Super Paper Mario 2: The Tribe of Darkness (Complete + Art Project)

[Reading]

Holy mackerel, that intermission was too long for a single post. Commencing from the paragraph where I left off...


"Those heroes...beat me AGAIN! I don't get it...I just don't get it..."
"Bowser..." examined Peach. "You're really back! It's the evil, but loveably pathetic Bowser I knew before."
"PATHETIC?!" Bowser spat. "You...oh, Princess Peach! I didn't hurt you, did I?"
Peach sighed. "Oh, Bowser..."
Blumiere approached the villain. "Hurry, Bowser. We must unwed you and Peach to stop this Void."
"Unwed? Me and Peach?" Bowser stood up, glaring at Blumiere. "Aren't you that Count Bleck guy?"
"I was. Now, I am Blumiere again. We have much explaining to do, Bowser, but now isn't the time." The Void shook yet again, soon to consume The Overthere as well. "You must come with us. We need to stop the Chaos Heart once and for all."
"What? And unmarry me and Peach? No way that's happening!"
"Fine, Bowser. Be sucked into nothingness forever."
Bowser's eyes narrowed. "Hey! What are you insinuating?"
"We don't have time for this! Either you come with us, or everyone dies. Take your pick."
One of those choices sounds a lot more appealing, doesn't it?
"I don't need you to help me decide, Peach!"
"What do you mean, Bowser? I didn't say anything."
"Then what was that..." Bower looked at Peach, noticing her clueless expression. "Well, someone told me one of the choices sounded better."
Mario and Luigi gave each other a sly grin.
"What are you two smiling about, huh?" Bowser moved menacingly for Mario and Luigi.
Seriously, Bowser, don't harm them. Let Blumiere unwed you and Peach. It's the only way you could EVER end up conquering the world.
"What!? Well, I guess that is true, whoever you are who's saying that."
"I believe her name is Maia," offered Tippi.
"Maia? What?"
Another rumble. Time's short, Bowser.
"Yes, but...ah...well...um...I..." Bowser folded his arms. "OKAY! Whatever! Do it fast before I change my mind."
"That's better, Bowser. Now come with me." Blumiere enclosed the entire group in a box, then flipped out. Our heroes emerged in the wedding chapel where Peach and Bowser, as well as Blumiere and Timpani, were married.
"Peach and Bowser, please take your places at the altar." They obeyed as Blumiere arrived above the central pedestal. "I'm not exactly sure how to cancel a marriage, but I suppose I can do it the same way I brought you two together." The other heroes gathered around the chapel as Blumiere initiated the "unwedding" ceremony.
"I'm ready, Blumiere," Peach offered.
"Excellent. Let's make this quick. Fair, pure-hearted Princess Peach, do you agree to separate from Bowser?"
"I do."
"Bowser, evil king of the Koopas, do you agree to separate from Peach?"
"Wait! When did I say I'd do that? I just said I'd come here with you!"
Blumiere sighed, then looked at his former secretary. "Nastasia?"
"Right away, Blumiere." Nastasia rose her hand to her glasses and ensnared Bowser in red hypnosis energy. "I'm going to need you to answer Blumiere again, Bowser. Do you agree to separate from Peach?"
"Wha...I...yeah...I do..."
A brilliant flash extended from the pedestal, bathing the room in white light. The scenery gradually returned to normal as the sparkle faded.
"Did it work?" asked Tippi.
"There's only one way to find out." Mario extended his Return Pipe. "Let's hightail it back to Flipside."

Our heroes emerged from Mario's Return Pipe under the clear skies of Flipside. There was no Void, no panicking citizens, and the Pure Hearts were active and positioned in their respective Heart Pillars.
"Yeah!" Luigi pumped his fist into the air. "We did it! The Void's gone!"
"We saved the worlds!" exclaimed Peach.
"And Dimentio's gone for good," Bowser bragged. "You can thank me for that."
"So, Bowser..." Mario turned to his arch-enemy amidst the heroes' cheers. "Are you going to stick with us again?"
"Yeah, I might as well. I mean, judging by that Void and everything, there's a lot more going on than I'm aware of. What happened all that time while Dimentio had me under his control?"
"Oh boy, there's a lot we have to explain again."
"Let's talk to Merlon, first of all," suggested Tippi. "He'll be so glad we pulled it off." Our heroes set off for the elevator.
"There's still some stuff we have to take care of," reported Mario as our heroes descended. "Maia didn't make us collect those orbs for nothing."
Indeed, I didn't, Mario. Did you have fun while I was away?
Mario smiled internally. I sure did. You just needed to save your power so you could do all of the things you did, right?
Yep. I missed you, Mario. It's nice to be able to talk with you again.
Same here, Maia.
Our heroes emerged on Flipside's second story. "Oh ho ho!" Merlon greeted them at the entrance. "It appears you've saved all the worlds, heroes, again! And...is that Blumiere behind you?"
"It certainly is," agreed the former count. "We went through a lot."
"Do tell me, heroes. I haven't had the chance to hear from you since you walked into the green door on Flipside Tower."
"Well, OK," Mario began. "It started like this." Our heroes again explained everything that happened to them since they entered the green dimensional door. For Bowser, they also threw in what they'd learned before fighting Hyper Dimentio.
"Simply amazing, heroes. I couldn't ask for a group of nobler hearts. That mad Dimentio has finally met the end of his game. So now it looks like there are eight of you, correct? Yes, the four original heroes, plus Blumiere and the three minions...so now we only must wait for one more arrival before the prophecy is fulfilled, correct? Who could that one be?"
"I don't know. There's no one I would pick out..." Tippi stirred. "So, Merlon...we aren't done, are we? We think Amtakan, whoever he is, might still be dangerous. And we need to know what these orbs do. Well, I think we should ask Maia about that." Tippi turned to Mario. "Does Maia say anything?"
The time has come, Mario. Dimentio is gone for good, but now you must now rise to stop the true threat at hand. Here's what you're going to do now. You're going to release me.
Mario was taken aback. Release you?
Yes. I've been sealed for 1,100 years. I had to make sure you heroes got the orbs in time, and then I brought Dimentio and Bowser together in The Underwhere so I could release Bowser from Dimentio's control and get rid of Dimentio once and for all. I knew Dimentio would use the Chaos Heart against you, so I deactivated the Chaos Heart's shield and allowed you to beat Bowser. I can barely reach out my power over this large of a distance, especially with my seal, so I plotted the events to work with as little strain on my magic as possible.
That's amazing, Maia. How did you know this would all happen?
Maia seemed to grin. I'm good at predicting what people will do, Mario. Especially if they're connected to the Tribe of Darkness. But in any case, take a rest at the inn, and then modify the darker blue door the same way you did the rest. I'll lead you straight to myself.
OK, Maia. But one question. You were sealed for 1,100 years, right? Isn't that...the same amount of time Amtakan was sealed? Is there any connection?
Maia paused. Yeah...there's a connection, Mario. But now isn't the time for me to tell you about it. Once you find me, I'll be able to explain everything. Everything you want to know regarding Amtakan and the Tribe of Darkness.
Mario involuntarily gave a sly grin. All right, Maia. We'll be there.
See you, Mario. Have fun. Maia left Mario's conciousness.
"What did she say, Mario?" asked Mimi.
Mario explained everything Maia had told him, including her "connection" to Amtakan. "Interesting," Merlon mused. "There is some kind of connection between all of this, isn't there? Well, I suppose we shouldn't waste any time. Take your well-deserved rest at the inn, heroes. I'll be at the blue door when you need me."
Our heroes replenished themselves with the inn. Once they were awake and ready, they stocked up on Shroom Shakes and other items for the journey ahead. "We're ready, Merlon," announced Mario.
"Very well." Merlon modified the blue door, creating another flash. "The road is yours, heroes."
"Thank you, Merlon," offered Tippi.
"We'll be back," firmed Mario. "And with Maia."


"So, yeah, I'm 'Mortcha' now. It fits my weird personality, doesn't it?"
"I suppose." Amtakan's glowing eyes were unchanged, void of emotion like always. "Well, we cannot stand for this. If my predictions are correct, Maia will draw the heroes to herself now that they have all five of the Breaker Orbs. We have relied on Dimentio and his minions to keep the heroes in check until now, but, obviously, we can't do that anymore. Dimentio and his minions have failed."
"Hey! Are you including me in that statement?"
"I suppose I am, but with the proper training and fortification, we will build you into a perfect hero-destroying machine, just like the others."
"Yeah, even with Wretcha's soul, you're still a total weakling!" A polygonal, orange-skinned female looked up from her drinking glass. "Guess I'm still the best of us all, huh? Supreme judgment and insight. Ah, it's good to be on top." She lowered her eyelids, leaning backwards as the glass fell from her hand and shattered on the floor.
"Margaret, I warned you twice. None of that drink before a meeting. I will resort to punishment if nessecary."
"Whuh? Oh, yeah, right, Amtakan. Sheesh. I still know the best."
"Listen well, minions. We must stop the heroes before they reach Maia. Focus your attention on the minions first - we need them to activate the Chaos Heart again. Then go for the heroes."
"So who will you send first?" Mortcha inquired. "These guys are a lot more competent than Dimentio's minions, aren't they?"
"Indeed, we are." Mortcha looked down at the speaker. A red-and-orange zigzag patterned cloak enveloped his body, ending in a series of points at the bottom, forming a legless torso much like that of Count Bleck and Amtakan. His black-gloved left hand contained a scepter with a similar shape to Amtakan's, but with a dark green handle, brown spines around the edges, and a polygonal red-colored end, making it resemble a giant rose. Five multicolored, faceted diamond shapes surrounded his head. It wasn't a true head, however. His thick neck ended in a single giant, flat eye, facing straight upward with a red iris. "Amtakan specifically picked us because we were the most competent. Isn't it charming?"
"That is true, Netherclops. I think I will first test the waters with Mortcha and Margaret. I would like you both to meet with the heroes and stop them in their tracks."
"Ooh, that sounds...nice," appreciated Margaret. "I get to show those heroes what they've been missing."
"I will require you both, particularly Mortcha, to undergo training for a period of time, and then I will set you on the heroes. Report to me once they have been destroyed."
"Aye aye, sir! Heh heh heh..." Margaret flipped out, then back in. "Oops. I forgot to show you where the training area is, Mortcha. Follow me." They both flipped out.
"Our plans are running smoothly," reported Amtakan. "Even if the Tribe of Darkness is no more, we will continue. Once the other two minions arrive, Netherclops, I expect you to fill them in on what they have missed."
"You got it, Amtakan." The Netherclops vanished in a manner similar to Dimentio.
Amtakan remained on his platform, saying nothing. Finally, he flipped out as well. "Maia...you have lost."

[Reading]

Dimentio had been defeated, The Void had been stopped, the orbs had been collected...but our heroes' adventure was far from over. They were now presented with the task of finding Maia herself. Once they reached her, she'd be able to explain everything they'd wondered about. Would the journey be easy or difficult? What would they encounter on their way? And, as Mario wondered, what would Maia actually look like? Despite their curiosity, the anticipation of having all of their questions answered provided enough encouragement for the heroes to forge on. A new world beckoned from within the dark blue dimensional door...

A line was drawn.

Joining this line were several others, forming a network of cracks and crevases within the ground. The top portion of the ground was a solid, uncolored white snow area, wheras the bottom, cracked half, was filled in with a dull, dark-to-moderate icy blue. Large mountains were gradually drawn in the background, some near and some far, all coated in ice and snow. A night sky was painted in, a somehow peaceful dark backdrop. Finally, a few stars of varying brightness were added around the sky, just for effect. The blue door was drawn into existence, and our heroes stepped into their next mission.

"This place seems very peaceful..." observed Tippi. She extended her energy-sensing power, trying to discern Maia's location. "I sense something not far from here, somewhere in the mountains. I don't quite know what it is. It might be some form of power that's keeping Maia sealed..."
"We should head toward it, then," initiated Mario. "Let's go."
"It's good that we have a clear goal," reflected Blumiere as our heroes began treading in the snow. "A single goal of finding a person, without having to worry about the world being destroyed."
I'm just over a few of these mountains, Mario. You're in the same dimension as me, so I don't have to strain my power as much to talk to you. If you need any instructions, I'll be able to help you.
Thank you, Maia.
You're welcome. Oh, but be careful in these mountains. I have the feeling Amtakan will try to stop you now that Dimentio's been defeated and you're looking for me. He's exceptional at predicting my next move.
We will. Don't worry... Mario ended his sentence, but Maia's words made him recall her recent statement of being able to predict what people would do, "especially if they're connected to the Tribe of Darkness". Mario knew Amtakan was connected to the Tribe of Darkness, and it seemed he was a very important person. If he was still active today...
Yeah, Mario, Amtakan was powerful in the Tribe of Darkness. He influenced a lot of things. Just come to me, and I'll tell you all the rest.
OK.
The air was frigid, but the lack of a Void in the sky put our heroes' hearts and minds at ease as they traveled across the icy, mountainous landscape. The area in this dimension was nothing like the cold area they'd found the final Pure Heart in; these mountains were ice-blue and somewhat rugged, not to mention high-up, as opposed to a simple snowy field. The starry night gave the environment another unique atmosphere. As Mario led the group, he felt truly at rest for the first time in quite a while. There were no big decisions to make, no evil villains trying to manipulate his emotions, and no impending countdown of destruction. "Is that true?!" exclaimed Blumiere behind him. "I hope you weren't hurt when that happened." Blumiere and Tippi were discussing what had happened while Blumiere had been under Dimentio's control.
"No, not too severely. I knew that wasn't really you. It wasn't even the Count Bleck I met when my memory was lost. That Count Bleck knew of his past."
"Indeed, the past doesn't matter now, Timpani. What matters is that we're together, again, finally - and we can stay this way."
"That's what you promised, Blumiere. You promised we'd be happy."
"And we are. As long as I have you, I am content."
Mario smiled. He'd helped to bring Blumiere and Timpani together after such a long time of separation. As the others held their own conversations, all the new people he'd met plus his own close friends, Mario was overcome by a sense of satisfaction. Just a while ago, this group's members had been divided along sides that were at each others' throats and constantly separated. Now, they were all together, in one place, fighting for a common cause.
Our heroes stopped at a dead-end vertical wall. There were three indents in the rock, each in the shape of the mysterious circle-heart-and-spikes symbol they'd seen in Amtakan's palace and Castle Dimentio. "That symbol..." began Mario.
"Oh, the symbol!" exclaimed Blumiere. "We were just talking about that. Have you seen it before? That's the symbol of the Tribe of Darkness."
"It is?" asked Luigi. "What does it mean?"
"Well, according to...my father, it's supposed to represent the Tribe of Darkness's true leader."
"The true leader...?"
"Yes. I'm not really sure what the story behind that is. My guess is that the heart in the center is the Chaos Heart, but I could be wrong, obviously. I'm sure Dimentio knew, but he took his secrets with him."
Mario examined the wall. "It looks like we need to find three objects to put in here."
"Let's try down there." Luigi pointed to a small passage our heroes had just jumped across.
Our heroes descended down into this passage, coming out in another area. They were underground, at the entrance to a vast maze. Three tunnels branched in different directions. "These passages probably lead to the objects," estimated Mario.
"How about we split up?" offered Nastasia. "We'll go in three groups to save some time."
"Good thought." Mario examined the others, noting that they seemed to fall into natural groups. "I'll take Luigi and Peach and search this tunnel, I guess." He walked to the nearest passage.
"I will go with Timpani." Blumiere and Tippi moved to another.
"Well, that leaves us." Nastasia, O'Chunks, and Mimi entered the final area.
"What about me?" questioned Bowser.
Mario looked behind. "Oh...well, I suppose you could go with Blumiere and Tippi to make it an even three."
"Got it."

"This place sure is cold." Luigi shivered as he and Peach followed Mario down the winding passage. He stared at the dangerous stalactites and other ice formations.
After a few branching paths and wrong turns, the heroes entered a small, open room. There was a short pedestal on the far side of the room, on which rested a stone object in the same shape as the Tribe of Darkness's symbol. "There we go," breathed Peach. "Let's get back."
As soon as Mario removed the stone from its place, a slab of ice fell over the exit, and three Ice Chomps crashed from the ceiling. Mario jumped back. "We're not done fighting yet, guys." He drew his hammer and smacked the closest Chomp while Luigi and Peach jumped on the other two, unsuccessfully.
"Jumping doesn't work!" announced Peach. "You have to use your hammer, Mario."
"Got it."
While Mario defeated the second Ice Chomp, the one on the far left attacked Luigi, sending him backward into the ice blockade. "Hurry, bro!"
"I'm almost there." Mario moved for the final enemy, taking it out with his hammer. After he did, the ice blockade crumbled.
"Whew." Luigi walked for the exit. "Let's meet with the others."

"What's this?" Mimi examined the group of pedestals. There was one in the center, with three others forming a triangle around them.
"This room's lookin' like a dead end," observed O'Chunks. "We 'ave to do somethin' with these 'ere pedestals, I'd say."
Nastasia looked at the pedestal formation, brushing her hand against the one farthest to the right. "Gee, it's too bad we don't have Mario here with us. He'd figure this out in a jiffy."
"Well, what makes him figure stuff out so quickly?" inquired Mimi. O'Chunks and Nastasia stared at her. "If we can figure out how he thinks, we can solve this puzzle, too. If I were Mario, what would I be saying right now..."
"It might have something to do with something we saw or did?" offered Nastasia. "Um...well, the placement of these pedestals might be a clue. It might be..."
"The symbol?" finished O'Chunks.
"Yes, that! The Tribe of Darkness symbol. That one in the center is where the heart would be, and the ones on the sides are the points."
"So then...what do we have to do?" Mimi continued. "There's nothing else in this room. We have to...finish it? Complete the insignia somehow? We..." Mimi shrugged. "I don't know."
"Hmm." Nastasia walked next to the middle pedestal. "I think Mario would think that this center pedestal is the one we'd find an object on. Maybe another one of those stone Tribe of Darkness symbols. So we have to do something to make it appear here."
"What could that be, though..." Mimi joined Nastasia at the center formation, O'Chunks on her trail. She set her hand on the pedestal's top. "We have to...make the symbol. Like I said. Do something to...uh...make the symbol?" Mimi shook her head, sqinting. "I can't figure this out!"
"Well, let's see," began Nastasia. "The center of the symbol was a heart, right? Hearts symbolize..." At that instant, a stone with the Tribe of Darkness symbol shape appeared on the pedestal.
"Well, I'll be chunked!" exclaimed the burly minion. "'Ow'd that 'appen?"
Mimi's eyes widened. "Hearts...you thought about what hearts symbolize, and then the thing appeared! I got it! You had to think about love, because the center of the symbol was a heart, and hearts symbolize love."
"Wow! We did it!" Nastasia celebrated. "All by ourselves!" She removed the stone from its place. "We'd better get back to the others."

Blumiere, Tippi, and Bowser emerged in a room with three Ice Chomps in a row. Above each of the Chomps' heads, a white symbol was painted; first the Tribe of Darkness emblem, then a heart, and then an explosion. "What do those symbols mean?" Tippi initiated. "We should defeat these Chomps..."
"Wait one second. Those symbols might mean something."
"Oh...I think I remember this arrangement before. These were the same symbols Dimentio used in his castle for one of the block-hitting sequences. The order was the Pure Heart, then that symbol, then the explosion..."
"Hmm. Perhaps that's the order we must defeat these enemies in." Blumiere and Bowser wiped away the enemies in the order Tippi described, and a stone symbol appeared on a pedestal at the far end of the room.
"What exactly does that order mean?" Tippi wondered. "We just guessed."
"A Pure Heart, then the Tribe of Darkness, then an explosion..." Blumiere thought as he picked up the stone object. "I think those are arranged from 'good' to 'bad'. You know, sort of like 'most love' to 'least love'. The Pure Heart is obvious, and I guess the explosion I caused had less love than the Tribe of Darkness...well, in Dimentio's sight, anyway."
"So, now we just have to take this back to the wall, right?" confirmed Bowser.
"Yes. Let's go."

Our heroes met back at the central hub. "We all have one, right?" asked Mario.
"Yep," counted Luigi. "One, two...three."
"Let's go back up and set them in the wall, then." Our heroes climbed back through the shaft, emerging in the mountain air. Mario, Nastasia, and Blumiere, respectively, placed the stones in their positions. The area rumbled as the wall slid upward, revealing a door.
"Let's do this," Mario proclaimed. "We're closer, aren't we, Tippi?"
"Yes, we are. It's hard to say exactly how much terrain is left, but I don't think we have much farther to go."
"That's good. We'll find Maia in no time."
Yes, you're pretty close to me, but be careful, Mario. I think Amtakan's going to attack you very soon. Be on the lookout.
I'll keep watch, Maia. What should I be looking for?
Anything that's suspicious. You never know what might appear, not with Amtakan's minions...
Mario didn't know exactly what this meant, but he remained confident as he trekked through the underground passage and out into the open again. He knew Maia was watching out for him - and, of course, he had all of the answers at his fingertips.

-END OF CHAPTER-

[Reading]

Apparently, Amtakan was on our heroes' trail. He also had minions of his own, but who might these be? And would they pose a threat to our heroes' expedition? They braced themselves for the unexpected. Whatever Amtakan might try to do, he'd have to do it before the heroes reached the ever-closer location of Maia...

"Maia isn't so far..." Tippi let her sense guide the heroes. "I think her location is in this direction. Maybe half a mile or so?"
"We're getting closer," rejoiced Peach. "How are we going to free her? The same way we were tricked into freeing Amtakan?"
You'll see, Peach.
Maia's statement was spoken inside Mario's head, so Mario told Peach what he'd heard.
"I see. I guess Maia doesn't want to spoil too much."
Our heroes began to approach the beginning of another vertical, but certainly scaleable, cliff. "One step closer..." breathed Nastasia.
Mario! Run to the side!
"Run to the side, everyone!" Our heroes instantly ducked out of their path as a massive steel jaw smashed into the area where they'd been standing moments earlier. Its razor-sharp teeth plunged into the snow.
In a few seconds, the weapon stood back up. "Oh, come on! Maia told you about my little surprise attack, didn't she? That idiot!" A purple cloud surrounded the steel trap, revealing an orange-skinned, polygonal female form. Aside from color, she looked almost identical to Mimi, with the exception of an elegant, frilled red dress rather than the simple yellow dress Mimi wore, as well as green-colored cheek highlights. "Anyway, yeah, I'm Margaret, I'm working for Amtakan, I'm the best, all that stuff. Now hop to it and let Mortcha and I destroy you." Mortcha jumped from a nearby cliff.
Mimi's eyes opened wide. "M...Margaret! Is that you? Where have you been? What..."
"Oh, you want to know what I've been doing? You're never going to amount to as much as me, but I'll tell you anyway. You see, I forgave Amtakan after a while and rejoined him, but soon afterward, Maia sealed him in that stupid palace. So I kind of hung out with his other minions while we waited for the Chaos Heart to be activated. And now it looks like I'll finally get my revenge. Sweeeeeeeet revenge."
"Maia...sealed him?" Mimi retreated a step, holding her arms slightly in front of her.
"Oh, am I getting ahead of myself? Sorry, I forgot you inferior minds couldn't comprehend things like that. Heh. It's kind of nice, all three of us being in the same place again, isn't it? Except for Morris being possessed and you being, well, you."
"So you...you can transform into non-living things? Amtakan finished that formula?"
"Um, duh? What did you just SEE me do, smart one? Um, no. I CAN'T transform into non-living things. Seriously! What a retard."
Mimi's tone became angry. "Margaret...you turned into such a meanie after Amtakan started treating you the best. Just because you're more powerful doesn't mean you're...better!"
"Oh? I say it does. Of course, there's also the matter that I'm way smarter, prettier, and more competent than you could ever wish to hope to be."
"You've grown into such an evil girl, Margaret," commented Mortcha affectionately. "Good for you. You've truly recognized your purpose in the Tribe of Darkness."
"Yeah! Beat that!" The newfound shape-shifter struck a flamboyant pose, with half-closed eyes and a goofy smile. "See? I'm, like, way more smarter and prettier than-"
Mimi exploded. "Shut up! Wretcha's only treating you nicely because you're on her side now, you know, the BAD side, and if you want to challenge us, get on with it instead of standing here, making yourself look like a complete jerk."
Margaret recoiled. "Oh, gee, Mimi, I didn't you had it in ya. Sure, if you want, we'll fight you fair and square. Ready, Wretcha?"
"I'm ready, sweetie."
"'K." Margaret tilted her head until her neck cracked. She rotated her head until it was completely upside-down. A chiming sound played for no apparent reason, and then Margaret's head grew and became moldy and wrinkly. Long, spidery legs extended from Margaret's upside-down head, and as she raised her new head, her right shoulder dislocated, leaving her normal body hanging uselessly from her giant head, and before I could get any more descriptive, her transformation into a giant spider was finished. "Think you're so high and mighty now, heroes? I'll show you who's the best."
"That's great, Margaret. Amtakan said that if you finish the heroes here, he'll let you have another Mushtini as soon as you get back."
"Another Mushtini? Awesome. OK, let's demolish these losers!"
Get that jerk for me, OK? I can't stand her either. These people have no love.
I totally see where you're coming from.

