A/N- Shifted some dialogue and details last chapter around a bit because I wasn't satisfied with some things. Not my smoothest performance, but oh well.


Recursion Error

Episode 73- Countdown to doomsday (it's today)


It was a very unappealing thing. That black, wriggling shape embedded onto the Rebellion's metal blade. Like an ever-shifting drawing somebody had put on his sword. Or an ugly tattoo. Wasn't permanent, at least. If everything went to plan it wouldn't even last the next hour, and after that it wasn't his problem anymore. But it was still his sword, and he didn't like cosmetic things like this marring its surface.

It was a necessary evil, though. Story of his life...

With a sigh, he lowered the sword and leaned back against the rock he was sitting against. The lush vista of Angel Island was the sight that greeted him, though he paid all the greenery and distant mountains no mind as he slung his free arm over his bent knee. Behind the rock he was sitting against was the open ceiling that lead into the chamber where the Master Emerald rested on its altar. According to his list Knuckles was due to show up here alone for some reason, so it was just a matter of waiting.

For some reason Finitevus wanted to tag along, too, which is why Rubrum saw the white-furred echidna sitting next to him under the cover of the rock when he looked to his left. Rubrum could only guess why he chose to do this, to oversee this personally, maybe, but whatever the case it made Rubrum's life easier so he paid it little mind. The Mobian seemed really excited, a grin stretched to each corner of his mouth and his hands rubbing together in a diabolical manner. Rubrum would have scoffed at the sight, but he held out in lieu of being polite. He would have preferred not to say anything at all and just wait for Knuckles, but then Finitevus decided to speak.

"I'm admittedly beginning to grow restless. The anticipation... it's palpable." He'd actually licked his lips after finishing that sentence, earning an odd, unseen look from Rubrum. "Are you sure this is the most efficient means of going about this?"

"Wanna catch Knuckles alone with this. Would rather not have his father or the Chaotix see me. Or that ant," Rubrum answered. "And anyways, he only has so many haunts on this island. Just be patient."

"Hmph. I suppose so." A sigh left Finitevus, and he began to restlessly drum his bandaged fingers along the ground. "You're certainly putting a lot of stock into this Sorun boy."

"I guess so, yeah."

"I still don't believe a single word of that story you told me back at the lab, but humor me, if only to pass the time," Finitevus requested. When Rubrum silently nodded, he continued. "You claim you're doing this with the intent to have Sorun fight Enerjak using the power of all seven Chaos Emeralds. I severely doubt even with all seven he'd stand a chance against a god."

"I already said my intent's just to get Sorun to the future alternate timeline. Everything else's secondary." There was a short pause. "But I wouldn't count Sorun out if I were you."

"Right, of course." Looking entirely unconvinced, Finitevus rolled his head to the side to look at Rubrum. "You realize I won't be sparing you in the coming purge."

A bitter laugh left Rubrum. "After all I've done to help you? I'm hurt." He glanced up at the sky. "But, eh, I'm not too worried about it."

"Is that so?"

"It is, in fact, so." He held up Rebellion. "Surprised you managed to jury-rig this hex of yours so quickly."

"Considering you and the Master Emerald are doing the bulk of the work, all I needed to do was attach it to your sword," Finitevus explained, a hint of pride found in his voice. "Honestly I only needed a few minutes with it."

"And I'm sure the rest of your time was spent trying to look at Rebellion. But I bet ya didn't glean anything from it." The frustrated, momentary scowl he caught from Finitevus said enough for Rubrum. "So you didn't actually look at the hex too closely?"

Finitevus hesitated before responding. "No," he said, a bit slowly. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Mm, nothing." From the edges of his hearing Rubrum finally caught what he'd been listening for: distant footsteps, somewhere below them. Somebody had entered the chamber. Finitevus seemed to hear it, too, as his head cocked over his shoulder to look at the rock separating them from the chamber's open ceiling. "Look sharp, target's here," Rubrum said, transitioning into a crouch and standing up a bit to peek over the rock. Finitevus did the same.

Knuckles was there alright. Just standing there in the middle of the chamber, looking up the altar stairs and at the Master Emerald itself. As his back was to them Rubrum couldn't catch his expression, nor could he even glean what he was doing there to begin with. He seemed relaxd, though, from his body language.

"What's he even doing?" Rubrum whispered out.

"Who knows? Meditating, perhaps? I've long since ceased trying to understand how these backwater people think," Finitevus harshly whispered out. "What's your plan?"

"... Stab him?" Rubrum glanced to the side at Finitevus. "What do you mean, what's my plan? I'm gonna stab the motherfucker, it don't get more simple'n that."

