Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Reynard Kessilik had a deep secret. He had been sent to the reaper…but the reaper had missed his mark.

At sixteen months old came what should have been a tragedy of the worst kind. A sudden leak in a gas line had caused an severe fire to break out in their house. The fire had gutted the entire building, and his elder brother Wally and their babysitter had been freaking out because they hadn’t been able to get to the baby’s room, the scorching blaze blocking off their access. His parents, Treylor and Minerva, had rushed back from their busy jobs at the hospital on hearing the call, in time to see firefighters working frantically to quench the blaze. It seemed hopeless that anyone inside could have survived.

Yet, somehow, Reyn had defied all reason. The baby was found in a blackened crib, clothes burned to ash but body completely unharmed. It was a miracle that everyone celebrated in the moment, but which raised too many questions in the aftermath. His survival should have been impossible…nothing else in there withstood the blaze.

It would be the first of many strange events involving fire and heat in Reyn’s life, and as he grew older, into the fiery-haired teen he was today, a growing number of them were volitional. Fire had started to hold a fascination for him, especially when he discovered that the lack of burning was not a one-off event - in fact, never had he touched a flame or hot object that had harmed him. Quite the contrary, it always seemed to feel good. At least, until someone found out about it and he was outed as a freak and weirdo, which had happened too many times in his life already. By the time they reached the city of Braun almost four years ago, it had been their fifth move, and almost invariably because Reyn’s life went to hell in school. Thankfully, the last move seemed to have stuck - Reyn was now old enough to know how to properly hide his peculiarity, even as he was old enough to start resenting people for treating him badly for it. He’d made a few friends there, ones he’d gotten close enough to and who had enough quirks of their own that he’d been able to trust them with most of his secrets. Not just the fire resistance, but the strange dreams he constantly had, with odd creatures that could become larger creatures, and one in particular whose eyes he seemed to see through every time.

But he hid the last one from them. The one he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell…that deep down, he wondered if he was meant to die that day, and the reaper was waiting to get his second chance. And he wondered if he would be so lucky the second time around…and if those who were close to him were at risk of being caught in between.

———

It had taken Iris Conover a long time to understand why her parents had told her to stay away from electrical outlets.

In fifth grade, they had watched a show on the dangers of electricity and what it could do to someone. It had stunned her to see that, because her own experience had been very different - a shock from an outlet did nothing to her, except give her a nice pleasant fuzzy feeling. Realizing that this was NOT the same way others experienced it was a big turning point for her - somehow, she was different from everyone else. Since then, she had been much more cautious about not letting on how different she was, trying to present as normal. Thankfully, it wasn’t too hard - how often did one just chance upon opportunities to shock themselves?

Not that she didn’t seek them out on her own time. Or at least, go to places where it was a risk, even if she didn’t put herself directly in danger. She loved observing power lines, and asking questions to the workers who were trying to work on them, particularly ones that went down in storms or such. They always seemed so nervous…she felt she would be perfect for that kind of work, she wasn’t nervous at all. She didn’t fear lightning, either, though she didn’t particularly like the rain - she liked it more when she could observe lightning before the rain came, stand outside and watch the flashing in the sky, the bolts zipping through the clouds or towards the ground. She’d never been hit, but she almost wished she would be.

Oh, to be a bird flying through one of those clouds as it surged with such resplendent power…in fact, she’d dreamed that very thing quite a lot. Of course, those dreams had a lot of other weird things in them, too…and from what she’d been hearing, they might not have been hers alone…

———

The deadly force of nature known as the tornado. It was a powerful, dramatic event when one came to be, and terrifying for most. Not for Skylar Jascalt, though. He wished he could be in the middle of one, experiencing the furious power of nature for himself. The closest he’d gotten was a wind tunnel when he was eight, just a little detour on a family excursion that had given him a dose of potent wind, though far less than what nature could have produced. He remembered clicking off the restraints and stepping deeper in, letting the wind pour over him without so much as throwing him off-balance. He’d been admonished by his father, though his mother later said that it had been pretty impressive seeing a young, slight child like him holding his ground.

He’d almost gotten his wish just a couple years ago. They lived in a more rural area, his somewhat large family enjoying the space and relative peace…and then came the storm. It produced a number of massive tornadoes, including one that had demolished their house. Skylar hadn’t been able to be there to sate his curiosity, his parents having evacuated them in a rush as the storm started to bear down. But seeing the aftermath had been wild…and had left him feeling almost robbed, though he kept that quiet, knowing that no one else felt the same way.

It wasn’t going to happen again any time soon, most likely - they’d moved to Braun, away from Tornado Alley, where storms like that just didn’t really happen. A disappointment, but Skylar vowed he’d get there someday, he’d be a stormchaser and track them down himself. Until then, he kept himself occupied with the rest of the sky. The whole atmosphere fascinated him, and he had books upon books upon entire bookshelves all filled with stuff on weather events and atmospheric knowledge. Some said it was an obsession, and Skylar wasn’t sure they were that wrong, but what was wrong with being obsessed about something that one could use later in life? It just meant he had his career path all planned out.

For now, though, at least he had his dreams. In those he was definitely flying through the air…though not just on wind. Often it was on wings. And the wild skies weren’t the only hectic thing going on in those dreams…

———

Some people thought their kids had messy rooms. They might not have thought it was that bad if they could compare it to the room of Isaac Wherrels.

Junk and debris was scattered everywhere. Lots of little metal shavings and pieces were scattered about, presenting a hazard for anyone who stepped on them - seemingly save for Isaac himself. Lots and lots of different tools of various shapes and sizes. Wires, hoses, tubes, and all sorts of other things. And all of it towards one purpose: robots.

Nothing fascinated Isaac like robots. Any kind, really - real robots that were mostly machine, fantasy robots which were basically their own people, the sometimes crude remote-controlled robots that were entered into battle competitions, and everything in between. And he had built a few of his own robots in his young life, having both the impressive brains to pick up on everything needed to do so and the brawn to carry all the materials he needed to make them back to his room. It certainly wasn’t light work, but he wasn’t a lightweight guy.

There was a lot he could do with this in the future, so he received plenty of encouragement from his parents at this endeavor. But right now Isaac wasn’t thinking about that sort of thing, he was thinking about his dream. A dream that he wanted to literally make come true…the robot that invaded his mind so often at night, alive in a way that seemed no different from any person he’d ever met. He’d been obsessively capturing details about it through all its trials, and making notes about them. By now, he had just about a full schematic…and as soon as he knew how, he was going to build that robot. And hopefully with all the mind that it possessed in those dreams, surely that would be his perfect companion…

———

It was his time. That was what Derek Katran would say as he walked the streets at night, in the comfort of the darkness. Not everyone would understand it…they didn’t have to.

Of course, it would have been nice if his parents did. They weren’t exactly approving of his nighttime excursions. Or his habit of sleeping in the afternoons, rather than at the ‘appropriate’ time. But Derek didn’t sleep well at night - it felt like that darkness was calling to him, demanding his presence. They had given up trying to keep him from going out, since he’d sneak out while they were asleep anyway, but he could tell they were never at ease with it.

He didn’t really know why. Some people said it was dangerous…but Derek had never felt in danger. In fact danger seemed to fear HIM. He’d encountered shady characters who took one look at him and veered away, even if Derek wasn’t confronting him. And he didn’t think he looked like much of a threat - not exactly small, but tall and gangly usually wasn’t that intimidating. But something about him seemed to be unnerving to them…like they knew that he was in his element. And so he walked without fear.

Most of his peers didn’t understand him much, either. He sometimes got remarks about being a werewolf or something. All absurd, of course…although, Derek couldn’t deny there were times that he felt a bit wolfish. Usually during those dreams, when he even felt like he was walking on four legs, in a canine body. It wasn’t him, but there was a feeling that was hard to place about it, it felt very natural, very right…but those weren’t things he shared with anyone else, so he just laughed off the werewolf comments. Even if the dreams made him sometimes wonder…

———

Five unique individuals. All from different walks of life. All from different backgrounds. All finding themselves in the same general place at the same time. All somehow having one important thing in common: the bizarre dreams that seemed to take a life of their own. Creatures that they all somehow knew about, even those that hadn’t met until very recently in their lives. A blazing reptile emitting torrents of devastating fire at will. A screeching thunderbird raining bolts of raw power onto the ground below. A powerful dragon commanding the very wind itself to lay waste to its foes. A stalwart machine packed to the brim with fantastic weapons that mowed down all in its way. A fearsome wolf that could draw the very darkness itself to lash out and silence its opposition.

They were all aware of this, but there was no explanation for it, so they didn’t make a big deal out of it, only keeping it as a shared curiosity. Perhaps they would have, if they had known that it was the prelude to their lives changing forever, thrusting them into the thick of a monumental conflict the likes of which were beyond the possibilities of their imagination…

———

In a place far distant from any of them…far enough to be another world entirely…

The echoes of metal on stone was almost depressing…something which reflected the mood of their maker. It was the only sound within earshot, something which wasn’t usual for their central barracks building. Usually there were quite a few digimon around, chattering amongst each other with determination, eagerness, optimism…but few had left their rooms on this day, leaving nothing but a dismal silence.

A catastrophic loss will do that to you.

The knightly figure pushed open the door in front of him, revealing a similar one behind. The supreme commander of the organization Knights Of Liberty, Dynasmon, standing and looking out the window; his mood could only have been equally dismal. “Gallantmon…much as I would wish not to hear it, please, give me the harsh news.”

Gallantmon sighed. It was on him to do this…he was one of Dynasmon’s lieutenants, very actively involved in a lot of the business af the top of the KOL. Moments like this made him regret the position. “It could not be worse, sir. The entire Elite Force is…gone, more or less. 25% casualty rate, most of the rest captured. Crusadermon was badly wounded, barely survived…she’s been taken to Pomezly in hopes that she can be saved and brought back to fighting form. I have no idea what happened to the Zetta Unit, they were engaging these new generals of Emperius one moment and the next they just…disappeared. I don’t think they were killed, there was no signal of their data in the air nor any signature where they were, but I fear the worst.”

Dynasmon pounded a fist against the wall. “Damnation…how? How could this have happened? It was only last year that we took out Craniummon, I thought that they were in disarray…but they’ve come back harder than ever. And to take down our Elite Force like that…I thought we were prepared!”

“The numbers out there…they were unlike anything we were prepared for. I don’t know what Emperius has been doing, but they sucked in more mons than I could count. I don’t know where they all came from, we’ve been reaching out to everyone we can think of and I thought most of them were on our side…” Gallantmon shook his head. “Did they bring them in from somewhere else? We still haven’t found their new base, maybe they established one in Southern Tetraquaz and have been recruiting the combatants down there…”

“I wish I had the answer to that. Right now, I have nothing…it’s not a good feeling. How can I bring confidence to those who remain when I don’t have it myself? We’ve too many personnel who are too green, they aren’t ready for the strongest Emperius has to offer…certainly not if our Elite Force couldn’t handle it. We need more help…Gallantmon, we’re going to have to make major entreaties, we need to try to connect to other groups. We’re not in good enough shape to do it alone anymore.”

“That could be tough, sir.”

“It will be. With less to offer them, I have no doubt they’ll be resistant. But we have to try.”

“I guess…I’m still trying to process it all. I wish I could wake up and find out this was just a bad dream.”

“Don’t we all.” Both knights whirled around at the sudden voice. Coming towards them down the hall was a cadre of five small digimon, all of which wore deathly dark expressions.

“Zetta Unit!” Gallantmon’s voice had its first bit of positivity in ages. “You survived! Thank the ancients, as bad as it’s been, you’re survival alone gives us a chance!”

“I’d hold off on joy at this reunion if I were you.” The first one, a red-scaled reptilian creature, did not look nearly as upbeat. “We might’ve survived, but it’s not gonna amount to much.”

“What? How can that be?” asked Dynasmon. “You’re some of our strongest and most capable warriors…”

“I wish that was still the case,” said a yellow-feathered avian creature with a deep sigh. “You ever seen anything like this before?” She held up her wing, showing a white mark clearly visible on it. The others also showed their own, each one of them marked with a different symbol somewhere on a forelimb.

“Those marks…they look like…” Gallantmon wracked his brain. “I’ve seen those on Sealing Stones. But I’ve never seen one ON a digimon before.”

“Such an occurrence apparently is an insurmountable calamity.” The speaker was a slightly larger canid digimon with a shape reminiscent of a German Shepherd, but much darker in color, with eyes and fur giving off an impression of a starry sky. “The occurrence of these disabling indices was peri-incident to out most proximal melee. Our conflagration with the new generals of Emperius was waylaid by this most insidious technique.”

“It was awful!” declared a blue-scaled draconic creature with a devastated tone that was even worse in his young-sounding voice. “It felt like my body was disabsolvaluated! And then suddenly I was totally overwhambirated!”

“I see getting to the point is never easy when I’m not speaking,” rounded off the last, a mechanical carnosaurian digimon, as he folded his arms and growled. “To cut to the chase…it’s not an ability seal. It’s an EVOLUTION seal. It knocked us down to Rookie in an instant, and these marks appeared when we tried to retake our forms. I’ve never even heard of this sort of thing, and it’s not in any of the data banks I could access, much less any way to deal with it. To put it simply: we’re fucked.”

“Double damnation…” Dynasmon rubbed his head, feeling the quick plunge from a tiny bit of hope to deeper depths of despair. “I thought we might have some little bit of chance with your help, but in this state…we don’t know when or even if you’ll be back to fighting shape any time soon, and there’s no doubt Emperius would want to make sure we can’t find a solution easily. Or take you out if we get close. There’s no help for it…I hate to do this to people who have meant so much to us, but we can’t put you in unnecessary danger-”

“Save the walking papers,” snapped the lizard. “Like hell I’m going to let them make me useless. Not when it matters this much. There’s still something we can do.”

“I…don’t mean to underestimate Zetta Unit,” said Gallantmon slowly. “But what can you do? At least 80% of their forces are Champion or higher, and you’re…not ideally equipped to handle them.”

“Right. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do ANYTHING. Just maybe not here.”

“What?!” Dynasmon fairly shouted. “You can’t be suggesting-! I couldn’t possibly allow that!”

“What other options are there?” the robotic one countered. “We know Emperius has been gunning for the organic plane! And we know that they’re not far away from being able to realize that dream! You heard that absurd Declaration of Purification, they wouldn’t be making that if they didn’t think they could make it a reality! They have to be warned…why not send a bunch of crippled Rookies that are ultimately expendable?”

“Now see here-”

“Dynasmon, please,” sighed the electric bird. “I know you don’t want to think of us that way, but truth is truth. If we can’t evolve, we’ve lost most of what makes us useful in battle. This is basically our only chance to be really useful at this point. And if we’re being real, the five of us are probably the best suited for something like this anyway, for reasons you’re already aware.”

“You…those dreams…you don’t know that they reflect the true state of that world, even if you have been dreaming up humans.”

“And we haven’t had any chance to parlay with them,” added Gallantmon. “They have no idea what we are…they’re much more likely to react with hostility than anything else.”

“Then it’s a good thing that you’ve got five of us with some kind of means of hiding our presence, at least a little bit,” hissed the lizard. “There’s gotta be SOMEONE over there who’ll listen to us. And we don’t know what they can do against our kind, but surely any sort of warning is better than being ambushed!”

“I cannot express anything insufficient of complete concurrence with this endeavor,” chimed in the canine. “Our opportunities to obstruct Emperius are dwindling with distressing celerity. The organics’ blissful ignorance is imminently to be shattered irregardless of our intervention.”

“What he said, whatever that was!” the dragon yapped fiercely. “I still want to be useful! I don’t want to let anything bad happen to them if I can help it!”

Neither of the knights seemed eager to allow it…but there were few arguments to be made beyond ‘because I said so,’ and they knew that their fiercest stalwarts weren’t going to let that deter them, disabled or not. “…Very well. I suppose you’d find your way to make that happen even if we said no…” Dynasmon let out a sigh. “Still…I can’t help but feel like I’m sending you on a suicide mission. We haven’t figured out how to make it so you can come back, nor any means of communicating between the planes…you’ll be completely on your own, with perhaps no hope of returning for good.”

“Whatever happens, happens,” the red lizard said boldly. “But at least we’ll be in charge of our own destiny. And I trust the Kaiser…I know he’s trying to find a way to make his introduction over there. At the very least, he’ll make it happen at some point, and I’ll be there ready to meet him when he does.”

“No one can fault your determination,” acceded Gallantmon resignedly. “Commander…I’ll bring them over to the PTM. We’ll discuss how to proceed here after that, but at least there’s one thing we can do to try to pull something out of this mess.”

“All right. Zetta Unit…may all the fortune of the ancients be with you. And I hope that you survive long enough to see it pay off.”

———

The group soon found themselves in a small, dark, isolated room in the R&D building on the KOL compound. It was hard to look at the five small digimon and say they were prepared, but they didn’t bother saying goodbyes or gathering anything up - most people didn’t know their fates anyway, and there was no bringing anything but themselves on this ride.

Gallantmon switched on the light, revealing the machine. It was not a thing of visual beauty - nothing more than a slightly raised pedestal in between a quartet of strange pillars, with a control console standing on the left side. The Planar Transfer Module…it’s functional, but only at its most basic. It doesn’t have much of any of the things we wanted it to before we actually used it…a return mechanism, a targeting mechanism, a means of connecting with those who crossed…we’ve come a long way since it started, but now all that development might stop. Granted, part of the reason development had been spotty was because of the risk if Emperius got their hands on it, or even on the plans for it. But perhaps they should have tried, if something like this was going to happen…

Knowledge of the organic world in parallel to theirs was only at its most rudimentary. It was known that the organic world existed, and that it was populated by sentient creatures called humans…beyond that, information was extremely limited. The Kaiser of Tetraquaz had a very strong interest in establishing connection with that world, though, and had been working on getting more information and the means to get there…at least, until the war in the south half of the continent had forced him to divert resources towards that purpose and hold off on interworld diplomacy. The KOL had been working on their own version, in the hopes that they could use it in an emergency…there was a reason Emperius had designs on that world, and it was one they could make use of in the most dire of straits as well. But theirs was not to be a mission of invasion, but one of hopeful cooperation…they were trying to establish a means of communication before they actually did any transfers, something that had been stymying them. Now, it seemed, they were out of time to take that ideal option.

It was clear as the five stepped on the pedestal that they were not to be dissuaded…but also not entirely at ease. And small wonder, to Gallantmon, considering they were headed into a great unknown, with no support and no guarantees of survival or return. Even for their hardiest warriors, that had to be daunting, especially with their power arrested the way it was. But perhaps that would work to their advantage…they had to be less threatening in those forms, and would probably have an easier time of stealth than most of their options. All things that would have to help them achieve something over there…but there were no guarantees, and Gallantmon knew that it was entirely possible that they might not even survive the transfer. Too many unknowns…he could only hope for the best.

“I’m powering things up now. If you’re going to change your minds, it’s now or never.”

“No way.” “We’re in this.” “Not a chance!” “No turning back.” “Never.”

“I thought as much.” A few more button presses, and the machine was whirring to life. “Zetta Unit…I don’t know what I can say that hasn’t been said already. You were part of what made the Knights Of Liberty what it has been…I only pray that your positive influence carries over to this new world. If we never see each other again…know that it has been an honor to fight alongside you.”

“…The same to you, Gallantmon.” The light was growing, the transfer was about to start. “We won’t fail. I promise.”

And then there was a bright flash, lingering for several seconds…and then it died away, and Gallantmon uncovered his eyes to see emptiness where the five had once stood. He slumped back against the wall, trying to will himself to feel anything positive about this…it all seemed to hopeless, this was a moon shot of the worst kind, and the odds that he had sent them to a messy end seemed all too overbearing.

But if anyone can do it…it’s Zetta Unit. Their spirits burn as bright as any I’ve seen…and sometimes it seems like they have guardians watching over them. I sure hope that those guardians know how to find them now…

———

11:32 PM in Braun, on Friday, April 4th. Skylar had made sure to make a note about it after the fact…before that, it had just been a moment that wasn’t expected to be important.

Perhaps it wasn’t unusual that he had been the first to notice something was off. It was by coincidence that it had happened - he wasn’t trying to detect anything, just taking an atmospheric report. There had been a storm the previous day, and he was trying to identify any pattern he could use to better predict the timing and severity of storms that might come later. In hopes that maybe one of them would be more interesting than the norm…

Dammit. How many more years until I can go after tornadoes again? Three more until graduation, gotta get my driver’s license, gotta get my own car, stormchaser equipment…ugh. Well, at least I’m learning things in the interim.

He set himself at the window, adjusting some of his equipment. Not complicated stuff, temperature and pressure sensors, humidity sensors, all to supplement his own intuition. It was useful stuff he’d gotten for his last birthday from Reyn…though, he was pretty sure it was made by Isaac. Something that did not sit too well with him, he did not like Isaac, especially after the incident about a year and a half ago, but a gift was a gift, and while he didn’t like Isaac, he had to respect that he was a whiz with machines. This sort of thing seemed outside his usual, he was more of a robot type of person, but he was also generally good with machines…better than Skylar was, for sure.

It was as he was making the adjustment that he looked out and noticed it. There was something unusual in the sky…even though it was dark out, he could see it in the wavering of the stars. Curious, he moved the equipment and leaned just a bit out the window to get a closer look. …What in the world? I’ve never seen anything like that before. It’s like a patch of the sky is just…warping or something. Could it be a wind phenomenon? But…it doesn’t feel like it to me, I usually can feel that kind of stuff…

He tried wiping his glasses just in case that was what was causing it, but it was still there when he put them back on. In fact, the wavering started to get a little sharper, enough that it was distorting the starlight pretty severely. And then, without warning, a gigantic light flash erupted in the sky, making Skylar yelp and throw himself back into his room. The whole room lit up like daylight for several seconds, with a loud low hum and rumble accompanying it…and then, just as suddenly as it had started, it ended. Shakily, Skylar picked himself up and ran to the window again, but the phenomenon seemed to have disappeared. He couldn’t tell if anything was different in the sky from normal, but at least at the moment he could confirm the main event seemed to have ended…

There was only one thing for it…he hurried to his computer and started to document everything he had seen, exactly when and where it had happened, and any details he could remember about other atmospheric conditions. And then it was off to the internet to do research and see what else other people might have seen. He didn’t know what had happened, and that was something that Skylar couldn’t stand - if it was in the sky, he was determined that he should understand it.

———

Derek didn’t know what time it was, but he was out in the dark anyway, so it was only natural he would see it as well.

He was walking through Errest Park, a place he liked to spend time in thanks to its lack of artificial light. It let him enjoy the darkness properly, unlike the well-lit streets through most of the city. Of course, he had to go through those most nights, so it wasn’t like he could totally get away from such things, but there were points which were more relatively untouched. Not like out in the wilderness, though - the city always had some light pollution that allayed the darkness just a little bit, while out in nowhere, you could see the night sky for what it really was.

Still, at 15 and unlikely to convince his parents to let him get driving tests any time soon, he made do.

He was actually laying back and enjoying a view of the sky when something twigged his peripheral vision. He leaned up and looked forward a bit, his eyes spotting it probably better than anyone else’s could. At first he thought it was something going on in the stars, but a more focused look dismissed that - it was something much closer in the sky, though he couldn’t figure out what. In all his night walks, he’d never seen anything remotely like this before.

Something…is not right. It’s like…space itself is twisting out there. But that makes no sense, space doesn’t do that.

The hairs on the back of his neck started to raise suddenly…Derek didn’t know what it was, but it served as an appropriate warning to him. He averted his gaze just in time to avoid being blinded by the brilliant flash. He could have sworn a breeze was kicked up that he could feel flowing over him, not fiercely strong but decidedly unnatural. And then…nothing. Derek dared to look, but the sky was back to normal. No anomaly, no light, nothing but the innocent stars twinkling overhead.

He knew better than to trust it. SOMETHING had happened…but he didn’t know what. And despite his usual lack of fear at his night wanderings, he decided maybe it was not a good idea to try to find out.

———

Reyn wasn’t usually out and about at this hour. But the midnight release of a movie he’d been hyped to see was something that could get him out there. Thankfully, it was a Friday, so he didn’t need to rise early for school, though he did have to cut a deal with his parents. Not a problem…except for one little thing.

“It’s gonna be a great movie, babe, you’ll love it.” And that one little thing was Wallace. Eight years older than he was, with much shorter brown hair, and a frame that was the well-built kind of stocky and tall that you would see in a sports star (which he had been, but currently was definitely not), and not exactly Reyn’s favorite person in the world. And the feeling was mutual…Wallace and he had always had a tense relationship, not least in part because of how often they’d moved around and how often that was because of Reyn. It wasn’t outright hate, but they weren’t very buddy-buddy. Unfortunately for Reyn, they did have some overlap in movie taste, and Wallace had come to the same showing…which would have been fine, except he decided, in all his brilliance, to bring his new girlfriend. For him it turned the whole thing into a date, and that was the last thing Reyn wanted a part of.

“Uh, yeah…I guess.” And of course, said girlfriend (Ileene, Reyn thought her name was - Wallace went through them like tissue paper, usually not of his own volition, so he sometimes mixed up the names) had no interest in the movie. Why she had even agreed was beyond Reyn, but he really wished she hadn’t, because now Wallace was going to be spending much more time trying to put the moves on her, and most likely being a general distraction. He was trying to look anywhere else but at the two of them, killing time as they waited in line for the ticket booth to get to them.

It was because of that that he noticed some people pointing and whispering. His eyes followed where they went, and that was when he saw the fuzziness in the night sky. It wasn’t super clear because of all the lights nearby, but clear enough that it wasn’t mistaken for something normal. It definitely had his attention, he’d hung around Skylar enough to have heard a lot about different things that could happen in the sky, but this didn’t match any of them.

“Oh wow…what’s that?” Ileene had picked up on it too. “Renny, you ever seen anything like that?”

“PLEASE don’t call me Renny,” groaned Reyn.

“It’s nothing, babe, don’t worry about it.” Wallace tried tor bring her attention back to him, unsuccessfully. “Probably just some wind or something.”

“I really don’t think-AH!” The flash came to them without warning, making them have to quickly look away. They were far enough that they didn’t feel anything from it, only experienced the brightness and the low rumble. And soon enough, those too were gone, leaving nothing that anyone else could see…but there was a lot of talk about it in the line, now, clearly having taken over the chatter about the movie.

“Jeez…that was scary…”

“Don’t worry, hun, I’ll hold you…” Wallace put his arms around Ileene, though she didn’t seem to be reciprocating. Reyn turned away again, shaking his head a little…this seemed like another doomed relationship to him, but he wasn’t going to say anything about it. He was just going to try to enjoy his movie…but whatever had been in the sky was going to be on his mind. At least he had someone to talk to about it later…

———

“Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit!” Isaac was cursing up a storm. Something extremely unusual and he’d missed it!

Well, not entirely, he’d noticed the bright flash - how could he not, when it lit up his room like the sun had exploded? But by the time he’d been able to get to the window, the light had disappeared, as had the sound. And even when he did get there, his window was pretty well shaded by trees, so he wouldn’t have had a good view anyway.

“Of all the times…wait! The camera!” He hurried to his computer, typing furiously. He’d put a camera on the roof last year, so he could test out some drone flight stuff without having to be leaning out the window all the time. It was pointed more upwards, so he hoped that it could have caught what he had missed. The feed kept continuous video, which was only overwritten every so often, certainly it wouldn’t have been so soon after…

But Isaac’s face fell when he finally accessed it. The image was not good…he could see something fuzzy out there, but it was too far away to make out any details. And then there was the blinding flash of light, but he already knew that had happened, and it revealed nothing further than what he already could have suspected. He let out an annoyed sigh…it seemed like the camera hadn’t helped much.

Just as he was about to close out, though, he noticed something…though he wasn’t sure what it was. Looking hard at some still frames, he thought he could see something falling into the trees. The resolution was far from good enough to make out any features, but he was sure there was something there.

Could it have been some kind of botched missile test? There’s been a few instances of that causing some weird sky phenomena before…maybe Iris’s or Derek’s parents would know something about it. Hm, and Derek would probably have been out there, maybe he saw more. I’ll have to get in touch with him, maybe he was lucky enough to see the debris.

He shook his head, taking some notes to help with the inquiry. It took a lot to get his mind off of robots, especially at this time of night, but perhaps he’d found the thing that did it.

———

Iris had also missed the event, but that was because she had been asleep. She hadn’t felt well that evening, and had turned in early to try to sleep it off. She didn’t see what had happened…but had perhaps seen far more than she realized.

It was another one of THOSE dreams. They had been somewhat disturbing lately…she had woken up feeling a sense of distress. Something unfortunate had been happening to the bird in her dreams, she wasn’t all entirely sure what it was but she had the sense that it was in trouble. The last few days had had them frantically trying to avoid danger, but tonight’s was more benign…her and the other dream creatures inside buildings, doing something that she couldn’t quite figure out. She recognized the others, ones that she’d seen many times before…ones that seemed oddly consistent with the ones the others dreamed about.

It was all very strange to her, but dreams were weird.

There had been a bright flash at the end, though…something that had jarred her awake. She’d sat up quickly, feeling sweaty, heart racing. She didn’t know what had happened, but it certainly hadn’t been pleasant…before she could settle down, though, her room lit up brightly, making her cry out. She ducked down under the covers, trying to get refuge from the brightness…thankfully it didn’t last long, and things got dark again. Shaking, she rose up again, and got out of bed and went to the window. She couldn’t see anything out there, but that didn’t really reassure her.

“Iris?” The door opened, and her mother Heather looked in. “Are you all right?”

“I’m, uh, fine…I was just startled. What WAS that?”

“I have no clue! It was like the entire sky lit up! Your father’s making a bunch of phone calls, I think he’s trying to see if anyone at the office knows what it was.” True to that, Iris could hear some of her father’s voice, indistinct but undoubtedly agitated. “Do you want to come downstairs?”

“No…no, thanks, I should try to get back to sleep…”

“All right, well, let us know if you change your mind. Sweet dreams, Iris.” The door shut again, and Iris went back to her bed, trying to settle herself down. Deep breaths, calming breaths, but it was hard to get those images out of her mind…or the strange, undefinable feeling of something being off, somehow. She wasn’t sure what or how, but something wasn’t the way it had been when she went to bed. She hoped it was her imagination…

…but something, some little voice in the back of her head, was certain it wasn’t. And it was sometimes uncanny how often that little voice had been right in the past…

Chapter Text

Zetta Unit knew they were in for a serious challenge. A brand new world, populated by completely different creatures, with only bits of detail to go off of that they could only hope matched their unusual shared dreams. Who knew how they would react to them, or what it would take to get them ready for the upcoming likely challenges. It was not going to be life as usual, and they expected surprises to be around every corner.

They just hadn’t anticipated that the first one would be them being spit out 200 feet in the air.

Four out of five plummeted like stones into the trees; only the dragon had managed to think fast enough to spread his wings and glide down more carefully. He was the only one of the group who had a safe landing, managing to slip into the trees without incident and get down to the others. “Hey! Jeez, are you guys all right?”

“Oof…I’ll live, but I regret having pain sensors.” The robot was rising up, shaking his head. “Yeowch. That was NOT the kind of entrance I was hoping for.”

“Didja knock any screws loose, Data?”

“I sure hope not. Though screws might be the least of my worries. Is everyone else okay?”

“Ouch. I’m present.” Shockavimon was getting to her feet. “Though maybe not entirely accounted for.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be accounted for you!” the dragon said chipperly, earning him a look from the bird. “Why didn’t you fly?”

“I panicked! I wasn’t expecting to be in midair! By the time I oriented myself I was already in the trees…thankfully they slowed me down. Where’s Sal and BC? I don’t see them.”

The three looked around a bit, but it was their ears that alerted them more than their eyes. On the other side of the tree, they found a moaning, whimpering red lizard, clutching at his left leg. “Sal? Are you okay?” asked the bird.

“F…fine…” muttered the lizard through a clenched jaw, making it all too obvious that he wasn’t.

“You’re a lousy liar, Sal. C’mon, let’s see what-Ah!” She recalled when she saw the long gash running along the inside of his leg - it extended from near the ankle all the way up partway up his thigh. “Guys, he’s hurt bad! His leg must’ve caught a sharp branch as he fell!”

“I’m FINE!” growled the lizard, as he tried to rise up, but the shooting pain forced him back down. “Dammit…that hurts. I just need something to keep the weight off of it.”

“You’re bleeding kind of a lot, Sal!” said the dragon nervously.

“I’ve had worse, Breezy, and you’ve seen it. This’ll heal up in a day or two.”

“Not if you stress the wound,” remarked the robot. “You’re going to need to take it easy for now.”

“Data-”

“No buts here, Sal. We can’t afford for you to be in a weakened state for any longer than necessary. We still don’t have any lay of the land here, and if we need to fight at all, we need all we can get. If you’re damaged, it puts us at a disadvantage.”

“Rgh…fine. But we can’t stay here. Where’s BC? He’s big enough for me to lean on.”

“I found him!” The dragon was shaking the canine, who hadn’t fallen far away but had blended in well enough in the dark that he’d been hard to locate. “I’m trying to resursusursectionate him now!”

“We need to put a ten-letter rule on him,” sighed the bird. “No words longer than ten letters.”

“Good luck, I tried that before and he doesn’t follow it,” remarked the robot. “You know how it is, his mouth moves faster than his brain does. Or his tongue, apparently.”

“Oof…I request…the cessation…of your enervation techniques…” the dog was finally coming around, though looking none too pleased about it. “If only to…relieve the impressive percussive chorale in my cranium…”

“Hey, welcome back to the world of concisenticiousnesses!” said the dragon, sounding happy and relieved.

“Please spare the babblemouth for the interim. My cognitive faculties remain moderately impaired.”

“Uh? Well, I hope that means your body still works fine, at least. We need your help, Sal dissunderated his leg and you’ve gotta help carry him.”

“Ugh…exquisite. Unconsciousness bore slight advantage in my preference.” Still, he rose up and headed over towards the lizard, who was being carefully helped up. “Elucidate me as regarding our ultimate destination, please.”

“I’m trying to scope out a secluded spot…” replied the robot, scanning around both visually and with his sensors. “I think I’ve got one as good as any. Follow me.”

———

It was a rough first night all around for the newcomers to the world. Pain kept the lizard and canine from sleep, whether by the lizard’s injured leg or the pounding headache that the canine bore. The rest were in better shape physically, but not mentally - being strangers in a strange world, not knowing if they would be found and in serious trouble before they even had a chance to do anything, created a considerable restlessness among them. As morning rolled around, none of them could claim to be fully refreshed, and it was pretty clear from their faces that they were a long ways from top form. Despite this, they tried not to let it show…all of them were used to not being at their best, and challenges didn’t typically wait for them to be bright and perky.

“How’s your leg, Sal?” asked the bird.

“Bleeding’s stopped, but still hurts like a sonuvabitch. I don’t think I should put it through too much.”

“Oy, so you’re gonna be a sitting duck out here,” the dragon remarked with concern.

“Yeah, but I can at least walk. I’ll hide in the plants and keep my Smoke Screen up.”

“That had BETTER be what you do,” said the bird. “I know how you are, you act like sitting still will kill you. In this case, it might be the opposite, so don’t push your luck.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll just be bored out of my skull all day, what’s the big deal.” The lizard sounded far less than enthusiastic.

“Honestly, I’m hoping for a boring day,” said the robot. “We need time to prepare and settle in. I think it would be best for us to scout around and get an idea of where we are. I’m hoping I can start on an internal map, so that I can help us navigate later. But that’s gonna require me to actually be places. Shock, Breezy, I think you two might help us faster by scouting the air. Do you feel comfortable with that?”

“Sure!” piped up the dragon. “My Sky Masking should have me blending right in so long as I stay high enough!”

“Wish I was as confident,” sighed the bird. “I’ve been working on that EM Field technique to hide myself, but it’s not great. Still, I can fly around some, I’ll just have to be more discreet about it.”

“Won’t be any different for me,” agreed the robot. “My cloaking device is great when I’m still, but you can see movement in the space when I’m moving around. I’m hoping that they won’t look too closely, though, and I’m good at being still when I need to be.”

“How regrettable that your indetectability techniques are so disappointingly limited,” remarked the canine. “Perhaps I shall achieve the greatest measure of success considering my Shadow Step renders me utterly unnoticeable to ocular detection.”

“Yeah, except you can only stick to where there are shadows,” pointed out the robot. “It’s great that you’ll be the hardest to spot, but you’ll also have the most limited range.”

“…Undoubtedly accurate. All advantages must possess collateral disadvantages, I suppose.”

“We need a ten-letter limit for you, too,” remarked the bird.

“And handicap my erudite vocabulary? Such cruelties you propose!”

The robot smirked at the bird. “He passed that one, you know.”

“Shee…okay, fine, you’re maddeningly yammery big or small. Let’s just get going already. We’ll meet back here at sundown, right? And DON’T get found out, whatever you do.”

“Sounds good. Hopefully there won’t be any issues, but I guess we’ll find out.” The canine, bird, and dragon all departed, while the robot gave the lizard one last lookover. “Nasty wound, that one. You’ll want to limit pressure on that leg until it’s knit better.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. Only question is whether my body’ll let me.”

“I’m sure it’ll be excruciating staying nice and hidden while the rest of us are exposing ourselves. And don’t say a word about my choice of terms there.”

“Data, you can’t open a door that big and expect me not to walk in.”

“Pretend I put up a force field. Speaking of exposure, though…” the robot let out a conspiratorial snicker. “500 cred says Breeze gets made first.”

The lizard rolled his eyes. “Good to know that even in a situation with this much pressure, you’re still willing to lay money on your comrades’ screw-ups.”

“Gotta keep sane somehow. C’mon, deal?”

“Fine, deal, if only to keep you from trying to up the ante. You’re not feeling more impulse than usual, are you?”

“Not really, but stressful situations…well, I just want to make sure I keep it controlled. You stay safe here, Sal.”

“You guys too.” The robot headed off, while the lizard hobbled over towards some thicker brush. He got down in it as much as possible and activated his stealth technique…which was not really anything particularly advanced, just a special smoke around him that made him less distinct. Pieces of his form could be seen through it, and the discoloration was enough that it would be noticeable out in the open, but hidden away, it was much harder to detect him. Now he just needed to try to keep from getting stir crazy.

———

Reyn thought he’d be sleeping in after the late night, but he was up as early as normal…which was still not super early for a Saturday. It was the start of a long weekend, one of those “workshop” weekends that came up in school now and then, which he was pretty sure were an excuse to give the teachers a ‘day off’ from the scourge of life that was the teenage generation. Still, he wasn’t about to argue, a day off of school was a day off of school. But that didn’t mean Reyn didn’t have business on his mind, just a different kind of business.

“Morning, sleepyhead.” His mother Minerva, a shorter woman who nonetheless looked like a more imposing presence than it seemed like she should, was at the sink washing some things up, while Reyn’s siblings were all sitting at the table - Wally, the eldest at 23, looking somewhat grumpy as he looked at his phone, while his younger siblings Cayden and Alisin, 11 and 10 respectively, were eating brightly-colored cereals. Both younger siblings had appearances that made some wonder if they were twins, being close in size and both taking after their mother pretty well, having the same brown hair and blue eyes and general look to them. Reyn often wondered why he was such an anomaly - the best answer he got was ‘genetics be weird, yo.’

Someone, however, was conspicuously absent. “Wait, don’t tell me Dad’s at a morning shift? He’s almost always afternoon on weekends.”

“They asked him to come in. It’s apparently pretty busy in the emergency room…has been since last night.”

“Oh, jeez. Was it that thing in the sky? Did it do something?”

“From what he was saying to me, it doesn’t sound like it did any damage to anyone or anything. Seems like it’s mostly panic, anxiety, hysteria, and hypochondria. I suppose that’s why they called him and not me, I doubt anyone’s suddenly looking for surgery as a result.”

“That’d be a heck of a thing to inspire. Suddenly everyone wants their appendix out. No, they don’t care if they had it out six years ago, it’s gotta come out again. But man, I guess that’s gonna be the talk of the town for a while…I can see why, it was pretty nuts.”

“Too bad it didn’t happen on a school day,” grunted Wallace. “Then maybe they’da been so tied up in it that you wouldn’t have had to learn anything.”

“No, you see, I happen to like learning,” replied Reyn with the sly grin of someone who knew full well what they were doing. “See, I happen to have something called ‘future prospects,’ which means if I learn enough I might not still be living with my parents when I’m 23.”

“Cram it,” growled Wally, while Cayden snorted and quickly tried to hide it. “It’s not easy to find a steady job out there! Not like I wanna be stuck here.”

“I imagine it’s generally pretty hard to find a steady job when you stop showing up because you don’t like it.”

“He does have a point there, Wally,” Minerva pointed out, gently but in that special Mom way that made clear note of her feelings on that. That got Wallace sulking, while Reyn was grinning broadly.

Over his own bowl of cereal, Reyn made sure he looped his mother in. “Hey, Mom, I’m gonna head over to Skylar’s after breakfast. I wanna see if he knows anything about what happened.”

“Now, hold on there, buster. We had a deal, remember? You can go to your late movie if you do your homework today.”

“I will, I swear it! I just wanna pop in for a bit. I mean, if I’m thinking about that thing in the sky all day, how focused do you think I’m going to be?”

“…I probably shouldn’t say you have a point, but…”

“Why’re ya all getting all worked up about that stupid light show?” grumbled Wally. “It was just a big flash, nothing that special.”

“The only reason you’re saying that is because you showed about as much interest in it as your girlfriend did in the movie,” remarked Reyn.

“Can it, pipsqueak. Stupid thing, ruined everything. It would’ve all been fine if she hadn’t been distracted by that!”

“Dude, she literally never had interest from the start. And you wonder why you can’t keep a girlfriend?”

“Boys, boys.” Minerva gently broke up the repartee. “Let’s not cut too deep here. Reyn, you can go over to Skylar’s, but I want you back by 2 PM and doing your homework until it’s done.”

“That’s fair, Mom, I doubt it’ll take too long to hear him out. Thanks!” Reyn shot one more smirk at Wally. “Don’t wanna waste too much time, since someone’s already doing most of that for the family.”

“You know those days when you were so shy you barely strung two words together?” remarked Wally with a healthy asperity. “I REALLY miss those days.”

———

As Reyn arrived at the Jascalt house, it was quickly apparent that he wasn’t the only one who had the same idea. Not that that was a surprise - it was well known within their circle of friends who you went to if you had questions about weather.

“Yes, he’s quite popular today.” Skylar’s mother Corrine, a slightly heavyset, very dear woman with her blond hair in a tight bun who always seemed to have a smile on her face, said as she let him in. “Iris is already up there.”

“So I’m #2? Insane popularity right there.”

“Considering how often he gets more than one person in his room, I’d say it counts. I really appreciate it, though…he says he’s treated pretty friendly in school, but he never seems to get that close to most of them. I imagine it’s difficult after the move, he lost most of the base he had and that wasn’t much in its own right, but I’d hoped he’d adjust faster…but I’m glad he’s at least found a few who are close to him.”

“Well, yeah, I guess it can be difficult when people, uh, don’t quite get you.” Something that was always a touch awkward for Reyn to talk about, given his own history…then again, that was part of why he’d struck up such a close friendship with Skylar. The two weren’t exactly swimming in popularity - people treated them nicely enough, but there was always a bit of distance that came with having interests like they did, to say nothing of the things they weren’t eager to be forthcoming about. Now if he could only get Skylar and Isaac on the same page…the two had a long-running animosity that he’d been trying to help smooth over, but it hadn’t been going well. A shame, because he was pretty sure the two would pair well together if they didn’t grate on each other so much, they were two of the smartest people he knew in his peer group. “But I think it’s cool. Not everyone has a friend they can talk to about this kinda stuff.”

“Very true. I’m glad someone else is interested, too…Oh, but I’m keeping you. Go up and see him!”

“Right away!” With a slight wave, Reyn headed up the stairs. He’d been there often enough before that it was no trouble finding the door to Skylar’s room, entering and seeing the white-haired boy predictably on the computer.

“I know I’ve said this before, but you should really get out more.”

“As if you’re one to talk!” Iris was sitting on Skylar’s bed, giving Reyn a look. “You’re more of a lounge lizard than any of us!”

“Hey, I golf!”

“You golf maybe six times a year, that barely counts.”

“Well, yeah, it’s hard to get Mom and Dad to have enough time for it, and Wally can’t stand it. But at least I’m not the one who looks like a vampire. Besides, he needs more meat on his bones, he’s already a short stack.”

Iris huffed. “Oh, and what does that make me, then?”

“You’re a girl. Girls are shorter on average, that what they told us in health and wellness last year.”

“Shorter doesn’t mean they can’t kick your ass, girl or boy.”

“With him, I’m about as worried about that as I am my grandfather kicking my ass.” Reyn glanced at Skylar again. “Which, also, you should probably get some color in your hair, too, you look way too much like him like that.”

“I’ll have you know that white hair is something considered very prestigious in some cultures,” spoke up Skylar for the first time, though he didn’t deviate from the computer screen.

“Maybe someday you’ll visit one of them and you’ll be made their king.”

A snorting laugh from the white-haired one. “Better than your fate, mister Firehair. Redheads were thought to be witches in some other cultures.”

“Let them try to burn me at the stake, then. I think they’ll probably wish they’d never tried. Also, I’m guessing because you’re not falling all over yourself in excitement and are stubbornly working on that computer that you have no better idea than anyone what the hell happened last night.”

“Sadly, no, and not for lack of trying.” Skylar finally swiveled his chair, looking at the pair and sighing. “Nothing I’ve seen matches what I wrote in my notes. There’s lots of speculation on the internet about weather phenomena it could be, but I’ve looked at all the suggestions and none of it matches the descriptions. To be honest, I’m not sure anything I’ve ever read about could come close to accounting for the sheer light output of that thing.”

“I was hoping you’d have something…” sighed Iris. “Honestly, it’s kinda freaking me out. I don’t really know why, but something about it…I dunno. All I know it that it wasn’t lightning, and I think that’s part of what’s bothering me, because nothing else is supposed to be that bright at night.”

“Were there any reports that it hurt anyone?” asked Reyn.

“Not that I found,” said Skylar. “Some crackpot stuff making wild claims, but nothing in any serious outlet. But I get what you’re feeling, Iris…I wouldn’t say I’m freaked out, exactly, but…well, every time I look out at the sky, I get this, uh, weird feeling…like, somehow, it looks…different.”

“Huh?” Reyn looked out the window. “I don’t see anything different.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to - you don’t look at the sky as much as I do. But it’s not just…it’s hard to explain, it’s less something that you can see and more just…something that…I don’t know, you pick up on, something like that. And for all I know that’s just paranoia on my part.”

“So all we know is that we know nothing,” concluded Iris.

“Well, not exactly. We know what it ISN’T. Just not what it IS. I think it was from a Holmes story that they said that once you eliminate the impossible, whatever’s left must be the truth, even if it’s improbable. So…if it’s not a known weather event, what’s improbable but still possible?”

“An unknown weather event?” Reyn posited.

“Unknown, unprecedented, unindicated, and localized to one small part of the city for approximately 47 seconds? Weather doesn’t do that.”

“You’re suggesting it’s something else,” ventured Iris. “Are we gonna start getting into sci-fi weirdness here? Because that’s definitely not my area.”

“Not mine either, really, but, well…” Skylar shrugged. “It looked like some kind of disruption in space, to me. Wormhole? Black hole? White hole? I don’t know enough to say, but maybe there are experts who’ll see something in chime in. It’s something that I wouldn’t have expected to be possible to just happen randomly, but right now I think anything weird is on the table until it’s not.”

“Ooh, maybe it’s aliens!” cracked Reyn.

“Har har. I think if it was aliens we would have seen some evidence of that. Pretty sure they scoured around the spot where the thing appeared already and didn’t find anything conclusive. Only thing anyone noticed was a charred piece of tree branch, but that hardly tells anyone anything.”

“Charred piece of tree branch?” That perked Reyn up. “You think it was some kind of fire thing?”

Skylar paused a moment. “Hm. Well…maybe something fiery was involved, somehow. But even you wouldn’t be able to tell what it was that created a burn just by looking at it or touching it.”

“Hm, yeah, you’re right, that’s a bit TOO much.”

“So I guess we have to still wait, huh?” concluded Iris. “Someone will have to figure something out…my dad says that people are coming in to investigate, but they haven’t seen any clear reason to think it was a weapon or anything. But that could change, so I’ll keep up with him.”

Skylar nodded. “Might as well. About the only thing I feel confident in saying is that it didn’t seem natural to me. But there’s still plenty of mundane unnatural stuff that it could be…and I’m not sure I like all the prospects of that.”

Reyn grinned. “More of a problem that our weather weirdo friend doesn’t think it’s weather. Now THAT’S scary.”

Iris gave Reyn a look. “You don’t get to call someone ‘weird’ when you keep a literal thermite reaction chamber IN YOUR BEDROOM.”

Skylar’s head jolted towards Reyn. “Are you insane?!”

“Hey! I only actually use it outside! Mom and Dad say that if I burn down their house I’m buying them a new one, I’m not gonna try to call their bluff on that.”

———

Iris didn’t like it either. And that was why she couldn’t just let it sit.

Departing from Skylar’s house, she knew there was another person she could go see. Well, two other people, but she doubted Derek would have too many insights - Iris figured he probably saw it, but doubted he would have any better idea what it was, since as bright as it was there was no way he had looked at it when it went off. But perhaps the other brainiac of their group would have something to say about it…

Some of them might not have been as eager to call themselves part of ‘the group.’ Iris knew full well that Skylar and Isaac were at odds, and Derek was more distant with all of them bar herself - which she understood, he was not exactly the most personable person, even though she knew he was quite nice underneath his exterior. Of course, she would know - her father and Derek’s father had been friends for almost 25 years, college roommates who had stuck together and now even worked in the same place. They were employed as investigators and agents as part of a multilayer government organization, the Braun Interjurisdictional Center for Investigation, or BICI - it was a rare joint operation, with local and state and federal divisions and then agents like Emil Conover and Elliot Katran who filled more fluid roles. While there was plenty they couldn’t talk about, Iris had gotten a more complete idea of what was going on over there as she got older, a lot of looking into rumors and reports of various levels of veracity, and a lot of people being brought in for questioning - and quite often not from Braun itself. No doubt there was a lot of bustle going on there with what had happened.

That close friendship had led to close family ties as well. And naturally, Iris and Derek had kept with that. Not a challenge when they were only a month apart in age, as well as only children in their respective families. It was probably a good thing that they had each other to emulate that brother-sister connection, she sometimes envied the larger families the others had, but at least she had Derek and he had her…even if some people had trouble seeing them as that kind of relationship, despite how often they tried to shoot down the scurrilous rumors. But while she was much more outgoing and warm in approach, Derek was…not, exactly. She knew he was mostly part of ‘the group’ just because she was, and she made an effort to help foster the connections between them, even if Derek wasn’t as enthused.

But there was another reason she grouped the five of them together. The dreams.

It seemed absurd when they talked about it. Who else shared dreams like this? The same creatures, the same world, the same themes popping up over and over again…all of them from different perspectives, yet consistent perspectives within each one, and they KNEW each other in those dreams. Not by the same names, of course, but it had to be them, right? How was it possible? She knew that others didn’t have experiences like this, it seemed to be unique to the five of them - but the fact that it was shared by the five of them was absurdity enough, and it was enough to convince Iris that there had to be a reason they were linked together like this.

And makes it kind of weird that, in a way, I almost kind of knew Reyn and Skylar before I even met them in person. And kind of Isaac, but he’s been around Braun for longer.

Speaking of, she was nearing his house now…and getting a nice surprise, as she saw Derek standing out front. She hurried over and gave him a poke in the back - he was ever so attentive at night, but during the day, it was almost criminally easy to sneak up on him. “Good afternoon, Derek! So, how’s the illness?”

Derek snorted and turned, looking down at her; similar in many ways though they were, the eight-inch height difference was a clear contrast. “Nothing good about the afternoon, especially not this one.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. It’s not even your normal bedtime!”

“Don’t start, please. The only reason I’m out here is because HE asked me.”

“You should be honored! He hates asking for help, so clearly he has a great need for you!”

“More need than I have for him.”

“Ah, he’s not that bad.”

Derek shook his head. “It’s just his attitude. I get annoyed when people decide modesty is for chumps. Bragging doesn’t endear you to anyone…there’s a reason people don’t like him in school. But he just won’t admit that he’d be a lot less of a pariah if he’d tone it down a bit.”

Iris couldn’t argue that one. “It’s just how he is, I guess. He’s been better since Reyn befriended him, at least…but what’s he after with you?”

“What else? The sky break last night.”

“Sky break? That wasn’t what Skylar and Reyn were calling it.”

“Just what I’m calling it, because it looked to me for all the world like the goddamn sky was broken. Bot-boy apparently didn’t see it, except on a crappy camera, so he wanted me to talk about it. I told him he’d be disappointed, but I guess he thought my account would be worth something.”

“Huh…well, maybe I’ll hang around a moment, then. I didn’t see it either.”

“You either? Does no one keep their windows open these days?”

“Hey, I was asleep!” Iris replied indignantly. “I only woke up a few seconds before it happened!” She looked around, and then lowered her voice. “I was having one of THOSE dreams again.”

That caught Derek’s interest. “You were? Anything you can remember?”

“Yeah, but not understand. Back in that building…you know, the one that they’re usually at. Except they went somewhere else, and there was some kind of machine…and I kind of feel like there was a flash just when I woke up.”

“Huh…maybe you had one of those sorts of premonition-type dreams and it just kind of invaded that one?”

“Who knows? It would be absurd to think they were connected.” Absurd, yes…so why couldn’t she get her mind off of it? Maybe just because she was woken up so abruptly right before the whole thing happened, her mind couldn’t help but tie the two together. “Anyway, it wasn’t much, and I don’t remember having any more of them after that last night.”

“Probably won’t be long before it happens again anyway. Oh, hey, look who’s here.” Derek’s voice got a bit darker as Isaac finally came out of the house. “And only fifteen minutes after you asked to meet me. And no doubt with some convenient excuse as to why you couldn’t keep the time of your own meeting.”

Isaac grunted and folded his arms; it wasn’t meant to be an intimidating gesture, but at six and a half feet and over 200 pounds, a fair bit of that being muscle, it could come off that way. “Look, you know I lose track of time easily, and trying to read up on this stuff just sucks you in. Still, thanks for coming, I’m hoping you can help shed some light on this! Since I’m sure you were out wolfing it up last night.”

“You really need to stop calling me a werewolf,” drawled Derek. “I guarantee you, I do not sprout fur and howl at the moon.”

“Course not, that would be too cliche!” Isaac did a bit of a double-take as he finally realized Iris was there. “Oh, hey, Iris! Sorry, don’t have any wiring to do today, my mind’s on other things.”

Iris rolled his eyes quite obviously. “Nice to see you too, smart-ass. For someone who’s so interested, you sure weren’t johnny-on-the-spot to look at it, I hear.”

“Hey, it’s not like I planned this to happen! They don’t schedule atmospheric anomalies!”

“Even if they did, you’d be late to it,” remarked Derek, getting a snort of laughter out of Iris.

“Ah, shaddup. Why don’t you tell me what you saw instead of making smart remarks?”

“The audience might prefer the smart remarks.” Still, Derek launched into his description of what he saw, giving as much detail as he could, though he didn’t think it was that much. Isaac was looking slightly down, eyes almost closed as he finished; Iris could tell something was churning in that head of his, but not what.

“Interesting…yeah, the timeline jibes with what the camera caught…you said it looked like some kind of waviness? And then the flash…you didn’t happen to notice anything after the flash, did you?”

“No? I don’t think I was really looking, though…I mean, I was looking where the thing was, but not for anything else.”

“Dang. I thought maybe you might’ve seen something…the camera looks like it caught something falling afterwards. Some kinda debris or something maybe, it didn’t get a good look at it. I thought maybe your werewolf vision might’ve caught it, but you might not’ve been at the right angle for it.”

“It’s not…oh, forget it. Sorry, but I didn’t see anything. And I didn’t go looking…went home right after it happened.”

“You cut short a night walk?” Iris asked with a bit of an exaggerated tone.

“Ha ha. I figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to worry Mom. Those stress migraines she gets can be pretty nasty…she doesn’t usually get them from my going out at night anymore, but when something big happens, I figure it’s just best to come back and make sure she knows I’m fine.”

“Huh, and here I thought you didn’t like doing any of that for your parents,” remarked Isaac.

“Only Mom. Dad can go toss himself.” Iris tried not to flinch hearing that. Derek’s relationship with his parents was not exactly fantastic, and it was no surprise why…they were not as accepting of his proclivities as Iris was. They had in the past tried to stop him much more actively, but with how often he managed to elude them anyway, they had grown to just accepting that Derek went out, but that didn’t meant that they liked it or approved of it. It was more of an issue with his dad, Elliot…it was hardly overstating it to say that Iris had a better relationship with the paternal Katran than Derek himself did. Still, it was always a little uncomfortable hearing about that.

“Right…well, I guess it doesn’t give too much more info, but it’s something. Sure as hell doesn’t sound like a normal thing…hah, wonder if it’s aliens?”

“I think we should let people investigate before we jump to ridiculous conclusions,” remarked Derek with some asperity.

“Like you twos’ folks? C’mon, the government would cover up aliens in a heartbeat, we can’t trust them to tell the truth. I mean, hell, they don’t tell the truth about a LOT of crap that wouldn’t throw the whole perception of the universe into whack already.”

“The moment you start getting political is the moment I start getting distance.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve got a conflict of interest, I know.”

“It’s funny, though,” noted Iris. “Reyn thought about aliens, too.”

“Oh, you talked to him?”

“Yeah, I was over at Skylar’s and he showed up.”

Isaac rolled his eyes. “Figures you’d go at weather boy. Did he have some contrived explanation about how it’s some natural air current or something like that?”

“No, he doesn’t know what it is. He’s pretty sure it’s NOT weather, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh…well, crud, guess that doesn’t mean I can show him up. Well, I’m gonna try to do more research and see if I can’t get the answer before he does. Thanks for the info, though!”

“Yeah, sure, you’re welcome.” Not exactly the most passionate parting words from Derek, but Isaac paid them no mind as he went in. “And I’m going to go home and try to get some sleep.”

Iris nodded. “You go ahead, I’m not heading back just yet.”

“A’right. See you soon.”

———

A lot was going through Iris’s head as she walked, not really paying much attention to which way she was going. It wasn’t like she didn’t know this area of Braun by heart, anyway, she wasn’t worried about getting lost…lost in thought was another question.

I don’t know why this is bothering me so much. But it is. I need to try to figure out what it is.

She just had a feeling she couldn’t shake. And it was the same feeling she’d had the previous night, after the light show had ended. What it was, she couldn’t define, but it was like something was gnawing at the back of her mind, trying to call her attention to something. It was a feeling she’d had before, but not like this…sometimes she noticed something very subtle, a strange thought or feeling that usually came in response to some event in her life, sometimes helping her react better to it. But those were just light, almost imperceptible twinges, not like this…this was a firm hold, and it wasn’t letting go.

I don’t know why all this feels so…gripping. A strange distortion in the sky…okay, it’s weird, but it shouldn’t be doing THIS to me. I didn’t even see it, other people who looked right at it don’t get this feeling. And why can’t I shake this feeling that it’s related to the dream? It can’t be. That’s just a dream. A weird sort of dream-world that I share with other people, but still JUST a dream. No one else has thought like that. They just think it’s aliens…and I don’t know why I have trouble just thinking that’s silly.

Answers were not coming to her…but something was. Suddenly she stopped. Her heart started to pound…some weird feeling was getting to her. She looked around a bit, but she couldn’t see anyone around, not a single person. Well, although it was midday, she wasn’t exactly in the busiest area of town, there were probably some inside. But that wasn’t what had her attention.

I’m being watched. I know it.

She didn’t know WHY she knew it. She just knew it. But who? And why? And…where? There was no one around. Someone hiding behind a tree? But the trees there weren’t exactly thick, it wouldn’t be easy for a person to hide behind them.

Iris was nervous. She was not one who liked confrontation with strangers…friends, sure, they were familiar and she trusted them, but strangers were a different story. She wanted to hope they were as nervous as she was…so maybe trying to intimidate them, as much as she could, would help. “Hey…who’s there? I know you’re watching me…that’s kind of a creepy thing to do, don’t you think?”

———

I must be mad. Absolutely bonkers mad.

The bird knew she was supposed to stay out of sight. It was too early to engage, they had to know more about this world before they started actively getting involved. Approaching the wrong person could get them captured, injured, or deleted before they even had a hope of spreading the warning. And yet, the moment she laid eyes on the human girl, she couldn’t even think of staying away.

Because it was HER. The one from the dream.

Barmy as hell. From thunderbird to cuckoo-clock.

It couldn’t be. It was patently absurd. And yet she was 130% convinced it was her. The sheer impossibility wasn’t affecting her feelings one whit. So, naturally, she’d been spending the last ten minutes stalking her like some kind of creep. Which the girl had suddenly, and vocally, pointed out in rather direct fashion. That voice…it’s exactly the same. I know it is. What the absolute hell is going on here?

One thing was for sure: she wasn’t going to get answers like this. And with no one else around, as far as she could tell, she decided she needed to try. “H-hello?”

The girl jumped. “Wh…where…a-are you up in the tree?”

“Yes. I…I’m trying to not be seen…but…I…uh…” Great job, you probably sound even creepier now. Why not just out yourself and save yourself the embarrassment?

“You’re trying not to be seen? Why?” The girl’s voice had a nervousness to it, understandably so. The bird took a deep breath; this wasn’t going to work, she had to be more direct.

“It’s a long story…but, uh…I need to talk to you. Face-to-face. Will you let me…Iris?”

———

Iris didn’t have any idea what was going on. But she did know one thing:

That voice was FAR too familiar.

“…Okay. I’ll…let you talk to me. But you have to come down from the tree.”

“…All right.” Apprehensively, the bird dropped her half-baked cloaking (which hadn’t been working all that great in the first place, she’d discovered) and slowly flapped down, trying to stay in line with the tree trunk to provide a little measure of protection. Iris’s eyes widened as she saw the sight…it was an impossibility, straight out of her dreams. An avian creature, a few inches short of three feet tall, with arms doubling as wings, covered almost totally in bright-yellow plumage and with bright green eyes, with an eagle-like head with two longer feathers in a V-shape coming up from the front.

“Y…you…you’re…Shockavimon!”

“Yes…um…please try to keep it down.”

“Ah, okay…” Iris lowered her voice, trying to process everything with her head whirling and her heart racing. Because it was HER. The bird from her dreams, that had been with her as long as she could remember. Standing there right in front of her. And suddenly the number of questions had risen exponentially. “You…you’re real? You’re actually real?”

“Yeah…I’m, uh, saying the same thing about you right about now.”

“What? Wait, hang on. You…don’t tell me you…dream about me, too?”

“Too? Wait, what…” The mutual confusion was just getting more and more intense by the second. “…This is…way too crazy. What’s going on here?”

Iris rubbed her head. “I really, really have no idea. The whole world feels like it just flipped upside down. I don’t know what to think about anything anymore…”

Shockavimon took a look around. “I…there’s a lot I don’t know either…but I think we can talk it out…I…I NEED to talk it out with you. But not here…is there anywhere else we can go that’s more, uh, protected? I…kind of don’t want to be seen by anyone else yet.”

Everything going through Iris’s head was leaving her wondering what in the world she had gotten herself into. But at the moment, there was one thing that was standing out…that feeling of something gnawing at the back of her head had disappeared. And that was enough to tell her what to do. “How well can you stay hidden?”

“Uh…not great. My EM Field kinda sucks. But I can kinda make it harder to see me.”

“Do you think you can follow me to my house? I think I’ll be able to get you inside my room, it looks over the back yard and there are trees to go through.”

“I can certainly try. Thank you, Iris.”

“Don’t mention it…I think we’re a long ways from the end of this, anyway.” Something was definitely telling Iris it was just the start.

———

Hah, this is a breeze. The sky here is way more peaceful than back there! The dragon was probably more relaxed than any of his compatriots, but that was par for the course.

To be sure, it wasn’t completely lacking in activity, but mostly it was small birds that neither posed a threat or took an interest in the dragon. And he likewise didn’t care about them, beyond making sure he avoided them. The ones he might have worried about discovering him weren’t noticing him at all, thanks to his special sky camouflage - a subtle field that allowed him to blend even more into the blue than he normally did. Highly effective when used in the right place…the only drawback being that it was only useful when he was shaded against the sky, and completely ineffective against any other backdrop. But considering he was scouting from a relatively high altitude, he had nothing to fear for the moment.

He knew he should have been scoping things out, but mostly he had ended up just flying lazy circles around, trying to get a general sense of the layout of things. Most of it didn’t mean much to him anyhow, just buildings with no defining features that he could recognize and virtually indistinguishable humans walking the streets below. It sort of had him wondering what the point was, there didn’t seem to be much use to his being up there at all, but he kept at it, wanting to at least do something until he had to go back down.

It took him a bit to catch on that something was up with himself. He’d zoned out so much that he almost started to fall asleep, and only the sudden descent of a few feet kicked his mind back into gear, snapping him awake and righting himself in the sky. Phew, that was a bit close…I guess I really didn’t get enough sleep last night… As he shook off the cobwebs, something clicked in his brain. Wait, wasn’t I already up here? Have I just been circling the same area for the past however long?

It seemed entirely pointless to do so, and the dragon knew he should go somewhere else…except, there was a nagging feeling in the back of his head that he didn’t want to. He wasn’t really sure what it was, but something about putting distance between himself and where he was gave him this slightly wrong feeling. …Maybe I’m picking up on something? But what would I be picking up on here? I don’t even know this world.

As he scrutinized the ground, though, even that assessment was being called into question. …The heck? Is that…wait. Why does THAT house look familiar? Am I imagining things? The more he looked at it, the more he descended, almost without realizing it…and even when he did, he couldn’t bring himself to stop. It was like he was being pulled towards the house, some force compelling him in spite of the clear risk. Now he wasn’t even high enough for his camouflage to work, though luckily there didn’t seem to be any humans outside right in the vicinity.

Maybe it’s something inside…a quick peek couldn’t hurt, right? His mind agreed with him, even if it probably shouldn’t have.

He slowed and flapped as quietly as he could towards the window, making sure not to glide - he’d smacked into enough walls in errant judgments to risk THAT. When he was thinking about it, anyway. Carefully, he tried to land on the sill, clawed toes holding to the wood as his fingers grabbed the window frame. Anyone looking at the window could very clearly see him, but no one was at the moment…but the dragon was finding caution taking a back seat to fascination. No way! This is…that place I’m always seeing in those dreams! All those posters of tornadoes and such! The atmosphere charts and all that! The massive boatload of books that makes my head hurt just THINKING about having to read them! Is this really real?

As he gandered around through the window, his eyes fell on the sight of a human at the computer, faced away from him without even noticing his presence. And that was what really floored the dragon - he knew that human, too, he was absolutely, entirely without doubt. And so shocked was he by this realization that he almost lost his balance, grip slipping from the frame as he teetered back. Only a flap of his wings saved him from a fall - but also sent him against the window glass with a loud bang. “Ow! Sonuvabitch!”

It took him a beat to realize he’d said that out loud.

———

Rarely in his life had Skylar been so thoroughly engrossed in something. Even when it came to more ‘normal’ weather phenomena, and anyone who knew him would know he could talk and study for hours about that sort of thing. But this mystery had him so totally caught up that he was oblivious to just about anything - including a creature landing on his window sill.

At least, until it banged loudly against the window. That caught his attention in a hurry, though he froze up for a moment just in the shock. As soon as he’d caught himself, though, his head jerked up and he whipped around, just in time to see something dropping down - something that at first glance, made him think he was seeing things. Because it looked like nothing he ever had seen before…at least, not while awake…but far TOO much like something he’d ‘seen’ in his dreams.

I gotta be imagining things. Maybe all this stuff is making me go loopy. But still…there WAS something out there…

He got up and stepped over, and it didn’t even take long before he could tell there was still something there - mainly by the just-visible sight of blue clawed digits gripping the sill. Now his heart was starting to pump fast, that color was something he knew too well. It can’t be, it’s literally impossible. But…Reyn DID always tell me it was silly to think anything was literally impossible…

Up went the window, and Skylar stuck his head down, looking down at what was hanging there. If he jaw hadn’t been attached, it would’ve dropped right onto the dragon’s head; the creature was hanging, in rather silly fashion, off of the windowsill, not doing a very good job of hiding from him. And immediately, everything was lining up - the sky-blue scaled body that looked just a little bit too long to walk gracefully, especially with the somewhat short limbs and long tail, the comically oversized wings that made flying and gliding a cinch, that wide-eyed look in eyes set above a distinctly draconic snout, and that color, the color of sky, a color he’d been enchanted by for years.

“…You…you’re…Breezedramon, aren’t you?”

“Uwah! You know who I am? Wait, but I know who you are, too!”

“You do? Uh, what’s my name, then?”

“It’s, uh…it’s, uh…Sky! Yeah! That’s it!”

Skylar blinked. “Well…I suppose that’s close enough. Do you need some help?”

“No! I’m fine! I got this!” Breezedramon’s legs kicked wildly as he tried to use his slightly stubby arms to pull himself up. “…Uhm…maybe a LITTLE help…”

Skylar wasn’t quite sure what was putting him at such ease with seeing a literal creature of his dreams right in front of him. It might have been the innate familiarity with him, it might have been an odd sense of peace and trust that was coming from who really knew where. Or it might have been that he currently looked incredibly silly. Either way, it convinced him to grab the dragon’s arms and help pull him into his room - though Breezedramon ended up overshooting a bit and carrying Skylar backwards to the floor with a thump. “Ack! Hey, careful!”

“Ah, sorry! You make a good cushion, though!”

“Oof. I’d really rather NOT be one, so if you don’t mind…”

Breezedramon finally clambered off, smiling brightly up at Skylar as he finally managed to get upright and brush himself off. “Wow. This is crazy! I can’t believe I’m actually meeting you! I never knew you actually existed except in my dreams! What a crazy cointendistance!”

“A…what?”

“You know! That thing where the things happen and it’s just kinda that they happen!”

Skylar looked blankly down at Breezedramon. “…That’s right. You, uh…you have a bit of a speech impediment, don’t you?”

“Hey!” Breezedramon put his hands on his hips, looking huffy. “It’s not a speech impandimantonet! It’s just hard to say big words! I don’t know how BC does it all the time!”

“Whoever that is, he probably doesn’t add six irrelevant syllables to every word.”

“Hey, don’t you start now! Talking about irremalovolent sibalamibabbles and all that!”

“Okay, okay…you really are just a regular goofball, aren’t you?”

“Aw, man…” Breezedramon sighed. “Even in a whole new world, they still call me that! I don’t see how I’m that much of a goofball! I mean, yeah, I try to be happy and all, but that can’t be the same thing, right?”

“I think there’s more to it than that. But really, I’m more interested in other questions. That thing in the sky last night, did you have something to do with it?”

Breezedramon cocked his head. “Thing in the sky? Wait, yeah, maybe! I mean, there was a really bright flash and a fwoosh when we came through! Is that what you’re talking about?”

Skylar nodded. “Well, that seems to line up…now I need to know what ‘came through’ means. And ‘we,’ for that matter. Are there more of you out there?”

“Ah! Uh, nope, just me, hahahaha, I must’ve just screwed up my words again!”

“Really…” Skylar wasn’t so sure he believed that, but he decided to let it go for now. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me next that you just made a cosmic joyride and just happened to land here by accident?”

“…Uh…yes?”

“Fine. If you’re going to be that way, I suppose I’ll have to limit my questioning to the phenomenon of our shared dreams. Because this is something I need to know quite a bit more about, as soon as possible.” Skylar adjusted his glasses, giving them a bit of a glint as he looked down at the suddenly nervous dragon. “There are too many things I want to know about what I’ve dreamed about! And I need to know what you’ve dreamed about me! There’s no way you just ended up here by accident!”

“Okay, okay!” yelped Breezedramon. “You’re scary when you go into uber-nerd mode!”

“Oh, come on, I’m hardly uber. Just a nerd. C’mon, I need to write this down so that I can make observations and try to understand the connections.”

Definitely uber-nerd, thought Breezedramon.

———

It didn’t take long before the lizard had come to the conclusion that exsanguination would probably have been better than the terminal boredom he was experiencing. Being unable to go anywhere or even move around was an utter trial to him, but he knew his leg wasn’t going to fix itself quickly enough to let him go out and about. And for the sake of his comrades not being distracted by him, he had been determined to stick to his word that he’d stay put and hidden, despite his urges. It had been working - a few humans passing nearby, but none giving his bush a second look - he was hidden well enough, and could stay that way indefinitely.

He didn’t. But he could have. And probably should have.

It was a feeling in his head that wasn’t going away. He followed it almost on impulse, not really knowing why, but he trusted his instincts and if they were telling him something was up, he believed them. It wasn’t a fast-paced movement, more of a limp and hobble where he did his best to minimize how much he used his injured leg, wincing at the pain every time he touched soil with it. But he was plenty tough even in this form, a little wound like that wasn’t going to stop him…not without him pushing it to the limit, anyway.

There were places where it was a lot harder to stay hidden…how he managed it, he didn’t really know. His smokescreen was somewhat effective but far from perfect, but it seemed there weren’t too many humans wandering around that day. Part of him wondered if their unexpectedly spectacular entrance hadn’t spooked some of them…which had its ups and downs. But more and more his mind was occupied by something else that was hard to fathom.

Namely, he knew this area. He’d seen it before. And in particular, he’d seen that red brick house that he couldn’t stop fixating on once it came into view.

No freaking way. It can’t be…that’s the one from the dream. This whole place is from the dream. But how? I knew I was having dreams about the human world, but…from this exact place? It can’t be real. I gotta know more.

It was a mistake, of course, but the lizard was prepared to make it, damn the consequences. Though, he couldn’t just walk in, that would probably cause a lot of problems…his eyes were drawn to a second-floor window. Something in there was calling to him, he didn’t know what, but he had to go see.

Welp. Guess I’m climbing.

This was a supremely bad idea on one bum leg, but he was doing it anyway. He got to the building, and then pressed himself against the wall and began to climb. Slowly, carefully putting pressure on his hands and toes to keep them stable. His Smoke Screen was up, but his color was also close enough that he blended in pretty well, so he wasn’t as worried about being spotted at the moment…more concerning was that he kept himself stable as he climbed, particularly on his wounded leg. The pain spiked every time he had to lift his other foot, and he could swear he could feel the gash threatening to reopen every time…he was about a foot from the window when a sudden flare of pain shot through him, forcing him to bite back a pained cry, and he felt wetness dripping down again. Dammit…I’m almost there, I can do this!

Somehow he managed to get to the window. The glass part was open, but there was a screen in the way…nothing that his claws couldn’t make short work of. After tearing a hole open, he heaved himself in, only too late realizing he was trying to land more on his left leg. Another shooting pain as he landed, and he felt the wound open more…how he was managing to hold in his voice at this point was beyond him, but he was hissing and steaming mighty hard.

But it was worth it, because what was inside was far too wild. As he took a look around, he recognized a lot of things…the furniture, the color scheme, the layout, it was all way too reminiscent of the dreams he’d had. He’d been in this place all the time. It even had some of the more appealing embellishments, including the matchstick jar and the many candles placed all over…and the weird thing in the corner that he remembered the dream person taking outside and using to make some kind of furiously hot stuff that he REALLY wanted to know more about.

…And then there was the carpet he was currently bleeding on. Oof…I don’t think that’ll leave a good first impression. Who puts stuff like this inside? Real grass is so much better…

His attention was drawn by a sudden sound of footsteps drawing closer. Oh, crap. I’m an intruder, they aren’t gonna be happy! I need to try to get out… He leapt up, grabbing the top of the desk next to the window and pulling himself up a bit, hoping to get out the window and back against the wall. Too late, he realized his was his injured leg he was trying to use to bear his weight - he had just enough time to curse the infuriatingly inconvenient injury before another flare of pain caused him to lose his grip on the desk. His head rapped against the wood, and he was out before he hit the floor.

———

“How’s the homework coming?”

“It’s…coming.”

Reyn’s father Treylor gave his son a look and a slight chuckle. Tall, with dark hair long enough to be tied back in a ponytail, he was one of those types that always seemed to have a good humor about him. “That’s not exactly a great confidence-inspiring answer, you know.”

“I know. Sorry, it’s just…distraction. I’m having trouble focusing today. Maybe it’s that thing in the sky from last night, but it feels like something’s been buzzing in my brain.” Reyn gulped down some water. “I do think I’m close to being done, it’s just, uh, not going as quick as it could be.”

“Well, I suppose distraction’s better than some of the things I was seeing in the ER. I get that it’s a rare event, but you’d think we could handle it better than this. Only actual injuries were from people who hurt themselves trying to get away from something…even then, it was just panic.”

“Lucky they have brave ER doctors who don’t get spooked by things like that, so they can help the citizens who do.”

Treylor snickered. “I call them kitizens. Because when you get down to it a lot of them turn into kittens at the slightest mishap.”

Reyn rolled his eyes. “Do I have to get out the Dad Joke jar again?”

“Why, did you already empty it? What are you spending that fortune on, anyway?”

Reyn was about to respond to that when he heard a thump from upstairs. He shouted up there, “Oy! Cayden, play gentle!”

“Wasn’t me!” came a muffled reply.

Reyn huffed a bit. “I swear, if he’s in my room…he knows he’s not supposed to go in there!”

“Relax, Reyn, I’m sure it’s nothing,” said Treylor. “He and Alisin were playing together last I saw.”

“That still sounded like it was coming from my room.” Reyn set down his water and headed up to check it out. He didn’t like his siblings going into his room…though, he had a good reason for that, there was a considerably larger-than-advisable number of flame-producing things in there, and he knew full well that the rest of his family did not share his heat resistance.

As he neared the door, he heard another loud thud and thump from inside. “Oh, for the love of-” Annoyed, he threw open the door to tell Cayden off…and saw no Cayden in there. But as he scanned around, he did see something - a strange, red reptilian creature laying on the floor under the window, a shade over three feet tall, with sharp claws on each digit of his fingers and toes and a long tail. His mind froze.

That…it…it can’t be…there’s no way…Salmandmon?!

His brain stuck in neutral for a good several seconds…until the fact of the lizard’s motionlessness kicked it back into gear. He rushed over, and it didn’t take long to ascertain the damage - the blood on the carpet, the long wound in the creature’s leg, and a smaller cut bleeding slightly from his head. The injuries registered immediately as serious - and before he could even start to second-guess himself, Reyn was shouting. “DAD! I need you up here, RIGHT NOW!”

———

Salmandmon’s gradual return to consciousness was escorted by a killer headache and blurry vision. Through the haze, though, he thought he recognized a figure above him…and a hand coming near him. No thought registered, it was simply the automatic response of a trained brain, rapidly identifying only one thing: Danger!

All that provoked but one weak jet of flame from his mouth. Well, he tried.

The hand didn’t even move away, taking the flame without issue and then clamping down on Salmandmon’s mouth. He started to squirm, but another hand gently held him in place. “Easy, easy. I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Reyn!” gasped a young voice from nearby, though Salmandmon couldn’t see it.

“Don’t worry, Alisin, he’s not going to hurt me.” Reyn doubted that the rest of them would be so comfortable with that assertion…but he wasn’t afraid at all. After all, it wasn’t a stretch to say that he knew Salmandmon as well as any of the rest of the people he’d lived his life with. He slowly released the lizard’s jaws and stroked the side of his face. “Hey, welcome back. You feeling any better?”

“Ungh…what…” Salmandmon’s eyes were clearing a bit, enough for him to get a clear look at the face in front of him. And for a moment, all his eyes did were blink, until something clicked…and then suddenly he was gripping his makeshift bed, trying to back away. “What…no…wait…what? You…you can’t…there’s no way…”

“Whoa, whoa, hey, hey, calm down. You’re still hurt.” Reyn took hold again and brought Salmandmon back down, the lizard still shaking. “Look, I, uh, I don’t know what’s going on, completely, but…trust me, whatever you’re thinking right now, I’m pretty sure it’s true.”

“That…what…” Salmandmon tilted his head. Nearby was a larger human with longer hair in a ponytail, looking at him quizzically and with concern. Huddled a bit further away were two smaller ones who were staring at him apprehensively. “Why…why are you…all so…familiar? How…how can that be?”

“I’m sorry…do you…know us?” asked Treylor.

“I…n-no, I…I can’t…but…I…”

“Dad, let’s, uh, hold off on too many questions for the moment. He’s still hurt, and probably needs a bit of time.”

“Wait, I’m, I’m not that…uh? My leg? I can’t…” Salmandmon tilted himself up, looking at his left leg where the wound was. He couldn’t feel much for some reason, but there were some black things sticking out around the wound. He stared at it for a moment, not comprehending. “…The hell’d you do to my leg?”

“That was a pretty nasty gash you had there,” said Treylor, somehow maintaining a decent level of professionalism in the face of a talking lizard creature. “I had to stitch it shut to help with the bleeding. I’m not sure how it worked, though, the heat you give off, I thought they’d fall apart…glad it did, though, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to staples.”

“Stitch? W-wait…you…SEWED the wound shut?”

“Yeah, he did,” said Reyn. “I mean, it’s a pretty big wound…”

“That…is that why I can’t feel it?”

“No, that’s the local anesthetic,” Treylor replied.

“Anawhatsit?”

“It, uh, it makes it so you can’t feel the area for a little while.”

“…Oh! A numbing agent. Why didn’t you say so?”

“He did,” chuckled Reyn. “Okay, I’m gonna guess you’re not familiar with our kind of doctoring, judging by all this.”

“Hell no. Sounds weird. Sewing wounds shut? Sounds kinda barbaric to me.” Salmandmon gingerly ran a finger over the stitched-up wound. “Then again…hard to argue with results.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment on the whole,” laughed Treylor. “And Dave says I never have any interesting stories to share in the break room.”

Reyn looked up, a little bit anxious. “I might have to ask you to keep this one on the down low, Dad, at least for a little bit.”

“Well, it might be a bit late for that, I already texted your mother.”

“Nnh! Well, I guess Mom would probably find out anyway-”

“My word!” Almost on cue, all eyes went to the door, where Minerva had rushed in. Another face Salmandmon recognized all too well. “What in the world is going on here?”

“The picture didn’t say enough?” joked Treylor.

“Well, it said enough to get me running back here…” Minerva stepped forward leaning down over the nervous reptile. “Well…how’s he doing?”

“You guys…are taking this WAY better than I thought you would,” remarked Salmandmon. “And I’m still scared as heck.”

“I think I need to take care of that.” Reyn wrapped his arms around Salmandmon, lifting him up carefully. And slowly. “Whoof…you’re heavier than you look, you know that?”

“Oy!”

“Reyn…” Treylor looked at his son curiously, and Reyn could hardly blame him. “Do you…have some idea what’s going on here? Do you know what…er, who this is?”

“It’s, uh…it’s kind of a really long story,” said Reyn. “I, uh…I’ll tell you what I know, but…I think I need to talk with him alone, first, because there’s still a lot that I don’t know, either. Are you okay waiting until tomorrow? I, uh…I can promise you he’s not gonna hurt anyone.”

“Well, he does still need to rest…” Treylor’s brow furrowed, but he nodded. “I suppose it’s fair enough to give him a bit of time.”

“I’m still not sure what’s going on, but…well, he IS injured.” Minerva’s features softened a bit. “But do be careful, Reyn.”

“I will, Mom. I promise.” With a nod, Reyn took Salmandmon upstairs, the reptile still trying to process everything that was going on. He held tight to Reyn, feeling a bit foolish being carted around like this, but his leg probably wasn’t going to cooperate anyway. As they got to the top, he could see the two smaller kids creep up, and heard an admonishment to let him rest…he could hardly blame their curiosity, though. THEY hadn’t seen HIM before. Probably.

Once inside the room, Reyn set Salmandmon gently down on the bed, then sat down beside him. “So…you…know who I am, right?”

“…Yeah, I do. Reynard Kessilik. You’re a human.”

“Yeah. Feel free to just call me Reyn. And you’re…Salmandmon. You’re…well, a Salmandmon. Not the most original name, you know that?”

“Tch. Digimon don’t tend to need names like that…when you call to one, they know you’re calling to them. But you can call me Sal, too, if you need to.”

“Digimon? So…I’m guessing that’s those other creatures?”

“Other…how…wait…” A dawning bit of comprehension was coming through to Salmandmon. “Are…are you…this is probably gonna sound really weird, but…do you…dream about me?”

Reyn nodded. “And you dream about me.”

“Well. Okay. I think I’ve gone crazy, but in a completely different way than I thought. What the actual HELL.”

“I’m just as floored as you are. Maybe more so because I walked in on you bleeding out on my floor. By the way, carpet cleaner does NOT take care of singe holes, just so you know.”

“Oh…uh…oops?” Salmandmon let out an embarrassed chuckle. “Sorry, wasn’t really planning on that…”

“It’s okay, I’ve put a few of them in myself. Just try not to do it again. So, uh…that thing last night…was that…you?”

“Yeah. Me and…” Salmandmon hesitated, but at this point secrecy was already pretty much out the window. “…some others.”

“Others? Wait…it wouldn’t, uh…happen to be those others you hang out with all the time, would it?”

“Jeez. Well, I guess you saw a lot in those dreams. Yeah, it’s them. And they’re probably flipping out over me right now…” Salmandmon winced as he looked out the window; it was definitely late enough that one of them would have had to have gotten back. “I’m gonna be in some deep trouble with them, I was supposed to stay safe and hidden…I just had this…urge I had to follow. And…huh…now that I’m here, it’s kinda gone.”

“I don’t really get it, but I’m guessing there’s a whole lot more to this story.”

“…Uh, Reyn…please don’t take this the wrong way, but…I really don’t want to get you involved in it.”

“Huh?” Reyn looked at Salmandmon, who was suddenly apprehensive.

“It’s…there’s something…it’s hard to explain without explaining it…but…it’s important. And it’s…kinda dangerous. And…I feel a weird connection to you that I don’t understand, and…well, that makes me even more nervous about what might happen, because I didn’t expect anything like this over here. So…I can talk to you about a lot of things…but I don’t want to get you involved on this. Okay?”

“…I don’t really understand, but…I don’t want to force you, either. But we’re definitely gonna have to talk about this dream business, because that’s too much.”

“Yeah, that should be fine.” Salmandmon took a breath and let it out. He was all sorts of out of sorts…clearly because he hadn’t been able to move around. And he still couldn’t with the damned leg wound. “Can we do it while doing something, though? I’m in desperate need of something to do, I hate sitting still.”

“Oh…uh, huh. Not sure…I have some things, I guess, but I’m not sure if they’d interest you. What do you like to do when you’re not climbing the walls of strange houses and nearly getting yourself killed?”

Salmandmon grinned in spite of himself. I like this guy. He’s got a bit of snark to him. “Usually I do some kind of athletic thing, but, well, not happening right now.”

“No kidding. How’d you even walk on that thing?”

“Poorly. I climbed even worse, though.”

Reyn chuckled. “I guess I can’t argue that…well, I don’t really have anything like that in here, not my thing. But since you can’t do it anyway…uh, you ever play video games?”

A wide grin spread across the reptile’s face. “Hell, no…I own people at video games.”

The sudden assertiveness caught Reyn off guard, but then he smiled. “Hm. So it’s like that, is it? Guess we’ll just have to test that. You’re on!”

For the first time since the inauspicious start, Salmandmon was starting to feel good again. If this is as bad as it’s gonna go, maybe we’ll be all right…clearly some humans can deal with us just fine.

———

Well…this has clearly all gone to hell.

The robot was back at the meeting spot, as he was supposed to be. If only everyone else had gotten the memo. Even the people who were supposed to not have left were gone.

That’s what I get for counting on organics for reliability, I guess. Precision is hard when you don’t have a built-in clock.

Still, it had him worried. What could have pulled them all away like that? He didn’t know, but he had a feeling…there had been something pulling at his mind all day, and pulling him towards one particular area. He’d been staying away ever since he mapped it out, but now he wondered if the others hadn’t felt that same pull and had gone there. So he turned and headed out towards it, hoping that he wasn’t walking into a trap…or, if he was, that he could break out of it and free the others in the meantime.

It was a dicey trip, but that was nothing new. The cloaking device was far too movement-sensitive, and he’d had a few close calls already that day. But when he was still, it worked perfectly, so long as he wasn’t in the path of where things were generally moving. He’d spent a lot of time in empty yards rather than on sidewalks and roads, avoiding places with animals (while registering their signals in his internal database, letting him get a better differentiation of the life signs around this world), and just generally taking it slowly and cautiously. The result was that he’d gotten what he felt was a decent start on a map, if only limited in scope. Every little bit helped.

But nothing had struck him quite like this one house…he’d already flagged it in his internal map, making it easy to get back to even if he didn’t have that pull. It was a house that didn’t look particularly unusual in any way, but every time the robot looked at it it triggered something in his memory…something that felt outright impossible, yet there was no alternative explanation that he could come up with that would explain the insanely powerful sense of déjà vu he’d been getting from it.

I don’t see how it’s possible, but if it’s getting to me that much, it has to be something worth looking into. My instincts are usually pretty sound.

So it was that he found himself out there once more, and feeling even more familiarity than before now that he was paying more attention to it. A relatively large house, simply gray, a couple of devices of some sort on the roof, it was hardly distinct from its neighbors but for the robot it was night and day. The pull was strong, taking him across the road carefully and into the yard, where he could stay hidden better. He approached slowly, trying to feel around for a better bead on the pull…whatever it was that was nagging at him, it was something that demanded relief, refused to relent until he actually sated it. As much for why it was there as what it was - he didn’t like having things left unanswered.

A scope around the perimeter told him that whatever it was that had his interest was inside. He quickly scanned for life, and found one human in one room…somehow, the room that he was feeling the strongest pull. Coincidence? I don’t know…hm. No digimon signs around. The others must not be feeling what I’m feeling. Wonder if it’s mechanically inclined? Only one way to find out…I don’t think this is a trap, the humans don’t just have random digimon traps laying around, they don’t even know about us.

The only way to get in now would be to draw the human outside. So that was what he did, taking a shot at a few things nearby, dialing the power down to just make noise rather than do damage. It took a bit, but the repeated application of noise yielded success, the human moving and then heading to the side door. The robot set himself nearby, then slipped in while the door was open, as the human was wandering out to look at the commotion. He didn’t pay too much attention to the human himself, more interested in the room…

At least, until he was inside, and then felt the pull more outside. Wait…is it the human? Why would I be…well, no, maybe it’s something he’s carrying. I should still go to the room, he’ll probably end up back there but I’m pretty sure I can take one human if I need to.

He stepped carefully for a bit, trying to keep from clanking too much and alerting the human to his infiltration. The carpeted steps were a lot more welcome, even if they were a bit of a climb for someone his size. Soon enough, though, he was at the top, and banked a right and into the open doorway. He was there...now all that remained was to figure out why.

Quickly, though, the robot was finding himself distracted. Mainly by the fact that he had this room almost burned into his memory. It looked like a fairly normal bedroom in the most basic sense…but then were all the things that made it unique. The bits of metal, wiring, and other detritus scattered around, along with larger pieces. A welding torch sitting on a shelf to the side. Circuit boards and coils of wire piled in a box in the corner. A bevy of machines housed on shelves over a pretty shiny computer. Plans and specs hanging on the walls. One in particular caught the robot’s eye, hanging over the back of the bed, and he clambered up onto the bed to get a closer look.

No…no way…

The specs were remarkably well-drawn, making it easy to see what was on there. The image of a robot, reptilian in countenance, resembling something like a carnosaurian dinosaur, marked as having a roughly 35-inch height, with a sleek design much more akin to a natural creature than a machine. Question marks in the hands and chest area, with notes about potential weapons that were somewhat vague, and in the head for facial motions that seemed almost impossible for a metallic being. A battalion of wishes for capabilities listed down the side, with marks as to where some of those would be housed. And at the top, in bold and underlined, a single word: [DATACARNOMON]

Holy crap. It’s me!

———

Isaac didn’t know what was going on all of a sudden. He’d split his time between researching the sky anomaly and trying to work on some robotics, tinkering with one that he’d been building for the past week - a rudimentary robot that he could use for some yard work tasks, ideally, though he doubted it would get that far. Sometimes he did proof-of-concept works just to give himself an edge when he finally felt like he could get to the next level with them.

But today wasn’t really going great. It had started when his older sister Ashley had invited him to a party. Very much not his thing, but she’d been trying to push him.

“You need to get out more, bro. You spend all your time in your room! It’s not good for someone to isolate themselves like that.”

“I got out for a few minutes earlier, I’m good.”

“C’mon, it’s not gonna kill you to hang around with people for a while! Some of ‘em might even take interest in your weird obsession!”

“Ashley, I’m gonna know literally no one there. Go party with them and leave me to enjoy things my way, okay?”

“Suit yourself, little bro, but you’re gonna wanna learn those social skills sometime. Schmoozing is how you get funding for the big projects!”

What annoyed Isaac most about Ashley was how often she was right. Of course he’d need resources if he really wanted to take off to the next level, and that would require getting to know people, getting to be friendly with them, and getting into their pockets. But he figured he was just a few years away from that, minimum…why not enjoy being a recluse while he could?

It was just him in the house that evening, his parents having gone out to see a friend. Normally, something that didn’t bother Isaac in the slightest, in fact he preferred it that way…but something just wasn’t right. His focus was unusually fractured, he found himself feeling bothered by a feeling he couldn’t quite place. And on top of that, he was getting jumpy at unknown noises, something that usually didn’t happen to him to any degree. It just felt like he was startled by things that wouldn’t normally startle him.

I can’t be THAT jumpy about the whole anomaly thing, can I? I don’t really think there are aliens running around or anything…so why do I not feel at ease?

There was no clear answer, but there WAS a loud sound outside that made him jump and almost break something off of the bot he was working on. Shaking his head, he stood up and headed downstairs, then outside. Maybe there’s something out there…an animal or something. We’ve had dogs get in the yard before. If I know what it is, it doesn’t bother me anymore.

A sound perspective, if only he had actually found anything outside. The back yard was empty, almost eerily so. He looked around a bit, trying to see if he could see anything that might have blown over, even though there was no significant wind. But then things got weird…he could see a mark on the neighbor’s fencepost, it looked like something had hit it and left some kind of odd mark on it, almost like a burn of some sort but not dark enough to be a flame. There was also a bottle on the grass, knocked off of an outdoor table his father had been at recently; the bottle also looked marred, even though it was still intact, no cracks or breaks.

What the heck would make a mark like that? That’s so weird…well, maybe it was an animal of some kind. It might just be total coincidence…yeah, that doesn’t really settle my head at all, but I’m not gonna find answers out here now. Maybe it’s time to put the cameras out again…

It didn’t really resolve anything, but Isaac returned to his room anyway, hoping that the exploration would at least settle his head and let him get back to work. It was harder than ever, though…his head seemed even more preoccupied, and he couldn’t keep his mind on the robot, giving him extra frustration. He was just starting to wonder if he needed to shift back to researching the anomaly again, just to see if that would help him get his head right, when he picked up on something - a soft, metallic hissing sound from nearby, one that didn’t match anything he was familiar with.

Suddenly he had the odd feeling that he was being watched. “Is…someone here?”

“Finally!” Isaac jumped - he hadn’t actually expected a response! Certainly not from an oddly synthetic-sounding - and even more oddly familiar - voice. “I’ve been trying to get your attention for like 15 minutes! You really get in the zone, don’t you, Ike?”

“Wh…what…” Isaac looked around, seeing no one. “Ashley, I swear to god if that’s you…”

“If you’re mistaking my voice for someone else’s, you might wanna get your hearing checked!” Isaac stared over at the bed - the voice was coming from under there. Now he was very confused, it wasn’t exactly a high bed and he didn’t know many people who could fit under there. “You mind if I come out? It’s a bit tight down here!”

“I…what? Who are you? How did you get in here? And how…first off, how do you know my name, and second, I haven’t been called ‘Ike’ by anyone in years. How’d you even find out about that?”

“Let’s just say you might wanna be prepared for a shock.” And with that, the robot pulled himself out from under the bed, squirming out from the tight space and leaving Isaac a gaping statue on the floor. He picked himself up and dusted himself off a bit. “Blech. You ever clean under there? Thought I might get deleted by dust bunnies, they were swarming me so bad.”

“Y…you…n-no way!”

“Yeah, way. Datacarnomon, in the…heh, well, I don’t think ‘flesh’ is the right word, but trying to adapt the idioms for robots doesn’t generally make them sound very clever.” Datacarnomon glanced up at the specs above the bed, then back at Isaac. “Gotta say, that’s a damn fine work up there. Almost a perfect likeness of me, and it’s got a good rundown of a lot of the basic functions. Bit lacking in the armaments department, though.”

“That’s because I haven’t figured out how they can work yet.” The response was so automatic that Isaac didn’t even realize he’d said it until after he’d finished. And then come the sledgehammer. Hold up…did…did my robot design…just get critiqued…by the robot that I’d designed? Oh, dear, head explody time…

“Well, something tells me you’ll be able to figure it out in time. Seeing as you’re well on your way already.” Datacarnomon grinned up at Isaac - and the boy couldn’t help but marvel at just how expressive he was, it was almost like the metal flexed to make the facial expressions work, just like he’d dreamed. “Your mind is totally blown right now, isn’t it? I don’t even have to run a diagnostic to figure THAT one out.”

“Y-yeah, a little bit! What the hell’s going on? Where did you come from? Are you…are you from the future?”

“Future? Nah! Just a little place called the digital world. Where all us digimon come from. But you knew that, didn’t you? I have a guess that you might know a lot of things that you thought were just fantasies…I know I’m in the same boat. Dreams, every few days or so, about you and everything around here…I thought they were just fictions of my mind, but they were actually happening, weren’t they? I remember some of those things you made, while you were making them, and some of the accidents you had…and how badly I wanted to tell you that you were doing some things wrong, and then sometimes it seemed like you’d suddenly just do them right like I thought you should.”

Isaac blinked. “Have…have you…been in my head all this time? Was that why I couldn’t focus?”

“Maybe…you know, something was pulling me here, and I think it was you. Maybe you’re in my head, too.”

“But…how? I never…I wasn’t trying to…”

“Neither was I. But hey, as long as we’re in each other’s heads, let’s see if we can’t make this bot of yours work. I’m the experienced one but I think you’ll pick up on it pretty quickly. Also, I might be asking to stay the night here, rather than try to spend a cold night out on my own out there.”

By all rights, Isaac should have been completely weirded out by the idea…except, he was Isaac, and the prospect of getting a robotics tutorial by an actual hyper-advanced robot was almost like Christmas times ten. “If you wanna help me with this stuff, you can stay literally as long as you want!”

“Sounds like a deal to me! Let’s get cracking!”

———

Perhaps the culpability lies within myself far my failure to ascertain the precise definition of ‘sundown.’ The canine stared rather dismally into the empty space where he had been expected to meet back up with his compatriots. He had timed his return with the appearance of stars in the night sky, but only now was it occurring to him that ’sundown’ meant different things to some people. Why, he could hardly fathom, even if the actual orb had sunk over the horizon a lit-up sky wasn’t exactly ‘down’ in his definition.

He sniffed around a bit, hoping to be able to pick up the scents of his allies and figure out where they might have gone. But this was a concerning bust - only two of them had much presence at all, meaning the others probably hadn’t even come back. And the directions of travel of the two he did pick up were completely different from each other, suggesting that they hadn’t gone the same way, and quite possibly not even at the same time.

I suppose this requires my ambulations to continue. Detestable as isolation is in circumstances of unfamiliarity, my discretion will be facilitated by the nocturnal ambiance. In darkness like this, his shadow step was radically more effective, able to keep him hidden from just about anything so long as he avoided especially bright light sources. He’d come across a number of them in his initial foray, all deactivated thanks to being during the daylight, but he had made note of them as areas to avoid during the night.

He was in a better state physically than he had been before, at least…though, for a rather embarrassing reason: he’d picked a quiet spot to rest and had ended up dozing off. Owing to his nature, sleep was not precisely a necessary requirement for him - he could go without indefinitely with no real drawback, with all things being equal. But sleep was still refreshing for him, letting his body recover and recharge faster than during a waking state, and it was still something he considered an enjoyable activity, so he usually did do so when he felt like it. But it wasn’t common for him to accidentally fall asleep, and he felt rather bad about it given that he was supposed to be helping their group orient themselves in this new location. Still, it HAD helped him shake off the lingering remnants of the headache he’d had since their unfortunate entry, so he was trying to look at the positives.

Said positives were few and far between in general, though. With even one other person, he would have felt more at ease…as it was, his typical controlled manner was threatening to unravel. He didn’t want to go trying to track them down without knowing what he was getting into, especially the ones he couldn’t follow at all - it was hard to detect a trail high up in the air when one didn’t possess wings. He figured that the best thing for him to do would be to accomplish the goal he’d been tasked with earlier, just a little delayed, and try to see if he could pick up any familiar scents in the meantime; perhaps he would be lucky enough to stumble across one of them.

Off he went, traveling through the darkness, essentially invisible from human eyes. Said invisibility would have been marred by a good flashlight, unfortunately, but it seemed that very few humans were out and about - something that did not particularly surprise him, he had never gotten the impression that most were creatures of the night. Save for the one that he dreamed about, of course, but he was certain that was simply a fiction his own mind invented to put him in a familiar environment during his dreams. Very few of the rest of them seemed so inclined.

With no real direction to his wanderings, the canine didn’t really realize he was making a very direct line for something until he found himself nearly walking out into the shine of a streetlight. He hastened back to stay obscured, but the impulse to continue was unusually strong…like a pull in the back of his head to get him going somewhere. Curious…such compulsions are unlike my previous experiences. Perhaps I suffered further injury than I believed…

Still, he lacked a good reason NOT to see where they led him. So he bore on, only diverting to make sure he kept himself hidden, and only chancing light when he could tell was no one around to spot him. And the more he followed it, the more sure he was that he NEEDED to follow it…though he had no idea where it would lead him. And when he finally found what it was he was being pressed to find, he was in no way ready for it.

———

It was a quiet night. Derek liked those. Quiet nights were good nights as far as he was concerned.

It hadn’t started off that way. He’d gotten a bit of heat from his father about going out after what had happened the previous night. Derek’s response had been flip, saying someone needed to keep an eye out for another one, and that had led to a brief lecture about responsibility and caution. He’d mostly tuned it out, having heard it numerous times before, and the tension had almost been thick enough to touch by the time he left.

Unfortunately, that was about average for his life. Elliot Katran was a suspicious man by nature, something that served him well in his line of work, and Derek had never been able to put him at ease with his preference for the night. While over time his mother Myra had at least come to terms with it - she still worried about Derek, fearing for his safety but realizing she couldn’t hold him back - Elliot still resisted, tried to get him to be more ‘normal,’ and got frustrated with him when he put up defiance. It didn’t seem to matter that Derek was perfectly well-behaved in other ways, had never been in serious trouble at school and got good grades and even helped out around the house on the nights where he was awake but didn’t go out walking; his habits were peculiar, and that was enough to flag him as trouble.

Laying on his back, staring at the night sky, helped to relax him. The infinity of stars above cleared his head a bit, put things in perspective. There were people who had it far worse than him…at least Elliot never hit him, and he hadn’t gotten in any real trouble for what he did since about six years prior, when they had tried to lock him in at night for a brief and unsuccessful period. It had been around that time that he started to understand just what their problem was…thanks to the person he was closest to in this world. His relationship with his parents, and his father especially, might have been strained, but it wasn’t abusive, and he had that to be thankful for, at the very minimum.

Not that he didn’t wish it was better, still…

He tried to shake that out of his mind. A mind that was not as peaceful as it usually was tonight…night walks were meant to be head-clearing for him, but it felt like his just got fuzzier the more he was out tonight. “Ugh…what I wouldn’t give to just…go out into that void for a while and just be surrounded by nothing but stars,” he mumbled to himself. “Maybe that’d clear my head up…”

“Regrettably, the expansive vacuum tends towards inhospitability to naught but the exceedingly benadapted organisms. Nevertheless, the desire is entirely understandable.”

“You said it…wait…” Derek sat up, looking around. “What did you say? Wait, WHO said that?”

“’Twas I…I beseech your forgiveness, sir, but…your countenance bespeaks an uncanny resemblance to an individual from my oeniornations. Additionally, I have identified a considerable yet inscrutable attraction towards your presence that I desire greater understanding of.”

Derek was barely keeping pace with everything that was being said, every other word seeming to be almost unnecessarily complex. And yet, that reminded him of something rather unusually familiar…The dream dog? It’s…so similar to the way it speaks…and the way it sounds…but how can that be possible? Is someone playing a prank on me?

But that felt impossible, he was always acutely aware of other presences around him at night, and there was nothing there…

No. Not nothing. Something…but not something I know as well. He focused his eyes towards a spot in space not far from him. Visually he couldn’t see anything, but…somehow, his mind was telling him there was a form there, even sort of outlining it. It wasn’t quite where the voice had come from, but it was slowly moving towards him. “…I know you’re there. Show yourself, please.”

The figure paused. “Remarkable…observing my movements despite my typically efficacious obfuscative abilities. Undoubtedly you possess an unparalleled degree of detective competence.” Almost like magic, suddenly the figure revealed itself - a canine looking similar to a German Shepherd in appearance, if just slightly larger than one, with dark fur speckled with tinges of brightness and eyes almost like the stars Derek had been pining for, a visage so familiar to Derek that he found himself speechless for several seconds.

When he did regain his words, they were very limited in number. “…Blackcanismon.”

“Indeed. And I venture your appellation to be Derek. Am I mistaken?”

“…No. You’re not. But…holy crap. How did…” Derek shifted and leaned forward, and Blackcanismon stepped towards his outstretched hand, letting him touch his fur - unexpectedly soft and cool to the touch, but at the moment Derek was more focused on the fact that he WAS touching something real. “You’re really real…where did you come from?”

“The tale surrounding my impromptu presence here is currently not something I am comfortable elaborating on at the current point of our communion,” Blackcanismon replied. “Some measure of secrecy is of the utmost importance. Rest assured that it would be inconceivable to me to commit atrocities upon you or the populace in its entirety. For the nonce, I merely desire interpretation of the intangible connection interlocking our existences.”

“That’s, uh…you’re a bit hard to keep up with sometimes, you know that?”

“Indubitably, my cultivated linguistic manner possesses a tendency to be obfuscative in itself. Nonetheless, it has garnered a bevy of praises for its creativity and melodiousness.”

“I’ll take your word for it…if I can carry it.” Derek shook his head a bit, rubbing his eyes just to ensure he wasn’t seeing things. The shock he thought he would have felt at something like this was oddly muted…maybe it was just the fact that Blackcanismon had been a part of his life for so long, even at times a refuge from the things he had to deal with when he was awake, that it felt more like meeting an old friend than a literal dream creature. “Okay, I…think you’re saying you don’t want to tell me much about why you’re here. That’s only got me more curious, but given you can talk rings around me, I don’t think you’ll tell me anything you don’t want me to hear. Can you at least tell me when?”

“Certainly. Naught but a single terrestrial revolution has elapsed since my arrival.”

“…One day. Wait. That flash in the sky last night…was that you?”

“…Well. How regrettable. My fervent desires were that such outrageous luminosity was merely a personal perceptual idiosyncrasy. Our arrival was so thunderously heralded, then?”

“It would have been impossible not to see it, everyone’s been buzzing about it all day…wait. ‘Our’?”

Blackcanismon’s eyes widened a bit, before narrowing as the canine let out a sigh. “It seems your reverence for my verbal capacities may be entirely unmerited, Derek.”

Derek grinned a bit. “I won’t count on that slip happening twice. So you’re in a group then?”

“…Currently, our collective is…concerningly dissociated. My wanderings were intended to explore and identify locations with potential to be concealing them, but the inscrutable compulsion towards your presence rather waylaid that intention.”

“So you’re all split up…well, I mean, I wouldn’t mind keeping you company. But if you’re going to be wandering around, you’re in real risk of trouble.”

Blackcansimon nodded. “We anticipated difficulties relating to the populace of this organic terrestria. Our intentions were to investigate our immediate surroundings prior to initiating contact…I fear perhaps the scuttling of those propositions.”

It was taking some time, but Derek was at least starting to get a feel for how to process Blackcanismon’s way of speaking. Probably because he’d heard it often enough…in dreams he wasn’t really trying to remember or follow along with anything, but just having been exposed to it for so long gave him a start. “If you felt some draw, maybe your companions did, too?”

“Exceedingly possible.”

“I guess. But there’s more trouble than that. You…look pretty distinctive, but you still look close enough to a dog you might find here to be mistaken for one. And the dogcatchers around here are notorious for how strict they are. Strays and runaways are snatched up way fast…”

That got Blackcanismon looking nervous. “Mercy…An untenable imprisonment! Either required to endure capture as a rudimentary animal or profess my intelligence and weather the crisis of involuntary exposure of my true capabilities! I was unaware of such a disastrous potential complication!”

“Hey, hey! It’s okay. You might be able to use that to your advantage, too.” Derek stroked Blackcanismon’s head to try to comfort him. “Listen, you need to look for your friends, right? And I have to think they’re around the city, I doubt they’d have gone that far on their own. If you posed as an ordinary dog, you wouldn’t need to hide yourself. We could walk around all over the place, try to find where they are and what happened to them. All you’d need is to be willing to pose as if someone was in control of you.”

“…I understand your proposition. Concealment by camouflage, allowing far superior motility to shadow-stepping. And presumably, your reference to ‘we’ is indicative of your participation in this ruse?”

“Hey, if there’s anything I can do to help my dream dog, why not? This isn’t a chance just anyone gets…plus, I don’t think I’d mind having a nightwalking companion for a little while. It’d be nice to be around someone who appreciates it like I do.”

Blackcanismon nodded. “The proposition sounds acceptable. However, I must preemptively alert you to my considerable lack of thespian expertise.”

“Well, let’s work on getting the story straight now, then. No rush, right? We’ve got all night.”

“Indeed. My eternal appreciation to your timely incidence in my life, Derek.”

A rare smile graced Derek’s lips. “Let’s maybe make it work out before we get too far…but thanks.”

The two began to hash out their ruse under the light of the moon, a plan to help Blackcanismon find his companions…unaware that the four had already found their own, the inexplicable draw bringing them together in a remarkably quick span of time. It would be only the first surprise of many that awaited them all…

Chapter Text

When Reyn woke up that morning, his mind briefly registered everything that had happened the previous day as a dream. That was quickly disabused when he heard grunting from his open closet door. As he looked over, he could see Salmandmon, using his clothes hanger bar to do pull-ups. He blinked a bit as he sat up, observing the very strange sight. “…What in the world are you doing in there?”

“Oh, hey, Reyn. Sorry, I was up early, got bored.” Without even breaking stride…it was clear Salmandmon was very familiar with the exercise. “Figured I’d let you sleep, but it’s kinda been a while.”

“How long have you been going at that?”

“Dunno. Kinda dropped count in the 600s.”

“Uhm. Are you sure you should be putting that much strain on your body after what happened yesterday?”

Salmandmon scoffed. “I feel fiiiiine. My leg doesn’t even hurt that bad!”

“Doesn’t mean much. Also, how did you get up there?”

“Climbed.”

“…On that leg.”

“I said it feels better! Also, I made sure not to put much weight on it! It was a bit of a tricky climb, I had to use the door frame instead, but I got up and didn’t do any damage! And this just exercises my arms, so it’s all good.”

“Uh-huh. Aaaaand exactly how did you plan on getting down?”

Salmandmon paused, hanging there for a moment as he looked around. “Uhm…I…uh…might have not gotten to that part yet.”

“Shocker.” Reyn got up from the bed and grabbed Salmandmon, hauling him to the bed to avert disaster. “Yeech. Now my shirt’s all wet. Well, it needed washing anyway.”

“You coulda left me up there until you were doing doing whatever you need to do.” Salmandmon stretched, clearly still antsy. He ran a claw over the wound on his leg gently, trying to assess how far along the healing was.

“What we need to do is go downstairs and have a chat with Mom and Dad. Following up on our promise yesterday, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. You sure they’ll be all right with everything we discussed?”

“No, but they know about you, so we might as well give it a shot. Though I think it’ll be a hard sell on the ‘I don’t want to talk about why I’m here’ part.”

“It’s for your own good, I swear it. The more people who share in the secret, the more trouble it gets to keep it.”

“I hope you’re right, buddy. Well, let’s get going…”

———

Close as they were, Iris and Derek knew each other’s habits and quirks fairly well. One thing Iris had learned is that, if you wanted to talk to Derek openly and honestly, you’d call him when he knew his dad was out of the house. So, following a quick text to confirm that that morning, she made the call - but, unlike most days, they did so with speaker and camera on.

“You’ve got me all curious now,” remarked Derek; the view of him was not exactly steady or well-framed, since he was holding his phone in his hand. On the other end, Iris gave a much better picture - she’d crafted a mount for her phone that she could attach to the end of her bed. Something she’d often said she’d make for Derek, but he’d always demurred. “I can’t remember the last time you were this antsy to do a face-to-face call.”

“Well, I guess it’s just a really exciting, wild thing that I really couldn’t help but want to share,” giggled Iris. “I’d talk about it, but…well, I think it’d have more impact if she talked for herself.”

“Huh?” Derek didn’t know what to make of that in the moment…but just a couple seconds later, he saw exactly what Iris meant, and it was the second time in the last twelve hours that he was completely dumbstruck. Shockavimon had flapped into view, landing on the bed next to Iris. “That…no way!”

“Uh…hi…” Shockavimon’s voice was nervous, as was her expression. “I guess you’re that guy who was in the dreams all the time, huh?”

Derek’s mind tried to scramble for a response, but he was relieved of the duty a moment later. “Shockavimon!” Suddenly Blackcanismon rushed towards Derek, trying to put himself in the view of the camera. “How magnificently cathartic to perceive your voice!”

“Whoa! Don’t shove him off the bed, BC!”

“It’s fine! Gah, hang on…” Derek sat up more and stretched his arm out, trying to get both of them into view. “Iris, I’m beginning to think I need to take you up on that offer.”

“Toldja,” Iris laughed. “So that’s Blackcanismon…I had a feeling.”

“Wait, you did?”

“You remember yesterday when I told you about the dream I had? How the gang was all going somewhere weird and then there was a bright flash and all that? Well…maybe you’ve guessed by now, but that wasn’t just a dream. They all came through that day…and when I finally got Shockavimon to spill the beans about it and confirm it, I was sure that Blackcanismon had to be finding you somehow.”

“Admirably perceptive!” exclaimed Blackcanismon. “Undoubtedly a pristine compatriot to our distinguished avian colleague!”

“She’s good,” agreed Shockavimon. “Though it makes it tough when you’re trying to avoid saying certain things, and she can read you like a book.”

“Hm, certainly inconvenient. Dare I query the quantity of unfortunate revelations professed unto her?”

“Nothing I think would complicate things more than they are. I’m pretty sure you’re safe, I doubt Derek understood half of what you could say to him in the first place.”

“That’s a pretty close estimate,” admitted Derek. “This is so wild…not just Blackcanismon coming around, but the others…it feels like I’m seeing an old friend, even though I know I’ve never actually met you before.”

“It is pretty crazy to think about, huh?” Shockavimon was clearly more relaxed than the initial introduction. “But I suppose that’s a good thing…I’m not particularly great with strangers, but it’s going away a lot more just because of that familiarity. And also because BC’s there, I suppose he’s probably a good judge of character.”

“The elevated esteem with which you regard my veritability judgments is scarcely bounded by physical constraint,” riposted Blackcanismon dryly.

“It’s good to see you again, too.”

“So, Iris, when did this happen?” asked Derek. “It had to be after we talked with Isaac, right?”

Iris nodded. “Yeah, not even that long after, really. I was walking around and…well, somehow Shockavimon ran into me. I don’t really understand it the way she said it.”

“I don’t understand it myself,” said the bird digimon. “It’s like I felt something pulling me to you somehow, but I don’t know what the heck it could’ve been.”

“An equivalent phenomenon occurred to foster our assemblage as well,” said Blackcanismon a bit pensively. “Fascinating…such a peculiar concordance…”

“Understanding or not, I had so many questions,” continued Iris. “So we decided to meet back at home. Since they’ve been trying to keep a low profile, I think getting inside was probably a good idea. I’m just hoping we’re able to keep it from Dad. You know how he is sometimes, he likes to rush up and check on me…really wish I had a door lock.”

Derek nodded in commiseration. “Oh, yeah, that does sound like it would be a problem. I think I bypassed that at least.”

“Wait, your dad knows?”

“Yes, but no. He doesn’t know anything about Blackcanismon and I’m not inclined to say a word about that. As far as he knows, ‘Shadow’ is a stray who approached me last night, acting very friendly and lacking a collar or any identification. I convinced him that I didn’t trust the dogcatchers to treat him well and thought that he was too gentle to deserve to suffer like that, so I wanted to take him in while I tried to see if I could find the owners. I’m actually pretty amazed that he agreed to it.”

“I’m not,” Iris remarked. “He agreed to it because he knew you were going to do it anyway.”

“…Yeah, probably. Guess he figured he can keep better track of me if he knows what I’m doing. But anyway, I have to go out and get a collar and leash, and some other pet stuff to keep up the ruse. At least that’s all I have to do…”

“Your paternal figure rapidly exited my benevolent graces upon suggestion of my castration,” grumbled Blackcanismon.

“…Yeah, Dad suggested I get him ‘fixed.’ I think Blackcanismon nearly blew his cover here. Thankfully, I think he bought it when I said that wasn’t my decision to make, but the ‘actual owner’s.’”

“Shame, that’s a missed opportunity,” cracked Shockavimon. “Maybe a few snips would snip his word length in half, too.”

“I anticipated minimal sympathies from the singleton teammate bereft of such desirable organs,” Blackcanismon huffed indignantly.

“Anyway, veering quickly away from THAT topic…” Derek jumped in, “You said that whole gang got through? So…do you think…”

“Oh, YEAH,” replied Iris immediately. “There’s no way it could be anything else.”

“Mind looping us in on this?” asked Shockavimon.

“Our other friends. A few people we know who also shared the dreams…I think it’s likely your friends were probably drawn to them as well.”

“Huh? Are you sure?”

“‘Twould be the ideal scenario, in my interpretation,” said Blackcanismon. “Their presence at our intended rendezvous location was insignificant even in the olfactory domain. Alternative prospects would promise to be considerably less fortuitous.”

Shockavimon bowed her head. “I guess you’re right. Well, it probably means they’re safe, at least…though I’m worried about Salmandmon. If he went chasing after that impulse on that leg of his…”

“We’ll have to get in touch with Reyn and see,” Iris ventured. “Though, if Salmandmon was hurt, it’d probably be for the best if he was with Reyn. His parents are doctors, and he knows a lot of first aid stuff. He’d at least be able to do something about it.”

“You’ll have to get a head start over me,” said Derek. “I’ve got to make a run to a pet store. And hope that I can find something there that Blackcanismon can choke down, because I doubt I’m gonna be able to get away with sneaking a lot of food.”

“You gonna try to teach him any new tricks?” cracked Shockavimon.

“Perhaps this novel education will include mechanisms for silencing farcical comedian avians,” shot back Blackcanismon.

“Sounds good! I’ll let you know if I see any!”

———

“So, that’s the basic story. And I know there’s some things you might want to know more about, but I really think it’s best, for the time being, to just…not spread too much about what’s going on. I’m worried that if it gets out, it’ll cause a panic that might give some people the wrong idea about why I’m here, so for now, the less I say, the better.”

Reyn could tell by the looks on his parents’ faces that they were struggling to take it all in. He couldn’t blame them - this was a hell of a lot to drop on a person.

“…So. If I’m understanding this right…” Treylor said slowly, “you two know each other because of…dreams? Dreams that you think were actually connected to your lives?”

Salmandmon nodded. “Trust me, it sounds just as unbelievable to me as it does to you. But Reyn and I talked about a few things…we definitely each remember some episodes that actually happened to the other. This definitely is NOT a normal thing and I have no explanation for it, it’s just how I can explain a few other things.”

“And you’re from a whole other world, and you’re here for a reason, but you won’t tell us?” asked Minerva uncertainly. “I don’t know…it kind of makes me worried that something’s going to happen that we’re not ready for.”

Reyn could see Salmandmon’s brow furrow, and that made him a bit nervous. So he jumped in. “I trust him that if he thought it was better for us to know, he’d say something. He’s…experienced in having to deal with trouble.”

“Are you, now?” Treylor looked at Salmandmon once again. “A little warrior, huh? Guess that explains why you were able to endure that gash in your leg as well as you did. Well, that and the whole ‘I can breathe fire’ thing.”

“…I guess there’s not much point in denying that. Yeah, I’ve, uh, seen my share of battles. I want to assure you, though, they were all for good causes. And Reyn’s right…I’m trying to keep things under control here because I don’t want you caught up in things if I can help it. It’s…” Salmandmon sighed - it was so hard trying to say things without saying too much. “Look. I guess you can probably assume it’s not something good by the fact that I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I could guess that by the fact that you were talking about there being a panic,” remarked Minerva.

“Dammit. I didn’t even realize I said that…okay, yeah, that’s true. I don’t want to create panic over here. I also don’t want anyone who might be looking for me to think they can get to me through someone else. The less you know, the more they can focus on me and not pay any attention to you. But I swear, if it comes to be in your best interest to know what’s going on, I’ll tell you. I’m not going to hide it stubbornly just because, but I also don’t want to overexpose myself.”

Treylor’s face slowly turned to a grin, and Reyn caught it. “Don’t even start, Dad.”

“What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me. You got your Dad Joke Face again.”

“All I was gonna say was-”

“Dad!”

“-I don’t know how he could overexpose himself anymore when he’s not wearing anything already.”

Reyn cast an exasperated look towards his mother. “I’m bringing the jar back out.”

Minerva couldn’t help but smile. “Okay, but we still need to be able to pay our mortgage, so just one fill.”

Salmandmon blinked a bit at this whole exchange. “Gotta say, I was not expecting you guys to take this as well as you have.”

“In the ER, you have to learn to expect the unexpected,” said Treylor. “You never know what’s going to happen in a given day, and it’s pretty much going to happen whether you’re ready or not, so learning to be open to anything is paramount. This may be about as unexpected as it gets, but it’s happening, so I just need to be ready to deal with it however I can.”

“I might not have that kind of experience, but, well, surgery is a lot of work under pressure, you have to be able to keep your cool,” agreed Minerva. “I won’t lie, this is…a lot. It feels like some weird book or movie or TV series. But if I let myself get too rattled, lives could be on the line. Regardless how I feel, I have to stay as calm as I can.”

Salmandmon looked over at Reyn. “I think I see where you get it from.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Reyn returned attention to his parents. “I think that’s about it…nothing else I can think of on my end.”

“Then I guess we’ve got as much as we’re going to get,” concluded Treylor. “Hopefully that’s all we need. Well, then! I think after all that, we could all use a good, hearty breakfast. Especially our recovering patient here.”

“Now that’s something I can get behind!” Salmandmon said eagerly.

“Well, I should hope so! It’ll be hard to eat if you get in front of it!”

Reyn rolled his eyes. “That jar is gonna be full by the end of the week at this rate.”

———

“Oh, Reyn! Good morning to you again!” Corrine smiled warmly as she met Reyn at the door. “I suppose you’re here to see Skylar again. Have you two come up with anything about that strange thing in the sky that night?”

“Well, we’re trying to work things out!” Reyn replied, doing his best to keep an even expression. “I mean, it’s not something anyone seems to have seen before, so it’s hard to figure out, but we’ve got a couple ideas - weird ones, maybe, but hey, why not get weird?”

“Oh? That seems outside of what I’d usually expect from Skylar, he always likes to be very straightforward.”

“Well, I think he came around once he found that there weren’t any weather events that explained it. Either that or he’s humoring me and researching things on his own when I’m not around.”

“Now that sounds more like my dear boy. Well, you two have fun, regardless! And if you come up with anything, I’m sure everyone would like to know!”

“It’s nothing!” came a voice shouting from the living room. “People need to relax. One bright light in the sky and everyone loses their cool - there’s a bright light in the sky every day! It’s call the sun!”

“Marcus! You stop that! What’s the harm in trying to figure out the truth?” Corrine went back to admonish her husband - an opportunity better than Reyn had ever dared to hope. He quickly motioned outside, and from the bushes came Salmandmon, cloaking himself as best he could as he limped towards the door. It wasn’t exactly the best cover, but with no one watching, he was able to get in and get to the stairway without issue. From there, Reyn hefted him into his arms and carried him up, just as a precaution - the reptile’s leg had indeed improved significantly, but it was still well short of 100%.

After a brief stop at the top to look out for either of Skylar’s siblings, Reyn quickly headed to the bedroom and opened the door to step in. “Hey, Skylar, I think I’ve found out something about what the hell?!” His train of thought was totally derailed as he caught sight of the blue dragon on the bed.

Skylar jumped a bit when he heard that and wheeled around. “Ah! It’s not what it…looks like?” He too blinked as caught sight of Salmandmon. “What…in the world is going on here?”

“Well, well…” Salmandmon grinned a bit over at Breezedramon. “Couldn’t keep yourself from getting in trouble, could ya, Breezy?”

“Hey! Look who’s talking!” Breezedramon protested. “You’re even in a human’s arms!”

“Keep it down, you two!” admonished Skylar. “I’ve already had one close call. Reyn, close that door tight…guh, why won’t they let me put a lock on this door?”

“Close call, huh?” Reyn asked, setting Salmandmon down on the bed. “Which one, big sister or little brother?”

“Both, almost. Benny was the one who came in…ugh, I had just enough time to come up with an excuse, calling him a stuffed animal. But of course he wants to HOLD the stuffed animal, and I think I got him to buy that there’s a hole in him and I need to get it fixed. Then he tries to go and get Kirsten because she likes to sew…” Skylar rubbed his head. “I managed to keep her from actually seeing anything and told her I was telling Benny a story to try to get him out of my room, and I think she bought that, but still…this is a mess.”

“Huh…why don’t you just tell them the truth?” asked Salmandmon. “I mean, that’s gotta be a pretty hard secret to keep.”

Skylar shook his head. “Doubt that it would end well. Dad…doesn’t really like things that aren’t ‘normal.’ I heard him calling out down there about the sky anomaly, he’s really annoyed that people keep talking about it. You know how he is, he wants life to be quiet and predictable, anything strange and he doesn’t deal with it well.”

“Oh…well, I guess that makes sense.”

“So…you too, huh…” Reyn looked over at the dragon. “So, if I remember anything right…that’s Breezedramon?”

“Yep,” said Skylar. “And that’s gotta be Salmandmon. Crazy…I never thought I’d actually see him when I was awake or anything like that. How did this happen to both of us?”

“It’s more than that, though.” Reyn clasped his hands and rubbed his chin. “Salmandmon says all five of them passed through. So…there’s three others. And three more of us…”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sky, seriously, you can’t have forgotten. Iris? Derek? Isaac? All of them had the same dreams, just like us! How much do you want to bet that they’re sitting there in the same situation as we are?”

“Oh, right…wait…Isaac had the dreams, too?” Skylar frowned. “I’m hoping you’re messing with me on that, I was really hoping to be focused on something that had nothing to do with him.”

Reyn rubbed his head. “Skylar…it’s been over a year and a half now. Are you ever going to let this go?”

“Not until he does something about it. The ball’s in his court. Besides, there’s no certainty that you’re right. Just because we know there are three other creatures out there doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily going to follow that specific pattern.”

“Denial sounds like a scream,” cracked Salmandmon.

“Don’t you start on me.”

Reyn, rather than replying, pulled out his phone and pressed through a few items. He popped it onto speaker as it rang, and then the other side picked up. “Hey, Reyn. What’s up?”

“Hi, Isaac. Quick question, where’s Datacarnomon in your room right now?”

Dead silence for about ten seconds at the other end before Isaac responded. “…Sitting behind the far side of my bed looking at some of my spec sheets. What the hell, Reyn?”

“God dammit,” griped Skylar. “Fine, you win.”

“Wait, is that Skylar’s voice? Reyn, what’s going on here?”

“Salmandmon showed up at my house yesterday. Breezedramon did the same with Skylar. Those names sound familiar?”

“…Son of a bitch. So Derek and Iris?”

“Presumably. I haven’t talked to them, but it would only make sense.”

“Dang. I probably should’ve asked more…I, uh, got a little too caught up in talking robots with Data. Who says I just lost a bet…dang, I did, didn’t I?”

“Figures, first thing he does over here is make bets,” Salmandmon said with an eye roll. “Thought I mighta lost mine, too…how soon did you get made, Breezy?”

“Hey! You were betting that I’d get found first?” Breezedramon yelped.

“DOWN, please!” Skylar said desperately. “You’re gonna get found about six more times if you insist on being that loud!”

“Sorry, Sky.” Breezedramon gave the grinning Salmandmon an exasperated look.

“We’re gonna have to talk more about this. Not now, though, my dad’s pulling me away, wants me to go run some errands with him. I’ll have to get back in touch later, okay?”

“Yeah, definitely. Later, Isaac.” Reyn turned off the phone. “Okay, so, that’s that part settled. But that still leaves tons of questions. Like, how all of us just so happened to find each other…that seems way too unlikely to be a coincidence.”

“I’ve actually been hashing that question out with Breezedramon,” reported Skylar. “And I think I have a grain of an idea in that regard. Breezedramon told me that when he was flying around aimlessly, he felt himself drawn to where I was. Enough that he actually swooped down into my window.”

“PLEASE tell me your window was closed,” cackled Salmandmon.

“HEY!” Breezedramon yelped indignantly, before remembering and lowering his voice. “I didn’t FLY into the window! I landed just fine! I just, uh, lost my balance a bit and banged into it trying to get back in place!”

“Ah, close enough far as I’m concerned. You’re such a goofball, Breezy.”

Breezedramon looked over at Skylar in exasperation. “You see? They all call me that!”

“I don’t recall ever denying it,” Skylar replied innocently. “But anyway, this is a good time to test. Salmandmon, did you happen to feel any sort of draw like Breezedramon did?”

Salmandmon nodded. “Yeah. It was like an itch in my head that wouldn’t go away until I went to where I was being drawn to. I didn’t feel any relief until I was actually inside…that was where I met Reyn. Of course, it, uh, wasn’t probably the greatest first impression to be knocked out and bleeding on his floor…”

“Bleeding?” Breezedramon looked over at Salmandmon again, finally noticing his leg. “Sal! Don’t tell me you hurt yourself again!”

“Er…yeah, kinda. I wasn’t as careful as I should’ve been, I know, but I was having trouble thinking about that! My head was just caught up in things, it was like I had to get in there! At least that older guy helped out with it, even if it was kinda weirdly crude.” Salmandmon pointed to his leg, which the dragon inspected closely.

“…What…did he…actually SEW it up?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. That sounds barbaric.”

“I know, right? But it’s actually pretty helpful. I guess when you don’t have QuicKnit, it’s a good way of making sure the wound holds together.”

Skylar turned his head towards Reyn, raising an eyebrow. “Were you, by any chance, going to tell me that your parents knew about Salmandmon already?”

Reyn looked blankly back. “Did I not tell you that already?”

The white-haired boy sighed, rubbing his head. “Reyn, I swear, those words are going to be etched on your gravestone someday. You really need to start keeping notes about things you need to tell people about. Like, that could be really important if I had to go somewhere with Breezedramon in a hurry, having someone who wasn’t constrained by secrecy around would be kind of important to know!”

“Sorry, Skylar…”

“Tch…well, whatever. At least I know now. Ahem…anyway, now I have to get to you. Did you feel anything yesterday around early to mid afternoon?”

Reyn thought for a moment. “Hm…yeah, you know, I don’t really know if it was a pull so much, but I was feeling awfully distracted. Like there was something that really…needed my attention or something. You think…”

“I think that was the same thing,” agreed Skylar. “You know, I read about something vaguely similar to this once in a fiction book a while back…”

“Wait, you read for fun?” Reyn cracked with a grin.

“EVERYTHING I read is for fun,” Skylar declared rather grandly.

“Snrk. Nerd.”

“And don’t you forget it. Anyway, the main character of this book had something they referred to as ‘psychic magnetism.’ A draw that brought them into the vicinity of the supernatural, or something like that. It’s certainly not a perfect analogue, but I feel like this has shades of that. We were drawn to each other somehow…maybe for reasons similar to the reason we’ve had these dreams.”

“But how would we become psychofigumantally magentafortized?” asked Breezedramon.

“Is he always like that?” Reyn asked Salmandmon.

“ALWAYS,” the lizard replied back.

“I don’t have a good answer to that question, I’m afraid,” Skylar replied, ignoring the other two. “It would be tough for me to know something like that anyway, I’ve never heard of anything like that happening in real life. Then again, I never heard about this ‘digital world’ either, until you showed up.”

“You mean you didn’t dream about that?” asked Salmandmon curiously.

“There’s a whole lot in the dreams that I don’t think I picked up on properly. I could recall that you were fundamentally different creatures from us, but not exactly how. I’m guessing, though, that since you’re here, you know a whole lot more about us than we know about you.”

“Eh…kind of, but not really? I mean, we haven’t known about the human world THAT long. There are a bunch of people who’ve been doing research, though, trying to figure out more about you so that we could try to make contact safely for everyone.”

“They found out a whole bunch of really crazy stuff, too!” Breezedramon exclaimed. “Like there are a whole ton of similarities and stuff!”

“Oh, yeah, that was a big thing,” agreed Salmandmon. “There’s an uncanny amount of overlap. Like, some basic stuff like certain cultural bits, the similarity between a lot of our forms and creatures that exist in your world or legends about creatures that don’t exist, certain concepts like angels and demons and whatnot, not to mention that a number of digimon have very human-like appearances in some ways…”

“And the language?” asked Reyn.

“Nah. Language for us is all Universal Basic Standard. Any human who hears us will understand us, we’ll understand any human. At least, as far as the words go, no guarantee about understanding their thoughts and all.”

“As if you needed a language barrier for that,” Skylar remarked dryly. “How does that even work, though?”

“Don’t ask me, I just know the fact, not the reason. If anyone knows, it’ll be the scholars. But yeah, there’s a lot of differences, but enough overlap to really get your attention. Gave a huge boost to Origin Resonance Theory when that information started coming out.”

“Origin Resonance Theory?” asked Skylar.

“Some weird stuff that Sal’s obsessed with,” remarked Breezedramon with an eye roll.

“It’s not weird and I’m not obsessed with it,” insisted Salmandmon indignantly. “It’s just cool. It’s like this…there’s a theory out there in our world that at one point long ago all our worlds existed in the same plane. And then something happened that caused them to split apart into some kind of, uh, what was it again? Me, meta…meta…metaphysical? I don’t really know what that means, but it’s like layers that don’t exist in normal space or something. Anyway, the idea is that there are these planes with different…styles of the same world, I guess, on them. And they aren’t all together anymore, but they’re still kind of in sync with each other, so that there’s some overlap in things about each world.”

“So you’re saying there are other worlds beyond these two?” posited Reyn.

“Honestly, no one really knows for sure yet, but that’s the idea. Mind you, it’s all a theory, and it’s a long way from being proven as hard fact…for one thing, we have no idea how or when or why things would have split apart in the first place. All we know right now is that there’s at least one other world on one other plane, and it’s this one. I don’t know how it was discovered, it might’ve just been a complete accident…like, how would you even search for something like that in the first place?”

“I’d certainly be curious to hear more about it, at some point,” said Skylar. “But at the moment I think I need some time to process everything I’ve already found out. It’s a lot to take in…feels like a lot of what I thought I knew just got flipped topsy-turvy. And I can only imagine what it’s like for you guys - at least I’m still in my own world.”

“It’s been an experience already,” admitted Salmandmon. “At least we’re pretty well-equipped for something like this. Well, I am, at least, not sure about Breezy.”

“Remind me which of us got a great huge gash in his leg falling from the sky and which of us glided gently down to safety again?” countered Breezedramon indignantly.

“Hey, it’s not like we weren’t expecting to have some misadventures somehow. Might as well get ‘em out of the way early, right?”

“You might have even fewer if you actually told us what was going on,” remarked Reyn. “I mean, we know this world, there’s probably something we could do for you that would make your lives easier.”

“No! We can’t do that!” exclaimed Breezedramon. “It could be a catamarastapy!”

“It would seem to me that if you’re here because of a potential calamity,” observed Skylar, “then time would be of the utmost importance. And rather than trying to blindly navigate on your own, wouldn’t having allies in whatever your task is be useful somehow?”

Salmondmon and Breezedramon looked at each other, then Salmandmon spoke with a sigh. “You…have a point, I guess. But, I’m sorry, I’m just…worried about you getting caught in some kind of crossfire. Not even with what’s on the other side…we know that humans aren’t aware of us, and I have to imagine that we might not be…well-received, at first. If they think you’re in league with us and we’re causing trouble, you guys might be in a whole lot of trouble as well. If you got hurt because of me, I don’t know if I’d ever forgive myself for that, knowing that I could have avoided it.”

“Sal…I dunno.” The lizard did a double-take as he stared at Breezedramon again. “I know we wanted to do this on our own, but…do we really know what we’re doing? I mean, like, more than just what we wanna accopromontatanish. There’s a lot to figure out still! And weren’t we gonna say we had to find help anyway?”

“I…ngh…I wasn’t expecting…” Salmandmon closed his eyes. “Don’t take this the wrong way, guys, but…you’re…kids.”

“Well, that’s a bit of an overstatement,” Reyn remarked. “Okay, yeah, we’re young, but it’s not like we’re little tykes who can’t do anything without mommy and daddy around. Besides, my parents would probably be happy to help out, too.”

“…Mine, maybe not,” sighed Skylar. “That said, there’s still things we could do for you. We might not be old enough to drive you around or anything like that, but I like to think I’m fairly intelligent and know how to work my way around Google. At the very least, we could help you form a plan - but it would be harder to do that without knowing what kind of issue you’re facing.”

Salmandmon wasn’t entirely moved. “Okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly the right word. But still, it’s something that I don’t know if I feel right asking about at your stages of life. Still…I guess it wouldn’t be right for me to be the only one making that decision, especially if Breezy disagrees. But we’re gonna have to talk it over between us as a group before anything like that happens. Which means I guess we should find a way for all of us to get together and discuss the matter…well, at least we’re probably all not far away from each other. Once we’ve had a chance to talk, we’ll know the best way forward.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” agreed Reyn. “And you probably need some more rest time before you go anywhere anyway.”

“Hey, your dad said my leg was coming along really quickly!”

“And that doesn’t mean it’s all fixed already.” Reyn shook his head, chuckling and looking over at Skylar. “I can’t get this guy to sit still.”

Skylar grinned and laughed a bit. “Trust me, I get it. Breezedramon is squirmy as hell, too.”

“Hey! It’s hard getting used to a new place like this!” protested Breezedramon.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true. Reyn, would you get in touch with Iris and confirm that she’s part of this? If I know them, if she’s involved, she’ll already have confirmed that Derek is. Then we’ll know who to coordinate with so we can help these guys meet together.”

“Sure, no problem.” Reyn nodded and rose up, picking up Salmandmon. “Whoof…did you gain ten pounds since yesterday?”

“You just need to work out more,” Salmondmon replied, sticking his tongue out at the human.

“Or maybe you need to eat less. You must’ve had twice as much at breakfast as I did, and you’re half my size.”

“Fuel for the fire, baby. Besides, I gotta recover, right?”

“Might split something other than your leg apart if you keep that up.”

“He won’t,” chimed in Breezedramon. “He’s always like that. Data says his stomach defies the laws of physics.”

“I’ll believe it. Sky, you wanna run interference so we can slip out?”

“Sure thing.” Skylar was shaking his head as he stood up. “Man…hard to believe what’s happened in the last couple days. Guess you weren’t that far off with your ‘aliens’ crack after all, huh?”

“Closer than I ever expected I would be,” agreed Reyn. “And who knows what else is coming?”

———

It was a bright, sunny day, and relatively warm for early April, being in the high 50s. A fair few people were out and about, and at first glance, nothing would have stuck out about Reyn and Iris walking down the streets, talking with each other as they headed towards Eglin Park. But it wouldn’t have required even eagle-eyed attention to notice something odd going on around them - the wavering, almost smoky trails that appeared on the ground from time to time, or the unusual distortions in the air that seemed to flicker an image here and there. Perhaps it was good fortune that the people who passed by were absorbed in their own things, and not paying too much attention to what was going on around them.

The walk gave Reyn and Iris a chance to catch up on what had happened with them. Iris could of course confirm Derek’s involvement, making it five for five for the expected suspects. Reyn looped her in on what they’d talked about with Skylar and the plan to try to get the digimon together for a meeting between them. And though neither one spoke of it, they were both subtly aware of just how odd it was that things just didn’t feel as abnormal as they should have, given what they were actually experiencing.

“I don’t know what people would think is crazier - the situation, or the fact that we’re not treating it like it’s that crazy,” said Iris as they reached the park. “My dad would probably still be freaking out, I doubt he’d have stopped screaming to take a breath.”

“He probably would, but only because his body made him,” remarked Reyn.

“Ah, of course. Thank you for the clarification, Dr. Kessilik. Are you still pretending like you’re not gonna follow in their footsteps?”

“Hey, I’m not a doctor-type! I just can’t help but pick up on stuff!”

Iris rolled her eyes. “Right, that totally explains your urge to butt in with those random facts. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re handling this as well as you are, since apparently your dad thought nothing of stitching up Salmandmon’s leg. I still don’t know how that works, by the way.”

“The stitches?”

“The FIRE, doofus. I touched Salmandmon for a second and it felt like brushing up against a stovetop. Thankfully without the gruesome injury.”

“Oh, right.” Reyn gave a shrug. “Honestly, I don’t know any better than you do, and neither does Salmandmon. Maybe things work weird between our worlds. Anyway…” The red-haired boy took a look around, scanning for other folks. It seemed like things were good for them - Eglin Park was probably one of the better outdoors places to find seclusion anywhere nearby, being unlike most of the older parks in Braun. It was something of a new experiment in shady green space, being more woodsy than open like many of the city’s outdoor spaces. It certainly wasn’t total privacy, but it at least offered enough shelter for the digimon to drop their cloaking, especially as they went off the standard path. “I think we’re good, you two can come out now.”

“Finally!” Salmandmon’s figure appeared clearly near them, the lizard sighing in relief. “So hard to hide out there. Too many yards with fences or animals. At least Shockavimon gets the advantage of people never looking up.”

“At least YOU get the advantage of a hiding technique that works properly,” countered Shockavimon as she appeared from the air. “I can FEEL it wavering every time I use it, I gotta be fading in and out constantly. Now I wish I’d practiced more.”

“Well, you’ll get more practice the longer we hang around here, so look on the bright side!”

“Yes, such a bright side to look on. What’s that?” Shockavimon pointed to a baseball that Salmandmon was tossing up and down to himself.

“Ball of some kind. Found it in Reyn’s yard. Figured we could toss it around a bit.”

“You really cannot ever just sit down, can you? Do I have to give you a Stun Talon?”

“Hey, I’m recovering from a significant injury, I gotta keep the blood flowing and work those muscles to get them back into shape!”

“Yeah, about that…” Shockavimon folded her wings and gave Salmandmon a look. “I seem to recall one of us saying that they were going to stay put and not make that big-ol’ gash in their leg worse. You wanna remind me who it was who was saying that?”

Salmandmon just grinned in response. “And I seem to recall someone saying ‘don’t get found out, whatever you do.’ How long did you last again?”

“…The sun was still pretty high in the sky, I guess.”

“Seriously? Hot damn! Data owes ME 500 creds! You totally got made before Breezy did.”

“You were making bets on who would get found first? Is nothing sacred?”

“Nope. C’mon, let me throw the ball to you or I’ll throw the ball AT you.”

“All right, all right. I suppose it’d be good to practice throwing anyway, not my usual strength anyway…”

The two began to toss the ball around, Shockavimon making sure to throw mostly to Salmandmon so he didn’t have to move around too much; he was moving better but still with a noticeable limp, and putting too much weight on the wounded leg did seem to make him wince a bit. Still, both seemed to be in reasonably good spirits…something that was not lost on the observers.

“Look at them…” Iris muttered, almost enviously. “In a completely new, unfamiliar world, around people who might freak out any moment if they knew they existed, already having had some pretty serious trouble, on a mission for who knows what purpose but it can’t be good…and they’re able to play around and banter with each other like it’s a regular day for them. I can’t imagine being able to do the same thing if I were in their position…I’d be completely losing it well before that.”

