A City of Secrets and Masks

-Twenty Five- Finale

The heroes quickly found battle. Punz jumped down from a building, his axe crashing down right where Sapnap had been. Sap rolled out of the way just in time, quickly jumping back up and engaging with his attacker. George fired a bow shot off to help him, but it was cleanly knocked out of the way by a throwing dagger from Scott. George changed his aim to the blue-haired man.

Bad was pounced on by Spifey and fell to the floor. Skeppy yelled out and broke off from the group to help him. Spifey's brass knuckles clashed with Skeppy's diamond-covered fists. Bad healed his minor wounds and started trying to trip up Spifey.

Tapl ended up with Tommy and Tubbo, trying his best to hold them off. Tommy muted his power in short bursts, disorienting him, while Tubbo's bees swarmed. Tapl, who was still a better fighter than the two, held his ground.

Minx teleported around, trying to help where she could. Eret's clones joined almost every battle, but they were too weak to do much.

Quackity managed to catch Techno from behind, stabbing him with a spike he'd made. Techno shrugged it off, throwing Quackity away from him and into the wall. There was a grunt of pain from Quackity before he raised a hand and fused Techno's boots to the floor. Techno struggled to get free while Quackity tried to go in for another attack.

Dream faced off against Karl, narrowly avoiding darts filled with what looked like Mute. It was so very hard to fight the emotions Karl was trying to push onto him- Lethargy and sadness and a general lack of will, but he was managing. Every step Karl got closer, it was a bit harder. Dream kept him at a good distance.

Wilbur and Niki were at the back of the battle. They watched the chaos go down and tried to find a good opportunity to jump in.

If they were paying just a bit more attention, they would have noticed two missing figures. Instead, when Niki turned to Wilbur to comment on the fact that it looked like they were winning, she opened her mouth to find that she couldn't talk. She whipped her head around to see Fundy, not as a fox but as a man, with a grin on his face.

"Been a while, Wil." Fundy said, nonchalant.

Wilbur opened his mouth, but he couldn't speak either. He looked at Niki, who just shot him a panicked glance. 

"It's my new power, no need to worry. Well, it's one of them." Fundy laughed manically. "You know, Wil, I really used to look up to you. How about we flashback to old times and-" Fundy jumped forward to attack Wilbur, his arm turning into a blade. Niki jumped in front of him, blocking the blade with her sickles. "Spar."

Philza watched the battle from above, calling out warnings and providing cover fire from above. Things were going well. Their chances of winning seemed to get higher and high with each second.

Quackity was pressed up against the wall, about to be knocked out by Techno. He panted and looked around wildly, almost as if he was physically searching for an idea. Then he looked at Techno's face, and it clicked.

He reached out and brushed his hand over Techno's gas mask, messing up the clasps. The mask fell to the ground with a clatter.

Techno paused, trying to hold his breath. It didn't work. There were no real impacts on his appearance, but Techno let out a scream nonetheless. Suddenly, everything hurt. All of the minor wounds he'd gathered and shrugged off came back to bite him. Quackity laughed as Techno collapsed.

Philza paused from his vantage point as he watched Techno fall. He didn't even notice Jack Manifold stretching out a hand and calling all of the electricity he could find to one target- Phil. Phil didn't make a sound as he fell, barely managing to negate the damage from the fall by using his wings like a parachute. His mask cracked against the ground and his wings faded from view.

Niki didn't get to watch all of this happen, but she heard Wilbur's gasp. Niki was busy trying to fight off Fundy, who kept pulling powers out of his ass. Without her voice, Niki was basically powerless. She put up a good fight, but soon enough Fundy knocked her out. Wilbur tried to defend himself, but Fundy pulled spectral threads out of the air and tied him up.

Tommy paused as he watched Techno, Phil, and Wilbur, some of the people he looked up to, the people who had helped him grow and had saved him, fall. The pause was just enough for Tapl to knock him out. Tubbo gasped and within a second, Tapl had managed to get behind him and mess with his mask clasps. Suddenly, the voices of his bees disappeared. The bees dispersed, heading back to their hive. Tubbo shook his loss off and whipped around, trying to attack Tapl back, but it was no use. He ended up captured, tied up.

As soon as Tapl was able to move around how he wanted, he captured Minx and knocked her mask off. She was already tired from teleporting so much, so he managed to do it with relative ease. Eret was also easy enough to knock out. 

Punz and Sapnap traded blows for a bit longer, but when Scott threw a dagger into Sap's back, it was over. It wasn't deep enough to seriously injure him, but it was enough to give Punz an opening. Once Sap was down, George was easy enough to catch.

Karl and Dream's fight was almost like a game of tag- Karl trying to catch up with Dream. And, as happens in most games of tag, he did. His hand brushed Dream's arm and Dream stopped, lethargy and sadness overcoming him. "Sorry," Karl whispered as he removed Dream's mask. After a solid five seconds, Karl looked Dream in the eyes. "I'm sorry."

Spifey drew his fight out for a bit longer. He and Skeppy traded blows and a bit of banter. Then he gave Skeppy the perfect opening. Skeppy punched through Spifey's illusion and hit Bad, who crumpled to the ground from the unexpected hit. Skeppy paused, giving Spifey just enough time to knock his mask off. Fundy pulled off Bad's mask.

And just like that, it was all over. They had lost. After everything, after sickness, health, family, fights, training, they had lost.

the heroes were rounded up and paraded back to their own base, where the Assembly raided. They destroyed every vial of antidote they could find. As Tommy, who had come to, watched, he mournfully considered everything that had happened. Turns out they'd done all of that, every bit of the fighting and training, for nothing.

He wasn't sad about it, no, not yet. He was bitter. He was so bitter that fate hadn't taken their side. The good guys didn't win, even though they were supposed to.

Tommy watched the villains ransack his home.

They were supposed to have won. What an unsatisfactory end.

A/N

so,,, how're yall,,,

i'd like to apologize if the battle scene is weird- i have trouble writing combat-

i would not like to apologize for emotional damages, if any were caused---

an fyi: the letter chosen was C, which means this is the bad end. Suprisingly, I had no endings written for this, so this is the one and only ending to this. A would have gotten you a neutral end, and B was a good end.

I'm going to finish this up with an epilogue in the upcoming days, as well as a longer author's note and an update on what's coming next (bc oh BOY do i have an idea-)

see yall then!