"Guys, the closest Eggman base is in the Green Hill Zone", Tails told his human and robot companions.
"What is Green Hill Zone?"
Tails wanted to answer, but Omega beat him to it.
"IF MY FILES ARE CORRECT, ITS THE PLACE WHERE SONIC THE HEDGEHOG AND DOCTOR EGGMAN CAME INTO CONFLICT FOR THE FIRST TIME."
Tails nodded. "Exactly. I haven't been there in for a while, but I'm sure Eggman gave it special treatment to mark his triumph over Sonic. But it's not just signals from one of his bases that I'm receiving there, but from him himself."
Omega's eyes lit up. "EGGMAN IS THERE!" He immediately started marching while shouting, "LET'SEND THIS WAR RIGHT HERE AND NOW BY GOING TO EGGMAN AND TAKE HIM OUT PERMANENTLY. HE WILL REGRET SQUANDERING MY POTENTIAL AND SEEING ME JUST AS ANOTHER PAWN IN HIS GAMES. AND IT WOULD MAKE IT EASIER TO BRING RUBY HOME."
"What about the mask guy? As the saying goes, if you cut off the head of King Taijitsu, you only killed half of it."
Tails and Omega stared at the silver-eyed girl in confusion. Ruby realized an explanation was needed.
"Um, that's a saying from my world. King Taijitsi are Grimm in the shape of two-headed snakes. The body lives on as long as all Grimm's heads are present. What I'm saying is, even if we defeat Eggman, we don't know if the masked man remains a threat."
"You're right, Ruby. But it is most likely Eggman that made the entity the way he is now. He is usually the guy with the master plans, so taking care of Eggman would be a huge step in the right direction."
"THEN WHY ARE WE ARGUING ABOUT THIS? LET´S GO!" Omega started to march forward.
"Omega…", Tails began. "...that's the wrong direction you're going."
"LET´S GO TOWARDS THE DIRECTION TAILS SAYS IS THE RIGHT WAY!"
The fox mobian just pointed in the opposite direction Omega was heading. The E-Series robot just turned around and stomped past the organics. Tails and Ruby quickly followed after him, the latter slightly giggling about the impatience of the machine.
"Didn't think Team ROT´s first mission would go like that."
"What?", Tails asked with his head turned towards Ruby, while walking alongside her.
"Well, I guess second mission, if you count leaving the city as its own thing."
"No, I mean that team thing."
"Oh right! I haven't told you that yet. You remember how I said I'm part of an academy that trains people to fight Grimm. And how I did it with my friends."
Tails nodded.
"Each student is assigned to be part of a team of four. The name of the team is made up of the initials of the team members' names and is also a nod to a color. It's all part of a tradition on Remnant."
"Really? Interesting, we have something similar on Mobius, although I wouldn't really call it a tradition." Now it was Ruby who looked at her companion with an interested look. Tails scratched the back of his head, not quite sure how to explain it.
"It was honestly just a matter of pure coincidence. Several teams of three formed during one incident. Each of them gave themselves a name and run into the other teams during their missions. I was part of Team Sonic. And yes, we were called that because our leader was Sonic."
Ruby snorted. She opened her mouth to say that sounded a little self centered. But then she realized that her own team name was in a way an acronym for her name and decided not to say anything about that topic (even if it was Ozpin who came up with it and not her). Instead she continued with: "So uh… I decided to use our initials to form ROT because in a certain dialect from my home kingdom the word `rot´ is used for red. And, well, I got red, Omega got plenty of red as well and non mobian foxes on Remnant are also red."
"Non sentient fox exist here as well, they share with most mobians foxes the red coloration as well."
Tails sounded pretty nonchalant about it, which made Ruby mentally sight in relief. The socially awkward part of her had been afraid if she had been saying something that might be offending (thank you White Fang and faunus racists to make everything more difficult between different races). Not to dwell on THAT topic right now, Ruby picked on were she left.
"Another reason why I decided for the team name is because you can pronounce it like rotor. You know… which has to do with mechanic stuff. Something the three of us have all in common, more or less. So… what do you think?"