“Yeah, they do seem to be handling it pretty well,” agreed Reyn. “But I guess it makes a bit of sense…I didn’t always know what was going on in those dreams, but I remember it could get pretty rough over there. They were in fights a lot…I guess when you’re facing down peril every day, you learn how to deal with it, huh?”

“Maybe. You…remember the fighting, too, huh?”

“As often as it happened, for sure I remember it. And I remember feeling pretty frightened by some of the things they went up against…” Reyn’s brow furrowed. “I feel like I know why they don’t want to tell us about it. It’s…hard, I guess, to know exactly what the deal was, but whatever they’re locked in battle against…it can’t be good.”

“…So I wasn’t the only one who was thinking that.” Iris looked at the ground. “It changed, in the last few years, didn’t it? That’s when it really started to be a lot more of those kinds of fights…there were some before, too, but not like those ones. I didn’t really understand them all, but I could feel it…they were important, they were facing danger for a cause. I wish I knew what the cause was, but with how scary some of the bad guys were…” She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know how she handles it…I don’t think I could ever do anything like what they’re doing.”

Reyn was quiet for a moment, and then gave Iris a sidelong look. “Iris…I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve known you as long as I’ve been in Braun. I know how you are…you’re a gentle and kind person, and you don’t like stressful situations. But…I think you’re tougher than you think you are. I see it sometimes in you, when a confrontation happens whether you want it to or not…you’re not easily pushed around.”

“…Maybe…” Iris wasn’t entirely convinced…still, she had to admit, it was nice hearing someone say that. “But I think you’d deal with it better. You’ve got more nerve than I do.”

“Hah…yeah, never thought anyone would be able to say THAT five years ago,” Reyn laughed wryly. “Imagine saying that to me the first time you met me, it’d look ridiculous. And it’s really because of you that I even managed to grow a spine in the first place…I don’t think I’d have a chance to get that tough without a good example.”

“I don’t think I was the example for that…maybe you’re thinking of Isaac.”

“Well, Isaac DID teach me a few things, I guess. Though I think I returned the favor, too. But you were the reason I could even come out of my shell in the first place…nothing else really happens if not for you. And I don’t think I’ve really said how much I appreciate that.”

“Reyn…I’m just glad I could help…” It felt like not quite enough to say to something that heartfelt, but she wasn’t really ready for it. Before she could think of something more, though, a shiver ran through her. “Brrr…did it just get colder?”

“Sure felt like it…” Reyn grumbled a bit. “Come on, it was just pretty nice out, where’d the warmth go? The sun’s still shining and everything!”

They weren’t the only ones noticing. “Sheeze! Does it always drop 30 degrees at random in this world?” Salmandmon complained. “It wasn’t even this cold the first night we came through!”

“It doesn’t usually do this, I don’t know what’s going on. Sometimes you can get a sudden cold front, but not like this.”

“Just our luck then,” huffed Shockavimon. “I’m glad I was moving around now…Iris?”

Iris didn’t respond; all of a sudden, it felt like her heart was thudding in her chest. She didn’t know what it was, but it felt like all of a sudden something was screaming to her, screaming of danger. “We…we need to go. We need to go!”

“Iris! What’s going on?!” Reyn started towards Iris, and then suddenly recoiled as she whipped around - and they all saw it at the same time. A tall, broad, bright-white figure, looking like a bear-shaped snowman, slowly advancing towards them through the trees. “Wh-what the hell is that?!”

“No way! It can’t be!” shouted Salmandmon. “A Frigimon?! Here?!”

“Well, well, well…” The icy creature said, with a chillingly hostile and smug voice as it stepped towards the suddenly retreating quartet. “And here I was, wondering how long it would be before I could show these pathetic creatures their place in the world. And here I have not just them, but a couple of outmatched pipsqueaks who decided they wanted to play around with them. I must be the luckiest mon in both worlds.”

“You stay back!” Salmandmon demanded, trying to step forward - and gritting his teeth as he was reminded of the leg wound. “Don’t take another step, or I’ll roast you where you stand, you big snowball!”

“Heh heh heh…don’t make me laugh, lizard. You can barely stand upright, and you think you’ll defy me? Don’t think I don’t know who you are, or what’s happened to you. I’ll gladly give you a front row seat to your uselessness, as I strike the first blow for the glorious reign of Emperius!”

Salmandmon’s eyes widened in horror. “You…no. NO!”

“It can’t be! Not this soon!” cried out Shockavimon.

“Oh, but it is! Now, are you going to be good and get out of my way, or do I have to show you just how little you are against us now?”

“Go to hell! Burner Breath!” Salmandmon’s mouth opened and spewed out a potent jet of flames. The flames hit the Frigimon square, but it only made him step back a bit, not severely harming him. “Reyn! Iris! Run! Hurry! Leave him to us!” Neither Reyn nor Iris was moving, though; the whole scene had them in a state of shock. That was making things even worse for Salmandmon, who was starting to feel real panic. The danger he had been fearing was already rearing its ugly head, far before they were ready for it…and in the state they were in now, they were pushing their luck even taking on a Champion-level digimon.

Still, they had to try. He ran forward, delivering another Burner Breath, then had to jump back as Frigimon lunged forward with a Subzero Ice Punch; the fist smacked the ground, leaving a frozen patch. Shockavimon swooped behind Frigimon, spreading her wings wide. “Feather Bolt!” A flurry of electric sparks collided with Frigimon’s back, but like with Salmandmon’s attack, it didn’t seem to do much beyond irritate the creature, and she had to scramble away from a swipe with one of those big hands.

Salmandmon turned back again, his eyes frantic as he exhorted the humans. “What are you waiting for?! Get away! This guy is bad news!”

“And leave you here?” Reyn responded shakily. “I can’t do that!”

“Dammit, Reyn! This isn’t-ah!” Salmandmon saw Frigimon coming at him out of the corner of his eye, and leapt back just in time to avoid another punch, Reyn and Iris suddenly scrambling away to put more distance between them and Frigimon but still not leaving the scene. The lizard landed with his weight on the recovering leg, clenching his jaw as he felt a pain in it; if he kept this up, he risked opening his wound up yet again. As if it needed to get worse…

“Pathetic! This is all the withered husk of Zetta Unit can do anymore?” The Frigimon was already gloating, despite having done little in the way of damage. “If only the rest of Emperius could see you now, feebly trying to buzz around me like flies! Why don’t you give yourself up now? Maybe I’ll let you live if you let me collect my trophies in peace!”

“T…trophies?” squeaked Iris.

“He…” Reyn felt his stomach lurch, and as he looked over at Iris’s terrified face, he knew she was realizing the same thing. He didn’t come here for them…he came here for US. What the good holy hell is going on?!

“Burner Breath!” Salmandmon wasn’t about to give up, even as he despaired of their odds. Once again the Frigimon bore the brunt of the attack, and it looked like the repeated applications were starting to have an effect, as there was some wetness on the Frigimon’s body; but he knew that wasn’t yet nearly enough to really turn the tides, and he stumbled back a bit as Frigimon went for another punch, only barely escaping this time.

Shockavimon thought she saw an opening, though, and went in with her best effort. “Stun Talon!” She swooped at Frigimon’s back, jabbing her talon into the icy body - it wasn’t the most comfortable thing, but she’d dealt with worse. She tried delivering her paralyzing jolt to the creature, but it didn’t take, and she was suddenly whacked by his arm and flung to the ground, almost hitting a tree. She tried to rise, but hitched, a look of pain on her face.

Iris cried out as she saw this, which unfortunately had the effect of bringing Frigimon’s attention back to them. “Oh, you’re still here! Good! I’d rather hoped that I’d be able to take a couple of flash-frozen humans back with me. Heh, seems you’re already half-frozen as it is! Why don’t you let me take you the rest of the way!”

The snowman digimon was closing in on them, but Salmandmon saw an opportunity. He focused hard, gathering heat at a point in space just next to where Frigimon was. “Take this! Blast Point!” The heat burst out all around that spot, catching Frigimon unaware and loosing a chunk of his icy body off of his side - a small one, but a significant one. He turned back towards the digimon, narrowing his eyes - as much of a victory as Salmandmon could hope for.

“Looks like you little pests didn’t listen. Well, then, let’s clean up this mess before I make a new one! Ice Breath!” He blew a powerful ice breath attack at Salmandmon, leaving a streak of frozen ground in the path. Salmandmon countered with his Burner Breath to keep from being frozen over as he hobbled out of the way. “Hrm! Well, the other one of you isn’t moving…” He turned to Shockavimon, who was still struggling to rise. “One frozen chicken, coming right up! Ice Breath!”

Shockavimon tried to react, but her body wasn’t letting her…but just as the attack was about to reach her, she felt something grab her from behind and dive out of the way with her; the attack hit the tree behind her squarely, freezing it over with a sheen of ice. The tumble threw her for a loop, but also seemed to kick her body back into gear, and she shook off the blow. As she looked back, she saw the last thing she expected. “Iris?!”

“Shockavimon…you’re okay?”

“Iris, you’ve got to get away!”

“I couldn’t let him…”

“You all insist on being this annoying? Why can’t you fold like good little weaklings?” Frigimon was getting frustrated now, rounding on Iris and Shockavimon, but Salmandmon took advantage, unleashing another Burner Breath at Frigimon, this one blocked with an arm but making the snowman react. “Okay, I’ve had it with you! I’m putting your flames on ice! Subzero Ice Punch!” He stomped towards Salmandmon, who wanted to get away, but one step on his bad leg sent pain shooting through, leaving him not enough time to act. At the last moment, something yanked him away, letting the attack impact the ground once more. “Oh, come on!”

Salmandmon didn’t even need to look. “Reyn! What the hell are you doing?!”

“Trying to help!” Reyn hauled Salmandmon back and out of the way as Frigimon fired off another Ice Breath.

“You need to get out of here! He’s going to kill you both!”

“He’s trying to kill you, too! I can’t just leave you here!”

“Reyn…agh…” Salmandmon clenched his jaw tight. Wounded as he was, he was almost a sitting duck for Frigimon if he was on his own, but he was also the only one making an impact, his elemental edge being their only hope at this point. At this point, he was willing to put his all into protecting Reyn, even if it meant that he ended up overdoing it and paying the price. “Reyn, let me go and get away with Iris and Shockavimon…you can’t fight him, only I can…”

“No! I’m not gonna leave you to die here!” Reyn’s thoughts were chaos, he was acting more or less on impulse. But every instinct was telling him not to leave Salmandmon, to protect him as much as he could. Maybe he couldn’t channel fire like the lizard could, but he had to be able to do SOMETHING…but the ideas weren’t coming to him as he faced down the angry glare of the Frigimon.

“You’ve tried my patience enough for insects! Die like you’re supposed to! Ice Breath!” Beth Reyn and Salmondmon braced themselves, Salmandmon planning to push away and take the attack if it meant saving Reyn, Reyn steeling his grip to break them both out of the way…

Neither of those things happened. Both were suddenly frozen in place…briefly, both of them wondered if they had been too late and the attack had hit, but it didn’t feel cold…in fact, it was suddenly warm, then hot, then VERY hot…then, just as both of them found enough thought to wonder what was going on, the heat flared up beyond everything else, and all thoughts went blank.

———

Just because the rest could see what was going on didn’t mean they knew anything more about it.

Iris and Shockavimon had felt a terror shoot through them as Reyn and Salmandmon failed to escape the frigid assault. But that all changed when they saw the eerie glow behind the pillars of ice that had frozen in front of where the two were. They watched, enraptured, as what had been Reyn and Salmandmon disappeared into a shapeless form of raging red, rapidly melting the ice around them and causing it to shatter to pieces.

“What…what is that?!” Even Frigimon had been thrown off, taking a step backwards. They could do nothing but watch as the oblong red shape spun and shone, radiant beams of light shooting out of it as it coalesced into a new shape, the shape of a bipedal creature nearly seven feet tall. Powerful arms and legs emerging on a muscular torso, a long reptilian tail taking shape behind him, and the head of a lizard creature with blazing eyes opening to reveal a brilliant amber. The creature curled up, then burst out of the light with a fearsome yell in a whirl of potent flames, landing solidly on the ground and standing up tall in front of Frigimon.

“Frigimon.” The creature spoke, in a deep, fierce voice. “I’d enjoy my last seconds, if I were you.”

“You…you…I don’t know what the hell you are, but don’t think some weird parlor tricks are gonna stop me! Subzero Ice Punch!” Frigimon lunged forward, trying to deliver a blow to the reptile…but rather than moving, all the creature did was cross his arms in front of him.

“Heat Field!”

The air in a sphere around the creature suddenly turned an angry orange-red, just as Frigimon’s fist got there. Instead of a freezing blow, Frigimon’s eyes widened and he let out an agonized cry as his hand essentially dissolved before his eyes in the wake of the oppressive heat. He stumbled backwards, holding his crippled limb as he looked at the creature in horror. “No! No! How is this possible?!”

“All that big talk, and you’re already running scared?” The reptile hissed with a cackle. “I’d tell you to chill out, but I think you’re about to do the opposite of that.”

“Damn you! You think this is some sort of joke?!”

“If it is, then the joke’s on you.” The aura around the creature dissipated, and another swirling blaze of fire surrounding the reptile’s raised right hand. “Shame about your hand…why don’t I let the rest of you join it! Pyre Rush!” The creature thrust his hand forward, and a violent outburst of flames billowed from it, enveloping Frigimon completely. A wavering cry of anguish was all that came out of Frigimon, cut off mid blow by his body dissipating into a cloud of data that scattered off into the wind, disappearing into nothing within seconds.

All that left was Iris and Shockavimon to stare with dropped jaws at the being in front of them. Both with a single thought on repeat in their minds: It can’t be. There’s no way. It’s not possible. But no matter how many times it bounced back and forth, one thing remained true: there had been Reyn and Salmandmon one moment, and this new creature the next. And there was no way that the two had somehow slipped away in the middle of that melee.

“Iris. Shockavimon.” The two were jarred back into awareness by the creature’s voice. “Are you two all right?”

“I…I think so…” Iris said shakily.

“Sore, but I’ll live…” breathed Shockavimon. “What…what are you? Are…are you Reyn? Or Salmandmon?”

The creature bowed his head. “…Yes. And no.” Those blazing eyes opened again, a steely sharpness in them. “I…am both of them. I am Burnreptimon.”

Chapter Text

I was already at ‘what even happened to my life’ before all this…now it’s straight-up Twilight Zone. Pretty soon I’m gonna hear that creepy repeating four-tone noise and an overly dramatic voiceover. Any moment now…

It was easy to see why Iris was struggling to process it all with the scene around her. Her arm was around a creature that she’d been dreaming about for years but had never realized actually existed until just yesterday. Not far from where she was kneeling were the slowly-melting patches of ice on the tree, the last remnants of a giant living snowman who had been intent on turning her into a human popsicle. And near that were scorch marks on the ground and trees, and a few licks of flame on patches of grass. And coming over to kneel in front of her and Shockavimon was a large fiery lizard creature that she was fairly sure had been two people up until just a couple minutes ago. “Are you sure you’re okay, Iris? You look really pale…”

“Am I okay? No, I’m NOT okay. Nothing about this is okay!”

“Iris!” Shockavimon tried to settle her down. “Easy, it’s…we’re not hurt, and Frigimon’s gone…it’s as okay as it’s going to get.”

“That’s just…” Iris shook her head. “I don’t know what’s going on anymore!” She looked up at Burnreptimon, still utterly lost about him. “What’s going on? How did you do that?”

“Ah…er…” Burnreptimon looked away, rubbing his head. “I don’t actually know.”

“Wait, how can you not know?” asked Shockavimon.

“Easy. I don’t know anything THEY don’t know. And they sure as hell don’t know anything about this.”

“They? Are you…talking about Reyn and Salmandmon? So…you’re really them?”

“Yeah…except…look, it’s complicated, I’m still trying to figure out how to explain it. Listen…there’s only one thing I’m sure of. And that’s that the whole game’s changed. The others…we need to round them all up. The humans and the digimon. And we need to do it ASAP. You’re going to have to make the calls, I…I need to stay like this for now, I need to try to understand more.”

“I don’t understand-”

“We don’t have time.” Burnreptimon looked around at the scene, the lingering chaos still very obvious. “There’s no way no one heard that. And even if they didn’t come over, there’s no way it’s going to stay unnoticed for long. I need to split, fast, and you need to get out of here before it’s too hard for Shockavimon to hide. We don’t have a lot of time…”

“Wait, how are YOU going to hide?” demanded Shockavimon.

“As best I can. Look, you remember that old athletic field to the south? The one they call the ‘Undevelopment’ because they’ve been in court for years over what’s not being done or something like that?”

“You mean Glikke Field?” said Iris. “But that’s right out in the open!”

“The field is, but there’s still the woods behind the field. It’s close enough that everyone should be able to bike there easily, but far enough that we aren’t going to have eavesdroppers. Bring everyone there, and don’t take no for an answer. I can’t stress that enough, EVERYONE has to be there. I don’t care if Derek is sleeping, wake him up if you have to.”

“…Okay. But…you owe me an explanation.”

“You’ll get as much as I can. But best if I only have to do it once.” Burnreptimon took off into the trees, and Iris finally got to her feet, trying to ignore how much her legs were shaking. Everything was happening so fast…she didn’t like when things happened fast, it was so hard to catch up sometimes. And on this she already felt about eight miles behind to begin with.

“Iris? You all right?” Shockavimon wasn’t quite as overwhelmed, but seeing Iris out of sorts was an uncomfortable feeling for her. Especially because she had no idea what was going on either…she’d expected the visit to this world to bring twists and turns, but this was absolutely NOT what she was prepared for.

“…I don’t know. But…if that’s really Reyn in there…I trust him. And, well, I’m gonna guess you trust Salmandmon, right?”

The avian nodded. “Right. So I guess we’d better get cracking…the sooner we do, the sooner we figure out what the hell is going on here.”

———

Glikke Field was not in the best of shape these days. When it had been used as a general athletic field for youth sports like soccer and football, it had been reasonably well-groomed and had a fair bit of the relevant infrastructure for sports as well as concessions and related things. But newer fields with better facilities had been built closer to the schools that had used it, and it wasn’t close enough to anyone else to pick up the role. A development group had bought the property to turn into a small gated community, but squabbling over plan details and efforts to go well beyond the scope of the area they had originally claimed they would be using had caused some friction with the city, and the council had eventually revoked permission for the development. There had been an ongoing court battle over this, with the developers insisting that permission couldn’t be revoked after being granted like that and the city refusing to negotiate with the developers but also unable to open to other offers while the current developers had the rights to the land. The upshot was that Glikke Field was currently a fairly overgrown, barren field that didn’t have much to offer to anyone at the moment.

But at the far side of the field was a relatively sizable woods, a nice place to get away to nature for a little bit. Efforts had been made in Braun to preserve and expand their green presence, and the woods had been one point of contention for the development when the group had tried to expand their scope to including razing it entirely to put in more houses. Although it wasn’t being actively used for anything, it was still green area and lots of people were against its destruction.

Never before had it been of interest to this bunch, though…not until that evening.

“Where IS he?!” Skylar remarked testily as they hung at the edge of the wood. “It’s almost a half hour after we said we were gonna meet! My dad’s going to have a fit if I’m gone for eight hours or something!”

“Did you really think he was going to be here when he should be?” said Derek darkly; he was already in a less-than-stellar mood, considering he was usually in bed at this time. “This is classic Isaac. You’d think a robot-head like him could design an effective alarm clock. Maybe we should start without him.”

“We’re not starting without him,” insisted Iris. “Everyone needs to be here.”

Skylar huffed. “Does he really? I can’t imagine he’s going to offer anything that we could use.”

“You really don’t like him, do you?” asked Breezedramon.

“I have plenty of reasons for that. He’s arrogant, he’s irascible, he’s stubborn…”

“Huh? What does irascialiable mean?”

“I believe the particular definition of the original word regards a temperamental or enragable personality,” offered Blackcanismon. “Your idiosyncratic bowdlerization, conversely, defies any rational definition.”

Breezedramon looked up at Derek. “Translate please?”

“Don’t look at me, bud, I’m barely keeping up as it is.”

“But you’re his dream partner! You should know how to keep up with him!”

Derek chuckled a bit. “I wouldn’t mind getting some practice, to be honest. Oh, hey, finally.” He pointed as Isaac’s bike rolled up, at a less than rapid clip. “Look who decided to show up. Thought you might’ve finally fallen into the black hole of your ego.”

“Bite me,” huffed Isaac as he dismounted his bike. “I can only go so fast when I don’t want to lose Data.” Datacarnomon was tromping up, dropping his cloaking as he approached.

“Have you considered leaving early?” Skylar asked testily.

“Some of us have families that do stuff! My dad doesn’t like me going off without knowing where I’m going and why, you have any idea how hard it is to come up with excuses he can buy?”

Iris jumped in before things could escalate any further. “No fighting, please. I’m stressed out enough already, I don’t need you two adding to it. But Isaac, you really DO need to get better at the punctuality. People aren’t going to stop getting after you over it.”

“I know, I know. I haven’t been late to class all this quarter, doesn’t that count for something?”

“Hang on a tick,” Datacarnomon said, looking around. “Aren’t we missing someone? Where’s Salmandmon?”

“Yeah, and Reyn? I thought you said everyone had to be here!”

Shockavimon sighed. “They are here…kind of.”

“What do you mean, ‘kind of?’ Did you all start talking about stuff before I got here or something?”

“If we had, it would be your fault entirely,” griped Skylar.

“C’mon, Sky!” Breezedramon said imploringly. “Just because he’s not good at punctanmulotalimaziting doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be kept outta the loop!”

“His tardiness is an impediment to communal equilibrium, indubitably,” countered Blackcanismon. “Irreclaimable temporal periods are forevermore banished to worthless irrelevance if proper timekeeping is not adhered to.”

“You two…” sighed Shockavimon. “Why didn’t we just challenge Emperius to try to make sense of what you were saying? We’d’ve had them licked in half a day.”

“Oy, Shock! Ixnay!” Datacarnomon said frantically.

“Don’t bother, Data, it’s a lost cause now.”

“…What?”

“What’s all that about?” Derek asked suspiciously.

“Guys, one thing at a time.” Iris shut down the conversation. “C’mon, into the woods. We’re, uh, going to meet Reyn and Salmandmon in there.”

“Ooookay…why did they go in there before us?”

“…You’ll see.”

———

The group mostly fell silent as they walked, several minutes passing with each of them wondering about any number of things. For most of them, including why they were here and why they were still waiting on someone. The breeze through the trees left a rather disconcerting ambiance to the whole thing, only stoking the apprehension felt by all of them. Everyone, other than Iris and Shockavimon, were starting to get the sense that something was building up, though to what end they didn’t know.

Finally, Iris and Shockavimon stopped, and the rest followed suit behind them. Of course, naturally, there was some confusion. “Why’re we stopping here?” asked Isaac. “I don’t see Reyn anywhere.”

“I think he’s here.” Iris pointed to a tree several yards in front of them, which had an X drawn on the trunk in what looked to be ash. “Glad he left some kind of sign, at least…”

“A sign is not him,” Skylar pointed out. “What, is he hiding? Reyn, c’mon, come out, it’s just us.”

“…Wait!” Datacarnomon stiffened up. “I’m picking up a bio-sign! But…what the heck? I’ve never…what are these parameters? What’s going on here?”

“What’s the matter?” asked Isaac, suddenly sounding anxious.

“The signal’s coming in, but I’ve got no database entry! It doesn’t even match any of the classes! That can’t be possible!”

“WHOA!” Breezedramon’s cry cut through the air as suddenly something dropped from the trees, forward flipping twice before landing deftly on the ground. As it rose up, all of them could see the red reptilian form standing tall in front of them. And while the suddenness of the appearance threw them off enough, the dawning recognition of just why they hadn’t yet seen Reyn and Salmandmon was taking them for an even wilder ride.

“No…no way…there’s no way!” said Skylar shakily.

“What am I even looking at?” rattled Datacarnomon as he took a step back.

“This is…this is…” Even Blackcanismon was at a loss for words.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!” shouted six voices in near unison.

Iris narrowed her eyes at Burnreptimon. “Couldn’t resist making an entrance, huh?”

“I, ah…figured it would get their attention pretty well,” replied the fiery reptile, somewhat nervously.

“Right, because you were gonna be SO unimpressive otherwise…”

———

After the commotion died down a bit, the rest of them eventually got to sitting in in front of Burnreptimon. The lizard was nervous, but that seemed to put him on the same page as everyone else at this point. “Right…so…I can’t promise I can answer all your questions, but…I can answer some of them, I think. At least to some degree.”

“Okay, let me start it off then,” Datacarnomon said almost demandingly. “Just WHAT in blazes are you?”

“Well…” Burnreptimon took a deep breath. “I don’t know that I can give an answer that would satisfy you, to be honest. What I know is that I’m Reyn and Salmandmon. And they’ve combined together into me, Burnreptimon.”

“Burnreptimon? So you must be a digimon. Organic world creatures don’t have the program identifier.”

“Well…I don’t know what to make of it, myself. I think my appearance is more digimon than human, but at the same time, I don’t feel like…a regular digimon, if you know what I mean.”

Datacarnomon shook his head. “I have absolutely no clue. But I’m gonna try to register these frequencies…ugh. In a world of novel data sets already…”

“Okay, so we have the who and the what,” said Skylar. “Now we just need the when, where, why, and how.”

Burnreptimon proceeded to recap for the others the events that had happened earlier in Eglin Park, with Iris and Shockavimon filling in a few extra details. To the humans, it mostly resulted in fascination and disbelief…but the digimon had a very different reaction.

“This is awful!” Breezedramon exclaimed. “Emperius is already coming here?! But we literally just got here!”

“The proximity of their arrival to ours…catastrophically disadvantageous!” lamented Blackcanismon.

“Unbelievable…of all the rotten luck!” Datacarnomon pounded the dirt. “What chance do we have now?! We might be on the verge of full-on madness and we’ve barely had time to get to know a few names!”

Burnreptimon bowed his head. “Settle down, everyone. We’re going to have to get to that…but let’s focus on this point first. Because I think it’s going to be very important.”

“So you…just combined together? For no reason?” asked Derek.

“I’m not sure about the details, honestly. It was pretty chaotic. But…the more I thought about it, the more I think I have an idea what happened. When things were getting rough out there, we were both thinking the same thing…we wanted to stand and protect each other, no matter what it took. And…I think when we had that same feeling at the same time, it triggered something in us that caused us to combine together like this.”

“You just thought the same way? That’s it?” Isaac sounded unconvinced.

“I think it was more than just thinking, it was that feeling of urgency and determination…at that point, we were so in sync that they became one.”

“Okay, is it we, they, I, what the hell?” Shockavimon cut in.

Burnreptimon gave her a look. “Shut up. You have any idea how hard it is to figure out what pronouns I should be using? Not like I’ve ever been this before.”

“Unbelievable…a human and digimon combining together…” Skylar shook his head. “It sounds wild. Did you guys know this could happen?”

“No way,” Datacarnomon said flatly. “Us combining together? There’s no way we ever thought that could happen.”

“Data, c’mon, you’re being too broad,” countered Shockavimon. “I mean, I wouldn’t have expected it with a human, but it’s not like digimon can’t combine together. There is Jogress or DNA Evolution…”

“Well, yeah, okay, but with a human?”

“I just said-”

“Hang on a second,” Iris interrupted. “Evolution? What’s that?”

“It’s the way the digimon transform into other creatures in order to become stronger,” said Isaac, causing all pairs of eyes to turn to him. He gave them a defiant look back. “What? Don’t tell me I’m the only one who paid attention to anything going on in those dreams.”

“…I guess he’s got a point there,” conceded Iris. “Now that he says it, it does sound a bit familiar.”

“He’s got the basics of it right,” agreed Datacarnomon. “It’s technically called digital evolution, different from the kind of evolution you guys are more familiar with, but, you know, shorthand. By changing into different and stronger forms, we can become more capable in battle, as well as more specialized for certain tasks, whether they’re combat-related or not. There’s a lot of different potential triggers, but they all are founded on the same thing, a surge of extra energy that lets us climb to a new level. With Jogress or DNA evolution, that energy comes from a powerful bond that unites two compatible creatures into one stronger one. But I don’t see how that could possibly happen with a human, our foundational matter is completely different.”

“You guys have DNA?” asked Skylar.

“It’s not the same as your DNA,” explained Shockavimon. “There’s some long term for it-”

“Digital Network Attributor,” Blackcanismon interrupted.

“-Some big long term that Blackcanismon would obviously know,” she continued a bit tersely. “It’s also called our core data set, and it functions about the same way, making up all the stuff that makes us who we are. But it’s completely different from yours, ours is in Fundamental Code, yours is…in this weird stuff that I don’t understand at all.”

“Fundamental Code?” asked Derek.

“Wild guess, but I’m gonna say binary,” ventured Isaac.

“Oh…hm, that would make sense. But just two different bases, then…”

“Ones and zeros become a hell of a lot of stuff in computers, why not in digimon?”

“I like him, he catches on quickly,” snickered Datacarnomon.

“I suppose he would,” said Derek with a shrug. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sidetrack, it’s just a lot of…complicated stuff I never realized when I was dreaming about you guys. This evolution stuff…I remember some of it now, you guys changing forms a lot…but I also remember digimon that don’t change forms at all, it seems like.”

Datacarnomon nodded. “Yeah, there’s two classes there. Fixed-state digimon are by far the norm, they take a pretty set path and that’s it. There’s some ways they can change but it’s not easy, and it can be risky. Most of them stop at a pretty modest level, but can reach a stronger one if they put in a lot of training or get some help, but most don’t really need it unless they’re doing something special, or battling a lot. Variable-state digimon are different…we can shift between forms more easily and go back and forth without much trouble. A consequence of this is that we normally stay in Rookie state, because it’s stable but low-energy so we can build up more energy to unleash in our stronger forms…but when we do, we have a lot more potential to easily get to stronger states, including Mega form, which is a super tall order for a lot of fixed-state digimon. So we’re pretty sought after by anyone who likes to have a strong warrior on their side.”

“Absolutely fascinating!” marveled Skylar. “Creatures which can alternate forms like that…I’ve never heard of such a thing happening on our world! The closest thing I can think of is insect metamorphosis, but that’s still significantly different on a lot of levels!”

“Okay, so…that all I understand well enough, I think,” said Iris, then she pointed to Burnreptimon. “But now explain HIM!”

“I daresay if our computational comrade possessed elucidation on this particular conundrum, said elucidation would heretofore have been proffered,” remarked Blackcanismon. “Furthermore, there exist particular considerations which dramatically complicate comprehension of the matter, most notably our recently compelled debilitations.”

“Okay, I caught maybe three of those words, but one of them stuck out. Debilitations?”

“We can’t evolve anymore,” Breezedramon said, with frustration in his voice. “Stupid Evolution Seals screwed us up! I wanna be Cyclodramon again! Making ginormous whirlicyclotwisters with my mind!”

Isaac raised an eyebrow. “Evolution Seal? You mean evolution can be blocked?”

“Apparently so,” said Datacarnomon tightly. “Not that any of us knew that. It was supposed to be the one thing that was sacrosanct…I mean, yeah, there might be all sorts of reasons why someone might not be able to get to a particular form, but for us guys who can go back and forth, those are all temporary state things. Actually blocking off our evolution…” He went quiet, but the pain was pretty evident in his last words.

“It’s hard,” agreed Shockavimon sadly. “When you’re like us, that ability to take on our higher forms, it’s something that defines who we are. Having that taken away from is…it’s like losing a part of ourselves.”

Burnreptimon spoke up. “One of the reasons I wanted to make sure we got over here was because I thought maybe there was a chance they could do something about it over here. It probably hit me…well, Salmandmon the hardest, not to diminish anything you all felt. If there was any hope of a faster resolution, it probably lied over here.”

“I wondered what had you so gung-ho…” Shockavimon sighed. “Not that it matters now. With Emperius on their way, it’s probably only a matter of time before things go to hell.”

“No.” All eyes turned to Burnreptimon now. “That’s not necessarily true. There’s something I’ve been thinking about…but I think before we go too far into that, they need to know the REAL story. So…well, let’s make sure there aren’t any more questions about anything here before we move onto that.”

“Oh! I have one!” yapped Breezedramon. “Are you stuck that way? Are you this Burnreptimon guy impermatonatemabletaly?”

“Uh…oh! Permanently! No, no…thank goodness, no, that’s not the case. I mean, imagine, what do you think my parents would think?”

“Your parents?” said Derek with a smirk.

“Oh, can it. I’ll figure this out sooner or later…but yeah, we can split apart. Lemme show you…” Burnreptimon stood up, closed his eyes and tilted his head back. The form of the reptile glowed red, and then deformed into a shapeless mass, which bifurcated and reestablished itself as one human and one digimon. Both of whom looked none the worse for wear, if somewhat tired out.

“Whoa…that was…wow…” Breezedramon’s jaw was dropped in awe.

“You said it, buddy,” agreed Skylar. “That was wild. I don’t think humans are supposed to work that way.”

“Well, supposed to or not, it did…” Reyn breathed and obvious sigh of relief. “In every way, thankfully.”

“Don’t tell me you were only guessing you could!” Isaac exclaimed.

“Oh, no, nothing like that, I could feel it right away even when I was in there. I’m just glad I came back with my clothes on. THAT woulda been waaaaay awkward.”

“Oh, c’mon, you didn’t have any problem with it as Burnreptimon,” teased Salmandmon.

“Hey, that’s different and you know it. You guys have different standards.”

“Individuals mayhaps suggest human standards to be unnecessarily stodgy,” chuckled Blackcanismon.

“Says the dog who can’t wear much anyway,” countered Derek, though he was grinning.

“So you were still yourself in there, Sal?” asked Breezedramon.

Salmandmon’s brow furrowed. “Kind of…it’ s a weird state. It’s like…kinda asleep, but not really? And I’m aware of myself, but I’m also…Burnreptimon isn’t just like me and Reyn thinking together, there’s something else in there. I don’t really think I understand it all, but…well, it’s gonna take some time. Right now, I think we need to focus on a different kind of story time.”

“Are you sure, Sal?” Datacarnomon still sounded nervous. “I thought the idea was to keep things on the down low.”

“Yeah, that was the original plan. But you know what they say, the plan never survives the first contact with the enemy. I think Reyn already knows a good bit from this incident, anyway, but the rest of you should know, too…”

“I’m not sure how much I remember, but I’m also not sure if that’s because it’s not stuff I really wanted to remember…” said Reyn heavily.

“It’s that bad?” asked Isaac seriously.

“Maybe worse than that bad, from what that snowy asshole was saying…”

———

After a brief break for the digimon to get everything straight, the gang of now-ten reconferred in their little spot in the woods. The sky was getting somewhat darker, putting a bit of time pressure on them all, earning Isaac a few more ribs for his lateness, which he clearly didn’t appreciate. But all that was put aside when faced with the serious mood of the digimon.

“We’ll try to make this as simple as possible for you guys,” said Salmandmon. “So I’m gonna let Data do the honors.”

“You let him speak for you a lot, don’t you?” observed Skylar.

“You wanna get it from Breezy or BC instead?”

“Narrate away, Datacarnomon.” A chorus of snickers arose from the others, and a pouty huff from Breezedramon.

“Right then…” Datacarnomon stepped forward, clearly focused. “Let me try to set the stage a bit. Obviously, our worlds are different in a lot of ways. Digimon are creatures with natural abilities oriented towards combat. They come in sizes ranging from barely bigger than one of your fists to, uh…let’s just say ‘unnecessarily macro.’ As you can imagine, it’s…not exactly the most peaceful place in the world. But, despite that, it’s still a place where people can work together, come together in cities and regions and other cohesive units of society. Sometimes really huge cities…some of them that I’ve never seen are supposed to leave you wondering how anyone could ever live outside them…”

“Data, you’re getting sidetracked,” interrupted Shockavimon. “See, Isaac, nigh perfect recall, but not-so-perfect playback. That’s what happens when you give the robots free will, remember that.”

“Duly noted.” Isaac’s face didn’t suggest that that deterred him from the idea.

“ANYWAY. It’s not like digimon live in a lawless land, but in some places a lot of stuff is…localized. Despite the efforts of some…uh, we live on a continent called Tetraquaz. It’s the fourth and smallest major continent in our world, but that’s not saying much, it’s still probably at least as big as all yours combined. But, remember, there are a lot of huge digimon, too, so it’s probably not as densely populated overall, and there’s a lot of stretches of land between the cities. That makes it challenging to have any real central authority. There’s one that plays at it, though…the Kaiser, we call him, but his full name is Kaiserhuanglongmon. He’s…kind of a batty one, in my opinion, seems to have some weird ideas.”

“Excuse you,” Salmandmon said indignantly. “The Kaiser’s an amazing person and he’s actually a really good ruler, in that he doesn’t try to rule too much. He’s there to help, not to lord over everyone.”

“Sure, sure…” Datacarnomon didn’t seem keen to change his position. “Just because you’ve got connections to him…”

“Not the time, guys,” Shockavimon interjected, getting things back on track again.

“Anyway, this isn’t about the Kaiser, really, it’s about what we’re up against. About…eight years ago, I think it was, was the first sign of this new group called Emperius in Northern Tetraquaz. It happened after a pretty nasty event down in Southern Tetraquaz, and they started growing fast, way faster than anyone would have wanted to see for what they were. They were a group of digimon with some rather nasty ideas…the main ones being, they wanted to rule over all digimon everywhere under one united world under their power alone, and to stratify all digimon based on power alone. So basically, if you’re powerful, you get to rule, and if you’re not powerful, you better hope not to die. They’re fanatical about destiny and fate, too, thinking that because they are powerful, then they cannot possibly lose, and those who are weak and unworthy have no chance against them. They pretty quickly showed that anyone they didn’t deem worthy, they had no qualms about getting them out of the way.”

“Yeesh…” Derek muttered. “That sounds ghastly.”

“Yeah, it was. And they just kept growing…and causing more trouble for everyone. People wanted the Kaiser to step in, but…unfortunately, as messy as it was getting there, Southern Tetraquaz was even messier. There’s been a conflict going on down there for at least two decades, maybe longer, and it’s a nightmare…hard to tell which side is in the right, and all of them do some pretty ugly things in the name of their cause. The Kaiser’s been doing everything in his power to try to quell it since he rose about ten years ago, but it keeps most of the military forces he has at his hand occupied trying to prevent them all from killing each other, especially after in escalated about eight years ago following the Gradwen Massacre. So Emperius didn’t have much to fear…they had the room to grow unchecked, until they were big enough to be a threat to the Kaiser and have the first step of their takeover complete.”

“But the big thing Emperius had going against them is that people HATED them. Not everyone, obviously, but a LOT of people were against them, because they were brutal in their tactics. They went after you, you joined or you died, that was their philosophy. But it got them a lot of people who didn’t really want to be with them, and there was a lot of betrayal and dissension. And then other groups started moving against them…including the one we joined, the Knights of Liberty. They formed about four years ago, under the oath of our commander Dynasmon, and his two top lieutenants, Gallantmon and Crusadermon. The group basically exists solely for the purpose of countering Emperius, and has the full support of the Kaiser. Of course, we obviously try to help keep the peace in other ways, but Emperius has always been the central focus, because they’ve been the biggest threat.”

“For three years, we landed blow after blow. They were tough, it wasn’t easy, but we were more cohesive and we managed to turn some of theirs that didn’t want to be there. And the five of us were leading the charge a lot…we were part of the Elite Force, and made a particular unit called Zetta Unit, the tops of the tops. Last year was the biggest turning point…we were engaged in a fierce battle and their leader, Craniummon, showed up. Went straight for Sal…he turned that bitch into charcoal.”

“I still don’t know what the hell he could have possibly been thinking, doing something like that,” Sal said with a shake of his head but a fierce grin on his face. “Guess he was a better backseat commander than frontline fighter. But I thought I’d just decapitated the beast…was a pretty good feeling.”

“Emperius went quiet after that, but we knew they weren’t totally gone, and we were trying to clear out the last scattered remnants. We searched for them…the base they had been at was abandoned in a hurry, but there were skirmishes here and there, pockets of resistance that would crop up from the stragglers…or, at least, that’s what we were all thinking, and we were trying to root them out, and see who might be heading them. Lots of searches turning up nothing…but then, not long ago, we got word that there was a big Emperius force being led by a group of ‘generals,’ and we thought maybe we had them. They send out as much of the Elite Force as they could, planning to put them on ice for good.”

“I’m going to take a stab and say it didn’t go as planned,” sighed Skylar.

“Sadly not. Their number were…terrifying. It was far more than we were prepared for. We hadn’t been recruiting as much because we thought the worst was over…we were outmatched horribly. Emperius, I guess, had been shadow recruiting for nearly a year…their tactics had changed, and we had no idea. Whoever took the helm, they completely blindsided us. But for us in particular, it was about to get even worse…we went after the generals, trying to ice their leadership and hope that the rest got in disarray enough to let our forces prevail. But as we tried to engage them…boom. We suddenly revert to Rookie form, and this crap appears.” Datacarnomon pointed to the mark on his hand, scowling at it. “Our Evolution Seal…and the marks all look different, but you can tell, there’s a vague sense of matching our elements…this wasn’t just random luck, these were DESIGNED for us. And they worked disastrously well.”

“I’m not even sure how we survived getting out of there,” shuddered Breezedramon. “I thought for sure that general was going to obloteronamonite me.”

“I think we only escaped because they knew we weren’t a threat anymore,” sighed Salmandmon, rubbing his own mark. “Because we weren’t. Without being able to evolve…Shock’s right, it’s like a part of yourself is torn out of you.”

“Bastards…” growled Reyn. Iris looked over, and noticed that his hands were in white-knuckled grips. She put a hand on him gently, he started a bit and looked over at her, then away, but she noticed his grip relaxing.

“But we did survive. And…well, glum as we were about things, we knew that the world wasn’t going to stop for us to mope. And Sal had the idea that we could do something else…something that apparently we were just in time to do.”

“So, I’m not sure what anyone else has said about this, so I’ll just cover it quick. The digital world’s known that your world exists for…20 to 30 years, thereabouts. We don’t know much about it - that it exists, that you guys are called humans, a bunch of coincidental details, all that. Lots of digimon have been forming opinions about humans, but the Kaiser’s got a fascination with them…one of his passion projects is trying to make it possible for our worlds to connect, he wants to come here and learn about this world and establish ties with it. As you probably expect, some people are all for it, some are really against the idea…Emperius didn’t seem to care originally, they wanted to take over the digital world, any other was seemingly off their radar. But…it was about a month ago that we heard about this new thing. The Declaration of Purification. A statement that all races who lacked the power of digimon were worthless, and their lives were forfeit if Emperius so willed it. And it was very clear that they were talking about humans.”

“Good lord…” Isaac was going a bit pale. “They want us dead? Why? It’s really just about some fanaticism?”

“No…I don’t think so.” Datacarnomon bowed his head. “I think there’s another reason. Emperius thinks…and we at the Knights of Liberty think they’re right…that your world is an attractive target because they can use it. Nothing they do isn’t about power, and while they’d certainly be happy using that power to crush you, I think they want MORE power, and they can use this world to make that happen.”

“Use it? How?”

“Your digital infrastructure. No one is entirely sure how it would react with us, but…it’s been posited, by a lot of our smartest folks, that it could be used to enhance and upgrade digimon, and possibly even create new ones - be they copies of existing types or brand-new types entirely. It would probably take some time to figure out, but if Emperius got over here, established a foothold, or worse, succeeded in all-out conquest, they could do whatever they wanted over here, and once they figured it out…an army of radically enhanced digimon, swarming in out of nowhere, overwhelming with both numbers and capacity…”

“No force in either world could oppose them,” finished Derek, his voice shaking.

“Exactly,” affirmed Datacarnomon grimly. “They would have basically an instant-win machine at their fingertips. And we wanted to keep that from happening, for obvious reasons…there was talk at the KOL of trying to get over here and establish relations to get that sort of capacity for ourselves, just to try to keep Emperius from getting their hands on it, but…we have the capacity to transfer matter across the planes, but that’s about it. No one wanted us to just send a force in and make you think we were invading, we needed to establish a rapport. So they’ve been trying to work on communication across the planes first…”

“But with Emperius having crippled the KOL, we didn’t have a choice but to come here,” said Shockavimon. “And not looking for power, even, but just looking to prepare you guys for what was probably coming. I’m not gonna lie, a lot of digimon think you couldn’t stand a chance against us. But…well, there’s some among us who think you’ve got more capability than the rest think. The five of us certainly think so, though, well, we do have a bit of an advantage there.”

“I’m sure actually knowing about the world does help,” Iris said, sounding stressed. “But I’m not sure, either…I remember some of those creatures from those dreams, some of them were incredibly terrifying. I don’t know what we could do about them.”

“It’s a long shot in the first place, we know that,” hissed Salmandmon. “But if your other option is no shot, why not take the long shot, right? And if they could do something about our seals, we could help out, that was what I thought…if they had even five full-capability digimon at their backs, that would have to count for something.”

“Yeah, cuz five puny Rookies don’t really cut it,” Breezedramon growled, though the somewhat cute sound that come out didn’t exactly have the effect he might have hoped for. “But Emperius already started their invasion! We’re staring down animahimalonation before we even get started!”

“Man…I can see why you didn’t wanna tell us about this,” moaned Isaac. “This sounds like a nightmare…I mean, our whole world on the brink of invasion and no one knows it except us. It sounds completely hopeless.”

“Yeah, it does…” Salmandmon said…then he looked up, and there was a glint in his eye. “Or, rather, it did, until today.”

“Huh?” Four of five humans, and the other four digimon, looked towards Salmandmon blankly.

“Emperius showed their hand today. They’re ready to strike…but if they only sent one Frigimon, that probably means they’re starting by testing the waters. Making sure the humans are as easy as they think they are. Weirdly restrained for them, but…I dunno, something changed with them, they’ve been acting more restrained than they used to. Whoever took over over there, they knew what the hell they’re doing, and that’s pretty terrifying. But the equation’s changed on our end, too. Because it’s not just an unsuspecting human populace against them...it’s five warriors they weren’t at all ready for.”

“What? Wait…you’re not suggesting…!” Shockavimon’s jaw dropped. “Sal! Are you crazy?”

“Salmandmon! You cannot be seriously contemplating the prospect I’m envisioning!” barked Blackcanismon. “We are completely absent any significant evidence of transferability of the phenomenon you underwent!”

“No, we’re not!” fired back Salmandmon. “Think about it! What’s different between you guys and me and Reyn? You have the shared dreams! You felt that pull to them when you came here! All five of us, all five of them, we’re connected in a way they didn’t even imagine, in a way that bypasses the bonds they put on us! If Reyn and I can make for a capable fighter, you guys can too!”

“You…you want us all to be…fusing together like that?!” gasped Iris.

“That’s madness!” Isaac exclaimed. “I’m not a fighter! Hell, I wouldn’t expect anyone over here who IS a fighter to be ready for this!”

“And he’s the only one built like a lummox enough for it in the first place,” added Skylar. “Look at me, one of YOU could probably take me!”

“And so what?”

That very unexpected response got Isaac, Skylar, and Iris all looking at Derek in shock; the dark-haired boy’s expression was grim but resolute. “Do any of you really think how you feel matters here? Consider everything they say is true, and we’ve no reason to believe otherwise…do you think Emperius goes away and leaves us alone because we said we don’t wanna?” Dead silence met that, as the other three looked awkwardly between each other, which was about what Derek was expecting. “Say it to their faces, and see how far that gets you...me, all I have to do is imagine talking to my dad. Doesn’t matter what words you have, they’re useless. They’re coming, whether we like it or not…”

“All we get to say is whether we meet them,” finished Reyn with a nod. “I can’t blame anyone for not being happy about this, but all I can say is, ready or not, here they come. I already faced one of them today, trying to take my life just because I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I’m here because I stood and fought…with Salmandmon. And I’m no more a fighter than any of you…less than you, Isaac, mister ‘I’m not an uber-nerd because I can actually lift.’”

“I knew I’d regret saying that someday,” mumbled Isaac. “But…you’ve got a point…if you two together can make it happen…Jesus. This is really going to happen, isn’t it?”

Salmandmon nodded. “There really aren’t words for how much I hate to ask this of all of you…but this is why I had to tell you all this, so that you understood what was at stake. The way things stand now, everyone present here in this group is literally the only line of defense this world has against a force that would gladly see every single person on this planet deleted as soon as possible, and most of them on ours. It’s ALL on us. And it’s a burden that has no business being on any of us, but sometimes we’re not left with the choices we’d rather have. It’s sink or swim…and we need to know now if you’re swimming. I can’t force you to do anything, but…”

“But if we don’t, then we’re probably done for,” Isaac said grimly.

“Ike…I’m sorry…” Datacarnomon looked away. “I had no idea it would end up like this…”

“I know. How could any of us know? But…well, they’re right, aren’t they? Fight or fall. If I’m going to end up face to face with one of those goons, I’d rather it be swinging back than just cowering at their feet.”

“I suppose, Derek, that I needn’t ruminate over your cognitions regarding this debacle,” stated Blackcanismon with resignation, “considering your preceding declarations…misgivings notwithstanding, I would humbly beseech your accommodation.”

“I’m going to do what I can,” asserted Derek. “Whatever that ends up being…like Isaac said, if we fail, at least we tried, rather than letting it happen without a fight.”

“Sky? Are you okay with all this?” asked Breezedramon tentatively.

“…Of course not. None of this is all right, it’s all utterly and completely batty.” Skylar rubbed his head, looking exceedingly weary. “But the logic is infallible, no matter how I look at it. And I can’t just sit by and do nothing while everyone I know and care about is in danger. Even if I feel like I just entered a bad nightmare.”

“Sky…I’ll make sure I help you stand tall! Uh, well, as tall as you are, anyway…you wouldn’t happen to have a few extra inches or anything hiding somewhere, would you?”

“Tch! Breezedramon! Humans can’t just do things like that.” Skylar let out a sigh, but the ridiculous statement actually seemed to have helped unwind him a bit. “I guess there’s not much to do but try to prepare for it, though. Jeez, and here I thought my biggest fear at my age was supposed to be thick-headed bullies and conveniently-sized lockers.”

“Iris…” Shockavimon had stepped over, and put her wing on the human. “I…I understand if you don’t want to do this. I saw how nervous you were even trying to confront me…it’s too much of any of us to ask you to put yourself through something you know you can’t handle.”

Iris’s eyes were closed, she was keeping her breathing very deliberately steady. Every time I think I’m overwhelmed enough, there’s another layer of whelm to add on top of it… Slowly her eyes opened and she looked up, not at Shockavimon, but at Reyn. “Reyn…I hope to hell you’re right about me.”

“Iris?” Shockavimon’s eyes widened. “You’re…”

“I can’t let them all go off and feel any good about staying out of it. And…after feeling how I did when that Frigimon attacked…I think I’d rather feel like I had some chance to do something other than run around like a panicking chicken. I have to at least try…for everyone, including myself.”

“I’ll do everything I can to help you, Iris, I promise. If you can stand up to this, you can stand up to anything.”

“Well…we’ll see.” Iris hugged Shockavimon tight, and looked at Reyn again. “I don’t suppose anyone needs to ask you.”

“My fate was sealed the moment I became part of Burnreptimon,” said Reyn with a nod. “What I felt there…I knew I had to do it. Trust me, I’m plenty scared, too, but…you’ll feel it, Iris. There’s a power there…it’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Once you’ve felt it, you’ll know what I mean. If there’s a way to beat these guys, it’s gonna come from that.”

“I’ll say one thing,” Salmandmon said with a smile. “They really underestimate the courage of humans over on our side. That might be our biggest advantage…Emperius thinks they’re going to waltz in unopposed. They aren’t ready for us, either that we exist or that we’re willing to stand against them. I’m not gonna lie, this is gonna be hard…we’re gonna likely get hurt, and there’s a good chance it could end badly. But this is the second time since I got here that I’ve really felt anything like real hope, and that was in short supply back in the digital world. We’ve got a chance here. Let’s do what we can to make sure we make the most of it. Shock, Breezy, Data, BC, I want you guys to do everything you can to make sure they’re as prepared as they can be. I know you guys are ready, but they’re from a different world, this isn’t something they’ve really experienced. Psych them up!”

“We’ll do what we can, for sure,” agreed Shockavimon. “But, it’s gonna be pretty nasty, isn’t it? How’re we going to keep up with Emperius? For all we know they can pop in any time, anywhere.”

“Hey, yeah…” Isaac said with dawning realization. “How’re we going to track them? I don’t think any of us can just flit off wherever we want without worry.”

“So…it’s good news bad news time.” Datacarnomon took a deep breath. “The barrier between our worlds, it’s…weird. We don’t really understand it very well. What we do know is that, uh, establishing a transfer, it requires…well, a hole. A hole that we, uh, made when we first came through.”

“Right, the anomaly in the sky,” agreed Skylar, and then he did a double-take. “Wait! The sky hasn’t looked right ever since that time…you’re saying…”

“The hole’s still there. And that’s probably why there was no sign that Frigimon came through. So, bad news: it’s probably NOT going to be obvious when Emperius sends soldiers over here. But good news…well, maybe good news, depending on your point of view: We still don’t know how to really ‘direct’ transfers over the worlds, so it’s pretty much a given that they’ll follow the path of least resistance. Since there’s already a hole here…”

“Then it’s almost a guarantee that they’ll show up somewhere in Braun,” finished Derek. “Can those holes repair themselves?”

“Theoretically, but if they’re being actively used? Almost certainly won’t happen. And let’s hope it doesn’t, because that sounds like it’ll be a bad thing for us if it does. Probably the bigger concern is that it gets bigger, but whether it’ll do that, and how quickly if it does…you’re asking the wrong mon.”

“We still need another plan of action, too,” added Isaac. “There’s no way that we’re gonna be able to last alone against everything Emperius has to offer, even if they start slow. We’re gonna need support and backup at some point, and that’s gonna have to come from somewhere.”

“Then let’s do the original plan, too!” piped up Breezedramon. “Send word to the athorbamalaities!”

“The who-what now?”

“Our original mission was to find someone we could warn who could prepare for a defense of this world,” said Salmandmon. “Breezy’s right, we still should do that. I guess what we talked about before ended up happening without a conference anyway. So we’re gonna be relying on you guys to know what the best course of action on that front is, since you know this world better than we do.”

“Good point…I suppose the obvious choice would be somewhere in the federal government,” mused Skylar. “President Herrera, maybe? She’s the commander in chief, she’d have to give the orders…I don’t think a declaration of war is a factor here, so probably she wouldn’t have to put up with a lot of fuss over it.”

“Wait, you have a military leader in charge, but they can’t declare war?” asked Datacarnomon.

“It’s not quite as simple as that. Our system is…a little bit complicated. And even if you get the rules, things get weird when it comes to actually following them.”

“I don’t think I want any of those clowns involved period,” huffed Isaac. “You just know they’re going to be looking for some way to get some personal benefit out of it…”

“Yes, yes, we’re all well aware of your dim view of politics,” Derek remarked with an eye roll. “Now, let’s rejoin reality and realize there’s no way they aren’t going to be involved at some point, and figure out an actual solution. Why not start at the top?”

“I don’t think that’ll work,” cut in Reyn. “First off, the message has to get to her, and anyone who filters her messages is going to toss out something that looks like a crank. Second, she’s in the Middle East, trying to broker another peace treaty between Israel and Palestine.”

“Lovely. Speaking of hopeless causes…”

“But I think we’re in the right sphere. Somewhere in the federal government. But it has to be somewhere that might believe us and listen. Maybe Homeland Security, though they’ve always been kinda iffy, this should be something they should take care of.”

“Maybe we should go higher?” suggested Isaac. “DOD?”

“Absolutely not. That hack Jonah Wheeler is still there. I’d trust him like I’d trust that Frigimon to throw me a parade.”

“Ah, right, the only guy you actually really have an opinion on…yeah, that tells me enough, no chance.”

“He’s that bad?” asked Salmandmon. “And he’s in a leadership position?”

“He’s a flake. Pretends to be one party, then the other, whoever’s in charge, just so he can get positions. Pretty sure he only got there as a show of ‘unity,’ but everything he says comes off as skeevy to me. Wait…there’s a better direction entirely. FBI and CIA. They’re investigators, they’ve got a history of getting involved in weird stuff, and they’re probably already looking into things in Braun after that sky flash. They’ll be more inclined to look at things that involve this stuff seriously.”

“Oh! Maybe we can ask my dad?” offered Iris.

“Or mine,” added Derek. “I’m pretty sure they both occasionally coordinate with the federal agencies already.”

Reyn frowned at the two of them. “Not a chance in hell.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“Derek. When’s the last time you and your dad were on good terms?”

“…I’d say probably sixteen years ago.”

“Aren’t you fifteen?” asked Isaac.

“Yes.”

“…Oh. Right. Sorry.”

“What’s that about?” Skylar asked.

Reyn didn’t respond to that, instead turning to Iris. “Iris. When’s the last time your dad flipped out over your safety?”

“…Yesterday morning when he wanted me to stay in because of the flash.” Iris sighed. “Okay, I get your point. They can’t know anything’s going on, they’ll take it totally the wrong way.”

“Yeah. I wish they were better options, but I think the backfire potential is huge there. Let’s reach out directly to the agencies. Isaac, Skylar, it’s probably best if you do it…you don’t have any close connections that might get back to someone and you’re probably better at crafting anything written than I am.”

“A-freaking-men to that, I’ve seen your term papers,” snorted Isaac. “Seriously, let me proof them, you’ll be happier.”

“It’s gonna be SUCH a joy working with you again,” grumbled Skylar. “Try to tone your…everything down a notch, okay?”

“Hey! I could do just fine without you!”

“I think you’re more liable to get yourself arrested than anything, given the opinionated way you write.”

“It’s better than your dry, boring dreck! They’ll fall asleep reading it!”

“Which is why you two together can tone down the biggest issues you have,” said Reyn, leaving both boys grumbling but not arguing. “I know you’ve got issues. See if you can’t take the time to try to resolve them while you’re at it. We’re gonna have to be seeing a lot of each other, we can’t be at each other’s throats.”

Before any response came to that, the sound of a church bell rang in the distance. 8 rings.

“Crap!” Reyn suddenly leapt up. “I can’t believe how late it is!” I told my parents I’d be out for about an hour or two, it’s been like seven!”

“Jeez…I don’t think anyone’s going to be happy,” Isaac said with some dread. “Hope Dad’s in a good mood.”

“Sneaking in could be hard like this,” Shockavimon observed. “Jeez, what I wouldn’t give for Sal’s good situation.”

“You wanna tear your leg open three times to get there?” the lizard snarked.

“Point. I’ll take the less painful way.”

“Everything’s changed, huh?” said Breezedramon. “Who’da thought it’d turn out like this?”

“None of us, for sure,” said Skylar. “I still kinda hope I wake up and find out it was all a dream.”

“Anything to avoid working with Isaac?” said Iris with a strained smirk.

“Well, that too.”

———

Derek held back a bit as the rest got on their bikes and started off; Reyn was without his, and wasn’t looking forward to the walk back. “Hey…just curious. Are you feeling all right after that, uh, merging thing?”

“I desire to extend the same query towards my own compatriot,” added Blackcanismon.

Reyn and Salmandmon exchanged looks. “Uh…yeah, I think so,” Reyn said. “At least, I don’t really feel any different that I know of.”

“Me either,” agreed Salmandmon. “Kinda surprisingly so, after all that, I guess.”

“Hm.” Derek was quiet a moment. “Well, I’m glad for that. But, I dunno, you sure seemed more driven than I’ve ever seen you before. Why, I’d almost go as far as to say you showed a bit of leadership there.”

“Leadership?” Reyn chuckled. “I hope not, I have a reputation to keep up.”

“Well, I just wanted to be sure. I guess when you’re the only one who knows what’s going on, it can seem like it…” Derek stared off into the night sky. “Though I don’t think it’ll be long before the rest of us find out firsthand.”

“Well, hopefully the right one’ll take charge then. It’s exhausting trying to keep everyone in line. You’d probably do better, you were pretty solid back there yourself.”

“See, you’re like me,” Salmandmon remarked with a grin. “I just wanna be pointed at the nearest enemy and take them down. Not everyone needs to be in charge!”

“Which explains your appointment as Zetta Team commandant consecutively for a quartet of annual honorifics,” snickered Blackcanismon.

“Hey! That’s only because you all outvote me. I’ve tried to get Data put in there every year!”

“There remains the remote potential that eventually you shall arrive at understanding. Enjoy your ambulations.”

The two watched as Derek and Blackcanismon rode off into the darkness. A quick gaze around told them how far they were away from where they needed to be. It wasn’t like it was going to be hard, but it was going to take quite a while, and they had already been out far longer than intended anyway…

Reyn looked down at Salmandmon with a knowing grin. “Merge?”

Salmandmon grinned back. “Merge.”

Chapter Text

“Insufferable braggarts.”

“Don’t bark at the streetlights, ‘Shadow.’”

“How offensively reductionist! Minimizing my extensively cultivated linguistic specialties to mere animalistic vocalizations!”

“Would you prefer ‘yap’?”

Blackcanismon huffed as Derek snickered. “My personal preference would be salvation from these excessively luminescent constructions. The heavenly chorale of starlight is infinitely more desirable than this oppressive bombast.”

“Well, we’ll get there, but we have to go through some light to get to better places. And I wanna see how well this disguise holds up.”

“Were you not previously demonstrating a conviction in my approximation of an organic equivalent of my phenotype? The notion of active camouflage was your presentation, if I accurately recollect.”

“I’m well aware of that.” Derek had said that, but he knew there were factors that definitely made Blackcanismon stand out. His appearance was doglike, but that dark fur was certainly not the norm, and his eyes were also much more lucid and sharp than most dogs that he’d seen. “I think most people who aren’t paying attention aren’t even going to give you a second look. But I want to see how well you stand up to someone who might be paying more attention. Thankfully, I know a couple of safe bellwethers.”

“Deliberate exposure challenging the obfuscation? Might I express my misgivings?”

“I understand your concerns…I think. As much as I understand anything you say, anyway. But you don’t have to worry too much - even if these two catch on, no one’s going to listen to them anyway. They have a…history.”

“I will reluctantly place deference unto your judgment.” Not that Blackcanismon felt particularly comfortable with any of this. Only hours ago, the entire situation had taken a dramatic turn, and he was still processing all of it - particularly the prospect of physically merging with a human youth who hadn’t ever imagined getting caught up in something like this in his life, not psychologically prepared for a fight like Blackcanismon himself was. Though perhaps more so than most of his cohorts, it seemed…but Blackcanismon couldn’t help but wonder how much of that was without knowing what the real experience of their combat was like. Would it really hold up once they were actually forced to engage? Would they even be able to do what they needed to in order to meet the challenge? Salmandmon had sounded so sure…

At least his trying to mull everything over in his head offered him a good reason to stay quiet, which was important to maintaining the illusion of his just being an ordinary organic dog. It was hard acting like he was as blank as one of them; he’d observed a few of them in yards the previous day, and mimicking them seemed a daunting challenge, they seemed so carefree and dull, something that he wasn’t close to even among his own, more cognizant peers. The good news was that they barely passed anyone up to this point - the night wasn’t busy in Braun, at least not in this area - and those that they did pass seemed preoccupied.

Of course, that was less good fortune and more familiarity on Derek’s part, he avoided places with lots of people even under normal conditions. But there were a couple of people he was interested in tonight, and as he approached an alleyway, he could see that they were there as they often were. For people as atypical as they are, they sure are predictable…then again, I guess that little bit of stability keeps things from falling apart. The closer he came, the more they came into view…two men, a study in contrasts, yet almost inseparable. “Grits, Reggie. Any trouble tonight?”

“Bah. We ain’t trouble any night.” The bigger of the two men took another swig from a bottle that seemed to have intent to undermine that statement. ‘Grits’ was the only name Derek knew for him, as it was the only one he ever gave - he was a paranoid one, a great believer in lots of nebulous threats that were after the real him but would be thwarted by hiding his real name. He was a pretty big guy in every dimension, tall and heavyset, with a grizzled goatee and long, unkempt, greasy hair, stained and ratty clothing, an off-color grayish pallor to his face, and almost never found without some kind of alcohol on him, and even less frequently without some kind of alcohol IN him. Derek was pretty sure there was something wrong with him beyond the alcoholism, but could never figure out what that was…there was a lot he didn’t really understand about Grits, such as how he managed to actually have a place to live, since he’d never seen nor heard of the man having a job. He usually spent the days inside, and only went out at night, so Derek had gotten familiar with him over time. Usually peacefully, even…Grits could get surly when drunk, but he was pretty much harmless, as much for lack of coordination as lack of conviction.

“That only answers half the question. Have you had any from anyone else?”

“Always do,” growled Grits. “‘Spicious characters all over th’ place.”

“Dere’s feddies out there t’night, uh-huh.” Reggie’s swingy voice finally rang out through the alleyway, and Derek could see him rocking back and forth, sitting on top of a wooden box that looked creaky enough to fall apart at any moment. Though perhaps Reggie wouldn’t be the weight that ended its time, given how little of it he had. A tall but fairly gaunt black man, bundled up in a heavy long coat to help him deal with the cool weather of the night, a stocking cap on his head, and a distant gaze in his eyes that rarely seemed to change. Derek had a bit more of his story sussed out, though mostly through some induction - Reggie was a schizophrenic who couldn’t keep to his meds, though he had no issues with the acid he enjoyed, and would have been homeless without Grits letting him stay with him. Derek felt bad for him, his problems seemed more foisted on him than Grits’ bad decisions with booze, but the end result had him not really capable of living a normal life and apparently no one else willing or able to help him. It was an odd partnership that seemed to work for both of them - Grits seemed to keep Reggie a bit more stable, and Reggie seemed to keep Grits a bit more grounded. And they both were happy to be night owls, as far as Derek could tell - which might have been why he sort of had an affinity for them, despite their issues.

“Those kinds are always here, aren’t they?” Still, one thing Derek never told them was what his father did. That was a good way to get them paranoid. So he pretended not to be as familiar with things as he really was. “There’s the BICI in the city, they always like to show up and do their thing.”

“Not like now, not like now. I seen more’a them than I ever did. All cuzza ‘dat big shine in the sky…was all ‘fwoosh,’ ’n I thought was enda da world…”

“Bahaha! Reggie almost crapped himself when it happened!” Grits roared with laughter, and then suddenly the mirth crashed like an anvil down, and Grits got a vacant look in his eyes. “Mighty p’cooliar…ain’t ever seen nothin’ like it in my whole long life. Thought the aliens was finally comin’ for me. ‘Cuz I know too much, you know?”

Blackcanismon appreciated one thing: the weirdness of the two was making it easy for him to keep a blank look. What bizarre characters. Dubious beyond question…I scarcely understand Derek’s decision to hold rapport with them. Then he had to fight to keep still as Grits suddenly looked down at him, and his eyes lit up.

“Oy! How ‘bout that! The werewolf’s gone ta his roots an’ got ‘imself a guard dog!”

Derek took a breath and let it out slowly. “Grits. We’ve been over this. I’m not a werewolf. And he’s not a guard dog, he’s just a runaway that I happened to run into out here a couple days ago.”

“Awful nice for a stray,” muttered Reggie, staring at Blackcanismon as he continued to rock back and forth. “Awful nice…ain’t never seen so nice a dog on the street, ya know. Dey’s all messy and scraggy and all…but ‘e looks like da stars.”

“I did clean him up, you know. I’m not going to just leave him like I found him, right?”

“Mighty p’cooliar…” Grits was staring hard enough at Blackcanismon for him to be uncomfortable. “Quiet ’n calm, too…when’d’ya say ya found ‘im?”

Derek was processing everything. One good thing about guys with poor filters - you picked up on what you might miss. Blackcanismon looks like a dog physically, but he doesn’t act like a stray dog would…they’re picking up on that. So would anyone else who had an interest. We’ll have to work on emphasizing some dog behaviors. “A couple nights ago.”

“When the big flash happened?”

Crap. I should’ve shifted the timeline a bit. File that away. “…Well, yes. He might have been scared by it, that’s what I’m going off of.”

“Mighty p’cooliar…” Grits was still looking at Blackcanismon, almost scrutinizingly. “Ya sure he ain’t abnormal? Almost looks like ‘e knows I’m lookin’ at ‘im, y’know…”

“Grits, c’mon. Only Reggie could think a dog understood him. He thinks all animals understand him. Don’t tell me he’s rubbing off on you?”

Finally, that got Grits’s eyes off of the digimon. “Eh. Maybe yer’ight. Jus’ dunno. Strange things been hap’nin ‘round here. ’Spicious things. ’Spicious people wanna know about ‘em. Don’t wanna know what they might find that they ain’t gonna tell us about…”

“Been some weeeeeird feddies ‘round here,” added Reggie, looking back in front of him at nothing in particular. “Scary ones…’dey ain’t like others I seen. Watch yo’ ass, wolfy, don’t know what’ll they do…”

“I’ll keep my eyes open. You two do, too.” Derek decided that was a good time to start moving back on, and Blackcanismon was all too eager to accompany him. The two left the presence of the alleyway, heading off down the road a ways before any conversations started again.

Once Blackcanismon felt safe, he was the first to speak. “I retract my previous dubiousness, Derek. Indubitably they remained unconvinced of my normative facade.”

“Yeah, I think they sussed something. Though they didn’t REALLY figure you out, so that’s something…they just probably think you’re suspicious. But since they’re both kind of…scattered, in a way, I don’t think anyone’ll think anything of them talking about that, they talk about weirder stuff all the time.” Derek furrowed his brow. “Still, it highlighted some weaknesses of the ruse. I think it’s more how you act than how you look, though. You’re…not exactly doggish in manner.”

“I am not, perhaps, possessed of the obtuseness of an animalistic organism. Presenting a facsimile of such purports infinitely greater challenge than the convenience of visual appearance. And thus I necessarily provoke your recollection of my previous concerns.”

“Yeah, and it’s gonna be hard for you to act like a regular dog. Convincingly so, anyway. How do you consciously act like something that’s not as conscious as you are? But maybe if you do a little bit more dog stuff…”

“I will require a significant degree improved specificity regarding the intricacies of such behaviors.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll have to look some stuff up…eh? Hush up a moment.” They’d only gone about a dozen blocks when Derek spotted him - a man, standing in very suspiciously formal attire in the sidewalk near the midway point of their street block, with a finger up to his ear and his eyes darting around. The man was a touch shorter but also broader than Derek was, with a tight crew-cut and sharp, thin features, and immediately he was on-guard with just the air of self-importance the man seemed to have. Something told him he wanted to not spend a lot of time around this person, and Derek always trusted his instincts at night.

Unfortunately, instincts didn’t get the only say; he was just passing behind the man when he turned to look at them. “And what are you doing out here this late at night, boy?” The tone and the demeaning last word all but proved Derek’s every first impression dead right, and triggered the kind of hostile response in him that he was well familiar with.

He managed to rein it in, if only a little. “Walking my dog. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“At this hour? You expect me to believe that?”

Derek looked over at him with a dark glare. “Yes, I do, because that’s what I’m doing. And yes, at this hour, because I LIKE being out at this hour. There are fewer people around to bother me…usually.”

The man was giving as good a glare as he was getting, that was for sure. “People who worry about being bothered usually have something to hide. Maybe I oughta have a chat with your parents about your behavior and your smart mouth, see if they know about your shenanigans out here.”

“You have that much spare time to be harassing teens on the street? Wonder if your job’ll want to hear about that.”

“…You don’t know who I work for.”

“Seriously? You’re walking around in that stereotypical MIB get-up and you think I can’t catch on?” Derek was pushing it a bit, but this guy was grating on him. “I’m old enough to know what goes on around here, you know. I know all about the BICI. The federal agents are always the ones who look the most out of place whenever they come here. Lemme guess, you’re here because of that thing that happened a couple nights ago?”

“Why I’m here is none of your business, kid.”

“So is my night walk, but you sure were quick to butt in.”

The agent glowered, but didn’t directly address that. “Strange dog you have there.”

“Not that strange. I think the flash in the sky probably made him run away from home, I’m just trying to find out where that is. But I figure I might as well treat him right until I do. Since you’re so interested and all.”

“…Hmph. Don’t bug me, kid, I’ve got work to do.” The agent finally turned away, and Derek, though he would have dearly loved to clap back, held his tongue and kept moving. Blackcanismon was quite grateful for that, because he was DEFINITELY not convinced that that one wouldn’t have noticed something much odder about him if Derek hadn’t been drawing most of his attention.

They didn’t talk again until they were in the cover of true darkness, away from the streetlights. Only then did Blackcanismon breathe his sigh of relief. “I was utterly unprepared for confrontation with such a scurrilous interloper. Your aggression seemed uncomfortably provocative, Derek, and inadvisably so.”

“So you think, but I think it was necessary.” Not that Derek’s heart wasn’t going a mile a minute from that one, but he was doing a decent job not showing it. “He was the aggressive one…I needed to match him to get him to back off, otherwise he never would have relented. I don’t like him…he’s definitely a federal agent, and almost certainly my dad’s been around him, there’s no way they aren’t all investigating the same thing. And he’s one of those types that thinks they’re so damn important and that everything they do is right…you could just hear it in his voice. Only good thing is he doesn’t know I’m my father’s kid.”

“I presume such revelations would have been disadvantageous.”

“They wouldn’t have helped. Plus, I didn’t want him getting a good look at you...me, I don’t care, he tries to do anything to me and he’ll get what’s coming to him, but if he set his sights on you I doubt it’d be easy to shake him.”

“Perhaps his suspicious were aroused by your questionable allegiances.”

Derek scoffed a bit. “Ah, c’mon. Grits and Reggie aren’t THAT bad. Their heads are on a bit funny, but they’re better than some people I’ve seen who claim not to have any mental health problems at all. Don’t tell me you never had any kinda sketchy buddies?”

“I prefer the company of largely upstanding personages. The community circumscribed around my elemental alignment faces difficulty enough relating to the greater society of the digital terrestria without welcoming the presence of the dubiously trustworthy. Regrettable, perhaps, but unfortunately necessary.”

“Oh, yeah, you guys did have some issues over there, didn’t you?” A quiet sigh from Derek. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised, it’s not like the dark’s thought of that great over here, either.”

Blackcanismon nodded ruefully. “Distasteful as prejudices are, those upheld within our domain are sorrowfully not entirely unmeritable. Their foundations are generally upon such phenomena as attempted genocides and sadistic torments. Those aligned with myself necessarily ceaselessly engage in dichotomous campaigns - confronting the saboteurs of our reputations as well as the calumniators seeking our wholesale destruction.”

“I don’t envy you in the slightest there. But at least you had other allies, right?”

“Mercifully. Present companionship excluded, a particular ally has demonstrated considerable support towards my particular conviction. A friend preceding any within the confines of the illuminated environs, supporting my endeavors to broaden my horizons. Glademon…” Blackcanismon sighed, head hanging low. “Devastatingly, I am…uncertain of his continued survival. In our final engagement with the KOL, he contributed to the ill-fortuned assault…scarcely anyone returned to the complex following the catastrophe, and despite my desperate examinations and interrogations, I was incapable of ascertaining his fate.”

“I’m sorry…” Derek felt an ache in his heart. “I wasn’t…trying to remind you of that…”

“’Twas hardly your culpability alone. Routinely do I reminisce about him and ponder the uncertainty of his circumstance. The most fortuitous conclusion must be his captivity, but verily, even such hopeful outcomes portend tragedy without significant intervention.”

Derek didn’t reply to that; it brought his mind towards what they were doing and what they were facing. Just a few of them against an unknown number of creatures that would probably think nothing of killing them…one wrong move, and that might be it. And even if it’s not me…it could be any one of them. Even Iris…I can’t let them do anything to her. I have to do my best to keep her safe…I know she’ll be doing the same for me.

———

Iris blinked awake. She didn’t feel particularly well-rested, her sleep not having been very good thanks to all the thoughts going through her head over yesterday’s events. The prospect of having to fight against frightening creatures with just her and her friends was, probably unsurprisingly, not a fun and exciting idea for her. But it was one she had to get used to, because it was happening…and she really wasn’t sure how quickly she would or could.

“Aaahm…morning, Iris.” She started a bit as she looked over to her side, seeing Shockavimon in the bed next to her. She’d forgotten momentarily, she’d invited the bird to join her on the bed rather than sleeping on the less-than-comfortable floor…truthfully, more for selfish reasons than anything, holding Shockavimon had helped calm her down last right. “How’re you feeling?”

“Uh…I…really don’t know.” Iris took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think I’m still trying to process it all. At least I’m not a big ol’ ball of panic, but, I wouldn’t say I’m good, either.”

“I don’t blame you. I still can’t believe Sal even proposed that…I mean, I can, but I can’t.” Shockavimon shrugged. “That’s a fire-elemental for you. Rash and impetuous. He jumps into the fray on a moment’s notice, and sometimes the rest of us get caught along with.”

“Has he gotten you into trouble with that?”

“Not…really? I mean, let’s face it, we all chose to jump into danger willingly. He mostly gets himself into trouble, but honestly probably gets us out of it more. And, well, we chose to follow him. We voted him leader of Zetta Unit every year.”

Iris cocked her head. “Why? If he’s like that, wouldn’t you want someone else?”

“…You’d think so, right? I dunno…Salmandmon, there’s something about him that just…makes it work. I guess it’s a thing of taking the good with the bad. Yeah, he’s impulsive, sometimes jumps into things without consulting the rest of us, but, he also rallies us, fires us up, and he never doubts us for a second. Out of all of us, he has the most upside. I mean, BC’s too reserved to really work there, Breezy’s way too flighty, and I don’t think I’m ready to be in charge of anyone…it’s pretty much just between him and Data, and Data’s always flat told us not to put him there. Sal always votes for him anyway, but the rest of us listen.” She snickered a bit. “And then he gets pissy because he says he just wants to be the fireball you throw at people.”

“He seemed pretty in-place last night, I dunno.”

“Well, he doesn’t LIKE it, but he DOES it. Maybe he and Reyn are a good fit? Reyn seemed pretty spot-on, too, the way he was talking.”

Iris nearly burst out laughing. “No way! Reyn shows about as much leadership as a bowl of rice. He HATES being in charge of anything. Last night was the first time I think I’ve ever seen him take initiative, ever. I think that was what drove it home just how serious it was, if it was bad enough that HE was pushing us, it had to mean something.”

Shockavimon thought for a moment. “Huh…well, I guess we’ll see who takes that role. Or who gets assigned it.”

“Yeah…ah!” Iris motioned to Shockavimon to get down. “It’s Dad! Under the bed!”

Shockavimon didn’t question, diving under the bed, which thankfully had a skirt that kept her nice and obscured. Iris got out of bed and tried to look like she had been working on getting herself ready when her father Emil opened up her door, then pretended to look shocked as she whirled around. “Dad! I told you to knock!”

“Oh! Right, right, sorry.” Emil rubbed his head; Iris could tell by his eyes that he wasn’t sleeping so well either. He was a fairly gentle-looking man, slightly on the shorter side with brown eyes that looked like they’d almost shoot out cartoonishly if they went wide. “I’m trying to get better about that, I promise.”

“If you’d get me a lock like I asked…”

“Sweetheart…”

“I know, I know.” She didn’t really have to make a big show of her frustration with that, she wished she had a bit more privacy but both parents were against her bedroom being locked. Their thought was that in an emergency she would need to be able to get out or they would need to be able to get in, and a lock would make that dicey. She accepted it, even if she didn’t like it. “Is it breakfast time?”

“Just about. Your mother’s making pancakes. I told her she should just be relaxing, but it’s been a while since she had the chance and I think she really just wanted to take it…hm? What’s that?” Emil pointed to something on the ground near Iris’s feet; Iris felt a bit of a jolt when she realized it was one of Shockavimon’s feathers.

“Oh, this?” Still, she did her best to recover, picking it up and giving a bit of a false laugh. “I found it outside yesterday. Can you believe the garish color of this? It has to be fake, unless Big Bird made a stop in Braun for whatever reason. But I thought I might want to use it for some kind of craft.”

“That is quite the gaudy yellow. I can’t imagine who would WANT to wear something like that!” Emil chuckled. “Are you sure you should be going out right now, though? I’m still not sure what’s been going on around here, we got a strange report yesterday about some weird activity at Eglin Park.”

“DAD. I’m FINE.” Iris mustered up all her very real exasperation. “Nothing’s been going on out there that I can see. You’re always too paranoid! I’ve never had trouble with anyone before!”

“Y-yes, I…I see. Well, you know I worry about you…but…all right. I’ll back off, until I find out more. Anyway, don’t keep your mother waiting!”

“I won’t, Dad.” Emil finally closed the door, and Iris rubbed her face. Yes, there was absolutely no way in HELL she could ever let her dad know about Shockavimon, he would probably barricade her door with a cartoon anvil if he knew there were actual monsters running around town. After waiting a few seconds and hearing her father’s footsteps retreat down the stairs, she finally spoke up. “I think it’s safe, Shockavimon.”

Shockavimon crawled out from under the bed, brushing herself off. “Well, THAT’S gonna be fun every time we have to go through it…”

“Sorry. I know it’s not ideal.”

“No, it’s fine. I don’t get a vibe I like from him. He wouldn’t be on our side, no way.” Shockavimon folded her wing-arms and frowned up at Iris. “And WE have something to talk about too, miss ‘Garish.’”

“Hey!” Iris raised her arms in protest. “I LOVE the color, I promise! But I had to put Dad on the trail that it was fake quickly, otherwise he might start asking questions I wasn’t ready for.”

“Well, I would’ve preferred something a little more respectful of my plumage! Yellow is life, baby. And what the hell is a ‘big bird’?  'Cuz I know you weren't talking about me there.”

“That…I’ll explain later. Right now I need to go get breakfast.”

“Ah, right. Jeez, wish I could go down there and eat, too…”

“I’ll bring you some back up. I’ll just say I was extra hungry, I do that a lot. Sometimes bring up more food than I actually want at the time and save it for later.”

“You do?”

Iris shrugged. “I like to snack, what can I say? Plus it’s nice sometimes to just have something handy when I’m working on something and don’t want to stop for very long.”

“I see…so you have a secret stash somewhere…” Shockavimon got a grin on her face. “You know what this means…”

“It means I’d better bring you something up soon or you’re gonna totally find it and raid it, aren’t you?” groaned Iris.

“Bingo. Call it a ‘garish’ tax.”

———

Derek had hoped, as usual, that he would be back only after a certain someone had already taken their leave. No such luck that morning, though; both parents were at the table that morning as he walked in. His mother Myra, a curvy woman with curly black hair that seemed like it flowed everywhere, was making coffee, looking stressed out as she seemed to a lot these days; that hollow look in her eyes was one that pained Derek every time he saw it, and he saw it too much, considering her perpetual shaky health. And then there was Elliot Katran, a sharp-faced, severe man who looked like he was pretty dark in his own right, sitting rather stiffly as he scrolled through a tablet looking at the news.

“Morning.” Derek’s rather feeble attempt at courtesy was hardly a surprise.

“Hm.” Elliot’s lack of response was equally familiar.

“Good morning, Derek.” Myra was a little more vocal, but tiredly so. “Nothing happened out there, did it? No more…things in the sky?”

“No more things in the sky. Mostly nothing out there, except…” Derek turned to Elliot, steeling himself. “Dad, do you know anything about the feds snooping around here lately?”

Elliot glanced up. “You have to ask? They’re here over the anomaly. And there’s been a couple other events that may or may not be related. We’ve only got a few of them here at the moment…why do you ask?”

“Eh. One of them was giving me some heat last night.”

“…Were you provoking him?”

Derek’s expression darkened. “We’ve been over this, Dad. I don’t go provoking random strangers. I just don’t back down when they get on me.”

“Were you acting suspicious in any way?”

“…No. Not at all.”

A pause from Elliot, during which Myra hustled over a coffee to him. He took a sip, then seemed to be satisfied for the moment. “Well, don’t read too much into it. They’re paid to be suspicious of everyone. Don’t usually go bothering people unless they have a reason to. So don’t give them a reason to.”

“If they’re out here, that doesn’t sound like good news to me,” Myra muttered nervously. “Are you sure you’re safe out there, Derek?”

“I’m sure, Mom. Just like always.” Derek didn’t bother elaborating on that, instead leaving the kitchen and heading up to his bedroom. Blackcanismon followed at his side, hoping that he was dog-like enough that they didn’t notice how much attention he was paying to everything. One thing was clear enough: one big happy family this was not.

Only when they were safely in Derek’s room did he feel safe actually mentioning anything. “Gracious. That interaction was certainly imbued with all the geniality and effervescence of a funeral dirge.”

“Not exactly subtle, huh?” Derek sighed. “They’ve been on my case about night walking for as long as I’ve been doing it. And they don’t like a lot of other things…that I’m not particularly social, that I have ‘attitude’ towards them, things like that. But it’s going out at night that does it most to them…there were times in the past where they would try to lock me inside my room so I couldn’t go out at night. And they get even more pissed off when I found my way around it. So yeah, it’s never been nice and peaceful between us.”

“An unenviable scenario. Almost equivalently unenviable to submitting oneself to continual bondage and generic unflavorful vittles.”

“Hey, we have to at least try to sell the illusion. I know you don’t like the leash and collar, but I’m trying to make it as unobtrusive as possible. And the dog food…well, I can’t imagine there’s one I could find that you WOULD like, but I’ll try to get you some better food, we just need to have it so that they don’t wonder what I’m feeding you.”

Blackcanismon huffed. “The indignities I must endure for the salvation of both our societies. I suppose greater misfortunes could conceivably befall me in the subsequent diurnal circuits, though scarcely could I innovate their identities.”

Derek couldn’t help but chuckle. “Laying it on juuuust a bit thick, don’t you think?”

“Alternate positions with myself and reconsider your joviality.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll get you something from downstairs after Dad leaves.”

———

“34...35...36...” The repetitive voice of Salmandmon, though quiet, was nonetheless effective at rousing Reyn from slumber - or at least speeding the process along. He rolled over, finding the bed empty of all other than himself, and then sat up and looked around, only spying Salmandmon then. The reptile was on the floor, doing one-armed push-ups.

“…This is really gonna be a thing, isn’t it?”

“41…hey, wake up faster, I gotta do something to kill time.”

Reyn shook his head and rolled his eyes. “You could just be a normal person and sleep in.”

“I don’t sleep in! Never did like doing that.”

“Are you sure you should be doing that? I mean, I know your leg was looking better, but you put it through kind of a lot yesterday.”

“Actually, I’ve never felt better...50!” Salmandmon pushed up hard from the ground, and quickly switched arms so that he was pushing with his left instead of his right, not missing a stride as he started the reps with his other limb. “Digimon are generally quick healers, something that allows us to get back into battle quickly…I guess some might consider that not such a good thing, but eh. But didn’t you notice? After we split up, I didn’t have the stitches or the wound anymore…I think that had an effect on mending me up!”

Reyn blinked. Sure enough, the inside of Salmandmon’s leg was stitch-free, and looked like nothing had ever happened to it. “Huh. I didn’t even realize. Guess that’s a pretty good thing, though I’m not sure I want to test whether it happens every time.”

“Tch, you think YOU don’t want to, you weren’t even the one who tried to give your leg some cool air vents.”

“Even Datacarnomon might decide against that kind of mod. Hey, what did you dream about last night?”

“31...Lotta random stuff. I remember Burnreptimon, though. Why do you ask?”

“I think we had the same dreams. I always seem to remember seeing you, except when I was dreaming about being Burnreptimon.”

“Weird. I think I remember you, too. Those connections must go pretty deep. Though I guess it’s just an extension of the dreams we used to have of each other…maybe because we’re both asleep at the same time and we know it?”

“Might be. Maybe we’d be able to test it if you actually spent some more time asleep.”

“Or maybe I need to get you up so you can join me. 50!” Salmandmon hopped up, stretching his arms and legs. “Wouldja mind getting me a towel or something? Probably should wipe down before going out anywhere.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t do this sorta thing in the morning.” Reyn went into his closet and grabbed a small towel for Salmandmon, tossing it to him. “Why do you sweat, anyway? I know we sweat to cool down, but something tells me cooling down isn’t something you ever need to do.”

“Hah, okay, just a moment, let me remember. Right, I think it’s this. ‘Although fire-oriented digimon have no need for thermoregulation, sweating serves an alternate function of quickly releasing toxins that might otherwise build up in the muscles during exercise, thereby allowing them to work out more efficiently.’ That good enough for you?”

Reyn snorted a laugh. “You get that one a lot, huh?”

“All the frickin’ time. You don’t even want to know how many hours I spent with Data memorizing that.” Salmandmon suddenly paused, lifting his head to sniff the air. “Holy crap, something smells amazing!”

“I’m guessing someone’s making breakfast down there,” remarked Reyn, smiling himself at the familiar and enjoyable smells. “Whatever they’re making is definitely gonna be tasty. Hopefully they made enough for you.”

“Hah! A mountain of it wouldn’t be enough for me!”

“Hey!” Reyn watched Salmandmon rush out of the room. “Don’t eat it all before I get down there!”

———

Isaac wasn’t usually one to sleep in, but after a lot of late-night discussions with Datacarnomon and a whole lot of coding, he’d been snoozier than usual. Which meant a rude awakening for him as his father Alphonse, a tall, balding man with a bushy mustache, banged on his door and opened it up. “Oy! I’ve been calling you for the last ten minutes!”

“Ah! Jeez! Sorry, dad…I couldn’t sleep last night, lots on my mind.” Enough truth was usually the best lie, something Isaac had gotten used to when talking with Alphonse. Having to tell him where he was going every single time got old fast.

“Well, you should stop spending such late hours in front of the computer. The blue light screws you up, you know?”

“I have blue light filters on my monitor, dad, they help a lot.”

“So you say, but you’re the one having trouble sleeping.” Alphonse’s eyes darted around the room, something that tended to make Isaac nervous even when he didn’t have anything to hide. Alphonse just had that countenance about him - though he a bit shorter than Isaac was, somehow he always made Isaac feel little. “You really should pick up, too, someone’s going to skewer their foot stepping in here…hey, now, what’s that?” The man pointed to the dormant Datacarnomon sitting next to the bed.

Crap! He did notice! Isaac scrambled for an explanation. “Ah, that? That’s, uh, the start of my most complex robot ever! It’s gonna be my masterpiece, I’ve been planning it for ages!”

“Ah, right, that thing you keep drawing. Goodness, it looks rather impressive already.”

“Ahahaha, doesn’t it? But it’s not really that impressive yet, that’s just the chassis. I still have to do all the inner working stuff to make it actually, you know, move around and all that. But I spent a lot of time on the body, and I think it looks pretty darn cool!”

Alphonse cocked his head, looking oddly at Datacarnomon. “Well, if you say so. I think it looks more complicated than a robot needs to be, but what would I know? Are you planning on entering it into a contest? Or that Battlebots thing?”

“N-uh, well…” Isaac had to pause. “Actually, that would be kinda cool…”

“Well, just remember, anything you want to do on that sort of thing, you’ll have to get our permission and be able to afford it on your own. I think it’s high time you started considering a job of some sort, you know. You spend all that time on computers, surely you should be able to get someone to pay you to do that. It’s important that you know the value of hard work.”

“Yes, dad.” Isaac suppressed the urge to blatantly roll his eyes. “I’ll start thinking about it.”

“See that you do. Anyway, your mother’s making breakfast, so don’t tarry.” Alphonse left, closing the door, and Isaac sank back onto the bed. He was still pretty groggy, but that wasn’t what was getting to him.

“So…” Datacarnomon’s eyes suddenly lit up, and he leaned against the bed with a wide grin. “I believe that’s the SECOND bet you’ve lost to me now. Clearly we’re going to have to figure out a currency exchange of some kind, because I think you’re gonna need to start making some transfers.”

“I thought for sure he wouldn’t notice you there. Dad rarely takes much of an interest in what I do…I know it’s just that he doesn’t understand any of it, but still, a little support would be nice. Especially because he totally gets behind Ashley’s interests. But I thought that would mean he’d just overlook you entirely! Ugh, this is why I don’t like to gamble, too many things outside of my control.”

“Ah, but that’s part of the fun! The thrill of control being left to an outside element, it’s unpredictable, it’s scary, and it gets the processors whirring!”

“I’ll take other means of getting my processors whirring, thanks. Or whatever it is that’s supposed to be equal to.”

“Judging by the state of your room, that method is endorphins when you skewer your foot.” Datacarnomon kicked a stray piece out of his path. “I agree with him on one thing, you really oughta be picking up around here. A proper robot factory would never let you get away with this kinda mess.”

At least around Datacarnomon, Isaac didn’t have to hold back his eye roll. “I know, I know. I just don’t have a place for everything. I need some storage space. Like, a whole building, ideally.”

“Well, keep stepping up your game and they’ll give you everything you want so you can make them what they want. But until then, a few buckets and bins wouldn’t be a bad idea. You should probably get down there and eat, though, before they start getting suspicious.”

“Yeah, true. You want me to bring anything up to you?”

Datacarnomon let out a snorting laugh. “Really, Ike? Did you forget I’m a robot? I’d get about as much out of that as you’d get out of sucking on a computer chip.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry, you’re just so life-like, I thought you might need something to sustain yourself. Wait, how do you refuel, then?”

“No need! I’m powered by an FER. Oh, right, you wouldn’t know what that is. It’s a Free Energy Reactor. It draws off of the natural energy cycle of the greater world. No extra fuel needed, most I have to do is let the energy build back up in my systems, but a good rest does that just fine.”

It sounded like a fascinating concept to Isaac, if way too advanced for him. “That’s wild. I’m gonna have to learn a heck of a lot more about you if I’m going to build you for real.”

“You’ll have plenty of time! Oh, and when you get back, you’re gonna tell me alllll about that Battlebots thing, because that sounds like a blast!”

Isaac snickered. “Why am I not surprised you’d be into that?”

———

Breezedramon had curled up at the end of Skylar’s bed, the most comfortable thing he’d slept on in a long time. He’d been sleeping fantastically in spite of everything else going on…at least, until feeling weird poking sensations on his head. He batted them sleepily with a paw, mumbling “Geroff…” but they didn’t stop, not until he finally, grumpily, opened his eyes and looking up…straight into the twinkling eyes of a five-year-old human with messy, longish blond hair and a freckled face.

Oh, son of a-

“I knew it!” shouted the boy, jumping up and down and rattling Skylar out of sleep as well, nearly tossing Breezedramon off the bed as the dragon desperately scrambled back. “I know it! He’s real! He’s alive! He a real dragon!”

“Keep it the hell down!” snapped Skylar hoarsely, leaping up and stopping Benny from jumping around, forgetting the rule about his language around Benny in his panic. “Benny, what are you doing in my room?”

“I wanted to see the cute dragon!” said the boy innocently, a little subdued (but not much) by Skylar’s reply. “I saw him with you yesterday, but you said he was a stuffed animal, but I didn’t think so, so I came in this morning and saw him breathing, and he opened his eyes and I knew he was REAL!”

“SHHH!” hissed Skylar. “Keep your voice down! Look, I don’t want anyone else finding out! I don’t know what Mom and Dad would think about this, and it’s kind of important that he not be kicked out!”

“Okay! I won’t tell anyone!”

“You’d better not!” Even as he said it, though, Skylar was filled with dread. Benny was a typical five-year-old, and a typical five-year-old was not known for having an excellent filter. However, it was too late to try to put up another ruse now, not when Breezedramon had already been sussed out - not that he blamed the dragon for it, they were both ambushed.

Since the jig was already up, Breezedramon hoped that he could help with his own contribution, and he hopped towards the edge of the bed. “He means it! It’s super duper important that you keep quiet! If you don’t, I might be taken away! By big mean guys! So you have to keep it a secret from EVERYONE!”

“I don’t want you taken away! You’re too cute!” Benny suddenly leapt up and grabbed Breezedramon, holding him close and jumping around while tethered to him.

“Ack! L-loosen up, kid!”

“Oops! Sorry!” Benny let go, letting Breezedramon breathe again and rub his neck.

“Okay, that’s enough for today,” grumbled Skylar. “Benny, take a hike! You know you’re not supposed to barge into my room like this. Be nice and quiet and I MIGHT let you hang around with Breezy later, okay?”

“Okay okay! Bye bye!” Benny hurried out of the room, making weird little kid sounds as he did. Skylar shut the door after him, and then the two let out a mutual groan.

“Well…that was super great and not at all trouble,” sighed Breezedramon, flopping back on the bed. “I guess we underduresterminated little kid deterbulamulination, huh?”

“I swear, if he says a word about this, I’ll throttle him,” growled Skylar. “So much for secrecy! He’s a leaky sieve in the best of times! No way Dad won’t hit the roof if he finds out I’m letting a dragon camp out in my room. He HATES anything weird or abnormal! I can’t imagine Mom would be too fussed, either.”

“Guess we’d better get those letters out to your govertamnintent pretty fast, huh?”

“…Suddenly I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather deal with five-year-olds.” The white-haired boy rubbed his eyes.

“Over your govelambindent folks?”

“No, over Isaac. Maybe a monster’ll show up and spare me THAT stress.”

———

Reluctant though he was, Skylar still steeled himself and made his way to Isaac’s place. They had a job to do, and the others were relying on them to do it, and the stakes were far too high to let the friction stop them from taking care of their duty. At least, that was the attitude he tried to go in with…unfortunately, the old adage reared its ugly head: a good plan never survives first contact with the enemy.

“What the hell is this?” Skylar pointed to the laptop on Isaac’s bed, which had a word processing document up on it.

Isaac scowled. “It’s what I wrote up. Why, what’s wrong with it?”

“Everything! Please tell me you didn’t send this crap out!”

“First off, crap? And second, no, for your information, I didn’t! I’m still setting up the proxy e-mail.”

“Thank heavens, I might actually be able to salvage this then.”

“Excuse me!” Isaac snarled angrily, standing up and towering over Skylar in annoyance. “I think I wrote a damn good piece here! Better than anything you could write, I’m sure!”

“I could write a better missive in my sleep!” fired back Skylar. “You think this dreck is what passes for good? You make repeated jabs at the government, coming off as some kind of deranged malcontent whose head isn’t screwed on right - perhaps an apt analogy! - your language is crude and unprofessional, and in some cases obscene, and worst of all, you don’t properly present them with the most important concepts, that of what the digimon are and why they’re here! You just say they ‘might be interested’ in what they have to say! Just like I ‘might be interested’ in being within ten miles of you on a good day!”

“Well, excuse ME for trying to be a little discreet here! You know, trying not to make them think these guys are the invaders and all that! And who cares how I say it? That’s the sort of thing that gets eyes on this stuff!”

“It looks like a total lunatic wrote this! You send this to them and it’ll hit the trash immediately! If you WANT them not to know anything about what’s going on, you’ve got the perfect letter, but that’s the opposite of what we’re trying to accomplish! This isn’t a circus sideshow, dammit, these are professionals doing their jobs! Try to act like you have even the barest modicum of professionalism yourself!”

Isaac glared daggers at Skylar. “Grrr…fine. I’ll rewrite it.”

“No, I’LL rewrite it. YOU will continue to get things set up to send it, since that’s apparently all you’re good for.”

“You? Everything you write is dull as dishwater! They’ll fall asleep even trying to read it!”

“Do you think this is some kind of comedy routine or something? It doesn’t matter if it’s not ‘punchy’ or ‘eye-popping’! It’s a freaking letter to a government agency, not an audition!” Skylar stalked away with the laptop, setting himself down and starting to type furiously, while Isaac turned back to his main computer, muttering words that were definitely not for polite company.

Breezedramon and Datacarnomon kept a fair distance away from the spat, watching curiously. “They really go at it, huh?” remarked the robot. “I thought yesterday was all the worse I should expect, but clearly when it’s just the two of them, they’re a lot nastier.”

“It’s so weird, I don’t get why they’re so conflimacterinterated with each other,” agreed Breezedramon. “Sky won’t tell me anything about it.”

“Nor Ike. Though I think I was able to tell there was something that happened a while back that he wasn’t happy about.”

“Any clue what?”

“No idea.” Datacarnomon was quiet for a moment. “Bet it was a girl. Lay a kilo on it.”

Breezedramon jerked his head. “Data!”

“C’mon. It’s nothing much, just a simple thing.”

“No! It’s not simple! If I do that you know you’re gonna be trying to push to figure it out, and they don’t wanna talk about it!”

Datacarnomon flinched a bit. “That’s not…I wasn’t gonna…”

“Data, you know you would. Once you put a bet down you get antsy about finding out if it goes your way or not.” Breezedramon put his hand on Datacarnomon’s shoulder. “And you were making bets with Sal, and other bets with Ike, too…you’re slipping, Data, I can feel it.”

“…Mmph. Y-yeah, you’re right…” Datacarnomon slumped back. “I think the stress of everything’s just got me not as focused as I should be. I shouldn’t be giving into temptation so much, I’m just…well, excuses don’t change that. I’ll try to rein it in a bit more…”

“How many more do you have going?”

“…Tch. You know me too well. Two more…one that someone’s gonna figure out who I am within the next three days, and one that we’ll be able to get someone listening to us before the end of the month.”

“No more!” asserted Breezedramon. “Not without my permississivon, anyway!”

“I’ll try to do something to rein in it, I promise. Maybe if I’m doing some internal coding, it’ll take my mind off of it.” Datacarnomon sighed. “Thanks, Breezy…I guess I needed a check.”

“It’s fine…I just wanna make sure you’re keeping yourself honest! You did ask, anyway.”

“Yeah. Just all the stress that’s getting to me. I don’t know how you do it…I was having a tough time figuring out how to psych Ike up for it all last night, prepare him for everything. He’s good at putting up a bold front, but I can tell under the surface that he’s not as confident as he acts…not that I can blame him.”

“Oh, yeah, Sky was super nervous too. I had to talk to him a lot! I was giving him all the posirivinitivertinivinity that I could muster up!”

Datacarnomon looked over at Breezedramon, and not because of the mangled word. “Uh…how exactly did you try to help him?”

“Huh? I just tried to help him feel better! Make him happier, ease his worries, those sorts of things!”

“Breezy…” Datacarnomon patted the dragon on the back. “Did your, uh, pep talks…actually HELP?”

“Uh…well…I…uh…”

“C’mon. Be honest.”

Breezedramon deflated a bit. “I guess…he didn’t seem to sleep well…and he wasn’t really seeming…like he felt good at the end, I guess…”

“I was worried about that. You probably didn’t actually address his questions or concerns in any way, right?”

“Well…I…guess not…”

“That’s why you have to pay more attention in the moment, Breezy. It’s all well and good to try to make him feel better, but you gotta know what’ll do that, and just random cheery statements probably aren’t good enough here. Support him by helping him process what’s going on, and pay attention to how he’s reacting.”

“You’re right, you’re right!” Breezedramon’s hands went onto his head. “I forgot! I was just…I think maybe…I don’t know if I was trying to cheer HIM up or cheer ME up…”

Datacarnomon nodded in understanding. “We’re all stressed out. We’re disabled, and our only source of effective combat prowess involves us apparently hijacking the lives of these too-young, unprepared humans. Willing as they are, it still doesn’t feel great. But that’s why we have to give them our best…they deserve at least that much. So…we can’t let our own issues hold us back.”

“Yeah, you’re right…sorry, Data. I shoulda been more aware. I guess that’s why I have you to help me out, huh?”

“Mm-hmm. We help each other out so we can help them out. Coming together’s the only way we stand a chance in this mess.”

“Yeah, literally…” Breezedramon winced a bit as the conflict between Isaac and Skylar seemed to rev up again, Isaac clearly not thrilled with what Skylar had written. “Might be trouble trying to convince THEM of that, though…”

———

An hour later, Skylar was outside, taking a long walk to cool himself down and clear his head. I swear, this had better work first time, because I might just lose it if I have to deal with Isaac again.

Things had gone predictably disastrously in general. Isaac fought him every step of the way on his changes to the message, complaining about everything from the content to the presentation. He’d tried taking his usual style, straightforward and informative, without a lot of embellishment or diatribe. This was apparently violently offensive to Isaac, who couldn’t accept it for what it was, and was adamant that it needed some kind of ‘hook’ or something in order to ‘catch attention.’ As if monsters from another world wasn’t attention-catching enough.

The worst part of working with Isaac is that he ALWAYS has to be right. Can’t ever accept that maybe he doesn’t have all the answers, or the right way of doing things. That’s what caused things to happen before…and he still doesn’t seem to get it.

He’d fought everything Isaac had tried to change, though, and in the end the message had gone out more or less as he’d put it down, only slight modifications and definitely in his voice rather than Isaac’s. It had left him quite frustrated, though; having to deal with such a stubborn, grating personality was not his favorite thing in the world, to put it lightly. The more he had to do this, the less patience he would have…

It was a bit disconcerting that he could see Breezedramon very clearly overhead - the dragon said that blended in remarkably well with the skies, having some kind of special trait that kept him from being spotted, but Skylar definitely wasn’t getting that impression himself. True, his color DID blend in a bit, it wasn’t like he could make out every feature, but the dragon seemed very convinced of his masking beyond that, and Skylar wasn’t sure what he was basing that off of. Of course, the bigger problem would be if people noticed HIM looking up and be drawn to do so themselves, so he was trying not to do that. It would have been nice to be able to communicate with him, though…

Preoccupied as he was, Skylar barely noticed the voice calling to him. When it finally clicked, he started a bit and looked around, finally seeing Iris hurrying up his direction. “Iris? Is something up?”

“No, no, I just saw you, figured it was as good a time as any to talk.” Iris slowed as she neared Skylar, panting a bit. “I was just gonna call you, too, see if you wanted to walk and talk. Dad’s kinda driving me crazy, I needed to get out of the house.”

“Is he still flipping out about the anomaly?”

“Yeah. He doesn’t like the thought of me going out right now, which is all the more reason I need to.”

“I get it. I know the feeling of needing to get out and away from someone who’s making my life difficult. VERY well.”

Iris snickered a bit. “So I take it you and your best friend had a smooth and obstacle-free time drafting your letter?”

“Emperius might not be the ones to get to him first if he keeps up this nonsense.” Skylar threw up his hands. “I don’t know what to do about him! It seems like any time you have to try to get through to him he puts up a thicker wall. And you’d better not disagree with him on anything or he’ll be browbeating you into doing it all HIS way.”

“Sounds like him all right. And then you get to hear him crow about how good he is at everything. Still, we’re gonna have to get used to him being around, something tells me we’re going to need him.”

“Joy of joys. By the way, is Shockavimon not with you today? I don’t see her around.”

“She’s off hiding in the trees. She doesn’t hide as well as Breezedramon…who I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t have realized was here if he hadn’t sneezed a minute ago.”

“You think so? I don’t have any trouble seeing him.”

“Well, you’re inordinately obsessed with the sky, so things up there probably stand out a lot more to you.”

That explanation made just enough sense to Skylar. “Well, perhaps. But it makes me worried about these digimon that are supposed to be coming through, if they’re as good at hiding as these guys are then things could be trouble.”

Iris nodded. “That’s actually what I was looking for you about. I remember seeing you have cameras and other equipment for recording the weather…I was thinking that maybe you should try putting that to use to see if you can see anything coming through the sky. I know Datacarnomon said that things probably weren’t going to be as, uh, obvious as it was when they came through, but there might be SOMETHING still, and any foreknowledge we can get is a good thing.”

“That’s true…though I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to see, I pretty much only record from my window. But maybe Breezedramon can set up a camera outside…” Skylar took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Even if part of me almost would rather not know about it. The idea of having to go up and confront them…”

“I know, right?” Iris shook her head. “It’s scary…I mean, I was terrified when we were confronted by Frigimon, and that thing just looked like a big snowman. When I try to remember back to some of those creatures from our dreams…I don’t know how I’m ever going to feel okay trying to face up to anything like that.”

“Me either. How on earth did Reyn handle it? He’s never struck me as a particularly bold one, you know…”

“Pfft, you didn’t see him when he first got here. He’d’ve made a Big Boo look like a social butterfly. But you’re right, I never would’ve expected him to be that firm about it…which makes me worried about what else he might’ve picked up when he changed like that.”

“…Picked up?”

Iris was quiet for a moment. “They combined together, right? That didn’t mean just their bodies, but also their minds. Yesterday he said the moment they merged, his fate was sealed. He must’ve gotten something from Salmandmon…something that was scary enough to him that it got him that ready to push back, maybe even worse than just what Emperius is. You know, Reyn never was the boldest one, but when he feels strongly about something…”

“…He can be as ferocious as anyone,” finished Skylar, catching on. “Yeesh. You’re right, if something twigged him…”

“I’ve thought about asking, but I’m not sure I want to know. I just hope he knows…what he’s doing…” The girl gave a shiver. “Nnh…what…”

“Iris? Is something wrong?”

“…I don’t know. I just…got this weird feeling in the pit of my gut…”

“Whoa! Gangway! Guys, GUYS!” Breezedramon was suddenly tearing towards them, with Shockavimon scrambling not far behind him. “We just saw a weird thing in the sky, and something came through!”

“It’s awful!” squawked Shockavimon. “It’s an Aquilamon! It’s a disaster!”

“What’s so bad about-JESUS!” Skylar’s question ended in a shout as he saw the avian digimon emerge from behind the trees. “It’s huge! That thing’s gonna be seen by everything in the damn city!”

“And it could do a LOT of damage! We have to stop it, as soon as possible!”

“That…that means…” Skylar started to tremble a bit. Oh no…it’s something we have to try to take on, we don’t have time to find Reyn and Salmandmon, even if we did that Burnreptimon guy can’t fly…I’m not ready for this, I’m not ready at all…

“Dang it!” Breezedramon flapped down in front of Skylar, shaking him to try to snap him out of it. “Okay, Sky, look, I didn’t do a great job of helping you before, I know that now. But you gotta listen to me…I know you can do this! You were always helping me out in fights, remember? When you’d kinda coorminatdimnitate me and tell me where to go and how to react sometimes? You warned me about danger and saved my bacon plenty of times! With your mind working with mine, I know we can do this! And we have to try, before things get really bad!”

That sort of sank in to Skylar…he remembered a number of dreams where things got quite scary with Breezedramon or one of his larger forms, but then the dragon would react to something Skylar was aware of, saving him from a bad result. “You…you really think I can do this like this?”

“I’m sure of it!” Breezedramon declared urgently, holding out a hand for Skylar. “So come on! Let’s show that overgrown chicken who the real master of the skies is!”

It would have been far too far to say that Skylar was feeling confident, or had cast off his fear, but with everything as serious as it was…he had to do it. Nodding, he held out his hand to join with Breezedramon’s. “Okay…let’s…let’s do it…for the sake of everyone out here…we have to win. We can’t afford to be too scared…”

“That’s the spirit! We’ll give ‘em hell!” A blue glow was already surrounding the two. “It’s working! Let’s do this!”

For Iris, it wasn’t quite as much of a startling sight as the first time, seeing the two forms swirl together and merge into a single form…that didn’t mean it was any less awe-inspiring, though. She watched as the blue mass coalesced and reshaped into a new form, a bipedal dragon creature about six and a half feet tall, with scales very much the same color as Breezedramon’s, large membranous wings, and letting loose a rush of wind as he broke into reality. There was an intense look in his eyes as he landed next to Iris.

“Whoa…that’s a RUSH!” There was an excitement in the new creature’s voice as he took a look over himself. “Hah, not bad at all!” He looked over at Iris and Shockavimon. “Well, what’re you waiting for? You’re not gonna make me handle big ugly all by myself, are you?”

Iris shook out of it a bit, and became much more aware of her own fear hitting its apex. “Ah…that…that’s…uh…” Her mind scrambled for something to come up to say, but before it could, she felt Shockavimon’s wing on her hand. The bird was looking up at her with an intensity she hadn’t seen since the battle with Frigimon.

“I know it’s scary, Iris. I don’t feel right asking you to do this…but I remember what you said last night. That you wouldn’t feel right trying to run away when there was this much on the line. Just remember, you’re not alone…I’ll be right here the whole time. And I’ve been doing this for years, I know what we need to do. Please, Iris…lend me your strength.”

The talk seemed to help get Iris’s head in order, at least…though the intensity of her nerves almost threatened to make her fall down flat with jellied legs, she grabbed firmly onto Shockavimon’s wing. That’s right…she’s a battle veteran. Even if she’s not able to summon the power she had before, she’s still got all that experience of those years standing against these guys. And if I can help her get enough of that strength back… “Shockavimon…I’m…ready as I’ll ever be.”

“So am I. We’ll do this together…and we’ll win.”

It was a very different experience being on the other side for Iris, feeling herself sink into that dormancy as the yellow glow surrounded the two of them. Their forms melded into one single mass, which quickly began to take its own shape - a yellow, bipedal avian, almost as tall as Burnreptimon had been, with large bird wings emerging from her back. Her body crackled with potent electricity as she burst into life, standing tall and fierce with sharp, cutting eyes. “It’s time…let’s take back our sky!”

“Hah! Sounds like a plan to me!” cackled the dragon. “Skydramon, by the way! Let me know what to call you or you’re gonna get a lot of canary cracks!”

“Spare me, please,” replied the avian steely. “I’m Boltfalkemon. Now let’s get up there and stop that bird bitch before he wrecks anything!”

The two launched themselves up into the air, taking flight and making a beeline for Aquilamon. Immediately, it was obvious which was the faster flier, as Skydramon put a good bit of distance between them. “Hey, c’mon, keep up!”

“Clam! I’m doing what I can!” growled Boltfalkemon. She was larger, and she could feel the raw power with every wing flap, but Skydramon seemed to have a glide that defied air resistance.

“Okay, let’s help you out a bit then! Force Gale!” Suddenly a wind kicked up behind them, and Boltfalkemon was thrown for a bit of a loop. But once she righted herself and caught the wind, she could feel the speed picking up. It was rather exhilarating, and got them closer to their goal.

Said goal was already in the midst of troublemaking, though. Aquilamon was flapping over the taller buildings of the business district, and had let loose a Blast Rings attack that had shattered a fair few windows on one building. “Dammit! So much for discreet!” swore Boltfalkemon. “This whole thing’s as blown as those windows!”

“Then I guess it’s time for damage control! Get ready to attack, we’re gonna hit with everything we’ve got!” The wind kicked up again, and the two zoomed towards Aquilamon, who was preparing another attack. With his back turned to them, he was unaware that anything was coming for him at all, giving them a great chance to disrupt him. The size difference was intimidating, but they weren’t going to let themselves be deterred by that, using every bit of speed they could muster to launch themselves like living missiles at Aquilamon.

“Aero Nail!” Skydramon’s claws lengthened with crackling blue energy, and he swiped hard as he reached Aquilamon first, sending feathers and blood spraying from the big bird’s hide. A loud screech rang from Aquilamon’s beak as the attack connected, but he was still about to unleash his attack on the buildings…until Boltfalkemon followed up with her own, more forceful attack.

“Static Cracker!” The avian’s body surged with electricity as she slammed into Aquilamon in a flying tackle, causing the bird’s head to rock back and his Blast Rings to sweep over the top of the building rather than nailing it with a direct hit. Debris still kicked up and flew off, and several pigeons were turned onto clouds of feathers, but worse results were averted for the moment. Aquilamon flew upwards and swooped around, turning to face his attackers with rage in his eyes.

“What the hell? What are you weird creatures?!”

“Your enemies, asshole!” roared Skydramon with a laugh. “You’re going down!”

“Real smart, Skydramon, taunting the huge bird that can launch shockwaves at us,” grumbled Boltfalkemon as she steeled herself for the fight. “Still, we’re taking you out, Aquilamon!”

“Hah! I’ll blow you out of the air just like I’m gonna blow those pathetic humans to oblivion! Blast Rings!” Aquilamon opened his beak again, firing off the shockwaves at Boltfalkemon and Skydramon, who swooped off in different directions to avoid them. They flew up a little more, goading Aquilamon away from the buildings to keep them out of the line of fire - a successful bit of damage control, but also putting them at more risk.

With Aquilamon’s focus on them, the two went into more offensive action. The numbers edge seemed to be outdoing Aquilamon’s size advantage, as it couldn’t get both of them at once if they stayed apart. Skydramon took advantage as the bird tried to get to Boltfalkemon with its Grand Horn attack, forming a potent blue-green sphere of energy in his hands and hurling it at the bird. “Chew on this! Twister Orb!” The projectile impacted hard on the back of Aquilamon’s head, knocking him about a bit and leaving him momentarily dazed, giving Boltfalkemon plenty of escape time.

As he recovered from it, he rounded on Skydramon, trying to hit him with his Blast Rings, but the smaller and more maneuverable dragon was able to dip out of the way. And Boltfalkemon had her opening; she spread her wings, which glowed bright and crackled with electric charge. “Take this! Spark Wave!” A burst of electric bolts fired off as she flapped her wings, spraying out in front of her; the attack connected square with Aquilamon, making him screech out as he was rocked hard by the electric shocks. He still wasn’t going down, though he looked to be getting ragged from the attacks.

“I think we’ve almost got ‘em!” Skydramon exclaimed as he whipped another Twister Orb at Aquilamon’s head, throwing the bird for a loop as he tried and failed to evade. “Guess being big ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, eh?”

“It’s gonna be a problem if he drops from the sky, though,” pointed out Boltfalkemon as she pumped out another Spark Wave to keep Aquilamon stunned. “We need to deliver a finishing blow hard enough to delete him in the air, or he could crash down and hurt someone.”

“I’ve got an idea! Charge me up!”

“Huh? Ooookay, then.” Boltfalkemon joined a hand with Skydramon, channeling the energy of her Static Cracker into it.

“Yeow! Hey, that tingles!”

“Don’t stall if you’re gonna do something, he’s gonna wake back up!”

“Right! Time to finish this!” With a roar, Skydramon rushed Aquilamon, who was just shaking off the barrage of attacks. He turned around just in time to see Skydramon reach him, his Aero Nail attack surging with electric power as well as his own wind energy. The dragon zipped by Aquilamon, slashing his claws along the bird’s neck and sending a fierce jolt through his head and spine. Aquilamon was unable to make a sound as the deathblow landed, and burst into data just as he started to plunge towards the ground.

“Whoo! One big-ass bird, down for the count!” whooped Skydramon.

“Celebrate later!” Boltfalkemon shouted urgently. “We have to get out of here!”

“Ah, right! Force Gale!” The wind kicked up again, and both of them careened off away from the sight of the chaos, where tons of people were gathering below, having witnessed the most bizarre scene they thought they’d ever see in their lives.

———

Boltfalkemon and Skydramon landed quite a ways away, finding a patch of trees to descend into and hide within. Once they were safely down on the ground, the split back apart, the humans and smaller digimon reappearing and then falling over in an exhausted heap.

“Hoo…wow…that was a heck of a fight,” groaned Breezedramon. “Felt like one of my first battles as an evolved mon all over again!”

“It’s lucky we were both there, that would’ve been a lot harder one-on-one,” agreed Shockavimon. “But he just wasn’t able to keep up with both of us at once.” She looked over at Iris, who was laying on her back. “Iris? Are you okay?”

“Fine…just…wiped out, kinda. I think that escape mighta taken more out of me than anything…”

“Yeah, that was pushing us to the limit,” agreed Skylar, wiping his brow and sniffling a bit. “But…it was as successful as it could get under the circumstances. We stopped Aquilamon from doing too much damage, and stood up to him in a fight. That’s promising, at least…”

“Yeah, definitely.” Iris forced herself to sit up, catching her breath. Deep inside, though, she could feel what it was Reyn was saying…that sense of strength they’d had as Boltfalkemon was remarkable, it felt like they really were built to face down those terrifying creatures. And it was helping to provide that little spark of hope and determination in her, that maybe they could do something about this whole mess. But… “There’s no way that’s not gonna be all over the news, though. And who knows how many people were taking videos…phones everywhere, there mighta been dozens of clips. I think it’s safe to say any chance of us keeping the whole thing on the down low are deader than that Aquilamon is.”

“And that’s bad news,” agreed Skylar. “The damage is going to be what resonates with people…I fear that we’re going to be hearing a lot of bad things about us in the coming days.”

“What?! But we were the ones who were decapistaputabluating that big feathery asshole!” protested Breezedramon. “Won’t all those videos show that?!”

“I’m not entirely sure how much they’ll show of the details, unfortunately…and the human element is going to probably be focused on ‘monsters attacking’ rather than prying too deep into what each individual monster was doing. Maybe some of them will realize what was going on, but a lot of people are going to panic and think we were part of the problem.”

“I believe it,” Shockavimon said grimly. “We had that happen a couple times in the KOL, too. Fighting Emperius off, then being accused of being part of Emperius. Caused us a lot of hell when we were trying to defend the Yegemra Fortress, they’re crazy paranoid…that’s probably gonna make it harder to convince them that we’re on their side, isn’t it?”

“Maybe…” Iris bowed her head. “Although…if they know that there are monsters appearing out here now, maybe they’ll be more inclined to take reports about them seriously. So, it could MAYBE help?”

“Only if Isaac doesn’t blow it all up in our faces,” grumbled Skylar as he forced himself to stand up. “C’mon, we’d better get home. Once this all comes out, they’re gonna be flipping out wondering where we are, and the last thing we need is people being suspicious.”

Iris’s eyes widened at that. “Oh, jeez…my dad’s gonna lose it for sure. Though at least he’s probably at work right now, and probably down on Lennar Street trying to sort through the madness…”

“We know we can do it, though!” Breezedramon said cheerily. “Next time, you guys will be totally ready for it!”

“Let’s not try to sound so eager about the inevitable ‘next time,’ okay?” sighed Shockavimon.

———

“So, let me get this straight…you have to spend most of your days listening to people stand in front of a room babbling about stuff you may or may not have any interest in, and most of your nights having to do paperwork for them so that they can judge your performance?”

“That’s about the long and short of it, yes.”

Salmandmon stuck out his tongue. “Wow. Being human sounds like it SUCKS.”

Reyn couldn’t hold back a snicker; Salmandmon’s presence might have been considered a distraction, but as far as he was concerned it was helping him with his work. “You think that’s bad, I’m supposed to do stuff like this until I’m 65. With only slight differences at different points really.”

“Ewww. Give me my life any day. At least when I get talked to it’s throwing me at something to blow up.”

“I’m guessing this means you didn’t get any education? Do digimon have schools?”

“They do, but it’s not as much of a thing there. Schools are only for the first couple years…digimon are considered adults at three years, so first two years are giving the basics, and the last year is supposed to be developing your own interests, which may or may not involve school at all. Those who pursue schooling after are those who are getting into really tricky, deep things that need a lot of knowledge to understand. Most digimon do things that don’t require that.”

“It’s too bad we humans need to cook for so much longer, that sounds way better. What was your school like?”

Salmandmon suddenly fell silent, looking away; Reyn looked over, and was startled to see a morose expression on the lizard’s face. “I’d…rather not talk about that, if it’s okay.”

“…Okay. Sorry, I, uh, didn’t realize there was…”

“It’s not your fault. You wouldn’t have known…I’d just rather keep it that way.”

Reyn would have been lying to say he wasn’t curious, but he was sensible enough to know that prying wouldn’t be a good idea. “Sure. I’ll try to keep that in mind. Uh, anyway…you wouldn’t happen to know any of this stuff, would you? Math was never my strong suit.”

“Oh, yeah, uh…” Salmandmon pulled himself up, looking relieved to have something else to talk about. “…What the hell is all this?”

“Algebra.”

“I thought you said it was math. Math is numbers.”

“Algebra is math. It’s, uh, a different type of math. Sort of like fill in the blank, kinda.”

“…Are you sure humans know what they’re doing?”

Reyn gave a little snorted laugh. “Most of the time, the exact opposite. Skylar and Isaac seem to, though, they’re in the advanced classes and this stuff is like child’s play to them. I get it better than I used to, but…” He trailed off as his door opened, Treylor looking inside. “Oh, hey, Dad, I’m doing homework…uh…” His thoughts got derailed at the look on his father’s face. “Do I want to know what that look’s about?”

“Probably not, but you’re going to anyway. Would you and Salmandmon please come downstairs?”

Salmandmon cringed a bit - if he was being specifically summoned, that couldn’t have been good. “Uh, yeah, sure…”

Both descended the stairs after Treylor and went to the main room, where Minerva and Wally were sitting in front of the TV, both with very unhappy looks. And it didn’t take long for them to figure out why, as an anxious-faced woman was speaking loudly into the camera.

“…Sources say that at least three creatures were up above Lennar Street, while some are saying they may have seen as many as five. Video footage of the incident hasn’t shown more than three as of yet, but we’re still trying to get information. The BICI has ordered copies of video footage to be turned over to them immediately so that they can investigate further. What we do know is that there was one very large bird-like creature, which some are saying spoke at one point, and two smaller creatures which we’re still trying to get information about the identity of. At the current time, we don’t have any word of any fatalities, but currently we’re hearing somewhere in the realm of 40 injuries, and we don’t know how many are severe…”

At that point a clip from a camera was shown, and Salmandmon took a deep breath in as the one very clear image came in. “Son of a bitch…Aquilamon.”

“You KNOW that freaky thing?!” exclaimed Wally.

“I know OF it.” The reptile rubbed his head. “Hoo boy…welp. That didn’t last long. I was hoping we’d have a bit more time before everything went to hell.”

“Salmandmon…what’s going on?” asked Minerva nervously.

“There’s no helping it. I told you if it was in your best interest to know what was going on, I’d tell you. Looks like we’ve already reached that point…”

———

“DEREK! GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!” Derek was jarred out of sleep by his father’s roaring voice. That was never pleasant, but it was even less pleasant that the yell didn’t sound angry at him. He motioned to Blackcanismon to stay put, the dog’s expression bleary with tiredness and confusion, and went out and down the stairs to see Elliot frantically getting things together.

“Dad? What’s going on?”

“What’s going on? What’s going on?!” Derek shot a frenzied look at Derek. “A goddamn bird monster, that’s what’s going on! You need to keep an eye on your mother, she’s having an episode. DO NOT leave the house, that is an ORDER!”

“What?!” For once, Derek wasn’t feigning shock. “No way! That’s not possible!”

“Look at the news channels! I don’t care, just don’t go ANYWHERE! I need to get to work!” Elliot grabbed his coat and hurried out the door, slamming it hard behind him. Without the chaos, he could hear Myra moaning on the couch, and the sound of the TV on.

“…and there’s been some evidence that apparently there may have been another bird creature up there, although much smaller, and another creature that some are saying looked like some sort of winged reptile. It’s unknown whether they were assisting the larger bird creature or doing something else, but they seemed to be playing a role in making the creature disappear. It’s unknown why the creature disappeared or whether it will reappear...”

“Well…this bodes poorly.” Derek jumped a bit as Blackcanismon spoke up - he hadn’t even heard the digimon approach. “Disastrously inconvenient…discretion has unceremoniously been stricken from our advantages.”

“No kidding…” Derek let out a frustrated sigh. “Now it’s gonna be an even worse mess than before.”

“Undoubtedly. We require expanded surveillance to identify potential threats more rapidly. Our perusal tonight must involve drastically greater parameters-”

“No.”

“…Pardon?”

Derek sighed, looking over the stair bannister to gaze at Myra. She was on the couch, with a special pillow over her head, moaning painfully. “She’s having a migraine…she has a history of them, triggered by stress among other things. I can’t leave her here alone. Tonight, we have to hope that nothing else happens, because I’m not going out there.”

Blackcanismon was quiet for a moment, before letting out his own small sigh. “I retract my previous assertions. Her well-being is of principal concern.”

Derek could tell that that wasn’t likely to be the principal concern to the digimon, but he understood. “Thank you, Blackcanismon.”

———

“We have a breaking news update: Braun Mayor Christopher Ortega has ordered all schools in the city closed indefinitely, citing an immediate and unpredictable safety concern. The order from the mayor reads, quote: ‘Until the security of our city can be reaffirmed, I cannot in good conscience allow our children to be put into unnecessary danger. We will attempt to arrange for remote learning if the situation allows for it, but we must place safety as our top priority.’ Currently the number of confirmed injuries stands at 47, and damages have been presumptively assessed at over $400,000…”

“Son of a bitch,” snarled Isaac as they watched the news feed on his computer. “So much for trying to keep things on the down low, then. At least they took care of it before it caused an even worse mess.”

“I was really, really hoping they weren’t going to send a big one,” sighed Datacarnomon. “Thought MAYBE that they’d be planning to scout first and then send in the big guns…but I suppose that was wishful thinking, Emperius historically hasn’t been terribly subtle.”

“We’re in trouble if that starts to be a trend. And even worse, my best excuse to get out of the house just went up in smoke. Gah, now I gotta invent a bunch of other reasons…”

“Best excuse? Wait, you talking about that school closure thing? I can’t see you skipping out.”

“Study sessions. Dad’s big on me studying with other people. Not that I really NEED to study so much, considering I’ve got a sharp mind that nabs just about anything first time, but sometimes they need MY help, and I’m generous enough to give it to them.” The robot snorted a laugh, making Isaac turn and glower. “Hey! What’s so funny? It’s true!”

“Never said it wasn’t, very magnanimous of you!”

“Tch, I can tell sarcasm pretty well, too.”

“And you have a legendary sense of modesty too, right?”

“Psh.” Isaac folded his arms and turned up his nose at the idea. “Modesty is just a lie people tell others to feel better. If you’re good at something, be proud of it! Don’t try to act all annoyingly humble and crap just because it lets other people lie to themselves that they’re not that far off. That’s part of what bugs me about Skylar, I know he’s got plenty of smarts, but he refuses to act like it, and gets all snippy at me when I do! Like, come on, what are you even trying to do with that?”

“No one can accuse you of not being straightforward,” said Datacarnomon with a shrug. “That’s probably why they have a problem with you, though. Not everyone likes bluntness and immodesty.”

“Yeah, well, that’s their problem.” Isaac planned to say more, but a bit of a sound outside the room changed that plan in a hurry. “Crap! Act dead!”

Hurriedly Datacarnomon slumped back onto the bed, and Isaac pretended to be looking him over when the door opened. He gave a groan before he heard a word - it was his older sister, Ashley. 20 years old, tall and lean with bouncy, blond curly hair that spread quite wide behind her head, smart as a whip, and also not terribly shy about showing it, though she seemed to have a charm to her that clearly did not put people off as much. A college student at Braun University, she was still living at home, much to Isaac’s annoyance, because he had rather been looking forward to her being farther away from pestering him, one of her favorite hobbies. And when she had that grin on her face, he knew that was what was happening. “So it really is true. The world could be ending and you still won’t come out of your weird metal-filled hermit den.”

“The world’s not ending, Ash. The big bird d-monster disappeared.” Isaac did his best not to show his panic at nearly letting the word ‘digimon’ slip out. “It probably won’t be back, just like that thing in the sky.”

“That’s not what everyone else is saying. They think it vanished just to be brought back sometime later. No one actually saw it die or anything, right?”

Isaac gave an exaggerated eye roll. “What I saw was a couple of creatures fighting it off. I don’t know why everyone’s flipping out, someone clearly went in and took care of things.”

“Oh?” Ashley’s voice had that knowing leer to it. “And what makes you so sure of that, dear brother?”

“I have eyes and a brain, which apparently 95% of cable news lacks.”

“Hah! Fair enough. Can’t say it didn’t look a little bit like that myself, to be honest, though it’s hard to tell - you’d think someone could learn how to hold a camera phone still for half a second.” Ashley stepped forward, kicking the door closed behind her as she did - something that instantly raised Isaac’s hackles, that wasn’t typical. He tried to look busy with Datacarnomon as Ashley walked to the bed, examining him closely…he could only wonder what Datacarnomon was thinking, and envied how cool he was staying. “I gotta say, that is pretty impressive.”

Isaac scoffed. “Well, of course it is! This is gonna be my magnum opus! The greatest robot in the history of robots! At least unless I get an idea for an even better one.”

“No doubt your skill’s as boundless as your ego, little bro.” Ashley’s face turned to a conspiratorial smirk. “But I was talking more about how you somehow managed to convince Dad that this was just some metal shell rather than a robot creature from another world. That must’ve taken a hell of a lot of dancing, knowing how you can’t stop yapping about everything you know most of the time.”

“Wh…what are…you even…talking about?” The strangled voice Isaac had he knew was going to fool precisely no one, but he had no answer for this. No way! She can’t have found out! I was as careful as possible!

“Please, Isaac, what do you take me for? You expect me to buy that you very suddenly created a SUPER-advanced robot body out of nothing over the last week or so? Dad may be obtuse enough about your obsession to not think anything of it, but not me. And the way you’ve been acting more secretive over the past several days, did you think I wouldn’t pick up on THAT? I’d be a pretty lousy shrink if I didn’t catch on!”

Of course she would notice… That was the rough part about having a future psychologist in the family. “You’re just imagining things,” he said, knowing that wouldn’t really help but trying to scramble for something that would.

“Mm, nah, I don’t think so. Especially considering I’ve been hearing you two talking in here more than a couple times. Honestly, kinda neat that he sounds almost normal, except just a little too ’synthesized’ to be natural.”

Isaac’s eyes shot open wide. “You…you’ve been eavesdropping?!”

“Little bro, you’re usually quiet as a mouse. You think I’m not gonna take notice when I start hearing you chattering about stuff?” Ashley was grinning triumphantly at Isaac, who was slumped back in defeat, looking weary and exasperated - about how he typically felt when Ashley turned the screws on him, and she was too damn GOOD at it. “You’re lucky Mom and Dad haven’t caught on, they’re too preoccupied with the weird stuff going on, but you’re gonna have to work on being sneaky. By the way, Dinobot, you can move, I know you can hear me.”

“I figured.” Datacarnomon sat up and turned towards Ashley, feeling a bit nervous; he hadn’t expected to be caught out THAT quickly. “Does that mean you’re not gonna bust us?”

“Not so long as you’re not in league with that big nasty bird that just tried to flatten Lennar Street. But I figure anyone who can spend a few hours with little bro and not go postal is probably a saint.”

“Next test will be him putting up with YOU for a few hours,” spat Isaac.

“Nah, I got other people to hang out with. Just to be sure, you AREN’T with that big bird, right?”

“No, not at all,” Datacarnomon said hurriedly. “I’m, uh, I’m more in league with the ones that were putting him down. And you don’t have to worry, he’s gone for good…uh…well, you don’t have to worry about HIM, anyway…”

Ashley raised an eyebrow at that. “O-kay…I think that might be a little more than I want to know about at the moment. But if you’re working on that situation, I’m gonna leave it to you. But you’re gonna have to do a better job of keeping it down, Mom and Dad are definitely gonna sniff you out if you’re yapping in here all the time.”

“I’ll drop my volume setting. Uh, thanks…”

“No prob.” Ashley gave them a little wave as she headed back to the door. “Later, little bro. Try to spend some time around fleshy people still!”

“Screw you.” Isaac flopped back in his chair as the door shut, leaving them alone again. “God dammit, like this needed to get MORE complicated, now I have the Big Sister Liability hanging over my head.”

“She, uh, seemed nice enough,” Datacarnomon said, not terribly helpfully. “For someone who’s practically a neural network hacker, anyway.”

“Oh, sure, she acts nice, and you start to trust her, and then she knows how to use all your secrets against you. And she’ll be asking favors over this before long, I’m pretty sure. ‘Hey, Isaac, you know how I’m keeping it to myself that you’re harboring a robot from another world? Well, I could really use your help with this one little thing that’s actually six big things.’ She does it to me all the time.”

“I think there’s a chance she might just be doing that to annoy you. Still, there’s one silver lining…I’m three for three on our bets so far,” Datacarnomon grinned.

“Jeez, that’s true, isn’t it? Ugh, I’m gonna have to get a job just to pay up on that. You sure do get excited about those bets, though…maybe I oughta get a poker program downloaded in you, might help occupy your time without emptying my wallet.”

The robot dinosaur’s expression swerved from amusement to panic in a near-instant as the implications of those words hit. “Do NOT even joke about that, Ike.”

The sudden shift caught Isaac off guard. “Okay, okay, sorry, I guess that was insensitive, I just didn’t realize it’d get to you that much.”

“No, no, no. Ike, you NEED to hear me.” Datacarnomon grabbed Isaac’s hand, pulling him closer with a desperate look on his face. “You CANNOT put that idea in my head. Because I WILL do it if it stays in there long enough. And then you might never see me again.”

Isaac blinked. “…Oh…it’s…that bad?”

The robot nodded. “I’m…it’s…it’s an addiction. A rough one. And no, I can’t just get it zapped out of me, neural networks don’t work like that, you can’t break one thing without affecting a whole mess of other things. I have to fight it, and I can’t…I can’t let myself get tempted like that, because it’ll destroy me. I…I shouldn’t’ve really even been betting with you, I…I got a little too…loose because of all this…”

“Jeez…I’m sorry, Data, I didn’t realize…”

“I know. I’m not blaming you. I didn’t tell you, and it’s my fault for not being able to control myself. But now you know, so just…anything that helps me avoid falling into another trap…”

Isaac nodded. “Of course, absolutely. Do you, uh, want to cancel the one we still have?”

Datacarnomon shook his head. “I…I can’t do that…even if I said it, it’ll still be there. Just sticking and waiting to find out…trying to pretend it’s not there just makes it worse, and that can tempt me. I’m just…gonna try not to make any new ones, and you can call me out if I do.”

“Yeah, sure.” That didn’t seem like enough to Isaac. “Anything I can do to help beyond that?”

“I don’t know…it’s something I’ve been struggling with for years, if I knew a good answer I’d definitely tell you.”

“I see…would it help to have your mind on something else?”

“Maybe. What do you have in mind?”

“…You know what you said last night? How Emperius was trying to get access to our, uh, digital infrastructure, that it could potentially power them up? Well, I got to thinking, we need all the help we can get, right? Well…what if we tried to work on that ourselves? It’d give your mind something to do and it could potentially give us some extra firepower against Emperius. At this point, I think anything we CAN do, we should try to do, right?”

“That’s…that’s a really good idea!” agreed Datacarnomon. “That’ll take up plenty of processing cycles, and hopefully keep me engaged and out of that temptation. But, it’s a pretty tall order…we’re not even really sure how it’s supposed to work. It’s gonna take a lot to figure out.”

“Psh, who do you think you’re talking to?” Isaac thumped his chest a bit. “I’ll have it figured out in no time at all! Then it’ll just be trying to make use of what’s at our fingertips!”

For once, Datacarnomon was grateful for the excessive level of confidence Isaac had. “Then what are we waiting for? Sooner we get started, sooner we can show Emperius why they made a huge mistake!”

———

It was very much not Salmandmon’s favorite thing in the world to tell his hosts about the whole nightmare on the horizon, much less having to do so quickly considering Treylor and Minerva were anticipating being called into the hospital at any moment. But he had promised them the truth if it came to it, and that was what he delivered…mostly.

“I can see why you didn’t want to tell us.” Treylor looked rather pale as Salmandmon finished. “A group of maniacs looking to slaughter us in the name of conquest…that’s not something I’d rather have hanging over my head.”

“I knew you little weirdo creatures were trouble,” sniped Wally, glaring at Salmandmon like he was the one responsible. “Oughta toss you back where you belong, teach you a lesson or two.”

“Did you miss the part where I’m trying to STOP this whole thing?” fired back Salmandmon; his impression of Reyn’s older brother had not been very positive so far.

“Well, maybe they wouldn’ta started if you hadn’t busted through like that.”

“Wally, they’re after US, not Salmandmon,” said Reyn tersely. “If anything, we’re lucky they raced in when they did, otherwise nothing was standing in the way of that Aquilamon.”

“And we’re supposed to expect more of those…” Minerva shook her head, a grim look on her face. “Are you…sure that those friends of yours are up to the task of stopping them?”

Salmandmon took a deep breath, more to give himself a moment to scramble. This was the one thing he had to fib about - he absolutely could not tell the two of them that he was directly involving their son in the combat, there was no way that would be a good thing. Perhaps it would have to come out eventually, but he couldn’t hang that over their heads, not now. So he’d concocted a hasty lie - that he was there as a scout to summon some allies from their world, but that due to some interference they didn’t understand, they couldn’t remain there for long periods. He used the mark on his hand to explain how he could stay there, as some kind of stabilizing mechanism. It was far from the most solid story he’d ever made, but it had the advantage of making use of gaps in their knowledge - it would be hard for them to question much of anything he told them. That didn’t make it feel much better, especially when he was pushed on it. “I’m not going to lie to you, it’s not the best of situations. But it’s something, and we’re doing everything we can to try to hold down the fort while we try to figure out how to help you guys mount a defense of your own.”

“I guess that’s all we can hope for…” Treylor let out a tense sigh, suggesting that that wasn’t exactly the way he wanted to leave things. “Is there anything that we can do to help? I mean, I know we can’t do much against any of those things…”

“Maybe if you’d let me get a gun like I’ve been asking for for years,” Wally hinted.

“Wallace Kessilik, the answer is NO,” shot back Minerva severely. “We do NOT keep guns in this household.”

“It’s probably not going to do much against most of what they’ll be up against anyway,” added Salmandmon. “I mean, it might do something to ME, but Aquilamon, I doubt it’d even get through his feathers. Leave that to us and our friends…but, there’s one thing you can do. Help be a safe haven for the others who’re helping me out, and the humans who are helping them. If they can come over here freely, that’s one place where they don’t have to worry about the wrong person finding out about them.”

“I’m not sure I’m that eager to be letting a bunch of random strangers in…”

“You’re okay with letting ACTUAL MONSTERS in but not people?!” Wally shouted, aghast.

“Whose side are you on anyway?” snapped Salmandmon.

“Mom, it’s okay,” Reyn said, desperately trying to keep things from being derailed. “They’re my friends, they’re people you already know. Iris and Skylar and Isaac and Derek are helping out.”

“Oh…I see.” It didn’t seem to exactly relax Minerva, though. “Well, that’s at least something I know…but I’m not sure how comfortable I am with all of you kids being caught up in this.”

“Trust me, we feel the same way,” Salmandmon agreed. “But our connections to them…it’s about the only safe place we each had to go, the only one we could trust not to react badly. Until we get more of that, it’s hard for us to be more open.”

“If that’s all we can really offer, we should at least offer it,” suggested Treylor.

Wally threw his hands up in the air. “You all are NUTS. This place is gonna be monster central.”

“They’re trying to help us out, the least we can do is offer them safe harbor. It sounds like they need all the help they can get anyway.” Just then, a couple buzzing sounds were heard; sure enough, both Treylor and Minerva were being called. “I guess that’s our cue. I suppose we can try to treat you as well if you get hurt, though I’m not sure we’re going to know everything we’re up against.”

“Believe me, I hope we don’t have to call on you for that,” replied Salmandmon with a nod. “I’m not gonna keep you two, you can ask any other questions you have when you’re back.”

“Thank you, Salmandmon. Please, do stay safe out there…and Reyn…” Minerva gave Reyn a smile, but it was as strained as it got. “Please…don’t put yourself in any more danger than you have to. I know you’re supporting him, but…”

“Mom, I promise I won’t put myself in any more danger than absolutely necessary.” Reyn did his best to sound easy about it. Who knew that the truth could be such a huge lie?

———

“IRIS!” Iris was nearly taken to the ground as Emil latched onto her, hugging her tight. “Thank goodness! I was worried sick!”

“Daaaad! Gedoff!” Iris had to push to get Emil to lighten up. “I’m fine! I wasn’t anywhere near Lennar Street! And I wasn’t gonna go over there when that big…THING showed up!” Imagine if he knew the truth, he might just faint dead away.

“We didn’t know what all was going on out there,” said Heather, also looking deeply worried. “Why weren’t you answering your phone?”

“My phone? I didn’t get any…” Prying Emil off of her, Iris pulled her phone out of her pocket; it was completely off. “What? I don’t remember turning this off…” she tried turning it on, and when the icon showed up, she let out a groan. I swear, the universe loves stupid irony. The girl who turns into a big electric bird forgot to charge her phone up. “Battery’s out. I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

“You didn’t charge it? That’s not like you, Iris.”

No, it’s not, but I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. “Maybe it’s on the fritz or something. I hear the new models are supposed to have longer battery life…”

Emil let out a weak laugh. “Don’t you dare, I might be just touchy enough to go for it. But PLEASE make sure you keep it charged up! I’m almost falling apart over here! I didn’t know what that thing might have done before it got to Lennar Street…”

“Dad, RELAX, please. I’ve got better sense than to put myself right in the face of one of those things.” I mean, technically it was Boltfalkemon doing that, not me. Even though Boltfalkemon is part of me…we’ll just try not to think about that at the moment.

