an anomaly, this last solution would be a huge mess. So take your time saying your goodbyes. Oh, also, I took care of the Creator." They used a toothpick on Their teeth to show what They meant, making everyone chill as they understood. "You won't hear from them anymore. No need to thank me."

They then disappeared, leaving behind some very saddened ponies, some also relieved to hear that the Creator won't be a problem anymore.

"So that was DD? He... really ate the Creator?" Captain Falcon wondered.

Sweetie Void wordlessly nodded.

For the second time, Phoenix sighed. "If this is what it takes to bring back everything..."

QQQ nodded. "I agree. This is the best option. Everything and everyone lost will be back. That's what matters."

The ponies didn't want this. Nobody wanted this. But they reluctantly (VERY reluctantly for some) understood that it was the best solution.

With breakfast over, it was time for the ponies to leave.

"You won't have any problem transporting the Shadow Raven back to Equestria?" Shadow Speedster asked.

To answer her, Sweetie Void levitated the machine. Very easily. Before opening a rift big enough to transport it through. "Not at all."

Phantom chuckled and looked at Phantom Belle. "Look at her. She can lift vehicles weighing more than one ton like they're just a leaf and you still can barely lift a broom. Maybe I should send you into another world like what happened to her."

Phantom Belle rolled her eyes. "No thanks."

"But she's right. We should try ta become stronger. We may end up in a situation where we'll have ta defend ourselves," Phantom Bloom said.

"And for this, I can help. I can train you to use your inner soul energy to do stuff like firing energy balls," Sweetie Void proposed before she looked at Black Apple and Shadow Speedster. "How about you two show them?"

The two nodded and got themselves in position. After a few seconds, they each managed to send an energy ball about half their size.

"Now that our Equestrias are linked thanks to the portals, you two can come anytime to see me," the alicorn added.

"We will!" Phantom Belle and Phantom Bloom exclaimed happily.

"With permissions from yer families, of course," Applejack reminded.

"Uh... Yeah! Of course!" Phantom Bloom said sheepishly.

"You can come too," Sweetie Void then said to the Death quatuor. "I know that you already have your own powers, but we can still train together."

"Yeah. Sure," Scootabot agreed.

The ponies then proceeded to say goodbye to the pilots still present, with Shadow Speedster giving a hoof/fistbump to both Phoenix and Captain Falcon.

"You will forget me, but I won't forget you. Thank you for everything," she said to Phoenix.

Phoenix gave her a nod. "I regret that I won't be able to race you."

"See you soon, Captain!"

Captain Falcon gave her one of his famous salutes, not saying a word.

"I expect to see you in next year's Grand Prix!" Mr. Zero said enthusiastically.

"Don't worry. I will be there," Shadow Speedster reassured him.

Finally, the ponies walked through the rift.

Sweetie Void had a lot to do upon returning to her Equestria. So, after creating a double that she sent to school with her friends, she went to place the Shadow Raven in the outskirt of Ponyville where it was planned to build a garage for it. For this, she went to New Halcandra (making sure to leave a micro-rift open so her double in school wouldn't disappear) where she recruited a crew to build it, Magolor being currently busy still teaching how to build portals while Susie was with Twilight, E. Gadd, and one of the Tails, working on the phones. Once the construction of the garage started, she then went to inform Celestia about the new universe so she could prepare ambassadors to send there to start relationship. Sweetie Void and her friends already gained this universe's attention thanks to the F-Zero Grand Prix so they shouldn't have problems making contact. Once the team will be ready, Sweetie will then send them to the universe.

While the fillies had been in the F-Zero universe, things advanced well in Equestria and the other universes. Not only talks had started and advanced, but they also all planned a date to have a big meeting and talk together, hopefully officially giving birth to their alliance, whatever they will call it. But first, they wanted to find an universe that would serve as neutral ground where they would convene. It shouldn't be hard to find one.

Portals in all universes that didn't already have one were finished, even Past Hyrule. When Magolor had finished building the portal in Canterlot, he briefly used the Lor Starcutter to retrieve Ganduro who had also finished building the portal in Future Hyrule to leave him in Past Hyrule. The Lor was also used to send a team made of both engineers from the Galactic Federation and of some of Magolor's guys to Corneria to build the portal there.

And now, Future Hyrule, the Mushroom Kingdom's Earth, and even the Lylat System were fully receiving help to rebuild. Lylat's help was mostly coming from the Galactic Federation since they were the only ones who had the resources necessary to rebuild the damage caused on a whole solar system (or at least a good part of it). The Galactic Federation saw no problem sending resources, thinking that this would help convince the Lylat inhabitants in joining (in addition of making them beholden).

A second portal was planned to be built in the Mushroom World. Since the Mushroom Kingdom's portal was moved to the Metro Kingdom, they wanted to build a new one in the former

In the Pokémon World, things were turning more and more in favor of the League and its allies. Thanks to the snag machines, more and more Shadow Pokémon were being taken back before being purified, and the Dynamax Capsules they managed to reverse engineer allowed them to fight the Rockets in equal grounds, even if the quantity of them were still limited. However, when Sweetie Void went to purify the Shadow Pokémon she got from that raid she went to a few days ago, she learned that the Rockets also developed something very, very bad.

Shadow Master Balls.

They were exactly what the name suggested. They were Master Balls that immediately turned the Pokémon they caught into Shadow Pokémon. And not only they mass produced them, but using a technology similar to the Snag Machines that seemed to be included in the Shadow Master Balls, they also were able to use these balls to steal Pokémon from their trainers without having first to beat them up to take their Poké Balls. Some battles were now pretty much stealing contests where trainers and Rocket grunts were stealing each others' Pokémon. The problem however was that the trainers still had a limited amount of Snag Machines while the Rocket grunts were only limited by the number of Shadow Master Balls they had. Because of this, the Rockets were retaking the upper hand.

Already, Gold got his Entei stolen by a random grunt because of this, and even Red almost lost his Pikachu who barely managed to react in time to avoid the ball.

And still no good news from Elio. The Rockets' HQ still eluded him, to his growing frustration.

And they feared that the Rockets had, by now, all the Plates. Dawn was now in constant vigilance in Spear Pillar, and discussions had started about evacuating Sinnoh in case the worst was to happen. More and more League members were gathering in the region, especially around Mount Coronet, in preparation of the huge battle that could happen there to stop Giovanni from reaching Arceus.

She was then told as the purification process was finishing that her Equestria, New Halcandra, and even the Galactic Federation were sending people to help against the Rockets. All of them understood that they had to absolutely stop Giovanni from getting control over Arceus. Among the people sent, she learned that one of them was a powerful woman in orange armor.

Upon learning of this, Sweetie Void quickly took her new Pokémon once the purification process was over, a Lapras, a Lucario, and a Hypno thus joining her team. She respectively named them Nessy (female), Anubis (male), and Mesmer (male). And she then went to Sinnoh where she found Samus sitting on the stairs of Spear Pillar, which were the ruins of an ancient temple. Dawn, the blue-haired girl Champion of Sinnoh, was also present, at the opposite end of the ruin, having a meal with her Pokémon.

"So they really recruited you? They are really taking this seriously then," the filly said as she descended, gaining Samus' attention.

"Hey, furball. Long time no see. Is it really surprising? A sicko wants to take control of a supreme God and is close to succeeding. Of course they are taking that seriously. This threat is level Phazon, at the very least."

"Well, it's nice to see you here. The Rockets will have a very bad surprise."

Samus huffed. "I'm frankly questioning if I will make a difference. It's one thing to fight space dragons and dark doppelgangers, it's another to fight corrupted gods or whatever that can apparently grow to the size of buildings and change the landscape in one attack."

"Good point. Hopefully, with new universes joining, they will also send people to help. I encountered some powerful friends who would be a huge addition in the fight against the Rockets."

"I'm sure they will. It would be stupid to not help stopping this guy. The fate of their universes will depend on if we succeed or not."

"Speaking of the fate of the universe. No return of the Phazon? You know, we expect something to be gone for good, and BAM! It somehow returns due to some far-fetched reason against all logic."

"Thank god, no. Just the Space Pirates still causing problem here and there, like usual. Also an old acquaintance of mine, a guy named Sylux, who tried to kill me, but I dealt with him. But the metroids are becoming more and more a problem so I heard that the council is discussing how to deal with them for good."

Sweetie Void snorted. "After that Phazon fiasco where one of them attempted to conquer the universe, it's about time."

Samus nodded. "And now that we are establishing contact with other universes, the last thing they want is for these pests to spread outside of ours. With the pirates, who knows what could happen. Pirates with metroids are generally prone to the worse disasters so it could very well happen. Somehow. And the council absolutely wants to avoid that."

Sweetie nodded. This really had to be avoided. These life-sucking parasites would cause a carnage.

They spent some more time catching up before Sweetie Void eventually returned to her Equestria where she discreetly took her double's place not long before school ended.

"The garage for your Shadow Raven is being built, Scoot," she informed after exiting the school building.

"Cool! Thanks! So, will we go on another adventure?"

"I'm planning to go on another one later, yes. If you want to come, then okay. But you will have to convince your aunts to let you go, again."

"Right..."

"Sorry girls, but Ah won't come," Black Apple said.

"Uh? Why?" Shadow Speedster asked.

"Ah'm going ta Zecora. Don't worry, Ah'll be here for yer cute-ceañera."

"Well, if you can't today, we can go together tomorrow. It would be even better since it will be Saturday. Truthfully, today will just be a scouting day. I can't allow myself to spend too much time in another universe since there's the cute-ceañera in a few hours. Unless this will be one of these universes where time passes much faster there than here," Sweetie Void said.

"Sorry. Ah'll be at Zecora's again."

Sweetie Void looked down sadly. "Aww... Oh well. That's okay. We will get other occasions to go adventuring together."

"Yeah. And I guess that, instead of adventuring, I should take a few days to learn how to maintain my machine," Shadow Speedster reminded herself.

"That's right. You should go ask Magolor or Susie when you have the occasion. Or any other who is very good at engineering who could help you learn," Sweetie Void said. "Well then, I guess that I'll go by myself."

"Won't you invite Phantom and Apple Death?" Shadow Speedster wondered.

"Maybe tomorrow, depending of the situation in the new universe I will end up in. for now, I'm going alone."

So, once the three separated, Sweetie Void opened a rift and traversed it.

"Okay... So... I seem to be in a small town. A bit like Ponyville but more modern-looking with the presence of apartment buildings among simple houses. Surrounded by hills and forests... The ocean is just over there... The total opposite of Mute City," Sweetie Void thought aloud as she was flying over the small town she appeared in, after having verified the time difference between this universe and hers (which was five days here for three days in Equestria). "However... That pig-like UFO over there above these two houses on the hill definitively looks out of place."

Turning herself invisible, she cautiously approached the UFO as it landed beside the houses, hearing some music being played from it. A couple of beings entirely hidden inside pig uniforms then came out of it and went to knock on the smaller of the two houses' door. A few seconds later, a woman opened the door, and the two pig men gave her some kind of military salute, even oinking like real pigs, before one of them began to talk.

"Is this Ness' house?"

"Uh... Yes?" the blond woman answered, clearly wondering if she should close the door.

"We have a message for him from our glorious leader, King P."

"Can you call him......... Please?" the other asked.

Before the woman could decide of what to do, a young black-haired boy in a horizontally striped blue and yellow t-shirt and a blue shorts came, looking curiously and cautiously at the two pig men. "What is it?"

"Are you Ness?" the first pig man asked.

"Yes, I am."

The boy's identity confirmed, the pig man took out a letter and gave it to him. Not stopping looking at the pig men, Ness opened the letter before reading it. Sweetie Void quickly and silently moved behind him so she could read it too.

Hey, loser! How long has it been? For you, maybe a few months, but for me, it has been much, much, much longer. I missed you, you know? So let's play a game! And I perfectly know which one we will play: Knights and Princesses! You will be the knight in shining armor. I will be the evil black knight. And your girlfriend what-was-her-name will be the princess! You know what this means? I kidnapped your girlfriend and you must come rescue her! Ahahahahah! Spankety, spankety, spankety.

Okay, I will be fair so you don't spend months looking around randomly. It would be too boring. We are in Fourside. Guess in which building. Now, hurry up before I decide to feed her to the dragon.

Oh, and of course, my evil minions will get in your way to try to stop you or else it wouldn't be fun.

Your old friend Porky.

"Yes, he read the letter," one of the pig men said into a phone. "Yes, we can start the next phase of "Operation Knights and Princesses.""

Just as he said that, more of these pig UFOs descended from behind the clouds and began to spread around the town. The pig man then ended his call and began to take a big gun only to receive a baseball bat on the face from the boy who jumped and attacked him, sending him on his back out cold. As soon as he landed, Ness then jumped back as the other pig man was about to fire only for Sweetie Void to come and punch him on the cheek, sending him flying into the trees before the house, at the other side of the dirt path. The filly then grabbed the man that Ness knocked out in her magic and threw him away from the house.

Two more pig UFOs then landed before the house, and out of them came five more of these pig men including one wearing a blue version of the uniform, as well as a bipedal being made of clay with some antennae coming out of its head.

Sweetie Void and Ness exchanged glances while the boy's mother hid herself behind the door, joined by a younger girl.

"How about we introduce ourselves after we're done with these guys?" the filly proposed.

Ness nodded. "Okay." The boy then put two finger on his forehead and mumbled "PK Shield," before two blue shields appeared around the two of them.

"Oh! You have some powers! Nice!" Sweetie Void exclaimed before she grabbed one of her beam swords. "I guess then that you have nothing to fear from these pig guys?"

"Not at all. I fought much worse," the boy answered.

"Eh. Me too."

Hearing this, the pig men were starting to have their legs shaking, and one of them went to hide behind the clay being.

The two children then charged at the group of enemies, sword and bat ready.

Pained oinks resounded afterward.

Author's Note

I seriously thought of naming the Lucario Lucar for a moment. :rainbowlaugh:

If I did the maths alright. They went to the F-Zero-verse Monday afternoon (the first day of school after the end of the Spring Break). Three days in the F-Zero-verse equalled about two days in Equestria. They spent six days in the F-Zero-verse (five for each Grand Prix races plus the next day with the race against Deathborn), so four Equestrian days. Plus the night they spent before returning. So they returned in Equestria Friday early morning.

Reminder that, in Earthbound, Ness isn't the main attacker. He doesn't know attacks like PSI Fire or PSI Thunder. He is more a support. Like Ninten from Mother and like Lucas from Mother 3. After, they still have good offensive abilities, especially with the baseball bat/stick.

Chapter 113: Tournament Part 6

"It's impressive that this little mouse was able to beat up DK so badly. He's, like, one of the strongest beings I know, and only big baddies like King K. Rool or Bowser are usually able to do so much damage to him," Diddy Kong said. "These Pokémon are scary."

"After what happened a few days ago, is it that surprising? Ya saw what they could do," Apple Death reminded him. "One even gave Mario a lot of difficulty earlier."

"And the ones participating in this tournament are almost all more or less at the same level even if Red's Pikachu is among the best ones," Sweetie Void clarified. "So if you end up facing one... Well, good luck."

"Hey! I'm strong too! Well, not as strong as DK, but I make up for it with other stuff! If DK was able to defeat one, then I can too!" Diddy shouted as he proudly took a pose with his guns.

Soon enough, it was time to start the next battle.

"TAILS! Versus... INCINEROAR!" Master Hand announced.

"You ready, buddy?" Sonic asked to Tails.

"Yes," the fox answered before he patted a bag hanging against his hip. "Thank you again for bringing this to me by the way, Phantom."

"You're welcome. Hopefully, they will help you get the upper hand. I haven't seen what an Incineroar is, but judging by the name, this will be at least a Fire-type."

At this moment, the arena was selected, and it seemed to be a series of platform inside some cavern with a weird brain-looking life form in the background and a whole lake of what seemed to be acid not far below.