MINIBOSS
Mortcha and Margaret

Mario stood his ground. "Come on, guys. We've done this before. What's she got over the others?"
"Oh, plenty." Mario hadn't intended for Margaret to hear his question, but it was too late for any other thoughts as Margaret extended her spidery legs in Mimi's direction. The appendages reached Mimi and attached themselves to the reformed minion's green skin with a sticky transluscent substance.
"Agck!!" Mimi squinted, clawing at Margaret's legs, but they remained fastened.
"Say goodbye, Mimi." Margaret extended four green-tinted stones from her head and went in for the attack on Mimi. Before she could, however, Mario jumped between the two and cut through Margaret's legs with his hammer, causing her head to drop to the ground. "Quick, are we?" Margaret grew her legs to full length again and stood up. "But that's not all I have to show you dolts." Her spider form was replaced with a gigantic, rotating chainsaw that swept the area.
"She can turn into whatever weapon she wants!" worried Peach. "We have to find some way to beat her."
"Thanks, Mario." Margaret's severed legs were still attached, but they were easier to pull off now. "We can't let her get away with this." She removed the last sticky leg from her face.
"Have you forgotten that I'm here, too?" Mortcha rose into the air, surrounding her body with a barrier of blue stones. She flung a torrent of them at Mario and Mimi, growling frustratingly as they dodged every one. "Why can't I hit you?!"
"Need some help?" Luigi rushed in Mario and Mimi's direction. "They're all over there with Margaret, but someone needs to get Mortcha too. Here I come!" Luigi Super Jumped high into the air and nailed Mortcha on his landing. While the possessed minion recoiled, Mimi attacked her with more Rubees.
"You annoying pest." Mortcha landed on the ground and sent a stone wave for Mimi, knocking her back into a nearby rock. While Mortcha went in for the kill, Mimi gritted her teeth and flung another Rubee at her attacker in defense. She sprang back up and countered Mortcha's new blue stone with a Rubee, provoking a full-on gem war.
Mario turned to Luigi. "Let's get Mortcha while she's distracted," he spoke in a low tone.
"Good idea. I'll go from above. You're going to use your hammer, right?"
"Yes. I'll attack from behind her."
The Mario Brothers moved into their positions. Mario crouched behind the minion while Luigi charged his Super Jump again, springing into action just as Luigi landed. He swung his hammer at the startled Mortcha, slamming her over. "OW!" The witch rose to her legs, brushing snow from her face. "You guys are sure mean for heroes." She summoned a row of blue stones in midair, sending them down onto Mario and Luigi before they could react.
"Ohh!" Luigi looked at his right glove. He wasn't seriously injured, but the impact of the sharp rock had torn his white glove and most likely punctured his skin.
"Don't worry, Luigi!" called Mimi. "I'll get her!" She rose into action, ramming her head into Mortcha's stomach just as the witch turned around.
"OOF!" Mortcha exhaled. "Get off me, you little [censored]!"
"How about if I get on?" Mario jumped in Wretcha's direction, nailing her with three classic head stomps before the minion finally struggled free. Without giving Mario time to think, she hurled a blue stone into his stomach. Mario was thrown backwards, his face to the sky.
"Brother!" Luigi ran to help the injured Mario, leaving Mimi and Mortcha to fight again.
"What's with you?" Mortcha suddenly accused. "You used to be such a perfect, evil, deceptive girl, and look at you now! A whiny, pathetic 'freedom fighter'. And you fight like one, too."
Mimi stood her ground. "Yeah, I remember what it was like to work for Count Bleck and try to destroy all the worlds. And I don't want to go there again."
"Amtakan had such big plans for you. He didn't-"
"I don't want to hear it!" Mimi drew a Rubee. "You and Amtakan created me to send the world into chaos. Now I'm fighting to right your wrong." She ran for Mortcha, releasing her Rubee, but Mortcha ducked the attack and produced a blue stone of her own.
"That's not going to work anymore. I have a counter for every single one of your stupid attacks, since I just about am you now. Haha."
Meanwhile, the other heroes were struggling with Margaret. "Idiots." The minion changed back into her spider form instantly and attached herself to the nearby wall, extending multiple heads from her main unit and manipulating them to attack the heroes. "See how you like that!"
"We 'ave to git rid o' these 'eads if we want to do anythin'!" O'Chunks propelled himself skyward and smashed through several of the heads.
"Let me see what I can do." Blumiere moved for the nearest head, only to be smacked into the wall by it.
"Blumiere!" Tippi moved toward her husband while Bowser leaped into the brawl.
"I wonder what deep-fried spider tastes like!" Bowser blew his fire at a stream of nearby heads, taking them all out in a row. He then aimed the blast upward for Margaret's main body.
"Ouch! You hulking dolt, that's my prettiest dress!" The spider climbed higher onto the wall and sent green stones downward towards the heroes.
"I'll see if I can hurt her." Blumiere, recovered somewhat, sent a burst of energy upward at Margaret.
"You guys just don't give up, do you?" Margaret disappeared, reappearing near the ground in her normal form. "I'll give you all a taste of what being the best is like." She produced a ring of green stones that revolved around her body, like Mimi and Mortcha, but added a double layer as well, forming a near-impenetrable barrier. "Nyah!" She flipped into 3D and moved around the area, damaging several of the heroes.
"I must attack her again!" Blumiere flipped into 3D as well and rushed for Margaret with an energy slam. Startled, Margaret flipped back to 2D and rose into the air.
"You won't be able to dodge these now!" The minion suddenly dropped all of the green stones that orbited her body, allowing gravity to pull them downward toward the heroes.
"Aiigh!" Nastasia's arm was injured by the sharp point of a falling stone. "Hurry, guys! Throw these stones at her!" She picked up a stone, using only her right arm, and aimed it for Margaret. The others followed suit, gathering several of the weapons at a time. Margaret was hit by stone after stone.
"Gaaah! You idiots are so annoying. I'll just knock you all out of your senses." She quickly changed back to her spider form and extended her legs toward Peach, Bowser, O'Chunks, Nastasia, and Blumiere. Bowser managed to get away in time, but four of Margaret's legs fastened themselves to whatever part of the heroes they hit.
"Hey! Mario Brothers!" shouted the Koopa King. "We could use some backup over here!"
Luigi turned to the others, looking down at his brother. "Just wait here! I think Mimi's got Mortcha distracted." The green plumber raced into the action and went for Margaret's legs along with Bowser. Her spinning, stone-covered head had already hit Peach, but the two heroes were able to stop her before she did any more damage.
"You OK, Peach?" asked Bowser.
"I think so..." Peach stood up. "I'll live."
"All right, this has been long enough!" Mortcha looked toward the others from her fight with Mimi. "Margaret, let's do this together! We can destroy these weaklings."
"I'm all for it!" Margaret reverted to her normal form and joined Mortcha in midair. "Do a barrier, OK?"
"All right." Mortcha and Margaret simultaneously extended a circle of respectively-colored stones, Margaret producing two rows. They flew around the area, aiming to further damage our heroes.
"Come...on!" Although his stomach continued to sting, Mario had physically recovered from most of the initial pain. He maneuvered his way to Margaret and skillfully threw his hammer right into her location.
"I've got it." Luigi picked up Mario's hammer. "This'll be fun again, won't it?" He again hit Margaret with the hammer.
"I think we've almost got her!" Mario caught the hammer. "Just a few more hits!"
Bowser, meanwhile, was working on Mortcha. He interrupted the witch's midair flow with a hot stream, and then rose his hand. Nothing happened. "What?! I don't have my awesome super-powers anymore?"
"I guess that Dimentio-Bowser-clown took all of your powers with it," taunted Mortcha. "Taste this!" She catapulted a wave of five stones for Bowser, striking him squarely. While Bowser recoiled, Peach ran to Mortcha and attacked her one last time. Mortcha fell over, her stones also dropping to the ground. "No!" she pouted. "I'm out! Come on, Margaret! Beat them! And get that Mushtini!"
Margaret swerved into action, transforming into a glowing sphere of energy that rose into the air, releasing explosive lightning bolts. "Get her!" shouted Luigi, narrowly avoiding a lightning strike.
Mario rose, clutching his stomach with his hand. He firmed his jaw, measured Margaret's location, and threw his hammer directly for the minion. Margaret was damaged again, returning to her standard form and falling to the ground, defeated. "NO!" she cried. "I WANTED THAT MUSHTINI!"
"Come on, Margaret..." Mortcha exhaled. "We've lost. It was a close battle, but we lost."
Margaret gritted her teeth in anger, picking up a clump of snow and hurling it against the ground. "You idiot moron dummy POOPYFACES! Amtakan was going to give me a MUSHTINI if we beat you guys! And you-"
"Come on." Mortcha flipped out, taking Margaret with her.

"Mortcha was right," Luigi breathed. "That was a pretty brutal fight. We should be on our best guard. Amtakan will probably send more of them after us."
"Amtakan's minions seem well trained," pointed out Blumiere. "Even more well than I trained my minions. I wonder what his secret is."
Mario looked over at Mimi. "You're OK, right, Mimi?"
"Me? Of course I'm fine. I wondered where Margaret was, but now that I see what's happened to her, I don't have any sympathy for her at all. She's a selfish brat."
"Yeah," agreed Nastasia, "she is really self-centered. Amtakan probably doesn't mind, of course..."
"Did you notice how...empty Amtakan seemed when we fought him?" offered Mario. "He didn't display much emotion at all. I wonder if that allows him to just concentrate on improving his minions and such without his other thoughts getting in the way. Count Bleck had a lot of emotion, didn't he?"
"A large amount of negative emotion," corrected Blumiere. "Positive emotion can contribute much, but I wonder about no emotion at all. It's not possible to not feel at least some emotion, is it?"
Why don't you rescue me and find out? Maia chuckled.
Mario related her jest. "Ah, yes." Blumiere smiled. "Let's get to the rescuing."
Our heroes carefully ascended the cliff in front of them, careful to avoid scraping the injured parts of their bodies. With the heavy beating they'd taken in that fight, the heroes hoped they wouldn't have to do any fighting before they released Maia. Finally, our heroes rose their heads above the cliff and looked forward. "What's that wooden building?" inquired Bowser. "Is that where Maia is?"
"I feel a strong presence coming from that building..." replied Tippi. "Yes, that must be where she is!"
The group approached the door, Mario grasping the wood handle. "Here we are, guys. We're going to rescue Maia and save all the worlds."

-END OF CHAPTER-

[Kimimaru]

Wow! Another great chapter! Keep it up!

[Reading]

Thankfully, it was warm inside. Our heroes took a moment to stretch, and then examined their surroundings. The cabin-like building's interior was coated with light, dull pinkish tile, somewhat reminiscent of the inside of Animaul Palace. A short hallway led to their right, leading into an open space with three more corridors branching from the hub. "Are you here, Maia?" asked Mario.
Yes. I'm right here. You'll have to solve some puzzles to rescue me. I don't know exactly what they are, since Amtakan blocked my sensing of the building, but you should be able to figure them out. You're heroes of legend. Just stay together.
Got it, Maia.

Our heroes walked into the hub. A large, brown wooden door was featured on the far wall, complete with a white Tribe of Darkness symbol. The emblem's three points ended in a circle engraved into the wood. "So...we have to find three circle objects and put them in those slots?" guessed Mimi.
"That would seem to be so." Mario approached the door. There wasn't a handle or anything to grip to open the door. He pressed his ear against it. Silence.
Ha ha ha. Sorry, Mario, but I can't speak. I'm totally frozen.
Oh, OK. Heh... The hero backed away from the door. "Well, let's check out this path to the left." After a very short hallway, our heroes entered a smaller, doorknob-bearing version of the larger door without the indents. They emerged in a small room with no distinguishing features besides a green heart-shaped stone on the floor and five black designs on the far wall. The leftmost wall design was a circle, the next was a square, then a triangle, then a rectangle. The last one was also a rectangle, but contiained some irregularities, giving it a stone-like appearance.
"What's this for?" Luigi picked up the heart stone. "It looks like the green Pure Heart, almost."
"Look at these wall paintings." Bowser examined the designs. "You got any clue what this means, Mario? Because I sure don't."
Mario walked to the wall, drawing the eyes of our other heroes. "Well, let's see...nope, the number of sides doesn't have any pattern...and there's no heart shape, so it's not one of those find-the-same-shape-as-the-hole things. Hmm...does that irregular shape at the end mean anything?"
"It looks like a stone," offered Nastasia. "Or a brick of some kind."
"A brick..." Mario continued to muse. "That might mean something. Bricks are for building, building...what? This building isn't made of bricks, so we can rule that out..."
"Does that other square mean anythin'?" contributed O'Chunks.
"This one?" Mario pointed at the second-to-left shape. "It's covering the wall in the exact shape of these tiles. I wonder if that might mean something. Luigi, can I see that heart stone?" Luigi passed the object to his brother. "Thanks. Now let's see...green heart stone..."
"I think it might be the Pure Heart," responded Luigi. "The green Pure Heart. It could have some relation to these shapes."
"The green Pure Heart..."
While Mario continued to think, his younger brother suddenly perked up. "I've got it! Can I see that stone?"
"Sure." Mario put the stone back into Luigi's hands. Luigi promptly pressed the stone against the brick-shaped design, pulled it away, and pressed it against the perfect square. A flash materialized in midair, dropping a golden, disc-shaped key.
"I knew it!" Luigi beamed, picking up the key.
"How'd you figure that out?" inquired Mimi.
"Pretty simple. We know that the green Pure Heart was in two locations before. First it was the building that's now Animaul Palace - the brick design - and then it was Fort Francis in The Bitlands - the square design."
"Wow. That's amazing."
"Two more to go," reiterated Tippi. "Let's set this one in."
Our heroes returned to the hub and placed the key into the lower-left slot. Nothing happened. "That's what should happen, right, Maia?"
Yes. I don't think anything special will happen until you get all three.
"OK."
Mario led the others into the room via the northeast passage. This room was larger than the previous one, containing seven large square blocks in the seven colors of the rainbow and seven square holes in the ground. On the wall in front of them was a painting of a black square with several irregular areas "cut" into it through which the pink backdrop could be seen. "So, we push these blocks into the holes, right?" asked Tippi.
"Most likely, but let's take a look." Mario examined the wall painting a bit more closely, then turned his gaze back to the holes. Dark objects on the ceiling caught his eye. He stared upward at the holes on the ceiling, directly above and identical to the corresponding ones on the ground. "There's holes on the ceiling, too. Hmm..."
"Well, no harm in trying what we see." Luigi pushed the nearby orange block into the closest indent, expecting nothing, but was surprised to see a pedestal rise the block out of the floor by a few feet. "Whoa. Did not expect that."
"Maybe we have to get the blocks to go into the ceiling," offered Bowser. "The order probably matters."
"Let's push the rest of the blocks in wherever," Mario authorized. "We'll just see what they do, and we can figure it out from there." The others pitched in, filling every hole with a block. The pedestals rose the objects to varying heights, but none penetrated the ceiling.
"Oh," Peach uttered. "We should try putting one block on top of another. Maybe we have to get their combined heights to raise one into the ceiling." She measured the height of each pedestal in relation to the ceiling above her, and then removed the blue block from its pedestal. The pedestal retreated into the ground as she placed it atop the green block. The newly stacked blocks rose again, extending into the ceiling slot, but nothing happened.
"This is a tricky one." Mario looked again at the wall painting. "That wall painting must mean something. It's a square, which probably represents these cubes, and it has shapes cut out of it...we have to cut into these blocks?"
"I'm on it." Luigi slammed his fist into the purple block. "Ow!"
Nastasia had been staring at the red block for several minutes. "Is there something on that block, Nastasia?" The minion snapped out of her thoughts to see Blumiere standing beside her.
"Not really, just...that one spot on the corner." Nastasia put her finger on the top-left corner of the block from their perspective. "It seems discolored."
"Discolored? Let me take a look." Blumiere examined the cube. "This spot looks whiter. I wonder if this is faded paint?" He ran his finger along the corner as well, noticing a slightly bumpy texture. "Hmm..." Blumiere began scraping at the cube's corner, removing more paint. As Nastasia watched, he revealed a black "3" upon a white background hidden below the red overcoat.
"Hey, guys! We found something!" The others rushed to answer Nastasia's call. "That wall painting is probably referring to this. There's a number hidden under the paint!"
"So we do have to cut into the blocks." Luigi applied his finger to the orange block, pressing with enough force to tip the block over and lower the pedestal. He fell to the floor facefirst. "Ow!"
Our heroes cut away at the outer coats of paint until the numbers 1 through 7 had been revealed. Our heroes placed the blocks in the corresponding order starting at the hole closest to the door. Still, nothing occured except for the risen pedestals. "Why didn't anything happen?" inquired Peach. "We put them in the correct order, didn't we?" She double-checked each block, finding all of them to be in perfect order. "Let's try the other way, maybe." She moved to take the 7 block from its place, but Mimi stopped her.
"Wait a second. I don't think that's it." The shape-shifting minion removed the blue block, containing a 1, placed it underneath the yellow 7 block Peach had attempted to move, and put the yellow block on top. The blocks rose into the ceiling, producing another flash that dropped a key. "Yep, I knew it. There's mathematics here. If you stack two blocks, it'll rise by a certain amount corresponding to what will happen if you divide the higher number by the lower number. 7 divided by 1 is just 7, so it rose a lot. I figured it out because the blue block has a 6, and the green one has a 2. That's 3, which is enough to rise it into the ceiling, but not quite high enough to activate the key." She picked up the key. "See those ceiling holes? They go up pretty far."
"Good thinking," congratulated Mario. "Did Amtakan ever require you to learn about mathematics?"
Mimi frowned. "Uh, well, no. He wasn't like a teacher or anything. More like a host or something."
"Oh." Mario withdrew.
"It's fine, Mario. I'm OK with talking about my past. I don't mind, really."
"Well, OK, Mimi. That's good." Our heroes exited the room, placed the new key in the lower-right slot, and then walked back in the direction of the entrance, turning to the southeast and entering the last unopened room.
The final door led our heroes into a room that was similar to the first in size. On the floor rested seven star-shaped stones. From left to right, they were colored dark green, dark blue, violet, two lavender ones, and two with all seven colors of the rainbow. On all four walls was a large "X" symbol. "Now what?" griped Luigi.
"We're almost there, Luigi," assured the elder Mario brother. "We can live through one more brain excercise."
"Yeah. All right, let's do this." Luigi cupped his hands together confidently. "Seven multicolored stars. What the heck does this mean?"
"Well, judging by the...context," began Mimi, "I'm pretty sure we have to arrange these stars in a particular order."
"What about these 'ere X marks, 'ey?" O'Chunks pointed at the nearest X.
"It might be similar to the green Pure Heart thing," offered Nastasia.
"Well, let's see." Mario stood next to the row of stars. "They're already in order according to the color spectrum, disregarding the multicolored ones at the end. There's only four X marks, and they're all around the room, so I think we either have to use some of the stars twice...or the X marks aren't important to the puzzle."
Luigi picked up the dark green star and pressed it against an X. "Nothing."
"What do we know about that involves a star and an X?" Mario posed. "If this is the same kind of puzzle as in the first room, that could be important."
A few minutes of silence followed. "I can't think of anything," Bowser finally stated. "Unless those stars are supposed to mean, like, a Mega Star, and that X is for destruction and carnage and whatnot...but I don't think that's it."
"The X marks might be referring to the entire puzzle, then," continued the lead hero. "They're placed around the room and everything. Now, what order could these stars go in..."
"The color must be important." Peach studied the puzzle. "Maybe, like colors go together...oh, but they're already grouped like that. Maybe, because of the X marks, like colors don't go together?" She arranged the stones so that their hue changed significantly with each succession. "Nope, that's not it."
Mario scratched his chin. "Maia? Do you have any clue?"
Not exactly, but based on your description, I'm starting to think the stars are supposed to represent something, like a place, or a thing. The colors by themselves don't seem to mean anything. The X marks might...negate it? I don't know about those.
Mario told Maia's thoughts to the others. "How would they represent something else, though?" questioned Blumiere. "If the colors..."
"Maybe they match up to some sort of color configuration we saw earlier..." Mimi scrutinized the stars, arranging them mentally in various patterns. "Um..." She sighed. "I don't know where we've seen these colors before."
"Oh," uttered Mario. "The colors themselves might actually not be important. It's something about the colors that we should focus on, like what letter they start with. That's the kind of abstract puzzle we're used to. We've got green, blue, violet, two lavenders, and two multicoloreds."
"G-B-V-L-L-M-M," mulled Bowser. "Nope. Still nothing."
"You can do it, Bowser," urged Luigi. "Just think about it. You haven't solved many puzzles in the past, have you?"
"Er...not really."
"Take Mario's initiative. Think more abstractly."
"I'll think about it." Bowser wasn't as experienced as most of the others when it came to solving puzzles, but he knew he'd come through sometime.
"Those letters don't spell anything," Nastasia pointed out. "There's not even a vowel."
"I think we have to be more specific," said Mario.
"More specific? As in what?"
Mario continued to stare at the maddening puzzle. "Just blue, green, multicolored? We should be more descriptive. Dark green, navy blue..."
"N-D-V-L-L-M-M..." Luigi reiterated. "Still no vowels."
"Olive green," offered Mimi.
"N-O-V-L-L-M-M...? There's one vowel, but there's so many consonants. Can we form a word with that?"
Try changing the name of the multicolored stars, Mario.
"Oh, Maia just told me to change the name of the multicolored stars. What else is multicolored? Multicolored...it's a rainbow...colorful...vibrant? Energetic?"
"Energetic!" Bowser bellowed. "Oh oh!" Bowser arranged the stars in order, starting with navy blue, olive green, violet, multicolored, the two lavenders, and the other multicolored. Sure enough, the final key dropped from above our heroes' heads.
"N-O-V-E-L-L-E!" Luigi gasped. "Novelle?"
"I told you I could figure it out!" Bowser cheered. "Yeah! I'm the best!"
"It spells 'Novelle'," Mario repeated.
You just can't avoid her, can you? Maia taunted.
Maia! Do you know anything about this Novelle person?
Yes, but I don't think I'll have to do any explaining. Maia giggled. Congratulations, heroes! I knew you could solve those puzzles. Now, hurry! Unlock the door, and I'll be set free. The time is finally here.
"Got it." Mario motioned to the others. "Let's go! Maia's at our reach!" Our heroes hurried out of the room and approached the wooden door again.
Hey, uh, Mario...
"One second." Yes, Maia?
Well... The messenger seemed troubled. I mean, it's been pretty fun getting to know you and everything. And guiding you. But now that you're actually going to see me, I won't be speaking to your mind anymore. I'll just be there.
Well, that isn't such a bad thing, isn't it? You won't have to worry about saving your power.
Yeah, but...well, it just won't be the same. I know I'll love to see you face to face, but it was fun talking to your mind. And I'm glad that you didn't mind it. So, I just want to thank you. Thank you for your kindness and patience. You're a great hero.
Mario almost blushed. Well, thanks, Maia.
You're welcome. All right, let's do this. Please unlock the door. Goodbye, Mario's mind. Maia withdrew.
Mario put the final key into the slot. The large door slowly separated, allowing entry to a dim, blue-tiled hallway. Our heroes' footsteps echoed loudly as they stepped into the passage, their anxiety growing with every passing step. They would finally see Maia face-to-face. Mario closed his eyes. What would Maia look like? She said she had brown hair, didn't she? Or, she said she used to have brown hair...so what color was her hair now? Why would something like that change, anyway? And what color would her eyes be? What would she be wearing? Would she be slim and petite, or a bit larger? Mario shook his head. He was about to find out. The hero carefully grasped the door handle at the end of the hallway and pushed it open. The room inside was slightly larger, about the same size as the room in which our heroes had found Amtakan. A large, dimly lit ice formation lay at its center, almost identical in shapelessness to Amtakan's prison. The red floor switch was here as well. Mario drew his breath, jumped, and pressed the switch downward.
The ice shattered. A small figure took a few steps toward our heroes. As it drew closer, they began to make out a few of its features. It was clothed entirely in lavender-purple with light hair, four fairy-like wings, a lavender dress, violet eyes, and purple shoes.
"...Novelle?" Mario took half a step toward the figure. "W...what...who are you? Where is Maia?"
Novelle smiled. "Oops. I forgot to take off the spell. Here you go." She waved her wand through the air. Something in our heroes' minds changed, but they couldn't quite place it.
"What just happened?" Mario thought around, examining the different processes of his mind. Had something been changed?
"I'm really sorry for interfering with your minds, but I had to do it in order to keep you safe from the stress that you'd be under if you knew my true identity. Because, you know, my name isn't really Novelle. It's Maia."

