Recursion Error
Episode 39- The man in red
"Yep. There they are alright."
Even in the dead of night it was hard to miss them due to all the lights they were shining around in that little makeshift camp of theirs. Headlights from the APCs parked around, small portable floodlamps that had been set up, the G.U.N. soldiers running around with the flashlights attached to their guns. It was almost impossible to miss them all.
But there they were, in a forest clearing he was staring at from his position up in a tree branch, his eyes searching for the one and only thing that would get a group of G.U.N. soldiers all the way out here in the middle of nowhere. And he saw it plain as day when he spotted a solider walking towards one of the APCs at the back of the makeshift camp, an object clenched in their hands and their sides flanked by more soldiers. A brightly-glowing, gray Chaos Emerald.
"Huh, it was here." Rubrum hummed, looked down at the paper in his hand, and shoved it back into his pocket. He made another hum as he looked down at his feet, towards the duffel bag that was at the end of the branch and nestled against the tree itself. He stared down at the cyan light that was bleeding out of the opening of the bag, and then turned back towards the G.U.N. camp. "Alright, let's get this over with."
He jumped. It was at a height and distance that was impossible for any normal human or Overlander, and at the height he'd been falling any normal man would have had their legs shattered when they finally touched down. But when Rubrum landed on his feet right at the edge of the Overlanders' camp, he didn't seem any worse for wear. In fact, he'd even made a show of slowly and lazily winding his shoulders as he stretched his neck out.
The twenty-odd G.U.N. soldiers he'd landed in front of didn't seem all that impressed by his performance based on the way they were all aiming their weapons and shouting orders at him.
Rubrum sighed, and reached his finger past his hood to dig into his ear when he heard all sorts of orders like "freeze!" and "down on your knees!" being barked at him. All the flashlights from the guns being pointed at him and illuminating his red-dressed visage did little for his mood, too. He felt more annoyed at it all than anything else. At all the guns being pointed at him, the shouting, and the fact he had to go through with this in the first place.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen, I can explain." He gave them the courtesy to at least raise his hands up for them, and spoke loudly enough that he was sure they all heard him. "You see, uh... well, I guess there's really no easy way to say this, is there?" With his right hand still rose up, he pointed towards the APC at the back of the makeshift camp. "Yeah, that Chaos Emerald you guys have stashed back there? I super need it."
The soldiers aiming their guns at him cast unsure glances at each other, the barrels of their weapons still pointed at him. One soldier had called out to him, "You're asking us to give you the gem?"
Rubrum shook his head. "No, I'm telling you I'm taking it. That's what you would call an unequivocal fact." They must not have liked that answer from the way he heard their guns click. The sound of safeties being switched off. This caused him to sigh and lower his arms back down. "What does G.U.N. even want with that thing, anyways?" he asked them. "Was good ol' Tower gonna hand it over to the Freedom Fighters like he did with the green one? Or was he gonna keep it for G.U.N. to have?"
Not a word was said by any of the soldiers. All they gave him were unblinking stares, their rifles fully affixed at Rubrum's body.
"I'm not naïve enough to think the Commander has the best interest of Mobians at heart," Rubrum continued, his voice lowering to an icy tone. "Doesn't really matter what he intended for it. I lost all respect for G.U.N. a long time ago after what you tried to pull."
"Are you with the Freedom Fighters?" This question was asked by the soldier who spoke to Rubrum before, causing the hooded man to shake his head.
"Well, no." Rubrum took a step forwards. "I'd be a pretty terrible Freedom Fighter if-"
The sound of gunfire cut off his words.
Rubrum's body began jerking from the dozens and dozens of high caliber rounds that tore through his body. Wound after gaping wound was opened at various points on his body, and small clouds of blood burst out of his body in time with the staccato beats of the rifles firing into him. After a few seconds of continuous bullets tearing through him, the soldiers stopped firing all at once, leaving Rubrum and his hole-riddled body to slowly teeter back and forth on his feet, and then fall backwards onto his back.
The soldiers who had all fired upon him all looked down at the man's body, their rifles still aimed at his still form. Their forms began to relax when they saw his body remained motionless, after which they began to lower their guns and reach for the radios strapped to their uniforms.
"Aaaand I'm back..."