Tails thought about it. "Team ROT… red… rotor… I actually like the sound of it. At least it makes more sense than some of the team names we have here on Mobius."
"Speaking of, is Omega part of one?"
The combat robot, who up until now, had silently marched in front of Ruby and Tails and not given any indication that he was listening to their conversation, answered:
"THIS UNIT IS PART OF TEAM DARK. ONE OF THE MOST EFFICIENT AND STRONGEST TRIOS ON THIS WORLD. MADE UP OF ME, SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG, AND ROUGE THE BAT. UNTIL I AM ABLE TO REUNITE WITH THEM, NAME AND MEMBERS OF TEAM ROT ARE OF ACCEPTABLE CONDITION."
Ruby smiled. "Well I'm glad you like it, Omega."
The newly christened Team ROT wandered trough the landscape, its view not quite matching the lighthearted topic of their discussion.
It used to be full of plants and life. Now only barren ground with a few clumps of grass and tree stumps could be seen. Weapons and machine parts were lying around, broken beyond repair.
After a while, the monotony of the wasteland was interrupted by a city looming on the horizon to the northwest. The skyscrapers were ultramodern in appearance, but the symbol of the Eggman empire was plastered everywhere. Searchlights shone their searching light, robots patrolled the streets, ready to dispatch members of the Resistance. Ruby watched this place from a safe distance, but with a thoughtful and concerned expression.
"I wonder how people are doing there. From the looks of it and what you guys told me about Eggman, it can´t be nice living in a city under his rule."
"People who were freed from the Resistance often reported being forced to work in either factories or mines. After that, they are locked away in cell-like apartments. Until her next shift begins."
Ruby's hand went for Crescent Rose to her side and her expression took on a grim expression.
"Is there anything we can do for the people of this town?"
"WE ARE GOING TO HELP THEM BY TAKING OUT DOCTOR EGGMAN," was Omega's terse and direct reply.
"Ruby I can understand you, but the three of us are not enough to help this town. And Omega is right. If we catch Eggman in Green Hill Zone now, we could pretty much end this all."
Ruby watched the city for a while, then followed her two companions. Unfortunately, things would get even bleaker for the three of them, the city and wasteland not the most devastating they would see that day. Because the closer Team ROT got to their destination, the stuffier the air got.
A mixture of dark clouds and heavy smoke covered the sky, with gray ash particles falling down and souring trough the air, giving the organics trouble to breathe.
Ruby ripped some fabric from her cloack for her and Tails to wrap around their noses and mouths. Omega simply activate windshield wipers whenever ash got stuck on the lenses of his artificial eyes.
Eventually, they reached… Grey Hill Zone.
Smoke and ash flew through the air. The gray mass covered most of the once green and fertile soil. Now the earth was eroded and laced with oily substances. The rivers and lakes had either been drained completely or turned into a chemical broth with dead and disfigured fish floating on the surface. Ugly little metal buildings were drilled and rooted right into the ground, harvesting the earth from its resources and using it in producing combat robots. Most of the machines were Egg Ponds. But there were also specimens that were larger and had gas tanks attached to their backs. These Egg Burners shot smoldering fire from their arms, burning even more of the already devastated landscape.
Tails was shaking, not with fear this time, but with shock and anger. Ruby´s eyes were wide, the sight reminding her to much of Mount Glenn and what had happened with Beacon. Even Omega, who wasn't the most sensitive and emphatic person, was not indifferent to the sight. His sensors scanned the area.
"95.7% OF LIFE IS GONE. IF WE STOP EGGMAN AND WIN THE WAR, IT WILL TAKE SEVERAL DECADES UNDER THE MOST OPTICAL CIRCUMSTANCES FOR THE ENVIRONMENT TO RECOVER."
Ruby noticed Tails´ tense posture and knelt down beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Are you okay?" she asked the fox. He just shook his head and clenched his fists.
"Had I known how bad my planet was doing under Eggman's rule, I would have done something much sooner. But no, I cowered and moped." Tails´ eyes narrowed. "Eggman will pay for what he did to Mobius and Sonic!"
"I understand you, but you can´t let the hate get the better of you. We have to stay calm and composed."
