Too Slow!

Fox and Falco continued to follow the faux Sonic to whatever area he was leading them to. But…this wasn't the real Sonic, so he obviously wasn't leading them to more help. Maybe it was the real Sonic and he was just wearing yellow contacts. Falco was grateful for Sonic and his helpful attitude, but Fox was a tad bit chary about Sonic's sudden appearance. How did he find the two of them so quickly without running into trouble? But then he suddenly remembered that Sonic was the fastest Brawler out of the whole group so he assumed that Sonic just ran there.

"So you came here to help us impede Bowser's heinous plot?" asked Fox.

"That's right. We just found out he plans to make an enormous Dark Cannon so he can transform all of us into trophies."

"And none of the Brawlers have captured and/or know where he is?"

"Unfortunately, no. We think we last found him near Hyrule Castle, but when Lucario and Ash went to investigate, the area was abandoned. We think Bowser was warned by Ganondorf to grab all his supplies and find safe haven somewhere so Mario and the others are looking for him."

"Exactly how did you find us again?" questioned Falco.

"I told you: GPS locator. You may not know this but we put a locator chip into your skull."

"WHAT?!" yelled Fox, grabbing his head with both of his hands.

"Yeah…"

Falco, Fox, and Sonic continued to walk on the blood-colored soil until they arrived to a dark brown mountainside. It was full of many blunt rocks that pointed out like spikes and the whole cliff was so jagged that it was easy for someone to scale it without any faulty. Sonic couldn't run up the mountain; no matter where he ran, he had a 99% chance of slamming into a rock and falling off. All three of them were gonna have to climb the mountain to in order to make any progress. Falco sighed exasperatedly, not wanting to climb the perplexing mountain. He could try to fly up the mountain, but his wings might've been injured in the crash; Every time he spread out his arms he felt like he pulled a muscle.

"Great. A mountaintop." said Falco flatly.

"We're gonna have to scale it if we want to find out Bowser's next phase." said Sonic.

"Are Slippy and Peppy up there with our spare Arwings Sonic?"

"…Pretty sure. Uh, you guys wait here while I go get the mountain climbing equipment from this cave."

Sonic zoomed into the cave and disappeared without a trace. Fox and Falco stood exposed and somewhat discomfit. For some odd reason they got this odd feeling that someone was watching them, ready to attack from behind and kill the two creatures. Sonic ran the speed of light (as some would exaggerate) so wouldn't it take a few minor minutes…better yet, seconds to get the gear? Something was very odd about this whole predicament.

"Hey…where did Sonic go?" asked Falco, scratching his head in confusion.

"I dunno but if he doesn't get back soon--"

It's very rare for someone to abruptly fall backwards to the ground. Certain people are extremely uncoordinated while others may be having a seizure and don't even know they've fallen. But in this current situation, Fox was impaled in the face by a spiky hedgehog named Sonic. He didn't even see it coming…well, he did see a flash of a blue blur, but that was it. After that, Fox was knocked to the ground. Falco too, had been impaled by the spiny blue hedgehog. The only problem was that the hedgehog wasn't blue…it was a dark shade of purple with a red armband around his glove and red shoes on. Pretty soon, the Arwing pilots were surrounded by hedgehogs with different shades of color.

"Fox…are you seeing double?"

"Don't you mean quintuple?" asked Fox.

The fox and falcon turned in all directions to see "Sonic" and four other versions of the hedgehog perched on different levels of the mountainside, glaring at them with malicious smiles on their faces.

"Sonic what the hell are you doing?!" demanded Fox.

"Sonic" laughed evilly and said, "Who said I was Sonic? My name is Saj2875, but everybody calls me Serras. What you're witnessing right now are duplicates of your friends Sonic."

"You guys are clones of Sonic? How many of you are there?" asked Falco.

"We're just five of thousands of Sonics. Believe it or not but my 'master' has been cloning everybody with your DNA. That's right Falco…there's clones of you, your friend Fox, Princess Peach, all of them."