Rifles were snapped back forwards and stances became rigid when the soldiers all saw, with shaking eyes, Rubrum's body lift back upwards onto his feet, as if pulled up by an invisible force. They watched with bated breath as the wounds and holes in his body began to seal and heal up, with the man himself letting off a small, disappointed sigh as he shook his head.
"I had a feeling you'd do that." Rubrum reached his right arm out to the side. Red energy coiled around his hand, and when he clenched it, an object materialized in his grasp in a fiery burst of red energy. A long, metal claymore sword with a guard stylized as a skull on either side. "Well, it's not like you're the first group of innocent people I had to cut through to get to a Chaos Emerald." Rubrum spun the sword in his hand around once. "'Least you'll be the last."
The soldiers began firing their rifles again. Unlike the first time, though, not a single round ever made it to Rubrum. In a feat of blinding speed his hand began to spin the sword in front of him like a fan blade. Yellow sparks began flying in front of him as bullet after bullet pinged off of the sword, which completely blocked all of the gunfire from ever reaching Rubrum. Despite the futility, though, the soldiers continued to fire at him, and it was only when the last magazine went empty did Rubrum act.
The blade continued to be spun around until Rubrum stopped it in a position that it was pointed at the soldiers. His entire body lunged forwards in a single movement, his form a blur as he and the sword flew towards the group. He stopped right in the middle of the soldiers, and then swung the blade outwards in a wide arc, causing all of the soldiers to dive out of the way and scatter from him.
"You had to push it." Rubrum stabbed his sword forwards. A G.U.N. soldier let out a deathly cry of pain when half of the sword pierced right through his abdomen. "You couldn't have just given it to me." With a single hand holding the sword's handle, Rubrum swung it upwards, causing the soldier's body to fly up in the air. He turned his hooded head at a nearby soldier desperately attempting to load another magazine into his weapon, and then swung his blade outwards and cut him in half right through his midsection. "What the hell did I expect?"
The solider whose body he'd tossed in the air earlier fell back down to his level. Rubrum kicked the body, causing it to fly forwards and crash against another soldier. The body had just bounced off of the Overlander before Rubrum was in front of them, stabbing his sword forwards and piercing through both of their bodies. He whirled around, swinging the sword like it was a weightless thing in front of him and flinging the dead bodies off of it towards more of the G.U.N. soldiers.
He continued killing in this fashion. Dashing around, jumping, and twirling his body with monstrous speed and agility while swinging his sword around as if it weighed nothing. He cut through each soldier quickly and methodically, every life being ended instantly with a single slash or thrust and every swing coating the grass beneath his feet in more and more red. The soldiers left alive, their numbers quickly dwindling by the second, had tried retaliating by firing back on Rubrum, but due to his movements bullets either whizzed by him entirely, or very rarely made contact only for the wound to then instantly regenerate.
Rubrum slid to the side, moving his head slightly away to avoid the gunfire of the soldier in front of him before flicking his claymore outwards, swiftly decapitating him. He then looked forwards, noticing a few of the remaining soldiers standing all the way on the other side of the camp with their weapons aimed at him. He then quickly grabbed his sword with both hands, bringing the handle upwards while pointing the tip of the sword at the soldiers. Red energy began to gather around the upper half of the sword's blade.
And then, Rubrum threw the sword.
Like a helicopter blade, the thrown sword whirled through the air while trailing red lines of raw power behind it. Some of the more quick-thinking soldiers had tried to fire upon the sword, though this proved to be an effort in futility as the bullets impacting the sword did nothing to halt its momentum. The spinning sword cleaved cleanly through the torso of one soldier, and then changed direction entirely. The sword was guided through the air, seemingly under some invisible control, and as much as the soldiers tried, they could do nothing to save themselves from the spinning sword. Some continued to try and fire at the sword while some had tried running, but no matter what they did the sword followed them and cut right through them.
After cleaving through the last soldier, the spinning sword flew back towards Rubrum. He snapped his hand out, effortlessly catching the claymore by the handle and deftly spinning it into a normal grip. He looked around at the camp full of dead bodies, and then turned his concealed eyes towards the APC sitting at the back of the camp.
There was only one soldier left alive. His gun was long dropped at his feet, and he'd pressed his back straight against the APC. His entire body was shaking, eyes fearful and mouth panting heavily as he stared towards Rubrum. His quavering hand was holding a radio, which the panicked soldier was now shouting into.