"Then hurry up! Now, while we have the chance!"

"Pushy..." Rubrum skirted around the edge of the rock and stepped to the edge of the hole that lead into the Master Emerald's chamber. He took a slow, quiet breath, and then dropped into the room.

His feet silently impacted the ground upon landing, quietly enough that Knuckles didn't stir from the spot he stood at just ahead of Rubrum. The red-clothed human didn't make a single sound as he brought Rebellion to bear, hidden eyes intently focused on the echidna's back.

His grip tightened around the sword's handle. For just a moment he wavered, and the end of the sword's blade quavered a bit as a result. But then it went completely still after Rubrum shook his head. "Alright, game face."

And then, without a further thought, he sprinted ahead towards the echidna in a burst of supernatural speed, the tip of the claymore aimed out in front of him.

"AND HERE COMES THE GIANT SWORD!"

The midway point of this sentence being yelled out by Rubrum was the exact same moment the blade plunged through Knuckles' back and burst out through the red-furred Mobian's chest. Crimson blood sprayed out from both sides of the wound, while the echidna himself made a strangled, almost silent gasping sound. From the pain and shock of having a sword plunged through him or the sheer surprise, Rubrum couldn't decipher, nor could he see the echidna's reaction due to being behind him. He did see his head tilt down towards the sword impaling him, and shakily, his arms tried to reach up to grab at the sword.

Before he could even touch the blade, though, Rubrum began moving, and also held the sword low in a reversed grip as he stomped towards the altar's steps. The blade, and the echidna impaled onto it, were dragged along the ground, with Knuckles making pained whining and grunting sounds as his arms, nearly robbed of all strength and completely limp, tried to grab at the ground. Rubrum did his best to push all the noises he was making out of his head as he stepped onto the altar stairs.

"Echidna, echidna, echidna... always so much trouble..." Rubrum muttered out. He stomped up each and every step, dragging the blade along them and causing it, and the echidna attached, to bounce along the steps. Knuckles' movements were growing weaker by the second, and a wide line of blood was trailed behind them. "I don't understand it. I don't understand how things can go so wrong..."

He stopped at the top of the altar, right in front of the Master Emerald. Rubrum just barely managed to make out his own reflection on its green surface, shaking his head at the sight while gripping the sword's handle with both hands.

"Don't take it personal." He rose the sword over his head, glad that his hood blocked the sight of the bloody echidna gasping in pain and gurgling on blood struggling on his sword. Lacking anything else to say, he thrust the sword downwards at the Emerald. The blade pierced right through the green crystal, with Rubrum pushing it enough that the blade sunk entirely into the Master Emerald all the way up to Knuckles, who was pinned in place between the gem itself and the sword's rib-like crossguard. His lower half was completely immobile, and though his arms weren't in a good position to maneuver around in any significant way, they were still moving some. And he was still making that sound. That pained gasping noise that was a few octaves short of pained crying.

Breathing out harshly and gritting his teeth at the sound, Rubrum gripped the back of Knuckles' head hard enough that he felt bone fracture under his fingers. He brought the head backwards, and then rammed it forwards right into the surface of the Master Emerald. His muzzle was completely flattened, and there was a sickening crunch! sound as his face was shattered against the Emerald accompanying a wide splash of blood where his face impacted the gem. The whimpering cries went completely silent, and Knuckles' struggling movements were reduced to mere twitches.

Soundlessly, after a second of looking at the blood-spattered Master Emerald and the broken echidna pinned to it, Rubrum took hold of the Rebellion's handle with both hands. Red lightning began arcing along the entire blade, causing the Mobian body impaled to it to begin violently convulsing. The swirling, shapeless black hex stenciled onto the blade, buried somewhere in the Master Emerald, dissolved into a gaseous substance and moved up the blade's length. The dark cloud made it to Knuckles' body, and then began to seep in and disappear through his skin and into his body.

And then, the Master Emerald began to react. Harsh bolts of green lightning arced around the massive gem in response to the red lightning around the blade. There was a loud, white flash, the result of a golden bolt of lightning beaming out from the Emerald itself and traveling all the way up and into the sky. Electric energy was flowing into Knuckles' body, enough to envelop him in a golden aura and intense enough that Rubrum was actually able to see his skeleton through his skin. This continued for only a few moments, until Rubrum felt satisfied with what he'd done. And with that, he'd pulled the blade out of the Emerald and flicked it to the side, throwing Knuckles' body right off the sword.

The lightning ended in an instant. The continuous bolt of golden lightning disappeared, and the sparks around the Master Emerald ceased. Knuckles' body bounced down the altar's steps, and then impacted onto the ground floor the altar rested on. Rubrum, bloodied sword in hand, turned to face his body, remaining completely silent at the sight of the still echidna at the bottom of the bloodied steps.