"That's why we couldn't remember what happened last night! We were abducted and DNA was taken from our bodies without us even knowing! No wonder why I woke up with a mouth full of dirt."

"Why are you doing this?!" asked Fox.

Serras chuckled evilly and simply responded by saying, "All you need to know is that we're gonna kick your ass!"

"I beg to differ…" muttered Fox, taking out his blaster.

Falco copied Fox's maneuver and the two of them began to fire lasers at the spiky duplicated animals. All five of them curled up into a ball and began to roll along the ground at lightning speed. It wasn't long before one of the assailants made contact with their bodies and knocked them back down again. Fox and Falco stood back up after shaking their heads and looked at the five clones that were all standing aligned with each other. They all laughed in unison and said, "C'mon, step it up!" while performing taunting break dancing moves, which was complete by the five of them standing on their hands and laughing again.

Fox and Falco gave in to the taunting and growled loudly while charging right for the hedgehogs, unaware at how quickly they reacted to attacks. Fox started out by throwing his whole body forward in an attempt to tackle the clone, but he hopped into the air and stomped on Fox's back. Fox was very agile too; he instantly flipped his body over and tripped the green "Sonic" with blue shoes on. Fox jumped into the air and stomped on the clone's head, cracking something. The Sonic screamed loudly and responded by literally finding a way to spin his body around while he was lying on the ground. The green Sonic duplicate turned into a tornado and Fox was sucked into it. He screamed incessantly until he was lifted into the air and thrown into the mountainside. Hundreds of rocks clattered to the red dirt and clocked two of the other clones on the head.

Falco wasn't doing any better himself. A red Sonic with orange shoes and a purple Sonic with black shoes were attacking him in unison, doubling the pain. In fact, they were taunting the bird. They started out by punching the falcon twice in the face, kicking him in the torso, and tripping him by kicking him in the kneecaps. After they were done with that, they blew raspberries at Falco with silly expressions on their faces. But that wasn't the only thing they did. After performing the combo, they would sometimes dive into the dirt and hide until they popped up from behind Falco. When they did, they yanked Falco by his tail and pulled him so far down into the soil that he'd get stuck. Falco struggled to lift his arm out from underneath the dirt, but there was too much force acting upon it, so there was nothing he could do. And while he was struggling, the Sonic clones would use his head as a punching bag, repeatedly hitting it like they were boxing.

"THAT'S IT!!!!" screeched Fox, who finally fell from the mountainside.

He looked straight at the green Sonic who swept him up into the sky and performed his signature Fox Illusion maneuver, dashing right through the green Sonic. Only…Fox was surprised to see that he was covered in blood; he had literally gone through the clone. Fox turned around and glanced at the green Sonic who was still standing perfectly still. But after ten seconds, blood began to drip down his pelvis and his body slowly split apart into to pieces, like an Oreo cookie. He was dead. Fox slowly smiled and laughed in a cocky way when he looked back at Serras.

"Heh heh! I think your 'master' has a little defect in the clones he created. You must've been rushed because there's no way I can slice through someone that easily, even with the Fox Illusion."

Serras growled gutturally at Fox, but quickly snapped his fingers and got an idea.

"If we're so defective, how come Sonic can't do…this?!"

Serras made his hands into a fist and started grunting very hard, as though he were constipated. Fox scratched his head, wondering what he was about to do. But then he found out soon enough. Serras' spikes grew three times as big and a few seconds later, they shot up into the air before growing back again. Serras and the other clones hid inside the cave while Fox looked up and saw hundreds of spikes zooming into the sky. They were safe for now, but what goes up, will always come down. And the spikes were gonna come down right onto Fox and Falco's head. Fox yelped and rushed over to Falco, whose body was still submerged in the dirt.

"Fox!! Get me outta here!" demanded Falco.

Fox was surprised at how messed up Falco's face was. His whole head looked swollen and one of his eyes was blackened. If Falco had teeth instead of a beak, half of those teeth would've been knocked out by now. The Sonic clones really did some damage. Anyway, Fox grabbed some of Falco's feathers and began to pull very hard.