The platforms were composed of a main one with three smaller ones floating above it in a triangular formation. The main platform itself was a large rocky one with an irregular surface and an irregular form instead of being circular. Some small structures were scattered on it as well as a statue of what Sweetie Void recognized was a Chozo which was in a sitting position, near the edge, almost hidden behind some of the structures. The platform was also linked to a smaller rocky one by a group of fleshy blobs. Among the three smaller platforms, the two lowest ones were also linked to the main rocky one by fleshy poles, one of them being actually linked to the smaller rocky part. This last platform also had a curved surface instead of a flat one like the two others.

"Well, guys, I present to you home sweet home: planet Zebes, where I grew up," Samus informed. "And this place we see in this picture? That's Brinstar, a mostly underground maze-like jungle filled with all kinds of dangerous fauna and flora and where it isn't rare to find lakes of acid like the one you are seeing. Frequent earthquakes can cause some of these lakes to rise up and down, and I don't think that this lake of acid is there just for decoration. Also, friendly advice, keep an eye on that Chozo statue. You never know."

"Noted," Tails said.

"Lovely home," Falco said sarcastically.

"Thanks. Couldn't ask for a better home." Nobody could tell if Samus was being sarcastic too or genuine.

Tails and Elio entered the arena and the trainer, who appeared on a moving platform of his own, immediately let out his Pokémon. Seeing it, Tails couldn't stop himself from taking a step back. It was a Fire-type alright, and the "roar" in the name was finally explained in the form of the Pokémon being some kind of bipedal tiger. A muscular tiger. Judging by the belt made of flames around its waist, a muscular tiger good at some fighting sport. Maybe wrestling? So, was this Pokémon also a Fighting-type? No matter the sport, it looked fierce and very strong. It probably would have been a better adversary to Knuckles than to Tails. The fox didn't lose time and opened his bag to get out a device with a slot where he put his hand onto, and this made the device transform and become bigger to turn into a red arm cannon.

It wasn't a Wispon. No Wisps around to power one so no blasts that could propel you. So it was a simpler cannon mostly based on the Burst Wispon that could fire three types of projectiles: simple fireballs, streams of flames like a flamethrower, or blasts of flames. Those last ones were the more powerful (but not as powerful as the blasts of the real Burst Wispon), but didn't have an as great range as the others. Tails however internally groaned. The projectiles will obviously count as Fire-type which Incineroar will certainly be resistant to. He should have anticipated this and brought other cannons with different kinds of projectiles, like his Energy Ball Arm Cannon. He will have to do with what he had in the bag, and even if Incineroar will be resistant to the fire projectiles, they should still wear it down with time.

Meanwhile, Elio was ready for anything. From what he heard, Tails was both a technological genius and a rather skilled and strong fighter who destroyed robots at a regular basis. No doubt that there was all kinds of gadgets ready to be used in his bag. Incineroar was obviously much stronger, was very skilled too, and had a diversified moveset, but he will have to be careful.

Also, he wasn't on a small mobile platform for nothing. Looking down at the lake of acid below, remembering what Samus said, he will have to keep an eye on it to warn Incineroar.

"GO!"

Tails immediately started the battle by firing at Incineroar with his weapon, but as expected, the Pokémon barely felt the flames as it charged through them to attack. Once it was close enough, it then began spinning while holding out its hand, using its signature move: Darkest Lariat. Tails quickly used spun his tails to fly out of the way while grabbing and throwing a flat device at his previous position. Incineroar wasn't able to stop spinning in time and the device revealed to be a mine releasing an electric field that electrified and paralyzed it. Tails then immediately used the occasion to attack Incineroar with a Spin Attack followed by bashing it with his powerful tails that actually managed to knock the Pokémon on the floor.

However, despite the paralysis, Incineroar was able to activate Revenge. So the hit it took strengthened it and, as the paralysis wore off, it was able to grab the fox by one of his tails to stop him from getting away before it violently punched him on the cheek while getting back up, releasing the tail just at this moment so Tails was sent flying beyond the edge of the arena. But Tails quickly recovered and spun his tails to stop himself from falling before he returned to the arena while resuming firing at Incineroar with his weapon.

At this moment, an earthquake caused the lake of acid below to rise a bit, confirming to both Tails and Elio that it was a danger. Also, a barrel with an arrow appeared on the lowest flat platform and, remembering what such barrels did, Tails landed beside it, lifted it, and threw it at Incineroar in the hope that the barrel would trap the Pokémon and would either fall down beyond the edge with it or would at least fire Incineroar beyond the edge. But Incineroar easily dodged the barrel and used Cross Chop to real Tails' position while also attacking at the same occasion, by leaping upward with flames covering it before descending diagonally. Again, Tails dodged by flying away before landing on the top platform and firing with his weapon.

Another earthquake and the lake of acid was now reaching just under the arena, even touching the tentacle-like appendage of the brain-thing in the background which began to wriggle.

"Remain on the platforms, Incineroar!" Elio warned.

This didn't leave much place to move around, the platforms being rather small, but better that than being burned by acid.

Incineroar did a Sword Dance and Bulk Up before jumping to attack Tails with a Fire Punch, and evaded by flying away again, this time remaining in the air away from the platform out of range. But Incineroar used Flamethrower, almost getting the fox, then repeated the move and this time managed to burn the spinning tails, forcing Tails to land on the big rock platform just as there was another earthquake. But thankfully for Tails, this one caused the level of the lake to lower instead of rising. Seeing this, Incineroar jumped down toward Tails using Iron Head, and Tails limited the damage by blocking the headbutt by crossing his arms in front of his head.

Yet another earthquake happened, and Elio panicked.

"Quick! Jump on a platform!" he yelled.

Hearing him, Incineroar separated from Tails and jumped on one of the lower platforms, the curved one above the smaller rocky part, while Tails went to the higher one, just in time as the rocky platform disappeared under the acid which almost reached Incineroar's platform. The Pokémon quickly jumped on the top platform, Fire Punch ready, only for Tails to fly away again, but this time, the sly fox left a little gift behind: a bomb.

It blew up before Incineroar could even react, and the blast propelled it beyond the edge of the platform. It then fell on the top of one of the small structures not fully immersed before it slid into the acid. It didn't remain in it for long however as an earthquake lowered the level. But it barely got time to recover that there was already another earthquake and Elio warned it to jump on a platform again, which it did without losing time, landing back on the curved platform. But this time, to everyone's surprise, the level rose until it covered even the curved platform (which was slightly lower than the other 'lower' platform), and Incineroar found itself with its feet (or back paws) in the acid. With a roar of pain that sounded more like the meow of a cat, Incineroar jumped on the top platform, then quickly looked down to see if another bomb or something else was left again by Tails even knowing that Tails had remained in the air all this time so he couldn't have left something here.

Instead, the fox used the diversion to approach it and fire a blast of flames before quickly retreating to land on the flat lower platform which wasn't immersed. But then, after another earthquake, the acid lowered again, enough to free the rocky platform, but not back to its lowest level which left the fighters on edge and not wanting to risk returning on the rocky platform right away. Instead, Tails resumed firing at Incineroar who countered with a Flamethrower which overpowered the fireballs and burned the fox. Seeing that another earthquake finally lowered the acid back to its lowest level, Tails quickly jumped down on the rocky platform followed by Incineroar who was met however by a Spin Attack.

Despite the hit, Incineroar caught Tails and bit him with Fire Fang before tossing him up and, as the fox dropped back down, getting him with Darkest Lariat.

Despite everything, Tails wasn't the most resilient of Sonic's friends. He was tough, yes, which was why he was still conscious after everything he took from the strong tiger, but he was starting to feel that he was reaching his limit as he recovered but remained on a knee. Then, he heard metallic footstep from behind him and, having a bad feeling, quickly leapt away, barely avoiding a swiping claw that caused small close-range explosions. After a roll and getting up, Tails looked at what attacked him and saw that it was the Chozo Statue.

"A Torizo. Of course," Samus said before she looked at Master Hand. "I'm not surprised that you decided to make the Chozo Statue into one."

The hand chuckled. "It was only natural to add some spice."

"As if this arena needed more spice. The acid was already good enough in my opinion," Slippy said.

"Well, it depends of the Torizo. Some are more powerful than others. This one may be one of the weaker versions," Samus informed.

Tails moved further away from the Torizo and made sure to have both it and Incineroar in his sight, ending up in a small rocky platform beyond the orbs of flesh. The Torizo decided to target Incineroar and spat from its mouth several bombs that the Pokémon avoided with a jump before using Cross Chop, hitting the living statue on its chest and making it take a few steps back. From his position safely away, Tails, now armed of a ray gun in addition of his arm cannon, began to fire at both Incineroar and the Torizo. Incineroar didn't mind Tails and continued to attack the Torizo by repeatedly using Brick Break, causing a lot of damage before the Pokémon was clawed by the statue, getting especially hurt by the small explosions the swiping claws caused. So Incineroar retreated by jumping on the top platform, out of range of the Torizo's claws unless it decided to jump.

Thankfully for the Pokémon, it didn't and instead went after Tails again. The statue eventually walked on the flesh orbs which was what Tails had been hoping it would do if it decided to go after him again. Taking a remote control, he pressed a button that caused an explosive that he placed among the orbs to explode, destroying all the orbs in one go right under the Torizo's feet. Tails had indeed remarked earlier that some projectiles managed to destroy some of the orbs (only for them to reform eventually), revealing them to not be an indestructible part of the arena contrary to most of the rest. With all the orbs destroyed in one go, the Torizo fell down right into the acid (which started to rise again) while the small rocky platforms moved away from the bigger one a bit.

The Torizo defeated, Tails looked up toward Incineroar only for his expression to turn into horror when he saw that the Pokémon was now surrounded by a familiar aura of energy. Looking around, he saw Elio just as he finished the movements for the Z-move. He then looked back toward Incineroar who jumped from the top platform to crash into the fox. Tails just had enough time to barely get out of the way of the Pokémon who crashed chest-first on the ground, but he was then caught in the explosion that followed which blew him away. He tried to use his tails to stop himself in the air, but he was too late and he passed through the Ring Out Barrier. He only recovered and began to fly a few meters after it, badly hurt but still ready to fight. He still had some stuff in his bag that he had wanted to use!

"Ring Out! The victor is: Incineroar!" Master Hand announced.

"Not fair..." he complained.

Incineroar seemed to be of the same mind. "A victory not by KO is not a victory for me!" he shouted. "I want a rematch!"

"Well... I guess that we could have one another time," Tails said after landing back on the arena.

"Anytime!" the Pokémon agreed.

"You did your best, buddy," Sonic comforted.

"Could have done better," Tails replied. "Next time, I'm bringing the energy cannon. Didn't even get the occasion to use the Healbot."

"For the next battle, we will have... RILLABOOM!" Master Hand then announced.

"Finally!" Hop exclaimed.

"Versus... MEGANIUM!"

"Another full Pokémon battle?" Magolor questioned.

"And starter Grass-type versus starter Grass-type. This will be a close battle," Dawn observed.

"So this leaves me against... Uh... You, right?" Diddy remarked to Ness who nodded.

At this moment, the arena was selected, revealing to be the roof of Princess Peach's castle.

"Well, at least, this arena shouldn't pose problem contrary to the previous one," Gold said.

"Ah wouldn't bet on that. Fer all we know, Bowser could come to fire at the castle with one of his airships," Apple Death warned.

Mario nodded. "And that's just one possibility out of hundreds. I'm more expecting giant Bowser appearing to swipe at the roof with his claws."

"Or instead of Bowser, Fawful could appear," Luigi added.

"Or the Shrooms."

"Or the castle could be transported into space with that UFO-like spaceship Bowser once used."

"Or there could simply be Paragoombas and Paratroopas coming."

"So, in brief, be ready for anything," Hop said. "I'm not worried. No matter what, this will be fun."

"And this is what matters! Having fun! And so far, this has been very fun to watch!" one of the Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

Before long, Gold and Hop were in the arena and let out their respective Pokémon, both at opposite sides of the tower in the center of the castle. There were some differences however compared to the real castle. While the real castle was built in the middle of a very small lake so it just served as a moat, the lake being part of a river that traversed Toad Town, this one had much more water surrounding it and the castle itself was scaled down. Also, the pointed spires of the towers were replaced by flat roof so they could be used as platforms. There were also two small floating platforms, one above each wing of the castle behind the two fighters' actual position.

"GO!"

"Climb on the tower!" Hop instructed the gorilla Pokémon who had no problem climbing to the top of the central tower.

As Rillaboom climbed the tower, Gold made Meganium use Sunny Day followay right away by Solar Beam. However, just as Rillaboom reached the top of the tower, it used Protect to protect itself from the beam. Rillaboom then jumped high to strike Meganium with a Brick Break only for Meganium to also use Protect followed right away by a Poison Powder. Rillaboom breathed in some of the cloud of poison, resulting in it getting poisoned, and the ape jumped away as it coughed. Meganium then quickly proceeded to use Reflect before Rillaboom stopped coughing and attacked again, this time with a Drain Punch. It hit, but thanks to Reflect, Meganium barely felt it and immediately fired another Solar Beam at blank point which slammed Rillaboom against the central tower.

Being a Grass-type move against a Grass-type Pokémon, it didn't do much damage despite its huge power, but it left Rillaboom vulnerable as it slowly recovered while coughing again because of the poison. Instead of attacking however, Meganium used Safeguard followed by Petal Dance. Pink petals were released in a spiraling fashion from the flower around its neck and surrounded it before it ran toward Rillaboom. The ape let Meganium come, tanking the move, before it Drain Punched it again, healing itself a bit from the damage he got, especially because of the poison. The damage from the Petal Dance accumulated however and Hop saw this.

"Retreat, Rillaboom! As long as Petal Dance continues, don't get close again, and use instead Giga Drain and Sword Dance!"

Following its trainer's instructions, Rillaboom jumped above Meganium to land behind it, then jumped again to land on the floating platform that was here before it used Giga Drain, sending green beams of energy to drain Meganium and heal a bit. It then followed this with Sword Dance, but as Rillaboom was busy doing this move, Meganium's Petal Dance ended and, thanks to Safeguard, the Pokémon didn't get confused as a consequence. Meganium then used Body Slam, jumping surprisingly high to slam on Rillaboom, and the two fell off the platform and almost off arena as they landed right on the slopy extremity of the castle's roof. Because it didn't have any way to stop itself from falling if this happened, Meganium quickly moved away while Rillaboom recovered and got back up.

While getting away from the ledge, Meganium spotted at the base of the central tower a strange red pressure switch and decided to activate it. This caused two red platforms to appear at the opposite extremities of the castle, becoming extensions of the flat roof above the slopy ends. Two red "!" blocks also appeared, one at both sides of the central tower. Still being on the slopy extremity of the castle, Rillaboom found himself one of the platforms passing through him, but as if the Pokémon was a Ghost-type, it could move through it and get away without problem. Not sure of what the red blocks could do, Meganium fired a single seed at the one that appeared not far above it. Hitting the block made a star come out of it.

Many immediately recognised that it was a Warp Star, but not Meganium who had no idea what this star was for, and neither the trainers. Meganium didn't have much time to ponder as Rillaboom attacked with Acrobatics, repeatedly nimbly striking its adversary. Now this move hurt Meganium a lot because it was a Flying-type move, and Flying was super effective against Grass, and this time, it was Meganium who crashed against the central tower.

Done with its move, Rillaboom looked curiously at the Warp Star and grabbed it. And without warning, the Warp Star flew up with the ape clinging to it and yelling.

As it looked up, following the flying Rillaboom, Meganium could only mutter, "What... the..."

Then, it saw the Warp Star returning in a crash course with Rillaboom still clinging to it and Meganium panicked before it used Protect right before the star crashed on it in a big explosion. Thanks to Protect, Meganium didn't receive any damage and was immediately able to counterattack with an Iron Tail while Rillaboom was rubbing its head wondering what the heck happened.