-END OF CHAPTER-

[Reading]

I finished this chapter on Christmas Eve, but as I said in the Wacko Dreams thread, my computer Internet broke after a mysterious update failure. I can only upload stuff on my parents' computer, so here goes. Warning: extremely long chapter ahead!


"...Maia?" Mario was both amazed and hopelessly confused. Novelle and Maia were the same person?
"Yep, that's me. I've gone by Novelle for a while now, but Maia's my real name." The messenger's voice was mellow, and at the same time, somehow cheerful and poetic. Mario observed the wand she was carrying. It had a thin, brown wooden handle with a red orb at the top, like a simpler version of Amtakan's scepter.
"So..." began Tippi. "So you're Maia...and we had to free you from this prison...so you could help us defeat Amtakan?"
"Yes, that's exactly the deal. Except you don't really know anything about Amtakan, do you?"
"No, we don't. But...you said you'd tell us everything when we met you, right?"
"I did indeed. Let's go back where there's some light, and I'll tell you everything I know." Novelle smiled, returning to the well-lit hub area. Our heroes followed her. "Let me formally introduce myself first. I'm Novelle, formerly known as Maia, and I've been working against Amtakan by guiding the legendary heroes to the orbs through Mario's mind."
"I'm Mario Mario, um...hero of legend." Mario extended his hand toward Novelle. "It's a pleasure to meet you in person."
"Same here." Mario and Novelle shook hands. "Let's sit down, why not. It's a pretty long story I have to tell."
Our heroes sat and made themselves comfortable. "So you know everything about Amtakan and the Tribe of Darkness?" asked Luigi. "That's amazing."
Novelle gave Luigi a nod. "Not exactly everything, but I was a part of it from the beginning, and I was there to witness it all. So let's get started. Heroes of legend, I present to you...the Tale of the Ancients."

Part 1
Amtakan's Awakening
4000-3000 years ago
4,000 years ago, in a far-off dimension, there existed a highly advanced civilization. This nation had built itself upon logic and reason, using the advancements of neighboring nations and improving upon them to better the lives of its citizens. It prided itself on its rational basis of thought. Scientists and doctors formed the majority of trades. To prepare the young of this civilization for their occupation and integrate them into this reason-based community, schools were set up. These institutions trained the next generation in the ideals that had made their civilization great. People were taught the ropes of logical thought very early in life, and the learning process was a very rigorous one. Crime was almost unheard of in this civilization because of the thought process that had been drilled into its citizens.
Among this civilization, however, emotion could not be denied. Leading philosophers and scientists disregarded emotion and love as desires of the weak, but these natural human processes could not be squelched. In public, emotion was rarely displayed or heard of, but love was present in some form in private.
A certain student in the final years of his schooling, named Amtakan, was very introverted and quiet. Throughout his life, he hadn't been very social or talkative, and his isolation allowed him to retreat into his own thoughts, developing them more than the others who led more social lives. Amtakan was a friendly person in general, but he allowed his emotions to have more control over him than the excessively rational majority, and this set him apart. He looked to integrate himself into the community, to open his mind to civilization, but he rarely found the means to do this.
"What are some ideas you want to share with the world?" I asked him one day.
He looked at me. "Well, I'm glad you asked, Maia. I...just think we should pay more attention to emotion in our lives. We're such a rational society, but this blinds us sometimes. We don't give any attention to appreciating things for what they are."
"Like what?"
"Well, it's like we never stop to think about anything just for what it is. Like our family and friends. We don't even appreciate that there are people around us, willing to help us and support us. We...love each other. But all this is quashed by our overly rational, emotionless, polygonal lifestyle."
"I kind of get what you're saying. I think we need more love, don't you?"
"Yes. That's what we need."
Amtakan worked on developing his ideas, planning to release them to the public. Because of his overly introverted lifestyle, however, his emotions sometimes got in the way of his actions. His situation hadn't changed after a while of writing about love and emotion. He thought he should be getting people interested, meeting more people, making new friendships, advancing. I told him that he couldn't expect to have things at the push of a button. He needed balance - it was good to have love and emotion, but he couldn't let those emotional thoughts control him.
As his schooling progressed into its most rigorous stages, Amtakan grew increasingly upset. The system was built on the ideals that Amtakan was trying to bring down. How could he continue to follow the system and become a part of the community when he didn't even agree with what he was being taught? That frustrated him. He worked on satisfying his feelings, trying to break away from the rational influence of the community, but he couldn't. The school permeated every aspect of his life. There were rules he had to follow, assignments and work he had to do, and guidelines he had to obey.
"I just don't feel it," he told me. "It's like I haven't been making any progress. I don't feel enthusiastic about what I'm doing anymore. I mean, I want to help the world and everything, but these guys give me no wiggle room. I can't do what I want to do."
This was one of several pessimistic musings he'd shared with me. "Just have faith, Amtakan," I told him calmly. "You just can't get upset over every minor setback. You're discouraged because of that huge mathematical assignment, aren't you?"
"Yes, exactly! They take human behavior and make it a math. A science, I could maybe understand, but math! I'm supposed to take human accomplishments and actions and turn them into mathematical formulas! Is that really the way to go about improving our society? I can't take this anymore! Something has to give, Maia!"
Sometimes, it seemed like our friendship was dwindling as well. Amtakan grew tired of my constant reassurance. He felt as if it wasn't doing anything to help him. I told him that he needed to listen, take my advice to heart, and not let his emotions drown out my message. Concentrate both mentally and emotionally on what I told him. Despite this, he just spiraled downward. He grew more depressed and uneasy every day.
Then, the day of fate arrived. It began like any other day. Amtakan was miserable, yes, but that was normal. Amtakan had stayed home one day to work on a new essay regarding the importance of love, and had forgotten that the mathematical human behavior assignment was required to be completed that day. Our instructor told me that he would be disciplined for not showing up, and mentioned that he didn't like Amtakan's general philosophy. He said the assignment needed to be completed when Amtakan came. During the break for the day, I went to Amtakan's house to inform him of this. I told him everything the instructor had told me.
"Huh," he finally breathed. "I haven't completed that assignment. I forgot it was due today."
"Um..." I sort of stammered. His tone was very ominous.
"So. They punish me for not going to their place to have their philosophy drilled into my skull while I sit here, suffering, while no one cares about my beliefs and don't even allow me to progress."
"That just isn't true, Amtakan! You can-"
"What does it matter what's true or not?" he suddenly shouted. I withdrew. He paced for a bit. "They don't even allow the truth. For them, there's no truth. Only what their little minds have made up for themselves. And you know what? Maybe there's no truth for me either. Nothing I do seems to work. Maybe I've been letting my emotions get the best of me."
That definitely sounded good. "Yes, that's true, Amtakan..."
"But you know what? Why does it matter? My emotions are what caused all this in the first place. Maybe it was wrong to have them. Maybe it wasn't. And my indecision is being caused by my emotion as well. There just isn't any truth! That's that!"
"Amktakan...maybe..."
"Shut up, Maia! You haven't helped me at all. You haven't been my friend when I needed you. You haven't helped me when I was struggling with my emotions. You haven't done ANYTHING!"
Tears were forming at the corners of my eyes. "Amtakan...all you need...is love...that's what you wanted...isn't it?"
"Love." Amtakan turned away from me, toward his work desk. Papyrus, writing utensils, chemical beakers, and all of the other school-required items lay on it. "Love," he repeated. I watched as he took one of the beakers in his hand containing a deep blue liquid in his right hand. "LOVE!" With a final shout, he suddenly pulled his hand upward and then sharply in the other direction, smashing the glass container and his hand against the corner of the desk. I gasped. The glass and desk had cut into his skin. Blood dripped to the floor from a puddle of dark red that covered his entire hand. The acid chemical was mixing into his blood. I knew that the chemical would kill him, but I was too shocked to say anything.
Slowly, Amtakan turned around and looked at me with wary eyes. He hobbled in my direction, swiftly grabbing both of my shoulders with his hands. He spoke venemously, "You'll never get the chance to experience this again." Gently, he leaned his head downward and kissed my right cheek. He moved away from me, exiting the house, leaving blood on my left shoulder.
I knew I should follow him. I trailed him into the nearby woods, watching as he came to a stop in a quiet clearing. I stayed hidden while he spread his arms out and shouted, "Demons of old, come to me!"
My breath flew out, loud enough that I worried he'd heard me. There were stories of ancient, dark powers and demons that controlled these powers that were known in the community. They were said to be evil monsters that had existed since the multiverse's creation, and they were particularly active in this dimension. Due to their proximity to this world, one could supposedly gain vast quantities of dark power by calling upon these monsters with true intent in their heart. It was generally accepted that these stories were true, but some of the more logcial scientists had dismissed them as fables. All of my doubts were forgotten, though, as I watched Amtakan's body enshrouded in a strange, pure black energy. I shrieked and ran as freakish demonic voices reached my ears, not caring that he'd probably heard me that time. Whatever he was planning to use the demons' power for, I needed to stop him.
As I ran back, a giant thunderclap echoed from Amtakan's direction, and the sky around the woods darkened. As everyone looked upon the sight in horror, I told them about what Amtakan had done. When I and a large number of their soldiers returned to the woods, Amtakan was gone. We initiated a search for him, hoping to catch him before he and the demons could do any damage.
We were too late. Almost a month after our search started, a giant blemish of darkness appeared in the sky, and an enormous monster appeared from thin air. A cloud of darkness surrounded it, so we couldn't make out its physical features, but it was clearly the work of Amtakan. "We have no interest in harming any of you right now!" it screamed in what seemed like three voices at once. "Just stand your ground while the Chaos Heart destroys all emotion the multiverse has ever known!"
The Chaos Heart! What was that? Amtakan had harnessed the dark power to try and rid all existence of love and emotion!
"The Chaos Heart will bring forth The Void, which will ravage every dimension it touches, leaving nothing standing! We will transform existence into an emotionless void, forever free of the shackle of love! Do not try to resist this fate. There is nothing you can do to stop us. We will rule all existence! A new, emotionless, godless existence!"
Amtakan had gone insane! How could he think things like this? He had to be stopped!
I met with some of the leaders of our community and tried to form a strategy to counteract this dark power. Our magicians formulated that Amtakan had created the Chaos Heart with his demonic power and merged himself with it. We devised a plan to separate the Chaos Heart from Amtakan and the other demons who were controlling it. Then, we could combine our power to destroy the Chaos Heart and stop The Void from destroying every world. We sent our most powerful magicians and warriors after the monster to pull the Chaos Heart out of the mix, but nothing worked.
"It's just too great!" our civilization's leader, Golos, lamented after several days of unsuccessful attacks. "Too great and powerful for anyone to handle! The worlds are doomed!"
I had been thinking of a new concept. "Not so fast. Don't let that fear of yours shake you down. We can make something that can defeat it."
"How? How would that be possible? We've already sent our three most powerful magicians, and it killed them before they could even make their first move!"
"That's the problem. We use people. If we can use something like a powerful object, we just might have a chance."
"..."
"You're liking my idea, aren't you?"
"...Yes. It just might work. We'll gather the remaining magicians and wise men. This monster must be put to its end."
Our researchers went to work. As The Void grew larger in the sky, we developed five powerful objects, called the Breaker Orbs, designed to break the bonds between Amtakan and the Chaos Heart. We took these into our one last battle. The Breaker Orbs separated Amtakan from the Chaos Heart, leaving the Heart for us to take care of. We finally managed to destroy it using the orbs' power, stopping The Void, but Amtakan was undaunted. He came to us after we'd destroyed the artifact in a new, menacing form.<BR>
"I know that you've destroyed the Chaos Heart. But this war is not over. Once I destroy all of those Breaker Orbs, I'll recreate the Chaos Heart. And you can know that I will know how to do it, because emotion no longer exists within me. It has been eradicated from my being. I can now set my mind to exactly what it is that I want, unlike all of you. Watch your world fall apart." He went for the orbs.
"Oh no you don't!" I rushed in front of the Breaker Orbs, guarding them from the villain. "You're not touching these orbs, Amtakan."
"Maia." He moved toward me. "You silly, silly girl. Do you really think you can stop my master plan? I will not hesitate to strike you down at a moment's notice." He gathered energy with his new dark scepter and attempted to wipe me out. The magical blast hit my stomach, tearing a gaping hole in my flesh, but one of the magicians saved me at the last second by blocking the beam and preventing it from doing any more damage. He initiated a duel with Amtakan while I crept away, injured, taking the Breaker Orbs with me. I hid inside one of our army's camp tents while Amtakan and the magician continued their duel. Amtakan eventually killed him, but he had been weakened by the fight, so he retreated to wherever he and his demons lived, planning to mount another attack and steal the orbs.
I consulted with Golos again, lying down on a mat. I spoke with confidence, despite the horrible tear on my stomach that, left untreated, could kill me. "We have to hide these orbs. We can't risk having Amtakan anywhere near them."
"That is true." He thought. "Maia, since you knew Amtakan before all of this started...I have a proposal to make. We'll train you as a magician. You can use your power to help us combat Amtakan."
"Really? Well, all right. I could probably benefit you."
"First, though, we have to deal with your injury. It may seem like the only affected area is your stomach, but..." He looked my bloody injury over carefully. "That blast was made of powerful magic. I can tell that it sent jolts all over your body. Your vital organs might cease to function."
"Is that so..." I tried to think of a way to save myself. "Is there anything the magicians could do? Could they form new organs for me?"
"It is possible, but..." He was silent. "Bodily healing on this large a scale has never been attempted before. They'd have to reform your entire body."
"Then let them do that. In fact, tell them right now. You know what?"
"What is it, Maia?"
"Amtakan's a villain, but you know, I'm not perfect, either. No one is perfect. I just kept on providing him with encouragement, thinking that my constant approval would benefit him - but it didn't. I just kept on doing the same thing over and over. I knew he was right in his beliefs to some degree, but I wasn't hitting the mark either. The system still had me."
"What are you saying, Maia?"
"When they reform my body, I want to be new. A new magician. Tell them to make a smaller body, and with wings. Like a fairy."
He paused, eyeing me curiously, like my debilating injury had affected my mind. It probably had. "All right, Maia. We'll get started. Don't be surprised if they fail."
"They won't. I know they won't."
The magicians got to work. A task like this had never been done before, but since they were working on a time limit, that created enough eustress for them to figure it out as fast as possible. They created a new body, following my further instructions, forming a new fairy-like form for my body. Eventually, the transformation was complete, and I emerged in my present form. I decided to choose a new name for myself, reflective of the spiritual as well as physical change I'd undergone. Novelle was my pick. I named it after novas, those reactions that stars go through, to fit my new personality. I liked that it sounded like "new", as well.
We set out to hide the orbs. In order to keep them as secure as possible, I suggested hiding them in different dimensions. Our civilization knew of these alternate dimensions, but hadn't done very much to explore them. Over the period of a few weeks, I traveled some distances in the dimensions with a few comrades and hid the orbs where I was sure no one would find them. One was in a dusty town. We hid it in an ancient temple in that land, and further guarded it by adding a puzzle with a stone tablet. The next one we hid in a dimension our magicians had used to test their environmental-simulation practice. The third one was underground in the middle of an abandoned wetland next to an ocean. And the next two were in the same dimension; both underground, and across the sea from each other.
As it turned out, once he found out the orbs were gone, Amtakan never did return. We knew he was still out there somewhere, but our fear of him gradually diminished. Eventually, it was decided that, for my own protection, my very existence would be kept a secret, known only to the higher-ups in our society. As time went on and I watched generations pass in my new immortal body, our civilization realized its shortcomings. Their philosophy, that overbearingly logical, rational, reason-driven lifestyle, had created a monster that ended up very nearly destroying all existence. They needed to accept love and emotion into their lives to prevent such a catastrophe from ever happening again. It was shaky at first, because of their familiarity with the old lifestyle, but eventually, love took control. As we recovered from the scars Amtakan had left, a new era began about 3,000 years ago, with the emergence of the romantic civilization known today as the Tribe of Ancients.

Part 2
Age of the Prognosticus
3000-2000 years ago
I wanted to know what happened to Amtakan. He hadn't been heard from for nearly a thousand years. So one day, I and few of the Ancient wizards set off to find any trace of him we could. Our search was unsuccessful at first, but we eventually detected some suspicious magical activity. Once we investigated closer, we discovered a secret underground hideout that Amtakan had built. On a work table in the center of this small room, there lie a black book with a patterned cover. Figuring it must be important, we made a move for it - and were promptly attacked by two of Amtakan's demon minions he had left to guard the place while he was away. One was a cyclops, the other an evil witch. We were able to hold them off long enough to grab the book.
We studied this book intensively. Apparently, Amtakan had managed to create a device that could control the future. We called it the "Dark Prognosticus" to reflect its dark, prophetic nature. The book's content was written in a strange black substance we dubbed "Prognos", and anything added to it written in this substance would come true, as long as no action was taken ahead of time to specifically prevent it. The book's magic prevented any of its already-existing content from being altered or removed if it had not already taken place. By examining the book's magic further, however, we were able to discover that the person controlling its prophecies, which was Amtakan, was killed, the prophecy's power would wither. Amtakan had set in motion a large portion of the future, predicting the fall of nations. We didn't know why he wanted this, but most distressing was the book's mention of the Chaos Heart. It said that the Breaker Orbs would be destroyed and the Chaos Heart would reemerge and destroy all worlds. We studied intensively the method it would return by.
"The book states that the marriage of a fair princess and a monster king will call the Chaos Heart back into existence," I reiterated.
"This is exactly as I feared!" cried Merlage, one of the sages who had accompanied me. "It was difficult enough to destroy it the first time. Now we have to deal with it all over again!"
I remained confident, like I'd tried to do when assuring Amtakan. "You are such a worrywart! It wasn't that hard to do it last time. And now that we hid the orbs, we can use them anytime we want. Amtakan isn't going to reactivate the Chaos Heart before he gets his hands on those orbs. He wants the orbs destroyed first."
"But Amtakan is searching for those orbs, you know. He might find them. Wouldn't it be a good measure to prepare? Just in case the Chaos Heart is somehow unleashed? And with the Dark Prognosticus..."
"Hmm. You know what? I just thought of something. Come here. We're going to reactivate the Chaos Heart ourselves...and then destroy it." I was referring to both the Chaos Heart and the Dark Prognosticus in that statement; once the Chaos Heart had been recreated, it would be safe to destroy the section dealing with the Chaos Heart, and we could take the other things as they came. Clearly, Amtakan planned to cause this unlikely event once he'd found and destroyed all five Breaker Orbs. Then, there would be nothing to stop The Void from destroying every world.
But how could we marry a fair princess and a monster king? As disgusting as it sounded, neither seemed to exist anywhere we knew of. While we pondered this dilemma, the Dark Prognosticus sat. It had been fairly easy to keep me a secret from the public, but with a book that foretold the future, it was much more difficult. Soon enough, the Prognosticus had been stolen by a civilian who had eavesdropped on a conversation Merlage had held with another sage.
Thus began the Age of the Prognosticus; over the next thousand years, the Dark Prognosticus would change hands countless times, traveling the world as it did. Foreign kings vied for the book, hoping to learn the secrets of the future and increase their political authority, and ordinary people lusted for it as well. No one who found the book, however, ever found the happiness they were looking for. The bitter, dark prophecies wrenched at the heart of anyone who dared to open the book. As it passed from one person to another, countries made war over it. Entire nations fell because of the Dark Prognosticus, setting the prophecy into motion.
In the midst of this chaotic age, Merlage proposed the creation of "living weapons" to combat any danger that might show up. He studied the techniques the ancient magicians had used to recreate my body and improved upon them to create a method he called "Pixlization". This process involved creating a vessel for a soul to inhabit. At the same time, Merlage's daughter, Merlia, was suffering from a terrible illness. Merlage gave her another chance at life by transferring her soul to the vessel just before her would-be death, creating a fairy-like entity known as a Pixl. He soon followed with twelve other Pixl examples, all containing unique abilities. After his death, Merlage's apprentices and other magicians followed his method, creating many more Pixls based on the thirteen originals. These Pixls became "thinking tools" for the Ancients, assisting them with each of their specific tasks, and the Ancients became quite dependent on them and their enhanced powers. Each Pixl was assigned to a certain person and could help them with anything their powers could accomplish.
With the advent of the Pixls, Amtakan as absent as ever and the Dark Prognosticus continually transferring between nations, our society grew again into the thriving civilization it had been known as before Amtakan's rise, hailed as a beacon of culture for the next thousand years. Our philosophers and magicians made many advancements. The Breaker Orbs were holding out just fine. Aside from the constant wars outside our borders, it seemed that the world may have returned to its former peaceful state - that is, until we finally got our hands back on the Dark Prognosticus.