Tails started to reply, but he was interrupted by an Egg Pond. The machine had appeared from behind a rock and was aiming at human and Mobian. Before it could release a shot, however, Omega stepped forward and grabbed the cannon arms. He crushed them effortlessly, ripping the rest of the combat robot's body to pieces. Unfortunately, the noise drew the attention of other machines and they attacked the trio.
Ruby caught a few shots but was unharmed thanks to her aura. She quickly ran past the robots with Petal Burst and cut them to pieces with her scythe. Omega rampaged through his fellow machines, killing one enemy after another. Tails flew up to see where all the robots were coming from. He saw that they were near one of the small robot manufacturing plants. He wanted to alert Omega, but buzz bombers, flying robots shaped like bees, swarmed him and began firing their lasers at the fox. Tails struggled to maneuver around the attacks. Ruby noticed that the Mobian was in trouble. She quickly ran to a quiet spot and carefully aimed her sniper rifle. One Buzzbomber after another fell to the ground as Ruby shot them down. Tails gave a grateful nod and drew the Huntress-in-training's attention to the production facility.
"We have to destroy this thing or we'll be flooded with endless enemies."
"Don't worry, I'll take care of it." Ruby flew through all the enemies as a red cloud and positioned herself in front of the metal building. She loaded Fire Dust rounds into her gun and waited. Her plan was to shoot into the factory once it reopen to let a robot out. Ruby got lucky. When a door opened, an Egg Burner appeared. Before it could even step out of the production facility, Ruby pulled the trigger and quickly disappeared in a cloud of rose petals. The small building exploded, scattering live shrapnel around the area. Tails found shelter behind a boulder, Ruby appeared beside him and Omega smashed everything that came his way with his powerful arms out of the air. Enemy robots were either slain or speared. The remainder, unharmed by the blast, were quickly destroyed by Team ROT.
"One manufacturing facility down. Only many more remain."
They ran across the ruined paths of Ash Hill Zone, killing more Eggman robots along the way. They only had to stop when five of the Egg Burners confronted them and set the path in front of them on fire. Omega scanned the fire briefly, then shouted triumphantly, "YOUR FLAMES DO NOT REACH THE NECESSARY TEMPERATURES TO HARM ME!"
He strode effortlessly through the fire and grabbed the nearest robot. Omega crushed the helpless machine's head and turned to the next. Ruby, not missing out on any of the fun, shot, trough the flames, a robot into its gas tank and blew it up. Another enemy, taking cues from Omega, marched through the fire and blasted more of its fire at Ruby and Tails. The two hastily backed away, coughing at the heavy smoke. The latter of the two typed something into his Miles-Electric and the Egg Burner stopped briefly. This gave Ruby enough time to transform Crescent Rose into a sniper rifle and shoot the Egg Burner down. Meanwhile, Omega had dealt with the enemy machines on his side and looked at his two teammates expectantly. Tails and Ruby flew over the fire with their respective abilities and marched on with their ally.
After overcoming several more firewalls and enemy robots, Team ROT came to a polluted river and followed its course. According to Tails, it would lead them to their goal. As they walked along the body of water, Ruby took a closer look at it. The water was cloudy and grey-green in color. Bubbles and an oily substance floated on the surface. When Ruby thought she saw movement in the water, she stopped and leaned in closer-
-only to then leap back as a mechanical piranha leapt out of the dead river and snapped at her. The human girl hurried to follow her companions, keeping as far away from the river as possible.
Ruby, Tails and Omega arrived at a cliff over which the river tumbled in a waterfall. Since the air was cleaner here, Ruby and Tails loosened the fabric from their faces. Beside the river was a building larger than the production facilities, with a metal water wheel to harvest energy from the movement of the polluted river. In front of the entrance to the building, a semi-circular apparatus hovered above the ground, the Egg Mobile, with a man sitting in it. He seemed to be in a heated conversation that he led with a communication device on his apparatus.
"I don't care what you say! Obey my orders or there will be consequences!", the man yelled angrily and thumped his fist just a few millimeters away from the communication device.
"EGGMAN," Tails and Omega growled at the same time.
Ruby frowned. "This is... Eggman?"