The sound of a cannon firing something then resounded, and both Pokémon looked at where it came from to see that an airship fired a Banzai Bill toward the castle, the giant living missile moving toward the center tower from the back of the castle. The Pokémon were far enough that they risked nothing, but Rillaboom got the idea of using the diversion to grab Meganium by the neck and to throw it on the path of the Banzai Bill. Mid-air, Meganium quickly used Iron Tail on the Banzai Bill to bounce off of it just before it crashed on the tower and exploded. The explosion still blew Meganium high into the sky almost reaching the top of the Ring Out Barrier.

Gold acted quickly and activated his Z-Crystal, a Grassium Z, and did the right series of poses to give Meganium power as the Pokémon began to drop back toward the lake surrounding the castle. Energy surrounded Meganium, flowers appeared all over the roof, and a huge green column of energy came out of Meganium and disappeared into the sky before returning and striking Rillaboom who couldn't avoid it (and not just because the ape was coughing again from the poison, now starting to feel weak).

The attack by itself still wasn't enough to knock out Rillaboom but it was barely standing on its legs. Then, it coughed one last time before the poison finally bested it, and Rillaboom lost consciousness just before Meganium fell into the water.

"KO! And the victor is: Meganium!"

"That was closer than expected. Hop almost won by Ring Out," Blue commented.

"Yeah, thanks to that Banzai Bill," Sweetie Ghoul said. "But Meganium was clearly ready to continue the fight for a while despite everything it took while Rillaboom was more and more weakened by the poison."

"I didn't expect less from that Meganium. It was part of Gold's team when he challenged me on Mt. Silver," Red said.

"Well, this leaves only one fight for round one. Are you ready you two?" Sonic asked to Diddy Kong and Ness who both nodded.

Master Hand saw this and decided to pass the selection of the fighters to go right away with selecting the arena.

"So... DIDDY KONG and NESS will fight..." he began as the images of the arena scrolled. Before long, the scrolling stopped on the image of a town that Ness knew all too well. "in Onett!"

Of course, the arena didn't cover the whole town. The image simply showed three buildings: a three-stories drugstore at the center, a two stories yellow house with a red roof at the left, and a one-story blue house with a chimney at the right. The drugstore had two awnings, a tree was present behind the yellow house with some of its branches going over the house, and a festoon was over the blue house. The three buildings faced a road, the yellow house just at a corner where the road turned to the right.

Ness was happy to see his hometown again, but then remembered that it wasn't the real one and got sad.

Sweetie Void saw this. "Mmh... Master Hand? Is it possible to change arena? I don't think that Ness will like fighting in it."

Now, Diddy was the one looking sad. "Aww man... But this arena is perfect for me. Look at all this place for me to move around! The tree! The awnings! The festoon! The roofs! The posts!"

"It's okay, Sweetie," Ness reassured. "Thank you for your concern, but I will be able to fight in there. Don't worry."

"If you think so..." Sweetie Void wasn't entirely convinced but accepted it.

Ness and Diddy then entered the arena, Diddy appearing on the roof of the yellow house while Ness appeared on the roof of the blue house. Here, they saw that the arena included the road facing the three buildings, but not the one at the yellow house's left. They could also go behind the buildings, but not very far, the Ring Out Barrier not letting them reach the dirt paths behind and at the right.

"GO!"

Diddy Kong grabbed his Popgun and-

"PK Thunder!" Ness yelled, finger pointed toward Diddy.

And thunder struck the roof of the yellow house, just at Diddy's left, and the monkey jumped right in fear only to be struck by a second bolt followed by a third one. While Diddy was literally shocked, Ness used the awning of the second floor of the drugstore to approach him and send a "PK Fire!" in the form of a huge stream of fire, burning the monkey until he was entirely turned black.

"PK Freeze!"

Diddy barely recovered his senses from being burned that he was then surrounded by a freezing wind that trapped him in ice.

"PK ROCKIN!!!"

And finally, Ness sent his most powerful attack in the form of a powerful wall-wave of psychic energy that sent the block of ice with Diddy in it flying beyond the Ring Out Barrier.

And just like that... "RING OUT! The victor is: Ness!"

Author's Note

Poor Diddy... I was ready to do a whole fight with even in mind Ness barely avoiding being crashed into by the van of the Runaway Five, but then I remembered that this was Ness without the Smash Bros limiter and with all of Paula's psychic abilities in addition of his own. All he misses is the PK Starstorm.

Chapter 126: Everbay Coast Part 2

Following the trail of the Waddle Dees led the heroes to some concrete tower at a part of the bay with more land. They already spotted no less than two cages at its very top, with the Clockers not daring to get away with Galacta Knight patrolling the sky. Instead, the birds seemed to count on the defenses placed all over the tower to protect them.

Too bad for them, with some of the heroes being able to fly, said defenses revealed to be totally useless. Some heroes flew straight to the top of the tower, others went all over it dealing with the Beast Pack members guarding it while searching for any other hidden Waddle Dees, and the remaining ones dropped from the Lor at the base of the tower, thus taking it from all the levels at once and leaving no chances for the animals to escape.

Searching the tower payed as Kirby found another Waddle Dee in an alcove hidden behind green lockers. The puffball used his new power to wrap the lockers and make them topple to reveal the prisoner.

The assault on the tower lasted less than a minute despite the rather big number of Shotzos placed a little everywhere, especially beside the many ladders, with some Gordos here and there.

"These stupid cannons really are invulnerable to anything we throw at them," Present Sonic said in frustration while kicking one of the Shotzos, making sure to remain at its side and not at its front as the cannon continuously fired forward. "I can shred metal no problem with my spines, but not a scratch on these things!"

"It's making you wonder what they are actually made of, uh?" Diddy questioned while observing the scene.

"A frustratingly solid living metal, and let's leave it at that," Flamberge said. "At least, chucking it works, so chuck it out of this tower-thing and let's move on. There's nothing left to do here."

"Leave it to me." DK effortlessly lifted the Shotzo and threw it into the water beside the tower.

The Lor then came to pick them up at the top of the tower before dropping them a bit further on some platform at the base of a much larger and taller concrete structure. An anthropomorphic swan with some kind of tutu shaped like a whirlwind was awaiting them, but then, Fox landed feet first right on her face before he bounced away, followed by Ness, Marx, Link, Diddy, Present and Past Sonic, and Anubis. As the stunned swan recovered, she just had time to see something metallic dropping toward her before Sweetie Void, who turned herself into an iron pony version of the lucky cat statue, landed right on her, burying the poor bird's head into the concrete.

"Don't mind if I drop in?" she said.

"Normally, her head should now be a flattened gory mess," Phantom remarked, mentally groaning at Sweetie's pun.

Sweetie giggled. "Thankfully, the Dream Universe and the ones influenced by it have a very cartoony logic."

Enemies were already coming, and the group fought them off before advancing, beginning to climb the structure. Some of the heroes used the staircases that were going left, then right, then left again, then right again, while others climbed/jumped up the walls or flew, all the while dealing with the various enemies that came their way. Most notably were Twisters that used the walls and railings to bounce like pinballs while twisting. A Big Kabu at the end of the series of stairs was constantly unleashing Kabus in an endless wave. Of course, the two Sonic quickly dealt with him as they climbed everything in the blink of an eye.

Behind the Big Kabu, the path continued up a slope between two ledges before it turned right with another staircase to the right ledge. Then from said ledge, there was a small metal footbridge going to the other ledge in which there was a small pond with some Blippers. A path continued up some slops toward the top of the structure and another led to a door.

After a game of short straws, Bandana Dee, Dark Meta Knight, Spiky, Dixie, and Pikachu went through the door while the others continued.

Poppy Bros Jrs. were rolling bombs down the slopes from the top of the structure, but Diddy, Fox, Krystal, and Jeff stopped them with their respective weapons, allowing everyone to reach the summit, some balcony with many flower pots, two benches, and a decorative arc, without risk. A last few enemies were awaiting them there, around no less than three cages, but this didn't slow down the heroes who freed the Waddle Dees and took in the view while waiting for their friends, with Krystal confirming that a few Waddle Dees with ahead. However, they may have to use the Lor again as there were no other paths.

Meanwhile, Kirby observed the arc, thinking of something.

It wasn't long before Bandana and the others returned with a freed Waddle Dee. Apparently, Dark Meta Knight had to do all the work as, to free the Waddle Dee, they had had to press three switches in quick succession to open a gate. The problem was that the switches were in or along a path entirely covered in spikes, so the only way to reach them and get them in time with to fly rapidly. Pikachu probably could have gotten them with three Thunderbolts in quick succession, but it was easier to let Dark Meta Knight do the job.

With everyone here, Kirby decided to try his stuff and inhaled the arc, using his new power to stretch around it and take the form of something like a deltaplane. And then, he glided away in the direction pointed out by Krystal earlier before everyone's disbelieving stares.

"Warn us next time!" Sweetie yelled before she materialized a carpet, made it grow bigger, asked everyone to go on it, and made it fly with everyone riding it.

"Wow! A flying carpet? I never expected to ride on one!" Elfilin exclaimed happily.

"I think that most of us never expected that," Pikachu said as he looked down in wonder from the edge of the carpet.

Diddy rose a hand. "Not me. We have flying carpets in my world."

"Why a flying carped?" Apple Death asked.

"Why not?" Marx replied.

"I just wanted to try something exotic," Sweetie explained.

"So cool..." Ness muttered.

Flying alongside Kirby, they went forward above the water, between islands and rocks, not encountering any real obstacle. They passed under a natural rocky arc, and encountered a trio of Bronto Burts that scattered in panic. Following a river between rocks, separated by several small dams that turned it into a succession of basins, Kirby then rammed into a Scarfy before they reached a huge rock that separated the river in two. Here the Bronto Burts returned with many more friends, and the heroes who could fire projectiles had to defend the flying carpet from them. They also had to avoid many Gordos placed in the way by other Bronto Burts.

At the end of the river, they arrived at a building and entered it through an entrance that was rather narrow for all of them. A Buffahorn attempted to ram them as they were just above the floor,, but Kirby instead ram into it with a spin, sending it out of the way.

Inside the building, which revealed to be partially submerged, or more like it had basins separated by more dams, they had to fight off even more Bronto Burts as well as some Scarfys while avoiding Gordos, Gigatzos firing at them, and metallic pillars-things that moved left and right. The heroes were happy to leave the building, only to end up in a canyon with more enemies, and the lack of place won't help in avoiding the Gordos and Gigatzos. But then, Kirby spotted some cracks in the cliff at the right and flew toward them, and the others decided to follow him. Kirby then rammed the cliff with a spin, destroying the cracked part and opening a hole into a cavern that let them avoid all the enemies. There weren't even any stalactites or stalagmites serving as obstacles.

In the end, they traversed the canyon without any problem. Better yet, they flew right into a Clocker transporting a cage with a freshly captured Waddle Dee, totally taking the poor bird by surprise. They then reached another river separated into basins by dams, and then left the canyon behind.

It wasn't long after that they finally reached what seemed to be their destination judging by the presence of a golden cage with three trapped Waddle Dees, on some island with... a landing runway? The three Clockers tried to escape from some sort of terrace with the cage upon seeing them approaching, but they were stopped by Galacta Knight who got in their way. Three slashes later, and the three birds dropped, now totally naked.

"We had it, you know?" Sweetie Void shouted.

Galacta chuckled. "Well, I got it."

Sweetie Void, and some of the others, pouted.

"Oh great... Now, we're going inside waterworks..." Present Sonic groaned upon seeing what they were approaching in the screen of the Lor.

Phantom smirked. "Don't worry, it's like peeling off a bandage. It's a bad moment to pass, it will be over quickly, and then you will get a lollipop if you are good."

Both Sonics glared at her. But then, Present Sonic grinned. "Well then, I holding you for that lollipop at the end."

Sweetie Void leaned toward Link, who was the closest to her at this moment, and whispered, "Am I the only one feeling like these two will eventually smooch each other?"

"Uh..."

They landed on concrete atop a strong stream of water, not far of some pipes with grids on them serving as catwalks. They could use these to reach a ledge at the opposite side, a bit further down to reach another pipe with grids that would then leads them to a ladder to another ledge just above the water. This way, they could jump into the water without risk.

So, of course, the heroes chose the other way: jumping into the water from the top, the craziest among them pushing the more hesitant ones.

At least, DK and Spiky kept the two Sonics on their back.

The strong current carried them, and they quickly found out that the Beast Pack was prepared for them. Gordos, Gordo Bars, Blippers, Squishys, and Wafts were all over the stream.

Link was at the front, in his Zora form, swiftly avoiding any obstacle while throwing his boomerang-fins or slashing with them. Behind him, the Sonics jumped from DK and Spiky's back to repeatedly Homing Dash the enemies. Dark Meta Knight was in the air, sending sharp crescent waves with his sword. Little Ghost and the Three Mage Sisters were at his sides. The others were pretty much left only having to swim (or surfing in Kirby and Sweetie's case) to avoid the Gordos, but one of them regularly had to take down a lucky enemy who managed to not get hit until then.

Toward the end, a Clocker with a cage thought that he was safe behind some Gordos, in some ring thing partially out of the water, but the bird was quickly proved wrong.

Then they reached the end of the stream with a Glunk guarding the exit door. After everything, they really didn't know why the animals expected that a simple Glunk would be able to even slow them down. Anubis simply kicked it aside and everyone continued through the door.

They arrived at a new section of the waterworks building where the stream of water continued by passing into a canal that traversed the place in a zigzag pattern that cut the ground into three parts, with the first two parts having upper levels with green barriers. At the opposite side of the place, at the end of the canal, was a ladder. Poppy Bros Jrs were present, ready to throw their bombs, especially if the heroes decided to take the swimming path. Bombs would rain on them. And Needlous were at their sides for protection.

Some heroes remained at the door to fire at the enemies, covering the others who went close and personal. The place was quickly cleared of all hostile presence, and the heroes climbed the ladder to an upper section with a catwalk above a basin full of (thankfully calm) water.

It was also full of enemies. Blippers, Squiskys, Glunks, Walfs, and there were also Foleys flying above. And Clockers were coming, transporting even more enemies.

The catwalk being too small, some of the heroes were forced to go into the water and fight in it. Fox, Krystal, Jeff, and Pikachu remained on the catwalk, out of range of the Glunks, to fire at the Clockers to stop them from bringing reinforcements, and Little Ghost, Meta Knight, and Dark Meta Knight also helped dealing with them while the fillies, Marx, and the Mage Sisters dealt with the Foleys, leaving the rest to take care of the aquatic enemies. Elfilin even helped by headbutting one of the fishes as it jumped out of the water to attack Fox.

The battle over, they followed the stream again down a couple of levels, fighting some Chillys, until reaching another door. But before, they destroyed a Bomb Block that revealed another door in a small basin at the left. Kirby went in, along with Marx, DK, and Fox. The others continued ahead.

They were now outside the building, concrete wall floor leaving place to more natural cliffs and ground with still some artificial elements here and there, and water was still present, but calm. There were also various sets of stairs that Kirby could certainly move thanks to his new power, but since he wasn't here currently, the heroes did without, which wasn't a problem.

There was a prison gate at a ledge further up that could be reached with one of these stairs, and the gate had to be opened by pressing a switch just before the wall of the ledge. However, this switch was one of these that had to be maintained so the gate remained open. So, one of the heroes, Poo, volunteered to remain on the switch, allowing the others to reach the gate and save the Waddle Dee that had been trapped behind.

Arriving at a pond, while the heroes fought Balloon-Meisters and Squishys, Sweetie Void pressed another switch, this one not needing to be maintained, to rise a bridge out of the water. The Sonics were very thankful for that.

Then was a second prison gate on a ledge, at the other side of the pond. Well, to be more exact, it was three gates one after another, meaning that the heroes had to find and press (and maintain) three switches to open all of them and reach the two imprisoned Waddle Dees, all the while fighting various enemies like Chillys, Bouncys, Glunks, or Poppy Bros Jrs. A first switch was just at the other side of the bridge that rose, and the last two were just beside each other in a small hole at the other side of a small mount that served as stairs to reach the ledge with the three gates. Anubis pressed the first one.