Part 3
The Pixl Uprising
2000-1500 years ago
About 2000 years ago, we recieved news that a king currently in possession of the Dark Prognosticus had died, leaving no clear successor. The unrest that ensued in that kingdom provided a one-time opportunity to take back the Dark Prognosticus. We mounted an attack and stole the book from this kingdom, returning to study the book more. Almost as soon as we did, however, massive chaos erupted in our own nation.
A huge Pixl that called itself the Pixl Queen suddenly appeared and waged war with the nation. At her command, all of our Pixls rebelled against their masters as if under mind control. The Pixl Queen used their power to enslave the Ancients, and our nation fell into ruin.
In the midst of the conquest, the owners of the twelve original Pixls created after Merlia began an uprising of their own. They were the descendents of the original owners Merlage had bestowed the Pixls upon. They used our inventions, Catch Cards, to trap these twelve Pixls, as well as several others, and heal them, freeing them from the Pixl Queen's mind control. These inheritors and their Pixls staged a battle with the enslaved Pixl forces, beginning the Ancients' struggle for freedom.
I had been able to escape enslavement. While I sat behind a building, contemplating what I could do to help, two menacing figures came up to me. One looked human, and the other was shorter and rounder, but they both were covered in some sort of technological gear. I recognized the species of the smaller one - he was a round creature with stubby arms and legs, likely from a dimension inhabited by these creatures we were aware of.
"Haven't heard from Amtakan in a while, Maia?" the human one suddenly blurted. I whirled around, jumping to my feet and staring him right in the face. "Don't worry. Soon the Dark Prognosticus will be in his hands again, safe and sound."
"I...I don't know who you're talking about. My name is Novelle." I hoped he looked intimidating enough to provoke a similar reaction to mine from someone who wasn't Maia.
"Oh, don't play dumb with us, Novie," taunted the smaller one. "Amtakan gave us very detailed instructions on how to find you. The only way you possibly could've survived that magical blast was for your entire body to be reformed. You look similar enough to Maia and nothing like anyone else in this place, so even if you're not Maia, no one else could be, and Amtakan's not the kind to take chances. Let's make this quick." He moved in my direction.
"What has Amtakan done?" I demanded, realizing there would be no advantage for him not to know my identity. "He's behind this whole thing, isn't he?"
The small minion smiled. "Amtakan's been doing a whole lot for the past 2,000 years. Besides the Dark Prognosticus you all know so well, he's gathered a small army of people like us from different dimensions, not to mention his little demon helpers. He's developed the power to disguise himself and others, and...to hypnotize people."
"Hypnotize...!" I knew what was going on! Amtakan had used his power to hypnotize the Pixl Queen and the other Pixls into starting this uprising, precipitating a disturbance that would create an opening for him to sneak in and take back the Prognosticus!
"Oops," uttered the human-like one. "Looks like we told you." He reached his arm in my direction, beginning to activate a fiery device and grinning. "Now we'll have to kill you." He suddenly produced a fiery jet that headed in my direction.
"Nice try!" I whipped out my new orb-tipped wand and knocked the hot jet back in his direction, slamming him into a nearby wall.
He recoiled. "Oh, you want to play tough, is that it?" He rose to his feet and leaped into the air, dropping spiky projectiles in my direction.
"I don't have time for this!" I insisted. "I'm going to go secure the Dark Prognosticus, RIGHT NOW!"
"Oh, but 'Novelle'," began the small minion, "the inheritors and their Pixls have almost reached the Pixl Queen's castle. There's no time for any heroic antics now."
"What the heck are you talking about? Yeah, they'd better reach the Pixl Queen's castle, or we're in trouble!"
"You don't get it, do you?" continued that humanlike minion. "The Dark Prognosticus is safe and sound in that castle. Soon it won't be, but we don't have the time to explain the intricacies of Amtakan's plan. Let's go help the soldiers." The two of them took off.
"Help the soldiers!?" I was stunned. Why would Amtakan want to help the soldiers? Unless they were referring to the Pixl soldiers...
Nonetheless, I had no time to waste! I immediately headed for the castle of the Pixl Queen. The Pixl inheritors had defeated wave after wave of Pixl soldiers, and only one inheritor and one Pixl remained to take on the Queen herself. What surprised me, though, was seeing Amtakan's two minions here. They'd helped the Ancient soldiers! What could Amtakan be planning with this? I had to find out.
I entered the Pixl Queen's castle. The Ancient inheritor and his Pixl had confronted the Queen, a giant blue Pixl draped in purple, lightning-shaped decorations just like Amtakan's gray bolts. "Let's see what you can do without your master," the Pixl Queen declared.
As she vanished, the inheritor suddenly fell to his knees, staring at the ground, breathing forcefully. "Blood...all over her body!" he screamed.
"What's happening!?" the guardian Pixl exclaimed.
I pieced it together instantly. "She's using her powers of telepathy to cloud his mind with horrible images!" I hurriedly explained, flailing my arms. "I know what he's seeing, but no time to explain! We have to defeat that Pixl Queen!" I knew that the Queen was showing him an image that Amtakan knew; me, Maia, with a blood-stained stomach after being hit by his dark blast.
This Pixl clearly didn't know who I was, but it agreed to side with me anyway. "OK. Let me help my master first. Hold her off any way you can!" The Pixl moved to the inheritor.
I went for the Pixl Queen. Using my magic, I could discern her location. I attacked her with my most powerful magic move. "Oh, Maia," sighed the Queen. "Amtakan's told me exactly what to do if you should show your face." She unleashed a barrage of dark energy in my direction, harming me severely. As she moved to attack me again, however, the Pixl inheritor blocked her.
"This is where your reign ends!" He and his Pixl went crazy on the Queen, attacking her violently with everything they had. After a brief but intense battle, the Pixl Queen had been severely weakened.
"You think this is over?" dared the Queen. "I'll kill...all of you. The country will be...mine!"
"Wait!" I tried to release the Queen from Amtakan's mind control just as she fired a dark bolt in the Pixl's direction, destroying it.
"That is one down." The Queen moved toward us. Something was blocking my power, but I couldn't tell what it was. Nevertheless, we had to keep fighting. "Those minions didn't tell you anything about me, did they?" the Pixl Queen asked me.
"No, they didn't," I firmed. "Why?"
"What came from Amtakan returns to him. Merlage created me using notes from the Dark Prognosticus. The greedy sage only wanted to satisfy his own desires."
"Created...you?" I was horror-struck. Merlage's original twelve Pixls had been fighting in battle, and the only other one he'd created was...Merlia! "You're under Amtakan's mind control!" I accused. "You don't know what you're saying! Let us release you. Let us restore you to the noble Pixl...and Merlage's daughter...you were before all this!"
"That won't be happening."The Pixl Queen began to attack us again just as a new army of Ancients entered the castle. She was too powerful to destroy, and I couldn't release her from Amtakan's hypnotic power, so our newly expanded army managed to seal her in a magical prison.
I hid while the Pixl inheritor took the Dark Prognosticus and explained everything that had happened, minus me. "I'm going to take this book to a safe place. Nothing like this must ever happen again." He exited the castle and disappeared into the distance.
"Happy, Novie?" asked the human minion when I left the castle as well. "You defeated the Pixl Queen. Yay, way to go."
"What's up with this?" I shouted. "You were helping the soldiers, and that guy actually believed the Queen when she said Merlage created her because of the Dark Prognosticus. Tell me what's going on. Right now."
"Oh, Maia, you had no clue the entire time. Amtakan set this whole thing up from the start to the finish. Of course Merlage didn't create Merlia with notes from the Dark Prognosticus. That was just the excuse we needed to allow that guy to leave with the Prognosticus."
"Wait...what!? Is he working for Amtakan? He's the Pixl inheritor! Why would he do that?"
"Simple. Remember us telling you Amtakan developed the power to disguise himself? Yeah, he can literally change his form at will. All it took was for us to kill the Pixl inheritor and have Amtakan take his place."
"AMTAKAN!" I'd been fighting alongside AMTAKAN! That was why I couldn't release the Pixl Queen from his mind control! He'd been blocking my power! And he'd been faking the whole disturbing image thing!
"Yeah, thanks for giving us a blatant opportunity to steal the Dark Prognosticus. It's nice to have it back in Amtakan's hands. See ya, Novie." The minions took off while I sat down and cried.
After this catastrophe, the Ancient elders limited the Pixls' power and outlawed their creation. The nation began a slow decline as several of our members moved away to live where conditions were better.
I told the Ancient leaders the truth behind the Pixl Uprising. They recieved the information with anguished surprise, but there was little we could do. After having it stolen once, Amtakan would probably take extra measures to make sure the Dark Prognosticus would never leave his hands again. That, and once again, we had no idea where he was. Amtakan had left to unknown places once more. Things were quiet, sad, and very gray for the next few hundred years.

Part 4
A Purity Heart to Save the World
1500 years ago
Amtakan had the Dark Prognosticus again. Unless we took some major action, the Breaker Orbs would be destroyed, the Chaos Heart would be reactivated, and The Void would consume every world. What would we do if Amtakan or his minions finally found those orbs? We pondered this dilemma. Eventually, we came up with something. Amtakan had the Chaos Heart and the Dark Prognosticus on his side. We needed to take the same initiative.
I proposed the creation of a powerful artifact and a new book of prophecy that would counteract Amtakan's dark powers. We needed to create a Purity Heart, formed with the essence of love rather than hate, and a Light Prognosticus, a prophetic book written in the same Prognos as the dark one. These were the Ancients' last great accomplishments. Creating these objects would require a large amount of magic and energy, but we had nothing else to live for. This was our last shot.
Researchers, led by the sage Merlimbis, set to work. They created the Purity Heart, a large artifact with equal, but opposite, power to the Chaos Heart. By itself, it couldn't destroy the Chaos Heart, but if any of us injected our own power, or any of the Breaker Orbs, it would acquire enough potency to banish the dark Heart for good. The Purity Heart was protected by the same method we'd used to protect the orbs, but this time, we made it even more potent. We divided it into eight Pure Hearts that we hid in different dimensions, given to citizens of these dimensions who would hold onto it until the heroes had arrived. Yes, we'd planned for heroes to arrive - and that involved our new book of prophecy.
At the same time, two more sages, Merloo and Merlumina, plus me, began work on our Light Prognosticus. By analyzing our notes from the Dark Prognosticus, we were able to produce a small amount of Prognos - just enough to explain how to counteract the Chaos Heart without adding any predicted historical events. We, and presumably Amtakan, had a very limited ability to see the future. Since this was to be our last attempt at stopping Amtakan's prophecy, we tried to see as much of the future as we could. We wrote that four heroes would join together to travel the dimensions, collect the Pure Hearts, and defeat Amtakan, the owner of the Dark Prognosticus. Our insights allowed us to see a "man in green" that would become the determining factor in the battle between the words of the Dark and Light Prognosticuses - we included this in the book. While the Pure Hearts rested in their respective worlds, the Light Prognosticus stayed with us. It was protected with the same magic the Dark one was, but to ensure its safety from evil hands, the sage Merlight designed a town called Flipside where we placed the new Prognosticus - a peaceful, utopian environment, located in a realm between dimensions where none of our enemies would think to look.
Amtakan now had equal forces pushing against his powers. The Purity Heart countered the Chaos Heart, and the Light Prognosticus matched the Dark one. Although our situation remained uncertain, we were much more confident now that Amtakan had met his match. It soon turned out, however, that Amtakan was still planning, and when it came to the Dark Prognosticus, he had just a slight upper hand...

[Reading]

Part 5
Ganter's Blood-clad Prophecy
1500-1100 years ago
"Things just aren't what they used to be around here. Heck, I could almost join the Tribe of Darkness," a citizen mused one day.
"Tribe of Darkness?" questioned a sage. "What is that?"
A while after we'd created the Purity Heart and Light Prognosticus, rumors leaked into our nation about a secret tribe that had split from us, and that was where all of the people were leaving to. After hearing that they supposedly had the Dark Prognosticus, the elders figured it was safe to reveal that the so-called Pixl inheritor that had defeated the Pixl Queen in the uprising had stolen the Prognosticus with malicious intent in his heart, although not describing his true identity for safety purposes. This Tribe of Darkness became known as a tribe of evil, scheming villains, and no one left our own tribe after this.
I immediately suspected that Amtakan had something to do with this tribe's founding. I had been used as a spy in previous situations because of my expertise at hiding myself, so I made a few attempts to track down this dark tribe and see if I could find the Amtakan that had caused us all of our trouble for the past 2,500 years.
Finally, I found a civilization. They were living deep within the giant forest. Those woods I'd chased Amtakan into were only the fringe of this enormous field of trees, spanning the area of a small country. I did some spying. They were already too large a civilization to directly attack. They seemed to use a symbol to represent themselves - a circle with three points in a triangular pattern and a heart at its center. I had no idea what this symbol was supposed to represent - the Chaos Heart, maybe?
On another one of my spy missions, I picked up very familiar voices. I hid behind a tree while listening to the echoes through a window.
"You're sure they're finished? Absolutely sure?"
"Absolutely. I have experimented with Pixls for many years. There are many different types that can be created. You can grant them different kinds of skills, and it is even possible to change their physical properties. You could even make a sentient doll as I have heard of some doing."
"Good, then. Don't they have personalities of their own, though? How will you make them loyal to me?"
"I still haven't figured that part out. I must make sure they'll always remain loyal to you."
"Well, here's hoping you find a way. Do they have names yet?"
"I think I'll call one Mimi. It's a nice pun on the fact that they can mimic others, don't you think?"
"Whatever."
"I'm not sure about the other two. Maybe I'll give them similar names."
"I have to go now. Whatever happens, make sure that these three are always used for the purposes of the Tribe of Darkness, and for no other reason. Is that clear?"
"Yes."
"I hope you understand. With the king's son being so rebellious lately, it's hard to tell what could happen."
I knew those voices! One was Amtakan, and the other was the witch we had seen when we'd first stolen the Dark Prognosticus almost 1,500 years ago. So Amtakan had established a king of this Tribe, and his son was rebellious? That was something I had to check out.
The king was called Ganter. His son, Blumiere, was unlike the rest of the Tribe of Darkness. Obviously, Amtakan hadn't allowed much emotion to penetrate the Tribe's daily life, but Blumiere was a more emotional, loving person. I explored the Tribe's castle. The dungeon contained many devices Amtakan had conjured. I knew I couldn't interfere with this stuff, because they'd suspect something, but examining one smooth, lime green stone that looked much like the Breaker Orbs, I discovered that it contained the power of mind control Amtakan had developed. As I continued to observe Blumiere, I noticed one time he'd hurt himself. I watched a small drop of black liquid fall to the floor. That couldn't be ordinary blood, could it? Black liquid...and then it hit me. Prognos! All of the things Amtakan had written in the Dark Prognosticus made sense. He'd caused the nations to fall so he could safely access all of their resources to build this civilization of his. And the reason he'd built it was to have a steady supply of Prognos. The blood of the Tribe's rulers was infused with this substance! Amtakan must have been planning this for a very long time. This is what he had in mind when he started the Pixl Uprising!
But another thing came to me. Blumiere's situation was very similar to Amtakan's awakening; he was an isolated individual in the midst of an emotionless society. I knew that this situation had the potential to develop. And then...it hit me again. This was how we'd do it. I hated to do this to Blumiere, but I had no choice. He would stop at nothing to get what he desired, and this was a quality I would use in my favor. I had to involve him in a complicated emotional situation like the one Amtakan had been entangled with. He'd snap. He would steal the Dark Prognosticus and most likely take the hypnosis orb to try and activate the Chaos Heart. This was where we would activate it. Those heroes would collect the eight Pure Hearts, and stop the Chaos Heart before it was too late, and then I would come in and destroy the Heart. Amtakan would likely get involved after that, so I and the heroes could cooperate to defeat and kill him. Then, it would be safe to destroy the Dark Prognosticus, and all existence would finally, truly, be safe from harm. This was what I had to do. I'd decided: I was going to live among the Tribe of Darkness.
After some quick approval from the Ancient elders, I began my new mission. I started by fashioning a makeshift home for myself in a lonely section of the forest with tree branches and vines. The actual area where I stayed was underground, and I'd created a cover of grass and weeds with an underlying layer of wood, so someone could walk over the shelter without knowing I was there. This cover was ventilated enough for air to come in so I could sleep here.
Now, for the plan. A situation involving love itself would be a good way to set Blumiere on the path to destruction. I'd noticed a member of Ancients, named Timpani, who lived near the border of the Tribe of Darkness's forest. Blumiere took routine walks around the edge of this forest. The area he visited was above a cliff from where Timpani lived, so one day during his lonely musing, from a hidden spot, I destroyed the area of ground on which he was standing. This catapulted him downward, where he hit the cliff's base, knocking him out. Just as I planned, Timpani soon found him, and being the caring person she was, took him into her own home.
"Ugh... Uuugh..."
"You're awake at last?" Timpani looked down at Blumiere with caring green eyes.
"Where...am I? Is this...a human's home? Bleccch!" The prince struggled.
"Don't wiggle like that. I found you at the cliff base. You took quite a fall."
"You're a human, correct? I don't...repulse you? I am of the Tribe of Darkness..."
"Why would that matter? Anyone with a heart would not ignore an injured soul!"
Yes. This was the plan. I was setting a tragedy in motion, but someday, I would apologize to Blumiere for doing what I had to do to him. I swore it.
Blumiere and Timpani formed a fast friendship. Almost immediately, Ganter cracked down on his son for doing such a thing. Blumiere didn't know about it, but if he married Timpani and procreated, the Prognos-infused blood of the Tribe of Darkness royalty would be mixed with another source, and Amtakan would lose the source of his Dark Prognosticus writing material. Obviously, Ganter didn't know about my entire plan to use Blumiere to reactivate the Chaos Heart, but the hypnotic orb in his dungeon worried me. Ganter clearly wanted to use it to separate Blumiere and Timpani. From my analysis, it hadn't acquired its full power yet, but I was able to hide it from him if I needed to.
"You're late. Did something happen?" Timpani asked when Blumiere arrived later than they'd planned.
"Yes, my father caught me. Sneaking out of the castle wasn't easy after that."
"I was worried you wouldn't come..."
"You are a strange girl..." Blumiere frowned. "You know what I am and yet you do not seem afraid."
"I don't care what you are. I just wanted to see you. Is that...Is that so wrong?"
"No. No, of course not. I wanted to see you, too."
"Blumiere...Do you mind if I sit next to you?"
"Please do, Timpani." Timpani gently lowered herself next to her new friend. "Let's return to our conversation. I must know more of you..."
Blumiere and Timpani were getting along nicely. I emerged one night from my "home", however, to find Timpani avoiding Blumiere.
"Timpani, why? Why do you avoid me?"
"Ow...OW! Unhand me!" Timpani sat down, tears forming in her eyes.
"Huh? You're crying! Why? Timpani, you must tell me what has happened!"
"It's nothing...Don't worry about it...Just forget it..."
"Oh no...Timpani, is my father behind this?"
"I'm...I'm just an ordinary girl. No matter how much I love you, we must part."
"Timpani...I..."
"This is good-bye, Blumiere. There's no other choice. This is our fate..." Timpani slowly rose and ran away from her lover.
This wasn't the end of their relationship, however. Blumiere continued at her. Eventually, he proposed.
"What...What are you thinking?" Timpani demanded. "There's no possible way...No one would allow it!"
"If we can't be happy here, we must leave for a place that will accept our love."
"But, Blumiere, is there such a place? Think...I can't bear to see you hurt again."
"If our love has no home...let us spend our lives searching together!" Blumiere was silent for a few seconds. "So I beg of you again...Timpani, marry me! I promise I will make you happy."
"You...just won't give up, will you? Of all the crazy...stubborn...foolish men..." Timpani looked at the ground, her eyes sad.
"Timpani, answer me, please!"
Blumiere's lover was silent. She closed her eyes, sighing loudly. Finally, she made her decision. Timpani rose her head, her eyes still closed. "Blumiere, I love you. Take me away. Take me to a world where we can be happy."
I observed them later that night. "Look, Timpani. The stars are beautiful, aren't they?"
"...There's a tradition in my village," she began. "We believe that wishes on stars come true."
"Oh, is that so? In that case, we'd better get wishing, don't you think?"
"I don't need to wish anymore."
"Mmm?" Blumiere looked at Timpani.
"I already got my wish. Now...I have everything I need right here."
"Timpani...Aren't you cold?"
"Not at all. I'm very warm...Can we stay like this? Just a little longer?" I sighed. Blumiere and Timpani loved each other so much.
The plan was going smoothly. I thought about how much trouble I'd certainly cause. The knowledge that these two would be seperated drove me to tears on more than one occasion, but it was what needed to be done. If every world was to be saved from utter destruction, this is what needed to be done.
A few days later, Timpani suddenly disappeared. I knew this day would come eventually. I went to the Tribe of Darkness's castle to see what was happening with Blumiere.
"Timpani! What did you do with her? I must see her!" the prince shouted, mad with determination.
"Still your tongue, Blumiere...Can't you see you've been duped by a dirty human?" Ganter accused his son. "You have brought shame to my name...and to the entire Tribe of Darkness!"
"And so what if I did? That doesn't matter to me! She's my entire world!"
"Well, then it will interest you to know...that she no longer resides in this world."
"What...What do you mean by that?!"
"This is the price those who resist their own fate must pay, my son."
"She...No...It can't be so!" Blumiere closed his eyes.
"Someday you will see, Son. Our kind and humans must never mix." Ganter left Blumiere's room.
Angry and upset, Blumiere finally began searching for Timpani. I paid close attention to him over the next period of time, seeing if he would carry out the plan. One day while walking through the forest, he found something while contemplating to himself.
"Timpani...dear Timpani...will I ever see you again? I must do whatever I can to find her..." Blumiere then heard something rustling above his head. "Hm? What's this? It's a bat stuck in a trap...here, I'll get you out of there." Blumiere undid the trap.
"Thank you deeply...may I ask your name?" the female bat inquired.
"I am called Blumiere."
"Thank you, Blumiere..."
"You are welcome...I will be on my way now."
"Blumiere...wait...Blumiere..."
Later, the bat appeared to him again.
"Blumiere..."
"Huh? Hm? Wha-"
"Blumiere...it's me."
"...You?"
"You're...the bat I set free?"
"Yes...Merlumina altered my shape so that I may...I may...um..."
"I already have a woman in my life...I am afraid-"
"No...not that. Blumiere, since you saved my life, I will pledge loyalty to you. I will do whatever you ask from this moment forward...because you were the one who saved me."
The bat may have been able to have used Merlumina to join Blumiere, but she wouldn't have had that opportunity for long. An Ancient messenger reported to me one evening with shocking news. "Merlumina is dead!" he exclaimed. Apparently, she had chosen to guard the red Pure Heart in the Yold Ruins and wait to give it to the legendary hero. The entire village had needed to sing a lullaby for her to fall into a magical sleep for 1,500 years. Supposedly, three people had jointly killed her - and I instantly thought of the three Pixls that Amtakan and his witch buddy had created. Returning in the direction of the Ancient nation, I found a lone figure with a polygonal black body. I wasn't intending for him to see me, but when I moved behind a tree, his eyes followed.
"Hey! Who is that?" I froze, turning myself invisible. He came around the tree, however, and poked at my right arm. "Oh, someone's here! Reveal yourself!"
He'd trapped me. I had no idea what kind of power this Pixl had, so I stood, forced to lie in wait. He was still hanging by me when my cloaking effect wore off. He stared me in my violet eyes, and his white ones widened.
"Dude! You're Novelle, right?"
I was silent.
"That girl Amtakan wants to get rid of so badly?"
I sort of breathed.
"Well, I just quit, becuase Amtakan's a jerk, so you don't need to be so afraid. I'm not gonna kill you or anything."
My muscles relaxed slightly. "Amtakan?" I finally stammered.
"Yeah. We were all with him, me and Mimi and Margaret. I'm Morris. Amtakan told us to kill Merlumina. So we did, but she put this weird curse on us. And Amtakan knew about it. What a jerk, huh?"
"Um...how were you cursed?"
"We mutated into these gross spiders. But we can change our shape, so it doesn't really matter, but Amtakan was a jerk anyway. He was just using us."
That was the power they had, it seemed. "Um...OK. Yeah, I'm Novelle. Do you...need anything?"
"Me? I'm fine, I guess. I'm gonna find someplace else to live, 'cause here isn't doing it. Where are you living?"
I debated whether or not I should tell him this. "Um...I...don't really know if I should tell you that, Morris."
"Well, that's fine."
"Just let me ask you one more thing, though. You three were created by Amtakan and someone else, right?"
"Yeah, Wretcha was actually the one who did it. She's this really weird witch lady who works for Amtakan."
Wretcha...that was the witch demon we'd stolen the Dark Prognosticus from. "Oh. OK, then. I'll see you, Morris."
"Later." He walked away while I headed in the opposite direction, back toward my makeshift home.
Blumiere, newly joined by the so-called Nastasia, continued searching for his love. "You really do want to find Timpani, don't you?" Nastasia asked one day.
"Yes. I will search to the end of all dimensions if I need to. I must find her."
"We haven't had much luck so far," the assistant sighed. "No one knows where she is, and no one wants to help us."
"Hmm...perhaps there is something we can do." Blumiere apparently changed his mind. "No...that wouldn't be right."
"What is it?"
"It wouldn't be right. Just ignore what I said."
"I want to know, Blumiere. You said you'd search to the end of all dimensions. You wouldn't pass up something that could help you find her."
"Well, if you must know..." Blumiere explained the plan to her in detail. They'd sneak into a place he knew and recover a certain artifact. I knew that he was describing the hypnosis orb in his castle's dungeon - Ganter, perhaps, wanted to lure Blumiere into his own ideology now that Timpani was gone. Obviously, I couldn't allow that to happen, so I watched Blumiere and Nastasia as they moved to steal the orb.
"Well, we're here," announced Nastasia. "Are you sure that I have to be the one that goes in?"
"Yes. If I go along with you, the power will spread to me as well, and I don't want anything like that. I'm still not sure about this..."
"Trust me, it'll help us find your love. You said so."
"Very well. I guess you can go in."
Nastasia crept into the dungeon via a secret entrance. "Wow. It's pretty dark down here..." She searched the rubble for the object Blumiere had told her about. "Is this the stone he was talking about? It's very smooth...and polished." She held the orb above her head. "Is this how I'm supposed to do this? I guess so...OK...stone, thing, give me your power!"
Ganter suddenly burst into the dungeon. "HEY! What are you doing in here!?"
"Aaah! Uh...just looking at some...stuff. You've got some pretty interesting stuff. Yeah...stuff."
"Is it true? You've taken the power of that stone!? Oh, you..."
"Oh, great. I've gotta get out of here!" Nastasia fled. Ganter followed her, but I couldn't let him get his hands back on that orb. I appeared in front of him and blocked his progress with a translucent, magical barrier.
"What!" He clawed at the impedement. "Novelle! That's you!"
"Yeah...it's me." I shot a glance behind me to make sure Blumiere and Nastasia were out of range. They'd left, so I quickly released the barrier and flew away.
That was the last I heard from Ganter until the day finally came. The day I'd been waiting for. Not being able to find Timpani anywhere he looked, Blumiere fell into despair, growing more and more depressed. Finally, he could bear it no longer. Distraught, stressed and angry over the loss of Timpani, Blumiere went insane. He returned to the Tribe of Darkness's castle to steal the Dark Prognosticus.
"Blumiere, my son, don't! Even your ancestors could not handle that dark book...If you open it...there's no telling what might happen!"
"I do not care, Father! A world without her is empty. A LIFE without her is empty." Blumiere opened the book. "Speak, Dark Prognosticus! Teach your dark history! I await your command!" As the book's power flooded into him, Blumiere's countenance underwent a dramatic transformation. He suddenly smiled, an evil, sinister look in his eyes. "BLEH HEH HEH! BLECK!"
"Blumiere...What have you done?" Ganter looked upon his son in horror.
"Silence! The first prophecy beckons. I will erase every inch...of this blasted world!"
"Blu-Blumiere! Don't do this! Blumiere!"
"Blumiere is no more! I am Count Bleck! And no one shall stand in my way!" His voice rose, and he again laughed maniacally. "BLEH HEH HEH! BLECK!"
Blumiere unleashed his newfound power, destroying the very fabric of his dimension. I knew I had to get out of there. I warped to another one of the dimensions I was familiar with, waiting for the show to unravel.
Count Bleck began his mission, searching the dimensions for minions to help him in his desire. He continued searching for Timpani for some time before planning to activate the Chaos Heart and destroy every world. Over the next period of time, Bleck gathered his minions.
All of the inhabitants of our dimensions were either destroyed in the rampage or had barely escaped with their lives - and Amtakan, obviously, escaped. Amtakan gave Pixl-creating one last shot, but an abandoned army general named O'Chunks ate his last device. The cyclops I'd seen with the Dark Prognosticus assaulted him, but Bleck saved O'Chunks's life in exchange for his service. Bleck also picked up Mimi, one of Morris's counterparts, manipulating her depressed feelings to get her to join his world-destruction effort. The last minion that joined him, however, made me suspicious.
The count initially rejected him. "Count Bleck is sorry, but he cannot accept you. I simply do not see how you would benefit my search."
"With all due respect, Count, I believe you are not looking closely enough. Surely there is some way I could help you." The minion's name was Dimentio. He was a strange jester.
"That is enough, Dimentio. Count Bleck has no need for you. Begone, now."
Later, the count reconsidered.
"...Dimentio?"
"Yes, count?"
"Count Bleck has changed his mind. Dimentio, you may join me."
"Excellent, Count Bleck. I will make sure to help you in any way I can. Might I ask...what made you decide to take me in?"
"Well, a certain passage in the Dark Prognosticus interested Count Bleck. It mentioned a person that seemed to match your description perfectly."
"I see. Fate has destined it to be this way. All the better for you, count." The jester seemed to withdraw. "Ah ha ha ha..."
Something about this guy's personality made me very, very suspicious. It seemed like he was faking the whole jester thing. Nonetheless, my expectations were up to par - until I finally met Amtakan one last time.

