Author's Notes: And college work gets in the way again. Between a midterm and a big project, I had issues writing this chapter, but it's done.
So, who enjoyed the cliffhanger from last chapter??? XD I figured you all would...Anyway, another epic battle scene! Yay! Who doesn't love epic fights? Oh yeah, this is something I made up myself, especially the inclusion of Mewtwo into Tabuu's army - as you read from last chapter. So...enjoy! (c'mon, almost 5000 hits!)
Ganondorf: I can't believe I agreed to do the disclaimer...anyway, Captain Black Knight owns no Smash Brother, especially me...
Chapter 29: Attack of the Clones
Tabuu unleashed his army of clone Smashers and regenerated bosses as well as the über-powerful psychic Pokémon, Mewtwo. I sent in my own Smasher troops to counter the advancement of the clones, while my friends confronted the bosses. I asked Snake to let me borrow his Rayquaza, because he would be too focused on fighting the clones. At least if I commanded Rayquaza, we would have a better chance against Tabuu and his fighting force.
"So, you think you can defy me?" Mewtwo asked me coolly as I charged him.
"I can, and I will!" I answered loudly as I leaped up and swung the Beam Sword. Mewtwo easily blocked the strike and pushed me back, but I landed on my feet and took no damage. I thought to myself that this battle would not be as easy as the one against the hands. "Okay, so maybe you can deal with me, but can you counter both of us at once?" Mewtwo looked baffled about my question. I then issued Rayquaza a command, and the dragon flew towards the psychic.
Rayquaza flew into a spinning dive, hoping to hit Mewtwo from above. Mewtwo stopped the dragon inches from his face, his psychic powers saving him from an incredibly painful collision. Rayquaza fought back against the intangible barrier between it and Mewtwo, while Mewtwo equally pushed against the sheer power of the dragon with his mind. I took the opportunity to dash and leap towards Mewtwo, ready to strike.
Mewtwo's psychic powers proved to be stronger than Rayquaza's physical strength, and the psychic pushed the dragon away. As he left himself wide open, I took advantage of his brief distraction and swung my plasma blade at the Pokémon. The blade connected with his body, and Mewtwo fell back with a pained grunt as I landed on my feet. He quickly recuperated, but the slash mark remained on his torso.
"I suppose you are better than I had expected," Mewtwo admitted, clutching the wound. "However, I am far from being defeated by the likes of you!" Mewtwo charged a sphere of psychic energy between his hands, and he cast the energy sphere directly at me.
I quickly remembered how Link managed to reflect Ganondorf's energy spheres with his sword, so I decided to try that strategy myself. When the sphere came close to me, I struck the sphere with my sword. To my delight it worked. The sphere changed direction and rocketed towards the psychic. He was surprised but nowhere near unprepared. With a swing of his tail he struck the energy sphere and deflected it towards me again. The situation turned into a back-and-forth rally of tennis. Mewtwo and I both hit the sphere towards each other, neither of us giving way. After about ten hits the sphere finally hit the psychic Pokémon in the face. He grunted again in pain and slowly fell to the ground, losing control of his ability to remain in the air.
"I don't care how strong you are," I said, pleased with my successful feat. "You're still susceptible to your own power." Various battle sounds caught my attention, and I turned my head to see the others battling the enemies, not doing as well as I did. "Rayquaza, keep battling Mewtwo; I'll be back." The dragon did as told and charged at Mewtwo, the latter of whom rising from the ground. Both Pokémon clashed and battled each other as I got away.
I observed the conditions of my friends as they battle the bosses. Some of them fared better than the others, but the bosses seemed to have the upper hand.
Jim battled Ridley for the second time, shooting the purple dragon in the face with his Ray Gun. The space pirate retaliated by creating storm force winds with his giant beating wings. The winds slowly pushed Jim back, but he fought with all of his might to cut through them.
Candace took a second attempt at battling Galleom, but this time she knew what she was doing. She took advantage of the lack of speed the machine had by dodging his attacks and then striking back when he was vulnerable. Her laser shots proved to be effective against him when they hit him on his fists and between the eyes.
Kayla and Lex teamed up against Meta Ridley. Kayla's fans weren't very effective against the metallic armor, but they annoyed the hell out of the black and gold dragon, making a nice distraction for Lex. She fired the Super Scope at his wings, bringing him down to the ground, but Meta Ridley struck back with his tail, knocking both of them painfully down.
Renee fought against Petey Piranha by thrashing him to death with the plasma whip that she borrowed from Samus. Petey swung at Renee with two iron cages (for some reason he still had them), but she avoided them rather easily.
Will had no choice but to deal with Porky and his Spider Mech. He pounded the machine with his hammer, progressively damaging it with every strike. Porky, however, reacted with several high-speed swipes at Will. The sharp, mechanical legs grazed, cut, and scraped Will all over, but he used every ounce of effort to strike them away.
