I´m posting this chapter ealier than my usual 10:00 at Saturday, because tomorrow I will be at work around this time.
The Egg Dragoon aimed its cannon at the trio and fired wildly. Tails, Ruby, and Omega quickly diverged in different directions. Eggman considered who he should take care of first, and then aimed the cannon at Omega. This was the perfect opportunity to finally get rid of the rogue E-Series robot! And maybe he could make something interesting out of the remains.
Eggman fired. The massive machine gun rattled loudly and bullets flew through the air. Omega crossed his arms in front of his face and braced himself against the metal storm, but dents and cracks quickly showed in his armor. Eggman focused fire on the combat robot and aimed the drill at Ruby, who came running toward the flying Egg Dragoon. The drill was fired, re-produced, and then the process repeated several times. But Ruby didn't stop when she was faced with a swarm of the huge projectiles. With her Semblance, she jumped and landed directly on a drill, ran down the length of it and then jumped onto the next one. The Huntress-in-training jumped from one projectile to the next, getting ever closer to the Egg Dragoon. Eggman started to back away, but Ruby jumped off the last drill and, using her momentum in combination with Petal Burst, rammed her scythe into the Egg Dragoon's steel body with all her might. The huge machine tumbled in the air and Omega was finally put out of his predicament.
Ruby tried to detach her weapon from the Egg Dragoon, but realized that she had put too much force into her attack. Crescent Rose's blade was stuck in the massive machine. Ruby tightened her grip on the pole and then pressed her legs against the Egg Dragoon in the effort to pull her weapon out of it. Unfortunately, she wasn't Yang, so freeing her scythe was a slow and tiring process for Ruby.
Meanwhile Omega took revenge on Eggman by firing missiles with programmed targets. They hit the Egg Dragoon, causing small explosions all over it. Both Eggman and Ruby weren't thrilled about it.
"I should have scrapped your design the day Gamma went rouge!" The mad doctor yelled in frustration.
"OMEGA! Please don't fire MISSILES at the enemy when I'M CLINGING ON to said enemy!" Ruby exclaimed desperately, clutching Crescent Rose tightly.
Eggman's attention shifted to the silver eyed girl.
"And you! Get down you little brat, this is a delicate machine! I can't let some kid and her stupid toy damage it!"
Ruby gasped, offended. "I put more planning, effort and heart into Crescent Rose than you did into all of your machines combined!"
"Bah!" Eggman pressed a button. A compartment flipped open on the Egg Dragoon's body, and a mechanical, tentacle-like arm carrying a circular saw extended.
With some more pulling and leveling, Ruby was finally able to free Crescent Rose and fell off the Egg Dragoon with, the buzz saw just barely missing her head. As a cloud of roses, she dodged further slashes from the saw and landed safely on the ground. Omega looked at her.
"ASKING FOR PERMISSION TO FIRE WILDLY NOW."
"With all your might!"
The combat robot aimed his two cannon arms at the Egg Dragoon, but it disappeared below the cliffs edge. Several loud crunches sounded. Eggman and his huge machine ripped massive boulders out of the cliffs wall and hurled them at the trio. Omega just smashed falling rocks into pieces and Ruby dodged or cut trough smaller chunks coming towards her. Tails stayed behind the two. The fox had helped with the robotic army earlier, but he wasn't sure what to do with the Egg Dragoon. While he had been able to scan the Egg Dragoon several times with his Miles-Electric, it was of a more complex design than an average Badnik and therefore couldn't be hacked. At least not in a small time frame during a battle. And he did not have the strength to pierce the thick armor and cause serious physical damage.
Being done trowing rocks, Eggman changed his choice of projectiles and fired the Egg Dragoons canon, once again focusing on Omega.
His body had been badly damaged before, and the E-Series robot probably wouldn't be able to withstand being exposed to such a barrage of bullets again.
But while Omega and Ruby dodged and retaliated the enemy fire with some of their own, Tails had a thought. He quickly went through several of his scans. Perhaps…
The fox mobian picked up a shard of metal, left over from one of the destroyed robots. He flew towards the Egg Dragoon from the side. Eggman didn't even notice him at first, being too focused on his firefight Omega and Ruby. That's why the doctor jumped a little when Tails suddenly landed on his machine's cannon.