Part 6
The Final Confrontation
1100 years ago
I found myself in an icy mountain range. The cold air stung at my skin as I looked around at the gleaming white snowcaps, surrounded by a clear, starry night sky. What had just happened? Why was I here? I folded my arms, trying to keep as much heat in as possible.
"You've been very bad, Novie." I spun around, releasing my arms. There, standing before me, were the two minions I'd seen in the Pixl Uprising - except with slightly changed body gear. The large one continued. "Very, very bad."
"What is this?" I examined my surroundings again, anxious. "Why'd you bring me here?"
"It's very simple. Amtakan wants his revenge." He held out his right arm, and I could tell it wasn't his actual arm. It had been replaced with a thick metal bar. "Yeah, Amtakan had to make some repairs after that Pixl Uprising. We got injured pretty badly, so he improved our armor with some super-awesome defense plates." He put his arm back at his side. "We weren't formally introduced, Maia. I'm Bante, and this guy here is Hanetul. We brought you here to put a stop to your meddling plans once and for all."
After all these years, Amtakan was still at it. "I gave him some of the greatest advice a human can give, and this is how he repays me?" I angrily blurted.
"Shut your trap, insolent traitor!" Hanetul ordered. "We're going to show you what happens when you mess with Amtakan's plans."
"Traitor? You mean it wasn't his decision to go insane and everything?"
"That doesn't matter. It's him we're loyal to now, and that's the way it's going to remain."
"You're just deluding yourselves. He's a madman now!"
"Maybe he is," admitted Bante. "But if so, he's a brilliant madman. He knows how to make this world a better place."
My drive was going. "Do you really believe that drivel he spews out constantly? He knows how to make himself sound convincing. He's just trying to-"
"Whatever! Listen, either you're going to give in now, or we're going to destroy you. Your power is no match for the strength Amtakan gave us."
"There's no way you can stop us from going on with our plan. Even if you defeat me here, Amtakan's going to be stopped. That's an absolute." I firmed those words.
"Absolute. Hah!" Hanetul scoffed. "The only absolute around here is the Dark Prognosticus. Let's hope that Count Bleck delays this long enough for us to destroy those Breaker Orbs. In the meantime, Novelle, we have some unfinished business to take care of. Follow us." They began to move away from me. When they noticed I wasn't following them, they turned around. "What are you waiting for?"
I folded my arms, again. "Why should I follow you?"
"Because if you don't," replied Bante, "we're going to take you there by force, and that will be a heck of a lot less comfortable for you. It's your choice, but I'd choose to follow us, just to make sure you'll be in top condition. Like that'll matter..." He chuckled.
I didn't like the way this was going, but I realized a potential opportunity. "Amtakan's here, isn't he?" I asked cautiously.
"Yes. Now shut up and follow us." That was all I needed. I followed them across the snowy terrain, stopping at a large crater in the ground, a few hundred yards wide. It was lined with sharp, pointed ice crystals of all shapes and sizes. Falling into it would be deadly - if you couldn't fly, of course, so I guess that wasn't a problem for me.
"Now." Hanetul turned to look at me with a sinister gleam in his eye. "This is where Amtakan performed one of his experiments. It's the perfect place to kill an incompetent fairy or two." He smiled evilly, showing his row of jagged teeth, and before I could respond, Hanetul had shoved me backwards into the crater.
"Aaaagh!" I didn't have time to pull myself into the air before I slammed into an area near the edge of the crater, not far below the ground. A needle-like crystal pierced the left side of my back. I quickly rose into the air, feeling for blood. It was there, but this was no time to lick wounds. "You dirty cheapskate!" I shouted.
"Yeah, come and get some!" Hanetul, as well as Bante, lifted into the air and swooped in my direction. I ducked out of the way, flying toward the deeper center of the crater. The minions fired energy bolts at me. I lifted my wand and blocked all of their shots, sending a few of them back at the attackers.
"Amtakan isn't going to get rid of me that easily!" I magically broke a few crystals from the crater's floor and hurled them at the minions. The sharp crystals smashed into their armor and dented a few weapons. I aimed to disarm, but not hurt them.
The armed minions retaliated, sending fiery bursts in my direction. I flew up to them, charged my wand, and sent it through Bante's armor, melting a large portion of it. "Gah! You annoying pest!"
"Let's do this together," offered Hanetul. "Attack her at the same time as me. We can't give her a chance to get up." On Hanetul's signal, the minions both blasted me with a ray of darkness, again sending me flying back, this time into a steeper crater wall. I landed in a tight spot between two large crystals, breaking bits of them off. My hands and arms were cut, and the leaking blood slowly tinted pink the end of the two ice formations.
"Had enough, Novie?" taunted Bante. The minions approached me again. I jumped away from the large crystals, aiming an energy attack at them, but they countered my blast with a beam of their own that overpowered mine, sending me back down into the sharp crater. This time, my right cheek and part of my right leg were torn. "Yeah, you're beaten pretty badly, aren't you? What a shame. Too bad you had to end up on the wrong side of things. It ends here, Maia." The minions gathered energy, preparing to slam into me and dash my body on the spikes.
I frantically looked around, searching for anything that might give me one last chance. There was a large cluster of particularly sharp crystals to my right. It followed the crater's curve, so I could potentially send the minions flying to the right if I wanted to damage them with it. But would that be the right thing? Would that just heavily damage their armor, or would it go all the way through and even hit their skin? That was something I didn't want to happen. Then I remembered Amtakan. Amtakan was here. My only shot at stopping him would be to first stop these guys. If I could kill him here, the Dark Prognosticus would wither. I really, really didn't want to kill at all - and I still remembered the friendly period we'd shared ideas in - but it had been granted to me to save every dimension. First, I had to stop these guys. And stop them I would.
"It's over, Maia," Bante called. "Admit it. You have been defeated."
"Oh, no I haven't. You can't defeat determination. I'm going to stop Amtakan. How's that sound?"
"Ha, ha ha. You're still keeping at it, aren't you? Your determination isn't going to do anything now."
"Oh, yes, it...WILL!" As they approached me, I detached a giant crystal from nearby and slammed it into them. This halted their forward trajectory long enough for me to swoop to the left of them and blast them with my most powerful magical ray, sending them hurtling toward the sharp cluster.
"Wha-"
"Hey!"
"Reverse!"
"No!"
"Aagh!"
"Quick!"
"This-"
"Gah!"
"This-"
"No!"
"Aagh!"
"AAAAAAAAAAGH!!!" Bante and Hanetul's bodies made direct contact with the spiny crystals. I immediately regretted my action. They had been pierced, armor and skin.
"NOOOO!!! This...CAN'T BE HAPPENING!"
"AAGGCCKKK!!!"
"My...my..." The two minions fell under their own weight, tearing the crystals from the wall that remained lodged inside their armor and probably skin. They collided with the crater's floor, continually rolling downward as gravity pulled them toward the crater's center. With every contact they made with the crater's floor, more and more spine crystals hit them. Finally, Bante and Hanetul came to a stop at the ice crater's center, an unrecognizable mess of blood, armor pieces, and broken crystals.
I hovered, breathing in and out, frozen, unable to avert my eyes from the scene I'd created. After what seemed like an eternity, another voice reached my ears. "Oh. Too bad." The cyclops demon I'd seen with O'Chunks and the Dark Prognosticus dropped into the crater, lifting the two minions' bodies with magic. He looked in my direction, only having to turn his "head" a tiny bit to do this. "As hot as you are, Novelle, you are a behavioral disaster." He lifted the minions out of the crater, moving toward the far side. I followed him, landing next to the decapitated minions.
"Who the heck are you, and what do you want?" I swiftly demanded.
"Oh? You want to know about me? How charming." He did sort of a circle thing. "I'm the Netherclops, one of Amtakan's more promising minions. Really, though, what else needs explaining?"
"Do you say that to all the girls?"
"What? About you being hot? No, I specifically reserved that compliment for you." He retreated toward a large cabin about a hundred yards away. That pretty much guaranteed he said that to all the girls.
"Amtakan..." If the Netherclops was bringing Bante and Hanetul to that cabin, it was a sure sign that Amtakan was near. I moved toward the cabin myself.
The Netherclops emerged after apparently leaving the other two minions inside. "Oh, but we're not finished with you, Novie. Amtakan was smart enough to bring some backup in case you defeated those guys. Come, Hexagdra!" He spun his staff in a circle.
I thought "Hexagdra" sounded like a magic word at first, but it soon became apparent that it was a name. The ground around us began shaking as a giant crack split the snow-covered rock. A giant mass of green emerged from the rift, covered in darker green geometric shape. Finally, six dragon-like heads emerged from the mass on long, bent necks, each one seeming to resemble the shape of one of the body markings, and all containing very sharp teeth and somewhat small eyes. On the far left, the head resembled a yellow star; directly to the right was a brown head with protruding eyes, a huge maw, and a rectangular shape. The next head over was a red one shaped like a rectangular prism, followed by an green, irregular one with two horns; this one seemed to most resemble the head of a dragon. The final two heads were an orange one with a rough hexagon shape, and a diamond-shaped one with a pointed mouth, colored deep blue.
"Amtakan's created a monster," continued the Netherclops. "Literally. Now sit tight and wait as Hexagdra viciously and painfully devours you. Sic her!" He left toward the cabin again.
The geometric dragon roared as the hexagon head snapped for my right arm. I swiftly pulled my injured arm out of the way and smacked the head with my wand. As it recoiled, I backflipped over another snap from the diamond head and aimed for the dragonlike one that seemed to be the main head. It could breathe fire, but this I could absorb with my wand and fire back at it. Hexagdra apparently wasn't very intelligent.
After a while of attacking the heads in this manner, the dragon tried a new strategy. Rather than each head acting individually, they all aimed for me at once, giving me little room to maneuver. The prism-shaped head hit me squarely and knocked me to the ground. "Gaah..." It'd hit me in the same place Amtakan had fired his magical blast that caused my current identity. The star head caused a rain of stars that I struggled to avoid. How could I beat this thing?
Then it hit me. The ice crater! We were right next to it. If I could lure Hexagdra toward the crater, it would all be over. The dragon was apparently immobile, however - its large body segment had no limbs unless you counted the six heads. I had to somehow move this thing toward the crater and fast. I flew between the monster and the crater, provoking all six heads to reach in my direction. This pulled the body toward the crater somewhat, but not enough. After a few more snaps, I moved to the other side and aimed a magical blast for the dragon, moving it toward the crater again. The heads now aimed for my new direction. I batted the star and rectangle heads out of the way and continued to attack this side of the body. The body mass was now almost hanging over the crater. All six heads were moving in my direction again, so attacking from this side would be too dangerous. As I moved to the other side again, the dragon-like head grabbed my top-left wing in its teeth. I screamed in pain as it tore a good amount of the wing clean off, chewing with a smug grin. This was the greatest volume of injury I'd ever experienced, but this was my last shot. I hovered awkwardly in the direction of the crater. The six heads moved in my direction again, and this was enough to pull the body over the spiny crater floor. Hexagdra tumbled into the crater, rolling until it landed in the center just like Bante and Hanetul had. I turned my head as soon as it fell in, listening to know when it had stopped.
I breathed out. The side of my face, a lot of my arms and hands, my right leg, my back, my stomach, and my decapitated wing were all either bleeding or otherwise injured. I looked back at the severed wing, coming to grips with how much pain I was in. I tried magically healing a few of the injuries. I was able to fix some of my face, arms, and legs, but the other injuries were beyond what I could do by myself. Nonetheless, I had to go to that building. If Amtakan was there, that was where I had to go.
I entered the cabin. Amtakan was there. "Maia." Apart from the Pixl Uprising, this was the first time we'd met, face-to-face, in the last 2,900 years.
"Amtakan." Wretcha and the Netherclops, as well as Bante and Hanetul's decapitated bodies, were here as well.
We stood, staring at each other. I don't know how long it must've been before Amtakan said, "You are here to keep the world in darkness. Emotion and love must be eradicated in order to form a perfect society."
"...No, Amtakan. That's not why I'm here. You can say that, but that doesn't make it true. I'm here to stop you once and for all. You've been horribly misguided. And it was all my fault. I'm here to right my wrong."
"You did what you had to. There is no erasing it now. What you did was not sinful."
"It doesn't matter, Amtakan. I have to do what I and the whole community have wanted for centuries." I rose my wand.
"That won't happen, Maia."
"Yes. It will."
"No. It won't."
"You can say that...but that doesn't make it true..."
"Whatever you do to me, Maia, I will have the same done to you. It is in my magic. You cannot harm me without also harming yourself."
I hadn't known that. I would easily sacrifice myself in order to stop him once and for all, but I would probably be needed to stop the Chaos Heart once Count Bleck had activated it. What else could I do to keep him from doing anything? I said what I thought. "Then let us be sealed. Both of us. Sealed in such a manner that no one, save for a legendary hero, could possibly set us free."
"You will not do this, Maia..."
"Yes. If it is the only way to preserve the fate of every world...then I will do it." I rose my wand higher as Amtakan followed with his scepter.
"Minions," he commanded. "Finish the project without me. Call Bante B-A Omega and Hanetul H-X Alpha. Tell all of the other minions to continue searching for the Breaker Orbs. Destroy them as soon as possible."
"Oh, Amtakan!" Wretcha moved to her master. "I'll preserve your power!" Wretcha initiated the spell. That was the last thing either of us heard before our magic was activated.

Part 7
A View from the Ice
1100 years ago-Present
I was in ice. I couldn't see, feel, or hear anything. I recieved no sensory input at all.
I was still inside the building, but Amtakan was no longer here. I tried using my magic to see where Amtakan was. I came part of the way before noticing my power was draining much faster than I was used to. My power must not have been preserved like Amtakan's. I was now limited, although my body could still heal itself slowly as I remained trapped in the ice. The least I could do was to try to help the legendary heroes in any way I could.
More than a thousand years later, I sensed Timpani. She had been cursed by Ganter, doomed to wander the dimensions forever. I gently guided her toward Flipside to meet with the heroes that would soon emerge. Perhaps, if Bleck knew his lover was still alive, it would lean him toward regret once he'd recreated the Chaos Heart.
Recreate the Chaos Heart he did. Timpani, now a Pixl called Tippi, guided a hero called Mario to Flipside, where Merlon initiated his task to track down the eight Pure Hearts and stop The Void. At this point, there was no way to destroy the Chaos Heart for good, but as long as Amtakan was sealed, I supposed that wouldn't be a problem.
Mario soon met with his friends Princess Peach and Bowser, the princess and monster king that Count Bleck had used to create the Chaos Heart. When the count sent Mario's own brother, Luigi, against the heroes, he had been hypnotized under the name "Mr. L". I knew seeing his own brother like this would hurt Mario, so I clouded his judgment, making him unable to recognize that the minion he faced was his own brother.
I helped the heroes along in various other ways. Once Dimentio emerged from the dead, I influenced O'Chunks to grab the red Pure Heart from its pillar, knowing that Dimentio would steal the others. I added sections to the Light Prognosticus to give them advice as they went along. I stopped the heroes from sliding down into lava after they were tricked by Morris, posing as me. And I caused an avalanche that allowed them to fall into the snow and find the final Pure Heart. I knew Amtakan was there, but I could do nothing to stop Dimentio from tricking the heroes into freeing him. This made me very, very suspicious. Who was Dimentio, and how did he know about Amtakan?
When the heroes finally gathered the Pure Hearts again and confronted Dimentio, the jester admitted his secret. He was Blumiere's father, thus making him Ganter! When Blumeire had obliterated his dimension, Ganter had managed to escape with his life, but he had lost his memory, save for a notion about using power and a man named Count Bleck. This is why he had plotted to steal the Chaos Heart. After his death, his memory had been reactivated, allowing him to escape from The Underwhere and carry out his plan of revenge.
Amtakan was out again, and Dimentio had stolen the Light Prognosticus I had used to give the heroes more instructions. Now, I had no choice. I entered Mario's mind, using my old name Maia, along with another spell to try and protect them from the numerous questions that would arise if they knew I was Novelle. I guided them to find the five Breaker Orbs to keep them safe now that Amtakan was out and about. Finally, I brought them to myself.