It was just as Diddy and Dixie pressed the two other switches that Kirby and company returned with a freed Waddle Dee. Where they ended up, the Waddle Dee had been at the opposite end of a long basin separated into several sections by multiple cracked walls and protected by Gnawcodiles. A small boat and a ring-shaped object had been present at the beginning.

So, instead of simply flying above the walls, Kirby and Marx turned this into a game. Kirby used his new power to inhale the ring like he did to the other one earlier and climbed on the boat with DK and Fox, using the air bursts to move it. Marx then flew up and told Kirby which cracks to destroy, as some of the cracks led to dead ends, making it a game where Kirby had to find the right path while being guided by Marx. DK was more than happy to show off and destroy the cracked walls with his bare fists. Fox was here in case any enemies tried to attack them.

They didn't have any difficulty defeating the Gnawcodiles guarding the Waddle Dee. Kirby just rammed them with the boat. And just like that, the Dee was saved.

And now, Sweetie sent him to the town, quickly followed by the two imprisoned behind the three gates, and the heroes continued through a door atop some stairs, returning inside the waterworks building.

The first obstacle upon entering, without counting the lone Sir Kibble who tried to ambush them as they passed the door, was a new stream of water with very strong currents. The problem with this stream was that it circled around a tank, and the exit was blocked by iron blocks, so the heroes would be forced to do circles in the water while fighting Blippers until one of them managed to press a switch that destroyed the blocks.

Thanks Void some of them could fly, if not outright teleport to the switch.

A large basin followed, excepted that there was a large and powerful whirlpool in the center because the water was draining through a hole that had formed at some point. And not only the heroes had to press a switch again to destroy more iron block blocking the exit, but they also had to be careful of the many Gordos placed everywhere at the surface of the water. So, while the switch was quickly pressed by Meta Knight, the swimming heroes had to fight the strong current while avoiding the Gordos and while trying not to miss the exit. Link was a huge help thanks to his Zora form, as well as the heroes who could fly so they guided the others while holding their hands.

But it wasn't over as an even bigger basin with an even bigger whirlpool followed, with more Gordos, Gordo Bars, and even Glunks shooting down projectiles from floating Star Blocks. Also, a Clocker thought that he was smart by remaining flying above the whirlpool with an imprisoned Waddle Dee. Using the same strategy as before, the heroes reached the exit, some of them dealing with the Glunks with their projectiles.

Finally, they entered a pipe which was like a waterslide that led them out of the waterworks building where Galacta was waiting for them with three more freed Waddle Dees and the remains of a golden cage surrounded by three knocked out Clockers.

"Took your time."

"Hey! Don't complain! You have the easy job!" Sweetie Void shouted.

"And the boring one by the same occasion."

"Oh, come on. You like making these animals pee themselves as you patrol the sky like the angel of doom that you are. Don't say the contrary."

Galacta only let out a chuckle at this.

"We are almost reaching the opposite end of the bay," Elfilin informed. However, he seemed a bit worried. "But... We are also approaching his territory..."

"Who's territory?" Fox asked.

"Tropic Woods."

...

After several seconds of silence, Sweetie Void and Bandana Dee groaned, to the wonder of most of the others. Marx burst into laughter, and Meta Knight and Galacta Knight facepalmed.

"Seriously? There is a Woods in this world? HOW?! We aren't even in the same universe!" Sweetie Void questioned.

"We just can't escape the Woods, uh?" Marx said.

"Uh... With some luck, we won't have to fight him," Bandana Dee said only to receive stares. He sighed. "Yeah. Shutting up. That was stupid."

"And it just so happen that the Lor is currently approaching a huge palm tree on top of this island over there. And there is a golden cage with three Waddle Dees just in front of it," Zan Partizanne told them as she observed the screen.

"Ooh. Using the Waddle Dees as baits to force us to fight him. Of course these animals would do that," Sweetie Void sighed. She turned to the others. "Let's get this over with. Who is up to fight a tree?"

"Is this the kind of tree that sets itself on fire to explode on us upon defeat?" Ness asked.

Many of the heroes looked at him weirdly.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Uh... Uh... No, this is not the kind of tree that sets itself on fire to explode on you upon defeat. Seriously, what the heck?" Sweetie Void asked.

Ness shrugged.

"Uh... However, since this one is a palm tree, I wouldn't be surprised if he uses explosive coconuts. Palm trees back in the Dream Universe have a lot of these."

"This would be a nice change from the usual apples," Marx said.

"I would much prefer fighting a tree throwing apples at us than one throwing explosive coconuts," Bandana countered. "Then again, Whispy has started to use explosive apples lately, so this isn't much better..."

"Are you seriously saying that there are trees throwing explosive fruits in your universe?" Present Sonic exclaimed. "And they aren't robotic trees?"

"Nope! Totally one hundred percent natural living trees!" Marx confirmed. "Excepted that time when most of Popstar was mechanized by aliens. Then, yes, there were robotic trees throwing explosive fruits. Fun time."

"What?!"

"Ahem! We are deriving! So, who wants to fight a tree?" Sweetie Void asked again.

Ness raised his hand. "Since it won't explode, then it's alright."

"Ness it is, then! But seriously, what is it about explosive trees?"

"Well..." Jeff began.

Ness dropped from the Lor just in front of the golden cage, before the large palm tree that was supposedly Tropic Woods. The tree was at the very top of a mostly circular island, on a cliff, and was facing a large area surrounded by fences at one side and a real barrier made of plants and stones at the other. As soon as he arrived, the three Clockers transporting the cage flew to hide behind the tree.

The tree then shook, and suddenly, a face made of three holes - two for the eyes and one for the mouth -, a small branch for a nose, and even a patch of bark bristle for a goatee appeared and glared at Ness before roaring.

Tropic immediately made giant coconuts fall here and there on the arena, and as Sweetie warned, they exploded. So Ness began to move around in order to avoid them while sending weak a stream of fire at the tree with PK Fire. This took Topic by surprise and some of the fire reached him. But quickly enough, Topic opened his mouth and took a huge breath, inhaling the flames before he spat all of it back at the boy whose was the turn to be taken by off guard. He still had enough time to react to put up a PK PK Shield to absorb some of the fire and send some of the damage back at the tree.

Tropic resumed dropping coconuts on Ness who decided to attack instead with PK Thunder, raining lightning bolts on the tree. Getting annoyed, Tropic rose one of his roots high into the sky to serve as a lightning rod and sent another to attack the boy who quickly jumped aside before firing more PK Thunders, this time right from his fingers. He had to move again to avoid the root that continued to chase him, and eventually decided to destroy it with a PK Rockin, destroying the other root that served as lightning rod and hitting Tropic Woods by the same occasion. However, as Ness sent the PK Rockin, he didn't see the giant coconut fall right on him, exploding immediately upon contact.

Despite all the damage he took from the explosion, Ness quickly recovered and healed himself with PK Life Up, then cast PK Shield before he fired other PK Thunders at Tropic from his fingers, only to gasp as the tree raised a big metallic fence out of the ground with his roots and used it to catch the bolts. Then Tropic went on to try to smash the fence on Ness who quickly leaped and rolled away before sending another PK Rockin. This one, Tropic couldn't stop with the fence, and the attack destroyed the roots holding it, making him drop it and depriving him of his shield. Ness didn't wait to resume his assault despite Tropic trying to get him again with his coconuts and even spitting air bullets in small waves.

Ness saw the sand at his feet move and moved aside, barely avoiding being pierced by a root, and then leaped to avoid another only to be hit by an air bullet. Sent on the floor by the bullet, he barely had time to roll out of the way of a third root coming from under him while using a PK Fire to destroy a coconut that almost dropped on him. The resulting explosion still pushed him against the ground.

When he was able to look again, he saw that Tropic had four roots risen, ready to strike him.

"PK STARSTOOORM!!!"

"Wha-?"

Meteors suddenly rained all over the arena, destroying the roots and repeatedly striking Tropic.

"Ow! Argh! Eyouch!"

Tropic quickly used more of his roots to "punch" the oncoming meteors to destroy them, even grabbing the metal fence to use it as a racket. While this effectively protected him, this resulted in the roots getting damaged.

Once it was over, a very weakened and injured Tropic Woods took heavy breathes to recover while glaring at Ness.

Then Ness used PK Offense Up, followed by PK Rockin.

For a fraction of a second, Tropic had a look of horror before he was struck by the buffed wave of psychic energy, which was finally too much for him. He let out a long groan of pain and admitted defeat, shedding a tear while barely clinging to consciousness.

"You... win..."

Ness was proud of himself for this victory against this, admittedly, rather strong and quite crafty opponent, but then was reminded why he was here in the first place as the three Clockers transporting the golden cage came out from behind Tropic Woods and, seemingly understanding that there was no way for them to escape with the cage, decided to drop it before the boy before flying away in panic.

Ness then opened the cage just as Sweetie Void arrived.

"Awesome fight! But you got lucky, that guy was rather underwhelming. He didn't grow to two times his size, or didn't try to inhale you, or to jump on you, or to fly around by spinning with his roots extended like an helicopter. The fence was a nice touch however."

Ness was visibly sweating as he stared at the filly. "And you were bemused by trees putting themselves on fire to explode?"

Chapter 138: Redgar Forbidden Lands Part 3 - The Servant vs the Primal King

Bandana Dee wasn't stupid. He knew that a direct clash with King Dedede would be an assured lost for him. He just didn't hold a candle to the king's strength who could lift stone pillars and swing them around as if they were nothing. But he had advantages elsewhere: his small size, his speed, and his agility. Swiftly, as Dedede swung his right hammer down on him, he did a handstand bounce to the side, dodging the weapon. In the middle of his bounce, before and after he landed on his hands, Bandana attacked with his spear as much as he could. Then, upon landing on his feet, he immediately jumped above a horizontal swing with the left hammer and used it as a springboard to jump above Dedede while landing several more hits. Not remaining standing in place, he then did another jump, backward this time, to avoid another swing as Dedede turned to face him, this time with the hammer covered in fire.

Bandana gulped. "Fire power. Considering where we are, I had guessed."

Dedede then lifted his mask and tried to inhale Bandana Dee who quickly ran away as fast as he could to escape the powerful vortex. As Bandana was getting a bit too close to Dedede despite his best effort, Dedede got out of breathe and stopped. Signing in relief, Bandana threw his spear upward, and the spear divided into three spears that dropped spike down on Dedede before they disappeared and Bandana had his spear again. Before he could throw the spear again, Dedede suddenly began spinning with his hammers extended and lifted off the ground, creating a tornado around himself, before he moved toward Bandana who was taken by surprise. He was caught by the tornado and hit by one of the hammers, sending him above the lava that surrounded the arena. He stopped himself from falling into it by air-jumping, and he continued to jump like that while he waited for Dedede to stop spinning. However, when the king did stop, he immediately opened his mouth to inhale Bandana Dee again, and while he was jumping, he couldn't resist the vortex.

So, instead, he began twirling his spear very rapidly so it propelled him like the palms of a helicopter. It still wasn't enough to resist the vortex, but it slowed him down and sent spear-like projectiles of energy that Dedede inhaled instead. After inhaling enough of them, Dedede stopped and spat the projectiles back at Bandana who air-jumped repeatedly to dodge them. He jumped until he was just above Dedede, and then thrust his spear below himself as he dropped. Dedede blocked him with one of his hammers, only for him to bounce off the hammer and to drop beside it right on the king. He then bounced off Dedede and landed beside him before he immediately jumped away to avoid being pounded. Dedede then slammed the ground hard with his hammers, sending small pillars of flame toward Bandana who bounced and twisted to avoid them as best as he could.

While Bandana was busy avoiding the flames, Dedede did his famous jump, and Bandana barely leapt out of the way only to be hit by the following shockwave. Dedede jumped again, and this time, Bandana not only got away but also jumped to avoid the shockwave. Dedede then did a third jump, this time going above the center of the arena before he did a powerful spinning slam that shook the arena, sending a bigger and faster shockwave that covered all of it, but Bandana still easily jumped above it while throwing his spear. He then ran toward Dedede and resumed attacking him with thrusts while doing all he could to dodge his hammers. However, as Bandana Dee did another handstand bounce, Dedede predicted him and was able to send him flying with a powerful hit. Again, Bandana stopped himself from falling into the lava by air-jumping.

As Bandana returned fighting, Sweetie Void could barely believe it. Bandana Dee was holding his own against Dedede. Dedede who defeated Meta Knight and, most of all, Marx. Bandana who had always been at the bottom of the podium among their group of warriors comprised of himself, Sweetie, Kirby, Dedede, and Meta Knight. When did he get this strong? What kind of training did he go through? Meta Knight was as much in disbelief, but he was also looking at Bandana Dee with interest, certainly wanting to fight him now.

Wait a minute. If Bandana Dee managed to defeat Dedede, who defeated Meta Knight, then it would mean...

Marx seemed to think the same thing because he said to Meta Knight, "Looks like you will be the one at the bottom in your group, now," with the biggest trollface he could give.

It was hard to see what face Meta Knight gave at this because of the mask, but no doubt that it was priceless.

But really, to think that Meta Knight, who was once Popstar's number one, would plummet to... sixth (Sweetie didn't really count anymore because she wasn't remaining anymore on Popstar, but with her, it would be seventh. And then, there was still debate about if Meta Knight could defeat Marx, and the jester refused to fight him). Being behind a God and a couple of half-gods/child gods was okay, but being behind Dedede and especially Bandana? It was... sad. Now there was an aura of depression around Meta Knight, which then turned into determination. No doubt he will double, or even triple his training now.

Sweetie was so proud of Bandana. He started as a simple Waddle Dee among all the others, but now, here he was, fighting Dedede at his most powerful equal to equal. Once they will hear about this, all the other Waddle Dees in the universe will look up to him as if he was a superhero.

At this moment, Galacta Knight finally joined them. "It seems there aren't Clockers transporting Waddle Dees anymore in the sky of the region. I haven't seen one for at least one hour."

Sweetie nodded.

Bandana Dee air-jumped to avoid Dedede as he did his spinning tornado move, then twirled his spear to fly while raining his spear-like projectiles on Dedede as he continued spinning. Then, when Dedede stopped spinning, he jumped to reach Bandana Dee with his hammers. The Waddle Dee quickly air-jumped away to avoid the hammers, then jumped back at Dedede before he could land to violently smack him on the head with the spear, cracking the mask a bit. Dedede was sent crashing, and he dropped his two hammers.

As Bandana Dee landed in front of him, Dedede got up, on all fours, and roared.

Then he began to run on all fours around Bandana Dee like a wild animal, to everyone's horror, especially Sweetie's and Bandana's. Nothing was left of Dedede.

Then, Dedede suddenly charged at Bandana, violently ramming him with all his weight, sending him flying. Not letting Bandana time to recover, Dedede followed him and repeatedly pounded him with his fist covered in fire until he was exhausted. Bandana immediately used this occasion to get away, breathing hard. Dedede then repeatedly slammed the ground with his fists, sending many pillars of flames toward Bandana Dee who air-jumped only to be caught in a vortex as Dedede tried to inhale him. This time, instead of trying to resist the vortex, Bandana readied his spear and bonked Dedede on the head with it, making him stop just before Bandana entered his mouth. Bandana Dee then did several thrusts before he jumped away to avoid a headbutt.

Dedede resumed running around Bandana Dee on all fours, then went to tackle him again. This time, Bandana bounced out of the way and attacked Dedede as he passed beside him.

In this animal state, Dedede was more simpleminded, making it easier to predict, even if he was more brutal.

Dedede suddenly jumped toward Bandana Dee who quickly jumped away, and Dedede body slammed the area where he had been, and lava appeared and covered the ground under him. Bandana quickly threw his spear at Dedede before the king jumped again to do another body slam, forcing Bandana to jump away again while he threw his spear a few more times. Dedede did a third jump, bigger, making the following body slam more powerful, but Bandana Dee avoided it too while continuing to throw his spear, only for Dedede to immediately do a tackle that sent Bandana Dee flying.

