Author's notes: I only own OCs, unless listed otherwise, and this fan-made story. I own nothing else, everything else belongs to their respective owners. Razor, Mayhem and Klaxon are my characters as a refresher if nobody remembers from the chapters they were introduced. This version of the Marionette is a alternate version of said character and while I do not own the ORIGINAL Marionette, I own the character BEHIND the mask of my ALTERNATE UNIVERSE version.
Chapter 35b: Death of a World
Tails continued to cut into the maintenance panel, ignoring everything else as the others dealt the SWATBot security detail deployed to stop them after Mecha-Sally had been rendered the robotic equivalent to unconsciousness. The Freedom Fighter and Egg Pawn army was having a easy time, despite the enemy having more numbers, since Infinite was tied up as well.
The panel suddenly gave way as it fell inward, revealing lots of internal mechanisms and wires.
"Where do we start?" asked Sonic as he caused the gravity around a SWATBot's head to increase so much the head imploded.
"Uh..." stammered Tails as he looked all over the different systems and wires inside, unsure of where to start.
"CUT EVERYTHING!" yelled Razor as he jumped into the maintenance hatch and begin ripping out wires and slashing electronics with his chainaxe and chainsaw arm scales, "Yes I know I'm colorblind but if anything cutting ALL of them will prevent anything bad from happening. HEY, WHOSE THE ONE WITH TWO DEVIL'S EYES? ME! NOW SHUT UP AND CUT!"
Tails looked back inside and saw that a lot of damage had been done to the internals in the current area but it didn't look like it had effected the Spire's energy readings in the slightest and it seemed like they were running out of time to prevent the Spire from being used as well. Razor and Tails were suddenly thrown from the machine as a bright white beam of energy hit the spire from the sky and Mayhem had been the one to throw them away from it while he used his own energy to keep the energy beam from expanding outward from the spire.
"Dammit Razor! Couldn't you have cut the insides faster?!" snapped Mayhem as he glared at the Kangaroo/Dragon Hybrid with a side-glance.
"Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuse for following the timeline! Why didn't you do anything with your fancy claws then?" snapped Razor back.
"Oh don't you bring up timelines with this you insane idiot!" snapped Mayhem again before he concentrated on holding back the energies of the Spire.
As the two were bickering, Shard avoided a energy blade from Mecha-Sally who had recovered from the previous fight and elbowed her in the face, staggering her.
"Don't let any enemy near Mayhem!" yelled Razor as he lept at Mecha-Sally before doing a drop-kick, sending her flying back and into a nearby tool shack and then after getting up doing the "field goal" symbol, "GOAL! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Meanwhile, with Infinite vs. Antoine and the Marionette...
Infinite cut off the head off one of the the armored berzerkers for the hundredth time before spinning and deflecting Antoine's sword and kicking the coyote away and then avoiding the frenzied slash attacks from the black dragon with blue lightning arcing off it. He then jumped away from the group to get some distance, panting heavily.
"So, you are still organic." said Antoine as he recovered from the kick.
"And you're a lot tougher than what your file gives you credit for." growled the cybernetic Jackal.
"Well, I am a bit of a coward but right now, I have more important things to do than hide in a corner."
"Like die."
"No. Zhat will be you, [in French] you cybernetic freak."
"Ow, my feelings."
"You will have to do better sarcasm than zhat."
Infinite growled and charged the coyote in front of him, claws extended to their fullest and swung both, only to watch as the coyote expertly deflected both and cut him across the stomach with blade. Not deep but enough to draw some blood. The Jackal jumped back and looked at the injury before he had a laser pop out of his wrist and he aimed at Antoine before he avoided an axe swing from another one the berzerkers but while it missed him, it took off the laser and in response, Infinite took off the berzerker's head, by going through the weaker neck region of the armor. He then avoided a overhead smash by the lightning coated dragon before delivering a harsh kick to the dragon's face, sending it flying back and causing it to yelp in pain from the hit.
"You shouldn't have done that." said the purple-black dragon in a taunting voice.
"Why? Because he was a loyal servant or something" snarled Infinite as he got up before he felt pain in his stomach and looked down to see a massive red-black serrated claw jutting out from his stomach as blood pooled out around it.
"No, that's HIS best friend." said the purple-black dragon pointing to the Marionette.