"Tails what the... get down!"
Eggman began shaking the cannon arm wildly. Tails clung desperately to the arm and slowly crawled toward a spot where the Egg Dragoon's right arm went straight into its cannon. Through his scans, Tails had been able to locate an important power line there, which he planned to cut. He reached the spot and tried to open the barely visible flap there with the metal shard and expose the line. The shaking stopped. Tails frowned. The sudden stillness made his job easier, so why did Eggman stop-
There was a shrill whirring sound as the tentacle with the buzz saw was extended and headed straight for Tails. At first the yellow fox wanted to fly away in a panic, but then his sharp mind took control and made him realize his opportunity. Tails waited until the last second, then rolled off the cannon.
Screeching, the saw ate through the metal and cut the power line. Eggman angrily yelled obscenities about how it couldn't be possible that he was tricked with his own design and by another mind. Tails began rotating his twin tails, flying toward his two companions… when the buzz saw tentacle rapped itself around him like a mechanical snake, the circular saw blade rotating just inches above his head. Grinning, Eggman turned to Ruby and Omega.
"The choice is yours: Surrender or say goodbye to your little friend here. Lay down your weapon, Miss Rose, and deactivate yourself, Omega. If not, I'm afraid Tails will have to experience what frogs fell like during biology classes."
Ruby just stared at Eggman. How could anyone even imagine doing something so cruel? But then she saw Pyrrah's death again, mercilessly shot through the heart with an arrow and her body reduced to ash. Ruby threatened to drown in that memory, but Omega's voice snapped her out of the past. The combat robot had come up behind her and said with a low volume voice so that Eggman didn't hear the words, "RUBY, WE ARE GOING TO PERFORM ANN ACT SIMILIAR TO BEFORE. BUT THIS TIME I WILL GRAB YOU AND THROW YOU UPWARDS: AS YOU FALL DOWN, YOU FREE TAILS WHILE I DISTRACT EGGMAN."
"I hope for the fox´s sake that you are discussing the terms of your surrendering, otherwise-" "NOW!"
Omega grabbed Ruby from behind and threw her up and she flew high into the air. Eggman watched her journey upward in confusion when Omega let out a high-pitched and painful beeping noise. Eggman and Tails jumped at the loud noise at the same time, the former pressing his hand on his ears. Ruby heard the noise as well, but just cringed slightly, and stayed focused. At the top of her flight, when she felt gravity pull her downwards, she hold the barrel of her sniper rifle behind her. The huntress-in-training pulled the trigger and the recoil of the shot sent the her flying downward. She flew past the puzzled Eggman and cut the buzz saw arm with Crescent Rose. Tails and Ruby fell through the air and were caught and gently set down by Omega, who had silenced the sound.
Eggman growled in anger and swung the Egg Dragoon's drill arm like a sword at the trio. Omega grabbed the drill and braced himself heavily to stop the weapon. Ruby lunged forward and hacked and smashed into the Egg Dragoon with Crescent Rose, leaving deep cuts and gouges in the machine. Eggman hastily flew his invention back and, after a moment of thought, disappeared back under the cliff edge. Again, boulders were thrown at the trio.
"Omega try to catch one of the chunks and then throw it back at Eggman when he reappears," Tails said.
"UNDERSTOOD", the robot simply replied. He shot the rocks that were too big for him to get a proper hold on and grabbed the last chunk. The Egg Dragoon rose over the cliff and Omega quickly rotated his torso before releasing the boulder. The massive rock hit the huge machine and Eggman was violently shaken in his cockpit. Multiple warning screens indicated that the Egg Dragoon had now gained a critical level of damage.
"Okay... now I've officially had enough of this."
Wildly, Eggman began firing drills.
As before, Ruby used this to get closer to the Egg Dragoon. But Eggman had learned and swung the drill like a sword again, knocking Ruby off as she lunged at him. She hit the ground hard and skidded several feet off the ground. Her aura flickered violently, then shattered.
The Egg Dragoon lunged at the now vulnerable Ruby, piercing its drill forward.
