Title: The Big Guns
Rating: T
Genre: Humor/Parody
Summary: Team RWBY is powerless against an evil of epic proportions. What's Ozpin got up his sleeve?
Disclaimer: This is a RWBY fanfic. RWBY belongs to Monty Oum. There are several shout-outs from other franchises.
Written for MONCON November 2015 (Prompts: Ruby, Teamwork). Feel free to use my ideas, but do drop me a message so I can read your story too. Comments on errors are welcome.
"Today, I will finally get rid of you brats!"
"We need backup."
"You dug that hole all by yourself, sir."
"This is slightly surreal..."
The noise in the Beacon Academy cafeteria was dying down, as more students finished their dinner and left. Team RWBY returned their trays and prepared to leave for their dormitories. It had been a busy day, and tomorrow would be busier.
Ruby's Scroll chimed to signal an incoming call. A swipe across the screen accepted the transmission, and revealed her Deputy Headmistress' face.
"Miss Rose. Please report to the Headmaster's office with your team. Bring a clean set of your combat attires and weapons. You may remain in your current uniforms."
"Professor, you want us to bring our combat stuff but not put them on?"
"That is correct, Miss Rose. Please do not dawdle."
The spacious green-and-brown themed office looked just the way Ruby remembered it. Massive levers and gears spun in perpetual motion, and the faint smell of coffee and old carpets lingered in the air. Headmaster Ozpin's oak desk was quite bare, however, save for a small wooden box.
It was open, and in it sat four finger rings. They had simple designs - slim metallic bands, inset with one gemstone each.
"These rings are experimental pieces which can store your combat equipment, using a Hammer Space dimension and some finicky quantum mechanics. They have been programmed to instantly swap the clothes you are wearing with the combat outfit you have stored, or vice versa. As you can imagine, this has potential applications in undercover work, reloading ammunition or civilian storage needs.
"I would like your team to field-test the rings. Rest assured, your equipment will be safe and easily retrievable; we keyed in a live mouse previously and it re-formed without mishap."
At Glynda's prompting, the girls placed their combat uniforms and weapons neatly on the table. She placed the ring with a red gemstone on Ruby's pile, the clear one on Weiss', the black one on Blake's and the yellow one on Yang's. Ozpin pressed a button on his cane and the four gems shone brightly before inhaling the piles with a disconcerting 'slurp'. Ruby's ring shook slightly and let out a belch, at which Glynda raised an eyebrow.
"How do we get our equipment back out?"
The girls missed Ozpin stiffening almost imperceptibly while sipping on his coffee.
"You should wear your rings at all times," said Glynda. "I daresay they will be more easily misplaced than your weapons at full size. The Headmaster devised a series of actions and voice commands which you will use to activate the rings. A video of the sequence will be sent to your Scrolls shortly. Are there any other questions?"
Later that night, Team RWBY stared speechlessly, jaws agape, at their Scrolls. The video ended and the 'Replay' icon appeared, blinking innocently.
What the Oum did we just watch?
Two weeks later, the team was summoned to Ozpin's office again. Their expressions ranged from starry-eyed excitement (Ruby) and impassive (Blake), to grumpy (Weiss) and resigned (Yang). Several times recently, Yang and Weiss had attempted to cajole the Headmaster into altering the embarrassing parameters for activating the rings, but he had merely sipped his caffeinated mud with a smirk.
"I trust you girls are sufficiently familiar with your rings?"
The girls nodded.
"Besides the storage function," answered Blake. "We can still use the same clothes and weapons for combat. The increased ammunition storage is a big plus, though."
"And we can store coo- I mean, rations as well," Ruby fought down a blush after the slip-up.
Ozpin nodded sagely.
"Outstanding. I have a mission for your team. Suspicious numbers of Grimm are reportedly migrating into an abandoned settlement some distance from Vale's borders. Mission objective is straightforward - slaughter the Grimm. Until recently, the area was suspected to be a hideout for smugglers, so be on the lookout for unexpected dangers. Further details will be forwarded to your Scrolls."
The Bullhead left for a safer landing point after inserting Team RWBY deep into the hot zone, on a low building - the tallest in the settlement - just beside the village square. It offered a vantage point for the girls to plan their Hunt.
By visual estimation, there were hundreds of E- to D- ranked Grimm, like young Boarbatusks, in the village square and streets. These would pose little challenge unless the trainee Huntresses were careless and got swarmed. C-ranked adult Grimm were present in substantial numbers, and amidst the throng of dark velvety fur and clanking bone stood a smattering of B-minus ranked Grimm like Ursa Majors and Alpha Beowulves.