"Mayday, mayday we need immediate assistance! I repea-!"
Rubrum's body shot forwards, sword pointed out in front of him with a red cone of energy surrounding his entire form. The soldier could only continue to scream at the sight, as Rubrum's approach had been too fast for him to make any sort of movement to avoid him. The sword plunged right through the soldier's body all the way to the skull-shaped hilt, piercing all the way to the inside of the APC. The soldier pinned to the APC by the sword could only look down at the sword piercing through him in mute surprise, and then quickly went limp, the radio dropping from his hand. Rubrum then tore the blade out from the APC and soldier, blood splashing onto him as the soldier's body was unceremoniously flung onto the ground behind him.
Pausing momentarily, Rubrum's hidden eyes looked down at the blood that had been splattered onto his red cloak. His hooded face lingered on the sight, and then turned towards the camp of soldiers he'd just slaughtered. Bodies of G.U.N. soldiers littered the ground, some cut in half, and nearly the entire patch of grass that the camp rested on was dyed in red blood. Rubrum found himself sighing at the sight.
"What a goddamned waste..." A sudden loud, beating sound reaching his ears caused his head to perk up. "Oh, what the fuck is it now?"
His head turned upwards towards the beating sound, and he found himself immediately slumping his shoulders when he saw what it was. There was a helicopter hovering up in the air, having lifted off from some part deeper into the forest, and currently it was hovering just outside of the camp, and pointed right at Rubrum. He couldn't help but notice the long-barreled weapons that were on the underside of the helicopter, and how they began to aim towards Rubrum's body.
Rubrum himself said nothing in response to this. Instead, he flipped his sword around into a reversed grip. Red energy began to gather down the entire length of the blade at the same time that the barrels of the weapons on the helicopter began to spin. Before even a single round could be fired off, though, Rubrum swung his sword.
Upon swinging the sword coursing with red energy, a large, crescent-shaped wave of energy shot out from the blade and flew towards the helicopter. The speed of the red wave proved to be too much for the helicopter to avoid, and as such, it was directly hit by it. The red energy wave cleaved clean through the middle of the helicopter, leaving a red line that ran right through its whole center. Red electricity began arcing out from the red line bisecting the helicopter, and just as the two halves of the flying vehicle began to fall away, they exploded completely, obliterating the helicopter itself and the pilots that had been inside of it. In the end, all that was left was a handful of ashes and small pieces of metallic debris that fell to the ground below.
Silently, Rubrum flipped his sword back around into a normal grip, and then lightly swung the blade to remove the excess red power still clinging to the blade. Satisfied, he took one last glance at the helicopter wreckage, and then a final look at the blood-soaked camp, and finally turned around towards the APC.
He found himself maneuvering towards the back of the APC. One quick cut with his sword found its back being cleaved right off, which Rubrum then proceeded to grab and throw away. He then turned to the interior of the APC, carefully walking in as he observed what was in front of him.
There wasn't much to say about the inside of the APC. White lights dotting the small roof made the small room well-lit. It was mostly empty, too, save for rows of seats lining each side and a small, metal pedestal sitting in the center. A pedestal upon which sat the gray Chaos Emerald he'd seen from earlier. Rubrum tilted his head a bit when he saw it splattered with blood, and then looked to the left, where he saw a blood-splattered hole pierced into the wall. He let out a small hum when he realized that had been where he'd pierced that final soldier through.
"All this blood for a fuckin' rock," he mumbled under his breath as he turned back to the Emerald. "Why is it that the gray one always gives me so much trouble?" He sighed, and then released his grip on the claymore sword. It disappeared in a flash of fiery, red energy. "Well, whatever the case, it's finished. Now all's left is to drop this thing off to him..."
New Megaopolis
"And here we go again..."
Coming into this place had been about as easy as any other place Rubrum went to these days. Physically entering was never an issue for him. It was the emotional aspect and the fact that just walking into this place, being near those men, made his skin itch and hand twitch for his sword. But, as always, he held back. It took nearly all his willpower each and every time, but he'd managed to hold back.