“Sorry, Iris, I know you wouldn’t do that…but I don’t know what anyone ELSE is going to do, that’s why I worry.” Emil shook his head, trying to settle his breathing. “I guess now that we’ve got that sorted, I need to get out there. Please, don’t go anywhere else today, I know you don’t want to hear that but I need…I need to not be thinking about that…”

“Okay, Dad, I’ll stay in. I’m not sure I want to head back out there with things as crazy as they are anyway.” It might have been the first actual truth spoken.

“Thank you. I’ll be back as soon as I can be.”

Emil rushed out the door, leaving Iris to watch as he headed to his car. She turned back to Heather. “Has he been like that the whole time?”

“Can you blame him?” replied Heather. “Some enormous monster shows up and his daughter was suddenly out of contact.”

“…Sorry, Mom. I really had no idea. I don’t usually forget to charge my phone.”

“Well, it happens, but just be more attentive to it, okay? I’m just glad you’re all right. Never thought it would be a gigantic bird that I would be afraid of putting you in danger…I think it’s just going to be the two of us at dinner tonight.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine he’ll be back any time soon. I hope HE’S all right out there…he’s gonna be a lot closer to where it was than I was.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine. It seems like it’s gone away for now…hopefully for good.”

“Yeah, hopefully.” Iris finally managed to get away and get upstairs. She didn’t know what scared her more, having to lie to her parents or finding it as easy as it was. She’d never fancied herself a very good liar, but it was like the words came out almost seamlessly. I guess when it’s this big, even I can figure out how to keep it a secret. I hope I can keep that up, though…

She got inside and opened up the window, and Shockavimon whipped in. “Finally! I thought I was gonna be caught out there for sure!”

“Sorry, I ran into a parental roadblock.” Iris shut the window again, and sat on the bed next to Shockavimon. “That all really just happened out there…”

“We did great, Iris. YOU did great.” Shockavimon patted Iris on the back. “I knew you could handle this. Now that we’ve crossed the first big hurdle, we can do our best to face this head-on.”

“Yeah…” Iris wasn’t entirely confident, still…they had gotten lucky that battle, the Aquilamon hadn’t been ready for them and they’d managed to avoid any actual hits. It wasn’t going to go that well every time…and she had another problem, how she was going to be able to dodge around her dad to get out to take care of business. Too much to think about at the moment, though...she needed time to clear her head.

———

“Skylar! Thank goodness you’re all right!” Skylar’s return was also met with a fierce embrace, though not one quite as ostentatious as he was pulled into Corrine’s arms. “When I heard about that giant bird out there, I thought I might have a heart attack! Why didn’t you come straight back home? You could’ve been attacked!”

“Mom, c’mon, I’m not taking THAT much of a risk!” protested Skylar. “You know me, I’m always looking up at the sky, the moment I saw that behemoth I was moving the other way immediately.”

“Oh, I’m glad for that…but why didn’t you come home?”

“I don’t think it’s THAT much less likely we’ll be in trouble inside than outside, Mom. But, well, that wasn’t why, I was…I was with a friend, and they were freaking out a bit, I didn’t want to leave them alone until they were calmed down enough.” It sounded like a pretty weak lie to Skylar, but he didn’t really have a better one. Like I know anyone who’s actually going to freak out that badly…

“I don’t blame them, I only saw it on TV and that was scary enough! I hope you’re wrong about not being safe inside, though…”

“Are you still going on about that?” Skylar’s father Marcus stepped into the kitchen area; a balding and slightly heavyset man in his mid-40’s, he looked like someone who had perpetual expression of mild contempt as his resting expression, which wasn’t that far off from the truth. “This is why I turned off the TV, you’re getting all upset over nothing. It’s just some Hollywood stunt, I’m sure.”

“Marcus Jascalt! You stop that right now!”

“You’re going to look silly when it’s shown that I’m right. Everything’s fine, everything’s normal, just as it should be. Don’t let some special effects stunts get you all up in a fuss.” Marcus walked out, and Corrine threw her hands up in exasperation.

“Dad’s laying it on pretty thick, isn’t he?” remarked Skylar.

“Well, you know him. The less ‘normal’ things are, the more he has to just INSIST that everything is normal. I don’t know why he always has to be this way, but at least that’s the worst thing I can say about him. Though I can’t say I don’t hope he’s right this time…”

Skylar would have liked to reassure her, but he knew the truth too well. “I’m sure we’ll find out. The truth always becomes clear over time, especially for something seen by so many.”

“I suppose. Ah, well, I’ll just have to try to take my mind off of it.” The way she was getting stuff out from cupboards, that clearly meant starting on dinner, which Skylar took as his cue to leave. A bit longer of a delay than he wanted, but it couldn’t be helped…

Once in his room, he opened the window; Breezedramon swooped in a few seconds later, landing with relative grace on Skylar’s bed. “Phew…I was worried I might get seen out there, people’s eyes are on the sky more thanks to Aquilamon.”

“You didn’t actually get seen, did you?”

“Nope! I was totally invibilizimabible out there! I think, anyway.”

Skylar rolled his eyes. “I guess we’ll just have to hope so. Wish I could make you as invisible INside, but I guess we can’t have everything. I do have a couple of questions about what just happened out there between us, though…there are certain things I’d like to talk over and clear up, if at all possible.”

“Aw, man, don’t I get a little break? We just disintertabugrabulated a big bird out there, I wanna rest a bit!”

“Well, I’d like to get to them as soon as possible, but-” Skylar stopped suddenly as the door opened, and Benny barreled in again, running over to the bed to look at Breezedramon. “Daaaaang it, Benny! What did I tell you about knocking!”

“I wanna see Breezy!”

“Of course you do. Why couldn’t you be as old as Reyn’s siblings, they know better than to barge in…” Skylar was grumbling as he went over and shut the door again, but Breezedramon was quietly thankful - they sure as heck couldn’t talk about any of that while Benny was in there. “You didn’t say anything to anyone about him, did you?”

“I didn’t tell anyone anything!” the boy replied proudly, tugging Breezedramon’s tail.

“It’ll be a freaking miracle if that’s actually true. Don’t pull his tail, Benny. Ask nicely if you want him to come closer.”

“Oh, okay! Can you come closer, Breezy?”

“Uhhhhh…d-did you say the magic word?” Breezedramon asked nervously.

“Pleeeease?”

“Well, okay, I guess…” The dragon edged up closer to the edge of the bed, and then backed loudly as Benny grabbed and pulled him into a hug. “Yack! How the heck do you have such a strong grip, kid?!”

“Benny, if you strangle that dragon, we’re going to have words.” Skylar made no rush to intervene, though. “We have to figure out an easier way to get you in and out, though. Maybe I’ll have to keep my window cracked constantly…ugh, the temperatures are just not good enough for that at the moment.”

“Maybe you could dress him up as a cute birdie!” exclaimed Benny, nuzzling Breezedramon in a very affectionate way much to the dragon’s lament.

“N-no thanks, I’ve already got a cute birdie friend and I don’t think she’d approve!”

“You DO?! Can I see them?!”

“Benny, these aren’t toys,” Skylar chastised. “These are living creatures, and they’re doing very important things, so you need to let them do their thing, okay?”

“But you said I could hang out with them!”

“I only talked about Breezy, and I only said maybe…though I guess it’s a bit late for that now. But you need to STAY QUIET. If you’re loud, there’s gonna be trouble for all of us.”

“Okay!” Benny didn’t seem like he was paying much attention, too busy trying to squish Breezedramon’s face, the dragon mostly giving up and just enduring the chaotic attentions of the five-year-old. Skylar knew he’d have to figure out how to deal with the Benny situation somehow, it was just too risky having the kid playing ticking time bomb, waiting to blow up the secret. But there wasn’t a way he could make Benny not know again, which meant his options were sorely limited…and for the moment, allowing him limited access to Breezedramon in exchange for his silence was the only thing he could really do. If only that were the biggest problem on his mind…

Chapter Text

Nighttime was not the usual time for Reyn to be out and about. As far as he was concerned, night was when you were supposed to wind down and relax. A certain friend of his didn’t see it the same way, of course, but that was more just a shifted schedule than anything else as far as Reyn was concerned. Still, given the circumstances, there was a benefit to going out after dark - namely, a lot less trouble keeping Salmandmon from being spotted.

Salmandmon seemed to be all for it, too, though still curious about a few things. “Why’d we have to sneak out if your parents are both at work?”

“Wally.”

“Ah. No offense, but I don’t like him very much.”

“I think the feeling’s mutual.”

Salmandmon shook his head. “I don’t get it. He’s heard, like, most of what I’ve told your parents, definitely the most important stuff. Why’s he being such a whiner about it when your parents are handling everything crazy well?”

Reyn shook his head. “If I had the answer, I’d tell you. But it wouldn’t surprise me if it was just because you were so close to me. Wally…doesn’t exactly like me much, either.”

“You know, I feel like I got that impression from some of those dreams. But why? He doesn’t seem like he has a problem with your other siblings.”

“…It’s complicated. I think he blames me for our family moving around so much. Not that he’s…entirely wrong on that, I guess, but honestly, it’s not like I wanted it, either. I just wanted a place where I could be accepted, have some friends, not get turned into an instant pariah over something that wasn’t really my choice. But…well, it was hard to find.”

Salmandmon cocked his head. “Huh? You don’t seem that weird to me.”

Reyn gave a bit of a wry laugh. “Being fireproof isn’t exactly a normal thing over here, bud.”

“Oh, that. But they can’t even see that, how would they know?”

“You’d think it’d be an easy thing to hide, wouldn’t you? I don’t know, sometimes it feels like the universe just…wanted it to be thrust out into the open. First it was the house fire when I was a baby…it bothered a lot of people that I was in one of the most burned-out rooms there was and yet somehow I wasn’t remotely harmed. Then when I was five, I was playing with a ball with someone and it got thrown into a bonfire…I wasn’t even thinking about it when I went to get it, I just didn’t want the ball destroyed, but suddenly everyone was saying I was some kind of freak. Then when I was eight, one of Wally’s friends thought it would be enormously hilarious to have me grab hot stuff and laugh when I didn’t react to it…it wasn’t so funny when some of the local religious nutjobs started calling me a spawn of Satan when they heard about it. And then when I was eleven…this one hurts the most, I think. I had gotten to thinking that if I did something with my weirdness, maybe people would see it as a good thing. Blame superhero comics for that, it gave me some ideas about that sort of thing. And I got a chance…I was walking home from school one day when I saw a huge plume of smoke. A house was on fire, the woman had just gotten back and was screaming about her dog…she’d gone out but she’d accidentally turned on the oven without realizing it, and her dog was in a kennel inside. So I ran in, found the dog, got it out, and managed to escape with the dog despite stuff starting to cave in as I was trying to get out. You’d think that would have done it…”

“They seriously got on your case even after that?!” exclaimed Salmandmon.

“Yep. Well, the woman didn’t, she was all gratitude and heartfelt thanks, she couldn’t have been happier. But other people…there’s always people out there who feel like anything that isn’t ‘normal’ needs to be attacked into submission. That I could come out with no burns, no damage whatsoever, they couldn’t stand it. So they turned me into a public menace…even had some of them suggesting that I started the fire just so I could play hero, even after it was confirmed that it was an accident.”

“What a load! I can’t believe they’d be that nasty! What, were they jealous or something?”

Reyn shook his head. “I doubt it. I was just…different. And that was a problem for them. And that was the last move, when we came here…but Wally was furious. He’d put up with the others because they had been accidental exposures, but this was the one time that I had deliberately put myself in the line of fire, so to speak, and he blamed me for having to move again. I don’t know WHY, really, because it wasn’t like he had all that much going for him there, he’d dropped out of community college and didn’t have a job or a girlfriend…I guess maybe it was just the principle of the thing.”

“And you think that’s what’s got him so annoyed with you? I mean, are you sure it isn’t the many, many flammable things in your room?”

“Hey, I’ve always been VERY careful with fire. Even if I do like starting them, I like starting them responsibly.”

“Hey, I’m not judging at all!” Salmandmon protested with a laugh. “I like starting fires, too. Particularly with my mouth or my mind. But I know that that makes people nervous when they’re in an area where things are flammable. Or where THEY are flammable.”

“If that was the case, he could just SAY something. Which makes me think that’s not the case, because he won’t talk about what his beef is with me. And I think it’s gotten worse since I started actually sticking up for myself, he doesn’t like that I’m willing to back-talk him. So, yeah, it’s entirely possible that he’s just projecting his dislike of me onto you, but without knowing what’s really up with him, I don’t know for sure.”

“Well, hopefully literally saving his ass from a messy death at the hands of omnicidal maniacs will get you some credit with him.” Salmandmon didn’t exactly sound convinced of his own words, though.

The two quieted down as they approached where they were hoping to find Derek and Blackcanismon. Their fortune was good, as they eventually saw the two walking about a block in front of them, seemingly unaware of their presence. Reyn motioned for Salmandmon to keep it down as they approached, trying to sneak up on them; they made it to within about ten feet of them when Derek spoke up. “Reyn, I’ve told you a dozen times, I know when I’m being followed.”

“Dang, thought I mighta had you this time. Should’ve figured you’d catch my scent.”

Derek turned around, looking at Reyn with mild exasperation. “Was that a werewolf crack? I know Isaac’s been making that joke forever, but I thought you were above that.”

“You might wanna get used to it,” Reyn replied with a grin. “Consider: when we’ve fused together, we become like the digimon we partner with. What’s your partner?”

“…God dammit. I’m gonna be a wolf dude, aren’t I?” Derek let out a groan. “Fine. I guess there’s no getting away from the cracks now…”

“Perchance might you have endeavored to encounter us for purposes beyond casual harassment of my compatriot?” Blackcanismon asked in mild annoyance.

“Nah, that’s just a bonus,” Salmandmon snickered. “Listen, Isaac called us a little bit ago. He and Data were trying some stuff out to help him find possible digimon signals in town, and he thinks he might’ve picked up on one not too far from here…uh, Reyn’ll know the details, I don’t know anywhere we’re supposed to be going.”

“You don’t think we can handle it on our own?” asked Derek.

“It’s just…you two haven’t gone through it yet, so we wanted to be careful. If something did happen, better to have someone there to help out, right?”

“I suppose you’re right…so where are we supposed to go?”

“The 800 block of Kassper Street was where the signal was supposedly coming in,” reported Reyn. “But if it’s moved, you might be the ones who can sniff him out.”

“My olfactory organs shall be hypervigilant,” asserted Blackcanismon. “Let us not tarry.”

———

It took about 20 minutes for the quartet to reach Kassper Street. It was a quiet street in the middle of the neighborhood, not well-lit and certainly not bustling even in the height of the day, much less that time of night. Perfect conditions for them to walk safely…but also perfect conditions for an enemy digimon to hide out and ambush someone, or lay low until it was busier and then create maximum mayhem.

“Tch…I always hated night missions,” Salmandmon muttered as they made their way down the street towards the indicated block. “Always made me more anxious than any others…feels like no matter where you are, something can sneak through the shadows and ambush you.”

“Tranquilize yourself, Salmandmon,” Blackcanismon said evenly. “Our elemental affinity will illuminate any miscreants attempting to assail you.”

“Nothing about you is ‘illuminating’, bud. Least of all your vocabulary.”

“My apologies. I shall endeavor to deobfuscate my statements via intellectual degradation to facilitate your understanding.”

“…Okay, I KNOW that was a diss.”

“You can’t keep up with us in the night, Sal,” Derek stated, with a subtle note of amusement. “This is our time, and we’re at our peak here.”

“Yeah, let’s just hope our enemy isn’t feeling the same way,” Reyn countered. “Not too far away now, I think that’s 1103.”

“Right, we’re close…hold up.” Derek stopped, Reyn almost running into him. Before Reyn could ask what was up, the taller boy hushed him. Everything remained quiet for a moment; Reyn and Salmandmon were just standing there with bewildered looks, watching the other two as they did whatever they were doing. “…There. The house after the next, in the back yard.”

“That’s not even the 800 block!” exclaimed Reyn.

“Presumably our rapscallions are naturally equally capable of ambulation as ourselves,” Blackcanismon remarked.

“It’s there. I’m sure of it.” Derek had no hint of uncertainty in his voice.

“Well, I’m gonna go with the guy who’s in his element,” said Salmandmon. “Any details you can add to that?”

“It’s…a a fairly big presence. Not Aquilamon big, but definitely bigger than a human.”

“I detect a faint odiferousness wafting through the nocturnal air,” Blackcanismon reporting, nose up and sniffing. “An unpleasant tenor at that…doubtless our interloper is an Ogremon.”

“Sounds like our cue to act.” Salmandmon patted Reyn’s leg. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah, let’s do this.” The two joined hands, and soon their forms warped together, melding into the ever-more-familiar shape of Burnreptimon.

“Phew…feels like that gets quicker to finish every time.” Burnreptimon looked down at Derek and Blackcanismon, who had covered their eyes. “Eh? What’s the matter?”

“That was WAY bright, dude,” hissed Derek. “You’d better hope no one saw that!”

“It is? Sorry, I haven’t seen it from that end before. I’m just gonna zip in, blast that brute, and then zip out. Hopefully as quick as that.”

“Discretion is highly advised, Burnreptimon,” warned Blackcanismon. “The proximity to the citizenry is as maximal as it’s liable to be.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll make it quick, you guys try to watch out for anything.” Burnreptimon took off, rushing towards the indicated house, Derek and Blackcanismon slowly making their way that direction.

“…You provided no indication of desiring to assist in this engagement,” noted the canine quietly.

“Yeah, I know…I just…need to calm my nerves a bit.” Derek felt especially tense now…they were going to have to get involved at some point, sooner was better than later, but there was still a pang within him, wondering if he was really ready to face what he needed to face. If he had the luxury of a bit more time, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to take it.

———

Burnreptimon landed after a leap over a gate leading to the backyard. It wasn’t strictly necessary, he probably could have opened it easily, but he didn’t want to take the chance of it squealing - his soft landing on the grass behind was much more discreet. It wasn’t difficult to spot the Ogremon hiding in the trees back behind the house, which didn’t seem to be fenced in from behind; he could see into the yards of a couple other houses back there as well. The big green brute could have his pick of targets if he wanted. But the way his jaw dropped when Burnreptimon rushed forward, he clearly only had one at the moment. “What the devil are you?!”

“You won’t live long enough to care,” growled Burnreptimon, trying to be as quiet as possible. He doubted Ogremon was interested in returning the courtesy, so he wanted to make this nice and fast, leaping in and landing a forceful punch to Ogremon’s jaw. The creature staggered, and received another gut punch follow-up, knocking him to the ground. Burnreptimon jumped back, readying a Pyre Rush…then realized that was a bad idea, that would light things up far too much and created too much risk of starting an actual fire where there was ample fuel and a lot of lives at risk. Dammit, I’ll have to get up close and try to Flare Fang him…wait, I can use this.

Rather than unleashing the energy from his Pyre Rush, he channeled it inward, letting the heat and energy permeate through his body. His heartbeat accelerated, and he felt his muscles loosen up…this was definitely a significant boost, and he rather liked how it felt. Unfortunately, it gave Ogremon a chance to recover, the brutish creature snarling at him. “Right, you’re gonna pay for that!”

“Sure.” Burnreptimon leapt in again, delivering another punch that Ogremon took to the arm, then a kick to the back that knocked Ogremon a bit off-kilter. As he attempted to follow up, though, Ogremon struck back, swinging his club and catching Burnreptimon in the chest, tossing him back. The blow was hard, and the landing wasn’t much softer, forcing the reptile to try to regain his bearings. Oof…okay…first real hit I’ve taken…had to happen sometime. I’m fine, shake it off, I can do this.

He launched himself to his feet again, just in time to see Ogremon charging at him. The overhead swing he was preparing was an incredibly risky move, but would be loud even if it missed…Burnreptimon took the opportunity that presented itself and launched into a fierce gut punch that drove the wind out of Ogremon and sent him flying backward. He was up again, looking weary but still murderous as Burnreptimon charged in, swinging his club once more. The reptile dodged underneath and swung around behind him, jumping on Ogremon’s back and holding on tight. “Time to die, Ogremon. Flare Fang!” Before Ogremon could dislodge him, Burnreptimon sank blazing-hot fangs into the creature’s neck, and let loose a blazing blast that incinerated him from the inside out. The Ogremon let out a howl that was a little too loud for the lizard’s liking as he fell forward onto his knees, then pitched forward again as Burnreptimon let go of him, dissipating before he hit the ground fully.

Burnreptimon wiped his mouth of the blood, feeling a bit unsteady. Damn…that was…messier than I would’ve liked…but it had to end quickly, didn’t have a lot of options… He shook his head, trying to cast away the unpleasant thoughts. No one had ever said this would be nice and neat, what mattered was that it was over.

Or, at least, that was what he thought as he started to head towards the yard to get back out, when he felt a sharp pain in his back. Three points of pain piercing him rather ruthlessly, and might have gone deeper if he hadn’t suddenly pitched forward, barely avoid the worst of it as he rolled to turn and face the attacker. “Boogeymon!”

———

“Dammit!” Derek had noticed the other presence only after Ogremon had been taken care of, and there hadn’t been time to warn Burnreptimon of it. He’d heard the loud hiss of pain, and knew that it had to be Burnreptimon…the wound would put him at a decided disadvantage, and the other enemy was a flier, he could easily stay out of range.

“Derek, intervention is of the utmost importance,” Blackcanismon urged him. “It is necessary that you abandon your reservations immediately.”

“I know…it’s…it’s time, we’ve got to do it…” Easier said than done, though, Derek’s heart was racing, he felt almost like he might pass out. Hearing the pain in that sound brought home just how serious this all was…

“Derek, please…recall that determination you had upon discovery of these capacities,” pleaded the canine. “Ample courage is a necessity in these endeavors…you have demonstrated the capacity already, the remainder is summoning what exists within your spiritual essence…” It wasn’t doing enough, he could still see Derek struggling…he laid a paw against the human’s leg. “Derek…we can do this.”

The sudden change jolted Derek a bit as he looked down at Blackcanismon…it was the first time he’d dropped his normal way of speaking. No eloquence, no ambiguity, as straightforward as he could be…just to tell him that he believed in him. And whether it was just being snapped out of his thoughts or the show of support, it righted his head. “Yeah…this is our time, we can’t be outdone here. Let’s go.” His hand went to cover that paw, and already he could feel the resonance between them. Burnreptimon…hang in there, we’re on the way.

The forms of Derek and Blackcanismon dissolved into a darkness that was almost radiant, darkening the area around it with its sheer potency. As with the others, their bodies were drawn into a sphere, blacker than anything most would ever see in their lives, black enough that it wasn’t even clear it WAS seen. As the shape coalesced, it formed a figure that was almost equally dark, the form as inky and nebulous as could be, vaguely twisted into the shape of a wolf. As it took to the ground, its legs seemed to almost melt into the shadows, and then so quickly did the rest of it, disappearing into the ground almost as if it had never been there at all.

But it was far from gone…no, it was as there as could be, as in its element as it could be. And it was ready.

It came back to the yard, unseen, watching as Burnreptimen struggled against Boogeymon, trying to leap and swipe the taunting imp, only to get knocked back if he ever got close. “Damn you! Get down here and fight!”

“Now why would I bother doing that? It’s so much more fun torturing you.” Boogeymon certainly looked like he was enjoying himself, with a grin that almost split his face. “I don’t know what you are or why you’re pretending to be one of us, but anyone who stands in the way of the Purification deserves a painful death.”

“To hell with you and your purification!” hissed the reptile, desperately trying to remain quiet as he could. The blood streaming down his back was not making that easy, though…it wasn’t a fatal wound but it was slowing him down. “You think you’re gonna avoid Ogremon’s fate? I’ll finish you off too!”

“Oh, come on, you can’t tell I’m the one with the advantage here? Deluded fool. I’m going to enjoy torturing you until you finally succumb.” Boogeymon pointed his trident down at Burnreptimon, as the points glowed with a sinister red energy; Burnreptimon barely managed to dodge out of the way as beams shot out of it, puncturing the ground. “You can’t keep this up forever, fool. I’ll get you eventually, and then watch the hope and life drain out of your eyes as I slowly skewer you.”

“I have a better idea.” Boogeymon started and whipped around, looking around for the almost disembodied voice. “We should level the playing field somewhat.”

“Wha-where are you? Show yourself!”

“Oh, come on, you wanted to play dirty, why should I play any fairer? Nightmare Tangle!” Suddenly, the very shadows themselves seemed to reach out, snatching Boogeymon and dragging him down as he tried to struggle to escape. The demon swiped at a couple of them with his trident, but others took their place rapidly, leaving him to struggle and curse.

Burnreptimon was so engrossed in the scene in front of him that he didn’t notice someone had appeared next to him, and jumped a bit when he heard the voice to his right. “It’s all right to retreat and ask for help, you know.”

“Gah! Don’t spook me like that!” Burnreptimon stood upright, looking down at the smaller figure next to him; it wasn’t exactly the most imposing-looking frame, rather lean and nearly a foot shorter than he was, but the formless appearance of his body was rather intimidating in its own right - the only actual visible features on him were two glowing orbs where the eyes would be. “So…I’m guessing you two decided you were ready to get involved then.”

“Indeed. Call me Darkvargmon. And mind the crazy demon trying to attack you.”

“Wha? Yow!” Burnreptimon had to dive and roll as Boogeymon fired another round from his trident, causing the two to separate. The demon finally pulled free from most of the tangles, but one caught around his ankle as he tried to take flight again, and Burnreptimon leapt in and landed a left hook, right hook, and uppercut, sending the demon sprawling. Boogeymon got up slowly, glaring evilly at Burnreptimon.

“You…you think I’m scared of either of you? Both of you are nothing compared to the power of Emperius!”

“We’ll see about that.” From behind Boogeymon, Darkvargmon appeared again, arm outstretched as pulsing darkness gathered in it. “Perish, Boogeymon! Shadow Wave!” A powerful burst of dark energy fired out, enveloping Boogeymon just as he flapped into the air. The powerful blast enveloped and ravaged him, and Burnreptimon took a chance and added his Pyre Wave into the mix, less worried about firing it upwards away from the trees at least. That was enough to take down Boogeymon, who dissolved with an agonized wail.

Of course, the ruckus had been a lot more than either had hoped for, especially with the light from the flames. “Book it!” Darkvargmon rasped harshly, and Burnreptimon didn’t need telling twice, taking off and launching himself back over the gate, leaving the yard a bit messed up but thankfully unscorched.

———

The pain in Burnreptimon’s back was finally starting to fade as he reached Linden Park, the closest place away from houses that he could find nearby. It wasn’t exactly the most sheltered area, but in the darkness it didn’t matter quite as much. He was panting pretty hard, feeling more worn out than last time…taking hits like that was definitely not optimal, and he’d probably expended a lot more energy than was wise against Boogeymon. Strategy was definitely something to work on.

“Took you long enough.” And nearly leaping out of his skin wasn’t helping him either, as he whipped around to see the glowing eyes of Darkvargmon in the shadows, barely able to make out anything else.

“Would you NOT scare me like that, please?”

“That takes all the fun out of being able to phase through the shadows, though.”

“Yeah, you’re having fun out there while I’m getting flesh wounds. How does my back look?”

Darkvargmon shifted forward (it hardly looked like walking, his body seemed to slide along the ground) and took a look at Burnreptimon’s back; the wounds had closed up rather nicely, blood no longer flowing freely. “It looks like it’s recovered pretty cleanly. After just minutes at that…perhaps these hybrid forms have rather potent regenerative capabilities, even more than the average digimon. Still, I would advise not trying to test their limitations.”

“Gee, thanks, I couldn’t have figured THAT out. We should probably split apart before someone notices me.”

“I’m on board with that.” The two became four again, separating rapidly and retaking their original shapes, a process that was getting less disorienting for Reyn and Salmandmon every time they did it…a little bit more so for Derek and Blackcanismon’s first-time experience. “Whoof…that makes your head spin BAD,” Derek remarked, trying to shake it off.

“It’ll get better, I’m almost not noticing it now,” observed Reyn.

“Well, I suppose I’ve got that to look forward to. Probably won’t be long before I’m doing this again.”

“Probably not…uh, thanks for the save back there. I had no idea there was another one there.”

“Regrettably, nary a one among us registered the alternate presence prior to its interference,” Blackcanismon said apologetically. “Boogeymon obfuscates itself in shadow, much as Darkvargmon is typically capable of, and delivers cowardly ambushes to undermine its antagonists to offset its distinct lack of confrontational strength.”

“I guess there are things that can even hide from you guys, huh?” sighed Salmandmon.

“Those of the darkness are undoubtedly possessed of potential invisibility even to us of parallel alignment, regrettably.”

“It’s fine,” Reyn said. “We got them both in the end, that’s what matters. And what matters now is that I get back home and get to bed before someone finds out I was out here. Or before I keel over from exhaustion…how do you manage to do this every night?”

Derek rolled his eyes. “Easy. I sleep in the afternoon.”

Reyn paused, then laughed a bit. “Oh, right. Yeah, that would make sense. Well, you guys probably won’t need us to be playing escort, I guess…but if you ever want help, let us know.”

“Same to you,” replied Derek with a nod.

———

When Reyn woke up the next morning, the first surprise was that Salmandmon was still snoozing in bed next to him. The second was that it was after 11 AM and he hadn’t been interrupted. At first he wondered if he should head back to bed, but his movements roused Salmandmon, putting the kibosh on that.

“Oh wow…jeez, I, like, never sleep in like this…” Salmandmon was shaking off the tiredness in a hurry, though, faster than Reyn was…the human was almost a little envious. “No one cares that we’re sleeping in like this?”

“Mom and Dad are probably asleep themselves, since they both worked late.” Reyn stretched and yawned. “I don’t mind it, though…wouldn’t mind sleeping in this late every day. Darn school won’t let me, though.”

“I thought your school was canceled?”

“I mean, like, normally. But yeah, if not them, no one else is gonna care. Cayden and Alisin sure don’t have any skin in how late I sleep.”

Salmandmon grinned cheekily. “What about the big dunce?”

Reyn snorted. “There might be another reason he doesn’t like you.”

“Hey, I’ma give as good as I get. And it doesn’t seem like he picked up the top-of-the-line core data set, if you catch my drift.”

“Hey, watch it, those are my parents you’re commenting on with that.”

“Not necessarily, maybe there was a bug in his system.”

“He’s not THAT bad. Just lazy. And inept. And has no real drive to do anything. And kind of has a temper. And doesn’t listen to people. And…you know what, let’s just say you’re right and move on.”

Salmandmon snickered. “You know it’s true. Hey, how’re you feeling? I had some trouble getting to sleep because my back still hurt a bit, but I’m not feeling it at all anymore.”

“About the same as you.” Reyn rubbed his eyes a bit. “Could’ve been a lot worse, though, if Darkvargmon hadn’t joined when he did.”

“Yeah…” Salmandmon fell quiet. That was pretty rough…maybe we should try to make sure we’re not fighting one-on-one as much as possible. We aren’t always going to have the luxury, but when we do…

“Yeah, you’re right, it’s probably a good idea. Especially when we could be fighting someone who doesn’t really mesh well with our battle style…we aren’t exactly apex air fighters, right?”

Salmandmon did a double-take. “What?”

Reyn looked back at him. “What?”

“Why are you talking like I said something?”

“Didn’t you?”

“No!”

“Huh? I swore I heard you…”

“No, I didn’t say a…well, I said ‘yeah’ but then you started talking about something different…”

“Oh…huh…maybe I’m just tired still…” Reyn rubbed his eyes again. Sheeze, am I imagining things? I swore Salmandmon was just talking about making sure we don’t fight one-on-one…

“Okay, Reyn, seriously, cut it out, I didn’t say anything.”

Now it was Reyn’s turn to look at the lizard in confusion. “Wh…I didn’t say you did.”

“But you just…I know you did, I heard it clear as day.”

“I swear, my mouth didn’t open after I said I was tired. You’re a lizard, don’t get batty on me.”

“…Wait a sec…” Salmandmon put his hands on his head. “This doesn’t make sense. We’re not just both hearing things. Something else is going on. And it can’t be someone pranking us, they wouldn’t know…what’s going on…”

“Salmandmon?”

“In our heads…Reyn. You thought I said something about not fighting one-on-one, right?”

“…Yes?”

“Well, I didn’t say anything…but…I was THINKING it.”

“…What? Wait, hold on. You’re not seriously saying I heard your THOUGHTS, are you?”

Maybe I am. Reyn jumped a bit. The words were in his head, as clear as they could possibly be, but Salmandmon’s mouth hadn’t moved one bit. “Okay, you totally picked up on that.”

“Shut up! You can’t be serious.”

“I’m not gonna goof of on something like that! Come on, think something at me.”

Reyn had no idea what to think, so he thought the only thing he could. This is absolutely crazy and there’s no way that this is actually happening.

Salmandmon grinned. “Everything here is absolutely crazy, this isn’t even that far off the current normal.”

Reyn shook his head. “Lucky guess.”

“But this IS crazy, Reyn! I mean, I know I’ve got some skills at my back, but telepathy was never one of them! And I don’t count those strange dreams, that’s not something I can CONTROL, you know?”

“So where did they come from?” asked Reyn, before he realized what a silly question that was. “Wait, no, duh, I’m an idiot. Of COURSE they had to come from us combining together like that. Our minds are connected when we’re like that…maybe the connection just never went away last time?”

“Why not that time, when it did the other times, though?”

“…Are you asking me like I have the answers?”

“Oh, right. Well, we need to learn more about this! I mean, if this is something we’re getting, the others are gonna be getting it too, we need to tell them everything we know about it, and we don’t know enough! Like, how much control do we have, can we block out thoughts, what kind of range does it have-”

“Okay, okay, settle down, you’re starting to sound like Skylar.” At least Reyn was fully awake now, the sudden new discovery effectively shaking off his sleep. “We’ll get to figuring out some stuff, but not until I’ve had some breakfast. I’m not experimenting on an empty stomach.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s probably a good idea. I’m not much good on an empty stomach either.”

“I’m not sure you have anything other than an empty stomach, considering how much food you can inhale. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you get full, you just get to the point where you stop eating because you have to or someone makes you.”

The lizard chortled a bit. “Gotta keep the furnace running, baby. C’mon, let’s get to it already!”

———

“They didn’t even respond!”

“Didn’t you just tell me you got something back?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t a real response! It was just ‘thank you for contacting us, we’re glad you’re taking an interest in keeping our country safe and secure,’ blah blah blah! It was a damn form letter, Reyn! They’re ignoring us completely!”

“Isaac, settle down.”

That was definitely not what Isaac wanted to hear. “Settle down?! We’re freaking dealing with giant monsters out here, just like five of us against five million of them, and the people who could help are just blowing us off! How the hell can I settle down?! I knew this was the wrong thing, we should be blowing out a bunch of e-mails to someone who’ll give a damn-”

“ISAAC.” Reyn’s voice cut through, silencing Isaac. “RELAX. This isn’t really going that much different from how I thought it would.”

“…it’s not?”

“Of course not. You’re telling a bunch of very serious, very busy people that monsters from another world are invading. Would you believe it if you hadn’t been on this side of it? Besides, I’m pretty sure they just send form replies any time they get something. That at least tells us that they got it - and after the Aquilamon business, they’ll have to be taking some notice of it now, don’t you think?”

“Y…yeah, I guess…”

“Just keep it up, Isaac. Keep working with Skylar to send more information. Even if they aren’t coming to talk to you, they’re going to be interested in what you have to say. I’m sure they’re taking all that into account when trying to figure out their response, because you know someone up there has their eyes on this, there’s no way they can’t.”

Isaac took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah, you’re probably right…I guess we’ll just keep it up, then. I wish they’d actually say something back, though. I don’t like the idea of just talking at them and hoping.”

“There’s a ton not to like about all of this. All we can do is do what we can.”

“Yeah, I guess…anyway, I got a message from Skylar that he and Iris are heading out to Glikke Field again. Didn’t tell me what it was about, but they were going back to that spot where, uh, you first showed your thing. You coming?”

“Ah, I don’t think so. I was out last night with Derek, and I want to make sure we’re actually recovered after that battle. Taking shots is definitely no fun, let me tell you…I’m lucky Derek and Blackcanismon were able to jump in in time.”

“Man…can’t believe I’m the one bringing up the rear,” groused Isaac. “I’m just gonna have to be the best of all of us to make up for being slower.”

Reyn chuckled a bit. “Hey, just so long as you’re able to keep pace with the rest of us in the end, I’m not going to be complaining. But by all means, go ahead and be the best, I’ll gladly let you be the one mowing down enemies left and right.”

“Hah, you just know that’ll be what I do, too. Uh, but I guess I should ask if you’re all right, if you’re that concerned.”

“I think so, I’m just trying to be cautious. It SEEMS like we sort of heal up when we separate, but there’s a lot we don’t know, and I don’t want to find out I’m ruining my body from the inside out without knowing it. Besides, I’m probably gonna be running around helping Sal test our telepathy thing, and knowing him I’m gonna be running ALL over the place, as much as he wants me to be exercising.”

Isaac blinked a bit, going silent for a few seconds. “Uh…what…telepathy thing?”

“Oh, did I not tell you that already?”

That got a facepalm from Isaac. “Right…let’s start at the beginning with that, because that sounds like something I MIGHT want to know about…”

———

“Tell me again why we’re going out trekking this far away rather than meeting somewhere closer by?” There was no question that trying to talk to what looked like nothing was a bit awkward…Isaac wasn’t about to tell Datacarnomon to drop the cloaking, though. It was enough of a risk for him just to speak, even if he’d tuned the volume down.

“Wasn’t my idea. They said they wanted to go out there and we were welcome to come by. But you make a good point, it’s not a very good meeting spot. Not central to where we live, way too far away…I mean, it’s out of the way, at least, but that’s about all it’s got going for it.”

“You know, I could run some triangulation tests on a map, give you some ideas for places where you might be able to meet up that are much more efficient. You’d have to vet the locations yourself, since I know jack-all about this place, but I have to imagine it’d be better than this.”

“Ooh, that’s a good idea. Let’s do that when we get back. We all should be meeting up soon anyway.”

“Hm? You have something in mind?”

“Definitely, had it in mind for a while now.” Isaac paused as he carefully looked down the road - less for cars and more for people. The attack the day before had driven most people inside, but there were still a few people who were either bold or foolish enough to venture out, and Datacarnomon’s cloaking wasn’t perfect. In this case, though, they were alone, and continued without incident. “I think we need to meet each other.”

“…Uh…am I missing something? Because you all seem to know each other pretty well, and our group’s been fighting together for four years.”

“Not like that. I mean, the US we.”

“Our merged forms? Aren’t you jumping the gun just a touch there?”

“What, you think we won’t be able to do it? C’mon, I’m already steamed that we’re the last ones getting together, don’t make it worse by thinking I’m not up for the task!”

Datacarnomon let out a little snort of laughter. “I guess I won’t have to do much to psyche you up, then. I’m glad you’re feeling ready to go, since Emperius clearly isn’t holding much back. But if there’s anything that’s giving you pause, tell me, because at the last moment is the worst time for cold feet.”

“Nothing’s giving me pause that wouldn’t make me want a sturdier body to deal with it anyway,” Isaac insisted resolutely. “Yeah, okay, it’s not exactly the nicest thought going up against big to huge monsters with powers I thought I’d only see in video games. But since I’m not actually getting the choice of whether they come over here or not, I might as well face them down in something less squishy than, you know, ME. At least I’m hoping we’re less squishy, but c’mon, a robot plus a big guy, there’s no way we won’t be, right?”

“Probably, yeah. I mean, it IS uncharted territory, but there’ve been enough consistencies that I think it’s safe to venture that’d be the case. Okay, well, that aside, why do you think we need an ‘us’ get-together?”

“Because of what you just said. Uncharted territory. You didn’t know what Burnreptimon even was until he told you. Aside from what we saw and what he told us, you don’t know what he can do, not like you do for regular digimon. If we’re gonna be fighting together, we should have some idea what we’re each like, and who would know better than the guy that exists when we’re us?”

“I mean…we COULD just write up profiles or something.”

“Eh, mayyyyybe…but I don’t think that’s a good substitute. And, anyway, didn’t Burnreptimon say he wasn’t really just Reyn and Sal? If there’s a new personality there, shouldn’t we get familiar with that, too?”

“Heh…well, I dunno, but something tells me there’s not gonna be any talking you out of it,” chuckled Datacarnomon.

“Of course not! You know I’m right. People don’t generally talk me out of anything! That’s what happens when you’re one of the best and the brightest!”

“Generally not, yeah…unless they’re Reyn. Was quite the odd experience watching you push back like your life depended on it against Skylar, but Reyn pushed you and you retreated.”

“Oh…uh…” Isaac rubbed the side of his head. “That was…well, look, I…I just…Reyn’s…different.”

“He is?”

“Yeah. It’s kinda hard to explain, but there’s just this…way about him that makes it different when he, uh, pushes, I guess…I wouldn’t even call it pushing, really. Maybe it’ll be easier to explain by example…”

~~~3 1/2 years ago~~~

Envy. Jealousy. Contempt. Bitterness. I always had to put up with a LOT of crap in school.

It went back to my earliest years. I was always ahead of the rest of the class. I was an earlier reader, and well ahead of my peers in reading level. I breezed through all the math they tried to throw at me, and might’ve been even further ahead if they had known how to actually teach it to me. I was better at writing, and quickly figured out how computer programming worked. And I was a builder - I made things more complicated than anyone else in class, just using materials like Legos, and I LOVED to show off what I built. As school got more advanced, I got better chances to show what I was really capable of, shooting easily to the top of my class.

But genius is always derided by jealous fools. And there were plenty of people who derided me. They didn’t like how smart I was, and they didn’t like that I wasn’t afraid to show it off. See, I was definitely not the only ‘smart kid’ in class - I’m pretty sure I was the best of them, but there were certainly others who were closer to me than to the rest. But the difference is that they learned pretty quick to act like they weren’t, because they got pushed around and treated rudely just for showing that they were smart. They kept their heads down and it kept them from getting the negative attention they didn’t want. But I wasn’t going to do that, because I thought it was stupid. Why be smart if you’re not gonna use it, right? So I didn’t hide it, and that got me a good bit of crap. But nothing I couldn’t handle.

Okay, I’ll admit, there was a reason I could deal with it better than the others: I was BIG. I was routinely the biggest kid in class as well as the smartest. That’s not how it normally goes, usually brains and brawn are entirely different worlds, but not for me - and I’ve made sure to keep it that way, I hit the gym now and then to keep enough in shape that no one’s gonna think they can push me around for being smarter than them. So they couldn’t deal with me the way they would’ve done with others, and that meant they had to try to get to me in other ways. Most of the time, that meant trying to ‘humiliate’ me by catching me in a mistake. Waiting for me to make a rare error and then jump in with the right answer and then try to act smug that they got something I didn’t. Like they thought they were going to absolutely DESTROY me if they ever outdid me. Honestly I used that against them more than they did against me, I loved making them think I was getting the wrong answer and then seeing the looks on their faces when I showed them that I had it right all along. Yeah, it didn’t make me terribly popular or liked, but I didn’t really care, I didn’t need their approval, and I was fine as long as I could avoid them.

And avoid them I did. I didn’t associate with any of them beyond the bare minimum necessary. And that suited everyone fine. But then middle school threw a wrench in things, with the dreaded Team Projects. Forcing you to work with others, because ‘teamwork is so important’ and all that nonsense. Yeah, it IS, but not when the team hates each other’s guts! Suffice it to say, I didn’t like team projects much…except with one person.

It was early in my first year in middle school. Science class. Honestly, it would have been my favorite class by a parsec if not for the fact that every lab needed to be done with at least one partner. The teacher was one of THOSE types. I had managed to get away with not being paired with anyone for the first one only, but attempt number 2 ended in failure, and the teacher decided if I wasn’t going to choose a partner I was going to be assigned one. And so he assigned one to me - some red-haired kid I barely knew, he hadn’t been in my school until that year, named Reynard Kessilik.

Now, looking at Reyn today, you’d never know it was the same kid. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone as shy and evasive as he was. He barely even wanted to look at me…I’m pretty sure he was intimidated. And I really didn’t care. All I said at the start was “Listen, kid, I know what I’m doing, so just follow along and don’t be annoying, and this’ll all go fine.” And he just nodded, and as it started, it sure seemed like that was what was going on. I took the lead, he mostly just did what I told him to, which wasn’t much, and I was more or less getting to do my thing. I don’t think the teacher appreciated that it wasn’t exactly a total team effort, but hey, I was doing the work, Reyn was still a ‘partner’, he couldn’t really complain.

It was partway through when it happened. Part of the lab was doing the equations to figure out how much of a certain product we were supposed to get. I was talking to Reyn about it, showing him what I was doing and telling him exactly what we were going to get as we worked our way towards it. And then he’s giving me this look like he doesn’t understand.

“You look lost. Want me to explain it again?”

“N-no, I think…I think I get it…but…is that…the right number?”

“Of course it is. It’s pretty simple subtraction, I don’t screw that up.”

“Oh…well…I got a different number…do you think you can, uh, show me what I did wrong?”

I remember rolling my eyes, thinking, what was I, the teacher? But what the heck, it wasn’t a complicated problem. So I took a look at his worksheet…and then I had a moment, because, as far as I could tell, he’d done it all correctly. But it definitely was NOT the number I got. So I went back through mine, and his, and what was on the board. And you wouldn’t believe the spike that went through me when I realized that I was the one who made the mistake. It wasn’t that I did my equation wrong - it was that I had the wrong number to start with. I’d transposed two of the digits from the whiteboard. A simple thing to do, easy to miss, but leading me completely down the wrong path.

Now, I don’t lose my cool that easy. Heck, it’s not like I think I’m immune to making mistakes, I CAN in fact be wrong at times, even if those times are pretty few and far between. But…well, I was new to middle school. It was a different way of doing things, and it was the first time in a while that I was actually not the big fish, which meant I was…maybe a little more insecure than I normally was. And it was just, at that moment, unacceptable that I could let someone slip through my defenses and crow about an error that I really should have been able to catch quickly. So, I did the only thing I could think of.

“Hah! Not bad! I was testing you, making sure you were paying attention. I mean, I can’t do ALL the work here, right?”

Yeah, I know. Not my finest moment. You’d think with my experience feigning mistakes I would have had a better excuse for when I actually made one. And I thought I was going to be called out on it…but Reyn just looked relieved. He didn’t poke at me at all, just nodded and smiled a bit and said, “Oh, okay. I wasn’t sure, math really isn’t something I’ve always been good at.” And just like that, I was able to retake the reins and get past that little bump, and we finished the lab without any further incident.

After class let out, we walked out together. I really hadn’t been expecting to feel as good as I did. “Well, that was probably as painless a team assignment as I’ve ever had. Kind glad you got paired up with me now.”

“Yeah…I was glad, too. You really seemed like you knew everything…I wish I could feel like that.”

I hadn’t been expecting to hear that, and I looked at him in surprise. “Huh?”

“You know…confident, and…sure of yourself. It feels like every time I thought I knew what to do…I just did the wrong thing.” Reyn was looking down with this really sad expression. “It’s caused me a lot of trouble…I don’t really know if I know anything, honestly.”

It was just the weirdest moment for me…one of those very rare moments where someone actually DID catch me in something and I WOULD have minded being called out on it, and he just…didn’t. Not even an act, he really had thought he’d been the one who was wrong and was just glad that he hadn’t been. And…well, I kind felt bad for him right then and there, because, you know, people should feel good about being right. Not that I was great at being encouraging, because that was something I DIDN’T have practice with, but I tried. “Well, I’m sure you’ll get there, not everyone gets it right away. But hey, that was a good catch on that equation.”

I remember him smiling a bit, weakly. “Y-yeah, I guess…but that was just testing me, right?”

“Uh, yeah, it was, but I mean, that’s still a good catch, you were right. And keep that kinda thing up and you’ll be right a lot more, right?”

That seemed to make him a bit happier, and I felt oddly happy about that. And from then on, I made sure whenever I could that Reyn was my partner, because I finally found one person that I knew wasn’t out to get at me…that was something I didn’t want to let go of.

~~~Present Day~~~

“Even though Reyn’s definitely gotten a lot more sure of himself since then, he’s still always been that kind of person who isn’t just…out to challenge you for dominance, I guess.” Isaac sighed a bit, a faraway look in his eyes. “It makes it easier to hear him out because I know he’s not taking pride in being right at my expense, he’s just happy to find out that he’s thinking right. And I think it helped me become better about checking myself, and making sure I didn’t overlook simple things because I was TOO sure I knew everything. Even if I’m generally still sure I’m right.”

“Heh, you and I go together pretty well, then,” chuckled Datacarnomon. “Though I suppose I’ve got access to a LOT more tools to validate things before I speak. Meat CPUs are so lacking, I don’t know how you all do it.”

“…I could go without hearing the term ‘Meat CPU’ again for the rest of my life, just so you know.”

“I’ll file that away to use against you later. Did Reyn ever figure out that you’d been bluffing?”

“Oh, heck, yeah, I’m sure it didn’t even take him that long. But he didn’t actually call me out on it until well after it mattered, and he didn’t have a problem with it, either - in fact he said he was kind of glad I did it, because it made him feel like he’d passed a test or something. So it really all worked out for the best. Now if only I could get the rest of these jokers to be the same way.”

“Been endearing yourself to all of them, have you?” remarked Datacarnomon cheekily.

“Shut up, you. I know, they mostly put up with me because I’m Reyn’s friend. But can I help it if I don’t want to be fake around them? I gotta be me, or it’s just a fake friendship. I kinda knew Iris and Derek some back before Reyn came into the picture, I didn’t really do much with them but we went to the same school. Skylar didn’t come in until later…and that…” Isaac shook his head. “Look, the less said about that, the better, especially since we’re going to meet him and I really don’t want to have that sorta thing on my mind.”

Datacarnomon cautiously dropped his cloaking, seeing as they were crossing Glikke Field and he didn’t see anyone around, before looking up pointedly at Isaac. “One of these days you’re gonna have to tell me about what it is between the two of you, you know.”

“I’m aware. But today will not be that day.”

“Tch…fine, but I’ll remind you at some point.”

“I’ll be ready for that.”

“Ready to come clean, or ready to make another excuse?”

Isaac smirked. “Take a wild guess.”

Datacarnomon let out a snort, but didn’t bother pushing further as they headed into the trees. The path they’d taken before wasn’t at all distinct anymore, but it wasn’t long before they got in enough to see where Iris and Skylar, as well as Shockavimon and Breezedramon, were hanging around. The two headed up towards them, with Datacarnomon’s louder footfalls drawing their attention. Skylar let out a huff. “About time you showed up, isn’t it?”

“Excuse me, you didn’t even set a time,” Isaac replied indignantly. “I can’t be late if there isn’t a set time.”

“If someone was going to figure out a way to do that, it’d be you,” remarked Iris.

“Kh. You know, I don’t HAVE to tell you what Reyn and Salmandmon found out about today if you’re gonna be like that.”

“Sal found something out?” asked Breezedramon. “Does it have something to do with this whole transferamortization business?”

“Uh, something like that,” Datacarnomon confirmed. “But first…what the heck are we doing back here?”

“Mostly, just making sure we didn’t leave too much of a presence,” Shockavimon replied. “I’ve been made aware that my feathers are just a BIT on the unusual side as far as this world goes, and also extremely noticeable. We spent a lot of time out here not that long ago, and if they found my traces, they might be inclined to look more deeply into what might not be as easily seen.”

“Yeah, my scales are pretty underdetractitectilable compared to her, but if they see them, they could find mine!” Breezedramon chimed in. “And then…who knows what might happen?”

“I’m gonna guess that you have no idea what might happen, goofball,” riposted Shockavimon.

“Uh…well…I…uh…something, probably!”

“Moving on…” Skylar saved Breezedramon from having to be pushed further on that. “I was also curious about whether this could work as a serviceable meeting point for us. How out-of-the-way it is is a benefit, since we’re trying to be as hard to detect as possible, and having it as a landing point for Boltfalkemon and Skydramon in particular is better than landing in the middle of the city.”

Isaac shook his head. “Not a chance. It’s TOO out of the way. You might not like it, but we have to find a base in the city, closer to where we all are. It’s less secret, but we can’t all spend an hour getting here.”

“I disagree. Secrecy is paramount, investing a bit of time into it doesn’t seem like that bad an idea to me.”

“If you think you’re going to use this place as a landing pad and NOT get found out, I’ve got some bad news for you,” Datacarnomon jumped in. “They’re going to notice you flying over here all the time and that’s gonna draw WAY more attention. You want to keep from being traced, you need to drop in inconsistent locations. That’s a lot easier to do if you’ve got a meeting place that’s closer to where you might come down.”

“He’s got a point, Sky,” Breezedramon admitted.

Whether Skylar was more annoyed that Isaac was right or by the prospects of what they were suggesting was unclear. “Tch. I guess I have to defer to the experienced ones…but we’re taking a huge risk of discovery then. Where in the world are we going to hide in the middle of a crowded city?”

“We’ll figure something out,” Iris assured him. “And if we get found out…well, let’s face it, the two of us are already on a zillion cameras, there’s only so much we can do.”

“Can we table that discussion until after we find out this important information our hothead friends figured out?” asked Shockavimon. “I’m kinda wanting to know what’s going on and if it’s gonna affect anything.”

“It’ll affect something, all right,” Isaac declared with a grin. “You’re not gonna believe this: they found out they have telepathy between the two of them.”

“What?!” All four yelped in shock.

“Yep. Apparently just discovered it this morning, from what he told me. By accident, of course, because Reyn.”

“Maybe you need to start including Salmandmon on the calls, he’s always good about reporting things,” Datacarnomon cracked.

“I’ll let you make that suggestion. Anyway, yeah, apparently they’ve been testing it a bunch this morning. I think they found out that they can pick and choose what to ‘path’ over, and that it works even with physical barriers between them, though they didn’t settle on a distance component-”

“I’m sorry, you ‘THINK’ you know all this?” Skylar interjected sharply. “This is an incredibly important potential ability and you didn’t verify things or write them down? Or, more importantly, ask how it happened?!”

Isaac scowled. “Excuse me, mister ‘what took you so long to get here,’ how much time did you want me to spend gabbing to Reyn about this? And what makes you think HE knows that much about it, they just figured this out!”

“For something this important, a little more time would have been well spent!”

“Flash point,” Datacarnomon mumbled to Breezedramon.

“We really need to get them working together better,” groaned Breezedramon. “What I wouldn’t give for a quick end to this argument.”

As if on cue, a loud, low hum from the direction of the field rumbled through the air, shaking the trees and making them all jump. “What the hell?!” both Isaac and Skylar exclaimed as the whipped towards the direction of the noise, their argument forgotten.

“Right, first person to make a ‘be careful what you wish for’ crack gets a Wind Sphere to the face or balls, whichever is more painful,” Breezedramon growled.

“…Crap.” Datacarnomon’s voice rang heavy. “A spatial distortion…this has to be a digimon coming through. We’re gonna need to act fast.” Indeed, they could see a glowing form starting to materialize through the trees - and judging by the size, it was a big one.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Isaac declared. “Let’s get to it!”

“You might want to hold that thought, mister ‘I haven’t been through this yet,’” Skylar snipped.

If there was anything that was going to get Isaac going faster than that, Datacarnomon didn’t know what it was. Before his partner could be distracted, he tapped the human on the leg. “Hey, Ike, you talked a big game earlier. Why don’t you and I show them you can back it up?”

Isaac shut his mouth, smirking at Skylar. “You know what, Data? You’re right. Talk is cheap, let’s show them something of value!” He grasped the robot’s clawed hand, easing himself into the mindset he’d had before. It wasn’t fearless…there was definitely fear there, they were facing something big…but if the others could do it, he easily could, and he’d make sure they knew it.

The others saw soon enough - the two bodies of Isaac and Datacarnomon taking on a silvery glow and meshing together, their fusion quickly dancing before their eyes. And GROWING…the resulting form was undoubtedly the biggest one yet, expanding in size as it formed the new creature. As it took its shape, it yielded a carnosaurian creature which stood a good eight feet tall, with a bulkier body than any of the others, flesh stacked with muscle…at least where it could be seen, when not overshadowed with cybernetic parts. His right arm was metal from the hand up to just under the shoulder, with hoses attached into the shoulder; there was a metal plate on the right side of his head, to which a visor was attached that covered his eyes. A few other small other patches of metal dotted his body and legs. He grinned at the others as he flexed the claws of his metal arm. “Satisfied yet?”

“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point,” grumbled Skylar. “Of course you’d be half a walking tin can.”

“Oy! The name’s Andrexmon, don’t you forget it! And maybe stop yapping and start merging already!” The newly minted Andrexmon didn’t wait up for them, turning and starting to rumble through the trees towards Glikke Field.

“I’m gonna have to agree with that!” Breezedramon declared. “Let’s go, Sky!”

“Right, right…” Skylar shook his head and focused on the fusion, he and Breezedramon quickly taking the form of Skydramon once more. Iris and Shockavimon joined them as Boltfalkemon seconds later, just as the shape of the creature started to be visible through the trees. They hurried forward, easily catching up with the much bigger but slower Andrexmon just as they emerged through to see the nastiness. And there was a lot of it, in one particularly oversized package - a green dinosaur creature with two enormous horns on its shoulders.

“Tuskmon…” Boltfalkemon clenched her fist. “Great. As if we didn’t already get enough attention. We need to take it out before it can charge any buildings, it won’t stop until it’s crushed them.”

The Tuskmon hadn’t noticed them, but it was rearing back a bit, opening its mouth. “Don’t you dare roar-” Andrexmon growled, just before it let out a very loud, very imperious roar. “Dammit, what did I JUST say?”

“It’s got no ranged attacks!” Skydramon said urgently. “Keep away from it and hit it with everything you’ve got!”

“Right!”

The three burst out of the trees and immediately charged towards Tuskmon, who swung around at the commotion. It roared again, but Andrexmon took that moment to punish it, shifting his metal arm from a clawed hand to a cannon form in short order and taking aim. “Dino Buster!” He fired off an energy shot into the open maw, hitting the roof of Tuskmon’s mouth and making it recoil and screech out.

“While it’s distracted!” shouted Skydramon. “Twister Orb!”

“Spark Wave!” Boltfalkemon fired off her electric attack while Skydramon hurled his orb. Both attacks struck on Tuskmon’s hide, but Tuskmon didn’t even seem to notice, focused on stomping towards Andrexmon as the cyborg fired at its face. “Well…that was unimpressive.”

“Its hide is too thick…I need to get in with an Aero Nail and make a weakness!” grumbled Skydramon. “Or aim for the eyes like he is.” Another shot impacted right near one of Tuskmon’s eyes, making the creature stop its charge and giving Andrexmon time to regroup. “Now seems like a good time for the first one-”

“Wait!” Boltfalkemon stopped Skydramon before he could act. “Do you hear something?”

“Huh?” Skydramon paused, trying to listen…and then he heard it, the drone of insectoid wings, coming their way from behind where they were focused. They turned to see two bogies flying their way, and certainly not ones they would have wanted to see in any context…

“Yeaugh!” blanched Boltfalkemon. “Giant roaches!”

“Well, that IS what Roachmon are,” remarked Skydramon. “This should be right up your alley, though! Birds eat bugs, after all!” <THWACK> “Yow!” Skydramon nearly took a dive as Boltfalkemon gave him a shocking swat on the back of the head. “What was that all about?”

“That was a warning shot,” sniped Boltfalkemon. “Next time you say I eat giant revolting bugs, it’ll be a WHOLE lot worse!”

“All right, all right, sor-ree! Can we focus our attacks on the actual vermin now?”

“We can’t just abandon Andrexmon! He’s dealing with a huge dinosaur thing!”

“OY!” Andrexmon make them both jerk around, in time to see Tuskmon take a dive at him. “Deal with the newcomers, I can handle big and ugly! At least I can if I don’t have insects buzzing around me at the same time!”

“You heard him!” cackled Skydramon. “Time to fly!”

“Ugh…” Whether Boltfalkemon was really worried about the potential disparity between Andrexmon and Tuskmon or she just didn’t want to fight Roachmon was hard to say, but she sucked it up and flew up with Skydramon, meeting the two giant insects in the air. Roachmon were about as nasty as it got, anything that kept company with the sewer and refuse digimon were not pleasant to be around in the slightest…and given that she already didn’t have any fondness for insects (or at least one part of her didn’t), it was about as bad as it got.

And the Roachmon could tell she wasn’t happy, and they weren’t at all bothered by that. “Ha ha! Look at the birdy, already looks sick!” guffawed one of them. “This’ll be a piece of cake!”

“Lookit them, you can tell they’re green as hell, they ain’t got nothin’ on us!” chortled the other cockily.

“Please, like we’re gonna get iced by a couple of insecticide commercial rejects!” taunted Skydramon. “Eat my Twister Orb!” He flung the orb at the pair, which broke off separate from each other. One of them swerved to engage Boltfalkemon while the other tried to flank Skydramon, who quickly rose up in the air, trying to outmaneuver the insect.

The Roachmon facing Boltfalkemon was taking advantage of her aversion by trying to get closer to her while she was moving away. “Whatsa matter, girly? Can’t handle the stink of my victory?”

“Whatever the stench is, I need less of it in my life.” She flapped her wings and showered the Roachmon with electricity, forcing him back as he got a solid jolt. They aren’t that strong, their bodies are pretty vulnerable. You can handle this…the bigger they are, the grosser they fall…

On the ground, Andrexmon was doing his best to keep Tuskmon occupied - it was very focused on him, fortunately, and not on the more vulnerable fliers. But his Dino Buster wasn’t able to do that much unless it hit a weak spot, and that was hard to do with a moving target that was making HIM move around all the time. The Tuskmon was not particularly agile, but could charge relatively fast in a straight line…only Andrexmon’s side to side movement and efforts to avoid being directly in the line of attack were keeping him safe, but that wasn’t going to last forever.

What I need is a better weakness to exploit…one that’s easier to hit, and where I could take advantage of if I stunned it. Hm…I think I’ve got an idea…pulling it off could be dicey, but it’s not particularly bright, I think I could goad it into doing what I want.

His strategy seemed paradoxical at first; he stopped and let Tuskmon get a bead on him. His body glowed brightly as he charged up, but Tuskmon either didn’t notice or didn’t care, rushing at him with heavy stomping footfalls that would have put the fear of god in just about anyone else. But not Andrexmon, who waited until Tuskmon was too close to change course. “Take this! Dino Buster!”

The charged shot that loosed from the cannon was several times more powerful than his regular shot, and hitting Tuskmon square in the jaw flung the dinosaur’s head up and back, stopping its charge dead and nearly causing it to crash backwards. While it was swaying in limbo, Andrexmon made his move, rushing forward as fast as he could while switching back to his claw arm. “Energy Claw!” he roared out as he leapt, slashing several deep furrows into Tuskmon’s torso, eliciting another pained screech. Andrexmon took a swipe from that huge mitt, thudding to the ground with a grunt, but that was hardly going to take him out, and he could see plenty of freely-running blood down the front of Tuskmon - a nice, open target for his cannon, which he switched back to with a grin.

The sky battle was much more a battle of movement than the raw display of power down below. Skydramon was whizzing around along with his Roachmon bogey, which was trying to outflank him and kick him or punch him. Boltfalkemon was playing keep-away more with her electricity, trying to avoid being pelted with garbage by the disgusting bug. It was clear to both of them what their adversaries were trying to do - Roachmon were known for having high stamina, they were trying to wear the two fusions down and make them vulnerable targets. Neither could wait around for that to happen…they had to make their moves fast, and make them count.

Skydramon, naturally, was the speedier to figure out his strategy. “Take this, bug boy! Twister Orb!” He launched yet another wind orb at the insect, who evaded it as he had the others, and then swung around to cut him off. Skydramon evaded, taking a different direction, suddenly very focused as he tried to outfly the Roachmon…but suddenly, he made a wrong move, putting him smack in the Roachmon’s crosshairs, and getting collided with and knocked back.

“Hah! I knew you’d slip up soon enough!” The Roachmon readied a Mega Blaster charge at the dragon, who’d stopped moving around and was hanging in midair. “Emperius will never doubt our power again, once we show them that we’ve taken out you thorns…why are you grinning?”

Skydramon was indeed grinning, but Roachmon didn’t have a chance to find out why before it hit him - quite literally, the Twister Orb smacking into the back of the bug’s head. It had taken a lot of concentration to keep that thing held together and active long enough to hunt down its target, but once it hit and dazed the Roachmon, he didn’t waste time, zipping forward with his energized claws. “Aero Nail!” One swipe across the Roachmon’s neck, and he yowled as he was eliminated.

Boltfalkemon was getting tired of the distance game, which wasn’t getting her anywhere…though at the some time, she was loathe to get close to the Roachmon attacking her. I need to do it, though, I need a more powerful blow than I can get with my Spark Wave up here…ugh, someone’s going to answer for this.

“Getting tired, birdy? I’ll show you why bugs rule! Dream Dust!” Roachmon started to fling more garbage her way, making her fly back and avoid…and then she realized she had a better way of dealing with this. Why didn’t I notice sooner? I really need to get familiar with all this form has to offer…

She raised her hand up, and a wall of electric energy formed a couple yards in front of her. “Thunder Guard!” The trash projectile impacted against the barrier and dissipated, leaving the wall itself undamaged. Boltfalkemon only wished she’d realized that was an option sooner…this one was probably going to come in handy in the future.

“No fair! You can’t just block my shots like that!” Roachmon complained.

“Haven’t you heard the phrase ‘all’s fair in love and war’?” replied Boltfalkemon tersely. “And you’d better believe I’ve got plenty of war reserved for someone like you!”

“Well, fine! If you’re gonna play like that, I’m just gonna get up close to you!” The Roachmon rushed towards her, directing himself over the barrier…it was the moment Boltfalkemon was waiting for, though she wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. But with a deep breath, she charged, cloaking herself with her Static Cracker, and as the Roachmon diverted himself she rushed to intercept him. He wasn’t ready for it, and took the full brunt of the attack and the potent discharge that she laid into him on impact. A howl, and he burst into data, leaving behind nothing but an unpleasant scent lingering in the air.

Down below, Andrexmon had Tuskmon right where he wanted it…well, almost. The wound it had taken wasn’t stopping it, but it was being more protective of it, and he was having trouble goading it back into a charge. It was like it was waiting for him to start charging again…which was something he couldn’t afford, charging reduced his own mobility, and if he canceled it it would possibly be too late to evade. He’d gotten a few pot shots in on the wound, making it bleed more freely, but he needed more than that.

If I could easily hit its eyes…or its mouth, it didn’t like that either. Wait…maybe…could it be that simple? Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Andrexmon met the Tuskmon’s eyes as it turned towards him again, and then he took a deep breath and opened wide, letting out a roar as loud as he could make it - the breath, as it turned out, was entirely unnecessary as he didn’t need air for his vocal synthesizer to make the sounds he wanted, but force of habit wasn’t going to die that quickly.

And, in an extremely silly but extremely opportune turn, the Tuskmon fell for the bait entirely. It opened wide and roared itself, its much louder volume definitely outdoing Andrexmon’s roar - but also leaving its mouth open for a charged Dino Buster shot from the cyborg. It reared back as the roar turned to a pained cry, leaving its chest open.

“Bye-bye, big guy.” Andrexmon pointed at the wound, charged, and fired once more. “Dino Buster!” The amplified shot exploded into the damaged area, shredding Tuskmon from the inside out. Its cry cut off, and its eyes went blank as it pitched forward and crashed to the ground, before bursting into data. Andrexmon pumped his cannon arm in triumph, grinning from ear to metaphorical ear. “Hell yeah! That’s what you get for tangling with the rex!”

“Did you seriously just beat it by getting into a roaring match with it?” Boltfalkemon asked as she swooped down. “How in the world could that have worked?”

“It wasn’t exactly a brainiac,” replied Andrexmon with a chuckle. “It didn’t even talk…I’m pretty sure it was in some kind of feral trance. You know, more power at the expense of brain power.”

“I’ve never understood any digimon who would do that,” Skydramon said with a shake of his head. “Using your brain’s pretty important when it comes to battles!”

“How would you know about that, exactly?”

“Ay! Watch it!”

“PLEASE try to be less like your human halves,” groaned Boltfalkemon, before she suddenly stiffened up and whirled around. A bunch of cars were coming down the road. “Crap! Into the woods! Don’t let them get a bead on you!”

Skydramon and Andrexmon needed no further instruction, as they all tore off into the woods. It was going to be just one of many close calls they expected to have, but as long as they could get out of it without doing any damage or taking any damage, they could call it a success…

———

“Cease pursuit!” Elliot Katran’s voice barked over the officers who were trying to bail out of their cruisers. “Don’t you dare follow them! They have the advantage in there, they’ll see us coming and pick us off!”

“B-but, sir! They could…they could be intruding on the city as we speak!” protested one of the officers.

“I’m well aware of that, which is why I have units patrolling the city near here. But we are NOT doing foot pursuit! You’ve heard what these creatures can do, if they have the chance to get the drop on us you are NOT going to survive, and we can’t afford to be throwing lives away on this!”

Albeit grudgingly, that line of logic got the officers to back down. A good thing as far as Elliot was concerned…having the authority of command on this was at least one bit of fortune he could hold, he held a rare position where he could be at the head of ANY level, though that authority wasn’t a guarantee depending on the circumstances. For the moment, circumstances were in his favor…part of their arrangement was that local matters had local jurisdiction, and this was certainly a local matter - not that everyone was in agreement with that, as certain visitors had expressed with more than sufficient volume. But as far as Elliot was concerned, it was a Braun matter until it spread beyond the city’s borders. And if he had the chance to stop that, then he needed to do everything he could.

Another car pulled up, and out rushed Emil Conover in a hurry. “Elliot! Tell me there’s good news!”

“The good news is that the behemoth that was spotted appears to not be around anymore, and no one is dead.”

“Ugh…so we didn’t actually catch any creatures.”

“Nothing except vague images. Hopefully some of the cameras caught something useful.” Elliot shook his head. “Apart from that big monster earlier, and who knows what happened to that. You wouldn’t think something that big could just…disappear. This isn’t going to work, though, we need to call in helicopters, they’re faster and better for tracking.”

“We’ll have to get the mayor and police chief to sign off on that. But something tells me they probably aren’t going to argue.” Emil shook his head. “What in the world is going on in our city, Elliot? The sky opens up in a flash that looks like the apocalypse, two gigantic monsters appearing in the middle of two different days…and these smaller creatures that seem to be popping up here and there along with them…”

“I wish I knew,” said Elliot darkly. “What I saw…it wasn’t much, but two of the smaller creatures matched the ones around that big bird. The third looked like some kind of armored scaly thing…I don’t know what the hell these things are, but we need to figure it out fast before something reduces Braun to ruin.”

“Should we scan for evidence, then?”

“Carefully. We need to keep watch in case they decide to come back. But anything we can glean from the scene gives us one more thing than we had before.”

———

“Derek! About time you picked up!”

“…Dude. You KNOW I sleep during this time.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but this is kind of important.”

Derek rolled his eyes, though since it was over phone it wouldn’t have much effect. “Everything these days is kind of important. I’m pulling double-duty, you know, I’m trying to do what I can to help take care of Mom.”

“You are? I guess you WILL help your parents if it’s the end of the world.”

“Funny guy. That’s only Dad I said that about. Mom…I might not have the best relationship with her, but we’re on better times. And she’s in a bad state right now…”

“Oh, yeah, the stress migraines.” Reyn paused a moment. “Did you ever talk to her about those treatments my mom suggested?”

“Yeah, and she’s considering it. But things are a bit too acutely bad to dig into that right now.”

“Sorry to hear that. Should I call back later?”

“She’s down right now, she should be fine for the moment. I’m hoping that means we can get out tonight.” Derek took a glance over at Blackcanismon, who was laying on the bed. He could tell that the canine was annoyed about having to juggle these two tasks…he wasn’t saying anything, but Derek could tell there was a bit of tightness in his voice. And he didn’t blame Blackcanismon, this was a life-or-death matter, but things weren’t exactly a picture of simplicity.

“I hope you can, too. I kind of think we need to have someone paying attention all the time, but we all have to sleep sometime. That wasn’t why I was calling though…something happened to me and Salmandmon earlier that I have to tell you about.”

“Oh, wait, let me guess. You heard his thoughts, he heard yours, and you were terribly confused.”

“…Did Isaac already call you?”

“Charmed that I’m the last one you’d think of,” Derek said only half-seriously.

“Technically he called me, and it wasn’t about that.”

“Oh, wait, let me guess, you sprung the idea on him thinking you’d already told him and he got annoyed at you.”

“Okay, you can cut that out any time now,” Reyn remarked with a bit of asperity.

“I certainly can. No, we, uh, figured that out by ourselves. Was a nice little bit of awkwardness after the two of you took off last night…I could tell he was preoccupied with something, but he didn’t want to tell me about it…and then, clear as night, I ‘heard’ it. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about that.”

“Sorry, I’m having trouble getting past ‘clear as night.’ You ever try coming up with similes that aren’t you-exclusive?”

“No, because someone has to. Anyway, we managed to figure out the telepathy thing pretty quick after that…I think I’d just assumed it was one of those things you ‘forgot’ to tell us about, but I guess you didn’t notice it until recently.”

“C’mon, I’m not ALWAYS doing that.”

Derek scoffed. “You do realize this is why you can’t get anyone to partner with you on group projects except for us, right?”

“Look, I’m in ‘I’m not thinking about school’ mode right now, don’t try to bring me out of that. But at least now everyone knows…hopefully they’re all able to do it just as well. I mean, they should be able to, right? There’s no reason why it would be limited to us two, right?”

“You’re asking me?”

“Er, no, just…wondering out loud, I guess. Oh, I guess one thing I can ask then, is he just as hard to understand through telepathy?”

Derek chuckled. “At least. Loquacious little guy, he is. I think thought-speech is pretty much just like regular speech, it’s a conscious act, just using something other than your actual voice.”

“Yeah, Sal was thinking the same thing. But he still wants to know if Breezedramon’s just as much a ‘chaos tongue’ without an actual tongue.”

“Well, you’ll have to ask Skylar, since no one else will be able to pick up on it.”

“I’ll do that eventually. Oh, shoot, Mom’s calling. I’ll catch you later. And, uh, Derek? Stay safe out there. If something happens…well, you can wake me up, too, if you have to.”

“That’s assuming I CAN wake you up. But thanks…see you later.” That last moment lingered with Derek as he hung up the phone. Just another little reminder what they were really doing out there…staying safe wasn’t going to be the easiest thing for any of them to do, was it? Hopefully he wouldn’t need to call in backup…but he had to know it would be there for him if he did.

———

“This is so cool!” gushed Breezedramon. “We really did become telempamphletamtactic! It sounds totally like you’re speaking clearly but I don’t hear any voices, but I still know it’s you! Instead of, you know, Data or something.”

“And I know it’s you,” agreed Skylar. “Though that’s more because you garble your words JUST as much through brain-speak as you normally do. And here I’d hoped that wouldn’t be the case.”

“I almost feel sorry for you, Skylar,” Shockavimon said with a shake of her head and a cheeky grin. “Usually silence is the only time we can get away from him, you don’t even have that luxury anymore.”

“Hey!”

“This IS pretty impressive,” agreed Datacarnomon. “Things like telepathy are supposed to be borderline impossible for robots towards organics…of course, it’s pretty easy between robots who link up networks, but I don’t know if that quite qualifies as telepathy. Oddly, telepaths don’t seem to want to answer that question.”

“Glad we could get that settled,” agreed Isaac. “Now I want to focus on living long enough to actually make use of it. You think it’s safe to get back into the neighborhood yet?”

“I don’t know…they’ve got to be watching the area pretty closely,” replied Iris uncertainly. “But if they don’t see the digimon, we might be able to get past them. I think it would be best if we aren’t together, that might make them more suspicious than just one person wandering around in their line of sight at a time…I know my dad would be more suspicious if there were three figures that escaped and three figures that appeared somewhere else, even if they seemed to be unrelated in other ways.”

“I’m all for this plan on account of it gets me away from Isaac faster,” Skylar declared.

“Maybe you can try taking on the next Tuskmon yourself, see how you fare,” grumped the larger boy.

“Okay, seriously, you two need to REALLY improve your camaraderie,” Datacarnomon stated, with as much seriousness as he could muster. “I don’t know what it is between you, and it really doesn’t matter, we all have to be in this together and that means we have to be able to get along. You don’t have to feel any better about each other, but you have to stop acting like being around each other is the worst thing in the world, because there are very worse things capable of happening right now.”

“Okay, okay…”

“Yeah, fine…”

“That’s about as much as you’ll get out of them, and more than we have in years,” remarked Iris. “Come on, let’s get out of here and to somewhere safer, before they decide hunting for us is a good idea after all.”

———

“I don’t know what happened over here, but I know I don’t like it.” Elliot shook his head as he rose from his kneeling position, having examined yet another notable spot on the ground that he wasn’t sure what to make of. “Too much that doesn’t make enough sense…”

“I’d think it’d make a little more sense to you than me,” remarked Emil. “You’re the one who’s taken all the biology classes.”

Elliot snorted in amusement. “If you think they teach animal tracking in biology classes, you definitely didn’t take enough of them. That’s more of a forestry thing, MAYBE a branch of zoology but I don’t think that’s likely.”

“Okay, mister Bio degree. Can you tell ANYTHING about them?”

“Only general reference. There’s a set that looks bird-like. The yellow creature over Lennar, the video images made that one look like a bird…not as easy to see as the bigger one, but that was the impression I got.”

Emil nodded thoughtfully. “Same here. And you said you thought you saw the yellow creature, so I guess that probably is as close to confirmation as we can get at the moment. What about the others?”

“It seems like the others are all…very hard to understand. But something I’ve noticed…the enormous ones look pretty similar to one of the smaller sets. Given that the bigger one apparently looked like some kind of deformed dinosaur, maybe the smaller creature is something like that, too.”

“Godzilla and Godzilla Junior, then?”

“I’d say the movie monster reference is silly, but at this point fantasy feels too close to reality for me to believe that.” Elliot rubbed his head. “The others…I don’t have any idea. I think maybe they’re similar to the dinosaur ones, but different in some way…like they’re shaped more like the heel’s up or something. They might belong to the blue creature, we haven’t been able to figure out exactly what that is yet…I’m almost starting to think they might be right…”

“That it’s some kind of dragon?” Emil shuddered a bit. “Lord, I hope not. I really do NOT need dragons to be real right now.”

“Right now, I think we’ve got too many things that are real that I don’t want to be real to think that anything can’t be real.” Elliot stepped towards one of the dark spots on the grass, kneeling next to it and scrutinizing it. “I’m not sure what to make of this, either…it almost looks like blood, but it can’t be, can it?”

“It seems like it’s too much for any of the smaller ones,” agreed Emil. “Could the larger creature have been bleeding at all?”

“I suppose anything is possible, but why? It was there for a handful of minutes, what could it have injured itself on?” Elliot grunted in frustration. “None of this makes any sense. Why it appeared, why it disappeared, what happened to it while it was here…I wish we had more than a few snapshots from when it just appeared to go off of.”

“We definitely need to be more on top of things,” agreed Emil gravely. “Bad enough we don’t understand the larger situation, if we can’t get a handle on each event we’re going to fall farther and farther behind. Those monsters that have appeared more than once…maybe we should start making a point of trying to hunt for them. They might be the main issue…if these other creatures are appearing and disappearing around them…”

“…Maybe they’re involved with that. Good idea, Emil. Let’s get back and make an action plan.” Elliot straightened up, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “We’ll have to work quickly, though…I’m not sure how many more times we can get lucky.”

Chapter Text

“What are we doing right now?”

Reyn had a bit of a chuckle at Iris’s question. “Last I checked, we were playing four-player co-op of a Gauntlet Legends knock-off. Try to keep up, Iris, or the monsters will eat you.”

Iris gave Reyn a look. “Smart-ass.”

“Makes a good match for Sal,” cracked Shockavimon. “Smart-ass and Hothead. Hey, that could be a serial show. Watch Smart-ass and Hothead get themselves into trouble constantly because of their lack of control! How do they manage to get out of it week after week?”

“The same way I’m gonna get YOU, loads of fire,” snapped the lizard. “Maybe try helping me with these goblin-troll things instead of cracking jokes.”

“But it’s so much more entertaining cracking jokes and watching you get yourself into trouble because you’re so impatient!”

“She has a point, Salmandmon,” Reyn conceded. “You CAN do something other than run to the very edge of the screen all the time.”

“Bah. You all need to keep up with me!”

“Getting back to my ACTUAL question…” Iris cut in before that diversion could go any further. “I’m well aware of what we’re ACTUALLY doing. Especially since I was the one who suggested coming over for the night.”

“I still can’t believe your dad was okay with his 15-year-old daughter spending the night at the house of a 15-year-old boy,” observed Reyn. “The way he gets with you, I would’ve thought even just the mention of it would’ve brought out chains big enough to tie up that Tuskmon you guys fought.”

“He practically insisted on it,” Iris giggled. “I guess the thought of me staying inside somewhere was a lot more of a concern than that little scenario. Though I think he also trusts your parents to keep things in control, and you to not cross any lines. You’ve never been like that anyway.”

“Yeah, ‘just friends’ is just right for me. It’s just the context of it, I figured he’d hesitate more with this than, say, going to a girls’ night in slumber party somewhere.”

“As if that would ever happen, I’d need girl friends first.”

“Oh, yeah. You don’t really get on with them, do you?”

Iris shrugged. “It’s not that I’ve ever not WANTED to, I just…don’t seem to really ever get beyond ‘casual acquaintance.’ Part of the problem may be that all my closer friends are guys, they may see me as more one of you than one of them, or they just might not be comfortable with that. I don’t really know, it’s hard to figure out sometimes.”

“Harder to figure out than the fact that that’s not a path you’re trying to walk on?”

“What…oh, that’s background. This stage really isn’t easy to tell what’s going on.”

“What I can’t believe is that I flew in and your parents barely even flinched,” chimed in Shockavimon. “Makes me wish we could stay longer than a night, it’s SO much less stressful being around humans who you don’t have to hide from, not to mention treating me like a person.”

“I seriously feel bad that you guys are having to play hide-and-seek even inside,” Salmandmon said in a voice that wasn’t exactly demonstrative of that sorrow. “Not that I don’t get it, given what you’ve said, but it’s so inconvenient. Makes me think we ought to start meeting here more often, give everyone a break from that.”

“No way,” Reyn shot that down in a hurry. “I mean, yeah, a break would be good, but definitely not here. Too many people around who could find out stuff we don’t want them to know about. Mom and Dad may be cool with you guys, but they wouldn’t be at all okay with finding out what we’re doing.”

“And your siblings?” asked Shockavimon.

“Wally doesn’t like Sal, I don’t think he’d be much keener on the rest of you. Alisin’s been super shy over this whole thing, I think she’s intimidated…though, she isn’t much of a talker normally as it is. Cayden’s kind of the same, he doesn’t know what to make of it…although, we might have an issue if Datacarnomon comes in.”

“Uh-oh. The run-away-screaming kind of trouble?”

Iris laughed. “No, the ‘drag the awesome robot dinosaur into his room never to be seen again’ kind of trouble. Kid is a dinosaur FIEND.”

“That’s even understating it,” agreed Reyn. “He’s been four different dinosaurs the last four Halloweens, he has more books and figures and stuffed animals of them than I can count, and he’s been trying to convince Dad to paint their room with a dinosaur theme for a few years. Of course, he can’t get his way on that because Alisin wants cats instead, she’s almost as adoring of them as Cay is dinosaurs. So right now the room’s theme is fish, because that’s a neutral idea.”

“Which I’m sure they both love,” Salmandmon cracked. “Bet they wish they had their own rooms.”

“They really should, but Wally’s still taking up one. I think Mom and Dad expected him to be out by now, so it’s kind of a tricky subject, they don’t wanna make it seem like he’s unwelcome but at the same time he’s kind of creating an inconvenience.”

“Which isn’t that unusual for him, from what I’ve heard,” Iris jibed.

“Don’t let him hear you say that…or do, get him off my case for a bit. Speaking of get him off my case, Sal, would it kill you to actually ATTACK the mini-boss rather than sit on your ass over there?”

“Have you seen my health?” snickered Sal. “It literally might.”

———

“Heading out, Derek?”

Curses. I was hoping he’d still be at the office. Derek stopped and looked over at Elliot, who was fixing himself some coffee. “Yeah, I am.” He held his tongue, though the temptation to push things further was pretty awful; some days it was all he could do to keep from daring Elliot to make a big deal over it. But for Blackcanismon’s sake, he really didn’t want to rock any more boats than necessary; the canine digimon was already fighting hard enough to not look extremely uncomfortable.

Elliot’s gaze did linger on them for a bit. “Are you sure that’s a smart idea? It’s been pretty crazy out there recently.”

“I’ll be fine. I always keep my eyes open. And anything that causes trouble out there is going to be big enough to cause a mass panic anyway, right?”

“…I’m not sure I’d make that assumption.”

“Come on. Giant bird, giant dinosaur. I’m not gonna be any safer in the house if Godzilla comes stomping around Braun, right?”

Elliot’s brow furrowed, but he appeared not to have a good answer to that. “…Fine. But if you see ANYTHING, come straight back. Your mother will be in agony if there’s another report and you’re not safely inside.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m not gonna stay out there if I see something.” Derek couldn’t remember the last time he’d told THAT blatant a lie, much less with a straight face. Something about his father made it a lot easier for him to be dishonest.

“…Right, then. Enjoy.” Elliot finally broke his gaze, and Derek had to fight to not hurry out. It was only when he was outside that he managed to relax a little bit.

In the totality of my personal experience, I’ve scarcely encountered more uncomfortable interactions than between yourself and your sire, Blackcanismon remarked through their mental link as they got some distance from the house. The compulsion to intervene is disconcertingly impressive.

Don’t bother, I guarantee you’re not going to make anything better, came Derek’s tense reply. It’s not like he’d listen anyway. He’s just trying to find another excuse to ‘normalize’ me. Best to just keep doing what you’re doing, and trying to avoid his suspicions. The longer he doesn’t realize you’re not what you look like, the better.

Indubitably. ‘Twould be folly of the apex degree. Additional evasiveness may perhaps be preferable, however.

Trust me, same. Hopefully these monster attacks will keep him busier…

———

Elliot stared at the door for a good bit after the departure of Derek and the dog. Though it wasn’t the door that was on his mind.

That dog…it bothers me.

He had tried to ignore it. Derek coming home with a strange dog wasn’t ideal, but he was trying to find out where it was supposed to go…presumably. Even if he wasn’t, though, the dog being safe was better than it being out in the middle of the city. If he wasn’t being honest about that search, no doubt Elliot could take charge of that himself, but right now there were more important things to worry about.

But still…a breed he didn’t recognize. An appearance which was far from normal, with fur and eyes that looked like a starry night sky. Behavior which seemed far too controlled and automatic for a dog. The suspicious timing of its appearance. Most people would have said to let it go - it didn’t eat much, it didn’t bark, it wasn’t aggressive or violent, it was as perfectly behaved as a dog could be, and if it wasn’t trouble, surely he could focus his mind on what was actually trouble these days, and there was plenty of that to go around.

But Elliot Katran was not a man who just let things go.

———

“But okay, seriously, why are we sitting around playing video games while the others are actually doing things?” Iris continued, somewhat testily thanks to all the distractions. “I feel like we’re slacking off when we could be doing a whole lot more to help out.”

“How’s the mouth doing on that gift horse, Iris?” Reyn snarked.

“Oh, hush. It’s a serious question!”

“The heck is a gift horse?” asked Shockavimon. “Also, little help here, please? I’m kinda being swarmed.”

“You need a little intro to animal types while I’m saving your tail?” teased Salmandmon. “So Unimon, Pegasusmon, Indiramon-”

“I KNOW what a horse is, ass.”

“No, that’s a donkey.”

“Oh, shut up. What SPECIFICALLY is a ‘gift horse?’ Is it some weird kind of horse that they have over here? I mean, they’re all weird since they don’t talk, but you know, other than that.”

“It’s literally ‘gift’ as in, you know, a gift,” explained Reyn.

“Oh, so it’s like if someone gave someone else a reckdan as a present or something,” Salmandmon remarked.

“Who would give a reckdan as a gift?” Shockavimon inquired dubiously. “Those stubborn beasts are more like a curse than anything, I’d give one to someone I DON’T like.”

“Well, I mean, they ARE good meat…”

“Yeah, I’ll let other people prepare that meat, thanks. I still don’t understand the gift horse idea, or why anyone should care about its mouth, unless horses are more prone to biting over here than they are over there.”

“Yeah, you’d kinda want to check a reckdan’s mouth to make sure its teeth are dulled. But I think it’s like one of those, uh, whaddayacallem phrases. Sort of like ‘when a feast is held in your honor, don’t criticize the chef.’ Or something. Though I’d probably have a hard time holding my tongue if they didn’t cook my reckdan properly.”

“Do you have ANY idea what they’re talking about?” Iris asked Reyn desperately.

“Nothing related to your question, that’s for sure.” Reyn was barely holding back laughter. “I’m guessing reckdans are animals like horses or something. I suppose those horse digimon Sal mentioned probably wouldn’t appreciate an idiom like that.”

“Idiom!” exclaimed Salmandmon. “That’s the word I couldn’t remember!”

“You’d think you’d remember that one, given that it’s close to ‘idiot’ and you use that one constantly,” jibed Shockavimon. “I dunno WHAT other digimon would think of human idioms, though. It probably depends on what kind, and whether the idiom was, uh…not-so-flattering or not.”

Iris rolled her eyes. “Maybe one will appear and we can ask them politely before they try to kill us. Which, I’m not trying to say I WANT that to happen, but couldn’t we be doing something more than this to try to make sure we’re ready if it does? And Sal, would you stop attacking those statues, they’re just decoration.”

“But those ones we fought before weren’t!” protested the lizard.

“Yeah, I know, they’re inconsistent, it’s meant to be that way. Wait until they start moving, you’re gonna miss the enemies right in front of us!”

“All right, all right, sorry. This game is weird. Erm, yeah, anyway, look, you shouldn’t worry about that too much. Over in our world, we have a saying: the torch that burns constantly is the one that burns to nothing first.”

“No, that’s YOUR saying because everything has to be about fire for you,” jumped in Shockavimon. “The ACTUAL saying is ‘A flashlight that’s always on runs its batteries dry before one that’s only on when it needs to be.’”

“You just like that one because it’s electric-based!”

“It’s also the one most people use, unlike your bastardization.”

“Pah, at least you can visualize a torch burning down! How can you tell the difference between a drained battery and a full one? They look exactly the same!”

“Tch, yeah, people are TOTALLY visualizing torches anywhere these days, they’re so common and not at all extremely outdated technology. When was the last time you saw a torch that wasn’t used purely for the aesthetic?”

“I’ll have you know that there are torches that are just as good as other lights out there.” Salmandmon stuck his tongue out at Shockavimon. “They’ve been coming up with torches that stay lit even under heavy wind or rain, and are specially designed so they don’t run out of fuel ever! Better than your stinkin’ batteries!”

“Oh, really? So a torch that burns constantly ISN’T the one that burns to nothing first then?”

“That…uh…well…shut up!”

“You are NEVER getting an answer to your question,” Reyn cackled madly.

“No kidding,” groaned Iris.

———

“I know I said I was going to do the writing, but you sure as heck seem to be doing a whole lot of nothing over there.”

“Yeah, well, what it looks like and what it IS are two different things, so hush. I let you take the writing because I had other things that I could do with this time.”

Skylar didn’t particularly like that response; he would have preferred to just be out of Isaac’s place entirely if they weren’t needed to collaborate. Just his luck that Isaac was the only one with the security set up for the e-mail they were using. “If you’re doing such important stuff, then you wouldn’t mind telling me what that is.”

Isaac rolled his eyes. “If you HAVE to know, I’m working on a module for Andrexmon. Trying to enhance his capabilities, provide him some extra edges in battle, that sort of thing.”

“…And how, exactly, are you planning to actually use them? I know you have a ton of crap strewn around your room but I doubt you can actually use it to build anything for him.”

“Hey, watch it. I don’t call your weather books and stuff crap.”

“Uh, yes, you do, quite routinely I might add.”

“You just did earlier today!” added Breezedramon, who was sitting against Skylar and watching him type, and occasionally making the most supremely unhelpful suggestions.

“Tch, whatever. Look, I don’t HAVE to build it. Andrexmon can connect to the system, and I’m pretty sure he can pull out the information and integrate it into his system.”

“…You can’t be serious. That’s just computer code!”

“More serious than you think,” Datacarnomon jumped in. “It’s…almost scary how well your digital architecture takes to us. And I get the feeling it takes to Andrexmon even better than me, but it pretty quickly let me in and let me do a lot more with it than I expected it to. If I knew it was going to be as accessible as this…well, forget me, imagine if Emperius knew it would be as easy as this, the lack of understanding is probably the only reason they aren’t in even more of a hurry to take over.”

“Wait, Data, are you saying you’ve been making modiferaffirmicantertimations to yourself?” asked Breezedramon.

“Nothing too major,” the robot replied. “There’s only so much I can do to myself, due to energy considerations…I don’t have that much free capacity to add to my arsenal…not much I can do about that.” The last bit had a tightness to it that was evident in the robot’s voice, but when he resumed, he’d cast it off. “Anyway, uh, I’ve mostly been trying to improve my cloaking device and improve the interfaces, though I’ve been experimenting with a low-grade added function…nothing too major, it’s not gonna turn the tides, but it could be useful. But Andrexmon has a lot more capacity for additional functions…I’m leaving most of the writing of that to Ike since he’s better at working with those machines, but I’m giving him my help here and there.”

“Oh, you mean like I am right now?”

“Calling what you’re doing ‘helping’ is being incredibly generous,” huffed Skylar.

“But I’m trying to spice up your writing a bit! It’s drier than Sal’s breath.”

“Why does everyone have this obsession with flair? We’re writing a brief on a potential world-ending event, who cares if it’s got flourish?”

“Dude, your writing is ALWAYS dry,” Isaac remarked. “Like, okay, maybe you’ve got a bit of a point in this situation, but your essays are the same way. I know for a fact you constantly get marked off on style issues, it’s one of the few things you DO lose points on.”

“Better than substance issues, mister ‘I can’t help but go off on diatribes.’”

“Pft. They just don’t appreciate the parallels I’m trying to draw. If they opened their minds a bit they’d see I had a point. But I always get top marks on style, and teachers even remark that my essays are some of the best reads they have, even if they don’t always see eye-to-eye with my ideas. Meanwhile, there are rumors that teachers sometimes actually fall asleep reading yours.”

“That was one time. And the lights were off because there was a video on.”

“One time during class. They aren’t always grading during class.”

“Guys?” Datacarnomon butted in. “Maybe not the most important thing to bicker about right now?”

Skylar looked as if he didn’t want to let it go, but a look from Breezedramon convinced him to hold his tongue. “Fine. But I’m just trying to get across the information. Spending time wondering HOW to say it is pointless, and takes up time.”

Isaac gave another eye roll, fortunately directed at his computer screen rather than Skylar. “No one’s going to be reading this until the morning anyway, you don’t have to rush it THAT much. And it’s not like you have anywhere to be.”

“You don’t think they have late-night staff at the FBI or CIA?”

“Who are reading the e-mail lines? Not a chance.”

“He’s got a point,” agreed Datacarnomon. “But let ME help out with it, then. I know how to get to the point too, but I can still figure out some ways to add style that don’t interfere with the point. I had to learn that myself after spending my formative years among robots, it wasn’t exactly an emphasis with them either.”

“…Well…I suppose that’s fine,” Skylar conceded. “C’mere, let me show you what I’ve got…”

———

“Sorry, Iris, I know we’re getting distracted.” Salmandmon gave Shockavimon a shove, the bird laughing at him. “Right now, there’s not really anything FOR us to do, so the best thing we can do for ourselves is to take some time to relax and recharge. The…details of the saying aside, the point is that you don’t want to be constantly on alert, because that’s super draining. It’s always good, if you can afford to, to take some time to recharge your batteries and refuel your torches, because if you don’t, you could run dry in a key moment.”

“Which is, of course, super ironic coming from a guy who spends 75% of his free time exercising,” chimed in Shockavimon.

“Hey! Exercise is one of those things that recharges me! Maybe you oughta try doing more of it, you might feel the same way!”

“You have my full permission to ignore him,” remarked Reyn.

“As if I needed it,” riposted Shockavimon.

“I guess that’s true…” Iris still sounded a bit hesitant. “Still, it feels weird that we’re doing that and the others aren’t given that benefit.”

Salmandmon shrugged. “Well, not everyone can necessarily rest at the same time every time, either. But that’s the thing, we do it now so they can do it later. Think of it this way, if everyone’s in relaxation mode at the same time, then we all have to scramble when something comes up. But if Derek and BC are vigilant now, when he’s the most in his element, we can take over later while he’s recharging. That way at least some of us are keeping up with things at all times. And if we all need to be doing things together, this kind of rotation should make sure that we all have enough in reserve to tap into it.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Iris shook her head. “It’s all still kind of overwhelming to me…you all have a way better grasp of this stuff than I do. Makes it feel hard for me to know where or how I fit in...I feel like I haven’t really even figured out my role in it all yet.”

“That’s perfectly fine,” Shockavimon said reassuringly. “This is all really new for you, and it takes time to get a bead on your own strengths and weaknesses. You don’t have to know what you bring to the table right away, it usually becomes clear as time goes on. You DO, however, have to pay attention to when the boss is whaling on you for the last ten seconds so I don’t have to come save you again.”

“Oh! Wait…I’ve been looking at the wrong character. Whoops, I guess I lost focus a bit.”

“This is why heavy topics should wait until AFTER the video games end,” cracked Reyn.

“That’s easy for you to say, mister ‘I’d find a way to take it easy during the apocalypse.’ You might want to be a little LESS laid back and think about some of these serious matters.”

“Help me force him to exercise, that’ll help,” joked Salmandmon. “Or get him up an hour earlier, dude sleeps like Breezy babbles.”

“11 AM is a perfectly reasonable time to start the day and I refuse to accept otherwise,” Reyn responded indignantly.

“I don’t know how you’ve survived school up until now,” Iris laughed. “No wonder I’m never able to get a hold of you until the afternoons on weekends. You’d better hope Emperius are late risers too.”

“I’ll give him a jolt, that’s usually good at waking people up early.” Shockavimon pumped a wing as the screen flashed in their victory. “Woo! Boss down! That took way longer than I thought it would!”

“I think the bosses scale with the number of players.” Reyn set his controller down. “You guys wanna switch it up a bit? I’ve got an idea in mind - two-on-two in a shooter or fighter, practicing using our mind links to communicate and coordinate with each other.”

“Figures - you get a gift and immediately waste time using it for trivial garbage,” Salmandmon said, in an obviously non-serious tone.

“Hey, video games are serious business! Maybe not as serious as monster busting, but practice here will help us step it up there, right?”

“Let’s go for it,” agreed Iris. “You need a break from getting your butt kicked by Salmandmon, so you can get your butt kicked by us instead.”

“Hey, I was thumping him before you came over, I swear it!”

“Yeah, by playing a game where you decided to conveniently not explain the controls or anything,” fired back Salmandmon. “But I’m definitely in, because I’m tired of all this goody-goody co-op nonsense. I wanna sink my teeth into some real prey!”

“You know the rules, Sal, no biting other players,” Shockavimon reminded him.

“…I’m suddenly disturbed by the lack of joking tone in that line,” noted Iris with some concern.

“It’ll be fine, just put Reyn on the other side of him. Then he’ll only bite if he gets annoyed at his partner.”

“That was ONE TIME,” the lizard spat hotly.

———

“…Why do you have a map up?”

“I’m trying to read your letter, distracting me isn’t going to help with that.”

“I know that, but you said you were working on a module. What kind of module requires a map? I thought you said Andrexmon had one already.”

Isaac let out a long-suffering sigh. “That’s not for a module. I’ve been scoping out meeting locations for us. Data provided some information input and I was pinning information to some prospective buildings. There’s a few places we can go that were can all meet up, and get our merged forms properly introduced to each other.”

Skylar’s reaction to that was befuddlement. “Why? Can’t we just talk about them between each other? Is a Discord call beyond the abilities of that obscene rig?”

“You can’t SERIOUSLY be suggesting we talk about this stuff online. I don’t care what platform it is, I don’t trust it to be THAT secure. Besides that, it’s going to require us to be combined, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t fancy my odds of staying discreet as Andrexmon in the middle of my room.”

“Why does it have to be our combined forms?” asked Breezedramon.

“Because you talking about Skydramon is not the same thing as us talking TO Skydramon,” replied Datacarnomon. “Trust me, there’s a BIG difference. The more Ike talked about it the more I realized that he had a point about it.”

“It can’t be that big!” the dragon countered. “I mean, it’s silly to just do it for some kinda soliperdifiterarity! We already know we’re all in it together!”

“Look, I’m not gonna spend a lot of time trying to argue it, because I don’t think I’m going to convince you,” Isaac said with an air of finality. “What I’m going to say is that everyone else has agreed to it already, so you’re outvoted, so just show up when we’ve figured out the details and you’ll figure it out, okay?”

Not what Skylar wanted to hear, but he could tell there wasn’t much he could say about that. “Guh. Fine. I feel like I should’ve been in on things, though.”

“Well, it was my idea, and you’re the last person I tend to want to talk to, so…”

“We’re definitely gonna have to work on that,” Datacarnomon said.

“Agreed,” chimed in Breezedramon. “Commutermintifincuritation is extrumitantently impertentorpent. …DON’T say it.”

“Wasn’t gonna say a word.” Isaac’s voice was trembling with restrained laughter. “Hoo…well, dang, that letter actually reads pretty good. Data must’ve done a world of good on it.”

“Gee, thanks, my hard work feels so appreciated,” Skylar snipped with a good deal of asperity.

“I didn’t do THAT much,” Datacarnomon jumped in before things could escalate. “It really wasn’t that bad to begin with. Definitely, uh, on the stiff side, but Sky’s got granulars down to a tee. I just applied a few lessons I learned when I started talking to more, uh, discerning audiences.”

“Hey, whatever works. Hopefully this one will get through. I really would have hoped to have heard something back by now…uff. Guess we just gotta have all the patience we can.”

“Not something I have in large supply,” said Skylar tiredly. “I’m heading home. Let me know if you hear back from them…if we’ve got an open line of communication I do NOT want to miss that opportunity.”

“Trust me, if I do, you and everyone else will know right away.”

———

“I regret ever inviting you over.”

“I DID say I was gonna shock you, it’s not my fault you didn’t listen.” Shockavimon looked thoroughly unrepentant.

“I didn’t think you were being SERIOUS.” Reyn was showing why he was not a morning person, being rather grouchy due to the early wake-up…which wasn’t particularly early by objective measures, but was for him. “If I wanted that kind of wake-up I’d get one of those shocking alarm clocks. I dunno what war criminal came up with THAT idea…”

“My dad was thinking about getting me one of those at one point,” Iris said. “Well, he wanted one for both of us, really, thought it was a brilliant idea. I had to give him a bit of a reminder demonstration why I was a particularly bad candidate for that.”

“Maybe I’ll come up with one that burns you. See how miss Shocks-A-Lot likes having her fingers burned.”

“Fingers?” Shockavimon asked with a snort.

“Well…uh, you know. Your, uh, wing-finger things. Wingers?”

“…I’ll pay you money never to say that again.”

“Good luck getting it here, I don’t think their banks’ll take our credit chips,” cracked Salmandmon. “Anyway, she doesn’t need an alarm clock, she has me. I’m really good at getting people up.”

“You’re really good at giving a hot-foot to anyone who doesn’t get up, you mean,” the bird replied with a hint of annoyance.

“Hey, it does the trick, doesn’t it? Too bad Reyn’s not gonna react to it, I just have to be annoying as hell to get him out of bed.”

“You do far too good a job of that, by the way,” remarked the boy testily.

“I was taught by a master, what can I say?”

“Breezedramon?”

“No, the Kaiser,” sighed Shockavimon. “I respect the guy, but holy hell, does he know how to play the annoying sibling role like he was born for it.”

“He’s incredible,” Salmandmon stated firmly. “I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who could be so at home both being professional and casual. He does his job with as much decorum as, say, the heads of the KOL, but when he turns it off you get to really see the personal side of him. I probably know it better than just about anyone, since I knew him before he became Kaiser.”

“Should I ask if it’s just a coincidence that he’s ‘the Kaiser’ and he’s named Kaiserhuanglongmon?” asked Iris.

“Nah. He took on a unique evolution when he took the position. Central’s leader can be called pretty much anything they want, it’s not like the title carries that much power with it. He just liked ‘Kaiser’ so that’s what he settled on.”

“I was gonna say, would be pretty suspicious if the guy just happened to be named that before he actually had the title…” Reyn was going to ask more about that, but his phone started buzzing, and when he saw that it was Isaac, he quickly grabbed it and turned it on speaker. “What’s up, Isaac?”

“You, apparently, which is a new one.”

“Blame Shockavimon.”

“I warned him ahead of time!” Shockavimon cut in.

“That was your only mistake,” laughed Isaac.

“If you’re delaying telling us about another intruder because you wanna get shots at me, I’m going to be even less happy,” snapped Reyn.

“Thankfully, Data’s reporting nothing that he can see. But he did see something else that you might want to know about - a good meeting spot. It’s probably as good as we’re ever going to be able to find, actually. A nice, relatively central location, and indoors to boot. And get this: basement area.”

“Oh, wow. That’s a lucky find. What’s the catch?”

“What makes you think there’s a catch?”

“Because we can’t be that lucky to just have a totally perfect meeting spot that fits exactly all of our needs without any drawbacks,” said Iris.

“Sheesh, buncha negative nancies over there. Okay, there MAY be a couple issues. First, and this’d be true of pretty much any indoors area worth looking at, we’re technically breaking and entering. Data picked the lock, we’re probably not gonna be able to lock it back up very easily, but it’s more just a meeting spot than anything, so I don’t think we’ll need to store anything in there that’s really, you know, worth anything. If someone catches just one of us and not the digimon, we can probably get away with saying it was already open, and I don’t think they’ll do anything more than just tell us to stop.”

“I’m not super fond of that, but it’s pretty much that or be out in the open where any of us could be seen,” sighed Reyn. “What else?”

“Well, I can’t guarantee there won’t be neighbors. It’s the old Chip’s corner store, the one that closed down last year.”

“Wait, what?” exclaimed Iris. “There’s like three other businesses on that stretch!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know! But right now, maps says they’re closed, and Data said he didn’t see any activity. There’s no indication of why, so I think they might just be shuttered because of the attacks, so it’s possible that they might open back up at some point here. But look, this is the best we’re gonna get, the other places that Data looked at weren’t good for one reason or another. I thought maybe one of those burned houses on Aspen might be possible, but Data wouldn’t even step foot in them.”

Salmandmon snorted. “Of course he wouldn’t. Going inside a place that’s already burned down is a bad idea. I oughta know, seeing as I’ve burned a few places down in my time.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I was thinking we could meet up there, say around 2:00? My parents are heading out and I might actually be able to get out without being grilled about where I’m going. I’m starting to run out of good lies.”

“I don’t see any reason why that shouldn’t work,” agreed Reyn. “Unless someone else here has an objection to make.”

“No objections here,” said Iris.

“Unless another nasty comes through, I don’t think we’ve got anything else to do,” Shockavimon added.

“Sounds good! All right, I gotta let the others know, but you shouldn’t hear back from me unless the time has to change. It’ll be good to get this all knocked out and get all of us on the same page! Catch ya then!” The line went dead, and Reyn hung up.

“Does anyone else feel like this is sort of an odd thing to be doing?” asked Salmandmon. “Feels like it’s a weird ask we’re getting here. ‘Hey, let’s all meet, even though we know each other.’ No one finds that weird?”

“I’m not totally sure I get it,” admitted Reyn. “But I trust Isaac. He always has a good reason for thinking what he does, and while some people might…disagree with his approaches on things, no one can deny that he’s got a pretty brilliant mind.”

“So does Skylar, and he thinks this is all ridiculous,” pointed out Iris.

“Yeah, but you know Skylar. Smart as he is, he’s, uh…socially-challenged. More than any of the rest of us.”

“The fact that you know Derek and still say that…”

“Eh, Derek’s thing is…different. Like, he just…uh…”

Iris smirked. “Hates people?”

Reyn winced a bit. “I wasn’t gonna go QUITE that far, but, uh, yeah, he’s pretty cold towards everyone except the few people he’s gotten to know well. Some of the few people he’s gotten to know well. Sometimes. But Skylar, uh, he just, well, doesn’t seem to…get it? I don’t know how to explain it, really. It’s like, in school, he…more or less gets along with people, but he doesn’t really ever…connect to them? Like, they think he’s kind of weird, and he doesn’t even really…notice, I guess?”

“Huh…well, now that you mention it, I guess he does come off that way. Hm…” Iris trailed off in thought, but when she spoke again, the thread was left hanging. “Well, I guess you’ve got a point, this does seem more like a get-together than anything. And I guess even if I don’t totally get this, we DO need a meeting place, anyway.”

“Definitely, and if it’s not here, then a creepy abandoned store with a not-at-all suspicious basement is perfect!” declared Salmandmon.

“Why must you put things like that?” groaned Shockavimon.

“Amusement. It’s fine. Ghosts don’t exist in this world. Probably.”

“Reyn, smack him for me.”

Reyn shook his head. “No way, he apparently bites. I like having fingers. I guess we’ve got something to do today, then.”

“Can we leave a bit early and swing by my place?” asked Iris. “I want to just bring something to make sure we have some light, just in case.”

“Why the detour?” asked Salmandmon, waving his arm around the room. “There’s plenty of things that create lots of light in here!”

“Sal, we’re trying to NOT burn the place down,” remarked Shockavimon.

“C’moooooon. I’m careful at least occasionally! Besides, Reyn’ll keep things in check, too!”

Before Reyn could say a word, Iris spoke up. “Uh-uh. Nope. The kid who said he can spend an hour just watching a candle burn and has fond memories of the appearance of buildings going up in flames is NOT gonna be carrying open flames into anywhere I want to get out of alive at some point.”

“Excuse you, I’m only MILDLY pyromaniacal,” Reyn asserted in offense.

“And you now have a portable fire dispenser at your side. We’re bringing something NON-combustible.”

“Fiiiiiiine…”

———

It didn’t seem like a local corner store in the middle of a well-populated city, on a fairly well-traveled road by car and foot no less, would have any trouble staying in business. And had things gone normally for Chip’s, it likely would still have been; unfortunately, the economics rarely accounted for sinister machinations. The owner had brought his nephew in to help manage as he was getting up there in years, and over the span of a couple years the nephew had embezzled tens of thousands out of the business, fudging numbers and using hired accomplices to keep his uncle none the wiser. It had finally blown up, the nephew was in prison for a good decade or more, and the owner hadn’t either the finances or the energy to try to salvage things. Many had been disappointed to see it go, and it was sort of an eerie fixture on that corner, not even the signage had come down, just an empty shell of what once had been.

Now, that shell was finally serving a new purpose: meeting place for the digimon and their partners. It wasn’t the shortest of treks for everyone, but as short as they were going to get without making it untenably long for anyone else. The more important thing was making sure the digimon were able to stay out of sight on the way there, which meant that the most direct route was not the most ideal one - the main road was straight out, too open and exposed for their shaky camouflage. That left looping around a block or so and approaching from the back. While that exposed them to a few more houses, there were also more places to take cover, as well as less vehicle traffic to try to work around. Not that there was much of it, the recent attacks were keeping a lot of people inside, but it wasn’t completely dead. Thankfully, the same couldn’t be said of the other nearby businesses, which all were shuttered and dark. That at least eliminated one complication for the moment - and if the situation changed, they could still look into other options.

Thanks to their detour, Reyn, Salmandmon, Iris, and Shockavimon were not the first to arrive, as they could hear upon entering the door. The vibe of the inside was slightly creepy - only lit by natural light from the windows, largely empty shelves with lots of dust having collected, some detritus on the floors that seemed to have been left there from the final days of the shutdown. It was far from the most welcoming place they could have chosen, it seemed…

“Okay, I’ma say it: this is NOT my aesthetic,” remarked Salmandmon as they looked around. “Feels like something straight out of a ghost town. And I’ve been in a couple more of those than I’d like to remember.”

“Do I want to know the story behind that?” asked Reyn.

“Well, they weren’t FRESH ghost towns. Not that fresh, anyway. It was mostly to hunt down jerkwads hiding there so they could plot and stuff.”

“I hope the electricity works…” muttered Iris. She had a pair of nicely crafted electric lamps in her arms, small but hopefully effective enough. “I don’t like the thought of trying to drag a generator here or anything like that.”

“Wouldn’t they turn it off if the building wasn’t in use?” asked Shockavimon.

“I think the buildings here are all supposed to be sort of connected, so they might not. But it’s still possible, yeah. Oof, it’s also NOT warm in here, I probably should’ve expected that. Hopefully that’ll at least keep the bugs down, I do NOT want to run into any of those in the dark. Bad enough when they’re in the light.”

“Hey, are you guys gonna actually come down here or what?” That was Skylar’s voice, from an open door behind the counter. It looked plenty dark down there, but a flashlight beam was shining up at them. “Come on, I’m getting unnerved down here, being alone with Derek in the dark is creepy.”

“You’re just saying that because you need that stupid beam to figure out where you are and I can find my way around just fine,” came a quieter reply that was no doubt from Derek.

“Yes, that is precisely why I’m saying that. Also, Breezedramon might decide to fly into me, unless he spontaneously learns echolocation.”

“How would I spontamatonataminousally learn ecocomatamonitration? That’s bat stuff! I’m a dragon!”

“That’s the point! GAH! Watch where you’re flying!”

“Iris, we gotta get the lamps down there before they kill each other,” snickered Shockavimon.

“On it. Reyn, if you don’t mind.”

Reyn scoffed. “Oh, NOW I can be a source of light? After you told me no matches or torches or anything fun?”

Iris rolled her eyes. “Use your cell phone, call the wahmbulance if you have to, and then use the flashlight on it so I don’t go headfirst down these stairs.”

Salmandmon chuckled. “You know, all I have to do is open my mouth-”

“And then I will shock it closed,” warned Shockavimon.

Grumbling aside, Reyn did light the way for Iris, and then kept it that way as they looked around the basement for a place to try the lamps. It wasn’t exactly a homely area, even more barren than the store above, with a few different doors along the walls, including one that looked as if it went into a cooler or freezer of some sort. It was at least spacious enough to fit all of them, but the lack of natural light meant that they would be pretty reliant on what they could bring in.

The darkness, fortunately, was dispelled as Iris clicked one of the lamps on, bringing a relatively effective illumination to the basement. “Yes! It worked! I guess we can be a LITTLE lucky.”

“Thank goodness for that,” groaned Skylar. “I wasn’t looking forward to having Reyn’s idea of lighting be what we needed to rely on. I’d rather escape this place without severe burns, thank you.”

“Excuse me!” Reyn snapped in annoyance. “Electricity can TOTALLY cause severe burns. They can be even worse because the electricity often travels through the inside of the body, so you can’t actually see all the damage that’s being done! You’ll see that spot where it went in but not necessarily the whole path!”

Derek snorted with laughter. “Thank you very much for that health class lecture, Dr. Kessilik.”

“I told you, I’m NOT gonna be a doctor. Just because I KNOW stuff doesn’t mean it’s what I want to do! It’s way too stressful and busy, I’d much rather do something that’s a lot more, uh…relaxed.”

“He was totally about to say ‘chill,’” remarked Breezedramon with a cackle.

“Quiet, you.”

“I shall concur on the motion for silence, this cerulean reptilian paraphasiac has been infiltrating my acoustic organs ceaselessly,” remarked Blackcanismon with a long-suffering sigh.

“Maybe you need to stop saying so many big words so I can talk back to you,” replied Breezedramon huffily. “I know you can do it!”

“Modifying my linguistic normalcies solely for your accommodation is a patent imbalance of compromise. Apropos of nothing, shall I presume the singular exemplar of tardiness is the typical tidsoptomist?”

“When I get home, I’m looking up thesaurus apps,” said Derek with barely-repressed laughter. “WHAT is that word you just threw out?”

“If it means ‘guy who’s always late,’ it’s perfect and I’m stealing it,” said Skylar with a wide grin.

“Essentially, a habitual overestimator of chronological availability,” the canine arguably clarified. “His certainty of timeliness is maximal, nevertheless his practice is invariably impunctuality. Which registers to myself as a significant likelihood, as Isaac impresses upon me a gargantuan degree of self-certainty.”

“I wouldn’t call myself ‘impressed,’ but yeah, he always talks like he’s real sure of himself,” agreed Salmandmon. “Which has its ups and downs.”

“You’d know,” needled Shockavimon.

“Of course I’d know, you all MAKE me have to be like that. The door’s WIDE open for Data to be voted team leader.”

Reyn rubbed his head. “Sheeze. Just all oozing patience here. It’s only been, what, five days? This is all off to a GREAT start…this is why I don’t get up early, nothing good ever happens on an early morning.”

“I’m guessing there’s gonna be a lot of late mornings that go just as poorly,” Iris said with an eye roll.

———

“Oy! You didn’t all get started without me, did you?” Isaac was thudding down the stairs, Datacarnomon just behind him, clanking a little too loudly for comfort.

“Seeing as you’re the one who has all the ideas for what we’re doing here, we couldn’t really do so,” Skylar said stiffly. “Even if we did have to wait…almost twenty minutes. What happened to ‘I won’t have any trouble getting out of the house’?”

“I didn’t have any trouble getting out of the house!” protested Isaac.

“Yeah, he just had trouble getting his butt in gear to do so,” remarked Datacarnomon with a smirk.

Isaac scowled at him. “It’s your fault! You just had to point out that coding issue.”

“I said we could take care of it later! But no, you were all ‘I’m not gonna let myself forget about it, let’s take care of it now, we have plenty of time!’ I can literally set up alert reminders IN MY MIND, listen to me when I say we can handle it later!”

“I thought we had plenty of time! It was just one little change, how was I to know it was gonna start a chain-reaction?”

“Isaac, you’re the one who tells ME all the time that everything you type creates at least twenty other associated bugs,” remarked Reyn. “You’re the only one of us who SHOULD know that.”

“You were right, BC, that word is PERFECT for him,” giggled Shockavimon.

“My expansive vocabulary possesses some marginal measure of usefulness,” Blackcanismon replied rather proudly.

“I don’t even wanna know what word that is,” Isaac said bluntly. “What matters is that we’re all here safely, so we can do what we need to do.”

“Yeah, I’m still not sure I’ve got the sense of ‘need’ here,” remarked Breezedramon.

“I think that’s a feeling exclusive to him,” agreed Derek. “But I don’t see the harm in it, either. We needed a place to get together, and we needed another opportunity to get together, so as long as this accomplishes both of those, what’s the harm?”

“Besides, it might not be bad to just, you know, get more used to this whole merging thing,” agreed Shockavimon. “I’ve done it a couple times now but it’s still kind of throwing me for a loop.”

“Those aren’t the things I have issues with…” Skylar said.

“Let’s just get down to it,” Reyn said before more objections could be voiced. “Maybe it’ll be easier to understand in the moment than it is now. Unless you had something special planned, Isaac?”

Isaac shook his head. “Nope, shouldn’t require anything. Just the other us! So let’s hop to it!”

Despite the varying degrees of uncertainty and reluctance, all five pairs got up and got together. The basement was enveloped in bright light as the combinations flared up, and died down only gradually as each pair became one at different rates. Andrexmon seemed to be the last one, thumping on the ground and looking like he took up way too much space down there. From there he could see Burnreptimon, Skydramon, and Boltfalkemon…but he was definitely short one. “Oy! Where’s the werewolf?”

“Where do you think I am?” The voice came from behind Andrexmon, causing the cyborg to wheel around, lose balance, and thump down on his butt. He glowered at the shadowy canine clearly laughing at him. “Goodness, for a lummox you sure do startle easy.”

“That was NOT funny! Don’t ambush me like that!”

“This is gonna be a thing, isn’t it?” Boltfalkemon asked.

“He did it to me TWICE the first time,” Burnreptimon grumbled.

“Lovely. Because spooking someone who could atomize you and half the building in one shot is SUCH a great idea.”

“I daresay I could survive a shot,” Darkvargmon replied, still mirthful as Andrexmon got back to his feet. “Though I will gladly not try to prove that. Also, goodness, but you all are SUCH an eyesore when you do that. Such bright flashy lights, I’m surprised you couldn’t be seen from orbit.”

“It WAS pretty bright,” agreed Burnreptimon. “Was the first time I ever saw it from that end, I had no idea it was that noticeable.”

“How’d yours get done so fast?” asked Skydramon.

“I think it gets faster the more you do it. I’ve felt less of a ‘gap’ over time, it’s just a couple seconds for me now, so you’ll probably get there soon enough.”

“That would make sense, I guess,” agreed Boltfalkemon. “Well, we’re here now, so we might as well do this thing.”

“Yeah, right.” Andrexmon shifted back around to face the others, Darkvargmon also phasing back to the other side of the room. “While I’m getting everyone registered in my sensor banks, what we should do is talk about what we understand innately about ourselves, our battle capabilities, our strengths and weaknesses. That way we’re all on the same page and have a better idea of how to fight together with each other, because we’re gonna have to be doing probably a lot of that before all is said and done.”

“Does anyone else still feel like this is silly?” asked Skydramon. “I don’t feel like we needed to meet like this, didn’t need to form up, anything like that. We could’ve just talked!”

“Talking doesn’t update my databases,” rumbled Andrexmon.

“Oh, so this was all for you, then?”

“It’s for all of us. Maybe pipe down and listen to us talk, and then you’ll understand why I thought this was useful.”

Skydramon looked over at Burnreptimon. “C’mon! Tell me I’m not crazy here!”

Burnreptimon folded his arms and looked at the dragon. “Skydramon. Think back to when you were separated. How good a sense did you have of your abilities in merged form?”

“Well, I…I…uh…” Skydramon paused, deflating a bit. “…Not really much.”

“Exactly. I was questioning it too, until I merged again, and then I understood. Our separate selves can talk about what we can do, but they don’t UNDERSTAND them like we do. Even the digimon don’t truly understand them, because fundamentally, we’re not entirely digimon…only our own selves have that sense of ourselves.”

“And here I thought Andrexmon was merely talking out of his cannon,” quipped Darkvargmon.

“Watch your tongue or it’ll be talking to you very loudly,” growled the cyborg.

“I feel like we absorb more the more we merge, though,” observed Boltfalkemon. “So we might come to understand it better eventually. But not soon enough, since we have battles to fight. So let’s get down to it.”

“I’ll go ahead and start.” Burnreptimon nodded to them all. “Being fire elemental, I have some pretty potent techniques, but they’re all pretty close-quarters. My Pyre Rush is the main thing I can do with range, but it’s still stronger closer to me, and gets more spread out the farther away it is. If I really focus, I can unleash a fireball with my Flare Fang, but that’s not too easy in the heat of the moment, and especially one-on-one. So this is something to think about…if I’m fighting someone close up, you probably want to watch how close you get.”

“What about that Heat Field technique?” asked Boltfalkemon. “That melted Frigimon’s fist pretty quick.”

“Right…it’s a shield technique more than an attack, it surrounds me with an aura of intense heat. It’s both a thermal and a disruptor field…it’s not just a ball of fire, but it destabilizes things that get into it. It’s best against projectiles, though - Frigimon was affected by the heat, but other bodies won’t react so strongly. Solid projectiles vulnerable to burning should be fairly good, but energy projectiles can get through the heat more easily, unless they’re heat-sensitive. The more powerful they are, the harder to disrupt…I could probably stop Datacarnomon’s shots easily, but Andrexmon’s are no guarantee, definitely not his charge shot. Also, it doesn’t protect anyone inside regardless of their allegiance, so I can’t use it to just jump in and shield you while standing over you, unless you enjoy being char-grilled.”

“Okay, THAT’S a good thing to know,” admitted Skydramon. “Keep our distance or you can’t protect yourself.”

“Right. But in close quarters, I’ve got the edge, with the way I’m built. And I can charge myself up a little with Pyre Rush in a pinch - it’s not a big boost but it speeds me up and gives me a bit more punch for a bit. So spaces where there isn’t a lot of ability to move around are where I’m best.”

“The opposite of myself,” said Boltfalkemon. “I want to be in the open sky where I can move freely. And my Spark Wave is built for this - it has a wide spread that flies out in front of me. If we end up in a case where we have a numbers issue, I’ve got the best tool for the job.”

“Is it okay if I don’t want there to be numbers issues?” asked Andrexmon.

“I’m not going to be blaming you. I can also do something closer up with my Static Cracker, charging electricity in my body and using it to power a physical blow, though it’s not my favorite way of dealing with things. It’s best if I can use a full tackle, which still is better in open spaces where I can build up some speed. The more force I apply, the better the charge works. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be using it against anything more solid than Aquilamon…trying to fly into something harder than feathers and flesh would probably end badly.”

Burnreptimon snickered. “What, it’s not enough of a violation of physics to survive thumping into bird meat at eighty miles an hour?”

“You violate all the physics, don’t even start,” riposted Boltfalkemon, sticking her tongue out at him. “I have a shield, too, Thunder Guard. It’s an electric barrier that’s a pretty effective blockade. Only issue is that it’s not a full surround like Burnreptimon’s, it’s only a spherical cap in the direction of my choice, and it’s not something I can move around with. And I can’t attack behind it, it’ll absorb my electricity as well.”

“But you can leap in front of one of us to save our hides,” mused Darkvargmon.

“Maybe. I don’t know exactly how strong it is. But anyway, that covers me.”

“Okay, I’ll go next, then, since I’m the other air counterpart,” said Skydramon. “Hi! I’m Skydramon! I rawr in the air and make things fall down!”

“I know you think this is silly, but do you have to ACT silly?” snorted Burnreptimon.

“Just getting it out of my system. Anyway, Boltfalkemon has the spread, I have the power! Aero Nail is a really nasty attack which claws at the enemy with my wind-charged claws. And if I need to go from afar, my Twister Orb delivers a concentrated punch of wind energy right on ‘em! It’s got a deliberate homing property, too - it’ll zero in on exactly who I want it to, even if there are other targets around! But someone who gets right in the way can still block it, but that’s their problem.”

“It’s our problem if they decide to dip down behind us, so try to be careful where you throw it still,” admonished Boltfalkemon. “Especially around me, since I’ll be in the air with you most of the time!”

“Yeah, yeah. You’ll at least get to make more use of my Force Gale! I can kick up a powerful gust of wind that we can speed ourselves up with! Or slow down or throw off enemies, too! I, uh, guess it’s not really much as an attack, but creating openings is as good as doing damage, right?”

“Only if damage is actually done in those openings,” said Andrexmon. “And that’s where I can come in. You want to smack something from afar with raw power, you’ve got the mon for the job. My Dino Buster fires some powerful energy bursts that pummel weaker enemies like nobody’s business. And when I charge it up, I can unleash a much stronger blast that can fell even some pretty titanic dudes! Just make sure to keep me covered, I can’t move as fast while charging.”

“You can’t move fast period,” remarked Skydramon. “You’re the biggest lug of all of us.”

“…Okay, I can’t argue that, but RUDE. If someone comes up on me, my cannon arm can turn into a claw arm, and my Energy Claw is pretty nasty, too. But I’d rather stay away if that’s all right, hitting stuff from afar is way better. But that’s not all I can do…I’m working on maximizing my versatility with stuff I call Andro Attachments. These are programs I can write up on a computer outside my merged form, then download and manifest as new abilities in this body! I can create a whole bunch of different programs, and hopefully use them to make sure I cover every situation!”

“So you’ve tapped into the power that Emperius seeks…that’s actually rather impressive in such a short amount of time,” marveled Darkvargmon.

“Of course he’d want to use it to be Mega Man,” Boltfalkemon said with a roll of her eyes.

“Hey, Mega Man only WISHES he could have this kinda gross muscle on him.” Andrexmon flexed his non-metal arm; it was indeed quite bulky and impressive. “Listen, if we ever encounter a challenge where moving a weight is an issue, call me, trust me, I’ll do it faster than all the rest of you combined.”

“I daresay that might be jumping the gun a bit,” chimed in Darkvargmon. “After all, my Nightmare Tangle is pretty effective at grabbing and moving enemies against their will. The tendrils are pure darkness, so their durability may be limited, but I can put forth a fair number of them, and their damage is immaterial. I daresay I could put you in a pretty effective hold, Andrexmon.”

“I’m gonna test that at some point and show you how wrong you are,” countered the cyborg gruffly.

“Of course, that’s far from the only thing I can do. My Shadow Wave unleashes a dark wave of energy that spreads slightly over the distance it covers, hitting a relatively concentrated area. And I can unleash a sort of noxious grenade with my Blasting Darkness. And considering I can use these both along with my Nightmare Tangle, I’d say I can do a pretty good job of sweeping things up.”

“True, but I can’t help but notice that you’re the smallest one of all of us,” remarked Burnreptimon. “A good blow might hurt you more than any of the rest of us.”

“Indeed. But I don’t take blows much. If I can find a shadow, I can phase into it and be untouchable. Plus, I can reappear in any other nearby shadow I want, whether it’s contiguous or not. So I’d say I’m also the most evasive of all of us.”

“Not confident enough to not ask about me shielding you, though,” cracked Boltfalkemon.

“…It may be wise to account for all possibilities, I mean…” There was a chorus of snickers as Darkvargmon looked away, a bit embarrassed.

———

With the formalities out of the way, the atmosphere got a bit more relaxed. The five of them continued to chat and banter with each other in that basement, the camaraderie progressing as smoothly as one might expect given the relationships between their components. And Burnreptimon was starting to understand a lot better why the idea had been proposed.

Isaac was right, this was important. Doing this another way, we probably could have figured out what we all are - but this way gives us insight into WHO we are. That’s something that’s not as simple, not for something like us, where we’re two things and also a third thing at the same time.

Of course, discussions of their nature were inevitably going to come up, and Andrexmon put forth a good one. “Have you guys figured out how we should be defining ourselves? Like, when talking about the parts of us. Burnreptimon was right, it’s kind of confusing in my brain, I feel like I’ve got three identities at once going on here.”

“I know, right?” Burnreptimon shook his head. “I’m not sure I’m any closer to a good answer. I thought about just using ‘we’ but I think that makes it harder to figure out where everything’s actually coming from.”

Skydramon scowled. “Oh, it really sucks! It’s like, hey, guess what, we’re not just two people, we’re actually three, and not all of them actually exist at the same time! Why can’t it just be natural? Why is it I can know exactly what my name is and exactly what I can do, but I can’t figure out how to think of myself?”

“It does feel like a pretty weird gap,” admitted Andrexmon. “Maybe…well, because we’ve got a fairly ‘digimon’ phenotype, we have traits like that, intrinsic understanding of our capabilities, but something nebulous like ‘identity’ isn’t really tied to to the core data, so we aren’t as easily able to figure that out. That’s the best answer I can come up with on short notice anyway. I’ve been trying to process it ever since the first event, though it was hard before…uh…”

“Before you were you?” suggested Boltfalkemon.

“See, uh, yeah, that was what I was going to say, and then I thought it sounded ridiculous.”

“I think you’re overthinking it,” Darkvargmon stated rather cleanly. “Which wouldn’t surprise me given the essences of you.”

“What you call ‘overthinking’ I call ‘thinking,’” Andrexmon replied huffily. “Why do you think it’s so easy?”

“Because I’ve been listening to you. You already know the answer, you’re just unaware of it.”

“The heck’re ya talking about?” Skydramon asked blankly.

“Did you hear what Andrexmon was saying?” Boltfalkemon motioned towards the confused cyborg. “‘That’s the best answer I can come up with, I’ve been trying to process it…’ Even though he clearly had to be talking about Isaac and Datacarnomon, he was still talking as if it was himself. And even back the first time, Burnreptimon talked about Reyn’s parents as his own. The answer just seems to be right there if you think about it - the parts of us ARE us, and there’s no point in trying to split them out.”

Darkvargmon nodded. “She’s correct. I understood the confusion immediately after I first came to be, but also quickly figured out that anything that comes from Derek or Blackcanismon comes to me as if it was from myself. Those feelings might as well be my own, so I should treat them as my own.”

“I…guess that makes sense,” Andrexmon said hesitantly. “I suppose I did sort of default to that, though it’s a bit weird to think about.”

“Well, if you guys are all doing it that way, I don’t think it makes sense to do it any other way,” agreed Skydramon.

Burnreptimon’s arms were folded, and he had a somewhat sour look on his face. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.”

“Why not?” asked Boltfalkemon.

“…It’s hard to explain. I’m just not.”

“You’re not, or one part of you isn’t?” pointed out Darkvargmon.

“…Part of me. Dammit.”

“I don’t get it,” Skydramon said, befuddled.

“He says he’s not comfortable with it, but he’s doing the same thing we all are,” explained Andrexmon.

“Let’s talk about something else,” Burnreptimon said suddenly, and then pushed on before anyone else could object. “Like, how we’re going to approach this whole mess. Emperius is going to be sending more troops after us, we don’t know how they’re going to ramp it up but we know they’re going to. So we’ve got a problem, and that’s stealth versus battle-readiness.”

Andrexmon nodded. “Scoping things out in this form is just an invitation to get caught. Right now, we need to save it for actual combat. We’re liable to get exposure for that as is, but at least then not all the attention will be on us.”

“But if we’re separated, we’re vulnerable if someone from Emperius gets the drop on us!” pointed out Skydramon. “And I can only be stealthy if I’m flying high enough as it is! I don’t know if it’s really that good to be split up all the time!”

“It would be easier if they knew about us and could trust us…” Burnreptimon let out a sigh. “Would be REALLY convenient if a way of making that happen would fall into our laps right about now!”

“Uh…what are you doing, Burner?”

“Hmph. Figured I might as well try to pull another miracle out of my ass, guess that only happens once. Wait, did you just call me ‘Burner?’”

“Sure! You know how much of a mouthful it is to say ‘Burnreptimon’ all the time? Maybe BC can do it, Wolfy can probably tell ya, but faster is easier!”

“I should’ve known this would happen,” snickered Andrexmon. “Lemme guess, I’m ‘Rexy?’”

“Yep! And Boltfalkemon is Bolty! And, uh, calling me ‘Sky’ might be confusing, so…Skyder? Eh, that should work.”

“And that’s NOT confusing?” snorted Burnreptimon. “Sounds way too close to Skylar as far as I’m concerned. And entirely unnecessary at that.”

“Remember who we’re talking about here,” Andrexmon remarked amusedly. “Breezy gave us all those nicknames in the first place because he almost always tripped up over our given ones. You snarked about that, too, but within a year we were all using them regularly. Skyder doesn’t seem to have the chaos tongue, but he’s got plenty of that personality in him.”

“Tch, you’re already falling in line with this?”

“I would have preferred something a touch more inspired than ‘Wolfy,’ but I suppose the decision is out of my hands,” remarked Darkvargmon.

“Oh, hey, he speaks,” Andrexmon snarked. “What are you doing over there? You’ve been staring at the wall for a long time.”

“No, I’m staring THROUGH the wall. There’s a difference.”

“Shouldn’t be anything in there but dirt, bud. We’re underground, remember?”

“You’ve been awfully quiet too, Bolty,” Skydramon pointed out. “Is something wrong?”

“Not wrong…just…I had something nagging at my brain, and I think I figured out what it is.” Boltfalkemon held up her hand, showing them the back of it. “Did you guys ever notice that those seal glyphs are on all of us?”

“Huh?”

“Yeah. On the backs of your hands, too. Even Darkvargmon’s, though they’re hard to see because of that whole ‘formless’ thing.”

The others looked at her blankly, and then looked at the backs of their hands. Sure enough, it was easy to see the glyphs that had represented the digimon’s evolution seals on each hand on all of them. Skydramon was the first to speak up. “The hell is that there for?”

“Beats the heck outta me,” replied Burnreptimon, running a finger over the one on him. “I don’t feel anything from it, though, not like Salmandmon does. I’m not sure it’s even active.”

“That’s why I didn’t notice before,” explained Boltfalkemon. “The glyphs are there, but I don’t think the effects are. But why one and not the other?”

“Maybe it helps make sure that it stays in place even when we separate?” Andrexmon ventured. “Though that would be a weird and completely undesirable function. Wonder if we could do something about that.”

“Visual markings are rarely superfluous for digimon,” mused Darkvargmon. “They must exist for a specific purpose. But I cannot say what that would be.”

“I get a weird feeling looking at ‘em,” muttered Skydramon. “Can we not focus on the weird things for now? At least until someone figures something else out. We’ve got enough to worry about right now!”

“I daresay more than you know.”

“Why don’t I like the sound of that?” growled Burnreptimon. “You’ve noticed something, haven’t you?”

“I’ve noticed that my Nightmare Tangle is a surprisingly effective extension of my senses, and has a rather remarkable range. Also, we have company. They’re close to Shunka Elementary…good thing no one’s there at the moment.”

“How bad is it?” asked Andrexmon.

“Numbers-wise, favorable, only two of them…but one is a Flymon. That screeching drone it makes will get far too much attention. The other is a perturbed-looking Veedramon…hm, most of those Emperius goons have been rather excited, he’s a break from the norm. They’re dormant now, but who knows how long that will last.”

“Then we have to get going,” insisted Burnreptimon. “We can’t waste time, if they get the chance to do whatever they’re here for it’ll all go to hell in a hurry.”

“You want to go like this?” hissed Skydramon. “Weren’t we just talking about stealth?”

“Stealth is a luxury we don’t have,” said Darkvargmon. “They are quite a ways away, and I don’t know how long they’ll be keeping quiet. Walking as humans, it would be a good hour before we got there. My shadow travel can reduce that to just a few minutes…Bolt and Skyder can fly there probably similarly quickly.”

“I’m actually pretty fast myself, the main thing will be avoiding being seen,” said Burnreptimon. “Not sure what we can do about you, though, Rex.”

“Not much…” Andrexmon rose up, looking annoyed. “Guess I’ve got no choice…wanted to test it more first, but…”

“Test what?”

“You remember how I mentioned Andro Attachments? I’ve already written one…a teleport module. Guy my size, I’m not always gonna be able to find hiding places, so I wanted something to make a quick exit. Though I haven’t actually used it yet…”

“Worst case scenario is it doesn’t work, right?” asked Boltfalkemon.

“Trust me, that’s far from the worst-case scenario. But I’m gonna try it.”

Burnreptimon nodded. “Then let’s go. Avoid exposure as much as you can, and let’s give these guys an introduction they’ll never forget.”

———

It was a dicey trip, but one that Burnreptimon realized they needed to make. They weren’t always going to have the opportunity to travel in a more clandestine form, they needed to get used to it and figure out the strategies for doing so with a minimum of risk. He’d already had this experience once the first time he’d come about - actually twice, though the second time had the cover of darkness aiding him. The cold and cloudy day was probably helping to keep people inside as much as the threat of monster attacks, but every house had plenty of windows, so he kept low and moved quickly. Whenever he could find a decent amount of cover, he used that to chart his next move, sprinting from spot to spot.

Darkvargmon showed up here and there to direct him to the right location, though he already had a general idea where to go. Shunka Elementary might have been more familiar to some of their group, but by the time he’d gotten here he was already past those years; still, he’d been around the area enough to have passed by a few times. With his vague memories and Darkvargmon’s guidance, he managed to get to a rendezvous point Darkvargmon had set up for them near the location of the bogies.

A little on the late side, it seemed, if the others were to be believed. “Jeez, finally! What took you so long?” asked Skydramon impatiently.

“I’m sorry, mister ‘I’m a speed demon flier,’ not all of us get your advantages. I had to make sure I wasn’t spotted by half the neighborhood on my way. Wait, did Andrexmon seriously get here before me?”

“Only mostly in one piece.” Andrexmon looked rather ill, but otherwise fine. “Turns out rapidly teleporting isn’t a good way to settle your stomach. It worked, though, it wasn’t too loud and moved me faster than I could ever walk. But I definitely need to increase the range.”

“That’s a matter for another time,” stated Darkvargmon urgently. “They’re about to start moving. We need to strike now, or our choices of battlefield get considerably less convenient.” He pointed towards the trees at the edge of the school ground. “They’re laying low in there, but the Flymon appears ready to take off, and the Veedramon probably won’t be far behind. We need to try to catch them before they leave. I can try to slow down one or both of them with my Nightmare Tangle, but it’ll be harder to get a faster flier like Flymon.”

“Skyder and I’ll take on the Flymon,” declared Boltfalkemon.

Burnreptimon nodded. “As would make sense. Rex, ready that cannon of yours, Veedramon’s definitely going to take some abuse before we get him under control, and I’m not sure I’ll pack quite enough punch to subdue him on my own.”

“Of course. I’m ready to show my stuff. Let’s get to it!”

The five of them split into two clusters and raced towards the point where Flymon and Veedramon were breaking out of the bushes, ready to enact whatever sinister plan they had in mind. That plan was quickly waylaid as they were suddenly set upon by the group, scrambling to take defensive action. “What the hell?! Where did they all come from?!” Veedramon cried out, sounding panicked.

“Who cares?!” screeched Flymon viciously. “They’re the tainted ones! Slaughter them to the end!”

“You gotta be crazy, they outnumber us!”

“They contaminated themselves with weakness, they’re nothing next to a true digimon! Do your job!” Flymon buzzed up to engage Skydramon and Boltfalkemon, leaving Veedramon nervously facing down Burnreptimon and Andrexmon. Darkvargmon had vanished into the shadows, eyeing up both fights to see where his assistance was most needed.

Flymon wasn’t wasting any time being a problem - as soon as she was up in line of sight of the two aerial fighters she buzzed her wings loudly, making an awful screeching noise that was making everyone have to cover their ears. “Gah! That’s awful!” yelped Skydramon, though it couldn’t cut through the piercing screech.

Boltfalkemon didn’t like it any better, but she had a trick for solving that - she didn’t need her hands for all her attacks. “Let’s try to get some quiet around here. Spark Wave!” She flapped her wings and let loose a barrage of bolts, which Flymon wasn’t ready for. The sparking attack hit her square, making her screech out again, but at least that wasn’t on the same level as her abominable wings, which stopped their sonic onslaught as Flymon tried to right herself.

Skydramon didn’t waste time, following up with one of his own attacks. “Twister Orb!” He formed and hurled the orb, but Flymon was ready this time and rose up, avoiding the initial flight of the orb. It swung back around in a wide arc to try to catch her from behind, but she looped around it, avoiding it a second time as it dissipated harmlessly. “Hey! No fair!”

“Annoying aberrations! You’ll never best a pure digimon by sullying yourselves with humans!” Flymon swooped at them, forcing Boltfalkemon and Skydramon to break apart and evade. But avoiding the dive wasn’t enough, as the air was clouded with a noxious dust. “Let’s see how you fare with my Poison Powder in the air!”

“Guh!” Boltfalkemon gagged as she inhaled some of it, and immediately felt a bit dizzy and ill. “We can’t let her spread this stuff all over…”

Skydramon hadn’t avoided getting some of it in his system either. “Yech, it’s awful…I’m getting it out of here! Force Gale!” The rush of wind blew the powder away, towards the elementary school - it wasn’t going to be good anywhere, but with no one there for the moment, it was safer than casting it over the houses and hoping for the best. I hope it breaks down on its own, though…

Down below, things were faring rather differently. Veedramon’s V-Nova Blast surged out of his mouth, with Burnreptimon leaping forward and taking the brunt of it to keep it from doing any collateral damage. He barreled forward through the fiery attack to sock Veedramon in the jaw, interrupting the attack and making the dragon stagger. He followed that up with a Pyre Rush that enveloped Veedramon, but then got played by his own game - Veedramon surged through the fire and delivered a Hammer Punch to Burnreptimon’s chest that sent him flying backwards and tumbling over the ground. He was slow to rise, winded from the impact - that had hit pretty directly.

Veedramon didn’t follow up, though, staying back and giving Andrexmon an opening. “Dino Buster!” Veedramon roared out as he was pelted with the powerful pellets, his hide getting pockmarked with impact marks. A half-dozen of these got through before he counter-attacked, slashing his claws forward to activate his Cutter Shoot, the blades flying directly at Andrexmon and hitting square - he blocked with his arms, but got a few gashes for his trouble. That wasn’t the real problem, though - the real problem was the V-Nova Blast Veedramon was about to unleash in his direction, and he wasn’t nearly as heat-resistant.

“Blasting Darkness!” From the bushes behind the skirmish, a dark mass flew out, striking Veedramon in the back of the head and exploding outwards, making the dragon stumble and stagger forward, cutting off the attack before it could be fired out. He wheeled around and unleashed another wave of Cutter Shoot into the foliage, sending leaves flying. A loud “Yeowch!” rang out from there, and Darkvargmon appeared next to Andrexmon, holding his shoulder. “Well, THAT was unpleasant.”