Kitty and Jess ganged up on Duon, both of them battling each half of the machine. Jess engaged in a sword fight with the blue half, using a pink version of the Beam Sword (mine was blue). Kitty and the pink half fired projectiles at each other. While Duon's explosives and lasers pushed Kitty back, her Star Rod proved decently powerful as the shooting stars pummeled the pink half.
I wasn't sure if I had to help my friends or not, and if I did, I wasn't sure whom to help first. I had quite the dilemma. Meanwhile the Smashers fought their own cloned selves, locked in equal struggles. For example, the fight between both Captain Falcons was going nowhere – they kept using the Falcon Punch at the same time, which always ended in a stalemate. Would they ever learn?
I looked to my right and saw Link skidding towards my leg. I turned to see another Link about to attack him, so I tackled the second Link, sending him to the ground.
"Brooke, what are you doing?" the Link in front of me asked in bewilderment. I took several steps back and looked at him in shock, thinking that I probably attacked the wrong Link.
"Wait a minute, what the hell are you saying?" The Link behind me interrogated the other as they both stood up. I turned to look at the other Link, still in shock.
"I'm saying that she attacked the wrong person! Do you have a problem with that?"
"Yes, I do, because you're a liar! I'm not the clone; you are!"
"Says you, you carbon copy!" I kept looking back and forth at both Links as they kept up this stupid argument. At that point I was incredibly confused. Surprisingly I couldn't figure out which one was the real Link.
"Shut up! Both of you!" I yelled, annoyed by the incessant arguing. Both Links stopped and looked at me, each one appearing just as real as the other. I found that odd, because normally a clone of a Smasher would have a purple aura and glowing yellow eyes. This time, however, Tabuu's clones had the exact appearance of the real Smashers. Neither Link had a purple aura, and neither Link had glowing yellow eyes. They must have been improved versions of the Smasher clones. "Alright, which one of you is the fake?"
"He is!" Both Links answered simultaneously as they pointed to each other. I sweat-dropped as they stared at each other, but then one of the Links spoke up. "Brooke, listen to me. You have to destroy the imposter."
"He's right, but I'm not the one who's fake," the other Link interjected. "If you care about me, then you'll be able to see right through his tricks."
"Don't listen to him! He's only trying to fool you. He wants you to think he knows you, but he doesn't know you as well as I do."
Wait…who knows me…that's it! I told myself. I can just ask a question that only the real Link would know! I put my theory to the test, carefully choosing my question, and after accounting for anything that Tabuu or the fake Link would know, I narrowed my question down to one.
"Only one of you should know the answer to the question that I'm about to ask," I stated." Both Links looked at me without saying anything, but they nodded in confirmation anyway. "So my question is this: what is the exact date and time that's written in my notepad?" Neither swordsman said anything for a moment, but then I got my answer:
"October 24, 11:22pm," both Links said.
"God freakin' damnit!" I yelled in frustration. Tabuu must have been spying on me this entire time! That, or he read my mind at the last second. I clearly didn't like the answer that I got, since only one Link was supposed to know that. I looked from one Link to the other, trying to find another solution.
"Hey, Brooke," I heard. I turned to the source of the voice and saw Lucario near me, battling his own clone. "The clone is the one on your left." I turned back to the Links, and I inspected both of their faces closely. When I saw the Link to my left flinch, I got my answer.
Thanks, Lucario, I replied telepathically. I then whipped out the Beam Sword and thrust the plasma blade into the chest of the Link to my left. He grunted in pain before he dissolved into purple Shadow Bugs and disappeared. The real Link exhaled in relief, delighted with my success.
"Wow, how did you manage to find the clone?" Link asked me.
"I got some help from Lucario," I admitted. "That…and the real Link wouldn't flinch at the sight of such a pretty face as mine. He was a dead giveaway after that." Link let a small chuckle escape his mouth. He then looked around and observed the progress of the other Smashers. They were battling pretty well but not without some incredible difficulty. Fighters with projectile attacks were running out of ammo, and head-to-head combat made battles severely painful.
"Should we help the other Smashers?" I asked Link.
"I think your friends need more help than the Smashers," he answered grimly. I turned around to see my friends not faring so well.
"You're right. Let's lend them a few hands," I replied as I rushed to their aid. Link followed close behind me, bearing his sword and shield for whatever might strike.
I rushed to the scene of the boss battles in time to see Petey Piranha explode as he did the first time. Renee caught her breath and grinned in satisfaction with her work. Link and I went up to her first.
"Nice work, Renee," I complimented. She just beamed again. "You think you can take on another boss?"
"Why, who needs help?" Renee inquired innocently. I surveyed the current situation, only to have my attention caught on the battle between Candace and Galleom. Galleom had just slammed his fist into Candace. Her Blasters didn't do much good in stopping the attack, and as a result she was sent flying a good twenty feet.