Feeling himself at his limit, Bandana air-jumped to avoid falling into the lava, then landed near the edge of the arena while he looked at Dedede who charged toward him. Breathing hard, he readied his spear, and once Dedede was close enough, he thrust as hard as he could, stopping the wild king in his charge. Very rapidly, he then repeatedly thrust his spear on Dedede's head, cracking his mask more and more and making him slide backward a bit. After several seconds of this, the force of Bandana Dee's thrust forced Dedede to stand on his legs, so now, Bandana was thrusting his spear all over Dedede's body, making him slide backward even more. Bandana stepped forward to continue his assault, not stopping despite his body hurting and wanting to drop down and fall asleep.

Dedede was even starting to bleed from the puncture wounds. This showed how strongly Bandana was hitting him with his spear. In the Dream Universe, unless you really went for it, sharp weapons never wounded to the point of bleeding, never less cutting a limb, puncturing a lung, or stuff like that.

Bandana Dee then jumped and did one last powerful thrust on Dedede's head, destroying his mask while sending him to crash on his back, losing consciousness.

Three Clockers that had been flying above then decided upon seeing Dedede's defeat to come down and drop the golden cage with three Waddle Dees they had been holding before they escaped. Sweetie Void destroyed the cage, freeing the Waddle Dees, while Bandana Dee dropped on his butt, relieved that it was over.

The heroes then gathered around Dedede as he started to wake up, some of them on guard just in case. However, when Dedede opened his eyes groaning while rubbing his head, they quickly saw that they weren't glowing red anymore.

"Ughhhh... Worst case of brainwashing so far," he mumbled before he was tackle hugged by Sweetie Void and Bandana Dee, and even Kirby gave him a hug.

"Dedede!"

"Your majesty!"

"Poyo!"

"Hey, you three!" Dedede exclaimed before he fondly patted the Sweetie and Bandana. "Yeah, I'm back. I'm alright. And I'm sorry. It's really a bad habit."

Sweetie Void snorted. "You should really work on your mental. Stuff like that would happen less. Meta Knight was able to stop himself from being brainwashed."

Dedede took a proud pose. "Yeah, but I kicked his butt!" He pointed at Marx. "And your butt too, clown!"

"You got lucky!" Marx shouted back, ticked off.

"Blah blah blah blah! Excuses! I won, accept my superiority!"

Marx now looked murderous. "You. Me. Rematch. Right now."

"I just come out of a fight. You will have to wait. Speaking of, you impressed me, Bandana. I can't believe you defeated me. You really did a good job."

Bandana Dee had stars in his eyes. "Thank you, your majesty! I worked hard!"

"Sweetie Belle has a couple of Maxim Tomatoes we found in our adventure stocked in case we needed one. She can give you one," Marx the subject back.

"There, Dedede." Sweetie Void gave him a Maxim Tomato, and another to Bandana Dee.

"Thank you."

"And sorry Marx, but this is not the time," Sweetie continued.

Marx let out a whine.

Meanwhile, as he ate, Dedede stared at all the other heroes, more exactly at the ones not from the Dream Universe.

"I see that you brought some new friends. You made them in your adventures?"

"Uhuh."

Sweetie was about to present everyone, but then, the heroes heard running, and they saw animals from the Beast Pack arrive from where they came, descending the rails of the elevator.

"They are still coming?!" Phantom exclaimed.

"Stupid enemies being stupid is nothing new," Marx said. "Let's deal with them."

The heroes left the animals in a pile of unconscious bodies, and Dedede pointed at an elevator at the other side of the arena, this one circular with doors.

"Let's go before more come."

"Wait. Before, let me send these three Waddle Dees to the town. This elevator leads to the laboratory, right? Something tells me that things will get real once we enter it," Sweetie Void said before she opened a rift to the town and the three Waddle Dees walked through it. "Now, we can go."

As they opened and entered the elevator, Sweetie finally presented everyone to Dedede.

The doors then closed.

Chapter 152: King K. Rool

It turned out that they didn't have far to go after Galleom to reach K. Rool. They just had to climb a few flights of stairs, traverse a couple more hallways and rooms, fight some more enemies, before they reached a catwalk on which the king was standing.

The catwalk was inside a huge circular room with several other catwalks crossing it at different heights and directions. The bottom of the room was plunged in darkness for some reason. In the center of the room was something that looked like a black and purple orb inside a glass chamber surrounded by complicated machinery, the core of the ship.

King K. Rool awaited the trio near the center of the catwalk, and they didn't lose time to join him. The catwalk wasn't really large, to the point that DK and K. Rool took most of the place, so Diddy and Phantom were running before DK.

"I can't believe that you defeated the Galleom. They are the elite unit of the Subspace Army. They are supposed to take down large groups of armed soldiers by themselves. Oh, you are probably wondering what is the Subspace Army. Well, you see-"

"We already know what is the Subspace Army. We encountered Master Hand," Diddy said.

"What? Really? And you're still alive? Well, no matter. So I was recruited by them a few days ago. I'm now one of their generals. Which means that I now have the resources to finally eliminate you meddling Kongs, as you saw. But despite everything I sent against you, here you are, before me, still alive. Well, once I'm done with you, this won't be the case anymore!"

"Where is the illusion disruptor?" Phantom asked.

"Ah, you want to know, uh? Well, I have hidden it somewhere where I was sure you wouldn't find it while exploring the S.S. World Eater."

"On you?"

"No. It needs energy to work, and I don't have a source in my armor."

"But it's somewhere in this room then?"

"...Yes. But it isn't like you will have an occasion to search for it! I won't let you escape this catwalk alive!" At this, K. Rool grabbed a huge black cannon from his back. The cannon looked like the head of a dragon. K. Rool pressed the trigger, and the "mouth" of the cannon began to glow. "Here's my new toy! Die!"

The cannon fired, and out of the "mouth" came a big black arrow that flew in a straight line toward the trio. It wasn't that fast, but they still had to react quickly to avoid it. Phantom and Diddy simply lowered themselves against the floor. DK, however, had to jump. The arrow continued its path, then eventually curved upward and ended up hitting the wall where it caused an explosion.

K. Rool stared dumbly for a few seconds. "Uh. I expected it to be faster."

His distraction cost him as he ended up punched by DK. Diddy went on DK's back in order to reach K. Rool and slap him. Phantom took care of destroying the cannon by slicing it with her sword. Growling, K. Rool punched back, hitting DK in the face. His fist revealed to be equipped with an electric brass knuckle so his punch hurt more than it would normally. DK hit back with another punch of his own.

Meanwhile, Diddy and Phantom jumped from DK's back above K. Rool and landed behind him, surrounding him. They then proceeded to attack him from behind. Against this, K. Rool grabbed DK and suplexed him right on the two. He then jumped and dropped back on DK with all his weight.

While K. Rool was still on DK, the ape grabbed him and rolled with him, away from Diddy and Phantom, and sent him flying away with a kick. K. Rool landed in front of the exit on his feet and grabbed a gun. Thankfully, DK still had his shield to defend himself and cover his companions.

Diddy recovered from being crushed by both DK and K. Rool and flew up with his jetpack, his own guns ready. Seeing this, K. Rool changed target and fired at Diddy who did his best to avoid the shots while firing peanuts back at the Kritter. With K. Rool focused on the flying monkey, DK grabbed Phantom and threw her at him. Phantom landed in front of K. Rool and immediately slashed him repeatedly until she had to jump away to avoid being stomped on by him. Now that K. Rool was busy with Phantom, DK did a big jump toward him and slammed his fists on him, making him crash on the floor.

K. Rool quickly recovered however and, while still on the floor, bit DK's leg as he had been about to slam his fists on him again and pulled with his head, making DK lose balance and fall on the floor. K. Rool then got up and stomped on DK's stomach hard, keeping his foot on him before he grabbed a red beam sword from his belt and went to impale him in the chest, not minding Diddy's peanuts. He was stopped by Phantom blocking him with her own sword. Diddy then flew right into K. Rool, sending him crashing on his back beyond the exit. DK quickly got up and stepped back. Phantom remained where she was, expecting to be attacked and ready to use her sword.

However, K. Rool instead charged back on the catwalk like a train, and Phantom quickly had to place herself against the railing to avoid being trampled while DK jumped above him. K. Rool stopped at the opposite end of the catwalk, before the entrance from which the trio came, and he threw his sword horizontally, the weapon spinning in the air. Again, DK had to jump while Phantom lowered herself against the floor. To their surprise, the sword had a boomerang effect and returned, forcing them to avoid it again.

K. Rool then threw grenades all over the catwalk, not leaving a lot of safe place. Instead of searching for one, DK grabbed the nearest grenade and quickly threw it back at K. Rool, the grenade exploding on him, badly hurting him.

He dropped unconscious.

Phantom went to approach him, but was stopped by DK.

He did good because K. Rool quickly got up and threw his beam sword again. While Phantom and DK had to avoid the sword, K. Rool grabbed a remote and pressed a button. The next instant, several drones armed of a cannon came and took seemingly random positions over the catwalk before they each fired a laser down at the same time. The drones then changed positions and fired again. The process was repeated. So now, the trio had to keep watch of the drones to avoid the lasers. Of course, this was also the case of K. Rool so they could use this to their advantage. Diddy still began the process of destroying the drones one by one by firing at them with his peanut guns.

Catching his sword as it returned to him, K. Rool advanced on the catwalk, avoiding the lasers from the drones. When he reached DK, he began to attack him with his weapon. Since DK didn't have a sword of his own to defend himself, he had no choice but to do his best to avoid it by moving backward, by ducking, or by jumping. Whenever he had the occasion, he punched K. Rool. Especially when he jumped, he always made sure to drop back on K. Rool to smash his fists on him.

A drone forced them to move, but DK pushed K. Rool so he was hit by the laser. As K. Rool recovered, Phantom came from behind DK and climbed on his back to pass before she jumped toward the king and slashed him. In return, K. Rool grabbed his gun and aimed at Phantom's head, the gun almost touching her. DK quickly grabbed the gun and pushed it down, the gun firing at the ground. DK then was able to force the gun out of K. Rool's hand and he threw it above the railing to fall to the darkness below.

Diddy destroyed the last drone and rammed K. Rool from the side, almost pushing him above the railing. But K. Rool was able to grab Diddy before he could fly away and ripped the jetpack off the monkey's back. He was then about to throw him above the railing but DK jumped on him and repeatedly punched his head. This made K. Rool release Diddy who dropped back on the catwalk, and the monkey quickly ran away to avoid being trampled as K. Rool moved around as he attempted to get himself rid of DK. But Phantom, not worrying about it, slashed at K. Rool's legs, making him lose his balance and fall. The filly had to get away so K. Rool didn't fall on her.

DK went on K. Rool's back and continued to pummel him until K. Rool roared and brusquely got up, sending DK off his back. But Diddy then came, grabbed a grenade from K. Rool's belt, activated it, and let it drop at K Rool's feet before getting away. K. Rool escaped before the grenade exploded, only to right right into DK's fist.

K. Rool staggered a bit, then dropped unconscious.

The three heroes stared at the Kremling for a bit.

"Is he unconscious for good this time?" Phantom questioned, sword on the ground so she could talk.

"I'm not sure. Let's wait a bit," DK said.

They didn't have to wait long. Just as DK said that, K. Rool got up again, glared at the heroes, said "I'm not done yet!" and jumped off the catwalk into the darkness below.

The heroes looked down from the railing, wondering what the Kremling was preparing.

Sound of machinery erupted from the darkness.

"Something tells me that we should run," Diddy said.

Before the others could question him, they heard something right under their position and immediately moved away, just in time as a giant robotic claw teared through the catwalk where they had been. The catwalk then began to bend down under its own weight, so the three quickly ran to the exit, opposite of where they entered.

They thought they were safe in the room beyond the doorway, but everything began to shake, an alarm blared, and there were sounds of metal being ripped apart and of stuff being destroyed. The three understood that they had to continue running, especially when the robotic claw returning, tearing through the floor.

So the three ran, returning into a hallway where Subspace creatures awaited them. They didn't mind them however, only destroying the ones blocking the way, targeting in priority the ones that were easier to eliminate. They didn't dare enter the rooms, not knowing which ones would be dead ends.

Whatever K. Rool activated was following them behind the walls, wrecking the rooms behind, and letting out its claws forcing the heroes to be careful. When the trio reached a point where the hallway branched left and right, the thing burst out of the wall in the left. The three didn't have much time to see what it was as it disappeared inside another wall very rapidly, leaving nothing of the left path. Whatever it was left big cables behind that blocked the path anyway. This forced the trio to take the right path where they eventually had to climb stairs, the stairs to descend being destroyed with cables present.

They climbed a few floors until the thing came and destroyed the stairs above, again leaving cables in its path, forcing them to enter another hallway. They advanced, forced to take turns because of the thing destroying paths, until they arrived to more stairs that they had to climb.

The process of running in hallways and climbing stairs continued until there were no more stairs to climb. Then, the heroes had to follow a hallway that led to a ladder to a trapdoor, the thing chasing them just behind them, destroying the hallway. They rapidly climbed the ladder, opened the trapdoor, and found themselves outside the flying saucer, on the roof, close to the center of the ship.

They ran away from the trapdoor.

A few moments later, the thing came out, destroying the trapdoor and a large chunk of the roof, finally fully revealing itself.

As the thing roared, the trio saw that it was a giant mecha about the size of Galleom that was designed after K. Rool, without the colors, but with red glowing eyes. It was actually just the top of the body, the rest was made of cables of various sizes that disappeared into the ship, like the thing was half crocodile, half snake.

The top of the head then opened to reveal a cockpit with K. Rool sitting in it.

"How do you like it? I present to you the KAOS 2! We built it all by ourselves! We kind of had to because I took the World Eater behind Master Hand's back, and we built it so it uses the ship's core as a source of energy. So, anyway, it should do the job, right? There's no way you guys can win against it. And for your info, the illusion disruptor is inside the cockpit with me, so I defy you to destroy it! So die already!"

The head closed, and the mecha readied its claws. It began by sweeping the ground with them, first the right, then the left, then the right again. Quickly, Phantom and Diddy climbed on DK's back, and the ape jumped to avoid the claws. DK then had the idea of landing on the last claw to run on it, climb the shoulder, and reach the head that the three began to attack. But after a few seconds, the head discharged electricity, forcing the three to jump away, back on ground. DK and Diddy debated a bit if they could jump at the cables to climb the body, but they judged against it, the belly was too smooth with no parts to hold on.

Rocket launchers came out of the KAOS 2's back and fired many missiles toward the sky. The missiles then dropped back toward the trio who ran around to avoid them. While this happened, the mecha swept its claws again, giving another occasion for DK to climb it with Phantom and Diddy on his back to reach and attack the head until they were forced away by electricity again.

Again, the KAOS 2 fired missiles, then holes opened in its torso and out of it came mines that placed themselves all over the areas before it, so the heroes had to run around to avoid the missiles while being careful of the mines. Having learned his lesson, K. Rool didn't sweep the ground with the claws. Instead, the palms of the hands opened to reveal small cannons that fired continuous lasers that began to sweep the ground while the last missiles crashed. The trio had by now moved away from the area with the mines, so they had no problem avoiding the lasers. The mouth also opened, revealing a bigger cannon that began to charge. The trio quickly ran away before the cannon fired a beam that exploded upon impact. The three were sent flying by the blast, but they rapidly recovered.

The lasers were still sweeping the ground, so the three still had to run until they stopped. A hatch then opened on the KAOS 2's belly, revealing an even bigger cannon that began to charge while the mecha lowered itself so the belly was at the heroes' level. Again, the three ran away. The charge took more time, and the mecha tried to make it so the belly faced at least one of them, focusing on DK. After several seconds, the cannon fired a large laser that DK barely avoided. The laser continued for a few seconds as the KAOS 2 followed DK, but it eventually ended, and DK sighed in relief.

But the mecha fired missiles again, and released more mines, still not sweeping the ground with the claws, giving no occasion for the heroes to climb it.

"You saw the laser?"

"Yeah, I saw it."

"So they must be up there. Bring us there."

"Alright gramps. Hold on."