"Now, with me released and the Breaker Orbs secured," Novelle finished, "we can move to destroy the Chaos Heart and defeat Amtakan once and for all."
There was a long pause before our heroes spoke. "That was a great story," offered Mario. "Now we know the truth behind this whole thing. Amtakan was behind it from the start."
"That's where B-A Omega and H-X Alpha came from," noted Nastasia. "They were Amtakan's minions Bante and Hanetul. Wretcha and the Netherclops must have rebuilt them into the cyborg-robots they are today."
"I guess Dimentio must have convinced Morris to join his side," Mimi realized. "If he didn't have any hard feelings toward Novelle..."
"And that's why Dimentio wanted Blumiere and Timpani seperate," continued Peach. "Their blood is what Dimentio said would 'support' the Dark Prognosticus."
"Oh, the Dark Prognosticus," exclaimed Tippi. "We finally know who wrote it. It was Amtakan."
Novelle stared at the silent Blumiere. "I'm incredibly sorry, Blumiere, for making you go insane and recreating the Chaos Heart. You can't imagine how apologetic I am for that. But I hope you realize that's what I had to do."
Blumiere nodded. "Yes, I understand, Novelle. I'm glad it turned out the way it did, if that was truly the only way the universes could be saved from utter destruction."
The messenger smiled. "Thanks, Blumiere. I'm glad you're not angry."
"So..." Luigi began. "We still don't know what the Tribe of Darkness's emblem is supposed to represent? Unless it's referring to their true leader...Amtakan, but how does that represent him?"
Novelle shook her head. "I still don't know how that symbol represents him. The heart is understandable, since it probably represents the Chaos Heart, but I have no idea what the rest of the symbol stands for."
"So now we have you and the Breaker Orbs..." posed Tippi. "Now we can go to stop Amtakan?"
"Yes. We must destroy him in order for the Dark Prognosticus to be defeated. As far as I know, he shouldn't have any more Prognos, but...there's always the chance that Dimentio donated some of his blood. We must be on the lookout."
"Speaking of which," posed Mario, "where is the Dark Prognosticus, anyway? The last anyone saw it was at Castle Bleck."
A voice sprang from thin air. "The last you saw it was at Castle Bleck, yes, but I have seen it much more recently." A figure flipped into the area, and our heroes instantly recognized it as Amtakan.
"Amtakan!" Novelle exclaimed, her eyes huge. "What are you doing here?!"
"Just making a quick check at your prison to make sure you haven't escaped. It looks like I was too late."
"You...you've seen the Dark Prognosticus?" Luigi stammered.
"Indeed. Ganter had it in his possession when he took over Blumiere's castle, and when he released me, it was transferred to me." The Dark Prognosticus flipped in next to the villain. "I also took the Light Prognosticus from Ganter's castle." The Light Prognosticus flipped in on Amtakan's other side. "Two prophetic books, each vying to become the truth of the universe." Amtakan held both of the books in his six-fingered hands, weighing them. "In order to destroy this Light Prognosticus, I'd have to kill you, Maia."
Novelle gulped. "We...the heroes and I won't let that happen."
"You speak with confidence, Maia...just like your hopelessly encouraging sermons. Didn't it ever occur to you that love was not the only way? It is the wrong way. To love is to be weak."
Amtakan's adversary lowered her eyes. "I know that isn't true, Amtakan. You've been hopelessly misguided. Look at what you've become..."
"I have become a stronger person with a vision for this existence. This is not a bad thing, Maia."
"It depends on what that vision is. You've become a cruel, heartless monster. What happened to the kind, confident student I once knew? Your isolation is what brought about your demise, not love. Love does not cause destruction."
"Did Blumiere not cause destruction because of love? If you hadn't set Blumiere and Timpani up, their love would not have almost caused the end of all worlds I so desired."
"That...that was false love. There are several kinds of love, Amtakan! Count Bleck's blinding love for Timpani was misfounded. True love always brings positive! It always brings good! See where your lack of emotion has led you, Amtakan. It led you into being imprisoned in ice for more than a thousand years."
"That does not matter, Maia." Amtakan flipped out the two books. "If I kill these minions, like Ganter and Wretcha arranged, I will be able to reactivate the Chaos Heart again. First, however, these Breaker Orbs must be destroyed. I have a very special someone in mind who is up to this task." Amtakan flipped out.
"What's 'ee doin'?" questioned O'Chunks after a moment of silence.
As soon as he finished speaking, an earthquake rattled the building. "Oh!" Novelle hurried for the exit. "Quickly! Follow me!" Our heroes dashed out of the cabin just as a gigantic monster smashed it in. "Hexagdra! They must have revived it, too, just like they did with Alpha and Omega!"
The dragon's six heads roared, staring menacingly at the group of heroes. "How do we beat it?" exclaimed Blumiere.
"Oh! I know!" offered Luigi. "We'll push it into the ice crater...again!"
"The ice crater?" Mimi questioned.
"Yeah! Novelle said that Amtakan imprisoned her in the same building she was in, right? And that was right next to the ice crater, so this must be it! Look!" Luigi pointed, and our heroes could clearly see a large, sharp depression in the snow-covered ground.
"You're right, Luigi." Novelle smiled. "And this time, I'll have eight heroes to help me do it."

BOSS
Hexagdra

"Let me at it with some Rubees!" Mimi cheered, sending a torrent of stones at the dragon's body. Each Rubee moved the monster's body slightly, but not enough to cause any lasting damage.
"Let's go together." Novelle moved to Mimi's side and contributed with her own magic blasts. "Go around and distract it!" she shouted to the others. "If you knock out some of the heads, it'll be safer to use large attacks and move it faster."
"Got it!" O'Chunks propelled himself into the air and smashed the the orange hexagon head. In retaliation, the two neighboring heads dove for O'Chunks, fangs bared. O'Chunks jumped out of the way just in time for Mario to smash both of the lowered heads with his hammer.
The yellow star-shaped head roared, opening its mouth to the sky. Large stars began raining from above, hitting several of our heroes. "How do we get rid of these?" asked Luigi.
"I don't know, but maybe we can use them against it!" Peach deflected one of the projectiles with her parasol, sending it flying into the red prism head.
The star head stopped its assault. "I'll go in and attack that one!" Mimi offered, since she and Novelle were closest to this side of the dragon.
"OK," approved Novelle. "Be careful!"
Mimi hovered above the star head, surrounded her body with Rubees, and dropped them all directly onto the head. The star head snapped upward, but Mimi swerved out of the way and attacked it with another Rubee barrage. This put the head out of commission. "One down!" she called to the others.
"And five to go," reported Nastasia. She picked up another fallen star and hurled it for the blue diamond head, which had already been harmed by Mario's hammer.
All five of Hexagdra's remaining heads roared again. "This is starting to remind me of the Monster Blooper," Mario commented.
"Dude! You still remember that?" Mario looked at his grinning brother.
"Yeah. It feels like so long ago." The hero jumped over an assault by the brown rectangle head and Ground Pounded directly on it.
The dragon-like head lowered itself to our heroes' plane and breathed a wave of fire. "HEY!" Bowser exclaimed. "I'm the ONLY guy around here who can do that, OK?" Bowser shot more fire at the head, but this gave the hexagon head an opportunity to strike. "Yow!" the Koopa king exclaimed.
"We have to be careful when attacking it," called Novelle. "Another head will try to attack you!"
"This blue head's pretty weakened," noted Mario. "Let's go for it, bro!"
"You got it, Mario!" The Mario brothers dashed for the diamond head. Mario distracted it while Luigi charged his Super Jump, catching it from below and then landing on it again as he fell back down. The blue head was defeated. "Hey, we did it!" Luigi celebrated, only to utter "Whoa!" and flip around as the hexagon head snapped for him.
Four heads remained: the brown rectangle, the red prism, the green dragon, and the orange hexagon. "We should take down that brown one," Novelle suggested. "It'll be safer if we attack from the outside and work our way in." The messenger aimed a magic beam for the brown head, striking it exactly.
"I'll go for that one." Blumiere readied his own energy beam and attacked the brown head. It roared, coming down on Blumiere.
"Blumiere!" Tippi rushed for her husband.
"I'm all right, Timpani. Let me finish it." While the head was upright again, the former villain slammed into it with his energy charge, knocking it out for good.
"Three heads left!" Mimi rushed for the red prism, dodging the dragon on the way, and nailed it with a wave of Rubees. It wasn't enough to defeat it, however. The dragon head assaulted Mimi with a fire blast. "Aaaahhh!" Mimi swooped to the ground, injured.
"Run, Mimi," urged Novelle. The messenger slammed her wand into the prism head, defeating it. Only the dragon and hexagon heads remained. All the while, Novelle's continued efforts had moved Hexagdra quite a distance toward the ice crater. "Go for the orange one," Novelle pointed. "I think then it'll be safe enough to focus on getting it into the crater."
The orange hexagonal head roared, traveling in a large circle to hit our heroes. "Get it as it comes!" Mario commanded. Our heroes rushed for it as it went past them, contributing with stomps and whatever else they had. As the head retreated and spewed a ray of energy toward them, Blumiere charged for it and defeated it with a slam of his staff.
"It's pretty safe now!" announced Novelle. "Come over here, everyone! We'll push it in." Our heroes rushed to Novelle's side, putting Hexagdra between them and the crater. The only head that remained was the green dragon. As our heroes attacked the body with everything they had, the dragon prepared for another fiery volley. "Run out of the way!"
Our heroes avoided the dragon's fire blast, then continued their pushing job. The dragon was inches away from the crater's edge. Finally, after another misaimed snap, our heroes shoved Hexagdra into the crater once again. The monster roared once again as its body tumbled into the crater for the second time. Novelle didn't look at the dragon as it fell, but our heroes observed the carnage, never having seen it in person.

"There we are," finished Tippi. "We defeated it."
Novelle smiled as our heroes turned in her direction. "Thank you, heroes. You sure do well when you're together."
"Novelle..." Mario approached the person he, until now, knew as nothing but a voice named Maia. "It's amazing what you've been through. You were with the Ancients even before they were the Ancients. Your story really showed how brave you are...and heroic."
"Heroic?" The messenger laughed a little. "You might be right. The Light Prognosticus said there would be nine heroes, right?" She gave Mario a wink.
"Nine heroes..." Tippi thought this over. "All eight of us are together, so does that mean you're the ninth?"
"Of course. I wrote it, didn't I? Well, of course, I had a little help." Novelle folded her arms behind her back. "Now, we go back to Flipside. I'll describe in detail the plan we should take to defeat Amtakan once we consult with Merlon."
"Sounds good," agreed Mario. "Let's go, and bring our final hero with us."

-END OF CHAPTER-

All nine heroes prophecied by the Light Prognosticus have finally come together. After learning Maia's identity and having Novelle, her new name, join the group, our heroes are ready to defeat Amtakan and stop the Chaos Heart once and for all. They have learned an incredible amount of information regarding this villain and the entire backstory of their adventure - but there are still some questions that need answers. The threats have risen as Amtakan becomes the new villain of the adventure. With both Prognosticuses in his hands, he may be the most powerful villain Mario has ever encountered...

[Reading]

"So...now, either you're gonna kill Maia, or she'll kill you. Right?" posed Mortcha.
"That is correct. As you're aware, minions, the only way to reach this castle is through the portal in Cybertetra. There is a possibility that she could help the heroes find where it is, but Cybertetra itself will likely bring about the end of the heroes before they can reach it. I will explain my backup plans to you all if we find they indeed managed to locate the portal."
"Sounds like a solid plan," congratulated B-A Omega. "A solid, logical plan."
"Could some of us go and make things even worse for them?" asked the Netherclops. "You know, rough those puppies up a bit."
"I was just getting to that. Netherclops, I haven't given you a task as of late, so I want you and the robots to go to Cybertetra and do some scouting. If you spot the heroes, destroy them. That is an order."
"Hey, that's cool, Amtakan. I guess I'll be on my way." The Netherclops disappeared.
"Let's go, swizzle stick in crime!" offered H-X Alpha as he and Omega flipped out.
"Those heroes defeated Hexagdra..." Margaret mused. "They're pretty strong, you know. How do you know they won't make it to this castle?"
Amtakan thought. "You have nothing to worry about, Margaret. Even if they find this castle, and even if they make it through and reach this very room...they still will not be able to succeed. It is all in my plan. You don't need to concern yourself with it."
"OK." Margaret hung for a while, expecting Amtakan to say something else. "Oh, well, I guess I'd better get going." She flipped out. I never get used to these unceremonious meeting ends. Amtakan really obliterated emotion from his soul.


The fully assembled nine heroes - Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, O'Chunks, Mimi, Nastasia, Blumiere, and Novelle - stepped out of the dark blue door atop Flipside Tower. Making their way to the elevator, they met Merlon waiting for them. "Oh ho, I see you've returned. And with..." He eyed Novelle more closely. "Is this Maia?"
"Yes, that's her..." answered Tippi. "Her new name is Novelle, actually."
"Novelle? So this is the...Novelle you mentioned?" Merlon closed his eyes. "I'm sure there's a story to be told here."
"There is, actually." Novelle displayed her characteristic smile. "I'm Maia. It's a very long story, but basically, I knew Amtakan a long time ago." Novelle continued, giving Merlon a hyper-condensed version of the story she'd related to our heroes. "And now all that remains is for us to stop Amtakan so the Dark Prognosticus will finally be rendered null and void."
Merlon shook his head. "Simply amazing. We have all nine heroes now. And only one task remains."
"That's right." Novelle shifted. "Here's what we have to do. The way to get into Amtakan's headquarters is very well hidden. I'll modify the purple door to take us to wherever the entrance is. Once we find it, we'll return, and I'll be able to modify the black door on Flopside Tower to lead us straight to the HQ. Once we get in, we simply have to find Amtakan and...destroy him." The sides of her mouth fell slightly.
"What's wrong?" Luigi inquired.
"Oh, nothing. Well...you know, I'm still kind of upset that we have to kill him."
"That's understandable, my dear," assured Merlon. "Just set your mind to the task. That's what you've been helping our heroes to do the entire time, isn't it?"
She smiled again. "Yeah, that's true." Novelle turned to the heroes. "So, you have stockpiles, don't you? This'll be a venture into the unknown."
"Yes," Mario responded. "We bought a lot of items and such before we entered the blue door, but we never ended up using them."
"That's good. All right, I guess we can just go now. See you, Merlon."
Merlon bade our heroes farewell again as they ascended Flipside Tower. Novelle prepared the violet door in person. "So we just have to look for a portal or something?" asked Peach.
"Yes. Tippi and I can probably sense where it is, so all we have to do is search. Ready, heroes?"
"We're ready," answered Mario.
"OK. Let's go. And stop Amtakan."

[Kimimaru]

Reading scores again!

[Reading]

Thanks. I just started 7-1 yesterday, so it should be ready soon. Sonic 2006 sort of voided any writing opportunities I might have had over Christmas break. :P

[Reading]

100TH REPLY! Party or something.

Into the violet door our nine heroes traveled, unsure of what to expect. They now had almost all of the answers they needed, but one more task still awaited them. They were now faced with the assignment of finding the entrance to Amtakan's lair and defeating the evil wizard. Where would their adventures take them next? Our heroes were uncertain, and at the same time, quite comfortable...

A circle was drawn.

Extending from this circle were many spiraling points. Two large lines were drawn down the middle as circular, oval, irregular, and all sorts of other shapes appeared in the background. The large object in the center was colored with a glowing orange cloud as the entire background was filled with a spacey black, accenting the beautifully-colored galaxies. Lights were dotted everywhere you could look, accompanied by some dinging sound effects. The purple door was drawn into existence, and our nine heroes walked into outer space.

"Outer space..." Tippi mused. "Outer-oh! Mario!" Tippi rushed to Mario's side, but Mario was in perfect, breathing condition.
"It's fine," assured Novelle. "We can breath here. I recognize this place. It's called Cybertetra, one of Amtakan's testing areas. This would be a great place to hide a portal...which I guess isn't so great for us."
"You can sense it, right, Tippi?" asked Bowser.
Tippi felt. "Yes, I can feel it. It's pretty far away from here, I think...but there's so many other things in this place that I can feel, so it's hard to tell exactly."
"That's what happened when we went after the second orb," recalled Luigi. "So...we just get started, or what?"
"I suppose." Novelle floated ahead. "I'll tell you everything I know about this area, why not."
Our heroes followed the messenger, space-swimming past asteroids and a few enemies. "I'm all ears," assured Nastasia.
"OK." Novelle began her description. "First of all, Cybertetra is divided into four quadrants: Yxab, Genentstat, Slraburlds, and Bawisisug. We're in Yxab right now, and I suppose we'll travel through all of the others before we find the portal."
"Who came up with these names?" asked Mimi.
"Um...well, I guess it had to have been Amtakan and his minions."
"I'll bet it was Wretcha," pointed Peach.
"Good point." She paused. "Anyway, Yxab is this spacey place. Genentstat is this really complex maze. Slraburlds is sort of...technological, but it's basically outer space, too."
"What about Bawisisug?" questioned Blumiere.
"Bawisisug...well, I've never seen it. I don't really know what's there."
"I see. Well, we've done plenty of venturing into the unknown, so we'll be fine."
Novelle smiled. "Yeah. I know you will."
As our heroes pushed themselves forward into the expanse of space, a bright light suddenly flared up in the distance in front of them. "What is that?" Peach pointed at the light. It shone with a red-orange radiance.
"It's growing!" warned Mario.
"Either that, or...it's getting closer to us!" Novelle peered into the distance. "Everyone, move to the side! Fast!" Our heroes dodged the incoming object. As it passed, they could tell that it was a humongous flaming meteorite.
"We're under attack!" Tippi exclaimed as more flaming projectiles appeared in the distance.
"No!" Mario smashed through one of the rocks with his hammer. "Where are they coming from?"
"Somewhere off in the distance," reported Novelle. "I can't tell exactly, but I'll bet Amtakan ordered his minions to scout the area. We need to make it into Genentstat as soon as possible. I think we'll be able to lose them in the maze."
"Where's the entrance?" Luigi questioned.
"It shouldn't be too far." Tippi sensed. "I can sense something over to the left. It's probably the portal to Genentstat!"
"Whoa!" O'Chunks narrowly missed a gigantic meteorite. "Let's get outta 'ere, then!"
Our heroes pushed for the hard left as forcefully as they could, dodging the weapons on their way. As Tippi's sense increased, the meteorite hail abruptly halted. "Oh, what have we here?" Our heroes turned to the voice. B-A Omega and H-X Alpha were hovering a few yards away from our heroes, but a strange cyclops was also with them. That must be the Netherclops! Mario thought as he observed the figure.
"Yeah, Novie here probably told you everything, right?" Omega demanded. "Looks like you beat one villain only to be assaulted by another. Why don't you just give up already? The odds are stacked way against you."
"You're the Netherclops, aren't you?" pointed Luigi.
"Why, yes, I am." The minion did a strange dance. "Aren't you all just charmed to meet me in person?"
"Get out of our faces." Novelle gritted her teeth.
"Oh, you're as fiesty as ever, Novie. But I like that in a girl, you know?"
Novelle ditched her bared teeth in favor of a simple frown. "I think you're as filled with perverted love as ever."
"O MAH GOSH DID U HEAR TAHT?1!!!!?!!??? OMG LOL AN INSULT!!!1!!11! OMG WTH W3 AERNT GONG 2 LET IT SLIED THES TIEM!111!!  LOL WTH U LADY GO 2 UR ROM AND WATE FOR UR SPANKNG!!1!!!11! OMG LOL"
"You already said that, Alpha," offered the larger robot. "Can't you come up with something more original?"
"Really? OK..." The robot "cleared his throat". "You interdimensional FISH STICK! We're going to dip you in ketchup and then take a bite out of you and then dip you in tartar sauce and then take another bite out of you and then throw you back in the lake where you'll eventually dissolve as your individual atoms are carried away by dihydrogen monoxide to be deposited into the ocean where'll they'll become food for some crustacean or something."
The messenger closed her eyes. "Whatever you want, we're not going to let you stop us. Do you want to fight? Is that it?"
"I don't want to fight," the Netherclops began. "Fighting is so pre-modern! How is killing people supposed to solve the world's problems? Violence is not the answer. In today's society, we should realize that harming others solves nothing. So we won't fight you. We'll just destroy you instead!"
"Say goodbye, heroes!" B-A Omega fired a laser for Mario while the Netherclops conjured more meteorites with his flower-staff.
"Come on!" urged Novelle, breaking a meteor with magic. "We can't fight them. We're vulnerable here. I think we can make it to Genentstat before they do any serious damage!"
Resisting the urge to fight, our heroes followed Novelle. "You aren't getting away THAT easily, blubberbots!" H-X Alpha aimed his exhaust vent in our heroes' direction, attacking them with a fiery blast.
"There it is!" Tippi exclaimed. A circular portal glowed white in front of them. "Let's do it!"
"Not so fast!" The small robot utilized his exhaust vent again, this time using it as a vaccuum, generating an air current that pulled our heroes away from the shining portal.
"What do we do?" Blumiere asked hurriedly.
"I think I have a plan." Novelle moved slightly toward Alpha. "Go for it, heroes!" She aimed a blast of magic slightly to the left of Alpha. Just as she predicted, Alpha misinterpreted the move as a direct attack and moved right into it. This shocked him long enough to disable his maneuver. Novelle and the others jumped through the portal just in time, the Netherclops and the two robots following.

-END OF CHAPTER-

[Reading]

I forgot to put up Chapter 7-2 when I finished it, so here's 7-3 as well. Enjoy.


Our heroes appeared at the entrance to Genentstat, a small room with a slight uprise and a single door at the end. The environment reminded our heroes of the Whoa Zone; technological ground matter formed the maze itself, and computerized patterns appeared in the background, ranging from complex mathematical equations and graphs to ones and zeroes. However, this maze had a negative tone; the ground was light green against a black backdrop. The doors were just outlines of cyan. Our heroes didn't have time to observe the techno-scenery for long, however, because Amtakan's three minions were still after them. As they appeared from the portal, our heroes rushed into the door, hoping to get the minions lost in the maze.

Our heroes appeared in another, somewhat larger room. There was another door to their right, and ceiling passages extended above these doors. Mario looked into the ceiling vents. "There's upside-down doors way up there," he observed. "Looks like we'll encounter some gravity-switching."
"All the better to slow you down!" Omega extended his arm in our heroes' direction, charging a laser.
"We can't try to fight them in such an enclosed space," Novelle urged. "Let's run for it." Our heroes ducked into the nearby door, emerging in a longer hallway. There was a door on the ceiling about halfway through that featured a computerized white lock, and another locked rightside-up door at the end. Below the closer door was a hole in the floor. "We need keys to open those doors," Tippi recapped quickly. "And we probably have to go down there. Let's hurry before they get in here and see us!"
Our heroes jumped into the pit, landing at the entrance to a short tunnel that descended through the ground and split into two sections, each with a normal door and an upside-down one right above it. "Let's go to the left," Mario ordered, not having enough time to think things over. Our heroes entered the door on the left, confronted with a large maze.
"This seems like a good place to lose those guys," suggested Luigi. "They might have gone in the other door at that." He walked down the closest passage.
The group navigated the labyrinth, defeating some enemies on the way, until they reached another open area with an upside-down door and a block with an arrow pointing up and down. "Let make make one guess." Nastasia hit the block, flipping upside down and "falling" to the ceiling. The others reversed their gravity as well and entered the door, coming out from the door above the entrance to the maze. The other upside-down door in this area was just ahead, so our heroes entered it.
A new, larger room confronted our heroes. After making use of another gravity-reversing block to put them in normal position, they observed five floating blocks beyond a door. "What are those for?" inquired Peach.
"Well, we don't have time to find out," pointed Blumiere, but Mario had thought of something.
"Let me flip." Mario flipped into 3D. He could see that the first and fourth blocks were positioned slightly to the right of the others. He flipped back to two dimensions. "The first and fourth ones are a bit to the right. It might be-"
"You won't get away this time!" The Netherclops had appeared at the other end of the room, followed by H-X Alpha and B-A Omega.
"Quick! I think I know what to do!" Mario dashed into the door, quickly followed by the others. Our heroes came out in a room with two side-by-side doors. The lead hero guided the others through the right door, and when an identical room appeared, shifted to the left, following the blocks' pattern. The heroes finally escaped into another small room with a treasure chest and a pipe extending down from the ceiling.
"Let's get that chest," Luigi breathed. Mario opened the chest, uncovering a key.
"Here's a key," the hero exclaimed. "Let's take this pipe." Our heroes jumped into the vertical pipe, emerging from another downward pipe and falling to the floor of the room they'd entered the door maze from. Mario returned to the room's left, utilized the gravity switcher, and entered the door with the others. They emerged back in the tunnel area. "I guess we have to unlock the upside-down door."
Our heroes returned to the hallway they'd entered this area from and unlocked the door. They emerged on a short platform, upside-down. "Falling" to the ground, they observed two more doors. "I think I might know where these doors lead." Mario led the others through the first door they reached. When they emerged, his suspicions were confirmed. "Yeah, we're above the room with those two passages in the ceiling. We're on the right side." A short space next to them contained a rightside-up door and a flipper block, so our heroes quickly switched their gravity and entered the door. The group came out in another small room with nothing but another chest. Mario unlatched it and grabbed another key. "This'll get us through that door."
"What's on the other side?" Novelle hurried. "I think we should check that one out too."
"I guess. Let's make it quick." Mario and the others exited the door, flipped onto the ceiling, and returned through the upside-down door. As they emerged, however, an unwelcome sight greeted them.
"Missed us?" taunted the Netherclops, waiting directly in front of the door with the robots. "You'll never be able to lose us in this maze."
"Adding weight to that postulate," formulated B-A Omega, "this maze isn't really that complicated, and most of its difficulty arises from the different gadgets and puzzles it contains, rather than a multitude of branching, twisting paths. I think it should be a theorem that you guys can't lose us, shouldn't it?"
"Perhaps." The Netherclops rose his staff, causing a meteor to materialize in mid-air.
"In the door!" Mario blurted before the Netherclops could unleash his attack. Our heroes scrambled into the door, coming out in a mirror version of the previous upside-down area they'd just been in. They flipped their gravity and ran into the door just as the minions entered the area. Mario grabbed the third key from the chest, but he was too late. The three minions were blocking our heroes' exit.
"There's no escape now." H-X Alpha spoke with a smug tone.
Mario took a step backward. The heroes were trapped. B-A Omega drew a line of knives from his arm, set them on fire, and aimed them for our heroes. As they jumped over the onslaught, the Netherclops conjured another meteor. He sent it directly toward our heroes. Mario had time to shout "DUCK!" before the flaming space rock exploded above their heads, slamming them into the ground.
"No...!" Novelle pulled herself up, blocking H-X Alpha's laser shot with her wand. She moved to the small robot's side and slammed it with a burst of energy.
"You annoying pest!" Omega extended spikes from his arms and jumped for the messenger.
While Novelle and Omega were at each other, Mario drew a line of sight from our heroes' position to the door. He turned to the others, speaking as quietly as he could while still allowing them to hear. "I'm going to clear a path to the door. We'll make a break for it." He immediately turned around. "Novelle! Follow us!" He spun his hammer in a wide arc, pushing the remaining Netherclops to the side, and opened a path for all nine heroes to escape through the door.
"Gaah!" Omega followed our heroes into the door, closely succeeded by Alpha and the Netherclops. Our heroes had fallen through the ceiling vent into the initial hub room.
"Whatever's beyond the door, we might be able to lose them again!" Mario guided the other eight heroes back into the hallway with the two locked doors, dodging the minion's attacks, and opened the rightside-up one at the end of the hall. This led them into a tiny room with only another locked door. Mario opened this one as well.
Our heroes entered a new section of the maze that contained several winding passages. "This looks like a good place to get those guys lost!" Luigi observed. "Let's hurry!"
The group sped through the winding tunnels, ignoring or quickly defeating enemies on the way, while doing their best to lose the three attackers. "Let's loop back around here," offered Blumiere, pointing to a section of the maze they'd already traveled through. "They won't expect us to do that."
"Won't that just slow us down?" Peach countered.
"He is right," Novelle explained. "The minions wouldn't expect us to do something like that. I say we should do it." Our heroes had grown accustomed to following the messenger's instructions. Something told them not to question her idea as she led them back around a twisty loop. "Now we should go straight ahead. I think I hear the minions somewhere above us, so going down would be our best option." They descended a short tunnel and continued to the right, guessing and checking their path on the way.

