(A/N: Whew…10 chapters. Thanks for reading this much of it; I'm pretty sure there will only be 2-3 more chapters. Oh, and I know the chapter titles aren't very creative. Bear with me.)
Chapter 10: Aelali's Curses
Knuckles grinned as he watched Giga Bowser fly by, following Popo's route.
"That's got to hurt," he mused. "Good for them. Poor Popo, though."
"Why don't you talk?" Ganondorf shouted to his opponent, annoyed. "It's so much easier to taunt you that way!"
The brutish shadow only grunted in reply and swung its fist. Ganondorf barely evaded it.
"Maybe it's too dumb to talk," Balendin jeered, swinging his shortsword and enchanting it with spirit magic. As he hit the shadow, a flash of white appeared around it, and it slumped to its knees.
"Cool spell," Knuckles remarked, using his lightning attack.
"Thanks," the paladin replied, then, "Look out!"
Knuckles leapt just in time to jump over the shadow's large fist. Knuckles landed on top of the fist and dove at the shadow's face, beginning to punch.
Game & Watch was very impressed by the talent of his peers, and was afraid that he wasn't strong enough to be in their league. Just then, the shadow shook Knuckles off and fired three thin black beams at him. G&W saw his chance, and rushed up in front of the beams. Pulling out his bucket, he absorbed each beam, and tossed the energy back at the shadow…in the form of 2D oil. The shadow actually fell over this time.
"Nice work, GW." Ness commented. The others nodded in agreement.
The shadow roared and stood up, with a glint in its eyes.
Apocalypse had the interesting fight he had wanted, that's for sure. Anomaly's new advantage gave the ancient mutant no time to think. Fists up in a guard, Apocalypse rushed at Anomaly angrily. Anomaly summoned a column of black earth that effectively blocked Apocalypse's attack. Apocalypse quickly punched with his other arm, but Anomaly had already darted out of the way, and commanded the blocking earth to attack. Anomaly summoned two more huge pillars that each began attacking Apocalypse. Apocalypse grew a bit larger, and punched at one with all his might. To the surprise of him and Anomaly, it broke.
"How could you break my land?"
Apocalypse saw the obvious retort, and was happy to oblige. "I'll break more than that," he said, breaking the other two pillars as well, and following up with a mighty swing at the emperor shadow's head. Anomaly just ducked in time.
Sonic was just starting to get tired when he had an idea. Rushing off to a somewhat secluded area, he began charging his inner energies. As the Shadowbots approached, Sonic stood up, and grinned.
"Ancient Light!" he shouted.
Upon reciting this name, he spontaneously formed into a ball and flew forward, annihilating every Shadowbot in proximity. Sonic saw Roboshadow pound the computer in anger.
That's it! Sonic thought gleefully. The computer!
Running past the few Shadowbots that remained, he jumped into the air and performed his Homing Attack twice – once at Roboshadow's head, and then at the computer.
"No!" Roboshadow gasped.
Clyne had all but decimated Spearbot's supply of spears in his fit of rage. He was about to climb the wires to attack Spearbot's head, but Spearbot suddenly stopped moving. Falcon, Pikachu, and DK jumped off just as the huge robot collapsed to the ground. Gerick and Juvenor put away their weapons, somewhat exhausted. Everyone turned to see Sonic heading for the door.
"Don't go in there, Sonic!" Roboshadow shouted. "If you enter, Shadow will die!"
With that, a window opened, and there sat Shadow. The walls began closing in, threatening to crush him.
"Sonic!" Shadow shouted. "Save me!"
Sonic stared at Shadow, glaring. He grinned to himself as he considered what Shadow had said, and turned to the others, laughing. "So what? If Shadow dies, it'll save me the trouble of killing him. Anyway, I saw Captain Commando and Young Link in there. I'll go in to save them."
"Sonic, no!" Clyne shouted, but of course, he was too slow. Sonic had already rushed inside, and the walls squashed Shadow flat. "Unbelievable."
"I thought we convinced him that they were on the same team…" Juvenor said sadly. "Damn. At least we can get Roboshadow!"
"No-" Roboshadow began to feebly protest.
"No!" Sonic shouted firmly, emerging from the small building flanked by Young Link and Commando. "I have someone in mind who wants to kill Roboshadow himself."
"Who might that be?" Falcon glowered.
In reply, Sonic ducked. A black figure leapt out from behind him, landing right in front of Roboshadow.
"Disappear!" he shouted, and Roboshadow screamed and collapsed.
Sonic grinned as he watched the smashers' faces turn from anger to shock as they recognized Shadow as the assailant.
"How – did…" Clyne couldn't complete his thought.
"Oh, it was easy," Sonic smirked. "I knew it wasn't really Shadow as soon as it called me by my name."
The smashers enjoyed some much-needed comic relief.
"Sonic, come with me; I have an idea," Shadow whispered, and the two disappeared.
"Wh-" Gerick began to protest. "Oh well, they seem to be on friendlier terms now."
"We should get back to the group," DK suggested.