“There’s ANOTHER one of you?” Veedramon exclaimed, sounding panicked again. “How the hell many of you guys are there?”

“Does he seem…off to you?” Andrexmon rumbled as quietly as he could.

Darkvargmon nodded. “Something about his behavior strikes me as unusual…he’s been oddly defensive, as opposed to his comrade’s bloodthirst.”

“Ain’t gonna help him much…but he’s still just as dangerous if he’s hitting us with that stuff. We need to down him, pronto.”

“Agreed. We should-AGH!” Darkvargmon slammed his hands over his ears as that screech rang out again, Veedramon doing the same while Andrexmon tuned down his audio reception. At least it was mutually disruptive…

Skydramon and Boltfalkemon weren’t enjoying it any more than the rest, especially not the way things were going. The poison had slowed them down, making it easier for Flymon to get the edge, and she was firing her Deadly Sting at them while trying to distract them with her sonic screech. And it was working, the two were able to evade the shots but not orient themselves well enough for a counterattack, especially not with Flymon flitting around quite quickly…despite having the numbers advantage, Boltfalkemon and Skydramon were feeling a bit on their heels.

Finally, Boltfalkemon had had enough and took a chance. She sighted Flymon and surged forward with her Static Cracker. She saw Flymon launch out her Deadly Sting, but she couldn’t take the chance of dodging and prolonging that noise any longer…she batted the stinger away with a forearm, but she felt that point graze her, the noxious toxin certainly at least getting into her a bit. It worked, though - Flymon didn’t have time to avoid her, and she collided with her and let loose a powerful shock, stopping the drone once again. She had to retreat after that, though, feeling woozy and her right arm feeling numb and unpleasantly tingly.

“Bolty! Are you okay?” Skydramon asked anxiously, swooping up to her.

“I’ve been better…I’m not out of it yet, but we can’t keep doing this…we need to double-team her.”

“Right! You draw her attention, I’ll go in for the kill!”

“Okay, but make it quick.” Boltfalkemon flapped forward, sending a Spark Wave at Flymon, who avoided it while Skydramon took off away from the two of them. She hoped Skydramon wasn’t going to go too far trying to make himself scarce, she wasn’t sure she had that much longer to hold out against Flymon with the way she was feeling from the attacks and the drone.

“Hah! Maybe you should’ve run away too, birdy!” Flymon fired more stingers at her, which she was easily able to avoid, but they were starting to get closer to her. “You never should have tried to stand up to a real digimon! You freaks are nothing more than pretenders!”

“Big words coming from flying vermin,” shot back Boltfalkemon. “You’re worse than those Roachmon we slaughtered, just a big disgusting bug that should end up on the underside of someone’s shoe.”

“Wh-what?!” Flymon’s screech was far more genuinely offended than she had ever expected. “How DARE you sully my name by putting it below ROACHMON! Die painfully, bitch! Deadly Sting!”

Boltfalkemon was close enough now that evasion wouldn’t be a guarantee…she steeled herself and pulled out her risky gambit. “Thunder Guard!” The arc of electricity flared to life a short ways in front of her, meeting the stingers head on, the two clashing with a bright surge…and she breathed a sigh of relief as hers won, the stinger vanishing and her wall holding. It would have been bad news if that hadn’t worked…

“What?! Impossible! You can’t best MY attacks!” Flymon readied another, but she never got it off - she had stayed in one place too long, and Skydramon was taking advantage, screaming past with his claws lit up. He slashed with all he had - not at Flymon’s body, but at her wings, shredding them with brutal effectiveness. Flymon screeched loudly once more as she plunged towards the ground, but didn’t get there as Skydramon swooped around and clawed behind her head with another Aero Nail, putting an end to the giant insect.

Veedramon’s campaign was starting to fare poorly as well. He was able to recover from the loud buzzing only to find himself caught up in Darkvargmon’s Nightmare Tangle, the tendrils lashing to him and holding him while Andrexmon fired off more Dino Buster shots. For a moment, he stopped struggling, and Andrexmon thought he had his shot and started charging up…but then, the dragon roared and pulled hard, breaking free of the Nightmare Tangle, tearing a couple of the tendrils apart as they vanished in wisps of darkness. Andrexmon heard Darkvargmon grunt as the tendrils receded. “You all right? Don’t tell me that does damage to you…”

“No damage to me, but it certainly doesn’t feel comfortable. And it does inhibit the attack…I don’t think I’ll be able to bind him again for you.”

“Crud.” Andrexmon canceled the charge, but fired off another couple of regular shots, knocking Veedramon back. He still seemed reluctant to charge in, despite Darkvargmon adding in a Shadow Wave…he just seemed to be blocking everything, or trying to, letting his arms bear the brunt of the shots, though they were starting to look pretty badly scorched.

None of them were paying attention to Burnreptimon. It had taken a bit for the reptile to shake off the hard punch to the torso, but he had, and he was pissed. Now back on his feet, he was seeing red, and the Veedramon was not ready for him. He blitzed behind the dragon while he was preoccupied with Andrexmon and Darkvargmon, then without warning leapt up and latched onto Veedramon’s shoulder. “Flare Fang!” An anguished roar rattled the air as the blazing heat seared the dragon’s shoulder, and Burnreptimon could taste a weird tang of blood mixed with charred flesh…it was oddly slightly less off-putting than the one he’d gotten from Ogremon, perhaps just by being less foul of a creature.

He didn’t get to taste it for long, though, as Veedramon flailed around and sent him sprawling once again by banging him off with his elbow. Another rough blow, but not nearly as bad as the square punch, and Burnreptimon was up again more quickly this time. He didn’t need to be, though - his distraction had proved effective, as Andrexmon had time to charge forward and deliver an Energy Claw to Veedramon’s other arm, unleashing a bloody spray and getting another pained roar from the dragon. Darkvargmon finished things off by popping up in front of Veedramon and letting loose another Blasting Darkness, which was threw the off-kilter beast to the ground, heaving hard and leaking blood from several open wounds…right about the time Boltfalkemon and Skydramon came down from above, having dispatched Flymon.

“You two all right?” Andrexmon asked. “You look like you’ve been through the wringer, Bolt.”

“I won’t be unhappy to not have to face any of those again for a long time,” Boltfalkemon said tiredly. “I’ll live, though…wouldn’t mind something to take the edge off this stupid poison, though.”

“Looks like you guys handled this asshole all right,” Skydramon huffed, readying his Aero Nail. “Want me to do the honors? It’ll be quieter than your cannon.”

“NO!” All five were startled by the sudden panicked shout from Veedramon, strained but desperate. “P-please, don’t! I…I’m sorry! I won’t do any more! J-just don’t kill me, please!”

“It’s a little late to be talking mercy,” growled Andrexmon.

“I’m sorry! I…I didn’t want to come here! She made me! She didn’t give me a choice! I’ll leave quietly, I promise!”

“It seems to me that you should have considered the consequences of your actions far before you were coerced into this in the first place,” said Darkvargmon dangerously. “Considering the nature of your allegiances, mercy isn’t something we’re inclined to provide-”

“Enough.” Burnreptimon interrupted Darkvargmon forcefully, causing them all to look over to him as he stepped over to Veedramon, trying to look more imposing than he felt - with the adrenaline abating, he was feeling the blows a bit more. Still, he got up close, smacking a hand down on Veedramon and looking at him with glinting eyes, making Veedramon cringe and withdraw a bit. “Explain.”

“I…I didn’t...she outranked me. She had…favor with Emperius more than I did…I didn’t want to go with her, I just…I just wanted to get stronger! I didn’t wanna invade some stupid other world! I don’t care about humans, I just…I just want to go home!”

“…Can you?”

“U-huh?”

“Can you?” Burnreptimon hissed darkly. “Can you go home? Back to the digital world?”

“Y-yeh…I can…I…th-they gave me a charge…when I got through…I swear I’m telling the truth…”

“…Two conditions. You stay away from this world, and you stay away from Emperius. For GOOD. And if you don’t, don’t think we won’t hunt you down and finish the job. Got it?” The cowed Veedramon nodded hurriedly, and Burnreptimon straightened himself up and pulled back. “Fine. Then go. And do something better with your life.”

“Th…thank you…” Silence met that, and Veedramon didn’t wait for more. His body started to glow, an odd light appearing in the air above him. Before their eyes, the dragon’s form was enveloped and drawn in a spiraling fashion up around the light, a whooshing sound accompanying the disappearance. After every trace of Veedramon had been drawn up and into the aether, the light vanished, winking out with only a little puff of steam-like miasma dissipating into the air to indicate it had ever been there.

Dead silence lingered over them for a moment, before Darkvargmon broke the silence, turning towards Burnreptimon. “What the HELL, Burner?!”

“What the hell what?” the reptile replied back brusquely.

“Why did you do that?” Skydramon challenged, sounding angry. “You just let him go back to Emperius!”

“No, I let him go back to the digital world. I very much doubt he’ll be back to Emperius.”

“How can you be so sure?!”

“Skyder, easy!” Andrexmon growled. “I want to know what’s going on, too, but yelling at him isn’t the way to go about things!”

“Thanks, Rex.” Burnreptimon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I did it for two reasons. The first was to see what he was going to do. You saw that, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Boltfalkemon said shakily. “He had a way to go back. Emperius…their PTM’s more advanced than ours is. Even if that’s the only new thing they can do with it yet, that’s BIG. It means they’ve been working on it longer than we thought…”

“Among other things,” agreed Burnreptimon. “Knowing that was kind of important. If he had been bluffing, then we would have had another question to deal with, but he wasn’t. So now that we know that…I need you to all be with me.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Darkvargmon.

“Emperius…they are an organization of uncompromising fanatics, bent on seizing power at any cost and insensitive to the idea of mercy or compassion unless it serves their personal benefit.” Burnreptimon looked at each one of them. “I want us to make a pact, right now, that we won’t be that way.”

“I’m…not really sure I like what you’re implying,” Andrexmon rumbled, eying the lizard suspiciously.

“I’m sure you don’t, but this is important. We’re a very small, very desperate team against a force that’s larger than any of us can easily conceive of. It would be all too easy for any of us to shut down against them, treat them as a shapeless, formless enemy, where our only goal is their utter destruction. But we can’t let ourselves do that. As tempting as it would be, as much as we might feel like it’s an onerous burden, we treat them like people, because they ARE people. And because the whole idea we’re fighting against is that some people aren’t worth being treated as people just because they decide it should be that way. And if we let ourselves fall into that, then we risk losing sight of what our real cause is - and put them at risk instead.”

“I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here, but I hope you’re not suggesting that we constantly look to be pulling our punches,” said Darkvargmon stiffly. “That could end up putting us in far deeper danger than we can afford.”

“Not at all,” replied the lizard, shaking his head. “While they’re fighting us, fight like your life depends on it, because it likely does. You’re right, Wolf, we can’t afford to be afraid to kill, and if we end up not getting the chance to show mercy, then that’s the reality of our fight, and there’s nothing we can do about it. But we have to be afraid to stop caring. Remember the Knight’s Code that we all agreed to - our digimon halves, anyway. ‘A disabled combatant should never be executed without a chance to repent.’ If they still try to lash out even after we give them the chance, that’s the choice they made, but if they choose to run, we make sure they get that chance.”

“I get what you’re saying…but…” Boltfalkemon’s brow furrowed. “Back then, we had a lot more help, a lot more support…are you sure we can-”

“We can, and we will. Guys, I need you to remember what’s going on here. Emperius has never been without its reluctant warriors. They’ve been forcing some digimon to fight with them for years, or be annihilated by them. They might have changed their tactics somewhat, but there’s no way that’s stopped entirely. And there may be others who are among them who’ve started to doubt…that happened a number of times back before their resurgence, you all know a few of our allies who used to be with them. I don’t know what was the case with the Veedramon, but his heart wasn’t in it, you could tell.”

“You could?” asked Skydramon.

“…It wasn’t exactly that hard to tell, really,” Andrexmon said. “But I think I get it now. There are people we might fight against who aren’t really the kinds of lunatics that make up the worst of them. Who were forced into it, or suckered into it, or might be rethinking things but can’t safely escape. Giving them a chance to get out of this, it would be as much rescuing them as anyone else put at risk by Emperius. But if we just shut down our brains and blast them to smithereens…”

“…We risk committing the same atrocities.” Darkvargmon sighed, rubbing his head. “Burner, it terrifically annoys me how much sense you’re making. It complicates things enormously.”

“Yeah, well, it’s always harder when you’re trying to be the good guys.” Burnreptimon looked around at them. “If it helps at all, I think there’s a good chance that the vast majority of those we let go won’t be back with Emperius. Even for those who do still buy in, would you want to go back to a group like them and tell them that you couldn’t cut it in the human world?”

“They DO tend to turn on people who show too much weakness,” conceded Skydramon. “All right, all right. You’ve talked me into it. But if they try to fake me out, they’re getting an Aero Nail to the throat.”

“Of course. It’s an offer, if they don’t take it then it’s withdrawn. We shouldn’t have to get close to them to let them bail out, so don’t let them get close enough to ambush you if you can help it.”

“I can’t argue with the logic,” Andrexmon agreed. “I’ll agree to this, it’ll probably help me feel better about this whole mess anyway.”

“Thinking about even getting in the same universe as Emperius’s thinking gives me the creepy shivers,” added Boltfalkemon. “We don’t think like them, and we don’t have to act like them. We can respect their lives and still drop them if they make us.”

“I don’t know that I’m as merciful as the rest of you, but for the sake of camaraderie, I’ll do my best,” rounded out Darkvargmon. “I suppose this means I should practice some more to make sure I get good at restraint, I feel there’s a good chance it’ll be needed.”

“Thank you, everyone,” Burnreptimon said with a nod. “We’ll do this and do it as right as we can. We’ll show Emperius we won’t have to descend to their level to be strong. They think cruelty and callousness is a sign of being powerful…they’re wrong. And they’ll see it, whether they accept it or not.”

“A bold statement, but perhaps we should rein in our confidence until we’re in a better state.”

“Guys?” Andrexmon stiffened up a bit. “There’s a bunch of vehicles coming our way. We’d better split, literally and figuratively!”

“Right! Scatter everyone! We’ll meet back up again soon!” The five warriors took off in different directions, leaving nothing but the signs of conflict in the field for the investigators. The next challenge for them, and they knew it, was managing this side of the equation - fighting Emperius, even under their newly-agreed terms, was straightforward enough, but how would they manage the pursuit of the ones who didn’t even realize they were trying to protect them?

Chapter Text

Silent movement was not the strongest attribute of a twelve-foot dinosaur. The Allomon was grudgingly doing his best, despite really wishing he didn’t have to…though his grumbling was only just under his breath, not quiet enough if others would have been around to chide him.

“Lousy bunch of…making me ‘scout’…throwing me into some weird world where I can’t even blow stuff up…what’s even the point? Aren’t we supposed to be conquering this place? These buildings aren’t tough, they’re not even reinforced…” The Allomon scowled as he looked around the residential street at the houses, all darkened at the very late hour. It annoyed him so much that he was told he was just supposed to gather information and head back - no causing chaos or getting distracted. Just because they’d lost an inordinate number of scouts…which in itself was a reason he didn’t want to be there, there were rumors that someone in this world was hunting them down, strange digimon-like creatures that no one knew what to make of, ‘tainted ones’ that were allegedly sullying themselves with humanity, whatever the hell THAT meant. And the Allomon hated confrontation…the only reason he was with the group in the first place was that he was too intimidated to say no. But he DID love to cause mayhem, and the sight of so many destructible buildings around, with no one prepared to take him on, seemed like a playground to him. Even better, they were small enough to not be a real challenge, but big enough to be satisfying.

“Dammit…like being in a toy store except you can’t touch…” He almost stomped in frustration, then remembered that he was trying to be silent. “Not even anything here to care about…maybe those scouts are just lazy asses that are loafing around. Tch, I don’t even have anything to tell them, and then they’re gonna get all mean and yelly again. I hate when they’re yelly. Rrrf…if I’m gonna get into trouble anyway…I oughta at least have a little fun before then…”

As he looked around at his prospective targets, he didn’t notice the darkness moving around him…at least, not until his arms, legs, tail, and neck were seized by shadowy tendrils that pulled him down onto the ground. He tried to struggle, but he was at a disadvantage, and before he knew it his jaw, chest, and knees were on the asphalt, his position giving him the least amount of leverage to try to pull away. As he tried to figure things out, he saw two figures approaching, one red reptilian and the other a cyborg dinosaur of some kind. Suddenly his heart was pounding - what the hell were these things? They couldn’t have been digimon, there weren’t supposed to be any digimon in this world, or anything like them…were they the rumored ‘tainted ones’? And what could possibly have been holding him down, because he didn’t see anything on them?

“Well, well, well…look what we have here.” The fire lizard’s voice was menacing and nasty, making the Allomon flinch. “Another Emperius rat crawling around like he owns the place. Let me guess, ‘scout work?’”

“…Er…y-yeah?”

“Funny, because you didn’t look like you were scouting anything except for something to destroy,” growled the cyborg in a deeper yet equally-malevolent voice. “Looking to take down a few houses before you left? Randomly hurt people here because you couldn’t find what you were looking for?”

“N-no, I…” The Allomon was starting to tremble. He could barely open his jaw, something dark had wrapped around it, and that made his one feasible attack from this position impossible to use. He was a sitting duck, at the mercy of whatever these creatures wanted to do…and even though he was larger than them, it felt like he was barely anything to them at the moment.

“We don’t appreciate you monsters trying to ruin this place,” the fire lizard spat. “Bad enough you’re scouring the digital world with your taint, these innocent souls over here don’t even know what you are.”

“Maybe you’re the one who oughta get a taste of pain when you’re helpless and vulnerable, see how much you like it,” snarled the cyborg dino, the cannon arm of his starting to glow ominously.

Pathetic didn’t even begin to describe it, but the Allomon wasn’t in position to care as he started whimpering feebly. “No, no, please, don’t, I’m sorry, I won’t do anything! I’ll leave, I promise!”

“Leave, NOW,” replied the lizard. “And don’t you EVER go back to Emperius. If you do, we’ll come for you…don’t think we won’t find you, either. My buddy here’s going to remember your signal, if he sees it anywhere near them, you’ll be lucky to have any data left to recycle.”

Allomon whimpered again, but they didn’t move, letting him trigger his return charge. Thankfully he didn’t need anything but his thoughts to do so…as his head began to spin from being sucked back towards the digital world, he dimly realized he still didn’t know what it was that had threatened him…and he decided that he’d rather never have a reason to find out than risk falling on their bad side. Emperius could shove off, he was out.

———

“There’s GOT to be a better way of doing this. I feel like a schoolyard bully.”

Burnreptimon smirked as the light from the disappearing Allomon faded away. “You’re the one with the heaviest firepower, I figured you’d have the most intimidation factor. It got him taking off, didn’t it?”

Andrexmon folded his arms, snorting quietly. “I guess. It hurts my soul, though.”

“Eh, you’re part machine, last I checked they worked fine without those.” Darkvargmon popped up in front of them, while the other two flew in from their hiding spots. “Nicely done, though. I admit I was a bit skeptical, but you had the read on him, Burner.”

“Hah, it was easy,” chuckled Burnreptimon. “I mean, come on, anyone who couldn’t look at his face and see ‘big fat wuss’ written all over it needs to have their head or their eyes checked.”

“Huh?” Skydramon cocked his head. “How’d you figure that out just looking at him?”

“…Nope, not gonna grab THAT low-hanging fruit.”

“It seems to be working, at least,” Boltfalkemon said. “That makes six we’ve been able to send away without more than a brief skirmish. Every time, it’s a lot quieter and less attention-grabbing. And feels a lot better than those two where they fought to the bitter end…”

“I don’t have remorse to spare on them,” growled Burnreptimon. “They chose death just to have the chance to spread the kind they wanted to spread.”

“I’m not saying I regret it. Just that it doesn’t feel good.”

“Wouldn’t expect it to…” Darkvargmon’s voice trailed off. “Uh-oh. I believe I hear something unfortunate.”

“Damn it all!” Andrexmon snarled. “There’s a convoy of cars coming towards us! And two helicopters! Fine time for my damn teleport module to be nonfunctional…”

“You’ve got to get that fixed.”

“I KNOW. I’ve been trying!”

“Enough!” snapped Burnreptimon. “Bolt, Skyder, you need to do something about those helicopters! There’s no way I’ll be able to escape their sights, much less Andrexmon! Try to disable them, and then get down before someone from the ground starts firing at you! We’ll try to run in the meantime! Meet up you know where, but don’t let yourself be followed there!”

The five scattered fast, as the sound of approaching cars and copters bore down on them. The chaos of a digimon battle had been averted, but the night’s excitement was just beginning.

———

Boltfalkemon and Skydramon quickly split off in the air, each focusing on one helicopter. Boltfalkemon knew her challenge was tougher, she wasn’t quite as fast as Skydramon, so if they caught on to her there was a good chance she wouldn’t get away. She had to do this quickly and efficiently.

There was a searchlight under her helicopter, scanning the ground underneath in search of its quarry. But that can’t be all, they have to be using night vision, too…I’ll need to try to disable both. And I can’t overdo the electricity, otherwise I might knock out the pilots or the copter entirely. I think if I get underneath, I might be able to just knock them out with a fist…yeah, that sounds super easy.

Easy or not, she had to try it. Forward she flew, trying to keep low enough to be not easily spotted by her target but high enough to be out of the eye of the spotlight. It got extremely loud as she got close, not a pleasant thing, but she managed to slip underneath. The camera was mounted near the spotlight, and one forceful punch knocked it off and sent it careening to the ground below. Hopefully with no one underneath, but she couldn’t have controlled that.

The copter hadn’t moved much from that blow, but she knew they had to have felt it; they would be taking evasive action in a hurry. She didn’t have time to think, she shifted slightly and swung her fist at the spotlight. The glass shattered as she hit it, and she clenched her beak as she felt pain shoot through her hand and wrist as they were gashed by the glass shards - but she had nailed the bulb, and just in time as it started to fly back to try to avoid the attack. She didn’t wait around for them to detect her, instead making a dive for tree cover below.

It wasn’t the cleanest of landings as she came down through the trees themselves rather than wasting time looking for space; she nailed a few branches and netted a few more scratches for her effort, but she did successfully reach the ground. Things seemed quiet around her, so she took a moment to settle her heard and assess her wounds. She had a quartet of cuts along the back and side of her hand, some long enough to go down to the wrist; some bleeding, but not emergency-level. She flexed her fingers, finding that they all still worked, even if there was a bit of pain. A small price to pay for clearing out a serious problem to their escape, at least…

I guess I’d better get go-AH! Boltfalkemon didn’t even know why she did it, she just whipped around and punched out with her Static Cracker. She hit someone square in the chest, sending him flying backwards a couple feet and hitting the ground hard on his back. Boltfalkemon’s heart leapt into her throat - she hadn’t even noticed him!

She rushed to his side, forgetting the need for stealth and escape for the moment. And then it only got worse - she knew him! Robert McGovern, ‘Bob’ to her and Derek, he was one of their fathers’ co-workers, a bald, rather large-statured black man who seemed too friendly to be working a job like this, at least when it came to Iris’s experience with him. Rapidly she checked his heart - putting her palm on his chest rather than seeking a pulse, unconsciously gravitating towards the electrical sense. The beat was fast and hard, but mercifully even, hopefully a sign that he wasn’t in imminent danger of arrest.

But he was still down, moaning a bit, and she knew she couldn’t just leave him. But she couldn’t expose herself, either…the answer hit her in a flash, she checked Bob’s belt and found a radio transmitter. She knew how they worked from playing with Emil’s, so she switched it on and hoped it was automatically on the right channel. “Whoever’s there, please send help! An agent is down, he’s suffered an electrical shock. His condition is stable but he needs support, as soon as possible!”

She waited for a response on the other end. When she got it, there was nothing but confusion. “Who are you? Identify yourself immediately!”

“I’m…not an enemy. That’s all I can say. Please hurry, he isn’t moving much and it might not be safe out here.” She looked around, trying to get a better location for them, but couldn’t make out anything. “He’s…in the vicinity of the deployment tonight. That’s all I know.”

“You will identify yourself immediately! Who are you and how did you get this connection?”

Boltfalkemon didn’t respond this time, dropping the radio next to the agent. She hoped that whoever was on the other end would take the silence to mean there was no point in continuing. A louder moan from Bob had her put her hand on him to keep him still. “Please don’t try to move, Bob. I’ve called for help, you should stay here and rest. I can’t stay with you, but I hope nothing else happens.”

She didn’t wait for a response or anything else, instead taking off on foot. She would have to fly again to get away properly, but she had a fear they would be scanning the skies, and she wanted to make sure they had dropped their guards before she lifted off again. And it would help her calm her racing heartbeat, which she hoped wasn’t going to lead to HERS giving out…

———

Skydramon’s approach was much faster than Boltfalkemon’s, though he had the luxury of an option like that. Gotta knock out that searchlight! And I know just the way to do it! He rushed towards the helicopter, forming a slightly restrained Twister Orb in his hand as he did. Focusing hard on the base, he flung the sphere at the light. It impacted with the sound of shattering glass, barely audible over the roar of the rotors, taking the light out dead. The helicopter wobbled a bit, but stayed up.

“Ha ha! Score one for us!” Skydramon pumped his fist, but his celebration was short-lived as he saw another device underneath. Wait, is there more? Oh, shoot! These must be those copters equipped with night vision that they use for criminal pursuits! Even without the spotlight they might be able to pick us up! Right, gonna have to get up close for this one. Without the spotlight, he was pretty sure he couldn’t be tracked, but he didn’t want to prolong this any more than he had to, so he flapped his wings and rushed towards the underside of the helicopter. One hand stretched out and glowed with energy. “Aero Nail!” He swung it forward as he passed dangerously close underneath, nailing the camera module and tearing it to pieces with only a slight gouge in the copter’s hull.

Now THAT oughta take care of it…and now I’m probably safer on the ground until they’ve lost track of anything that went after their birds. They’re not gonna be happy about this, but we didn’t have many options. Calming down a bit, Skydramon scanned around for tree cover and swooped down towards a spot that looked pretty promising. All he needed to do was seclude himself and then wait out the excitement, then he could use the cover of darkness to fly back to their meeting point. He landed on the sidewalk right in front of the trees, anticipating a quick sneak in and he was home free.

The telltale click of a pistol hammer quickly disabused him of that notion. “Don’t move a goddamned muscle.”

Skydramon obeyed pretty readily, freezing as hard as he could. His new body was much more durable than those of his parts, but he wasn’t ready to test them against gunfire.

“Turn around, hands up. Don’t try any funny business or I WILL shoot you.”

“You might wanna lighten up just a bit there,” growled Skydramon as he turned and complied. He had a lone human with a gun drawn at him, slightly shaky but clearly standing firm against him. Great. I can’t let him use that as I try to escape. I need to get that gun away from him…

“Save it. I don’t want to hear it…bad enough that you creatures can talk in the first place.”

“What’s so bad about that? We could tell you what we’re doing here.”

“I’m not interested in hearing lies. I hear enough of them from the creeps we bring in. I don’t know who you think you are, but we’re not going to go down to you, not without giving you the fight of your lives.”

“Okay, Rambo, let’s just-” Skydramon motioned forward accidentally, then back a step as that gun rose a bit more. Dammit. This is just as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. “I’m guessing you’re not going to listen when I say I’m not your enemy, are you?”

“Not our enemy? You think I buy into that crap?” The agent spat aggressively. “I’ve seen what you monsters have done! You’re a menace that needs to be put down…if I wasn’t under orders, I’d have ended your miserable life right now, creature.”

“Under orders? So they’re trying to capture us alive? Why?” Skydramon knew the quote about gift horses, but this one seemed like it needed a peek in the mouth; it was new information they could probably use.

“Why should I tell you?”

Skydramon cocked his head. “Don’t you think I’d find out anyway if you’re successful? I’m not gonna suddenly go blank in the head after you theoretically capture me.”

“…Hmph. Well, they think they can LEARN about you. Figure out what the hell you’re doing to make the other monsters show up. I think they’re idiots - stop the source, stop the invasion. Simple as that. But orders are orders.”

They legit think we’re summoning the other monsters. Crap on a cracker. So much for any chance of clearing anything up tonight. Skydramon couldn’t let himself be captured, though, because that would leave only four of them to stand against Emperius. Think fast, think fast…distraction. Get him off-guard, use a Force Gale to disrupt him, then try to surge in. Not the safest plan, but I’m out of options. “So you don’t agree that learning about us would be a good thing?”

“Why are you still chattering? Didn’t I say I didn’t want to hear it? I don’t know what the hell you’re up to, but I know it’s not good, that’s all I need to know!”

“I’d say you’re wrong about that. If you don’t know what I’m up to, how do you know that you’ve actually stopped it?”

“Wh…what are you talking about?”

“Think about it. You don’t know anything about me. All you think you know is that I’m bad news. That means you don’t know who I am, where I come from, what I can do, or why I would do it.” Skydramon felt his mouth speed up as he talked, getting into the groove seemed to make him speak a bit faster. “That leaves you completely in the dark about any truths about me, which means that you won’t have any idea how to stop anything I’m doing that you might not be aware of. For all you know everything I wanted to do could already be accomplished and you wouldn’t have the slightest idea! Killing me might not just be useless, it might even be the trigger! So all that not-knowing that you’re doing is hurting you in the long run! Whoever’s giving you orders knows that that’s what they need to be doing, and I think you agree because you’re obeying them rather than flaunting them!”

The agent’s eye twitched a bit at the high-speed commentary. “That…you…it’s pointless! It’s not like you’d tell us anything anyway! Just like you’re not telling me anything now!”

“That’s where you’re wrong again! I’ve told you multiple things, you just won’t listen to any of them. That’s another problem with being closed off to learning more about the situation, when you don’t know anything you get so fixated on what you think that what you think becomes what you think you know! You say you ‘know’ it but you don’t actually know anything about it, it’s just your personal thoughts substituting for actual knowledge and potentially blocking that same knowledge out! See this is why scientists are supposed to always have an open mind and be willing to accept that their findings are incorrect, because you can’t gain knowledge if your preconceived notions are all you’re willing to listen to!” Skydramon had taken a step forward without realizing it, but the agent hadn’t reacted. “I could tell you a bunch of things you could tell them if they really wanted to learn more about us, though I would have to be sure that they actually wanted to listen and wouldn’t block out anything they didn’t want to-”

“Gah! Shut up! I can barely understand what you’re even saying!” the agent yelled. “You’re just trying to confuse me! You’re trying to mess me up in the head so that I screw up! I’m not going to let that happen!”

“You’re right! I AM trying to confuse you! Confusion opens up the mind! It makes it harder to cling to things you think you know! And when your mind is opened up, then you might listen to the truth when it smacks you in the face! Or blows you over from the side!” Suddenly a potent wind shot up from Skydramon’s right, causing the agent to stagger and lose balance. Skydramon shot forward, snatching the gun and wrestling it out of the agent’s hand after a second of struggle. He leapt back, now safe, with the agent on his back and looking at him wide-eyed. “Phew…I wasn’t sure that was going to work.”

“You…you monster! You’re…” The agent slowly crawled back a bit, looking much less bold without his weapon. “What…what did you do to me?”

“Nothing. Seriously, it was just the wind, right? Only thing I’m going to do to anything is this to this!” Skydramon tossed the gun a couple feet into the air, then swung down with his other hand, delivering a vicious Aero Nail; the pieces of the weapon clattered to the ground, no longer a threat. “Whoo! I did NOT know if that was possible! Good to know! Man, I could do that to every gun in the hands of a dingbat nutcase…well, that’d probably take up way too much of my time.”

“What…the hell…” It was harder to tell if the agent was more awed or terrified. Skydramon snapped back to attention, turning towards the human who flinched back.

“Relax. I’m not going to hurt you. Maybe you’ll open your ears now, though. I’m giving you a warning. There’s a nightmare coming for this world. I don’t mean in the indeterminate future, I mean it’s happening RIGHT NOW. And you’re chasing after the wrong people if you want to face it head-on. All we’ve been doing is trying to help you, and you’re making that harder for us. If I felt like I could find someone to tell who would listen, I would, but I don’t trust them not to just shoot me, orders or not. But maybe they’ll listen to you. In the meantime, stay out of our way if you know what’s good for you, because if I don’t show up one of these days, you’re probably in deeper crap than you could ever swim out of.”

Skydramon didn’t bother waiting for a response this time, instead bolting into the trees - he had already lost a good bit of escape time thanks to that incident. And he was kicking himself for not paying more attention. I could’ve seen him if I’d looked before I landed. Maybe he would’ve spotted me but I would’ve been able to find another spot to hide. I have to be more aware of things. He hoped that his rush now would keep him out of anyone else’s sight, so he wouldn’t have to risk the air again until things had calmed down.

———

Andrexmon couldn’t have been more annoyed. It already hadn’t been a good night - his father (Isaac’s father, anyhow) had gotten on his case about leaving the house without notice when he went to take on a digimon intrusion earlier that day. After that had been dealt with, in fortunately bloodless fashion, he’d been trying to get back when his teleporter module encountered an error. He’d been trying to fix it when he’d been summoned that night, so he’d had to go out without, resulting in him being later to the meeting and given hell over it again. And now, just for the EXACT situation where being able to warp out would’ve been most helpful, he was stuck trudging through trees behind yards, trying to avoid being noticed as much as an eight-foot-tall cybernetic dinosaur could.

Which isn’t much. I really need more backup options.

The problem was too many ideas, not enough time - especially if they didn’t work right. He’d been working on a module to give himself a speed boost, but it wasn’t ready yet. Neither was the cloaking program, which he’d borrowed from Datacarnomon’s but was struggling with upscaling without it being a severe energy drain. He’d programmed a rudimentary barrier program, but it seemed flaky at best and he wasn’t about to trust it in the field of battle without some more assurance of its effectiveness.

At least the helicopters are out of the picture. His ears could no longer hear the drone of the rotor blades. That must mean Bolt and Skyder were successful. Burner’s gonna have an easier time getting away than I am, and Wolf’s staying back to monitor things. It’s probably gone the best it could to this point…I can’t be the only one who screws it up.

He thought about splitting apart, but it was too risky - even if they were less visible and less conspicuous, someone was going to put two and two together at some point. It was bad enough that Ashley already knew the truth about Datacarnomon, if she got one good look at Andrexmon and there was any suspicious absence at all, it would be an immediate calamity. Not to mention Isaac and Datacarnomon would be a lot easier to capture...at least maybe in this body, he had enough intimidation factor to keep people away. And he was willing to try to blast them lightly if he needed to, his cannon was plenty dangerous but he could dial it back pretty far, far enough that he’d be willing to risk shooting it at a human, at least in the leg or something.

It would be better if I could figure out where they were, so I could avoid them. I don’t like this creeping around without having any idea what’s going on…if I just had some way of detecting-

The dinosaur stopped dead, and a moment later, a painful clank followed by a growled “Ow!” was heard. Note to self: don’t facepalm with the metal arm. God DAMMIT. Why haven’t I been using my sensors? I switched them right off after we bolted! I could have been using those from the start, and known exactly what I needed to worry about! The hell’s wrong with me? This stuff should be second nature by now!

With a sigh, he shook his head and went to activate his sensors. A map appeared in his head, showing basic topography around his location. It’s ridiculously easy, too, I already have ‘human’ signals specially flagged. Bring that up, I can see exactly where they-

It was a brief moment of recognition - a signal barely five yards from him. He wheeled around, pointing his cannon in the direction, snarling fiercely at a quivering wild shrub. “UP. Stand up. Don’t make ANY sudden moves.”

The figure stood up…and Andrexmon felt his stomach turn at the same time as he felt a rush of relief. It was a boy, maybe ten or eleven, looking both awed and petrified. “Holy hell, kid. You scared the bejeezus out of me. What are you doing out here?”

The boy didn’t respond, his expression frozen in that same terrorized reverence. Andrexmon quickly realized what part of the problem was - his still-raised arm. Quickly he brought it down, sighing. One downside of using bio-signal sensors, he could tell where there were humans, but he wasn’t privy to any details about them. He probably had just put the fear of god into the kid because he hadn’t been cautious enough to start with.

“Okay…let me take a guess. You heard something was going on out here tonight and you got curious and wanted to see what it was about?” A hesitant nod from the boy, who at least seemed less frightened now that he wasn’t at cannonpoint. Andrexmon had to guess he’d come from the house just nearby, his path had taken him behind some back yards. “Yeah, figured as much. Listen, I get curiosity, but you do NOT want to be out here. It’s incredibly dangerous. I’m only out here because I look like this. You wanna see monsters, go look online, where it’s…well, safer, at least.”

“Y-you…” Oh, hey, he does speak. “You’re…not…gonna h-hurt me?”

“Kid…” Andrexmon sighed and knelt down, looking at the boy closer to on his level - being as big as he was, it was the best he could do. “There are plenty of monsters out here that would think NOTHING of hurting you. Believe me when I say that, I don’t like to scare you but it’s the truth. And I have no idea when or where they’re going to pop up, and neither does anyone else. But that’s not my thing. I’m one of the good ones. And even then I came too close to making a big mistake. Stay in and keep your distance, it’s too risky to be coming out here alone.”

The kid nodded and then hustled back to the house. Andrexmon rubbed his head…too many close calls, and all because he’d been inefficient. I can’t afford to get lackadaisical. Too much can go wrong. I have to be better. He started back on his trek, keeping his sensors well active this time, intent on not running into a single other person until he was back at base.

———

It was one of those rare times Burnreptimon actually wished he could fly - it had to be easier than tromping along the pavement like he was. Sure, he was pretty fleet of foot, but he still felt way more vulnerable confined largely to two dimensions. At least the pursuit had been hindered, with the helicopters seemingly safely taken out of commission, but there was another problem he hoped they were all aware of - their pursuers hadn’t just been zeroing in on their location, but fanning out to try to cover a larger area around the epicenter of activity. He’d realized this as he’d almost run into one of the other cars during his initial escape, and had managed to avoid detection only by a mighty leap that had actually taken him onto a rooftop.

If I could jump from roof to roof, it’d probably be a faster way to travel…but there’s no way in hell people wouldn’t notice, and somehow I doubt I wouldn’t be doing any damage. Does insurance cover ‘acts of bizarre digimon/human hybrids?’ Let’s not find out.

He finally returned to the ground after the car was out of sight, but he was still somewhat exposed - the direction he’d taken had little in the way of tree cover. It also wasn’t the way he needed to go to get back to their hideaway, but if someone did see him, he wanted them to be misdirected. Still, it meant he had a lot of ground to cover. I’d move faster if I channeled my Pyre Rush, but that makes me glow and flame somewhat, I’d be like a beacon.

He waited a bit before trying to double back farther down the neighborhood. It was eerily quiet without the helicopters, leaving him feeling a touch paranoid. None of this feels good…There’s got to be a better way of doing this. I halfway feel like just saying ‘screw it’ and just being out there might do us some good…maybe we’d get into a sort of Spider-Man situation where some authorities hate us but other people support us and don’t report when they see us or something like that. That’s what Spider-Man is like, right? I actually know, like, nothing about him-

“DON’T MOVE!” It took everything Burnreptimon had not to immediately flame the space where that voice came from. Instead he wheeled towards it, hands raised to try to act innocent. There were two men there, both with guns drawn, though only one was actually pointed at him, by what looked like a police officer with a short-cut haircut and a burly frame, and a wild look in his eyes. The other one, held by an agent who looked as wide-eyed as a deer in the headlights, was pointed at the ground with trembling hands.

“Fucking scumbag lizard! I’ve got you now!” The officer was way too loud, and it was making Burnreptimon wince; people in the surrounding houses were going to hear for sure.

“Easy, easy! I’m not trying to hurt you-”

“Shut up! Just shut your filthy reptile mouth before I put a hole in it!” Burnreptimon bit back the urge to mention that his mouth was already a rather large hole on account of the gun in the cop’s hands. He very much didn’t like what he was getting from this guy, it seemed like he was just looking for a reason to shoot. I need to be ready to protect myself, but I can’t wait until he shoots, I’m not going to have it up in time.

“Sir, we…we’re not supposed to shoot them, we have a capture-alive order…” the agent’s voice was quiet enough that Burnreptimon could barely hear it.

“Shut it! You wanna let this fucking freak run wild and kill people? You should be glad I’m here to take care of things properly.”

“I’m not running around killing people who haven’t attacked me first,” growled Burnreptimon. “I’m trying to help you idiots!”

“I SAID SHUT UP!” the cop roared, and the agent squeaked as that gun went higher. “When I tell you the shut up, you shut the hell up, lizard!”

Burnreptimon couldn’t risk it any longer; he crossed his arms and yelled “Heat Field!” just as the gun fired. The fiery reptilian braced himself, unsure how well the barrier would stand up to bullets…on raw heat alone, there was no way they’d have any appreciable effect, he knew that full well, but the disruptor field accelerated projectile degradation. Enough to protect him, though?

As it turned out, yes. What hit Burnreptimon were splats of melted lead, rather than solid bullets. The speed of the impact still could be felt, but he knew it was going to be bruises rather than holes, and that he could handle. Though the dozen of them he got as the cop emptied his service pistol at him were not going to be particularly pleasant to feel for the time being, it beat being dead.

“Fucker!” The cop tried to reload, and that was when Burnreptimon took his chance. He raced forward, startling both cop and agent; the agent was too slow to raise his weapon, and Burnreptimon snatched it up. The cop put up more of a struggle, trying to both get the agent’s weapon and free his own, but Burnreptimon managed to heat the weapon enough that it burned the cop’s hand and he finally let go as Burnreptimon shoved him to the ground. Burnreptimon jumped back a bit, putting some space between them as the cop got back to his feet, the agent having retreated away and was still staring saucer-eyed at him.

“Right, these are dangerous, especially in the hands of you two.” Burnreptimon turned up the heat on the weapons, feeding them heat until he could feel the barrels melt and deform in his hands. “I’d rather live tonight, if it’s all the same to you.”

“This isn’t over, you piece of shit!” roared the cop angrily. “I’ll turn you into fucking shoes with my bare hands if I have to!”

“Fine thank-you for all I’ve been doing for you guys,” snarled Burnreptimon. “They’d be walking all over you if it wasn’t for us. How about a bit of gratitude rather than gunfire?”

“Shut the hell UP!”

“Make me.” Burnreptimon regretted those words almost immediately as the cop actually ran at him with a roar that could have rivaled some pretty impressive digimon. His physical prowess, however, did not match up, and Burnreptimon caught the punch he tried to throw, then whipped him around, bending his arm behind his back as the cop cried out in pain. An elbow to the back of the head rung his bell, and Burnreptimon felt him slump, and let him down to the ground, the cop twitching and grunting.

Burnreptimon turned his eyes towards the agent. “Right. Let’s see if you have any more sense. Everyone in this city, and in this WORLD, is in big trouble if you don’t get your facts straight. If you want even a CHANCE at surviving, you’d better change your tune fast and start looking for allies rather than making enemies. You got that?”

No response. Burnreptimen grunted in frustration. What are the odds he passes that along? Probably none, but I can’t wait, they might have called for backup. He took off, rushing down the road and leaving the stunned cop and thunderstruck agent in his wake. He had a lot of ground to cover, and a mood far worse than when he’d started.

———

Standing by a pair of cars parked near where the Allomon had been driven off was a familiar face, at least to Darkvargmon. He watched with ire as the man spoke into a cell phone, catching only bits and pieces of his conversation. It sounded like he was giving a report, but to whom, the shadowy being had no idea.

What he did know, though, was that he didn’t like this person. He’d caught the name Lexis Redford, and it sounded like he was a federal investigator, though there was something about him that had Darkvargmon suspicious. Then again, maybe it was just that this was the same person who had been harassing them on their walk several days ago, and that bad first impression had stuck with him.

I dearly want to get at you, Mr. Redford. Put some fear into you, make you less of an outright pain…alas, it’s too risky, I would really rather not reveal myself to you, or anyone else who might be interested in me. But I’m going to be keeping my eyes open, and whatever form I’m in, if I get the chance to do so safely, I’m going to take it.

It wasn’t long before two more faces of interest showed up - Emil Conover and Elliot Katran, walking towards the cars with looks of frustration on their faces. That was good news as far as Darkvargmon was concerned - it likely meant that they hadn’t been successful this night, portending the escape of the others. Still, he waited and listened, trying to get a better idea of their perspective on things.

“Well?” Agent Redford’s voice had that stiff, imperious air to it…apparently, not just reserved for him.

Elliot shook his head. “No luck. The creatures managed to slip our perimeter. Two of them were directly engaged, one attacked one of the agents and downed him.”

“Hmph. Pathetic display. I expected better of you here.”

“We’re facing a threat the likes of which no one’s been prepared for,” replied Elliot curtly, and Darkvargmon was torn between satisfaction at his frustration and annoyance at Agent Redford’s haughty demeanor. Wouldn’t mind if they ate each other up, but I doubt that’ll happen. “We’re doing our best, but we’re still playing catch-up. Anyone else would be doing the same.”

“So you say, but I’m fairly certain we’d be better prepared than you are. Perhaps a change of authority should be in order…”

“Maybe you’re not familiar with how we do things here, mister Redford,” Emil said rather tiredly, “but part of the reason our joint ventures have worked so well is that you federal boys recognize that we know the turf here better than you do. Our jurisdiction above yours, unless we agree to put you in the lead.”

“This is a matter of national security! I’ve seen what those monsters are capable of!”

“Until they start appearing anywhere else, this is a matter for the city of Braun,” Elliot declared brusquely. “And if and when it does get to a larger scope, you’ll want to be as prepared as possible, which isn’t going to happen if you try to stroll in and take over everything while we’re working on trying to figure out what the hell is going on here. I’m more than welcome to having a federal presence here, but you need to work WITH us, not against us, or we can talk to your superior and find someone else who will.”

“…Fine.” It was hardly conciliatory, but Redford seemed unwilling to pursue it further, at least at the moment. “But you can’t keep letting these monsters escape you, or we WILL have to take more drastic action.”

“We’re working on that. We might not have captured any tonight, but we have information, at least. McGovern got sort of a look at the one that hit him. Dailey and Rivier both got very clear images of two others. We’re still missing two of them, though. It should be enough for the artist to help us present a very clear picture of what they are and give us an edge in searching for them.” That made Darkvargmon’s ears perk up. An artist? That’s not good…if they can spread our image around, we’ll have to be that much more careful.

“Sir!” A couple other men came running up to the trio. “Collins, sir! He saw one of them! The big, green, part-robot one!”

“You got a good look?” asked Emil excitedly.

The one named Collins nodded. “Clear as day, sir! Well, I mean, as clear as you can get at night, but I saw a lot of details! It seemed like it matched what you said they might have seen at Glikke Field!”

“You saw it and you didn’t try to engage it?” Redford asked sharply.

“I…I only had a service pistol…”

“Enough,” grunted Elliot. “I don’t want anyone getting themselves killed out here. Collins, keep what you saw fresh in your mind, you’re going to be interviewed tomorrow and I want every detail you can recall. The more you know, the better image we can create. They’ll have a lot harder time hiding if we can get the whole city’s eyes looking for them. Otherwise, I think we’ve gotten all we can out of this tonight. Round everyone up and let’s reconvene somewhere safer.”

Darkvargmon figured that now was a good time to take his leave; still, what he’d heard wasn’t entirely good news for them. We escaped, but we could be in trouble nonetheless. They were ready to mobilize, and they’re going to BE ready to mobilize when they get reports, especially when the people reporting them can match them to our appearances. We’re going to have to be much more careful how often we let ourselves be visible in these forms, who knows who could be getting their eyes on us?

———

Andrexmon was the last to show up at their hideaway, and he could tell by the looks on everyone else’s faces that they were all not in the best of moods. “I’d better not hear a word about this…”

“For once, I’m just glad you showed up, no matter when,” Darkvargmon said. “Burner wasn’t that far ahead of you, anyway.”

“Amount of ground I had to cover, I’m lucky I got here before I keeled over,” the lizard remarked tersely; he was breathing rather hard, clearly having exerted himself quite a bit. “And that’s without the fact that I got shot at.”

“Damn. You got made?”

“All of you did,” Darkvargmon reported. “I heard them talking about it…Rex, you got seen, but not confronted, from what I could tell.”

“Thanks to my boneheadedness,” the cyborg growled. “Feel like such an idiot having my sensors silent. Nearly had a messy run-in with a damned kid, too.”

“Yeah, well, I could’ve seen the guy I ran into if I’d been looking,” Skydramon groaned.

“I got careless and someone ambushed me from behind,” sighed Boltfalkemon. “Wolf, you didn’t hear them saying anything about how Bob was doing, did you?”

“Bob? Wait, Bob McGovern? That’s who ran into you?”

“Yeah…of all the people…”

“The joys of serendipity…” Darkvargmon rubbed his head, which almost looked like melding the two pieces together. “It sounded like he was all right, they were talking about how he got somewhat of a look at you, so I have to think that means he’s in good enough shape to be talking.”

“Did you hear them mention anything about a jerk-ass cop?” growled Burnreptimon.

“I can’t say that I did, but it sounded like an agent spotted you.”

“Had to be the one with him. Wide-eyed as he was the whole time, I’m not sure how he COULDN’T see me.” The reptile smacked his fist on the floor. “This just got a whole lot harder, didn’t it?”

“Undoubtedly. They’re planning to create some images and spread them all over Braun…we’re about to be the city’s most wanted, and it’s not going to be easy avoiding being spotted when we have to take on digimon coming through.”

“I don’t suppose we can tell them that we’re fighting against them?” asked Boltfalkemon heavily.

“The idiots think we’re calling them to us!” snapped Skydramon irritably. “They aren’t willing to listen right now…I don’t think we’re going to be able to get through to them until something changes.”

“Which means we need to keep a low profile,” concluded Burnreptimon. “I think we’re going to have to avoid coming here too much for a bit, and keep unmerged when walking outside for the time being. We can only do so much, but if we minimize our presence to only when it’s absolutely needed, then we might be able to get through this a bit longer. But something’s going to have to change soon, or we’re gonna find ourselves locked up or worse.”

“Yeah…and that’s gonna make it harder to actually find the guys that come through. Dammit!”

“…I’ll see what I can do about that,” said Andrexmon. “Maybe I can somehow extend my scan range…if I can, then we can find our enemies early and be ready to confront them more safely.”

“Anything you can do will be appreciated,” Darkvargmon said. “Because I have a feeling we’re still just at the beginning of all of this mess…”

Chapter Text

“All set?”

“Ready when you are.”

“Right, I’m activating the receiver now. Let me know if you see anything.”

“…Hah! Wicked! I can see everything!”

Isaac grinned and gave Datacarnomon a fist bump. “I knew it! And people just throw away these old satellite dishes like they were nothing!”

“Well, they don’t have a handy-dandy digimon to take advantage of them, do they? Hang on, let me see if I can get the display on your monitor…” After a few seconds, Isaac’s screen flashed and showed a large, basic topographical map. It was hard to know exactly what the extent was, but it was a range far larger than anything even Andrexmon had natively. “Bingo. You should be able to see what I look at when I try to do long-range detection.”

“You’ve got this good of a map already?”

“I downloaded one off of your internet, and analyzed another mapping tool for some additional information. Figured I’d need something to help give me a head start…huh?”

“What’s up?” Isaac looked at the screen, then at Datacarnomon. “I don’t see anything.”

“Uh…keep your eyes fixed in this spot here.” Datacarnomon pointed to a spot on the screen.

“Huh…that’s near our high school. Oh, hey, isn’t that the Trine Nature Walk?” Isaac watched the area carefully, but it seemed to be completely blank…until suddenly, after about a minute, he saw a red blip appear, briefly, and then disappear. “What the heck is that?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve got the detector flag to pop up anything digimon, so I couldn’t narrow it down. But those signals SHOULD be static, not appearing and disappearing. It’s possible that the set-up’s wonky, but…I don’t think that’s the case. Which has me wondering what the case is.”

“Possible false positive?”

“I’m not sure what would cause that. But I can’t rule it out. Still, I think we’re going to need to investigate.”

“Hm. We’re going to need to check it out. I’ll have to ring up the others, and-”

“Isaac!” Isaac flinched as he heard the call of his mother Lilith’s voice. “We’re leaving in half an hour! Make sure you’re ready!”

“Oh, crud, I forgot…” Isaac let out a sigh. “Of course, that stupid play.”

“That’s not cancelled like everything else?” asked Datacarnomon.

“It’s an hour away, there’s no monster attacks outside of Braun yet so other places are pretty much keeping on keeping on. Guess we’re gonna have to fob this off on someone else.”

“Maybe I can go with them instead?” suggested Datacarnomon. “I mean, I’m not gonna be much use sitting back here and doing nothing. And with the improvements I’ve made to my cloaking device programming, I should be at less risk of being caught now.”

“Yeah…it’s early enough that I think we could still buzz Derek. Reyn’s probably still asleep, he loves lounging around in the mornings. Hopefully he’s not caught up with anything…”

———

I cannot profess significant comfort in such immediate activities as you’re proposing, considering the difficulties we encountered during the previous nocturnal period.

Yeah, but we still have to keep our eyes out for enemies. And Shockavimon and Breezedramon are relatively safer than some of us. Maybe Isaac’ll figure his thing out soon, but until he does…

Understanding is more copious than confidence, is merely my contribution. It certainly is a substandard situation to be ensnared within.

Derek gave a shrug. Can’t deny that, but this has been an issue since the start. Life goes on even if we have this on our plates, and since we’re trying to play the role of secret guardians, we have to keep up the image. I’m just dreading when they start sending more at us, at some point this is gonna be blown all the way open… Derek heard a knock at the door, and suppressed a groan. Probably Dad. Act doggish.

Blackcanismon dropped his head onto the bedclothes and pretended to be trying to sleep as Elliot walked in. He always felt nervous around the man, perhaps partly because of how tense it got between him and Derek…something about Elliot just put him off, and he wasn’t sure what, but he figured his instincts were on point. And it didn’t help that the first thing out of Elliot’s mouth was “Are you sure that animal should be on the furniture?”

“It’s fine, Dad. Shadow doesn’t really shed that much, and he’s well-behaved enough.”

“Hm, I suppose you’re right…at least about the second part.” Elliot sat down and stroked Blackcanismon’s fur, the digimon attempting to play the role of base canine and push into the petting despite his misgivings. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog so quiet and well-behaved. You still haven’t found the owner?”

“No. I’ve been looking all over for Lost Dog signs, but the only ones I’ve seen are ones that don’t fit his description. But they have to be around here somewhere.” Derek was starting to regret this angle of the ruse - it was only going to start to look suspicious over time - but it was too late to try to change the story now.

“Well, don’t stop looking, I’m sure they want him back.” Elliot looked over at Derek with a frown. “But…on that note. Are you sure you should be taking Shadow out on walks with you at night like you are? It’s dangerous out there at night, and if he gets hurt…”

Derek tightened a bit; of course, just about everything was an angle towards reining in his night activities. Even though theoretically Elliot had a point, Derek doubted his concern was so much for the dog’s safety as it was getting his way. “I’ve got to get him exercise somehow. We’re staying to places I know are safe.”

“Nowhere out there is safe, Derek. We just had an encounter last night with some…frightening creatures.”

“Okay, Dad. If you did, you did. But answer me this: how many of those creatures showed up during the broad daylight?”

Elliot had to pause at that one. “…Well. I guess…”

“You’ve talked about at least four instances, I’ve heard you. It sounds to me like there’s no perfectly safe time to be out, so as long as I’m being vigilant and keeping my distance, it shouldn’t matter when I walk Shadow, right?”

The look on Elliot’s face told Derek he had a victory once again, at least on that angle. “Well, that only makes me wonder if you should be going out at all, really. Your mother’s worried about you, too.”

Yeah, and I’m sure you care oh so much about that and not about trying to coerce me into ‘your’ schedule. “The monsters haven’t attacked any people yet - we’d’ve heard about it if they had. And they’ve been showing up since, what, the 5th? And I haven’t run into any of them out there.”

Elliot gave him a strange look. “You mean the 7th?”

Now he was kicking himself, Derek knew he’d slipped, and he knew his dad wouldn’t let that go, even if he acted like it. He just had to try to recover. “I mean…that thing in the sky happened in the 5th, right? Or maybe super late on the 4th. But that has to be related, doesn’t it? You can’t tell me those were just coincidences.”

“I see…I don’t think we’ve proven a connection yet, but I can’t imagine it would be a likely coincidence. Regardless, though, it only takes one bad encounter for things to go terribly wrong. I’d hate to see you or this adorable animal hurt because you thought you could push your luck further than you really could.”

Quite the dramatic performance, he delivers, snarked Blackcanismon through the mental link.

You can say that again. “Look, Dad, I’m not gonna be stupid. If things start to change, then I’ll be hunkering down as fast as anyone. But you’re always saying you aren’t going to live your life too afraid of everything to do anything…I don’t think I should have to, either.”

“…I suppose I do say that. But this isn’t just ‘everything.’ This is a very particular something that…I don’t even know what it is, really. But I know it’s bad news. And if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m trying to help everyone by going out and doing my job, even I’d be staying out of this one.”

If only you knew. “Then let me help be another pair of eyes. If I see something, I can let you know about it. That’ll help you get closer to the truth, right? And if things get dicey, I won’t go pushing my luck.”

“I suppose that’s the best compromise I can hope for.” Elliot rose up. “Keep on eye on your mother for me…I have the feeling I’ll be working rather long over these coming days, and I know she worries about both of us.”

“Gotcha, dad. See you later.”

“…You too, Derek.” Elliot finally stepped out, shutting the door behind him. Derek slumped back and let out a long sigh. Another day, another attempted guilt trip.

You disbelieve his concern regarding your protection?

He does this all the time. Tries to say he’s worried about me, but really just wants me to conform. Every time I suggest something that would let me still be me, he doesn’t accept it…a couple times I’ve suggested doing exactly what he wants, and you see the look on his face like he’s sure he’s gotten me to play ball, and it annoys the hell out of me. Derek drew in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. Still…I wonder if we should try to tell him about all of this. If he listened, he could get the heat off of us…

My personal opinion is towards the negatory in that regard, Blackcanismon stated firmly. I cannot profess a great degree of trustworthiness towards his attitudes.

Yeah, that’s my fear, too. If he doesn’t believe us… Derek wasn’t sure what would happen from there, but couldn’t imagine it being good. But he didn’t have to think on it too much longer, as his cell phone started to ring. He snatched it up and turned it on. “Isaac? What’s up? …Oh. Well, you’re probably not going to like what I have to say, then…”

———

Elliot closed the door and started down the stairs, his mind racing with suspicions. He knew something was up with Derek, even if not specifically what. It was impossible to get things out of him sometimes, he always remained so standoffish and cool towards Elliot. Something he would chalk up to teen angst if it hadn’t been ongoing since well before he was a teenager.

But what Derek had said about the timeline...Elliot knew the sky anomaly was involved, even if there was no discernible connection he wasn’t at all going to chalk it up to mere coincidence. But despite this, there hadn’t been any confirmed discoveries of monsters before Monday. Sure, there was one suspicious incident on Sunday, but no monsters had been found there and no one was sure exactly what the story was. That Derek would point to Saturday when no one else was aware of it...and he also recalled that Derek said he had found the dog Saturday evening. A dog from apparently nowhere with peculiar behavior...

He shook his head. Too many suspicions, but he had to either get Derek on his side before he acted or trap him more conclusively in the lie, otherwise there was likely to be trouble. And he’d dealt with enough trouble with his son over the years to want to invite more at such a critical juncture.

Looking down idly, he noticed a number of stray hairs on his pant leg. Hm...must have been left there by the dog...so much for not shedding...

And then an idea struck him. He went downstairs, got a piece of masking tape, and pulled some of the hairs off of his leg with it. He looked carefully at the hairs; it had been a long time since his days in a biology lab, but he was fairly sure that they could get DNA from some of them, if there was DNA to be gotten. Maybe I can’t figure out where this dog came from...but I wonder if Rudy could, he thought as he finally left for work.

———

If there was one thing Reyn hated in the mornings, it was being woken up before he was ready. So the ringing of his cell phone jarring him out of sleep was not something he was enjoying in the slightest. Sleepily he pawed for it on his nightstand, ignoring the sounds of grunting and puffing from Salmandmon as the lizard was killing time yet again waiting for him to get up. “Isaac, this had better be good, or your remaining hours will be nasty and short.”

“Good morning to you too, sunshine,” came the glib reply. “Listen, it’s not good, but it needs attention all the same. Data and I have been working on a digimon detection system, using a satellite dish to expand our detection range. We think it’s working, but there’s a weird signal up by our high school. You know the Trine Nature Walk? That’s where they were showing up. It needs to be checked out so we can verify what’s going on and see if it’s a faulty signal or if something’s actually there.”

“…Great. Were you looking for my permission or something? Don’t you get enough of that from your dad?”

“Har de har. Listen, I need you to take Datacarnomon up there. Dad’s dragging me somewhere today, and no, I can’t get out of it.”

Reyn groaned. “Of course. Heaven forbid we be able to save the entire damn world on our own time. You couldn’t have asked Derek? I’m sure he’s up right now, and probably eager to have a reason to be out of the house.”

“I did. He’s going to be joining you with Breezedramon and Shockavimon.”

Reyn blinked, then sat up. “Seriously? The hell’s going on?”

“Apparently Skylar’s dad is taking him to a birthday thing for his aunt. And Iris got into a row with her dad, he’s been really pushing her to stay inside and it apparently got really heated. Long and short of it is that she’s not going anywhere today.”

“Gah…I guess we’d better hope it’s nothing too serious. All right, I guess there’s no helping it. I’ll be on my way soon as I can.”

“Thanks! Data’ll be heading out in a minute here, I’ll text you where he can meet you. You’re probably gonna have to walk it, though.”

“Well, at least I don’t have anything else to do today. Bye, Isaac.” Reyn hung up the phone, groaned, and pulled himself out of bed, scowling at the minute reptile doing sit-ups near his bed. “Do you ever turn off?”

“You might wanna try it, you’ll probably be able to wake up more easily,” countered Salmandmon, not breaking stride. “I gotta kill time somehow waiting for you to get going! Maybe I should set up more of those calls, that seemed to get your butt in gear in a hurry.”

“Do that and you’ll find out just how much I don’t like getting my sleep messed with. I assume you were paying attention?”

“Much as I could be, only hearing one side of the conversation.” Salmandmon finally stopped his sit-ups and stretched as he stood. “Guessing we’re being asked to do some hunting?”

“Possible something near our high school. Except Derek and I are the only ones who’re gonna be available…your whole gang’s apparently getting our full attention today, lucky us.”

“Oh, that’s actually pretty convenient. I’ve been wanting to have a chat with them anyway. Just among us mons, if you can avoid feeling too devastated.”

Reyn snorted. “I’m so wounded. Trying to keep secrets from us?”

“Nah, just stuff that wouldn’t be relevant to you. Has to do with stuff back before we came here…just some things I’ve been thinking about recently, and want to run by them. So I’m hoping after we’re done checking out whatever we’re checking out, we can stick around.”

“As long as you don’t make too much noise and call everyone’s attention to us, sure, probably.”

As soon as Reyn got dressed, the two were on their way downstairs. Just as they reached the bottom, though, they could see Minerva standing up from the kitchen table to meet them. Uh-oh…I have a feeling I know what’s coming, Reyn pathed to Salmandmon.

Yeah, even I know that look. “Hey, Mrs. Kessilik, what’s up?”

“Are you two planning on heading out?” Minerva said it in a way that she already knew what the answer was, so there was no point in trying to pretend otherwise.

Reyn nodded. “Yeah, we were…is something wrong?”

“Well, it’s just…are you sure you have to go out today?”

“What’s this about all of a sudden?”

“Reyn…I know you’re a pretty responsible young man, but…things feel like they’re getting crazier out there. I’ve heard rumors that there’s been more sightings of those digimon creatures around…and given what your friend there told us about them, it’s got me worried about you going off on your own all the time. I’m worried that you’re going to get yourself hurt.”

Think you can talk your way outta that one? cracked Salmandmon through their mental connection.

You’re not helping. “Mom, I know things are a bit nuts out there, but I’m not being careless. We’re staying away from anything that looks suspicious. Besides, there haven’t been that many outright attacks on people.”

“I know, but just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it’s not going to. And Salmandmon…I thought I remembered you saying you were trying to keep a low profile, but you’ve been going out day after day. Honestly, strange as it sounds, I’m a little worried about you, too. I don’t know what would happen if the wrong person saw you.”

Your turn, snarked Reyn.

Jeez, your mom knows how to turn the screws, huh? “I appreciate the concern, Mrs. Kessilik. I just, you know…I’m not used to sitting inside cooped up all the time. I need to get out and stretch my legs. But I find it just as important as you do that Reyn stays safe, and the last thing I want is for him to be attacked by anything, so I’m trying to be as vigilant as possible for his sake.”

“Well…I do appreciate that.” Minerva sighed a bit. “I don’t suppose it’s going to change your mind much, though…”

“We’ll be careful, Mom,” Reyn assured her. “We won’t be outside the whole time anyway, we’re just going over to Isaac’s place. He’s got some more welding that he wants help with.”

“Oh? Hmhm…you know, most mothers would be more concerned rather than less when they heard that their little boy was playing with some pretty intense fire. But I suppose most mothers don’t have a fireproof child.” Minerva gave them a strained smile. “Well, just be sure to keep yourselves safe, no matter what you’re doing.”

“Promise we’ll do our best, Mom.”

“I’ll keep a good eye out for him, ma’am.”

“Thank you. Well, I guess I shouldn’t keep you then.” She sat back down at the table, and Reyn and Salmandmon took that as their opening to escape. Though, neither one felt particularly good about it as they headed out. Well, that sucked. I hate lying to her… Reyn pathed glumly to Salmandmon. She’s already stressed out because of work, feels like I’m just piling it on now.

It doesn’t feel good trying to play innocent to her, no. But would you want to tell her the truth instead?

That would just make it worse. At least this way she doesn’t think we’re putting ourselves in deliberate trouble.

———

Back inside, Treylor popped his head into the kitchen. “Did I just hear them leave?”

“You did,” replied Minerva with a sigh. “I said my piece, but I didn’t really expect it to change anything…you were right, they were pretty intent on getting out there. He said he was going to a friend’s house to help him out…part of me wants to believe it.”

“I had a feeling.” Treylor took a seat at the table himself, taking a deep drink of his coffee. “But we both know it’s not true, right?”

“No…not after what Salmandmon told us about what was happening over there and how it was starting to overflow into our world. I don’t want to believe that they’re off doing dangerous things, but…whatever creatures are getting over here are being stopped somehow. And I don’t know how it can’t be involving them in some way, more than they say it is…” Minerva shook her head. “And part of me isn’t sure I want to really know the whole story.”

“No, I get that for sure. I’d like to be able to step up and say ‘stop putting yourself at risk, whatever you’re doing is too much for someone your age.’ If I thought it would help, maybe…but he’s already been sneaking out here and there anyway, I doubt we could stop him even if we tried. Whatever he’s doing, he’s really determined to see it through.”

“…Why does it have to be him? It feels like he’s being asked to carry a burden that should be on someone else.”

“I don’t know. There must be a reason, but if I knew what it was…” Treylor gave a slight shrug. “But whatever it is, it seems to be doing the trick…there hasn’t been another one as bad as that big bird since. And that’s the other problem, isn’t it? We tell him to stop, and there’s no one else taking up that mantle.”

“I know that…it just stresses me out more, though. It feels like it could all go horribly wrong in a moment…and if it does, then…”

“We have to trust him, dear.” Treylor scooted over and put his hands on hers. “He’s a smart kid, he’s never been reckless. Whatever he’s doing, he wouldn’t be doing it if he didn’t think he could. And Salmandmon, he may be small but he’s a tough little guy, and you can tell how deeply he cares for Reyn. I think he’s just as determined to keep them safe.”

“Maybe…mm…this wasn’t really what I had in mind when I said, all those years ago, that I hoped my shy, sad little boy would grow into himself someday. I suppose all we can do is be there for him, huh?”

“Right. When he needs us, we can do what we can, and hope that it’s enough.”

———

The roads were eerily deserted for the time of day, a function of just how different things were thanks to the monster attacks. In a way, it was helpful for Reyn and Salmandmon, who didn’t have to be quite as hidden as normal, though Salmandmon was still screening himself here and there when they were more exposed. It also meant they could talk like normal rather than just through their mental connection, something they were still getting used to.

“Why the sudden interest in my hands?”

“Well, because I want to know a bit more about how you climb walls. Plus, I think Burnreptimon has the same qualities, so I kinda want to know more.”

Salmandmon shrugged. “I’m not really sure how I do it, to be honest. I just know I can. My fingers and toes are just nice and clingy when I want them to be, is all.”

“Well, I was asking Skylar about it, and he started going off on a huge tangent about spatulas and wall forces and things like that, and I stopped being able to follow him. But the gist of it was that I wondered if it was like how our geckos do it or something. Can I see them? Your hands, I mean.”

Salmandmon gave him an odd look, but said “Sure, I guess…not sure you’ll see that much, but I don’t suppose it can hurt at all.” He held out his hands palms up, showing the somewhat furrowed and layered skin on his fingers, which he could flex out and flatten at will - when flattened, he couldn’t climb, but he had better dexterity with objects he held. Reyn ran a finger over them curiously, and Salmandmon twitched. “Hey, that tickles.”

“Sorry. It’s pretty neat, though. I’m not sure how much I buy what Sky was saying, he was talking about teeny tiny hairs and stuff. I don’t see any, but maybe they’re just so small I can’t?”

“Tiny hairs? Really? I don’t think that could hold me up.”

“Well, who knows, but Sky doesn’t usually start talking about stuff like this unless he knows it’s true. He’s kind of an uber-nerd, if you haven’t already guessed.”

“I think I caught on to that one,” chuckled Salmandmon. “Seems so weird that he and Breezy are a pair, Breezy gets so bored trying to read anything. Well, maybe we can talk with him about it sometime, see if he can explain it better. I think you’re right about Burnreptimon having the same thing, though, but I’m not sure it matters much here, we can pretty much jump on anything if we need to get up higher.”

“I’d rather NOT be jumping around too much, thanks.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“Because what goes up must come down, and the feeling of coming down uncontrolled is NOT comfortable to me,” stated Reyn with a grimace.

Salmandmon cocked his head. “Really? You’re afraid of heights?”

“No, I’m afraid of FALLING. There’s a difference. Heights just tend to happen to be where most falling happens from. But I figure if we’re climbing down something, it’s probably a lot more comfortable than just dropping down.”

“If you say so…but I think it’s gonna be Burnreptimon’s call, not yours.”

“Joy…oh, yeah, that reminds me of another thing I remember from Burnreptimon. Does he have, like, another eyelid?”

“Well, yeah, of course he does. Why wouldn’t he?”

Reyn gave Salmandmon a strange look. “You, uh…you think everyone has two eyelids, there, buddy?”

Salmandmon did a bit of a double-take. “Huh? You mean other people only have one?”

“Yeah. I mean, humans for sure, I can’t speak for digimon but I know humans and most other animals only have one. There’s a few animals out there with two, but they’re way in the minority.”

“That’s so weird. How do you keep smoke and ash and stuff from getting into your eyes without closing them?”

The human snickered. “That’s kind of a ‘you’ problem more than anything, Sal. Most of us aren’t constantly creating fire from our bodies.”

“…Huh. It never really occurred to me…I guess maybe lots of other digimon might not have them if that’s the case. I just kind of assumed it was just universal.”

“You know what they about assuming, Sal.” Both Reyn and Salmandmon jumped a bit at the voice behind them, whipping around to see no one there until Datacarnomon dropped his cloaking with a snicker. “Also, you two are about as conspicuous as it gets out here. Didja forget you could put up a smokescreen, Sal?”

“Not funny, Data! Don’t spook me like that!” hissed Salmandmon.

“Hey, if you’re not being careful, it’s what you get-whoop! Humans coming!” Datacarnomon vanished again, and Salmandmon quickly put up his smoke screen and got up against the fence of the house they were near - not a moment too soon, as a couple of twenty-something girls turned the corner and walked towards them, yakking away between each other and paying Reyn no mind as they passed. Reyn waited until they turned again and were out of sight before giving the signal that all was clear, allowing the digimon to come out again. “Phew…yeah, that’s why you can’t be too careful.”

“I guess there are still some people out here not bothered by the threat of a monster attack,” sighed Reyn.

“I don’t know if they’re bold or stupid,” remarked Salmandmon tersely. “Maybe both. You’d think they’d at least carry something around to defend themselves with. And you just know they’re also the ones who don’t appreciate everything we’re going through just to keep them alive.”

“Easy, there, hothead,” Datacarnomon chided. “Maybe don’t invent more enemies than we already have, particularly out of the people we’re trying to protect.”

“Mmph. Yeah, I know, just annoys me.”

“To be fair, I’m not exactly armed, either,” Reyn pointed out.

“You’ve got me. Though you could stand to work on the ‘carrying around’ part.”

“Yeah, dream on, buddy. Maybe stop wearing yourself out every morning, you won’t need to be.”

“Oh, how bad is he these days?” asked Datacarnomon knowingly. “Little gym nut was always overdoing it waiting for us to all get going in the mornings back with the KOL.”

Sal stuck out his tongue at the robot. “It’s not my fault you all are slow as hell! I’ve gotta do something waiting for you!”

“Yeah, yeah. C’mon, let’s get going, from what I hear this is gonna take long enough as it is.”

———

“I know this is weird to say, but I really wish I could be out there rather than where I’m going.”

Breezedramon snickered. “I thought you didn’t like danger!”

Skylar shook his head. “I don’t, but I like it less when I can’t do anything about it, I’m finding. Fine time for a birthday party…I don’t know why I have to be there, I know it’s Mom’s sister but you’d think her going would be enough.”

“Aw, I think you should see her! You should value these moments while you can! ‘Cuz things can get crazy in an instant.”

“Yeah, I guess…you gonna be okay out there on your own, Breezedramon?”

“I’ll be fine, Sky! Maybe I don’t know the city very well, but it can’t be that hard to find them, especially from above!”

Skylar nodded, adjusting his glasses as he did. “I hope not. There shouldn’t be too many people out there as it is. I just wish I could go with, but I doubt there’s anything I could say to get Dad to let me out of this.”

Breezedramon shrugged dismissively. “It’s okay! I think it’s good practice anyway, we should be learning how to do what we can when things are inconbanivantentinent. I should be scouting more as it is!”

“I worry about you scouting out there on your own. You’d be fine if the other digimon were on the ground, but if they’re in the air, they’re gonna be coming after you, and there’s not a lot of places to hide up there.”

“Well…maybe. But I’m fast and tricky! I could get away!”

“All the same, let’s-” Skylar clammed up as he heard footsteps. Make like a toy, Breezedramon!

Instantly Breezedramon slumped over and acted like a doll, just in time as the door opened and Kirsten, Skylar’s sister, entered inside. “Skylar! Dad’s getting impatient, he says he wanted to be on the road five minutes ago. What’s the hold-up?”

“I’m just about ready, Kirsten. And haven’t I told you not to barge into my room?”

“Yeah, well, Dad’s wants outdo yours right now. Who were you talking to in here?”

“I was on the phone, and it’s none of your business.” Skylar snatched said phone off his desk and shoved it into his pocket. “Right, let’s get this over with.”

“You could stand not to be a pill about it. Aunt Gracie hasn’t seen us in months, and she’s been worried about Mom since this stuff started.”

“It’s not her…I’m just annoyed that Dad’s still trying to act like everything’s normal out there. It’s not, and he knows it.”

Kirsten sighed at that. “Honestly, this time I can’t blame him. Lord knows I’d rather believe that myself…maybe just getting away for a bit will be good for us, help us think it really is all normal for a bit before we have to come back to the idea of freaking giant monsters invading the city.”

Maybe for YOU it will… thought Skylar grimly. “I still don’t see why a call over the computer wouldn’t accomplish the same thing of reassuring her.”

“C’mon, Skylar, it’s not going to kill you to have face-to-face contact with family. Besides, you never know when they’re going to poof into thin air, or maybe just not exist at all.”

The white-haired boy rolled his eyes. “Are you still on that? You not being able to find anything for your genealogy project doesn’t mean Dad’s family doesn’t exist. You probably just did something wrong.”

“You always say that,” replied Kirsten with obvious asperity.

“Yes, but this time I actually mean it. He can’t have spawned out of the aether, that was proven to be hokum centuries ago. And even if they all died in some horrible accident there’d still be a record of them having existed. The most likely explanation is user error.”

“Yeah, well, I went over everything I could and everything I did worked just fine for Mom’s side. So you tell me where the error is.”

“Right now, the error is in getting into a small vehicle that would easily be dwarfed by one of those monsters.” Skylar passed by Kirsten as he exited his room, rubbing his head. “I can’t imagine a place I’d rather be in less, if something DID happen, than trapped inside a car.”

“Well, you can tell Dad that yourself, I’m sure he’ll be totally receptive to it.” No response from Skylar as he headed down the stairs. Kirsten took one last look inside his room, eyeing the bed. The blue dragon was on it, laying as still as possible. She gazed at it a few more seconds, then shut the door.

…How in the world did he ever get away with saying that was a stuffed animal? It doesn’t even look remotely like one. I don’t know what the hell Skylar’s up to, but I sure hope he knows what he’s doing…it is kinda cute, though. I guess as long as it isn’t causing any trouble, no point in saying anything about it…for now.

———

“Are you sure you’re okay with this, Iris?” Shockavimon almost hated to even ask about it, given how testy Iris was at the moment; she hadn’t seen her partner in this kind of mood since she’d gotten here.

“Not really, but how I feel isn’t changing anything right now.” Iris pushed herself up to a sitting position on her bed, scowling at nothing in particular. “Don’t blame yourself, though, this was bound to happen sooner or later. I wish he’d stop treating me like I was made of glass or something…”

“I don’t think there’s anything malicious about it…”

“There’s not, but that doesn’t make it easier. He’s ALWAYS like this. Mom, too, but not as bad as Dad. I know he loves me and cares for me, but he’s too stifling! I remember a few years back when I wanted to try out soccer, and he kept grinding at me until I gave up on it because he was too afraid of me getting hurt. And he does that with almost every new interest I have unless there’s virtually no way for me to get hurt by it…the only thing he doesn’t bug me about anymore is the electricity thing, and that’s only because he figured out that somehow it didn’t actually do anything to me.”

“I mean…to be fair…you ARE going out and facing life-or-death combat. Not that he knows that, but still…”

“Yeah, I know.” Iris let out a sigh and a quiet, wry laugh. “Never thought I’d see the day where I was pissed off about NOT being able to put myself directly in harm’s way. But when the stakes are this high…I don’t know. Maybe we SHOULD tell him, even if Reyn thinks it’s a bad idea.”

Shockvaimon winced at the suggestion, but tried not to let it show. “It’s your decision, Iris…he’s your father. But if my advice means anything, I don’t think it would have the effect you’d be hoping for.”

“Hnnn…yeah, you’re probably right. I just don’t know what I can do to keep him off my back so that we can do this thing that we need to do. All this secrecy is getting more and more troublesome…I can’t help but think about all the disasters that could happen just because I couldn’t get out from Dad’s cage.”

“I get that for sure. We pretty much never had to do anything like this at the KOL, we’d sometimes need to use stealth but not to this degree. Emperius certainly wasn’t subtle about the way they did things…not until the end, anyway. I’m not used to all this having to fly around under cover either. But as long as we can afford to do that, it’s a good thing…I’m more dreading the day when Emperius decides to escalate, and secrecy stops being a luxury we can afford. I really wish something was getting through to your people…every day we don’t hear anything back is another day lost in preparation.”

“A ticking time bomb with no visible timer…” Iris shook her head, closing her eyes tight. “It’s stressing me out even thinking about it. Almost makes me wish we could spend more time as Boltfalkemon, at least then we’re taking action…oh…I’m keeping you, aren’t I?”

“I can catch up if I have to.”

“No, go ahead and get on out there. Talking here isn’t going to do much for either of us at the moment.” Iris managed to give a slight smile to Shockavimon. “One of us shouldn’t have to feel cooped up, at least. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine…just gonna blow off some steam until I can get out of the house again.”

“All right. I’ll see you when I get back, hopefully with nothing new to report.” Shockavimon took off out the window, cloaking herself as best she could. Iris laid back down on her bed, sighing deeply. I wouldn’t feel so bothered by this if there was something more I could do while being stuck here…never thought I’d be envying Isaac.

———

“Jeez…why do some of these houses have huge walls around them?” asked Salmandmon as they approached their rendezvous point with Derek. He and Blackcanismon were already in sight, in the shadow of a large fence around one corner yard. “What are they trying to keep out?”

“Might be what they’re trying to keep in,” remarked Reyn. “Maybe some of them have dogs or kids they don’t want running into the road or something. But they probably don’t mind keeping out other people either.”

“Defensive perimeters aren’t that uncommon where we come from, but they’re usually limited to combat organizations, not regular folk,” remarked Datacarnomon from behind them, though at the moment it seemed more like a disembodied voice than anything. “But I suppose when your people don’t have the natural abilities we do, you use other means of protecting yourself.”

“I can’t imagine a fence like that would stop many digimon anyway.” One more street crossing and they were able to meet up with Derek and Blackcanismon. “Good to see one more of us made it out here. Whatever’s out there had better not be much trouble or we’re gonna be the ones in trouble.”

“It would be nice if we had more details, but apparently the capacity for threat detection only goes so far,” replied Derek coolly.

“Hey!” Everyone jumped at Datacarnomon’s protest, mainly because they couldn’t see him. “I’m doing the best I can! You rather I try to apply hundreds of different pins trying to find the exact one that matches? You think we’ve got hours each time?”

“Kindly refrain from exuberant outbursts under the influence of invisibility!” growled Blackcanismon.

“Oh, right, sorry…though, you’re one to talk, mister ‘I’ma pop up and scare my allies randomly.’” Datacarnomon dropped the cloak, ignoring the looks he was getting. “But yeah, I can’t waste a ton of time trying to pull from databases trying to identify exactly what type of creature wants to kill us on this specific day. I can’t just run a list, changing the pin on a sensor map is pretty time consuming, it has to re-register the signals every time. And this one might not even be real for all I know, with how weird it was behaving.”

“I guess not everything can be convenient,” remarked Salmandmon. “I thought we were supposed to have everyone out here, though, I don’t see our two aerial allies anywhere.”

“They should be here any moment…I think I might see Shockavimon, or what’s supposed to be her stealth thing.” Derek pointed to the sky, where a not-too-subtle wavering of space was moving their direction. “What in the world is that?”

“It’s supposed to be some kind of light-bending technique,” explained Datacarnomon. “Since light’s electromagnetic waves, she figured she’d be able to pick up on it. I think she still needs more practice with it, but honestly it looks better than it used to.”

“So does your cloaking, for that matter,” pointed out Salmandmon. “It doesn’t look like you’re having much trouble hiding at all.”

“I had some time to work on optimization. I think we’re starting to get the idea of tapping into this world’s digital infrastructure, at least as far as mechanical beings go. Interfacing is a lot simpler than I anticipated. Doesn’t hurt that Ike’s a genius, either.”

“Sorry to keep you guys!” Shockavimon flapped down, panting a bit. “Iris was kinda upset she couldn’t come out with us, I needed to make sure she was doing all right. Wait, are we still missing someone?”

“Gangway!” Reyn had to suddenly scramble out of the way as Breezedramon swooped in far too quickly, flapping hard to try to slow himself down before he overshot the entire city block. “Sorry! I overencompterasterated trying to catch up!”

“Well, this is off to a great start already,” cracked Reyn. “Nothing suspicious about the two of us walking for almost another hour towards the closed high school with a weird dog, a bunch of hard-to-see fog, and several odd light-bending things hovering around us, right?”

“I’m honestly shocked we haven’t been found out already,” droned Derek. “We really have to figure out some kind of plan to reveal ourselves on our own terms, because I doubt we have that much time left to do so.”

“That’ll be on the table the next time all of us are able to talk together. All right, let’s get going…we’ve got a long trek, try to stay as inconspicuous as possible. And quiet, for that matter, even if they can’t see you they could still hear you.”

“What do you take us for?” giggled Shockavimon. “We know the score here. Just stay silent and we’ll be golden.”

“But you’re already golden!” piped up Breezedramon, earning him a playful smack from the bird.

———

It was not as uneventful a trek as the group would have hoped. There seemed to be more people out and about that day than there had been in most previous days, with several walkers crossing paths with all of them on the long walk to the high school grounds. Perhaps part of it was the fact that there hadn’t been any very public monster appearances in a while - what there had been was mostly late at night and mostly addressed quickly, so not a lot of time for things to spread - so perhaps some people had gotten the idea that it was safe again for the moment. This was not considered an auspicious sign by any of them, the relative lack of outdoors activity had been something that was working to their benefit, and suddenly it seemed like that might not be as viable.

Particularly because most of them were being troublesomely attentive. Clearly, they weren’t completely at ease with the idea of their safety, because most of them, at least, were paying a lot more attention to their surroundings. And that meant a lot of close calls. Even Derek and Blackcanismon weren’t immune to it, with one passerby asking a lot of questions about that ‘extremely strange dog’ that Derek was fumbling around for answers on before finally getting to the ‘I don’t ask questions I just pet the dog’ stance - hardly satisfying for the stranger, but it at least got him going along his way. Salmandmon wasn’t getting it much better, as there were several people who seemed to notice something around where he was, forcing him to try to hide away more when he could even while he was cloaked. Datacarnomon’s improved cloaking was helping him more, but even that wasn’t perfect, as a couple of people had thought they’d seen some of the motion trail he was leaving, forcing Reyn to intervene and say he didn’t see anything to throw them off. Being up in the air wasn’t much better, as Shockavimon was finding out - she was having to move in bursts between trees where she could, due to her shaky cloaking making her a more visible target and people’s eyes clearly not missing the sky - Aquilamon was clearly lingering in their heads. The only one who didn’t get obviously noticed was Breezedramon, who was hanging out higher and was well-masked against the mostly cloudless blue sky.

All in all, no one was disappointed when they finally made it to the Trine Nature Walk, where there was sure to be a lack of human activity. A thickly-wooded patch of land on the grounds of Braun Eastern High School, it was named for a long-time natural studies teacher who had pushed for the land to be preserved for natural studies courses rather than bulldozed and developed as had been the initial intention. Said teacher was no longer among the faculty or among the living, but his legacy persisted, and plenty of students said they got more out of having it than just studying in the classrooms the whole time. Yet there were still a few who said there should be a football field there instead…not everyone had the same priorities, clearly. Neither Reyn nor Derek had ever done much in the area, so they were going in pretty blind, but apart from potentially digimon, there couldn’t be much in there that was a surprise.

Once they were along the paths, the digimon were able to come out of hiding, and looked quite happy to be so. “Maaaaan…the way people were acting, you’d think no monsters had been seen in a year,” griped Salmandmon. “We’ve GOTTA get better at cloaking ourselves. Reyn, you’re totally helping me practice my Smoke Screen when we get back.”

“Bad idea,” Reyn said immediately. “I can see through it no problem.”

“…Wait, what? Since when?!”

“Since always. You’re clear as day through it to me.”

“Before you flip out and think you’re not hiding at all, let me assure you that Reyn’s the only one who gets it that easy,” Derek jumped in. “I can barely see you, maybe sometimes a faint outline but for the most part you’re obscure. The air around you isn’t exactly totally still, though.”

“I think our partners might all be good at seeing through our masks,” remarked Shockavimon. “Iris tells me she can barely see any difference with my EM Field, though she can tell when I’m using it because she picks up on the electric energy.”

“Derek was singularly hypercapable of distinguishing my presence during a Shadowstepping endeavor,” Blackcanismon added.

“Hm, yeah, I hadn’t thought about that…I guess maybe that connection we have lets us see through that kind of thing,” mused Derek. “At least it’s just us, I can’t imagine that would be a problem. Except for training on getting better at it, I suppose.”

Salmandmon huffed in irritation. “Bah. And here I was hoping to have a reason to get Reyn up early.”

“Why would it require getting me up early?” Reyn asked tersely.

“I’d think of a reason!”

“You guys need to pipe down, we’re in possible enemy territory right now,” warned Datacarnomon. “And I’m having a hell of a time trying to get a bead on it.”

“Should I scout ahead?” asked Breezedramon.

“No, not yet. I need to actually pick up the signal…rgh, if I can. Maybe it really was a false alarm…”

“Our luck isn’t that good,” countered Shockavimon. “What was it you were seeing?”

“That’s the thing, I don’t know…it was spotty to begin with. Something was showing up around here, but it was going in and out. That’s why I wasn’t sure what to make of it. If it’s NOT a digimon, I need to figure out what it is that could be making a signal that my sensors are interpreting as something like that, because the last thing we need is unknown false alarms.”

“I can think of roughly six-hundred things just off the top of my head that are closer to last,” Salmandmon remarked. “Hell, false signals is a good scenario if we can figure out what’s causing it, it means one less thing that could potentially kill us and everyone around us.”

“Okay, point. Let’s just be ready, in case it is…” From there things quieted down, the group traveling in relative silence, not masking the sounds of their footsteps but keeping the chatter to a minimum. Vigilance was high, but there was a lot that could be hiding things…the trees were pretty thick, and there were some dense bushes and other foliage around that would have provided good cover as well. The longer they traveled without any sign from Datacarnomon, the more nervous everyone got - there had to be something that he had picked up, and it shouldn’t have been this hard for him to recapture…

Suddenly Blackcanismon slowed, growling. “Scents…”

“Huh?” Breezedramon asked.

“I’m detecting an olfactory anomaly. Aberrant relative to the background…”

“Wait…there was just something…” Datacarnomon stopped as well. “What…I’ve lost it again…but it was nearby, that was definitely a signal! Come on, show back up, I know it was close, I just need to triangulate…”

“Forget triangulation, we need to fan out!” urged Shockavimon. “It’s around here, it’s trying to hide, we need to flush it out!”

Before that could happen, though, there was a sudden shout from nearby. “NOW! Go, go, go!” The startled digimon and humans wheeled towards the source of the voice - and the sudden onslaught that followed was something none of them were ready for. A veritable pack of digimon, all smaller but hardly looking non-threatening, were charging at them! There seemed like little to no time to react as the group bore down on them…

“Inverse Flash!” Suddenly the world around them went dark, their visions distorting for a brief moment as the objects around took bizarre colors. And then they were righted again, leaving everyone to try to shake off the effects, except for Blackcanismon, the source of the strike. It had disrupted the attack, though, the pack of enemies slowed down long enough for them to mount a counterattack.

“Get your heads in the game!” came a shout from the same voice as the initial command. Leaping into the middle of the gang was a dark dragon digimon, about three feet tall, with short horns, a rounded snout, black wings and scales apart from a white underbelly, and a sword not dissimilar to a Leomon’s dagger in his hand. “Don’t let them get the better of you! We have the numbers advantage, get them before they can do anything funny!”

Shadowdramon… Salmandmon clenched his jaw as the opposing leader rallied the troops back. Precious little time to assess the situation…they were definitely outnumbered, and not by a small amount. Just from what he could see, there was a Tentomon, Gazimon, Palmon, Demidevimon, Gabumon, Goblimon, Biyomon, Elecmon, Veemon, Dorumon, Felismon, Talomon, and Crestmon. Almost three to one outnumbered, and they had two vulnerable humans with them…they needed to turn the tides, and fast! “Scatter!” he shouted as the attackers leapt back into action, breaking away from the group with Reyn quickly following behind, hoping to draw a number of them off - if they could get smaller groups of them fighting, it was better than a big massive group targeting their much smaller one.

Which didn’t mean it was good…Talomon, Veemon, and Dorumon broke after him, and instantly went on the offensive, rushing at him and Reyn. He didn’t have time to assess how the others were faring, he needed to protect Reyn immediately! “Burner Breath!” He launched his fiery salvo at Talomon and Veemon, but they quickly split and flanked him, requiring him to scramble to avoid their attacks as they lunged for him. He pitched forward and rolled, avoiding their attacks but leaving space between him and Reyn that he didn’t want.

And for good reason, as Reyn was suddenly accosted by Dorumon. “Dash Metal!” she shouted, opening her mouth and firing a metal sphere that he dove to avoid. He scrambled back to his feet to try scampering back towards the group, but there was no group anymore - everyone had scattered just as Salmandmon had ordered, and were now desperately trying to deal with their own sets of bogies, two or three at a time. He couldn’t see Derek or Blackcanismon anywhere, he could only hear Datacarnomon, and Shockavimon and Breezedramon were whipping through the trees in disarray. This is bad, this is really bad, I need to merge with Sal fast!

But that wasn’t happening either - Dorumon was making sure to keep him scrambling, not letting him get close to his partner - and Salmandmon was struggling to get away from Talomon and Veemon as well. Talomon, a green raptor digimon with slightly oversized hands and feet which bore wickedly sharp claws, was pursuing Salmandmon relentlessly, trying to land Swipe Kicks on him, while Veemon was trying to tackle him from a different direction. Both were moving more quickly than Salmandmon could track, each one keeping him from focusing on the other to get off a proper counterstrike, and he couldn’t just fire off indiscriminately - there was a forest around that was surely easy to set aflame. Panic was starting to set in for Reyn, who felt entirely useless - he wasn’t ready to try to fight even one of the smaller creatures on his own, what could he possibly do against them?

And Salmandmon was feeling the pressure now, as he could tell Reyn was barely holding out just trying to keep away from Dorumon. He tried to swing out and launch a Burner Breath to at least get her to back off, but trying to divide his attention three ways proved a major mistake - before he could launch the attack, he was rammed from behind by the Veemon, knocked forward into the waiting strike of Talomon. A cry rang through the trees as a trio of gashes was driven along his stomach, steaming blood flying through the air. He sank down, gasping hard, head spinning, stunned and winded and in significant pain.

“Sal!” Reyn almost forgot about Dorumon, with the sight of his partner taking some serious and scary-looking blows. He rushed forward, shoving Talomon out of the way, the raptor not at all ready for him and going sprawling, and grabbed Salmandmon bodily, trying to pick him up and get him out of harm’s way. Which was perhaps not the wisest of decisions, as Veemon hurled himself at the pair of them, and Reyn fell backwards in a desperate attempt to avoid him, causing him to just sail over them. But it put him on his backside, and with a very annoyed Talomon coming for him, he didn’t have the time to get up and get away…

“Starlight Strike!” A ball of darkness struck Talomon square, flinging him backwards head over heels. Another one collided with Dorumon, who was preparing to fire off another attack to Reyn’s right. Blackcanismon leapt forward in front of him, growling as he readied a few more of his dark shots, rotating in the air over him. “Get back and take cover!” he barked, about the shortest Reyn had ever heard him be, and he didn’t linger on that as he hurried to his feet. Salmandmon was in his arms, moaning in pain, and the wounds across his stomach were bleeding pretty badly…Reyn positioned his arms to try to come across them and press down on them as much as he could to try to staunch the bleeding. There was no way they were going to be able to get him to care this time, they were too far away from that…

Shockavimon. Maybe she can cauterize them, electricity can do that. They’re pretty big for electrocautery, but she’s got a lot of voltage. It was desperate, but all Reyn could think of, and what he focused on as he retreated from the attackers, hoping Blackcanismon could handle them.

Trying to get help from Shockavimon was going to be challenge enough on its own, though, given what she was up against. He ran towards her, but stopped and jumped back as whipping vines came his way, Palmon nearly catching him. She pulled them back for a second attack, but didn’t get it off in time as Breezedramon swooped down. “Gale Tackle!” The direct blow threw Palmon away a bit, but Breezedramon couldn’t follow up, having to swing back up and avoid an electric strike from Elecmon; he hurled a Wind Sphere at the orange mon, who managed to barely get away from the bright blue orb of energy in time. It was enough room for Reyn to at least run forward, to a place where there was a little less chaos, but not much.

Shockavimon was trying to fend off Demidevimon and Tentomon, while Gabumon was harassing her from below. “Shockavimon! Sal’s hurt bad!” gasped Reyn - he didn’t like the idea of giving them the idea of turning to target him, but there was little else he could do.

Of course, it had the effect he was afraid of - Tentomon suddenly turned towards him, buzzing sinisterly. “Easy prey! I’m on it! Super Shocker!” Reyn froze as the attack was fired off at him, but Shockavimon swung down and absorbed it, barely fazed by it. “Gah! Get out of my way, bird!”

“I’ve got her! Blue Blaster!” Gabumon fired off at her again, and she swooped out of the way once more, firing off a Feather Bolt at him and making him stagger. She continued to try to wall off Tentomon, but Demidevimon was making that harder, as he was trying to get around and hurl a Demi Dart at Salmandmon or Reyn, whichever he could hit.

“Reyn, take cover!” Shockavimon snapped, blocking another Super Shocker from Tentomon. “I can’t do anything about Sal right now!”

“I need your electricity! You can close up his wounds!”

“What the hell are you-agh!” Shockavimon was suddenly snared by vines, Palmon coming back into the fray. It turned out to be a bad idea, though. “Get off me, you dumb flower! Static Burst!” She discharged her electricity through her body, causing it to travel through the vines and strike Palmon harshly. She cried out and let go, sinking to the ground and smoking a bit. “Just go, Reyn! Anywhere safe is better than this right now!”

Reyn didn’t have any other options, not with several digimon around clearly trying to give him trouble. He took off in a different direction, trying to crash through the brush and make it harder to chase after him, but he was far from out of the woods - a dart stabbed into a tree not far from him as he ran, and he looked over his shoulder to see Demidevimon in pursuit. The sinister devil digimon was catching up to him fast, much faster than Reyn was, particularly considering the weight he was carrying. And he was readying another dart one that Reyn didn’t think he’d be able to avoid given the vanishingly small leeway he had…

“Homing Missile!” The mechanical voice called out, and suddenly Demidevimon was frantically trying to flap away, to no avail as the missile struck him square. With a cry he dissipated, the dart falling harmlessly to the ground and bursting into data as well. Reyn looked around to see Datacarnomon hurrying towards him as fast as he could go, pursued by Gazimon, Felismon, and Crestmon. “Reyn! Sal! What’s going on?”

“He’s hurt!”

“Take him somewhere else! This is too crazy!”

“I don’t think so!” Felismon suddenly leapt at Reyn and Salmandmon - a golden-furred quadrupedal feline, with a white-furred collar and more white tufty fur around her limbs, and a solid ball on the end of her tail, she was both bigger and more threatening than most cats Reyn had encountered, and he already didn’t particularly agree with them. “Cat Claw!” She rolled out into a somersaulting slash at Reyn, who hit the ground, flinging himself backwards to avoid landing on Salmandmon. It was not a pleasant landing, hard and painful, but he was lucky that he didn’t land on anything more than grass. Felismon couldn’t correct and went flying over, but she was hardly out of it, and there were other threats as well.

“Oy, Crestmon! Go for that metal lunkhead!” hissed Gazimon.

Crestmon - a bipedal ceratopsian digimon, broad-bodied with three short horns on his head, a deep green color pretty much all over - didn’t look even remotely enthusiastic about it, but he complied, charging forward at Datacarnomon. “Dino Tackle!” He threw himself at Datacarnomon, trying a flying shoulder tackle, but Datacarnomon was ready and grabbed him, using his own momentum to swing him around and throw him at Gazimon, who got bowled over by the flying saurian. Datacarnomon then whipped around and fired off his Dino Shooter at Felismon, waylaying her follow-up attack.

Somehow, Reyn managed to haul himself up and get himself next to a tree, slumping next to it and panting hard. He hurt all over, he hadn’t taken any direct attacks but hurling himself around had taken enough of a toll, and he was running out of breath. Breezedramon and Shockavimon were flying over to play support, but it didn’t feel like enough, especially since most of the digimon opposing them still seemed to be fighting…and worse, he still hadn’t seen any sign of Derek anywhere, and there were still digimon he hadn’t been able to account for, though he couldn’t remember which ones. As scared as he was, he was wrestling with the idea of telling them to run and hide, and leave him…he couldn’t leave Salmandmon, no matter what, even if this seemed like it was going to be it.

“Ungh…” That voice came from right in front of him. Finally, Salmandmon was stirring in his arms. “Wh…what the hell…happened…”

“Don’t try to talk, you’re hurt,” Reyn muttered.

“What…R-reyn, you’re bleeding…”

“I…what?” Reyn looked down, he didn’t feel like he was…there was definitely a lot of blood on his arms, but… “Sal…that’s your blood, not mine…”

“Oh…” Sal grunted painfully, then started to pant hard. “Well…good…I’m glad it’s not yours…Reyn, you…you gotta get out of here…let them go after me and run…while you can…”

Reyn squeezed his eyes shut tight. I can’t do that…I can’t leave him like this…I’d never forgive myself…ngh, why…why can’t I do anything? Why can’t I do something to help him…if I could just help you, make you feel better…I’d do it in a heartbeat…please, let there be something I can do, I don’t know what, I just…I need to do something… The chaos around him was getting louder, more attacks were being flung nearby, he wasn’t sure whether they were getting close or not. He was too focused on Salmandmon, on trying to hope for something, holding the bleeding lizard tightly against him. Maybe he was asking too much, but he wanted to do something for Salmandmon, anything to keep the worst from happening…

Suddenly he noticed an odd heat in his core…he wasn’t sure what it was, but he felt…something about it. Like he could push it, extend it towards Salmandmon…Reyn didn’t question this, he didn’t understand it at all, it wasn’t like the merging, it felt different, but it was something more than the nothing he had been doing…he reached out, felt it touch something in the lizard, and kept pushing…that heat was being drained right out of him, he felt himself get more weary, his energy running dry fast, but he kept at it, until he felt that connection break, too weak to be maintained anymore…

———

Salmandmon didn’t know what was happening even as it happened. One moment he was feeling woozy from blood loss and pain, the next it felt like his inner fire was suddenly being stoked like mad. The gashes in his stomach were rapidly sealing up, fast enough that he could feel it, almost like someone had used QuicKnit on him, except that didn’t give him a rush like this one. The pain was vanishing, he suddenly felt more energized than he could remember in a long time.

The other thing he noticed was Reyn’s grip falling away from him. He turned around, eyes widening as he saw Reyn’s listless expression. “Reyn! What…?”

“Ah…” Reyn had a very weary, faint smile on his face. “You’re…okay…go get ‘em…” And then he slumped over onto the ground, passed out. Salmandmon felt panic strike him - Reyn hadn’t ever looked like that, he didn’t like the looks of it at all! But a stray attack hit up near his head, an the whipped around - there were a good ten digimon in the fray, against only three of their own - with Blackcanismon hurrying back with three more digimon in pursuit - and they looked to be in real trouble. That overcharged fire in him suddenly boiled, the heat flaring up around him. He’d already fallen short once protecting Reyn, that wasn’t going to happen again!

He stood and stepped forward, channeling that energy into a spot in the middle of the fracas. The air suddenly warped and reddened in a growing sphere, causing a couple of the digimon near it to skid to a halt. They didn’t know what it was, but it looked menacing enough to be immediately registered as a threat - but not quickly enough to be properly reacted to, as Salmandmon swung his arm fiercely. “Blast Point!”

What came out exceeded even Salmandmon’s expectations - an enormous flare of heat bursting out in the middle of the air, sending most of the group of foes flying off into nowhere. The Palmon was engulfed and deleted, and the Tentomon was flung into a branch and impaled to lead to his demise as well; the Gazimon was thrown into a tree and fell motionless, and the Gabumon went sprawling along the ground and laid there stunned. Talomon, Dorumon, and Veemon skidded to a halt just before reaching ground zero, shocked, while a few others who managed to weather the blow were suddenly finding themselves on their heels.

“No way!” shouted Veemon in shock. “You were down! You were DOWN!”

“Yeah, well, I’m back up. And I’m gonna repay the favor!” Salmandmon charged forward, closing on the backpedaling Veemon in a hurry, unleashing a charged up Burner Breath that enveloped the small dragon and dropped him with an agonized cry. Dorumon and Talomon didn’t bother trying to follow up, instead turning tail and running fast into the trees. Salmandmon wanted to go after them, but he couldn’t leave Reyn…instead he turned and joined the others, who suddenly had the advantage with quite a few of the enemies down or missing.

“What the hell just happened?!” cried out a panicked Biyomon as she tried to attack Breezedramon, her Spiral Twister dodged by the blue dragon as she tried to flap back out of the way.

“I don’t know!” Felismon panted. “Where’s Shadowdramon?!”

“Concern yourself with the immediate!” snarled Blackcanismon as he leapt forward. “Black Slasher!” He swung darkness-charged claws at Felismon, who barely countered with her Cat Claw, the moment of impact sending both of them flying backwards. She landed harder than Blackcanismon did, but hopped back up quickly.

“This isn’t good…I’m outta here!” She turned tail and hurried off into the woods, quickly being followed by Elecmon.

“Don’t abandon me! Hey!” Biymon tried to follow up, but Breezedramon’s Gale Tackle took her down, and they hit the ground hard, the avian laying there twitching as the dragon hopped off of her. For the first time in too long, the forest was quiet…no one else seemed to be around to carry on the fight. Salmandmon wasn’t going to be comfortable with just hoping for that, though, as he dragged Veemon by the tail back towards the final site of the fracas. Particularly with Reyn still down, and him not sure what had happened to put him that way.

“What the hell just happened…” Shockavimon said shakily. “I thought we might actually be done for, and then…”

“Sal, that was a stupimondiferous explosion!” exclaimed Breezedramon. “How the hell did you do that?!”

“…Later. We need to take stock now.” Salmandmon looked around. “There were fourteen of them…I remember that clearly. I only see four. We need to figure out what happened to the rest.”

“I’ve got death signatures for three of them,” reported Datacarnomon. “Tentomon, Demidevimon, Palmon.”

“Four here on the ground,” Shockavimon continued. “Gazimon, Veemon, Biyomon, Gabumon. They seem like they’re alive, but not doing much at the moment - and they’d better not if they know what’s good for them,” she added harshly at the Biyomon she was standing over.

“I determined a quartet of abscondees,” Blackcanismon chimed in. “Dorumon, Talomon, Felismon, and Elecmon escaped our assaults. Ostensibly they vacated the jurisdiction entirely…an unfortunate complication, but preferable to alternative outcomes which appeared dramatically more plausible merely minutes heretofore.”

“That Shadamodoramontadadomon, though…blah, I’m just calling him Shady. I dunno what happened to him,” Breezedramon said as he scratched his head. “Or Crestmon or Goblimon, either…they were around here somewhere, but I lost track of them. And no one else’s said anything about them, so…”

“So we have to be watchful, just in case.” Salmandmon looked around, trying to see if he could see any of them in the immediate vicinity. Aside from the downed ones, though, he wasn’t picking up on anything. “They might’ve run off, too…might be for the best if they did, obvious problems with that aside. But I’ve got a bigger issue…where’s Derek?”

“I’m probably the best one to answer that question.” All eyes turned towards the woods just behind and to the right of where Reyn was, where Derek was staggering towards them, a cut over his eyebrow and a limp in his walk. “That’s an experience I hope I won’t have to repeat any time soon.”

“Ah! Derek, you’re exsanguinating!” barked Blackcanismon as he dashed over to his partner. “And your gait is discordant! Did their assailments connect with you?”

“No, and thank goodness for that. Blame the roots and branches for this. At least I’m in better shape than he is.” Derek made his way over to Reyn and pulled him up to a sitting position against the tree; the redhead still looked listless and exhausted, but unhurt. “What happened to him?”

“I’m not…entirely sure,” replied Salmandmon. “But…I think he did something for me…that got me back into fighting shape.”

“…What? How?” asked Datacarnomon.

“As much as I know you hate this answer, both of those are ‘I don’t know.’ All I know is that I was just about done for until he did something to me and then…well, I felt like I could’ve tangled with a Wargreymon and won. Which probably is a lot more illusion than reality, but it was a HUGE rush. But it clearly took a lot out of him to do that…”

“No kidding,” stated Derek, walking towards them after making sure Reyn was propped up. “He seems fine, though, just tired. Maybe we’ll have to let him rest up a bit before we go anywhere.”

“I think that’s probably something we should ALL do,” agreed Shockavimon. “Much as I hate to let them regroup, I’m beat. Plus, we need to figure out how to deal with these ones.”

“Oh, right.” Salmandmon scowled down at Veemon, who was rousing but wasn’t going to be doing much with as scorched as he was. Datacarnomon was dragging Gazimon back towards them, while Gabumon was leaning on him, walking very gingerly and wincing with each step, a strained neck and back ensuring he wasn’t about to start the fight back up. “Hff…you’d better believe I’m pissed enough about this to not feel particularly long on mercy, so don’t test me. You guys get one chance - go back to the digital world, abandon Emperius, and find something better to do with your lives. Refuse, and your lives won’t be long enough to do anything better with them.”

“…That…is going to be a problem,” said the Gabumon hesitantly.

“The proposal submitted unto yourselves contains an objectively correct response,” Blackcanismon stated tersely. “Your declaration fails to achieve that merit.”

“It’s not that…it’s…I don’t think we can.”

“You can’t?” asked Datacarnomon. “Why not? I thought Emperius had it all set up where you can get that charge that lets you return. All the rest of them have, that we’ve been able to confront anyway.”

“Yeah, well, something went wrong with us,” muttered Veemon angrily. “We didn’t get that. And not only that, we got stuck in these stupid base forms…we woulda had you if we coulda used our REAL power…”

“Wait, you guys are variable?!” Breezedramon’s eyes opened wide, and suddenly the implications were hitting home for all of them - they had REALLY dodged a disaster there today, and not by much.

“The block on our bodies…we weren’t ready for that,” sighed Gabumon. “I don’t know how long it’s supposed to last…they never said anything about it. I’m not sure they even knew, we’re the first variables to go through…I thought it would be enough, humans aren’t supposed to be that strong, and we were supposed to outnumber you easy, as long as you didn’t pull those tricks off…”

“You’re not doing yourself any favors,” hissed Salmandmon.

“Does it matter? We can’t go back. You might as well just kill us and be done with it.”

Salmandmon clenched his jaw. Their pact, and their Knight’s Code, wouldn’t have been in line with that…but he couldn’t just leave them to hang around, either. The idea that maybe it was better to finish them off was wrestling with his conscience…but before he had to make the decision, Biyomon spoke up. “W-wait…I…I have a charge. I can…I can take them.”

“You what?” Gabumon asked in shock. “You said you didn’t!”

“…I didn’t want to tell anyone. I didn’t want them to think I was a coward who was planning to bail on everyone…”

“Why’d you get one and the rest of us not?” griped Veemon.

“I was nervous about the transfer…I had them walk me through it, and got the charge on the way. I don’t know why they didn’t give the rest of you one, they said that was standard…”

“You all can talk about this later,” Shockavimon declared. “If you can go back, now’s the time to do it. Take your buddies and beat it.”

Biyomon looked hesitant. “But…the others…”

“Will either find their way back somehow or die trying to make our lives miserable,” growled Datacarnomon. “We’re not throwing a party for them trying to get them back here.”

“Let’s just go, Biyomon,” said Gabumon tiredly. “It’s not worth it.”

That didn’t seem to sit well with the bird, but she nodded reluctantly. The four miscreants were gathered together, Gazimon still unconscious and held close by Gabumon and Veemon, as Biyomon activated her charge. Within seconds, the four of them had vanished, resolving one part of the problem. Though the rest of it was still lingering over the heads of the defenders.

“Well, that was messier than I’d hoped for…” Derek rubbed his head and sighed. “But at least for the moment we’ve dealt with the worst of it. Now we have to go try to find the ones who escaped…”

“That’s probably not gonna be a ‘today’ thing, I think,” said Shockavimon. “They could go literally anywhere, and without any leads, I don’t fancy our chances of finding them even from the air. If they’re struggling to evolve, though, they’re probably not going to be deliberately causing much trouble for a while…Rookies can do some damage, but they’re also the most vulnerable. They’re probably going to lay low until they’re able to get back to their real strength again…jeez, we were so close to a really bad end there.”

“We were close enough until Sal cooked ‘em good,” remarked Breezedramon. “That was a huge Blast Point! I didn’t think you could do ‘em that big!”

“Thank Reyn for that,” the lizard replied with a bit of an edge. “He saved my bacon AND supercharged me. But I’m worried that he can’t even stand now.”

“Hey…I could stand…probably…”

“You’re awake!” Salmandmon rushed over to Reyn; the firehaired boy still looked pretty wiped out, but otherwise in good spirits. “What did you do? How did you do that? I didn’t even know you COULD do that!”

“Well, it’s not part of our standard skill set, that’s for sure,” replied Reyn somewhat listlessly. “I’m not sure what happened exactly…I just…had this…weird feeling when I was trying to think of a way to help you…and I just, uh, did what I felt like I could.”

“…That sounds like an energy transfer of some kind,” mused Datacarnomon. “Digimon can learn how to do that, but it’s not a common technique to learn, because of how risky it is. Usually they rely on other types of recovery techniques or supplies instead. But I can’t imagine humans being able to do something like that…”

“There’s a good reason for that,” agreed Derek. “But I’m going with the usual answer…anything strange is probably because we’re doing that whole merging thing.”

“Ah, yeah…that’s probably a safe assumption. Jeez, we might only have scratched the surface of what this fusion thing makes possible…I don’t often feel like I’m scrambling to try to catch up on things, but this has me feeling like I’ve got a big exam and I missed all the lessons.”

“Indubitably, we lack a satisfactory instructor on the matter…this educational institution is untenably subpar and I shall be submitting my complaints towards the administration,” Blackcanismon joked.

“If you actually find someone, let me know, I’ve got a few choice words I want to give to them, too.”

Salmandmon wasn’t in as jokey a mood as he hugged Reyn tight. “I’m glad you’re okay…I was worried after what happened, I didn’t know if you were actually gonna be all right. You looked so faint…”

“I was worried about YOU, bud…” replied Reyn, with a serious weight to his voice that wasn’t all fatigue. “I thought that might be it for you. I almost wish I could’ve been actually in the fray and doing something useful…you guys were really outnumbered there.”

“We were…and that really wasn’t a good situation. We gotta be more careful, I guess…this is the first real group they sent in, we should’ve expected that that would happen sooner or later. We might have to think more about how we approach battles, we can’t afford to lose any of us…”

“Uh…guys?” All eyes turned towards Breezedramon, who was hovering a short ways into the trees. “I think, uh, we might have a bit of an issue here…”

“What’s going on?” asked Shockavimon nervously.

“You know how they took back the ones we knocked out? I think they missed a couple.”

“Oh, dammit…” There was a sudden scramble towards where Breezedramon was flying. With effort and a bit of help from Salmandmon, Reyn managed to get to his feet and follow them. As they arrived, they saw the group looking over two downed digimon, Shadowdramon and Crestmon. Both were unresponsive, but seemed to be alive and not in danger of perishing any time soon.

“Messier than I hoped for, indeed,” sighed Derek. “Well, at least we found two of the stragglers.”

“I was really kinda hoping they’d bit it in the blast,” Breezedramon sighed. “Well, Shady here at least, he was making things hard for everyone. Kinda a brat if you ask me.”

“What do you want to bet their return trip doesn’t work either?” groaned Shockavimon.

“Two thousand credits,” Datacarnomon said immediately.

“Shut it, Data. You know you’re not allowed to make literal bets out of rhetorical lines.”

“Ostensibly he should not be establishing additional gambles in totality,” agreed Blackcanismon.

“You guys are killing me here,” protested the robot. “I’ve been good lately! Well, mostly.”

“Not the time, guys,” Salmandmon interjected. “We need to figure out how to deal with these guys. If they can’t get back to the digital world, we have to keep them from causing trouble.”

“How about stowing them away in our hideaway?” suggested Shockavimon. “Keep them down there until we can get someone to take them back? We can put them in one of the rooms behind the heavy doors.”

“How do we keep them from breaking out, though?” Breezedramon pointed out. “Those doors might hold up to them just pounding on it, but probably not if they use attacks.”

“Ike and I can probably whip up some suppression gear,” offered Datacarnomon. “Keep them from attacking or moving around too much. Actually, we can probably set some up for all the stragglers, in case we manage to subdue them.”

“Inconvenient, but I confess I can innovate no suitable alternative,” Blackcanismon said with resignation. “However, I despair of their remaining compliant until such point in temporal distance that the aforementioned equipment is prepared.”

“Yeah, I doubt they’ll be down for that long,” agreed Derek. “And if we’re taking them back, we need to figure that out as well - I don’t think we’re going to be able to hide them if we’re toting them along. Especially if they decide to break out their most threatening stuff, and especially considering that Reyn looks like he’s about to keel over just from them looking at him the wrong way.”

“Feel like it, too,” affirmed Reyn.

Datacarnomon nodded. “Understandable. Well, I can try something that might help. I wrote up and installed a quick little ability seal program as an experiment…it’s untested, since I didn’t really have time to, but if it works, it’ll probably buy us enough time to get them restrained.”

“Excuse me?” Salmandmon spoke up testily. “You had this on you the whole time and you didn’t, say, try to use it during a battle where we were outnumbered three to one?!”

Datacarnomon gave Salmandmon a look that was remarkably effective for a creature with blank panel eyes. “Sal. Just to make clear…are you saying you wanted me to try to throw out an UNTESTED, EXPERIMENTAL program in the middle of a melee that was already not going well for us?”

“…Objection withdrawn,” Salmandmon said reluctantly.

“As it should be. Now then…” Datacarnomon turned towards the two downed mons, raising his arm up. Rather than letting loose regular shots, the barrels of his shooters glowed, and then launched out a light ball that flashed through the area, making the others avert their eyes. The flashbang-like effect rapidly retreated, and a light glow covered Shadowdramon and Crestmon. “Hah! Success!” Datacarnomon pumped his fist triumphantly…but that moment was quickly dampened as his internal status monitor flashed some warnings at him. “…Aaaand we’re all sealed. Crud. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“I was gonna say…” grumped Shockavimon, the glow clearly on her and the others as well. “Smooth move. How’re we supposed to get back undetected if we can’t use our cloaking tech? I mean, not that mine works great, but it’s better than being a giant yellow eyesore in the middle of the sky!”

“In fairness, ours should wear off quickly, since we’re not unconscious or anything. We’ll just need to wait a bit.”

“Boy, I sure am glad no one was suggesting we use this in the middle of a huge battle or anything!” Breezedramon exclaimed loudly. “That woulda been a REALLY dumb idea!”

“All right, all right…” grumbled Salmandmon. “I SAID I was wrong…”

“Datacarnomon, am I to imagine you neglected to implement an exception within your nascent program to exclude your comrades from target consideration?” Blackcanismon queried with a healthy lick of asperity.

“Of course not, BC,” replied Datacarnomon testily. “I put an exception in right away. It just didn’t WORK. Clearly I made a mistake somewhere, which, you know, is something I would have found out if I’d had time to test it before.”

“How do you miswrite something like that?” asked Shockavimon.

“Look, computer programming is a very intricate, delicate operation of creating hundreds of bugs and wrangling them into place until you accidentally get a working function. I can’t help it if a bug occasionally escapes its kennel, that’s what they do.”

“Look, at least they’ve been sealed, right?” Salmandmon pointed out. “That was the goal, and as far as that went, it worked.”

Derek nodded in agreement. “Right, that should help, at least. But we still have to secure them somehow until we get more permanent stuff, and preferably sooner rather than later, because I see sharp claws and horns and I’d rather not be on the wrong end of them.”

“I think I have an idea,” said Reyn. “Though, you’re gonna have to do the leg work because I’m still pretty wiped.”

“Well, it had better not be too difficult, then. What’s your thought?”

“You know that outdoor equipment shack that the gym teachers store some of their stuff in? I’m pretty sure I remember seeing some jump ropes and tug-of-war ropes in there. Either one of those might work.”

“Oh, really? You think we can get in?”

“I don’t know if it’s locked or not, but even if it is, I’m pretty sure Darkvargmon won’t be stopped.”

“Good point. All right, let’s get to it before they wake up. You guys make sure they don’t go anywhere.”

———

The denouement was thankfully uneventful. Darkvargmon was able to get everything needed out of the shack and get it locked back up like no one had ever been there. It wasn’t exactly a great feeling taking them without permission, but he would return them once they had other restraints in place. Once they were back, they were able to get both creatures nice and thoroughly tied up, mostly securing them just as they were starting to rouse. Crestmon mostly seemed to be resigned to the bonds, while Shadowdramon was struggling and glaring at them but unable to escape.

“Once Ike’s back, we’ll get something prepped to lock them down for longer, and hopefully some better ways of restraining them,” reported Datacarnomon as he joined the other digimon in a group away from the two humans and captives. “For now, it seems to be working well, they’re definitely sealed and that rope’s plenty strong.”

“You sure it’s okay leaving Reyn and Derek to watch them alone?” asked Shockavimon.

“At the moment, there’s not much the two can do to them. And the threat of swift deletion if they try should be pretty effective - they know we can do worse to them than what we did. We still have the issue of carrying them back to base, though.”

“Reyn and I talked that out,” said Salmandmon. “There’s really only one option, and that’s Burnreptimon. It’s not exactly safe or secretive, but it’s not like we haven’t already been seen…so long as they don’t know where we end up, we should be fine.”

“If you say so…at least it’s a plan, we don’t have one for the ones who got away. That’s a bunch of mons who could pop up again at any time to make things difficult for us.”

“We’ll have to hunt around for them,” said Breezedramon. “Or have Data ping them!”

“Pinging might not work so well.” Datacarnomon held out a small device. “I found a few of these on the ground here and there. They’re basically personal sensor jammers, they scramble the signal around you so that mons like myself can’t pick them up. A couple of them aren’t working properly, though…I think that’s why I was seeing such sporadic signals, it was a sign that some of them were on the fritz.”

“Dang. Guess we should’ve figured they’d use their own cloaking eventually, huh?”

“Why would we?” said Salmandmon heavily. “We thought Emperius was going to be as unsubtle as ever in their campaign here. But they haven’t been playing to expectations, again, and we’ve been caught off-guard, again. And that’s part of what I wanted to talk about with you guys. Because I think there’s more to what’s been going on than meets the eye, and I wanted to see if you thought the same.”

“What do you mean, Sal?” asked Shockavimon.

“This has been bugging me for a while now. It goes all the way back to that last battle. Do you remember what we were told about it?”

“My recollection indicates that a contingent of Emperius warriors had gathered under the jurisdiction of a battery of generals attempting to revitalize the movement,” Blackcanismon put forth. “The presentation was indicative of a potential ‘last stand’ scenario.”

“Right. The notion we were given was that a few high-rankers were rallying the forces to start things back up, and we had a chance to go deliver the killing blow. We’d already taken down a lot of their forces in the previous year’s clash where I torched Craniummon, and we’d been whittling away at remnants during the entire interim…it seemed to make sense. It’s been so chaotic since then, so we really haven’t had time to dwell on it, but…did you guys ever wonder HOW our intel got it so wrong?”

Silence from the others as they looked at each other; it was pretty clear that they hadn’t been thinking about that, but now that it was brought up… “Do we know where the report came from?” asked Datacarnomon.

“I don’t know anything specifically, but at the time, we weren’t using a lot of outside support services. Everything had been pretty well-established, we’d had most of the year to work on our infrastructure.”

“But if it didn’t come from outside…” Shockavimon trailed off.

“There’s more, too. The fact that they’d been able to hide from us for a whole year apart from a few strike forces that showed up here and there…and with the numbers they had, they had to be recruiting in the shadows, despite our efforts to root them out. How specifically we were targeted…they had no specific reason to believe we would show up. Maybe they just assumed it, but I wonder if the report wasn’t tailored to make sure we did, because they wanted to get us out of the way. And then finding out Emperius not only had working PTM tech, but actually improved on ours…they were ready to go as soon as they had taken out the biggest thorn in their sides.”

“It…all sounds too coindicindefundamental, doesn’t it?” Breezedramon said suspiciously.

“Yeah, it does. Guys, I think we were sabotaged. We had a mole, maybe more than one but at least one, and they were working overtime for a year to mislead us and lead us into a sense of complacency, all while they were helping Emperius regroup after their previous routing. They had to be feeding them information about the PTM, letting them develop it at a faster pace than ours was and giving them chances to improve on it, in preparation for their attack here. And worst of all…Shockavimon, when that Frigimon found us…”

“He wasn’t even remotely surprised to see us.” Shockavimon’s eyes widened. “They already expected us to be here.”

“The mole had to have come back and found out. And we have no idea who it could have been…” Salmandmon’s jaw clenched. “Can’t believe I never suspected it before…”

“I would suggest culpability lies with alternative sources compared to yourself, Sal,” stated Blackcanismon, growling menacingly. “And said rapscallions will experience the bitterest of vengeance at my behest, for the suffering at minimum of a stalwart friend.”

“But the KOL probably has no idea, either, then, right?” Breezedramon asked anxiously. “They could be sitting ducks waiting for the mole to strike again!”

“If we never suspected, they probably didn’t either,” agreed Datacarnomon. “Which means…”

“Which means we can’t trust anyone who comes through, even if they say they’re an ally,” finished Salmandmon. “Even if it seems like the KOL sends reinforcements tomorrow, saying they learned about Emperius’s campaign and decided they needed to back us up…right now, we’re in a position where there’s only five people in two worlds we can really trust to be on our side.”

“Our humans,” Shockavimon said heavily.

“You wanted to tell us this in case we saw someone come through who was an ally of ours at some point in the past, right?” suggested Datacarnomon. “That they would try to lure us in using a familiar face that was ready to betray us at any point.”

“Exactly,” Salmandmon confirmed with a grim nod. “And honestly, there was a time not too long back that I’m sure I would’ve been suckered right in. I would’ve given anything to have a few more guys here to help shore up our defenses. But now? I dread seeing anyone come through. Everyone has to be an enemy until they aren’t. The only thing we have going in our favor - the ONLY thing - is that they’re still underestimating us. And that’s bought us some time…but it’s not going to be long enough to carry us all the way, especially if they keep sending groups like today. This was meant to be a devastating ambush force…they almost were even without their full power, but if they had been able to lay low…we can’t hope that they won’t try something like this again soon.”

“And we’ve seen jack squat from our efforts to get in touch with people,” sighed Datacarnomon. “I thought once Aquilamon blew everything open we’d start to get more response, but they aren’t even sending form letters back anymore. This world isn’t even close to ready for anything…what happens when they start sending stronger guys than they have been?” That last line left a long, heavy silence around the group, mulling over the prospect of a gloomy-looking future…

…until Blackcanismon spoke up. “We possess but a singular illumination of hope, obscured in the shroud of uncertainty. That our capacities can potentially be further amplified by a phenomenon we are intimately familiar with, but our human counterparts merely consider trivial knowledge.”

“…BC…are you saying…evolution?” asked Salmandmon.

“Is that even possible?” Breezedramon yapped. “I mean, our combined forms even have the seals on them!”

“Undeniably so, yet perhaps you recollect our conflagrant compatriot’s observation regarding those troublesome brandings while hybridized. They decidedly were devoid of their originating effect.”

“That’s true,” mulled Datacarnomon. “And he’s right, they do feel different there. But that doesn’t necessarily mean much…but then again, I never actually gave any thought to the idea of evolving our hybrid forms. Do you think it’s even possible?”

“And even if it is, how do we make it happen?” Shockavimon pointed out. “It’s not like we have access to the Catalysts here. We don’t know what it would take.”

Salmandmon bowed his head. “We’ll have to see if we can find out. Because BC’s right…I think that’s literally our only hope. With no one else to count on, and this side still more or less oblivious, if we want to survive this, we need more power. And that might be the only way we’re going to get that power. Unless there’s another magic method we’re not aware of yet, but I don’t know if we’ve got the time to figure that out.”

“Man…” Breezedramon moaned in frustration. “Every day feels like the impredamitaments are bigger and harder to fly over. How do we keep our buddies in good spirits when it gets harder for US every day?”

“We have to try…because it’s all we’ve got. We’ve found hope in tight spaces here before, guys. Cling to it as hard as you can, because that’s all that’s going to get us through this. Remember what they all said…they were willing to go down swinging. We have to be, too, no matter what.”

Chapter Text

Late mornings in Braun had never been so quiet. The recent incidents had a lot of people staying inside, where it was at least safer if not guaranteed security. Few cars drove the roads, schools lay dormant, businesses were open but seeing little in the way of customers, and there was a dreary air that was not helped by the overcast skies of the day. But for some, it was far from a peaceful time, and a flurry of phone calls between a certain group had them bustling back to action.

“We picked up a signal using the extended scanner this morning. Looks like five of them, actually. If we all can get there this time, I think that’d be the best-case scenario.”

“I think I’m in luck. Both my parents are out right now…I’ll get in trouble if they catch me sneaking out, but it’ll be worth it to make sure the city’s safe. Where are we going?”

“That’s the tricky part. They’re all clustered in one spot - the Jordan Air Field.”

“That’s like ten miles away! It’s going to take an age for some of us to get there!”

“I know that, but that’s why we should meet at our usual base. I’ve been working on something for this sort of occasion - I’ve been modifying the teleport module and I should be able to get all of us there if we’re all together.”

“You mean that thing that’s been on the fritz multiple times since you first made it? Maybe I should take my chances with flying.”

“We have to check on our guests anyway. Who’s bringing them food?”

“I still can’t believe you actually captured digimon. This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.”

“So far it’s better than the alternative. Neither one’s been particularly talkative, but they haven’t been able to break out so far. Now that they’re locked down in suppression collars they’re easier to rein in, but we’re trying to keep them from moving around too much, I don’t know how well that door’ll hold up if they’re really determined.”

“I’m not sure how you expect them to get sent back, what digimon is going to wait around for long enough after we beat them to let us bring them to them to take them with?”

“We have to try, as long as they’re at our mercy, it would be wrong to just kill them. And that’s why I’m bringing them food, too, but you guys’re gonna have to contribute to that, someone’s going to catch on soon.”

It was perhaps not the cleanest bit of call chaining and coordination, but it got the job done - everyone eventually arrived at their hideaway base, apparently without being detected by anyone who mattered. Unsurprisingly, Isaac and Datacarnomon were the last to arrive, though closer to punctual than Isaac’s usual.

“Okay, you guys are right,” griped Datacarnomon as they entered the basement. “This guy is a pain to get moving properly.”

“I actually have stuff to do to get ready!” protested Isaac. “You just sit there being ready all the time! It’s not that simple!”

“All of us have things to do to get ready,” remarked Skylar stiffly. “And yet, four out of the five of us are fairly regularly on time, particularly for the things WE organize.”

“You humans have too much compilifaricatrated stuff,” Breezedramon chimed in exceedingly helpfully. “Sky does like a zillion things. Maybe you’re just doing another zillion too many?”

“I venture, perhaps erroneously but I possess confidence not, that our machine-minded compatriot’s temporal insensibility tribulations are generated by insufficient preparatory attention, conversely to the proclaimed excess of required activities,” stated Blackcanismon with a hint of playful teasing.

“It’s a lack of orderliness,” said Iris. “You look at his room, you’ll see what I mean. He’s as scattered physically as he is mentally.”

“You all suck,” grumbled Isaac.

Reyn poked his head out the door. “If we’ve gotten it all out of our systems, Isaac, Data, I want you to come in here and check on these collars, just to be safe. Everything seems fine to me but I’m not a master at this sort of stuff.”

Isaac, quite grateful for the reprieve, hurried over to their ‘secure holding room’ - perhaps a bit bold of a statement, but ‘prison’ felt a bit too heavy. Data followed behind, readying himself just in case things got messier, but Salmandmon already seemed to be attending to that. He was currently fitting the leg cuffs back onto Shadowdramon, who was scowling at every one of them, but currently kept from speaking by the band over his mouth. The pieces were quite impressive for such quick work - specially-designed cuffs to restrain the arms and the legs while also dampening the amount of force they could apply, a band wrapping around the snout of Shadowdramon and around the head of Crestmon to muffle their voices, and a collar around their necks that diminished their strength and blocked the use of their abilities, and giving their bodies a ‘weight’ that limited their movement and blocked Shadowdramon from flying. The latter was in anticipation of removing some of the restraints later on if the captives behaved themselves. Already Crestmon’s muzzler was set aside, and the saurian digimon didn’t seem too invested in making a whole lot of noise.

“This idiot’s yapping got to me,” Salmandmon remarked as he tapped Shadowdramon’s muzzler. “When he threatened to bite, I slapped this back on in a hurry. At least got some food in him first, not that the ingrate appreciated it.”

“Have you eaten as well?” Datacarnomon asked Crestmon as he checked the collar, making sure it was physically and mechanically sound as best he could.

“…Yes, I did…” Crestmon looked away, sounding somewhat morose and nervous.

“Lovely. Try not to look so down that we didn’t delete you like heartless bastards. This might not be fun, but at least you’ll probably live to get back to where you belong.”

Crestmon didn’t reply to that, leaving Datacarnomon to give the others a ‘well, I tried’ shrug. Meanwhile, Isaac worked on Shadowdramon’s collar, being extra diligent as he guessed this was the more troublesome one. “Everything looks to be in order. Jeez, he’s a pleasant one, isn’t he?”

“He seemed to be the leader of that little group of rascals,” said Reyn. “Or at least wannabe leader, it was a bit too chaotic to know if they all thought that way. He’s plenty defiant, but I can’t tell if he actually hates us or just wants a fight.”

“I’d be happy to clock him a few times if that’d teach him a lesson,” huffed Salmandmon. “But apparently we’re being all noble and crap, so I’m holding it in.”

“Way to sell it, bud. We all good?”

Isaac nodded. “Yep. Everything looks sound. Now we can really get down to business.”

———

“I don’t see why you’re wasting time with this nonsense. It’s not getting us any closer to solving this problem.”

“Agent Redford, as I’ve told you multiple times, we’re working on it.”

“‘Working on it’ is not good enough, Agent Katran.” Redford and Elliot were exchanging scowls that would have turned lesser men to stone. “When I got here, I was informed that you were the senior investigator here, and it was my expectation that you would be quick to put things together and get all the action in place that was needed to make things happen. Was I misled about that?”

Elliot was very much losing his patience. “Do you think this is some dime-store B-movie, Redford?! How many goddamn fantasy monsters have YOU dealt with in your time at the bureau? I have agents putting their lives on the line out here to get us even an inch closer to figuring out what the HELL is happening in our city, and I haven’t seen YOU do much of anything other than talk on your phone with apparently very important strangers and complain about OUR lack of work! If you’re that anxious for things to get done, let’s hear a few suggestions that don’t involve sending in a thousand DC boys who don’t know the first thing about what’s going on here!”

If looks could kill, Redford would have had more than one lethal weapon on him. “…Work faster, Katran. The FBI doesn’t have a boatload of patience.” He stalked out, leaving Elliot even more frustrated, and nearly bumped into Emil as he shoved the door open.

Emil looked behind himself at the retreating agent as he stepped in, raising his eyebrow. “Should I ask?”

“You can probably hazard a guess.” Elliot thumped his coffee cup in the trash. “If I had a dollar for every feddie who waltzed in here thinking he owned the place, I could retire early. And Redford is worth at least ten for how useless he is.”

“Do you have any idea who he’s talking to all the time?”

“I wish. But it has to be someone back on his home planet, right?”

Emil gave Elliot a thin smile. “I know what you mean, but we might want to avoid that phrasing while we’re dealing with THIS particular issue. I’m afraid of daring the universe at the moment.”

That got a bit of a terse laugh out of Elliot, but he seemed to relax a bit. “Fair enough. No, I think we’re both thinking the same thing…he has this narrative that he desperately wants to be true and is trying to make it happen.”

“Yeah, the incompetent local fuzz get bailed out by the big damn heroes at the national level. Where are we in trying to make that not happen?”

“I’ve got the dossiers lined up in the conference room. There’s still a lot that we don’t know, but the visuals are something else. It’s given us a few insights that I think will be helpful. And the incident a couple nights ago got us even closer. Maybe once we get something out here, this will finally break in our direction.”

———

Jordan Air Field. Years ago it had been a hangar and airfield for small craft, but it hadn’t been used as such for at least a decade following condemnation for contamination. While the city waited for their chance to secure funding for cleanup and redevelopment, the old hangar buildings stood dormant and unmaintained. Good news for the five who were just arriving, as there was much less risk of meaningful collateral damage...that was about the only silver lining, though, considering that they were up against a few more enemies than they would have liked at one time.

“Well, if that’s teleportation working properly, I’m gonna prefer using my own two feet still,” remarked Burnreptimon as they dusted themselves off and got their heads in order following their arrival. “That does NOT feel good coming in.”

“It take a bit of getting used to,” noted Andrexmon. “Wasn’t so easy for me the first time, either. But if you do it more, it’ll get easier.”

“Yeah, I’ma pass,” moaned Skydramon. “I don’t wanna be trying to fly around while my head’s spinning like this.”

“So this is Jordan Air Field…I don’t think I’ve ever actually been here, just heard about it.” Boltfalkemon looked around. “Wide open space, a few scattered buildings…if it wasn’t for the distance, I’d like just about all the battles to be held here.”

“And the exposure,” added Burnreptimon. “We’re a ways away from most people’s sights, but anything big is gonna easily be seen. Andrexmon, what’s the sitrep?”

“Our five signals are still here. No sign of movement, and they’re spread out. Either we’re about to get the drop on them, or they’re waiting for us. No prizes for guessing which one I’d rather be true.”

“The one that’s not going to be, I’m sure. I assume we’re splitting up and taking them one-on-one?”

“Probably better than if they all decide to work together,” Skydramon agreed. “Let’s get to it, huh?”

“Hold a moment.” All eyes went to Darkvargmon, who had been quiet up until then. “…Do you feel that?”

“Feel…what?”

“Concentrate. You’ll notice it.”

Confused, the others remained silent, trying to figure out what the heck Darkvargmon was talking about. But after several seconds of quiet, they started to notice it - a subtle sensation of something radiating through the air, faint but distinct once they were aware of it. “What…in the world is that?” asked Andrexmon. “I’m not picking up on anything on my sensors.”

Darkvargmon shook his head. “You wouldn’t. That’s chaos energy. By design, it can’t be measured, only felt.”

“Chaos energy?” asked Burnreptimon. “You mean we’re dealing with demons?”

“Yes, and not just regular demons. Giving off chaos energy means these demons are linked to a source of it. Your average demon digimon might use chaos energy but doesn’t give off an aura like this…these ones have been on a chaos plane, absorbing it.”

“Which means they might be stronger than normal, right?” surmised Boltfalkemon.

Darkvargmon nodded. “Exactly. So don’t take them lightly. If you feel like you’re not getting the upper hand, back away and regroup. This makes me nervous, I don’t remember encountering demons which gave off this kind of energy among Emperius’s ranks before.”

“They’re too damn full of surprises these days, if you ask me,” grunted Andrexmon. “Let’s move.”

———

Five files, laid out next to each other on the table in the conference room. Innocent enough in appearance, but Emil knew they contained nightmares within. “Profiles on each one, and the drawings that were done…they’re numbered #1-#5. Is there an order to them?”

“Order right now is based on when they were identified,” said Elliot. “We thought about putting them in a threat-level order, but right now, all of them are considered basically beyond our threat-level scale entirely, so there wasn’t much point trying to split hairs.”

“Got it.” Emil opened folder #1, and was immediately greeted with a stunning drawing of a yellow-feathered avian creature. “Gracious! This is incredible!”

“Cecily is a wonder-worker,” agreed Elliot with a smile. “Braun PD pays her a pretty penny when they need a sketch artist. I hear she does art for a living, and makes some pretty good bank doing so. Almost makes me wonder what I’m doing here.”

“Ell, you’re my closest friend, but if you think you could do art for a living on YOUR talent…”

“Well, I wasn’t going to go THAT far. Anyway, #1, our electric bird creature, first seen over Lennar Street. We’ve seen her the most often, but in other ways she’s been pretty elusive in spite of that.”

Emil looked up curiously. “Her?”

“Right, I’ll explain that. She engaged one of the helicopters that night, apparently up close and personal. The spotlight casing was smashed. We saw traces of blood, but not enough to think it was a severe wound. Near as we can tell, she then descended down near Grittis Street. McGovern caught sight of her there, and moved to engage…except, he wasn’t armed, so I don’t know why he did.”

“Knowing Bob, he likely just forgot he didn’t have his gun on him,” said Emil. “He always does say he’s not a fan.”

Elliot shrugged a little. “True, but on this job, he really should get used to it. He’s been here long enough. Anyway, he paid the price for it, because he startled her, and…apparently, according to him, with just a touch of that clawed hand, he got a jolt like he’s never felt before. Said it felt like he imagined a souped-up taser would have to feel like.”

“With her HAND? Jesus. I know there were reports of electricity around this one, but…just being able to do that with a touch, that’s beyond scary. How is Bob doing?”

“He came back in today, clean bill of health. Got a couple of marks but no serious damage. Now, here’s where things get weird. Apparently, after the shock happened, our central station got a message over his radio from a female voice telling them that there had been an incident. But we’re not sure who it could’ve been. There were no distinct footprints around except for the bird creature’s and Bob’s. We asked around but no one’s speaking up about being up that night, so right now it’s a bit of unsolved mystery.”

“Huh…very strange. Another thing I’m wondering, if she had Bob down, why didn’t she finish the job? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she didn’t, but…”

“No, I get it. My best guess is that she thought she had already. Bob said that he was barely conscious, but he heard her speaking over him…maybe she thought his lack of response meant that he was dead or dying. Anyway, he swears it was a female voice, though he couldn’t make out any of the words…that’s why we’re going with female for the creature. It’s maybe being a bit presumptuous, we don’t even know if these things have genders, but at this point, I’m going with what we know until we’re given a good reason not to.”

Emil nodded thoughtfully. “I guess it makes sense. He was that sure about the voice?”

“About the only thing he can swear to from after the shock. Even said it sounded almost familiar to him, somehow, though he thinks that’s just because of how indistinct it was. Given that I’m fairly sure electric bird creatures didn’t exist before a week or so ago, I doubt he could actually be familiar with it.”

“Definitely not.” A wry chuckle left Emil’s mouth. “I’m going to have to make sure Iris doesn’t hear about this one. She tends to get into things that are all about electricity…I already have enough trouble convincing her to stay inside. If she met this one, she might get the wrong idea about these things entirely.”

———

All things considered, Boltfalkemon would very much have preferred to stay outside. But their quarries had decided to all hang out inside the hangars, so she would have to make do. At least they’re big, fairly open buildings inside, but still, it’s gonna be harder to move around in there…

In she went, through the regular doorway next to the large hangar doors that would have let airplanes in and out - and as she passed by, she noticed with some disconcert that they looked like they had been opened recently, by something with sharp claws. Not exactly putting her at ease, but she wasn’t expecting them to be throwing her a birthday party anyway. The inside of the building was dark, only a few small windows providing light; she fumbled for a switch and found it, turning on some lights inside…but it was still rather dark, as most of the lights were occluded by a noxious pall, no doubt courtesy of their guest.

Said guest, however, was still visible…and Boltfalkemon was momentarily thrown. It was a nasty-looking devil dragon digimon, with a gnarly black body, some black belts over his limbs, and a wrap around one wrist, with fingers bearing long red claws and wings that looked tattered and torn. Devidramon…but…aren’t they usually a few stories tall? This one’s barely half again as tall as I am…not that I’m complaining, mind…

“…Ssssso…” Devidramon spoke, his voice raspy and hissy. “The ssssstrange onessss…they came asssss exsssspected…”

“You thought we wouldn’t show up, when you showed your foul face around here?” snapped back Boltfalkemon.

“One never knowsssss…” cackled the Devidramon, somehow taking amusement out of that. “You intend to ssssstop me, then?”

“I’m going to do more than intend!” Boltfalkemon spread her wings, and flapped them forward, shooting her Spark Wave at Devidramon. The devil dragon took to the air, flying rather adeptly despite his wings seeming insufficient for the job, and getting away from most of the attack, a few shots grazing his legs but not seeming to do much.

“Ssssso impetuousssss…I like that.” Devidramon smirked as Boltfalkemon took to the air as well, sparking as she faced him down. “Let’sssss sssssee what you’re made of, birdy…Crimsssssson Nail!” He swooped at her, brandishing those dangerous claws as they glowed brightly with a baleful energy. He was faster than he looked, and Boltfalkemon had to scramble a bit to get out of the way as he swung and cleaved only air.

That gave her an opening, though, and she took it, diving into him with an electric charge. “Static Cracker!” Her momentum carried them both downwards onto the ground, getting a screech out of Devidramon as they hit. She leapt up quickly afterwards, narrowly avoiding another swipe from those vicious claws, and Devidramon followed her into the air again, panting some but clearly far from out.