CLANK!
At the last second, Omega had stepped between the drill and the laying Ruby and caught the pointed piece of metal with his hands.
"Omega," Eggman said in a sneering tone of mock amazement. "You and selfless behavior to protect someone? Rouge and Shadow seem to have had a very big influence on you. But let's see how long you can stand against THIS!"
The drill began to spin. Sparks flew as metal rubbed against metal. Omega's arms trembled.
"RUBY..." The E-Series robots voice was barely heard under the screaming of metal. "GET OUT OF HERE!"
"Quick, activate the secret mechanism we built into Omega. Now is the right moment!" Tails exclaimed. Ruby nodded at him and got up hastily.
Omega asked confused, "WHAT?"
To which an equally confused Eggman added, "What mechanism?"
Ruby pressed a hidden button beneath Omega's shoulder plate. Inside the robot, the Chaos Emerald began pumping more energy into the Lightning Dust. Yellow electrical surges charged through Omega's entire body. The glow of his eyes intensified.
"THIS… THIS POWER...!"
The E-Series robot channeled the charges through his hands into the drill. Its steady rotation faltered, and then the systems on that arm shorted out. Panicked, Eggman yanked the Egg Dragoon loose from Omega and attempted to get the drill going again. But the E-Series robot was far from finished. Transforming his hands into cannons, he fired projectiles of pure electrical energy at the giant machine. Every single shot hit and the entire Egg Dragoon suffered short circuits, causing it to twitch and tremble in place. Omega ran and jumped onto the broken machine.
"What are you all jumping on my Egg Dragoon? It's not a jungle gym, but a-"
The rest of the words were caught in Eggman's throat as Omega pulled apart the cuts made by Crescent Rose, ripping out the Egg Dragoon's internal mechanisms. The machine's systems began to fail. Eggman released his Egg Mobile from the wrecked Egg Dragoon, which fell down the cliff. Omega jumped off the falling machine and flew with his jets toward Ruby and Tails. They received him with:
"Great work Omega!"
"That was awesome, you completely destroyed it!"
"...YOU TOW DID MORE TO ME THAN JUST SIMPLE REPAIRS." It wasn't a question, it was a statement. "YOU FIDDLED WITH MY DESIGN AND SYSTEMS."
The combat robot's red eyes bored into those of his companions. Ruby and Tails looked at each other. Than back to Omega.
"Erm...well...we thought it...would be useful..?" Tails stammered.
"And that you'd like it?", Ruby tried to help him out.
Mobian and human were shuffling nervously in their place as Omega continued to stare at the two for a while.
Finally he said, "YOU TWO ARE LUCKY THAT THE UPGRADE IS BEYOND A SATISFACTORY CONDITION. OTHERWISE I WOULD NOW USE IT ON YOU. NOW WHAT ABOUT EGGMAN?"
The three looked around, but the Doctor was only a dot in the sky.
"Great he escaped us", Ruby shiged, while Omega was sending some shots after the dot (and missing every single one).
"Well, we took a base from him, which was our main goal. So maybe we will find some answers there."
Unfortunately, it turned out that the base had no information about Eggman´s masked ally. In fact, hardly anything useful could be found. The doctor appeared to have deleted the files on the servers of this base while preparing the Egg Dragoon.
"Great, what are we going to do now?" Ruby asked with a dejected and tired tone in her voice. Ever since she woke up in the purple void she didn't really had a break. The huntress-in-training had been fighting, running and getting exposed to new stuff non-stop. Having her Aura now broken didn't help ease her exhaustion.
Fortunately, Tails took notice of it.
"I think we should rest. It had been a very eventful day. Your probably need some time for your Aura to recover." Ruby nodded. "And I myself could use some shut eye. But we should definitely travel to Mystic Jungle as soon as possible, Eggman had spoken that the Resistance is currently there and will be dealing with one of his forces. We will also need to repair Omega. Luckily there should be enough resources on this base for that."
"I AM NOT GOING TO LET YOU NEAR ME AFTER WHAT I JUST FOUND OUT."
"Come on, you need it."