If the girls kept to small streets to bottleneck the horde, and used the buildings as a vertical escape route, they could fight the Grimm with a good safety margin. Resupply of ammunition and water was not an issue, given their Rings of Holding (a name Blake adapted from an old board game). Team RWBY was no slouch and had trained for worse; they could do this.
Ruby was bouncing in glee. Her excitement was infectious and even Weiss and Yang put aside the last of their misgivings with regard to the rings.
"It's clobbering time!" she giggled.
The quartet, still in school uniforms, stood abreast of each other in a row, then moved in unison.
Legs apart. Arms akimbo.
Forearms to chest level, left fingers wrapped over a right fist.
Both hands at the right hip. "Hen..." they said.
Left arm stretched out, pointing diagonally up at the sky, and head facing the same direction... "Shin!"
A puff of coloured smoke later, they were combat ready.
Several hours later...
Sweaty and sore, the four girls perched on the roof of a three-storey terraced house. With crowd control techniques and careful rotation of fighting roles, they had been Hunting nearly nonstop while taking minimal risks. Injuries had been few and easily healed, but their Auras were now in the low Yellow zone and fatigue was building up to uncomfortable levels.
"I think we're nearly done," said Blake, knocking back another isotonic drink. "Feels like ninety percent of our furry friends are down, so we're nearly at the ninety-eight percent elimination objective."
"Finish up, pack up and return for a long shower. Sounds good to me," muttered Yang.
"This is unusual," observed Weiss. "The carcasses have not broken down, even after such a long time."
Ruby stood up to stretch out the kinks in her lithe body. Unexpectedly, a familiar voice blared out.
"Why hello Red! I wasn't expecting visitors. Had a good time playing with my pets?"
Scrambling to their feet, the team saw their metrosexual nemesis, Roman Torchwick, leaning casually against a chimney several roofs away. Had he just arrived? Or had he been watching them from the beginning?
"The Grimm?" Ruby called back. "You mean you lured them here? Why?"
"I got real lonely without seeing you around, Red, so I invited them into my sandbox. With a few modifications, of course. I didn't even have to potty train them."
"Well your fuzz-balls are dead so stick 'em up where we can see them. You've lost, Bowler Hat," retorted Yang as the girls levelled their weapons at him.
"No, our little game is far from over. Today, I will finally get rid of you brats!"
"Oh yeah? You and what ar-mmmph," Weiss clamped her hand over her leader's mouth.
Roman smirked and hooked his pimp cane to his belt before jumping gracefully down to the street. He clapped his gloved hands together and as he pulled them apart, small arcs of blue energy fizzled between his palms. When he placed his hands on the ground, thick blue-white bolts of electricity burst into being around him and struck the nearby Grimm. The lightning quickly forked out towards other living and dead Grimm, and judging from the eerie glow from all the streets, it was chaining together all the Grimm in the settlement.
All the dark creatures began to disintegrate and their particles converged on Roman, enveloping him in a black spherical cloud which was expanding by the second.
"Scoot!" exclaimed Ruby, and the team vaulted across roofs to put some distance between themselves and the unusual phenomenon.
The inky sphere grew to a roughly egg-like shape nearly two hundred feet in height. It began to compress and indent and soon resembled a strange tripod. As the transformation proceeded, the three legs were revealed to be two legs and a long tail... then there were arms... and a blocky head...
A gigantic bipedal reptile with crystalline spines running from its nape to the tip of its tail towered above the settlement. It had a small tuft of orange hair, and forest green eyes in Roman's distinctive shade - eyes which fixed pointedly at the shocked Huntresses-in-training.
"This isn't fair! First the mech, now the ruddy great dinosaur, how come we don't get the nice toys?" whined Ruby.
"Well brats," Roman's voice boomed. "It's been not-so-nice knowing you, so sayonara!"
Taking long strides, the Roman-Zilla stomped its way towards the girls, batting aside or crushing buildings in its way. The girls hopped to ground level and dashed away, avoiding its direct line of sight. A torrent of acid-green fire streamed overhead, courtesy of the abomination.
"That's just broken," said Blake. "We need backup."
"A moment of your time, ladies?" Ozpin's cheerful voice sounded through their rings.
Their surprise at the transmission, a hitherto unknown function, was beaten aside by their pumping adrenaline. Turning a corner, they pressed against a wall for cover and scrutinized the rings. A three-dimensional image of Ozpin's head was being projected by each gem.