“Not bad, birdy…you’ve got ssssspunk.” Rarely had a compliment made her bristle so much - perhaps worst because it almost sounded genuine. “They sssssaid there wasssss sssssomething ssssspecial about you…perhapsssss I can sssssee it.”

Who’s ‘they’? I can’t imagine Emperius is handing out any credit to the likes of us… Boltfalkemon wasn’t exactly eager to engage in repartee with this fiend, though, and instead launched another Spark Wave at Devidramon. This time, Devidramon didn’t evade, but suddenly rushed through the attack, way faster than she was ready for. “Demonic Gale!”

No chance…Boltfalkemon swooped down under him, but there was no avoiding the trailing shockwave which rattled her body and send her thudding onto the ground. Better that than a direct hit, but she would be feeling that one for a bit. She heard Devidramon swooping back down towards her, and launched herself into him again, another Static Cracker hitting him bodily, his claws swiping behind her as he wasn’t expecting her to make that particular move. That plus a kick sent Devidramon tumbling and her backwards, landing on her feet and panting hard…at least the devil seemed to be in similar shape, he wasn’t in dire straits but he was clearly fatigued. “Curioussssss…your energy…the tasssssste…exsssssotic…”

“And what’s THAT supposed to mean?” challenged Boltfalkemon.

“Hnhnhn…my massssstersssss were right…you are quite interessssssting creaturesssss…” Devidramon straightened up, grinning down at her in a disconcerting manner. “Ssssssomething about you…the chaosssss…it sssssseemssssss to be drawn to you.”

Boltfalkemon blinked. “What? What do you mean? What chaos? What’s Emperius so ‘interested’ in us for?”

“Now, who ssssssaid anything about Emperiusssss? You will find out, perhapssssss, when they are ready…”

Suddenly Devidramon began to glow, and the space around him distorted. Boltfalkemon started - there was no way, right? “What? Wait a second!” But it was too late, Devidramon vanished, headed back to wherever he came from. The hangar suddenly felt emptier…that weird energy presence, the chaos energy that Darkvargmon had been talking about, was gone, too. And Boltfalkemon found herself with more questions than answers.

———

“You know, Elliot, I’ve always thought of myself as someone open to possibilities. There’s lots of strange things in this world and beyond, you can never say that something is outright impossible. But if you told me two weeks ago I was going to be looking at a drawing of an actual goddamn dragon, I would have needed to get you a psych eval.”

“It’s insane to think that this is what it’s come to,” agreed Elliot with a solemn nod. “But Constant Monster #2 doesn’t seem to care how insane it is. This one was also spotted in the Lennar Street Incident, and seems to appear a fair bit with the bird. Might make sense, both of them fly.”

“It’s amazing that they do, they seem too big to be able to fly like that…but I remember the helicopter report, this one was absolutely zipping around according to them.”

“Yes, and it had a very potent ranged attack, as well. It struck from afar and ruined the searchlight badly…I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that, myself. But it also swung up and attacked after that...we think it was targeting the night vision camera.”

Emil took a sharp breath inward. “That…that is a scary thought. Forget that they would be smart enough to go for that, how would they even know that those existed?”

“Oh, if you’re scared now, just read on about this one. It was sheer luck that we caught sight of it the way we did that night. It landed on the road near Petunia Place, almost right on top of Paul Dailey. He confronted it and held it at gunpoint.”

“Jeez. I almost feel sorry for the monster now.”

Elliot snorted a laugh. “Dailey is a pretty intense one, but I’ve seen his type before, once he ripens a bit he’ll learn how to temper himself. It took a bit to get the whole story out of him, at first he was just talking about how the dragon used a ploy on him to disorient him, but with a bit more pushing I managed to get him to admit that he got distracted. But it’s how he was distracted that worries me…Dailey said the dragon talked rings around him.”

“Talked rings around him? How? Just talking fast, or…”

“Well, that too, Paul said he talked like he was on fast-forward. But it was what he was saying, too…he didn’t go into much detail, even though I told him I wasn’t going to judge him. A bit less green will take care of the pride issue, too, I hope. But he made it clear that this dragon was highly intelligent.”

“God help us.” Emil rubbed his head. “Advantages are everything when dealing with a threat, known or unknown. Even being on even ground is bad news when you’re on the defensive. We already knew we were lacking on size, speed, or strength…if intelligence is another factor we don’t have the edge on, then I’m not sure what’s left.”

“Human ingenuity, if we’re lucky. But I’m not so sure about that, either. Paul said once the creature had him distracted, he was knocked over by a sudden gust of wind, and then the creature snatched his gun away from him.”

“Wind? It was dead still out there that night.”

“Yep. And the way Paul spoke, it sounded like the creature was taking credit for it. It might be like the bird, except instead of electricity, it channels wind. And more, judging by this…” Elliot held up a bag, showing Emil the fragments of Dailey’s gun inside. Emil took a close look, and then recoiled.

“You can’t be serious!”

“Dead serious. Paul said the claws cut clean through. And right after that, it gave off a warning, said we were in the middle of a calamity and that we’d regret coming after it, or something to that effect. Dailey seemed a little reluctant to talk about that much…he was nervous about something, for sure.”

“Goodness, I can’t imagine why.” Emil shook his head. “Scary as he is, he’s honestly kind of fascinating. I guess it’s just a thing about dragons. Iris has a friend who’d probably be enthralled by him…she says he goes nuts about anything wind or weather-related.”

“I imagine he’d want to stay away from this one,” remarked Emil. “If those claws can do that to a metal weapon, I’d hate to see what happens when they come into contact with flesh.”

———

“Oy! Evil demon creature! Come on out of here, don’t hide away like a coward!”

Skydramon’s goading wasn’t having any effect - the outside of the hangar remained stubbornly digimon-free. He groaned a bit. “You’re really gonna make me come in there…” he muttered under his breath. “Fine, just for that, I’m gonna go extra-hard on you…” With no help for it, he steeled himself and barged into the hangar, looking around for whatever threat was coming his way. It wasn’t exactly brightly-lit, but there were quite a few windows around the top, allowing sunlight in.

Which, apparently, wasn’t helping the temperature inside, as Skydramon was giving off shivers. “Brrr! The hell’s going on, is this place refrigerated or something?” He looked around, and it didn’t take long before he saw it - a bright white devil creature, with plenty of black belts and brown wraps around parts of its body, and wicked bull horns on its head. “Oh, well, I guess it is NOW. Don’t you have better things to do with your time, IceDevimon?”

“I’d say I’m doing quite well for myself,” replied the demon smugly. He was not quite as big as IceDevimon could get, but they had an annoying tendency to play around with their projected sizes…Skydramon would take it if he stayed only twice as tall as he himself was. “I drew in an annoying blue dragon to toy with, after all, I think that counts for something.”

“You’re gonna regret underestimating me!” fired back Skydramon boldly. “I’m no pushover, I’ve taken out a fair few of you goons!”

“So I’ve heard. Bold enough to come and try to face me alone…or stupid enough. Perhaps we’ll see which!” IceDevimon raised his hand, smirking evilly as icy energy coalesced in it, surrounding the claws. “Have at you! Frozen Claw!” He leapt at Skydramon, lunging with the ice-covered claws; Skydramon shot into the air out of his reach, at least for the moment, but he knew he wouldn’t get much respite.

“Eat my Twister Orb!” He hurled the windy orb at IceDevimon, smacking him an the head and making him roar out. That got a grin out of Skydramon, which fell quickly as IceDevimon looked back up at him, seeming less than put out.

“You’ll have to do better than that. But I don’t think you’ll get the chance! Cold Breath!” A deep breath, and he blew out an icy gale that Skydramon could swear lowered the temperature another few degrees even as he avoided the brunt of it. He’s trying to keep it cold to dull me down…I have to keep moving and stay warm!

“Icy Shower!” IceDevimon spread his wings, and multiple dangerous pointed icicles formed from them and fired out. Skydramon swooped around, doing his best to weave around them, but the seventh one clipped him and sent him skidding across the frozen floor, crashing into the wall of the hangar. He picked himself up, grimacing through the pain; one wing was feeling especially cold and sore, but it was still working at least.

“Hah hah hah! Is that the best I can expect out of you, foolish dragon?” taunted IceDevimon. “Perhaps you aren’t so suited to fighting for this world after all…”

“Oh, bite me, you think you’re a big deal just because you’re a demon! You don’t know how many of your kind I’ve put an end to over the years!” Technically that was Breezedramon, but Skydramon wasn’t about to split hairs. Despite the tumble, he felt oddly quick to recover…the cold wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t affecting him like he thought it would. “And you’re not even close to the strongest! I’ll show you what you’re messing with! Twister Orb!” He launched another orb, then another, and then flew back into the air and rushed towards IceDevimon while he was preoccupied with the projectiles.

Not preoccupied enough, it seemed, as IceDevimon let the second one hit him in order to lay out an attack at the charging dragon. “Frozen Claw!” He swung, but Skydramon was ready - just as he’d anticipated. His own claws glowed blue, and he swung under that slash and met the demon’s arm with his own Aero Nail, ripping through ice and wraps and flesh and getting a pained roar out of the demon. It would have been much better if he’d been able to follow that up with a second to IceDevimon’s torso, but the hangar wall was far too close and he was forced to swing away from it and IceDevimon.

Still, he could see IceDevimon holding his arm, and grinned down fiercely at the demon. “Not talking so tough now, are you? I’ll do the same thing to your face if you want!”

“…Heh…” That wasn’t the response Skydramon expected…the demon was still grinning. “I suppose there IS more to you than an overactive mouth. No wonder they had such a curiosity about you…you seem well suited to the chaos.”

“The hell’reya talkin’ about?” asked Skydramon, befuddled. “Curiosity? What, Emperius suddenly doesn’t wanna kill us dead? You think I’m gonna believe that?”

“Oh, Emperius I’m quite sure wants your head on a pike. But I serve a different power, they’re just a means to an end…and I think they’ll be quite interested to hear what I have to report to them…”

Suddenly that distortion and glow rose around IceDevimon, and Skydramon started. “What? Hey, don’t you dare bail on me! Twister Orb!” He launched the attack, but there was no chance, IceDevimon vanished well before it got there, and it merely impacted on the hangar wall with a loud crack. Skydramon landed, staring at the space that had been left behind by the disappearing devil.

You gotta be kidding me…he actually left? Like, not just in a ‘we forced him to’ way, he was clearly still fight-worthy…and what’s with this ‘different power’ business? No one else we’ve run into has ever had designs on the human world…what’s going on here?

———

“The new Jurassic Park movie clearly did NOT go the direction anyone was expecting.” Emil shook his head as he looked at the dossier on Constant Monster #3. “This was the one that was first seen at Glikke Field, right?”

“Correct. Neal Collins caught sight of him moving through the trees near Keller Street, around the pond near there. He regrets not trying to confront the creature, but I think he made the right choice - if he had gotten killed, no one would have gotten a good look at this one. We didn’t get any information on engagement, but honestly, I don’t think I want engagement with him.”

“Jesus, I can see why. Do kids still use the term ‘ripped?’ Because that’s about all I can think of to describe that frame.”

A shrug from Elliot. “You’re asking the wrong guy. I’m more concerned about the metal. Particularly the metal arm. It’s hard to tell exactly, but the way it looks and the way he was holding it in the pose Collins described…I don’t know that I want to take the risk that it’s NOT some kind of cannon weapon.”

“So we’re dealing with some kind of cyborg…wonder if that kid Iris was talking about would have any advice. She says he’s a robots whiz.”

“Iris seems to know an awful lot of people,” remarked Elliot.

Emil returned with a wry smile. “You know her closest friends are also Derek’s closest friends, right?”

“Are they? He doesn’t really bring anyone around.”

“He goes with them more than they go with him, but Iris pretty much loops him in with them all the time. That’s what she tells me, anyway.”

Elliot’s brow furrowed a bit. “Hm. Well, regardless, I’d rather not get minors involved in this mess if we can help it, even if they are good with robots. This isn’t just a regular robot anyhow. But it IS a menacing monster. So we’re going to have to be very, very careful with how we approach this. I honestly think we have to get something out of one of the others before we even try, because as big and sturdy as he looks, I wouldn’t trust service pistols to do much. Unless someone’s in active danger, I’m telling people not to engage unless they’re armed with rocket launchers.”

Emil raised an eyebrow. “We have rocket launchers?”

“Nope.”

———

…No movement. There’s no way they can’t be hearing me, I’m not exactly a maestro of stealth. Andrexmon was standing in front of the smaller doorway, contemplating whether to use that or the much larger hangar door, which would probably be a better fit for his larger frame. But giving the demon inside an easy way out sounded like a less than wonderful idea to him, particularly with the others being occupied in their own matches…small door it was, whether he liked it or not. I would have expected them to try to ambush me, though…either they’re stupid or they’re confident, and I’m not sure I like either one of those prospects.

He opened the door and squeezed his way inside, closing it behind him. He didn’t bother with lights, using visual enhancements to get through the darkness. Sitting right where his sensors told him it would be was the demon, looking at him - or so he presumed, her eyes were pretty well covered by those violet protrusions on her head. Much better to have her eyes on him than those many wicked-looking claws and blades on her legs. “Sangloupmon. A confined space doesn’t seem like your ideal combat environment, if I’m being honest.”

“Oh, a strategist, are you?” Sangloupmon’s voice was even and slightly haughty, in that slick way of someone far too confident for Isaac’s comfort. “Perhaps you should be more worried about yourself than me. After all, you might not have much time left to worry about anyone.”

“Yeah, yeah, says you and every other Emperius goon that comes through thinking I’m an easy target.” Andrexmon raised his cannon arm, pointing it at Sangloupmon - though aiming low, he wanted to avoid hitting the walls, there was a good chance he could do a good deal of damage and that would probably draw the wrong type of attention. “You might have noticed very few of them come back. There’s a reason for that.”

“Hmhmhm…fair enough. But remember, it only takes one victory for us…does your precious computer brain want to calculate the odds of your luck holding out as the days drag on?” Sangloupmon rose to all fours, bracing herself to break out into a run. “Perhaps a demonstration is in order!”

“Dino Buster!” Andrexmon fired first, putting Sangloupmon on the defensive and forcing her to run evasively rather than aggressively - he wanted to keep the pressure up to keep the much faster canid demon away from him, proximity was definitely not his ally in this fight. His shots weren’t extremely fast, but advanced aiming algorithms were making up for that, making sure he fired just at the spots that kept Sangloupmon from being able to build up speed in any one direction. She was agile, no doubt about that, evading his shots by stopping short and twisting to run off in other directions; he made sure she couldn’t run straight at him, moving only sparingly to keep from being too predictable.

Upping the pressure didn’t seem to be changing much - his shots were getting more aggressive, but she was evading them by running or bouncing off of walls or jumping or flipping in the air. I probably shouldn’t be so impressed, considering she’s my enemy, but those are some pretty good moves…she’s gonna make me work for my successes here. Guess I need to be thinking a few more moves ahead…she might have the moves, but she doesn’t have a clockwork mind like mine.

He fired very deliberately, trying to work Sangloupmon into the corner of the hangar; the dirt was pockmarked with craters from his shots already, and she seemed to nearly stumble on one, but recovered well before Andrexmon could take advantage. But he didn’t let that bother him, sticking to the plan…and the opportunity opened up, Sangloupmon hopping off of one wall onto another and then jumping onto the floor - right into the path of Andrexmon’s next shot. She yelped as the shot connected with her chest directly, flinging her into the wall, which she bounced off of and hit the ground hard.

Andrexmon grinned - a direct hit, giving him the edge! He hastened to follow up, hurrying forward and firing at the prone demon…but she suddenly leapt up, surprisingly not as badly stunned as he’d thought, and a dark glow surrounded her before he could make up for that. “Black Mind!” Before Andrexmon could stop her, her form melted into the ground, disappearing from view. He looked around rapidly, trying to ping the demon on his sensors, but the signal was muddied, impossible to make out in the darkness. There’s no way…dammit, I forgot she could do that! Did I just get played? Was she distracting me so she could get out and run free? Rgh, I need to get outside before-

He wasn’t at all ready for Sangloupmon to appear behind him, leaping right out of his shadow, cast by the dim light of just a couple windows. “Drain Slash!” Andrexmon was thrown forward, the cutting sensation through his back leeching energy from his body, making it feel like a much harder impact than it looked. He hit the ground with a thud, growling in frustration, fighting the sudden rush of fatigue…though it passed rather quickly, more than he would have thought.

And a good thing, too, as Sangloupmon wasn’t about to leave him alone, trying to pounce on him with another Drain Slash from those wicked claws. But Andrexmon had some wicked claws of his own, as well, and brandished them suddenly, whipping around after Sangloupmon had already committed to the attack. “Energy Claw!” His claws met hers, her only defense to keep him from disemboweling her, but it flung her into the wall again, and she was slower to rise this time, giving Andrexmon a chance to recover his position. Once again he took to his cannon, hoping to get her before she could get back on the defensive…

Suddenly Sangloupmon leapt to the far side of the hangar from him, now right in front of the hangar door. She stopped there, panting, but with a devious grin on her face. “Seems you’ve got me at a disadvantage here, robo-boy…c’mon, take a shot. Think you can predict where I’ll go? Or will you tear these walls apart trying to take me down?” She cackled a bit at Andrexmon’s snarl. “Oh, did you think I didn’t notice? You were avoiding shooting at the walls…how cute, trying to prevent collateral damage.”

“…Don’t think I won’t if I have to.”

“Oh, you’re a fun one. And a tough one, too…they don’t usually get up so fast after my Drain Slash. It seems they were right about you.”

“Huh? Right about what? And who’s ‘they’?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know? Heh heh heh, I wonder how much it’ll keep your precious computer brain busy trying to figure out?”

Andrexmon started - Sangloupmon was glowing, the same glow he saw when one of their foes was bailing out. “Wh…you’re not-! Don’t you dare run off on me!” But Sangloupmon merely gave one more haughty laugh as she disappeared, vanishing like she’d never been there, only the dislodged dirt on the ground and a couple dents in the walls from where she’d hit to show that anything had happened.

…She…left? Why? This is…I don’t know what’s going on anymore. We’ve made some mons run off, but I’ve never seen one actually abandon the middle of a serious fight, when she was clearly able to keep going…she wasn’t even close to beaten, she could easily have sneak-attacked me a couple more times and kept it going…

He trudged towards the large hangar door, hefting it up rather than using the small one, since there was no real risk anymore. Sangloupmon was gone, that weird energy was gone, but Andrexmon still felt like he might have been the loser in that match - because her words were most definitely going to be occupying a LOT of processing cycles for a while…

———

“Constant Monster #4…are we sure this is one? I don’t recall it from the incidents we covered.” Emil looked over the drawing of the red reptilian creature. “Or wait…was this from one of the other reports?”

“Right.” Elliot thumbed through a couple of papers in the file and pulled one out. “This one was caught on camera making another monster disappear. We didn’t get much information on the one that disappeared but the few details didn’t match any from these files. This lent credence to the idea that these ‘Constant Monsters’ might be summoning the other ones, and then removing them later.”

“Do we have any idea what this strategy is supposed to accomplish?”

“Not a clue yet, but that’s why we’re hoping to actually capture one of them and interrogate it more directly. This one might not be the one to catch, though. You ever heard of the mythological Salamander?”

“I think so. That’s supposed to be some kind of fire spirit, in the shape of a reptile or something, right? Iris’s friend was talking about that to me once. You know, the red-headed one?”

“Oh, yeah, the little firebug. That’s one I remember Derek being around…hopefully without matches or lighters. Anyway, you remember right. That’s what we’ve got here, if Rivier’s account is to be believed.”

“Tony Rivier…” Emil rubbed his head, looking rather weary. “I know we gave an all-hands order, but WHY was he out there? He’s like a baby jackrabbit, he gets spooked by anything. He’s primarily desk-duty for a reason.”

Elliot shook his head. “He should have been excluded. I’m working on coordinating that with the supervisory team right now. Anyway, Rivier said the creature crossed their path more or less by accident while they were stationed near Stanton. He was there along with one of the members of the police force - guy by the name of Burt Cragland. Except don’t bother looking for him because he’s now an ex-member of the police force, and good riddance.”

“I sense a story coming up.”

“According to the account, Cragland immediately engaged in hostile fashion. Rivier said he made it pretty clear that he intended to deliberately defy the capture-alive order, and in fact attempted to do so. And then…get this. When the guy fired on our Salamander, he apparently protected himself with some kind of fiery barrier. He couldn’t tell what happened exactly, but it sure didn’t look like the bullets did much. It then struck as Cragland tried to reload, got his and Tony’s weapons, and…” Elliot held up another bag with two guns, their barrels melted to useless blobs.

“Dear lord. A fire spirit indeed.”

“That was pretty much it for Rivier’s spirit, apparently, he says he had a bit of an out-of-body experience from there on. He saw Cragland then attempt to attack hand-to-hand, but…Rivier said the lizard moved almost like a martial arts expert, quick and efficient blows to put our ex-officer down for the count. Then it spoke a threat to him, and ran off. Sounds like the threat was pretty similar to the one the dragon gave to Dailey, but he was sketchy on the details on account of being so shellshocked.”

“I’m not sure how comfortable I am with these monsters all being able to talk like this,” Emil said with a frown. “Bad enough they’re capable of commanding forces of nature, being human-level in mental state means they can engage us on their terms. On the other hand, basic creatures couldn’t tell us anything about themselves if we managed to get one in custody, and we’re desperately in need of knowledge.”

“That’s the double-edged sword, there,” agreed Elliot darkly. “The fastest way to gain knowledge is through a transfer from them. Lacking that, we’re having to use what slow ways we have accessible to us, and right now that’s got us behind. I’m hoping that once we get the information out to people, we’ll have an easier time tracking them and finally get the chance to engage one on OUR terms. Maybe then we can actually figure out a way to stop them from doing what they’re doing. Or figure out their motivation…they have to be doing this for a reason. Maybe for someone who made THEM, though at this point we don’t have any way to figure out if there is a higher link on the food chain.”

“Too much of their behavior doesn’t make enough sense. Three direct confrontations, they all have the edge, but they run away?” Emil shook his head. “Elliot, there’s something we’re missing here. I don’t know what it is, but if I were coming into this three days ago, I would have been dreading bodies. Instead, we have two relatively clean disablings and three destroyed weapons, not to mention two helicopters that will be putting in hefty expense reports. But what we’ve seen suggests that they could have done a LOT more damage.”

“I don’t have answers, Emil, but I’m not counting on it being mercy. We’ve seen what some of those monsters have been willing to do, and they have to be coming from somewhere. These ones have been seen around them, and they stay while the others go…I don’t know what to make of it.”

“…Is it possible that they could be…creating them, somehow?”

Elliot bowed his head. “Maybe…it would explain why they seem to show up more often. It wouldn’t explain why they’re de-creating them, though. And it doesn’t explain where they came from, either…maybe someone made them and taught them how to make others, and whoever did isn’t ready to show their full hand yet. Until we know more, though, I’m trying to prepare for the worst.”

———

Burnreptimon really did NOT want to be fighting indoors. The others might have had their own issues with the arena, but his were far worse - he was a walking arson case, and while in theory burning down a building might have been fun and compelling, it was far more likely to get their asses in hotter water than anything. The idea of having to use restraint when he might be in a life-or-death battle wasn’t exactly his favorite, but there was no helping it, the demon just was not coming out.

Of course it’s not. Why would it want to make this easy on anyone?

In he went, slamming the door behind him and staring down the creature he was supposed to be fighting…and he paused. Hanging from the ceiling, in more or less the center of the room, was something that looked like a cocoon with wiry tentacles tipped with claws. “Is this a damned joke? They sent a Chrysalimon to fight me?”

“Aw, iz the little lizard upzet?” Chrysalimon’s voice had a buzzing quality to it, almost insectoid. It swayed a bit, flapping its clawed tentacles around. “You think I’ll be an eazy target?”

“Uh, yeah? You can barely move. How did something like you ever make it onto Emperius? I could buy an Infermon, easily, but you?”

“Hee hee hee…maybe you’ll need to try to beat the answers out of me. Go on, then, if you’re that cocky!” Chrysalimon whipped its spiked tentacles at Burnreptimon. The lizard leapt out of the way, and countered with a controlled Pyre Rush that only just reached Chrysalimon. The flaming attack engulfed the immobile demon, but when the flames cleared, it was still swaying there, seemingly unfazed. “Ee hee hee hee! Iz that all you’ve got?”

“Oh, come on…you’re an overgrown bug, bugs are supposed to be weak to fire,” growled Burnreptimon.

“Zomeone needs to ztudy harder, then.” Chrysalimon waved its tentacles tauntingly before launching them at Burnreptimon again, one of them nicking his arm and drawing a little blood. The wound barely registered to him, though, as he launched another Pyre Rush, and then another, bathing the demon in flames - ineffectually, it appeared. “Zeriouzly, it didn’t work the firzt time, what makez you think it’ll work the zecond?”

“I don’t need commentary from you,” Burnreptimon hissed back. Playing keep-away wasn’t helping him, he needed to belt this bagworm like a piñata, but he didn’t want to take any really nasty hits from those tentacles - they weren’t particularly strong, but a gash in the wrong place could spell trouble. He decided to try another tack, taking a deep breath and channeling the fire in his mouth. “Flare Fang!” With some effort, he launched a ball of flame from his maw at Chrysalimon, a more concentrated attack that he actually had the time to pull off against the largely immobile opponent. However, despite the added force, it did little more than make Chrysalimon swing around more robustly.

“Wheee! Thiz iz fun! Keep it up, lizard, I haven’t enjoyed myzelf thiz much zince before I evolved!”

Burnreptimon was seething now, first clenched hard. This annoying clown of a demon digimon was hardly even trying! Another tentacle swiped his way, and he snatched it up, taking another cut for his trouble (though the first seemed to have healed up already), but putting it out of commission with a flare of his hand, the blade falling to the ground and dissipating into data which was drawn into Chrysalimon. “You wanna rethink that, asshole?”

“Mmmm…nope!” The other tentacles flew at Burnreptimon, and this time he stood firm, grabbing at them and torching them one by one. All told, five others fell to his hand, and though he was fairly sliced up by them, the wounds were all shallow, and closing up quickly. Every ruined tentacle seemed to inflame him more…restraint was getting ever more difficult, he felt more wild than ever, heart pounding like lightning. What’s going on? I’m not scared of this guy, I shouldn’t be getting this much of a rush out of him…

“Zomeone’z a little antzy, iz he?” taunted Chrysalimon - despite being down all its offensive weapons, it seemed utterly unbothered. “You’ve got me where you want me, don’t you? Have at it!”

“Freaking masochist…fine, let’s see you handle this!” Another Pyre Rush, barely held back enough to avoid torching the hangar wall, and then another that Burnreptimon charged into himself to amp himself up further, even though it seemed excessive - he really wanted to put this idiot down. He leapt at Chrysalimon and swung, fist slamming hard into it and sending it swinging hard. As it swung back, he delivered a perfectly-timed flying roundhouse kick to hurl it harder, making it actually bump into the ceiling with the force he let loose. And as it came back down, he walloped it with his tail, sending it careening another direction, with the result being Chrysalimon whipping dangerously around the room; Burnreptimon dropped low now, making sure to avoid getting skewered by the spike on its abdomen. Surely that had to have shut the demon up…

But as it settled down, Burnreptimon’s jaw dropped. Chrysalimon didn’t look even remotely damaged! “Hee hee hee…haz the hothead blown off hiz zteam yet?”

“No…no way! What the hell?!”

“You haven’t figured it out yet? Thiz zhell iz not juzt for zhow!”

“Freaking…okay, that’s it!” Burnreptimon didn’t know why he was getting so incensed, but he didn’t question it as he leapt onto the wall, climbing up high on it, and then launching himself off of it onto the tentacles holding Chrysalimon to the ceiling. He roasted them like he had the others, causing him to plunge to the ground as they broke off, though he was ready and landed safely if a little roughly, narrowly avoiding dropping onto the demon and spearing himself on one of the pointy bits.

But now it was nothing more than a sitting duck, and he held nothing back. His flaming fists hammered the shell, he stomped hard on it, he grabbed it and slammed it into the ground, a display of savagery that seemed wildly excessive, and yet…no matter what he did, Chrysalimon was unharmed and unfazed, even laughing at the brutal beatdown that seemed far less brutal in result than in effort.

Finally, panting hard, Burnreptimon chucked the demon onto the ground. Steam was pouring off of his scales and smoke was leaking from the corners of his mouth, a testament to his loss of control. “Why…won’t…you…DIE?!”

“Hee hee hee…what a performanze!” Chrysalimon of course wasn’t answering directly. “I could feel the impactz getting harder and harder, and the flamez getting hotter and fierzer. A perfect tezt of your abilitiez…and your rezponzez, hee hee…”

“Test…of my…what?! What responses? What are you talking about? I swear, if this is some new Emperius shenanigan…”

“Hee hee hee…well, Emperiuz may have an interezt, but my mazterz are the only onez worthy of hearing it…it zeemz you have a home in the chaoz. Thiz will be mozt exziting to them…”

“What are you talking about? Hey!” Chrysalimon began glowing, and Burnreptimon tried to pounce on him, but he vanished, leaving the lizard to flop onto the dirt roughly. He picked himself up, muttering angrily. “Asshole bug demon…hrrrrgh…” His body was finally settling down, the strange pall in the air ebbing away. “What the hell kind of test was that? And who’s interested in it? If it’s not Emperius…who else IS there?”

No answers were coming in the hangar. He stomped out, hoping that someone else had learned something more useful than he had - the last thing they needed was another enemy to worry about.

———

Emil got a surprise when he opened the fifth folder. “There’s…no drawing in here?”

“Correct. We haven’t gotten a good look at Constant Monster #5, and to be honest, they’re somewhat theoretical at this point. The potential is based off of a doorbell camera clip we received a few days ago. You can see two creatures in the distance, one of them looks like some kind of yeti or something, and the other is a being that seems to meld into the shadow. The yeti one vanishes, and the other one moves away, almost seems like it sinks into the darkness itself. We can’t know for sure if this is one of the same kind, but given that it appears to be involved in the summoning and dismissal of a creature…” Elliot left that hanging, but Emil didn’t really need anything more to be said.

“Vanishing into the shadows…that sounds like a bad horror flick. I hope you’re wrong, but I get the feeling you might be on to something, even that little bit is behavior that seems a lot like our other problem creatures.”

“And absurdly hard to catch, if it does in fact sink into shadow. I know it sounds rather far-fetched, but all of these creatures do and we directly engaged with three of them just a couple days ago. Right now, I’m not in a place to disbelieve anything I see or hear.”

Emil nodded thoughtfully. “Right. We’ve got to start narrowing possibilities down, but we can only do that with what we know…when we’re this in the dark, we can’t discount anything.” Emil let out a sigh. “If only we had cameras looking everywhere. Getting the community’s help will certainly be a boon, but I’m worried about them putting themselves in harm’s way trying to find them.”

“I’m more worried about them taking out guns and going hunting,” replied Elliot grimly. “We need answers before we start aiming for bodies. If we don’t get some idea what we’re dealing with, we can’t stop it from happening again in the future. And I don’t want to end up having five worse monsters replace these ones and summoning more massive creatures like the huge bird or the Glikke Field beast.”

There was a silence between them as they contemplated that. Eventually Emil spoke back up. “How should we approach it, then?”

“There’s risk to everything. But right now, I want to present it as ‘we need to find where they’re hiding so we can make sure there aren’t more.’ I think we can get the best compliance if people realize that these creatures are a danger beyond just their own appearance, and that there’s a reason they need to be kept alive if possible. Warnings not to engage…well, they’ll only go so far, but I think it’s all the more we can do.”

“So we get people trying to train cameras out on the streets to see if they can get any hits?”

Elliot shook his head. “Not just the streets. A couple of them can fly, too. And it doesn’t even just have to be creature detection - have people looking out their windows, scanning around for evidence. These creatures MUST leave some kind of evidence behind. Footprints, bio-matter, anything we can get we can use to track them.”

“Right, of course. And if there’s more of those signs in one place…”

“Then we can close in on them and get one step closer to putting this whole mess behind us once and for all.”

———

There was no entering through the door for Darkvargmon - why make an obvious indication of his entrance when he could just appear from the shadows? The essence of stealth seemed to be to his benefit, especially in a one-on-one fight…he wasn’t made to do a lot of close-quarters combat, so getting the advantage in this fight was definitely vital to success. It wasn’t as easy to focus, though, with how thick the chaos energy was around the area. I know what this feels like from some of the demons around Moonlighton…but it was never this heavy there, naturally. It’s likely to have a detrimental effect on me, I need to be cautious.

“…I know you’re there, you’re not going to easily hide from me.” Darkvargmon cursed inwardly - the demon had sniffed him out before he’d even arisen in the room. So much for stealth…he rose up, facing down the foe, which looked like some kind of badly-sewn stuffed animal creature with a lot of nasty-looking spikes on its body. Their voice was oddly child-like in tenor, though their manner of speech was decidedly more mature than that. “A denizen of the darkness coming to face me…I would have thought you’d be on our side.”

“You would think very wrong, Porcupamon,” snapped Darkvargmon sharply. “I would never align myself with the likes of Emperius. Their campaign of hate and death is the antithesis of what the world needs.”

“What a misguided notion. The inevitable fate of all things is chaos. To fight it is to waste your life clinging to an order that will cease to exist after you do. Why not embrace the truth of things and live your life as it was meant to be, sating yourself with chaos?”

“I have more respect for my fellows than to buy into a twisted perspective like that. And if you think I won’t put an end to you for threatening all that I care about, you’re even more delusional than most. Nightmare Tangle!” Darkvargmon raised an arm, and a swarm of darkness tendrils rose up and grabbed onto Porcupamon.

At least, they did momentarily…until Porcupamon, almost casually, suddenly jutted metal spikes from all over their body. “Madness Broach!” Darkvargmon winced and flinched as the tendrils were torn apart - it wasn’t painful, but he could feel the way they were sliced and skewered. Well…that didn’t work. I’m not going to be able to restrain them…hopefully I’ll be able to keep them from doing any such thing like that to my body.

“If that’s the worst you can do, then I don’t think Emperius or anyone else has anything to worry about.” Porcupamon started towards Darkvargmon, their movements stumbling a bit as they turned towards him. “I’ll show you what a mistake it is to oppose us…maybe you’ll see the truth for yourself soon enough to save yourself. Slap And Rip!” They suddenly rushed at Darkvargmon, moving much faster in a straight line than they had turning around, waving clawed arms at him. Not fast enough to keep Darkvargmon from avoiding them, though, as he phased into the ground and reappeared behind Porcupamon. The demon puppet slowly began to turn again, their mobility clearly not good unless they could just run forward - information the wolf knew he needed to take advantage of.

“You shouldn’t be overconfident, Porcupamon, that’s how quite a few of our foes have met their end. Shadow Wave!” Darkwolfman raised his hand, which glowed with his dark energy; it fired out, enveloping Porcupamon and making them stagger a bit. He hadn’t expected too much, demons were generally resistant to dark energy, but not immune - if he got in enough good shots he’d be able to make them suffer. The fact that his first strike had as much impact as it did was even a bit surprising, but then again, Porcupamon didn’t exactly look like the hardiest soul.

Not that they were admitting to that. “That won’t be nearly enough…you shouldn’t treat me like I’m just a weak little plaything, I can handle much more than that.” Porcupamon ran at Darkvargmon again, but by now the pattern was clear for him - Porcupamon had no ranged attacks, and he was much more comfortable at range. Sinking into the ground again, he popped up behind and away from the puppet, launching another Shadow Wave to make them stumble once again. This was going better than it really had any right to, he had expected a lot more from a demon capable of wielding this kind of chaos energy. Not that he was complaining, he’d take a breather of a fight any day…

“…I’ll bet you think you’ve got me licked, don’t you?” Darkvargmon’s ears twitched…Porcupamon had a slight smugness in their voice that had him very much on guard. “A lot of digimon think the same way…that’s why they aren’t ready for what I can do when I really try. Harrowing Pins And Needles!” Suddenly pain flared in Darkvargmon’s shadowy legs as he felt something spear into them that he couldn’t see, holding him in place…and then Porcupamon raised one arm, and shadowy needles fired out from it, streaking through the air. He couldn’t avoid all of them, managing to get down enough to just get caught on one shoulder and arm. He managed to sink into the darkness again, but he could only escape the grip of the attack, not the pain from where it had hit. That’s not an attack I remember their kind having…ugh, I don’t like when they throw curveballs like that.

“Don’t think you’re going to beat me just hiding away like that…you’re going to have to face me sometime. And then you’ll get to feel another proper pin…I’ll have better aim this time.” Porcupamon wasn’t letting up, trying to goad Darkvargmon out again…the wolf wasn’t biting, but the demon had a point, hiding wasn’t going to get him a victory. He needed to get another attack off, but anything would leave him a bit of a sitting duck, able to be pinned in place…he needed to be able to attack without them being able to counterattack him…

…Ah, yes…I need to think outside the box. At least, outside of one of them…

“This is getting old…admit defeat if you aren’t going to try to challenge me,” griped Porcupamon. “Maybe I should go hunting for one of the others instead, they’d have to give me a better fight than this.”

The response came from a direction Porcupamon wasn’t ready for - right above his head. “Hasn’t anyone told you that all good things take time? But I’ll be happy to send you to the proverbial hell if you’re that eager. Blasting Darkness!” Porcupamon had just enough time to look up - a challenge in its own right, they weren’t made for that - and see the orb of dark energy plummeting onto them. It blasted outwards next to them, knocking them to the ground on their back, and they were quite slow even trying to get up. They raised their hand towards the ceiling, but Darkvargmon wasn’t about to wait around and get caught up again, disappearing and then reappearing behind Porcupamon again, in the area where they were least able to access. Another Shadow Wave knocked them down before they could fully rise up, sending them skidding forward. “You seemed confident you could take a lot of punishment before…how much more do you think you can really handle?”

“…More than you can deliver, despite your bravado.” Porcupamon wasn’t trying to rise up this time, just tilting their head towards Darkvargmon. “Though, I have to admit, you impressed me…I didn’t expect your blows to amount to even this much. The chaos should have blunted them...interesting…”

“…I fail to see what about this is that interesting. Perhaps I’m merely more competent than you were ready for.”

“Perhaps…but that wouldn’t explain why your later attacks were stronger than your earlier ones.”

“…What?”

“Heh, maybe you don’t have as much figured out as you think you do. I think they’ll be very intrigued by this…I wouldn’t have expected it, myself, but they are the masters for a reason. Perhaps we shall meet again, and when we do, hopefully it will be with you on our side.”

Darkvargmon growled again. “Did it not sink in that I said I wouldn’t join Emperius? Do you think offering ten times will make me more likely to accept?”

“Heh…who said anything about Emperius?” Darkvargmon started, and by the time he processed that, the glow was already around Porcupamon. “Until next time, stranger…” The hybrid bristled a bit, but didn’t bother trying to interrupt the demon’s escape - them being gone was a success enough, as far as he was concerned, it put an end to the threat for the time being.

…But there was something about them that didn’t feel right. ‘Who said anything about Emperius’ indeed…it could be a bluff, but with demons, even a bluff tends to have meaning. We need to be on guard, someone’s got some suspicion about us and I don’t like that…we barely even know that much about ourselves, what could someone else be thinking about us?

———

Elliot closed the door to the conference room, the files gathered up in his arms. “I’ll put these in a central location, but they’re going to have to be under lock and key. I don’t particularly trust Agent Redford not to swipe them and take us out of the loop. You and I are going to have to be the ones who add to them. I’ll let you know once I’ve found a proper place for them.”

Emil nodded. “And then what? What’s the battle plan?”

“At the moment, getting the images out there is the most important thing. We’re going to disseminate the drawings, but more than that, I’ve asked Rudy Panmechia to construct some 3D models. They should be done in a couple hours.”

“A couple hours? My, but he works fast. Sometimes I wonder what he’s doing here rather than at a big-shot tech company, he seems like he could do just about anything he wants.”

“I don’t know, but I dread the day we need four or five guys to replace him. Someone in payroll is going to have to figure out how to deal with THAT budget nightmare. Anyway, I’m hoping that the sketches plus the models provide enough reference that those four will be pretty easy to recognize. The fifth we don’t have enough to go off of, but presuming they’re all together, we might be able to catch up with them. But I’ve been going back and forth on whether to talk about what they’re capable of…I worry that some people won’t take it seriously if we try to tell them the lizard’s some kind of fire beast, and will try to confront it thinking they have the edge.”

Emil thought on that one for a moment. “…No, I think we should be up front with that. Remember the Lennar Street bird monster? It quite clearly was doing something supernatural. I think as many people who have seen that, they’ll probably believe our other monsters have something extra to them. And it may help dissuade them from trying to attack, and just focus on reporting.”

“Hm…I think you’re right. All right, I’ll make sure that gets out.” Elliot sighed. “What I’d REALLY want is some way to actually neutralize those abilities they’ve shown. How they even work is beyond me, but how to make them NOT work would be more useful. I don’t know how we’re going to handle them still…they seem to be intimidated enough by guns at least, but I still don’t feel we have the edge. This feels like it’s going to get more dangerous before it gets better.”

“Right. I don’t feel safe about any of this.” Emil’s brow furrowed. “I wish I knew why Iris wasn’t thinking the same way, though…”

“Ah, you know how teens are,” Elliot replied dismissively. “Think they’re invincible and all. I’ve never been able to convince Derek to behave more safely, even with that dog he found, so I’m sure it’s the same with her.”

“Maybe…” Emil wasn’t so sure though. She’s never been that forceful about leaving the house before…I wonder what could have gotten into her?

———

“…So it wasn’t just me. They all just…abandoned the fight partway through.” Andrexmon rubbed his head. “Ugh…this is the most bizarre encounter yet.”

“At least they’re gone, and without any real damage to speak of,” sighed Boltfalkemon. “But yeah, something about this…didn’t feel right. Why go to all this effort to goad us out here just to bail before after a few blows?”

“…Chrysalimon was talking about some kind of test,” remarked Burnreptimon. “Of our abilities and our responses. I don’t know what that means, though…even literally trying to beat it out of him wasn’t working, that jerk probably could have laughed through a hydrogen bomb.”

“I fear that their coyness doesn’t exactly leave me feeling easy,” added in Darkvargmon. “About their purpose, about the chaos, even about their allegiances…they had to have been with Emperius, PTMs aren’t just anywhere, but they didn’t have that…vibe, if you will.”

“Whaddaya mean?” asked Skydramon.

“…it’s hard to explain. They seemed…less interested in this world, and more interested in…well, US. Emperius hasn’t had any reason to want to learn about us, they simply want us dead. So the question is, who DOES want to learn about us?”

Andrexmon folded his arms and bowed his head. “I can’t imagine demons swearing themselves to any higher power than isn’t other demons. But there hasn’t been much in the way of organized demon activity in northern Tetraquaz in centuries…just small fry doing their thing. And if that’s changing, it’s about the last thing we need.”

“I suppose there’s no point in hoping it might not be a bad guy demon?” asked Skydramon. “Maybe someone looking to help out and having heard about us?”

“They wouldn’t try to do it this way,” replied Burnreptimon with a shake of his head. “Good demons tend to be very straightforward, very deliberately, to try to avoid misunderstandings. Wolf, you’d probably know best if there were any with any designs…”

“None that I could imagine - they tend to want to keep a lower profile, too…” Darkvargmon sounded even more troubled than the others.

“Wolf? Is something wrong?”

“It’s…nothing. Nothing I can really pinpoint, anyway. I think it’s just the confusion of everything muddying my head.”

“I don’t blame you, this whole thing is just weird,” grumbled Boltfalkemon. “I don’t think there’s a lot of point in dwelling on it without more information, and until some more demons decide to come through, I doubt we’re getting much of that. And honestly, I’d be okay if they just held all the way off, at the very least until we’ve dealt with Emperius. Not that I relish jumping from one conflict right into another, but better that than tripping over one in the middle of fighting another.”

“Agreed,” said Burnreptimon with finality. “Rex, why don’t you warp us out of here, so we can rest up from that? I don’t feel as tired as I thought, but that weird energy we were all in for a while, I don’t really want to know what lasting impacts it could have if we push it.”

Andrexmon nodded. “Yeah, I think I’m on board with that. Gather close, everyone, we’re going back to base.”

The rest crowded around the cyborg, huddling together and seeming eager to put the encounter behind them. Only Darkvargmon wasn’t so hasty to, with something lingering on his mind. It’s very strange…I don’t feel like the chaos energy really helped them much. But it should have…they should have been significantly harder than they were, even if they were merely toying with us it sounds like we all landed impactful blows…well, perhaps we’re getting stronger than we expected, or maybe they were weaker than expected, or…I suppose there are any number of reasons…

Yet, as his head fuzzed over in the midst of a teleport, none of them truly left him feeling satisfied…he hoped he wouldn’t have to worry about it for a long time.

Chapter Text

Iris woke early. She usually did during thunderstorms - something about them energized her. That could be a problem when they occurred overnight, either waking her up or giving her chaotic dreams, but most other times she welcomed it. Especially these days - she could always use a good pick-me-up to stave off the dread of being a hybrid warrior facing a seemingly infinite enemy.

The rain initially was a bit of a frustration - she wanted out of the house, as promised, and this was just going to make it soggy getting to someone else’s place. But her focus quickly drifted to Shockavimon, who was sitting at the edge of the bed, staring out the window. “Shockavimon?”

“Ah! Iris, you’re up.” Shockavimon tried to smile at her, but it was impossible to miss the strain in her expression.

“Is everything okay?”

“…I mean, no, not really, but I’m fine…I just, uh…was having trouble sleeping.”

Iris was about to ask why, when an image flashed across her mind, unbidden. A figment of a dream she’d had…except it wasn’t really her dream. “Shockavimon…did you have a bad dream last night?”

“…What? What do you mean?” It was a bit too hesitant.

“I…I remembered dreaming something…it felt like it was from your point of view. There was a creepy-acting bird, and he was hitting you, and saying things…I can’t remember what they were, but I remember feeling ill hearing them.”

Shockavimon didn’t respond immediately. When she did, her voice was very quiet. “You weren’t supposed to know about that...”

Iris wasn’t sure if an apology was in order; it wasn’t like she’d tried to make it happen, it just did. “Shockavimon…you’ve been doing everything you can to help me feel better over everything that’s been going on. Please…let me return the favor. You can tell me about it, get it off your chest…maybe it’ll help you feel better.”

Shockavimon looked away, closing her eyes and tilting her head skyward as she let out a deep sigh. “I guess it’s worth a try…I generally don’t like talking about this, though, so I apologize in advance if I’m not…at my best. I wish I could just forget about it, but it seems like every time I get close, another bad dream pops up…”

“Can you…tell me what happened?”

“All right. But I warn you, it’s not the most pleasant tale…”

~~~8 years ago~~~

The city of Hagrande. My home for years, the only one I’d ever known, maybe the only one I ever would, or so I thought back then. It wasn’t the nicest place, there was a good bit of roughness to it, but I could hold my own and I wasn’t worried about it. It really seemed like things were going my way, especially since I’d finally met a guy that got my heart fluttering. I always struggled a little bit to find those relationships, I just never seemed to be quite on the same wavelength with others, but with Hawkmon, I thought I had it. And I was pretty eager - I mean, life’s better shared with another, right?

It all seemed fine at first. Hawkmon went in pretty hard, and I guess I liked the attention more because I liked him. But…I don’t know, along the way, something changed. I don’t think it was that he changed so much as he stopped putting up as much of his front. It started with him just generally getting meaner to me. At first I just brushed it off, but the more he said, the harder it started cutting. I began to feel like I was no good, that I wasn’t doing right by him, and some days it seemed like nothing was good enough.

Then came the next phases…he started limited when I could go out and what I could do. And if I didn’t obey him, he’d give it to me worse. Harsher words, and then it escalated to hitting. I felt miserable, but it was because I didn’t know why he was upset or what I was really doing wrong…I feel almost ill at how naive I was, not seeing what was going on, but when you’re in that moment, still being messed with by your own feelings, it’s not as clear as it ought to be.

Soon he started hitting me more just because he felt like it, with no reason at all. Just to put me ‘in my place,’ as he once put it. And it was harder to avoid it because he wasn’t letting me do much of anything that I usually did. I couldn’t see my friends, I couldn’t do my usual activities, and heaven forbid I even so much as look at anyone else, because then he thought I was cheating on him…or that’s what he said, anyway, I think it was just another convenient excuse to hit me.

I hate now that at the time, I still thought it could get better. But it was only getting worse. And then…

“Ow! Hawkmon, you’re hurting me!”

“Shut UP, you yappy bitch!” It was a hard blow he laid on me, right on the side of my head. It knocked me to the ground, where I lay sobbing and shaking. And what does he do in this moment of vulnerability? Kicks me hard in the side, driving the breath out of me and making me yell in pain. “Got, what a stupid birdbrain. You’re lucky I’m here to save you or you’d’ve killed yourself long ago.”

“Hawkmon…wh…why…” I could barely speak, and this was the only thing running through my head. I just couldn’t understand how it had all gone so wrong.

I don’t really know why, that day, he actually said it…but I think it was because he thought he had broken me, that he’d already won, and so he was just…gloating or something. But he stepped up to me, leaning down over me like a warrior over a dying foe, with this just evil smirk on his face. “You really want to know why, you dumb broad? I’ll tell you why. It’s because you deserve it, for having the audacity to ever think you were better than me…which as a female, you could never be.”

I couldn’t speak at the time, thanks to being in the middle of trying not to sob like mad, but when I heard that, it really rattled me. The digital world isn’t some bigotry-free bastion, not by a long shot, but certain kinds are a lot rarer than others, and sexism is one of the really uncommon ones. That might be why I had never really realized what he was like until he finally come out with it.

“You and all the other females out there, all the ones who rejected me when they should have been worshiping me…thinking you’re anything when you’re nothing, depriving males of their right to you. All of you deserve to be beaten and locked up until you treat us the way we deserve to be treated. You worthless, inferior creatures acting like you should be equal to us…your defiance disgusts and revolts me. But I can forgive you, once you become like a proper female should be - serving me, worshiping me, and never, ever defying, rejecting, or questioning me. And you’ll learn that your pain is the price you deserve to pay for being a weak, shameful female, and a male’s right to put you back in your place. Now go get me some grub, bitch.”

I did, at that moment. But the illusion had been shattered. Suddenly I was aware of just how thoroughly I had been used and abused, by someone who was never going to respect me and never going to love me. And it hurt the most because I had loved him…or, I suppose, I loved the illusion he had put up. And what he thought about me…well, he’d gotten to me pretty hard there, I did feel pretty low and worthless, and a part of me was leaning towards me having deserved what I got. But the other part of me…well, he thought he had killed it, but he hadn’t. And now that I knew there was no saving this, ever, I had to do the next best thing.

I endured it for another couple days, making sure I avoided riling him too badly so that he wouldn’t hit me as much or as hard, so that I would be in good shape. And then…I ran. I escaped. But only just…it was supposed to be a quick out in the middle of the night, flying off into the darkness and leaving no trace. But somehow…maybe it was just luck, or maybe he suspected something. But he found out, and he chased me. I could feel my heart racing as I flew from him…I was naturally faster than him, but he was fueled by anger and wasn’t recovering from beatings, so he was keeping up, and threatening me with all sorts of horrible fates once he caught me. But I found it within me to defend myself, and turned and let out a Shock Feather that hit him hard. He thumped hard onto a rooftop, cursing me out and telling me I would regret ever raising a hand to him.

Honestly, there’s nothing I regret less.

~~~Present Day~~~

“Some of those…feel too familiar,” noted Iris with a bit of a pallor. “I remember some of those incidents…but I was too young to really understand what was going on.”

“I’m glad you were, that’s something that no child should need to understand,” sighed Shockavimon. “Though I’m sure some of them are too painfully familiar with it…”

“Have you ever run into him again?”

“No, and I hope never to again. He probably stayed in Hagrande…the only thing I regret was that I couldn’t warn others about him. But I hope my old friends did…though I don’t know, maybe they all left too. I wouldn’t blame them, the city was kind of going to hell.”

“What happened after that?”

“Well, I pretty much spent most of the next year moving from place to place, mainly being alone, never getting too close to anyone. Hawkmon had affected me pretty bad…my self-esteem had been in the dumps for years, and I couldn’t help but be paranoid about everyone. Particularly bird digimon…I know it probably isn’t fair to them, but I still feel leery around them, even this much later. But trust in general is just something I struggle with as a result, and I never wanted to get too close to anyone…not until Sal, anyway.”

“Was this when you joined the, uh, Knights of Liberty, was it?”

“That’s them, but no, this was about three years before. I met him when he was doing work for the Kaiser. He invited me to join him, and…well, I wasn’t confident at the time, but he got me involved in one of his operations and we ended up facing down a nasty dude together, and we came out on top. It was something of a confidence booster that he saw potential in me that I’d sort of been denying for a long time…and he’s got this way about him that’s just, it’s hard not to be infected by his spirit. He helped bring back a lot of my self-worth and never asked anything for it.” Shockavimon shook her head, smiling a bit. “And to think, he STILL thinks he’s not ‘leadership material.’ Sure, bud, the Kaiser had you running his intel and special forces divisions as a lark.”

“It sounds like he helped a lot…” Iris said, contemplatively.

“He did. So it was easy to say yes when he approached me about taking on Emperius in the Knights of Liberty. It’s still not easy, I still struggle with some of the effects of that…like not being ready to bond on that level with anyone else, and still needing a lot to trust people. I’m hoping I’ll figure out a way to get over those eventually, but it could still be a long time coming.”

Iris said nothing, but the way Shockavimon spoke about Salmandmon, she wasn’t entirely sure there wasn’t a hint of something there. But having been burned once, maybe she was reluctant to try to move forward with it…or maybe there were other conflicts there, she couldn’t have said.

“…Anyway! I didn’t mean to bring down the mood so much this morning…guess the rain just needed a bit of help.” Shockavimon suddenly changed the subject, and Iris didn’t fight it, sensing she probably wanted to get away from that. “So what are we going to do now?”

“What else? I’m going to slap on my raincoat and we’re going to Reyn’s.”

“…Uh…in this rain?”

“The bowels of hell could be opening up as we speak and it wouldn’t stop me from getting out of this damn house.”

Shockavimon gave Iris a tired look. “Some days, I really wonder if you need that much help keeping your determination up. You’d better call ahead and tell Reyn to have a towel ready…”

———

“It never fails. The entire world can be hanging in the balance, and the weather will STILL not give a damn.” Salmandmon scowled out the window as he slugged down some water, wiping himself off after a vigorous workout. “I really hope that’s not making it harder to see things out there. Data says rain can fuss with signals.”

“Not much we can do except wait it out or go out there as is, right?” Reyn’s back thumped the ground, chest heaving up and down. “Holy crap, how do people do this?”

“Tell me you at least got past ten sit-ups.”

“I wasn’t counting, I told you that. I just…did it until I couldn’t anymore.”

“Well, now you don’t know what number you’re supposed to beat for next time! C’mon, you’ve gotta set scores!”

“You say this like I’m gonna make this a regular thing. I’m only doing this because you badgered me into it and Iris is coming over soon so I didn’t want to fall back asleep.”

“Sure, bud,” snickered Salmandmon. “You know now that you’ve started you’re going to keep going, right? That’s how it always starts.”

Reyn pushed himself upright, shaking his head. “Not a chance. I’m gonna pull YOU into settling down instead. Oof, I don’t want to be wearing myself out, either, knowing we’re probably gonna have something to do today.”

“You’re actually thinking of going out there?”

“Rain’s supposed to let up this afternoon. We’ll have time to scope around a bit.”

“Yeah, some scoping…” Salmandmon sighed, folding his arms. “It’s gonna be harder than ever now that our faces are plastered all over those sites and such. Everyone’s gonna be looking out for us, and if they see us, they’re gonna call in the heat at top speed. Why’d they have to go and do that? Things are bad enough as it is and probably gonna be getting worse before long, we don’t need even more trouble actually meeting the challenges.”

“I guess we’re not doing a very good job with getting out ahead of this,” sighed Reyn. “Why do you think it’s going to get worse soon?”

“Because I knew Emperius. They operate on a pretty simple principle: power is status. The stronger you are, the more decisions you can make for yourself. Up ’til now, most of what we’ve been facing are grunts who generally just get assigned their tasks…they don’t have the power so they get ordered around by the people who do. Kind of like you humans are with money.”

“Gee, was it that obvious?” Reyn drawled sarcastically.

“I think I’ve been picking up stuff from your head,” the lizard remarked with a smirk. “So blame yourself for thinking about it.”

“The downside to having our minds get joined together, apparently. Pick up knowledge you can really use in exchange for revealing all the dirty secrets about our society.”

“You say that like you think ours is so much better. Trust me, we’ve got more than our share of issues, and it’s not like we don’t have greedy people too, it’s just not quite as big an issue compared to some of the others. Honestly, compared to us humanity is actually relatively peaceful.”

Reyn snorted. “That does not make me feel that much better. Just tells me we may want to be better armed even if we do somehow KO Emperius. But back to them for a second. You’re thinking that more powerful members of Emperius are going to start coming?”

Salmandmon let out a tense sigh. “I’ve been thinking about what those demons were saying. They said they were interested in us, for someone…but the point that that made to me is that Emperius definitely knows who we are now. There’s probably a number of digimon who’ve come through that we never encountered who’ve been scouting us. And there are higher-ranked dudes in Emperius who would love to add ‘destroyed one of the organic world’s defenders’ to their resumé - it’d get them another level of prestige.”

Reyn frowned at that. “That sounds…scary. So we need to be careful any time we head out now…”

“Reyn, I swear, if you tell me you HAVEN’T been being careful all this time…”

“Ah, that’s, uh, not what I meant. Never mind. If they get stronger, what do we do?”

“…I’m not sure. We might have to get stronger, too.”

The way Salmandmon said that didn’t sit well with Reyn. “Do I want to ask if you have any ideas how to do that?”

“Probably not, no.” Salmandmon stared out the window a moment more, then shook his head rapidly. “I need to get my mind off this or I’m gonna lose my cool. You got any good distractions?”

Reyn wasn’t so sure it was a good idea to not take that line of questioning further, but he doubted it would amount to much - if Salmandmon had more thoughts on it, there was no way he wouldn’t be talking about them. Perhaps they’d have to discuss it as a group later. “Well, I suppose we could pull out the video games. That is, if you don’t mind getting thrashed by me again.”

“Thrashed?” Salmandmon grinned fiercely at Reyn. “I seemed to remember absolutely pasting you last time.”

“That’s only because I was feeling bad for you for kicking your tail before that!”

“Oh, you are asking for a no-holds-barred smackdown! Get out that platform fighter, I’ma show you not to mess with me!”

“Hothead,” Reyn snickered as he went to his console. “I’m surprised you even do this sort of thing. To hear Data say it, you’re such a gym rat that actual rats think you’re overdoing it.”

“Hey, that Chuumon should’ve kept up. Just like you should be! I’m tryin’ to set an example here!”

“Hey, it’s not like I’m a slug or anything! I just don’t get into that sort of exercise! I’m a more laid-back kinda guy.”

“Well, now might be a good time to start. Anyway, I never used to game at all, but when I joined the KOL, some of the bunch got together for game nights and they would pull me in just because they wanted more participants. I only did it as bonding time at first, but turns out this sorta thing really ignites my competitive streak, and I found myself getting really into it. Don’t like to do it alone, though.”

“So you enjoy getting your keister whipped from here to San Diego?”

Salmandmon let out a fierce hiss. “I don’t even know what that is, but I’m gonna make you pay for saying it!”

“Is this a testosterone-only challenge, or can anyone join in?” Both looked over at the doorway as Iris stepped in, Shockavimon following behind a few seconds later still drying herself with a towel. “And more importantly, should I be putting the fire department on speed dial?”

“When did you get here?” asked Reyn, raising an eyebrow. “I thought I was safe from the ‘surprise drop-in’ until at least a third date.”

“With an attitude like that, you’ll be lucky to get to three. My calling ahead wasn’t warning enough?”

“I thought I’d at least hear you coming in. I guess I was a bit too preoccupied with riling up Salmandmon. Here, let’s get you controllers…hey! Sal, hands off, that’s mine!”

“Technically they’re all yours, so it shouldn’t matter,” cackled the lizard.

“That one’s MINE mine, it’s my special one! Hand it over!”

“Make me!” Salmandmon didn’t expect Reyn to actually come over, and wasn’t quick enough to scramble off the bed before being yanked towards Reyn. There was a brief struggle before Reyn pried it out of Salmandmon’s hands, leaving the human triumphant as he broke away and the lizard pouting a bit. “No fair. I thought for sure you’d be too lazy to try that.”

“Lazy schmazy. No one messes with my controller.”

“They get along so well,” Shockavimon cracked with barely-held-back laughter.

“Boys,” Iris just muttered, shaking her head but grinning as well. “Let’s show them a thing or two, Shockavimon. I think they need a lesson on how to dominate without being so crude about it.”

“Hah! And you thought you didn’t have a warrior’s spirit!”

———

In another part of town - or several technically - a conference call was taking place.

“…It honestly looks fine to me.” Derek gave a shrug as he relayed the message to Skylar and Isaac. “I’m not really sure why you wanted my input, it seems like you two have it figured out.”

“Because we’re still not getting anywhere with it,” grumbled Isaac. “The lack of response is starting to bug me. Like, is there any way we could punch it up more? Make it a little more attention-grabbing without risking blowing it all up in our faces like uber-nerd’s so worried about?”

“Is notability such a necessary element of communication among your society’s upper echelons?” asked Blackcanismon. “My personal impressions would dictate information as the superior focus for conveyance, and sensationalization to be spurious.”

“Sensantinasalinationization gets people looking, though!” piped up Breezedramon. “And right now they ain’t looking!”

“I don’t believe that it’s a matter of it not being sensational enough,” Skylar ventured as he adjusted his glasses. “I don’t see how it gets more sensational than creatures from another world contacting you. That said, I don’t know WHAT it is. We’ve tried several different angles - baseline information, entreaties about working together, warnings about the seriousness of the matter, and more. Nothing seems to register.”

“I never imagined it would be this hard to alert someone to a threat,” sighed Datacarnomon. “It doesn’t make sense for them to be ignoring it. Is there something else we can do?”

Isaac bowed his head. “…There’s one thing…but…I don’t think it’s a good idea, not unless it’s literally the last resort.”

“…Let me guess,” said Derek tensely. “You’re thinking about a full veil-dropping.”

“There is NO way that’s a good idea,” Skylar jumped in instantly. “Just what little has happened this far has gotten us in hot water we’re barely staying out of!”

“I don’t THINK it’s a good idea, dingus, I just said that! But we may not end up having a choice! Right now we’re fighting battles for a side that thinks we’re a menace to THEM! And right now the people controlling the narrative are only fueling their distrust! If we could seize control of that, show ourselves to them and get them realizing that we’re not their enemies, maybe they’ll listen more to our warnings. But I’m not about to suggest that we do that without any planning or preparation, or knowing HOW we’re going to do it in the first place. I’m just saying, that has to be on the table.”

“He’s right, Skylar,” agreed Derek. “We need to be willing to use that as a way of getting the world to know what’s really going on. Even if not everyone believes us, it would have to have enough impact that it would change how we’re perceived, even if only a little bit.”

Skylay rubbed his temples, groaning, a sign of concession if they ever saw one. “Mmph…does it have to be ALL of us? I don’t think I’d want to be in that spotlight.”

“Don’t worry, Sky!” exclaimed Breezedramon cheerily. “It can’t be worse than fighting those Emperius goons!”

“I would do that ten times over before putting myself on camera willingly.”

“I can work out some plan details for if it comes to that,” said Datacarnomon. “But we need to think of some other things if that’s gonna be ‘last resort’ territory. It implies that there are resorts before then, and right now I don’t feel very rested.”

“Scintillating turn of phrase,” lauded Blackcanismon. “Brainstorming on that quandary is imperative. I fear our temporal latitude is vanishingly scanter by the second.”

“After what those demon digimon were saying, I believe it,” Derek agreed grimly. “We need help before things escalate…we’ve already lost too much time.”

———

The rain had finally stopped outside. But for the lurking presence watching the house, rain was immaterial. There was only his goal, his mission. Something he had been waiting for for days until finally he managed to slip through. The excitement he felt was like nothing else in his dead heart and empty soul. The power and prestige he sought right in front of him.

If he could have smiled, he would have as he saw the door open. It was time.

———

“Freaking FINALLY!” Salmandmon was jumping up and down as they exited Reyn’s house. “We need a weather machine or something! One of you get Skylar working on that, huh?”

“Rain is not a bad thing,” Reyn remarked with a chuckle. “Just because it’s inconvenient for you doesn’t mean we should make it go away.”

“Yeah, I happen to LIKE thunderstorms, thank you very much,” Iris added.

“Same,” agreed Shockavimon. “You stop my thunderstorms and we’re gonna be throwing hands. And DON’T say it.”

“If Treylor was here, you wouldn’t be able to stop him,” laughed Minerva, exiting with Cayden and Alisin behind the four; she had her purse on her, ready to go run some errands. “You know, if it wasn’t for all the danger, I’d be quite happy that you were getting our kids out of the house more. They really can use more exercise.”

“That’s what I’VE been saying!” exclaimed Salmandmon, before sticking his tongue out at Reyn. “See, Reyn? She agrees with me!”

Reyn rolled his eyes. “Darn it, Mom, you’re not making it easier for me to stop him pushing me into all this workout nonsense!”

Minerva just shook her head at that. “What’s wrong with working out? It’s a good way to stay healthy! Exercise is important to a healthy lifestyle!”

“You haven’t seen Sal’s lifestyle,” countered Shockavimon with a giggle.

“I’ve seen enough to know that as much as he eats, he’d BETTER be working out a lot!”

“Hah! I like her more and more every day!” Salmandmon declared brightly.

At least one of us has a good relationship with both our parents, thought Iris, unable to help but smile. Can’t help but envy him a bit…what was that? A shiver ran through her, and she jerked her head over just in time to see something big leap out of hiding. “GET DOWN!”

“Nail Bone!” The creature pointed it’s gnarled staff in the direction of the group, a powerful and quick blast of something firing down at them. Reyn and Salmandmon had been warned just fast enough to hurl themselves at Reyn’s mother and siblings, just getting them out of the way of the blast radius, a patch of grass shredding and withering from the energy of the attack. The creature landed not far away from where the attack struck, pointing its staff at them again. “Hah! I won’t miss a second time!”

“Skullsatamon…” Salmandmon’s voice was tinged with terror - this was a powerful enemy, one he wasn’t sure they were ready to stand up against. “Leave them alone!”

“Hah! Stop me, lizard! Nail-” The attempt at another deadly attack was interrupted by a tackle from Boltfalkemon, driving Skullsatamon away a bit and knocking him off-balance, though he seemed far from wounded. “Oh, it’s ON, bird bitch, there was only supposed to be one of you here!”

Reyn’s stomach turned as he heard that. Crap, crap, crap…this wasn’t just happenstance, he was HUNTING. They’ve got enough information to target us…

Reyn! Salmandmon’s thoughts barged in. We need to fuse! Now!

But Mom…Cayden and Alisin…

Boltfalkemon can’t handle Skullsatamon alone! He’s too powerful! We don’t have a choice!

Reyn could already tell Salmandmon was right - Boltfalkemon was holding her own well but Skullsatamon wasn’t reacting much to the attacks. He wasn’t sure they would do that much better, but numbers were the only hope they had if the foe outclassed them. “Salmandmon! Let’s go!”

“On it!” The two leapt forward, and in midair melded together into Burnreptimon. The startled cries behind him were not setting him much at ease, but Burnreptimon couldn’t think about that at the moment - they all needed to survive to have any worries about the aftermath. He boosted himself up with his Pyre Rush and charged forward, taking over just as Boltfalkemon took a smack from Skullsatamon’s staff to the head and needed to retreat. Skullsatamon turned to meet him, but Burnreptimon was just a hair faster, delivering a sizzling uppercut to Skullsatamon’s jaw and sending him staggering.

“Ragh! Impudent lizard! Skull Hammer!” A powerful swing from that staff forced Burnreptimon back. He tried to dash in again, but had to quickly veer off as Skullsatamon aimed the jewel at him again. “Nail Bone!” He felt the wave of energy just graze past him as he dove, the intensity of just that brush telling him he very much did NOT want a direct shot from it.

“Pyre Rush!” He countered with a blazing salvo of his own, trying to keep it from causing too much damage anywhere else. Skullsatamon mostly just endured the flames, his staff only slightly blocking the attack but his resilience more than enough to blunt the impact. It was definitely the worst case scenario - they were as outmatched as Salmandmon and Shockavimon against Frigimon, except with no clear hope of anything more coming to save them.

“Hah! Was that really all you could do to me? And here I thought you were supposed to be a CHALLENGE!” laughed Skullsatamon evilly. “Pathetic! This world will easily fall to us if this is the best you can do!”

“Static Cracker!” Skullsatamon’s focus had gotten too narrow, though, giving Boltfalkemon a chance to shake off her blow and deliver a swinging kick to the back to Skullsatamon’s head, throwing the demon for a loop again. Burnreptimon followed up by leaping in and throwing several punches, pummeling Skullsatamon with all the strength he could muster before being thrown back by a Skull Hammer attack that once again just barely missed him. The physical blows were doing a little bit more, but not enough to put the creature down, which was what they really needed to do.

“Pests! You’re nothing next to me! Skull Hammer!” Both hybrids had to scramble away as that deadly staff swing, the hook end nearly clipping some of Boltfalkemon’s feathers. “I know how to take care of you! Hah, and take a few trophies at the same time!” He pointed his staff at Minerva and Cayden and Alisin, who were huddled against the house, paralyzed with fear.

“No!” Burnreptimon’s sudden rush of panic drove him to act, surging forward to desperately get Skullsatamon away…but Skullsatamon suddenly diverted the jewel, and he barely had time to curse himself for getting outplayed before he heard the Nail Bone attack go off, hitting him square. Pain exploded through his body as he was flung back, hitting the ground hard and bouncing twice before smacking into the side of the brick house, rapping his head on it before falling to the ground in a heap.

“REYN!” Minerva’s horrified cry rang out.

“Hahaha! Predictable idiot! It’s too easy to get you pathetic creatures right where I want you!” Skullsatamon’s roaring laughter was cut off by Boltfalkemon striking him again, an electrically-charged fist zapping his head once again. “Damn you! Stop cutting me off!” He swung his staff again at her, but she only got as far away as she absolutely had to, intent on making sure he couldn’t take aim at the humans again.

It took everything Burnreptimon had to drag himself to his hands and knees. Blood was trickling down his head from where he’d hit it against the brick, making his vision blur a bit. Every bit of his body was in constant pain, he felt incredibly worn down, and there was an unpleasant buzz through him from the demon’s disruptive attack. He couldn’t see or hear much of anything, except his own unsteady heartbeat thudding in his ears and Skullsatamon’s arrogant voice grating on him. Dammit…that…asshole…going after us like this…just to hurt us so we can’t stop them…I can’t…I can’t let him…I won’t let him…agh…c’mon…

The slow fight to rise back to his feet was finally successful, but didn’t exactly leave much confidence in his fighting shape. Trying to blink away the blurriness, he saw Boltfalkemon finally take a direct blow to the side from Skullsatamon’s Skull Hammer, tossing her to the ground in pain. An ugly heat was building inside him as he hissed out at the demon. “Get away from her!”

“Pah! You’re still alive? You vermin are annoyingly persistent…” Skullsatamon didn’t sound particularly threatened, though, mockingly laughing at Burnreptimon, who was barely staying upright. “But you still think you can stop me? You won’t even be able to stop gravity from pulling you back down onto your knees like you ought to be! You can’t stop the Purification! You can’t stop any of us, we who will rule all worlds uncontested forevermore! All you’ll be is the first ones in this world to die to the mighty power of Emperius! And I’ll wear the shattered bones of these worthless humans as I lead our forces to glory!”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” The sudden screeching yell even made Skullsatamon jump as Burnreptimon erupted, that ugly heat boiling and building until it burst out in a fury. “I’ve had enough of you arrogant assholes coming after us spewing your twisted fantasies! You FREAKS talking about taking trophies like these aren’t innocent people just trying to live their lives, but game for you to hunt! You’re the ones who should be suffering and dying, and I’m gonna char you until there’s nothing left to mourn!”

A furious blast of flames surrounded Burnreptimon, the heat forcing Skullsatamon back with its sheer intensity. The form of Burnreptimon was enveloped, and began to grow slightly, getting taller and broader as it got hotter, the flames turning white from the thermal intensity. As soon as they broke in a flourish, a renewed and augmented reptilian creature was in his place - nearly a foot taller, more muscular, with metal bracers on his forearms and lower legs and black studded leather bands strapped over his chest and around his thighs, upper arms (just under the seal marks now on his shoulders), tail, and over his knuckles, and eyes glowing a hateful red.

“No…impossible! What…” Skullsatamon had lost most of his bluster, quaking at the raw fury radiating off of the lizard. “I…I won’t let you defeat me! Your tricks aren’t going to be enough!”

“Shut up.” The slightly deeper voice of the lizard was dripping with caustic fury and malice. “Nothing you say or do will get you mercy from me. Your life ends here!”

“Never! Nail Bone!” Desperately Skullsatamon aimed for the new creature, but he rapidly dove to the side to avoid the attack and then rushed with greater speed than before, landing a punishing blow to the demon’s chest. A Skull Hammer attack was launched, but to the skeleton’s horror, the reptile grabbed the staff mid-attack, gripping it hard enough to crack it. “No! It…no!”

“Inferno Claw!” The reptile shoved the staff away and then, with claws wreathed in flame, slashed upwards at Skullsatamon’s chest, leaving charred lines across him. He did the same with his other hand, making an large X in the center of the demon, causing him to howl in pain and stagger backwards. His fist then reared back and shot forward, slamming hard into the chest and causing fragments of bone to fly off as the damaged area fell apart.

No longer was Skullsatamon cocky or arrogant, breathing hard as noxious fluid dripped from him, leaning on his damaged staff to stay upright. “What…what even…are you…things? How…how can you…”

“What am I? I’m hell incarnate,” hissed the lizard. “I’m the last thing you’ll ever see in your miserable life, and good riddance.” He raised his fist, channeling deadly heat energy into it, the white glow generating furious waves around it. “But with your last breath, you can call me Blazereptimon! Solar Wave!” He thrust his hand forward, unleashing a furious fiery attack that looked like Burnreptimon’s Pyre Rush upped a few orders of magnitude. The infernal blast enveloped Skullsatamon, and his agonized howl was rapidly cut off as he was burned to nothing - not even the data that composed him escaped the wrath of the reptile, obliterating him as totally as possible.

Silence reigned over the scene in the aftermath. Licks of flame burned some strands of grass, the heat having wilted it in a line leaving the yard. Blazereptimon was breathing hard, but it was finally slowing down, and the glow was leaving his eyes, letting them retake their normal amber distinction. His hand dropped to his side as he saw no trace of Skullsatamon anywhere…only the memory of him in his head, fueling that heat in the pit of his stomach. There were things he didn’t understand still, but all that mattered at the moment was one thing: the threat to him, his family, and his friends was gone.

He turned to Boltfalkemon, who was sitting up looking at him in awe. He held out a hand. “Are you all right?”

“Y-yeah…” The bird took the offered hand and was pulled upright; she was still rubbing her side, but seemed to be otherwise well. “You…you evolved.”

“Yeah. I guess it IS possible. And it’s gonna be necessary, too.” Blazereptimon looked over at the still cowering humans against the wall. “About as necessary as blowing the lid to them, it looks like.”

“Oof…yeah. Guess it had to happen sometime.” Boltfalkemon shook her head. “What…was that just now?”

“…I’m not sure.” Blazereptimon took one last glance at the void where Skullsatamon had been. “But I don’t really care. He’s gone, that’s all that matters.”

“Right…” Boltfalkemon wasn’t so sure she was at ease with that answer, but she didn’t sense trying to pursue it would be a good idea. And at the moment, there were other things that needed to be done, much more important than second-guessing her friend that had probably just saved them all.

———

Sitting at the table, facing down Treylor and Minerva, revealing the last of their secrets to them…Burnreptimon honestly almost would rather have faced Skullsatamon again. That was simple, and not nearly so nerve-wracking now that he knew he had another level of power to call on. At least he wasn’t alone, Boltfalkemon had very graciously stayed back to support him.

“Good lord…when you said you had something big to tell us, I never would have expected…” Treylor was a little less numb over it, having not been there in the moment - he’d raced home from the hospital at the call, which had been from Minerva originally but Burnreptimon had taken the phone when she hadn’t been able to come out with anything. She was finally settled down, but still trembling from everything; Burnreptimon couldn’t blame her, she’d seen way too much way too quickly, to say nothing of having been right in the line of fire at more than one point. “And this is what you’ve been going off to do all this time?”

“I know it’s a lot to process. Heck, to be honest, I’m still kind of trying to process it myself. But when we found out that we could do this kind of thing…we couldn’t just sit back and do nothing with it. Not with everything that was at stake.”

“I just…never thought it would be anything like this…” Minerva shook her head haltingly. “I knew there was something more to it, but not…seeing Reyn disappear like that…and then seeing you get…almost…”

“We get it, trust me, we get it totally,” Boltfalkemon assured her. “None of us likes to think about that. It’s just…you know…if it doesn’t happen here, it happens when Emperius comes calling for all of us. Believe me, I was pretty much the hardest one to bring around to that, even now it’s still pretty intimidating.”

“It’s only because I can do this that I can protect you,” added Burnreptimon. “That I can protect all of us. If there was another way, I’d do it, but there isn’t. And…I know it’s probably going to give you as much stress as it possibly can, but that means I can’t stop. Even knowing what we’re up against, knowing the risks and dangers…there’s only one thing I can do, and that’s try to fight them the only way I can.”

“…I guess there’s not much I can say to that, is there?” Treylor sighed heavily. “You’ve made it…uncomfortably clear what’s at stake. Coming home to something like this…it could easily have been coming home to be told that nearly my whole family had died at the hands of some sadistic creature from another world. Given the choice, I don’t even have to think about it…not that I can say I particularly like either one, but…”

“I don’t blame you at all. But this is it…you know absolutely everything that we do now, for better or worse. No more secrets, nothing left to hide. I suspect that it’s cold comfort, but…”

A weak smile formed on Treylor’s face. “Something tells me there’s nothing cold about any comfort you can offer, or anything else you do.”

A sound somewhere between exasperation and amusement left Burtreptimon’s mouth. “Dad jokes to the end, huh?”

“Gotta cope somehow. Would you mind…uh…”

“Right, I suppose you want to see…us again.” Burnreptimon and Boltfalkemon exchanged a nod, and both of them separated apart. Almost the instant Reyn was Reyn again, he was caught up in a tearful embrace from Minerva. “Ack! Mom!”

“S-sorry…” Minerva lightened up, caressing Reyn’s face. “I just…I’m so glad to…see you’re okay. Now…now I know that it’s…it’s not taking you away, all the way.”

“No, it’s not…I’m still in there, and I’ll always be back.” Reyn hugged her tight, trying to fight tears himself. A lot had happened, it was starting to catch up with him, too. “I don’t suppose there’s much point in saying ‘don’t worry about me,’ is there?”

“Oh, honey…it’s my motherly duty to worry about you in the best of times. You’re fighting a war out there…that’s hardly the best of times.”

“In fact I think we may be worrying about more than just you.” Treylor had come around to look at Iris and Shockavimon, both of whom were still giving slight rubs to their sides. “Are you two all right?”

“We’re fine, but thanks for asking,” Iris assured him. “Just…not the nicest or neatest battle, but it’s just a touch of soreness now.”

“I’m gonna be remembering that one for a bit, though,” sighed Shockavimon. “Things are definitely getting nastier out there…I don’t think any of us were looking forward to that.”

Treylor bowed his head. “…I know there’s probably not much that we can do, but…we can try to help with injuries, if they’re…things that we can deal with. I’m going to guess there’s a lot that we can’t do that much about, but if there is anything…if it’s getting tougher out there, we’re going to need you in the best shape possible.”

“That means a lot to us, Mr. Kessilik,” replied Shockavimon with a smile. “We’re distressingly short on allies over here…every one counts. We’ll make sure to keep that in mind.”

“Absolutely,” agreed Minerva, taking a deep breath and collecting herself a bit, her arm still around Reyn. “I don’t know that I understand a lot of the, um, ‘why’ part of it, but…you’re doing your best to help us, and helping to keep our children…as safe as they can be when up against something like this. The least we can do is try to do our best for you…thank you.”

Salmandmon was sniffling a little bit, wiping away his own tear. “We’ll do our best, Mrs. Kessilik. I’ll make sure Reyn comes back to you just fine, no matter what. They’ll have to tear through hell to get to him.” At least they had a little more hell to offer now…but now he was starting to consider even more seriously the challenges they faced. There was a possibility that they were going to need more help than they could get easily…or maybe anywhere in this world…

———

After everything that had happened, even Salmandmon needed a break. The two of them were back in Reyn’s room, Iris and Shockavimon having left to avoid more issues with her father - not that they really minded at the moment, being alone together felt like something they needed after all that.

“Okay…so…now that we’ve managed to get through all of the messes of the afternoon…” Reyn looked towards Salmandmon. “I’d kinda like to know what just happened.”

“That, my friend, was evolution. Or at least as much like evolution as we’re capable of in that form.”

Reyn blinked. “Okay…so I know you’ve talked about evolution before. At least the general basic idea. And I know I’ve imagined it before. But…holy hell, just talking about it DOES NOT prepare you for experiencing it at all. That was wild.”

Salmandmon nodded. “Evolution is an enormous rush. It sort of loses its luster when you can do it freely, you get kind of used to it…but man, I am NEVER taking it for granted again. I’ve been missing that like you wouldn’t believe. It was…different, though, that what I’m familiar with.”

“Different?”

“Well, it’s gonna be different, we’re not exactly a digimon, we’re, uh, something else. But it’s like this…typically when a digimon evolves, they change pretty dramatically. Even if they stay the same type of creature, their shapes can differ a lot…like, when I was Vulcanlizardmon, I was a huge beast that walked on all fours and had two volcano-like things on my back that I could use to make fire rain down on just about everything, and if you got caught up in the initial blast, nice knowin’ ya.” Salmandmon let out a bit of a sigh. “Maaaan…I miss being Vulcanlizardmon. Stupid seal.”

“I feel like I sort of remember that, too,” said Reyn. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you get that back. Maybe there’s something we can do about that seal over here, if Datacarnomon and Isaac can do all the stuff they’re doing now.”

“Maybe. I sure as heck wouldn’t be unhappy about that. Er, anyway, yeah, sorry, kinda got off topic…what happened with Burnreptimon becoming Blazereptimon was definitely a sort of evolution. But he didn’t actually change that much…he got a little bigger, and a lot stronger, and got some armor, but his shape didn’t change too much? At least not that I could see or remember.”

“Huh…well, you’re right, I didn’t notice much either.” Reyn thought for a moment. “Maybe that’s ‘my’ part of it?”

“Your part?”

“Well, you digimon are the ones who have the whole digital evolution thing normally. Maybe having me in there just kind of, uh, makes it so that the shape doesn’t change as much, but instead it shows up in other ways? I mean, that’s the only thing I can think of.”

“Mm…well, honestly, it’s as good a guess as any. Not like there aren’t a whole bundle of unknowns about this sort of stuff as it is.” Salmandmon laid back, staring at the ceiling. “There’s only one thing I want answered, though…is that it, or is there more?”

“More?” Reyn asked, blankly, then it hit him. “You mean, like, another stage up?”

“Yeah. Because if there is, we’re probably gonna need that at some point. And I’m wondering what can really be done to make that happen…I’d rather not have to rely on it coming at the last second like today.”

“Yeah, same here…I think we’ve got things we’ve gotta look into. It’d be nice if we had, you know, even a little bit of a break to check into it at all…” Reyn shook his head. “I don’t know why it’s such a problem to get through to someone in DC, you’d think they’d be all over this stuff by now…I hope something comes of it soon, because I don’t know how much longer we can keep doing this ourselves.”

“Too true…we’ve bought ourselves maybe a little more time with this evolution…but…” Salmandmon frowned. “This still isn’t the worst Emperius has to offer…and if we can’t get some time to figure out what else we’re capable of, it could still all go horribly, horribly wrong…”

———

It was another late night for Isaac, trying to write more code for Andrexmon. Though in this case, it was more trying to modify stuff he’d already written, in hopes that he could make it properly work. He’d been getting better at it since he started, a few things were actually working entirely properly - his teleporter didn’t seem to be shoddy anymore, and he was getting respectable results from his speed booster. But given the trouble they’d had recently with their images being plastered all over, he really wanted that cloaking device and shield to be working…

With a sigh, he took a momentary break to copy some text from his word processor into yet another e-mail out to the FBI and CIA. It was a throwaway account, which he knew had a chance of reducing the attention, but if things didn’t go well, he didn’t want someone tracing him and putting him and his family at risk. He’d protected himself as much as possible, though that was just good practice in general. His hopes for results using this method were waning, but he wanted to keep trying.

Datacarnomon was on his bed, running some internal tests for test programs they’d been working on for him. Minor things, like his own speed boost, and some rudimentary ground work for a flight module, which was going to take a good bit more time but which he could work on hashing out certain issues before they became an active problem, as well as distracting himself from other active problems that were more internal. Every now and then he’d path over a note that Isaac could take down for them to check later when the hard stuff was being worked on. It was relatively efficient, and relatively quiet, something Isaac preferred - though Datacarnomon preferred more background music, and had a player going in his own head.

Isaac had just started to get back in the groove when a notification pinged him in the corner, for the account he’d just sent from. Curious, he went to the window and checked it out - and immediately, there was a bad feeling. “…Undeliverable?”

“Hm?” Datacarnomon looked up at him. “What’s up?”

“I just tried to send a message to the feds and it got bounced.” Isaac opened the message again, poring over the addresses. “I…don’t THINK I made any mistakes in the addresses…no, they’re the same ones that I sent to successfully earlier today.”

“Weird. Try again?”

“Yeah.” Isaac copied again, into a new message, and fired it off. Both of them sat silently, watching with bated breath… it took less than a minute for the new notification at appear, and the same response. Disconcerted, Isaac sent a test e-mail to another dummy account, which went through with no problem. “…It’s not a problem with the account. It’s just not letting me send to THEM.”

Datacarnomon didn’t like the sound of that. “Why would that happen?”

“There’s only one reason I can think of.” Isaac stared at the bounceback message again. “They blocked me. Which means someone’s getting those messages and deciding that the appropriate reaction was to wall me out.”

“Which means they don’t want to hear what we have to say…”

“…Right.”

The mechanical dinosaur gave a wheezing sigh. “…I guess this is one bet I’ve got to concede a loss on.”

“I would’ve been a lot happier to lose this one,” agreed Isaac grimly. “But I wish I knew why this was happening…why are they that uninterested in hearing us out? You’d think they’d at least TRY to follow up…” He shook his head, sighed heavily. “I’d better let the others know this has turned into a total bust. We’ll need to figure out some other group to contact…”

———

“Mr. Secretary! I demand to know why this information has been locked down!”

“Very simple. It is a matter of national security and I’ve ordered it classified.”

“Classified from US?! This is out of bounds, Mr. Secretary! This is information that we need to be able to act on! You have no business taking these files out of our hands!”

“I’m the one who’s the judge of that. You can tell your boss that if they want it, they can do what everyone else does and file a lawsuit. But the Department of Defense has no intention of releasing these files, no matter how much you complain.”

“Unbelievable! When the President hears about this, you’ll be lucky to have a job! This is sabotage!”

“The President should be so lucky to have hers. Don’t call me again.” The sixty-something balding man hung up the phone, then quickly opened it back up to make another call. “General Sykes? It’s Jonah Wheeler. Good, good. Listen, I need you to hurry preparations along. Not yet, but our window is going to be narrower than anticipated, there’s been difficulties, but I’ve bought more time. No, I’ve still got the dummy reports going to her, it’s the FBI and CIA, but we should be good for now, I’ve got monitors trying to quell anything that doesn’t fit the narrative. How much do you have? …Is it enough for a deployment to Braun? Excellent. A week? Try to accelerate it if possible, just in case there’s another major incident. But I think that should be good.” He was quiet for a moment, then a smug smile formed on his face. “Oh, don’t worry about that, General. I’ll make sure she can’t do a thing to you. It’ll be quite satisfying to show her and the country why you don’t send a woman to do a man’s job…”

Chapter Text

The dead of night was not the best time in the world to be going scouting for potential hostiles. But as bad as things had gotten, it was certainly the safest - particularly when one needed to scout over the open water.

“There’s another splash. And I see a figure.”

“Mmph. Yeah, I see it. So I think I’ve counted five…”

“Hm? I got eight.” Boltfalkemon looked over at Skydramon. “Are you sure about your number?”

“No.” Skydramon rubbed his eyes. “Auuugh…how the hell do you do this? I can barely see a goddamn thing in this darkness!”

“I guess it’s just good vision,” Boltfalkemon said with a shrug and a smile. “Anyway, it’s still tough even for me to tell, but I think whether it’s five or eight, it’s enough that we need to take action. But now comes the hard part…”

“How do we deal with it?” Skydramon folded his arms, scowling down at the lake. “Because none of us are water fighters, and I highly doubt they’re gonna sprout wings and fly at us.”

“We need to figure it out ASAP, because who knows what idiot is going to go out there thinking the water’s safe? We have enough trouble from travelers wanting to run into a real live monster, and locals doing their sporting events thinking that they’re safe because they’re in numbers.”

“Dammit. I wish people weren’t such dinguses. Why does it seem like the whole world is trying to make it as hard as possible to save their asses from becoming mulch for Emperius’s blood gardens?”

“I wish I knew. Come on, let’s get down to safety and warmth, it’s freaking torture out here.”

———

Overcast skies, near freezing weather, a blowing wind that was eerie for how much it stood out against the silence. The joys of living in the northern part of the country in April. The snow may have been gone, but there were still those days that reminded one that winter’s grip hadn’t been totally excised.

Every day like this makes me pine for summer just a little bit more, pathed Reyn to Salmandmon as they walked towards their hideout. The wind blowing in his face was the worst part, he was pretty bundled up in a thick red jacket but his face was still exposed. I’m much happier when the sun’s out and the air is nice and warm.

You’d be right at home in Northern Tetraquaz, replied Salmandmon, who was traveling nearby and more obscured than ever; his smoke screen seemed to be doing a better job of hiding him of late. It’s mostly in the tropics of our world, so it’s pretty much hot all the time. The only places with really cold weather or snow are places where it’s deliberately generated. Which are mostly places where cold-loving digimon reside.

Really? Not even the mountains?

Oh, right, I guess those too. There aren’t too many mountains in Northern Tetraquaz, though…that’s more a thing in the southern part. Northern’s got a lot more wasteland and desert, though there are jungles and forests here and there too, and some more unusual topography here and there too. But there’s definitely a lot of pretty barren land...

Some kind of reason for that?

Well, rumor has it that a lot of the land was scoured from some conflict that took place centuries ago. Never really recovered from that. I don’t know much in the way of details, though. I figure we have enough to deal with with current conflicts to spend too much time on the past.

Fair enough. I’m not exactly thinking it’s a great time for history lessons either. They finally reached the building, Reyn looking around surreptitiously before opening the door and letting Salmandmon slip in. The lizard dropped his cover and they headed for the basement, where most everyone was gathered - only the usual suspects missing. It wasn’t the warmest down there, but better than it could have been, thanks to the presence of a space heater connected to a portable power station. “Oh, good, it’s working. Salmandmon was worried you’d ask him to blow fire on you all to keep you warm enough.”

“Worried?” asked Iris pleadingly.

“Worried, excited, same diff.”

“I’m not exactly dismissing the idea yet,” grumbled Skylar, shivering a bit in his thin coat. Breezedramon wasn’t beside him, instead being held inside Iris’s coat as she shared heat with him. “Spring WAS here, it seems to have gone on holiday.”

“I’m n-n-not build f-for the c-c-cold,” chattered Breezedramon. “G-gonna turn into a d-d-drag-gonsic-c-cle.”

“You’d think a guy who spends time up in the atmosphere like you would have better cold endurance,” remarked Salmandmon.

“Shut it, Sal. J-just because y-you’re a f-f-fire guy…”

“He does possess the maximally minimal personal thermoinsulation of the summary of ourselves,” pointed out Blackcanismon. “Furthermore, I would venture his prototypical activities exclude sufficient altitude to experience significant temperature gradients.”

“Did I ask, BC?” remarked Salmandmon, sticking his tongue out at the canine.

“You professed confusion, I provided clarity,” riposted the canine smugly.

“You’ve got an odd definition of clarity.” Reyn looked over towards the door to their holding room. “How are Tweedledee and Tweedledum holding up?”

“I heard that!” came a bratty voice from the other side.

“Shadowdramon’s regained talking privileges,” reported Shockavimon. “Which he’s using fairly judiciously, surprisingly enough. Crestmon’s still not being very talkative, and I’m starting to get the impression he very much wants to get back home.”

“I’d love to provide, but we still haven’t been able to find anyone willing to return voluntarily in the past few bouts. And even then, they have to be willing to stick around while we get them to them, and not cause trouble in the interim…” Salmandmon shook his head. “This would be a LOT easier if we could just shuttle ‘em over ourselves.”

There was some more idle chatter between the group while they waited for Isaac and Datacarnomon, who showed up a little while later. “DON’T start,” Isaac growled to them all as he entered, looking to be in a rather foul mood.

“We wouldn’t have to start if you would stop,” huffed Skylar. “Breezedramon’s barely staving off being an ice cube.”

“You guys do NOT understand what my life is like. If you had my dad you’d be late all the time too. I swear to god, he must’ve interrogated me for like fifteen minutes! I just know he knows something’s up, even if he doesn’t know the truth he’s got to be suspicious that I’m doing something by this point. I was this close to telling Datacarnomon to just go on without me!”

“I wish he could say he was exaggerating, but that was pretty close to the actual time,” affirmed Datacarnomon.

“Why does he do that?” asked Breezedramon, much less chattery by now despite Skylar’s claims.

“Hell if I know. He never seemed to do it with Ashley, but with me…almost every time, it’s like he doesn’t trust me or something! I mean, come on, I get top-notch grades, I’ve never smoked or done drugs or anything, I’ve never had a bad record anywhere…”

“He harbors monsters from another world, he fuses with said monster to take on other monsters…” Datacarnomon added cheekily.

“Oh, can it, tin can. The point is, he shouldn’t do this kind of thing! I would’ve totally been on time if he hadn’t kept me.”

“Data?” Shockavimon said, shifting her attention to the robot.

“…Eh. Five minutes. Mayyyyybe…well, less than ten, anyway.”

“Traitor,” grumbled Isaac as the group laughed around them.

With that out of the way, they were able to get down to business. “Isaac was right, there’s a number of digimon currently laying low in Lake Idle,” explained Iris. “It wasn’t easy to get an exact count, but our estimate is eight.”

“The shapes didn’t look too horrible, though I think there is a Seadramon among them…big, but not so tough as you could get,” added Shockavimon.

“That’s fantastic to hear,” Derek remarked with oozing sarcasm. “Because we’re so well equipped for water battles.”

“Hey, at least it’s Lake Idle and not the Militke River,” Isaac pointed out. “Imagine if they had the freedom to travel wherever they wanted, including well out of the city.”

“Please don’t dampen my already dour mood by the prospect of worse. So, anyone want to offer any suggestions on how to deal with them?”

“I’m out,” Salmandmon said. “Water is not my thing.”

“Me either,” agreed Reyn. “I’ve always hated swimming. And something tells me Burnreptimon will not cut it.”

“You say that like any of the rest of us do,” Breezedramon remarked. “I don’t swim! I fly! Aerial arobiocriotactics all the way! No hydringalodungarymanteratics!”

“Does his interpreter want to chime in on that one?” Salmandmon asked cheekily towards Skylar.

Skylar’s eyes narrowed at the lizard. “Hush, you. I wanted to posit that Boltfalkemon was the best option for this. Electrical attacks are probably the most effective when we’re talking about water. And with her spread, she can probably hit everything.”

“And obliterate the local ecology while I’m at it,” pointed out Iris. “I’m not sure how much of it’s still there period with those digimon swimming around, but we might at least TRY to leave some things alive in there.”

Isaac had been quiet, but now he was smirking in that smug way he had. “You guys are making this too complicated. Leave it to me - I’ll jump on in and bust some heads face-to-face!”

Everyone looked over at him, not particularly impressed. “Unless my memory has experienced a precipitous decline as of late, or Andrexmon has heretofore suddenly manifested underwater capabilities thusly concealed from our attentions, you are not appreciably less ill-suited for such an excursion,” observed Blackcanismon impatiently. “If you insist upon sapping us of precious time, could you not generate a more plausible methodology?”

“Translation: either quit being stupid and make a serious contribulation or just shut up,” said Skylar, almost menacingly.

“Sheeze, you guys forget so quickly, don’t you?” Datacarnomon shook his head, grinning as he already knew where this was going. “We may not be suited now, but you’re talking to the most versatile of us, and arguably the most powerful!”

“Hey, which of us got to advanced stage first?” countered Salmandmon.

“Technicalities. We’ll reach that point ourselves.”

“Who wants to loop us in now?” asked Shockavimon. “Advanced stage?”

“Oh, yeah, it felt weird applying digimon terms to something that’s…not entirely digimon? So I figured basic stage and advanced stage made more sense, and we can create more if it becomes relevant. Plus it makes my memory banks nice and tidy.”

“Because heaven forbid we should sully your memory banks,” Blackcanismon said with an eye roll.

“Dang, I think that’s the smallest letter average we’ve gotten out of you yet,” chuckled Datacarnomon.

“I might remark,” cut in Skylar with no shortage of annoyance, “that it might have been nice for you to let the REST of us know you’d accomplished that. And that your parents were fully in the know about us, for that matter.”

“H-hey, you guys found out,” Reyn replied nervously.

“Yes, only because Iris was fortunate enough to have been there, and to be much more forthcoming.”

“Anyway!” Datacarnomon rescued Reyn from his uncomfortable situation. “We know Andrexmon’s got great potential for tapping into digital infrastructure and using it to augment himself. So if Ike can write a program that equips us with aquatic optimizations, that should let us get down there and take care of some nasties! We might not be water natives, but I think that’s probably as good as we’re going to be able to get.”

“Well…that COULD work,” conceded Skylar. “But you’d be down there by yourself. We wouldn’t really be able to help out at all. You think you can take on all of them like that?”

“I don’t see why not,” replied Isaac boldly. “We’re pretty dang good at what we do, and we have supreme firepower. It’ll be a piece of cake.”

“Your confidence exceeds ours by a considerable margin,” suggested Blackcanismon. “Nevertheless, I would profess greater comfort venturing our onshore support.”

“It’ll have to be at night anyway, so we might as well,” agreed Derek.

“We’ll check things out overhead, too,” added Shockavimon. “Maybe we’ll see something we missed before, and be able to warn you about it.”

“Fine, fine. I suppose having us all out there won’t be a bad idea, just in case one of those guys might try to be a pain. But I think it’ll all go just fine, you leave it to us.”

Don’t think I’ve ever seen him so pumped up, pathed Salmandmon to Reyn.

He likes being able to do things no one else can, Reyn replied, holding back a snicker. Anything he can say he’s the best at is something that makes him happy. But at least it works to our advantage this time.

———

It had been a busy day at the BICI, with people sifting through reports provided by the general population for another day straight. A very tired Emil, operating on limited sleep, had been following up on a few, which he was filing under ‘useless’ or ‘fabrication.’ Some people just wanted to feel important and made stuff up that didn’t help them in the slightest, while others claimed to have seen something that could either be determined not to be a monster or wasn’t conclusive but wasn’t helpful. They’d had far too much of that and not enough legitimate reports…in fact, surprisingly few.

For all the cameras that are supposed to be trained all over the place, for all the fact that mobile phones can be used to take pictures or video at a moment’s notice, I expected SOMETHING more than this. Especially with how often the monsters seemed to show up before…are they aware that they’re being watched and just being more careful? How could they have found out? Unless it was because we confronted them…

“Agent Conover?” Emil snapped out of his thoughts and looked up. Agent Neal Collins had shown up at the doorway, wearing an expression Emil didn’t like. “Do you…have a moment?”

“Maybe. If this is about the monsters…did you remember something more?”

“Not a memory, sir, but…new…information, maybe.”

Emil cocked his head. “Maybe?”

“It’s…confusing, sir. But it’s my duty to report it.”

“Very well, come on in, and close the door.” Not ordinary practice for Emil, but with Agent Redford prowling around he didn’t want to take chances; they were being very judicious in what they let slip through the filters to him, on account of the trust issues. “Have a seat, Collins. What’s this all about?”

“Well, sir…” Agent Collins sat, his face still having a very inscrutable expression. “I…went back around the Keller neighborhood from several nights ago. I wanted to…I had to make sure no one had been hurt because of my…avoidance.”

Emil sighed. “Neal, we’ve been over this. Your being alive to give us information was more valuable than a likely pointless engagement with a creature that was liable to leave you dead.”

“I know you say that, sir, but it still weighs on me. If someone had died out there, when I had the chance to do something about it…” Agent Collins shook his head. “A-anyway, that…I didn’t hear any reports of that, thankfully. But there…there was a close call.”

“With the monster?”

“Yes…and this is what’s got me so perplexed. I was talking to a family about it, and their kid comes running up…gotta be only about 10 or 11 at most, and he’s all excited about the dinosaur monster. The parents are trying to get him to pipe down, but then I hear him say he MET it.”

Emil’s eyes widened. “Met it? As in…face-to-face?”

Agent Collins’s expression darkened. “To hear him tell it, more like face-to-arm cannon. He was out at night, violating the curfew because he wanted to see what was going on…apparently surprised the creature.”

“Jesus. I wouldn’t want to surprise something that big and dangerous. But…he clearly survived the encounter if he could tell you about it.”

“…He told me…that the creature warned him about being out at night when it was so dangerous, and said he needed to stay inside so that the bad monsters didn’t get him. And then went on its way.”

Emil blinked at this, almost certain that he had to be missing something due to the fatigue. “…Wait. What?”

“I swear I’m saying more or less what the kid was saying.”

“No, hang on…sorry, I’m just…let me go over this again. You’re telling me that a kid was told by a monster…and let’s reiterate, a freaking mammoth cyborg dinosaur creature…to stay inside and avoid running into dangerous monsters.”

“I get it, sir. It sounds like some kind of bizarre after school special cartoon. And I don’t know what to make of it. What does it all mean?”

Emil’s hands went to his head. “I haven’t the slightest idea, Collins. If we’re lucky, it means they at least have enough of a conscience not to blow up kids. But that might be way too far to extrapolate. I’ll have to make a note about this, and discuss it further with agent Katran. He may have some insights that I’m too wiped out to come up with at the moment.”

“Understood. Thank you, sir.” Relief was not exactly the foremost emotion on Agent Collins’ features, but he did seem a touch more relaxed as he left. Not so Emil, who sank his head into his hands, rubbing it fiercely. Great. Because that’s totally what we needed. Another layer of absurdity on top of the ones we already have. I’m sort of hoping this kid just has a really wild imagination…

———

Okay, one regret…I really should have made that heating program work above water, too. Andrexmon’s footfalls were heavy, but he was unconcerned - the boat launch was quite a distance away from any houses, and sheltered by trees so it couldn’t be easily seen. And it was refreshingly empty, a good thing for them all - no one was doing any night boating that night. About the only thing that wasn’t going their way was the air temperature, which was even lower than it had been during the day. He had planned for the water to be quite cold, and included a thermal support program that would heat up his body and help defray the chill…unfortunately, he’d only made plans to have it active underwater.

It was evident from his look that he was prepared for something very different from his norm. A full mask with hoses covered his face, providing him with the oxygen he would need, provided by a filtering machine that was attached to his chest. He’d also set up a propulsion system, consisting of a large jet mechanism on his back and smaller jets on his legs. It wasn’t overly complicated, but it did the job…at least, he hoped, it wasn’t like he could test it until he actually got into the water. But he had high confidence that it should work, that was what all the internals told him.

As he approached the dock, he could see three figures standing there, waiting for him, talking with looks that didn’t seem pleasant. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” said Skydramon. “Just a nasty battle earlier. We needed him to call on Blazereptimon again…just makes me worried about what’s all in store for us.”

Andrexmon could believe that…he’d sent a message that there were signals again at the Jordan Air Field, and Burnreptimon and Skydramon were the only two able to answer the call. Apparently it had involved several Dokugumon, and a few too many KoDokugumon, which was not a pleasant numbers game. “None of them wanted to go quietly?”

“Nope. Total wipe. The little ones didn’t feel too comfortable, to be honest…I know they weren’t actually kids but it was hard not to see them like that compared to the big uglies. But no, they were SUPER cultish…sounded like they thought they’d be brought back to life even if they died.”

“They’d better not, even if I wouldn’t mind jumping in and giving them another messy death for round two,” Boltfalkemon said sharply. “How are Reyn and Sal doing?”

“Fine, but tired. They were really glad they didn’t have to be out here, I think they were looking forward to a good sleep. So am I, thankfully you got here early.”

“Excuse me, I only said sometime around midnight, I told you I didn’t know how long this would take,” Andrexmon said testily.

“Around usually means within a few minutes of, not twenty,” remarked Darkvargmon. “Dare I ask what the holdup was this time?”

“Jeez! You all act like it’s like snapping your fingers, coming up with this stuff. I had to write this all from SCRATCH, and on short damn notice! And then of course I had to test it to make sure it actually worked, and it’s not like I can just waltz out anytime and transform in my backyard!”

“I’m almost certain you did exactly that,” riposted Skydramon.

“Well, yeah, but I had to wait for the right time! After everyone was in bed, you know, so that they didn’t all see me turn into this. And the diagnostics weren’t exactly quick or simple, I’m trusting this thing not to fill my lungs with water, I’d better be damn sure it’s not throwing any errors!”

“You seemed so certain that it was no big deal earlier,” Darkvargmon reminded him. “Perhaps a lesson in not overstating your capabilities a bit?”

“You wanna go for the dive, be my guest.”

“How are you even able to talk like that?” asked Boltfalkemon. “It doesn’t even look like your mouth can move.”

“It doesn’t HAVE to move. Cyborg, remember? I’ve got a VSU in there.” That got a trio of completely blank looks. “Oh, for…Voice Synthesis Unit. Seriously, do I have to explain everything? It generates my speech without the need for physical mouth motion. Basically, I’m the world’s best ventriloquist.”

“And here I would’ve taken you more for the dummy,” cracked Skydramon with a wide grin.

Andrexmon folded his arms, unamused. “Am I out here to bust heads or to practice your comedy routine?”

“Let’s get to the head busting,” Boltfalkemon replied before anyone else could distract them further. “I want to get out of this cold sooner rather than later. I don’t know how you’re standing this, Skyder, given how Skylar and Breezedramon were suffering earlier.”

“Honestly, I feel okay,” the dragon replied with a shrug. “Maybe better insulation. But yeah, I guess we shouldn’t dally.”

“Good, I’d much rather be shooting than yakking.” Andrexmon reached over to his arm, and dislodged a couple of small devices, which he tossed to Boltfalkemon and Skydramon. “Comm units. I added them while I was working on the dive program. You’ll get a direct feed to me through these, no risk of any intercept. You want one, Wolfy?”

“It would be nothing more than an inconvenience, I can’t phase it through the shadows with me,” replied the canid hybrid.

“Suit yourself. All right, let’s get to it.” With nods all around, Skydramon and Boltfalkemon took to the air, Darkvargmon phasing into the trees along the shoreline, leaving Andrexmon to take the long walk down the pier. At least, that was what they all expected…none of them were quite ready for the heavyweight creature to suddenly break into a run, stomping down that dock until he neared the water, and leaping up with all his might, only to fold his body and give a loud shout of “CANNONBALL!”

The shout and splash made plenty of ruckus, but Andrexmon didn’t have time to think about that as he sank down to the bottom of the lake. Quickly he engaged his heating unit, feeling a lot of relief even quickly as warmth spread through his body. Then it was the oxygen filter system, as he stopped holding his breath and tried to test the ins and outs. Everything was green, he could breathe just fine, a little constricted from the water pressure but nothing troublesome. A quick test of his jets lifted him off the lakebed, and they were also working fine, pushing him through the water as intended, the smaller ones more for steering than propulsion.

Only then did he allow the screeching voice of Boltfalkemon to come through his head. “Are you mental?! What the hell is wrong with you? You’re gonna draw the eyes of everyone on the damn lake!”

“No, I’m drawing the eyes of everyone IN the lake,” Andrexmon fired back. “You think I wanna go hunting for these things in the middle of the darkness? If they know someone’s here, they’re gonna come to me, and I’ll be able to take them down a hell of a lot faster! No one up above is gonna care, kids play in this lake after dark all the time! I’ve even heard Ashley talking about doing that once or twice!”

“Aren’t there better ways to do that?” Skydramon said testily. “We’re kinda exposed up here, maybe they won’t see you underwater but they sure as hell could spot us!”

“Then fly higher! Now pipe down and track these bogies.” Andrexmon shifted his visual register, trying to spot on infrared, looking for heat signatures; they were a bit washed out in the water, but he could see one coming towards him already. Shape looks like a Dolphmon…probably doesn’t know what it’s in for, so let’s be quick. His arm shifted to the cannon attachment, which also had a subtle modification - the released shot had been tuned for lower water resistance and better coherence in the less permeable medium. Now was as good a test as any. “Dino Buster!”

The fired shots pumped out at high velocity, tearing through the water with much less difficulty than even Andrexmon expected. The Dolphmon hadn’t been remotely ready for them, and let out a loud echoing screech as each shot impacted hard straight on its head, blasting it apart and making it fade into data. “Whoof…well, if they didn’t hear me, they sure as heck heard THAT. You guys see any motion under there?”

“Oh, yeah, there’s a whole lotta movement now,” Boltfalkemon reported. “And a lot of it seems to be coming from something big close to you…Seadramon! Thought so!”

“Right, on it!” The jet flared to life, and Andrexmon burst forward, looking to meet the Seadramon head-on as he caught sight of a heat signature, washed out but still noticeable. Big, but low defenses. A charged Dino Buster would work, but that would reduce my mobility…maybe try to get up close…

“Ice Javelin!”

“Whoa!” Andrexmon had to suddenly roll out of the way as an icy attack nearly got to him. The Seadramon had approached from the side rather than from the front as he expected - it had to have been a different heat signature he saw. The Seadramon was coming at him quickly, darting through the water in an attempt to snap him up in its jaws. Thinking fast, Andrexmon switched to his claw arm and lit it up. As the Seadramon neared him, he dove down a little, then thrust his claw up, piercing the dragon’s flesh and rending through it. The Seadramon’s screech was wildly pained, but it had too much momentum to stop, and Andrexmon kept going until he’d split all the way along its body. The water clouded with blood as the Seadramon’s voice faded away and the creature dissolved into data. Yikes…I’m glad that did the trick, because I’m not sure I could’ve given HIM a chance to bug out…I don’t think they would’ve approved of me finishing the job when it clearly wasn’t going anywhere.

“Are you all right down there?” Skydramon’s voice cut in. “It got really quiet all of a sudden.”

“Ah, yeah, fine. Just a bit of an ambush…uh, let me know what DIRECTION they’re coming from next time, there’s too many to just assume it’s the only one I see.”

“Sorry,” apologized Boltfalkemon. “I think that was the biggest one, though, so the rest should at least be less of a mismatch.”

“Good to hear. Good thing about watery digimon, a lot of them are NOT well-armored. This might be easier than I thought…”

———

Within about twenty minutes, Andrexmon was starting to wonder why he’d ever thought it would be an issue. The watery digimon came after him as expected, but their attacks were slow and uncoordinated - none of them seemed to have made any real effort to try to double-team him, and though a couple landed some blows on him, they lacked the punch needed to really put him in danger. Even with only limited experience moving around in this kind of environment, he was finding it pretty easy to avoid much of what they threw at him, and his counterattacks were quick and efficient, and devastating to his foes.

One by one they were dispatched. Two Mantaraymon, another Dolphmon, a Tobiumon, and a Seahomon, all falling to his blaster or his claws. And as Andrexmon faced down the eighth, he was pretty confident the fight was on its last legs. He was facing down a Sharkmon - a blue shark digimon with a quintet of cutting fins and a striped blue body. Andrexmon smirked behind his mask. “You wanna cut your losses, bozo? You can turn tail and run home right now.”

“Pest! I’m gonna find out what a human tastes like! Maybe I’ll compare them to you! Hydro Ripper!” The Sharkmon rushed at him, jaws wide open and glowing with a dangerous bright blue.

“Well, I tried.” Andrexmon wasn’t exactly upset as he zipped out of the way, the Sharkmon unable to course-correct enough and overrunning him. As he tried to swim back around, he was target practice for the cyborg, who fired off a partly-charged shot that ended up blasting right into that open mouth. One pained roar that got cut off was all Sharkmon was able to let out before he disappeared. Hot damn. My aim is so good I don’t even have to be trying to hit the bullseye.

“Rex? All good down there?” Boltfalkemon’s voice came through, settled down from earlier.

“Yep. No sweat. Those guys were definitely not Emperius’s cream of the crop.”

“Do you have to sound so smug about it?” asked Skydramon with a hint of annoyance.

“Hey, I just installed a mod I built from scratch and single-handedly wiped the floor with a bunch of digimon none of you guys could even touch. I think I’ve earned a little bit of smugness. Unless there’s something else I have to be shooting at.”

“I’m not seeing anything down there,” reported Boltfalkemon.

“Nor am I,” agreed Skydramon. “That was eight, just as you said. Dang, those eagle eyes of yours are pretty sharp.”

“Well, I suppose that would make sense,” the avian snickered. “Maybe we’ll actually be able to get back and sleep at a semi-reasonable time.”

“I’m not picking up anything more down here, either,” Andrexmon signaled back. “Time to get back to shore. And back to the cold…ugh, I’m definitely not gonna be enjoying the chill of getting OUT of the water.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to feel it, too,” remarked Skydramon. “Let’s get going-”

“Wait!” Boltfalkemon’s sharp cry sent a jolt through both Skydramon and Andrexmon without even using her electricity.

“Wait what? What’s going on?”

“I saw something move down there! I swear it was dormant just a minute ago!”

“Something else? Point me towards it!” Andrexmon said, looking around. “Are you sure? I’m not picking up any thermal signat-WHOA!” There was a sudden rush in the water nearby, and then Andrexmon was slammed in the side, thrown for a loop. “Oof! What the bloody hell?!”

“Jesus, it’s huge!” Skydramon gaped as the water was suddenly roiling below. “How the hell did we not see that before?!”

“It had to have been dormant at the bottom of the lake!” exclaimed Boltfalkemon. “Andrexmon, look out!”

“Kinda know already! Dammit!” Andrexmon was trying to get away, but it seemed like the thing kept being able to hit him no matter which direction he tried to evade. His infrared vision was starting to show things, but now it was showing too much, he couldn’t make out what it was. Blindly he tried firing his Dino Buster, but whatever was hitting didn’t seem to be doing much, if it was hitting anything. “It’s chaos down here! I’m getting out, before I get-Aaaaaagh!” Suddenly an electric jolt pulsed through the cyborg’s body, stunning him and making him cry out in pain. That had hurt like hell, and completely disoriented him - leaving him entirely vulnerable to the next attack, a slash through his arm that had pain shooting through him and warning klaxons going off in his head. And if that wasn’t bad enough, then he felt something wrap around him tight, and suddenly he was hurrying to the surface, and not voluntarily.

“Goddamn!” Both Boltfalkemon and Skydramon flew up higher as an enormous splash hit the surface of the lake, and a huge form rose out. “No way! Megaseadramon?”

“Look! Rex’s in its tail!” The tail end of Megaseadramon was up above the water as well, with Andrexmon wrapped up tight, unable to mount a defense in his wounded state. He wasn’t there for long, though, as Megaseadramon let out a languid cry and chucked the cyborg into the trees, before diving back down into the water with another massive splash. Both flying hybrids had to wait a few seconds to confirm that it wasn’t about to come back up before bolting down to check on Andrexmon, desperately hoping that the worst hadn’t happened…

They finally reached Andrexmon, who was laying unresponsive on the ground. Darkvargmon was already there, checking on him as best he could. “This isn’t good…he’s alive, but he took a nasty hit to the head when he got thrown here. And that arm wound looks bad…it must’ve caught that thing’s horn.”

“I’m amazed he’s even alive,” Skydramon said shakily. “It had Rex in its clutches…why didn’t it finish him off? And it can’t have not noticed us! How the hell are any of us not toast?!”

“…The cold!” It suddenly hit Boltfalkemon. “Rex said they weren’t fighting very well down there, and something as big as Megaseadramon should have been visible through that infrared he said he was using…unless it was so cold that it was practically dormant! And it seemed tired when it came up…”

“Then we shouldn’t press our luck,” asserted Darkvargmon. “We need to get away fast, and we need to get Rex to safety…and maybe to help. As much as he’s been hurt, I think we need to get him treatment.”

“How?” asked Skydramon. “You wanna waltz into the ER like this?!”

“Not the ER, but the best substitute we have - Reyn’s house. And that means you two are going to be playing air rescue - I can’t take him through the shadows with me, and my Nightmare Tangle is going to have too many streetlights to fight.”

“Great…I hope you know how to keep your speed in check, dragon boy,” grumbled Boltfalkemon as she stepped up to Andrexmon’s upper half.

“We are SO gonna get seen,” groaned Skydramon. “And he looks like he weighs a ton!”

“Then I also hope you’ve been working on your upper body strength, because we don’t have a choice! Wolf, can you go get in touch with Reyn and his folks? Get them ready for our arrival…or to go on a search if we don’t.”

“I’ll keep an eye on you as best I can,” Darkvargmon said with a nod. “And they’ll be ready for you.”

———

Unfortunately, it seemed even the two of them who didn’t have to go through the mess at Lake Idle weren’t exactly getting the most restful sleep. Certainly not as Reyn popped up, bleary-eyed, and gave a shove to Salmandmon, who was rudely knocked out of his own slumber. “Oof, hey…the hell’s your problem?”

“Your DREAMS are the problem!” Reyn was a bit flushed and tense. He’d never have traded his connection with Salmandmon for anything, not for all the good it brought, but he was definitely finding that there was some drawback to shared dreams sometimes. “Would it kill you to dream about something else for once?”

“Tch, like I can help it! Maybe you shouldn’t be such a prude, it’s not like it’s unnatural or anything.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to have it showed in my face or anything! It’s awkward as all hell to be…looking at…that!”

“Oh, get over yourself. Maybe you should join in, you’d probably see the upside to them in a hurry.”

“Gh! You…that…you’d better still be out of it, because if that was actually a SERIOUS suggestion-!”

Salmandmon let out a hiss. “I don’t know what you want me to do! I don’t freaking program my dreams! You’re just gonna have to be mature about it, and it’s not like it’s not something that you won’t eventually be doing in some way at some point anyway!”

“That doesn’t mean I’m okay with it!”

“And how is that my problem? What, I’m just supposed to somehow shut off that drive just to-” Salmandmon froze, breath catching in his throat. “What was that?”

“What was what?” Reyn’s anger rapidly shifted to fear. “Did you see something?!”

“I swore I heard a sound!” The lizard’s head was darting around on full alert. “Oh, man…we are NOT ready for an ambush…”

“Well, isn’t that a fine way to greet a friend.” Both human and lizard jumped as Darkvargmon suddenly popped up into their visions. “Then again, I suppose it’s also the truth in a way.”

“Wolf!” Reyn barely kept from shouting at full volume. “Are you insane?! Don’t pop into my room without warning like that! I swear, if you’re pulling pranks on us…”

Darkvargmon raised an invisible eyebrow. “Goodness. I’m not the prank type of person, you know. And by the looks of it, you two weren’t exactly mired in slumber.”

“Well, we WERE, until Reyn had to go and wake me up,” groused Salmandmon.

“If you could have better dreams we would still be out!”

“Hey, excuse me, those are great dreams! You just don’t appreciate them yet.”

“Ah, I see what’s going on…” Darkvargmon chuckled a bit in spite of himself. “Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that it’s YOU of all folks that’s encountering that particular pitfall. But I hope you’re able to make yourselves decent on short notice, because I’m not here on a social call. We need your parents’ expertise.”

“Dammit.” Immediately Reyn forgot all about his annoyance. “What happened?”

“An unfortunate encounter between Rex and a Megaseadramon. Air rescue team is on their way...in less-than-stellar time, unfortunately, as they are not exactly well-coordinated. At least they’re moving…never have I been so grateful that physics works differently for digimon.”

“Well, doesn’t THAT sound lovely. Remind me not to call them for emergency rescue.”

“What…ah, right,” Darkvargmon chuckled. “Your fear of heights.”

“Excuse me, it’s NOT a fear of heights,” huffed Reyn. “It’s a fear of FALLING. Heights are fine, just getting down is the problem. Hoping that they don’t actually drop him, how bad is it?”

“I can’t say. Several injuries, but I can’t tell how severe they really are.”

“Crud. Mom’s home tonight, she’ll be able to help. And she works late shifts so she’s used to being up at this time, she’ll probably still be downstairs. Let’s get going, hopefully it’s not worse than it sounds.” Reyn hopped out of bed, hurrying out of the room down the stairs.

Darkvargmon gave a look to Salmandmon, who hadn’t moved. “You coming?”

“In a moment. Uhm…gotta get decent.”

“Ah, right. Well, don’t take too long. Not that you’ll be doing much more than watching, but your presence may be useful anyway.”

“Gee, thanks.” Sal’s sarcastic response got nothing more than a chuckle out of Darkvargmon, before the canine phased back out of the room. Leaving the lizard alone to collect himself…and give himself a little hell for his spat with Reyn just a minute before…

———

“This is insane. Complete, utter madness.”

“You know, no one ASKED you to come down here.” Reyn wasn’t exactly being patient with his brother, who was glaring at the collection of creatures in the living room. Andrexmon was seated on the floor, getting some attention from Minerva, who was working on disinfecting and stitching up the gash on his head; he’d roused from unconsciousness, at least, which was the first bit of good news in a while. The underwater module was deactivated, making it easier for him to be examined; he still seemed somewhat out of it, but not so much that it was immediately concerning. Boltfalkemon, Skydramon, and Darkvargmon were all around as well, something that wasn’t sitting too well with Wally.

“Those freaking stomps could have raised the dead. Why the hell wouldn’t I want to figure out what was going on? Except for the fact that everyone’s going completely insane and letting weird-ass creatures overrun this place.”

“I guarantee you they were doing something more important than whatever it was you were planning on doing tomorrow,” remarked Salmandmon, doing his best not to sound too biting and only half-succeeding. “Or have you forgotten that we’re kinda fighting a war out there?”

“That doesn’t mean I want this stuff shoved in my face,” Wally replied testily.

“Then go back upstairs and go to sleep already. No one’s keeping you down here.”

“What if one of them attacks? How can I trust any of these things?”

“I guarantee you an attack is FAR more likely if you continue to stand down here irritating us while we’re already stressed out,” Darkvargmon cut in, with an acerbic look at Wally that made him jump a bit. “If you insist on offering nothing of value, please depart, with all due haste.”

“…Grrr. Fine…” One last glare, and Wally finally headed upstairs, making rather a good bit of noise himself.

“He seems to be taking this well,” quipped Boltfalkemon with an ocean of sarcasm.

“He’s always been that way, more or less,” said Skydramon tiredly.

“Not as bad as this. I get that he’s stressed out, but he could choose his targets better.”

“I don’t know what’s been on his mind lately,” sighed Minerva as she finished up on Andrexmon’s head, then went back to checking his arm; that wound had already been stitched up, though she didn’t seem too satisfied with it. “I’ve been trying to talk to him but he isn’t even opening up to me now, and usually I was the one he was most willing to talk to. Something is on his mind but he won’t let us do anything about it…” A shake of her head, and then she let it drop. “At least you seem to be doing better.”

“Not great, but definitely better,” grunted Andrexmon. “I can’t thank you enough, I really needed this.”

“It’s the least I can do to help you out for all you’re doing for us. And it’s an experience, too…I’m sure no one at the hospital can say they’ve applied first aid to a half-robotic dinosaur creature. And Jill says I never have any interesting stories to tell over lunch.” She laughed quietly, but his expression turned down as she inspected the sutures on the arm wound. “But are you sure this is enough? This is quite a large laceration.”

“It’ll be enough. I just need something to help hold it together while auto-repair does its job, so I’m not bleeding all over the place. Wanna make sure it’s really close to fully knit before I try to split.”

“Why does that matter?” asked Skydramon. “I thought we recovered after we separated.”

“I don’t think that’s the whole story...these forms heal up faster than most ordinary creatures, yeah, but…every time we split, I notice that I still remember where I got hit and I still feel it for a bit. I think we only partly recover after separating…minor wounds, typical bruises, things like that, they’re mostly just aches, but I’m not convinced that a big open wound like this would go away so quietly. And I have no idea what kind of effect that would have on us, if it would recover properly in that state or what…I’d rather not run tests when I don’t know what the answer’s going to be. And same goes for large scars…if those showed up, what impact would they have?”

“I know this isn’t helpful, but…those kinds of questions are definitely making me feel less comfortable,” said Minerva worriedly.

“Trust me, same here,” agreed Boltfalkemon. “I never thought deeply about that before, but now that he brings it up…there’s still a lot we don’t know about this combination thing we’re doing. What caused it to happen, how injuries affect it, whether it’s going to have long-term effects on us, things that I kind of wished I knew, and yet there’s literally no way of knowing from anything other than experience, because we’re unprecedented. And there are too many experiences we can’t or don’t want to risk having.”

“Clearly we’ll just have to avoid getting seriously injured ever,” said Skydramon with a shrug. “Piece of cake, right?”

“Levity, well-intentioned though it is, is unfortunately not clearing the air here,” Darkvargmon noted.

“I know, but what the heck do you say to something like that?”

“Let’s try to focus on the positives here, guys,” Salmandmon said. “Things didn’t go as planned, but you’re all alive, and you’re gonna live again to fight another day. And while there’s still one big ugly problem at the bottom of that lake, you took out the rest of them. That means that we can work on figuring out a plan to deal with that remaining digimon without having other distractions, minus the usual.”

“That is true,” agreed Darkvargmon. “Tonight was not altogether a disaster, merely suboptimal. We have the chance to regroup and…oh dear. I think we have another guest.”

Reyn started. “Huh? Emperius?”

“No…closer to home. Much closer, in fact.”

“WHOA!” The meaning behind that line was quickly clear as Cayden suddenly rushed down the stairs, nearly tripping before getting to the bottom. As soon as he reached, he made a beeline for Andrexmon, getting right up in his face as his eyes nearly split open in awe. “Dino robot! So coooool!”

“Easy, kid.” Andrexmon leaned back a little, trying not to push Cayden with his metal arm. He chuckled a bit at the fawning boy. “Oh, right, you’re the one that’s ga-ga for dinosaurs, aren’t you?”

The starry-eyed boy nearly squealed. “Wow! How did you know that?!”

“I know everything, kid. Except how to not get my a-uh, keister kicked by an overgrown sea snake. You’re staying out of trouble, right? Staying away from all the nasty monsters?”

“Y-yeah…I’m trying to…but there was this mean one that came to our house…but my brother protected us and blew him apart!”

“Typical…doesn’t even remember I was there,” remarked Boltfalkemon.

“What are we, chopped liver?” griped Skydramon.

“Sorry, guys,” Reyn cackled, unable to hold it in. “Face it, dinosaurs are just cooler than you.”

“That’s junk! Dragons are ALWAYS cool!”

“The existence of one of your constituents is proof in dispute of that,” Darkvargmon jibed.

“Cayden, honey…” Minerva went over to the younger boy and began to usher him back towards the stairs. “He’s been busy tonight and needs to rest. And you need to get back to sleep as well, I know you don’t have school but you should still get up nice and early.”

“Aw…why doesn’t Reyn have to get up early?” pouted Cayden.

“Because my hot-foot doesn’t work on him,” cracked Salmandmon. “And I haven’t figured out a better way to drag his butt outta bed without torching half the room.”

“Do the words ‘alarm clock’ mean anything to you?” asked Boltfalkemon.

“Yeah, they mean ‘Satan’s biggest attack on humanity,’” grumped Reyn.

After a bit more prodding, Cayden eventually returned upstairs, settling things back down once again. Minerva headed back over to Andrexmon, giving the sutures one final look over. “Well…they look to be holding, at least. I’ll have to trust you that your body will do most of the work…but it sounds like you need to stay like this for a while.”

Andexmon nodded. “Yeah, I do…and I’m a little worried about whether that’s gonna cause me issues. I can’t go back home like this, there’s no way I’ll be able to sneak in this way. And of course, I left my light on…someone’s gonna find out about that.”

“That, at least, has been addressed,” reported Darkvargmon. “I took the liberty of doing so while you were getting patched up.”

“…I don’t recall giving you permission for that.”

“‘Thank you, Darkvargmon, you did me a great service.’ ‘It was nothing, my cyborg comrade, anything to help keep things peaceful.’”

“I’d say don’t put words in his mouth, but they don’t even really come out of his mouth, do they?” snickered Boltfalkemon.

“If you need a place to stay, you can stay here,” offered Minerva. “You’re welcome to rest as long as you need to, or want to.”

“Just so long as I don’t have to give up my bed,” cracked Reyn. “Not that your oversized frame would fit in it anyway. Don’t think it’ll fit the couch either, for that matter.”

“Oversized frame…” Andrexmon let out a snort. “Whatever you say, short stuff. I’ll be fine on the floor here. I can’t stay too long anyway - I will have to get back before my folks wake up, because there’s no way I’m sneaking in after they’re out of bed. But a few hours to snooze here and let things mend would do me a world of good.”

“I’ll help out,” added Darkvargmon. “I can keep watch on things and let you know if it looks like there’s movement. We’ll make sure you get back in one piece and without incident.”

“Thanks…” the cyborg let out a sigh, not sounding too happy about things still. “And I shouldn’t keep the rest of you, either…”

“Oh, yeah, we should probably head back and, uh, sleep like normal people,” said Skydramon.

“As opposed to sleeping like abnormal people?” asked Boltfalkemon.

“Well, Wolfy IS here…”

“I may just rouse YOUR parents inconveniently,” the wolf harrumphed.

———

Mercifully, the rest of the night passed uneventfully. Just as dawn was breaking, Isaac and Datacarnomon were sneaking down the road towards their house. They were a bit more exposed than was comfortable, but all the better to conserve what little energy they’d managed to recover. The few hours of sleep and recovery time had thankfully been as effective as they hoped, and they were left without major wounds to worry about when separating back into human and digimon again…though, neither one would have called themselves well-rested. And Darkvargmon was covering their return, making sure no one was awake or in the path of their return. Not that too many were active at this hour even in the best of times, but there was no point in not being as cautious as possible.

They reached the side door, and unlocked the door carefully. “Any activity inside, werewolf?”

“Must you continue to call me that?” asked Darkvargmon as he phased into view.

“You want me to go with ‘Wolfy’ instead?”

“…point taken. You should be good to go, so long as you don’t make excessive amounts of noise. Which leads me to suggest carrying Data inside.”

“Tch, you say that like I didn’t carry him out. I’m well aware of how noisy he can be.”

“I knew I should’ve invested in sonic dampeners,” groused Datacarnomon. “Thanks for the cover, Darkvargmon. Hope your day’s less eventful than our night.”

“Every day makes me feel less and less like hope should be expent on that, but the sentiment is appreciated,” replied Darkvargmon with a nod. “Get some rest and we’ll talk on what to do next. Later.” He disappeared again, and Isaac took Datacarnomon on his back and slipped inside.

It wasn’t a totally soundless entry, but it didn’t have to be, just so long as Isaac was quiet enough not to be noticeable. A few squeaks from the door and creaks from the floor weren’t going to rouse anyone upstairs. Soon enough, he’d ascended the stairs and gotten back into his own room. Only then did he let Datacarnomon off of him and onto the floor again, sighing deeply. “Okay…well…at least THAT went well…” he muttered, not sounding as enthused by that as the words suggested.

“Hopefully that trend continues,” said Datacarnomon. “You think you’re gonna be able to sleep in without drawing any attention?”

“…Who’s sleeping?”

“Uh? You’re…not gonna try to sleep more?”

“That Scylla wannabe’s still in there. I’m not gonna want to sleep until it’s not.” Isaac trudged over to his computer, waking it from sleep and flopping down in his chair. “I’ve got a few ideas in mind, and I want to make them happen before I lose them. Don’t try to talk me out of this.”

That was about the exact opposite of what Datacarnomon wanted to agree to at the moment, but he had a feeling that might not go over well. With a sigh, he resigned himself to the reality and crawled under the bed, figuring that at least one of them should try to get some extra shut-eye…though he doubted he was going to rest much easier than Isaac would have…

———

The weather, though significantly warmer, was not exactly bright and beautiful that day - it was overcast, looking like it might rain at any time. That hadn’t stopped Reyn and Salmandmon from leaving the house that day though, unusually quiet between them as they walked side by side. The emptiness of the streets had convinced Salmandmon to take the risk of not even hiding behind his Smoke Screen - he knew there was a danger of being seen, but he was getting so annoyed with having to keep it up all the time that he just wanted one break from it. It seemed like there were few better times than with weather that encouraged people to stay inside, whatever they thought of the monster attacks.

The two traveled in silence for a while, not looking at each other apart from some awkward glances here and there. Finally, Salmandmon managed to speak up. “Uh…so…which one of us is apologizing first?”

Reyn started a bit, finally looking directly down at the lizard. “Uh? Wh…how did you know I was…”

“You have that look on your face. I’ve worn that one before.”

“Oh…well…” Reyn coughed a bit. “I guess I’ll go first, then…I’m sorry I was giving you crap about your dreams. It wasn’t fair of me…I mean, they’re dreams, you don’t control them, whatever you’re dreaming about is what you’re gonna dream about. It’s…awkward having that…shared experience in some of them, I guess, but that doesn’t give me the right to snap at you about it. You weren’t trying to do anything to me, it’s just what happened. So, I’m sorry about getting angry at you.”

“Apology accepted. And now it’s my turn.” Salmandmon took a deep breath and let it out in a burst of steam through his nose. “It might not have been fair, yeah, but I didn’t respond well to it, either. I shouldn’t have been…dismissive of your discomfort, or said stuff that was, uh, provocative. I might not be able to control it but I can control how I respond to your reactions, and I didn’t do that well.” The lizard closed his eyes. “I guess sometimes I have a hard time remembering that you and I, we’re in different stages of life…even if were pretty close in years, we’re different types of people who grow and develop at different rates and with different, uh, characteristics, I guess. You humans develop a lot more slowly than we do, so the way we respond to certain things isn’t going to be the same just because we’re close in ‘age.’ I really should be better at realizing that considering what insight I have into this world, but…I dunno, I guess I forget because of what we’re doing together. You’re taking on a responsibility that’s…extremely adult even for our world, no matter what’s going on you don’t put kids into combat over there. I…guess I’m trying to tell myself constantly that you’re not a kid so that I don’t get sick over this.”

“Sal…” Reyn didn’t really know how to respond to that, but he was going to do his best. “You didn’t force me into this. Or any of the rest of us. You didn’t realize what was going to happen, and once we heard about what was up…none of us were really given that much choice, you can’t have something like this and really say no to what it means, but we still chose to accept that and try to face it head-on. I’m not gonna lie, it’s been stressful…but we’re not like…well, my younger siblings. They don’t really understand it, not entirely…I do get it, and so do the others.”

“Yeah…I know. It’s…you all are in…well, kind of an unfamiliar state. Digimon, once they’ve gotten to that key point where it all starts to click in the brain, they’re just…there. It’s like you flip a switch and they’re adults. We don’t really have digimon in a stage like you guys are in, where you’re still developing but you have some of that savvy that adults do…I guess that’s part of what’s throwing me off, we don’t really know how to relate to you because it’s something that just doesn’t exist over there. Even Data wouldn’t know if there’s no info to work with. So maybe we’re overthinking it a bit…but at the same time, this still isn’t something even your type of kid should be involved in. And it’s…a bit tough feeling like the adult when I can’t afford to be as responsible as I feel like I should be.”

“…You’re stressed out, too, aren’t you?”

A slight, wry laugh from Salmandmon. “That’s understating it pret-ty hard. But it’s tougher for me, because…for whatever reason, they all see me as the leader, and that means I’m supposed to be the one stoking them all up. So I have to downplay my stress as much as I can so that they don’t all get stressed out that I’m losing it. I don’t really love it…I still don’t know why they don’t pick Data. He’s a better tactician, and he has ways of compartmentalizing stress that I could only dream of. But, they don’t see it that way, I guess, so…I’ve gotten good at hiding the stress, I guess. But that doesn’t make it go away…”

“And when we’re stressed out, we don’t always have the best ways of acting and reacting towards each other,” Reyn finished. “So we get snippy about things, we lose our cool, and we don’t act the way we should.”

“Yeah. And I’m sorry about that. Because you’re right, I think a lot of it is just…that we’re not in the best mindset, we’re getting heated over things that shouldn’t be a big deal. But…I’m still the adult here, and someone they look up to as a leader, for whatever reason, and that means I’m supposed to be more responsible one. And I wasn’t.”

Reyn smiled. “Hey, apology accepted. And don’t worry about it…I think you do a good job, for what it’s worth. You’ve done everything you can to help prepare me for what we’ve been up against, I’d say that’s pretty responsible.”

“Well, if I’m gonna be putting you guys through this, I’d better do everything I can.” Salmandmon took another deep breath, but it came out a lot less tensely this time. “Thanks, Reyn. I hope I didn’t make that too awkward…an apology like that isn’t the easiest thing, but it’s important.”

“It was fine. I, uh, can’t help but wonder how familiar you are with it, though…”

“Familiar enough to wish I wasn’t. You only need to have to do it once to know how to work on one of those deep ones.”

Reyn could see the troubled expression on Salmandmon’s face. “…I know I shouldn’t ask, so I’m not going to.”

“Well…I can talk about it. It’s not a happy thing, but it was also a complicated situation, and there’s not much point in not being honest about it. It was a couple years back, and-” Sal’s voice cut off, and his head whipped around. “REYN! DOWN!”

Reyn didn’t think, he reacted, almost flinging himself onto the sidewalk - just in time to hear something fly over his head. In a rush, he shoved himself back to his feet, scrambling backwards next to Salmandmon, and in a hurry, they merged together, becoming Burnreptimon just as the attacker rose back to his feet.

“Damnation! Was hoping to get you before you pulled that stunt.” The cursing creature was a bipedal saurian - Ceramon, the evolution of Crestmon. He stood a little taller than Burnreptimon, and also a good bit broader and more muscular - clearly a power fighter just by appearance. He bore the familiar ceratopsian crest, and the same three horns of his earlier form, but the ones over his eyes were short and stubby, while the one on his nose was long and pointed. His stacked chest had two belts looped crosswise over it, and he wore long, simple and slightly ragged pants.

“Trying to hunt me down and ambush me?” growled Burnreptimon fiercely. “Skullsatamon tried to do the same thing…didn’t realize Emperius were all cowards who avoided direct battles now.”

“A quick victory is a good victory, and what quicker than not giving the worm a chance to fight?” replied Ceramon. “But if you’re that eager to die by my hand, I’ll show you how much I outclass you directly!”

“You and all the others, right? Let’s just cut to the chase! Pyre Rush!” Burnreptimon fired off his attack at Ceramon, expecting to score a direct hit - but Ceramon was quite a bit faster than he expected, ducking and rolling under the attack. As he set on his feet, he almost seemed to uncoil as he launched himself at Burnreptimon, delivering a vicious punch to the ribs just as the lizard cut his attack, tossing him backwards; he landed hard on the sidewalk, then jumped to his feet, panting and wincing. “Ow…”

“Heh heh…that was just a love tap compared to what I’m capable of,” cackled Ceramon.

“If that’s love, I don’t want to know what hate feels like.” Burnreptimon held back on the defensive; the Ceramon certainly wasn’t Skullsatamon-level powerful, but he was skilled, and that was another dimension of danger. A thought occurred to him… “Just floating this, you wouldn’t happen to have a comrade in red that you’re familiar with, would you?”

Ceramon let out a quiet, quick laugh. “Oh, him? Did you roast him already?”

“Only a little. He seems to be eager to get back on his way home, and I know you assholes have the ability to make that happen. I’d be happy to trade him to you for a detente…

“Hah! That scared of me, are you?”

Burnreptimon clenched his jaw. “Fear has nothing to do with it…haven’t had many chances to actually talk with you idiots lately, hard to ask questions when I have to keep torching you.”

The look on Ceramon’s face wasn’t promising in the first place, but when he spoke, the contempt was almost liquid. “Too bad. You shoulda flambéd the pathetic little wuss bitch when you had the chance. Guess I’ll have to finish the job for you…you’ve got him locked up? Perfect. I like easy targets.”

The audacity of the dinosaur shocked Burnreptimon, but it was only moments before that shock turned to flaring anger. “You won’t touch him, monster!” He charged forward, fists blazing and eyes red as he swung ferociously at Ceramon, who quickly parried his first attacks. Though getting singed here and there, he didn’t seem to be severely bothered by the flames. Burnreptimon didn’t care, though, intent on just putting him off-kilter so he could get some good shots in…except, that wasn’t happening, Ceramon was backpedaling but still seemed to be controlling the pace, countering with his own punches and a kick here and there to force Burnreptimon back. It was frustrating the lizard badly, he was landing a couple of shots but at too great a distance to get enough force to really overpower Ceramon.

Just as he thought he was starting to get the edge, though, things went bad in a hurry. Ceramon suddenly shifted, and before Burnreptimon reacted, he got a palm strike to the snout. He let out a hissing cry as he staggered back, holding his nose briefly…then stumbled and jumped back as Ceramon charged forward with his own return salvo. His swings were slower, but definitely more powerful, too much force for Burnreptimon to easily block, so he had to focus on avoidance until he found an opening, or made one. He was starting to wish he’d pulled out the evolution, but then again, that would’ve given Ceramon plenty of time to line up a strike to hit him as soon as he was out of it…there didn’t seem to be any good options here.

Finally, though, he had one lucky opening - Ceramon swing hard, overcommitting and losing balance as his fist just barely missed Burnreptimon’s jaw. Quickly, Burnreptimon gave him a left hook followed by a Pyre Rush from his right, catching Ceramon’s face in the flames and driving him back. The saurian growled a bit as he righted himself, but acted too slowly to keep Burnreptimon from taking back the momentum. Once again he came at Ceramon, driving him back again as he swung furiously, trying to get past his defenses. Unfortunately, his earlier successes hadn’t seemed to throw Ceramon off nearly enough, as he quickly caught back up. “Hah, you’re a persistent one, aren’t you? Maybe I’ll let you live for a bit after beating you to a pulp, give you a front-row seat to what I’m gonna do to these worthless humans. I wonder how long I can make one of them scream before their bodies give out?”

“Bastard!” Burnreptimon screeched as he saw red again, barely missing his swing to Ceramon’s jaw. The saurian blocked high, and he saw an opening low, and lunged for it, trying to get a blazing fist to Ceramon’s gut - but he wasn’t ready for that broad knee to come up right under his jaw, making him stagger - and leaving him wide open for Ceramon’s sudden spin, lashing his broad tail to clock the side of Burnreptimon’s head and sending him sprawling. He was slower to rise this time, blood pounding in his ears as his vision blurred, the fuzzy image of Ceramon taunting him. Heaving hard, he rose back to his feet, trying to blink away the haze unsuccessfully.

“Heh, I expected more out of you than this,” taunted Ceramon. “Not that I mind, laying down and dying like the world you can’t protect is more than fitting for tainted scum like you. I’m going to enjoy making you suffer for all you’ve done to us…”

Burnreptimon’s fury crested again, and he ran towards Ceramon, not thinking straight about his attack as he tried to knock the arrogant lizard’s block off. His charge was far less effective than he would have wanted, though, and it was about to go from bad to worse. Ceramon grabbed his fist, then sidestepped, flinging Burnreptimon out in front of him and yanking his arm back. Before Burnreptimon could turn himself back around to face him, he screeched out as he felt something sharp impale the back of his shoulder - and then again as Ceramon yanked HARD, and he felt his shoulder painfully dislocate. He was shoved forward roughly, dislodging the horn from his body, allowing him to stagger forward, grabbing his extremely pained shoulder…and then sense caught up with him, and he turned just in time to see Ceramon winding up.