"OW, OW, OW, OW, OOOWW!!!" protested Falco.

"Stop whining! You want those needles to stab you in the head?"

Fox looked up and realized that he wouldn't be able to drag Falco and himself to safety without dying, so he conjured a new idea. He started stomping on Falco's head, pounding it deeper into the dirt like a hammer pounding into a nail. Despite Falco's protests, Fox ignored him and continued to jump up and down upon his cranium until he was fully submerged. The needles weren't large, so Fox was certain they wouldn't puncture the dirt deep enough to hurt Falco. Fox panicked and hid under a large blunt rock sticking out of the mountainside. He covered his head and waited for the spikes to fall down. He saw hundreds of blue spikes smash through the rock and clutter against the ground, hoping none of them were big enough to hit Falco in the scalp.

Fox returned to Falco and dug into the dirt to drag his head through the dirt again. Lucky for Fox, the spikes softened up the dirt so it made it easier for him to yank his body out. Falco's feathers were red and blue, buried with dirt after being under the soil for so long. He was coughing up red saliva and shaking like crazy, ridding himself of the dirt.

"Okay. By the looks of it, these clones are very weak so if we perform a powerful move--"

Falco ignited himself on fire and yelled ferociously as he shot his body forward. When he cooled down, a burnt red clone was standing perfectly still, coughing up black soot. When he tried to walk forward, the clone collapsed into ash, deceased. Falco anticipated what the clone would do next so he erratically performed his Fire Bird move. The remaining three Sonics showed themselves, stunned at how quickly the clone was defeated. Falco stood on one foot and laughed, muttering, "Don't try me." under his breath. The Sonics simply ignored him and began to attack once again (despite the fact they were hesitant at first).

Falco grabbed Serras and punched him twice in the fact before he kicked him so hard in the stomach that he went flying into the mountain. Fox on the other hand was fighting 2 against 1 so he was having a little more trouble as opposed to Falco. Fox ducked under a clone's repeated jump-kicks and noticed that his pelvis was wide open. Logically, Fox violently slammed his fist into his groin region and twitched slightly when he heard something crack. The clone fell to the dirt on his knees, with his mouth wide open. The purple Sonic in red shoes slouched over to his side still holding his possibly fractured pelvic region, barely conscious (and possibly dead). Now there were only two left to deal with.

Serras had Falco and Fox took on the hedgehog with the black shoes on. Like he predicated, this clone was a lot weaker than the real Sonic, relying only on his speed and agility to help him with the fight. Fox kicked the clone in the face and the clone responded by turning around, placing his hands on the ground and kicking Fox in the jaw like a donkey or a horse. Fox was grateful that the force of the impact didn't cause him to inadvertently bite his tongue. Fox veered his head backwards before the clone kicked him again and he grabbed the clone by his legs, suspending him in the air.

"ERGH!! LET ME GO!!" protested the Sonic clone.

Fox responded by kicking the clone's head like a soccer ball, twitching once again when he heard an ear-popping cracking sound. Fox was certain that the clone was dead; he mostly fractured his skull.

"Well, well, well…looks like you're all out of buddies Serras. Whatcha gonna do now?" asked Falco in a cocky voice.

Serras smiled devilishly and took out a Dark Cannon, aiming it right for the heroes.

"Oooohhh, crap."

Serras fired the arrow at the two heroes and they rolled on the ground to dodge the weapon. But when they began to roll, time began to slow down until it stopped completely. Somewhere in the background, an alarm was blaring.

Warning! Incoming Newcomer!

Time resumed and Fox and Falco managed to dodge the lethal arrow, which made contact with the mountainside.

"Hey! What the hell just happened?!" yelled Serras.

"…I think someone just--"

Falco screamed loudly when a laser was fired and made contact with his face, burning him severely and damaging his retinas. Fox grunted loudly when two lasers zapped upon his chest and burned his vest and clothing, leaving two giant red burns on his chest. Both of them fell backwards, unconscious. Serras on the other hand was very unlucky. The assailant shot him three times in the chest with the thick blue laser bullets, throwing his body to the ground. Serras was killed almost instantly.

