Chapter 5: Divide and Conquer
(A/N: Not a very original chapter title, huh? Oh well.)
Clyne struggled desperately, but to no avail. A shadow held him tightly from behind, and another three were standing guard. A fifth shadow was winding up to knock Clyne out, or worse. Clyne couldn't see Dr. Mario anywhere, either. His staff was out of his reach, and a shadow was about to pick it up. Just as he closed his eyes and awaited the inevitable, he heard a voice behind him.
"Disappear!"
The shadows holding him did indeed disappear, and Clyne soon found his staff in his hands again. He swung it, KOing the rest of the shadows around him. Clyne looked around to identify his rescuer.
"Shadow?"
"Yes, it's me." Shadow had raced around to pick up Clyne's staff before the shadow, and now he was light dashing through other ones (A/N: I'm just going to say that it works like Fox's forward b). Dr. Mario appeared, tossing Megavitamins.
"Sorry-" he began, then noticed Shadow. "Ahem. Sorrya, I wasa busy backa there."
"No problem. Shadow, why did you come to help me?" Clyne asked.
"Well, it didn't seem smart to stay in the same area as Sonic," Shadow replied. "He'd be too busy watching me to fight."
"Truea," the doctor agreed. "It'sa a reala shame."
Dr. Mario swung his cape and was able to smash a shadow out of the way. It faded to nothing, but there were many more coming in its place.
Clyne was swinging his staff as quickly as he could, but even he was slowly being overwhelmed. A shadow was even able to grab his staff. Clyne lost his momentum, but twisted his torso violently, sending the shadow flying off into a nearby wall.
"We're going to need some help." Clyne panted.
"Juvenor and Gerick should be on their way," Shadow reported. "They got held up."
Gerick proved a better swordsman than anyone had expected, slashing shadows with deadly accuracy and power. Every so often, he'd also pull out a crossbow that he used to take out distant opponents. Of course, Juvenor amply handled most of these distant opponents.
"You're quite the brawler, Gerick." Juvenor complimented.
"Yeah, well, you're very handy with a gun." Gerick replied. "Look out!"
Juvenor ducked as an arrow pierced a shadow behind him. Juvenor raised his gun to fell another enemy.
"We make quite a team," Juvenor commented, "But we need to get to Clyne."
Gerick nodded. "They don't seem to have any intention of letting up," he reported.
"Well, we won't let up either," Clyne responded gravely, firing right through a shadow's head.
Jigglypuff's song put several nearby shadows to sleep, and Roy capitalized on the opportunity with a powerful Flare Blade. Then, Jigglypuff floated up and pounded two shadows out of the air. Roy turned around to jump up and Blazer another group.
Master Hand used his missiles cleverly, keeping several shadows at bay, but his attacks were somewhat slow. Mario loyally kept shadows at a distance with his Mario Tornado and fireballs.
Suddenly, a shadow grabbed Zelda from behind and teleported away.
Link ran toward a distant flash of light, where he assumed the shadow had appeared. Maska followed behind, concentrating his mind power. Tails rushed over to offer his help.
As they approached the area, they saw that a phalanx of shadows awaited them. Maska made an intimidating hand movement, then pointed to the shadows below.
"The forecast calls for a 100% chance of Demonic Psychic Storm!" he shouted melodramatically, as the sky darkened.
"Cheesy." Tails muttered.
"But effective." Link replied, as bolts of lightning struck every shadow. Maska nearly collapsed, having used so much energy, but managed to follow the others to Zelda.
"Are you OK?" Link asked worriedly.
"Look out!" she shouted in reply, as another group of shadows appeared. Tails glanced at Maska, who shrugged and pulled out a wand of some sort. It suddenly combusted, and Maska started shooting fireballs at the shadows. Tails did his own spin dash attack, and also swung his tails around to KO other shadows. Link hacked furiously, shooting a fire arrow every so often, and Zelda called on Nayru's Love to protect her.
Falcon groaned, tiring out. There were so many shadows, and they didn't seem to be giving up. He was just barely able to pull off a Falcon Punch, with the help of Kirby.
Ness was also starting to lose his adrenaline rush. His mind started shutting down, and he barely succeeded in restarting it enough for a PK Fire attack. Ganondorf smashed several away, but he was slowing down, which was a big problem for him. Bowser's Flame Breath was starting to lose its potency, and he was getting dizzy from spinning around so much. Even the untiring Sonic wasn't moving as fast as usual.