The claw is then violently ripped out and Infinite staggers forward, holding his stomach yet the lethal wound is suddenly gone. He looks up and find that the two dragons, the armored berzerkers from another world, and the coyote are gone except for the Marionette and only one of its eyes is visible as it glows a dark red.
"I'm gonna to kill you, over and over and over again for what you just did Infinite. Screw the timeline, you're going to die here and now." came the Marionette's voice that actually choked the air out of the cyborg's lungs due to the killing intent in the air.
"Anger leads to mistakes." choked out the cyborg before claws wrapped around his throat, the claws cutting flesh lightly as they did so resulting in what could effectively be considered "paper cuts" around the throat.
"Not with me."
Infinite yelled in pain as the Marionette impaled him and then pulled upwards on the claws, cutting Infinite into four pieces vertically before the wounds fade and Infinite is on the ground, breathing heavily. Several Earth Spears suddenly impaled him from the front before those injuries too disappeared and he was on his back. He then felt chains holding him in place and forcing his arms and legs apart as he heard a chainsaw roar to life, well more like a triple-blade chainsaw before it was slammed into his stomach and then slowly twisted 360 degrees within and then ripped out. The chains and chainsaw related injury disappear and Infinite is trying to stand up before the Marionette is in front of him and rips off the Jackal's mask, taking the Jackal's face with it and revealing the muscle, and parts of the skull, underneath it and causing Infinite to yell in agony.
"How long before you break Infinite? How many times can you handle these injuries over and over before your mind finally shatters?" said the Marionette as it held the blood mask and looked it over like a newly acquired trophy before he tossed it aside and grabbed the Jackal by the head and lifted him off the ground and tapped the Phantom Ruby, "Hmmm, maybe this should come off next?"
Despite the pain from his head injury and the lingering pain from the erased injuries, Infinite gathered what energy he had and prepared to fire a Distortion Cube into the Marionette's face only for the unknown creature to grab his hand and a "crunch" can be heard as part of his organic arm is partially crushed in the "puppet's" grasp.
"Not this time." said the Marionette and Infinite's eye had a dawn of realization before he used his other arm and did a quick Distortion Cube shot into the Marionette's chest. The Marionette drops him in shock as the sound of a gem being broken is heard and several small fragments of a blood-red gem hit the ground.
"You cheating-!" snarled the Marionette before he suddenly disappeared as he seemed to "atomize" into nothingness, taking his world distortion with him. Antoine looked around in shock a moment before recovering and readied his sword.
"Even without his help, I'll still fight you to the death." snarled the coyote as he glared at the wounded cybernetic Jackal.
Infinite slowly got up, holding his partially crushed arm before he suddenly disappeared only to reappear behind Antoine, holding the coyote's spine. Antoine's eyes widened as his nerves in his arms and legs suddenly died and he fell to the ground, unable to move.
"You were saying swordsman?" snarled Infinite as he tossed the spine away and pulled out a small medical kit and quickly wrapped his head wound up, protecting his exposed head from infection. Despite his inability to move his limbs, and bleeding out, Antoine only glared at the Jackal. As Infinite advanced to finish the downed coyote, he suddenly spun and clotheslined a certain black hedgehog and took the shotgun from him as he rolled across the ground. Shade got up quickly and got ready to face down the cybernetic Jackal before a gunshot is heard and Shade flinches from the shot before looking down and saw his own Chaos Emerald flechette styled shot embedded within his chest.
"Did you intend to use that on me?" said Infinite as he opened up the shotgun and looked at the last shell with intrigue as Shade fell to his knees in pain.
"L-Last resort incase the coyote and masked freak couldn't kill you themselves." snarled Shade through the pain, his eyes only showing anger.
"Too bad it didn't work. Now, let's try something new." said Infinite as he created two Distortion Shells and loaded them into the shotgun. He then pointed it at the hedgehog who showed no fear before he flipped off the Jackal with what strength he had left. Infinite then pulled the trigger and the round hit Shade in the head and he instantly became photonegative in appearance and locked in his death fall from the headshot.
"Hmmm. How boring." said Infinite tossing the shotgun aside and advancing on Antoine, readying his claws as he created another distortion cube in his other hand, the arm it belonged to having partially healed due to the Phantom Ruby's reality alterating abilities.