The trio continued as best as they could to avoid the KAOS 2's attacks. Things didn't look good. They still couldn't reach the head.

But then, Funky's plane arrived, open, and Cranky could be seen holding a barrel.

"Look at that. I knew you would need help. Here, use this!" He threw the barrel at DK who caught it.

The KAOS 2 targeted the plane with its missiles, forcing it to fly away. Left with some respite, threw the barrel with all his strength at the mecha's head, landing a perfect hit. This gained back its intention, and the heroes found themselves having to run around avoiding its attacks again.

Funky's plane eventually returned, and Cranky threw another barrel before the plane flew away again. DK caught the barrel and threw it at the KAOS 2's head.

The process repeated. Sometimes, DK missed the head, forcing him to wait for another barrel. Little by little, the KAOS 2's head was damaged.

Then, K. Rool seemingly had enough because he suddenly lunged at DK to bite him with the mouth's very sharp fangs. But DK jumped, avoiding the jaw, and landed on the head that he pummeled a bit before he was able to tear the top off, revealing the cockpit. Before DK could do more, electricity was discharged, forcing him away.

K. Rool slammed his fists on the cockpit in anger. "Screw it! I can't seem to defeat you no matter what! Then I'll go back to the initial plan: destroying the island! And guess what, this mecha can do it! Ciao!"

The KAOS 2 then returned inside the flying saucer, leaving the heroes behind.

"Oh no! We must go after him!" Diddy exclaimed in panic.

At this moment, the plane returned, flying very close to the surface of the ship, with Cranky signing to them to jump in. So Phantom and Diddy climbed on DK who ran toward the plane and jumped with perfect timing, landing inside the vehicle.

"So, the big bad got away. What is he planning?" they heard Funky ask from the pilote sit.

"He went to destroy the island," DK answered.

"Oh. Like good old time," Funky said.

"Then he must have moved to under the flying saucer to fire at the island. Funky, you know what to do," Cranky said.

"Of course, old geezer."

The plane flew to the flying saucer's extremity, then moved down to fly under it toward its center, still having to avoid shots from the ship's numerous cannons. Beside the World Eater's main cannon, after moving around it a bit, they spotted the KAOS 2. To ensure that K. Rool wouldn't fall, the head was upward, but the belly was facing down toward the island, hatch open and cannon charging.

By now, a huge part of the jungle was in flames.

"I know what to do. Get us above the head and I'll jump on it Be careful to not crash into the cannon or the cables," DK said.

"Of course! What do you take me for?" Funky said with a big grin. "And let me put some music! For our victory!"

The plane flew toward the KAOS 2, but K. Rool spotted it and sent missiles toward it. Funky dodged them as best as he could. Eventually, the plane passed above the KAOS 2, and DK jumped.

He successfully landed in the cockpit, right on K. Rool. While the king struggled to get him off, DK looked around in the cockpit until he found a cylindrical device the size of a football ball with an antenna. DK guessed that it was the illusion disruptor and smashed it to pieces.

"NOOOO!!!" K. Rool yelled.

DK immediately jumped from the cockpit, free falling.

Until he was hit by a wave of Phantom energy. Then, he stopped falling, instead floating in the air.

Phantom teleported beside him, back in her anthro form.

"Good job, DK! Thank you for destroying that thing! Now, it's my turn!"

DK gave her a thumb up, and Phantom flew toward the KAOS 2, a large red sword appearing in her hands. She then sectioned the cables, effectively cutting the KAOS 2 from the World Eater, and by the same occasion, from its source of energy. The upper KAOS 2 thus began to fall, and the energy accumulated in the belly cannon exploded, destroying the mecha. K. Rool was sent flying from the cockpit by the blast. As he was falling, he grabbed a remote and pressed a button. The next instant, he was sucked into a portal that disappeared right away.

Not done yet, Phantom grew to gargantuan proportions and began to push the World Eater away from the island and further up into the sky. Once the ship was away from the island's sky, she materialized clouds all over the island. From these clouds, it began to rain. This extinguished the fire.

Phantom then returned to her normal size and teleported above the ship. From here, she materialized a giant cannon and fired a huge beam right at the ship's core. The next instant, there was an explosion, and a Subspace bubble grew from inside the ship. The bubble grew to the point that it engulfed the whole ship, then continued to grow for a bit before it stopped. The bubble was high enough in the sky that it didn't reach the ocean.

Finally, Phantom returned to the island and materialized an army of clones to eliminate what remained of K. Rool's forces, saving the Kongs and the engineers who had all gathered in one of the few places that hadn't been touched by the flames.

And with this, King K. Rool's assault on the island ended in a failure. However, it wasn't without consequences. The majority of the jungle was destroyed, and many animals lost their live in the fire. There were now two Subspace bubbles dirtying the view around the island. And as for the Kongs, while they quickly gathered into groups to defend themselves against the Subspace creatures, eventually merging into bigger groups until only one large group remained, some were still killed in the action, and even an engineer, one from Samus' universe, died.

And if Phantom hadn't been present to stop the cannon, the whole island would have ended in a Subspace bubble. And even then, because of the illusion disruptor, it was a close call.

The Subspace Army really was dangerous.

And if they had more illusion disruptors... Phantom began to think that she should do something about this. Without the power of the ruby, she was close to useless. DK and Diddy did most of the work. Once they are done building the portal, she will talk to the engineers.

"Once the portal is built, we will bring help to replant the jungle," one of the engineers said to Cranky.

He nodded. "It'll take years for it to return to what it was. Not even the Snowmads caused that much damage."

"Once I see K. Rool again..." DK said, fist hitting palm.

"Now that he is part of the Subspace Army, we may see him again very soon," Phantom said. "Or maybe not. He took what seemed to be an important ship without permission and said ship is now destroyed. I wouldn't be surprised if he is punished as a result."

"But thanks to him, we saw what the Subspace Army is capable of, and we gained a lot of info," Diddy said.

"Yeah. I'm going to report that to everyone else as soon as possible," Phantom said. "And we also saw that the Subspace Army is not invincible. This should help to convince the leaders to not join them."

Chapter 159: Recruiting Three Kingdoms

As Qiang Claws gathered Ai’s dust in an urn and the group began to unwind from their adventure, Princess Peach turned to Apple Death. “If memory serves, you originally came here to talk to Mario and I about something?”

Magolor stepped in, so to speak, “Actually, it’s related to the reason I’m here, so I suppose I should be the one to address it with you.”

With a bow, the floating mage presented himself to the paper Mushroom Princess, “My name is Magolor. I am one of the head scientists and lead Magiscience researcher of an Omniversal Alliance currently in quite early stages of coming to be. I originally sent Apple Death here to speak with you in hopes of recruiting this world to our Alliance for mutual protection, diplomacy and cooperation. However, she was gone for a while longer than I had expected, so I came to check on her progress, then saw the fight, and, well, you saw what happened there… Anyway, if you have the time, we can discuss the further specifics in a more suitable room,” he said, turning to Qiang Claws, who had placed the urn next to the one holding the dust of Bao Leo.

Qiang Claws nodded. “Very well. Let’s go to the Meeting Room. I’m curious to learn more about this Omniversal Alliance. What is its name?”

Magolor rubbed the back of his head, slightly nervously. “It doesn’t quite have one yet, we’re still trying to get everything sorted while on a deadline, of sorts.”

Qiang Claws raised an eyebrow. “Alright. Follow me.”

As Qiang led the group to the Meeting Room, Apple Death took one last look at Ai’s urn before leaving, wishing only that things had been different.

Along the way, Peach and Qiang asked a few questions about the Alliance, Qiang worrying about being able to rebuild their civilization, to which Magolor (despite his mental screeching in frustration at having ANOTHER civilization to help rebuild) assured that there would be more than enough resources to allow the Felinois to rebuild on their own, and aid can be provided where and when available.

Peach, on the other hand, was more curious about the reason they were making this alliance and what this deadline was that was working them so harshly, which Magolor answered simply, if shortly, stating, “That will be addressed in due time.”

In Subspace, a being, seemingly of pure energy, yet humanoid in form was observing the universes through portals connected to the Subspace Bubbles his Army had placed, seeing this Alliance attempting to study his power.

Though some of his Army had played their hand earlier than desired, it mattered not to him.

It all fed him power, bringing him ever closer to being able to stand against Galeem and Dharkon.

And yet…

His mind wandered once more to the child.

How had she learned of his army as well as the Gods?

And how had she grown so powerful?

The being had his suspicions, but ultimately decided that it didn’t matter how or why the child had gained her strength or her knowledge, only to have his attention drawn to a new portal, one much smaller than the others.

But its existence ensured proximity to a place of primordial importance.

Observing the smaller portal from curiosity, he saw an island, burnt but still very much intact.

His eye was drawn to a curious sight… one that was faintly familiar to him.

A girl, horse-like, yet of bipedal build, floating in the air, with a swarm of cubes floating around her, commanding them like one would a limb.

He remembered her.

Phantom.

She was friends with the child. And now she clearly stood against him.

His mind wandered once more to the child, and the Alliance.

Would they join his Army? Or would they stand against him?

And if war came between them, would the victor be ready for Galeem and Dharkon?

The being’s speculations came to an abrupt halt as his suspicion surrounding Sweetie Void arose anew in his mind.

Was this destiny always meant for her?

Or is there another player to this game?

One content to throw the match and watch the inferno?

Or one who only interferes as they feel necessary?

“What are you? And what is your game?”

Upon reaching the Meeting Room, Magolor only waited for everyone to find a seat before he began to explain.

“About two weeks ago, the one responsible for starting the Omniversal Alliance, a rather remarkable child named Sweetie Belle, received word of some threats to a good portion of the Multiverse. Two gods, one of Light and one of Darkness, are actively working to free themselves from their now weakening prisons. But before even then, we must face an army that is willing to risk the lives and existence of portions of the multiverse simply so their commander can defeat these two gods, known as the Subspace army. Roughly a week ago, we learnt the identity of at least one of their leaders, supposedly the Supreme Commander, as well as the plan I just mentioned.”

Qiang Claw's eyes narrowed. “They would put innocent lives at risk without even attempting a different method that does not risk lives?”

Princess Peach gave a slightly startled cry, having thought of something, “OH! You mentioned a deadline of sorts. Is this army the reason for it?”

Magolor nodded. “Yes, though the reason for it is… unpleasant for many of us in the Alliance. The Supreme Commander of the Subspace Army, a relatively low power God of Creation known as Master Hand, whom we also learned the intent of the Subspace Army from, has given us one month, roughly, to decide if we are going to join them. We intend to use that time to recruit as much as we can quietly, then have an expo of sorts to show off our capabilities, and begin more general recruitment efforts. While we are currently having to help rebuild a few civilizations already in the Alliance, for various reasons, we have begun recruiting more readily known and accessible universes at the moment before beginning broad recruitment after a bit of show of what we’ve already attained, before giving them our answer.”

“And I’m guessing that this Alliance’s answer will be “no”, right?” Qiang Claws wondered.

“That’s right. However, some of us have doubts. The Subspace Army is very powerful, very advanced, and some think that it would be better to join them and not risk being destroyed by them in the war that is sure to follow. This is why we will make a military expo in about a week, to show to everyone that we can rival the Subspace Army and convince everyone that they don’t have to join them for their protection.”

“And the more you manage to recruit, the better, am I right?” Qiang asked.

“Exactly. But we aren’t just recruiting for the war against the Subspace Army. We genuinely want to help. We will help you rebuild Felina, we will give you technology and everything, and so, we will work together to make our civilizations better.” Magolor turned to Mario and Peach. “We already recruited the other Mushroom Kingdom, and we are in the process of recruiting the rest of their world. It’s the other Princess Peach who advised us to talk to you to see if you would agree to join us too.”

Peach smiled. “We would be happy to join, even if it means entering a war. We want to help stop this Subspace Army anyway. Even if they want to stop these Gods, their plan is wrong.”

Qiang sighed. “The last thing we want is a war, but we need the help to rebuild… Very well, we will join.”

“If ya don’t want to participate in the war, it’ll be alright, Ah think. Master Hand doesn’t know about ya, so Ah don’t think ya’ll be attacked. At least, at first. Master Hand may discover you after,” Apple Death said.

“And we will do our best to protect you if the Subspace Army does end up attacking you,” Magolor reassured.

Qiang Claws nodded, opening his mouth to speak, only for Peach to cut him off. “Oh, dear. We should probably inform Bowser, he rules the Koopa Kingdom, he should know about this!”

Apple Death slammed her head on the table in front of her with a groan.

"Do we REALLY have to?" she asked Peach.

"She has a point. We could use any help possible and plus, it’s one less potential ally for the Subspace Army. It would be best to recruit him while we are here," Magolor said.

"Ugh,alright alright…" Apple Death admitted.

"Hey, don't worry! You can go ahead and return home, I can handle him myself. If I understood the other Bowser correctly, I think I can manage this paper version," Magolor reassured her.

Thus, with Peach and Mario's directions, after flying back to the Mushroom Kingdom, Magolor easily found Paper Bowser's castle and approached the gates, where he was immediately stopped by the guards.

"Halt! What is your business here, stranger?" a Koopa with a lance asked him, pointing the lance in his direction.

Magolor calmly put his hands up. "At ease, my friend. I am just looking for an audience with your King, as I got quite the proposition for him. Don't worry, as you can see I am unarmed," Magolor told the Koopa, conveniently skipping the fact he doesn't even fight with weapons.

The Koopa that asked Magolor looked at him with suspicion, then looked back at his fellow guards who just shrugged at him.

"... Alright, you will be escorted to the Throne Room, but I must warn: the King isn’t exactly of the patient kind, so keep it direct and short."

Magolor nodded, and let himself be guided through the castle up to the Throne Room where his arrival was announced before he entered.

There, he saw Bowser sitting on his throne looking somewhat bored.

Mmm…. Maybe I should kidnap Peach… the Koopa King was thinking before looking down with disinterest at Magolor.

Then he did a double take, and his eyes widened.

"You! What are ya doing here now? We beat that cat lady and demon, so there’s nothing more you should be bothering me with!" Bowser said annoyed.

Magolor, though, kept his cool, and spoke in a joyful manner. "Greetings, King Bowser! I come here to talk about a proposition of mine, one that can greatly benefit your kingdom should you accept it."

Bowser just raised an eyebrow. "A proposition to benefit my kingdom you say?... Eh, guess I can hear about it. Was awfully bored just now so I got nothing better to do."

Magolor smiled to himself. "Excellent! How about we move out to a more proper space to discuss negotiations? Or we discuss them here, whatever makes you comfortable."

Bowser just looked at him, a bit puzzled, while Magolor just kept patiently looking at him.

This guy…is being awfully formal. But… aww what da heck, if it’s gonna benefit me in any way, might as well go along with it, Bowser thought as he looked at him.

"Sure, I got an office where I manage all the SUPER BORING kingdom stuff, although most of da time I just have Kamek manage it for me," Bowser said.

He stepped out of the throne and made a sign with his hand for Magolor to follow him, and he did.

He led him through the castle until they arrived at a double door that Bowser pushed open, startling a tired-looking Kamek who was lying on a wide, large desk, sitting on a chair that looked too big for him and surrounded by stacks of paper.

"A-ah, his Evilness! What a surprise seeing you around here," the Magikoopa said as he adjusted his glasses.

"Yeah yeah, this one right here," Bowser said, pointing at Magolor. "Wants to negotiate something, so I am seeing where this goes. Now move out of my chair! And be around in case I have to ask you about boring stuff," he said, making his way to the desk while Kamek got off the chair.

Magolor, for his part, just moved to one of the two Smaller chairs in front of the desk while Kamek stood beside Bowser.

Bowser crossed his arms and looked at Magolor straight to the eyes. "Alright, spit it out now."

Magolor, without missing a beat, explained to them all about the Subspace Army, the Gods of Light and Darkness, and the Alliance all in a condensed and easy to follow version.