"I AM FULLY FUNCTIONAL", Omega stubbornly refused.
Tails decided to come up with a different approach.
"But what if one of Eggman´s robots manage to get the upper hand by using one of your damages?"
"INFERIOR CONSUMER MODELS WILL NEVER GET THE UPPER HAND AGAINST ME!"
Ruby managed to strengthen Tails´ argument with: "We could also keep you active all the time, so you can always object if you don't like something."
"… THESE TERMS ARE ACCEPTABLE."
And here we go with my interpretation for the Forces Egg Dragoon. For everyone wondering why it didn´t use any of its elemental attacks, its because these are only possible with energy from Dark Gaia, as every element represents one of its bosses:
Electricity: Dark Gaia Guardian
Fire: Dark Gaia Phoenix
Ice: Dark Gaia Murray
I could of course had the Phantom Ruby give the Egg Dragoon its elemental abilities, either with its reality warping energy or by transporting Dust from Remnant, but I decided to go easy on our heroes. Tails and Ruby still got some issues because of the stuff they experienced and the latter is still a newbie in terms of battling the more powerful enemies of Mobius. And like Eggman said at the end of the last chapter: He wanted to see how the Egg Dragoon could hold itself without the additional abilities.
But I still hope the battle was entertaining and that everyone liked Omegas upgrade. He can now produce and control electricity. And he´s gonna get wild with these abilities.
But for now, lets answer some reviews.
To Guest: Ruby is replacing both the Avatar and Classic Sonic. She will later experience some of the levels from both of the two characters. The Avatar missions that happened before Classic and Tails joined the Resistance were handled by other Sonic characters like the Chaotix or Rouge. Because seriously, they can do stuff on their own and don't need some self insert.
To the second Guest: Glad that you liked the change. As for Cinder… uh… I don´t want to say anything for now.
To the third Guest: I can see where you´re coming from. But the scene you´re describing wont be happening. As for Omega being quite and stealthy, yeah he isn´t the best for that kind of stuff. The reason why it worked here and last chapter is because:
1) Omega can (at least here) lower his volume like someone does with a TV.
2)Eggman was very focused on his talk in the last chapter and zoned out from his environment. In this chapter he had trouble hearing Omega talk about his plan of rescuing Tails, because he sat inside a huge machine that was levitating over the ground.
As for the Phantom Ruby, it still originated from the Classic Timeline. But here it got heavily damaged during the final battle in the Egg Reverie Zone. Instead of sucking Classic Sonic inside a Null Space portal, it could only use its leftover energy to teleport away from him and his reality. Why and how Ruby got transported into Mobius, will be explored in future chapters.
And Ruby or her Team wont be staying on Mobius? Rubys entire goal is to find a way back home, its the premise of this fic. Perhaps you got confused with my comment to Yang 34. For clarification: I described why it wont be possible for people on Remnant to use multi dimensional travel. Mobius is an entirely different story. Even without the Phantom Ruby, reality manipulation is far from being difficult there.
To Monster King: Thank you.
To Frontiers9: I´m not quite sure if she will be able to unlock Aura and Semblance of other people. But Ruby definitely cant interact with the Chaos Emeralds. She already used the green ones power to escape Null Space. As for the rest of your questions:
1) and 5) I have a sequel in mind that will involve Sonic Frontiers and several characters from both franchises interacting with each other. But that will take a while.
2) Judging from the stuff the Brother Gods were able to do in the canon show, they are between moon level or multiple solar system level. Difficult to say, as they have a lot of potential but very little screen time to show it. At most they would be on a universal level, if you want to be generous. Which still isn't enough to beat Super Sonic, who has proven to be on a multiversal level and defeated beings beyond the Brothers comprehension.
3) No, I am not a fan of her design in Volume 4. Maybe I come up with a different design in the future.
4) Confused and weirded but not by a lot. It would be far from the strangest thing Ruby experiences on Mobius.
6) I imagine that most Faunus would pity Mobians, believing they are treated worse for being more animalistic. Only to get confused and maybe even envious upon realizing that Mobius humanity and Mobians have a pretty peaceful relationship with each other (excluding individuals like Eggman, Starline or Mimic).