"Why are there so many shadows?" Marth complained, expressing the feelings of everyone.
Wolverine hacked open a group of shadows, and turned to Master Hand.
"Hey, I respect you and all, buddy, but what are you doing?"
Master Hand was floating inexplicably stationary a few inches above the battlefield. The shadows seemed to be ignoring him.
Suddenly, Master Hand shot forward and grabbed Wolverine.
"Hey!" Wolverine barked.
"Oha no," Mario said, turning around. "Master Hand'sa become corrupteda again!"
"He recovered by himself last time." Samus pointed out. "Maybe…"
Master Hand laughed the evil laugh that had not been heard for so long. "This time I'm too strong for that weakling glove! You're finished!"
Mario and Samus shrugged, and charged toward Master Hand. The glove floated backward, leading the two away from the group, and still holding Wolverine.
"Sire, we are running out of troops, and none of the smashers have died yet."
"What? How is that possible?"
"I don't know. They are stronger than we anticipated."
"Go down there! Send everyone else except this last group!"
"That doesn't make any sense at all, sir, with all due respect. If they continue to annihilate us, we will be completely unable to conquer any other dimensions even if we do win this one, which is not entirely likely."
"Hmm, perhaps you're right. Maybe we should just give up."
"Sire?"
"You fool! Have you forgotten about our elite shadows?"
"Um…what?"
"Never mind. Just send them down."
"If you're sure-"
"GO!"
"Shadow, Juvenor, Clyne, Doc, and Gerick haven't come back yet." Falcon commented. "I'm going to make sure they're OK."
"Pika!" Pikachu cried, following Falcon.
"I'm coming too." DK volunteered.
"Be careful!" Yoshi shouted, tossing an egg to disband a group of shadows.
Gerick and Juvenor were stopped by another group of smashers, but just before they started to attack, Falcon, DK, and Pikachu joined them.
"Hey, thanks for coming." Juvenor greeted.
"Where are the others?" Falcon asked.
"Farther ahead," Gerick grunted, slicing open a shadow.
"Great." DK sighed, looking forward at the veritable wall of shadows.
Mewtwo fired a shadow ball at a shadow, then used confusion on another. His mental powers were more resilient than Ness's, as it were, so he was still going strong. However, he knew that he would tire eventually, so he tried to conserve his strength.
Balendin raised his sword, and magically hurled a rock at an oncoming group of shadows. He quickly spun around just in time to slice open another, and then summoned a shield around him to block another shadow's attack. He was using a lot of magic, and knew he'd have to cut down.
Pichu was careful not to use too much electricity, to avoid causing damage to himself. He therefore just threw shadows around and jump-kicked them. This required more energy, though, and when he stopped to take a breath, he usually had to use thunder to keep shadows away.
The Ice Climbers were busy pummeling shadows together. As a team, they expended less energy individually, but they also had to fight twice as many opponents together. Luckily, their icy breath kept opponents generally at a distance, and their ice shots took out farther ones. If shadows got close, their hammers made short work of it. They were still going fairly strong, but knew their limits.
"Sire, everyone is down except this last group, and we don't seem to be doing any better-"
"Thank you for the report of the goddamn obvious. Is there anything else you'd like to comment on? How attractively black I'm looking today, maybe?" Anomaly shot back, dripping with sarcasm.
Anomaly's assistant took a moment to recognize the sarcasm. "Sire, it seems to me that we should give up with this dimension and-"
"GIVE UP?" Anomaly roared. "You dare to suggest that to me? You do not realize our true power, do you?"
"Well, in all honesty, I just am not seeing our 'true power' down there."
"You have a point. Well, what do you propose?"
"I told you. Try another dimension. Wait another decade or so to try this one again."
"No, no, they'll be even more prepared for us. We need to finish them all off quickly now, or we'll have no chance. Keep dividing them into groups, then send each group an elite. That should be sufficient."
"You think so?"
"Of course! The elite are my masterpieces. If anything can defeat them, it's me."
"I trust your judgment again, sire."
"As well you should. Now go!"
In the increasingly empty dimension of Eclipsia (A/N: Yes, the shadows are in Eclipsia. Read my 5th fic), Anomaly was actually starting to feel worried. Is it possible that the smashers could defeat him? Then he grinned, turning around. He looked at the army behind him and started laughing. There was no way that the smashers could overcome these shadows.