To be honest with all the destruction she had witnessed in this world, she had imagined a monstrous cyborg tyrant. But the man over there looked more like a cartoon villain, with the odd fashion style, bushy mustache and thick, egg-shaped build. Tough the last part probably explained the name.
Omega began to march towards Eggman, but Tails stepped in front of him.
"Wait, we can´t act rashly now."
"WHAT IS THERE TO THINK ABOUT?" Despite his loud voice, Omega managed to lower his volume in a way that he was shout-whispering to Tails. Tough the main reason Eggman probably didn't hear him was because he himself was pretty loud and deeply focused with whoever he had a heated discussion with.
"THAT OVER THERE IS THE MAN WHO HAS PLAGUED MOBIUS FOR YEARS AND ENDED MANY PEOPLES LIVES. PROBABLY EVEN SONICS." The last sentence caused Tails to bow his head and closed his eyes.
"No, you listen!," Eggman continued to yell. "Your assignment included burning Mystic Jungle to the ground! And with your powers there shouldn't be a problem dealing with some resistance members as well. Especially since Infinite already took care of Silver and Sonic!"
Hearing that, Tails widened his eyes, turned around at top speed and shouted: "SONIC IS WITH THE RESISTANCE?!"
Eggman tore himself abruptly away from the communications device and stared at the three figures standing just a few yards away.
"Tails? Omega! And…" The Doctor's eyes widened at the sight of Ruby. "…you?! How did you escape?"
"You know about me?" Ruby asked. Then the realization hit her. "My presence here was not a simple accident caused by one of your experiments. You ripped me out of my world on purpose!"
Eggman said nothing, just stared thoughtfully at Ruby while absentmindedly tugging at his mustache. Then a grin spread across his face.
"Well… you could say it was both intentional and accidental."
"Hello?" came an irritated voice from the comm device.
"Not now. I'm having a conversation with a Ruby Rose," Eggman said, turning off the device.
"Why… why did you bring me here? In my world there are people in danger, in need of help! Friends of mine, family! They…"
"Are under attack by the Grimm, yes I know," Eggman finished the sentence, not really caring about the concern the young girl had. Ruby took a step back.
"How... how do you know all this?"
Eggman's grin widened.
"I'm afraid it's not my place to spoil this surprise. But tell me girl, how did you escape from-"
"ENOUGH!" Omega shouted, stepping forward, one arm converted into a cannon and aimed at Eggman.
"DOCTOR EGGMAN, I´VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY FOR A LONG TIME! THIS IS THE DAY YOU WILL REGRET WASTING MY POTENTIAL AND WANTING TO MISUSE SHADOW FOUR YOUR PLANS! ARE THERE ANY LAST WORDS, DOCTOR?"
"Indeed there is one, my final product of the E-series." Without anybody noticing, the portly man pressed a button on his Egg Mobile. Immediately, Egg Burner, Egg Ponds and Buzzbomber stormed out of the base by the river. Mechanical piranhas crawled out of the waters, with spider legs extending from their bodies.
"ATTACK!" Doctor Eggman roared, and the enemy machines lunged at Omega. He immediately started firing at them. Ruby and Tails quickly became involved in the conflict themselves and had to keep the bloodthirsty robots at bay so neither of them had a chance to fly after Eggman as he disappeared into his base. Tails, trying to stay focused and not getting himself overwhelmed, used his dual tails to smack snapping piranhas away, and Ruby would drop Buzzbomber from the sky or hack at the nearest Egg Ponds and Burners. Omega did most of the work, firing and slashing at the metal crowd. But it was clear that the enemy machines were threatening to overwhelm the E-Series robot. Tails saw this and immediately came up with a plan.
"Ruby take your scythe in your right hand and grab one of Omega's hands with your left."
"Wha-"
"I have a plan, trust me."
"I'm not-" The projectiles of an Egg Pond narrowly missed her. Ruby retaliated with a shoot of her own, but the fallen robot was quickly replaced by several others.
"Okay. I trust you." Ruby fought her way through Omega and grabbed one of his metal claws, which wasn't currently in weapon mode. Without taking his eyes off his enemies, Omega said, "AN EMOTIONAL GESTURE FROM YOU MEATBAGS ISNT GOING TO GET OUR OPPONENTS OFF OUR BACKS!"