“Saurian Strike!”

The impact of the roundhouse kick hit Burnreptimon square in the ribs, sending him outright flying…and somehow the misfortune got even higher, as he found that there was a very handy house to stop his flight. He impacted hard against the side of the house, his left arm flying back and smashing out a window, causing him to develop several painful gashes on his one usable arm. He crumpled forward onto his knees, all his weight supported on his bleeding arm, every breath making his chest explode with pain…he wasn’t even sure how he was still alive after that, it sure felt like he wasn’t going to last much longer as it was, every part of him was burning up with pain and his body was only barely cooperating with him.

“Heh heh…end of the line, fire boy. Too bad, you could’ve saved yourself the trouble by letting me take your head off beforehand.” Ceramon strode up to Burnreptimon, grinning down triumphantly at him…he couldn’t look up to see it, but it was too obvious in his smug voice. “Just another minor obstacle Emperius overcame to fulfill their destiny. You should’ve known better than to think you could resist us…but I suppose this world is filled with weak fools...hm?”

Ceramon paused as he neared Burnreptimon, and the wounded lizard could just lift his head enough to find out why. His heart nearly stopped…there was a woman standing at the corner of the house, a middle-aged black woman staring at the scene in front of her. Panic seized him - she appeared to be unarmed, totally defenseless against the lunatic dinosaur that had just kicked his ass.

“Well, well…” Ceramon turned towards the woman, taking a step towards her menacingly. “The humans look as pathetic as rumored. And to think someone thought they might even remotely be a threat…maybe I oughta take a little time to see what you might be good for as a plaything. Heh, one toy they won’t care if I play rough with, just as I like to-”

It was Ceramon’s first real mistake, and his last. Perhaps he couldn’t be blamed for thinking that Burnreptimon was out, the lizard looked a wreck and felt like a worse one…but desperation was a powerful motivator. He couldn’t let Ceramon do whatever he was thinking of doing to that woman, not so long as he drew breath - summoning up every last bit of strength he could muster, he shoved himself upright and leapt at Ceramon, whose back was turned. Blazing fangs sank into the dinosaur’s neck, blood spurting out fiercely as they embedded in deep, and Burnreptimon unleashed all the power he could muster in his Flare Fang to try to deliver an ambush killing blow, just as Ceramon had tried to do with him. Only his met with success, as Ceramon let out a horrific bellow as significant parts of his neck and spine were brutally incinerated. Burnreptimon didn’t let up until he felt the flesh in his maw disintegrate into data, ending the threat before anything worse could happen…the taste of blood lingered on his tongue, though, something that wasn’t going to be easily covered up.

He heard a gasp…the woman. She was staring at him now, and he was staring back at her, heaving, holding one limp arm with a bloody one, looking bruised and bleeding openly…he dully wondered if she was more shocked at what he was, what he’d done, or how he looked. And then some part of his brain told him that he didn’t want to find out. He took a stumbling step back, then another…and then turned and took off, throwing discretion to the wind as he pushed his overtaxed body to run off to somewhere that might be safer than that. He heard a voice behind him, but didn’t react to it, his vision blurring again as he tried to pull energy from anywhere he could to fuel his escape…with only a little bit spared for an important thought.

I lost control. I let him bait me. He used my anger against me…I can’t…let that happen again…it almost killed me…next time it might not be ‘almost.’

———

“I don’t want your jailor charity anyway.”

“…This isn’t jailor charity, this is literally trying to keep you alive.”

Shadowdramon scoffed. “I know what this is all about. You’re trying to get something out of me by pretending you actually care about me, and trying to intimidate me by taking that form that’s clearly designed to be able to hurt me, without giving me a real chance to fight against you. Well, do your worst, you can’t get water out of a stone. Fight me properly if you want something from me.”

Boltfalkemon was trying to remain patient, but it was challenging in the face of the obstinate little dragon. She’d only come to bring them food and water so that they weren’t going to be suffering too much, and was only merged together because she’d had an unfortunate run-in with a Nohemon on the way there. Neither of which Shadowdramon had to know about, really, and she wasn’t inclined to tell him too much with the way he was acting. “Look, if you want to volunteer anything that can help you get us out of our hair faster, I’m all ears. I’d rather we didn’t have to be distracted by taking care of you.”

“Tch, whatever. I told you already I don’t know anything. And we’ll hold out, we won’t accept your attempts to sway us…oh, COME ON.” Shadowdramon’s frustration came as he saw Crestmon immediately digging into the offered provisions. “You are SUCH a pushover.”

“I’m also hungry,” came the short, stressed response. “They keep bringing us food whether we give them anything or not, they aren’t trying to squeeze us.”

“Rrgh…I just had to be stuck with YOU of all the troop. Talomon would’ve been fighting to the last…”

Boltfalkemon could sense there was little point in focusing on Shadowdramon, so she turned her attention to Crestmon, kneeling down next to him. “You’re right, we’re going to keep making sure you stay alive regardless of whether you tell us anything or not. But if there’s anything you know that could help us, and yourself, we’d be happy to hear it.”

Crestmon swallowed, then shook his head. “Sorry. We, uh…we weren’t really…given a lot to go off of. The general who gave us orders…Kuzuhamon doesn’t like our kind. We’re variables, and there’s some in Emperius who think that being variable is a sin…that we choose to take weak forms when we could be in powerful forms all the time if we wanted. I sort of think maybe she just sent us off just so we could be out of the way, and doesn’t really care what happens to us.”

“It was a TEST,” Shadowdramon insisted. “A test of self-sufficiency! I’m sure she doesn’t really hate us, she just wants to push us harder. Not like we’ve reached our full potential anyway, and everyone knows variables are stronger than statics when they have. Maybe one of us could’ve reached Ultimate if we hadn’t had that stupid disruption, a powerful battle is good for that!”

Boltfalkemon tried not to pay too much attention to Shadowdramon directly, just filing away little bits of info here and there while continuing to speak to Crestmon. “You weren’t given an objective or anything?”

“Just…dig in and wait for orders, and provide intel to those who come through. But I don’t even know what kind of intel she wanted. Not that it matters, I’m not providing much anyway.”

“Hm. That would make sense if Emperius was trying to be subtle or sneaky, but they really haven’t been doing much of that so far…” As she mulled on that, she heard a loud noise from upstairs. “Uh-oh…what now?” Cautiously she stepped out; the door was open behind her, but both digimon were still restrained, she wasn’t too worried about an escape, more so about an intrusion.

She got considerably more worried about something else when she saw Burnreptimon staggering down the stairs, bleeding and holding his right shoulder. “Holy crap! Are you okay?!”

“Mrrg…not…really…” Burnreptimon dropped to the ground pretty much immediately after he hit the bottom of the steps, Boltfalkemon rushing over to help before he did more damage. “Oof…I’m gonna…need some…help here…I think.”

“You want me to get your parents?”

“NO. Absolutely not. Just…you saw the…first aid…kits I brought…right? Grab one…and some water…and start…following my…directions…”

———

“You’re not going to like this…”

“I already don’t like that you just popped up into my room without warning, werewolf,” growled Isaac towards Darkvargmon. “Reyn’s right, you really do just do it to mess with us.”

“Call it practice keeping on your toes.” Darkvargmon was clearly enjoying himself, though. “Data could have warned you.”

“No, I couldn’t have, I can’t track you,” replied the robot in annoyance. “And I don’t like being ambushed, either. If you have something important to say, that’ll draw enough attention on its own.”

“Well, I do, in fact. Someone clearly noticed something last night, because agents were crawling all over the place when I last checked. I don’t think there was anything out there that’s particularly damning, and Megaseadramon certainly didn’t seem interested in showing up, but I heard them talking about how something was seen in the water…”

“Great…” Isaac groaned, slumping back in his seat. “As if things weren’t complicated enough…they didn’t say they were going out there, did they?”

“Not at that point, and I didn’t see any boats. I highly doubt they could transfer a warship to Lake Idle, though, and that seems to me to be the only thing that would be even remotely viable against our serpentine acquaintance. I’ll be trying to get in touch with the others to let them know we have to start planning sooner rather than later, in case someone gets a crazy idea.”

“Goody,” sighed Datacarnomon. “Can we just start going around with neon signs on us saying ‘We’re trying to save your asses, please don’t shoot us’? Maybe then they’d stop trying to kill us and stop trying to get themselves killed trying to work from a severe disadvantage.”

“Sadly, sense is lacking in certain humans,” replied Darkvargmon simply. “Including whoever blocked your communications. And I fear it might be too late for the BICI…they’re the ones doing most of the investigating. If only there was someone there who was actually getting any positive information about us…but what are the chances of that happening?”

———

The scene was pretty chaotic when Emil got there, and that wasn’t making him feel any easier about things. Already he wished Elliot was there, but they had to divide and conquer - Elliot was investigating a suspicious report near Lake Idle, leaving him as the only one to scramble to the sudden monster-related incident that had been called in just minutes ago. And the immediate impression of the scene was not a comforting one, with obvious signs of both scorch marks and blood visible pretty quickly, not to mention the rather large dent in the siding of the house and the broken window. There was no doubt about it, something had gone down here.

As he approached, he could hear something of a commotion from nearby. A middle-aged black woman was arguing with a rather exasperated-looking police officer. With no one else around other than officers, Emil had to presume she was the witness…they had had precious few actual interviews with witnesses to active events, less so when they had been personally involved. If she had something to offer, it could get them a lot closer to their goal. So he made his way over to them, trying to catch what they were saying.

“I’m telling you what happened! Why are you treating me like I’m making stuff up?”

“Ma’am, I’m just saying-”

“You’re just saying I’m lying!”

“You’re confused. It’s a very stressful situation, you start feeling panic and hysteria, and you recall things that don’t make sense.”

“The only one not making sense here is you!”

“Ma’am…”

“You there!” Emil jumped a bit as the woman pointed at him, suddenly noticing he was approaching. “Maybe you’ll listen to me! I saw what happened! I swear it! This guy doesn’t even seem to care!”

“She’s making a report that doesn’t make any sense,” insisted the officer.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Emil replied shortly. “Go do something else.” The officer shrugged and gave him a she’s all yours look as he walked away, leaving the agent sighing as he pulled out his notebook and looked at the woman. “Sorry about that. We REALLY need to take a hard look at our police force…”

“I should say so! You’d think he’d care about a witness statement to something like this! I didn’t get a big ol’ bust in my siding and window to be called a liar!” She certainly didn’t seem hysterical to Emil - intense, maybe, but completely in control.

“Why don’t you tell me what you observed?”

“Well, it was like this. I was sitting inside watching TV, not planning to go out because, you know, it’s dangerous out there right now. Then I start hearing shouting…a few different voices, I’m not sure how many were out there all at once. I was kind of curious, but also leery at the same time, you know, ‘cus you said those monsters could talk, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Well, I was caught between trying to decide whether to go look or not when I heard a loud bang, and my window got busted up! One of their arms went right through it! So that’s when I run outside, and I see two creatures! One of them is that red lizard one you guys were talking about, I know it was!”

That bit of news helped some excitement pierce through Emil’s exhaustion. “It was? That could be big news, yes. What about the other one?”

“It was some dinosaur-looking thing. Not the one you guys were talking about before, though, no metal or anything, and it looked like a…a…shoot. What’s that one that my nephew likes? The big one with the horns?”

“Uh…triceratops?” ventured Emil.

“Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s the one! Though the one here had one way big horn, I think, but it looked kinda like that, except it stood on two legs. And it was MEAN, that one, it looked at me when I was out there, and I swear, you know how you can look at some people and see murder in their eyes? Well, yeah, you should know, you’re one of those agents, you probably deal with them all the time.”

“Let’s, uh, focus on the monsters for the moment. Did you get attacked?”

“No, I didn’t! A damn good thing too, because that thing probably coulda taken my head off. He sure as hell sounded like he would, he was threatening me with all sortsa nastiness, he didn’t say what but you could just hear it in his voice, he wanted some damn victims! But that red one sure as heck took a beating, I dunno how it was still alive as bad as it looked! But the dinosaur thing got distracted by me, and then the red one, it…it just…it leapt up, bit the damn thing on the neck!”

Emil did a double take. “I’m…sorry? Did you say one monster attacked the other?!”

“It did! And it bit HARD, like I could see the blood coming out! And then a buncha fire came out of the red’s mouth, and that dino thing let out a horrible sound and then…I swear, I’m not making this up, it just kinda…dissolved!”

“Dis…dissolved?” The color had drained from Emil’s face. “What…are you saying?”

“Dissolved! Or something like that! It like turned into little bits of something that just blew away and disappeared! I swear, I have 20/20 vision, I have all my life, I’m not making any of this up, you’d see a damn body if that hadn’t happened!”

Emil had to presume that was the truth, there was definitely no body and it was highly unlikely this woman would have had the strength to move a creature the size she was claiming. “What…what about the red lizard?”

“Well, that’s the odd thing. It looked at me a few moments, and then it just took right off! Scooted down the road faster’n anything I could after taking a whuppin’ like it did! I didn’t try to follow it, so I don’t know where it went, just that it went down that way. I mean, I think I coulda taken it the way it was, but I’m not glad I didn’t have to try, you know?”

“I…I see. That…is quite the story, ma’am. You’re sure about everything you just attested to?”

The woman huffed, folding her arms. “Of course I am! I just saw a helluva thing to see, you think I’d just yap about whatever? And who should I talk to about my window? Those aren’t cheap, you know!”

Emil rubbed his head; of course she would have to bring that up. “Talk to your insurance company. I think monsters are probably covered under ‘acts of god.’ Even if this isn’t the work of any god I know of.”

“Sure as hell not! HEY! Watch where you’re stepping! I put a lot of money into that garden!” The woman stomped off to deal with some straying officers, leaving Emil to review the notes, the story, and his aching head.

They were fighting. There’s absolutely no other explanation. The fire lizard attacked another monster. Why? I thought these things were all supposed to be on the same side…something is definitely NOT lining up here. I really need to talk to Elliot about all this, and soon. If there’s some kind of discord between some of these creatures, though…maybe there’s something we can do with that.

———

“I REALLY don’t know about this.”

“I’ve seen my dad do it like three times. He taught me how. Just trust me.”

“It doesn’t seem like it would be enough.”

“That’s what I said. Dad said trying to jerk it back in like they do on TV is definitely NOT how it’s supposed to work. He’s reset more shoulders than I could count, so I’m going with him on this.”

“Unn…okay…here goes.” Boltfalkemon took hold of the wrist on his injured side, and started moving it up and down in a handshake motion while slowly moving the outstretched arm to a higher angle. Burnreptimon was staying still, controlling his breathing and willing the pain down; he was already somewhat patched up, the gouge from the horn attack wrapped up and gauzed while he tried to apply extra heat to staunch it further, and the gashes on his other arm wrapped up nice and tight, dealt with as best they could be. His body was still aching all over, though he hoped that would lessen as the painkillers kicked in…and that he wasn’t going to be left with too many nasty bruises to remind him of this debacle.

Boltfalkemon continued to move his arm away until it was 90° away from his side, then kept moving it up and down in place while also rotating it a little. “Are you…really sure-”

“It’s already getting better. Just keep at it…you can start moving it up, just not too far.”

Boltfalkemon nodded and slowly angled his arm more towards his head, stopping partway up and continuing to rotate it. She was surprised how much better it looked already, it was a subtle enough change that she hadn’t even seen it. “Is it…”

“Mmph…yeah. Still hurts like the dickens, but it’s back in place.” Burnreptimon slowly sat up, rubbing the shoulder with a pained hiss. “Next step is usually to sling it, but I think I’m gonna have to hope that it heals as quickly as the rest of me seems to. I’m definitely gonna avoid trying to do too much with it for a bit.”

“So you’re gonna hang down here for a while, then?”

“Yeah. Might be for the best anyway…”

“Burner…what attacked you?”

“It was a Ceramon. Nasty bastard…he was out for blood, bad as anything. And he was a lot tougher than I expected, too…I only won because he got distracted. Speaking of which, I definitely got seen.”

“Cripes. Things haven’t been going well for us, have they?” Boltfalkemon sighed, shaking her head. “You’ve been getting battered a lot, Andrexmon just got knocked out…”

“Yeah, I know. It’s because they’re hunting us. They know we’re the threat, they’ve started to send in guys that are meant to put us down so they can attack freely. I think that’s another reason that it’s been so hard to get them to turn tail lately, too…the mons they’re sending over are those who have a lot more bloodlust.”

“That Nohemon I ran into earlier…it didn’t even seem to hear what I said. I guess that’s why.”

“We need to make sure that warning gets out to everyone. They need to know that they have to be vigilant at all times when they’re outside. Or even inside, not like they’re going to treat houses as sacrosanct…they already clearly have a bead on me, might not be long before they’ve zeroed in on all five of us. But Ceramon went in for the quick kill…they’re not messing around.”

“Ah!” Both hybrids turned their heads towards the open prison door. They could barely see Crestmon in there, eyes wide. “Did…Did you say Ceramon?!”

“Yeah…oh…” Suddenly Burnreptimon remembered. “You…uh. You know…knew him, didn’t you?”

Crestmon flinched at the change of tense. “I…yeah. He…he’s…my brother.”

Uh-oh. “Uhm…really. Yeah, I…got the sense that he was…familiar with you.”

“…He didn’t want to take me back, did he?”

“…Sorry. No, he didn’t.” Burnreptimon decided that it perhaps was wise not to divulge the full extent of what Ceramon had said about him.

Crestmon slumped back, sighing dismally. “I knew it…he…he was never that good to me, but he got even worse…after…”

“What happened?” asked Boltfalkemon.

“We have another brother…Wartriceramon. He’s always been a power seeker…he, uh…he tainted himself with a virus just to strengthen himself. He was never friendly before, but that just made him even more vicious…and then, all of a sudden, he forced us to join Emperius with him. Well, uh…he forced me. Ceramon…he was happy to join, he thought it would get him as strong or stronger than Wartriceramon…I never really wanted to be there, though, it’s full of creepy and hateful people…I just…they told me that I could suck it up or they’d be happy to show me what they did to weak people.”

An uncomfortable silence lingered after that; even Shadowdramon apparently had sense enough to keep his mouth shut. Eventually Burnreptimon spoke, albeit hesitantly. “I’m sorry you’ve had to go through that…that’s pretty low. I can’t imagine turning on my own family like that. Even the ones I get annoyed with, I wouldn’t do that to them…”

“It’s…it’s all right.” Crestmon certainly didn’t sound all right. “I always felt…they never thought much of me because I didn’t…I never really wanted to be all that powerful. I think they thought I was wasting a gift because I’m variable…they thought they should have been instead if I wasn’t going to use it. Wartriceramon in particular…you…you don’t want to run into him. As bad as Ceramon must have been, he’s way worse. And he’s pissed that he wasn’t made one of the generals, so he’s even more violent lately…”

“I’m not sure how much choice we’ll have to avoid him, but we’ll definitely remember that,” Boltfalkemon assured him. “And we’ll get you out of that influence, too. You deserve better than that…you should definitely be allowed to live life the way you want it, not someone else.”

Crestmon nodded morosely, saying nothing more. Burnreptimon felt that ugly heat rising in the pit of his gut again, but not so much that it could overcome the pain he was in. Emperius ruined the lives of more than just its targets, he was reminded once again…and the way things were going, trying to get people like Crestmon back to their own world was just seeming more and more unlikely with the technique they were relying on. I don’t know how…but we’re going to have to try to figure out how to built our own PTM unit here. We can’t count on Emperius to send reluctant soldiers anymore, not when they have an axe to grind…

———

Datacarnomon was starting to get worried. Isaac had barely spoken two words since Darkvargmon had left; all he’d done was tap away at his keyboard, occasionally growl in frustration, and occasionally stand up to pace around before sitting back down. These were not the signs of someone at ease, not the sign of someone who felt good about how things were going…they were the signs of someone stuck on a problem they didn’t know how to solve. He could tell because he’d been there more than a few times in his own life.

The problem was, he didn’t know how to address it. He didn’t really want to say anything, because he was quite worried it would be the WRONG thing and only make Isaac’s mood worse. At the same time, the longer it went on, the more uncomfortable things were getting. He hadn’t even eaten that day…Datacarnomon didn’t know how long humans were supposed to go without eating, but he doubted it was supposed to be a full day, considering how often Isaac did it normally. This felt like a sticky situation he didn’t know how to properly deal with…it didn’t help that it was hard for him to know what level he should be relating to Isaac on on this. He’s not quite a child, he’s not an adult…I don’t have an algorithm for this.

There reached a point, though, where he couldn’t ignore it anymore…right about the point that Isaac’s fist slammed onto the desk. “God dammit!”

Well, there was no doubting what that meant. “Isaac? Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay. We need to go take out that overgrown eel and I don’t know how we’re going to do it!” Isaac stood back up and started to pace again. “I’ve been trying to write something with the juice to bring it down, but everything I try to work with runs up against resource limitations! I tried optimizing some of the extant modules but there’s not enough there to work with! There CAN’T be nothing that I can do to really give us a better shot!”

“Easy, Ike.” Datacarnomon was really starting to wonder if giving Isaac access to those parameters was really a good idea…right now it seemed to be giving the human a lot more fits than help. “It’s possible that there’s something in there that you’ve overlooked, but it may just not be possible, either. We have operating limits we have to work within…maybe we should just set it aside for now and-”

“NO!” Datacarnomon jumped at the shout from Isaac. “We can’t just do that! We have to finish that thing off TONIGHT! We don’t have the time to be waiting around! I know I should be able to come up with something, some kind of ace in the hole! Like hell I can’t! I’m not wrong! I know I’m not!”

Yeesh…I’m starting to think his whole thing about ‘I’m okay with being wrong’ wasn’t exactly total honesty…maybe more with himself than with me even. “We don’t need to have that much urgency, Ike. If things aren’t working now, then we’ll have to think about something else, and I’m sure if we confer with the others, we’ll be able to-”

“We CAN’T! Didn’t you hear Darkvargmon earlier? They’re already looking at the lake! They could take boats out TOMORROW! And then the best we can hope for is that Megaseadramon decides to keep snoozing! But if he doesn’t, they’re gonna be literally eaten up before they can do a goddamn thing! You think they’re gonna have any actual weapons out there?! It’ll be carnage! And what if it doesn’t stay asleep, there’s bunches of houses all around the lake that it could destroy without needing to catch its goddamned breath!”

“Ike, please, I need you to-” Datacarnomon had to stop suddenly as the sound of footsteps became audible, quickly ducking behind the bed with a bit of a thump before the door opened. Isaac was left to face the guest alone - his mother Lilith, a tall, lean, raven-haired woman who looked far younger than her early 40s.

“Isaac! What is with all the racket? It’s after 11 PM! I know you don’t have school but your father’s trying to sleep!”

“Uhhnnn…sorry, mom…I’m, uh…” Isaac scrambled for an excuse, before realizing that the truth was fine if he was vague. “…frustrated with this thing I’m trying to program. It’s not doing what I want it to, and I’m…not really sure how to deal with it.”

“Well, you need to be able to control yourself if you want to succeed in that line of work, whatever it is you want to do. You can’t be flying off the handle, especially during quiet hours.” Lilith folded her arms and looked severely at him. “I don’t care how good you are or how good you think you are, people don’t want to work with people who are angry all the time. You need to be a little more responsible for your behavior, your father’s already getting bothered by your responses when he asks you where you’re going. It won’t kill anyone for you to be a little more direct in your responses to him, your bosses won’t be happy with evasive answers either.”

“Yeah, mom…I know…sorry…”

“Well, be sorry, but be quiet. If I have to come in here again it’ll be because you pulled me out of bed and trust me, I’ll be MUCH unhappier if that happens. Maybe you should go to bed as well, it would have to be less frustrating than whatever you’re doing.” She stepped out, closing the door behind her, and her footsteps retreated away. Datacarnomon climbed back onto Isaac’s bed, somewhat awed by what he’d just heard. Dang…Ike might be kinda high-strung, but I think I know where he gets it from.

“…Sorry you had to see that, Data,” Isaac huffed quietly, folding his arms and looking away.

“You don’t have to be sorry for ME,” Datacarnomon replied, making sure to dim his volume setting. “They’re both tight as hell on you. What’s their deal?”

“I wish I knew. They seem to think I’m always just a few steps away from crashing and burning or something. It drives me nuts, they never seem to talk like this to Ashley. I mean, they aren’t cruel, they just…always seem like they hold me to a higher standard. Even though I’ve never done anything really out of bounds…ugh, I can’t think about this right now, there’s too much else that’s going wrong.”

“Yeah, and that’s where I get to apologize because I’m gonna be talking at you, too. Ike, I appreciate that you’re taking this as seriously as you are, but…you’re gonna burn yourself into nothing if you can’t pull back a bit. Trust me, I’ve seen it in the KOL, new recruits that are gung-ho and try to get involved in everything, and they fall apart after a while because it’s too much. You have to treat yourself right, too…not eating all day because you’re too immersed in something isn’t good for you.”

“…” Isaac was quiet for a moment, letting out a bit a tight sigh. “I just…don’t want to let a disaster happen because I didn’t do something about it when I could. It’s bad enough already…”

“Bad enough how?”

Another silence. “I get breaking news feeds to my e-mail…I’ve been trying not to focus on them because of everything, but…so far, they’ve…found eight people dead, under mysterious circumstances. Nothing’s been said about what happened, but…”

“But you’re pretty sure it’s the work of digimon.”

“How can it not be? It’s all been within the last couple weeks, and anything that isn’t a digimon attack, they’ve been making clear that it isn’t. And we know we haven’t been catching them all…who knows how many have shown up that we haven’t been able to track, and then there’s the ones that do but are gone by the time someone gets out there…those are bad enough. But we KNOW Megaseadramon is there, we KNOW he’s close to properties where people live…how could I excuse myself if I just…let something happen?”

Datacarnomon nodded. “I understand…it’s an ugly feeling knowing there’s a threat out there. But Ike, I need you to realize…this deck is so goddamn stacked against us that even I wouldn’t gamble on it. It’s several miracles on top of one another that we’ve even managed to come through as well as we have. You’ve taken down violent digimon hell-bent on killing swathes of people, you’ve sent most of the threats we’ve faced to the grave or back safely to the other world, you’ve even written up ways to get around lots of our natural disadvantages mostly on your own, which is SUPER impressive. Because of you, this world’s avoided the worst of what could have happened…but it’s an unfortunate reality of this kind of thing, bad can’t always be avoided. In my time at the KOL, we trained, we prepared, we did everything we could…and we still lost battles sometimes. We lost people even when we won battles. People we were trying to protect died. And sometimes we got ambushed…sometimes in the worst way. One of our subcommanders had a brother he brought in, someone he trusted and who was definitely strong enough to stand against Emperius…and the took a few partners out on a mission one day, then turned on them, executing them, and running off to Emperius. It was horrible, and there was nothing we could have done to predict it - he hadn’t done anything unexpected up to then.”

“Jesus…” Isaac’s voice was a touch shaky. “That does sound awful.”

“It was,” agreed Datacarnomon grimly. “But that’s war. It sucks, and sometimes it brings out the worst in people. What I’m trying to say is, we can do everything right and sometimes it’s still going to go badly, we can win and it’s not going to be perfect. We might not be able to save everyone. That doesn’t mean we don’t stop trying, but it means we have to be able to accept something short of perfection, because we’re just not going to be perfect.”

“…I guess you’re right…I just…don’t like the idea of coming up short when it really matters.”

Or any other time, I think…but when it matters, it’s definitely worse. “Neither do I. But things aren’t just going to go our way all the time.”

Isaac went quiet again, and then stood up. “We should probably get going. It won’t be a good idea to be out there too late.”

“Ike…are you sure?”

“I heard what you said…and I know you’re right. But…in this case, it doesn’t really matter, does it? We’re the only ones who can engage Megaseadramon underwater, and letting him get above water isn’t going to help. It’s got to be us…and if it’s got to be us, then we might as well try to go as fast as we can. Like you said, we might not be able to save everyone, but that doesn’t mean we don’t stop trying.”

Hesitantly, Datacarnomon nodded. “You’ve got a point, I guess. Shouldn’t we tell the others, though?”

“No. I don’t want them out there. If we’re successful, then they haven’t missed anything…if we’re not…I don’t want them to watch us die out there.”

Dire…but realistic. He could have said no, but Datacarnomon felt like it would have been a bad idea to…much as he accepted the realities of what they were up against, he also wanted to protect as many people as possible. And Salmandmon had always told him, sometimes it was important to trust feelings over thoughts, because feelings were where the determination to overcome the odds came from. “All right. Let’s do our prep, then.”

It wasn’t much - Data downloading the updates from the computer, holding them to be activated when they formed Andrexmon. Isaac had little to do except wait and steel himself, and then make sure the coast was clear. Just to be sure, he let Datacarnomon get onto his back as they exited, keeping the robot from clanking too much on the floor. Their exodus was silent and successful, and out they went, into the backyard, to fuse together so they could teleport away.

“Last chance to get a good night’s sleep,” said Data.

“I won’t sleep well until that thing is gone,” replied Isaac. “Let’s do this.”

No more questioning - they combined together, forming their powerful hybrid form. Andrexmon stood there for a moment, running a couple internal checks on the updates in case anything was wrong…finding nothing, he activated his teleport module, and off they went, back to the boat dock. Unaware that the last phase of their departure had not been nearly so clandestine as the rest of it, as a fluttering curtain in the window betrayed activity they hadn’t been aware of…

———

The night was slightly warmer, and much quieter. Neither one made Andrexmon feel too good; the cold had been what had kept Megaseadramon less active, and the quiet was just reminding him that he was alone out there, putting himself in danger. If what happened last night was repeated, there was no rescue to take him to somewhere safe…but he doubted that was going to be possible anyway. Megaseadramon wasn’t going to let him off easy twice…he simply had to get that serpent first.

With his gear donned, he entered the water again - no big splash, this time he didn’t want to alert anyone, anything that gave him the upper hand on Megaseadramon was invaluable. And he had precious little of that…he’d upped the power of his cannon, but it wasn’t a huge boost, and there really wasn’t all that much more that he could do without running up on Andrexmon’s natural limitations. It seemed like the best chance he had was the element of surprise and targeting any weak points he could find, particularly the creature’s mouth. But that mouth was going to mostly be pointed at him when attacking…the odds were stacked against him. And yet, he wasn’t stopping, diving under and activating his heating program once again. His heart was thudding in his chest, he couldn’t remember ever having been this scared in his life…

And it only got worse, as he switched to thermal mode and saw a long, large blob of heat below him. Damnation…it’s not dormant anymore. I doubt it’s going to be unaware of my approach…

An idea struck him. Megaseadramon would realize he was coming…but that didn’t mean he couldn’t at least try to get a quick shot in. He changed his Dino Buster, slowing down as he did, using its speed reduction as an asset rather than a liability, taking aim at a spot near what looked like the head of the creature. At full power, he let loose the blast, which tore through the water. Megaseadramon reacted, recognizing the attack and moving - but not fast enough, as the shot hit the side of the creature, making it screech out in pain. First blood! Now time to move fast!

Andrexmon dove down, trying to avoid being in direct line of fire of his mouth and horn, where the most dangerous attacks could be launched. His buster fired out shots as he moved, pelting that hide and pockmarking it with painful pits, doing damage but not enough of it. He needed to concentrate his fire in one spot, but the speedy movement of the sea creature was making that difficult, and his thermal vision didn’t make it easy to find that original wound.

Rgh…if I could just focus my attacks on one location, I could do enough damage to tear its body apart…whoa! He swerved out of the way just as that big tail tried to swipe at him. Too close! But him being close might be what I need…yah! He heard a crackle just in time, and dove again to avoid the Thunder Javelin attack - and then had to weave twice more in quick succession, evading another body blow and a River of Power blast. Frustration was starting to build, he had to be too much on the defensive to keep doing damage, and his random buster firings weren’t hitting paydirt. Dammit, I have to get close, to see where I’ve hit him! If I could get an Energy Claw in there…

It was dicey, but he had no choice. He swooped in close again, trying to prepare a vicious claw swipe at the wounded area. He thought he saw it, and closed in, Megaseadramon seemingly having stopped to try to find him…he pushed his speed as much as he could, trying to catch that spot before the reptile zeroed in on him. And then, just as he neared, that body section flung itself down, slamming onto Andrexmon and making his head spin. Before he could regain his senses, he felt something tight wrap around his body, and start squeezing hard. A cry escaped him as he felt the pressure surrounding him painfully. No! It was a trap! He was waiting for me…

Desperately he tried to push and kick away, but that coil of flesh wasn’t budging. He switched back to cannon mode, trying to charge up and deliver a punishing blow, but a Thunder Javelin attack made him yell out in pain again, disrupting his charge and making his head reel. Pain was raging through him, he was finding it harder to breathe as the coils tightened, klaxons were buzzing in his skull as emergency warnings were being fed to him one after another, amplifying the reality of the peril he was already aware of. And even those were starting to fade into the background as his ears rang from another Thunder Javelin, the Megaseadramon taking full advantage of his helplessness.

I can’t…no… Andrexmon was starting to lose his vision now, everything seemed to be swimming. He felt like he had perilously little energy left, and once that was gone, it was over. Maybe it was futile…but…he tried to shake it off, even a little bit, and gripped tight against the coils, putting all he had in the tank into trying to push away. Come on…come on…I can’t…I can’t just…give in… The flesh wasn’t budging, but he sank his claws in to get a grip and pushed like he never had before. I have to…I won’t…let this thing…beat me…I can…do better! I…am a robot! I can…make myself better! For everyone who lives around here…for the others…I have to…be…BETTER!

He wasn’t even aware of the glow within his body, flaring up within the water and lighting up the body of Megaseadramon. The creature screeched louder as sharp claws pierced deeper and longer, particularly in that metal arm as new energy coursed through it. The body of the cyborg grew, topping out near ten feet in height and getting quite a bit more muscular, and the metal got bulkier, including a larger module on his right shoulder. And the metal flowed more over him, covering most of his chest and shoulders and his upper legs, as well as the right side of his head; where the metal didn’t cover, the scale shimmered metallically, and there were patterns visible in the scales that resembled computer chip or board features. Even the hydro module had changed, the single back jet turning to two and the ones on his legs trebling and getting larger, and his movement through the water feeling freer and less encumbered.

With a roar, the creature let that renewed power surge through him and force apart those coils, making Megaseadramon wail in agony as the muscles were badly torn. It released him, but the damage was done, its movements hindered by the injury, letting the hybrid escape and his head clear. Whoa…holy crap…I evolved! I’ve become Mecharexmon! I can feel a huge amount of power here…there’s more than enough for more advanced modules here! And more than enough in the base set to put an end to this bastard!

He surged towards Megaseadramon, switching to a new visual view, one that actually lit up the body of the serpent and showed him more of the visual, including the multiple areas of injury. Racing towards the open wound that he’d created the first time, he brought his arm up, letting the claws glow brightly. “Now it’s your turn! Plasma Claw!” As he passed underneath, he ripped his claws through the flesh, sending a pulse of cutting energy inside. Blood sprayed out as the wound was widened, and another screech from the creature told him just how bad that had been for it.

As he swerved around, another Thunder Javelin hit him square, driving him back a bit. He clenched his jaw, it hurt, but not as bad as it had before. “All right, asshole, you wanna fight from afar? You got it!” He rushed away to avoid a Mega Ice Blast as it shot through the water, reconfiguring his arm to its cannon mode - now not one single opening, but a four-barreled one, each one glowing with deadly energy as he aimed it at the body of the creature. “You’ll wish you’d never come here before you die! Saur Blaster!” Each barrel lit up and fired off, in an almost chaingun fashion, each opening launching one pulse and then waiting for the next three to come one after another from its neighbors. Each burst crashed against that scaly hide, doing quite a bit of damage wherever it hit, much closer to Andrexmon’s partial charged shot than the uncharged one.

He wasn’t done yet, though. As he passed over Megaseadramon, Mecharexmon’s shoulder opened up, revealing another payload. “Swarm Missiles!” An octet of missiles launched out, swerving around a bit before zeroing in on Megaseadramon, impacting explosively all over the top of the creature and keeping it occupied with intense pain and many more visible wounds. The Megaseadramon tried to writhe out of the way, but it was no longer fast enough to avoid the devastation onslaught, and its movements seemed to be getting weaker by the moment.

Leaving that already nasty wound in its body an open target as Mecharexmon swing into position. “This is the end for you!” he shouted as he pointed his cannon at that lesion. The four ends began to glow brighter, all together, and Mecharexmon could feel a furious force building within that arm, almost frighteningly powerful. Using his other hand to stabilize, he eyed the aim with his enhanced sensors and unloaded, a long beam of energy blasting from the gun and crashing through that open wound. There was a burst of light and flesh as Megaseadramon’s body was ripped in twain at the impact spot, and one final quavering screech was all the creature could manage before it dissipated into nothing, rendering the turbulent waters calm once again.

The rush of the evolution was fading, but not the rush of victory. It’s done…it’s over! He’s gone for good! And I’m not picking anything else up in the water…wow, I can scan with a lot better fidelity like this! It’s a shame I can’t stay this way…but I’m gonna give Emperius some damn fits with THIS body! Just let them try to take me on!

The mood was spoiled a little, though, as he turned his sensors and attention above the water…and picked up a LOT more signal. Uh-oh…someone definitely noticed me. Looks like I’m gonna have to deal with some stuff…

Slowly Mecharexmon motored towards the docking area, keeping low and relying on his alternate vision schemes to make sense of what was going on. No way…there’s gotta be like a dozen guys up there. At least four vehicles…that battle didn’t take that long, they must’ve been close by, they were waiting for something to happen. Dammit, I should’ve realized…I can’t get out here. Maybe I can go into one of the yards and teleport from there…they might see or hear me from a distance but I should be able to get away before they can do anything about it…

He was just about to start moving when he heard shouts and saw a commotion from above. At first he thought they’d spotted him, despite the darkness, but then he noticed everyone was moving away from him…he took a chance moved forward, and popped his head up underneath the dock so he could hear better.

“It freaking grabbed me! What the hell was that thing?!”

“I don’t know! I looked all black, I couldn’t make anything out!”

“AAAAGH! Something’s trying to snare me now!”

“It’s like a damn shadow tentacle! It’s that dark mystery monster, it has to be!”

“Hurry, try to follow them, they’ve got to be coming from somewhere! Don’t let any of them catch you, you don’t know what they could do to you!”

The footsteps were retreating, and Mecharexmon was hearing quiet now. It seemed all the humans had hurried off, trying to pursue the shadow creature…the cyborg let out a snort. So much for out here all on my own…but I’d better take the opportunity while I’ve got it. He dove again, and then emerged next to the dock, moving as fast as he could to get out of the water and away from the idling cars, letting their engines hopefully cover up his steps as he made his escape. He didn’t slow down until he reached the trees at the far side of the boat launch, and then only to get into them without knocking any of them over. Only when he felt he was fairly obscured did he crouch down and speak up. “Oy, werewolf. I know you’re there. You’re not gonna shock me this time.”

“Yet again, Rex, I’m detecting a distinct lack of gratitude on your behalf.” Darkvargmon appeared in front of Mecharexmon, sounding mildly amused rather than perturbed. “No appreciation for my timely intervention? They were certainly ready for you.”

“Hrmph. I woulda just gone to the far side of the lake and ported out. No way they were gonna be able to come after me underwater.”

“Well, now you didn’t have to. I’m assuming, by the fact that you are considerably bulkier than normal and also still have all your pieces, that our unacceptably large aquatic threat is no more.”

“That’s an understatement,” chuckled the cyborg. “Mecharexmon rules! I’ve got enough power in here to blow just about anything to smithereens. And check out the beefcake! Bet you wish you had muscles like this, shadow shrimp.”

“Unless you’re coming on to me, I think I’ll pass. And if you are, I’ll still have to disappoint you. Still, it’s a good thing you’ve got the power you do…I can’t imagine it would have ended well if you didn’t.”

“Well…it definitely wasn’t going well until then. Why’d you come out here anyway? I never told you I was gonna do this.”

Now it was Darkvargmon’s turn to chuckle. “Did you really think any of us expected you not to come back out here to ‘fix your mistake’? We know you well enough. I threw a couple Blasting Darkness charges out over the roiling water, hoping it would perhaps distract Megaseadramon a little. Not sure if it helped, but it was as much as I could do.”

“Jeez…I didn’t even notice. I guess I was too busy trying to zip around like my life depended on it…uh, well, thanks, I guess, for trying to help.”

“No problem. But, for everyone’s sake…please try to rein in your impulses a bit better. I know what drives you. Half of you can’t accept that you don’t have all the answers. The other half of you has insatiable urges to gamble even against long odds. That’s a dangerous combination that can only inspire recklessness. And given the power you’re packing, we need you to be around and able to take down the heavyweights that come our direction.” Darkvargmon laid a hand on Mecharexmon’s organic shoulder. “Past tensions or not, you’re an indispensable part of us, Rex. Take that to heart, because you need to believe it more than anyone. You should probably scoot, they’re not going to be distracted for much longer.”

With that, Darkvargmon faded back into the darkness, and Mecharexmon found himself alone again. Probably not for long, so he readied his teleport module. Those words lingered on him, though. …He might have a point. Gambling isn’t just a money thing…maybe I was too eager to take the chance tonight. That might be something ‘we’ have to talk about…we aren’t going to make the best judgments if our impulses feed off of each other. Still…sometimes you’ve got to take chances, too, and we came out on top because of it…

He shook his head, pushing that aside for now. There would be time ahead to think about that more…and for now, he needed to vanish, and finally sleep well for at least one night.

Chapter Text

“Emil, please. I think you’re reading too much into this.”

“I don’t think you’re reading enough into it, Elliot! This wasn’t just some random ambiguous action, this was a fight to the death. It HAS to mean something.”

“It doesn’t have to mean something to US, Emil.” Elliot sighed, rubbing his head. “There are any number of reasons they could have been in combat that do not benefit us in any way whatsoever. Maybe they didn’t like each other, maybe they were competing against each other and it got out of hand, maybe it was a lover’s quarrel or whatever thing those monsters have that equates to that. The point is, it doesn’t mean it does US any good.”

Emil wasn’t so sure he was ready to settle it at that, even if it wasn’t something he could refute. “But if there’s some kind of discord between them…”

“I already think I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is no. We can’t trust them. We don’t know the first thing about them, what they are or why they’re here. And I definitely do NOT want to put myself in a position where we might have to rely on them.”

“They might be the only thing that actually knows what we’re up against and how to fight it.”

“And they might have an agenda that allows them to exploit us while playing savior. We can’t afford to think the best of anything that we don’t understand, Emil, because that lack of understanding is exactly what leaves us open. Jumping to conclusions won’t help anyone, so don’t do it.” They reached the technician’s office, which meant Emil had to let it go anyway; he wasn’t sure how much he agreed with Elliot on his stance, but on the other had, he had to admit there was a lot that he didn’t know about the situation. It could very well have been himself misreading it…perhaps he was just grasping at straws because of how helpless he felt.

Inside the office, Rudy Panmechia was rapidly working at the computer, his fingers flying and his eyes lit up with an enthusiasm the agents could only envy. “Fantastic, absolutely sensational! This is the most incredible thing that’s ever happened to me! This could turn the entire world upside down!”

“I’ll settle for getting back to right-side up,” remarked Elliot bluntly. “I hope that means you have something.”

“Oh, yes, absolutely! Those hairs you brought me were extraordinary, Mr. Katran!”

Emil raised an eyebrow. “Hairs?”

“From Derek’s stray,” explained Elliot. “I had a bit of a hunch, that I think was right.”

“Wait…you thought…the DOG was a monster?”

“Too many suspicious pieces lining up. What did you find, Rudy?”

“Have a look, sirs!” Rudy beamed as he showed them an output window on the screen. Both agents looked, and what they saw was a long, long strong of 1s and 0s flooding the window.

Elliot scowled a bit. “Rudy, is this a goddamned joke? This is just…binary!”

“Exactly, sir!” Rudy was practically vibrating. “It’s binary! This is what the sample analysis returned! Pure, simple, honest-to-goodness binary code! That’s what the bio-matter you gave me is compose of!”

“This is…no way…” Emil breathed. “What are we talking about here? Robots? Or…what, living computer programs?”

“Not just computer programs...extremely complex computer programs. Programs that are actually complex enough to replicate life! Different from robots - robots are machines, and these are actual creatures. I’d imagine they’d look pretty similar to ours in some ways, a very good analogue of organic life! I suppose you could think of it as digital life, if it helps!”

“More like digital monsters,” growled Elliot. “And one’s been under my nose this whole time…”

“Under your nose? Uh…sir, should I ask where you got these hairs?”

“Never mind that. It looks like my hunch was right. I should’ve known from the start…” Elliot trailed off as he took a closer look at the output. “Hey, Rudy…did you notice that there seem to be some repeating patterns here?”

“Oh! You’re right!” Emil noticed as well, as soon as it was pointed out. “It seems like they might be…clustered in some way?”

“You’re right indeed!” affirmed Rudy. “I wanted to try to see if I could convert this into ASCII, but I wanted to get your impressions first.”

“It might provide a clue,” said Elliot with a nod. “Let’s look at a sample at least. Maybe there’ll be a code of some sort in there. Like a digital signature a hacker might leave.”

As Rudy got to work, Emil looked over at Elliot incredulously. “You don’t seriously think this is the work of a hacker?”

“Emil, I honestly don’t know what to think. We crossed into unprecedented territory ages ago, what can we even take off the table? It sounds crazy that a hacker could be that good that they could literally make computer programs come to life…but, what if that’s what happened? It WOULD make a certain amount of sense for them to be data, right? And maybe that’s why they can easily disappear, or…dissolve, as you said that woman said the one did. And how they can do things that real creatures shouldn’t be able to. The fact is, right now, I’m willing to believe anything if it gives us a chance to deal with the problem properly.”

“I guess…if it is a hacker, then that at least tells us there’s one target we need to be looking for to neutralize everything,” conceded Emil. “But hacking strong enough to break into reality? Strong enough to violate every law of physics we know about? I’m not sure I’d WANT that to be true, that seems like an impossible battle to fight.”

“All the more important we catch onto them before they catch onto us. Huh…” Elliot scrutinized the nascent output Rudy was putting together. “A, C, T, G…Rudy, are you seeing anything else here?”

“No, not so far. It just seems to be these four letters, appearing fairly sporadically. It doesn’t mean much, does it?”

“It means everything, actually.” Elliot started to smile, rubbing his chin. “Those are DNA bases. Adenine, cytosine, thymine, and guanine. The building blocks of life…and perhaps whoever’s behind these creatures decided to copy our homework.”

“The biology degree finally decided to pay for itself, huh?” Emil cracked.

“It had to start sometime. And that gives me an idea. Rudy, how long do you think it would take to run this all the way through?”

“I could get an algorithm to do it probably in a matter of hours,” replied Rudy. “Why?”

“Do it. And then see if you can find a DNA profile to match it to. I know not every life form out there has a sequenced DNA chart, but if you can even get it sorted to the point where you can match a chromosomal profile, that could give us insight. It’s possible these creatures’ signatures are modeled after the DNA profile of something that exists.”

“I see…but what would that tell us?”

“Think about it for a second. Say that we find out that it’s related to, say, a mosquito. What if we were to find that they respond to insecticides the way mosquitoes do? Or if they’re modeled off of a fungus, or a plant, or a pest animal that we have poisons for. Or, even better, bio-engineered viruses or bacteria or parasites that preferentially target those animals - and not humans. I know it sounds absurdly Hollywood, but at this point, why not? It’s worth checking to see if there’s some kind of weakness we can exploit.”

“Elliot, that’s actually brilliant!” exclaimed Emil. “I mean, we don’t know if it would work, but just the idea itself is fantastic!”

“I’ll see what I can do on short notice!” Rudy agreed enthusiastically. “It’ll depend on a lot of factors, but if I find anything, I’ll let you know!”

“Good. In the meantime, I have some business to take care of.” Elliot turned and left, making Emil have to scramble to catch up. And he had a good idea what Elliot meant…and suddenly wasn’t sure his friend was taking the right approach.

“Elliot! Are you…you’re not going to confront Derek and the dog, are you?”

“I have to. We need to pin that dog down and get it to yield its secrets.”

“Elliot, just hold up for a moment. Right now, the dog hasn’t hurt anyone.”

“That we know of.”

“It’s been around Derek constantly. How could it have had time to do anything to anyone?”

Elliot glowered. “We have an unaccounted-for shadow creature that we still need to figure out. A black dog seems like the perfect ruse.”

“We barely know what the shadow creature is, much less that it’s done anything. Elliot, I’m just saying we should slow down. If it’s…well, okay, we’ve confirmed it IS one of those creatures. But you just rushing out to confront it is liable to get it running, or attacking. We should come up with a plan that could hem it in, before it realizes what’s going on. We can work together, get the other agents involved-”

“Emil, please. I know how to handle my son.”

Emil frowned. “I thought we were talking about a dog.”

“…Right, that too. This is my business, Emil. I’m taking care of it. You focus on finding other reports in the meantime. And, since it seems to have slipped your mind, maybe have someone go back to the scene of that battle yesterday and try to see if there’s a blood trail to follow.”

Emil froze, giving Elliot a chance to slip away. That one stung a bit - he really should have thought of that before. And it rained last night…not much, but enough that there probably isn’t much to follow anymore. He sighed, mulling over sending someone out anyway, but that wasn’t where his mind was really focused. Whenever it has to do with Derek, Elliot won’t let things go…he’s probably going to foul it all up. But what can I do to stop him? He always complains about how stubborn Derek can be…I wonder if he ever realized where Derek gets it from…

———

Iris hadn’t been expecting to run into Derek on her way to do some reconnaissance. But it was all the better she did, because there was something on her mind.

“What do you mean, you think someone’s found out?”

“I just do, Derek.” Iris shook her head. “I wasn’t able to find any clear evidence, but I just…got this feeling that someone was around our ‘secret base’ this morning. And I think that means we need to be extra careful…I don’t know if it was human or digimon, but it can’t be good either way.”

Derek seemed unconvinced. “You said Andrexmon didn’t notice anyone, right? And he even used his advanced tech to try to find them?”

“It means nothing,” chimed in Shockavimon. “We know Emperius can use devices to hide from their sensors. And we know there’s a few troublemakers running around hiding from us with them. And it’s possible that a human could have found one and figured out it was connected with the attacks.”

“Paranoid presumptions are typically not efficient to pursue lacking contributing evidence,” remarked Blackcanismon. “Nevertheless, historically Shockavimon has demonstrated an uncanny capacity for perceptive acuity. I daresay Boltfalkemon likely possesses similar capabilities.”

“Even if that’s the case, it doesn’t necessarily MEAN anything,” persisted Derek. “It could’ve just been someone walking by. It’s not like we’re exactly secluded there, we have to watch out for people all the time when we’re there.”

“Maybe, but given that everyone’s supposed to be on the lookout for us, I think it’s better to play it safe,” Iris countered. “Especially because we’ve been using that spot a lot, since we’re trying to hold prisoners there. If it’s a digimon, they could be trying to free them…if it’s a human, they can’t defend themselves.”

“Begging forgiveness for perceived callousness, but I disagree that their security from those they intended to destroy is a necessity,” grumped Blackcanismon. “Any assault directed at themselves could only be classified as appropriate consequences.”

“You haven’t spent enough time talking to them, then,” Shockavimon replied somewhat coolly. “Crestmon was all but press-ganged into Emperius, it’s clear he doesn’t want to be here and didn’t want to be involved in this in the first place. He deserves better than that.”

“And Shadowdramon?” asked Derek.

“Maybe not as yielding as his buddy,” replied Iris, “but all the time I’ve spent talking to him, he doesn’t seem to have any of Emperius’s fanaticism. It’s really more just his own.”

“His own?”

“You know that archetype of the lone-wolf warrior who seeks nothing but challenge and strength, and constantly gets into battles because of it? Take that and concentrate it into three feet of bratty shadow dragon. Dude just wants to fight us. He doesn’t even care about other humans, as far as I can tell, it’s always been about us to him.”

“I cannot discern positive reason not to provide him his sought-after self-termination,” remarked Blackcanismon with asperity. “Subtracting distractions seems pre-eminently beneficial towards our endeavors.”

“Remember our pact, BC,” Shockavimon warned.

“My recollection is unblemished, Shockavimon. I am merely complaining regarding the inconvenience of our adherence.”

“Aren’t you usually the laid-back one?”

“Ideally I would continue as such, but our unfortunate circumstances mayhaps be excessively weighing upon my psychology of late.”

“Nothing worth doing was ever easy, right?” said Iris. “I don’t blame you for being frustrated, but I’m also 100% behind the deal we made. Just taking them out because they’re an inconvenience…it doesn’t sit well with me, even if it does complicate things.”

“I don’t DISagree, but I don’t see a lot of progress, either,” Derek pointed out. “We can’t just hold onto them forever. If we can’t get them back to their world and we can’t get them to cooperate…I mean, if Crestmon is willing to play ball, maybe we could get Reyn’s family to keep him secure, but we can’t do that with Shadowdramon if he’s intent on trying to fight us.”

Iris bowed her head. It was a point that wasn’t easy to counter - they couldn’t just let Shadowdramon run free and attack them when they weren’t ready for it, but they couldn’t keep him locked up forever, either. It was hard to figure out what the right thing to do was there…but before she could dwell on it much, she heard a buzzing from nearby. “Derek? Your phone?”

“Uh, yeah, one sec.” Derek pulled out his phone, looking at it before answering - and the scowl he got told Iris exactly who it was. “Hello? What is it, dad?” Quiet for a moment, and then Iris felt a pang of anxiety as she saw Derek’s eyes widen and his face pale a bit. “Oh! That’s…that’s great to hear! …No, no, I mean, yeah, I guess I got a bit attached, but Shadow’s not mine, it’s only right that I return him. Where do they live? …Home? I mean, I can go straight there-okay, okay! I’ll take him home if you really want that…yeah, yeah, whatever. See you soon.” Derek hung up the phone, his expression fouler than ever. “Son of a bitch.”

“I happen to uphold the position that such individuals can be inherently upstanding gentlemen,” Blackcanismon asserted rather indignantly.

“Might not be the time for that joke, BC,” said Shockavimon. “That was your dad, Derek?”

“Yeah…” Derek took a beep breath. “He said he found Shadow’s owners.”

“He did?” Iris raised an eyebrow. “That would be a mean feat, considering you made up that whole story.”

“Yeah. Which means that he didn’t find them at all. Which means he KNOWS. Or at least, he knows enough to make my life hell. Especially because he demanded I bring Shadow home rather than bring him to the owners. He wants a confrontation, I know he does.”

Blackcanismon certainly wasn’t in a humorous mood now. “An unfortunate complication. Strategization is now imperative. Our approach to this conundrum?”

“I can’t let Dad get his hands on you,” Derek insisted forcefully. “But he’s going to go hunting for me if I don’t at least face him on this. We’ll have to talk it out between ourselves from a distance, I guess. Beyond that, I don’t really know what our options are…there aren’t many, are there?”

“He could go to our base, but if there IS someone skulking around, that could be dangerous,” said Shockavimon.

“Maybe Reyn’s family could let him stay there?” ventured Iris. “Since they already know about everything, I doubt they’d say no.”

“I’m not going to do that without at least asking,” replied Derek. “But it’s something I’ll have to think about. Right now, I need to get back…”

“Might I not render myself imperceptible to your perpetual paternal problem and maintain such inscrutability?” asked Blackcanismon.

“Too risky. Dad’ll figure it out if I’m trying to hide you in the house. But I can’t imagine he would search other people’s houses looking for you - I doubt he’d ever think that anyone else would be harboring one of you guys. I don’t think I’ll be able to get to Reyn today, though, Dad’ll probably be making sure he listens in on any calls I make, or making sure Mom does if he has to leave.”

“A solitary nocturnal period underneath the stellar orchestra is hardly absurdly inconvenient,” Blackcanismon offered. “Particularly if it secures future convenience more appropriately.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t like it…I’m going to do anything I can to get out tonight and be with you. Maybe we’ll go to Reyn’s place personally in the morning, that might be better than a phone call.” Derek stood up, looking grim but determined. “I guess I’d better face this down…he’s gonna be pissed that I didn’t bring you with.”

“Good luck, Derek…” Iris said, but Derek didn’t really respond, just turned and stomped off. And she wasn’t sure what was bothering him more - the inconvenience of not being able to be around Blackcanismon when danger could strike at any moment, the fear for Blackcanismon on his own, or the anger at yet another conflict with Elliot. I wish it was just a bad joke that I think he likes me better than he likes his own son…

———

Skylar didn’t really want to spend more time at Isaac’s house now that there was no more point to trying to draft e-mails. Or so he thought…but it turned out, that wasn’t necessarily off the table, if they could find a different target. So there he was again, brainstorming with Isaac about potential destinations. It wasn’t going well.

“Homeland security? DOD? Even through Reyn doesn’t like the idea?”

Isaac shook his head. “If the FBI’s blocked me, I think any government agency is out the window. And DOD definitely wouldn’t be it even if there were options, Reyn’s right about Wheeler.”

Skylar let out a bit of a sigh. “I suppose I’m not going to win on that, even if I don’t understand what it is you’re all so overwrought about.”

“That’s because you pay less attention to politics than Reyn. And HE pays less attention than nearly everyone else.”

“Can I help it if I have zero interest in stuffy and pompous suits blathering about things that I know nothing about?”

An eye roll from Isaac. “You kinda CAN, really. But don’t rush into it, enjoy the few years you have left before you HAVE to care about it. I’m kinda annoyed that I went down that rabbit hole that early, there’s no getting out of it.”

“I’m with Sky!” chimed in Breezedramon. “Lotta big yappy talkers that say a lotta stuff that doesn’t matter, I don’t wanna pay attention to any of them!”

“We’re lucky enough that we don’t really have to,” added Datacarnomon. “Northern Tetraquaz is a bit…different from other places. But is this guy you’re talking about really that bad? And how’d he get into a power position if he is?”

“Because some people choose their political stances based on how many other people they can hurt,” grunted Isaac. “Which is how selfish assholes get into power and make everyone’s lives worse. Wheeler’s a different case, though…on the surface, he kind of plays at being this ‘neutral force’ who doesn’t really stick with anyone, going along with wherever the power lays. It’s hard to figure out what he actually thinks or believes in…but…just listening to him talk, you just get this FEELING that there’s something up with him. Reyn and I aren’t alone on this, Iris and Derek don’t like him either, and I don’t get the sense that that’s an exception in their families.”

“Admittedly I don’t think I’ve ever seen any video of him talking, but it sounds like a reach to figure anything out from that,” Skylar maintained.

“But do you really think he’d not want to do anything about giant monsters?” Breezedramon asked dubiously.

“It doesn’t sound like that would make sense, but…” Isaac shook his head again. “If we have to contact someone, we ought to at least try to go with someone that we don’t actively distrust, at least. Someone who you’re constantly worried is gonna stab you in the back, I don’t think that’s the best way to keep our focus.”

“I’m surprised you’d think about any government figure, then,” remarked Skylar with a hint of asperity.

“Not my first choice, but Reyn’s right, they’re gonna get involved somehow. But at this point the feds are out, we’re more likely to be hunted down if we keep it up. What about the governor?”

Skylar frowned. “It’s not my area of expertise, but what can they actually do? They don’t command much in the way of military or anything. It feels like we need firepower. Maybe is there someone we can contact in the Army or something?”

Isaac’s expression soured as he folded his arms. “I get the idea, I’m just worried about getting the WRONG guy there. And trust me, there are some VERY wrong guys.”

Skylar rolled his eyes. “Are you still not over that?”

“Dude, you do NOT know what it was like looking up stuff on that idiot. If I was trying to get things under control, Malcolm Sykes is the LAST person I would ever want to show up. He might already be leaping at the chance to go fight monsters, and he probably wouldn’t care which ones he attacked. Any message would HAVE to go to someone high enough up on the food chain that he could talk them into it.”

“There ARE other generals, you know.”

“Hate to say it, but Ike’s got a point here,” interjected Datacarnomon. “Tasked with choosing a general that WANTS to head into battle and others that might have reservations, I’d think they’d be likely to send the former.”

“And Sykes is as bad as they come,” continued Isaac. “Though I think any military guy who WANTS wars to happen is probably at the dead end of guys I want fighting them. But a nut who carries a broadsword like his idol Mad Jack, who eagerly talks about setting up a running tally kill total, and who’s said that he thinks military coups are usually justified? Hard pass.”

“Are you sure you’re not just bitter because you got a lackluster grade on that report?” needled Skylar.

“Hey, just because the teacher wanted mindless hero-worship!” Isaac growled back. “Swear to god, already one of the worst assignments ever, what kinda twit thinks ‘modern military figures’ is a good topic of study? We didn’t learn a goddamn thing from that that would be useful in any way…”

“You learned you wanted to avoid this guy, though!” Breezedramon pointed out.

“…Tch. Well, I guess that wasn’t knowledge I ever EXPECTED to be relevant…but I’ll give you that one, I guess. Still, for anyone else, useless.”

“Even I would struggle to disagree with you on that point,” conceded Skylar. “Okay, so if that’s out…what about a major news network?”

“I’d been thinking about that, but…I’m just not convinced we wouldn’t attract more of the wrong kind of attention than the right. It’s basically the same thing as exposing ourselves, because you know they wouldn’t accept it without actually seeing us. And if we’re gonna reveal ourselves, I’d want to do it on a smaller scale first, so we would know what kind of reaction to expect.”

“How many more resorts do you think we have left?” asked Datacarnomon. “Because I’d kinda like to rest at one sooner rather than later.”

“Causing a mass panic is the opposite of what we want to do,” pointed out Skylar. “And unfortunately…that’s kind of a good point he brings up. Somehow.”

Isaac snorted. “Thanks. Asshole.”

“If what we show sends people into full-on chaos, that’ll make it all the easier for Emperius to swoop in and take advantage of it. If we could guarantee that they’d respond reasonably, it would be a lot better, but…well, that’s way too much to guarantee.”

“Maaaaaan…” Breezedramon flopped onto his back, scowling at the ceiling. “Why’s this have to be so stupid comperfiliculatated? You’d think just the fact that thing’s’re coming over here and attacking would have everyone getting weapons ready in a heartbeat!”

“Some probably are, and they probably aren’t the ones we want to try to rely on,” remarked Isaac. “But I think a lot of people still don’t know what to make of all this. Heck, it’s so surreal that I still wake up some days wondering if it’s all just been one long dream. And I have lots of reasons NOT to think that, so someone who doesn’t…”

“The BICI’s taking it seriously, though,” noted Datacarnomon. “Seriously enough to put out info sheets on our merged forms. Which, you know, would be better if they had the RIGHT targets…”

“They’re not military, though. They have agents who are armed with handguns, but that’s not gonna do much to most of these monsters…heck, I’m not even 100% sure they’d be enough on US, not that I want to find out. They’ve got probably some extra firepower if they ring the cops in, but still not nearly enough to be a threat.”

“…Maybe more than you think,” Skylar said suddenly. “Breezedramon, did you say you saw helicopters at Jordan Air Field?”

“Ah, yeah!” the dragon piped up. “Those big metal machine things! There were two of them there! They were way cooler than the ones that chased us, uh, jeez, was it like a week ago?”

“More like a week and a half, this world’s time,” corrected Datacarnomon. “Aerial assault vehicles? You think they were brought in to hunt us?”

“If they were, then consider it a big step up from what we’ve faced so far on this end,” sighed Isaac. “Great. Just what we needed. Helicopters are a lot more of a danger to us than fighter planes, they’re built to engage closer to the ground and they’re a lot more maneuverable. And here I was worried that they’d send jets to scout around overhead.”

“I do NOT want to engage one of them directly,” muttered Skylar. “I’m not sure what kind of firepower they’re packing, and I’d rather not find out first-hand. But I feel like if anyone’s going to come face-to-face with them, it’s either us or Boltfalkemon…and I’m even more worried if it’s her, she doesn’t fly as fast as Skydramon does.”

“Well, so far we’ve had just the worst luck engaging on our own terms-” Isaac almost had a stroke as his bedroom door suddenly opened, leaping up and looking wildly over at Ashley, who just grinned at him. “For the love of CRAP, Ashley, have you ever heard of knocking?!”

Skylar and Breezedramon froze dead at the sight of her - there was no way they were going to hide. Whadoido, Sky?!

Just stay still! Maybe she’ll be too focused on Isaac to notice!

Ashley did seem focused on the other boy, at least for the moment. “What’sa matter, little bro? You talking about secrets I wouldn’t want to hear about in here?”

“Maybe we are! And even if we weren’t, it’s called common courtesy!”

“Consider it payback for all the times you barged into my room when you were younger. Anyway, Dad called, he wants you to get the dishwasher running so we have something to eat off of tonight.”

“What, are your hands too delicate for that?” grumbled Isaac.

“I have my own stuff to do, bro, and you’ve been holed up in your room an awful lot since you started hanging out with Dinobot, they’re trying to pull you out.” Ashley’s gaze suddenly swerved over towards Skylar, who’d gone even paler, and Breezedramon, who was trying to emulate a statue and failing. “Oy, dragon dude, you gotta learn to keep it down, your voice carries WAY more than Dinobot’s.”

Breezedramon gulped. “…Uh. Th…thanks?”

“No problem-o. I gotta run, catch ya later.” With a wave, Ashley left, shutting the door behind her as she flashed one last grin towards Isaac, who looked like he wanted to commit fratricide. Once she was out, he brought both hands to his head, rubbing it as if trying to relieve a very potent pain.

Skylar gave him a look. “Were you going to tell me she knew about Breezedramon?”

“I didn’t KNOW she knew about Breezedramon. Ugh, though I probably shoulda guessed she’d figure it out…you should probably get going, then. Oh, right, I’m supposed to give you food for the prisoners…ugh, I don’t know what Mom and Dad aren’t gonna miss, but guess we’ll have to figure something out. Gotta figure out too many things…I’m feeling like we didn’t figure out very much except why all our ideas were bad ideas.”

“I’m beginning to wonder if there ARE any good ideas to find here.” Skylar stood, shaking his head. “We’re gonna have to talk with the others, because we might end up having to go with a bad idea if we want to do anything.”

“Sounds about right. This whole thing has been bad ideas from start to finish, why break the trend now?” cracked Datacarnomon, though it was clear he was only half-joking.

———

To call Elliot’s mood ‘bad’ would have been wasted understating things. And that was before Derek arrived in his house…without the dog. “Derek. Where the hell is that thing?”

“Shadow ran off.” It was short, abrupt, and acidic, about as angry as Elliot had ever heard Derek, and he’d heard Derek angry a LOT. But, as was often the case, his anger rapidly watched his son’s level, if not exceeded.

“What?! How could you let it run off?! You were supposed to…to bring it back to its home!”

“Do you think I’m an idiot, dad? Do you think I don’t know what’s going on here?!” Derek lashed out. “I know you didn’t find any owners!”

If looks could kill, Elliot’s might have been the end of Derek right then and there. “So you knew. Of course you did. This entire time, you knew you were harboring a dangerous creature. This entire time, you were keeping one of them in MY HOUSE!”

“Shut up! Shadow wasn’t dangerous at all! He didn’t hurt anyone! And he sure as hell cared more about me than you ever did!”

“EXCUSE ME?!”

“Don’t ‘excuse me’ me! You never cared! All the time, I was just a burden to you! Someone who was an inconvenience because I didn’t act exactly the way you wanted me to! I wasn’t good enough for you, I wasn’t RIGHT enough for you!” It wasn’t the way Derek had intended for this to go, but the pot had boiled over - everything he’d been bottling up for years was suddenly bursting out, and to him, it stopped being about Blackcanismon at all. “BC actually cared about me and understood me! He didn’t try to change me into his own obedient little pet, he actually cared that I was HAPPY!”

“How DARE you speak to me like that!” roared Elliot. “After everything I’ve done, everything I’ve tried to do! I’ve only tried to keep you safe, protect you from YOURSELF, and your deranged habits! No one normal does the things you do, and there are damn good reasons they don’t! You’re going to get yourself killed out there and you’ll be spending your last minutes wishing you’d listened to me rather than carelessly goofing off at night and harboring MONSTERS IN MY HOUSE!”

“Maybe you should’ve asked yourself why I’d want to be anywhere but inside most of the time! Why I’d rather be anywhere other than around YOU! And if BC was so goddamned dangerous, why the hell do you still think you’re alive?! He didn’t even touch you even though you’ve been trying to hunt him down like some menacing goon! Now he’s gone and I’m back to being stuck with assholes who hate me for who I am!”

“Go to your room, right this instant! I’ll make you regret every single word of that filth you’re spewing later, but by GOD I will not be spoken to like that by my OWN SON!”

Derek could have argued that, but at the moment the last thing he wanted was to be around Elliot for a second more than he had to be. He stomped up to his bedroom, slamming the door shut hard enough to make things rattle a bit. He’d never been so angry in his life, and the thing with Blackcanismon was only the start of it...at that moment, he was very strongly considering running away completely. Where to, he had no idea, but at the moment anything seemed better than there. This has to be the last straw. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t deal with this constant attack! There’s got to be somewhere else I can go…maybe live at our base, if they can sustain a couple of digimon captives there they can house someone like me…but there’s no way he won’t eventually find me there…

Even as mired in anger and frustration as he was, though, it was impossible for Derek to miss the screech outside. Oh, crap. I hope someone else can handle it, because I don’t think I’m getting back out of here any time soon…

———

Elliot’s fury wasn’t quick to abate this time. Having accusations like that hurled at him was something he didn’t need on top of everything else that was going on, consuming him so much that he didn’t even notice the screech. How dare he say things like that…all I’ve done is try to be a good father to him, teach him right and keep him straight and protect him from all the crap in the world, as ungrateful as he is about all that…

He also didn’t believe Derek for a second that the thing had just run off without telling him. It had to be out there somewhere, and there was no way Derek didn’t have an idea where that was. I’ll have to get him to talk somehow…hm. Maybe if I tell him that the creature could put Iris in danger…if there’s anyone he does give a damn about, it’s her. Last thing either of us would want is her wrapped up in this mess…

His phone suddenly buzzed, and annoyed that his thoughts were interrupted, he picked it up. “Katran. This had better be good.” After listening to the voice on the other end, though, his eyes widened, and all thoughts about the dog were shunted aside. “When?”

———

Skylar’s mood was not particularly great as he walked down the street, trying to clear his head after the less-than-productive meeting and an even less productive feeding. And for once, it wasn’t Isaac that was causing his frustrations. The lack of response, the lack of good alternate options, and the lack of security in what they were doing was weighing more heavily on him than ever, and trying to deal with a bratty Shadowdramon who seemed intent on goading him into a fight wasn’t helping matters. Skylar really wanted to be rid of him, but they still hadn’t figured out how to get him out of their hair safely.

I can just hear Kirsten saying “You can’t keep him locked up, it’s not right!” Would like to see her do anything better…ugh, why am I inventing family conflicts in my head, I’ve got enough conflicts out of it. It’s getting harder and harder to figure out how to navigate this goddamned mess. It feels like every one thing that goes right for us is met with two or three things that go south. And too much of it is stuff we just don’t know enough about to navigate around…nngh. I’m starting to feel like Salmandmon was right in the first place about how over our heads this all was. Not that it matters since we’re in it already, but…what I wouldn’t give for some more worldly resources right now.

“Sky? You all right?” Skylar started as Breezedramon swooped down, looking at him with concern. “You look beat.”

“Breezedramon! You’re not hidden down here!”

“I know, so keep it down! I’m worried about you! You look like you’re about to just fall over and pass out!”

“I’m fine…well, okay, maybe I am a bit tired. I haven’t been sleeping as well as I’d like. Just too much trouble getting things to go right lately…not to mention too many instances of our group getting beat up.”

“Sky…” Breezedramon flapped up to put a hand on Skylar’s shoulder. “I know I’m not the best at helping with stuff like this, but, you know…you can talk to me when you’re having troubles like that. I want to help as much as I can, but it’s hard to do if I don’t know what’s bothering you! And I don’t want you feeling stressed, that’s my job.”

Skylar blinked in confusion at the dragon. “…Your job?”

“Well, yeah! I’m the one here who’s been fighting for years, and the one who got you into this whole mess in the first place. If anyone should be feeling the heat, it should be me! I mean, not that I’m NOT, really, but I should be feeling it worse than you should, I owe you that much.”

“Owe…mph. Breezedramon, you…don’t owe me anything. If anything, we owe you, we’d probably be dead twenty times over if you hadn’t come over and given us a sporting chance against these nutcases. It’s not your fault that it had to be this way. You didn’t expect this to happen, and you didn’t really get many other options when it turned out they were jumping over at almost the same time.”

“…Maybe so, but…” Breezedramon frowned. “It…shouldn’t have happened. We should’ve been able to take care of this over there. You guys should never have had to hear of us until someone over there who wanted peace came and talked to you. Because we didn’t, you had to get put in this position…it doesn’t matter if the circadmumitandintances didn’t give us any choice, what we did before could’ve.”

Skylar let out a deep sigh. “I…guess that would have been ideal, yes. But it’s not like you wanted that, either…things don’t always go our way in this world, I would guess that’s true of yours as well. It’s…more important that, when things went badly, you didn’t leave us to struggle on our own. It’d be a huge fabricantulation if I said I wish it hadn’t been different, but it’s NOT different, so I’m glad there’s something I can do to keep myself and everyone I care about alive. I just wish I wasn’t so drained from it, though.”

“Well…maybe I can help with that!”

“What do you mean?”

“You know! That energy transfer thing!”

“…What energy transfer thing?”

“Sky! We all talked about it after we met over how to deal with the prisoners! How Reyn saved Sal by, uh, giving him his energy after he almost got eviscalanturivantidated! I could do the same thing to you!”

Oh, right…wow, I AM out of it, I didn’t even remember that. “Uh, I appreciate the thought, Breezedramon, but that might be a bit overkill…I’m just a bit weary, not bleeding out.”

“I know that! But I gotta be able to at least give you a tiny bit! C’mon, lemme show you!” Without waiting for an answer, Breezedramon swooped around and landed on Skylar’s shoulders, clinging to the boy’s head and nearly knocking his glasses off.

“Ack! Breezedramon!”

“Hold still! Whoa, wait, that probably wasn’t the best idea…but hey, you hold me up better than I thought you would!”

“Mph, months and months of carrying a textbook-laden backpack builds up those muscles, I guess. But still, is this really necessary?”

“Relaaaax. It’s just a little pick-me-up! Well, pick-you-up, I guess.” Still holding to Skylar’s head, Breezedramon focused hard, not sure what he was supposed to feel but sure he’d notice it when he felt it. Sure enough, he felt that link between them form and become more tangible…gently he sent a few pulses Skylar’s way, trying not to overdo it but hoping to ensure that his partner felt better. After several seconds, he pulled back, feeling a bit worn out himself now but not nearly as bad as he had in some previous battle aftermaths. “Phew, that takes a bit more than I thought…how’re you feeling?”

“Well…whoof…that’s definitely a rush…” Skylar definitely wasn’t feeling weary anymore - more the opposite, he felt rather wired and over-alert now, there was a rush in him that he hadn’t been expecting. “I feel way more keyed up than I’ve felt in…jeez, I can’t even remember.”

“It’s better though, right?”

“Yeah, well, I don’t feel wiped out anymore, yeah. Almost a bit too amped up, though, I feel like I almost want to let it go bursting out somehow…is this how you feel all the time?”

“Uhhh…dunno! I’m not sure how to know how you’re feeling exactly?”

“Hm…well, maybe I can try to explain better…wait…” Skylar straightened up a bit, going quiet. Breezedramon, do you hear something?

Hear something? Breezedramon focused a bit, not sure what he was supposed to be hearing…and then he caught it, a rustling in bushes not too far behind them, off the right side of the road in someone’s yard. Yeah, someone’s in the bushes!

And that means they’ve seen you! We need to confront them! Skylar wheeled around, nearly throwing Breezedramon off his shoulders - the dragon took wing rather then be flung off, following behind Skylar as he raced towards the bushes.

Sky! What if it’s a digimon?!

It was a bit too late for Skylar to pull back the impulse to check by the time that thought registered in his head. But as he did, he quickly was finding he wished that had been the case instead of what he saw - his little brother Benny, shrinking back fearfully as he was discovered. “BENNY?! What the hell are you doing out here?!” he snapped harshly, forgetting to mind his tongue in his amped-up state and shock.

“Sky! I just…I wanted…I wanted to see where you were going with the dragon!”

“And you FOLLOWED me?! Benny, it’s dangerous out here! You can’t just go out on your own like this!”

“Sky! E-easy!” Breezedramon pulled on Skylar’s shoulder, snapping the boy back into attention. He suddenly realized Benny was trembling, looking like he was about to burst into tears. Now he was kicking himself - this wasn’t helping, it wasn’t like he’d told Benny what was going on enough for him to know better, he didn’t know that they were confronting deadly creatures on the regular…which didn’t mean Benny should have been sneaking around to follow them, of course.

Taking a breath to calm himself, he reached out and helped Benny to his feet. “Benny…listen, you can’t just be following me and Breezedramon around. No matter what’s going on, that’s not a nice thing to do to someone. If you’re curious, you need to ask about it, but sometimes it’s stuff that you aren’t supposed to know about. And it’s especially important right now that you don’t do that, because there are monsters that’re showing up around here, and they could hurt you.”

“But…but you’re always going out…and Breezedramon…I don’t wanna see you get hurt, Sky!” Tears were forming in Benny’s eyes, and it looked like a breakdown was imminent. Skylar was cringing inside - he didn’t have a good answer for that. I need a way out of this mess…

A loud, aberrant screech from off in the distance answered his prayer in the worst way possible. Of course. I think Breezedramon and I are just cursed. Every time we dare the universe, it makes us pay.

“What…what was that?” Benny’s voice was quiet, squeaky, and terrified.

“I don’t know, but it’s not good.” Skylar couldn’t see anything yet, but that was the sound of something big…

“Ohhhh no…that was an Airdramon,” said Breezedramon nervously. “And that did NOT sound like just one of them…”

“Damnation.” Skylar turned back to Benny. “Benny, listen to me, you have to run home, like, as fast as you possibly can. It just got REALLY dangerous out here, you need to get there as fast as possible and stay inside!”

“But Sky! You gotta come home too!”

“I…I can’t! I…”

“He’s gotta find the friend he was meeting and help them!” Breezedramon suddenly jumped in. “They could be hurt if he doesn’t! He’ll be home just as soon as he’s done with that, he promises!”

“Y-yeah, I promise!” It didn’t sound like the most robust save in the world, but for a five-year-old, it was probably enough. And sure enough, Benny reluctantly nodded, though he still looked very sniffly. “Please, Benny, hurry up and get back, and make sure you don’t leave until I’m back! And even when I am, for that matter, I’ll come check up on you when I’m done.”

“Okay…p-please…be careful, Sky…” Benny turned and hurried off down the road, Skylar watching until he was out of sight.

“Sky, are you…sure he should be going on his own?” asked Breezedramon nervously.

“Not even remotely, and I hate everything about it, but if we don’t get up there NOW, everything’s going to go to hell. And I can’t leave Boltfalkemon up there alone…and that’s hoping that she heard and is going up there as well, because I don’t want to be up there alone either.”

“I guess…then let’s get to it so that we can keep our promise and make sure he gets back all right!”

“Right!” The two of them merged, forming Skydramon once more, and took off into the air, hurrying to engage. The fear of what could happen to Benny was in the back of his mind, but he had to take down the enemies so that they didn’t threaten his brother or anyone else either…he was REALLY going to have to talk with his parents about this later on…

———

“…Oh. MY. GOD.”

“Did I tell you, or did I tell you?”

Kirsten’s jaw was dropped halfway to the ground from what she’d just seen. “I…can NOT believe this. Skylar, of all people?”

“Crazy, huh?” Ashley was grinning pretty wide, seemingly enjoying herself. “Who’da thought our goofy little bros would be pulling crazy stunts like this?”

“I can’t believe he kept that hidden from any of us! Skylar’s always so crazy bad at hiding anything, but he’s been doing stuff like this since that giant bird creature appeared…”

“It’s because you were so focused on the thing he was trying to hide badly that you didn’t realize there was a deeper layer. Same thing happened with me with Isaac, I figured all he was doing was trying to hide that little robot dude, so I was totally floored when I saw him do that weird fusion thing with it. Gotta say, though, they’ve been doing a hell of a job out there, they sound like they got a whole operation going on! Wild to think about, huh?”

“Yeah…I’m not so sure I’m that big on the whole ‘taking prisoners’ thing, though.” Kirsten shook her head, frowning a bit. “Sky isn’t very good at knowing how to treat people he LIKES…”

“Eh, I’m sure they’re fine. We should head back, though, I didn’t like the sound of that screeching.”

“Right, I definitely don’t want to run into THAT. And I need to go get Benny…I don’t know how he snuck out but I need to make sure he gets home safe.” The two girls turned, but before they’d taken more than two steps, they heard another loud sound, what sounded like the scream of a little kid. “Oh, no! Benny!”

“Whoa, hey!” Ashley couldn’t stop Kirsten from taking off. Cursing, she hurried after her, hoping that whatever it was that was happening wasn’t WAY over their heads.

It wasn’t more than about thirty seconds of running before Kirsten reached the source of the sound, which was indeed Benny…and froze as she saw the scene in front of her. It appeared that what she’d heard wasn’t a scream of terror, but a squeal of unbridled glee, as her littlest brother was latched onto a purple-furred creature that was flailing around underneath him. “It’s so CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE!”

Ashley was panting as she caught up, but had heard the last words that sort of defused the threat. “D’awww…kids find the darnedest extraterrestrial creatures out here, don’t they?”

“G-get him off me!” gasped the creature, trying to escape Benny’s clutches. “Ack! Mercy!”

“…I’m suddenly not feeling as terrified of these creatures as I think I should be,” remarked Kirsten, trying not to laugh.

“If only they were all small enough to be cuddled to death by five-year-olds,” agreed Ashley. “You want some help with them?”

“Ah, no…thanks, I’ll, uh, I’ll take it from here. I have something else I want to take care of, too…”

———

It didn’t take any time at all to see the threat - one Airdramon was big enough, three of them stuck out at least three times as well. And they were making their way towards the tallest buildings in the city, no doubt finding them attractive targets for destruction and chaos, just as Aquilamon had…and three of them could be at least three times as destructive if left to their own devices. Skydramon’s Force Gale was speeding him up, but he still felt anxiety eating at him, they could create pretty powerful wind attacks, and they weren’t going to wait around for him…

Sure enough, he saw one of them launch a Wing Cutter attack at one of the buildings. He winced as he saw debris flying off the top, the building wasn’t imminently in danger of falling but the marks of the attack were clearly there. I hope no one’s in there…this is gonna get to be a disaster, I don’t think I can do this all on my own without there being a lot of consequences!

“Spark Wave!” He heard it in front of him before he saw it, an electric attack flying at one of the Airdramon, hitting true and making it screech, drawing the attention of all the others. Skydramon pumped it further, feeling both relief and added pressure - Boltfalkemon had somehow made it up there before he had, he wasn’t sure how that was possible, but he wasn’t going to complain. But she was there alone for the moment, and alone with three big sky serpents focused on her was not a good position to be in.

Wing Cutter attacks flew at Boltfalkemon, who at least had enough distance to avoid them, though they were cutting up some of the foliage off the trees and he could hear a few panicked bird calls get cut off. She flew up higher, drawing their attacks away from the ground, and making it easier for Skydramon to go undetected - he didn’t slow down even a bit as he reached the lowest Airdramon, sweeping past him with his charged claws. “Aero Nail!” The attack connected true, getting a screech out of the Airdramon and sending a spray of blood out, the long furrow in its body leaking that vital fluid.

Skydramon didn’t waste time, following up that attack with a pair of Twister Orbs directed at the other two, throwing off their focus as they tried to evade - their large sizes made that pretty impossible, though the spheres didn’t do as much damage as he would have liked. But the lowest one was flying erratically, his Aero Nail had done quite a bit to it…and that made it an ideal target for Boltfalkemon, who dove at it forcefully with her charged body. “Static Cracker!” She collided with the Airdramon’s back, sending a furious jolt through it, and that was enough, the creature disappeared with an agonized screech.

“Nice!” Skydramon shouted eagerly, swooping up next to her. “Too bad it blew up a couple dozen birds before you could do that.”

“Tch, we could do with a few less rotten pigeons around here anyway. But keep your eyes open, these aren’t the only threats up here!”

“Huh? What?”

“There’s a Pteramon among this crew! And I think it’s less interested in property damage than us! And that’s not all!” She pointed off a distance away, where Skydramon could see a pair of helicopters rising into the air. “I was trying to see what was going on with them when I heard the screeching. They weren’t brought here for us! They were brought in for these big nasties!”

“What? The military’s actually doing something useful? And here I thought we were the only ones who mattered!”

“Don’t get complacent and watch your attacks! They might still go after us if they see us as enough of a threat! And we still have to protect them! Don’t let the Airdramon go for them!”

“I don’t suppose asking politely would help?”

Boltfalkemon crackled a bit. “Skydramon! Take this seriously! If they get hit, the pilots are almost certainly dead!”

“Okay, okay, okay! I’ll keep them safe, I promise! Let’s get these oversized lizards wiped out already!” The Airdarmon seemed to be in disarray still, caught between focusing on the hybrids, the helicopters, and the buildings. Powerful though they were, they weren’t the brightest among digimon, and these ones seemed to be in a feral trance which made them even less bright…that made them useful minions, though, and there were plenty of them among Emperius’s ranks. It likely wouldn’t be the last time they saw them, or more powerful variants...Skydramon couldn’t sight the Pteramon, though. He didn’t have time to worry about that at the moment, though, there were two creatures right in front of him that were a more imminent threat.

They broke off and flew up to challenge the Airdramon and draw their attention. A Twister Orb and Spark Wave both hit home, getting the two dragons screeching and trying to attack them. Getting them split apart was the first goal, making sure that neither Boltfalkemon nor Skydramon could be easily double-teamed. Beyond that, though, things were getting tougher…the first Airdramon had been dispatched more easily because of the element of surprise, and without that, it was a lot harder to get their most dangerous attacks out. The ranged blows weren’t doing the trick, and they’d have to get at least several blows in with the stronger ones.

And that was without the issue of being attacked. Skydramon yelped out as he got caught up in a Wing Cutter, flinging him around a bit and making him feel the pain of that slicing attack - not as bad as it could’ve been thanks to his element, but he knew that wasn’t going to save him forever. All this while the helicopters were getting closer, putting them in more danger…

Or…maybe giving us an opening. “Boltfalkemon! Draw their attention! Put them in their crosshairs!”

Boltfalkemon didn’t respond immediately on account of needing to weave around another attack, but she heard it clearly enough. “You think the copters can pull it off?”

“We oughta find out at least!”

“Right!” Another Spark Wave caught her Airdramon’s attention quite nicely, it continued to pursue her, and she rose upwards to try to get some extra distance over the city, just in case things didn’t go as planned.

Skydramon was trying to do the same, but was encountering trouble - his Airdramon had taken note of the helicopters, and it wasn’t breaking away from them, even as he pelted it with another Twister Orb. They’re not gonna get a surprise attack in if Airdramon isn’t surprised! And I don’t trust that Airdramon’s attack won’t trump theirs…c’mon, you annoying snake asshole, look at me! Another Twister Orb, another lack of response…Skydramon’s frustration was ticking up. And I just know it’s gonna ambush me if I try to swoop in with an Aero Nail…hm, wait…maybe…

It was a gambit, but a low-risk one, as Skydramon grinned deviously. He took a deep breath and roared out with all he could. “OY! AIRDRAMON! YOUR MOTHER WAS ROPED AND RIDDEN BY A CHUUMON!”

“What the hell are you doing?!” snapped Boltfalkemon from afar, but Skydramon was too preoccupied to respond - the Airdramon had taken notice of that and roared furiously, suddenly lunging for him. Clearly, it had taken all the offense to that, just as Skydramon had hoped, and he cackled madly as he drew the Airdramon upwards, keeping it attended with Twister Orbs and ensuring the helicopters had no interference…and a clean shot.

“Bolt! Now!” Skydramon shouted out as the helicopters fired, a barrage of rockets driving out from one of the launchers mounted on each one. The two hybrids swooped away, the Airdramon focused on them and not on the danger coming towards them…they each launched out a Wing Cutter at Boltfalkemon and Skydramon, just before the rockets impacted their hides, blasting large chunks out of their bodies and making them screech in pain. The attack looked brutal, but it did the trick, both Airdramon slumping and then bursting into data.

“Hell yeah!” Skydramon pumped a fist. “Now if only we could get them on our side for real!”

“Skydramon! Watch out!”

“Hu-AUGH!” Boltfalkemon’s cry didn’t come soon enough, as something blitzed HARD into Skydramon, knocking him for a serious loop - he barely managed to stay airborne, and the jolt to his ribs had him panting hard. “Wh-what…the hell…”

“Hmhmhm…” Skydramon turned to see another digimon - a smaller one that looked like a hybrid of plane and dinosaur, grinning smugly at the wounded dragon. “Thanks so much for getting rid of those annoyances for me - I won’t have to play escort anymore once I’ve claimed your head as a trophy! Kaikosen!” Its mouth opened wide and a beam of energy blasted from it, Skydramon unable to move quickly enough to avoid it as it pummeled him and threw him even further away from the fray.

“Static Cracker!” Pteramon’s attack was stopped by Boltfalkemon coming in to interrupt it, just in time as Skydramon managed to hang in with the last of his energy. He was exceedingly dizzy and weary, though, the multiple blows had really done a number on him…Pteramon were stronger than they looked, so many dangerous and destructive attacks, and he hadn’t been ready for them…he needed to get back in there, though, because that thing was going to fly rings around Boltfalkemon. But trying to get his body to cooperate was proving a struggle.

Boltfalkemon was finding herself outmatched pretty quickly - Pteramon had weathered her Static Cracker and forced her to back off as it launched a missile at her. More of them followed, and she was hit once, then twice, flinging her back and making her struggle to stay up; she was just able to evade Pteramon’s own flying tackle, and if things weren’t bad enough, the drone of the helicopters was getting louder. She swooped lower, hoping to try to figure out how to get to Pteramon while it wasn’t distracted…

Pteramon seemed to be interested in going for Skydramon again, though, lining himself up with the wounded dragon from afar and opening its mouth, the beam attack charged ominously. Skydramon could see it, but he didn’t think he’d have time to get away from it, he was moving far too slowly…but Pteramon suddenly cut off the attack, and dove as another barrage of rockets fired out from one of the helicopters. None of them hit the mark, flying off into open air and terminating uselessly in the sky.

“Hah! Pathetic, you don’t have a fraction of our power!” Pteramon’s eye glinted as it lifted its wings, several of its own missiles dislodging from them. “Learn your place, scum! Missile Storm!” The missiles streaked towards the helicopter, which took evasive and defensive action, its machine gun firing to try to intercept the missiles before they reached…a few of them were stopped, but too many got through, and several of them hit hard, blowing the upper rotors and tail off of it.

“NO!” Skydramon’s stomach dropped as he saw the damage, and the helicopter begin to fall. He forced his body to move, rushing towards the machine without really thinking about it…but he was too far away, there was no way he was going to catch up to it, not in his wounded state, and nothing he could do about it even if he did. And yet he kept going, trying to dive to speed up, blood pounding in his ears. I can’t let it hit the ground, I have to save them! I promised! I’ve got to do something! Anything!

Nothing was coming to mind, but he didn’t care, he was fixated on that one thing, fulfilling his vow, nothing else but that and what it meant…he didn’t even notice the glow forming around him, the rapid shifts in his body causing what looked like a sky blue streak to suddenly rush through the air. The glowing form rushed under the helicopter with merely seconds before impact, driving upwards to try to slow it down…the heavy machine had so much more mass, though, it wasn’t slowing enough, at this rate it would merely crush him at the same time…

“Psycho Squall!”

A violent rush of wind suddenly kicked up - upwards from the ground, an unnatural angle guided by the will of the wind warrior summoning it. The powerful rush ramped up the air resistance of the falling body, slowing its descent far faster than before, the entire body shaking and shuddering madly but holding together. The figure underneath came into shape as he gained full control over the descent, a powerful new body controlling the drop to the end, landing safely and bringing the damaged craft down on its thankfully intact legs.

Only now did he become aware of what had happened, and what he was. Taller, almost seven and a half feet now, and with a lean body that still felt brimming with strength. His sky blue scales were now partly covered with a light green armor, a chestplate and bracers and shin guards, as well as a helmet that formed over the back part of his head, leaving his long ivory horns exposed but covering his eyes with a shielded visor. His wings bore two powerful jets on each one that were alive with a potent energy, and an extendable voulge attached to the back of his armor, ready to be pulled off at a moment’s notice and used to devastating effect.

I…I evolved! I became Jetdramon! How…no, not gonna ask that, no time for that! Pteramon’s still up there and Boltfalkemon’s not gonna last against him! Time to take out the trash! The jets on his wings flared to life, and he shot up into the air, at speeds he wasn’t remotely capable of before - yet once he was up there, he stopped himself almost on a time at a moment’s notice, jolting himself a little bit. Whoa! That was a fast stop…is…is my inertia dampened in this form? Wild, I could make turns that no plane could ever dream of! He scanned the sky in front of him, and quickly sighted what he was looking for. Boltfalkemon and Pteramon…and it looked like the latter was getting the better of the former. It was time to fix that.

Boltfalkemon was unaware of anything that had been going on, not having a moment to spare to think about anything except Pteramon, who was out for blood. And she was outclassed and she knew it - he was just so much faster, there was no running away, and he could fly around her even when she tried to engage. About the only thing she had was that her Static Cracker was keeping him from landing a devastating physical blow, but her Spark Wave wasn’t connecting and she had gotten pelted with a couple more missiles…fatigue was catching up with her, and she knew that was what Pteramon was waiting for. The other helicopter had booked it, not that she could blame it, but it was just her and Pteramon up there, and she wasn’t liking her odds - but she couldn’t figure out what to do about it, besides fight until she was a sitting duck for his beam attack. Pteramon was starting to taunt her, too, knowing it had the edge. “You can hit the ground any time you want, little birdy, I’ll be happy to drag your broken body back to Emperius to show them what happens to those who fight our destiny!”

“Go…to hell…”

“Not without taking you there first!” Pteramon opened wide, readying his beam attack…a fatal error, as it turned out, it left him exposed for what he wasn’t ready for. A roar of “Shear Claw!” was the only warning, and it wasn’t enough to get Pteramon out of its exposed state, the beam cutting off and getting replaced by a piercing screech as glowing claws savagely cut across its wings and back; it dropped down several feet before catching itself and flying back up, though it was clear it wasn’t moving as fast as before. “What…what was that?!”

“Oh, just me, nothing special!” Jetdramon swooped down in front of Pteramon, grinning madly. “Didja forget about me? Cuz I think you forgot about me!”

“You…how were you not flattened by that machine?!”

“Hah, gonna take more than that to finish me off!” Jetdramon’s words almost sounded like they were about to run together, he was speaking them so quickly. “But let’s see how much it takes to finish YOU off!”

“Damn you freaks! Missile Storm!” Pteramon fired off his missiles, and Jetdramon surged up and away, twisting and turning to avoid the seeking salvo. The corners he took were so tight it seemed almost like he was freezing time to take them, angles that the missiles couldn’t hope to match up, and one by one they went sailing off harmlessly into the air, exploding at nothing. That was bad news for Pteramon, who knew immediately it couldn’t match up…it tried to fly off, but never got the chance.

“Static Cracker!” Boltfalkemon hit it hard once again, throwing it for a loop and scattering its thoughts once again. “Not so tough with your wings clipped, are you?” she snapped as she kicked away from it, making Pteramon nearly fall out of the sky. It was dazed, and that was all Jetdramon needed.

“Time to end this, you fanatical Fokker!” Jetdramon’s right hand glowed brightly as he raised it at Pteramon. “Jet Stream!” A piercing blue beam of energy rocketed viciously fast at Pteramon, who screeched as it enveloped it. The cloud of data it burst into was quickly blown away by the attack, scattered rapidly into nothingness. Jetdramon cackled in triumph as he cut the attack off, pumping his fist. “Hell yeah! We did it! Score one more for the good guys!”

“I don’t think anyone’s keeping score here,” grumped Boltfalkemon, sounding overly worn out. “Especially given that ‘one for them’ is pretty much all they need. What happened? Last I saw you were barely moving in the air…”

“I dunno! But I’m glad it did! Thanks to this, I think I saved those pilots!”

“You…really? Jeez…I thought they were done for, it was making me kinda ill thinking about it…” But as Boltfalkemon looked down at the damaged craft, she could see a few people crowded around it, including two in flight suits. “We should probably split before someone with more firepower comes to check in on them. And maybe you should be in a less flashy form as we do.”

“Good idea!” Jetdramon shifted back to Skydramon and they took off over the skies again, seeking a safer place to land and leaving the rest of the cleanup to others. He wouldn’t be forgetting that rush any time soon, though…

———

While the rest of the city was distracted with the Airdramon attack, someone else was hiding near a certain home.

“Heh heh heh…thought you could hide from us forever, did you? I remember you, mechanical menace, you gave me a few shots that hurt for days. All I need to do is wait for you to cross my path, and you and your human will be thunderstruck into oblivion! Then I’ll have redeemed myself!”

He’d been waiting kind of a long time, though. “Sheeze, don’t these people ever leave their cushy homes? Get a move on already!”

His focus was so fixated on the house that he was unaware of everything else around him. Without warning, a blow to the back of the head sent him down for the count, his last thought being that someone from Emperius had finally done him in…

———

“…Signals are gone. They did it!”

“Damn, that one had me worried!” Isaac let out a sigh of relief. “They were outnumbered out there, I never like when the math isn’t at least even.”

“Airdramon are big, but they’re really not as tough as they seem,” said Datacarnomon. “Their hides are really lightweight and weak. Whatever that small one was was more of a problem, but the way Skydramon was zipping around out there…”

“You think he evolved?”

“He sure as heck wasn’t moving that fast before. More of that we get, the better off we are. Only problem is that if Emperius knows we’re more capable, they’ll step up their game more, too, especially if they see us as a threat that needs more urgent attention.”

“Lovely. So we’re gonna have to get even more powerful, huh?”

“Yeah, but that’s tricky to do naturally. I’m wondering…”

“What are-” Isaac didn’t finish as his door was banged open, making him jump a bit. He turned to scowl at the intruder. “Ash, would you just…knock?!”

“What?!” Datacarnomon had turned as well, and his jaw dropped. Standing there, grinning proudly, was Ashley, holding by the tail a completely KOed Elecmon. “…What the HELL?”

Ashley merely kept grinning. “Yo. This guy one of yours?”

“…Uh, one of ours as in from our world, yeah, but definitely NOT one of ours if you mean friends. Where the hell did you find him? And why isn’t he pinging when he’s right in front of me?”

“Well, I dunno about the second part, but this thing might.” Ashley tossed a small electronic device onto Isaac’s bed - one of the personal signal jammers they had found back during the initial fracas with Elecmon and his buddies. “And if this isn’t one of your friends, if you don’t mind, I’d like a crack at him.”

“A crack at him?” Isaac’s head was almost spinning from the twists and turns. “What are you talking about?”

“You know. Tie him up, secure him like you secured those guys in your hideout.”

“Wait, how do YOU know about that?!” exclaimed Datacarnomon.

“Because she’s Ashley, she always figures out too damn much about what’s going on,” groaned Isaac.

“More than you even know, little bro,” Ashley said proudly. “C’mon, chop-chop, make with the tech already.”

“Yeah, yeah…good thing we already had stuff made in case we managed to find him ourselves. But anything you do that violates the Geneva Conventions, I know nothing, got it?”

Ashley snickered. “Agreed, if only because I love the idea of you saying ‘I know nothing.’”

———

“Sir! SIR!” The nurse at the front desk yelled at Emil, waylaying his sudden incursion into the ER. “You can’t just run in there!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Emil hustled to the desk, looking very frantic and out of sorts. “I need to talk with the pilots who were just brought in! Immediately! It’s a matter of extreme importance!”

“Sir, this is an emergency room! We deal with matters of extreme importance on almost a daily basis here. You have to wait your turn!”

“It’s all right, Gwen, I can take it from here.” Emil turned to see a marginally familiar face approaching. “I would ask that you keep it down, though, Emil, it’s chaotic enough as it is in here these days.”

“Dr. Kessilik. My apologies.” Emil wasn’t exactly thrilled to be told off, but he was trying not to take it personally - he was familiar enough with Treylor, given how close their kids were. “We’re trying to deal with these attacks so you don’t get nearly so many people in here. I need to talk to the pilots who were attacked, if it’s possible to do so.”

“You’re in luck. They’re both awake and in relatively good shape for what I heard happened to them. Come with me.” Treylor motioned for Emil to follow him, and they headed towards one of the more isolated rooms in the wing. Inside were two men, both still in their uniforms. One, a tall and lean black man, was laying on the bed, with an arm over his head; the other, a broader and larger white man, was sitting in a chair, looking more calm and collected, holding an ice pack to his head.

“First Lieutenant Arthur Corazón.” Treylor indicated towards the man on the bed. “Treated for mild lacerations and bruising, heart palpitations, and given a mild sedative to stave off a panic attack. And over here,” he pointed towards the other, “we have Captain Gregory Heinz. He’s been treated for a concussion and head laceration, as well as mild lacerations and bruising otherwise. I’ll be honest, when you hear ‘helicopter crash,’ you expect a whole lot worse than what we got.”

“I was fearing the worst myself,” agreed Emil. “Sirs, on behalf of everyone in Braun, I deeply appreciate the courage and fortitude that you showed today. If it’s all right, I’d like to ask some questions about what happened up there.”

“I’m not so sure I’ll be much help…” muttered Arthur from the bed. “My head hasn’t stopped spinning from that fall…pretty sure I’m still trying to process that I’m alive after dropping from the air like that.”

“I’ll answer whatever questions ya have,” said Gregory shortly. “So long’s I don’t get any more headache than what I already got. Damn madness up there, I tell ya…”

“I understand, I’ll try to keep this as brief as I can.” Emil flipped open his notebook, hesitating briefly at the sight of his earlier notes. He shook his head a bit and flipped to the next page. “I understand you successfully eliminated the monsters in the sky?”

“You understand wrong,” grunted Gregory. “Us’n the others iced two of the big bogeys.”

“…Only two? I was under the impression that there were three creatures up there.”

“You suits getta lotta wrong impressions, don’t you? There were six creatures up in the sky out there. Three big ones, a little bugger that was worse than all’a the big ones, and two’a those ones y’all’ve been yapping about.”

“Oh, my! You saw the bird and the dragon, I’m presuming?”

“Saw ‘em good. Saw ‘em tear down one’a the big-ass beasts up there, too. Blasted it right to smithereens.”

“I…what? Are you…saying they were fighting?”

Gregory nodded. “Damn straight, an’ fiercely, too. At least until we came inta the picture. But they got the other big nasties up there trained on ‘em, and we had an open shot. Damn glad those things can still be blown up, weird as they are.”

Emil was sort of wishing he was sitting down now himself. “I’m…sorry, Captain. I don’t mean to be a pain, but…are you…implying that those creatures were HELPING you destroy the larger beasts?”

“Implying? Buddy, I’ve been up in the air goin’ on eight years now. I’ve watched more pilots fly around than you’ll prob’ly ever see in your whole dang life. If they weren’t herdin’ those things into position, I don’t know what the hell you’d call it.” The pilot leaned forward, giving Emil a look. “An’ if that ain’t enough for ya, lemme tell ya about what happened after that. That little purple bastard up there was zippin’ round like it owned the damn sky. We tried to fire on it, an’ it REALLY didn’t like that, and blasted us outta the sky. I thought we were cooked…and then somethin’ slows us down, rattles the entire goddamn hull like it was ‘boutta break apart from the wind. And I look up, and wouldn’t ya know it, that blue dragon thing’s zoomin’ back up there inta the fray. That thing saved our asses.”

“That’s…! Captain, my apologies, but are you quite sure you aren’t suffering some confusion from your concussion? That sounds completely crazy-”

“It’s TRUE!” Arthur suddenly snapped, bolting upright. “That damn dragon swooped down and saved our necks from slamming into the ground at top speed! You all say it’s a monster, but I say it’s a damn angel! It did more up there than we did!”

“Please settle down,” Treylor said gently, putting a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. The airman’s breathing slowed back down and he laid back again, but he clearly looked a bit more out of sorts than he had been.

“I…don’t understand this at all.” Emil was looking over the notes he’d taken, already wondering how much of it could be trusted. “This doesn’t align with anything we know about these creatures. They don’t just…do these sorts of things! It’s crazy!”

“I don’t think there’s any reason to doubt these two are of sound mind, Agent Conover,” Treylor remarked, a bit curtly. “And you seem to be making an awful lot of assumptions. Seems to me like some of these ‘monsters’ might not be that bad.”

“Please leave this to me,” groaned Emil. “This has been messy enough as it is.”

“Yer dang right it is, an’ it’ll get messier if you don’t listen up,” Gregory insisted, with a dark look. “We ain’t got an endless number of birds ta throw at these things, and that’s just the ones that go up inta the air. I think ya might wanna rethink whether all’a these things are all that bad, ‘cuz we might not be able ta do a damn thing without ‘em.”

“I…will take that under advisement, Captain. If you’ll excuse me…” Emil left the room, rubbing his head and stashing his notebook away again. This is utter madness…first we get the cyborg talking to the kid, then the fight between the lizard and another monster, and now the flying ones are…supposedly HELPING our pilots? And saving their lives? Are we misreading this entirely? Why would they be fighting creatures they’re making appear…but how would they be appearing without something making them appear? The more I learn the less anything seems to make sense…I feel like I know less about what’s going on than I thought I knew before, and I thought I knew NOTHING before! I need to talk to Elliot…ugh, and yet I don’t want to, I don’t know how he’s going to react…or maybe I DO know how he’s going to react, and that’s the problem. Maybe he’ll have to listen this time-huh? Emil was shaken out of his thoughts by the feeling of his phone buzzing. Quickly he snatched it up and answered. “Hello?”

“Emil.” Speak of the devil, it was Elliot’s voice.

“Elliot! I’m glad you called. I have something important I need to tell you ab-”

“Nothing you have to tell me is as important as this,” Elliot said, cutting him off. “Emil…they caught one.”

“…What?”

“A monster. I got a call not long ago from McGovern. A monster was subdued and brought in. It’s not one of the ones we’ve been looking for, but it’s a monster nonetheless. I’m here at the BICI, I’ve confirmed it’s genuine, and I want you there as soon as you can be so we can prepare. This might be just what we’re looking for to get to the bottom of this mess. Get back ASAP!”

“W-…and he’s gone…” Emil sighed as the phone cut out on him. “Dammit, Elliot, there MIGHT be more than one thing going on today…” Still, he wasn’t about to try to argue now - if they had one of the monsters, then that was huge, and maybe another break. He’d just have to focus on the other wrinkle after that.

Chapter Text

“WOO! We kicked ass out there! Jetdramon is awesome!” Breezedramon was as excited as he’d ever been as he swooped into the open window.

“Breezedramon, I know you’re excited, but for the love of all that’s good and wholesome, PLEASE keep it down,” groaned Skylar. “I swear, how you haven’t been caught by everyone half a dozen times over…”

“Sorry, Sky, it’s just such a rush! It’s been too long since I felt the thrill of evolution! Getting powerful enough to anhigalitalimantilate your enemies, move around like speed itself…man, you don’t know what you’re missing until it’s gone!”

“I never actually had it, so I wouldn’t know. Can’t deny it was pretty spectagulatar, though. Uh…” Skylar blinked, it felt like there was something he was forgetting or not noticing. “…Was I…supposed to be doing something back here?”

“Whaddaya mean?” asked Breezedramon.

“Just…sorry, feels like I’m forgetting something…ah! That’s right! Benny found us out there, I wanted to see if he made it back all right!” Skylar wasn’t sure that was what it was, but it was as good as anything. “Stay quiet in here, okay? I’d have you come with but he squeals every time he sees you.”

“Yeah, sheesh, ever thought about a mouth plug for the kid?”

“Oh, man, if I could…” Skylar slipped out of the bedroom, keeping his eyes peeled for his parents or sister. More in case Benny didn’t come back than anything else…if he was still out there, then Skylar wanted to go searching for him ASAP without any questions, because they’d all be furious at him. Not like I asked him to follow me, but they all seem to think I have to be responsible for him constantly…I mean, I guess I SHOULD be, but I kind of have my hands full saving them all from certain death and whatnot.

Benny’s door was cracked open, so he made sure to push slowly, getting thankfully almost no sound from it. The first little push made it clear that Benny was sleeping on his bed, setting Skylar’s mind at ease…and then when he opened a little wider, that ease vanished quite rapidly, as he suddenly became aware that Benny was not the ONLY one sleeping on Benny’s bed.

…Breezedramon?

Oy! Skylar, what’s up?

…Don’t panic, and don’t go nuts on me.

Sky, those are words that make me very disconbercentaninated.

I just don’t want you to flip out when I tell you there’s a Dorumon sleeping on Benny’s bed.

“WHAT?!” Skylar winced as Breezedramon went from thought to voice far too quickly, and suddenly he heard the dragon scrambling out of his bedroom and flapping into view. “Oh, HELL no!”

The voice and commotion woke Dorumon up, the confused creature’s eyes opening just in time to see Breezedramon swooping at her. “Wha-YAH!” She grabbed on as she was tackled, Breezedramon taking her off the bed and to the floor. There was a brief scrap between the two of them before Breezedramon was tossed away, though he landed on his feet, glaring down the Dorumon whose fangs were bared. “You! Idiot goofball dramon!”

“I won’t let you touch a hair on his head!” Breezedramon hissed back.

“For god’s sake, BE QUIET!” Both digimon were a bit rattled at Skylar’s almost shouted whisper. “The whole house is gonna figure out you two are here!”

“Wha…” Of course, all the noise woke Benny up, who yawned and looked around sleepily. “Sky? Breezy? Doru? What’s all going on?”

“…DORU?!” Skylar and Breezedramon looked back and forth between Benny and Dorumon, the latter of which was looking away in nervous embarrassment.

“Yeah! I found her today when you told me to go home, I kinda tripped over her! Oh, oh, I forgot! I wanted to get something! Just a moment!” Benny hopped off the bed and rushed out, utterly oblivious to everything that had been going on.

“…Well, well, well…” Breezedramon was giving Dorumon an evil grin. “For someone who was all set to turn us into dust for defending the humans, you sure as heck changed your tune pretty quickly, didn’t you?”

“Go to hell!” Dorumon spat back. “I’m no lap dragon like you are! I’m just…you know…I need a place to lay low!”

“Right, and you just happened to decide to follow a little kid home.”

“Screw you! It’s not like that! I’m not some pet like you, you’re practically domesticated!”

“I’m not domessicantorterateted! We just tore apart a bunch of guys out there! You’re lucky I don’t do the same to you!”

“I, ah…take it you two have met?” interrupted Skylar.

Breezedramon nodded. “Yeah, we did! She’s one of that bunch that was with Shadowdramon and Crestmon! That nasty little hunting pack we scattered!”

“We’d’ve been just fine if we’d been able to evolve!” hissed Dorumon. “You just got lucky!”

“Lucky or not, you still have some explaining to do,” stated Skylar. “You apparently attacked my friend here, which doesn’t put me on great terms with you, but he can fight his own battles just fine. But…” the human leaned down, his glasses taking on a menacing glare that even made Dorumon flinch. “If you have even the slightest of malicious intent towards my little brother, then there won’t be enough left of you for Breezedramon to kick around.”

“Okay, okay, okay! Jeez, chill the hell out! Look, I…I’m not here to give the kid any trouble! I mean it, I was looking for a place to lie low, and he was right, he tripped over me, and then…jeez, how the hell does a little tiny human like that latch on so tight? And that squeal in my ears! And…well, he’s just a little kid, clearly, he’s not even a threat, why should I attack him?”

“Ah, I get it now.” Skylar straightened up, grinning a bit. “You’ve got Cute Kid Syndrome. You’re attached already, and as much as you don’t want to be, you love the attention you get from him.”

“I’m not attached! I’m not a pet! I’m just-”

“Found it!” Benny suddenly rushed back in, almost tackling Dorumon. The furry creature protested and squirmed a bit, but it didn’t deter Benny at all, and before she knew it, Dorumon was hanging her head low, face burning bright enough to see through her fur as she had a giant bow tied around her neck. “Yay! It’s so cuuuuuute! It looks perfect on you!”

Breezedramon couldn’t help it - supposed to be quiet or not, he busted out in laughter, rolling on the floor as Dorumon was cuddled and snuggled by the boy. And, noticeably, despite her clear embarrassment, making no effort to really get away from him. Skylar was doing his best not to laugh, but the temptation was there for him, too. “Okay…well. This is more complicated than I was ready for. Benny, PLEASE tell me no one else knows about this.”

“Big Sis does! She was the one who said Doru could come back with me as long as she was good!”

Skylar’s blood ran cold at that. “…Benny. PLEASE tell me you’re not saying Kirsten was out there at the same time you were.”

“She was!” Benny exclaimed. “She and another girl were out there!”

“Wait…” Breezedramon’s mirth had abated enough for the implications to register. “If she was out there…and right near us…”

“…If we weren’t around Benny right now, I’d say exactly what I was thinking,” finished Skylar. “Guh…we need to go talk to Kirsten.”

“She left again,” Benny said, looking up at Skylar innocently. “I got the bow from her room! But she’s not in there.”

“Oh, great. If she’s not in here, then where is she?”

“Hopefully NOT going to tell everyone about us,” Breezedramon said nervously. “And then who’s the other girl?”

———

“They’re actually letting Dad come home?” asked Reyn. “I thought it’d be chaos over there after those Airdramon came in.”

Minerva nodded. “Hospital rules, he’s been in too much lately. But he says it’s not as much chaos as they thought, either, your friends took care of those creatures before they caused any real damage.”

“Good thing they’re on the ball quickly,” remarked Salmandmon as he swallowed down the last bites of his third sandwich. “And lucky for us that Airdramon have no subtlety whatsoever. And not much in the way of smarts, either.”

“Hey! Are you talking about me?” Wally had just entered, looking rather sour.

“Why? Did you want me to be?”

“Oh, can it.” Reyn suppressed a snicker as Wally went to the fridge, grabbing a soda out. As he closed the door, he noticed Cayden, who was standing in front of the counter looking out the window. “What’re you staring at out there, little dude? Better be careful, your eyes are gonna pop out of your head!”

Salmandmon let out an amused snort. “Guess biology wasn’t your best subject.”

Wally whipped his head around to glare at Salmandmon. “Okay, I’m getting REALLY tired of your yapping, you little freak creature! You forget which one of us is the bigger guy, here, huh?”

Another snort, much more derisive this time. “You seriously think you scare me even the slightest bit? I’ve faced down creatures more threatening than a thousand of you could ever dream of being, and WON. You’re not even close to as tough as you think you are.”

“Oh, you don’t wanna try me! I could kick your ass from here to New York City!”

“You would get torched before you could lay a finger on him,” Reyn said, rolling his eyes at his brother’s brashness. “Do you really wanna be that guy that tried to bully something that could lay waste to him without a second thought?”

Wally rounded on Reyn, looking daggers at him. “Shut up, Reyn! I’m getting so sick of you, too! You and that creep and this whole freaky combining together business and everything being about you! You’re not that special and you’re not that important, and I wish you’d just go away for once!”

“Wallace Kessilik!” Minerva snapped harshly. “That was entirely uncalled for! Apologize!”

“Feh! Of course you take his side! Just like you always do!” He stomped out of the kitchen, Minerva heading off after him, no doubt to tell him off.

Salmandmon gave Reyn a confused look. “I really was just trying to make a joke…am I missing something?”

Reyn shook his head. “Not your fault. He’s been way more irritable than usual lately…even what he said to me there is beyond what he’d ever normally say, even if I think he was thinking it. I think maybe this whole business is getting to him more than he’s letting on…I guess we should probably try to avoid poking at him, though. I mean, I’ve got no problem making a few playful jokes, but it doesn’t feel good when he’s actually angry like this.”

“Yeah. But it’s getting on my nerves, too. Like, he should have a little respect for you. What you’re doing is huge, answering a call way bigger than what you should have to, and he can’t get over personal gripes?”

“I don’t know, I’d like to figure out what’s really eating at him, but we’ve got too much to think about right now.” Reyn looked over at Cayden, who was still engrossed with something outside. “Uh, Cay, do you…see something out there?”

“I don’t know…I thought I saw some bushes rustling out across the street.”

Both Reyn and Salmandmon stood at alert. “You think it’s a digimon?” asked Salmandmon.

“After Skullsatamon, I’m taking no chances,” Reyn declared. “Let’s go check it out.”

“Right!” Salmandmon rushed to the door, holding it open for Reyn’s much slower approach. “C’mon, get a move on, slowpoke! All that exercise is supposed to have been getting you in shape!”

“That’s great, Salmandmon, let them all know we’re coming out,” Reyn replied, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t realize we were trying to go for a higher degree of difficulty in monster combat.”

“Snark.”

“Hothead.”

“And don’t you forget it!” Salmandmon seemed plenty geared up for a fight, hopping around as they made their way towards a bush line across the street. The house there was empty, the residents having left until things had settled back down in the city - something that Reyn was rather surprised wasn’t a more common decision. Perhaps some people had no real place to go, but more often it seemed like they were too stubborn to leave. It made things a little less convenient for them, more people staying meant more eyes that could spot them, but at least one of the nearest sets had split.

They saw the mentioned rustling as they got close. Okay, there’s definitely something here, but can’t tell if it’s a digimon or something else, Salmandmon pathed.

Just seems like that means they’ll be in for a nasty surprise.

Or we will. Be careful. They were on the far side of the road, just about to reach grass when suddenly something leapt out from the bushes, landing in front of them. And both of them immediately recognized it. “Talomon!”

“I’m not…gonna let you…take me down!” the raptor digimon hissed. It was heaving hard, looked like it was pretty beat up, but still was brandishing claws and fangs.

“I owe you for those gashes you left in my stomach,” hissed Salmandmon. “Maybe now’s a good time to pay you back, with interest!”

“Come near me and I’ll give you a repeat!”

“All right, then.” Salmandmon stayed in place, raising his hand. Talomon didn’t notice what was going on until the heat had built to his side. “Blast Point!” The burst of heat threw Talomon to Reyn’s left, sending him skidding along the grass. He growled and hacked, but stayed on his back, twitching.

“Hah, not so tough when he’s the only one there, is he?” Salmandmon remarked with some satisfaction.

“Wild guess, but I think someone might’ve gotten to him before you did,” observed Reyn.

“Oh, sure, downplay my enormous victory. I thought we were friends!”

“All right, all right.” Reyn grinned in spite of himself. “We need to deal with Talomon, though. Or we need to give him a chance to go back, at least.”

“Ah, fine.” Salmandmon shrugged. “Guess we should-WHOA!” The brief bit of repartee had given Talomon time to recover, and he had stood up and lunged at them, jaws open and claws brandished.

Without even thinking about it, Reyn launched himself into a full-body tackle, slamming his larger body into Talomon shoulder-first, winding the raptor, and throwing him both down onto the grass again. He put his weight down on the reptile’s limbs, keeping him pinned. “Sal! Grab some rope from the garage!”

“Ah! Right!” Salmandmon hurried back across the road, making his way to the Kessilik’s garage. He was still in a bit of a whirl from what had just happened - namely, Reyn directly engaging an enemy digimon. He’d never expected the human to do that, especially considering what had happened the last time they’d encountered Talomon and his crew; it was much more dangerous for him to do so than Salmandmon himself and unless they were merged he had expected to be on protection duty all the time. Part of him wanted to tell the human off for being reckless…and yet, how could he not be impressed at the boldness? Sure, Talomon was quite a bit smaller, but still a serious threat.

The rope was easily located and retrieved, and as soon as Salmandmon was back, they went to work tying Talomon up. Mindful of the raptor’s sharp implements on every limb, they made sure to thoroughly bind his wrists in front of him and his legs together, as well as tying his snout shut. Talomon didn’t put up much resistance - he wasn’t out cold, but there wasn’t much fight left in him after the tackle.

Once he was secure, Reyn got off of Talomon, only to grab him by the neck and lift him up, making Talomon’s eyes bulge out a bit. “Right…that was a sneaky little trick there, and if you thought that was a good idea, I’m gonna have to make you think again. You might not’ve gotten me before, but I still take it personally when you attack my friends. Lucky you, I’m merciful, right, Sal?” No response, making Reyn lose his focus and look down; the lizard was staring at him in awe. “…What?”

“You! Reyn! You’re holding that guy up with one arm!”

“I…am?” Reyn did a double-take; he hadn’t even realized it, but indeed, Talomon was suspended in the air only by the hand on his throat. And, what really started to sink in was that it wasn’t even that hard. “Wait…how am I doing that?”

“That’s what I wanna know!” exclaimed Salmandmon. “Wasn’t that long ago you were struggling to carry me with both! And you just did that tackle, too…Reyn, you’re getting stronger!”

“Whoa…well, I can’t say that it wouldn’t be a good thing, all things considered, but…weird that I don’t really look or feel that different, doesn’t it?”

“Well, maybe it’s just because I’m pushing you to work out more! Didn’t I tell you all that exercise would be good for you?”

Reyn smirked a bit. “Yeah, I’m sure you’re forcing me to do a few minor exercises here and there is really having that much of an impact. Shouldn’t we be focused on Talomon?”

“Oh, yeah, right.” Salmandmon shook his head and looked up at the weakly squirming dino. “Okay, bud, here’s how we roll. You want to go back? We’re gonna let you go back - provided you ditch Emperius for good and stop going after people like evil monsters. You gonna go quietly?”

Movement from Talomon. It was hard to tell, but it looked like he was shaking his head no.

“…Well, that’s too bad. Looks like we’re gonna have to get tough with you. Maybe we’re not supposed to kill you, but I could give you a few nasty burn scars in payback for your trying to kill me. Maybe that’ll teach you a lesson…”

“Salmandmon…” Reyn was trying to voice his disapproval, but Talomon thrashed a bit in his hand, frantically trying to shake his head and protest. “Hm. I think he’s trying to tell us something.”

“I’m not unbinding his jaw while you’re holding him.”

“Wasn’t thinking that either. Could we tie him to a tree?”

“That should work. He doesn’t have any range beyond his mouth, so if we’re away a bit we should be fine.” Salmandmon hurried to the garage for more rope while Reyn brought him back across the street to their yard, his eyes lingering on the patch of sickly brown grass where Skullsatamon’s attack had hit. Talomon may not have been as much of a threat, but someone this close to his house, he had to take that personally…too many people were counting on him to keep them safe.

Once they had what they needed, they made quick work of the job. Talomon was pushed against a tree, and the rope was tied around him a few times, keeping him securely in place; Salmandmon made sure one loop went around the raptor’s neck, limiting how much he could move his head so that he couldn’t chew through any of his bonds. Only when they were certain he wasn’t going anywhere did Salmandmon carefully approach the rope binding Talomon’s mouth. “Bite, and I’ll make you WISH I’d kill you,” the lizard warned as he loosened the rope; Talomon’s eyes spiked with fear, and he kept his jaw tightly shut until Salmandmon was farther away. “Right, then. Reconsidering your refusal?”

“I…I…can’t…” Talomon was heaving even harder now, looking to be in considerable pain, unable to get more than a few words out at a time. “I…I tried to already…and…it didn’t work…”

“Didn’t work?” Reyn asked. “Oh, wait, that’s right…that’s the same thing that happened with Shadowdramon and Crestmon, isn’t it?”

“Oh…right.” Salmandmon huffed a bit, a touch annoyed with himself for not thinking that. Jeez, now I probably sound a bit TOO nasty. “So you can’t go back, then. Great. Why didn’t you go hunt someone down to take you back, then?”

“I…was trying to. I…couldn’t find…anyone…”

“Seriously? I thought for sure there were digimon popping through and then leaving without us seeing them.” Reyn rubbed his head. “You just couldn’t find them, and none of the ones we found survived long enough to take you?”

“Yeah…” Talomon glowered a little. “So it’s your fault.”

“So sorry for trying to defend our world from psychopaths trying to kill us. No one asked you to come after us, you know. And you haven’t done a bang-up job of proving yourself, clearly.”

“Pah…that’s none of…your business. Don’t think…just because…you caught me…when I wasn’t…at my best…means you’re…ready for anything. You don’t…know a thing about…what you…haah, might be up against.”

“Actually, he’s well aware of it,” remarked Salmandmon tersely. “Even if I wasn’t telling him, he’s been seeing into our world for years. And even if he wasn’t seeing into our world, it wasn’t that long ago that we obliterated Skullsatamon after he decided to try to attack us.”

Talomon’s eyes widened. “You…no way. Sk…Skullsatamon? That menace? He’s…”

“Some of us might be a little tougher than you thought, huh?” Reyn knew he couldn’t really gloat about that as a personal victory, but Talomon didn’t have to know that. “Right, then. If you can’t go back, then we’re gonna have to bring you to jail. We’ve already got a couple of your buddies in there, so at least you’ll have company.”

“Tch…you could just…let me go…and I promise I won’t…dice you to ribbons…”

“He’s a bold one,” remarked Salmandmon. “Stupid, but bold. We’re gonna have to talk with Isaac, aren’t we?”

“He’s got bindings ready for the ones we didn’t catch,” said Reyn. “Maybe if we tell him it’s an emergency he won’t be late getting them to us.”

“Pfft. And you get on our case for making cracks about it.”

“I’m not making a crack, it’s a legit thought. I’m well aware Isaac’s got, uh, punctuality issues, I just don’t like everyone razzing him for it constantly, it doesn’t help anything.”

“Eh, I think a good razzing can-” Salmandmon didn’t finish his thought, though, as he was caught off-guard by a sudden rush of footsteps. Cayden blew right past the two of them, kneeling down in front of Talomon with stars in his eyes. “Ack! Get away from him!”

“Cayden!” Reyn snapped. “Stay back! He’s dangerous!”

“Whoa…so cool…” Cayden wasn’t listening, just staring starry-eyed at Talomon.

Which, apparently, was making the previously-menacing dinosaur oddly uncomfortable. “Ngh…back off, kid…I bite…”

“Bite him and I’ll make you wish Salmandmon would make you wish he’d kill you,” warned Reyn.

“Well, get him…away from me…” Talomon tried to jerk away in his bonds, sliding against the tree a bit - then let out a sharp cry and slumped down, breathing even harder. “Ngh…agh…haagh…”

“What the heck was that?” asked Salmandmon.

“REYN! HE’S BLEEDING!” Cayden’s terrified squeal suddenly got both their attentions. They rushed over, and noticed a rather large amount of blood on the trunk of the tree and staining the ground where Talomon was sitting.

“Holy crap! Where the hell did all this blood come from?” Salmandmon hurriedly undid part of the rope, then recoiled as the raptor slumped forward - three large gashes were clawed into Talomon’s back, all of which looked like they’d partly healed and been reopened again. “Gah! I never saw this!”

“We were focused on him threatening us, I wasn’t even thinking about how badly he might be hurt!” Reyn exclaimed. “We gotta get him inside!”

Salmandmon jerked his head up at Reyn. “Wh-you want to RESCUE him?!”

“We gotta!” cried Cayden, jumping up and rushing back to the house. “Mom! MOM!”

“Oh, for crying out loud…gah, now we gotta do the noble thing, I guess…”

“Less decrying, more untying,” Reyn insisted. “I don’t care if he’s a jerk, he’s at our mercy so he still deserves to be treated humanely. What happens to him afterwards is for the future to decide.”

“Rrrf. Your dad’s creed, I remember that…” And as much as it didn’t seem wise, one that he’d never been able to convince himself not to practice…now he just needed to hope that it wouldn’t come back to literally bite them.

———

It took Elecmon several moments to even realize that he WAS awake, and in fact even capable of being awake. Somehow, he’d been so certain of his demise just before going under that it took effort to convince his brain that, yes, he was in fact still alive. Though, locked up in an unknown location, arms and legs cuffed together, and with a pounding headache was not the best form of alive, and didn’t fill him with the utmost confidence that he would remain that way.

“Oh, good, you’re finally coming around.” Elecmon jerked his head towards the voice, and immediately wished he hadn’t, as the pain redoubled briefly, and only slowly ebbed away as he clenched his eyes closed. Slowly they opened again, and he was able to look through blurred vision at the form of the human sitting on a chair nearby, looking far too relaxed and casual for the digimon’s comfort. “Hope you’re comfy…or, well, not really, I’d much prefer if you weren’t, it’ll make what comes next a little easier.”

Something about the way she was speaking was very unnerving to Elecmon, but he tried not to show it, instead doing his best weary glare at her. “You’re…making a really…big mistake, human. You don’t…have any idea what I’m capable of…”

“Oh?” Ashley leaned forward, grinning down at him in a very disconcerting way for Elecmon. “Well, let’s see about that. Elecmon. ‘Rookie’ digimon. Capable of loosing electric blasts…most of the time, anyway. Part of some crazy nutso eugenicist group from a world that until recently hadn’t ever made contact with ours, if what I’ve been hearing is accurate. Am I right, or am I right?”

Elecmon could do nothing but blink at her for a few seconds. “That’s not…agh, there’s…no way you could know about me. This world doesn’t know about us.”

“I have an insider source. You might know about Dinobot?”

“Dino…ugh. You must mean that damned Datacarnomon. Of course he’d be filling you in…well, if you know what I can do, you should know that you can’t keep me contained like this, human.” He started trying to charge up his Super Thunder Strike, but almost immediately it fizzled out, leaving him suddenly aware that he was just about completely helpless. “…What?”

“Oh, good, that collar does work as it’s supposed to. I was gonna be annoyed if he was wrong about that.” Ashley rose up and walked around in front of Elecmon, kneeling down in front of him. “So, here’s how things are gonna go, fuzzy. My name’s Ashley, and I’m gonna be your captor tonight. But it doesn’t have to stay that way, if you’re nice and cooperative.”

Elecmon growled and winced. “I don’t like where this is going…don’t patronize me, human, if you’re gonna kill me, do it already. Prolonging the torture isn’t going to change anything, I’m not that key to Emperius’s plans.”

“Oh, believe me, I have no intention of killing you. That doesn’t fit the math.”

“…The…math? What in blazes are you talking about?”

Ashley smirked. “I’m talking about the math, of course. See, I like to think I’ve got a pretty good head on my shoulders. The math’s pretty straightforward. Sure, taking you out is minus one for them, but there’s a better way of boosting us…after all, why just take one from the other side when you can take one from them and add one to ours?”

“You…you think I’m gonna turn on Emperius?! You’re crazy! First off, they’d kill me for even thinking about that, and second, why would I want to jump ship when they’re doing what they need to do for our world’s good?”

The emphatic denial didn’t seem to faze the human one bit, and that had Elecmon starting to sweat a bit. People who were so cool under pressure always knew what they were doing…and he didn’t know what he himself was doing, much less the one holding him captive. “You know, I kinda figured you’d say something like that. But I’m pretty sure I can get you to crack.”

“Tch…what are you gonna do? Torture me? Try to hypnotize me?”

“Nope. I’m just gonna utterly obliterate you with nothing but words.”

“…Words. Are all you humans so pitiful? What are words gonna do to me?”

“Oh, you poor creature, you really don’t know what you’re in for, do you?” Ashley ruffled Elecmon’s head fur, stunning him and making him feel completely and utterly patronized. It felt so humiliating, inspiring no fear in a human like this…she should have been terrified of something like him, and yet HE was the one feeling out of sorts. “So, let’s get started then, if you think you can handle it. This ‘Emperius’ group, why don’t you tell me what YOU think it’s all about.”

“Pft. Like you’re gonna see anything my way, I know you’ve already been poisoned by that robot.”

“Humor me. Not like it could hurt you, the worst I could do is not buy in, right?”

Annoyingly, there was no disputing the logic of that statement. Elecmon was reluctant to talk anyway, suspecting something was going on, but with no idea what it could be, there didn’t seem to be much reason not to. “Emperius is all about strengthening our kind. Making us more capable and less reliant on the weak. Those who can’t fight can’t be counted on when it really matters…they bring us down, soften us up for others who could destroy us. Other people don’t get that, they think we’re just random indiscriminate killers, but they don’t get that we need strength if we want to survive! There’s too many stories about people who got caught up with the weak and perished for it…it’s a burden and distraction that will ruin us in the end if we don’t do something about it.”

“Hm. So, you’re just trying to find the people who are really good at fighting and make a world that focuses only on being really good at fighting?”

“Yeah, exactly!” Elecmon’s voice rose a bit - was he actually going to convince a human that they were right? She certainly seemed to be focused on him. “Emphasizing battle prowess, training those with the talent to express it, and getting the burdens of the world out of the way! The fighters should rule, they should be the ones who get to outlast the others! They’ll be the best adapted to survive in the new world, and we’ll all be the better for it!”

Ashley rubbed her chin contemplatively as she absorbed that. “So that’s what it’s about, huh? Narrowing the focus of society towards that one direction, battle capacity and nothing else. And by doing that, you think you’re going to make sure you all survive far longer than you would otherwise, huh?”

“Of course. Once Emperius realizes their dreams, there won’t be any force in the world that can defeat us!”

“…So, tell me. What are you going to eat?”

The question came so out of left field that Elecmon couldn’t even process it right away. “…Huh?”

“What are you going to eat? You’ve got all these battle digimon, but it sure doesn’t sound like you have any farmers or anything. Who’s producing the food that you all are supposed to eat? I can’t imagine your society can sustain itself on just foraging, not when they have a whole lot of training to do in order to keep up with the baseline of ‘deserving to live’ and all that. How do you keep eating?”

“That…uh…I…don’t know what you’re talking about. There’d be…surely there’d be people who’d…”

“Why would they? They can’t do that and still work on making themselves top-notch fighters. That’s a pretty full-time job, I’d wager, it can’t be easy to just get to that point, and then there’s all the work maintaining once you get there. So that’s an open question. Here’s another one: who’s going to build all the housing for you guys?”

“What…what are you talking about?” Elecmon’s voice trembled a bit even as he tried to sound defiant; it was an irrelevant question, wasn’t it? So why was it latching onto his brain like that? “We have plenty of housing, we’d…we’d clear out a lot of it by getting rid of the digimon who weren’t capable…”

“Hm, maybe I’d buy that, but you wouldn’t have it for terribly long…no one’s gonna be around to do all the upkeep and maintenance. They’re gonna be so busy being fighters, who would want to learn how to do all that, much less dedicate themselves to it? You’re just gonna keep moving around after it all falls apart, hoping that the elements haven’t taken the places you want to live in the next location…and the longer it is, the less likely that it won’t already be degrading. Seems to me that that’s not sustainable.”

“That…uh…that’s not…that’s got nothing to do with anything…”

Ashley snickered quietly. “You don’t sound too confident about that. Here’s another question for you. You’re an electric boy, right? You think electricity’s important to your lifestyle?”

“Of course I do,” snorted Elecmon. “We aren’t savages. We might even be more modern than YOU are.”

“I’ll take your word for both of those statements. So where does all that electricity come from in your world, then?”

“Wh…where it always comes from. Power plants and generators.”

“Really. Who’s working at those plants? Who’s making those generators? The guys who don’t know anything but fighting?”

Elecmon was quiet; he didn’t have a good answer for that one, either. He was trying to think back to the people at Emperius who worked on the facilities…on the one hand, they had them, surely, that had to count for something…but on the other hand, they weren’t exactly the ‘strong’ ones, and were commonly derided by the war battalions and considered expendable. If the war battalions were considered the ‘real’ worthy ones of Emperius…would they even be around?

“And that’s just one aspect of ‘modern’ living. Who’s gonna take care of those facilities? Who’s going to take care of the roads, the lighting, the piping, the electric infrastructure? Maybe you can get away with running them on autopilot for a little while, but something’s going to go wrong eventually, and then who’s going to be able to fix it? And that’s just with normal operation, we’re not even getting into what happens if there’s a fire, a flood, an earthquake, a volcano, a hurricane or tornado…hell, given what I’ve seen about you guys, maybe a kaiju attack even. Who’s fixing up after those things happen? Who’s taking time out of their very busy day of fighting to work on it…who’d even know how to, if all they’ve learned is how to put the pointy end of the stick through the squishy target?”

“S-stop that…” Elecmon was looking away, shutting his eyes. Like he was trying to block out what was going on…but Ashley was ruthless, and not giving him the chance.

“Answer me this question, then. Who’s going to take care of the injuries? Who’s going to take care of the diseases? Who’s going to care for your warriors when they suffer wounds in battle, or even just injure themselves during their arduous days of training? Who’s going to create the medicines to keep them healthy and cure or prevent diseases, or treat them when there’s nothing they can do but try to outlast them? That’s all really specialized stuff, it’s not something that can just be done at a moment’s notice…hell, learning medicine is crazy hard for humans, and we’re all WAY more similar than you guys all are, it’s gotta be crazy complicated for you guys. Do you really think they can do that AND still be worthy fighters?”

“Shut…shut up…” Elecmon was trembling madly now, struggling in his bonds like he was trying to get away, his eyes tearing up even as he tried to fight it.

“So…let me see if I’ve got this straight. Your ‘ideal’ society is one where your super powerful apex warriors are basically just sitting there in crumbling houses with nothing that really works…maybe out in the open would actually be better for them, would keep them from having to move around too much and spend more energy they can’t regain because they’re starving to death, just trying to hold out until the next disease claims them or they suffer an injury that hinders them enough in battle that they’re a liability that needs to be slaughtered before they drag the rest of you down. And this is what you think is the mark of a society that can survive over all the others? It sounds to me more like the kind of society that would be the end of these digimon as you know it-”

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!” The breakdown was in full swing now, Elecmon’s eyes watering madly and tears staining his fur as he desperately tried to keep from outright sobbing, shivering fiercely as he was overcome with emotion. Ashley did finally quiet down, watching him as he fought to compose himself…Elecmon couldn’t have felt more humiliated, getting played so hard by a human like this, but the raw terror within him didn’t given him any chance to avoid the embarrassment.

Finally, after what felt like a good couple of minutes, Ashley spoke up again. “You know, I wasn’t expecting you to react THAT strongly to that. Interesting response…what’s behind it, I wonder? I get the feeling like perhaps you’ve been in a good bit of denial about what you’re doing…so what drove you to it in the first place?”

“…You…you wouldn’t understand.” It came out choked, devoid of much in the way of real resolution behind it. “If…if we don’t…we might…we might all be dead anyway…but…but if that’s all it amounts to…there’s…there’s no hope for us! We might as well all die as it is!”

That wasn’t what Ashley expected to hear at all. Not just the words, but the tone…for a creature from a completely different world, it was remarkable how familiar the emotions were. And this was tainted with nothing less than bald fear and despair…emotions which she was quite certain were the key to achieving her goals.

———

It was into the evening before Talomon finally woke up, though with as much talking as was going on, it was a surprise it wasn’t sooner.

“Seriously, Cayden, get away from him. He’s one of the dangerous ones, and those claws you see are super-sharp. Sal’s had enough personal experience with them to tell you all about it.”

“Yeah, if he can cut through me like it was nothing, you’ll be even more at risk.”

“But he’s hurt! I don’t wanna leave him alone! And you two were being mean to him!” Cayden remained stubbornly seated next to Talomon, who was on the same makeshift bed Salmandmon had been treated on after his unfortunate arrival.

“Cayden, honey, Reyn and Salmandmon know what they’re doing.” Minerva was gently trying to get Cayden to comply as well, with no more success. “I’m sure whatever they were doing with this, uh, Talomon here, they were acting in everyone’s best interest.”

“Ah! He’s awake!” Cayden realized before any of them, leaning over Talomon and getting into the very confused raptor’s face. “Are you okay? What hurt you so bad?”

“Wha…what the…” Talomon tried to move away, but Cayden held him still. “Oof, gedoff, kid, didn’t I tell you that I bite?”

“You’re still hurt! You need to not move or you might hurt yourself again!”

“I’ll do what I…agh…” Talomon tried to push back, but then winced and laid back, panting a bit. “Goddamn…the hell, why…does my back feel so tight?”

“Because it has three huge gouges in it,” remarked Salmandmon, sounding a bit annoyed. “Which you should watch it, because I’m not averse to finishing what whatever got you started if you cross any lines.”

“Oy, don’t go undoing all of our hard work, now,” warned Treylor.

Talomon eyed the man warily. “Hard work? What did you do to me?”

“We patched up your back. Those were some nasty lacerations, I’m surprised you were even able to walk, they barely missed your spine. We had to break out the surgical staples on top of the stitches.”

“And I’d thought I’d seen the peak of medical savagery with the stitches,” Salmandmon said with a shudder. “Next chance I get I’m bringing a whole-ass pallet of QuicKnit over here.”

“…the…you…that…y-you mean…LITERAL staples?” Talomon suddenly looked a bit faint.

“Oh, get over yourself, you poke people with much sharper stuff on a regular basis, I’m sure. You’re lucky we treated you at all the way you went after us, it’s a mercy you don’t really deserve.”

“Hmph. I didn’t ask for your help, lizard, I don’t need help from humans. Or touches!” Talomon growled a bit as Cayden rubbed over him. “What is your DEAL, kid?”

“Of course this had to happen,” sighed Reyn. “Cay, seriously, I know you’re excited about seeing a ‘real dinosaur,’ but he’s seriously dangerous, you need to get back.”

“But he’s hurt! He needs someone to help him feel better!”

“No, I don’t! I’m just fine!”

“Okay, enough, enough, enough.” Reyn shook his head, getting frustrated with everything. “You know what? This isn’t my job. Mom and Dad can deal with it. I’ve got a more important question: what was it that nearly killed you? Because that sure as heck wasn’t done by a dog, and we don’t have any bigger animals around here.”

“…Oh, jeez.” That was very suddenly and unpleasantly occurring to Salmandmon, too. “Okay, out with it, buddy. Who came through?”

“Rrgh…” Talomon looked away. “What makes you think it wasn’t one of you merging weirdos?”

“Because they wouldn’t have let you get away,” replied Salmandmon tersely. “And you wouldn’t have run away. Considering you were halfway to dead and you still tried to take us head-on. So it had to be someone who came through…wait…” Another thought was dawning on the lizard now, his eyes widening. “…You were betrayed. Someone from Emperius came through and tried to off you.”

“Sh…shut up…it was probably a mistake…” Talomon’s voice wasn’t remotely convincing.

“That much physical damage wasn’t a mistake, that was a swipe that was meant to be lethal. And-”

“And it was to your back,” Reyn jumped in. “If you’d been fighting back, or trying to engage it in any way, it would have been to your front. Which means you were already running. Which means you both knew you had no chance and you knew you couldn’t save yourself by talking.”

“Ugh…did anyone ever tell you two how annoying you are?” Talomon folded his arms, trying to look away from everyone. “I don’t feel like talking about it, all right?”

“I’m not giving you that choice,” replied Salmandmon sharply. “If there’s something attacking out there, we need to take it on NOW. Especially something as savage as what came after you, because if YOU were running away, I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Fat chance. I’m not gonna betray them…”

“You’re well past that point, if they sent someone to destroy you already. They must’ve thought you weren’t coming back because you’d gone renegade on them already. I highly doubt they’re gonna be standing outside with flowers and get-well cards…they’re probably still hunting for you, which means telling us what’s going on will probably be to YOUR benefit as well.”

“…That…no. I, I can’t…it was a mistake. They…just need to hear me explain…”

“Why didn’t you try to explain it to your attacker?” asked Reyn. “Or did you, and they didn’t listen?”

“It’s not like that…they…it wasn’t something that could…”

“Not something that could listen to you? If they sent something that couldn’t listen to you, that means they weren’t interested in listening to anything you had to say in the first place. Are you really gonna keep trying to hitch your wagon to someone like that? Is hating us really that important to you?”

“J-just shut up!” Talomon snapped, eyes shut tight, almost tearing up - whether because of pain or something else wasn’t clear. “I said I don’t want to talk about it! Why don’t you just piss off and leave me alone?!”

Salmandmon was not about to do that, and was about to do quite the opposite when he saw Cayden brush his hands along the sides of Talomon’s face, making the raptor’s eyes shoot open again. “Please…tell them, Talomon. Otherwise that guy will come after you again…”

“Ngh…s-stupid kid…why would you even care?”

“Because…I don’t want to see you get hurt anymore.” Cayden’s voice was full of earnest sadness. “You’re really cool and neat…and I don’t wanna see you disappear like those other monsters. They were bad guys, but you’re not.”