Newcomer identified as…Shadow the Hedgehog.

Fox was completely unconscious, but it was very hard for him to get up and move at the moment due to the injury. He could only open his eyes a tiny bit, trying to observe what Shadow was trying to do.

(Shadow? What the hell is he doing here?!) thought Fox.

Shadow saw that the purple hedghehog was still alive (the one with a fractured pelvis) so he qhipped the Ray Gun backwards and shot him twice in the face. Shadow put away his giant Ray Gun and slowly walked over to Serras' corpse, taking out this mysterious surgical tool that looked like something that could be used for digging into material and extracting it. It had three prongs with spikes on them and if Shadow pressed a button it would clench and grab hold of something. Shadow smiled and got on top of Serras' corpse, jamming the tool into his chest. He started grunting and pulling the device backwards, as though he were trying to rip out someone's tooth. After much effort, Shadow grunted and ripped out a tiny glowing object from his chest. Shadow shook off the blood and examined it closely, making sure it was the right thing he was searching for. Confident that he got the right object, Shadow slid it into his glove and began to climb up the mountainside, hopping from rock to rock.

Fox eventually gained most of his strength back and began to follow the black and red hedgehog, clutching onto each rock on the mountain. He had no idea what was going on or why (or even how, for that matter) but all of his leads were dead or unconscious. He was also pretty steamed at Shadow for shooting his friend in the face and frankly, just wanted to kick his spike-tailed butt. Shadow looked down for a moment and saw Fox following him up the mountain. Shadow grumbled to himself and took out the Ray Gun once again, firing it down the mountain. Fox yelped and threw his body onto a different section of the mountain or veered his head left or right. Fox took out his blaster and the two creatures began to exchange gunfire, shooting at each other back and forth. Fox shouted loudly when Shadow hit the blaster and it shattered into pieces, leading Shadow to smile wickedly, as he was about to kill Fox. But to his surprise, the Ray Gun was out of ammunition and it clicked in his face twice. Shadow swore under his breath and threw the gun at Fox, missing him by an inch.

Fox began to increase his acceleration and quickly scurried on the side of the mountain, getting closer and closer to Shadow. In fact, they were only a foot away from each other. Shadow saw how close Fox was and kicked him right in the nose, causing Fox to lose his grip with one of his hands. He was only hanging on with two of his fingers and if they slipped, he'd fall to his death. Shadow kicked Fox again, but Fox released his grip and latched onto Shadow's leg so he wouldn't plummet to the ground. Shadow shouted out multiple protests and tried to shake the furry critter away, but Fox responded by biting down on his Achilles tendon, causing Shadow to scream. Fox was eventually swung away, but he latched onto the cliff and got right back over to Shadow. The two of them began to exchange punches and kicks, hitting each other over and over again. Fox gained the upper hand when he kicked Shadow in the face and he lost his footing and slid down the mountain a little before grabbing hold of something. However, Shadow simply scurried back up the mountain and he dragged Fox back down when he poked him in the eye and kicked him in the torso.

Shadow decided to ignore Fox and continued to go right to the top of the mountain. He was already at the peak of it, and once he got there, he'd be able to get away from Fox without any trouble. But his troubles were realized when he looked down to see Fox climbing right back up to grab his leg once again, punching him in the back. Fox began to get aggressive and wrapped his arm around Shadow's throat, strangling him to the point where he began to turn blue. Shadow elbowed Fox five times in the nose, which began to bleed and was screwing up with his vision. Shadow realized this and smiled once again, just before punching him in the nose again. Fox lost his footing and grip around Shadow and was only able to hold onto his tail. Simultaneously, Shadow's hand slipped and he tried to hold onto another rock, but it broke instantly and gravity began to kick in.

The two Brawlers screamed horribly as they began to fall thousands of feet to their deaths…