"Chu!" Pikachu agreed.
Aelali raised his arms. "You want a fight, fools? I'll give you a fight!"
In a dramatic burst of black magic, a group of shadows appeared.
"So they were being maintained magically!" Link gasped.
"You bet. And if I didn't have to come down here to babysit, the shadows would still be coming."
"That's just not fair!" Kirby protested.
"Deal with it, puffball. Anyway, you'd have preferred an unlimited shadow army to me."
"Right," Bowser growled, rolling his eyes.
Aelali closed his eyes and leapt into the air. Opening them, he hovered in midair, just above the smashers' heads. Extending his arms, bolts of lightning shot from the air, hitting Bowser squarely. Bowser roared in pain and fainted, as black electricity circulated through his system visibly.
"That looks painful." Falco mused without thinking about his audience.
"It is! Even more than Luigi's affliction!" Aelali replied. "Would you like a sample?"
"N-no." Falco answered, startled by Aelali's nonchalance. He composed himself quickly, and angrily raised his gun to fire.
"Ha! Don't make me laugh!" Aelali said, pointing his finger at the laser gun. It instantly exploded. Falco shook his hand in pain.
"What the-"
Falco then noticed that his hand was completely black. The hand began sizzling and burning like Luigi's head.
"You make this too easy." Aelali grinned, summoning a magical cage to trap Pichu and Jigglypuff together. When Pichu tried to headbutt its way out, the wall bent forward as if it were elastic, and Pichu flew back into the other wall, which was not elastic at all. Pichu collapsed. Jigglypuff stared at the wall, completely helpless.
Link glared as he watched his companions fall. He knew that Aelali was just toying with them and using a fraction of his power, and he was infuriated.
Aelali continued by binding Tails's tails together with a band of black magic. Tails, who was hovering in the air at the time, fell to the ground instantly, and the band began to tighten. Tails wailed in pain as it grew tighter and tighter.
"Stop that right now! Leave them alone! It's me you want!" Fox shouted.
"Why would I want a weakling like you?" Aelali sneered, summoning a large black plate. It fell directly on top of Fox, who was consequently crushed and immobilized. He grunted in agony.
Zelda and Link watched their friends fall one by one. At this point, only they, Kirby, and Yoshi remained to oppose the powerful assistant.
I can't believe Maska sacrificed himself to save us just so we could die here, Zelda thought sadly.
This is too easy, Aelali thought. These fools don't stand a chance against me! I'm bored.
He teleported away, leaving four laser blasts in his wake. As you might expect, they hit Link, Zelda, Yoshi, and Kirby, but simply weakened them instead of torturing them.
"Where'd he go?" Yoshi wondered.
"Who knows…let's try to help them," Zelda suggested.
Wolverine gasped for breath as Morphshadow, as a humanoid, punched him in the chest. Growling ferally, he slashed the shadow. Master Hand fired a missile, then looked up.
"Hey, who's that?"
The other three smashers looked up just in time to see Aelali disappear.
"Looks like they're doing well," Samus remarked, "if he's leaving."
"Well, we'rea not." Mario replied grimly, smashing Morphshadow in the knee.
Morphshadow's humanoid form was very tall, so it was difficult for the smashers to attack him reasonably. Not that it seemed to matter…Morphshadow was also nigh invulnerable in any of his three forms.
"I think we should give up on this guy and go help them." Samus suggested.
"Well…then he'd be free to attack whoever he wanted." Master Hand pointed out.
"What would we do about it anyway if he wanted to attack someone else?" Wolverine growled. "I agree with Samus."
Master Hand shrugged (well…you know what I mean) and followed the other three toward the group of smashers in the middle.
"Where are you going? Cowards!" Morphshadow shouted, turning into a tank. He began firing blasts at the four smashers angrily. Suddenly, Zelda appeared, reflecting the blasts with Nayru's Love. Morphshadow actually recoiled a bit.
"Thanksa, Zelda." Mario said appreciatively.
"No problem; we could all hear you." Mario noticed that her voice was somewhat strained.
"Are youa OK?"
Zelda staggered a bit as they were walking back. "Yes-"
Samus reached up and caught her just before she fainted.
"No," Zelda sighed. "Aelali is-"
Then she fainted.
"Aelali?" Wolverine wondered.
Master Hand looked around gravely. "Look at that," he said.
Every smasher in the group was on the ground, moaning in pain, except Link, Yoshi, and Kirby, who were just unconscious.
"Looks like this Aelali is big trouble." Samus surveyed.
"Speaking ofa which, herea comes Morphshadow." Mario put in.
The tank was, indeed, barreling forward, about to roll over the unconscious body of Zelda.
"Shadow, that's a fantastic idea!" Sonic grinned.
"Of course it is. We have to hurry, though." Shadow replied.
"I have to admit, Shadow, we make a pretty good team."
"You really think so?"
"No, not really. But give it time."
(A/N: Can you feel this war winding down to a close? No, me either. As Sonic said, give it time. Keep reviewing, please!)