Antoine's screams of pain echo across the battlefield before he is finally killed and Infinite looks up into the sky as he drops the lifeless Antoine, his body covered in claw marks as he had been trapped in a reality where his nerves worked, despite his spine being gone, and had been clawed to death by Infinite and...well, infinite clones. Infinite then went over and picked up his helmet and looked through the eye lense on it up at the clouds and he quickly located the massive flying vessel of Eggman's and he activated his comm-link after removing it from the helmet.
"Snively, target the coordinates from my helmet." said the Jackal as he glared up at the sky.
"B-but all we have is a nuclear warhead at the moment." said Snively, nervous about the idea of using it.
"USE IT!" snarled Infinite and the beak nosed man hesitantly yet quickly activated the nuclear launch sequence.
Meanwhile, aboard the Egg Carrier...
Eggman was working on quickly repairing his Egg-Mobile while also mantaining the Egg Pawn army's coordination before the ship's alarms began to ring and he quickly looked, lifting up his welding mask and was ready to yell at the computer as to what could be the issue before he saw the issue and dropped his welding torch. He looked on in horror as he saw a nuclear missile flying at his ship and realized that his ship was designed for fighter craft protection, with limited anti-Sonic capabilities but anti-nuclear missile? He fully removed the welding mask and sat down in the command deck's command chair and watched as the missile steadily grew closer, his mind racing as he tried to figure out how things had fallen apart this quickly when it hit him. Time travel is two-way with its ripple effects. He leaned back in defeat at realizing what his second time travel jump had done to their chances of winning, his glasses falling off revealing his horrified red-black eyes.
"I doomed us." muttered the formerly evil mad doctor as the missile pierced the command deck's windows and was consumed in the nuclear explosion within seconds after it detonated.
Back at the Spire, on the ground...
As the group fought to keep Mecha-Sally away from Mayhem, they noticed that the area was also getting swarmed by SWAT-Bots, Egg Pawns and Freedom Fighters and the orbital Roboticizer beam was still firing strong. Suddenly, the area was basked in a blinding light from overhead and everyone stopped to look as to what the source was before several stopped looking and quickly turned away as they realized the cause was a nuclear explosion although some weren't fast enough and were quickly blinded by the light.
"What just happened?!" yelled Sonic in surprise and dropping his guard a moment for Mecha-Sally to quickly capitalize on the distraction and kick Sonic to the ground and ready an energy blade, aimed for Tails catching the biomechanical fox off guard but instead of bio-mechanical blood, oil splattered onto her metallic face and found that Shard had taken the hit instead, his optics showing anger and regret as he turns to look at Tails.
"Goodbye Gamma. I'm sorry." said Shard before he turned back to Mecha-Sally and wrapped his arms around the robotic chipmunk and activated his jet boosters and blasted off into the air, the robotic chipmunk struggling to break free.
"What are you doing you defective traitor?!" yelled Mecha-Sally trying to escape his grasp and he looked at her calmly as his optics shifted into a countdown of 3...2...1...
Her own optics widened in realization before the two were consumed in an explosion and pieces of the two began to rain down around Tails and Sonic as they looked on in shock before the head, upper torso and right arm of Mecha-Sally, all of which was still connected landed a few feet from them. The red optics of Mecha-Sally slowly turned back to Sally's original eye coloring as she slowly reached for them.
"I-I-I-I'm sorry..." stuttered the robotic chipmunk before her eyes went black and her head and arm went limp.
"Well, this isn't good." said Razor before he looked at his hand as it began to turn into sand and all he did was smile like a loon, "THAT'S GAME OVER FOLKS! GAME OVER! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-!"
He soon fully turned into sand before the wind blew the sand apart, scattering it away. The chainaxe had hit the ground, burying the blade in the hilt and the daemonically blue eye had the expression of "glad I finally get some quiet" before the axe itself began to turn into sand and the expression of the eye quickly turned to horror as it seemed to try to escape its prison but as it fully turns to sand, a scream of agony from a bird-like entity is heard from within. The chainaxe disintegrates once it is fully sand.