At a certain point, pushing their way ever to the right, our heroes noticed that the scenery had been gradually changing as they worked their way across the maze. The background had ever-so-slightly transformed from pure black to a dull gray, and the technological designs had grown fewer and far between. Our heroes hadn't seen the minions in a while as they walked, the ground also growing lighter and pinker. Finally, our heroes reached the door at the end of this maze. The background and foreground were pure white, with no background decorations in sight, and only a black line with some dull pink internal lines to differentiate the foreground from the beyond. "Well, those minions are long gone," Tippi reflected. "It looks like we finally lost them for good."
Our heroes examined the surrounding scenery. "This place gives me chills for some reason," Luigi observed. "It's so...cold and imposing."
They stood for a few moments before Mario finally spoke. "Well, I guess we'd better move on."
"I feel another portal up ahead," Tippi reported as our heroes entered the door. "It's not too far."
"That's good." Novelle took a few steps forward as she examined the upcoming area. The next room was a moderate-length hallway. Sparking electric pillars, identical in color to the pink ground decorations, were located in precarious spots that blocked our heroes' path unless they could carefully avoid them. Some extended vertically from the floor, others were connected to the ceiling, and still others were oriented horizontally or diagonally.
"Let me see if I can flip to avoid them." Mario flipped into 3D. The electric barriers extended the width of the hallway, making them no easier to evade. The hero returned to 2D. "Nope. They're just as dangerous there."
"Well, this should be easy stuff for us now," assured Mimi. She leaped over the electric fence, easily plopping down on the other side. "You've trained us pretty well, Mario."
Mario shrugged. "Thanks." He followed Mimi across the barriers, performing his latest tutorial for the others to follow. The end of the hallway branched into small upper and lower alcoves, each containing a stoic black-and-pink door. The one on the bottom had an outlined black lock. Our heroes, knowing what this setup meant, entered the door on the top.
This room was slightly more open. A short distance in front of them, an sea of the pink electric sparks resided, seeming to replace more traditional lava. Small platforms floated back and forth across the electricity, and at the far side of the room was a safe ledge with a treasure chest. "Those are some long jumps," Nastasia took note. "Mario, are you sure you can do this? Maybe Luigi should try."
"I never said Luigi shouldn't go." Mario smiled, extending his hand to his brother. Luigi took up his new task, carefully leaping across the platforms, avoiding the floating sparks on the way, and reaching the treasure chest at the other end. After collecting the key, the man in green jumped back across the platforms and rejoined with the others. They returned through the door and unlocked the one below it, allowing them passage to the next area.
They emerged on a short alcove near a ceiling, and after jumping down and falling through a small field of coins, our heroes plunged into a narrow hallway that led to the right. More of the lava-style electricity, electric pillars, and various enemies crowded the hallway, making for some dangerous trekking. Our heroes were hit several times before coming to another door. This one took them to yet another hallway, this one with a much higher ceiling. "What's that door?" Tippi noticed. A door was attached to the wall on the left, its top facing to the right. "Looks like we need to find another one of those gravity blocks." Indeed, another gravity switch lie at the end of this dangerous hallway, flipping our heroes onto the ceiling.
"This still isn't where we want to be." Bowser looked back down the hallway. "There's another gravity switch back over there. That'll probably flip us where we need." Our heroes traveled back to the left, hitting the black block. However, instead of planting our heroes' feet on the wall to the left, it flipped them to the right.
"Waaaah!" Luigi screamed as our heroes were pulled to the right, falling directly in the direction of all the floating hazards they'd made it through. Our heroes were careful to sidestep all the electricity beams as they finally fell into a sideways alcove at the far right. This one contained a direct left-right gravity switch.
"Now all this again." O'Chunks and the others flipped to the left, again pulled through every hazard until they touched down next to the door on the left. Our heroes entered it, emerging in another hallway with normal downward gravity.
"Oh...what's this?" Tippi hovered to the black outline of a circle, located some way to the right of the entrance. "I feel something here. This is the portal to Slraburlds. But it doesn't seem to work..." She moved toward the portal, attempting to enter it, but her body pressed against solid matter. "We have to find some way to activate it."
Novelle seemed disturbed. "Oh..."
"Novelle?" Mario asked. "Is something wrong?"
"I think I can feel the minions somewhere nearby. They must have solved that maze. It might be a little while before they reach this room, but we should get the portal working as soon as we can." She ran to the left side of the room, stopping at a square of nine floor switches. A larger red switch was beyond them. The other heroes joined Novelle as she pressed the red switch. The center switch in the square of nine briefly lit.
"I guess that means we have to hit it?" Mario jumped onto the center switch. It lit again, followed by the on the top-left.
"Oh, I get it," Bowser offered. "We have to follow the pattern." He stomped the center switch and then the top-left one, causing those two plus the bottom one to light. "And it keeps growing."
Once our heroes had successfully memorized and hit the center, top-left, bottom, bottom-right, right, left, top, bottom-left, and top-right switches, the portal's white covering shattered, revealing the shining, working passage. "We must hurry," urged Novelle. "The minions are closer. Let's hope Slraburlds is complicated enough to keep them at bay." Our heroes returned to the circle and leaped into the vortex, awaiting the third sector of Cybertetra.

-END OF CHAPTER-

Our heroes emerged in the third sector, Slraburlds. This area had a black, spacey sky similar to Yxab, but with only far-off stars and no large galaxies. The ground and platforms were made of a transluscent glass that glowed with reflections when our heroes moved. Technological lines, colored various shades of gray, radiated through some of the scenery, following a regular horizontal-vertical-horizontal-vertical wavelike pattern. The entire scene had almost no saturation - it was all black, gray, and white. "This place looks neat," observed Mimi.
"It is," agreed Novelle, "but we shouldn't hang around to admire the view. Those minions are coming. We might be able to fight them off if they attack us here, since we have both gravity and an open space, but I think it would be best to avoid them."
The heroes set off, eager to explore the next section of Cybertetra - while, of course, keeping watch for the minions...

Slraburlds was a very difficult area to traverse. The glass-like ground had little traction, adding further annoyance to the precariously-positioned platforms and enemies. The ground formed several Castle Bleck/Castle Dimentio-style traps, such as the rising-and-falling ground segments, and new hazards, including rotating spike pillars. "You can heal us, can't you, Novelle?" Nastasia asked after being heavily damaged.
"Yes. I gave you those items in Castle Dimentio, but now that I'm here, I can heal you in a more constant way. I've been doing some of it along the way. Have you guys noticed it?"
Our heroes hadn't felt much of any healing effect, but examining themselves, they found their bodies to be in much better a condition than they would have expected. "I do, now that you mention it," Luigi replied. "You've been doing this while you were here? Thanks, I guess."
"Heh. You don't have to thank me, Luigi. I don't have to worry about saving my power anymore, so I'll just use it to help the heroes, like I've always done. It's the least I can do to help - and as a thank-you."
"We're the ones who should be thanking you," Mario offered. "You saved us so many times."
Novelle gave Mario that alluring smile. "But you heroes are the ones who're doing all the world-saving. I'm just here to assist."
"Us? You saved the world the very first time the Chaos Heart was activated, and you're the reason it was deactivated twice again! You don't give yourself nearly enough credit, Novelle."
The messenger shrugged. "Oh well. Maybe I don't. But who's giving credit to who is a small matter compared to saving the multiverse, isn't it?"
Mario gave Novelle a teasing, smiling stare. "Yeah, that's definitely true."
Luigi spoke from behind Mario. "I do think Tippi deserves more credit. If she didn't bring Mario to Flipside in the first place, the worlds would have been lost."
"Me?!" Tippi whirled toward Luigi. "Well, I suppose, yes, I did contribute a bit...but we really do have Blumiere to thank. He realized his shortcomings before it was too late."
"You give me far too much credit, dear." Blumiere laughed. "But I guess that's what we've been doing this entire time. I really think the heroes should be thanked. They ventured to the worlds and collected the Pure Hearts before The Void could destroy the world."
"We wouldn't have succeeded if it wasn't for Novelle," Mario pointed. He shook his head, smiling. "Now we've gone full circle."
As Mario continued to think about their conversation, Novelle suddenly blared. "MARIO! WATCH OUT!" Mario had barely enough to dodge the incoming energy blast. "The minions! They-"
"I'm sure you missed us that time, didn't you?" Our heroes froze. The Netherclops descended in front of them. "The robots and I have decided to attack you seperately. Now that you're in a good fighting environment, we're not going to take our chances. So just sit still, heroes. You won't live as long, but it'll be more comfortable."
"You don't have to fight us, you know," accused Peach. "You could just stay out of our way, and not suffer the humiliation of displeasing Amtakan."
"Just stay out of our path, Netherclops," added Nastasia.
"Oh, why do you even have to call me Netherclops? It's such a negative name. Just call me Cuddlemuffins, OK?"
"...Cuddlemuffins?" Nastasia's face twisted into a confused scowl.
"Yes. It's much more appropriate and has a nicer tone, wouldn't you say?"
Novelle stepped in front of the heroes, holding her arms to either side. She looked menacingly at the minion. "If you're going to fight us, get on with it instead of dragging this out."
The Netherclops tilted downward. "How dare you accuse me? You should know not to play so mean."
"Stop stalling," Luigi demanded. "Attack us fair and square. We dare you!"
"Oh, is that so? I guess I have no choice, then. Sob. NOW YOU'LL ALL FEEL THE WRATH OF CUDDLEMUFFINS!"

MINIBOSS
The Netherclops

The Netherclops immediately sprang into action, holding his rose-like staff straight in the air. It produced a multicolored beam that shot straight into the air. "Watch out from above!" Novelle warned. Our heroes looked above, observing several laser beams descending directly for them. They moved to the nearest safe spot as the lasers hailed from above, slamming into the ground at random locations.
"Ho ho ho! Let's see how you do against this." The magician moved to the side and maneuvered his wand in a circle, creating a semi-transparent ball of teal energy. "Let's play with the Bouncing Bubble!" The ball shot into the air and crashed into the ground, bouncing into the sky again.
"Quick! While he's overly obsessed with his toy!" Mario and Luigi went in for the attack.
"Oh, you didn't think I'd be distracted by something that's not a pretty girl that easily, did you?" The Netherclops blasted Mario away with a beam from his wand. He went for Luigi as well, but the green plumber had used the delay to charge his power and spring into the air faster than the minion could aim. Luigi ground-pounded directly on the Netherclops' giant eye.
"How do you like that, huh?"
"OWW! No! Not my eye! That's my weak spot!"
"Who would've guessed?" Bowser came with his spinning shell, nailing the Netherclops with his spikes.
"Agh! You cheapskates!" The Netherclops rose into the air and assaulted our heroes with crazily fired lasers.
"Mario!" Peach pulled Mario away from the range of a laser. "You're all right, aren't you?"
"He's fine," Novelle assured. "With my protection, you guys can take more of a beating than normal, but still, be careful. These enemies are powerful."
"'Ow do we attack 'im?" O'Chunks inquired.
"I can get him." Novelle moved away from Mario and Peach, flying up to the Netherclops's level. "Take this!" The messenger bounced one of the minion's lasers back at him.
"You guys just keep pulling out all the tricks, don't you? I guess I'll have to come up with some of my own." The Netherclops rose his staff, enclosing the arena in a white line. He drew several more vertical and horizontal lines, dividing it into sixteen square segments that were bathed over in a transluscent red. A darker red number appeared on each compartment, varying from 3 to 10. At another flick of the Netherclops's staff, the numbers began counting down one by one. The first boxes to hit 0 exploded.
"We have to stay where it's safe!" Mario rushed toward an area that had just exploded, careful to avoid the box to his right, one second away from detonation.
"Ho HO! Having a bit of trouble avoiding my completely awesome and clever attack?" Just as the box attack faded, the Netherclops surrounded himself in an energy cloak and dove for the ground like a shooting star. He smashed into the ground, shattering a large portion of it. The glass pieces flew away as if not under the influence of gravity, creating hazards for our heroes.
"Aaahg!" Luigi fell to the ground, injured by a glass shard.
The Netherclops went for Luigi, only to be blocked by a magic blast from Blumiere. "Attacking a man while he's down? Who's playing mean now?"
Enraged, the Netherclops aimed for Blumiere, who swung his staff toward the minion. The Netherclops countered the maneuver with his own staff, initiating a duel between the two. "Now's a good time to get him," Mario observed from below. "Luigi, let him have it with your Super Jump!"
Luigi nodded, creeping below the Netherclops and charging him with the powerful jump. The minion turned to attack Luigi, opening his backside to attack from Blumiere's charging maneuver. At the same time, Mimi nailed him with a torrent of Rubees. "Gaaaaah! You guys are better than I thought."
"That's what everyone says," Tippi explained.
"Shut up! You won't be able to stand up to this!" The Netherclops spun in a wide circle, creating a torrent of glowing pink energy. "Now you have it, 'heroes'!" He sent the tornado whirling around the area. Some of our heroes had been inside the tornado's range when it was created, and others outside it, so each one had to perform a different kind of dodging tactic to escape. The glass crater in the center certainly didn't help things.
"Nooo!" Peach screamed as the minion's laser blasted her into the center. She struggled to stand up in the sharp glass crater, reminiscent of the giant ice crater they'd just visited. The Netherclops took the situation to his advantage, charging for Peach while readying his magical staff.
"Peach!" Mario swiftly grabbed his princess's hand and pulled her out of the glass crater. "You're going to pay for this, Netherclops!" Mario stomped the villain's giant eye while Peach attacked with her parasol.
"You annoyances." The minion gathered energy and blasted Mario and Peach away. "See how you all like this, too!" He unleashed the sky-high laser beams again, in more numbers this time. Our heroes were hit again.
"We're getting low," exclaimed Luigi. "We've got some Ultra Shakes, right?"
"Yeah, but Mario has them." Novelle looked over at Mario and Peach. "Oh, no! He's going for them!"
"Stop that cyclops!" O'Chunks charged for the minion with all the speed he could. Luigi, Mimi, Nastasia, Bowser, Blumiere, and Novelle followed.
The burly O'Chunks managed to dent the Netherclops from behind before the minion could reach the downed Mario and Peach, causing the Netherclops to stumble slightly. Bowser used this as an opening to douse him in a stream of fire. "And this time I don't need to feel bad about it!"
"What's with the dogpile on the nice guy, huh?" But the Netherclops was too late. Nastasia and Luigi attacked him from the front while Blumiere and Novelle swung around from the rear and hit him with magical attacks. "Ugh...GAAAAAHHHH!" The Netherclops gathered his staff's power. He thrust the rod into the ground, creating a shockwave that bowled over our tightly concentrated heroes, knocking them flat onto their backs.
"We...almost...had him..." Luigi groaned.
Novelle charged. She took up a mad dash for the Netherclops, attacking him with her wand to defend the others. The two initiated a duel similar to what Blumiere had done. "Why do you bother?" the minion dared. "Your little friends are down and out."
"Down, but not out!" Novelle flipped over an energy assault and countered by issuing a fiery beam to her enemy's eye. The Netherclops responded by rising into the air and attacking Novelle with multiple energy blasts. "Gyaaaahhhh!" Novelle screamed as she went in for the kill, attacking the Netherclops with everything she had. A frantic, crazed fight broke out, with energy and magic flying in all directions.
"You think you've almost got me? Think again. With fewer of you, my task will be easier." The Netherclops descended toward the other heroes.
Mario knew the situation was desperate. The Netherclops's attacks were powerful enough to cause large amounts of damage, even with Novelle's protection. He had to distract the Netherclops and get him to stop attacking somehow. But how could he do that? Oh, you didn't think I'd be distracted by something that's not a pretty girl that easily, did you? The minion's earlier words came back in Mario's mind. That's it! He turned to the princess beside him. "Act injured!"
"You got it." Peach slowly stood up, pretending to be hurt more than she actually was, while Mario rushed toward the others. "Owww! Netherclops, why are you so mean?"
The minion looked directly at Peach. "Why, I'm not mean. I'm just carrying out my orders."
"But why do you have to hurt us while you do it? That's not fair."
"Not fair? What have you guys been doing to-" That was when he was hit. "Aah! You little-" It was too late. All of the others were upon him, attacking with everything they had.
"Time to be put in your place!" Luigi nailed the minion multiple times.
After a final head stomp from Mario, the Netherclops admitted defeat at last. "Hoo...hah...you guys are strong, that's for sure. And girls."
The lead hero approached the minion. "You deserved every bit of it. Now, are Alpha and Omega here too?"
The Netherclops gathered himself. "Yes, they're most certainly here. We'll get you all. I'll meet back up with them, and we'll destroy all of you! Totally annihilate all of you guys! And girls." The Netherclops waved his staff, creating a dark, circular field that enveloped him. It contracted, sending out a pink, short-lived energy pulse similar to Dimentio's exit.

"We need Shroom Shakes, don't we?" Mario pulled out one of his Ultra shakes. "Here we go, everyone." He used the item, restoring our heroes to health.
"That was tough," Peach exhaled. "I wonder what new...advancements Alpha and Omega have made. More advancements that they say will logically defeat us but never do."
"They have a very different sort of lack of love than the Netherclops, don't they," agreed Luigi. "Or in his case, lack of true love." Novelle gave Luigi a smile.
"Villains just never have a clear focus, do they," Mario acknowledged. "Well, I guess some do. Like...Amtakan."
"His goal is to obliterate love," Blumiere recalled. "And of course, we need to make sure that doesn't happen."
"HEY!" Bowser shouted. "I have a focus! Princess Peach! And you guys call me a villain for it."
"Perhaps that's why, Bowser," Novelle pointed.
"What!? Why, you-"
"We don't have to go much longer." Peach pointed to the distance. Another shining portal was visible.
Our heroes approached it. "You don't know anything about Bawisisug, do you, Novelle?" Mario confirmed.
"Nope. I've never seen it. We'll just have to discover it for ourselves."
"All right, then." The lead hero looked back toward the others. They'd grown and shrank in number so many times, and now were the fully assembled nine. "Are we ready?"
"I know I'm ready," Novelle assured. "We can take care of it. We're the heroes of prophecy."
"That's true. All right. Let's go." Mario jumped into the portal, followed by Luigi, Peach, Bowser, O'Chunks, Mimi, Nastasia, Blumiere, and Novelle.

-END OF CHAPTER-

[Reading]

Blackness and silence enveloped our heroes. Then, a line was drawn. A circular green shape flashed in the distance for an instant, accompanied by a sound effect, and then disappeared. More polygonal shapes appeared in the foreground, blinking in and out. Our heroes felt very surreal. "Are those platforms?" Mario asked. He looked down at his feet, which were resting on the red outline of what was apparently one of the very few stable platforms in this area. He jumped onto a flashing yellow rectangle. As soon as it faded away, the hero fell to the ground. "These are serious platform antics, people. We'll need to be careful."
"All right," Novelle agreed. "I can sense the last portal that'll take us to Amtakan's hideout. We'll be approaching it any time now."
"That's good." Mario set off across the multitude of shapes, beginning his last venture within the confines of Cybertetra...

Our heroes pushed off in their forward march. They had to carefully time their jumps in order to land on anything safely, and when multiple unstable platforms appeared in a row, it only complicated things. Mario was able to figure out the precision leaps and hop across them without too much trouble. This sometimes involved hanging on one platform that was about to disappear while waiting for the next one to present itself, increasing our heroes' nervous tension. Finally, they reached another large, seemingly safe platform. "Is there anything here?" Peach asked.
Her question was answered when an outlined red cylinder flashed above our heroes' heads. It soon disappeared, just like the other platforms, and reappeared a few instants later. "That entire structure is appearing and disappearing?" Mimi questioned.
"It looks like it." Mario stepped up to the nearest platform. "We need to climb upwards as carefully as we can." Just as his platform disappeared, he leaped upward in the direction of another platform's space, landing on the new platform just as it materialized.
The vertical chamber was similar to the one they'd encountered in Reidlos X's airship. Spikes and enemies infested it, making for some very difficult jumping. At several points, our heroes misjudged a jump and plummeted downward, only saved by the reappearing chamber. Once our heroes reached the top, they were again confronted with a multitude of appearing-and-disappearing platforms. Once they finally made it to the next safe platform, another portal confronted them.
"Does this portal take us to another area in Bawisisug?" Tippi mused.
"Yes, I think it does." Novelle examined the shining disc. "I can tell that this isn't the portal that leads directly to Amtakan's headquarters. We'll know when we see it."
"Let's jump in, then." Mario leaped through the new portal.
Our heroes emerged in an area with a dark blue-purple backdrop. They were standing on a wavy substance that was transluscent except for a lighter gridline running across. Objects that looked like miniature versions of stars, galaxies, and even black holes were placed throughout the area, each of them warping the fabric-like substance around them to some degree. "It's like the space-time continuum...or something," Luigi remarked.
"I believe the correct term is 'fabric of spacetime'," Novelle corrected. "Or it might be something else. Who knows what they've come up with since?"
As Mario stepped forward toward a large fireball, he felt himself being pulled toward it. He quickly stepped backward, holding his arms out slightly. "There's many different gravity fields here. Let's stay as far from anything as we can."
The spacetime-fabric ground contained many ebbs, flows, and hills. Our heroes traversed this strange landscape until they came upon an enormous black hole. The black void at the center was encircled by a fiery red accretion disc that orbited the black hole at amazing speeds. Small platforms were placed as stepping stones across the deep hole. "This looks difficult," O'Chunks remarked.
"I'm sure it is." Mario jumped onto the first platform. He could feel the black hole's powerful gravity dragging him downward. "We should jump with more force than we think we need. If we miss, it's Game Over!"
Mario carefully moved across the platforms, Note Blocks, and other stepping stones allowing him to cross the behemothic vortex. The heroes approached the other side, and all seemed well until Luigi began his leap to the final platform before the black hole's edge. He started his jump like any other jump. As he landed, however, a laser was suddenly fired in his direction. He screamed, twisting to avoid the shot, and managed to grasp the edge of the final platform.
"What?!" Mario quickly jumped onto the platform, grabbing his brother's hand, as his eyes shifted to the left. There, grinning, was B-A Omega.