"Hello girls, how goes your mission?"
"There's a dirty great lizard vomiting fire at us, and it's several times the height of a Goliath. I believe this is slightly surreal and beyond our abilities," replied Weiss primly, as rest of the team quickly reloaded with Ice Dust rounds, which they seldom used.
Ozpin nodded knowingly. "I thought that might be the case. Reinforcements have been prepared for you. They were released from an orbiting platform and are approaching you as we speak."
Several seconds later, five massive meteors crashed down around the girls, and the ground shook violently. As the dust cleared, they saw that the projectiles were spherical force-fields with a honeycombed pattern. Each contained a hulking mechanical animal with coloured armour plates.
A wolf, red as a rose; a bear, white as snow; a large cat, black as pitch; a lizard in canary-yellow; and a significantly larger bison, in bright purple.
"These machines are called Zords. Point your rings at the Zord of your colour scheme and say, 'Beam me up.'"
Each girl found herself in a steampunk-looking cockpit with dizzying arrays of buttons, toggle switches, joysticks and cables. There were several monitors: some displayed video feeds of the Zord's surroundings and some had graphs or streams of text. Perhaps the most eye-catching control was the large, glowing red button labelled "SELF DESTRUCT - DO NOT PRESS".
"Headmaster?" Blake's voice sounded in her teammates' cockpits. It seemed that communication between Zords was possible. "How do you expect us to control these vehicles without prior training?"
"No need to worry," his disembodied voice said. "All the controls you see are part of the décor. They do not work, except for the self-destruct button. You control the Zord and screens by thinking about it."
"Talk about a cop out," Weiss muttered.
"Allow me to explain your new vehicles. Collectively, they are called the WIZORDS of Oz. Miss Rose, your Zord is the Dire Wolf. It is the fastest, and has very sharp, durable claws.
"Miss Schnee, you have the Polar Bear. It can blow out a gust of extreme cold, or freeze anything it touches, should you desire it.
"Miss Belladonna, you are riding the Shadow Panther. It can turn nearly invisible, and can generate a durable rope of energy to bind your enemies.
"Miss Xiao Long, you pilot the Chinese Salamander. As the equal and opposite of Miss Schnee's Polar Bear, it can produce a stream of fire, or set things alight at a touch."
Silence ensued as Team RWBY pondered how awesome this day was turning out (Ruby), how much the machines cost to manufacture and maintain (Weiss) and what in Monty's hallowed boxers the Headmaster had been smoking to dream up this project (Blake and Yang).
"So who's in the purple one?" asked Ruby.
There was a long, uncomfortable silence before Ozpin cleared his throat.
"That's the Big Bison."
"Come again?"
"That's the Big Bison. It runs around and smashes things. Initially, I had planned for Glynda to pilot it, which explains the colour scheme. She proved to be... violently reluctant."
"You do not put a lady in a cow, and furthermore call it Big!" The girls could hear the Deputy's tirade in the background, as she raged at Ozpin.
"Yeah, gotta agree with her, you dug that hole all by yourself, sir," sniggered Yang. "So who's driving the... Bison?"
There was a dog's barking - a very, very familiar barking.
"You put Zwei in a Zord?"
"He ran into my office after you all had left on your mission, and showed the most persuasive puppy eyes, Miss Belladonna. You underestimate his intelligence. In any case, he simply needs to command his Zord to run into things. Even Mister Winch- sorry, I mean Zwei can do it."
The girls quickly worked out how to move their Zords. Despite their size, the Zords were surprisingly agile. Made of sturdy materials, the Zords could withstand the Roman-Zilla's breath head-on with minimum of damage, but the cockpits would heat up something fierce, so the girls manoeuvred their cockpits away from the worst of the flames.
Their counterattack did not go as well as they had hoped. Large as the Zords were, they still did not match the Roman-Zilla's stature and could not physically dominate it. Weiss or Yang could use their elemental breath attacks to push back the Grimm dinosaur's flames for a few seconds before being overpowered, and their melee attacks did little - its skin did not stay on fire for long, and if a limb was encased in ice, it would break the ice by flexing its muscles. Ruby slashed at the dinosaur countless times but the wounds healed quickly. Blake tried to surround the titanic beast with rope or trip it up, but it merely ripped through the bonds. Zwei's head-butts caused the Roman-Zilla to stumble but not fall.