"And so, we want to formally invite the Koopa Kingdom of the Paper world in. If you have doubts about our might, in about a week we are holding a Military Expo where we are showcasing all that we have to offer against the Subspace army. And might isn’t the only thing we have to offer: with our technology we can greatly improve your entire kingdom's lifestyle. The most advanced technology you can imagine at your people's command for their benefit!" Magolor told Bowser and Kamek.

Kamek, throughout his explanation, looked amazed and seemed mostly convinced, but Bowser, on the other hand, had an uncharacteristic, thoughtful expression

"Mmm… Now, all that sounds nice and dandy, and I am especially interested In that militar tech of yours… But there’s one problem."

"And what would it be?" Magolor asked, even when he secretly knew and already predicted the one complaint Bowser could possibly have.

"Y'all sound like a bunch of goody two-shoes, and that ain’t my style. Plus you invited Peach too, right? How am I gonna kidnap her if we are allies?" he asked Magolor.

"Simple, you’re not going to do that," he casually replied

"Hah! Yeah, right. Deal is off," Bowser responded.

"I think you would want to rethink that, Your Majesty. I'm gonna be direct with you right now," Magolor said as he put his hands on the desk and folded them.

"These Gods of Darkness and Light are nothing like either you or I had faced before, and if we don’t put a stop to them, everything we know and more will vanish, but if we don’t stop the Subspace first then we will not even try. What’s more, being a 'villain' yourself you’re aware that nothing good EVER comes out of allying yourself with other villains. Am I wrong?" He looked directly at Bowser in the eyes.

Bowser then vividly remembered a certain someone, and growled out. "Ugh… You… could have some reason in what you speak," he stubbornly let out.

Magolor kept talking. "Realistically, we are your safest bet and you know it. You already know the best part of working with 'goody two-shoes': we are moralists, and as such, we aren’t gonna backstab you, plot or otherwise prejudicate you or your people so long as you do the same. Trust us, and we trust you. All we ask in return is that you keep things civil with Princess Peach, see?" Magolor said, looking at Bowser, his Hands still folded on his desk.

Bowser himself looked troubled, as if seriously debating something in his mind.

Kamek, for the first time, spoke out. "King Bowser, If I may, but you should do it. I know how hard it looks to you, but if it’s for everyone’s sake maybe… maybe you should give up on the Princess."

At that, there's a glint in Magolor's eye and a wide grin stretched behind his garments.

And now…the final push, he thought to himself before speaking.

"And who said anything about giving up on her?" he said, surprising them both.

"What do you mean?" Bowser asked, confused.

"The way I see it, there's two paths forward: either you learn to court her without kidnapping her…. or just join the Alliance temporarily."

Both Kamek and Bowser looked at him stunned.

"That's…an option?" Kamek asked.

"But of course! As soon as the Gods of Light and Darkness are done for, you can formally present your leaving. We will have to confiscate any military tech of the Alliance, but as a showing of gratitude, your people can keep all the domestic ones. It’s a win-win for both of us, whenever you choose when everything ends."

Magolor then unfolded his hands and stretched one towards Bowser.

"So what do you say, King of the Koopas? Think you can go a season without kidnappings?" Magolor asked.

Bowser quickly looked at Kamek, and the Magikoopa just nodded at him with a serious expression.

He looked back at Magolor's hand, and even though he still looked unsure, at the end he sighed heavily and shook it.

"Alright, you win. No kidnappings… for now. You BETTER make this worth it, eggy," he said.

"Of course, you will not regret it!" Magolor said cheerfully…. Outloud.

Keep it cool, keep it cool. You're done now… he thought to himself, keeping himself from throttling Bowser as was his first instinct.

Chapter 182: Beginning of the War of Ages

Sweetie Void, Past Sonic, and Past Amy came out of the rift, on the top of a mountain. They found themselves immediately in the middle of chaos. Human knights riding pegasi, and some riding dragons (don’t the dragons with wings for forelimbs have a different name?), were flying everywhere, attacking familiar wasp-like robots and other flying robots while trying to avoid their shots. As the heroes looked around, they quickly spotted in the sky a large flying city out of which more robots were coming, as well as ships that looked to be transport ships. The battle wasn’t just in the sky. On the mountains too, and in the valleys between them, there were troops facing robots. The transport ships were landing wherever they could and let out dozens of robots before flying back to the flying city.

The robots clearly had the advantage, in number, in defense (they were made of metal, duh), and in offense (they had energy weapons). Their opponents, however, were armed with simple swords, spears, axes, bows, and so on, and their armors didn’t help much against energy projectiles.

But while it would have been a massacre, there were still many individuals who were very effective against the robots, surprisingly. These individuals often had things in common. For example, there were cavaliers armored in gold, or swordsmen with rings floating on their back, and Sweetie even saw knights that were actually riding alicorns instead of pegasi!

Also, there were mages. While they weren’t numerous, many humans, generally in robes, were throwing spells at the robots or healing each other. Some used books or staves, but there were also individuals that used neither. There were even women slightly away from the action that invoked warriors that seemed to be made of hard light, some more powerful than others, like the ones with floating rings on their back.

Still, the humans were clearly losing. The robots constantly had reinforcements from the flying city while the humans didn’t have this luck. Pegasus and alicorn knights were trying to fly toward the city, but as soon as they got too close, they were shot down. Still, there were some knights whose mounts were very nimble and managed to avoid the shots, but there weren’t many and they were threatened to be overwhelmed by the number of flying enemies plus the city’s own defenses.

So yeah, the humans didn’t have much hope to win, unless one of them managed to miraculously destroy a vital point of the city to make it explode.

Of course, the heroes immediately understood what was going on.

Eggman.

He barely escaped and he was already causing problems in another world.

Also, it looked like time passed much faster here than back home if Eggman got time to build such an army of robots.

“I destroy the city, you destroy the robots,” Sweetie Void said to Sonic and Amy.

“Count on us!” Amy said before she and Sonic jumped down from the mountain into the fray.

Sweetie Void first made doubles of herself that she sent to help against the robots, then she sent her Pokémon and Spikezilla. Finally, she flew up toward the city, rapidly reaching it while destroying all the robots in the way, especially targeting the transport ships.

When she reached the city, she saw that it was more a factory complex disguised as a city. It was hexagonal and was divided into six sectors of different colors with a giant tower structure in the center.

Inside the tower, Eggman saw Sweetie Void and immediately panicked. “What is she doing here?!”

He then pressed a button on his throne, and the top of the tower separated from the rest to fly away, just in time to avoid being sliced in half by Sweetie Void along with the rest of the city which then began to explode.

Before Sweetie could target the escaping pod, Metal Sonic suddenly arrived to attack her by firing with his arm machine gun projectiles of very powerful energy, Sweetie could feel it. Very destructive. Sweetie immediately made sure to remain above Metal Sonic so the projectiles disappeared into the sky instead of hitting the ground and risking killing soldiers below.

Sweetie eventually teleported just beside Metal Sonic to slice him in half, but it suddenly teleported behind her before it curled into a ball, spines enveloped in energy ready to shred her. Sweetie quickly readied her beam sword, then the robot charged at her with a Homing Dash, and the weapon clashed with it.

After a few seconds, Sweetie was able to push it back only for it to do another Homing Dash that she also blocked, then another, then another.

Metal Sonic then began to roll in the air, remaining in place, charging more energy. Sweetie Void merged her ten swords into a single giant one. Then, after several seconds, Metal Sonic charged at Sweetie Void at a speed too fast to follow, and Sweetie slashed.

There was a terrible clash for a brief second, lightning produced from it.

Then, the giant sword managed to cut through, slicing Metal Sonic into two pieces that then exploded.

Sweetie Void immediately looked around to see if she could see Eggman’s escape pod, but it disappeared behind the clouds. Feeling the energies, however, she found it far away, just a speck in the horizon.

In the blink of an eye, she reached it and crashed into it, quickly finding the throne, but no Eggman on it. Searching around, she didn’t find him anywhere. However, she found a door behind which a smaller escape pod was supposed to be, but it wasn’t there anymore.

When she teleported outside, she saw that she was now above a poisonous swamp with countless robots patrolling it. She quickly spotted the smaller escape pod that had crashed in the middle of it, but no sign of Eggman.

Sweetie Void growled. Eggman was darn good at escaping. Oh well, she began to clean the small of robots. Hopefully, she will eventually find Eggman.

Eggman was riding a Motobug, moving toward the ocean while avoiding the poison of the swamp as much as possible.

He couldn’t believe that that filly, the same one who bested Super Shadow, was here. What were the chances? There was no way she should know that he was here, in this world.

Everything had been going so well. After Crazy Hand busted him out of prison, he helped him build several robots before he sent him to this world telling him to do his worst. With what he had, he was able to build a whole army. He subdued the dragons and the few savages that lived in these wastelands where he ended up. He was then able to conquer the whole continent effortlessly, and he had been in the process of conquering the second one just west of the first one. He had been winning!

And then, she arrives and ruins everything! His beautiful flying city, his Eggperial City, destroyed in an instant. Curse her!

But it wasn’t over. Crazy Hand left for him a huge quantity of his energy to power his robots. Surely, with the right robot, it should be able to destroy her, right?

Marth couldn’t believe what was happening.

They had been losing, but then, they weren’t losing anymore. The enemy’s flying city was gone, and the robots (as the enemy called these metal golems) were being destroyed left and right by the hundreds by unexpected allies that suddenly appeared. Strange creatures going from little white horses to a dragon made of yarn, passing by a pink creature with a hammer as big as her and a giant turtle with cannons coming out of its shell spewing water. Also, whatever was this blue blur.

Defeats were all Marth had known since this man appeared, but now, the first rays of hope in a long time appeared.

He raised his Falchion and yelled, “Everyone! Now is our chance! Destroy the robots with the help of our new allies and let’s prevail!”

Not far, a man with green hair, Alm, the King of Valentia, raised his sword too. “You heard him! Let’s fight with all our might! For Valentia!”

“For Archanea!” Marth shouted.

“Aaaaah!!!”

With morale back at its highest, the united army of Archanea and Valentia fought with renewed vigor.

And so, it was in the mountains around Fear Mountain that they achieved their first victory.

Marth planted the Falchion into one last robot already partially destroyed on the ground but still working, one looking like a monkey that threw bombs, ending its artificial life and releasing out of it a small bird.

Using animals as a source of power, it disgusted Marth.

He then looked around, seeing that the battle was over, and he sighed in relief, and also in sadness at all the death that happened today. They suffered so much loss in this battle.

He heard the sound of wings, and he looked again, seeing the little white horses land before him. To his surprise, they merged into a single horse who waved at him.

“Hello! I guess we arrived just in time, uh? My name is Sweetie Belle, but call me Sweetie Void, nice to meet you. You are the leader of this army, right? It seemed to be the case, with how you rallied everyone.”

Marth was stunned for a bit upon hearing the apparent miniature Falicorn speak, but quickly summarized it really wasn't the most unusual thing he had seen.

“I am a co-leader actually. My name is Marth, King of the Archanean Alliance. Nice to meet you, Sweetie Void. Thank you for your help. We… We would have lost without you.”

Sweetie Void grinned. “Happy to help!”

Her expressions were so human.

Alm then approached, followed by his wife, Queen Celica, as well as what looked like a bipedal blue hedgehog and some other creatures. All around, soldiers approached to look at the creatures that saved them in curiosity, some with mistrust, others with fear.

“Marth. Apparently, we are in the presence of beings from other worlds,” Alm said, not believing what he was saying.

Marth wasn’t that surprised however. This Robotnik really looked like he came from another world.

Sweetie Void presented herself again to Alm and Celica, then she presented the other creatures, Sonic, Amy, Spiky, Tank, and so on. Alm and Celica then presented themselves as king and queen of the One Kingdom of Valentia.

Sweetie Void nodded once they finished. “And that’s right. We come from other worlds, like the man at the origin of these robots, Eggman. Sonic and Amy are actually from the same world as him. They are bitter enemies.”

Amy nodded. “So you can say that we are used to fighting Eggman, so count on us to help you kick him out of this world.”

“Will you really help us? This man, Robotnik, or Eggman, he has caused us so much suffering since he appeared,” Marth said. “We were powerless to stop him. We could only escape, leaving behind our homes, and for many of us, loved ones.”

“Yes, we will help you,” Sweetie Void said. “There is no way we will leave you to be enslaved or killed by Eggman.”

“...Thank you.” Marth then looked around at the army. “Let's camp and rest. We won, but part of Valentia still has robots walking on it.”

Alm nodded. “We will walk tomorrow to the Dead Man’s Mire and banish the robots from Valentia once and for all.”

“Oh!” Sweetie Void exclaimed. “Is the Dead Man’s Mire a poisonous swamp? Because my double is actually destroying the robots there while searching for Eggman who escaped there.”

Alm looked at her in surprise. “Y-yes, that’s right. The Dead Man’s Mire is part of the poisonous swamps that cover all of northeast of Valentia. Robotnik’s army arrived from there. I’m worried about the Sage’s Hamlet situated in the forest over there.”

“Oh, there is a village in this place? Tell me where and I will send my double to look at it.”

Alm nodded and took out a map of Valentia that he showed to help, pointing at a forest in the northeast of the continent.

“Somewhere in this forest. The hamlet is well hidden, but you should eventually find it, if it hasn’t been destroyed by the robots.”

Amy frowned. “I don’t think that Eggman has had much time to do anything to the inhabitants of this hamlet. At worst, they must be under the robots’ guard, waiting to be transported elsewhere.”

“Then I’m going there right away,” Sweetie Void said.

“I hope that Halcyon is alright,” Celica said.

Later, in the camp, in the tent where Marth, Alm, and Celica were gathered with Sweetie Void, Sonic, and Amy, along with a few others like an old knight named Jagen, or another old knight named Mycen, or Marth’s wife, Queen Caeda, or his Royal Guard, Kris.

“So, I found the Sage’s Hamlet, and I have good news and bad news,” Sweetie Void said. “Good news, the civilians are all alright, as Amy said. A bit bruised, but nothing bad. I destroyed all the robots who guarded them. Bad news, the hamlet is destroyed, and Halcyon is dead. He tried to defend the village and managed to destroy lots of robots, but the robots eventually managed to shoot him down. I’m sorry.”

Celica began to cry at this news. Alm quickly put an arm around her back to comfort her.

A moment of silence followed before Sweetie Void eventually asked, “So… What exactly happened?”

A shadow covered Marth’s eyes before he sat on a chair, a huge weight on his shoulders.

“It all started when mages from Khadein arrived and announced that the city-state had been invaded by an unknown army composed of metal golems. We barely heard the news that said army came to our door, and we battled to defend our home, Altea. We battled ferociously with everything we had. In the middle of the battle, their leader came and presented himself before he gloated about how “the great Hero King” doesn’t stand a chance against his robots and he will conquer the world starting with Archanea.

When asked why he is doing all this, he just stared for a few seconds and proclaimed he was an emperor that came from the stars and anything under the sky was his by divine right… Although looking back at it and what you’re telling us about him, it seems he was merely making fun of us.

Then he flew away in his flying vehicle, and the battle continued. However, when my captain, Cain, was killed, I understood that we were losing, so I ordered we retreat. Better we live to eventually retake our kingdom than dying. So we escaped. At first, we planned to go through Gra to Archanea-the kingdom, not the continent-but Gra was already conquered, so we went south to Dolhr and Macedon where I gathered a bigger army in the hope of pushing back the robots. But it was in vain. News came to us of Archanea being conquered, and we would be next if nothing was done. Two friends then told me about Valentia, west of Archanea, where we could ask for help.

So, it was with heavy hearts that we retreated again, by the sea, to Grust, first, where we gathered more men, but still not enough. The robots were more numerous than ever, and they were joined by half-robot dragons. Then, we sailed to Valentia where, for many days, we prepared until, finally, Robotnik began his invasion here too.”

Alm then took a turn to speak. ”It was quite the sight when we saw all the refugees coming in, but we did our best to accommodate everyone the best we could. Marth and his friends here are a fun bunch even in the face of tragedy!”