MINIBOSS
B-A Omega

Mario had no time to think, only to act. He pulled Luigi onto the ledge while B-A Omega charged another laser. The Mario Brothers jumped over this next laser, but Omega halted their progress toward the safe side. "A black hole. That's a good, logical place for your defeat, isn't it? Considering I can float and you can't."
"And I can." Novelle hovered toward Omega, magic wand ready. Omega retaliated with a swift downward dive, sinking low enough to avoid Novelle's blast but not enough to be consumed by the black hole. While Novelle and the robot minion were at each other, Mario and Luigi used their opportunity and returned to the safe ground on the other side where the others were waiting.
"Darn it! My plan to kill Mario didn't quite work like it should have. Oh well. The odds are still in my favor!" Omega twisted his body, creating a spinning machine of death that aimed for our heroes. They dispersed away from the black hole, leaving Omega to damage them.
"I'll get him." Mario drew his hammer and simply held it in front of Omega's path. The spinning robot slammed into the obstacle.
"Oww!" Omega stopped, seemingly dizzy.
"Now's the chance!" O'Chunks initiated a dogpile on the minion, swinging with his powerful fists. The others joined.
"Gah!" Omega blasted his way out of the huddle, sending our heroes flying. Mario was pushed directly above the swirling void. "Ah ha HAAA!!!" Omega zeroed in.
"No! Mario!" Novelle sped toward the lead hero and used her wand to send him away toward safe ground just as Omega tossed a shuriken for them both. It slammed into Novelle's wing, damaging it heavily. "Ahhg!" The messenger began an unstabilized flight toward the safe area.
"I could eliminate you, too, while I'm at it!" Omega reached for more shurikens.
Novelle pulled the shuriken out of her wing, grunting, and threw it at Omega's chestplate. The metal plate was split slightly. Novelle wasted no time in attacking Omega's new vulnerable area, causing the robot further harm. "Yaahh!"
"You haven't changed your tactics at all, Maia. We don't have an ice crater here, but a black hole is availible!" Omega charged for Novelle and slammed her with his steel arm, forcing her down toward the wide singularity.
"Ehhhh!!!" Novelle uttered as she fought the black hole's influence.
No, Bante, you aren't! Mimi hurled a Rubee over the chasm toward Omega, following with several more that distracted the robot.
"Why, you little..." B-A Omega charged, confused at Mimi's widening smile.
"Let him have it!" the minion finally told O'Chunks. She jumped out of the way, leaving Omega to again find himself the target of O'Chunks's massive fists.
"Daah..." Omega stood up, weakened. "You heroes...you're just..."
"Too powerful?" Luigi offered.
"No! Not that! I'm obviously more powerful than you are, because I have sweet weapons! And great offensive capabilities!" Omega soared into the air.
"Get as far away from the black hole as you can!" Mario warned. Our heroes sped away from the black hole, in the direction they were progressing. B-A Omega soon smashed into the ground before them, creating a shockwave that sent them back toward the hole. Their escape had, fortunately, put them in a distant enough position to avoid being tossed into the bottomless pit, but they were now vulnerable.
"Nyah!" Omega taunted as he began an energy charge for the group.
"Mario..." Luigi stared at his brother.
"I don't know what to do, Luigi."
"Hang on one second." Novelle prepared her magic.
"Oh, you can create a shield, right?" Peach recalled.
"That, and better. Just stay still, heroes."
Omega approached, his glowing energy charge very visible. Bowser moved up a step.
"Stay put, Bowser."
"That guy's so close! He's going to kill us!"
"Stay put!"
"Why?"
"Because if you don't..." Novelle paused. "This...cannot happen." Just as Omega would've blasted our heroes to ashes, Novelle activated a transluscent yellow barrier and flipped our heroes over it, landing them safely. Omega continued foward, smashing his robotic body and soaring over the massive black hole.
"Wha...NOOO!!!" Omega's arms and most of his legs broke apart, tumbling into the void. The robot struggled against the black hole's pull, finally escaping, but in heavily damaged condition. He stared our heroes down. "You'll pay for this, heroes. Alpha and the Netherclops are working on something. And it'll destroy you all. Just try to find Amtakan's place!" Omega hovered away.

"Looks like we got him pretty good," Tippi noted.
"Amtakan might power him up with some new stuff, though," Novelle pointed, "once he finds this out. We still need to be careful, especially with whatever it is Alpha and the Netherclops are planning."
"How much farther to the portal, Timpani?" Blumiere asked.
"It's...not too far. We should be approaching it soon. But those guys will probably try to stop us before we reach it..."
After a few more obstacles, our heroes reached another portal. "This is the last portal, I can tell," examined Novelle. "They're probably waiting on the other side."
"Well, I'm not scared," defied Mario. "Let's take the plunge." Our heroes stepped into the portal, emerging in outer space yet again. This area had a bright, starry sky and a technological gray ground, similar in some ways to Slraburlds.
A few more platforming obstacles and gimmicks, and our heroes arrived at Alpha and the Netherclops's waiting place. The damaged Omega was here as well. "What are you two planning?" Tippi demanded.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" the Netherclops taunted.
"It involves ME," H-X Alpha bragged. "That means I'm COOL!"
"You..." Novelle uttered. "You're so unlike the uber-serious Hanetul I knew."
"WHUT?!?!? AHM UBAIR-SERIOUS!!! TOTALLLLLYYYY!!!"
"Yeah," Omega admitted. "The Netherclops and Wretcha couldn't restore all of his brain functions after that injury. That injury that you caused."
"He's one of the citizens of the Bluecaps' territory, isn't he?" Mario recalled. "That explains his size."
"We've known about that dimension for a while," Novelle explained. "The Bluecaps and X Faction were two different nations. It was only when Radnamok X took power that they became enemies."
"What about Reidlos X?" Peach questioned.
"Oh, that guy?" the Netherclops stated. "He was the leader before Radnamok X. Amtakan saw a minion opportunity and hypnotized him. Radnamok X used the confusion that followed as a way to take control."
"Totall-ay," Alpha approved in a "bratty teenage girl" impression.
"Bante, you, on the other hand," Novelle continued, "haven't changed either. Why do you keep insisting on your faulty logic when the heroes defeat you over and over?"
"Tell us, Omega," Mario demanded. "And what made you join Dimentio in the first place? Why didn't you tell him what you knew?"
"Why should we have?" Omega responded. "We didn't know how competent he was. If he could release Amtakan, he could find out everything he didn't know then. And I suppose he did. But he had to get you guys to do it for him. That massive rebellion he staged at Beachfront Town impressed us enough to convince us to join him for the moment, but why settle for Dimentio? We're always going to be with Amtakan, to the very end."
"And this isn't the time to be questioning our awesome motives," the Netherclops disapproved. "I've been working on a little something that'll allow Alpha to destroy you all, once and for all. Ready, Alpha?"
"Totall-ay!" Alpha separated his body into three segments, each of which, in turn, produced another H-X Alpha. "You like my sweet new duplicating powers, stereo headphones?"
"And that's not all," the Netherclops continued. "I've upgraded him with weapons like you couldn't believe. And the gravitational laws of space...or lack of them, for that matter...allow H-X Alpha's abilities to be utilized to their full potential!"
"YOU GOT IT, FOO!" The three Alphas produced six more, and all nine flew off into space.
"We have to chase them!" Mario and the others followed the robots, falling into a gravity-free area in the middle of outer space. The minion's multitude of laser shots headed straight for them.
"How do we hit him?" Luigi wondered. "He's moving too fast!"
Novelle set her eyes on the robot swarm. "There's only one way to beat him." She readied her magic wand. "Let's make this a space shooter!"

BOSS
H-X Alpha Robot Phalanx

As our heroes careened through space, Novelle swerved out of the lasers' target range and positioned herself slightly to the right of the group of Alphas. She fired multiple bursts of energy at the group of H-X Alphas, destroying them one by one. When all nine were defeated, however, another wave dropped in with more lasers. "Can't we get to the original and defeat him?" Mario proposed.
"Yes, that's what we need," Novelle assured, "but it'll take a while to get to him. He's produced so many clones!" The messenger again aimed her magic blasts for Alpha's clones, dodging lasers when nessecary. When this wave was finished, a line of robots swooped in from the left, firing lasers at unpredictable angles.
"Novelle's pretty swarmed," noted Tippi. "Isn't there any other way to attack them?"
"Only if you can attack from a distance," the messenger responded.
"In that case," Blumiere began, "Mimi and I are ready." Blumiere and Mimi joined Novelle at the front lines as another curling line of clones appeared from the right. Mimi's Rubees and Blumiere's energy blasts, combined with Novelle's magic, were enough to demolish this third wave.
More robots came, forming a huge rectangle in front of our heroes. A few of the robots swooped downward for our heroes, entering their area. They attacked too fast to be immediately attacked, but the three fighting heroes were skilled enough to destroy them on their way back. All of the remaining robots soon, however, began charging for a massive laser. "They're going to fire!" Mario warned. "Get in this safe zone!" Mario showed the others exactly where to line up, in an area where a laser wouldn't be fired. The heroes successfully avoided the blast, and Novelle, Mimi, and Blumiere continued their assault.
Once these were destroyed, one more wave came in, attacking from all three sides with a massive number of robots that shot lasers like crazy. Mimi saw an opportunity and fired Rubees in one direction as fast as she could, taking out an approaching line of attackers one by one. The rest were still attacking, and several were aiming themselves toward our heroes. They drew close enough for Mario to smack a few with his hammer, as well as for Bowser to kill them with fire, but the majority of the legion was still up front, attacking with lasers. "There's too many of them!" Novelle announced frantically, bouncing all over the place to deflect and dodge the laser shots.
"Hey, maybe my fire can help?" Bowser shouted. Novelle turned around. "You could, like, absorb my fire with your wand, and then blast it out or something, right?"
Novelle considered this. "Maybe I could. Let's give it a try." Bowser unleashed a stream of fire. Novelle placed her wand in the fire's path, allowing the red gem to absorb Bowser's flames. Once Bowser was finished, she turned around. "Now, Alpha, take...THIS!" Novelle thrust her wand forward. Brilliant red flames exploded from the wand's gem, tearing up H-X Alpha's robot squad. Every last clone was destroyed.
"You complete and utter annoying and meddling deep-fried FOOLS!" The real H-X Alpha approached our heroes. "Looks like we'll have to settle this the hard way, eh?" H-X Alpha split into three robots that surrounded our heroes in a triangle, directing attacks inward.
"They're close enough now to attack!" Novelle announced. "Go for it!"
"I'm on it!" Mario space-swam to the nearest clone while Peach and Luigi attacked the real minion.
Once both clones were gone, H-X Alpha charged a dark purple ball of energy and sent it into the crowd. "You can't avoid this MINIATURE BLACK HOLE! It's a LEVEL 11 WEAPON!"
The miniature black hole drew our heroes in. "Go with your hammer, bro!" Luigi grabbed the struggling Mario's arm and hurled him through the vacuum toward Alpha. Mario spun his hammer, hitting the robot multiple times.
"I'm ready too!" Mimi pitched in with her Rubees from a distance. Mario was wary to descend somewhat and avoid the sharp weapons.
"O RLY?" The robot minion extended a tube from his side and produced five glowing orange energy spheres that moved toward our heroes, growing larger with every passing moment.
"I think those are going to explode!" Mario guided.
"Really?" Luigi shouted. "I thought they were gumballs!" He swerved out of the path of one.
All five spheres exploded, pushing our heroes slightly through the moving expanse of space. "Have a taste of this, retarded shrimp legs!" Alpha surrounded his body in spikes, circled in place for a few seconds, and hovered around the space arena, slamming himself into the heroes as he rolled.
"No!" Mario was thrown back several feet. "He's got our number!" Our heroes had been badly damaged.
"In your weakened state, it will be of excellent assurance to know that I AM AWESOME." The small robot produced a larger energy sphere and tossed it at Mario, hitting him squarely.
"No..." Mario was hit. He half-closed his eyes, exhaling.
"Mario...you can't give up now!" Novelle urged. "In zero gravity, there's nothing keeping you from moving, so it doesn't matter how weak you are!" She smiled, making a "come here" motion with her hands. "Come on. We just need to keep nailing him. We need to save the universe!"
Novelle's approval filled Mario with the confidence he needed. The hero space-swam toward Alpha from behind and caught him by surprise with a solid hammer whack. The minion turned around, but before he could fire at Mario, Blumiere assaulted him from his new behind. "That's the tactic we need to use."
Alpha turned to face Blumiere, again finding himself the target of Mario's hammer. He was caught between Mario and Blumiere. Frustrated, the robot swooped downward, firing lasers above toward our heroes. "We can't take this much longer," Nastasia wailed.
"I'll let him take this!" Bowser space-charged in Alpha's direction, sending his spiky shell toward the small robot.
"Ugh..." Alpha recoiled, hovering above our heroes. "It's sudden death! Who will win? Of course, it'll be me, but I just wanted to pose the question." H-X Alpha produced a multitude of clones, one last time. They surrounded our heroes, swarming them with lasers and projectiles.
"We...can't...take this!" Mimi crouched, trying her best to avoid the field of weapons.
"Bowser!" Novelle shouted. "Give me more flames! Everyone else attack in the other direction! This is our last shot!" Bowser obeyed. Novelle charged Bowser's fiery breath, then set it loose on Alpha's clones. A wall of the robots were vaporized, creating a distraction and allowing the other heroes to give the other side their all. H-X Alpha himself was finally pelted by one last Rubee.
"Guuuuhhhh...!" H-X Alpha fell over in space. "Nooo! I'm in no shape to fight now. Even with my super-special-awesome cloning abilities! HOW could I lose TO these STUPID heroes?"
Novelle hovered over Alpha, smirking. "We wouldn't have to beat you so badly if you weren't such a loveless machine. Read: minion of Amtakan."
"Yes, you got that right, I'm a minion of Amtakan, all right, yeah!" The robot gathered himself. "And ah'm gonna beat ya heeroes if it's the last thing ah do...Eh, Steve!" The robot casually flipped out.

"I think we're approaching the portal we need," Tippi announced. "The portal to Amtakan's lair..." Indeed, our heroes soon reached a portal quite unlike the others. It was black, and seemed to absorb light rather than emit it.
Novelle examined the passage. "Yes, this is it, all right." She moved her wand over the vortex. "When we get back to Flipside, I'll be able to use the black door on Flopside Tower to take us straight to wherever this portal leads." The messenger stared into the portal, seemingly lost in thought. "Amtakan...you're really on the other side of this portal, aren't you..." She extended her hand, almost touching the transporter.
Mario floated next to Novelle. "Yes, Amtakan's there. We just need to defeat him. I know it'll pain you...but we have no other choice. Tippi and I had to do this when we faced Count Bleck. You just have to focus on your goal. Having a goal you know for sure, in itself, is a pretty nice thing, isn't it?"
Novelle looked at Mario, connecting their violet and blue eyes. "Yeah. Thanks, Mario." She paused. "We really do help each other a lot, don't we? I know you've experienced a lot of me helping and encouraging you guys, but you've done a lot for me, too. I'm not the only advice-giver around this joint." Her smile widened as she partially closed her eyes.
Mario smiled as well. "Thanks...Maia."
Novelle gave Mario a look. "You know...after I changed my name, no one who knew both of my names ever called me Maia in a friendly way."
"Well, we did call..." Mario stopped, realizing the heroes hadn't known that Maia and Novelle were the same person.
"Anyone who called me Maia after that was someone like those robots who did it to intimidate me. But you're willing to use my real name in a friendly manner. I'm really, totally Novelle now...but somewhere, deep down, I guess I'll always be Maia."
Mario and Novelle continued to look into each other's eyes. Novelle's violet eyes weren't a normal human color, but they possesed a strange beauty. "You are Maia," Mario continued. "I'll call you Novelle, but to me, you'll always be Maia, too." The two heroes were still.
"That's as far as you're gonna go, right?" Luigi interjected. "I mean, you don't want to be like the Netherclops or anything."
Peach was about to scold the green plumber, but Novelle halted the princess. "It's fine, Peach. Warnings are always a good thing, aren't they? But it's fine, Luigi. I know Mario isn't going in that direction. I want to be friends with all of you. I can thank you with the greatest gift of all...the gift of love."
Our heroes nodded. If Amtakan wasn't stopped, then that very gift would cease to exist.
"Now, let's go back to Flipside. All we need to do is to reach Amtakan. Once he's out of the picture, the Dark Prognosticus's reign over future events will finally be shattered for good. And every world, all of existence...it will be safe once more."
Our heroes were ready. At the command of Mario's Return Pipe, they disappeared in flashes of energy, ready to return to Flipside and initiate their final mission.

-END OF CHAPTER-

The location of Amtakan's headquarters has been found at last. Our heroes return to Flipside with one last venture to make. To reach this point, they have fought through many trials, solved many mysteries, and pursued many objectives...and now, it all comes down to Amtakan's defeat. Can the Dark Prognosticus be vanquished once and for all? Or will Amtakan utilize his creation's power and obliterate the worlds with The Void like he originally intended? Our heroes have learned many powerful lessons, and one of the ones foremost in Mario's mind, is the value of confidence. It will do no good to worry or fret about the specifics of the plan; there is a plan, and that is assurance enough. Our heroes have also learned much about the value of love, and as we shall see, this value just may help them save every world...


"There's no doubt about it, Amtakan. Those heroes have found the entrance to this place. And once she modifies the black door on Flopside Tower, they'll be here. And they'll come for you."
Amtakan listened to B-A Omega's report, noting the damaged minion. "Very well. I will visit each of you individually at your posts and do what I can to ensure that you will defeat the heroes."
The minions were silent for a moment until Margaret spoke. "You're, um, going to repair Omega and everything, right?"
"Of course. B-A Omega will need a major upgrade in order to pose a threat to the heroes. Make sure, minions, to attack Count Bleck's former minions first. We will need their energy to reactivate the Chaos Heart."
"Yeah, yeah, OK..." Margaret trailed off. "So, what else is new, Amtakan?"
"Nothing of interest. We will simply stop the heroes when they come." The villain seemed finished.
"Really? Nothing at all? Well that's...unexciting."
"Exciting isn't exactly Amtakan's middle name, you know," Omega reminded. "We just need to beat those heroes and find a pure, logical way to do it."
"Don't worry," Mortcha assured. "We'll be there for them. A world without love and emotion...I can hardly wait!"
"Please return to your posts, minions," Amtakan commanded. "I will be with you momentarily." Amtakan flipped out.
"I suppose I'll be on my way as well." The Netherclops vanished, closely followed by Mortcha.
Margaret eyed the Dark Prognosticus on Amtakan's platform, partially obscured by the dark red curtain that bore the Tribe of Darkness's symbol. It was sitting side-by-side with the Light Prognosticus. She turned to Omega. "Hey, Omega," she began, "I just want to know something. What IS love?"
"Love is an intense affectionate concern for another person."
"Really? Is that it?" The shape-shifter lowered her eyes. "That's what Amtakan wants to get rid of?"
"Yes, of course. Haven't you been paying attention for the last 1,300 years?"
"Yeah, but...I never really knew what love was. Amtakan never mentioned it."
"I suppose that's just as well." Omega and Alpha flipped out.
Margaret again stared at the two Prognosticuses. An intense affectionate concern for another person... She sighed before flipping out to join the other minions.


Our heroes exited the Return Pipe to find themselves at the top of Flipside Tower. "Now we just head for the black door," Mario recalled. "We should check with Merlon first, though."
The heroes took the elevator down to the second floor of Flipside, greeted by Merlon once more. "I trust you've found the entrance to Amtakan's headquarters?"
"We have," Novelle assured. "We'll be able to head straight to it from Flopside Tower."
"Excellent." Merlon looked downward. "Well, heroes, this is it. This is the final trial. Amtakan is the only obstacle left."
"Yes," Mario agreed. "We have all the orbs, we have Novelle, and now we know where to find Amtakan. We're all set."
"That is quite well. You still have plenty of items in your stock, is this not so? Well, you can never be too prepared for something like this. I would go and buy all the items you think you'll need. This will probably be your most difficult trial to date."
"We'll be ready." Mario led the others toward the shop in Flopside. They purchased all that they could with their money, including more healing items and a few defensive ones. After another rest at the inn, our heroes prepared themselves. "Are we ready for this?" Mario initiated as they rode up the tower.
"I sure am," Blumiere approved. "I will provide all the assistance I can."
"Let's do it," agreed Luigi.
"I'll show that meddlin' fool 'ow I put the chunk in O'Chunks!" the burly minion added.
Our heroes exited the elevator, emerging on the black tower once again. Nolrem was waiting for them here. "I see that you're heading for the final fight, heroes of legend." He paused. "Merlon filled me in on the details. This truly is the battle for all worlds."
"Indeed." Merlon's voice approached our heroes from behind. "And I know that Novelle has replaced the Light Prognosticus as our guide, but the book's words can still help us." Merlon walked next to Nolrem. "The passage I read to you just before you entered Castle Bleck for the first time...'Only those who have not abandoned hope can turn back the prophecy of doom.' It had relevence then, and it still is as relevent as ever, now. If you heroes wish to defeat Amtakan and stop the Dark Prognosticus's influence once and for all, you cannot abandon hope."
"Hope and despair are opposites..." Nolrem continued. "...and so are faith and fear...love and hate...and you must have all three of the former. Hope, faith, and love."
"Your enemies face you with despair, fear, and hate. That is what brought them to their current state. And you cannot fight fire with fire. Only love can drive out hate. Only good can drive out evil."
"You've fought through many obstacles to reach this position. You've learned so much and traveled such vast distances. Everything between that moment when Count Bleck married Peach and Bowser, and now...it has all prepared you. Consider everything you've been through, heroes. It will help you on the way."
"And that is all we can do to help you." Merlon stepped aside. "We know you've heard all of this before, but reassurance is a good thing to have. Make sure you don't forget any of this. Be brave, heroes...brave and full of love."
Mario approached the door. "Thank you, Merlon, and Nolrem. We'll be sure to return safely. All worlds will be saved." He glanced over his shoulder. "Right, everyone?"
"Yeah!" Luigi gave a thumbs-up sign.
"We're gonna do it!" Mimi celebrated.
"Let's bash some heads!" Bowser offered.
Novelle hung silent at the back of the group. "I'm ready," she finally stated. "I'm ready. Ready to defeat Amtakan and save every world."
"You've experienced more than any of us will live to see," Merlon reminded. "You truly are the hero that completes the set of nine. You've done excellently...Maia."
Novelle smiled.
"And Tippi...ahem...Timpani," Nolrem continued, "You may not be the heroes' main guide anymore, but you have still done a magnificent job. I am sure your assistance will prove to be vital to the heroes in this final trial."
"Thank you, Nolrem."
The two old sages shifted. "We send you forth, heroes," Merlon initiated. "Go, and save every world." Our heroes needed no further discussion. Mario opened the door, and our heroes plunged into the final dimension of their adventure. A dimension in which they would either save every world...or die trying.

[Nintendoobsessed]

You are TOO creative.

I hope you are posting this in other forums, and not just here.

[Luigalaxy]

I hope you are posting this in other forums, and not just here.

His site, The Hidden Scepter (?) is another place he posts this.