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Prompt: The final confrontation between the plucky hero(s) and the big bad. AND. The thoughts/actions of a character that knows the world ends in 15 minutes.

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."-J.R.R. Tolkien,The Fellowship of the Ring

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One word could change the world. It was that truth that set him on his journey. And now he was ready to prove it. He had worked for years and years, decades spent searching for the components he needed. He had forsaken all ties, and the proof of that lay before him, as his sister, the lone living member of his family had gathered a force to oppose him.

His twin sister glared up at him. Clothed in powered body armor, emblazoned with their family's signet. The stylized peacock they both wore spoke of their lineage. Her head was mostly covered by the plating of the helmet, but he could still see her eyes. She was angry, and in her chocolate brown eyes he saw the hatred she held for him. That was okay, he hated himself too.

As he looked down at her and her group of childish heroes, he wondered how they perceived him. He was wearing his green ceremonial robes that contained the teachings of his master, a twisting Kris knife in his hand. His hands clad in red gloves the back of which each contained a narrowed slit eye. His face was totally uncovered, to the horror of the onlookers who could see the gruesome mess that was a once an attractive vulpine face. The right eye gouged out, recently if the bloody trails running down the face were to be believed. His muzzle was a mess of scars and when he opened his mouth they noted his tongue had been removed. His fur was matted, blood and other substances smeared against him.

Whatever they perceived it, he had to chuckle as two of the four warriors gathered behind her vomited noisily behind her. The first boy hadn't managed to get his helmet out of the way in time and now he was trying to get the vomit out of his helm.

He opened his mouth, and did not speak. But they all heard him in their heads regardless. His tone grated against the mind, but seemed softer then expected. 'At ease, defenders of life. You need not die by my blade. Attacking me makes no sense. Even if I hadn't already set the events in motion, even if you had stopped me today, all you win is an empty reprieve as your world slowly burns away.'

"Collin, don't do this." His sister called out. "It doesn't have to be this way!" He was sure she meant it too. Dear sweet Victoria had always been such a good person. Maybe if the world had listened to her, maybe if HE had listened to her, she could have helped him.

But now it was far too late.

'It's too late for that sister. You know that. I know everything I need, and all I need to do is say his name, and the blind idiot will awake.' He looked up, the eclipse had begun, and Eon City's end was here. 'I'll ask you once more. Do you wish to fight, knowing you are still waiting for the inevitable? I will indulge you if so.'

His sister blinked and trembled. She closed her eyes and attempted to take a deep calming breath. One which he violently stole as his fist lodged deep into her stomach. She didn't even have time to react before he was behind her, and darkness took her as he slammed the back of his twisted black blade into her skull.

He leaned back slightly to avoid a huge club that had been aimed at his head. It attacked again, attempting to take advantage of his blind spot. The eye on his left glove showed him the boy. He appeared to be a early teenager, no more than 14. He wore the latest set of power armors, and had a huge club in his hand made of a jagged piece of whale bone. One scrimshawed all the way across with glowing runes dancing between designs of battles and journeys. A conceptual weapon, made to banish evil.

Collin lashed out into his assumed blind spot. It was unexpected enough that the child had been thrown off balance, his landing uncertain as he attempted to defend himself mid leap. The tip of his tribladed knife was going for the boys stomach when the tip of it met an unexpected resistance in the form of a bullet, fired by one of the others, who had made distance. His gray armor helped him blend into the rooftop.

The next shot went above Collins head as he swept low, his entire body hitting the floor as he skillfully maneuvered himself behind the first attacker. In one movement he rose and grabbed hold of the boy he'd been fighting and hold him in front of him as a shield. He heard more than saw the other two, a boy and a girl, racing toward him from opposite sides, complicated armor parts slotting together for some possibly dangerous attack.

He was stuck in a pincer with the sniper lining up a shot at the mans grotesque face. The teenagers who had been pulled from normal lives to use powerful armors and weapons to prevent the apocalypse, were about to complete their mission.

"_ Ilyaa _"

Everything stopped around him, and he fell into darkness with his captive. Coldness took him, and he closed his eyes as he stepped between the worlds, and then back, landing himself in his spot from before the first attack with his opponent in tow.

'Perhaps I should have warned you to close your eyes.' He mocked as he dropped the boy. His armor shattered like glass as the husk that was once his opponent now began to babble. His opponents stopped and watched with horror as the lion teenager fell to the ground, screaming incoherently as his body rapidly mutated, eyes and mouths growing up out of their extremities

The two who had been attempting to attack him were standing, shocked, their interlocked parts creating a devastating mesh of blade sure to shred someone. However, they weren't moving while the shock set in, and Collin closed the gap in an instant, ducking beneath the mesh to stab out with his triple edged knife. The boy tried to dodge but stuck as he was with the weapon, he had no room. Collin stabbed into the muscle, shredding through his powerful armor in one strike.

The boy cried out, losing strength in his body as Collin twisted the blade and shredded his way out of the meat of his thigh. The soldier attached to him desperately tried to unattach but his weight had locked the blades together. Collin dug his blade deep into her side, leaving a hole through which her essence left, gushing from the hole.

The sniper had taken cover, and Collin looked around, all three eyes looking for her. There was a moment of silence before screaming came from behind him. He looked behind him to see the sniper standing over a pile of sludge that was once a cub soldier. The sniper fell to their knees and just lay there, crying silently. She didn't even scream as her former teammate devoured her.

'Ah, poor children, led astray by their shepherds, they met the end of their tale. You, dear sister, will envy them soon.' The voice sounded like him. Like every other conversation they'd ever had. This was her brother, and he was about to end the world.

"Why?!"

'Victoria.' The voice echoed in her mind, making her feel warm, and safe, but also disgusted and terrified. 'None of its real. None of what we've ever done, was real. We're just a insignificant dream living in a dead writers fever dreams. Every moment we exist, is just one more opportunity for it all to end.' His one natural eye was looking past her, towards something she couldn't see. 'It's too much Victoria. There are no happy endings. Eon City... needs to wake up.'

'I want to drag our world out of the dream, so none of us ever have to worry again.'

The air around Collin began to shimmer, and she tried to pull herself away as her brother began to chant.

'_ Syha'h fhtagn _'

"No, please!" She begged. As he spoke the shadows had moved, and she shut her eyes to avoid looking into the shadows that were now looking back.

'_ Legeth'drn r'luhhor' _

The entire world shuddered. The air rippled, and anything caught at the intersection of pulses was shredded violently immediately around him.

'_ Yar l' nafl'fhtagn _'

In that last moment, as he began the last word, she saw him as he once was. A young boy, ecstatic in joy, as if everything was right. The image slowly burned away, and she saw the twisted, broken fox that was dooming the world, his eye wide with joy as he sealed the fate of 7 billion people.

His voice carried to all corners of reality at once. A roaring, maddening, jubilant name:

_ AzAtHoTh _