"Eh, I suggest helping Candace at the moment," I answered with a sweat drop. "She is the accident-prone one, after all." However, before Renee could dash to the rescue, our attention was turned to the Will-Porky battle that just ended with Porky disintegrating into purple spores. He wasted no time in finding another foe to face, and so he offered assistance to Candace instead. "Okay, never mind that. Um…go help Jim. He could use a hand." She nodded and took off to assist Jim in his fight against Ridley.
"Okay, so what do we do now?" Link inquired. Just as he spoke two particular Pokémon caught our eyes. Since I last left them, Rayquaza and Mewtwo were still fighting head-to-head, and neither Pokémon seemed to be giving way to the other, until Mewtwo seized the opportunity to mentally grab Rayquaza in mid-dive and hurl it into the ground face-first. Rayquaza appeared to be critically damaged at that point, so Mewtwo charged a psychic energy ball between his hands, aiming to finish off the dragon.
"Damnit…RAYQUAZA, RETURN!" I shouted as I brought Rayquaza back into its Pokéball just before Mewtwo's attack could hit its target. The psychic looked at me sternly before speaking.
"So, you have returned to finish our battle?" he asked coolly.
"Yeah, what's that to you?" I retorted. He simply scoffed.
"Well, it seems that this war between your allies and Tabuu's army is about to end. Take a look around if you don't believe me." As much as Link and I didn't want to listen to him, we were nonetheless curious and concerned about the status of the war. To our surprise, the psychic Pokémon hadn't lied to us this time. More than half of the Smasher clones were already defeated, and three of the bosses – Petey Piranha, Porky, and now Meta Ridley – were slain by the hands of my friends. "Why don't we follow their examples and end this once and for all?"
"I like that idea," Link answered for me. "Bring it!" He and I both assumed fighting stances with our swords.
"Two against one seems a bit unfair, now doesn't it?" Mewtwo stated with a criticizing look on his face. "That matters not, however. I still have enough power to take you both down!"
"That's what you think!" I yelled as I charged towards Mewtwo, the latter of whom teleported away from my sudden charge, only to reappear right in the way of one of Link's thrown bombs. The bomb exploded in Mewtwo's face and temporarily blinded him, giving me enough time to strike him with a sword slash, and I did so across his back. The Pokémon wailed in pain before he teleported again. He reappeared away from both of us and started panting lightly.
"I guess all of that battling is finally taking its toll on you, isn't it, Mewtwo?" I said to him. Mewtwo simply glared at me.
"Lies!" he snapped as he raised a hand. He used his psychic abilities to render me immobile in a blue barrier of telekinetic energy. I struggled to break free from his mental power, but to no avail. He lifted me into the air and threw me right into Link, knocking us both back and to the ground.
"You'll wish you didn't do that!" Link yelled as he stood up. He ran and jumped towards Mewtwo and brought his sword down from above his head, only to have the blade blocked by more of the psychic's abilities. Both the swordsman and the Pokémon struggled against each other, hoping to push the opponent back. Since Mewtwo was distracted momentarily, I swooped in and kicked Mewtwo's legs out from under him, causing him to fall on his back. Having the upper hand, Link wrapped the Clawshot around the psychic and bound him in place.
"NOW!" Link shouted. I aimed the Beam Sword perfectly at the Pokémon's chest and stabbed him in the heart, if he had one. Again Mewtwo cried out in agony before he too disintegrated into purple spores. For a split second I felt somewhat sorry for the Pokémon, but it had to be done for the sake of the universe.
"Phew, we did it," I muttered as I caught my breath. I then turned my attention to the Smashers who still had a few clones to take down. It wasn't anything they couldn't handle, though. Snake, Lucario, Captain Falcon, Samus, Zelda and Meta Knight were still dealing with their copycats, while a few others helped to distract the carbon copies.
"FALCON PAUWNCH!" Both Falcons shouted, but the original was quicker, so his punch hit the other Falcon square in the face, and the clone disintegrated instantly. Samus and Lucario shots energy spheres at their clones and eradicated them. It took a bit longer for Zelda and Meta Knight to defeat their foes, but Meta Knight eventually slashed through his clone's mask, while Zelda burned the fake princess to death with Din's Fire. Snake planted explosive after explosive onto his doppelganger and allowed all of them to detonate at once. The last of the Smasher clones disappeared.
"That only took, eh…way too long," Luigi muttered as the fairly bruised and battered plumber approached the congregation of fighters.
"Don't jump to conclusions yet, Luigi," Snake suggested. "Take a look." He pointed a finger towards the battles between my friends and the remaining bosses as they raged on. Snake, however, stood corrected a moment later when the last of the bosses was vanquished. "Oh…my bad…" Zelda giggled at Snake's minor error.
The entire group would have started celebrating if it wasn't for the fact that we still had one more problem to resolve: Tabuu had to be defeated, and he had to be defeated now.