"Omega!" Tails shouted. "Rotate your torso!" The E-Series robot glanced at the fox mobian, then at Ruby, and understood. The human girl, on the other hand, did not.
"Wait, what exactly is the plaaaAAAHHHHH!"
Omega spun his torso at high speed, still holding Ruby, causing Crescent Rose's blade to slice mercilessly and quickly through the surrounding area. The Omega and Ruby duo became a mixer for the Eggman robots, which continued to march towards their deaths incessantly. Finally, the last enemy machine fell to the ground in fragments. Omega paused and set Ruby down.
She staggered disorientated and swirls in her eyes through the area. On her face was a drunken like smile that would have made her uncle proud. "That was fun, can we do that again?"
"Better not, otherwise you'll throw up," Tails said. The fox cub tried to help Ruby regain her bearings. Omega, meanwhile, was once again shouting his superiority out loud.
"BE IT AS A MEMBER OF TEAM DARK OR ROT, MOST INFERIOR MODELS ARE REDUCED INTO DUST! THE DOCTOR REALLY SCALED DOWN THE POWER AND INTELLIGENCE OF HIS CREATIONS DOWN IN THE EXCHANGE FOR BLIND LOYALITY!"
"Ohohoho! So you want to play against a strong opponent with a high IQ?" Eggman's voice boomed from his base's PA system. "Then I have just the thing for you!"
The roof of the building opened and a huge machine flew out of it. It was heavily armored and roughly resembled a cross between a humanoid and something dragon like. Instead of hands, it had a huge machine gun and a long drill. Doctor Eggman sat in the cockpit.
"I've wanted to test how the Egg Dragoon model holds up in a fight without the Dark Gaia energy for a long time. I am very grateful to you three for giving me the opportunity!"
So yeah, I decided to call it Team ROT. For the same reasons Ruby mentioned in chapter. For clarification: rot ist actually the german word for red. I decided to have it integrated into Remnants language as part of a dialect because RWBY often uses german words here and there (Geist, Zwei, Klein etc.). Special thanks to everyone who came up with name suggestions in the reviews, it all helped me to choose the name ROT. And without further to do, lets take a look at the reviews of the last chapter.
To Grand Chaos Master: So many ideas and suggestions. Don´t worry, each of the stuff will be at the very least adressed in this fic. And… yeah, definetly won´t do anything romantic with our red and blue speedsters. But I hope you will like their friendship.
To ranjira1988: Team Build was actually a solid pick for me, regarding the team name. But like mentioned above I ultimatly went with ROT.
To ArguableReader: Thanks for the suggestion, it does indeed look better that way. So I have to ask: I was planning on using italics for Infinites distorted voice, but would bold be a better pick for him?
And yes, if it weren´t for the war, and the fact that Ruby just escaped the catastrophy in Vale, she definetly would open up an Omega fan club.
To Yang34: Spoilers!… but the rest of Team RWBY will most likely not appear. The reason why is because none of them actually know where Ruby is. She is currently missing and people do search for her, but nobody knows that the little rose is stranded in an entirely diferent reality. And even if people did know, they couldn´t do anything about it since Remnant lacks technology or other means of dimensional travel. Only exception might be the scepter of creation, but good luck getting it out of Ironwood´s grasp.
To Guest: Hope you like my spin of Green Hill Zone and Ruby´s and Eggman´s reactions towards each other. As for the bit with the Sonic Heroes enemies… I actually didn´t really thing about it. I just mentioned Sonic Heroes because of the types Team ROT is made of. But implanting some of the enemy types from that game would be a pretty good idea.
To Nanairo the Keyblade Samurei: Thank you. Creating my own original Phantom Chaos boss fight was fun, even including my own interpretation of how the 1 form would work in a fight. As for Omega waking up earlier… oh he will definetly play a big role, but not neccesarly because of a butter fly effect. While I will follow the general direction from Sonic Forces, I will implement some huge changes to the story line and how certain things will go and work. And I hope you will like what I have planned.