We might have differing opinions on that, thought Salmandmon, wincing as he watched the boy’s fingers rub very close to those jaws that bore such razor-sharp fangs. But, incredibly, Talomon wasn’t responding aggressively…in fact, he seemed to be dropping his resistance entirely. Oh, come on, you can’t tell me this is what’s working…

But it was. Talomon looked over at them with weary eyes. “Fine…I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. You want to know? You’re gonna wish you didn’t.” The raptor took a deep breath. “…They apparently finished the Ashinkaimon project. You want to lose your life against it, be my guest.”

“The…Ashinkaimon project?” It meant nothing to Reyn, but as he looked down to Salmandmon to ask, he was caught off-guard by the lizard trembling where he stood.

“No…there’s no way…they didn’t…”

“Sal? What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain on the way! We need to get out there NOW!”

“Reyn…Salmandmon…I don’t know what’s going on, but…please be careful…” Minerva spoke up, sounding very worried.

“We’ll be as careful as we can afford to be,” promised Salmandmon - words that put precisely none of them at ease.

———

When she finally got the story out of Elecmon, it was very much NOT what Ashley was expecting.

“You don’t get it…there are these…creatures out there. We don’t know what they are, or why they exist, or why they pop up sometimes when we least expect it…they’re aberrations that don’t make any sense to us. They destroy things…they wreck everything in sight when they appear, kill countless digimon, leave barren, haunted wrecks in their wake. And fighting them, it takes…EVERYTHING we have. The best-case scenario is that we throw thousands of our strongest at them and lose many to most of them in beating it…and that’s even not certain to be enough. Some of these need to be defeated by godlike digimon, because anything less just…doesn’t do it. And if we’re too weak…if we can’t find a way to fight against these things, these monsters that suddenly appear and just start…destroying and killing and all that…i-it will be the end of the digital world, digimon will be gone, and…” Elecmon choked up. “I just…I can’t handle it. It’s stuff that fills my nightmares, makes me dread sleeping…”

“So you ignored the problems with Emperius’s ideal world because the alternative scares you too much,” concluded Ashley. “But you know, an apocalypse born of your own making isn’t any less an apocalypse than one caused by some eldritch abomination. Dead is dead is dead. Trying to pretend it won’t happen doesn’t make it not happen.”

“…I…we’d…I just…thought we’d…figure it out, somehow.”

“No one’s figuring it out in a society where battle prowess is all that matters. Where you have to constantly jockey for position because eventually someone’s going to move the cutoff line and someone’s going to pay the price for it. It wouldn’t just be battle, either, it doesn’t matter whether you replaced that with something else, once you get down to a society that’s too fixated on one thing, it loses any ability to adjust to things that can’t be solved with that one fixation. So yeah, you’re not getting anywhere with that.”

Elecmon shook his head. “That…but there’d have to be ways. I mean…that’s part of the reason we came over here, we can strengthen our world by using some of the things you have, we could use it to solve other problems…”

“Hm, about that.” Ashley leaned in, with a look in her eyes that Elecmon wasn’t so sure he liked. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. The thing that keeps you up at night is the fear of strange creatures showing up and destroying everything, right?”

“Mmph. Yes. You don’t have to make it sound so pathetic…”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of that. I’d say it’s a pretty valid fear.”

“…You would? Others think I’m being stupid.”

“Of course, I’d say it’s very valid! After all…that’s exactly what we’re going through right now. Creatures from another world with intention to destroy us all, lay waste to everything we’ve done and erase our existence as a species. Those beasts that you’re afraid of? You’re them.”

Elecmon’s eyes widened at that. Another thing he hadn’t ever really thought about…and now that it was on his mind, he really didn’t like to. “That…don’t say that! We’re not, we’re not the same, we’re…we’re just trying to protect ourselves!”

“Oh, come on, invading someone else to protect yourselves against something completely unrelated? You think that’s going to make anyone feel better?” Ashley moved behind Elecmon, getting up close to one of those big ears of his. “You can imagine how it feels, right? Seeing one of those creatures you’re so terrified of, watching it lay waste to everything, and there’s nothing you can do about it?”

“Ssstop…”

“Of course you can. You probably feel that every time you have one of those nightmares, don’t you? Well…imagine that, compounded eight BILLION times. Eight BILLION lives feeling that exact same way, watching their world be obliterated right before their eyes, knowing they’re next and they can’t stop it, feeling nothing but that dreadful despair of hopelessness as everyone and everything they know and love is taken from them for no reason-”

“SSSSTOOOOOOP!” Once again Elecmon was losing it, his composure gone as he cried freely, slumping forward as he was completely overwhelmed. Ashley moved back again, watching the breakdown and processing it. He’s clearly not lacking for empathy…hard to imagine he got wrapped up in something like this. But I guess when you live with an existential terror like that, you have to practice a lot of denial. Hm, but that also means there’s an opening…I think I know how to bring him around.

Once again, she went around to the front, bringing a finger under Elecmon’s chin as the creature’s sobs finally abated. She looked directly into those watery eyes, cool and unflinching. “It doesn’t have to be that way, don’t you think?”

“…Wh…what…do you mean?”

“I think you can figure it out. If we have something that you think you can use…why does it have to be an ‘us or them’ situation? What makes you think that you couldn’t get our help? Surely there’s something you could offer us, I’m pretty sure you guys have all sorts of ideas that we couldn’t even dream up over here. No one’s world ends, and you don’t have to screw yourselves over trying to get something that wouldn’t even do you much good in the end anyway.”

“That…mmnh…” Elecmon squeezed his eyes shut tight, trying to shake his head quickly. “Why…why would you care? It’s…it’s not like we’d matter to you. Why would…you ever help us? Why should I think you really care about OUR world?” It was a rather threadbare counter even to his own ears, but he was at a loss for much else to salvage anything from this.

“Why?” Ashley brushed a hand along Elecmon’s face. “Because, I can imagine your plight, and I wouldn’t want to see you suffer like that any more than I’d want to see anyone else suffer. Because that’s how it’s supposed to be. You know that, don’t you?”

“I…what? I don’t…”

“Sure ya do! It’s the first foundational rule of all functioning societies. ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ‘Do not do to others what you know has hurt yourself.’ ‘Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.’ ‘Choose thou for thy neighbor that which thou chooses for thyself.’ ‘Just as sorrow or pain is not desirable to you, so it is to all which breathe, exist, live, or have any essence of life.’ ‘What we choose is always the better, and nothing can be better for us unless it is better for all.’ C’mon, tell me yours, I know you guys have to have at least one.”

It came out almost before Elecmon even thought about it. “Give respect and empathy freely, if that is what you seek to receive, for what you give out is all that can be returned to you.”

Ashley grinned widely. “See? At the core, we really aren’t that different. So what is it that you really want? To go back to some psycho death cult that you know is gonna bring about the same ruin that you fear at least twice over? Or to help out the people who are trying to avert the same fate you’re trying to avert, and who would return your help with their own? What makes the most sense to you?”

One thing was for sure: Elecmon would never doubt the idea of being obliterated with words ever again. He couldn’t remember ever feeling as wrecked as he did now, not even after his worst physical beatdowns. His carefully-constructed framework of justification was in utter ruins, leaving him with an ugly feeling of disgust…there really didn’t seem to be much to debate anymore in his head. “At this point...I doubt they’d even let me come back. They aren’t forgiving of failures, and I doubt they ever really cared about me anyway…so it’s not really much of a choice, is it?”

“Elecmon…let me tell you something.” Ashley’s expression became serious as she laid her hand on his shoulder. “It is ALWAYS a choice. Even the most ugly, horrible scenario in the world, where no sane person should ever decide something else…there are people who always find a way to not make a real choice, or to do the wrong thing, or to do nothing and sit there like they’re helpless as the world burns around them. Even when they know what the consequences are, they can’t bring themselves to do what they need to do. To actually stand up and say you will, and actually do it…that’s always a choice that people make. Sometimes the hardest one they ever make, even when it seems like a no-brainer to anyone outside looking in. But they’re the ones who stand in the way of the stuff of your nightmares. So I mean it when I say make your choice…I can only tell you what I think is right, not what you actually will do. Only you can say that.”

Elecmon was quiet for several seconds. It felt like a lot, making all those convincing arguments and then leaving it to his decision…but then again, the fact that he was still wrestling with it even after all that sort of vindicated her, didn’t it? But…she was right. He couldn’t choose to be the monster of his nightmares. He couldn’t rebuild that broken dome of ignorance about what he knew would come of a world that knew nothing but battle. And even though the right path meant facing down the same people he’d fought alongside, ones who he knew full well what they were capable of…for continued existence, it was worth taking. “I…I’ll do it. I’ll fight on your side. It’s the right choice to make…even as tough as it is.”

Ashley smiled, a much warmer expression than before. “Welcome to the plus one, Elecmon. It might not sound like much now, but it never sounds like much until it is. Let me go tell my bro, so we can get these restraints off of you.” She got up and left the room, leaving Elecmon alone for the moment. Getting the restraints off already…he could scarcely believe she trusted him that much, after all he’d talked about. But then again, already he felt different…just making the choice, he felt calmer, more in control than he had been in a long time. Had he always known he’d been making the wrong choice, and just been so deeply in denial that he couldn’t acknowledge it? He never thought he’d feel happy to have been beaten by a human, but clearly a lot of things were happening that he’d never thought would happen…maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

Ashley returned a few moments later, alone but with an odd tool in her hand. “Welp. Seems little bro and Dinobot must’ve seen something that spooked them, because they aren’t in. But I can at least get you free…he thinks he’s so cute trying to hide this stuff.”

“Gone?” Elecmon shivered a bit as Ashley unlocked the collar, his electricity coming back to him properly. “Do you, uh, think we should go find out where?”

“Nah, let’s play it safe and make sure he doesn’t get the wrong idea.” Ashey got all of Elecmon’s limbs freed and tossed the equipment off into the corner. “While we’re waiting, though, maybe we can talk out some of these nightmares and stories that’ve got you all in a lather? I find talking these kinds of things out makes them seem less scary, and can help you process them and deal with them better. That and a few cookies could probably put you in a better state of mind.”

“A-heh…well…I can’t really say no to cookies, can I?” Not on his protesting stomach, for sure…but Elecmon had a feeling that, if talking had done this much for him already, it could only be more helpful to keep doing so. Especially with this girl, she was clearly a Mega-level talker as far as he was concerned…

———

The door opened without that much effort, and Kirsten slipped inside. Good lord…they chose a heck of a place to make their hideout. Right in the middle of the city, too…I’m surprised no one ever figured out something was going on here.

She took a look around, the emptiness of the place somewhat creeping her out. Sky said they were in here somewhere…I’m sure they have to be close by. I just need to find…oh! She tried the door behind the counter and found the entrance to the basement. Of course…they’d go where they were least likely to be discovered.

Down she went, and she had to marvel at everything, not least of which were the banks of supplies stashed away. No, yeah, they’ve been using this place for a while…oh, my. And the big door there… She stepped closer, trying to remain quiet…and she could hear voices coming from behind it. They sounded pretty agitated, she strained to hear what they were saying.

“Come ON, you pathetic wretch! Why don’t you at least TRY?”

“What’s the point?! Break out just to die pathetically?”

“It’s better than staying in here and rotting away to nothing! Come on, even with these damn collars on, I know you’re strong enough to at least try to get that damned door open!”

“Maybe I don’t want to! Maybe I’d rather wait for them to let me go back home! I know you’re going stir crazy and all, but I just want to get back to our world and never hear another word about Emperius ever again!”

“Gah, I knew I shouldn’t’ve taken you along! But no, they said I had to make you prove yourself! You’ve proven yourself, all right, as a useless lump! What good is that strength you have if you won’t use it for anything?!”

“I don’t want to use it on just anything, and not just because someone told me to!” Kirsten heard a bit of a thump. “That doesn’t make it any worth to me either! I just want to be done with this nightmare! And like it or not, they’re the only ones who MIGHT be able to make that happen!”

That was enough for Kirsten, who opened up the door just as one of the voices was talking. “Only because you won’t…oh, for crying out loud. Maybe you’ll get your wish now…huh?”

She hadn’t really known what she was expecting, but it wasn’t this. Kirsten’s eyes went nice and wide as she looked down at the two creatures, one a dark-scaled dragon creature, the other a miniature bipedal triceratops. Wow…I know it’s silly to think this, but they’re actually kinda adorable, at least if you get past the trying-to-kill-us-all part.

“Who…who are you?” the triceratopsian one asked nervously.

“Uh…I’m…a friend.”

The dragon snorted. “Yeah, right. We don’t have friends here, especially not among humans. If you’re just snooping around, go take a hike. We’ve got enough problems without getting annoyed by random strangers.”

“Don’t mind him, he’s just being a jerk,” the dinosaur said tensely. “I’ll take anything that doesn’t want us dead as a friend at this point.”

Kirsten blinked for a bit, then shook her head hard. “Okay, I wasn’t as ready for this as I thought I was. But still.” She stepped over to the dinosaur, kneeling down next to him. “What’s your name?”

“Uh? It’s…Crestmon. The other guy over there is Shadowdramon, but he probably won’t tell you if you ask him, because he’s in a mood.”

“I’ve just about had it with you.” Shadowdramon threw up his hands.

“Crestmon, Shadowdramon…well, my name’s Kirsten. And I’m not just here to be here.” She looked at the collar carefully. “Wild…I’ve never seen anything like this before…one sec.”

“Huh?” Crestmon just stared blankly at Kirsten as she stood back up and headed out, leaving the door open. Even Shadowdramon was getting a bit curious now, watching and waiting until she stepped back in with something in her hand. And it only got more bizarre from there as she slipped something into Crestmon’s collar…after fiddling with it for a second, the device disengaged, and Crestmon’s eyes widened as he felt strength flowing back into him. “Whoa…w-wait, what’s going on?”

“Well…I’m letting you guys out of here.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Who are you and what in the world is your deal?” asked Shadowdramon in disbelief as Kirsten knelt in front of him - his initial instinct to get a pot shot off on the human had vanished in an instant.

“Well…let’s just say I know a certain someone who’s part of the people who kept you in here. And…I don’t think it’s right to shut you up like that.” The collar came off of Shadowdramon, and the dragon stretched his body and wings, murring a bit as he finally felt the limiters get removed. “If they’re going to keep you in here, they should be trying to help you, not just locking you away because it’s inconvenient.”

“They were trying to help us,” Crestmon insisted. “Just…the kind of help we need is a bit hard to get…”

“The kind of help YOU need,” countered Shadowdramon. “I’m perfectly fine getting back out there and getting back in the fight. You can go pound sand for all I care.”

Kirsten looked over at Shadowdramon. “You want to fight them? Why?”

“Why not? They’re strong! I can’t get stronger if I don’t battle stronger people! Ah!” Shadowdramon suddenly dashed out, hurrying towards the blade leaned against the wall in the main room. “Thank goodness! I thought those jerks mighta done something to it!”

“Shadowdramon…” Kirsten stepped out of the makeshift jail, followed by Crestmon. “Do you…think you could find someone else to fight? I’m glad you think they’re worthy opponents and all, but…we kind of need them.”

“Tch, you don’t get it. I’ve fought loads of digimon before, it’s hard to learn all that much more from them. But these are new creatures entirely! Guys I’ve never seen before!” The excitement was evident in Shadowdramon’s eyes. “Fighting against them would be an entirely new experience! I could learn so much from those fights, and that’d make me stronger than ever! And that’d get me closer to being one of the strongest warriors ever!”

“Huh…why do you need to be that much stronger?”

“Whaddaya mean? Who doesn’t want to be stronger?”

“I’m fine where I am, thanks,” drawled Crestmon.

Shadowdramon rolled his eyes. “Besides wussy lizards, I mean.”

Kirsten still wasn’t quite getting it. “Okay…so you just ‘want’ to be stronger? Why?”

“Weren’t you listening? Why wouldn’t anyone want to be stronger? Who doesn’t hear stories about legendary warriors and the things they took on and not want to be one of them, standing up against the fiercest challenges that ever existed? You can’t just get there by doing nothing, though! No one ever became legendary without striving for it every step of the way!”

“Uh…well, I…guess everyone has their ambitions.” Though yours certainly isn’t one I’d like to have, Kirsten thought, finding the dragon incredibly weird. “What are you going to do with it, though?”

“Huh?” Now Shadowdramon was looking at her blankly.

“Well…I mean, if you’re trying to get stronger…you’re…trying to use it for something, right?”

“…Uh…”

“…You’re not…telling me you’re just getting stronger without having any idea what you’re doing with it?”

“That…I mean…look, that’s something I can figure out later! I mean, it’s not like legendary warriors know what they’re training for most of the time!”

“You…really think that?”

Shadowdramon was suddenly looking unsure of himself. “I, I mean, why would they? They didn’t know who their enemies were until they fought them. Well, most of the time…er…well, some of them knew some of their enemies, but they had plenty they weren’t preparing for…th-that’s all beside the point! You can’t just wait until something comes along to try to get stronger, otherwise you’re not ready for anything!”

“You don’t actually have any idea what you’re doing, do you?” groaned Crestmon. “I knew it was a mistake for you to be in charge…”

“Hey, don’t you start on me,” hissed Shadowdramon in annoyance. “At least I’m doing something! You were just content to sit there until the mountains turned to dust!”

“Aren’t there other people you could go against?” asked Kirsten. “Like…there’s monsters appearing all over the place…I’m sure my, uh, our defenders could use a lot of help.”

“What? Go against Emperius? I can’t do that!” declared Shadowdramon defiantly. “Their whole thing is about making people stronger! That’s my dream, if I went against them it would be like throwing my dream away! Look, you’re a human, you humans are pretty weak, you wouldn’t understand.”

“I’m trying to understand, I promise. But…” Kirsten wracked her brain trying to think of something - she didn’t want to let them go just to have them go after Skylar and the others, and Crestmon seemed more than happy not to do anything like that, but she needed to figure out this Shadowdramon. I wish Ashley were here, she talks rings around anyone… “How does Emperius make you stronger?”

“Well, they’re all about gathering all the most powerful digimon from all around, and not letting the weak ones make a mess of everything. And they have lots of battles against unworthy digimon who refuse to recognize their superiority. All that experience is what ensures that I’ll become stronger, and I’ll be one of the ones they know will be among the greatest!”

“…That…sounds pretty terrible to me.”

Shadowdramon shrugged. “Well, like I said, you’re a human, you wouldn’t understand.”

“But it doesn’t really make sense, does it?”

Another blank look in Kirsten’s direction. “What do you mean? It makes perfect sense. I just said, you can’t get stronger without fighting.”

“But…if Emperius has all the allegedly most powerful digimon out there, then…wouldn’t that make all the digimon you fight weaker than them? And what do you get out of fighting people who are weaker than you? I mean, I don’t know this stuff that well, I’ll admit, but…I always thought the way to get better was to challenge people who were better, not worse.”

“That…uh…well, I mean…” The dragon looked a bit out of sorts now. “Uh…yeah, that’s…that’s how it’s supposed to work…but, I mean, there are a lot of strong digimon fighting Emperius, too, aren’t there? It gives me lots of battles!”

“But if you fought on the other side, wouldn’t you get just as many battles? And against digimon who, uh, at least, say they’re stronger?” It wasn’t comfortable flying by the seat of her pants, but whatever thread she had against Shadowdramon, she needed to try to improvise off of it.

“I…I guess…”

“I mean, I would think that, at least. And if all Emperius wants to do it beat weaker people…I mean…do you really think you’d learn much fighting against humans and all?”

Shadowdramon rubbed his head. “I…uh, well, not really, you all seem pretty weak, really. But that’s part of the point, too, we’re trying to keep the weak from holding us back, right?”

A thought suddenly occurred to Kirsten. “Shadowdramon…I’m not gonna know any of these legendary warriors you idolize…but, uh, what were some of the things they did?”

“Huh? Well, one of them fought against an entire army pretty much by herself, driving them back from her homeland! And another took on a force of extreme evil that was trying to swallow a whole continent! He was one of the strongest that I’ve ever heard about, I don’t even know how he got there, but I really want to reach that level! And then there were the digimon that took on the demon kings hundreds of years ago, when the demon digimon were trying to turn the whole of Tetraquaz into a corrupted wasteland and multiply to spread to the other lands! Man, they say that the battles were so fierce you could see them from across the ocean!”

“I see…” Kirsten didn’t know what any of that was about, but what she could see were the stars in Shadowdramon’s eyes as he talked about his idols. “When they were taking on all of these challenges, Shadowdramon, what were they trying to accomplish? Why were they trying to stop all these nasties?”

“…Why? I mean…they were…all…uh…trying to, uh, keep these things from attacking…all over the place, I guess? I mean, uh…”

“They were trying to protect people, right? Even people they didn’t know?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. I mean, they weren’t, like, just attacking for the hell of it, I guess.”

Kirsten nodded. “And the people they were trying to protect…were they stronger people than they were, or weaker people?”

“Well…” Shadowdramon hesitated. “I mean…if they were stronger people, they would have been out there fighting themselves, right?”

“That, uh, would make sense to me, I think. So…if those heroes of yours were fighting to protect weaker people, rather than fighting to destroy them…wouldn’t it make more sense for you to do the same thing? If following their example is what you want to do, I mean…”

She could see the gears starting to turn in Shadowdramon’s head…suddenly the dragon began to tremble, hands going to his head. “Oh…oh, no…no, it, it can’t…I…h-have I…all the time…I’ve been…I’ve been one of the bad guys?! No, I…how could I…”

“H-hey, hey, hey! Easy, easy!” Kirsten quickly put a hand on Shadowdramon’s shoulder. “Uh, listen, don’t…don’t flip out on me, okay? Look, you’re, uh, I don’t…think you’re a bad guy, just…maybe didn’t think everything through. But, listen, there’s…I don’t know your stories very well, but I know ours over here, and we have plenty of stories where people who start out on the wrong side, they realize what they’re doing and they turn around and start doing the right thing, and they’re just as much heroes as anyone else. You’re not, uh…you can still choose to do the right, uh, thing, right?”

“I…you really think so?”

“Yeah, of course!” Don’t give him any other reason to think otherwise, I think I’ve got him coming around. WOW, I can’t believe I managed to pull that out of my ass. “It’s not at all too late to turn things around, and you’d be doing something just as impressive as any of them, protecting an entire world from destruction.”

“That…yes! That’s what I need to be doing!” Shadowdramon clenched his fists. “That’s why they all did it! They were strong for the sake of those who couldn’t fight for themselves! Gah, why didn’t I see it sooner? I have to make up for what I’ve done…”

“Wow…” Crestmon was just staring at the two of them. “I’ve NEVER seen him like that before. How did you do that?”

“Uh…just some quick thinking, that’s all.” And a healthy amount of BSing, Kirsten thought nervously as she looked over at Crestmon. “I’m going to guess you’re not doing anything other than trying to find your way the heck out of here, huh?”

“Yeah, pretty much…I don’t know that I’m gonna have much luck, though. But I’ve got to try.”

“Well, I won’t stop you. Just, uh, promise me you won’t go after any of them?”

Crestmon shook his head rapidly. “Uh-uh, no way! I don’t have a death wish!”

Kirsten nodded, smiling. “Thanks. Let’s get out of here, this place is creepy, especially considering it’s almost night.” She started to move, but hadn’t taken two steps before she felt something grab her hand and pull her back. “Ah?! Shadowdramon!”

“Don’t go anywhere!” The dragon’s voice was sharp, and the note of fear in it was immediately putting Kirsten on edge.

“Wh…what?”

“I…I feel something up there.” Shadowdramon’s voice shook a bit. “It’s faint, but…if I can feel it, that means it’s too close. There’s a great evil up there…a monster that even most of Emperius trembles at, but those who made it think it will be one of their greatest weapons…”

“Made it? They…they made a creature?”

“Oh, gods…” Crestmon paled. “Don’t tell me...”

Shadowdramon nodded. “They sent Ashinkaimon. We have to stay here until I can’t feel its presence anymore…if it so much as sniffs one of us, it’ll be on us and that’s a death sentence. And I don’t know how to beat it…only the ones who made it know its weaknesses, and they haven’t told.”

“Will it…will it come down here?” asked Kirsten fearfully.

“I don’t know. But out of its senses is the safest we’re going to be.”

———

It was supposed to be a quiet evening in. That was what Iris and Shockavimon had planned on - the attack earlier had taken a bit out of them, and getting rested up sounded like a good idea. And yet, as with so many things of late, ‘going to plan’ just didn’t seem to be in the cards.

“…Shockavimon.” Iris had been trying to work on a crafted stand for Derek’s phone, but that niggling feeling in the back of her head just would not let her focus. “Are you…feeling the same thing I’m feeling?”

Shockavimon sighed. “Damnation. I was really hoping that was just paranoia.”

“We need to go out and see if we can see what’s going on, don’t we?”

“Are you sure we can’t try contacting Isaac to see if they can see something?”

Iris shook her head. “It might be one of those digimon you ran into from that group you fought…you said they had, uh, some kind of signal jammer or something. If they can’t see them…”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. If it’s one of them, then they won’t be able to find them…and we don’t want to leave them running around freely.” The avian hopped to her feet. “Guess it’s time to get searching. You can stay in if you want, it might be easier for me to see from above, and if it’s just the one I should be able to take them - I’m definitely a match for a lone Rookie.”

Iris thought about that for a moment, but shook her head. “No, I’d rather be out there. Just in case…there’s been too many unexpected things happening.”

“You might run into some interference.”

“Don’t I know it. You go out ahead, I’ll catch up.”

Shockavimon nodded, before taking off out the window. Iris took a deep breath, then stood up and exited her room, trying to head down the stairs as quietly as possible…but she doubted it would be that easy. And sure enough, Heather was in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner, with no way to pass by her unnoticed. “Iris? You aren’t planning on going out again?”

“I, uh…I just needed some fresh air.” GREAT effort there, Iris. I know lying is hard, but telling a GOOD lie would at least take some of the pressure off.

Predictably, it did not mollify Heather, who frowned at her with a clearly distressed look on her face. “Iris…I don’t want to pry into anything, but…mm, I’m just…concerned. I know you and your father have clashed on being stuck inside the house, and, well, I get why you might not enjoy that, but…it’s dangerous out there. We keep hearing about these attacks…you were just out there during one of them, I thought we’d just talked about this.” Of course they had, over dinner, and that was going to make it even harder to get past her. Iris was trying to keep her expression even, even as she was cursing how this was going. “I’m getting more scared every day, I…I’m worried about your father enough, I’m just scared that he’s going to get caught up in one of these attacks and…it’s really…hard to have to worry about you at the same time. You’re going out so much, when it’s so dangerous out there…”

Boy, if you KNEW what I was doing, you might never do anything but worry again, Iris thought grimly. But as much as it pained her, seeing Heather’s anxious expression…she couldn’t help but think back to the Skullsatamon attack. An ambush that had been targeting Reyn and his family…there was a chance, however remote, that this was the same thing. And if she DIDN’T do something, Heather might not be around to worry about her anymore…

Maybe…oh, jeez. This is a HUGE gambit…but it might be the only thing that gets me out there tonight. I hope I can pull THIS one off… Steeling herself, Iris took a deep breath. “Mom…I…I have to tell you something. I…” She paused, her legitimate nervousness making it easier to show the reluctance. “You can’t tell anyone this…the reason I’ve been going out so often, is…I met one. One of the monsters.”

Heather gasped in shock. “Y-you…what?!”

“Mom, please! It’s okay. You…you know that yellow electric bird they talked about? I met her…before everyone knew about her.” Using Boltfalkemon as her alibi was a dangerous move, but it was the only one she could sell. “I felt her electricity…you know I’ve always had kind of a, uh, an affinity for that. It was a shock when I saw what it was, but…she’s different from the other monsters. She…I don’t know why, but she vowed to protect me…she said I reminded her of someone. She hasn’t told me much of anything about what’s going on, but…I’ve been going out to meet with her to make sure that you and Dad are safe. I didn’t want to tell you, because I was afraid you’d freak out…”

“I…y-yes, I’d say I’m doing a little bit of that right now…” Heather leaned back against the counter, a hand on her chest. “You’ve…been meeting with this…bird creature? You…you say she’s…protecting us?”

Iris nodded. “And I’m…sort of feeling her out there now. And when I do, that usually means she has a message for me…it could be about something she saw or something she thinks or hears is coming. And if there’s something that’s coming to attack Dad because he’s trying to stop them, they might…try to come here. If that’s the case, I want to know so that I can tell you and we can get out of here before that happens.”

“Mercy me…how in the world did everything get to this…” Rubbing her head, Heather finally nodded. “I…feel like I’m so far behind on all of this…Iris…if that’s what this is all about…if we might be in danger if you don’t hear from her…I guess…it wouldn’t be a good idea to stop you. But…I don’t like the thought of you coming face-to-face with this creature on your own…I…I don’t think I’m ready, but…I want to…see her for myself…to see if…I can really trust her. I know she hasn’t hurt you yet, but…”

“I’ll…I’ll make sure you get to meet her at some point.” You’re definitely not going to like it when you do, but you’ll know you can trust her, at least. “I promise I’ll try to be as safe as possible, I’m worried about all these monsters, too…I feel like I can trust her, but she’s warned me that there’s a lot of bad ones. I’ll be back once I know what’s going on.”

“All right…please, Iris…be careful. I…well…just…please be careful.”

“I promise, Mom.” Careful as I can be doing what I’m doing…it’ll be a disaster if I don’t. She made her way outside, slowly exhaling as she tried to settle her heart down. It was a shaky story, one that was going to probably blow up pretty quickly, but at this point, she couldn’t pretend anymore that she could keep up the pretense much longer. The whole truth was going to have to come out soon, at least to her parents - it was the only way she’d be able to keep doing this. Whether from there or from another place where she’d have to escape to…her first backup was the Kessiliks’ place, since they already knew, but she worried about inviting more danger onto them.

That was going to have to be a consideration for later, though; right now, there was business. Shockavimon, I made my way out…I might’ve gotten us into a tight spot for later, though.

How bad is it? came the pathed response.

I made up a story about knowing Boltfalkemon. Not that we were her, but…

Oof. Well, things are getting to the point where I think the secret’s not going to be able to last anyway. We’ve been too exposed too often. We’ll figure out a way to break it to her in the coming days. I haven’t seen anything so far, but I’ve still got that feeling…

Right, same here. I’ll take a look around... Iris headed off, choosing a direction that felt like it was going farther from Shockavimon. A somewhat risky play, but without knowing what was going on, she felt like finding the problem was the best first course of action.

It wasn’t coming quickly, though…the somewhat dusky sky was making her a bit nervous too, she didn’t want to be out here in the middle of the night trying to chase that ugly feeling. Better if Derek could do that…but she hadn’t heard anything from Derek since they’d parted ways that afternoon, and if something had happened that prevented him from connecting with Blackcanismon…she shook her head, trying to cast that thought away. Things were already dicey enough without her making assumptions…

She had sort of lost track of where she was going, letting the feelings guide her. But they were getting stronger…and more disturbing. Something about this feeling was unsettling her badly… Shockavimon, I think I’m getting close to something…and I don’t like it.

I’m on my way over.

Thanks. Iris took a breath and shuddered; she should have stayed still, but something was urging her on. Whatever it was, she needed to know, before things got out of hand…why she felt so compelled was beyond her, but she stepped up her pace. She realized where she was now - Eglin Park, the place forever etched into her mind as the moment the world turned from off-kilter to totally upside-down. And she was feeling it bad now, something was HERE, something that made her skin crawl…

And then she saw it.

Some fifteen yards in front of her was a creature straight out from a nightmare. A grotesque lower body with four spindly legs splayed out like a table, reminiscent of a large bug of some kind in appearance, with wicked black talons tipping each of the two-forward-one-backward digits on each one. Its upper body rested square in the center of where those legs met, the torso and four arms matted in gnarled dark fur, each three-digit hand bearing those same noxious claws that almost seemed to drip darkness as well as a disgusting fleshy black pit in the center of the palm. The head was vile, a jaw that hung slackly open with curled fangs that dripped sickly yellow drool, three eyes that looked like hybrids of bug eyes and lizard eyes, three horns curling upwards and towards each other off the top sides and back of its head, and a maw that seemed to be an endless void of darkness within. It was unlike anything Iris had ever seen before, and unlike anything she ever WISHED to see…and it was looking at her right then, making her gasp and cry out loudly.

But that wasn’t the only thing…there was another creature there, pinned under one of the creature’s feet, shaking and mewling. A feline…she thought it was a normal cat at first, but no, it was too big, and that fur on its collar and cuffs…she remembered Shockavimon mentioning that a Felismon was one of the ones who got away, this had to be her. And upon the cry, she jerked her head towards Iris…and as scary as the creature was, seeing that look of mortal terror in the feline’s eyes was almost worse. “Please! H-help me! PLEA-AAGH!”

Iris could do nothing as the creature reached down and snatched Felismon up with its hands, claws digging into her and making her screech out. It had broken its gaze from Iris for that moment, but now looked at her again as it lifted Felismon. “CONSUME…” It had an awful voice, guttural and hissing, just hearing it made Iris feel like bugs were crawling all over her skin. And because somehow it hadn’t been abominable enough, its torso opened up, like the universe’s most ghastly Venus Flytrap…and then Iris screamed outright, along with Felismon, as the cat was shoved inside the cavity, which snapped shut before the creature even pulled out its hand, which it did so without apparent injury.

“IRIS!” Shockavimon finally swooped down just as the creature had nothing else to focus its attention on. “We gotta merge! NOW!”

“Shockavimon! It…it just…”

“NOW!!” The intensity of the panic in Shockavimon’s voice snapped Iris out of it. She practically threw herself at the bird, allowing them to come together and take the form of Boltfalkemon once more.

But Boltfalkemon wasn’t any more comfortable with what she was seeing than either of her components were, as she stepped back from the creature under its nightmarish gaze. She knew what it was, from what Shockavimon had known…the terrifying creature known as Ashinkaimon. The product of some deranged minds at Emperius, it was a synthetic demon digimon, intended to be used as a nigh-indestructible force of death and despair…they had learned about the project about a year before Craniummon’s death, and had disrupted its progress several times before taking out that previous Emperius head, which they had thought had brought it to an end. Clearly, they were wrong…and that was REALLY bad, because despite having some information on what it was and how it was made, what they didn’t know was how to actually destroy one. There was some ill-defined mechanism that allegedly made it exceptionally durable, and its withering attacks would make it harder to actually do anything against it.

But she had to try. Something like this…it was a direr threat to the city than just about anything else that had been thrown at them, it was ruthless and mindless, simplistic, an animal to be directed towards maximum chaos and carnage. And it was in a heavily populated area…there was a chance it had killed people already. If she could do something to stop it…maybe there were weaknesses in it that weren’t there in the prior attempts. She had to try…she spread her wings, letting them glow with electricity. “Spark Wave!” A flap forward, and she send the multitude of electric shots right at Ashinkaimon…

Ashinkaimon scuttled forward a bit, ignoring the attack entirely. Every single one of the projectiles hit their mark, and yet Ashinkaimon didn’t even notice them. It spread its four arms, the pits glowing with a dangerous blackness. “PERISH…” Boltfalkemon braced herself defensively as black tendrils spread from the pits and coalesced in front of Ashinkaimon, almost like a hole floating in the middle of space. Whatever was meant to come from that was NOT something she wanted to encounter, but trying to dash to the side, Ashinkaimon was tracking her, its body twisting and swiveling on its torso without a hint of distress, ensuring that hole could follow her wherever she went. She skidded to a stop, panting a bit, staring down that hole…her only chance was that it had to stop when it fired off, maybe she could quickly dive away from it…

“TORMENT WAVE…” Suddenly, a violent wave of dark energy erupted from the hole. Boltfalkemon tried to jump aside, but there was never a chance - the wave was too large for her to escape, enveloping her as she crashed to the ground. She screeched loudly as pain erupted through her, pain unlike anything she’d ever felt in any of her lives, every part of her feeling like it was being stabbed and stung with fiery toxic needles. As the attack ceased, she writhed on the ground, still in raw agony…the end of the attack had made it less acutely horrible but the effects were lingering, she couldn’t even move without it feeling like torment. What a…cruel attack…

“CONSUME…” She blinked through tear-blurred eyes to see Ashinkaimon slowly scuttling towards her…its legs didn’t seem to be very well-designed for locomotion, its motions fairly slow, but all the more menacing for it. She tried to move, to even roll over, but every motion made her body scream in agony…she couldn’t do it, even with every bit of terror trying to drive her, it was too much…

“SAUR BLASTER!” A powerful beam soared over her, slamming into Ashinkaimon and driving him back several yards, the creature’s talons dragging through the dirt; the grass seemed to be withering around where they had clawed through. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity, multiple sets of footsteps around, the heavier ones belonging to Mecharexmon as he took position near Boltfalkemon. “Goddamn, those assholes actually did it! How the hell did that not even scratch it?!”

“Boltfalkemon!” With effort, Boltfalkemon turned her head as Blazereptimon rushed over to her. “Are you all right?”

“Nnn…no…d-don’t…let…th-the…Tor…ment…Wave…h-hit you…” Even speaking felt like torture…the pain was starting to retreat, but only excruciatingly slowly.

“We’ll see what we can do…” Blazereptimon rose up and launched a Solar Wave at Ashinkaimon, who didn’t even react to it. “Rrgh…Rex, can you find a weak point?!”

“I’m trying! This thing seems freaking impossible!”

“PERISH…” Ashinkaimon raised its arms again, the ominous blackness starting to form. Boltfalkemon wanted to cry out to them, to warn them about that, but she still could barely even move…

“Go to hell, you construct freak!” roared Mecharexmon. “Swarm Missiles!” The missiles launched out from Mecharexmon’s shoulder hatch, crashing into Ashinkaimon’s hands; while there was no obvious signs of damage, the blackness was arrested and the pits stopped glowing. “Burner! See if you can try to get to those spots on its hands! I can’t get a bead on them, but maybe there’s something to that!”

“Gah, I don’t have a good technique for that…” Blazereptimon growled. “Let’s try something else…” He raised his hand up, and the area around Ashinkaimon suddenly got very hot, a ring of furious flame contracting around Ashinkaimon. “Maybe enough power will hit everything! Incendiary Ring!” The blazing ring contracted into Ashinkaimon and suddenly there was a blast of powerful heat that flared over the demonic construct. Yet, it amounted to nothing, Ashinkaimon was as unaffected as ever. “Goddammit! HOW?!”

“Burner! When it attacks again, try using that to disrupt the attack, I can aim for those pits!”

“Right! Get ready, it’s…huh?” Ashinkaimon raised its arms again, but then dropped them unexpectedly…and then its jaw dropped as well, extending almost all the way down to the ground in a grotesque stretch that looked almost impossible.

“PERISH…” An eerie glow formed in that abhorrently-open maw, spreading and widening and flaring over the whole space in front of them. “VEIL OF ABOMINATION…”

Mecharexmon and Blazereptimon suddenly seized up, and then collapsed onto a knee each. “Wh…what…what’s going on? I…I can’t move…” growled Blazereptimon, body shaking as he tried and failed to rise. “How the…hell?”

“I…I don’t know, it’s…” Mecharexmon was just as frozen, nothing seemed to be working on his body and he was getting internal danger warnings out the wazoo. “C-crap…d-drain technique…we’re…gonna be history…if we don’t get out…”

It was proving far easier said than done - the Veil of Abomination had effectively rendered them helpless, and even if Ashinkaimon was locked in place, it was leeching off of them, ensuring that it would be the only one escaping this encounter alive. All their efforts were coming to naught, their weakening bodies getting slowly less capable of fighting…

Except for one. Boltfalkemon blinked, and slowly rose up. For some reason…she was feeling better. The pain was gone, inexplicably, and she wasn’t feeling any drain from Ashinkaimon. How…how am I not being affected? No, that…that’s not important, what’s important is, how can I stop it? If the attacks of the stronger two weren’t effective, nothing she could do could anywhere close to damaging…but she had to do SOMETHING, or Mecharexmon and Blazereptimon would be finished.

What can I do? I…I can’t do anything to stop it…I don’t even know how to deal with this thing! I need to get away, I need to escape, I… She had taken a step back already, when she caught sight of Blazereptimon collapsing forward, trying desperately to break away or unleash an attack. Completely helpless…and Mecharexmon was trying to fire, but his cannon wasn’t even responding, it was already perilously close to the end. She clenched her beak and shook her heard hard, trying to throw away the fear. …n-no…I can’t…I can’t just leave them. I’m the only one who can act now…I won’t…I won’t give up now. Not when so much is on the line…if I can’t do it like this…I just…have to be better! She steeled her gaze at the abomination as she felt a sudden rush of energy. I will not surrender to you…for their sake, I will beat you, Ashinkaimon!

The yellow glow around Boltfalkemon surged and twisted, flaring up in that dead space. Her form become taller, her wingspan wider, the feathers off the back of her head longer and curling. A breastplate formed over her body, bracers over her forearms, a sash around her neck, and on her back, and a dueling spear, one with a slashing flat blade at one end and a stabbing point on the other, formed and attached to the new armor. The seal marks now glowed on her shoulders, and her entire body crackled with electric energy. With a flourish, she cast off an electric wave, glaring at Ashinkaimon.

And as she glared, she saw it. Deep inside the darkness of the creature’s mouth…almost impossible for any ordinary eye to see, but the eagle eyes of Ionfalkemon were more than capable. Unbelievable…a pocket space! How did they manage to do something like this…doesn’t matter now, I can see something in there. It’s time to beat this thing!

She snatched the spear off her back and rushed forth - INTO Ashinkaimon’s black maw. She could feel the pressure all around her as she sank into that extradimensional space, the raw darkness extremely disorienting…she kept her eyes focused on that spot within, flying towards it even as waves of energy buffeted her, never letting herself be deterred. Ionfalkemon could feel everything being drawn towards that core, and something else pulsing out of it. It triggered a memory of a force field design someone at the KOL had been working on... That’s it. That’s how its body blocks damage - that core emits a field that draws the energy into the void space where it can be dissipated. It’s probably also where all that absorbed energy is going, so it can fuel that effect…

Suddenly she had to pull back as something whipped in front of her. Spectral images of Ashinkaimon’s head were howling around her now, clearly recognizing her as a threat. “Awfully late for the welcoming committee…” she hissed as her wings lit up dangerously. “Let me show you what I think of that! Dervish Bolt!”

Powerful bolts of electricity flashed from Ionfalkemon’s wings, splitting and converging and chaining at their whim. They blasted through the specters, dissipating them into nothingness. Nothing more than energy signatures, they were probably more attack than foe, but she didn’t want to be slowed by more of them, there wasn’t time to waste, the others needed her to finish this fast…

As she got near the core, she saw something else. A figure floating in the darkness, slowly being pulled towards the core. “Felismon!” The feline digimon was unresponsive, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still alive…she rushed towards her, grabbing and trying to pull her, but despite the forceful efforts of her wings, it was like she was locked in place, and only dragging Ionfalkemon towards the core. Only by stopping it would she maybe have a chance.

Then I’d better make this count. She grabbed her spear and held it aloft, making the weapon glow brightly, crackling and snapping with arcs of raw electric power. She cocked her arm, locked in on that small yet insidious core, and then hurled the weapon at it. “Shock Spear!” The spear flew true, even as those specters tried to impede it they were obliterated in its wake, and without fail, the spear pierced the core, then exploded in electricity, shattering it completely.

Immediately, that draw on Felismon was broken - but Ionfalkemon didn’t have time to waste, as light was expanding from the core and the space was starting to unravel. She shot back towards the small gap in the space that she could see leading back to the world, pumping her wings with all the fervor she could muster as the roar of destabilizing space grew louder behind her. The entire world around her was rumbling, shaking, getting harder to see as it rattled all around her, her beak clenched hard as she willed herself to keep going and escape the madness…

Suddenly things opened up, and she flung herself through that opening, breaking back into the world she knew, crashing and tumbling on the ground - painful, but not nearly so much as what she’d already been through that night. When she finally came to a stop, she had just enough time to look back around and see beams of light piercing through Ashinkaimon’s body…with a harrowing noise, it exploded from within, ripped apart messily before evaporating into data. The nightmare within a nightmare was finally over.

Slowly, Blazereptimon and Mecharexmon were rising again; they looked quite fatigued, but otherwise unharmed. “That…was…absolutely insane,” muttered Blazereptimon as he looked at Ionfalkemon in awe. “What the holy hell just happened?! I saw you just…fly INSIDE that freaking thing!”

“I saw what it was hiding inside,” replied Ionfalkemon, feeling oddly calm after all this. “A pocket space with a force orb nestled within.”

“Jesus hell,” growled Mecharexmon. “Those assholes are WAY too creative. Trying to hit that from outside would’ve been almost impossible…of course, they’d want to make it so that if you actually managed to figure out how to break their toy, it’d be a feat to survive it. Whoever came up with this thing, I want to personally unload my entire arsenal on them before they can do worse.”

“I wouldn’t stop you,” agreed Blazereptimon. “That was a menace beyond words. But…I don’t get something. How weren’t you affected by that draining attack, uh…”

“Ionfalkemon. Thanks for asking, by the way.”

“Sorry, a bit distracted by narrowly escaping death yet again. But seriously, how? I couldn’t move a freaking inch from that thing…”

“I don’t…actually know.” Ionfalkemon shook her head. “It was weird, I thought it should affect me just as much, especially considering how I was almost immobile from that Torment Wave…but it was like the Veil of Abomination just…wiped that out.”

“…Hm.” Mecharexmon looked over at the space where Ashinkaimon had been. “I wonder…tch, I can’t pick up any stray data signature. Guess it’s gonna just have to be a guess then…it might be because it actually DID annul the effect of that attack, in order to prevent it from absorbing it itself. Draining you after incapacitating you might have caused it to absorb the noxious energy, which might have caused it to have to stop using the drain…so it erased that to prevent it from being undermined by its own techniques. But once it did that, it must not have been able to latch onto you for absorption…maybe because it can only latch on in the initial launch.”

“What kinda bone-headed oversight is THAT?” harrumphed Blazereptimon.

“One I’m glad for. I don’t think…well, no, I won’t go that far, but I’ll say, it’s possible Ashinkaimon wasn’t truly complete, or wasn’t fully tested. We might have just had a run-in with something more like a prototype…”

“That’s a thought that won’t get me sleeping well,” shuddered Ionfalkemon. “We need to make sure they can’t make more of them. This is a fiend no world needs.”

“Agreed. Also, when did you get a cat?”

“Call it a rescue. But we need to make sure it actually gets rescued. Ashinkaimon was feeding off of her…I can tell her heart’s still beating and her brain’s still firing, but she feels far too weak.”

“My place, then?” surmised Blazereptimon.

“Yeah, if that’s possible.”

“It’s gonna be crowded. We had a run-in with Talomon…that’s how we found out about Ashinkaimon. He was one of the victims as well, got gashed pretty badly.”

“I wondered how you were already out here,” remarked Mecharexmon. “And we can account for Elecmon, too. Assuming that there’s anything left of him after Ashley gets done with him.”

“That leaves Dorumon and Goblimon…” Blazereptimon bowed his head. “Who may or may not have already been killed by Ashinkaimon. I don’t know how we’re going to find out considering we couldn’t trace them…”

“We can figure that out later,” declared Ionfalkemon. “We need to get Felismon some care, right now.”

“Right. Rex, can you check and make sure our ‘guests’ are all right? And maybe ask them if they know anything more about what was going on with Ashinkaimon. If I can get a bit of reassurance that there aren’t more than one of those in existence or ex-existence on either world, I’d sleep a lot better.”

“You and me both. I’ll take care of it.”

———

“…It’s gone.”

Kirsten looked up at Shadowdramon, feeling herself finally start to relax after who knew how long. “Are you sure? It left?”

“…No. It vanished, suddenly.” Shadowdramon took a deep breath. “Which means…someone must’ve beaten it.”

“No way,” Crestmon exclaimed dubiously. “I thought that thing couldn’t BE beaten.”

“There’s always a way. I don’t know what it is, though.”

“Are you sure it didn’t just…go back?”

“Ashinkaimon’s not smart enough to understand that. It’s programmed to just attack and destroy, a mindless weapon to be ordered simply. Even if it had the possibility, it wouldn’t understand the concept.”

“This thing sounds like a nightmare,” shuddered Kirsten.

Shadowdramon nodded grimly. “That was the goal. A living weapon so wicked that its very name would inspire terror.” He looked down and away. “…I should have known from something like that…”

“All that matters is that you know now,” Kirsten insisted. “…I know. Maybe you’ll feel a bit better if you’re around someone who’s on the right side for a bit. Do you think you could come to my place and we could talk with my brother and Breezedramon?”

“Your…brother?” Crestmon’s eyes widened. “So that’s how you found out!”

“Yeah, though he doesn’t know it yet. But I think if he’s heard you want to help, he’ll be more than happy to accept it.”

“I…well, I guess I don’t have anything else in mind,” admitted Shadowdramon. “Maybe, can you tell me about some of those stories you were talking about?”

“Oh, uh, sure, I’m sure I can find something. Or my brother can, he can find just about anything, really. Can we go now? I really don’t wanna be down here any longer.”

“Oh, right. I don’t sense anything else…that doesn’t mean there’s nothing out there I can’t sense, but we’re probably as not in danger as we’re going to be.”

“Good enough.” Kirsten was quite relieved to be climbing back up the steps, even if the darkness was making her nervous; the sun was almost all the way down now, and she was going to have to get home under the night sky. In a city currently sporting an unknown quantity of creatures that are definitely not friendly…at least there are a couple who are nearby.

“Jeez…I didn’t realize how dark it was outside.” Apparently she wasn’t the only nervous one, as Crestmon didn’t seem all that at ease himself as they reached the ground floor and headed towards the door. “I sure hope I find a place to hunker down soon, I don’t want to be wandering around much when I can’t see well.”

“The darkness is nothing to be afraid of,” insisted Shadowdramon, with a bit of affront.

“Yeah, easy for you to say, mister ‘all my senses are better at night.’ You’d better use those, if they sent freaking Ashinkaimon who knows if they sent other guys.”

“Probably not, Ashinkaimon was unpredictable, I doubt they’d risk…wait!” This time, Shadowdramon’s voice came just as he door opened, and a huge figure stepped in, banging his head on the doorway with a loud “OW!”. A light suddenly shone around him, revealing the titanic form of Mecharexmon rubbing his head, and illuminating the three of them.

Mecharexmon started and stepped back as he caught sight of Kirsten and the two digimon, almost knocking his head on the doorway again. “Rah! What the hell?!”

Kirsten flinched at the deep, shocked voice. For a moment she was frozen…and then she remembered what Ashley had been telling her, and suddenly made the connection. “I…Isaac?!”

Even though the cyborg’s eyes were hidden behind a visor, the way he reacted was all too obvious an ‘eyes popping out’ expression. His jaw dropped, and he stood there silently for a good few seconds…and then he raised his hands. “Uh-uh. Nope. Not doing this. I’ve dealt with enough crap tonight, this is too much. Whatever the heck you’re doing, do it, and leave me out of it, thanks.” And with that, Mecharexmon backstepped out of the doorway and stomped off, before the sound of his footsteps disappeared with a weird sound.

“…That was…not what I was expecting,” Shadowdramon said slowly. “I…guess he must have been fighting Ashinkaimon?”

Kirsten let out a sigh. “…Yeah, you know, I think now’s a good time to NOT be asking questions and TO be getting the heck out of here.”

———

“Mom, it’s okay! I’m fine! Please, settle down…yes, there was an…incident out there. But I’m not hurt, it was…it was Reyn who was in trouble. No, no, don’t-he’s fine! Listen, you can talk to him, here!” Iris thrust the phone in Reyn’s direction, the boy taking it reluctantly. This was not what he had been expecting from all this…

“Hi, Mrs. Conover…” At least the genuine weariness would sell the story. “No, I’m fine, I, uh, just got…caught up in something I wasn’t ready for. Uh, no, I mean, not…I, uh, met a different one. Fire lizard thing. He’s actually pretty cool. I…listen, I trust him as far as I trust myself, and I mean that. You know how I am, I’m not someone who gets close to people real easily, right? …Yeah, I can vouch for that. My house was…attacked not that long ago. It’s because my parents are doctors, they want to target the ones that can help the most…we’re all fine, but I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty scary. …I mean, they WANT to, but, well, there’s a lot of distrust around, you know? I can’t exactly blame people, either…yeah, okay. I promise. Here, let me get you back to Iris…” Reyn rolled his eyes as he handed the phone back, mouthing don’t I have enough people I’m freaking out already?

Iris held back a giggle as she took the phone back. “Are you feeling better, Mom? Good…no, I mean, I don’t think I want to either. I can spend the night here…Mom, if they went after one house, it’s not like they won’t go after any others. I’m just as safe here as there…no, I promise, I won’t be going anywhere else tonight. Yes, I’ll thank her for keeping me safe next time I see her. Yeah, mom…no, don’t let Dad know yet, I…I’m not sure how he’s going to react, it needs to be…just a different environment. All right, I can agree to that. I’ll be back tomorrow…love you, Mom. G’bye.” She hung up her phone and let out a sigh. “Well, this is going about as well as I expected…”

“I coulda told you that, that was similar to the lie I tried to tell before everything came out here,” remarked Reyn. “Mom and Dad didn’t even really buy it, she’s gonna pick up on it sooner or later.”

“I know. It’s just…right now, if I blow that up, Dad’s gonna be in a super awkward position. There’s no way he can pretend to be pursuing us if he knows I’m one of the us he’s pursuing, and they’re gonna get suspicious if he tries to ease off.”

“You know, this all would be a lot easier if we could just make ourselves known,” grumbled Salmandmon; the smaller lizard was in a chair, slugging down water from a plastic bottle, and looking pretty wiped out and annoyed. “This whole ‘hiding from everyone’ thing is starting to really cheese me off. You can’t fight a war like this, we get all these digimon appearing and hanging around for hell knows how long, and we just gotta hope we stumble on them before they send everything to pot.”

“You have any ideas, o master tactician?” Shockavimon asked.

“Oy, watch it, I’m already in a bad mood.”

“Join the club. Ashinkaimon was about the last thing I ever wanted to see over here. I’d’ve sooner taken Cranuimmon redux. None of the plans we saw ever talked about that…thing it did with Felismon…”

“Yeah…and they’re spending an awful lot of time on her.” Salmandmon cast his gaze out into the living room, where Treylor and Minerva were both working on ministering to the feline; nearby, Talomon couldn’t tear his gaze away from her, looking more out of sorts than ever, clinging to Cayden who hadn’t left his side. “I don’t want to think about what else that thing could’ve done, what it did to us was bad enough.”

“Does…this sort of thing happen often?” asked Iris nervously. “Just, creating brand new digimon?”

“Not often, and for good reason. Synthetic digimon are…pretty much inherently unstable. We don’t know how to create stable forms, conflicting data tends to try to attack each other when forced to share the same flesh. There’s people legitimately trying to study it, but…I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“And the people who DO do it are almost always trying to make weapons,” added Shockavimon grimly. “The ultimate beast, hard to destroy and easy to make destroy, that’s always the goal. Ashinkaimon was just one example of that…I’m not surprised it would be Emperius, of course. But that one might’ve been the worst I’ve seen, because of just how nasty its abilities are…it takes a depraved mind to think of things like what it could do. That’s why we were so aggressive in trying to ensure that project never got anywhere…”

“Until we thought Emperius was down, at least…” Salmandmon crushed the bottle in his hand. “We shouldn’t have gotten complacent. Even if we were being misled, we should’ve pursued the remnants more aggressively. Given them no chance to regain ground…we could’ve at least found their base, their real one.”

“Their real one?” Reyn asked.

“We thought we had found Emperius’s base a couple months after Craniummon’s demise. There HAD been people there, and it was big enough to be a central military complex, but it was all but abandoned. Seems like it might’ve been a dummy decoy, set up to mislead us…I didn’t buy it at the time, it seemed like an awful lot of work for that and they weren’t tricky like that, but now that we’ve seen Emperius getting too damn clever, I’m pretty sure I was wrong. They WERE there, and they moved somewhere else, buying them time to regroup. And if I’d pushed that harder instead of thinking it was just that we’d gotten them to the point where they couldn’t hold up anymore…”

“It’s not your fault, Sal,” Shockavimon said gently. “Nearly everyone thought the same thing…there were only a few people who weren’t sure, and even then, they weren’t sure it wasn’t, either.”

“Yeah…” Salmandmon huffed. “But you were one of them. And I should’ve listened to you…you’re good at picking up on things, and you were intel for the Kaiser, you were used to noticing things that didn’t make sense. If I’d listened to you, maybe this whole thing never would’ve gotten this far…”

“Or, maybe you make about four people who thought something rather than three,” remarked Reyn. “It sounds like you had the right read for what you knew…you can’t beat yourself up for not knowing something you wouldn’t have any reason to know about. Plus, you had guys in charge there who would’ve made the decisions anyway, it wasn’t your burden to bear.”

“…Yeah, I guess.” The lizard hardly sounded convinced.

“It doesn’t matter much now, though, does it?” Iris added with a sense of finality. “We can’t fix whatever happened in the past, shouldas or not. We’re here where we are now, we just need to do what we can. And there’s one thing we can take heart in…we BEAT Ashinkaimon. And we know how to beat them even if they do have others. We’re holding our ground in spite of everything…if things ever DO get more favorable for us, we’ll be in even better shape to take them on.”

“I’ve rarely heard you so…driven, Iris,” remarked Reyn.

“Well, I might be riding the high of taking that creepo down a bit. WAY too much like an oversized bug for my liking.”

“And there it is,” the boy laughed.

“She’s right, though,” agreed Shockavimon. “We’ve come this far in spite of long odds. If those odds start tilting towards us, it can only be good news. We really do need to figure out what happened to Dorumon and Goblimon, though…if Ashinkaimon did take them down, then we need confirmation, and if they didn’t, we need to know where they ended up so that they don’t cause us more trouble, because we definitely don’t need Emperius to have more help than they have already…”

“Agreed,” noted Salmandmon. “I wonder where they could be if they survived…”

———

He was SUPPOSED to be preparing for an interrogation…but Emil was so preoccupied, he couldn’t think straight. Back and forth, flipping between his pages of notes from everything that had been told to him. It was ever more clear, the more he looked at it, that he didn’t have the full story, that something was definitely missing. And more and more he felt certain that whatever it was, it was grievously important that he find out before they made some kind of catastrophic error.

The monsters…their behavior doesn’t scan. Some of them have very clearly been nothing but dangerous. Others have come and gone without leaving much of a trace of anything. And now we’re getting word of some of them assisting in some way. If this isn’t a case of them all being uniformly on the same side, then what’s going on? Why do they seem to just pop in and pop out wherever they please?

And another thing was bothering him, too - the inability to find any of these monsters unless they wanted to be found. The verifiable reports of accurate sightings were so meager he couldn’t believe it. Creatures that were hiding out in the city shouldn’t have been so well-hidden, not with everything that could be used to capture pictures and video these days. Were they wrong and their ‘constant monsters’ weren’t so constant after all? Sure, they’d been seen multiple times, but did that really mean they were staying there?

Lots of questions, not many answers. Maybe the creature they had captured would shed some light, but Emil wondered if that was really the case. Surely it wouldn’t talk about all the secrets…and he wasn’t sure how they were going to get information out of it if it didn’t want to volunteer it. Threats and intimidation felt a bit lacking when talking about invading monsters…

“Agent Conover?” Emil looked up, and saw Tony Rivier at the doorway. “I just received some new information…do you have a moment?”

“Maybe…I haven’t been notified that the creature’s awake yet. What do you have for me?”

“It’s an unusual report, but it’s corroborated by video footage from a doorbell camera. I can send you the video after we’ve talked, but I wanted to catch you before, just in case it turned out to be important.” Tony looked incredibly nervous, as he often did. “Because I think it is, but I don’t know what the hell’s going on anymore.”

“That makes all of us. What does the video show?”

“Well, the video shows one of the monsters. The red lizard one. And I think it’s from the day where they reported that fight between it and another creature, because it was bleeding and looked to be pretty beat up. It doesn’t stay on the camera long, but it’s clear enough that it’s that creature.”

“Really…I’ll want to know where that camera is, because that could be useful in tracing where it went. We’re having such a hard time tracking these things…”

“Y-yes, but sir, there’s more. I went through the whole video, and…something else showed up. Just minutes before the creature you mentioned ran across, there was…another thing. A similar creature, but smaller, crossed the path of the camera.”

Emil blinked. This was news to him. “Similar but smaller? You mean it was like that red lizard, but just…how small are we talking?”

Tony looked away a bit, seeming anxious. “It was…uhm…about to waist height of the human it was walking with, sir.”

Emil nearly fell over at that. Talk about your buried ledes! “Human?! You’re telling me the monster was walking WITH a human?! No attacks or anything?”

“N-no, sir! No attacks! It didn’t even seem unfriendly! It looked like they were talking with each other…there’s no audio so I don’t know anything about what was being said, but there was no sign of aggression or anything.”

“Good lord. This just keeps getting more bizarre.” Emil slumped back in his seat, hands on his head. “But smaller forms…I wonder…maybe that’s how they’re hiding. We don’t notice them because they change shape, or size, or something like that. Ugh…just what we need, shapeshifting. Tony, can you tell me anything about the person you saw in that video? I doubt it’ll help much now, but maybe I can look through the database and see if it matches anyone on file.”

Tony shook his head. “You can try, but I doubt it will, I don’t think this was an adult. I’d say probably 15 or 16 years old, something around average height and build. He was wearing a red shirt and jeans. Oh, and his hair, it’s probably the brightest red I’ve ever seen. Actually impressive, it gives the lizard’s color a run for its money.”

“Hm…thanks, Tony. Send me the video, I’ll have to review it after I’m done.” The other agent nodded and exited, and Emil leaned back, closing his eyes.

Mid-teens, average build, bright red hair…it could almost be the Kessilik’s boy. In fact…I wonder if it just might be. I think something’s starting to come together…there’s a parallel to draw here. Derek was seen in the company of an unusual creature, too. I wonder if this is the same deal? They’ve been harder to find because they’ve been in shapes that aren’t what we’re looking for…and not all just hiding in one spot, but…actually WITH people. If this creature IS with Reyn…hm. Dr. Kessilik said something earlier…about not all the monsters being that bad…wait. Could he have been saying that because he knew? Maybe he’s actually aware of this thing…

A buzz from his phone. Emil looked down; it was a text from Elliot saying they were ready. He picked up his phone and notebook and stood up, taking a deep breath and gathering himself. It’s something. Elliot will HAVE to be interested in this…but we’ll have to be careful if there are minors involved. Weird that these monsters would gravitate towards them…maybe we’ll find out more. But it gives us something to think about. Look for signs of those monsters around humans, rather than just in random places. Anything that indicates there might be one-

It suddenly hit like a truck just as Emil was stepped out of his door, causing him to freeze almost dead in place.

…Like a garish…yellow…feather.

One thing was certain…it was going to be VERY hard not to be distracted during this interrogation.

———

Elliot was as ready as he could be…which wasn’t as ready as he wanted to be, but the only way he could be more ready was if the thorn in his ass could be pulled out. Sadly, Lexis Redford was a stubborn one.

“I don’t see why this needed to be done here,” huffed the federal agent in annoyance. “I could have taken him to the police station and gotten this done sooner.”

“Wouldn’t want to risk breaking the one-way mirror,” replied Elliot shortly.

“Oh, please, that’s not even a good excuse.”

“And I don’t answer to you, so I don’t need to give you a better one. And on that note, Agent Redford, I lead these proceedings. You will control yourself in there, or you’ll be out.”

“You can’t cut me out of this! This is a matter of national security-”

“I’m VERY much not in the mood for games, Redford,” Elliot snapped, cutting him off. “I’ve had enough to deal with today. If you think it’s that goddamn important that you be in there personally, then stay in line and I won’t have to boot you. DON’T push me.”

Agent Redford did not look happy, but simply huffed and said, “Very well. But do your job right, Agent Katran.”

“I always do.” The sound of footsteps made him turn, catching sight of Emil walking over. “Emil. Is something wrong? You weren’t as quick here as I expected.”

“Just…new information, trying to process it all. We can…talk about it after.” Emil would have liked to talk about it before, but the prying eyes and ears of Agent Redford had him deciding that to be less than a great idea. “And I won’t lie, I’m a bit nervous. Face-to-face with one of these creatures for the first time…I wish I knew what to expect. He’s, uh, secure in there, right?”

“He was tied up good. Can’t move at all, according to the agents who did it. They went to extra lengths, because apparently he’s a strong little bastard. Had a club that he swung around like it was nothing that one of our agents could barely manage two-handed. Didn’t look that heavy, but I suppose you can’t underestimate these things.”

“We’re all here, so let’s get to it,” Redford said impatiently.

“Control yourself, Agent. Right, let’s go.” Elliot pushed open the door, letting the three of them in before shutting and locking it securely. Across from them, sitting in a chair isolated from the three humans, was the monster they had captured - something that looked like a mixture between a goblin and an orc, wearing a leather vest and loincloth. Its expression was fierce and wild, it certainly didn’t seem happy to be locked up the way it was.

“Creature. If you have one, state your name for the record,” ordered Elliot.

“Do your worst to me, human scum,” replied the creature sharply. “You’ll all get what’s coming to you. Emperius will see to your destruction! The Purification will be made real!”

“Your fanatical ramblings are duly noted. NAME.”

The creature snorted. “Pathetic. Have me at your mercy and all you do is whine for my name? Goblimon. Speak it with the reverence it deserves, scum.” This was definitely not the friendliness the lizard had apparently had, Emil was noting - something that was only fueling his suspicions.

Elliot was under no such distractions. “Goblimon. Creative, I suppose, for something that looks like you. Now, let’s get to the next step. What are you?”

“Your future masters and conquerors. You’ll see soon enough, human refuse!”

“Masters and conquerors. We’ll see about that. Why are you here? What are you trying to accomplish with your attacks?”

“Heh heh heh…” Goblimon gave a savage, toothy smirk towards them. “Pathetic humans…so weak, so feeble, so unworthy of life. You couldn’t ever HOPE to understand, you’ll never have the power that we do. Emperius is destined to rule over all! Our future has been carved in stone, the strong shall rule over the weak, and judge their worthiness to live! The powerful will rise above all, to direct the world as it should be, to create a society where the rule of power is absolute! And those who are of so little worth as to be nothing more than a disease are to be wiped away, and all will be purified from their taint!”

“Scum-sucking bottom-feeder,” growled Redford.

“I thought I’d heard it bad from some of those fascist lunatics,” muttered Emil. “This is all that on steroids…it’s terrifying someone might have the power to make creatures like this.”

“So you serve some kind of higher authority…what’s their angle?” asked Elliot, with a definite bite of anger but still mostly controlled. “And why this game of appear and disappear? You claim to have the power to do what you want, so why haven’t you done your worst? If this is some kind of terror attack, what’s the point?!”

“Fool! Emperius only seeks power! We do things only because they strengthen our rule, and allow us to crush those who try to interfere with our destiny! And there’s power in your world…you worthless humans have the keys to our absolute power in your hands! Once you’ve been reduced to nothing, no one will stop us from conquering all and everything! The divine right of Emperius will be unchallenged by all!”

“For a thing that looks like he should talk in grunts and unga-bunga-speak, it’s awfully damn chatty,” sniped Redford. “This is a waste of time. It’s telling us nothing.”

“…I don’t think that’s true.” Something was starting to turn in Emil’s head. The way he talks…it doesn’t line up with our thoughts. A hacker just spontaneously generating these things, or making them be summoned by other monsters, wouldn’t bother with some kind of attribution…particularly if they wanted to remain discreet. And what could they be seeking ‘in our world’ that they wouldn’t already have access to? In our world…wait…what…what does THAT mean? This thing…this thing has an organization, and it has to exist somewhere… Those feelings were just getting stronger that he was inching closer to the truth, and he wasn’t sure if he liked it. “No, it’s…it’s telling us a hell of a lot, without even trying.”

“What are you talking about?”

“How many are there of you things?” Elliot was ignoring the chatter behind him, though he was getting a bit irritated with it. “In this ‘Emperius’ cult of yours?”

“You think I know? Hahaha! There are more than you’ll ever need to know! Once they come, you’ll have no chance! And their numbers will only grow, and grow, until all are with us and none stand against us!”

“Khh. Well, I can’t say any number it would’ve given would’ve made me feel any better, to be honest,” remarked Elliot brusquely. “It’s worse than I ever thought, though…violent beasts is one thing, but violent, crazy, fanatic genocidal beasts is a few too many adjectives for my liking.”

“Mine, either,” agreed Emil. “But…there’s more to it, isn’t there?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been listening to what he’s saying, haven’t you?” Emil stepped forward. “Goblimon, was it? You’ve been talking a lot about how power and rule are your destiny, you’ll crush everything that stands in your way and make everyone submit to you…that means that there must be some who don’t agree with you, aren’t there?”

Goblimon looked stunned for a moment, and he wasn’t the only one. Elliot looked over at his partner sharply, but it was Redford who had the outburst. “What the HELL are you on, Conover?! It just told us what the monsters are doing, trying to destroy us all!”

“He told us what HE was doing. But think about it…what would they need from ‘our world’ that they wouldn’t already have if they were being formed over here? And if they really have power that would be overwhelming to us, why would they need more? If they clearly don’t think we can stand up to them, someone else has to be…and if not us, then what else could it be but other monsters?”

“Emil, I don’t know what the hell kind of crazy ideas you’ve-” Elliot’s statement was cut short with a booming, wild laugh from Goblimon, almost rocking the chair he was on back onto the ground.

“Fools! Fools and heretics! They think that they can stand up to Emperius’s destiny! What, are you pathetic humans looking for a savior? They’ll all fall to us! No one can save you! No one can help you! Your world will be ours! The Purification will come, and you’ll wish you had a fraction of the power that we had, that one of you might be deemed worthy! Those miserable wretches that cower in the shadows, trying to oppose us, will die before your eyes…the glorious despair you’ll give us will be our greatest triumph yet! Ahahahaha!”

“So, it’s true…” Emil’s muted response belied the sudden swell underneath. These aren’t random creations…this is an invading force from another world. And the ones here haven’t been summoning them, they’ve been trying to STOP them. “This changes everything…”

“This changes NOTHING!” roared Agent Redford. “Conover! You have a lot of explaining to do! I won’t stand for this nuttery!”

“I don’t know what you’ve been doing with your time, Emil, but you’re going to have to explain yourself!” Elliot snarled. “What are you talking about? How does this change anything?!”

“You haven’t seen my notes, Elliot. There’s a lot more to this story than we ever thought. We need to talk…I think we’ve gotten as much out of this guy as it’s worth getting, and I’m getting tired of hearing him gab on about killing us all.”

“Yes, we DEFINITELY need to talk…” Elliot didn’t sound like he was thinking on the same page as Emil, but Emil was sure he could bring him around. At least, until they were out the door, and ran smack dab into one of the administrative assistants who was looking frantically for them.

“Agent Katran! Agent Conover! Rudy needs you, right now!”

Elliot’s face somehow got even more dour. “Of course he does…because we needed more on our plate.”

“I have a call to make,” Redford said stiffly. “But rest assured, someone will be hearing about this craziness of yours, Conover.”

“I’m sure they will, Redford.” The promise in those words was one that seemed to go unnoticed by anyone else around. But Emil had a thought now…all they needed to do was get through this one report by Rudy without everything blowing up. Surely they could manage that, right?

Chapter Text

“Rudy!” Elliot’s barking shout made the tech jump as he stomped into the lab room. “You’d better have something worth my time, I’m not in the mood for games right now!”

“Elliot, settle down!” Emil insisted as he hurried in behind his partner. He could tell Rudy was already incredibly nervous, which wasn’t a good sign as far as he was concerned, and an agitated Elliot would only compound any issues that came from that. “Don’t shout at him for doing his job-”

“DON’T start with me, Emil,” Elliot snapped, cutting off Emil. “I’m not happy with you, either.”

“Elliot-”

“I said DON’T. RUDY! What’s taking you so long?”

“Ah, r-right, right! Y-yes, sorry!” the poor flustered tech was cringing from the loud voice; Elliot wasn’t usually this overtly angry and it had him clearly out of sorts. “I apologize if I was interrupting something, it’s just…the results came back on that hair that you were asking me to test. It was a much more rapid conclusion than I anticipated-”

“I don’t want a diatribe, Rudy!” Elliot shouted. “Tell me what this is about, and tell me DIRECTLY!”

“S-sir! This…this needs context, you can’t…I can’t just say this and-”

“I SAID OUT WITH IT!”

“Elliot!” Emil was getting angry himself now - this was highly unprofessional conduct, and not something typical for his good friend. Whatever was going on with him, it was clearly affecting his work, and at a time where they could ill afford someone falling apart. “Lower your voice and stop being so aggressive! This is a CO-WORKER, not some stubborn suspect!”

Elliot’s look back at Emil might have withered a lesser man…it certainly didn’t leave Emil feeling comfortable. But he at least reined it in a little bit when he opened his mouth again. “I’ve had a very bad day and it’s not over yet, and I don’t want a whole lot of yapping about things that aren’t to the point. Just tell me what you want to tell me, and don’t badger me with extraneous details.”

“…Sir…I…I did the conversion and matching you asked for.” Rudy was very shaky about the way he said it, which had Emil very uncomfortable all of a sudden; Rudy wasn’t usually a nervous sort. “I…I found that…the DNA results…they…they conformed…to a human profile.”

“A human profile?!” echoed Emil and Elliot together.

“Y-yes…and…on inspiration, I…I decided to run it against our comprehensive profile database. Just to see if there was a match that could be…identified anywhere…even on a limited basis. And…I found…something too crazy, I can’t…” Rudy pulled a paper off of his desk, his hands trembling. “It’s not possible! There’s no way it could have happened! That’s why I’m trying to tell you that I can’t just say this without trying to figure it out-”

“Enough!” Elliot snatched the paper out of Rudy’s hands, the tech yelping as he nearly fell over in his chair trying to back away. Emil tried to get closer, but before he could, Elliot’s face darkened, and there was a volcanic look in his eyes…he caught the warning signs just in time to back away, before he heard a vicious roar tear from Elliot’s throat, and the irate man turned on his heel and stormed out of the lab room, flinging the paper down behind him.

“Elliot! What on earth?!” It was unlike anything Emil had ever seen out of him in years and years of partnership. He turned back to Rudy, who looked almost to be on the verge of a breakdown. “Rudy! What’s going on? I need to know what happened!”

“No, no, no…this…this isn’t what was supposed to happen!” moaned Rudy, holding his head in his hands. “It doesn’t make sense, he shouldn’t be just…thinking the wrong thing!”

“Thinking what? Rudy, what’s going on?”

“A-agent Conover…I…I think…I think he’s about to do something horrible to his son!”

———

“Dad, I told you, I don’t know where Kirsten is. And I kind of want to talk to her about something, so I’m definitely listening for her.”

“Well, fine. I just thought you two might’ve run out together. You seem to be going places all the time, Skylar, it’s not like you. You’re usually just sitting inside and studying like normal.” Marcus folded his arms. “I wonder about it when you’re not doing what you usually do, you know. Especially when I haven’t heard anything about it.”

“I’m just…hanging out with friends, Dad.” Skylar had his doubts that THAT was going to help things, so he tried to elaborate. “Since we don’t have school, they want me to spend time with them while we can. And they’ve been trying to get me out of the house more, they say I’m too pale.”

“Well, I suppose that’s not entirely untrue. Well, just be careful, okay? I don’t want to hear about you getting in trouble or anything, so if you’re spending time with the wrong people…”

“It’s just the people who visit here now and then.”

“Well, I’m trusting you on that. Right, if you see Kirsten, tell her I want to talk to her about how late she’s out. She should at least be telling me.” With that Marcus turned around and left - the fact that he had just passed his field of vision over a very nervous Breezedramon didn’t even seem to register to him, and he exited the room without question.

Skylar stood up to shut the door after him, and then leaned against it with a groan. “I NEED a lock on this door. So help me, I’ll get one myself.”

“He…didn’t…even…REACT!” whispered Breezedramon harshly. “It was like I didn’t even exist!”

“All hail the power of the obsession with ‘normal.’” Skylar shook his head. “I’m sure he saw you, his mind just blotted it out because he doesn’t want to accept anything weird. He’s been even crazier about it than usual lately…it’s like he’s desperate to convince us that everything’s normal, nothing’s going on, forget about the giant monsters that appear all over the place. He STILL calls them ‘special effects.’”

“I’m not gonna complain about avoiding a close shave there! He didn’t even knock! Even I knocked!”

“Uh, banging your body against the window does not count as knocking, bud.”

“Why not? It was loud, it was obnoxivicious, and it got your attention! I’d say that’s exactly what knocking is!”

Skylar couldn’t help but smirk a bit. “That sounds like some creative defining to me. I thought that was BC’s thing.”

“Someone’s gotta try to keep up with him!” insisted Breezedramon. “The others won’t! Even Data, and he’s a robot, he should be able to use all those compilifilimilicatated words just fine.”

“I imagine he can use those ‘compilifilimiligatated’ words just as easily, he just chooses not to.” Skylar paused. “Huh, I thought I’d have a lot more trouble trying to match that. I feel like there might kinda be a method to your tongue’s madness, at least sometimes. Maybe some experimental investigitavatations are in order…”

“Hey! It’s not like I’m trying to screw up words! And you shouldn’t intentionally mess up yours! Even if I do know what you’re trying to say!”

“Hey, I only screwed up one.”

“No, you did two!”

“I did not. You must’ve misheard me.”

Breezedramon frowned. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t. Are you okay, Sky?”

“I’m fine. As fine as I can be, anyway, without knowing what’s going on with Kirsten…where the heck is she?” Almost as soon as he said it, he heard footsteps up the stairs, and dropped his voice. “Maybe that’s her…if so, finally! We gotta know what she knows...if she saw us…”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ve been over this,” agreed Breezedramon nervously. “I just hope she’s not on someone else’s side.”

“Won’t know until we grill her.” Skylar stood, and slowly opened his door, trying to be as quite as possible. He was torn between trying to knock on Kirsten’s door and alerting her, or just walking right in and confronting her at the advantage. It probably wasn’t very proper to do the latter, but giving her forewarning might create a lot more trouble if she was freaking out over it…as he debated in his head, he heard something from her room. A thump like a window opening…and then something else, like something climbing in. “…What the…”

“What is it, Sky?”

“Is she…letting someone in?”

“Huh? How? She’s up way high! Only someone like me could get in!”

“Someone like…” Suddenly Skylar put it together, and suddenly the debate was quite effectively quashed. He threw the door open, getting a yelp out of Kirsten and a more defensive reaction out of the little dark dragon, who leapt back brandishing his sword. “You!”

“You!” Shadowdramon exclaimed back.

“Skylar!” Kirsten cried out.

“…Okay, if I have to be the one to tell everyone to quiet down, then you’re all being WAY too loud,” remarked Breezedramon.

“Nnngghh…” Skylar took a deep breath, then shut Kirsten’s door behind the two of them, looking around with clear exasperation at both his sister and Shadowdramon, who was slowly lowering his weapon. “Okay…Kirsten…let me just start…by saying…what the actual hell?”

“Oh, you have NO business talking, buster, I KNOW what you’ve been doing,” Kirsten shot back acidly. “You AND your blue friend.”

“Welp, that’s busted right there,” Breezedramon sighed. “So you were out there earlier…and you saw…uh, me and Sky…”

Kirsten nodded. “Yeah. You and Skylar…combining together or something like that.”

“Greaaaat…that was the ONE thing we still had as a secret around here.” Skylar rubbed his face tiredly. “Please tell me Benny didn’t see it…”

“Not as far as I know. But you have a LOT of explaining to do. I mean, how? Why? How in the world did YOU of all people get mixed up in something like this?”

“That’s FAR too long a story for me for tonight. And besides, you have your own explanations, such as why you thought it was a brilliant idea to go jailbreaking.”

“I couldn’t just leave them there! I heard you saying they’d been down there for days! It’s not right to keep people imprisoned like that!”

“We kinda had a reason for it!” exclaimed Breezedramon. “Like, sheeze, not even just because of how they were acting towards us, people around here are already paranoid about monsters, they could start a camalamataranity over seeing one of them! I mean, heck, if that wasn’t a problem, Crestmon woulda been let go ages ago.”

“They should still be allowed to decide what THEY want to do,” insisted Kirsten. “Or at least exchanged with some of those other creatures! People keeping prisoners for ages and ages on end is never the right thing, it never fixes the problems, it just creates new ones!”

“It didn’t occur to you that maybe this situation might be just a LITTLE bit different from most?” snapped Skylar.

“Please, stop!” Both humans turned to look at Shadowdramon, who seemed particularly uncomfortable. “…Perhaps this was a mistake…I shouldn’t have tried to push to hear more like I did…”

“You’re fine,” Kirsten assured him, reaching over and patting Shadowdramon on the shoulder, making Breezedramon’s jaw drop and Skylar’s eyes nearly bug out. “Don’t worry, this isn’t the first time we’ve had, uh, disagreements, it’s not really your fault. Why, uh, don’t you tell them a bit about how you’re feeling now?”

Shadowdramon hesitated, but nodded, looking up at Skylar and Breezedramon. “Right…I’m not…going to pretend I enjoyed being captive, but…I understand it now. She helped me see my mistakes, and…hopefully I can still fix them. I got too wrapped up in the opportunity I felt I was getting, to gain strength and achieve my dreams…dreams that can’t be fulfilled if I follow the dark path that Emperius treads. I…was wrong to work with them and to attack you, who are doing the real works that those I revere have done.”

“…Are you SURE this is the same Shadowdramon?” asked Breezedramon.

“Hey! Show a little respect, he’s trying to turn himself around!” bristled Kirsten.

“Okay, okay, I mean, yeah, that’s good! That’s definitely a good thing! I’m just…it’s such a difference from earlier today, it’s a bit hard to believe!”

“Well, that’s why you need to talk to people, to try to understand them rather than just keeping them under lock and key. Well…maybe you two aren’t the right ones to do that, if you’re anything like Skylar, dragon guy, I think you might want to leave the talking to someone else.”

“You are correct for more reasons than you know,” agreed Shadowdramon with a nod.

Breezedramon scowled. “Hey! Now who’s not showing respect?”

“ENOUGH.” Skylar wrested control of things back towards himself; he was pretty much at the end of his rope by this point, things had disintegrated far too quickly. “Clearly, we aren’t on the same page at the moment, and perhaps not even in the same book. The four of us need to sit down and have a long talk about everything, so that we each understand where we are and what needs to happen, or NOT happen, as the case may be. And then, Kirsten, you need to go feed Dad your best excuse as to what you were doing out there so late because he was getting on my case about you earlier and I have enough trouble with them pushing me about Benny. And speaking of which, you’re also going to tell ME why the hell Benny is currently cuddling a Dorumon in his sleep, because that was another ambush I didn’t need today.”

“Dorumon’s here?” Shadowdramon rose to attention. “Thank the night! I thought the worst, after Ashinkaimon showed up…”

“Tell me you did not just say the thing I thought you just said!” Breezedramon suddenly yapped.

“It’s gone now. At least one of your other crew defeated it, somehow. Which I’m going to want to know about, I studied its performance in its testing and I couldn’t find its weakness at all.”

Skylar shook his head. “Yeah, we might not even be in the same library at this point…this is gonna be a looooong night…”

———

“This one’s the last one that I know of for sure. It was around…no, more than five hundred years back. There was a fearsome clash between some digimon calling themselves the Demon Kings and those who stood against them. The Demon Kings wielded fearsome enough power on their own, but they had called upon an even more potent power…something they called The Blighted One. It was a sort of thing…no one’s really clear on what sort of thing it was, but it was alive, presumably…and it fed off of the energy of the land itself, draining it of vitality and leaving it a harsh wasteland where little grows and it’s tough to survive. The anecdotes say it looked something akin to a brain with an eyeball in it, but the accounts are pretty sketchy from that far out.”

“That’s so crazy…you think it wasn’t one of you digimon?”

“I don’t see how it could have been…there was something…unnatural about it, everyone said, it didn’t feel like one of our kind. But it’s impossible to know without seeing it again, and I’d really rather NOT see it in this day and age. Not considering what it did…the warriors of light clashed hard with the Demon Kings, and defeated them and sank their mad ambitions and their castle. But the land never recovered…it’s why there’s not a lot of places where digimon live in most of the central region of Northern Tetraquaz, most of the living spaces are closer to the coastlines. If that’s the power The Blighted One had, you can imagine I wouldn’t want to run into a repeat, or something worse.”

Ashley didn’t seem particularly intimidated, judging by her grin. “Wild. It sounds kinda like one of those ‘Old Gods’ things from our side. Lovecraftian horrors or things like that.”

Elecmon looked startled. “You have stories about things like that, too?!”

“Well, they’re all fiction stories - nothing that ever actually showed up. But there’s some pretty out-there stories about them, too. It’s fascinating, the kind of stuff people will come up with just for the purpose of creeping themselves out. I think there’s some kind of adaptive benefit to that…my theory is that it’s a form of control illusion that helps relax people when things aren’t going well for reasons beyond their power. By telling stories about unspeakable horrors, you’re actually controlling them, and it gives a sense of power that offsets the sense of helplessness that you might get from what’s going on in your life.”

Elecmon rubbed his head. “Jeez…how do you know so much about how people think?”

“That’s what I study,” Ashley replied rather proudly. “It’s one of the most important subjects in the world, and one of the ones we actually know the least about. I’m aiming to be the one who learns how the brain really creates the mind experience, but that’s likely to be a 50-year process.”

“Well, hopefully you’ll have 50 years to do so. I’m never even confident about OUR future…there’s too many demon digimon who think that they can bring back their masters and renew their reign of terror. And then there’s the guys in the South who apparently worship some kind of death god they’re trying to bring to life…I don’t know nearly enough about that one, but it’d be super scary if it’s real.”

“Gotta admit, it’s weird hearing talk about fear from someone who can literally shoot lightning at will.”

“What’s weird is hearing YOU being NOT scared of it even though you CAN’T. How on earth can humans be the way you are without native abilities?”

Ashley shrugged. “That’s another thing for me to figure out, I think…oh, hey, I hear angry stomping. That’ll probably be my little bro.”

“Uh…” Elecmon felt his nervousness tick back up. “Does he…always sound that…intimidating?”

“Nah, not usually. So he’s probably in a mood.”

“…I might suggest ev-”

Elecmon didn’t get to finish as Isaac slammed Ashley’s door open. He didn’t even pay the fuzzy creature any mind, though, directing his ire to his grinning sister. “YOU. Are the BIGGEST. PAIN. In the ASS. That has EVER. EXISTED.”

Ashley was utterly unfazed. “C’mon, bro. Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?”

“SHUT UP. HOW. HOW do you know!”

“Isaac, if you really wanna keep your whole fusion dance thing a secret, you probably shouldn’t do it right out in the backyard.”

“It’s not like I have a ton of options!” raged Isaac, throwing his hands up. “That’s SPECIFICALLY why I waited until everyone was asleep! What, were you just trying to catch me or something?! And why’d you have to spread it around to others?”

“You make a LOT more noise than you think you do, little bro,” cackled Ashley. “Blame yourself for waking me up. And what, I was supposed to NOT tell Kirsten her brother was off doing crazy things like fighting monsters?”

“YES! That was EXACTLY what you were supposed to do!”

Ashley gave an exaggerated shrug. “Well, c’mon, you gotta tell me these things a lot earlier, bro, it’s not like I’m a mind reader.”

“I dispute that assertion with every fiber of my being.” Datacarnomon finally spoke up, having entered the room while Isaac was raving. “You are a literal goddamn neural network hacker if ever I saw one. I don’t know how in the two worlds you managed to keep from leaking that you knew that…” His voice trailed off as he looked over at Elecmon, who was trying very hard not to be noticed. “…Is there a reason that he’s not locked up?”

“Of course there is,” replied Ashley with a hint of smugness. “I talked him over to our side.”

“…You. Talked him over…what?”

“Yep. Gave him a few things to think about, got him realizing that he’s better off supporting us than those jerks who’re after us. Figured it was a better way to go about things than just keeping him chained up or doing worse to him, and plus, he has some pretty neat stories to tell.”

“Yeah, uh…she…uh…” Elecmon figured it was probably a good idea to back himself up to those two before things went bad. “She knows how to…uh, make you think about things in ways I didn’t think about them before…I guess she helped me realize that Emperius wasn’t the right direction to go if I wanted to make things better. I thought I had it all figured out, but…well, I…didn’t have much figured out at all, really…”

Datacarnomon rubbed his head. “Ugh…I reiterate. LITERAL neural network hacker. You know what, fine, I’m not going to complain, anyone on our side can’t be unwelcome at this point. Ike, come on, we have stuff to deal with.”

“Hey! I’m not done being outraged!” protested the boy.

“You’re not winning this battle, and we have enough daunting odds to overcome as it is. Seriously, there’s a reason I’m trying to drag you back into your room.”

That got Isaac’s attention enough to settle him down. “…Fine. I guess it probably can’t wait.” He shot a look at Ashley. “Don’t think I’m done with you, though.”

“Love you too, bro.” Ashley gave a cheeky little wave as the two exited, then turned back to Elecmon. “Now, where were we?”

Elecmon just stared at her. “…You are absolutely crazy and I need to learn your ways.”

———

It wasn’t Derek’s favorite thing to wake up in a bad mood, but after everything that had happened that day, he wasn’t surprised. Even the prospect of a night of pretty nice weather wasn’t making him feel any better…he was going to be able to go out and be with Blackcanismon again, but he’d have to leave him somewhere when he was done, be separated from him in a hostile environment yet again. And he doubted his father was going to make his life any easier…hopefully Elliot wasn’t around, so he wouldn’t have to deal with him.

Blackcanismon…are you okay? You didn’t run into anyone out there, did you?

You may commence relaxation over my situation, Derek. I have endured the afternoon unmolested. There are a multitude of thoroughly-secluded locations within this urbanized landscape, I nestled myself within one and proceeded to engage in somnic rejuvenation.

Jeez, okay, I asked for a status update, not a full thesis. Still, it was thoroughly relieving for Derek, and even the tone of his thought made that clear. I’m hoping I can get out there, it depends on whether Dad’s in or not. If he’s not, I’m sure I can get past Mom, but he might be a tougher one.

Are you suggesting he would resort to physical intervention to imprison you?

I don’t trust anything at this point. And that’s the part that makes me the most nervous…it’s bad enough that I definitely feel like if I can find somewhere else to be until this whole thing is finished, that would be the best idea.

Unfortunate. Multiplicatively so that I cannot broach a convincing argument otherwise.

You said it…huh? Derek suddenly felt a vibration in his pocket; he realized he hadn’t even properly undressed for bed, and was still wearing what he had been wearing when he came in, complete with his cell in his pocket. The idea of speaking to anyone at this point wasn’t exactly thrilling him, but when he saw it was Isaac calling, he knew he didn’t have a choice. “I’d better like what I’m hearing.”

“There’s nothing to like about this day,” came the short reply.

“Oh, you’ve been enjoying yourself too, have you?”

“As much as a wedding. Listen, we pegged a bogey. Back in the Glikke Field area, but on the far side this time, not where we were meeting. As in, if it goes too much further, it might get out of the city altogether. Right now it’s not moving much, but I can’t trust that to stay the case. You’re up.”

“Just me? Are you sure that’s a good idea? These battles are getting a lot more serious.”

“I’m sure it’s NOT a good idea, but we don’t have much choice. My parents are just about home, and even if they weren’t, we just had a bad run-in with a bad dude and we’re pretty wiped out. Burner and Bolt have gone over to Reyn’s place with an injured digimon they’re trying to help, and they’re probably not in the best states either. And I can’t get ahold of Skylar, but even if I could, this guy’s definitely in the trees and that’s not Skyder’s domain. We’re down to you. If you can’t handle it, don’t. Him getting away with you alive is better than him getting away with you dead.”

“Ironic hearing that coming from you after what you did a few days ago.”

“Yeah, well, I’m saying that because of what you said to me. You were right about it. So don’t let yourself fall into the same trap.”

Derek didn’t think he needed to be told, given that he had in fact been the one saying it, but there was no point in going further with that - clearly Isaac was concerned, and that had him thinking that whatever had happened earlier had probably been rough on him. “Understood. I’ll get out there and we’ll take care of it, if we can.” He hung up and relayed the information to Blackcanismon. We’ll need to rendezvous in the city and head out there. It could be a bit of a trek, but I don’t want to risk merging when the city’s on high alert.

I’m reluctantly in agreement, replied Blackcanismon. We should exercise abundant caution, particularly given Isaac’s warnings and the tensions of the proximal aerial assault. A duality of awareness trumps the increased combat capacity until the moment of engagement.

Right. I’ll get out there as soon as I can. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Derek shook himself off a bit and headed out, not bothering to freshen up - he had a feeling it wasn’t going to matter much. As he exited his room, he looked around cautiously. No sign of Elliot…he hoped that that meant the man was still out. It was still up in the air whether Derek would even be back to see him, he might just decide to ask if he could crash at Reyn’s place after all…at this point, it was just as much for the sake of being battle-ready as anything, he couldn’t be apart from Blackcanismon like this when he could potentially be called up into action.

Trying to sneak down the stairs didn’t have the effect he was hoping for, though. He thought he was safe as he reached the bottom, but then he heard a voice behind him. “Derek, please…don’t go…” A new tension inside as he turned towards Myra, who looked as bleary-eyed and unwell as he’d seen her in a long time; she was definitely suffering from another migraine. “Please…I…I can’t…I can’t bear to think about you in danger…”

Derek looked away. “I have a hard time believing that right now.”

“N-no…please…” Suddenly Myra dropped to her knees and half-fell towards Derek, wrapping her arms around him and startling him. “It’s not true, it’s not true…he doesn’t hate you, Derek…I don’t hate you…I don’t…I don’t understand it…I don’t know why…why you want to do things this way, I…I don’t…but…I don’t hate you, Derek, I…I don’t want you to ever think I hate you…I-I’m just scared…about what could happen to you out there…”

“Mom…I’ve been doing this for years, and nothing has ever happened…” Well, that would have been true until the start of this month, at least. A bit too much had happened during the nights since then, but it wasn’t like that wasn’t true of the days, either. “I’ve had to fight for so long just to be the way I am. And you heard what he said, he still hates it…he can’t hate it and not hate me.”

“It’s…it’s not true, Derek…he doesn’t hate you…he’s stressed out, he’s scared…he…he never showed it well, I…I know he’s not…he’s not trying to hurt you…we don’t want you to be hurt…and there are creatures out there now…and…and…” Myra broke down sobbing. “I-I, I’ve failed you, for so long, I…I should’ve tried harder, I should’ve tried to help him see…Please, don’t go, I can’t, I…I can’t lose both of you…e-even if I deserve it…”

Derek hadn’t expected a gut-punch like that. Hearing her say that…Derek had never had the most comfortable relationship with her, either, but never in his life would he have said she deserved to suffer. She had suffered more than her share because of her health already…and all the events of the month, of course they had to be eating away at her, stress had never been gentle with her and there was a very real chance of someone not coming home when creatures like what he was facing were out there, especially with the more savage ones that had been appearing lately. It was almost enough for him to rethink actually going out…except…it wasn’t just about him now. Whatever was out there, it could potentially wreak a whole ton of havoc in short order, and him just blowing it off…he’d feel like whatever happened was his fault. There was no easy way out of this one…

Gently he helped Myra back up, embracing her as he did. “Mom…I’m sorry. I never wanted to make you feel like you deserved to suffer…I know you weren’t trying to be…malicious. It’s…hard, to feel like I wasn’t being…respected for who I was. But that doesn’t mean I wanted to punish you for it. And I…I really do appreciate that…you don’t feel like I thought you did.”

“I…I always loved you, Derek…even if I didn’t understand…even if I don’t still…I love you, and I’ll always love you…”

“I…I love you too, Mom. I really do.” Derek took a deep breath. “But…I have to go out there tonight. It’s…it’s not just wandering. I have something to do…something only I can do.”

Myra took a shaky breath in. “D-derek…you…you’re…you’re not…those monsters…”

“I won’t be out there any longer than I have to be…but I have to help someone…they’ll be in danger if I don’t.” About the most dishonest truths he’d spoken, and he didn’t feel good about them. “I promise you I’ll be safe…I already promised someone else as well, I can’t break both of those.”

He broke the embrace, cringing inwardly at Myra’s very obviously teary eyes. “Derek…I…please…I…j-just…please tell me…where…so I…if…I…”

“…It’s just near the old Glikke Field. No further than that.”

“Okay…” The woman gave a very choked swallow and sob. “Please…be safe…and…know that I love you…”

“…I will. And I love you too.” It was only with an ugly feeling in the pit of his stomach that Derek turned out headed out the door. Running away didn’t feel like such a good option anymore, not with her fragile state. How much of his frustration with Elliot did he take out on her without really realizing? How much did it hurt her to hear them clash? He might not have been totally easy with her but she hadn’t been like Elliot had been…and here he was making her feel worse.

And the worst part was it was still the right thing to do. Right shouldn’t have been allowed to be so excruciating.

———

“You can’t be serious, Rudy!”

“I wish I wasn’t!” Rudy still looked like he was about to have a panic attack, even though he’d been walked back from an outright fugue state. “I ran the test over and over and over! It’s an absolutely perfect match!”

“It’s an absolutely perfect match…for Derek Katran?!” Emil felt like he was about to faint. “There has to be some mistake. Are you absolutely certain these aren’t just Derek’s hairs you were given?”

“That wouldn’t explain the need to convert from binary! It’s simply not possible! But I don’t know WHAT it could mean! I mean, I never had any idea this could happen, I didn’t even know Agent Katran even had his son in the database! Why would he even do that?”

“I’m sure he has his reasons.” Emil didn’t think many of them were good, but they were probably reasons…even as nervous as he got about Iris, he NEVER would have considered doing something like that. “This doesn’t make any sense at all. There’s no way Derek could be involved. This…we’ve had this whole thing completely wrong from the start! This isn’t some showboating hacker, Rudy, this is some kind of invasion from another world!”

“WHAT?!”

“That Goblimon or whatever we talked to, he kept talking about how our world held the keys to their power! They’ve been coming in, and someone’s been in the shadows trying to stop them…those monsters that we’ve been seeing around them all the time, they’re FIGHTING these things! I don’t know how, but there’s no possible way in hell that they could be related to anyone here!”

Rudy looked like he was about to blow a few gaskets. “That…how can that even be possible?! They’re…they’re beings whose information is just…binary code! How can they NOT be from computers?!”

“I don’t know…but even if they were, Derek’s not a computer kid, I know he knows how to use them like any normal teen but he doesn’t do programming or anything like that, the most I see him do is with those music composition programs. There’s no reason to think he has ANY connection to anything here!”

“It’s a disaster beyond imagination!” exclaimed Rudy. “This defies explanation! There’s no chance in hell even two HUMANS could have a profile this radically similar, even identical twins have slight differences! It’s too perfect, it’s too impossible to think anyone knows the reason! But he seems to think he knows exactly what’s going on, and there’s no possible way he could! If he’s thinking somehow Derek’s one of those creatures…”

“Then who knows what he might do,” finished Emil heavily. “I’m going to have to go out and see if I can find him. I’ll have to call Myra and see if she knows where Derek is, too…if I’m lucky, maybe I can get there before he does. Rudy, is there anything more you can do at this end? If we’re going to try to get Elliot to back down, we need something that he’ll buy into.”

Rudy shook his head. “I…I don’t even know where to start! If it’s an alien invasion, then the whole original idea doesn’t even mean anything, does it? I need data, and I don’t have anything! We barely know what they are, much less where they’re from and how to stop them! All I could do was speculate, but how can I speculate about this? How could they have even gotten Derek’s DNA even if that was somehow related?!”

“We know a little more now than we did before, but still not nearly enough,” agreed Emil. “This is getting bad…Derek’s in danger, we’re still dealing with unpredictable monster attacks, and Redford wants my head for daring to suggest that there was any chance some of the creatures aren’t on the same side.”

“You really think that’s possible?!”

“If what that thing we have in the interrogation room is saying is true, it’s the only reasonable conclusion. And it seemed pretty eager to tell us exactly what it thought.”

“This just keeps getting crazier! And everyone told me this was going to be the dullest job I could ever have.” Rudy sighed and rubbed his head. “I’ll try to keep working with this, maybe I can come up with some…something. But I don’t know what I could do. Right now, all I have is something before me that I could only interpret as Derek being Derek and some big black dog at the same time. How do you parse lunacy like that?!”

Emil had just turned to leave, thinking nothing of that…until suddenly he froze again, and could think of nothing BUT that. All of a sudden, the gap in his dominoes was suddenly filled, and the started to fall in a grand cascade, filling it every bit of the scene before he was even ready for it. The small creatures, the humans, the constant monsters…fire, thunder, wind, metal, darkness…the monsters being able to hide so well, not behaving like we thought, the warnings they were giving…the secrecy, the small clues, the strange behavior, the constant disappearances, the missing food…my god…how did I not see it before? No…no, how COULD I have seen it before, it’s insane, it’s completely and utterly absurd…and it HAS to be the truth. It all fits too perfectly, it can’t be anything else!

“Rudy!” Rudy jumped as Emil barked his name. “Get ready to run more tests! Whatever you did for that dog hair, prep for more of that! I’ve got to find Elliot before he screws everything up! You’re right, he doesn’t understand what’s going on, but I think I do, and he’s about to make the biggest mistake of his life!”

“A-agent Conover! What’s going on?!”

“There’s no time! The fate of the entire world could hinge on this…but if I’m right, then we might just have a chance against this unimaginable nightmare after all!”

———

The night was quiet, apart from a stiff breeze that felt uncharacteristically ominous to Derek. It wasn’t normal for him to be nervous or apprehensive in his prime…then again, nothing had been normal lately, and particularly not today. His dismal mood and feelings of stress were palpable to anyone…and just Blackcanismon’s luck, he was the only one around to experience them.

“A disheartening circumstance…my apologies, Derek. You are suffering grievously for my benefit, unfairly so. I regret my inability to moderate the impacts upon your physical and psychological condition.”

“…It’s not your fault. If anything, it’s Dad’s.” Derek took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Idiot. Why couldn’t he just…comprehend that it’s not as simple as he demands it to be? That people don’t just fit into nice neat little packets exactly the way he wants? He thinks I’m a freak and you’re a monster, and once he’s decided that there’s just…no getting him to think otherwise. It’s like he can’t even comprehend the idea that he’s wrong.”

“Regardless, my presence cannot contribute anything short of exacerbation of the situation.” Blackcanismon let out his own sigh. “Regrettably, I am…unfamiliar with defusing of such situations. My nature is decidedly not confrontational.”

Derek gave the canine a look. “This coming from a guy who literally fights life-and-death battles on a near-daily basis.”

“Alternative concepts of confrontation. The arena of combat is dramatically different from the arena of emotional interplay. My capacity regarding the former is irrespective of capability with the latter. It provided significant challenges when venturing forth from my hometown, into a realm hostile towards my elemental affinity. Were it not for Glademon’s assistance, I harbor magnitudes of doubt as to my ability to maintain a presence in the greater terrestria.”

“Oh…he was, uh, kind of a bulwark against what you had to face, huh?”

“Unquestionably. And an educator in methodology additionally. I acquired techniques per his instruction that continue to benefit me heretofore…” A quiet growl rumbled from Blackcanismon. “I cannot abide lamenting his misfortune…scarcely have I experienced such fervency for vengeance.”

Derek was quiet for a bit. “I’m getting the feeling that I’m not the only one stressed out. Being out here on your own wasn’t nearly as calm and relaxing as you tried to make it out to be earlier, was it?”

“…Regrettably, your perceptual acuity is superior to my wishes. Isolation allowed the intrusion of multitudinous misfortunes into my psyche. I…scarcely have been so affected in my tenure among the Knights of Liberty. The, if you’ll pardon, burden of a responsibility I was earnestly underprepared for, and the complications forcibly visited upon your existence, have undeniably distressed me…and I fear dwelling upon them shall only transfer such dysphoria unto yourself.” Blackcanismon dropped his head. “I am so deeply indebted to you, Derek, yet my contribution to your world has amounted to naught but imperilment and familial discord.”

“It’s not…l-like I said, it’s not your fault.” Derek was struggling to find good ways to demonstrate that, though…on the face of it, it was kind of hard to deny that Blackcanismon’s appearance had destabilized a tenuous homeostasis pretty hard. On the other hand… “Emperius was coming here whether you did or not. We were in danger regardless. And…it’s not like things have ever been really easy with my family. All that you really did was, uh, show how fragile our detente was. But that…look, I’ve been through worse, and I’ve gotten through it fine. Violent digimon showing up and attacking, that I’d never been through before…and if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have been able to get through it alive. All the rest of it…that’s just what it takes to stand up to this crap. Honestly, it probably wouldn’t be as bad if ANYONE was listening to us…I guess it’s not just my dad with that problem.”

“…I suppose your statements bear the hallmarks of indisputability.” Blackcanismon didn’t sound entirely set at ease, but let that line of thought dissolve, as they reached the near border of Glikke Field. “Our destination approaches. Remain vigilant.”

“Of course.” Derek tried to push everything else out of his head so he could focus on their task. All those problems were still going to be there later…he needed to be focused on making sure he’d be there to face them. His eyes darted around the darkness, the shadows of trees looming in the backdrop. That was where Isaac had said the signal had appeared, and he didn’t see any obvious signs that anything had moved towards them. There was a chance it had already made its escape, though, either into Braun or away from it…and with the way things had been going for them, Derek wouldn’t have been surprised if either one of those had happened. Because things are rarely so nice and convenient for us…

Blackcanismon slowed to a stop suddenly. “…Derek. My olfactory receptors are registering a familiar profile.”

“Huh? You…smell something you know?”

“Generalized knowledge, but knowledge nevertheless. That olfactory profile is doubtlessly Skullmeramon.”

“Lovely name. What are we looking at?”

“Misfortune. Skullmeramon is markedly elevated in capability relative to our previous encounters. The fervent warning you relayed from Isaac has amplified in magnitude dramatically.”

Not what Derek wanted to hear for sure. “You don’t think we can beat him.”

Blackcanismon bowed his head. “Lacking our personal evolutionary experience, I would possess vanishingly minute confidence. Regrettable as that declaration may be…”

“It’s fine. All that means is that we retreat, call up Isaac, and try to formulate a plan.” Derek turned back towards the city, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly…a part of him was glad for a bit of time before they had to consider another confrontation, even though he knew it wasn’t the best situation from a larger perspective. “Hopefully Skullmeramon is the patient type, I guess…”

“Fortune has been considerably contrary to favorability in recency,” stated Blackcanismon as he joined Derek walking back towards where they had come from. They didn’t get more than a dozen steps before there was a sudden flash of light in their direction from the road - bright headlights that suddenly turned towards them. “Gah! Insidious brightness!”

“What the hell? Why is it going right towards us?!” Derek’s question was unpleasantly answered when his ears picked up on the sound of the engine - a sound that was far too frighteningly familiar. “It’s Dad! Into the trees, hurry!”

“What?!” Blackcanismon didn’t have time to get an explanation, as Derek was already running, and he scampered after the human, overtaking him and hurrying into the trees, where there was another unknown threat to potentially deal with…at this point, though, it was either the known threat or the unknown one.

Derek wasn’t quite as fast, but he broke into the trees at least before the car was able to skid to a halt. His mind was in a total lather, though - what the hell was Elliot doing trying to nearly run him down like this? He knew the man was angry at him but he’d never been THAT angry…he wasn’t sure where Blackcanismon was, the digimon had outsped him and probably gone far deeper. Which, if Derek was being honest, was probably the best-case scenario - he wasn’t so sure Elliot wouldn’t try to kill Blackcanismon on sight.

“DEREK KATRAN! GET OUT HERE THIS MOMENT!” Derek clenched his jaw as he heard that roar. He’d thought he’d heard the angriest his father had ever been earlier…no, THIS was the angriest he’d ever been, there was outright malice in that voice. And as bad an idea as it was to try to confront him in this kind of situation, it was an even worse idea to let him walk into the woods and potentially run into Blackcanismon…

There was no avoiding this confrontation, it was now or never. He rose up and stepped forward, revealing himself. “What do you want?!” he shouted harshly, an Elliot’s head whipped towards him - and then, to Derek’s shock, so did his gun. “Whoa, holy crap! Watch where you’re pointing that!”

“SHUT UP!” raged Elliot, his hand as unsteady as Derek had ever seen it - and he’d never seen it pointing an actual gun at him! “How dare you! How dare you look me in the eye like that, after everything you’ve done!”

“What the hell have I done?!”

“Don’t try to play dumb! It’s been you, this whole time! You’re the one creating those monsters!”

Derek’s jaw dropped. “WHAT?! Have you actually gone insane?!”

“I have PROOF! I know all about what you’ve been doing! How dare you, everything that we’ve been through, everything this city’s been through, because of you! All those nights out, you were just plotting to ruin everyone and everything, for some sick, twisted…what was it, just a game to you?!” Elliot’s countenance had lost all composure, he looked outright insane now, and the shock and anger Derek was feeling was being tempered by very real fear. He was unpredictable, and he had a dangerous weapon in his hand…and Derek was very aware of how unarmed he was.

“Cut this out, Dad! I’m not creating these damned monsters!”

“LIES! The dog was the first, wasn’t it? Your test animal! Of course, it showed up before all the rest of them, that was your prototype!” Elliot was shaking even more madly, steadily getting more unhinged. “I don’t care what I have to do, if this is what it takes to bring peace back to our city, by GOD I will do it!” The gun raised a little higher, and Derek felt a surge of panic - Elliot looked like he was moments away from actually shooting him! And there was no way he could calm him down quickly enough, Elliot was as hard as could be to settle down at the best of times, in the grips of whatever madness had him there was no chance of getting through to him…Derek stood paralyzed, staring down the barrel of that deadly weapon with no idea what to do…

“Starlight Strike!” Elliot’s attention broke in the direction of the voice, just in time to see the ball of darkness flung his way. It smacked his gun hand hard, driving the weapon from his grip - he quickly grabbed his pained hand as he staggered back, eyes widening as Blackcanismon leaped out from the darkness, snarling with a fire Derek had never seen before. “Monster! Don’t you dare lay a hand on him, or I’ll slice you apart!” Yet another voice filling Derek with dread, there was a HATE there that he’d never heard from his partner.

“You…dog…whatever the hell you are!” Elliot’s voice was raspy now, but still seething with viciousness. “I knew you were more than you said you were…what has he been doing with you?! ANSWER ME!”

“You deserve nothing!” fired back Blackcanismon. “For all you’ve done to him, you’re lucky I don’t tear your throat out!”

This was the last thing they needed tonight - grateful as Derek was for the defense, Blackcanismon was only escalating the tensions, and he wasn’t sure how long they had before one or the other boiled over…and whichever one went off first, the other was not liable to come out well. But stopping Blackcanismon would give Elliot a chance at his gun…but not stopping him, he wasn’t sure Blackcanismon would hold back as his father continued to yell at him. There had to be some way to break this up before it reached the breaking point…

It would only be later that Derek would curse out the way the universe answered that desperate plea. He heard a rustling behind him, whipped his head back, and his eyes widened as the flaming body of something big and dangerous launched an attack. “GET DOWN!” he yelled in panic, diving as the chain whipped over his head, lunging out recklessly into the open. Elliot barely dove in time as the chain shattered one of the car windows, scrambling towards his gun - but for the moment, Derek had stopped caring, he had only one goal. And Blackcanismon had the same, rushing towards him as fast as he could…

Skullmeramon yanked his chain back and swung it out again, trying to stop them, but he was too late, Darkvargmon had formed and sank into the shadows, popping back up to launch out a Shadow Wave from Skullmeramon’s right. “Your timing couldn’t possibly be more abysmal!” he snapped as Skullmeramon braced himself and blunted the attack.

“Sorry, I’ll schedule your murder when it’s more convenient for you!” sniped back Skullmeramon. “Heat Chain!” The chain whipped out again, and Darkvargmon frantically ducked back into the shadows as it smacked into a tree, cracking it at the point of impact and making it partly fall over, the canopy caught in the branches of others. “You can hide all you want, you’re not going to escape me! Not unless you wanna watch me tear this entire city apart tracking you down!”

“I’ll tear you down instead! Blasting Darkness!” Darkvargmon appeared again and hurled his dark grenade at Skullmeramon, trying his best to go for hit-and-run tactics - he wasn’t going to win a straight fight like this, the best he could do was try to keep Skullmeramon occupied until he thought of something else. He avoided the chain counterstrike once again, but Skullmeramon wasn’t more than mildly bothered by the attack - he was too durable, and being dark-aligned himself, he had extra resistance. Times like this I really wish I had a weapon…

A loud crack rang out, startling Darkvargmon just as he was about to phase back in for another strike. Skullmeramon whipped his head around towards Elliot, who had his gun back in his hands, trying to brace with his left hand as he attempted to shoot with his aching right. Another shot rang out, this one hitting Skullmeramon clearly…but the bullet didn’t even pierce the burning flesh, breaking apart under the heat and against that solid muscle. Another shot, this one into Skullmeramon’s mask, shattering against the much tougher material. Elliot nearly dropped the gun as he tried to fire off again, his finger slipping off the trigger as a bolt of pain raced through his hand.

“Feh…that was pathetic, human,” growled Skullmeramon. “That’s the best you can do? How about I show you what a REAL attack is? Heat Chain!” Once again the blazing chain whipped out, directly at Elliot-

<CRACK> “AGH!” Darkvargmon appeared just in the nick of time in front of Elliot, taking the hit directly and getting flung back into Elliot, knocking both of them over, the gun going skittering off into the grass again. He rose back up slowly, panting hard, head spinning a bit from that hit.

“Hah! You predictable idiot!” guffawed Skullmeramon. “Fight me like you aren’t a coward, I’ll show you another few like that!” He whipped his arm back to sling the chain forward once more, but dark tendrils caught his arm before he could pull it forward. “Oh, come on! Do you even know how to ACTUALLY fight?!”

Darkvargmon knew that hold wasn’t going to last long, but he didn’t need it to - just long enough to try to make this situation just a little less chaotic. He turned to glare at Elliot, who was staring up at him like he had two heads. “Get the hell away from here, Dad! This guy’s gonna take your head off!” Only too late, when he saw Elliot’s eyes surge open wide as saucers, did he realize his slip of the tongue. Way to go, I think I just broke him rather than breaking him out of his madness.

Unfortunately, that distraction cost him, as Skullmeramon broke out of the hold of his Nightmare Tangle and flung his chain right at Darkvargmon, clocking him in the head once again. He hit the ground, ears ringing a bit and his face burning from the heated metal. He pushed himself to his knees slowly, panting hard and letting out quiet pained moans…this was not how he was going to win or even survive this battle, but vanishing now would leave Elliot an open target, and Skullmeramon already knew he could use this to his advantage…

“Heh heh…you tainted ones really thought you could stand up to us…now you see how little you really are,” Skullmeramon stated smugly. “Defending and using humans has made you weak…you’re a pathetic excuse for a dark digimon. Hiding in the shadows and trying to lash out like a scared little rookie, what the hell did you think that was going to accomplish?”

“Shut up…” growled Darkvargmon. “You think you’re that tough for attacking people who can’t defend themselves? Cowardice is lashing out at those who are well beneath your level.”

“Hah! Big words from a small pup. You’ve forgotten your own heritage…we of the darkness are above all! The power we possess, our birthright, to conquer and rule over all! Emperius knows the correct way of the world, to put us in our rightful place and show the world the truth of our power! You can still redeem yourself…you have the dark power that could make you worthy if you put it to the right use! Even if you are tainted, perhaps you might still make something of yourself and become a proper dark digimon…join us and embrace the truth of your nature! Emperius will make the darkness rule once more!”

“Shut your GODDAMNED mouth!” The harsh snarl ripped from Darkvargmon’s mouth even made Skullmeramon recoil slightly. “Join you? The assholes trying to ruin two worlds for your own selfish gains? Trying to undermine everything we’ve been trying to do to gain the trust of others who hate and fear us because of who we are?! How DARE you spew the kind of filth that validates every rotten idea they have about us!” The dark wolf pulled himself upright using the car to brace himself, an aura rushing around him. “I won’t be a part of that and I won’t let you ruin everything for those of us who want a better world for our kind to live in, a world where we aren’t sullied with suspicion and mistrust! I’ll bury those hateful words and you right along with them!”

The darkness swirled around Darkvargmon, obscuring him even more than he already had been by the night around him. Panicking, Skullmeramon tried to hurl his chain at it, but the whipping energy sent it flying off effortlessly, making him growl out in frustration. Before he could do anything more, it flared off to reveal the new creature within. Gone was the questionably-solid form of his predecessor, now there stood a much more defined lupine figure, only marginally taller than his previous form but radiating a considerably more powerful aura. A deep blue sash crossed over his chest, dark green short pants covered his legs, and crystal-blue eyes shone from his dark-furred face, as sharp and dangerous as could be. From a pit of blackness that hovered near his body, he reached in and drew out a gleaming black rapier, swinging it with a flourish and holding it at the ready as he faced down Skullmeramon.

“That…you…what the hell you do think that’s going to do?” Skullmeramon sounded less sure of himself than he was trying to - there was no denying the surge of energy in his foe now. “You’re still tainted with the weakness of humanity! No impure digimon could beat a real one!”

“You’d better hope you can back those words up, because it’s your life at stake.” The new wolf’s voice was deep and even, slightly accented with something resembling an English inflection. “You say darkness has a special power…now feel it turned on you! Shadow Bolt!” A quartet of dark orbs swirled out from behind the lupine warrior, stretching into arrow-like shapes and rushing rapidly at Skullmeramon. Desperately the flaming being flung his chain out to try to knock them away, but it only got two of them, the others jabbing into his body and making him roar out and stagger. He barely was aware of what was going on when suddenly he saw the wolf in front of him, zipping forward astonishingly fast and slashing his rapier, cleaving open a gash in Skullmeramon’s chest that elicited another roar. A frenzied chain fling forced the wolf back, but plenty of damage had already been done.

“N-no…impossible! You can’t be that strong!” groaned out Skullmeramon. “You still…don’t have half the power I do! Metal Fireball!” The jaw on that mask opened wide, and a blazing blue metal salvo erupted from it, directed at the wolf - but it was far too obvious, and he easily zipped away from it, leaving it to plunge onto the grass and start burning. “Dammit! Stay still, you furry pest! Heat Chain!” He flung out his chain again, into the path the wolf was cutting over the grass - but he didn’t expect that sword to slash down THROUGH the chain, severing it and letting it fall slack. “NO! It can’t be!”

“You Emperius types always were experts in denial.” Suddenly the wolf was on Skullmeramon again, slashing at his back and flinging him forward out of the trees. “Remember the name of Ebonvargmon…it’s the last you’ll ever hear! Alux Blade!” Ebonvargmon flung himself up into the air and plunged downwards, his rapier swirling with dark energy as he slammed it point-first through that masked cranium. Skullmeramon let out a hideous howl as the dark energy burst out, erasing him from existence.

Ebonvargmon flipped himself backwards onto the ground, landing deftly and dismissing his blade back into another dark void. “Back to the abyss with you…may you be reformatted into something less vile. Now, then…” He turned to look around for Elliot…and froze as he once again was met with a gun pointed right at him. “What the hell?!”

“Y-you…you…monster…” Somehow, Elliot looked even more out of sorts. “How…how are you…that dog…Derek…”

“Fine thanks for saving your skin,” Ebonvargmon growled. “Have you really not figured it out yet?”

“Be quiet!” roared the man frantically. “I don’t…I don’t know what you are…I just…I know you’re a monster! I know you’re one of those…you’re one of those that’s been…doing something here! And I’m not going to let you keep doing it!”

“The only thing I’ve been doing is trying to keep you and everyone else around here alive…” Ebonvargmon could tell the words weren’t sinking in, though. And he really didn’t want to test out if he was as bullet-resistant as Skullmeramon was, despite his upgraded form…and then, as if things weren’t chaotic enough already, he saw the gleam of headlights racing towards them once again. Oh, for the love of…what now?!

The sound of it at least distracted Elliot, making him look away as the car roared in and screeched to a halt near where Elliot’s was parked. The door was practically flung open, and a shout pierced the air. “ELLIOT! STOP!”

Never was Ebonvargmon so happy to hear a voice he really didn’t want to hear. Emil Conover…probably the one person in the world Elliot would listen to even in his current state. Indeed, Elliot seemed to be shaken by his arrival, the gun lowering just slightly. “Emil! S…stay back! Don’t came closer! This…this thing…this thing is dangerous!”

“No it’s NOT, Elliot! Put your gun down!”

“Emil! You don’t understand! You don’t…know what this thing is!”

“I DO know!” shouted Emil forcefully. “It’s Derek and that dog!”

Both Elliot and Ebonvargmon did the sharpest of double-takes. “WHAT?!” Elliot cried out frantically. “You…you KNEW?!”

“I just put it together! Elliot, put the gun down! Don’t do this! You’re making a mistake!”

“Emil! He’s a monster!”

“He’s been HELPING us, Elliot! Don’t you get it yet?! The monsters aren’t all on the same side! They aren’t all what you think they are! The ones we’ve been looking for, they’re fighting against the other ones that are coming in! They’re attacking them and they’re helping us, they’ve been saving people, Elliot!”

“You can’t…you can’t know that! You don’t know what they’re like!”

“Elliot, YOU don’t know what they’re like!” Emil had grabbed Elliot now, forcibly lowering his hands; it was about the most aggressive Ebonvargmon had ever seen the man in his life. “They tried to warn us! They’ve fought against the creatures coming through! One of them even saved a couple of helicopter pilots from certain death just earlier today! Listen to me, they’ve been the only reason things haven’t been worse so far! And we need their help now more than ever!”

“You can’t…” Elliot was shaking. “You can’t trust them! How can you say this? How can you take their side?! You heard what that thing was saying, Emil, they want us all dead, wiped off the face of the earth! How do you know these ones are any different?!”

“BECAUSE MY DAUGHTER IS ONE OF THEM!” This seemed to be the shattering blow for Elliot, who seemed to seize up a bit and go quiet and still. And Ebonvargmon, merely a witness to it all, was finding himself pretty rattled as well. Holy crap. He knows. He actually knows EVERYTHING. I don’t know how he did it, but he figured it all out. Thank everything he came down on OUR side.

“Iris is one of them, too.” Emil’s voice was shaky but resolute. “That electric bird…I should have suspected earlier. But she’s been fighting tirelessly for us. All those times we saw the bird out there and the other monsters, the ones actually trying to destroy things, just vanished…we were wrong, Elliot, the only thing they were doing was standing in the way of the ones who wanted to kill us. And you KNOW her, Elliot. You know that she’s one of the sweetest, kindest people you’ve ever met, those were YOUR words. If you don’t trust Derek, if you don’t trust me, trust HER.”

Elliot seemed to finally just deflate completely…the gun slipped from his hand, and he started walking towards the driver’s side door of the running car in a seeming daze. Emil looked at him cautiously. “Elliot? What…where are you going?”

“…I don’t know. I…I can’t deal with this all…not now. I…I need to leave…be away from this…to think…” That was all Elliot said, before almost slumping into the car. It went into gear, and Emil and Ebonvargmon watched as it drove away…Ebonvargmon wasn’t sure how much of a state Elliot was in to be driving, but at this point trying to say or do anything to stop it seemed to him to be as far from a good idea as possible.

Particularly because he had other things to address, as Emil turned to him; the other agent’s own energy seemed to have flagged, he looked pretty exhausted now. “Derek…or…are you…should I call you something else?”

“…Call me…Ebonvargmon. But it’s a bit complicated…I suppose one of us will be explaining it all to you soon, though.” Ebonvargmon was still in a bit of a daze at all the things he’d just learned were now no longer total mysteries. “How…did you even find us out here?”

“Myra. She called me before I could even call her, frantic, saying Elliot had lost it…she begged me to stop him before he did anything. And, well, I already had a nasty idea what was on his mind…and that he didn’t know the actual truth.”

That explained that…it made sense, Myra was probably the one who told both of them, though under considerably different circumstances. And that had Ebonvargmon worried about her…but there were other pressing matters. “But you do know, then.”

Emil nodded slowly. “I do…at least, I know enough to understand this. These monsters…they’re creatures from another world. And you and one of them are…combining, somehow. And there are five of you…you, and Iris…and your other friends, isn’t it?”

“It is. I’m…amazed, Emil. I never in the world would have thought someone would unravel the secret of US without actually seeing it right before their eyes. Truly, you are your daughter’s father.”

“…She always has been ever the perceptive one, hasn’t she?” Emil let out a weak smile. “I never would have expected her to get mixed up in something like this…”

Ebonvargmon shook his head. “None of us did. We took the mantle out of necessity. We don’t understand how it’s possible any more than anyone else, but given the circumstances, we had to do something. You know about what we’re up against, then?”

“We interrogated one of them tonight. A Goblimon. He told us all about their mad ambitions…their attempt to take over everything, and invading our world to destroy us and use…something we have to make them unstoppable. And you’ve been facing…how many of them since this all started?”

“More than I wish to count. And I wish I could say that it was anything more than the warning shots. You were unfortunately right…you’re likely going to need us more than ever, and soon.”

“Do you know…”

“If I did, I would say. All I can do is hope that we’re prepared.”

Emil nodded, not looking at ease with that but accepting it. “Then…we need to do what we can to make that possible. De…Ebonvargmon. Can you…take a message to the others? I want to set something up for tomorrow…something that may help us understand a few more things, and allow you to come out of the shadows. Even though, I, uh, get the sense that shadows might be your comfort zone…”

That got a quiet, brief laugh and the slightest hint of a smile out of Ebonvargmon. “In this regard, I think a light may be of more benefit to us all. We’ve been trying to find someone to hear us for so long…to finally get the chance will mean so much. But I must ask something of you, too. Myra…she’s…she’s going to need someone to help her and reassure her that we’re all safe…”

Emil nodded. “I’ll do what I can to help her. I know she must be worried sick…though, I, uh, assume the truth is not what she needs to hear now…”

“It will have to come out at some point, and soon, but I don’t think she can handle it yet. Just assure her that I’m safe and will be back to her soon. And Emil…thank you…for everything tonight.”

“Consider it a small down payment on everything we owe you. But…you’re welcome.”

———

Things were quiet in the interrogation room. Goblimon was still tied up, unable to break free of the extremely tight and secure bindings. No one had been in there since the earlier grilling, not that he seemed to mind…but that was about to change.

The door opened, and Lexis Redford stepped in. His expression was cold, hateful, and his movements very deliberate as he closed and locked the door behind him. Goblimon looked up at him, smirking. “Heh heh…figured I might see you again.”

“Shut up. You’ve caused enough trouble already.” Redford’s hand went to his pistol as he stepped towards Goblimon. “Impertinent fool. You just had to run your mouth. Tell them that there were others against you. Everything could be in disarray thanks to you.”

“Snrk. Expecting me to cry tears of sympathy for you, filth? I don’t care about your plans or anything. It’s all irrelevant. I know that look in your eyes, though…heh, too bad you’re a worthless human, you would’ve fit right in with us.”

“Shut up.” Redford pulled the gun and pointed it at Goblimon’s head. “I’m not one of you freaks. And I never will be. What I WILL be is one of the most powerful men in the world once I’ve secured our victory. And I’m not going to let one of you things fuck that up for me.”

“Heh heh…” Goblimon just grinned at him, entirely fearless. “Go ahead. My death changes nothing. You’ll be on the other end soon enough. You and all the other vermin here will know despair and death…and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Redford said nothing, merely pulled the trigger. The bullet went right through Goblimon’s head, spraying blood behind it; he made nothing more than a choked sound before his body disappeared into nothing. Redford glared at the space where the creature had been for a few seconds more, before holstering his pistol and exiting the interrogation room. The silence returned like nothing had ever happened.

Chapter Text

“If there’s one faint silver lining to this whole craziness, it’s that my professional life has gotten infinitely more interesting.” Minerva wiped her brow as she turned to Iris, Reyn, Shockavimon, and Salmandmon. “This…Felismon, she seems to be recovering all right. I’m not entirely sure what the problem was, but I’m guessing it was one I’d consider ‘exotic,’ am I right?”

“You can say that again,” Shockavimon said with a shudder. “Even I’D call it exotic, as well as a few other things.”

“Are you all all right? I heard you talking, it sounded like an unpleasant encounter.”

“We’re fine, but thanks for your concern,” replied Salmandmon. It was a bit of a front - he knew it could’ve gone very badly if not for the timely appearance of Ionfalkemon - but expressing that would not put Minerva at ease in the slightest. “Just a bit tired, but not nearly as bad as we’ve had in other encounters.”

“Uh…mom?” Reyn was looking over at the makeshift beds. “Why’s Alisin laying next to Felismon?”

Minerva looked back, seeing her daughter leaning on the bed, stroking Felismon’s fur. “Well…you know how she is about cats. And I figured a bit of contact might do her some good, she seemed to respond positively when Alisin was petting her.”

“You, uh…DO know that we don’t know how she’s going to react when she wakes up, right?”

“Dude, Reyn, your kid brother is currently sleeping arm-in-arm with a guy who tried to disembowel me just days ago,” remarked Salmandmon, motioning to where Cayden and Talomon were on the floor, sleeping very cutely just as Salmandmon described. “I think maybe their loyalties have shifted JUST a little.”

“She WAS calling out to me for help,” Iris pointed out. “I can’t imagine she could be that vicious towards us after we actually did save her.”

Reyn shrugged, conceding. “I guess you’re right…I just worry. Cats are a force of nature, it’s hard to predict them.”

“Force of nature?”

“Yeah. Cats happen to people, like earthquakes or tornadoes. Don’t you read all those ‘how I became a cat owner’ stories? Like 80% of them is just ‘a cat appeared in my general vicinity and plopped down, now I have a cat.’ They’re basically act of god in animal form.”

“I wish I could say he was being silly, but at least three of my co-workers had cats happen to them,” Minerva said with a quiet laugh.

Shockavimon shook her head. “Your world is weird.”

“We’ve barely even started,” agreed Reyn. “One of these days maybe we’ll have time to go over the even weirder stuff. But I think the only thing I have time for now is sleep.”

“Well, you’ll have to adjust your schedule then.” The form of Darkvargmon suddenly appeared, making everyone jump. “I’m afraid you’ll need to put up with a little bit more before you can meet your bed.”

“Is it THAT hard to warn us before popping in like that?” snapped Shockavimon.

“Consider it a nice jolt of awakeness that you’re going to want. Because you’re going to want to be fully aware for this…it’s a fundamental game-changer.”

That did get their attention. “Is that in a good way or a bad way?” asked Salmandmon nervously.

“Hopefully good, but the jury is still out. Let’s get somewhere where we can contact Skylar and Isaac as well, they need to hear this ASAP.”

“How do we know they aren’t already asleep?” asked Iris.

“Hm, I may have seen to that already.”

“You’re making tons of friends tonight,” cracked Reyn with a slight grin.

“Bud, you do not even know.”

———

A few minutes later, everyone was gathered up in Reyn’s room, Derek and Blackcanismon having finally separated. Skylar and Isaac had been called, and both were indeed awake, albeit rather grumpy about it. Still, grumpiness took a back seat to other emotions when Derek spoke.

“We all need to go to the BICI tomorrow. All of us, including the digimon.”

“…You wanna elaborate on that?” Isaac snapped. “Because that sounds pretty goddamn far from where we want to be EVER.”

“Well, now that I have your attention, I can definitely elaborate. We’re getting exposure, and it’s theoretically not the bad kind.”

“Is there a good kind of exposure for us?” asked Salmandmon. “Because so far, it hasn’t been going well.”

“Perhaps not as determinable as you presuppose, my conflagrant comrade,” replied Blackcanismon. “Our appearance is upon invitation.”

“Whoa, hold up!” jumped in Datacarnomon. “Someone there KNOWS about us?! How?!”

“Brilliant deductions, indubitably. The synthesis of multitudes of information was processed to a singular determination that resulted in our existences being elucidated. And fortuitously embellished a favorable impression, to wit.”

“Us being found out doesn’t sound fortutintidubiouses to me!” Breezedramon yapped.

“Are we sure we can trust this person that knows about us?” asked Iris.

Derek laughed a bit. “Well, you tell me, Iris. Do you trust your dad more than I trust mine?”

Iris’s jaw dropped. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Serious as this is? Your dad probably stopped me from getting shot up like Swiss cheese tonight. He KNOWS, Iris, he knows damn near everything, at least everything that matters. And he wants to make our lives easier, and to do that, he wants all of us to be there so that everyone can start getting on the same page…at least, that’s the plan. Trust me when I say I’m nervous, but if it means we don’t have to be trying to skulk around in order to face off against the bad guys anymore…”

“How…the heck…did he find out?!” Shockavimon squawked. “I swear he never noticed a thing when I was in there!”

“We can figure that out tomorrow when we go there,” replied Reyn.

“Reyn! Are you seriously suggesting we go along with this?” Skylar exclaimed. “We don’t know what’s going to happen!”

“Does it matter?” fired back the fire-haired boy. “Iris’s dad knows about us. One person who’s figured out the secret means it’s no longer a secret. Our options are avoid it, and still have people hunting us down, or try to get ourselves known there and risk having people react badly, but have a chance to be able to open ourselves up and not be under constant pressure to hide anymore. Tell me, mister logic, which one sounds like the better option.”

“…ghh. I hate it when you abuse my need for logic like that.”

“Guys, I know this sounds a little iffy,” Salmandmon added, “but this has been our goal from the start, remember? We needed to find people who might be allies so that we could prepare them for this fight. It’s not exactly who we were targeting, but given how much luck we’ve had there, this seems like the best chance we’re going to have for the time being.”

“Yeah, Sal’s right,” agreed Datacarnomon. “I’m just a little leery because it’s not exactly on our terms, but it’s something.”

“Are we absolutely sure this isn’t a set-up?” Isaac asked cautiously. “Like, just to be sure.”

“My dad would never set me up like this,” asserted Iris. “His style has always been more treating me like glass, if he thought there was ANY reason I would be in danger, he would’ve said I can’t be there. If he’s open to me showing up, then he’s absolutely legit.”

“All right, I suppose that’s as good a reason as any. I’m in. What time should we be there?”

“10:30 AM sharp,” said Derek. “He’ll be ready for us. I don’t know what he’s going to be ready for, exactly, but I presume he wants to somewhat control things so that they don’t get out of hand.”

“Got it. Now can I get back to sleep?”

“Sure. See you tomorrow.” Isaac’s phone hung up, and Derek let out a slight laugh. “All right, now that that’s out of the way, the real time is 11:00 AM.”

“You magnificent bastard,” laughed Skylar. “He’s going to be pissed.”

“If he’s late, he can’t complain. If he’s not, then no harm’s been done. Really, we should have been doing this from the start.”

“I don’t approve of this,” Reyn remarked with a frown.

“You can disapprove all you want, until you get him an alarm clock that actually works on him, this is totally the right thing to do,” Salmandmon cackled.

“Agreed!” exclaimed Breezedramon. “Also, sleepy. Anything else sneaky we need to know?”

“Nope, all good. Catch you two tomorrow.” The other line hung up, and Derek looked up at Reyn and Iris tiredly. “And now’s the time I ask if I can crash here, because there’s no way in hell I can go back home at the moment.”

“You want to sleep during the night?” asked Reyn in shock.

“This period of awareness has been excruciating, to understate the matter,” sighed Blackcanismon. “Slumber unquestionably seems appropriate, particularly owing to our excursion on the morrow…my prediction is rather significant intensity, towards unknown purposes.”

“Derek…” Iris was rather quiet when she said it. “When you said my dad knew…I know Elliot’s been working with him. Does…he know, too?”

Derek gave her a hollow look. “I…don’t want to talk about that tonight, if that’s all right.”

“Oof…” Salmandmon could read between the lines loud and clear. “Yeah, let’s…make sure you have a safe place to stay. And you too, BC.”

“I kind of think I should stay, too,” said Iris. “Even though he knows now, I’m still not sure I’m ready to have that whole talk. It’s probably better done tomorrow.”

“I’m sure Mom’ll be fine with that,” Reyn assured them. “Hope you all can fit in my room, because we’ve kind of got a lot of guests at the moment.”

“Are you, uh…really okay with that?” asked Derek nervously.

“Of course. Don’t worry about it at all.” Reyn said it with an insistence that got Salmandmon’s attention - almost like there was something unsaid underneath the surface there. It had him curious, but this didn’t see like the time to dig in deeper - not when they had a big day tomorrow.

———

It was another overcast day, though at least a touch warmer than the previous day. The extra warmth wasn’t bringing out many people, though, fresh off of another appearance of giant flying creatures from the unknown. Thus, even downtown Braun was remarkably empty, most businesses closed and employees absent…with one significant exception. A rather tall building with an older and darker facade, a distinctive location amongst the rest, bustling with activity more than ever: the Braun Interjurisdictional Center for Investigation. All sorts of rumors about what kinds of shenanigans might have been going on in there flew around the city now and then, and rarely did anyone get a straight answer about them. One thing was for sure: there was an interesting history in there that was known to naught but a scant few people.

That interesting history, though, could hardly compare to an infinitely more interesting present. And it was about to get even more so with the group approaching the building now, only half of which were human. Most of them were traveling together, but as they arrived, there was one notable exception, who was standing there looking extremely annoyed. “You ALL suck. But you in particular, werewolf.”

“You had to know that one of us would think about doing that, given your history,” remarked Derek unapologetically.

“I was on time for once! I even blew off my dad, which I’m gonna catch hell for later! And getting hounded by Data to make sure, at that!”

“I’d be annoyed, but…Ike, I kinda agree with him,” sighed Datacarnomon. “Your history doesn’t speak well of you, and as important as this was, early was better than late. Still, I was a BIT nervous that maybe you all had been ambushed or something, some kind of message would’ve been appreciated.”

Reyn nodded at that. “Sorry…you’re right, we should’ve sent something. I guess we were all just kind of preoccupied.”

“You think YOU’RE nervous?” Breezedramon exclaimed. “I feel like I’m about to disingretangerantiterate from being so scared! You’d think facing down huge monsters would prepare me for this…”

“It’s different here,” sighed Salmandmon. “This is…a lot of unknowns, and for once, our familiar approach of just fighting our way through isn’t an option. I’m not even sure how we start. Is it better to hide away until we’re alone? Do we show ourselves early on? Do we merge and then show up? What’s even the right decision?”

“Were you to possess foreknowledge of the ostensible ideal approach, I would be thusly required to profess the maximal magnitude of indignation for your incapability of revealing such insightfulness towards up previously,” grumbled Blackcanismon.

“Yeah, yeah, I know you didn’t sleep well, don’t take it out on me.”

“…Let’s go in like this.” All eyes turned towards Iris, somewhat surprised. “You guys don’t look nearly as threatening like this, and people here know me at least a little, so that will have to help. Let me take care of things from there.”

“…Well, I’m not gonna say no to that,” agreed Shockavimon. “Lead the way, Iris.”

Both of them were leading the way, as it was, though it wasn’t by much. Through the first door was a small entryway chamber, and then the next brought them into the lobby. Being one of the few places in Braun that was actually active, there were a fair number of people milling around in there, chatting amongst each other in small groups…at least, until the door opened and everything fell dead silent at the sudden appearance of five teenagers and five bizarre creatures that looked something and yet also nothing like the ones that had been spread all over the news. The group stopped just through the door, nervously looking around at all the staring eyes.

I’m starting to wonder if this was a mistake, Salmandmon pathed nervously to Reyn.

Just stay calm…I trust Iris.

If you say so.

Iris was looking plenty nervous, too, but she swallowed and took a deep breath to calm herself. “Uh…hey. I’m, uh, looking for my dad, he was supposed to meet us here.” The response to that wasn’t quite what she had hoped for - suddenly just about everyone who’d been in the lobby crowded around them, chattering excitedly.

“What the hell is going on?”

“Are THOSE the things that they’ve been talking about? They can’t be, they’re way too small!”

“What are they doing with KIDS?”

“Isn’t that Conover’s daughter? How’d she get mixed up in this?”

“This is what we’re supposed to be afraid of? They’re like half our size, they can’t be that dangerous!”

“Cute puppy!”

“Excuse me…EXCUSE ME!” A loud voice from behind the group caused them to suddenly scatter a bit, as Emil hurried up to the commotion. He looked around with an irritated expression. “Do you mind? We’ve got things to do here! And don’t you all have work to be doing?” That entreaty didn’t really stop everyone from staring, but they at least had stopped crowding the teens and the digimon. Satisfied enough, Emil stepped forward and give Iris a hug. “Are you all right, sweetheart? I hope nothing’s wrong, I was worried when you texted last night-”

“It’s all right, Dad. I just…needed some time to process things.”

“All right…I understand. I suppose there’s a lot to process about all of this…” Emil stepped back and looked at the bunch. “And…yes, this is just about what I thought I might see…and yet it’s still somehow hard to believe. Are you all all right?”

“Yeah, more or less…” Skylar didn’t look all right, he looked paler than ever. “At least now that we’re not being hounded like that…”

“I’m sorry about that. I said I wanted the lobby cleared, but I don’t think anyone took that seriously. Come on, let’s get up to the lab level, there’s something I want to do before we get too far into things.” Emil motioned for them to follow, and they did, a very unusual procession that was still turning eyes in the lobby, and no doubt would be no matter where they went…

———

The chatter about the appearance of the strange creatures spread quickly around the building. Most of the reactions were raw confusion, with some total shock mixed in. The reaction of white-hot anger was limited to only one individual, though, who quickly secluded himself in the office he was currently occupying and got on the phone.

“What is it, Redford?”

“It’s bad news, Wheeler. A bunch of kids and monsters just waltzed right into the building today. And someone welcomed them. The well’s being poisoned as we speak.”

“Damnation. We can’t let this slip through our fingers, Redford. Can you run interference?”

“Not without drawing suspicion. Which means there’s only one measure left…”

“…Declare them compromised and move in. General Sykes has things in position. This time tomorrow, we’ll be able to move in and crush these creatures and anyone who supports them. They’ll be done for, no matter the cost. We shouldn’t have any problem, we managed to secure a stockpile of our secret weapon…they won’t know what hit them, and neither will any of the other freaks who slip in. Good on you for letting me know.”

“I’m happy to have helped. If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like latitude to try to thin the herd a bit. If I get the chance, I want to peg one of those things myself.”

“Just so long as there’s at least one left for me to get that Pulitzer-winning shot. And make sure you avoid the kids, it would be bad optics to have one of them go down.”

“Of course. I have just the one in mind, too…a good way to send a message to someone who’s been a thorn in my side for too long here…”

———

“I definitely appreciate the hospitality you’re showing us, Mr. Conover…but, I’m not really sure why you were so interested in getting a DNA sample.” Salmandmon was rubbing his arm where he’d let a bit of his blood be drawn by what looked like an extremely over-excited technician.

“I’d rather not say anything until we see the results, in case we’re entirely off-base,” replied Emil. “Rudy’s assured me he can get the results within hours, so it shouldn’t be too long before my hunch is confirmed or discredited.”

“Hours, huh?” Datacarnomon sounded intrigued, but also amused. “Where I come from, core data analyses could probably be done in seconds.”

“Where YOU come from is a dystopian hell-hole, so I think that offsets the technological benefit,” remarked Shockavimon.

“Hey, Mechalopolis isn’t THAT bad…well…I mean, it’s gotten worse in recent years, true…”

“I sense there’s a story here that I’m not familiar with,” said Emil with a bit of a chuckle. “But if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to try to stick to the most relevant ones here…something tells me that’s already going to be a lot to take in. And then I have to get you caught up on our side as well.”

“If we have time to kill, then I guess that’s gonna be an effective murder weapon,” remarked Isaac. “I remember when they went over all the details with us, we must’ve been out there three, four hours straight. Jeez, I can’t believe that was only, like, a few weeks ago…it feels like it’s been forever.”

“And with everything that’s happened since then needing to be added in as well,” agreed Reyn. “We should probably try to streamline it as much as possible so we’re not getting Mr. Conover more lost than found.”

“I suppose that means I’m up,” Datacarnomon said. “Strap yourself in, this is gonna be a journey…”

And so the regaling began. The group went over everything - from a rudimentary rundown of digimon and the digital world, the conflict that was spilling over, their organization and what they were doing there, their arrival and the unexpected draw to their partners, along with the odd coincidences of their dream connections, and of course the discovery of their ability to merge together, even as mysterious as that remained to them all. They further ran down the events and activities they’d been up to during the intervening time from their perspective, including the multiple close calls and impediments they’d faced from human interference. In turn, Emil described their own investigation, and the details he’d learned that had eventually led to his putting all the clues together.