Marth chuckled softly. ”Well, even if hope seemed ever-shrinking we couldn’t just let it get to us, or else it would be no use fighting any longer. As long as we are alive we knew we could one day take back our home. We did so twice, although admittedly, now it seems harder than ever. The deaths we have suffered are proof enough of this.” He then looked at Sweetie Void. ”But hopefully, you and your friends will be just what we need to turn this war around.”

Sweetie Void nodded. ”You bet, now that we are here, Eggman stands no chance!”

Sonic gave a thumb up, smirking.

Hours later, Eggman, in his Eggmobile, arrived at his base located in the ancient city of Thabes, north of Archanea. Later, he was sitting on a chair, facing several screens showing the ocean all over the coast of west Archanea

“It’s only a matter of time before they try to retake this continent,” he said to himself. He loved hearing himself talk. “But I think that I know how to stop them. I will fight fire with fire. Magic… with magic.”

Behind him, a roboticized green-haired man in a blue robe stood, before a large group of robots in robes too, some being roboticized people, others being real robots, all holding tomes.

Chapter 207: Fun in Waterf̸̹͊â̶̛̱l̷̺̇l̶̼͐̄

Sweetie Void and the others were in the skeletons’ house, sharing some hot cocoa to warm up after the intense snowball fight. They used the occasion to talk about an important matter: Undyne.

“WATERFALL IS UNDYNE’S AREA. SHE PATROLS THE WHOLE PLACE BY HERSELF. OTHER GUARDS AREN’T NEEDED. IF YOU PASS BY THERE, YOU WILL DEFINITELY ENCOUNTER HER SOONER OR LATER. AND HER OPINION OF HUMANS IS RATHER… MURDERY,” Papyrus explained.

“Undyne is the current Captain of the Royal Guard, right?” Toriel asked.

“EXACTLY! SHE TRAINED HARD FROM CHILDHOOD WITH ASGORE HIMSELF! AND… WELL… AS HER FRIEND, I AM OBLIGATED TO TELL HER THE TRUTH ONCE I REPORT WHAT HAPPENED TO HER. WITH ALL THIS EXCITEMENT, I ACTUALLY FORGOT TO CALL HER TO TELL HER ABOUT THE HUMANS. I KNOW THAT I SHOULD LIE TO HER AND TELL HER THAT THERE ARE NO HUMANS, BUT I DON’T WANT TO LOSE HER TRUST… BUT THEN, I WOULD PUT YOU IN DANGER…”

The poor skeleton was clearly conflicted.

Phantom chuckled. “Then don’t lie. Tell her that there are humans, and that they are being escorted to the capital by Asgore’s ex-wife. You are telling the truth, and Undyne will believe that we are being sent to our death, so even if we encounter her, she will let us pass.”

Papyrus stared at Phantom, then got stars in his eyes and put his hands on his cheeks. “WOWIE! THAT'S AN EXCELLENT IDEA, MY COOL FRIEND! I’M CALLING HER TO TELL HER THAT RIGHT NOW! WAIT. TO YOUR DEATH?”

Sans sighed. “later, paps.”

“OKAY!”

At that, Papyrus took his phone and dialed Undyne’s number. After a couple of rings, the captain answered.

“UNDYNE! I HAVE GOOD NEWS! THERE ARE HUMANS!”

He suddenly had to put the phone away from his ears as they could hear Undyne yell.

«REALLY?! Humans?! Plurial?!»

Once Undyne stopped yelling, Papyrus hesitantly put the phone back against his ear. “YES. FIVE HUMANS.”

Again, he had to move the phone away.

«HECK YEEEEAH!!! Finally! Freedom, here we come! Where are they?!»

“THEY ARE IN SNOWDIN TOWN.”

«WHAT?!! Why did you not warn me before?! You must have seen them in the forest! Did you try to capture them by yourself? Papyrus, that’s too dangerous! I know that you are tough, but five humans, that’s too much!»

“ACTUALLY, I DIDN’T HAVE TO TRY TO CAPTURE THEM. YOU SEE, THEY ARE ALREADY BEING ESCORTED TO ASGORE BY NONE OTHER THAN THE EX–QUEEN HERSELF!”

«WHAT?!!»

“I ACTUALLY ESCORTED THEM THROUGH THE FOREST. AND… I MAY HAVE USED THE OCCASION TO TEST MY PUZZLES ON THEM TO SEE IF I COULD CAPTURE THEM.”

«Wait wait! Are you saying that Asgore’s ex revealed herself after all these years MIA and is actually bringing the last human needed to destroy the Barrier to the capital? Willingly? What about the humans?»

“OH, THEY ARE WILLINGLY FOLLOWING HER!”

«…Bring them to Waterfall ASAP. I’ll meet you at the entrance, before Sans’ station.»

“VERY WELL, UNDYNE!”

Then, he ended the call.

“LET’S NOT MAKE HER WAIT,” he said before he finished his cacao and got up.

Everyone else did the same.

“i’m going to my station. wouldn’t want undyne to yell at me for not being present at my post,” Sans said before he moved into the kitchen, never coming back out.

“I can not thank you enough for helping us, Papyrus,” Toriel said as she got up.

“IT’S ONLY NORMAL.”

Before long, they exited the house and moved toward Snowdin’s exit. Not even one minute later, they were before Sans’ station at Waterfall’s entrance where they found the armored figure of Undyne trying to calm down a very excited Monster Kid. Sans was also present at his station, looking very amused.

“When I grow up, I wanna be like you and beat up bad guys!” the kid shouted.

“The Royal Guard will be happy to have you, kid. Now, please, I’m on a mission, so return to your home. Humans are approaching,” Undyne said.

“Really? Humans? Oh my god! Will you beat them up?”

“I’m here to see about that.” At this moment, Undyne spotted them approaching. “Speaking of the devil, here they are.”

“HELLO UNDYNE! I’M BRINGING THE HUMANS! I SUPPOSE THAT YOU WILL WANT TO ESCORTE THEM THROUGH WATERFALL.”

Through her helmet, Undyne stared at Toriel. “So that’s true, the queen is back.”

“Ex-queen,” Toriel corrected.

“I didn’t expect YOU of all people to be the one to send a human to Asgore. I thought that you left him and the kingdom because you hated the idea of sacrificing humans.”

Toriel sighed. “They convinced me.”

Frisk nodded. “We want the monsters’ freedom.”

Undyne stared at her, then removed her helmet, revealing her fish-like appearance.

“You are saying that you are ready to give up your life for us?”

“Exactly,” Phantom said.

“...Very well. But there is no need to go all the way to Asgore for that. Asgore… He doesn’t want to kill another human. The six previous ones weigh heavily on his shoulders. So…” She summoned a spear. “Let me be the one to bear this weight this time. I’m prepared for that.”

However, Toriel placed herself in front of the kids, glaring at Undyne. “Asgore is the one who started that, he should be the one to end it. Let him live with the full weight of his choice. Besides, whether you are the one who kills or not, it will still be under his law, so he will still be responsible for their death. Their blood will still be on his hands, even if indirectly. You killing them now will not help him.”

Undyne growled. “You think I don’t know that? But this is still preferable than him giving the killing blow!”

“How about you talk to him and see what he prefers?”

“besides, undyne, must i remind you that papyrus is still here?” Sans suddenly said from his station, no humor in his voice.

Undyne immediately looked toward Papyrus who looked very… uncomfortable. “Shit…”

“THE HUMANS SENT TO ASGORE ARE KILLED? WHY?” the tall skeleton asked.

The captain panicked, then looked around in search of a solution before she looked at Sans for help.

Toriel was surprised. “You mean, you did not know that it is why monsters capture humans?”

“NO? I THOUGHT THAT THE KING JUST NEEDED A POWERFUL SOUL TO DESTROY THE BARRIER, AND THERE WAS NO NEED TO KILL THE HUMAN FOR THAT. THE HUMAN WOULD BE LET GO TO RETURN TO THEIR HOME.”

“Oh…” Toriel wasn’t sure what to say. She then looked at Sans to see what she should do, only to see him with a look of sad acceptance. She sighed. “In order to destroy the Barrier, seven human SOULs are needed. However, the SOULs need to be absorbed by a monster, and for that, the humans need to be killed. There is no other way around that.”

“NO OTHER WAY?” Papyrus repeated. “REALLY?”

Undyne groaned. “Asgore made Alphys try to find something, but there have been no words about that project in a while. Probably a dud.”

“Asgore tried to find an alternative?” Toriel asked in surprise.

“Yeah, as I said, he really doesn’t want another human to die. He really hoped that Alphys would find something using the SOULs we already possess. But it seems that, in the end, there are no other ways. We either kill seven humans to get their SOULs, or we remain trapped down here, hopeless.”

“HOW ABOUT LETTING THE HUMANS LIVE WITH US AND WE WAIT FOR THEM TO DIE OF NATURAL CAUSE?”

“That was the initial idea when Chara first arrived. But then, THAT day happened, and plans changed,” Toriel said bitterly.

“And it would be cruel for other monsters to let humans live among us when we are so close to freedom,” Undyne said. “Hope is already dwindling, monsters are falling down one after another. Then, finally, freedom is within reach, but we let the humans live and we have to wait around another century to see the sun? Especially after we killed all the previous humans?”

“it would be a very horrible bad joke,” Sans said. “monsters would fall down by the dozens, or revolt.”

“BUT… I DON’T WANT THEM TO DIE…”

Undyne sighed. “Damn it, Papyrus… You befriended them, right?”

Papyrus just looked down sadly at that.

Undyne groaned and rubbed her face.

“MAYBE… IF WE SHOW TO THE MONSTERS THAT THE HUMANS ARE NICE? HOTLAND IS ON OUR WAY. WE COULD TALK TO METTATON AND HAVE HIM TALK TO THE HUMANS BEFORE THE CAMERA.”

“The humans being nice wouldn’t change the situation we are in. Either we kill them, or we remain trapped for another century,” Undyne said. “While the monsters would be less willing to have the humans killed, they would still feel bad knowing that they are so close, yet so far to see the sun. Some would accept the situation and wait, but others… And most monsters aren’t as long-lived as Gerson, so for many, giving up killing the humans would mean giving up seeing the sun during their lifetime.”

Toriel stared at Undyne with hesitation. “It has gotten that bad?”

“Yeah, the hope Asgore gave us when he declared war on the humans is the only thing holding this kingdom together, but even that hope is disappearing fast as we talk. Monsters falling down are multiplying. We are slowly but surely losing population.” Undyne then glared at Toriel. “Their queen suddenly abandoning them certainly hasn’t helped.”

Toriel winced.

She… didn't really give all that much thought on how things would develop in the Underground over the years. She was so focused on preventing further bloodshed, it didn’t cross her mind.

And having Undyne in front of her, she found out she didn’t have anything to respond to her.

Undyne, tired of glaring, simply huffed, then turned around.

Reservations for the ex-queen aside, she could admit part of her dreaded fighting her: boss monsters were called such for a good reason, and she likely had more years of experience than her even if her skills must be rusty.

But then there was Papyrus… He was just too considerate-to the point it made her really hesitant to ever let him be a Royal Guard. If she fights now, he might genuinely freeze up and get caught by a nasty attack. And in the worst case… He might even try to run away with the humans, branding him a traitor and then she would have to…

Yeah, no. She was not dealing with that.

“Anyways, while I don't doubt a boss monster would be enough to deliver them… I'm still gonna stick with you. Just to make sure there's no… second-guesses,” she said, glancing quickly at Toriel before looking ahead again.

“AND AS AN ASPIRING ROYAL GUARD, I SHALL ESCORT YOU TOO!” Papyrus said.

Undyne sighed. ”I don't think that's-”

The moment she turned around, Papyrus was giving her puppy-eyes.

More annoyingly, the humans joined him.

Undyne groaned loudly. ”Fiiiine! But you better don't let them out of your sight!”

“YES MA'AM!” Papyrus saluted.

Internally, he sighed in relief.

Good, that should have bought him some time.

He… didn't know what to think right now. All this time, what he believed a Royal Guard to be…was a lie.

A lie that Undyne, his friend, upheld to him. That… hurt.

But he could deal with that later. Right now he must make sure the humans remain safe! And when they meet Asgore… He didn’t know how, but somehow he would convince him and everyone else to not kill them, that there was a pacific solution to all this.

There must be.

And so, with Undyne putting the helmet back on her head and taking the lead, the group entered Waterfall, leaving a sighing Sans behind, as well as Monster Kid, who had been forgotten but didn’t dare to say or do anything after such a discussion.

They passed the Bridge Seed puzzles, Undyne scaring away an Aaron, then the wishing room where the kids let a Woshua clean them, then they arrived at the raft that could only pass one person at a time.

“Ok, I’m going first. Toriel next. Then the children. And Papyrus will go last. Papyrus, be sure that the humans don’t escape,” Undyne instructed.

“OF COURSE!”

So they used the raft one by one, and they were able to continue. After that, they traversed the pier, then thy arrived at the room with the cheese trapped in crystal.

Suddenly, as they advanced into the following corridor, Undyne stopped, making the whole group stop.

“What the hell?” she said.

Sweetie Void looked ahead and understood why Undyne stopped.

She may have traversed the Underground only once, but from what she remembered, this corridor wasn’t supposed to be that long. It should lead right away to Sans with his telescope. Instead, the corridor was longer, and there was a gray door in the left wall.

For some reason, Sweetie Void felt a chill when she saw the door.

Beside her, Frisk gulped and muttered, “Another one…”

“What do ya mean?” Apple Death whispered back.

“Throughout my runs, I encountered a couple of anomalies. Once, I got a phone call asking for someone with a name starting with “G” only to give me the wrong number song. Then, in another run, I met a gray monster that looked like that guy who used all his money to buy a donut from Muffet in Hotland, however, this one was holding a talking head, and he talked about the ancient Royal Scientist, one Doctor W.D. Gaster, who apparently shattered through space and time. And apparently, the talking head was a piece of him. Then he disappeared.”

“Creepy,” Kris said.

As they talked, Undyne carefully approached the door while Toriel and Papyrus frowned.

“I don’t remember ever seeing a gray door in this area,” Toriel said.

Papyrus nodded. “Me too.”

The children decided to approach, and the adults remained close.

Slowly, Undyne reached for the door, then opened it, looking at what was inside.

All she could see was a gray room… and someone in the center, immobile.

He… was familiar. The guy looked like a skeleton wearing a black smock. However, his skull was cracked, with one crack going from his right eye to the top of his skull while a second crack was going from his left eye to his mouth. Also, his hands had a large hole in their palm. As for his body, it seemed goopy, with no legs visible. Currently, his eyes were closed.

Undyne frowned. “Who are you?”

The skeleton didn’t answer, remaining immobile.

Undyne entered the room, letting the others look into it.

“Who is this?” Phantom asked, on her guard.

“No idea, I never saw this guy,” Frisk said. “But he looks like a skeleton. Is he related to you, Papyrus?”

Papyrus rubbed his chin. “YES, HE DOES FEEL VERY FAMILIAR.” He then gasped. “COULD HE BE…?!” And suddenly, he entered the room.

“Papyrus, wait! I have a bad feeling!” Sweetie Void shouted before she entered the room.

Hesitating, the other children entered too.

“Wait, my children!” Toriel said before she entered too.

Everyone stared at the skeleton, not saying a word until Papyrus said, “ARE… ARE YOU…?”

Suddenly, the skeleton reacted, his eyes opening, and his smile widening.

“☟︎☜︎☼︎☜︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎ ✌︎☼︎☜︎📪︎ (HERE YOU ARE,)” a voice then echoed from all around

Then, the door closed behind everyone.

And the room simply disappeared, leaving behind a… void, with lines of ones and zeros floating around.

The skeleton’s smile widened even more as he looked right at Sweetie Void.

“✋︎ 🕈︎✌︎☠︎❄︎☜︎👎︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ❄︎✌︎☹︎😐︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎📪︎ 💧︎🕈︎☜︎☜︎❄︎✋︎☜︎ 👌︎☜︎☹︎☹︎☜︎📬︎ (I WANTED TO TALK TO YOU, SWEETIE BELLE.)”