(A/N: 2nd to last chapter. Sorry it took somewhat longer than the others.)
Chapter 6: Destruction
Espio stared helplessly at the computer, with no idea whatsoever of how to solve anything. He turned to ask someone for help, but Eggman blocked his way.
"You fool, do you think I'm wearing this device just for decoration?" he snarled, punching at Espio powerfully. Espio rolled his eyes and backflipped away.
"Sorry, doctor, you're not quite as intimidating as these guys," Espio retorted, gesturing at the other clones. He launched a dagger at Eggman's device, and the doctor barely swatted it away in time.
"You can't defeat me!" Eggman taunted, entering a fairly ridiculous-looking fighting stance.
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Amy continued hammering away at the incoming robots, trying her hardest not to let any past her. The onslaught seemed to be slowing down, or maybe it was just her imagination. Nuts, bolts and sweat covered the floor around Amy as she silently cursed Eggman for his persistence. She paused to recover her breath just briefly enough for the robots to get close to her, so she could smash them with her hammer.
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Tails found himself distracted during the fight, always wanting to look over at Eggman's impressive computer. The false Tails often punished him for not paying attention, but Tails had no interest in fighting his clone. After jumping at each other for a while, the Tails clone started throwing decoy rings at Tails, who simply jumped over them and spin dashed into the copy.
Charmy's clone was the next to fall; the young bee distracted the clone while Cheese snuck up from behind to deliver the final blow. Cream looked over to see Amy struggling, and rushed over to help. Charmy charged at the false Vector, while Shadow was busy fighting Sonic's duplicate. As strong as the clones were, they were no match for the power of the true heroes.
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Espio leapt into the air, kicking at Eggman's head. When the doctor dodged that, Espio did a backflip in midair and launched three daggers at the false Eggman. Unable to block them all, the doctor screamed as one of the daggers hit the device squarely, and it exploded. Eggman tumbled over and stopped moving, as Espio landed and turned desperately to the computer.
"Tails!" he shouted, throwing a shuriken at the false Tails to distract it. "Over here, now!"
Tails didn't need to be told twice. He jumped over his copy's attack and hovered over to Espio. The chameleon dashed over to Tails's replica to engage it.
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With Cream and Cheese's help, Amy finally defeated all the robots. Out of breath and barely able to stand up, Amy simply pointed to Tails at the computer and panted, "I think something bad's gonna happen."
Cream turned to the fox to see him typing furiously at the computer with a very worried expression. "Should we help him?" she wondered.
"No," Amy replied, struggling to her feet. "We've got to take care of these clones."
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Clones continued to be defeated, but the heroes were tiring. Soon only the false Sonic, Vector, Rouge, and Knuckles remained, but some of the heroes, especially the ones who were captured more recently, looked exhausted.
"How's it going, Tails?" Sonic asked, summoning a Sonic Wind to blow away the fake Sonic and Knuckles. Knuckles's duplicate jumped into the air with Sonic's, and the echidna performed a powerful Fire Dunk. Sonic jumped up just in time, and the fake Sonic left a fairly large crater in the floor. Sonic jumped toward the wall and Triangle Jumped away to save Charmy from the fake Vector's powerful bite, slamming into the crocodile with a homing attack.
"Not good," Tails replied. "The place is going to self-destruct and I can't stop it."
"What?!" Shadow gasped. "Then why are we wasting our time on these-"
"Because you don't have a choice," Rouge's clone interrupted, kicking at Shadow angrily.
"Could you maybe turn these things off, fox boy?" Rouge sighed, dodging a Black Hole.
"I'll take care of that!" Amy shouted, forcing herself to sound confident. She whacked Vector with her hammer, then yelped and jumped away to avoid his music beam attack. Rouge rolled her eyes.
"Give me a minute," Tails replied to Rouge, trying to determine what on earth Eggman was thinking when he designed this computer.
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"Look out!" Cream gasped, as the fake Shadow woke up and launched a Chaos Spear at Tails. He screamed and collapsed. Big's clone stood up as well, cracking his fishing pole like a whip and hitting Sonic squarely with the spiked ball.
"Give up, fools," Shadow's replica taunted, skating between the heroes and Tails. "There's no way you're getting out of here before it self destructs."
Espio looked up desperately to see that the trap door was still shut. He scowled and yelled, "Tails, wake up! The lights are flashing faster now!" Receiving no response, he sighed and leapt over Shadow to the unmoving fox. Shadow charged at him, but the chameleon rolled out of the way. Shadow stopped his momentum before he crashed into the computer, but not quickly enough to avoid Espio's volley of shurikens.
"Finally," Espio muttered, returning to Tails's side to try to revive him. Shadow's powerful attack had hurt the fox badly, and Espio still had no idea how much time they had left. He glared at the computer, observing the myriad buttons and LED displays that were completely incomprehensible.
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"Tails! No!" Sonic shouted, bouncing on top of his counterpart, still wincing after Big's hit. "Espio, how's he look?"
"Not so good," Espio shouted back, tossing a dagger at the false Sonic. "He's barely breathing. I don't suppose anyone else around knows much about computers."
The base fell silent, except for the occasional fight-related sound effect. "Sit tight, I'll be right over," Sonic said eventually, putting on his best optimistic face. "I've been around Tails long enough to learn something-"
"You're not going anywhere, faker," the false Sonic disagreed, homing attacking at Sonic and the nearby Amy. The fake Vector, Rouge, Big, and Knuckles had managed to knock out a few of the heroes, who were completely exhausted now. Sonic looked around desperately to see only Charmy, Shadow, Knuckles, Cream, Rouge, and Amy still standing, and all of them were being vigorously blocked by the clones.
"I guess I have to do this," Espio said to himself, sitting down in front of the computer. He closed his eyes and let the spirits guide him to the correct button. "Spirits unite!" he shouted, opening his eyes and lowering his finger.
The trap door opened, but the lights didn't stop flashing. An LED panel lit up and displayed the numbers 00:14:59, then 00:14:58…
"We have fifteen seconds!" Espio announced nervously.
"So unite your spirits again, weirdo!" Charmy shouted, stinging at Big. "We can't get out of here!"
Rolling his eyes, Espio tried to call on the spirits for help again. When he lowered his finger, the clones suddenly stopped moving.
"You did it! Now let's get out of here!" Sonic shouted jubilantly, racing over to pick up Tails then jumping out of the door. The other heroes followed.
"Wait, you forgot-" Espio began to shout, but he was too slow. The other heroes had already escaped. 00:05:00, he read. "I can stop this in time, I know it," he said to himself, closing his eyes again.
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"Wait, where's Espio?" Shadow wondered as they moved away from the base. "He saved us all…"
"Espio!" Charmy shouted. "I was just kidding about the-"
Charmy was interrupted by a loud explosion.
(A/N: Well, I have nothing to say here, except I only made Espio as corny as Sonic Team did...Anyway, tune in next time for the conclusion!)