"Ruby, this isn't working. We are using up our Dust but that monstrosity doesn't seem to be tiring out at all. Any other ideas?"
Before Ruby could reply her partner, Ozpin spoke.
"Very well. You girls will just have to use that."
"That?"
"See the self-destruct button? Don't press it. Twist it clockwise, and push it when you are ready."
Still dodging the dinosaur's rushes and fiery breaths, the girls rotated their respective buttons. The glowing red disc started to flash green instead, and its text changed to a smiley face with the word 'GATTAI' in a speech bubble.
Ruby had watched enough cartoons to know what was coming.
"Alright girls, and Zwei!" she commanded. "Ready, on three, two, one, push!"
Immediately, a dramatic instrumental song resounded in all five cockpits. As the Zords lifted into the air, a wireframe simulation of all five vehicles appeared on their central monitors, showing their relative positions and the on-going transformations.
Zwei's Bison was in the centre. Ruby's Wolf and Yang's Salamander were to his sides. Weiss' Bear and Blake's Panther were together, at the base of the formation.
Sounds of venting gases and sliding hydraulics ensued as the Zords folded and twisted individually. Mechanical animal limbs packed themselves compactly. Wolf and Salamander became recognizable arms, and Bear and Panther hinged their necks upward to form legs and feet. Pylons and electromagnets at each major joint allowed the Zords to combine into a giant humanoid with satisfying 'clunks'.
The jaws of the Wolf and Salamander disengaged and slid up the forearms, revealing five-fingered robotic hands. A helmeted head, adorned with straight horns and CIWS guns in its cheeks, corkscrewed out of the Bison.
Transformation completed, the humanoid combination descended until it stood proudly on the ground. The girls found themselves teleported into a larger cockpit in the Bison, at the giant's chest level. Ruby was in the middle seat.
"This combined form, Team RWBY, is known as the MegaZord of Oz. The more in sync your thoughts are, the better it will perform, and you will be victorious. The individual special abilities of your Zords are an order of magnitude more powerful when performed by the MegaZord. Now, sally forth and show Roman Torchwick the power of teamwork!"
"Curses! Dang and blast that meddling old Ozpin," roared the Roman-Zilla. "Take this!"
The crystalline spikes on its back flared much more brightly than before and its eyes blazed demonically. Opening its jaws wide, the leviathan released its most destructive breath attack yet. A tidal wave of fiendish fire barrelled towards the MegaZord. Some of the flames even seemed to resemble ferocious animals and screaming ghouls.
"All power to front deflector shields," said Ruby confidently. Team RWBY focused as one on the command and the onslaught washed over the MegaZord harmlessly, not warming the cockpit in the slightest.
Verbal cues, followed by coordinated piloting - the team knew it was inefficient, but it had worked, and would be more than adequate to bring down this foe. There would be time for practice and improvements.
"Bind it," said Blake. Loops of energy appeared around the dinosaur and shrank, constricting the struggling beast.
"Freeze it there," said Weiss. A chilling gust flew forth and encased the entire dinosaur in solid ice.
"Pepper 'im with fireballs," called Yang. The projectiles rained down on the impromptu sculpture and exploded, shattering the ice and injuring the dinosaur with concussive force, burns and penetrating ice shards.
"No, this can't be happening!" the Roman-Zilla rasped.
Team RWBY (and Zwei) stared in awe at the proof of their successful attacks. Ruby looked at the panel in front of her and noticed several buttons. They had various icons - wings, a wheel, a pyramid, a...
"I think Ozpin left some surprises for us." She pressed one button and a massive sword materialized in the MegaZord's hand.
"Ooh..." "Woof!" the team exclaimed appreciatively.
"On three, then full speed ahead and a vertical slash, alright? Three, two, one, now!"
The MegaZord blurred forward and past the Roman-Zilla, stopping a fair distance away, on one knee and with its sword held out. Behind it, the dinosaur choked out its last words ("Just wait... I'll be back...") before falling open in two neat halves. The Grimm substance crumbled and vanished, finally leaving an unconscious Roman Torchwick on the ground, butt-naked.
Team RWBY was getting ready for bed. It had been a tiring mission, and although they had slept through the entire Bullhead trip back to Beacon, that just could not compare with a good shower and proper beds.
"You know," groused Ruby as she clambered onto her suspended bunk bed. "We just saved the world. Ozpin could've at least given us a day off tomorrow."
Her teammates laughed, and Zwei shimmied up to her bed to give her a goodnight lick before hopping back down to his rug to sleep.
END