Soon enough there was a change. Golden bolts of lightning began to randomly shoot off from his body. His wounds, both the gaping wound in his torso and his flattened, caved-in face, began to slowly close and regenerate. His movements were becoming less twitchy and more articulated as golden pieces of armor and blue cloth slowly began to appear over his form. By that point, Rubrum had seen enough. So he'd leapt upwards, right through the top of the chamber and back onto the ledge he'd dropped down from to begin with.

His work was done. Enerjak was coming back.

"Well, it's Sorun's problem now," Rubrum thought to himself as he began walking away. He passed Finitevus along the way, choosing to stop when he heard the made chuckles of the white echidna next to him. "Right. Him. One more detail."

"You did it. You actually managed to do it," Finitevus said, somewhat in awe as he looked past the rock he was huddled behind. "I can feel Enerjak's energy gathering from here alone!"

Rubrum looked behind his shoulder. He saw bolts of golden lightning arcing out from the Master Emerald's chamber. The skies themselves began to darken as black storm clouds rapidly began to gather above them, blocking out the sun.

"Yep," Rubrum agreed in a bland tone, dispelling Rebellion and placing his hands in his pockets. He turned around to leave, took a single step, and then stopped again. "Oh, almost forgot to mention one thing. I modified your hex a bit."

The intense, manic jubilation that was on Finitevus' face all but instantly melted away when he heard that sentence leave Rubrum. In it's place was shocked surprise and quickly growing anger, shown by the intensely heavy scowl that grew on his features. "What?" he hissed out, turning his head to Rubrum's back. "What did you just say?"

"I modified your hex," he repeated, turning to look at the echidna. "Before I gave it to you, I changed it."

"You did WHAT!?" he snarled out, rising to his feet. "You had no right!"

Rubrum shrugged. "Mm, sure, I mean, I guess, but..." he trailed off, voice laconic and lacking all energy as he looked to the side. "Well, what did you expect? I made it clear I wasn't doing this for you. 'S your fault for getting so excited you didn't even check the damn thing."

It wasn't his fault the scientist had been so short-sighted when a clear path to his goal was given to him on a silver platter. The fact Rubrum had been banking on that didn't even factor into it. And he didn't feel all that guilty for playing him.

"What have you done!?" Finitevus rushed forwards and grabbed Rubrum's red cloak, and then began to intensely shake him. Rubrum didn't react in the slightest. "You fool, what did you do!?"

"I separated out the part of the hex that let you control Enerjak," Rubrum explained in a simple tone, causing Finitevus to freeze completely. "He has free will now."

The black eyes Finitevus had widened dramatically, and the yellow irises shrunk down to a quarter of their size. "You've done what?" he whispered out, so in shock his hands fell away from Rubrum's clothes. "That's... you utter imbecile..." He stumbled back a bit, nearly shaking as he looked down at the ground. "He'll destroy everything. Without my guidance that mad thing will bring this whole world to ruin!" His head snapped up to Rubrum's hood, outraged and fearful. "Don't you realize there will be absolutely nothing left to rebuild in his wake if he's allowed free!?"

"Kind of the idea." The statement had been neutral, casual, even, when Rubrum said it. It had the effect of stunning Finitevus on the spot, as even he couldn't comprehend how the being in front of him was treating total world destruction so lightly. "Better go get Sorun. The Yamato is your only hope of killing that thing. Oh, speaking of which."

Before Finitevus could get another word in edgewise, Rubrum's right hand shot out of his pocket and went straight for his throat. The scientist had seen the incoming hand, just barely, but had been unable to do anything before the hand clamped around his throat. He gagged out and flailed at the hand holding him as he was lifted up off the ground, his feet unconsciously kicking away as the human held him up.

"Sorry, but I gotta take your memories of me out. Sorun literally can't do this without you, but I can't have you go and tell him there's some guy walking around with the Rebellion. A bit too early for that stunning revelation," Rubrum icily stated. "I never do this and just stay out of sight since people getting random bouts of amnesia would be hella suspicious, and I have zero practice doing this. Was always paranoid I'd give someone brain damage or something if I tried." He unpocketed his left hand, and a panicked, struggling Finitevus could only watch as red energy gathered around it. "But this one's on the list, so I'll make an exception. I'll try not to mess around with your head too much, but, uh... I'm new at this, so sorry in advance if I wipe out any childhood memories or something like that."

The overhead sounds of yellow lightning bolts striking a darkening sky was just loud enough to drown out Finitevus' subsequent screaming.