He was currently up on the ceiling of a large control room. Computers everywhere, walkways leading to doors, a typical sight. And right below the cross beam he was sitting on was a short Overlander in a green coat working on a computer. The second man below him, Rubrum's main focus, was in a floating chair that was hovering in the middle of the room, his fingers dancing over the keyboard of a computer monitor he was currently scowling at.
Eggman and Snively. Two people Rubrum hated above all others. And he had to give them a Chaos Emerald. Again.
"Ugh... Feels like I'm getting stabbed in the gut again every time I do this," Rubrum thought to himself. "Well, at least I get to punch Snively in the face again. That'll cheer me up a little bit."
Adjusting the strap keeping the duffle bag secure against his body, Rubrum dropped down from the cross beam and landed in a crouch right on top of the computer Snively was working on.
Naturally, a figure dropping down right in front of him out of the blue had startled Snively. But then his eyes scanned over Rubrum's form, and they widened dramatically when he seemed to recognize who he was. He even made a small "eep" noise, which brought Rubrum some small amount of satisfaction.
"Hey," Rubrum greeted, still crouched down.
"... Hi," Snively greeted back, swallowing heavily as his body began to lightly quiver.
"Looks like somebody messed your face up." Rubrum leaned in a bit closer, taking note of the bandage wrapped around Snively's long nose and the faded wounds dotting his face. "Guess what, I'm gonna mess it up even more."
"No, no wait-!"
Rubrum's hand snapped forwards and gripped Snively's throat, silencing him from speaking further. The short Overlander gagged out and began flailing his limbs as Rubrum lifted him up off his feet, and then curled his other hand into a fist as he prepared to assault Snively's face.
"Stop."
Rubrum paused when he heard Eggman's voice. He quirked his hooded head to the side, looking upwards at the man in his floating chair with the Doctor's struggling nephew still in his grasp. The chair had spun around so that it was facing Rubrum's direction, with Eggman himself leaning to the side of it with a bored expression on his face.
"... 'Stop'?" Rubrum repeated. "You remember there's a little something that starts with 'Metal' and ends with 'Sonic' that says there's nothing you can do to stop me, right? Case in point." He punched Snively in the face, his body jerking as a pained cry left him. "See? Look at this." He punched him again. "This is free. It's free, baby."
He wondered if Eggman even believed Rubrum when he said there was nothing Eggman could do to stop him beating his nephew like this. It wasn't like he was even bluffing, there really was nothing he could do, but he expected at least one single twitch of his mustache at the sight of him abusing his nephew. Some sign of frustration that Rubrum could see and take to heart so he could tell himself it was at least a little worth it.
But no. Eggman just passively looked on with that same bored, unimpressed expression he wore on his face. And it made Rubrum feel like the frustrated one.
Eventually Snively's form went limp in Rubrum's grasp. He stopped punching him, drank in the sight of his bruised face with just a fraction of the satisfaction he'd hoped to feel, and then looked down to confirm that, yes, he was unconscious. So it was with a whiny sigh that Rubrum tossed the unconscious body away and then looked up at Eggman. "You're taking all the fun out of this," he said.
"You honestly think I care you keep beating my nephew to a pulp? It's a mild annoyance at best for how much he keeps whining about it around me," Eggman said.
"And yet, you keep him around."
"He has his uses. And what's family for?" Eggman asked, giving a half-shrug. "I do find myself asking why you're so insistent on assaulting him at every opportunity you find, though."
Rubrum looked back towards Snively's motionless form. His hidden eyes glared heatedly at the body, after which he turned back to Eggman. "He's the second person I hate most in the world. You're first."
"Really? Snively? Snively?" The incredulity in Eggman's voice was so apparent it almost seemed overexaggerated. "I understand hating me, it's a given seeing everything I've strived for, but him? I'm almost insulted you hold him in such high regard next to me. My lackey of a nephew. What could he have possibly done to earn your ire?"
"He did something unforgiveable." Rubrum's response had been so immediate and quickly given that it made Eggman quiet down from surprise. "That's all."
After he finished talking, Rubrum jumped up. Eggman's chair slowly swiveled around, the Doctor's spectacled eyes following him as Rubrum landed in a sitting position on one of the high monitors located next to Eggman. He crossed one leg over the other, propped his head on one fist, and used the other hand to point at Eggman.