"Now what?" said TD as he looked around, feeling that the situation was quickly turning bad for them and noticing that the Egg Pawn army was shutting down due to Eggman's Egg Carrier being destroyed. His ears twitched as he heard the Phantom Ruby's activation sound and Sonic grabbed his head in pain from the sound and TD quickly turned around only to have his chest pierced by the Jackal's claws and he looked at the doll with his one yellow eye before ripping off the gem from the gem rod and the doll turned Mobian has a look of horror on his face before the Jackal crushes it in his claws and TD's eyes lose their red coloring, fading to only white as he goes limp. Infinite then rips off the doll/Mobian's head in a shower of blood and then tosses the head and body aside and turns towards Mayhem who is beginning to turn to sand yet is trying to continue to fight the Spire's energy.
"Dammit!" snarled Mayhem as he readied his own claws, extending them to their full length, revealing serrations designed for making enemies bleed to death.
"Time to find out which is worse; being Thanos snapped or erased from existence." snarled the fox-dragon chimera creature before he turned towards Infinite and lunged at him, claws ready. Infinite doesn't even flinche as the longest claw stops an inch from his eye and Mayhem has a expression of pained anger on his face as he shakes in place.
"I'll make sure you die screaming for this." snarled Mayhem before he fully turned to sand and Infinite exhaled onto the sand statue, causing it to crumble to dust. He then looked at Tails and Sonic calmly.
"You lose." said Infinite as the energy of the roboticization beam washed over the area followed quickly by the whole planet.
When the energy finally faded, Sonic found that he wasn't a robot but everywhere he looked, he saw former Freedom Fighters advancing towards him, now saying in a monotone voice "Priority One! Hedgehog!" and he fell to his knees as he realized that Robotnik had won and everyone but himself was a robot now. He heard the sound of a Plasma Cannon firing and felt himself being pulled away from the battlefield and he slowly looked to see that Tails was pulling him away from the battlefield but where could they run now? They had lost, permanetly this time and there was nothing the two of them could do as they had no allies here anymore and even if they did escape, they'd be constantly on the run and with all life, save for Robotnik, Snively and, from the looks of it, Infinite, they'd never be able to outrun the cybernetic Jackal as he was clearly faster than Sonic, even if his current state wasn't taken into account.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion for Sonic as he saw Tails take several shots before Infinite impaled the fox in the chest but didn't take him offline, only doing enough damage to, what is basically, his heart and the fox falls to his knees, refusing to give up but unable to fight any further as his systems slowly fail. His eyes now a red-blue color from his anger at this. The two surviving Freedom Fighters are quickly surrounded by SWAT-Bots and the newly roboticized Freedom Fighters. Time quickly goes back to normal speed as Robotnik's older Egg-o-matic hovercraft lands nearby and the evil doctor exits the craft and begins to walk over to the defeated hedgehog and fox. Snively exits the Spire and quickly joins his uncle
"Well, well, well. So, the war's finally over hedgehog. Only, you lost this time." said Robotnik calmly as he towered over Sonic, a victorious sinister grin on the doctor's face.
Sonic pulled out the device Klaxon had given to him early slowly only for it to be knocked out of his hands by Infinite and quickly stomped into the ground, shattering it and Sonic's defeated face of sorrow turned into a face of sorrowful victory as he looked up at Robotnik, his own black-red eyes looking into the evil scientist's.
"Sorry Buttnik, but I'm afraid we all lose now. That wasn't a last attempt at help that was just crushed by your cybernetic lackey. That was keeping our world safe." said Sonic calmly.
"What do you mean?" asked Robotnik, confusion in his voice as he raised an eyebrow before a shadow fell over the battlefield and he looked up and his expression turned to horror.
"It protected us from them." said Sonic pointing up at the massive void craft now halfway into the planet's orbit. The massive ship looked well beyond what even Robotnik was capable of creating and the massive jaw-like design of the front of the ship, which had a lower jaw with hook-like designs to it, began to open as energy gathered within it.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE HEDGEHOG?!" yelled Robotnik as he grabbed Sonic by his chest fur and angrily lifted him off the ground.
"Made it so no one wins. The device kept our world's system disguised as a black hole so this fleet would fly around it. We lost so...I guess that means our friends from the other world will die with us as well. Heh...not the best plan but...shit happens I guess. Goodbye Robotnik." said Sonic calmly, his small smile not leaving his face. Robotnik threw him to the ground and turned towards Snively.