"Enough about your nephew, though. Let's talk about you," Rubrum said. "Your empire's seen better days, huh?"
"... Feh. I don't know what you're talking about," Eggman claimed, waving a hand in Rubrum's direction and turning around to a different computer monitor. "The Eggman Empire's stronger than ever."
"Is it, though?" Rubrum asked. "Is it really?"
"Of course it is!" Eggman spread his arms out wide, gesturing to all the computer monitors scattered around them. "Look around at my city. My city. An unconquerable fortress from which I can build my empire up at my leisure."
"Sure, yeah, you got one city. And yeah, you have so much power congregated here that there's not really anything anybody could do if you decided to just dig yourself in here and stay indefinitely. I mean, that's pretty much what you did," Rubrum conceded. "Your empire's lookin' a bit small these days, though. You used to have factories all over the place, and pretty much every single important settlement worth mentioning was under your name. Now, though?" With a small laugh, Rubrum shrugged his shoulders. "All your factories got trashed by the Freedom Fighters. The Overlanders and G.U.N. are taking back more of their territory on the daily. Meanwhile on the Mobian side of things your forces got reduced to such a pathetic number that they managed to push all your robots back and take their land back." He scoffed. "Face it, man. You went from having all the territory to almost none of it." Rubrum held his hand up and began counting off his fingers. "All 'cause of a ragtag group of Freedom Fighters, a displaced government agent and science experiment, a princess, a hedgehog... and some guy with a katana."
To his credit, Eggman didn't so much as bristle at any of Rubrum's observations. He did, however, become somewhat straighter in his seated position. "I still have an entire Egg Fleet at my beck and call that I can use at any moment," he reminded him. "Knothole's very destruction is but a press of a button away."
"And I have no doubt your finger is just itching to press that button with how current events have been treating you." Rubrum reached behind him, unslung the duffel bag, and then opened the top. "Before you resort to that, though, I got another gift for you."
He flicked his wrist in such a way that something inside of the duffel bag flew out of it towards Eggman. The Doctor deftly caught the object before it impacted with his face, and let out a interested hum afterwards as he examined the object. Rubrum, meanwhile, re-slung the duffel bag over his torso.
"... And here I thought you said you were done giving me gifts," Eggman said, looking up from the gray, bloodstained Chaos Emerald in his hand. "What ever happened to that?"
Rubrum shrugged. "I lied. I do that a lot."
"Hmph..." He looked back down at the Emerald. "Do you always have to bring me these things when they're so filthy? Honestly, it's beyond me what you do to them to get them bloodied like this."
"Boo-hoo, surprised you even care about something like that considering how much blood you already have on your hands."
"I have high standards, thank you very much." Holding out the bloodied Emerald out in front of him, Eggman made a gagging sound and attempted to use the sleeve of his red coat to try and wipe the blood off. All this proved to do was smear the blood further along the gray gem's surface, though, causing him to grumble and place it down at the control console of his chair. "Why are you doing this?"
Rubrum waved a hand. "Because it's all in accordance with His will. I thought I already explained this to you. It's His bright idea, not mine."
The answer caused Eggman to groan. "Yes, yes, it's vaguery after vaguery with you, isn't it?" He pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand and gestured towards Rubrum with another. "If there's nothing else then just leave me be. I have better things to do than be listening to you." He turned to look back down the Emerald, and began leering at it. "Much, much better things."
"You do that." Rubrum pushed himself forwards and slid off the ceiling beams, dropping down and landing on the metal floor. "Give the cretin my regards when he wakes up," he added, nodding towards Snively's form as he turned to leave.
The only thing he received in response was a huff from Eggman, who was more focused on the Chaos Emerald in his hands than Rubrum himself. This went largely ignored by Rubrum, who walked away towards one of the nearby doors, pressed a nearby button, and waited for the door to slide open. He immediately walked through and hit the button behind him to close the door back up, after which he stopped, grabbed the duffel bag strapped to him, and removed it from his body.
"It's almost too easy," he mumbled to himself, staring down the opening and into the bag. The bright glow of a cyan-colored Chaos Emerald met his gaze, causing him to scoff, close the bag back up, and re-strap it to himself. "So," he mumbled out, digging into his pocket to bring out the piece of notebook paper he carried, "what's next?"