"LAUNCH OUR NUCLEAR MISSILE AT THAT THING!" yelled Robotnik pointing at the massive ship and Snively begins sweating bullets as his eyes widen.
"W-w-w-we used it to destroy your good counterpart's ship sir." wheezed Snively in horror and Robotnik's eyes widen in horror before the ship fires its massive frontal cannon and it hits the planet and Robotnik shields his eyes as the beam is very bright to even look at. Within moments though, it stops and Robotnik looks around before he begins to laugh.
"Was that IT?! What kind of rubbish weapon design is that!" laughed Robotnik before his eyes saw one of his SWAT-Bots just turn into dust and all around him, he began to see more and more of his robots and the Robians turn into dust. (2)
"U-Uncle Julian?" said Snively as he looked at his hand and it was turning to dust and Robotnik looked horrified as his pitiful excuse of a nephew, granted still nephew, turned to dust right next to him. He then looked at Infinite whose own hands were turning to dust and the cybernetic Jackal quickly activated the Phantom Ruby to try to stop the effects but upon activation, the ruby cracked and both of their eyes widened in horror before a photonegative explosion consumed Infinite, trapping him in his moment of death as his lower body turned into dust at the same exact moment and blasting Robotnik onto his back.
Robotnik's eyes fell onto Sonic and his face went from horror to poorly contained rage and he drew a laser pistol which was slowly turning to dust as well. Robotnik began to yell before time slowed down as Sonic slowly got up, his own body slowly turning to dust. He got up and helped Tails to his feet, the fox coming into the same slowdown as himself.
"S-S-S-Sonic...what do we do?" asked Tails, his voice glitching due to the damage to his power source and his heart.
"We go home." said Sonic as he helped Tails walk.
As the two walked, they saw Robians, SWAT-Bots, buildings, rocks, roboticized trees and plants, turning to dust around them. As they entered the ruins of Knothole, they saw that even the Great Forest and the formerly hidden Freedom Fighter base had not been spared from the global roboticization nor had any of the animals of the forest, which were turning to dust as well. The two sat down by the lake, which was now basically oily sludge instead of beatiful water which was also turning to dust.
"W-w-w-was this necessary Son-on-onic?" asked Tails as his eyes slowly shifted to being sapphire again but had also begun to turn black.
"Yeah. Robotnik didn't deserve a victory." said Sonic as he looked at the oil sludge of a lake and then at Tails, who was almost completely gone, "See you in the afterlife buddy."
"I-I-I-I'm a machine Sonic...my kind doesn't have an after-" said Tails but failed to finish as his eyes finally went dark and he quickly turned to dust after and Sonic's arm fell to the ground and he slowly looked up at the sky, watching the clouds turn to dust as well.
"You did pal. You did." said Sonic as he closed his eyes and time resumed as he turned to dust as well.
As time resumed back to normal, Robotnik fired where Sonic had been, only to hit dirt and his eyes only showed rage as he crushed the laser pistol in his grasp.
"I HATE THAT HEDGEHOG! I HATE HIM! I HATE HIM! I HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE THAT HEDGE-!" yelled Robotnik to the stars themselves but failed to finish his rant as he turned to dust as well. Within moments, the entire planet itself turned to dust and the massive ship continued onward before doing a hyperspace jump into another system.
Meanwhile, a single green glow can be seen within the now empty space of what was once Mobius and the glow belongs to the Master Emerald, the single piece of the world to have survived the Planet Cracker's(3) attack on the world. As it drifts through the empty void of space, a massive metallic claw gently grabs the crystal and the emerald begins to glow brightly.
END CHAPTER
Hope you enjoyed and don't forget to read, review, follow and/or favorite. Constructive criticism is welcomed, destructive is not.
1, not listed: Up until the Marionette ripping off the mask of Infinite, it is indeed the same as chapter 35a.
2: This is NOT copied from Marvel's Infinity War as I had done something similar in a previous story a long time ago. For those who have read it, you'll know it.
3: A reference to another story. Let's see how many recognize the ship from another story of mine that was from a long time ago AND also took part in this story as well. Time travel and dimensional travel headaches incoming, beware if you think on it too much.