“I cannot BELIEVE we just got caught on one random camera!” Salmandmon lamented. “You throw caution to the wind ONE damn time…”

“I’m gonna take blame for that,” confessed Reyn. “I should’ve realized that was a possibility. I didn’t even think about doorbell cameras…”

“Why the hell are there so many cameras in your world?! People in our world can theoretically blow you up with their THOUGHTS, and we don’t have cameras all over the place!”

“Speak for yourself, they’re everywhere in Mechalopolis,” pointed out Datacarnomon.

“And verily, we have ascertained the appropriate descriptor of your particular originating location as a, if I may reiterate my colleague’s fine words, ‘dystopian hell-hole,’” snarked Blackcanismon.

“I’d say more about you being less than cautious, but I get it,” said Skylar a bit wearily. “Trying to hide away all the time is outright exhausting. I was probably close to taking a few unnecessensernary chances myself. I mean, the sky clearly hasn’t fallen because Benny and Kirsten know about Breezedramon, even though that really oughta have done me in hard.”

“So these…digimon aren’t a total secret, then?” asked Emil.

“Not for lack of trying,” sighed Isaac. “Well, except in Reyn’s case, at least. Otherwise it’s just nosy siblings. But we all wanted to try to be careful, because…I mean, creatures from another world, most people aren’t gonna react well. Particularly when they’re the bearers of bad news.”

“Understandable…I’m rather disturbed that you ended up being blocked when trying to contact the federal agencies.” Emil frowned a bit, a hand on his chin. “We’ve even been asking them to pass along any information they might be getting that even might be useful, but if they’ve had anything to say, our contact hasn’t been giving us any…”

“Your contact?” Derek sat up. “Please tell me you had one other than Lexis Redford.”

“How…oh, right. That…is an unfortunate concern. I may have to make some calls…”

“Someone wanna loop me in on this?” asked Breezedramon, looking utterly blank.

“I don’t think this is something we need to get involved with,” Skylar said, patting the dragon’s head.

“I would like to know, though…” continued Emil as he flipped to a new notebook page, “If your goal was to try to get in touch with someone to warn them…why not us? I know our clout isn’t close to what we’d need to mount a proper defense, but we have some pull, and we have contacts.”

“I believe, sir, that you have experienced one particularly compelling rationale regarding our particular reticence towards approaching Derek’s patronage on this consideration,” replied Blackcanismon with the barest hint of terseness, and not directed at Emil himself.

“…Y-yes…that…is unfortunate. But…” Emil turned to Iris, who hadn’t been saying much. “Iris…I know I’m not, uh, always on the same page as you, either…I try to be, but, well…but I…would like to think that if you’d told me about Shockavimon, I would have listened to you.”

“Dad…” Iris took a breath. “By the time we figured out what was actually going on…we already knew that we were going to have to stand up to it ourselves. I even thought about that then, but…I couldn’t take the chance that you’d try to stop me from going out there when we couldn’t afford it. Or the chance that I’d want to listen to you when you did. I know how you get when it comes to me…you never want me to be at risk, always wanted safety over everything else. If I couldn’t be there to help…”

Emil was quiet for a bit at that, looking down and away. “Iris…hn…I wish I could say you weren’t right about that…but I can’t. Your mother always said I go too far with that…I guess…I just have always been afraid of losing you to something…I suppose this job doesn’t help matters, I see a lot of the bad of the world…it can skew my vision, I guess.”

“It’s partly my fault, too,” Shockavimon spoke up, rather suddenly. “I discouraged her when she suggested it, because I wasn’t convinced I could really trust you…I shouldn’t have done that, I let some of my own paranoia cloud my judgment. You’re a better guy than I gave you credit for.”

“I…appreciate that, Shockavimon. I hope I can keep living up to that.” Emil gave his head a quick shake, then looked up again. “In any event…at this point I obviously can’t tell you not to do anything, no matter how nervous it might make me…we don’t have much in the way of options as it is, and it’s pretty clear you can handle yourselves just fine. Just, uh, promise me you’ll always try to be as careful as you can, all things considered…”

“Of course, dad, as much as possible,” responded Iris with a nod.

“Well, now that that’s out of the way,” Skylar jumped in, getting a glare from Iris at the seeming obliviousness of the moment, “I think we’re going to have to talk about trying to take advantage of some of those contacts you mentioned. Anything that can prepare this world better for an all-out attack would be a good thing, because I’m not sure if we have a lot of time before that happens.”

“Er, yes, yes.” Emil was suddenly businesslike again. “I’ll definitely have to prepare something and make sure we arrange for a defense. There’s no doubt we’ll have to call in a lot of resources from higher up…I don’t like what we’re potentially facing, this city could suffer a lot before it’s all said and done. I wonder if we shouldn’t have an evacuation order…mph, that’s not my decision to make. But while we’re working on that, things need to be made easier for you, don’t they?”

“That would be super nice!” affirmed Breezedramon. “If we could fly around and do our reconnoisycanternansesses and get to battles without worrying about being seen, it’d be a whole lot better!”

“Uh…yes, I’m sure it would.” Iris suppressed a giggle at her father’s blank look, clearly not making sense of Breezedramon’s stumbling. Though it also made her think a bit. Huh…did Skylar stumble over something earlier, too? Well, he does look pretty tired…

“I think we really do need that help more than anything at the moment,” agreed Reyn. “The biggest problem for us has been getting around safely. And considering the whole city knows what we look like, and currently probably thinks we’re part of the problem…”

“Ah, yes, that would be the case…” Emil thought for a moment. “On the other hand…that also might work to your benefit. Everyone knowing what you look like means that if we can get the message out there that you’re part of the solution rather than the problem, they’ll know what to avoid being afraid of. It will mean having to reshape the narrative, but in a situation this fluid and this early, it might be easier now than it would be in a month or even another week. And that’s a good lead-in to my next thought…we can start doing that, right here and now, and it might be especially effective here.”

“Hang on…” Salmandmon suddenly rose up. “You’re not suggesting…”

“I am. I think everyone here in the BICI could stand to meet you…all of the you, that is.”

“You want us to show them everything?” asked Isaac dubiously. “Are you sure that’s not gonna backfire on us hard? I mean, let’s be real, some of these guys have already seen us, and not in the best of situations!”

Emil nodded. “Trust me, I’m well aware of that. But they’ll all be seeing you without weapons at the ready, and more importantly, they’ll get to talk to you and learn about you and what’s been going on…no one else here really has the full story, and I think coming from you it’ll mean more than coming from me. Knowing what you are will also help…people don’t know that you’re all fighting together, in the most literal sense, and I think them knowing that there are also humans under there will be reassuring to them even if they’re leery about the digimon. With people here on your side, we’ll have a better chance of getting the word out properly to the rest of the city.”

“Which means seeing us combine in action…” Skylar frowned. “Feels like being put on display.”

“Sometimes being on display is a good thing,” remarked Salmandmon. “I think it’s wild that it’s even being suggested, but…honestly, it’s probably the best case we can make for ourselves.”

“Don’t worry, Sky, you won’t be on your own!” Breezedramon reassured the white-haired boy. “And I’m good at getting eyes on me! I can even do some trick flying if you need it!”

“I’ve seen your ‘trick flying.’ I’d prefer you in one piece.”

“Hey!”

“The suggestion is commendable,” agreed Blackcanismon. “An unfeigned revelation of the impartial reality will at minimum convey understanding of the situation, if not enthusiastic acceptance. The latter may be overly ambitious for the nonce, all things considered.”

“Seeing us apart is probably a good idea, too,” Derek added. “Five minutes with Blackcanismon will have to convince anyone he’s too cultured to be an enemy, even if they can’t understand half of what he’s actually saying.”

“Cultured…right,” snorted Datacarnomon. “Sure, if cultured means they’ll want him to shut up after about ten words most likely.”

“We’ve still got time to burn anyway, so we might as well,” said Shockavimon. “Especially if it makes our jobs easier. And then maybe certain folks won’t have to be worried about walking around completely exposed.”

“Hey, my cosmic blunder helped us get to this point, at least!” protested Salmandmon.

“It sounds like everyone’s on board, more or less,” declared Emil, standing up. “Let’s go set up some rooms for you, and get some people around. Hopefully by the time we’ve got to move on, we’ll have gotten a good chunk of the building on your side.”

———

“This definitely feels weird…” muttered Iris as they prepared for their next visitor. “I’m starting to see what Skylar was talking about, it feels like we’re a sideshow act.”

“It feels like this could be done a different way, yeah,” agreed Shockavimon. “But I get the feeling that this probably wasn’t extensively planned out or anything…your dad just figured out the whole thing yesterday, I’m guessing that doesn’t leave a lot of time to write a script, organize recording equipment, and all that jazz.”

“True. And these are the people who’ll probably be reported to about any monster stuff, so it makes sense that THEY would need to know us better than anyone…still, I’m not gonna say I’ll miss it once we’re done here.”

“Same. At least it’s not fighting off digimon, though. After that experience with Ashinkaimon yesterday, I don’t mind a bit of a break.”

“Don’t remind me. Oop, I hear someone coming.” Iris and Shockavimon stood as the door opened, but then both felt their hearts leap as they saw who it was. “Bob!”

“Well, now, good to see you, little lady.” Agent McGovern was smiling, though he looked fairly confused as well. “Though I can’t say I was expecting the rather large bird. Your dad did say he had a surprise for me, I guess this was it.”

“Surprise for all of us, I think,” replied Iris, trying to settle herself down. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting to see you…I probably should’ve been, I guess…”

“Are you doing all right?” Shockavimon asked anxiously.

Bob looked even a bit more perplexed to hear that. “Hm? I’m doing just fine, for someone my age at least. Can’t say I was expecting you to be taking an interest in my health, though...then again, I wasn’t expecting you at all, so I guess today’s full of surprises.”

“More than you know,” replied Iris. “We’ve saved the biggest one for last, though. Shockavimon?”

Shockavimon was sure she hadn’t been as nervous about merging even the first time as she was now. “All right…I guess we should…” The two touched hand to wing, and in moments the form of Boltfalkemon appeared in the room in front of Agent McGovern. Bob’s jaw dropped, looking on in stunned silence as the brilliant figure of the electric avian stood in front of him once more…the memories of the encounter were still quite fresh in both their minds, and Boltfalkemon was getting ever more anxious how Bob would react to her.

What she didn’t expect was for him to break out in a booming laugh, which almost startled her when it happened. “I’ll be damned…I’ll be damned. If it ain’t always the last one you’d expect…”

“I promise this will be a lot less stressful of a meeting than our last, Bob,” said Boltfalkemon, her voice tinged with palpable relief - this definitely was not as badly as it could have gone. “And I really am sorry about that.”

“Oh, I can’t blame you too much for that…I should know better than to sneak up on monsters at this point in my life.” Bob had settled down a bit, though he was still grinning widely. “But you know, I just had this feeling…something about your voice, I just felt like it was familiar somehow. I guess now I know why. It’s really the two of you at once, huh?”

Boltfalkemon nodded. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but close enough.”

“Ah, everything these days is more complicated. Now I see why Emil was so eager to get us to see all of you. Guess there’s a lot more to the story than I heard about, isn’t there?”

“You have no idea…but I’ll be happy to give you a taste of it…”

———

“You know, I like the idea of having the spotlight on me, but I’d kinda prefer it more on my own terms,” grumbled Isaac as he paced around a bit. “Especially when I’m more in my element. Right now it feels too much like an obligation.”

“Oh no, how dare it feel like something it is,” cracked Datacarnomon.

“You’re not helping.”

“Of course I’m not, that wouldn’t be amusing. But you gotta admit, this is something we’re doing because we have to, not because we want to so much. Remember when we were talking voluntary revelation being a last resort? Turns out we bypassed all the other ones.”

Isaac rolled his eyes. “You’re going to run that metaphor straight into the ground, huh?”

“Never waste a good metaphor, use every part of it until it’s all gone. It could be worse, I could be like most of my brethren and constantly be making computer and robot references about everything.”

Isaac slowly looked over at Datacarnomon, smirking. “…Hm. And exactly how long were you doing that after you left your hometown?”

Datacarnomon looked away, a bit embarrassed. “Maybe a few…years…aaaanyway, someone’s coming again!”

“At least it’s someone we don’t have to run away from or shoot at.” Isaac straightened up as the door opened, and they faced yet another agent. “Nice to meet you! Isaac Wherrels, and this guy here is Datacarnomon.”

“Oh! Uh…that…is…a robot…” The agent couldn’t tear his eyes off of Datacarnomon. “Er, sorry. Neal Collins…I wasn’t expecting a robot.”

“No one here expects robots,” remarked Datacarnomon. “I don’t know why they would, robots in your world are super primitive, most of them aren’t just walking around.”

“You talk, too? Goodness.”

“I do a lot of things. Most of which you’re not gonna have time to see, some of which you’d probably rather not.” The robot grinned up at Neal, who was staring more than ever.

“How…in the world do you move like that? It’s like the metal just…bends like it’s alive, almost!”

Datacarnomon looked over at Isaac. “Uh…Ike? Do they not have flex metals over here?”

“Not in the sense of yours, I don’t think,” replied Isaac. “That’s probably a special property of digimon, unless you somehow can teach us how to make them.”

“Well, not ALL of us, for sure, but even those that don’t still know about it…uh, anyway, we should probably show him that other ‘special thing.’”

“Anything to avoid getting to the awkward topics, huh?” Isaac snickered.

Neal was looking back and forth between the two, completely befuddled. “I’m sorry, is…is there something I’m missing here?”

“You’ll catch on in a moment.” With a nod to each other, the two melded together and fused into the form of Andrexmon, thumping onto the floor in front of Agent Collins, who yelped and scrambled backwards, falling over onto his rear in shock.

“Oh, come on, I’m not that scary…well, okay, yeah, I probably am.” Andrexmon let out a growling laugh, offering his metal arm out to Neal. “Don’t worry, I don’t bite unless I’m given a good reason to.”

It took a moment, but Neal hesitantly took hold of that big metal hand, which easily pulled him back up. “Y-you…you’re…you’re that…that one I…that I saw that night…”

“Huh? You saw me? Oh, wait…yeah, Darkvargmon said someone got a good look at me that night.” Andrexmon rubbed his head. “I mighta been a bit distracted, so I didn’t notice you…trying not to make that mistake again, though! It probably ended better for both of us that way, though.”

Neal was still looking the hybrid up and down, seeming to scarcely believe what he was seeing. “This…this is crazy…are you…are you really that, that kid and that robot?”

“Look, I don’t blame you for being a bit wowed by that, trust me, it took me a bit to get used to the idea of this stuff too. All you need to know, though, is that I’m on your side. I know that might be a new thing for you to think, but it’ll be a heck of a load off my tail if you can scoot that along, yeah?”

The almost vacant look in Neal’s face was not sitting too well with Andrexmon; a couple of the people he’d seen already seemed not to be taking well to him, and all of them seemed to have that cowed expression. He didn’t want to get testy with them, which would probably only worsen things, but it was hard not to feel a little frustrated…but before he could say anything else, Agent Collins stammered out something else. “That…you…did you…actually run into a kid out there that night?”

Uh-oh. “Uh…one mighta gotten the drop on me a bit…I swear I didn’t touch him, probably scared the piss outta him but I didn’t do a thing to hurt him.”

“…I know…He seemed…really excited over having met you…” Neal seemed to finally be calming down a bit. “All this time…I was terrified that I might have destroyed someone’s life by letting you go without trying to stop you…but…you really…aren’t one of the bad ones, are you?”

“…You know, I know that feeling a bit, myself. That’s one reason I’m so determined to make sure this all ends in victory for us.” Andrexmon nodded with a bit of resoluteness in his expression. “And for all the guys I’ve seen who don’t seem to care if they’re right or wrong…seems like you’re one of the good ones, too.”

———

“All of this would probably feel a lot more momentous and meaningful if we weren’t just standing and talking the whole time,” remarked Salmandmon, who was, ever predictably, doing push-ups on the wall while waiting for their next visitor. “This woulda been a whole lot more exciting if a digimon popped through the barrier and we had to fuse up and show off our stuff in action, but no, it’s just ‘hey, nice to meet you, oh by the way we turn into this bizarre hybrid creature, also we’re defending your entire world from evil maniacs, bring your friend by to say hi!’”

“All things told, I think I’d rather have the controlled environment of this place over a chaotic battle scene,” replied Reyn. “Also, my dad always likes to say, ‘weapons fight wars, but diplomats end them.’”

“Yeah? Okay, but name me five of your war heroes, and five of your diplomats.”

“…Okay, point taken. Battle draws eyes, battle gets remembered. Still, that also means people are in danger, and I think one day where people aren’t in danger isn’t too much to ask, is it?”

“Emperius might think so. And I might start to as well if they don’t freaking hurry up already! I shouldn’t be reaching triple digits in push-aways between visitors.”

“There’s an easy way to not do that, you know.”

“Yes, it’s called ‘be a boring lump who just LEANS against a perfectly good exercise wall. You were doing it too for a while, don’t try to tell me you don’t feel impatient.”

“I can control myself a little better than you can, bud.” Reyn planned to say more, but the door opened, relieving him of the need. “Oh, hey, visitor! Salmandmon, knock it off and say hi already.”

“Okay, okay! Sheeze, right as I was about to hit two hundo, too.” Salmandmon pushed off the wall into a double backflip, landing deftly on the floor, and grinned up at the new arrival. “Hey there! I’m Salmandmon…and you have the look of someone who’s NOT seeing me for the first time.”

“Huh?” Reyn looked at the agent; he was no expert, but he definitely was getting a sense of what Salmandmon was talking about, his shock was like seeing someone he knew rather than not knowing what he was seeing. And he was realizing, a moment later, that his own expression might be the same, because this guy was familiar.

“I, uh…you might be right about that…” The agent’s voice was dreadfully nervous. “Sorry, my name’s Tony Rivier…I, uh…I didn’t realize I was going to be actually seeing you up close like this…”

“Up close? Waaaait a minute…were you the guy who caught us on camera?”

“I, uh, was given the footage, at least…” Tony was looking between the two of them, with a look that spoke like he wasn’t that far from fainting. “Seeing you two like that…it was crazy. I never could have imagined someone seeing the monsters as…normal.”

“Hey, where I’m from, you’d be the weirdo, bub,” Salmandmon huffed, folding his arms.

Reyn was a bit more preoccupied with trying to place the agent’s face…and finally he did. “You…you were out there, that night. Weren’t you?”

“Huh?” Now it was Salmandmon’s turn as confusion as he looked between the two humans. “Wait, what? Reyn, is this THAT guy?”

“I…what…how would you know about that? Unless…” Tony looked at Salmandmon curiously. “You…wouldn’t happen to have a big brother or something like that?”

“…Yeah, I’d say this safely falls in the ‘or something’ category. Reyn?”

“Thinking like you.” Reyn looked at Tony as he stepped closer to the lizard digimon. “The way you look, you actually might want to sit down for this.” The two glowed bright red, melded together, and the form of Burnreptimon landed in front of Tony…and then, almost as quickly, leapt forward to catch the human as he nearly fell back in a dead faint.

“God dammit, I warned you…hey, snap out of it!” Burnreptimon brought Tony down gently to the ground, trying to rouse him with gentle taps. He put his clawed fingers on the human’s neck, trying to feel for a pulse, then quickly pulled away when he heard Tony gasp a bit and wake back up very suddenly. “Hey, easy! You okay?”

“Ah…you…you’re…” Tony still only looked about half-there, staring wild-eyed at Burnreptimon. “That night…that creature…”

“Yeah, yeah, your memory’s clearly fine. That asshole cop had better NOT be the next guy in.” He pulled back a bit as Tony was sitting up under his own power. “Okay, but what were YOU doing out there? You clearly are NOT the type to be doing monster hunting.”

“I…I really should’ve ignored that directive…” Tony rubbed his face, looking at Burnreptimon with a very clear, heavy anxiety. “You’re…they brought you in here…no, you came in yourself…why?”

“Because, we’re trying to show you the truth. And avoid getting shot at some more, at least by you guys. You remember what I said that night?”

“…That we were all in trouble…if we didn’t look for allies. Are…are you saying…you’re…the allies?”

“…You know, looking back on it, I probably coulda been a WHOLE lot clearer than that. I guess that idiot officer just got me too riled up. But yeah…we’re trying to help you guys out. So if you could be aiming those guns in a direction other than where we are, it’d probably work out really well for both of us.”

“Y-yes…I, uh, think I will not be pointing my gun at anything for a good long time.”

“That sounds like the best plan to me,” agreed Burnreptimon. Maybe it would have been better to have the weapon pointed at the other enemies instead, but something told him this guy probably wasn’t the right person to be doing that, either.

———

“I know I really shouldn’t be inviting trouble, but…PLEASE let a digimon attack right now.”

“Skyyyy!” Breezedramon chastised the human as he flapped overhead. “This isn’t THAT bad!”

“This is all of the bad. It’s all of the bad on top of more of the bad.” The human was laying on the ground, arms over his head. “I hate every second of this more than I’ve hated just about anything in my life.”

“We’re just talking to people!”

“We are EXHIBITS on DISPLAY. Their EYES are focused on US and nothing else. I would sooner walk into Emperius’s home base with nothing more than a thin stick and dare to take them all on.”

Breezedramon cocked his head. “Why does it bother you so much? I mean it, I don’t get it at all. You don’t seem to have trouble with being out in public or anything like that!”

“Public is perfectly fine. Public has lots of things to look at, including monsters trying to blow them all up that draw a LOT more attention. And even if they’re looking at me, it’s not a problem if I don’t KNOW they’re looking at me. Knowing I’m the show, though…it is THE WORST.”

“Really? You don’t seem to get all flustateroraconterated when Emperius guys focus all their attention on you.”

“…Well, I will NOW. Thanks, Breezedramon.”

“Happy to help!” Skylar groaned as Breezedramon utterly missed the sarcasm. But the sound of the door opening forced him to rise up and play the part again. Of course, it didn’t help that he immediately recognized the face of the person who’d entered…

Not that Paul Dailey recognized him, or seemed to be caring. “Don’t know what the point of this nonsense is. Not sure why we’re supposed to suddenly get buddy-buddy with monsters now…” Paul’s voice trailed off as he looked between the two of them. “Tch. When they said there was a dragon in here, I had something else in mind, not small and cute.”

“Hey!” Breezedramon yapped. “I mean, yeah, I’m totally adorable, but I can rawr pretty hard too!”

“You are not ‘rawring’ in a way that will make anyone intimidated, least of all those giant bird or dragon monsters that’ve shown up,” replied Paul huffily. “Conover can’t seriously be telling us these creatures are supposed to be the ones we should be taking an interest in. Even if you ARE supposed to be friendlier, I doubt a few nibbles are going to throw off anything we’ve seen out there.”

“You might be regretting thinking so little of us soon,” said Skylar impatiently. “And I thought your attitude was pretty lousy before…”

“I don’t recall asking you…wait. What do you mean ‘before?’ I’ve never seen you before.”

“Yeah, you’ve never seen US before, but you’ve seen US before!” declared Breezedramon.

“Yes, I’m sure that will clear up everything in his head, Breezedramon,” remarked Skylar with an eye roll.

“So let’s show him then, that’ll make it all elucimadiferturated!” Skylar had no problem with that - at least as Skydramon the anxiety of being center stage was somewhat muted. The blue glow surrounded them, and they fused together, the lean body of Skydramon taking shape once more. The small, enclosed room hardly seemed his ideal environment, but he was making do.

Especially with the satisfying reaction he got, as Paul staggered back into the back wall of the room. “Jesus FUCK!”

“Hey there! Miss me?”

“You…are you kidding me right now? Th-this is a prank, right? Did Conover put you up to this? Is this hazing the rookie day or something?”

“Special effects only WISHES it could be as real as this,” cackled Skydramon. “Oh, sorry about your gun, by the way, I really wasn’t feeling like putting holes in these wings, or any other part of me for that matter.”

“What…what the holy hell are you?!”

“Didn’t you see what just happened? I turned from a human and a little digimon into, well, me! Not the most normal thing in either world, really, but hey, I’m not complaining, since I’ve been able to put a buncha Emperius dickwads on ice.”

Paul’s eyes looked wide enough to explode out of his skull, and his jaw was hanging open like it had busted a hinge. “This…this is madness, this is absolutely crazy! How are you...YOU? What the hell is going on here?! Monsters wasn’t enough, now we have freaking instant hybrids? And with KIDS no less?!”

“Look, guy, I don’t have all the answers. But I have some of them, and you still haven’t asked the most important question!”

“The…what? What on earth is the most important question to YOU?”

Skydramon scoffed. “Seriously? I’m right in front of your freaking face, and I’m not attacking you. And I already lectured you a bunch that night about this, too! Think outside of your narrow mindset for a moment! Why would they be having you all come to see me? I may be a novelty, but do you really think you all have time for novelties? There has to be a reason for all this production! And doing so in a way that makes sure that you can’t actually harm us, on top of that!”

Paul seemed not able to put it all together for a bit, only finally getting a bit of dawning after a lot of stammering. “They…what…are…that…are they…do they…not WANT us to do anything to you?”

“Well, it’s progress, at least. Let’s see if we can’t get you all the way to the right mindset before I’m done with you! But try not to take forever, I’ve apparently got to do this a bunch more times today…”

———

“I’m not going to pretend I’m terribly fond of the odd looks, constant explanations, and all the people who still look uneasy, even when I’m not the first of us they’ve seen,” said Derek. “But I think it’s gone about as well as it could go, for something that was kind of spur-of-the-moment.”

“I figured the sooner the better…waiting to prepare something more formal would probably just prolong the trouble you all would have,” Emil explained. “And I wasn’t keen on the idea of waiting for another creature to strike to demonstrate…that’s a rather distracting event, and I’m not sure they would have taken the right idea from it. After all, we didn’t really ‘get’ the whole division even when we saw Iris and Skylar…er, I mean, Boltfalkemon and Skydramon, fighting that big bird creature.”

“The challenges of our nomenclature will doubtlessly be substantial to overcome,” Blackcanismon chuckled. “Such idiosyncrasies are definitively unnatural to your existence, despite the ordinariness they possess for ours.”

“You can say that again…I’m still getting used to the fact that your, uh, combined form takes different names for different…levels. Oof, I do NOT have a good grasp of all this stuff yet.”

“Honestly, the only reason we caught on as quickly as we did was seeing snapshots of their world in our dreams for all our lives,” Derek said understandingly. “And even then, we still needed a LOT of explanation to really make sense of it all. If we’re lucky, though, we’ll have to explain it a bunch more times to a bunch more people, so maybe we’ll get good at it.”

“I surmise you intended to insinuate that Datacarnomon would acquire the proficiency, considering the assignment is ultimately delegated towards himself,” remarked Blackcanismon cheekily.

“Hey, we’re starting to understand! Maybe we’ll even be able to explain the important points before long. He’ll just need to, uh, answer the more in-depth questions.”

“I suppose it probably wasn’t easy for you, though, either,” Emil said thoughtfully. “You probably had a steep learning curve too…to hear you say it, this world wasn’t that much more familiar to you than yours is to us.”

Blackcanismon nodded. “Our collective experience permitted us to weather the inconsistencies relatively effectively. Nevertheless, there are a multitude of confusions and misunderstandings and novelties we have encountered during this excursion. And regrettably, we lack the luxury of accommodating at a leisurely pace.”

“I suppose there’s something to be said for being used to facing tricky situations…” The door opened, and Emil looked over, wondering who among them had come around this time…and immediately, the subject of ‘tricky situations’ was rendered extremely appropriate. Elliot was standing in the doorway, getting an immediate defensive reaction from Derek and Blackcanismon as they stood up and backed away. The man’s gaze was sunken and weary, the look of someone who hadn’t slept a wink in far too long, lacking the firmness it usually had. His clothes were unkempt, appeared like they hadn’t been changed from the events of the previous night.

“Emil.” Even his voice sounded off, hollow and heavy. “…If you would…I would like some time alone here.”

“Elliot…” Emil didn’t sound exactly at ease with that, but a long, hard look at Elliot seemed to affirm that he was unarmed. He looked over at Derek. “…It’s up to you.”

“…Fine.” Derek wasn’t sure how he felt about it either, but he wasn’t really sure what saying no would accomplish, either. At the very least, if he had to, he could say his piece and put things to rest for good.

With a nod, and a last look at Elliot, Emil rose and stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Elliot slowly took a seat in one of the chairs, slumping into it like he’d been needing to sit for days. His head rose, and he looked at Derek and Blackcanismon, or almost past them. “…Show me. Please.”

“…Show you?”

“…I need…to see. That the last…day or so wasn’t just…a bizarre fever dream.”

Derek and Blackcanismon exchanged looks. Despite the considerable ruckus so recently, he suddenly professes disbelief? the canine pathed to the human.

He doesn’t look like he usually does…maybe he’s doubting reality itself by this point. I suppose we might as well, though.

So agreed, the two came together, the dark glow surrounding them, and soon enough, the nebulous figure of Darkvargmon had taken shape in the room. Elliot’s reaction was remarkably subdued; his eyes widened a bit at the view of it happening right in front of him, but otherwise his face remained unchanged.

“This is what you wanted to see, right? Confirmation of the truth.” Darkvargmon’s voice had an edge to it. “Doubt no more. It’s not changing whether you do or not.”

“…No. I suppose it’s not.” Elliot leaned forward, rubbing his eyes. “…I never imagined…seeing myself where I was yesterday. Doing what I was doing. Always…always told myself, I wouldn’t ever go that far. Wouldn’t ever let it get to the point where I was the danger. And then…I went and did it anyway. God…how can I ever look her in the eyes again…”

“You might want to start with something a little more outwardly-focused than that, if you wish to soften my feelings towards you,” said Darkvargmon with a touch of asperity.

“…I suppose you’re right. You…deserve an apology. And more, I suppose…but…I’m sorry. For what I did.”

A starting point…it was more than Darkvargmon, or his constituents, would have dared hope for. “I will need more, I think, to feel truly ready to start down the road to forgiveness. It’s good that you are willing to bare yourself here, and necessary. But this is the culmination of a long history of trouble…and a real change is needed to repair those badly-frayed bonds.”

“I guess I deserve that…” Elliot sighed. “I don’t understand, how it all went so wrong…”

“I do, and I also know why you don’t. Elliot. You do not listen. You do not hear what you don’t want to hear. A decision you make is a decision that must be set, no matter what else challenges it. The whole mess from last night…I don’t know what went on before you confronted me, but Emil made all the connections to realize the truth. The man you work alongside regularly…surely he must have said things that should have had you questioning what you thought you knew. Yet your response was that of someone who had already made all the decisions he thought he needed to make. And that is but a microcosm of your conflict with Derek…the fact that you are tenaciously insistent on clinging to your image for how you want him to be, without listening and hearing who he IS, is why you have struggled for so long to find accord with him. You spent all your time thinking about the considerations for yourself, for your worries and concerns, but spared no thought for his.”

“…I…see…” Elliot took this in rather heavily. He didn’t say anything for a good long while, and when he did speak again, he was somehow even more subdued. “I guess…I let it affect me more than I was willing to accept…”

“…Let it affect you?”

“Derek…was never meant to be our only child. We had planned on having a larger family…at least, that was what we had talked about. But everything that happened during the pregnancy…Myra said…they had told her that another one might kill her. The first one came closer than we would have liked itself. That was it for our family…and I…suppose I started to lose sight of things. It seems strange to think about, that I cared so much that I only had one child…I don’t at all think I would have considered any of them expendable, or any such thing. But somehow, the idea that this was my chance at fatherhood, I couldn’t lose it…it made me think that I had to do whatever I could to keep him safe. And…perhaps my idea of safe was…more extreme. With everything I’ve seen here…it’s hard not to jump at shadows.”

“Emil made mention of something similar earlier,” Darkvargmon said quietly. “I suppose a constant view into the unsavory side of the world doesn’t make for the most relaxed perspective.”

Elliot nodded. “And…it was hard for me to accept that I could be wrong about that…when I was the one who saw more than anyone else did. So everything…everything had to be normal. Everything had to be right. Anything that wasn’t, it was dangerous. I…never really gave any thought to how to deal with it if my son didn’t fit that definition of normal. I just…wanted to make it happen. And I thought, as long as I was keeping him safe, I was in the right…but last night…I wasn’t keeping him safe. I was the one putting him in danger. And I…couldn’t get it off my mind, that I had betrayed my own oath, and…done it so easily. And it led to a lot of things…like wondering if this was really the first time, or just the first I could see. And wondering where else I had gone wrong, and how…”

“…It’s not too late to learn. Not too late to change. And if you can…it will get better. Not right away. But something meaningful can be built over time…and perhaps you’ll find that it was what you were always looking for, and could have had, if you hadn’t been in your own way.”

“…That’s the most I can hope for. And I realize I have to…earn it. But…hearing that there is hope there…I hope it gives me the strength I need to make that chance. For all of us.” Elliot bowed his head once again. “Thank you…if it’s all right…I’d like to have some time now with my son…and…his friend.”

———

Didn’t they say that that thing they wanted to show us was ready? Salmandmon wondered as he and Reyn sat in the hallway; the two were eating snacks from the vending machine, while waiting on the next phase of their visit there. They were sticking to mental chat just in case anything came up that they would have preferred wasn’t overheard. What’s all the holdup?

Apparently Derek’s dad came by. He and Derek and Blackcanismon are still talking…I guess everyone figured it was better to wait for him than leave him out of the loop. Reyn watched a couple employees pass by, giving them both odd looks as they did - but not unfriendly ones, thankfully. I guess they still have some getting used to us to do, but the lack of open hostility has been pretty encouraging.

I could do without the look of ‘what’s that curiosity,’ but I guess that’s gonna take more time…well, we are the first friendly digimon they’ve ever seen. I guess humans in our world would probably get the same kinds of looks.

I can only HOPE they just get looks. I can imagine a Tuskmon screaming in terror and stomping one of us flat like an elephant to a mouse. Not that there aren’t a few people in the world I might be okay with seeing that happen to…

For all we’re different, we’re also a lot of the same, came the amused reply. Hey, do you mind if I ask a question?

Never minded before, go ahead.

Well, last night. There was a…weird moment between you and Derek. And I don’t want to be rude or anything, but it was just kinda curious because I don’t remember ever seeing him or you like that before, and…well, I know I might be paranoid, but if it’s something that could, uh, be a thing in the coming days…

Reyn was confused for a moment, until he thought back to the previous night. Oh, that…don’t worry about it. It’s nothing, just stuff in the past. I guess he still thinks about it, though.

If he thinks about it, it’s not entirely in the past. But I get the sense that there’s a story there.

Yeah, okay, I guess there is. It’s really not as bad as all that, but I’ll come out and say it…Derek and I didn’t start off on the right foot. But to understand it, I kinda have to go back a bit further…

~~~3 years ago~~~

Friendship was always something I had difficulties with. Moving around so many times makes it hard to keep connections…but, on the other hand, usually it was my losing those connections that prompted the moves. Getting called a freak, a psycho, a weirdo, and getting alienated by people I thought I was close to…it hurt a lot. Though, not every loss was their fault, either…because of everything that happened, and my fears about it happening again, I didn’t always relate to people well. That had its own consequences.

Things didn’t start off well immediately in Braun, either, but they got better pretty quickly. Meeting Iris was the big turnaround point…she was super nice to me from the start, and when we learned that we were kind of kindred spirits in a way, it really gave me some extra confidence that this was one person who wasn’t going to judge me badly for how I was. A few months later I met Isaac through school, and we ended up becoming friends as well...and with him, I found that my quirk wasn’t just not a concern, it was actually kind of an asset. He liked to make robots, but he couldn’t really do much with metal then, because his parents were not keen on him doing any welding. But that was no issue for me, so I was able to help him take another step forward in his own interests…he really appreciated that.

So I had two friends, which was two more than I’d left most places with. And it was helping me feel a little more comfortable with myself. I had always been very shy, very quiet, scared to call attention to myself…these bonds I made helped me feel better about myself, and it was helping me get a little less avoidant. I don’t think I’d ever call myself a social butterfly, but I was getting closer to acting like, you know, a NORMAL person. But then came a bit of a threat to that.

I knew of Derek pretty soon after I met Iris. Of course, they’d grown up together, so they were incredibly close, and it wasn’t uncommon to see Derek doing things Iris was doing. And when she roped me in as well, I did my best to be nice to him. But…it wasn’t exactly a returned gesture. He was pretty cold to me, didn’t seem to enjoy having me around. Iris was pushing him to be nicer here and there, but when he ever was, it was clearly just a front - I knew what fake friendliness looked like by that point. He wasn’t actively bullying me or pushing me around in any way, though, so I didn’t really know how to respond to it. I just tried to ignore it for the most part, but that didn’t really help anything, it was just…all I really knew. Confrontation was never something that had ended well for me.

And then one day, I was going over to see Iris. I saw her and Derek in her yard, and he was getting testy with her. I…well, I hung back and started to listen in, because I got nervous whenever anyone else was in a bad mood. But I’m glad I did, because they were arguing about me. Iris was getting on his case about how he was treating me, saying that I’d been nothing but nice and he was being a brat. And Derek was getting angrier, until he starting asking why I had to be involved in everything and why couldn’t it just be the two of them like it used to, and why he always had to be saddled with that freaky little firebug.

As you can guess, that hit pretty hard. And suddenly, I didn’t feel much like playing anymore. I took off…I don’t remember if Iris called after me or not, but she knew I’d heard what had been said. But I didn’t hear her if she did, I was too busy crying. Not exactly the most mature response for a twelve-year-old, I guess, but this was something I’d been through too much and it really opened up old wounds. I was reminded of all the people who’d gone at me, who’d called me nasty things, who’d pushed me away and treated me like dirt…I couldn’t really push all those thoughts away, so I responded how I always had, with tears.

A lot of what happened after that is pretty hazy, but what I remember clearly next was running into Isaac somewhere. I think he might’ve been looking for me, though not because of this, probably just for help with another project…either way, he never got around to asking about that, since he was more concerned with what was wrong. I didn’t name names, but I told him the gist of what happened…his response is one I remember pretty well.

“Man, who gives a rip what they say? You’re cool and your fire thing’s cool. People who name call are usually just bitter or jealous about something and can’t get over themselves. I get called stuff all the time, but it’s because I’m smarter than they are and do better in class. The best thing to do is just not care about that stuff, it makes them look worse than you do.”

He said some other stuff too, but it was that part that stuck with me more than anything over time. Because I was well aware a lot of people didn’t particularly like Isaac, but he stood up to them, and I really don’t think I ever saw anyone get the better of him when they tried to tear him down. It was harder for me to be able to adopt that kind of attitude, but it helped to know that I wasn’t the only one out there who dealt with that kind of thing, and to have a friend who’d been there to help me through it…to say nothing of the fact that he stood up for me for what I’d been slighted over, which helped salve the wound. It was when I realized things could be different this time, that I wasn’t going to lose everything like before.

I told myself I was just going to ignore Derek, and maybe try to find Iris more when he wasn’t around. But that didn’t last long - he approached me a couple days later on his own. And of course, I reacted to this with all the grace and maturity you’d expect from a wounded twelve-year-old.

“What do you want? Come here to stomp on the freaky little firebug?” Yeah…that’s about what you’d expect.

“That’s not…look…I, uh…I came to apologize…I shouldn’t have said that. It was wrong.”

It sounded like an apology, in everything except tone. I knew forced apologies pretty well by that point, too. “Iris made you come over here, didn’t she?”

“No! I just…she didn’t MAKE me do anything…”

“Uh huh…” No, she didn’t MAKE you do anything, Derek, but she told you there would be consequences if you didn’t. Most fake apologies are the same. “If you’re only doing it because she made you, that’s not an apology at all.”

“C’mon, at least hear me out. I really was out of line…I know that I shouldn’t be saying that kind of thing, I was just angry. I mean, it’s not like everyone doesn’t think I’m weird, too.”

“Yeah? Well, why do I make you so angry, anyway? Never doing anything to you, trying to be nice to be met with you always trying to push me away, what about me ticks you off that much?”

Derek wasn’t quick to respond this time. “It’s nothing…you wouldn’t understand it anyway.”

I didn’t really like that response, as you can probably guess. But before I could say anything, I thought back to what they’d been arguing about…and then I realized I DID understand, much more than he could ever know. “It’s not really about me at all, is it? It’s about Iris.”

“I dunno what you mean.”

“The heck you don’t. Do you spend time with anyone else, ever?”

“…That’s none of your business.”

“Right now it IS my business, because you’re supposed to be apologizing, right?” This was new territory for me, I didn’t have any attitude whatsoever most of my previous life…that’s what being angry rather than sad gets you, I guess.

Derek didn’t look like he was really enjoying this, but he answered anyway. “I…guess I don’t, really.”

“You’re just angry because you want to spend time with her, and you think I’m stealing that from you. It’s stupid. She’s not pushing you away, she wants you to be there too. At least she does until you act like a brat. You can’t try to keep her all for yourself, Derek. She doesn’t want that. And if you try to make her choose between you and all her other friends…it’s like a game of tug-of-war. She’s the rope, you’re on one side, and all of them are on the other side. And they always win, because that’s how it’s supposed to work. The person who tries to be the only one loses.”

“That’s…I don’t…what do you even know about that?” Derek was trying to be defiant, but I saw it in his eyes. That fear…he knew it, even if he didn’t want to accept it. But I knew how to make that happen.

“I know because I made the same mistake. I had a friend, last place I lived…he was THE friend. The only one I had, the only one I could seem to make. And I always wanted to do things with him, but I didn’t want to do things with his other friends, because they didn’t like me. And I tried to pull him away from them more, but he wasn’t happy about that…one day I told him he had to pick between me and them. And that was how I lost him. I was stupid to think I could ever beat out everyone else he got along with…but I was too stupid to see how stupid I was, too.”

I could tell it hit home with him…his look had changed completely. It kind of helped defuse my own anger, too, because I could see myself in him…it kind of woke me up that all that stuff before hadn’t really helped much.

“The only way to win in this kinda thing is not to be on the other side…it’s to be on the same side as everyone else. Because then you’re not fighting or forcing, you’re just…being a friend.”

“…I’m sorry.” It’s hard to explain just how different the same words can sound. It couldn’t have been more different than when he’d first started talking to me. “I…I was angry because of that. I guess I wanted to just…felt like I was losing her because she wanted to do things with others. But I shouldn’t be forcing her to do that kinda stuff either…it’s not really any good when it’s forced, is it?”

“No…but you don’t have to. I see how close you two are, you’re way closer to her than I am, you don’t need to fight for her attention…the only way you’d ‘lose’ her is if you made it happen yourself, like I did.”

“Yeah…I don’t want that.” Derek doesn’t smile much, but I got one there. “Thanks, Reyn…I guess I was wrong about you. You’re not so bad after all.”

~~~Present Day~~~

That was a big turning point in my life, Reyn pathed with a sigh; bittersweet memories to bring up, since it involved a lot of hard things to think about, but important ones nonetheless. It was the first time I’d really stood my ground against someone…and the first time I realized that things that I’d learned and experienced could really be applied to others. I mean, I always heard about ‘walk a mile in someone else’s shoes’ but it didn’t really sink in until then that I could actually, well, teach someone about something and help them out. I turned Derek from an enemy into a friend, and it got me feeling a lot more like I could stand up for myself…and the more I did, the more I started to be more relaxed, less shy, and be willing to speak up and speak out.

To your brother’s endless chagrin, no doubt, cracked Salmandmon. What’s that ‘walk a mile in someone else’s shoes’ business about, though? That’s a weird way of talking about that sort of thing.

Uh…yeah, considering you’ve probably never worn shoes in your life, I guess that might not be the best way to describe that. Wait, there have to be digimon that wear shoes or boots or something like that. I’m pretty sure Skullsatamon was before we flambéd him.

Yeah, but do you think I’M wearing any of those?

Hm, point…

“Oy! Reyn!” Both looked up as Isaac poked his head out from the stairwell. “Derek’s done with his thing, and that tech’s getting antsy up there. Let’s get a move on!”

“On my way!” Both hopped up, eager to be moving on. Though Salmandmon definitely was left with lingering thoughts about what he’d learned about Reyn…and, though he might have questioned the idioms, he had a feeling he might relate better to what the boy had been through than Reyn ever would have suspected…

———

As it happened, Reyn and Derek arrived at the door at about the same time. Reyn could see a weariness in the taller boy’s eyes, though he seemed a bit more relaxed than usual even despite this. “Hey…how’d it go?”

“…You heard, huh?”

“They didn’t exactly keep it a secret.”

“Hm, I suppose not.” Derek let out a sigh, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. “…It’s a start. The first step in a long process, probably. But…for the first time in ages…I felt like he was actually listening to me. If that’s a sign of things to come, then there’s hope. And right now, that’s what I’m focusing on.”

Reyn nodded. “I see. I won’t pry into it, but…you can talk to me, if you need to.”

“Thanks. We shouldn’t keep the others waiting.” They entered with their partners, to a large tech room with some rather sizable computers in the back. The others were already milling around, all looking to be in various states of weariness; the constant demonstrations had definitely had an effect on them all.

“About time,” Skylar huffed. “I thought you might have started taking on the habits of a certain other someone.”

“You just can’t ever stop taking shots at me, can you?” griped Isaac.

“We aren’t even late,” Salmandmon added. “We came up as soon as we were told things were ready. You’ve just been waiting in here while we went and noshed. You probably oughta do that, you look like you could use a few calories.”

“He only can if you didn’t clean out the entire vending machine,” cracked Shockavimon.

“Hey! I only had six candy bars!”

“Only because I didn’t have any more money on me,” remarked Reyn. “Seriously, where the heck do you put all that food?”

“You know how an incinerator leaves pretty much no traces of what you put in it? It’s like that,” the lizard snorted slightly indignantly. “Weren’t we supposed to be looking at something? Where even are those dudes?”

“Sorry, sorry!” Reyn and Salmandmon rushed out of the way as the tech suddenly barreled into the room. “So sorry! Just got a call that I had to take. Business never stops, even for monster attacks! Ah, goodness, didn’t mean to keep our symbiotes waiting!”

“Our what now?” asked Datacarnomon.

“All in good time, sir!” Rudy snatched a pile of papers off of the printer. “Let me try to catch you up to speed! My name’s Rudy Panmechia, and I do the high-level data and evidence analysis for the BICI, as well as putting together whatever I need to to support our agents in their work. So you remember that we took some samples from you earlier?”

“That episode would be challenging to banish from our recollections,” remarked Blackcanismon.

“I suppose it would be! Well, the purpose of that was to run some DNA analyses. Hardcore, in-depth analyses, as a matter of fact! I’m amazed at what this beast of a computer can do, it really is an incredible piece of hardware, beyond anything you could ever find on the market or even assemble on your own for a reasonable price-”

“Rudy, Rudy…” Emil had stepped into the room, reining in the tech before he could diatribe too much further. “I know you’re enthralled by our master system, but I don’t think this is the audience for it.”

“He sounds a lot like Hoothead, doesn’t he?” snickered Breezedramon to Datacarnomon.

“And clearly needs a handler just as much,” the robot chuckled back.

“Yes, yes, I suppose not…anyway!” Rudy handed out the papers to the pairs, which contained a whole lot of blocks of text and not much more. “We had already ascertained the digital nature of you digimon from earlier samples that had been acquired, an incredibly fascinating and unique discovery that I suspect you all already knew about. What you might not have known is that when I made an attempt to look in further depth into your DNA, I found that it had an unusual property to it! You might notice it in the first box example!”

“…What the heck are all of these little letters?” asked Salmandmon.

“Those are the nucleotide bases of organic DNA, or at least a representation of them,” Skylar said. “A, C, T, G. Though technically there’s supposed to be a U in there somewhere, I think.”

“Only in RNA, so that’s not a factor here,” chimed in Isaac. Skylar gave Isaac a bit of a look, which only got a smug grin in reply.

“Notwithstanding this diatribe of edification, I struggle to ascertain the importance of such knowledge,” Blackcanismon said as he struggled with his papers, Derek doing his best to help.

“That’s where you take a look at the boxes!” Rudy’s eyes were twinkling; he really did seem like a kid at Christmas. “You’ll notice that the binary follows particular patterns that are represented with regularity - a couple of them are marked in such a way! And if you take a look, you’ll notice the same markings in the translation!”

“Trans…WAIT a second!” Datacarnomon shouted. “You can’t be serious right now! There’s no way! Are you trying to seriously tell me you can TRANSLATE our DNA to yours?”

“Exactly! The figures don’t lie, and I did extensive validation! It failed to yield any discrepancies that I could find whatsoever! The connection is remarkable!”

“Holy crap…” Salmandmon was marveling as he looked back and forth, noting the obvious connections. “I can’t believe this was never examined! This might be the craziest thing yet pointing to the validation of Origin Resonance Theory!”

“Are you STILL on that?” Shockavimon asked in disbelief. “Seriously, what is your fascination with that whole thing? You know there’s no way to ever prove it, right?”

“It’s COOL,” fired back the lizard. “And it doesn’t HAVE to be proven, if there’s enough right about it. You can’t tell me this is just some kind of weird cosmic coincidence!”

“It’s nonsense is what it is!” exclaimed Datacarnomon. “It’s not reasonable to say that our DNA can be translated and yet we can look and exist so differently from each other! It just doesn’t make any sense that way!”

“If I may…” all eyes turned towards Rudy, who looked like he’d just had an epiphany of some sort. “I daresay it could very well make sense! After all, DNA is incredibly important, but itself is only a template…there are many processes that go into translating it to the components of cells, tissues, organs, and the like! I would posit that just because the textual representation can be translated doesn’t mean that everything is processed precisely the same way - for one thing, the way your proteins are read out might be completely different, meaning that even equivalent sequences could have dramatically different outputs! And considering the dramatically variable physiology of digimon, extending even to the nature of your existences - such as, for instance, one of you being an outright robot - I’d say it could extend even farther than that!”

“That…actually sounds very reasonable,” replied Datacarnomon. “You are…I think I might like you.”

“Yeah, but now I wanna know, so what?” piped up Breezedramon. “Yeah, you got all these numbers to turn into letters, but why’d you need to sample all of us for that? And why’s it so important anyway? Not like these nucleminotabitines really mean anything to us, right?”

“That’s where the second box sequence comes in! If you’ll glance lower on that page and on the next couple, I did a deep dive into sequencing for all of you! I didn’t run the full genetic profile, that would have taken too long, but running five independent sample points was enough to convince me of what I was seeing, and I’m almost certain it will extrapolate!”

The papers were shuffled around, and the declarations were met with confusion. “What are you talking about, exactly?” asked Iris. “I just see two boxes with letters in them…and it looks like you goofed, they’re just copies of each other.”

“Ah, look again! Specifically at the top where it indicates the profile source!”

“You can’t just tell us?” Iris rolled her eyes, but looked…and then stopped. “Wait…this is my…”

“Why are both of us on these?” asked Reyn, looking back and forth between the boxes. “This is me and Salmandmon…wait, hold on. What?”

But it was Isaac and Datacarnomon who were the first to actually process what they were seeing, and both sets of eyes went wide. “Waaaait a second!” Isaac almost shouted. “Rudy, this had better not be a prank!”

“I wouldn’t prank over something so important!” replied the tech eagerly. “And certainly wouldn’t spend hours setting it up on company time! They don’t like when state employees do that.”

“You can’t…you can’t be serious!” Datacarnomon cried out. “They’re the same! They’re identical! How is that even possible?!”

Derek’s eyes widened, and he suddenly jerked his head around to Emil. “That’s what Dad was flipping out over, wasn’t it?! He somehow got Blackcanismon’s…sample or whatever and they found out it matched me?!”

Emil nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly right. It was a stunner for us, too…but when I put together what was going on, I had a hunch…and I’m guessing that everyone’s finding that to be just what I was suspecting.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Reyn asked in wonder. He wasn’t too overly familiar with the details of DNA, but he knew enough to know that people didn’t have the exact same. “You’re telling me Salmandmon and I, it’s…just…a perfect match?”

“Perfect match?” Salmandmon echoed. “Data, does that ever happen?”

“No, never!” replied the robot shakily. “And it sure as hell isn’t supposed to happen between organics and goddamn robots! And I thought this day couldn’t get any weirder than it already was…”

“Emil told me about what you reported to him about your unusual experiences,” continued Rudy. “Beyond the combining, you have the synchronous elemental connections, the inexplicable connection that draws you to each other, and the developed telepathic connections, and the ability to influence each other on a metaphysical level…it’s led to me hypothesize that what each of you pairs of human and digimon are experiencing is the result of a highly intrinsic connection that manifests in a mutually beneficial coexistence - in other words, a symbiotic relationship! By coming together, the two of you are each providing material benefits to the survival of the other, up to and including a juncture of your very physical beings! And much more thorough than, say, a shark and a remora.”

“Symbiotic…” Reyn exchanged faraway looks with Salmandmon. “That is so crazy…but…I guess everything about this has been crazy, so maybe it’s just completely in line with the trends.”

“Anyone who tries to tell me this isn’t the ultimate example of Origin Resonance Theory is gonna get a hot-foot,” exclaimed Salmandmon with wonder in his voice. “No wonder we felt such a powerful connection…it goes all the way to the fundamental core of our beings!”

“I wondered what it was that set him off so hard,” muttered Derek. “But how did he even get something off of you?”

“My supposition regarding his procurement would be incidental acquisition of pelt emissions,” Blackcanismon suggested. “Although it appears he dramatically misinterpreted the results of the initial analyses. Not entirely beyond understanding, I confess it defies credulity even now.”

“This all feels like a dream,” Iris said distantly, before looking down at Shockavimon. “Everything that’s happened might be because we were just…meant to be together, huh?”

“Two halves of a whole, and only together can we reach our full potential,” agreed the bird. “I never would have expected it in a million years, but…after all we’ve managed to do together, the proof is right there.”

“My head’s hurting trying to wrap my mind around this,” Datacarnomon growled, one hand on his head. “You’re ORGANIC. I’m MACHINE. Hell, they didn’t even know machines had network attributors until recently, this is going to blow some fuses, particularly back in Mechalopolis. Actually, we might wanna keep this from them.”

“I’m as floored as you are, bud,” Isaac affirmed, “but I don’t think Rudy would have given us something he wasn’t sure about. Maybe the ‘how’ isn’t so important here, though…I mean, the fact that we can, if everything that’s happened is because of that, is more important than wondering how it could have happened.”

“Sky, I’m still confused,” Breezedramon said, looking at the white-haired boy blankly. “Is he trying to say we’re the same person?”

“It…not quite,” replied Skylar with a slightly strained tone. “But we’re definitely unusual in how…compatible we are. I’d wonder if all digimon were like this, but something tells me this wouldn’t be a good test to try to run at this point.”

“Something tells me that if all digimon were like this, this whole invasion thing wouldn’t be happening in the first place,” ventured Emil. “The attachment you all demonstrated was incredible…you all talked about feeling like you’d known each other for years despite having never physically met, and immediately feeling that connection between you, even enough to drive you to find each other. The hatred those from Emperius have for us, it doesn’t sound like they have any such connection at all…”

“That’s a good point,” agreed Salmandmon. “I don’t know why it’s just the five of us, apparently, but I don’t think it’s likely that we’ll be seeing any reinforcements any time soon.”

“Dang, that woulda been nice,” sighed Shockavimon.

“Anyway…I find this connection fascinating, and it makes me wonder if we shouldn’t try to explore it further,” continued Emil. “I would be curious to have Rudy try to draw up some tests that he could use to try to find out more about just what this link does. It could yield some important insights that might help you out in future confrontations-”

“Dad, I’m gonna stop you right there,” Iris said suddenly, standing up and walking over to her father. “I think it’s great that you’re as interested in this and that you were willing to keep an open mind about this whole situation, it’s made things so much better for us, you don’t even know. That said, I NEED A BREAK.”

“A-heh…” Emil let out a bit of an embarrassed laugh. “Yes, I, uh, think we might’ve been pushing you all a bit more than you were prepared for…well, I mean, it would probably take some time for Rudy to put together any sort of testing scheme anyway, so that sounds like a perfect time for you to all spend some time recharging and come back when, uh…”

“When I’m in a better mood?” Iris said knowingly.

“You said it, I didn’t,” Emil replied with a wink. “Perhaps it doesn’t have to be today, even, but I would like to discuss some other things with you before you all go your separate ways. Still, I think you’ve been cooped up long enough, it would be good to let you all have some time to yourselves a bit. After all, you’re all processing some important new revelations yourselves…perhaps would you be okay with meeting back here in an hour or so?”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” agreed Isaac. “I’m gonna stay here, though…I want to see if I can get Data interfaced with this computer here so that he can use it to scan for any potential new arrivals we need to deal with. Reyn, Sal, do you mind at least staying in the building just in case we make any unpleasant discoveries?”

“Sure, wouldn’t be a bad idea,” agreed Reyn.

“Hey, I can keep myself occupied anywhere,” Salmandmon snickered.

“I’ll probably be staying in the building as well,” said Derek. “I’ve got lots to think about, and under the bright sun isn’t exactly where I do my best thinking.”

“Well, you all can stay shut in, I need some fresh air,” Skylar countered. “And Breezedramon looks like he’s about to start bouncing off of walls in boredom, so I’d rather find him a place with less hard things to run into.”

“Yeah…wait, hey!” Breezedramon gave Skylar an angry look. “Don’t TELL them that!”

“As if we don’t already know you do it, goofball,” Shockavimon teased.

Iris gave her father a hug. “We’ll go out for a walk, too. We won’t go too far, I just need to get my head cleared a bit.”

“All right.” Emil hugged her back, looking down at her with just a hint of anxiety. “I know you’ll be with Shockavimon, and you two together can do some impressive things…but I still worry about you, so try to be as safe as you can be out there, all right?”

“Of course, Dad.” After parting, she looked aver at Shockavimon, who was flapping over. “I don’t think I need to ask if you’re ready.”

“Nope. Let’s get out there.”

Iris nodded, then glanced up at Isaac and Reyn one last time just in case they were going to ask anything of them. Isaac seemed to already be examining the computer, which Datacarnomon was almost salivating over. “Dang, this thing’s gotta have half the power of Skynet. Reyn, betcha ten bucks Data finds something that’s been hiding from us if he scans with this computer’s help.”

“No way,” Reyn shot that down immediately. “I know Murphy’s Law too well, I’d rather keep my money.”

“Murphy’s Law?” asked Salmandmon.

“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. And Murphy was an optimist.”

“Tch, some optimist. Still, I don’t think he was wrong, if this whole thing’s anything to go by, anyway.”

Iris rolled her eyes, but was glad to just be able to walk out without any other worries. As she descended the stairs, though, a thought occurred to her. Huh…since when does Isaac make bets? I thought he said he hated them…wonder if Datacarnomon’s rubbing off on him a little bit.

———

For once, Shockavimon wasn’t hiding herself as they walked, though it didn’t seem like there were too many people to see her anyway. Everything seemed to be quiet in the city today, fewer people out than ever…the Airdramon attack had probably driven most of them back inside, just as the Aquilamon attack had kept them in for a couple days. They made their way to a plaza with a running fountain, a place where people could walk around and congregate; it was as empty as anywhere else, making it feel a little eerie, but at the moment, Iris and Shockavimon didn’t mind the silence.

“What a day it’s been…” sighed Iris, letting some tension out of her. “Showing ourselves to so many people, learning about a connection I never would have imagined…just when you think this whole ordeal’s shown all it’s got to show, another reveal’s made. What else is coming that I’m not ready for?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” replied Shockavimon, “but it’s a good bet I won’t be ready for it either. This was about as far from what I could have imagined when we made the trip over here. I thought we’d be spending days on our own, trying to carve out a little spot hidden away somewhere that we could use as a base while we tried to get the lay of the land and find out who we needed to talk to about this whole mess. They say a plan never survives first contact with the enemy, but that one didn’t even survive first contact with a friend.”

“No kidding…hey, Shockavimon? Why did you…jump in like that, when Dad and I were talking earlier?”

“What do you mean?”

“When he asked why we didn’t say anything to him. I wasn’t…intending to suggest you’d said anything to me about it. I mean, I know you did, but that wasn’t why I was reluctant to tell him. It wasn’t your fault, but it seemed like you wanted to…well, I don’t know how to put it without it sounding weird, but take blame for it, I guess.”

Shockavimon bowed her head. “That wasn’t exactly what I was thinking, but…well, I do wonder sometimes if I’m not too quick to find fault with myself. Still pieces of that damaged mindset that are hard to get rid of…but…well, one of those is the mistrust, too. I know it’s not healthy to be that leery of everyone, and…I shouldn’t have been trying to tell you how to respond to someone you very obviously know better than I do. I should have listened rather than pushing my opinion. This isn’t the first time I’ve done that, and…well, that snap judgment, it kinda tends to be wrong more often than not.”

“Oh…I guess I see. But, I don’t think you were out of line.” Iris shook her head slowly. “I think, sometimes, the people we know best are the ones we’re most likely to misjudge…because we know them well enough that we want to think better of them than they are. Regardless of how good or bad we should think of them, anyway. I think having that outside perspective can be good sometimes…you don’t know him that well, so what you know is what you see.”

“I guess sometimes it’s good to have two ways of seeing things, huh?”

“Yeah. Two different things coming together can give you a better view. Like us, right?”

“Right. And it’s amazing how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time. Though I guess that’s partly what pressure makes happen…jeez. This whole thing has been such a crash course. It wasn’t like this at all back with the KOL, we had time to prepare and we were as proactive as we were reactive…here, we can’t be anything BUT reactive, it feels like.”

Iris giggled a bit. “I know it’s weird, but it’s…kind of relieving, a bit, that you get overwhelmed by some parts of this, too. I mean, I appreciate your experience, it’s probably been what’s really made me able to trust you when you say I can do these sorts of things, but I feel less bad about how out of my element I am when I hear that you are, too.”

Shackavimon couldn’t help but grin. “I’m glad for anything that helps, really. I don’t know if I’m always doing a good enough job of helping you through that part of things…I guess I forget sometimes your stage of life when we’re taking on these challenges together. You seem…older than you are, honestly. Though that goes for all of you guys, it’s incredible how well you’ve handled everything. I wonder if that isn’t another little influence we have as part of this connection…don’t know how we’d find out, though.”

“Maybe. But I’m glad we have it…this all has been hard enough as it is, if I didn’t feel like I was hanging in there…” Iris’s voice trailed off, and she suddenly stopped.

“Iris? What…” Shockavimon started, and then she felt it - a chill that made the feathers on the back on her neck stand up. Both of the turned around at the same time, to the approach of four men, one of whom had a rather sinister smirk on his face. All four were armed, but only the frontmost one with the smirk had his in his hand. “Who are you?”

“I don’t answer to monsters,” replied the man fiercely, in a tone that instantly set off Shockavimon’s warning bells. “You, girl…you’re Conover’s daughter, aren’t you?”

“…You’re…I thought I saw you when Dad was taking us in.” Iris did not like the vibes she was getting from him. “But you’re not from here, are you?”

“Astute girly…makes me wonder why you’re looped in with these things. The name’s Lexis Redford, and I’m with the FBI - and soon I’ll be the one in charge of it. But there’s a few things that stand in our way…these little creeps that blight our wonderful world.”

“H-hang on!” Shockavimon protested. “We’ve been trying to help out! Ask anyone in the building now! Ask Mr. Conover!”

Redford’s expression darkened, making the smirk look even more twisted. “I’m not interested in asking him anything. That man has been nothing more than the worst thorn in my side. And here I thought it would be Katran that would muck everything up, but no, it had to be him, poking his nose in and suggesting that monsters were the ones saving us. But now I see…he wants to protect his precious daughter more than anything. Finding out I came at him directly, I can’t wait to see the sick look on his face.”

“What…what’s going on? Why are you doing this?!” Iris was feeling panic rise. “We’re trying to stop digimon from attacking this world! Why would you want to get in the way of that?!”

“Heh heh…a kid like you just doesn’t understand how you get ahead in the world. Can you imagine the following you’d get if people found out you’d stopped an existential threat to the entire planet? That sort of attention isn’t something you can just get anywhere, and opportunities don’t come up every day. Definitely not ones that haven’t come up ever before. The heroism we show in ending the threat will be enough to convince anyone that we should be the only ones they need to listen to…unless they hear that some foolish monsters have been fighting off the other ones. If word gets out that that’s happening, then we can’t gain anything from it. So we need to put an end to this little farce so we can ensure only the people who matter get the credit for it.”

Shockavimon’s stomach was churning as she heard this. “You…you’re deranged! We’re trying to stop Emperius, they’ve been coming and they’re going to keep coming, and they’re not going to stop for anything! If you kill us, nothing will stand in their way of wiping out all of humanity!”

“Tch, even if I believed your empty threat, by the time they actually do come, we’ll be ready for them. After all, only the best and brightest will be in charge, the ones who finished off the threat of the monsters before…” Redford’s malicious grin almost glowed with malevolence as he raised the gun at Shockavimon. “If we beat them once, we can beat them again.”

“No! Don’t you dare!” cried Iris.

“Get away from us!” Shockavimon yelled.

“Your contribution to President Wheeler’s campaign is appreciated…more appreciation than you deserve, monster.” The shot rang out, just as Shockavimon was starting to dive away. It hit her in the upper chest, sending blood flying from the exit wound, and she fell back to the backdrop of Iris’s scream. Raw terror coursed through the girl as she looked upon her fallen partner, unable to believe what was happening…that after all this time, it was one of their own betraying them that was going to be their downfall.

Redford had lowered the pistol, gazing triumphantly on the scene…but that look soured shortly. “Hmph. I must not have gotten her cleanly…she hasn’t disappeared yet. My aim’s getting sloppy.”

Iris saw the gun go back up…suddenly, almost like it wasn’t even her, she rushed in front of Shockavimon. “Get away from her! Get away from her RIGHT NOW!”

“Better get out of the way, girlie, or I might just rethink my boss’s order not to leave a human body around,” Redford warned harshly, not bothering to divert the direction of the pistol. “No one’s going to stand in the way of my rightful place in power, especially not a little girl playing with creatures she doesn’t understand. GET OUT OF MY WAY.” Redford took a step forward, intending to intimidate Iris into moving…none of them expected what happened next.

All of it going through Iris’s mind…fear, anger, sadness, all blending together in a sickening inner whirlwind in her mind…the worst of it focused on the man in front of her, callously trying to murder her partner and friend…something deep within her burned fiercely, a heat in her core that she was only half aware of. She didn’t notice the rising of her hair, the cracking of the air around her, the energy building inside her, all she knew was that Redford was trying to finish the job and she wouldn’t let him. And with one fluid move, she brought her hand up. “I SAID GET AWAY!”

The burst of crackling lightning from her hand was a raw power she had never felt in her life, at least not in her own, solitary life. It surged out, crashing into Redford’s chest, the man’s eyes widening just a moment before it hit and then even further when it did, lifting him off his feet and throwing him back several yards. He hit the surface of the plaza hard, ragdolling a bit before coming to a stop, convulsing and gasping, his expression blank and empty.

For a moment, Iris stood frozen, hardly daring to believe what had just happened. It hadn’t even been volitional, she’d just…felt the charge inside her and let loose. But there was no doubt what it had been…electricity, by her own hand. A power she definitely did NOT have even a few days ago. And the raw force it had…to throw a grown man that far, affect him that badly, it was not just a parlor trick, that had been a straight-up attack…

But a moan from behind her erased all her attention to that for the moment. She whipped around and dropped over Shockavimon; she was bleeding, in obvious pain, but not gone yet. And she remembered what Derek had mentioned, when Salmandmon had been wounded and Reyn had done something to help him…she leaned over Shockavimon, ignoring the blood staining her shirt as she wrapped her arms around the fallen bird, tears beading in her eyes as she focused hard, trying to will her energy into Shockavimon, to save her before it was too late…she could feel the warmth suddenly flowing through her, different from what she’d just let loose, pushing into Shockavimon and connecting the bird to her…she could only pray that she wasn’t too late…

It was draining, but it was working…she could feel the strength returning to Shockavimon’s body. Shockavimon’s own vision was clearing, her breathing was slowing from the harsh gasps to something more stable as she felt the pain in her chest recede, the blood stop flowing…she angled her head up, seeing Iris holding her. “Iris…you…”

“Shockavimon…” Iris’s voice was listless, tears in her eyes as she hugged Shockavimon tight. “You’re…you’re okay…”

“Y-yeah…I…I am…thank you…” Shockavimon made to return the embrace, but a loud pair of voices behind them shattered the moment.

“DON’T MOVE!”

Startled, Iris nearly fell over, and jerked her head back over her shoulder. In the mess of everything, she’d entirely forgotten that there were three other men there. One of them was looking over Redford, while the other two had guns trained on her and Shockavimon. “What the hell did you do, what the HELL DID YOU DO?!” one of the men roared, his gun shaking in his grasp.

“You’re in BIG trouble, girl, you just attacked a federal official!” shouted the other, much steadier and sharper.

Fear was beginning to return as the predominant emotion, as both of them realized how vulnerable they were. Those two didn’t seem to have much in the way of restraint, and Iris was too drained to be able to do much more at the moment, having put her all into restoring Shockavimon, who didn’t fancy her odds against two of them. It looked no less dreadful than when it started, the odds of their survival looking grimmer by the moment…

“PUT. THE GUNS. DOWN.” A deep, powerful, booming voice startled all the men into looking their direction. Iris scarcely dared to believe it - standing in front of half a dozen other agents with their weapons trained on the attackers was Bob McGovern, his own service pistol drawn and steady. “Don’t make me repeat myself. I don’t like being that loud, if I have to get that loud again it won’t be pretty.”

All three men slowly, reluctantly relinquished their weapons. Three of the agents stepped forward to take them and take control of the men, two others went to check on Redford, and Bob and the last came over to Iris and Shockavimon. “Are you all right, you two?”

“I…I think so…” Iris’s voice was shaky and weak. “Thank you, Bob…”

“It’s my pleasure, little lady. Consider it a little bit of repayment for you looking after me out there that night.” He looked back over his shoulder with a scowl on his face. “Never did trust that slimeball…I had an ugly feeling when I saw him slip out after you, glad I listened to it. Did he hurt either of you?”

“He shot me!” Shockavimon replied with a tremor. “Iris helped me out, but…what the hell is going on? Why would he do that?!”

“I only have thoughts, not answers, but maybe we’ll hear them from one of his cronies. Let’s get you two back to safety.”

———

The day had already been surreal enough; Iris really wished it would stop trying to top itself.

She had recovered a little bit as they walked slowly back to the BICI, escorted by Bob and one other agent; the rest had remained back with the attackers, but a couple cars whipping past them in their direction suggesting they wouldn’t have to be out there too much longer. Not long after that, Breezedramon swooped in - he’d heard the shot, and had flown up to assess things and come down towards them when he saw the commotion. Immediately he took on the role of scout, swooping forward on their path to make sure no other nefarious forces lay in wait to try to ambush them. Mercifully, their path remained clear, and they arrived at the BICI just as Skylar was hustling up, looking incredibly relieved to see the two of them shaken but stable, though not seeming to quite realize that that didn’t mean they hadn’t been through a thing.

Once inside, Bob had taken over briefing some of the others in there while Skylar helped Iris back upstairs to the lab room. It had gone from peaceful to frantic once Iris had said she was attacked by one of their own - and even more frantic when Emil suddenly barged in, trotting and agonizing over Iris until she pushed him off and convinced him that Shockavimon had been the one who’d taken the worst of it. Only then could the story start to really get out.

“That’s insane!” yelled Salmandmon angrily. “I can’t believe a human actually shot you even knowing what you were doing! What the hell is wrong with him?!”

“Lexis Redford…” There was an edge to Emil’s voice that was doubly disturbing for how infrequently it was ever heard. “We knew he wasn’t trustworthy, but I never expected…unbelievable. Wanting to take credit for stopping the attacks? He hasn’t done a goddamn thing the whole time he’s been here!”

“It was terrifying hearing him say that…” agreed Iris; her voice was still a little shaky, but better than it had been. “He said…we were contributing to…President Wheeler’s campaign.”

“I’m sorry, what?” hissed Reyn. “Last I checked, he wasn’t the president, and shouldn’t be allowed within a thousand miles of that office.”

“And since when has that stopped other idiots who shouldn’t have been there?” growled Isaac. “What the hell kind of stunt is he trying to pull?”

“I wish I didn’t have an answer for that, but I think I might.” All eyes turned towards the lab doorway, where Elliot had stepped in; he still looked not entirely fresh, but he’d cleaned himself up a bit since his talks with Derek. It didn’t seem to have done much for his mood, though, with the dour expression on his face. “It seems our ‘federal support’ might never have been support at all. Emil…you remember how often he was on the phone, talking to someone he wouldn’t tell us about?”

Emil’s face went pale. “…Oh, no.”

“Turns out, he’s been feeding information directly to Jonah Wheeler this entire time. I’ve got a bad feeling that there’s been something going on that’s been piling on the trouble…and I’ll probably know more soon, because I got something off of the bug I put in his office. I just need Rudy to decrypt it.”

“That’s not everything, though…” Iris spoke up again. “When he shot Shockavimon, he was angry that he didn’t finish it. And when he tried to again…” She did her best to describe the experience she had, the sudden release of the electricity...and then realized, seeing the blank faces, that she could do one better. Staying calm and focusing a bit, she held out her hand…everyone’s eyes widened in awe as a sparking ball of electricity formed in it.

“No…freaking…way…” Isaac said, gaping.

“That’s wicked!” Breezedramon exclaimed.

“But…how?!” asked Derek, aghast.

“Absolutely fascinating!” Of course, it had to be Rudy interjecting and making everyone jump. “This would appear to me to be a manifestation of another benefit of your symbiotic connection to your partner! Shockavimon can generate electricity at will, and this capacity must have arisen in you as well!”

“Why just her, though?” asked Datacarnomon, still in disbelief. “None of the rest of them has shown anything of the sort!”

“But…we wouldn’t necessarily know it, would we?” The others looked at Skylar, who was looking contemplatively at the lightning ball. “It wasn’t until Reyn and Salmandmon accidentally discovered their telepathy that we realized we were capable of it. And the energy transfer thing, that was spur-of-the-moment as well, yet several of us have done that as well since. Perhaps we’ve all developed this recently, but it’s never come out that we’ve felt the need to channel it, so we haven’t actually done so.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a second…” Reyn suddenly stood up, stepping away from the others. They watched as he looked at the far wall, his eyes almost boring into it, raising his hand up and gritting his teeth. For a moment, nothing appeared to happen…and then, without warning, a blazing orb of fire gradually grew in front of his hand. The swirling flames remained there, held in place until Reyn made a slight motion and it suddenly rocketed forward, smacking into the wall and leaving a scorch mark.

“Reynard Kessilik!” Elliot snapped. “Warn us before you do something like that! And don’t shoot things like that at the walls!”

“Sorry, I got a bit carried away!” Reyn looked at his hand, starry-eyed. “Jesus hell, this is like everything I’ve ever dreamed of…”

“Great, the pyro can make fire at will,” sighed Skylar. “What can POSSIBLY go wrong with that?”

“Justifiable reservations aside, this constitutes an exemplary development!” exclaimed Blackcanismon in wonder. “The capacity to effectively defend yourselves outside of our unification state is extraordinarily advantageous! My greatest concern was the potential for directed assault against our individual selves, as a mechanism to disrupt our capacity to mount an effective defense…”

“I have to agree,” Emil said with a nod. “If you’re capable of doing things like this…at the very least, I might not know what digimon might be capable of, but any further incidents of THIS kind should be much more manageable. And I have to imagine you’ll be able to do a lot more with it if you take some time to practice…SAFELY,” he added as he saw Reyn’s expression light up. “Not inside, for one thing, and I would recommend doing so in a place where you won’t destroy things that shouldn’t be destroyed.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep my eye on him,” Salmandmon said with a grin.

“Because the pyromaniac with pyrokinesis will most assuredly be restrained by Zetta Unit’s resident conflagrant cranium,” snarked Blackcanismon.

“Man, this is so lame…” Isaac grumbled. “I’m not gonna be able to have anything like that…”

“I’m sure between us we can figure something out, Ike,” Datacarnomon reassured his partner. “We might be able to make you something that can compete or outclass any of them! Especially if we can make use of this beast of a computer here!”

“I guess…though I don’t know how keen Rudy’ll be to have to share his baby for longer…”

“It’s a disaster!” Rudy’s sudden shout drew everyone’s attention - he sounded as distressed as they’d ever heard him. “A catastrophe of epic proportions!”

“Okay, you CAN just say no, I won’t be offended,” Isaac snapped testily.

“Not that! Elliot, that data you sent me…”

Elliot didn’t need to hear more, hurrying over. “Let’s hear it.”

“S-sir, it’s not secure-”

“Right now this is relevant to everyone in this room. Whatever Redford was involved with, that attack made clear it’s targeted at them more than anyone. They need to know as much as we do.”

Rudy didn’t look comfortable with that, but didn’t object further, playing the audio over speaker for them all to hear. The contents were limited, containing only the last call between Redford and Wheeler, but that was enough for everyone to get a nice healthy pang of anxiety over what was being discussed.

“Okay, I never thought anyone could piss me off as much as Emperius does, but these assholes are getting damn close,” growled Salmandmon.

“They’re going to siege Braun to attack us?!” Skylar looked like he might faint. “They could tear this entire city apart!”

“Wait, hang on, I thought you guys said there was someone else in charge of the military,” Datacarnomon said. “Why is this guy suddenly in charge?”

“He’s not,” replied Elliot darkly. “But he’s angling to be. I’ve never met a more craven power seeker than Jonah Wheeler. He’s spent years sucking up to whoever he sees the winds turning towards - and he reads the room too damn well for my comfort - and gives them enough dirt that they buy into him and reward him for it. But for him to pull a stunt like this, something that’s practically a coup, it means he’s going all in, thinking that a bold move against the monster attacks will win him the adulation he needs to get to the top. And he must have promised Redford a sweet position to do his dirty work over here.”

“He did!” Iris exclaimed. “He said he was going to be in charge of the FBI!”

“But he couldn’t command a military unit in defiance of the president…unless they were already in his pocket,” mused Emil. “He mentioned a General Sykes, that must be who he’s convinced to get involved in this insane plan.”

“If it’s insane, that fits Sykes perfectly,” Isaac stated contemptuously. “He wants to fight a war so bad I’d suspect he’d start one himself if he could get away with it. If anyone would turn on the country for self-aggrandizement, it’d be a sword-swinging lunatic like him.”

“Excuse me, swords are exemplary armaments,” huffed Blackcanismon indignantly. “Please refrain from denigrating our fusion’s equipment of choice.”

“Our situation’s a tiny bit different,” said Derek. “But setting that aside, I don’t like the sound of that one bit. It sounds like he enjoys the thought of a nasty fight…”

Isaac nodded. “Too much. Lots of people think he’s cracked, but he’s got a few devoted followers who love everything he stands for…good money says that’s who’ll be marching into Braun tomorrow, right in lockstep with him.”

“All to hunt us…” Shockavimon said glumly.

“This is crazy!” shouted Breezedramon angrily. “Don’t they understand we’re trying to help them?! That we’re trying to save their asses from being oblimeratimaturniterated?!”

“They don’t care,” Elliot declared stiffly. “I know this type of person…I’ve had to lock too many of them up not to know what they’re all about. They care about nothing except their own status, and they’ll do whatever it takes to try to raise that status, no matter what the cost is to others. Some people see a disaster and their only thought is how they can profit off of it…and apparently these ones are going one step further and making sure they don’t have competition in their bid for glory. Blatant, disgusting opportunism…it explains a lot of Redford’s behavior, though. He always wanted to act like he was taking everything over, despite not actually doing much…it must have been about controlling the message, ensuring that we looked incapable and they could swoop in when the time was right.”

“And he was furious when I suggested that the monsters weren’t all on the same side, during the interrogation with that Goblimon creature,” added Emil. “Now I get why…he knew that if they weren’t the ‘heroes,’ their whole plan fell apart. I wonder if they haven’t been doing something to keep the President out of the loop, too…”

“Wait, you have a Goblimon here?” Salmandmon asked. “He might know something about Emperius’s plans! Let me have some time with him, I’m good at getting info out of these guys! Everyone knows I’m good at turning up the heat!”

“Yeah, literally,” added Shockavimon with an eye roll. “Getting them delirious with heatstroke isn’t exactly high-quality interrogation technique.”

Elliot shook his head. “Sadly, I don’t think that’s going to be happening. I wanted to ask him a few more questions of my own, after finally getting and, hrm, accepting the whole story…but when I got to the room we’d been keeping him in, he was gone.”

“Gone?” Emil half-shouted. “Did he escape? Or did someone help him?”

“I almost wish that was the case. But the restraints were still attached. And…there was a distinct blood spatter on the floor. Given what we’ve heard about how these digimon die, I can only assume that it was an execution. And no prizes for guessing who’s at the top of the list of suspects.”

“Redford…” Reyn’s hands were gripped tight enough to almost break something. “I don’t care how bad they are, killing someone at your mercy like that is just monstrous. Iris, whatever you did to that guy, it was less than he deserved.”

“Much as I agree with that, we don’t have time to think about that right now,” urged Derek. “We’ve got military forces invading Braun by tomorrow morning, if we’re lucky and Wheeler doesn’t move things up since we mucked up his underling’s plan. We need a plan of action, and fast.”

Emil shook his head. “We can’t afford to lose you…even if we’ve been lucky so far, I don’t think it’s going to stay that way. We need you to be able to handle the attacks coming through from Emperius more than anything…we’re going to have to get you out of here so that you can be safe.”

“No.” Salmandmon’s resolute voice caught everyone off-guard. “We can’t do that. You heard what he said. ‘No matter the cost.’ No amount of pleading is going to convince him that we’ve bugged out unless he actually finds us out there. I don’t know him, but I know what type of person that is…he won’t be satisfied until the entire city is razed to rubble, and no amount of death will be too much to sacrifice for his thirst for power. It’d be the Gradwen Massacre all over again, except larger by a couple orders of magnitude. And if he doesn’t find us, he’ll expand his scope of destruction until someone stops him…if that’s even possible by then. I WON’T throw these people into the thresher.”

“Then…what are you going to do?”

“We do what we always do.” The reptile’s eyes had a furious fire in them that the rest of Zetta Unit knew too well. “We stand, and we fight.”

“Admirable as that courage is, they’ll use that to smear you,” Elliot reminded him. “All the blood you shed will be used to turn everyone else against you.”

“Then we shed as little blood as possible. We play defense. Disarm them, disable them, drive them back, whatever it takes, buying as much time as we can for whoever’s higher up the food chain to rope them back in. We know they’re going to target you guys here in this building…we don’t let them get here. Whatever power we have, we channel it towards stopping their advance. And we don’t just let them wreck the city or hurt anyone here while they’re coming for us…with their attention on us, we can keep them from doing too much collateral damage.”

“He’s right,” agreed Reyn, looking as serious as anyone had ever seen him. “We can’t run and sacrifice innocent people to these madmen. We have to take it to them. They have no idea what they’re up against…we’ll show them just how unprepared they are for what’s coming. Maybe it’ll send a message to the sane ones, too.”

“Are…are you really ready to take on some of your own?” asked Emil shakily.

“…I’ve been bracing myself for this for a while. Ever since I first merged with Salmandmon, I knew it might came down to this. At the end of the day, though, the only difference between an evil human and an evil digimon is what kind of creature they are. If they want to attack, destroy, and kill, they need to be stopped.”

“He’s right,” agreed Derek. “We don’t have time for a moral crisis. We need to defuse this before Emperius escalates, and that could happen at any moment.”

“We can do this,” Shockavimon declared. “Our electricity can do the trick against any boots on the ground. The right level of shock can stun without putting them at serious risk, and our spread can hit a lot of them at once. Plus we should be able to block gunfire if we’re being careful.”

“They’re probably going to have planes,” suggested Skylar. “Jetdramon is probably the only one suited to challenging them. If we can keep them from being able to provide support to the ground, that should reduce a lot of the danger to the people here.”

“Any heavy vehicles are probably going to be for us to deal with,” Isaac chimed in. “The only way we’re going to disable those without massive carnage is with enough raw power.”

“Darkvargmon’s capabilities are extremely suitable to remote offensives,” offered Blackcanismon. “We shall strike precisely from the shadows, and run reconnaissance to detect locations requiring attention and facilitate communication between our allied forces.”

“And that leaves us,” Salmandmon stated determinedly. “We’ll be wild cards. Engaging wherever we can, supporting the rest, and leaving ourselves ready to jump into anything unexpected. The numbers game isn’t fun, but they’re less ready for what we are and what we can do than even Emperius was, we’ll use that element to turn the tide in our favor.”

“Well.” Elliot rubbed his head. “I can see why you lot have been able to keep us at bay. You’re remarkably well-organized.”

“We’ve been through some stuff,” Breezedramon remarked, batting his chest. “They’ve been picking up on it super well, though! I never thought young humans would be able to handle this sorta thing! Course it helps that Sky’s a genius and all!”

“Which means we should do our part, as well,” said Emil. “We’ll get as many of our people here to protect whoever we can, and try to contact anyone we know at the federal level to get some intervention. And if anything comes through the wire we’ll try to get into contact with you so that you can adjust accordingly.”

“Then it’s settled,” Salmandmon finished with a nod. “And we need to get ourselves as prepared as we can be. And you guys can do one other thing: try to get word out to everyone what’s going on and to either evacuate or bunker down, so that they aren’t putting themselves in danger.”

“We’ll loop the mayor and council in, I have no doubt they’ll make the order,” Elliot assured him. “You all get as much rest and prep as you can. I don’t care who’s putting it in danger, we’re not giving up this world without a fight.”

Chapter Text

The sun had not yet risen, though the sky was lightening in preparation for the new day. Some people were already prepared for the day, though…though some of them would rather have not been.

“What are we doing out here?”

“You serious, Elias? It’s all anyone around here can talk about and you still don’t know what’s going on here?”

“Unsurprising, of course…listening and thinking are not his strong suits, as you can clearly see.”

A dark-skinned man glowered at his fairer compatriot, visibly frustrated. “I know damn well what General Sykes told us, and what the major keeps yapping about. That’s not my question! Why are we going after them like this?”

“Questioning our mission is not a good look, Corazón,” said the lead of the unit, giving Elias an unpleasant look. For someone who already struggled with feelings of being out-of-place, the lack of consideration of his question wasn’t helping much. “There are monsters here, we’re here to destroy them. And capture one if we can, since Skyes wanted that for whatever reason. He’s got the stars, so we follow.”

“Or let me guess, are you one of those ridiculous twits who buys into that codswallop fairy tale that they’re actually HELPING us?” laughed the smarmy soldier. “You people, you’ll believe anything.”

Elias’s grip on his weapon tightened. He hadn’t expected it to take very long, and his expectations were sadly met. Landon Colress never would have been one of his favorite people in the world - a rich bitch who seemed to be more there to play than to treat the role with the gravity it deserved, he wasn’t especially capable as a soldier but there were more than a few hints that he was expecting to be able to buy his way up the ranks, and just enough people who didn’t care that it seemed like the possibility was there. But it was the veiled racism that got to him more than anything - Landon always toed the line just enough, but if Elias had any doubt that there was much worse under those snide comments, he’d be the foolish one. And it was easy for Landon to get away with it, because the unit was frustratingly bleached - enough that he sometimes wondered if he was filling some unspoken quota, rather than actually respected.

“You don’t know anything, Landon. My brother was up there. The only reason he’s ALIVE is because one of them rescued him! When he heard what was going to happen he begged me not to get involved, that it would cause a whole lot of crap to fall on our heads!”

“Delusional,” scoffed Landon dismissively. “Just another fantasy made up to try to demonize us for doing what we’re supposed to be doing, defending this great nation from ANY threat.”

“I don’t wanna hear any more out of you, Corazón,” grumbled another soldier from nearby. “Story time is over, this is serious business. Sykes made it clear those freaks are our enemy, and that’s all there is to it. And imagine what it’ll look like if we’re the ones to plug one of them. Medals and press like you’d never believe.”

“Oh, I REALLY hope I get to be the one to take one of them down,” gushed Landon with a glee that twisted Elias’s stomach. “I’ll bet it won’t even get a CHANCE to attack me, I’ll have the drop on it so well. It’s too bad they apparently disappear when they die, I would’ve loved to have been holding the head up and smiling for the camera. Maybe they can make me a replica…”

“Jesus, that’s twisted,” Elias seethed.

“I’m starting to question where your sympathies lie,” the second soldier said suspiciously.

“Do none of you have any idea what’s going on? We’re invading one of our own cities! We’re flaunting the president’s authority! They’re planning on blasting a building with who knows how many people inside it to smithereens! If any other country tried to do this to us we’d be bringing the hammer down on them in a heartbeat!”

“Who’s gonna do anything to us?” sniped the third soldier. “We’re shooting monsters, and we’re destroying their sympathizers. Keep that in mind, Corazón - destroying sympathizers. And the iron bitch isn’t gonna do jack about it, because then she has to explain why she’s undermining the real heroes of this whole mess. All people gotta do here is not get in the way and they’ll be fine.”

Elias couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d had some bad unit comrades before but this was way worse than he’d ever had it. He suddenly stood up. “I need to take a walk.”

“Shoulda pissed before you got here, boy,” cackled the second soldier. “Try not to run into any monsters out there, they might bite it off.”

“That might be a benefit, particularly to any women he might come across,” added Landon snidely. Elias hastened his steps before he did something he knew he’d only somewhat regret. He very much didn’t like the insinuation there, but it was futile, he couldn’t prove anything…except that he wanted to be anywhere but there.

He was supposed to stay near his unit, but as he walked, he felt less and less urge to go back. The only thing keeping him was what could potentially happen if he went AWOL and was court-martialed…but everyone involved in this nasty mess deserved a court-martial, as far as he was concerned. They had invaded a city within their own country, becoming a rogue sector of the military, to try to kill creatures that, if his brother was even close to right, were the only reason the city was still standing to be invaded in the first place. He knew there were other soldiers with reservations, but they seemed to be outnumbered by the ones who could apparently only see incoming glory. Sykes included…the almost feral glee that entered his eyes when he spoke of slaughtering the creatures sent shivers down his spine. It seemed like all he could do was try to find a place to lie low, avoid getting into any trouble, but where could he do that in a city like this?

A sound from nearby made him suddenly freeze. “Psst. Hey!”

Elias felt himself start to sweat. He looked around, but saw nothing. His grip tightened on his weapon…had someone followed him? Did they know he was deserting? Were they an ally?

“Hey! Over here…oh. Wait. Right, sorry. Forgot I had my optical camo up.” Elias had turned towards the voice, which seemed to be coming from nowhere…until, suddenly, it was coming from somewhere, the last thing he would have expected. Standing and stepping out from its hiding spot was a small, saurian creature that looked almost like it had modeled its dress code off of Elias himself. A military-style vest, gloves, and helmet, and a weapon that looked remarkably similar to the human’s…about the only thing that wasn’t familiar was the coating of metal on its legs.

And, just because things weren’t strange enough, as it stepped out, it gave Elias a wide grin and a familiar salute, which the human returned purely on automatic. “Well met, soldier! Are you here fighting against Emperius as well? Those bastards are planning something nasty, we need all the help we can get!”

“I…what?”

The creature cocked his head. “You’re a soldier, right? You look like you can’t be anything but.”

“Y-yes, I am…what…who are you?”

“Ah, forgive me, sir! Commandramon, soldier within the Knights of Liberty, Assault Force, Squadron Y. I’ve duped the Emperius invaders into thinking I was on their side to get access to this world as an advance scout so I could warn the heroes fighting bravely over here of a few things! Have they been rallying you? Do you know where they are?”

If Elias thought his life had gone surreal when hearing that a damned dragon had saved his brother from a gruesome death, now he was as fully immersed as he was going to get. His brain might’ve fried a few synapses trying to process what he was seeing and hearing, a fair amount of it meaning nothing to him. But there was one thing he was sure of: this creature was NOT an enemy. Armed but not firing, conversing with him cordially, even revealing himself when he could have ambushed Elias easily and ended him without him ever knowing what had happened…this ‘Commandramon’ was on their side. And any of the others back there would have executed him without a second thought.

It wasn’t a hard choice to make. “I don’t know where they are, but I want to find them myself. Listen, you’re caught up in a huge mess right now. We weren’t brought in to support them, we were brought in to hunt them down and kill them. Someone’s been poisoning their minds to make them think they’re the enemy, instead of these, uh, Emperius folks.”

“What?! That’s horrible news!” exclaimed Commandramon. “After all I’d heard, I thought that they had to be bolstering humanity against Emperius…we need to help them right away!”

Elias nodded in agreement. “Come on, follow me. I don’t know this city that well, but I know one of the targets we were given…if there’s anywhere they might be near, it’ll be there.”

“Aye, sir! Lead the way!” And that was how Elias found himself leading the strangest squadron of two he ever could have hoped for. And all he was hoping was that he could keep away from anyone else that might find them…

———

Do we really want to be split apart like this? Feels way more exposed given what’s going on.

Breezedramon reported a soldier with a digimon, staying away from the fray. I don’t want to spook either of them. We’ve gotta make sure they know we’re the good guys. But believe me, I get it…we’re gonna need to get back together as soon as we can.

Reyn and Salmandmon were being as surreptitious as possible - even though they were a bit further from the actual fracas, there was no telling who might try to divert out their direction. And it was particularly critical after the report from their scout - Breezedramon was the lone one of them who could reliably remain invisible and far enough away to be relatively out of harm’s way, and he’d been doing an aerial reconnaissance to assess what they were up against. That’s when he’d spotted the soldier and a Commandramon taking evasive action, staying away from the rest of the soldiers beginning to make their move. They’d scarcely expected to find an ally out there, but since there was one, they needed to be looped in ASAP. And that was where Burnreptimon’s ‘wild card’ status came in.

Wish we could get him to tell us where they are exactly, but things are getting too hot and heavy for that, pathed Salmandmon as they laid low behind a couple of larger trees, not far away from a church and some connected buildings. We’re near the general area Darkvargmon relayed to us, right?

Not quite, but I wanted to try to anticipate where they might go, replied Reyn. They’re clearly not interested in fighting, and there aren’t too many places to lay low around here without being too close to houses. So I figured they might come towards St. Francis’s - there’s a bunch of trees flanking the church’s community center, and you can see there are no houses along the rest of the block.

So you think they might come this way?

More than think… Indeed, the sounds of footsteps, one booted and one metal, were coming their way. They stayed down and quiet as their two guests ducked into the trees, both breathing heavily.

“Are you…sure this is where we’re supposed to be going, sir?”

“Man, I don’t know where they’re gonna be. I wanted to try to get to our target building, but we can’t go right there, too many guys just itching to shoot at you. And probably me too if they see me with you.”

“This sounds like a nightmare. I hope we can get to them in time…”

That’s gotta be them. Reyn chanced peeking out a bit, looking at the two while they were a bit distracted. Wow, you weren’t kidding with that description. Commandramon looks like a grade-A army brat…we’ve even got a pretty good comparison point right next to him. Even the weapons look similar.

Origin Resonance Theory is gonna have a damn field day with everything I’m gonna be bringing back to them, Salmandmon remarked with no shortage of glee. The whole field’s gonna be feasting on all these synchronies.

Let’s work on surviving long enough for that to happen first. Reyn motioned for Salmandmon to stay in place for a moment and peeked out from behind the tree more. “Psst…hey, you two!”

Both the soldier and Commandramon jumped a bit, but relaxed as they saw Reyn, who made himself more visible now that they were more at ease. “Kid, you shouldn’t be out here, this place is dangerous,” said the soldier nervously.

“That’s fine…I’m pretty dangerous myself,” replied Reyn casually.

“Eh…all due respect, but you don’t look the part,” noted Commandramon.

“Trust me, I can vouch for him.” Salmandmon stepped out now, the tension having been defused somewhat.

Immediately, Commandramon stood upright and saluted with almost a fury. “Zetta Commander Salmandmon! It’s been far too long! Boy, am I ever glad to see you!”

“Haven’t heard my title in a while…wasn’t exactly missing it, though. And who’s your friend?”

The human soldier started a bit, having been staring wide-eyed at Salmandmon. “Oh! Uh…Elias Corazón, private first class. At least, until they haul my ass in for desertion.”

“I’m sure someone’ll put in a good word for you,” Reyn replied. “Kind of wish there were more of your kind out there, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much sympathy for the good guys out there.”

“…I wish I could say you were wrong. I also wish I didn’t know how right you were.”

“He said they were all after the heroes of this world!” Commandramon growled. “Zetta Commander, I know you wouldn’t do anything to put anyone here in danger, how could they be so cruel to you?”

“Commandramon…you were promoted to the Assault Force just a couple seasons ago, weren’t you?” Salmandmon remained a touch wary, not forgetting what he’d said about potential traitors among their own. But Commandramon seemed an unlikely candidate for that, not after willingly walking with a human soldier for hours. “Are you here on your own, though? I didn’t think the KOL would send just one unit.”

“I wasn’t sent by the KOL, sir.” Commandramon’s expression fell. “Emperius…they stormed us, sir, just a couple days after you left. One of our own…I didn’t see who it was, but they gave Emperius all the access they needed. Everyone who wasn’t away on assignment was rounded up by Emperius and taken to their prisons. We weren’t prepared to mount a resistance, they had too much power at their side. Commander Dynasmon…they did something to him, hurt him badly enough that he couldn’t move…”

“Damnation…” hissed Salmandmon. “Even if he survived, there’s no way he could make it on his own…and everyone captured…”

“Deputy Commander Gallantmon was away, sir, he might have found the commander…but I wouldn’t know, unfortunately.”

“Jesus…I don’t know what’s going on exactly, but it sounds like a damn nightmare,” said Elias heavily.

“I only know a little bit about this part, but I know it’s definitely bad news,” agreed Reyn.

Salmandmon let out a deep, smoky breath. “That’s no good…but, wait. If that’s not how you got here…”

Commandramon bowed his head. “Emperius has been trying to break us, sir. They’re trying to convince us to turn on the KOL, and on digimonkind in general. They’re pretty ruthless…it’s terrifying how hard they’re trying to peel off our ranks. Our people are resilient, but a few of them have given in…but when we heard that there was a major assault being planned, a few of us hatched a plan. We pretended to go turncoat so that we could get over here and help you guys out instead. It’s been gut-wrenching trying to pretend we’re all for it, but over here, we have a chance to get some payback on them!”

“Hoo boy…how major is this assault?”

Commandramon hesitated. “I don’t know all the details, but…maybe as many as two hundred, from what I’ve heard.”

Elias’s eyes widened. “Jesus…two hundred creatures…”

Reyn nodded grimly. “My thoughts exactly. Which means we need to stop this attack as soon as possible…I can’t even imagine the mess if we’re still working on that when they get here. Do you know anything else?”

“No, sir. I was made to do the ‘advance scout’ thing and report back with where they could go to do the most damage, because they thought if I didn’t come back it wasn’t a big loss, so I was sent before a lot of stuff was finalized.”

Salmandmon hoped that was the truth, he was going to be very unhappy if he found out he’d been played. “So they sent you over thinking you were on their side. Wait…they were planning for your return? Does that mean you’ve got some kind of charge to go back?”

“Sir, yes, sir! It’s an energy signature that’s currently dormant until I activate it!”

“That’s excellent news!” Salmandmon looked up at Reyn eagerly. “Reyn! We might be able to use this to help make our own PTM! That signal should be enough for us to find the digital world, it has to have the right signature! We might be able to use that to get over there and get some ideas about what Emperius is actually doing! Maybe we’ll be able to avoid flying totally blind here!”

“But how are we going to be able to build a machine like that?” asked Reyn.

“Isaac and Data will be able to figure out that part! But that means we need to get Commandramon to the BICI as soon as possible. If anything happens to him out here, we’ll be out that option!”

“Sir, I was hoping to fight alongside you…” Commandramon looked a little crestfallen.

“Don’t worry, Commandramon, this fight’s nowhere near being finished, you’ll have plenty of opportunity. Right now, this is the most important thing you can do for us.” Commandramon didn’t look entirely mollified, but nodded in understanding. “Okay, we need to hurry. Elias, I know it’s probably not an easy ask, but would you be willing to help play defense for the BICI? We’re trying to keep people away as much as possible, but we’ve only got so much firepower there, and that’s basically our last stand area.”

Elios gave a hesitant nod. “I’ll do what I have to…it sounds like you guys are the only real chance we’ve got. I hope you’ve got something up your sleeve more than just the two of you running there, though.”

Salmandmon grinned up at Reyn. “Time to show ‘em, ya think?”

“Perfect time.” The two joined hands, and their forms swirled once again into that combined form of Burnreptimon, startling both onlookers.

“Holy shit!” Elias cried out. “You’re one of those…I had no idea that it was…”

“They…they meant LITERALLY combining?!” exclaimed Commandramon. “I thought that was just a figure of speech!”

“Y’know, I don’t think I’m ever gonna get totally tired of wowing people with that,” snickered Burnreptimon. “Follow me, and stay a bit behind! We’re about to feel the heat and I don’t want you feeling MY heat.”

———

Peace was hard to find in downtown Braun that morning. Several tanks and armored vehicles were on the streets, planes were flying overhead, and far too many soldiers looking to ice a monster were roaming around. They were hunting to kill, while their targets were trying to do everything they could to avoid it, taking a severe yet calculated risk to try to keep the enemy from having ready-made propaganda on their side. It was about the worst possible situation to be in, not being able to give their all to fight for their lives, forced to pull their punches when their foes weren’t pulling theirs…and it took on an even greater pressure with the knowledge that a very different, but no less malevolent, army was on its way, and they needed to be alive to take that one on as well.

Blazereptimon had somewhat hoped luck would be with him and they would be too occupied with the others to track him, letting him get the escorts to safety. But, as usual, he couldn’t be that lucky…they were still several blocks away when he caught sight of soldiers moving in on his position. He put a hand up behind him to keep Elias and Commandramon hidden away, leaving himself as the lone target out there…his Thermal Zone went up as soon as he had enough space, and it barely took any time before it got put through its paces, bullets cutting in from multiple guns. Thankfully it was more powerful than Burnreptimon’s Heat Field, vaporizing the bullets before even melted dollops could reach him. “Okay, you guys can cut that out ANYTIME!”

“Shut that creature up!” yelled a soldier commandingly. The bullets just intensified, making Blazereptimon growl in annoyance. I can do this all day, but it won’t help anyone. Really wish I could attack from behind this, even if I have to dial it back to next to nothing…

“Dervish Bolt!” A rain of electricity sailed down over the assailants, dropping most of them to the ground. The few who managed to escape the brunt of the attack turned their guns towards Ionfalkemon, who quickly raised a barrier of her own. “Static Arc!” The wall of electricity in front of her stopped the onslaught of bullets cold, and she directed some of her wild bolts around it, forcing them to retreat. They didn’t get far before a sudden surge of electricity rocked them, an electric mine going off and discharging forcefully, incapacitating the remaining lot.

“Electric land mines?” remarked Blazereptimon. “You have no idea how much I envy you right now.”

“The Charge Fields have been working wonders,” agreed Ionfalkemon, directing her Static Arc away and up while scanning for other assailants. “Being able to leave places guarded without being there directly, it’s like being in several places at once. Which I need to be because there’s way more of them than me.”

“We need all the help we can get. I’ve got an escort right now, Commandramon. He’s telling us that Emperius has a huge force coming, probably today.”

“Ugh. When it rains, it pours, huh? Just what we needed. Emperius couldn’t schedule their onslaught at a more convenient time?”

“Apparently they aren’t about being convenient for us, the jerks.” The roar of jets overhead brought Blazereptimon pause…there weren’t a large number of them, but they were an enemy he couldn’t truly fight, certainly not with any level of safety for the pilots. “Those planes are making me nervous…I hope nothing happened to Jetdramon.”

“He’s delayed. Urgent business.”

“More urgent than this?”

“This is part of it. Don’t drop anything yet, Burner,” warned Ionfalkemon. “We’re still in danger here…we’ve got a sniper and we’re in his field.”

“Just the one?”

“It was about a half dozen. Wolf neutralized most of their threats, but there’s one on the roof of one of the buildings, and Wolf couldn’t get up there - not enough shadow for him to materialize.”

Blazereptimon put two and two together after a moment. “…SKYLAR went to confront him?! You gotta be kidding me.”

“I know how crazy it sounds. We’re all getting a bit bolder, I suppose. Oh, hey, that looks to be our cue.” She pointed over the trees, where a rather sizable twister had just formed. “You’d better book it, I don’t know how wide the window is.”

“Got it!” Blazereptimon dropped his Thermal Zone and waved Elias and Commandramon in his direction. “Let’s move it!”

Ionfalkemon watched the two emerge, raising an eyebrow. “You’ve got a human soldier with you?”

“He broke from his unit, ran into Commandramon out there. He’s on our side, are you gonna turn him down?”

“Not a chance, I wish there were more.” Elias was staring at Ionfalkemon as he approached, and she gave a slight wave which he returned. “You stay safe out there, I don’t have to tell you it’s a mess.”

“I, uh…same to you, I guess,” replied Elias nervously.

“Is…is that you, Shockavimon?” Commandramon asked in awe. “With a human like Zetta Commander?”

“We’ll give you a full debrief if we make it out of this alive,” replied Ionfalkemon. “Book it, guys.”

“Be careful,” said Blazereptimon as they started off again, rushing past the battery of downed soldiers, most of whom where conscious but writhing in pain. As he passed, he let off some hot spots to try to render their guns unusable, though he wasn’t sticking around to make sure it took. They needed to get inside as soon as possible…it would be safer for Elias and Commandramon in the BICI, not entirely safe but better than out in the open. There weren’t many places he could hide as they neared, though, so being careful was of the utmost importance.

They were getting close, within a few blocks of the building, when another squadron tried to catch them. Nowhere for Elias and Commandramon to hide this time, so they hunkered down as Blazereptimon shielded them from the gunfire once again. “I’m getting really tired of this!”

“Do you want covering fire, commander?” Commandramon called out.

“NO! We’re trying to keep the damage to a minimum!”

“We might not have a choice!” shouted Elias urgently.

A very real possibility…unless Ionfalkemon came back over, Blazereptimon wasn’t sure what he was going to do. But before he could figure that out, he heard a shout from the other end. “Go, go, go! Throw it out there, don’t let it get it before it’s in range!”

Blazereptimon didn’t have time to wonder what that was - from some kind of launcher he couldn’t see directly, an object that looked disturbingly unidentifiable flew through the air, landing several meters in front of him. Indecision gripped him - dropping his shield would leave him a sitting duck to the bullets, not doing so would protect him from the bullets but not whatever was in front of him, it had to be some kind of weapon but he didn’t know what kind…before he could decide to act, though, there was a loud bang from the thing, and Blazereptimon felt something rush over him, some kind of shockwave. He shivered a little from it, but found himself standing there just fine.

“What?! It didn’t work?! Retreat! Retreat!” Suddenly the soldiers were scurrying away, a respite that Blazereptimon hadn’t been counting on, but he was extremely grateful to get it. Cautiously he lowered his barrier, hoping that they could make it the rest of the way without further incident…but as he turned back to try to get the others going again, he saw Elias frantically shaking Commandramon, who was laying on the ground, not moving.

He rushed over, hurrying to try to check on the cyborg’s state. “Elias! What happened?”

“I don’t know!” Elias replied, sounding terrified. “When that thing went off, he just…started breathing hard, and then he collapsed!”

“Dammit!” Suddenly Blazereptimon had an awful feeling about what that bomb had actually been. “Unbelievable…they have a weapon meant to target digimon?! How?!”

“But…but it didn’t hurt you!”

“It didn’t…I guess it doesn’t work on our combined forms.” Blazereptimon growled. “How’s your upper body strength, Elias?”

Elias didn’t look like he liked the sound of that. “As good as it’s gonna get.”

“You’re going to need to carry him. I need to be ready to defend you two, and I can’t protect him in my shield. Follow as fast as you can, we’re just going to bum-rush it, we can’t afford anything else anymore.”

The soldier nodded, grabbing Commandramon bodily and hefting him in his arms. It was a strain, but he seemed to be doing fine with it, which was the best Blazereptimon could hope for. He took off, the human on his heels, hoping they could do something about this before it was too late - and that they could even get there before something else happened.

———

Merely minutes before, the sniper had Blazereptimon in his crosshairs. All he needed was the opening…but the reptile wasn’t providing. “Drop that damned protection, you beast…c’mon, you’re not even being fired on anymore, what are you waiting for…”

“Beautiful weather today, isn’t it?”

The sniper nearly jumped out of his skin, whipping around in a panic. His hand clung tightly to his rifle as he registered the presence of the white-haired boy on the rooftop with him - where had he come from? He hadn’t made a sound until speaking up! “Jesus christ, kid, don’t sneak up on people like that! Where the hell did you come from?”

“How rude. I DO live in this city, you know. Really, I should be asking YOU that question.”

“Wh…are you…ngh, kid, listen, we’re here to take care of the monsters. You shouldn’t be up here, this place is dangerous!”

The boy adjusted his glasses, a gesture that should have looked relatively benign but somehow registered as far too ominous to the sniper. “Seems to me you’re only making it more dangerous. Haven’t you heard? Some of those ‘monsters’ are the only thing standing between us and the others. If you take them out, then we’re screwed.”

“A-are you…have you lost it, kid? These are dangerous freaks! If you live here, you’ve seen what they can do!”

“I live here, I see what they’ve BEEN doing, all of it. Maybe you should learn to listen to people…instead you’re out here adding to the danger we’re in. Between you, the invading monsters, and the tornado that just dropped, who knows how we’ll make it through?”

“Tornado? Are you cracked, kid? Theres’ not even a damn cloud in…the sky…” the sniper’s voice trailed off as a weird sound came up from behind him. He almost didn’t want to look, but he did…and sure enough, there was a twister traveling along the road below, tall enough to be easily visible, sending soldiers scattering and a few of them flying through the air to land roughly on the ground. An ugly feeling rose in his gut…he turned slowly back to the boy, who suddenly seemed a lot more threatening. “N-no…y…you?!”

“Me,” the boy replied calmly. “Sorry, nothing personal, but this world can’t afford for you to kill us. Maybe when you have the whole story, you’ll rethink whose side you ought to be on…but for now, we just need you out of the way.”

It was all too much for the sniper, who was already reeling…instinct told him he needed to try to fire on the boy, if that was what he really was, but he couldn’t respond, unable to truly believe what he was seeing…and that gave more than enough time for something else to swoop down and pounce on him, knocking the gun away from him as he was planted on the rooftop. His eyes widened…it was a literal goddamned DRAGON, albeit a tiny one.

“Hiya!” Oh, hell, it spoke, too. “We’re gonna make you sleep now! Don’t worry, you’ll wake up…can’t say if you’ll like it when you do, though, but that ain’t my problem!”

No, he couldn’t…he needed to fight this, he needed to get away, to do something…but the dragon’s eyes glowed, and suddenly he found himself gasping for air, getting none, it was like there was nothing in front of him to draw into his lungs! His vision blurred, and his struggles rapidly faded as he passed out into unconsciousness.

———

Breezedramon held things there for a couple more seconds before releasing the air lock and letting the downed sniper breathe properly again. “…Phew, looks like he’s out, but not gone. I’m glad I asked Reyn about how long humans can go without air!”

“As am I, if that was your trick.” With the enemy out, Skylar was able to drop his stoic facade, trembling as he wiped his brow…he could hardly believe he managed to hold it up as long as he did. “THAT’S your ‘super-secret incapacitaciplacitication technique?’”

“Yeah! Most things have to breathe, so if you take away the stuff they breathe for juuuust long enough, they’ll be out like a light! But not too long, ‘cuz that, uh, puts them out a bit TOO long…”

“Yeah, like forever.” Skylar stepped up, picking up the sniper rifle and tossing it down into the alleyway, where it hit a metal garbage pail with a loud clang. “That should be enough to keep this guy from being a threat, at least.”

“I thought we were gonna hit that with an Aero Nail as Skydramon?” asked Breezedramon.

“Mr. Katran wanted us to try to get some weapons accessible for them, so they could try to pick them up and use them to help defend themselves if there’s a second wave. Not sure what they’d do with a sniper rifle, but anything has to help, right?”

Breezedramon wasn’t totally sure, but the drone of approaching planes overhead rendered any argument moot. “Sky…those planes are coming back.”

“Yeah, and they’re gonna be on close air support soon. We’ve been held back long enough, let’s get going up there.”

“Yeah! Let’s show ‘em who’s really boss of the skies!” Breezedramon leapt towards Skylar, and they glowed and merged together, forming Skydramon once more. They rose up a bit in the air, and then another glow ascended them to Jetdramon. The jets on his wings flared to life, and he zipped up into the skies, leaving a noticeable trail for the planes to follow - hoping that they would track him rather than the ground assault.

He wasn’t ready for an odd buzzing in his ears, though. The heck’s this about? That wasn’t happening last time…wait. Don’t tell me… He focused a bit, putting a claw to his helmet and twisting it a bit…and then, he heard it, crackling through slightly distorted but clear enough.

“Should we break formation, sir?” A male voice that sounded sharp and hot.

“Negative, Lark 3. Focus fire on the one in the air. We don’t know what it can do to us, I don’t want to take chances.” Another male voice, deeper and more controlled. Definitely the one in charge here.

“Acknowledged. Moving to engage?”

“Affirmative. Let’s show this ‘dragon’ OUR firepower.”

No way…I can pick up their comms? Oh, they aren’t gonna be happy about that…I wonder if I can intrude on theirs? Let’s wait a bit before trying to find out. Jetdramon rose up a little higher, but let the planes tail him…it was the first time he was really showing his speed, the planes were flying more slowly than they could but he felt sure he could outpace them if he had to. It was too bad that max speed was rarely necessary in battle, but he could still go plenty fast in a more useful way…

“Target acquired, sir! There in front of us!” A female voice this time, very tight and no-nonsense.

“Blasted thing doesn’t show up on radar…keep your eyes on it, don’t lose it!”

“Weapons hot! Lark 1, Fox 2!” That was Jetdramon’s cue to action - he needed to make sure that missile didn’t hit him! But he didn’t panic, leading the missile on for a second or two before whipping upwards, banking almost immediately and soaring up a bit, far faster than the missile could possibly compensate for. It sailed off into the sky, exploding harmlessly a distance away.

“Ah! Captain, did you see that?!” Another female voice, younger-sounding and much more nervous. Jetdramon was trying to track which plane matched which voice, but except for guessing the lead was the captain he couldn’t quite hack that.

“Of course I saw it, Lark 4! Damn thing shot up like a rocket on the fourth! Don’t lose track of it!”

“How can this thing move this fast?!”

“Is it really some kind of jet dragon? The rumors are true?”

“I don’t care what kind of creature it is, we can beat it! Keep your eyes on it!”

That was going to be easier said than done for those pilots, as Jetdramon had no intentions of making it easy for them. And hopefully they would treat him as a challenge they had to focus on, and leave the ground alone…he’d have to make sure he kept them engaged. Playing dodge-the-missile sounds a lot more fun in my head than it’s gonna be in real life…

———

Thankfully, the lobby area of the BICI was empty, otherwise Blazereptimon’s unceremonious barging in might have startled someone into thinking the wrong thing. Elias hurried behind, panting hard; Commandramon was a fairly good load of dead weight at the moment. And hopefully the first part of that wasn’t going to be literal, he hadn’t done more than shake and moan the whole trip.

Blazereptimon cut a trail inside, where most of the area was cleared of people but there were plenty of desks for cover if needed. “EMIL! ELLIOT! WE NEED SOMEONE HERE NOW!”

It barely took seconds for Emil to rush in at the sound of Blazereptimon’s voice. “Burner! What’s going on? Who is that?”

I’m so glad we gave them the shorthands…hf, gonna have to apologize to Skyder later. “Two allies, one isn’t in good shape. Did anyone give you any idea that they had an anti-digimon weapon prepared?”

Emil’s eyes widened. “What? No! How even?”

“That’s what I wanna know, but I don’t think we’re finding out at the moment. Is Rudy in his lab?”

“Yes…you think he can help?”

“I don’t know, but we can’t do nothing. This little guy’s got something important that could turn the tide of this whole thing, we can’t let him die!”

Emil nodded. “Right! Head on up, hopefully he’s got some idea!”

Blazereptimon didn’t hesitate, motioning for Elias to follow, which the soldier did with a strained groan. The steps were not an easy ascent with that kind of weight, but but he was managing - clearly his training had done him plenty of good. Blazereptimon made sure the way was clear of obstacles and people - even if he was on their side, no one was about to stay in the way when he was on the warpath. He nearly took Rudy’s door off the hinges as he stormed in, startling the tech badly. “Rudy! I need you to take a look at this digimon!”

“What? There’s another one?”

“Recent arrival, long story, no time, he’s hurt!” Blazereptimon motioned for Elias to set Commandramon down on the long seat at the side of the room, which he did as quickly as possible before collapsing nearby, panting hard. Rudy rushed over to take a look, eyes scanning over the cyborg curiously.

“…I…don’t know what to tell you,” the tech said grimly after several seconds of silence. “I can’t tell what’s going on with him…all I know is that he doesn’t look good. I need some way to delve deeper into this…”

“Right…then I guess I need to get back out there and get someone who can make that happen.” Blazereptimon turned and charged out, focused on that task and nothing else. They needed Commandramon alive, they needed to make sure he would be all right from whatever happened…only one of them had the tools necessary to help Rudy with that.

———

Finding who he was looking for wasn’t the hard part - Blazereptimon just had to follow the racket that the tanks were making. The problem was getting there in the first place, with messes of soldiers who might have been just about anywhere, and then figuring out how he could get Mecharexmon away from the fray long enough to do something about their problem. They certainly couldn’t leave the tanks alone - those were what they expected were gunning most determinedly for the BICI, since it would be a lot harder for anyone in there to do anything to them than it would be to infantry. That was a problem he needed to tackle in the moment, though.

The cries of startled and shocked soldiers rang out not far away from him - Ionfalkemon was still swooping around unleashing bolts here and there, and that seemed to be taking a lot of their focus. Right now she’s the one doing most of the direct counterattacking against them, they must be trying to go for her directly…much as I don’t want those guns pointed at any of us, I hope she can draw their attention for a while longer. It made for a less stressful rush towards the next point of action, at least, though he was still as vigilant as possible in case anyone snuck through.

Vigilance took a back seat once he arrived at his destination. A trio of tanks were in the roadway, and Mecharexmon was in a standoff with them, dangerously out in the open - but he’d already said he wasn’t going to hide behind buildings and dare them to shoot through them at him, because he didn’t trust they wouldn’t do it. As Blazereptimon closed in, one of the tanks fired a shell out at the cyborg, who fired on it with his own shot and blew it up in midair; the shockwave rushed over him, but he stood resolutely through it.

Okay, he’s fine at least, but we’re definitely not getting him away without doing something about those. Step one, of course, was getting him on the same pace. “Rex! We’ve got a problem!”

Mecharexmon let out an annoyed growl. “Burner, I swear, if you don’t think THIS is a problem…”

“Bigger than this. Someone snuck through. Commandramon, Assault Force. He was warning us about an oncoming Emperius onslaught. There might be up to 200 coming through within hours.”

“…I swear, the universe is messing with us with this timing.”

“We’ll complain to whoever’s in charge as soon as we find them. But that’s not why I’m here, we were taking him to the BICI and someone launched a weapon that only affected him. We need to figure out what’s going on with him and what we can do to stop it, and Rudy can’t do anything about it without some technology.”

“And you need me to build something for him…your timing sucks just as bad, Burner.”

“Not like I had much choice. What do we have to do?”

Mecharexmon paused as two more shells careened their way, unloading a barrage of swarm missiles to intercept; several of them hit the tanks as well, rocking them a bit but not damaging them significantly. “I’ve had them stopped here for too long at this point. They aren’t retreating, and I can’t let them get closer to the BICI. We need to disable their treads and guns, or I can’t spare a moment for anything else.”

“How have you not been getting shot at?”

“I have been. This defense program I whipped up has been just enough to keep me from getting turned into swiss cheese, at least until I blasted off the machine guns. But I don’t think it’ll stand up to a tank round, that’s why I haven’t been able to risk getting closer. And if I try to blow up the shells before they fire, I’m absolutely killing whoever’s inside them.”

Blazereptimon considered that for a moment. He couldn’t just use his fire willy-nilly for that, either…but he could still provide coverage, and surely Mecharexmon had the firepower to do what he needed to do. “They’re waiting until you’re distracted and going on the offensive to try to ambush you, right? Let me provide some decoy.”

“Okay, but be careful.”

“You worry about shooting out the treads. Go hard on them.” Blazereptimon took a deep breath and channeled some of that fiery energy inwards. “Blaze Stoker!” The glow around him was a burning haze that signified an amplified speed and power - though, only the former of those was his focus at the moment. He went off like a shot, rushing towards the tanks which were trying to turn their barrels towards him, but were unable to keep up with him. Mecharexmon took that moment of advantage, loosing a partly-charged Saur Blaster into the treads of the lead tank, making it rock as they were blown apart on one side. Blazereptimon launched himself up on top of that lead tank and then leapt off and up into the air, flipping over and focusing on the treads of one of the flanking tanks, eyes glowing as he unleashed his own attack. “Incendiary Ring!” A potent fiery blast coalesced at a point on the treads, blasting hard out and shredding one of them in the conflagration, just in time for Blazereptimon to right himself and land on the side of a building, planting a hand quickly down to stabilize himself as his sticky digits worked their magic. Those guns were trying to turn back towards him, at least on two of the tanks - one was still trying to make life hard for Mecharexmon.

A thought occurred to him then. I can’t just fling fire at the barrels, I don’t know if something’s loaded inside…but they won’t fire if their barrels are compromised…

His free had reached out towards the tank focused on Mecharexmon, channeling his Incendiary Ring at the middle of the barrel. The metal rapidly got red-hot, rendering any further fire dangerous, and giving Mecharexmon his opening. Another barrage of Swarm Missiles launched out, directed at the treads of the tank, several impacting on both sides and breaking them apart. Their mobility compromised, they were much less of a threat, but not completely out of it - they could still fire off from their positions, and if any of them got herded into the middle of the line of fire, it would be a mess…

But Mecharexmon had been given an idea, and he hurried forward while he had an opportunity. “Burner! Heat up those barrels! Stay out of their way as you do it!”

“Got it!” Blazereptimon launched himself off the building and back onto the road behind the tanks, then leapt up onto the one across the street, from which point he hit the lead tank’s barrel with the same heat treatment. Mecharexmon jumped in right away, grabbing onto the barrel and using his mountainous strength to bend the barrel at the heat-weakened point, disabling it completely - it would be impossible to fire like that, and impossible to fix by anyone available to them at the moment. With no close support or close-quarters combat ability, the other two were disabled in the same fashion quite rapidly, finally neutralizing that threat.

Blazereptimon hustled over to Mecharexmon, feeling his surge wear off as he did; the rebound left him slightly gassed. “Good?”

“Good,” affirmed Mecharexmon. “Let’s get this dealt with.”

———

Blazereptiman was back at the BICI well before his more sluggish companion, but that was by design - he wanted to get back and check in on Commandramon as soon as possible. And he wasn’t liking what he was seeing when he got in there…

“He’s been looking worse and worse by the minute,” Rudy reported anxiously. Commadramon seemed to be unconscious, but there was a contorted look on his face that spoke of considerable pain, and his was shivering and slightly distorting. “I don’t know what’s going on, but clearly something is doing a number on him…you said he was hit with some kind of bomb?”

“The shockwave from the bomb hit him. It hit Elias and myself as well, but neither of us was affected by it.”

“The hell’s been going on that they have something ready for them?” asked Elias blankly. “We didn’t even KNOW about them until just weeks ago! What are these things made of that something could even do that?”

“We’ll have to get someone to fill you on the important points,” sighed Blazereptimon. “But we gotta get him back in shape first.”

Just as he finished saying that, a loud thunk and a growled curse came from the lab doorway. Mecharexmon stooped inside, rubbing his head. “Frickin’ doorways…NOT built for me…”

“Hopefully you didn’t knock any screws loose, we kind of need you at full capacity,” remarked Blazereptimon.

“My screws are tight as ever.” Mecharexmon took a look over at Commandramon, and immediately growled. “Oh, for the love of…someone is going to REALLY get it for this.”

“What do you mean?” asked Rudy.

“I mean I can tell from here that he’s experiencing cascading failures. His body’s trying to fight against something that’s trying to systematically disrupt it…and my guess is he’s probably losing.”

“What?!” Blazereptimon shouted. “That sounds barbaric! They built some kind of bomb to make digimon suffer a slow, agonizing death?!”

“Whether they built it for that or not, that’s what we seem to be getting. Are you sure it’s really a weapon built for digimon?”

Before Blazereptimon could answer, a voice spoke up from seemingly nowhere, making them all jump. “Perhaps you should ask the recon person if you want recon information, you know.”

“Wolf! NOT the time!” roared Mecharexmon.

“I daresay there’s never not the time.” Darkvargmon suddenly popped into view from the shadowed corner of the room. “I’ve heard them talking about their ‘secret weapon’ - supposedly, the formal term for it is a Data Fracture Bomb. Somehow, they determined what the digimon are and came up with something that works against them…those details I’m not privy to, but someone must know them.”

“Data Fracture Bomb…we gotta get more info on these,” huffed Blazereptimon. “If they’re inventing digimon torture devices, that needs to be nipped in the bud as soon as possible.”

“Not the only thing that needs a speedy resolution, either. I heard you two talking out there. We’ve got an invading force on the way from the other side of the equation, if I glean correctly?”

“Yeah. And if they come in when this whole mess is going on…”

“Indeed. I daresay it’s time to aim for the head. I’ve been working my way to figuring out where the command post is…I’ve managed to pinpoint the location of General Sykes.”

Mecharexmon cocked his head. “You did? Why? He’s a nutcase, he’s not going to listen to us, and confronting him is only going to end with one of us dead.”

Darkvargmon nodded. “I daresay he won’t accept us as the good guys. But perhaps he can be coerced to backing off…the general is apparently quite eager for a swordfight. Perhaps it’s time to give him one.”

“Go for it,” Blazereptimon said, before Mecharexmon could object. “Just make sure that you win it, and try not to lop off anything important on him.”

“Of course. Best of luck to you, too.” Darkvargmon slipped back into the shadows and faded from sight.

“…You did NOT just tell him to duel that idiot,” Mecharexmon growled at Blazereptimon. “What were you thinking?!”

“I was thinking that a guy like Sykes isn’t going to let someone steal a moment of glory from him, and that when faced with what he’s really up against, he’ll flee like a craven coward until he can regroup and find a way to get the advantage again,” replied Blazereptimon evenly. “Which at the very least should buy us time, maybe enough for them to see what kind of crap is REALLY about to hit the fan. I don’t know if he’ll be cowed, but the rank-and-file might think twice about gunning for us when there’s a LOT more monsters that they don’t know how to deal with coming.”

“…Damn you for making sense.”

“Yes, yes, I’m horrible. Fixing Commandramon?”

“Tch, right. I can’t do it myself, but I know what I can do, and it might be a good thing for us to do anyway.” Mecharexmon trudged over to Rudy’s computer and plugged himself into it with a cord extending from a hatch in his side, while his cannon shifted to a different shape, three pronged protrusions around a spherical electrode. “I’m gonna build a device to interface with this computer, which will allow for scanning and modulation of digital life forms as well as organic ones. With this, you should be able to combat the data failures and restabilize Commandramon.”

Rudy was gaping at that. “You’re going to…BUILD a device? How?”

“Essentially? I’m reformatting digital information into a physical form, much like a digimon, except this is in a machine format. We did this on a small scale with the power suppressors we used to restrain Shadowdramon and Crestmon, but this is gonna be a good bit beefier…and I’m probably gonna need to rest for a bit after making it, because that takes a LOT of energy.”

“You’re…actually…just gonna will some big-ass machine into reality like it was nothing?” Elias queried in disbelief. “Ain’t no way, this is all the way into sci-fi nonsense, I was NOT ready for this…”

“It doesn’t even seem possible!” Rudy’s excitement sure didn’t sound like someone who couldn’t believe it. “It violates every rule of physics we know of and probably some we don’t!”

“Believe me, I was pretty surprised as well,” agreed Mecharexmon. “I thought it was supposed to be a lot harder to connect with this stuff…and I think the reason I can do it so well is because of this symbiosis thing we’ve got going on. Because I’m partly digital and partly organic, I can connect a lot better to every aspect of this existence, and manipulate things a lot more easily than any normal digimon could without a lot of help and a lot of technology. Don’t ask me how it all works, just be glad that it does.”

At that moment, Emil rushed into the lab. “We’ve got an incursion! It looks like just two soldiers, but they’re pretty well-armed…we need to get them out ASAP!”

“Right…leave this to me.” Blazereptimon nodded, but rather than moving, he shifted back down to Burnreptimon, and then split apart into Reyn and Salmandmon.

“You…you’re not going down to confront them like this?”

“I’m not going to confront them at all,” stated Reyn. “They’re looking for monsters, even if they see me, they won’t think anything of me right away. And I don’t intend to be seen.”

Emil didn’t look comfortable with that, but he nodded. “…All right…but…be careful.”

“Careful as I can be.” Reyn slipped out of the lab room and quietly made his way down the stairs. He had to take it slow, a good thing because it helped him take some time to calm himself…bold front aside, this was NOT an easy thing to do. But, he was the safest one of them down there, they’d have to at least hesitate to shoot a minor if they weren’t surprised, and he had a feeling he needed to get used to being in confrontations with dangerous creatures while not relying on Salmandmon’s help…something told him that if he had the power, the universe was going to demand he use it.

As he neared the first floor, he could hear shouting - the soldiers seemed to have confronted one of the agents. At least Reyn hoped it was an agent, no one else should have been wandering around down there. Peering around the corner, he groaned internally - probably the closest thing to what it shouldn’t have been. Of course it would be Tony…how does he keep getting caught up in this stuff?

“Tell us where they are!” The two soldiers were so decked out that Reyn couldn’t even tell if they were any different, they were wearing masks and goggles that obscured all their facial features. Despite that, they were still plenty loud, and both had M-16 rifles that were dangerously close to Tony. “Don’t hide those monsters from us!”

“We saw two of them come in here!” roared the other - even their voices were barely distinguishable, though that might have been the masks obscuring them a bit. “Don’t try to pretend you’re not harboring them, they told us what you were doing! Are you going to side with your country or with those trying to destroy it?!”

Naturally, Tony was frozen so stiff Reyn thought he might actually have turned to stone. No surprise there, but at least it was keeping him from saying anything, and keeping the soldiers busy and unaware of Reyn’s presence. A fireball to the face might have been satisfying, but with all that facial covering, it probably wouldn’t do that much - and if they noticed he was throwing fire, he was not getting out of there alive. Fortunately, he had a different idea…one that had been inspired by what he’d just been doing.

A bit of focus was all he needed to start channeling heat into the guns the soldiers were holding. Dividing it wasn’t easy, but the two were close enough together that he didn’t have to strain too hard. It took a minute more of listening to them threaten Tony with all sorts of unsavory fates before he got a reaction, once the guns started smoldering a bit. One of the soldier’s caught sight of the smoke, followed it down, and let out a yell and recoiled, scrambling to toss the gun down on the ground. “What the holy hell?! My gun!”

“What? Aaah!” The other rapidly followed suit as they noticed their own weapon. Thankfully, they were too fixated on the guns to be paying attention to Reyn peering around the corner, because he was pretty sure he couldn’t have kept the heat on if he couldn’t see the targets. There was a subtle sense of satisfaction as he saw them step back slowly while the metal started to bubble, the barrels rendered useless under the thermal pressure.

“That…that…that’s impossible!”

“What kind of demon are we up against?!”

“We need backup! We need a goddamned platoon!”

“Get out before it comes after us!”

The two soldiers tore out of the room towards the front entrance of the building. Reyn let out a relieved sigh; hopefully Ionfalkemon would be able to deal with them before the promised platoon could come around. He stepped out and approached Tony, eyeing the disabled weapons. “What a couple of wimps…you’d think they’d never seen a gun melt before. You okay?”

Tony was unresponsive, slumped against the wall, breathing hard and eyes looking glassy. Another sigh from the fire-haired boy. “Guess that’s a no…all right, let’s get you upstairs and see if we can’t get your soul reattached to your body. And then we’re gotta make sure you’re out of the line of fire, because this is definitely NOT good for you.” He pulled Tony upright, the man trembling but at least responding on automatic if nothing else as Reyn walked him back towards the stairs.

———

The two soldiers who ran out of the BICI indeed didn’t get far, getting put down by a Charge Field partway through their run. Ionfalkemon wasn’t exactly happy about that, though - not only did it mean they got past her defenses, but catching just two of them was kind of a waste of a Charge Field. She laid another one down before hauling the unresponsive pair into the air and carrying them a short ways into the thick of another group that was still down. “You all are really starting to get annoying, you know that?”

“I daresay you shouldn’t be risking that one of them could respond.”

“If they can, better to know now than later. You can’t sneak up on me like that, Wolf, you still have an electrical signal.”

“Tragic. My one source of amusement on this miserable day.” Darkvargmon popped up from a tree shadow. “You’re aware of the new arrival?”

“Yeah, Burner crossed my path. They make it there safely?”

“Yes to there, no to safely. There’s some effort being made to fix Commandramon now, after an unfortunate encounter with some kind of weapon.”

Ionfalkemon turned to the wolf, raising an eyebrow. “Wait, that actually took him down? One of them hucked something at me and it didn’t even really tickle me.”

“Presumably we aren’t ‘digital’ enough to be impacted. But we should be mindful of whether they have any other nasty surprises up their sleeves. Also, given that we apparently have a time crunch, I’m going to try to push a bit harder to force a retreat. I won’t be able to have my eyes on the building, so…”

“I’ll have to watch out, then. I think they’re changing tactics, they’re moving in smaller numbers so it’s harder to take down large bunches. Hopefully my Charge Fields hold up. Be careful, Wolf.”

“Of course, and same to you.” Darkvargmon faded back into the shadows, and Ionavimon took off into the air again - before quickly descending close to the ground as the sound of jet engines roared overhead. They looked to still be engaged up high, but she couldn’t track Jetdramon, so she couldn’t be sure. I REALLY wish we had more people out here…

———

It took a few minutes, but Reyn finally made his way back into Rudy’s lab. And just in time for the grand spectacle: Mecharexmon was unloading what looked like a thick beam of electricity into the space between the computer and the wall, a rather sizable machine cloaked in light as it was being willed into existence by the cyborg. “Cover your eyes, this’s gonna be bright!” he warned loudly - and just in time, as only a couple seconds after, light flared into the room, forcing them all to look away.

The flare of light receded after a moment, but the machine took a bit of time to come into view as the veil of light faded away. In Reyn’s eyes, it looked very similar to an MRI scanner - his parents had showed him the one at the hospital plenty of times, he was more familiar with it than he really needed to be. “That’s a neat trick. But can it construct additional pylons?”

Mecharexmon let out a snort. “That joke is older than YOU are. Have you ever even played Starcraft?”

“Wally had a phase where he was obsessed with it, but it was never my thing.” Reyn looked around the machine a bit. “So, uh, do you have any idea how this thing works?”

“Rudy does.”

“Rudy…what? You literally JUST made this thing!”

“Yeah, but he’s been going over the interface for it that’s on the computer now.” Indeed, Rudy was very engrossed in what was on the screen, eyes darting around as he scanned through it. “He thinks he’s got the hang of it.”

“And I think he’s full of it,” remarked Salmandmon from the bench where Commandramon was still laying, not looking any better but thankfully not looking worse. “No one can learn how to use something that quickly! Especially not something they’ve actually never seen before!”

“I think it’ll be fine!” Rudy declared, eyes still glued to the screen. “I don’t know exactly how Mecharexmon got all this hooked up and connected, but the functions list seems pretty straightforward, I’ve seen much more complicated programs in other scanners. It doesn’t seem that far removed from the MRI stuff I helped set up back in my university days, and that was just as easy to follow the first time.”

“You helped set up an MRI?” Reyn asked.

“Three of them, technically. Although I really wish they’d’ve gotten other people to help with the other two, I wouldn’t have minded those two weeks to solidify my doctoral thesis.”

“…Uh. Okay then. Sal, I think we’re taking his word for it. We’re dealing with a savant-level dude here.”

“I dunno what that means, but I hope you know what you’re doing,” replied Salmandmon somewhat uncertainly. “So what do we do?”

Mecharexmon pointed to a control panel on the front of the machine. “You can slide the table out and set Commnadramon on it, then slide him in. Rudy can control it from his end too, but since he’s still geeking out, you might as well get a move on. I’m going to go recharge for a bit, and keep watch downstairs until I’m good to get back out there…buzz me if you can’t figure something out, I’ll buzz you if anyone comes, because I don’t want to bring this place down on our heads trying to defend it.”

“Got it.” Reyn week the lead with Commandramon, hauling him up bodily as Mecharexmon vacated the room, which felt considerably tighter with the scanner now installed. “Whoof…well, he’s heavier than you are, Sal, that’s for sure. Guess metal outweighs a hyperspace stomach.”

“He’s like three or four times heavier than I am,” Salmandmon pointed out. “It’s not even close.”

“Is he? I didn’t think he felt like that big a load.”

“You didn’t notice Elias nearly falling over trying to carry him around?”

“I mean, I did…hm. Guess I’m getting stronger than I thought…uh, where’d he go, by the way?”

“Emil took him somewhere, to fill him in. Let’s focus on Commandramon.”

“Yeah, right.” It was only a brief trip across the room, and Reyn got the table moved out and ready for Commandramon. He looked like a rather small creature for the scanner, which seemed to be made for someone a fair bit bigger - leaving Reyn wondering if Mecharexmon had more ideas for it than just this purpose. Not his circus, though, and he focused on laying Commandramon down as comfortably as he could, then getting the distressed dinosaur moved in. “Easier than I thought it’d be, really…Sal, why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because you’re doing the SAME THING he’s doing,” replied Salmandmon with a hiss of annoyance. “You’ve never seen this thing before and you’re using it like it’s been around for years!”

“Uh? This?” Reyn looked over at the control panel. “I mean, this is super simple, it even looks kinda like the ones on an MRI machine. I don’t think it’d take a genius to figure it out.”

“And you know how to do stuff with this machine you’re talking about, how exactly?”

“Heck, you know how many times my parents had me watching MRIs at the hospital? I had to do SOMETHING while I was there, watching them play with the machine was about the most interesting thing I could have been doing.”

Salmandmon cocked his head, and then smirked slightly. “You know, I’m starting to think they might be right about you-”

“Doooooon’t even start that. Rudy, he’s in, you ready to go?” Reyn was very eager to get off that potential subject.

Rudy glanced over. “I think so…I’m starting the scan now, we’re gonna see what comes up...” Clicking a key on the keyboard started a lot hum and whir in the machine, a bit loud for the enclosed space but not quite as loud as an MRI would have been. However, it was also a lot shorter than Reyn expected, fading away after not even a minute. “…Huh? That’s odd, it shouldn’t have ended that soon…”

“Better hope Rex is still down there,” remarked Salmandmon.

“It can’t have been that long…oh?” Rudy pulled up a window, getting an error message. “Says something’s interfering with the scan…a ‘bio-encryptor’?”

“Oh! Yeah, Commandramon have bio-encryptors in their armor and stuff, it keeps them from being picked up by scanners. Reyn, we’re gonna have to pull him out and strip him down.”

Reyn gave Salmandmon a very strange look. “Did you HAVE to put it like that?!”

“Oh, relax. It gets the point across. Come on, out with him, we shouldn’t be wasting time!” Salmandmon’s pressure got Reyn moving even though his awkwardness, the table sliding out and exposing the fallen soldier once again. Reyn hurried to get him off the table and onto the ground, and the two of them went to work, quickly working off Commandramon’s helmet, vest, gloves, and tail armor. The pixelated pattern on his scales was certainly neat, though it looked a bit cloudy at the moment due to his condition…Reyn hoped they weren’t too late to get him back into fitness.

He was about to lift Commandramon back up when Salmandmon stopped him. “Whoa, hey, we’re not done. The leg armor’s gotta come off too.”

“Huh?” Reyn looked at Commandramon’s legs; that didn’t look like armor to him, it looked like his actual legs and feet. “I don’t think that comes off.”

“Sure it does. Just gotta…find the plug…” Salmandmon prodded around the seam where Commandramon’s leg met the metal, and pushed in a bit until he heard a click. The encasement opened up allowing him to separate it into two pieces; what was exposed was muddled by light at first, eventually forming into a surprisingly normal-looking leg for a creature like him, certainly not seeming like it could fit inside that armored piece. A short ways up the leg was a small hole which did perfectly fit the protrusion at the top of the boot, the plug that Salmandmon had been talking about.

Reyn watched all of this in stunned silence, only speaking up as Salmandmon set the pieces aside. “I know you guys are weird, but that is WEIRD weird.”

“What? It’s just a special data interface. Cyborgs have that a lot.”

“I’ll get used to that whenever we get cyborgs over there. For now, it’s weird.”

“Says the guy who merges with a digimon to become some kind of hybrid creature.” Salmandmon finished prying off the other boot, and backed away from the now completely disrobed Commandramon. “That should be good, get him back in there fast.”

“Er, yeah, okay.” Reyn shook it off and picked Commandramon back up - the lack of armor had made an already manageable task a breeze, taking a fair bit of the weight off of him, plus it was easier to lay him down evenly on the table. He brought the table back in, signaling to Rudy. “All right, go for it.”

“Starting the scan now!” Rudy started it up again, and that hum and whir was back in action, and lasting distinctly longer this time. Reyn was starting to feel a bit anxious…it had been a fair bit since Commandramon had been hit with that bomb, and while he didn’t know exactly what it was doing, the term ‘cascading failures’ definitely didn’t portend anything gentle. Were they going to be too late to save him? Would they be able to save him but not intact? The important data he carried in his body was crucial enough, but at the moment he was more worried about Commandramon himself…

The scanner’s noises descended again, and Rudy was flying into action. “Got it! Cascading data degradation, accelerating failures in physical data integrity…goodness, neural response is extreme, the pain register is a magnitude eight, I’m not sure what that equates to but I don’t think I want to know. Whoever designed these Data Fracture Bombs either had no idea what they were doing or had EVERY idea what they were doing and need to be put on a few lists.”

“Knowing what we know about these assholes, I’m not giving them any benefit of the doubt,” growled Reyn. “Even if they didn’t know, they used weapons with no idea what they would do! It could have done a hell of a lot worse than this even, and this is bad enough!”

“Rules of engagement forbid any sort of torturous death implement like this,” agreed Salmandmon with a dark hiss. “It’s savagery! You don’t do something like that! You either don’t kill or make it quick as you can, to prolong it just to make someone suffer is a war crime! Tell me there’s something you can do about this, Rudy!”

“Y-yes, there is, just a moment…” Rudy’s hands were almost a blur on both keyboard and mouse, he looked like an old hand at this rather than someone who’d just seen it for the first time within the last fifteen minutes. “There it is, data integrity repair procedure. Uh…I could do without the ‘probability of success’ measure…hopefully we’re in the 73%.”

“Way better than zero. Let’s get it going.”

———

Jetdramon really wished he could follow what was going on on the ground, but the jets were not giving him that luxury. His maneuverability was good, but they had him outnumbered four-to-one, and once it became clear that they were not catching up to him the usual way, they broke formation and were now trying to outflank him and take him down with guns more than missiles. Which probably would have been going better if he couldn’t hear everything they were saying.

“Dammit, it’s out again! How?!”

“Cool it, Lark 3! We’re getting closer, we’ll get it hemmed in soon enough!”

Only because I’m trying to keep from running myself dry too quickly, thought Jetdramon as he swerved around again. He wasn’t going as fast as he could have, trying to temper a flight which had been pretty long already - it was starting to wear on him a bit, not yet enough to put him at risk of flagging but enough to tell him he could get there if he wasn’t careful. I need to do something to get them to back off. I don’t want to attack them, but…hm, you know what, maybe just playing the hand I have will do it.

He flew another wide arc around, drawing the planes to fall in behind him, acting like he was getting complacent. As they did, he could pick up on whether they were buying it…he didn’t need all of them to, just one of them. And he had a feeling one was more likely than the others…

“Is it getting tired out? It’s stopped flying around so swiftly.”

“Now’s our chance! We’ve got to go get it!”

“Lark 3, fall back! I don’t like this, it’s too convenient.”

“We can’t let it get away! Lark 3, Fox 2!”

“Hold fire!” Too late, though, as the missile came soaring off of one of the jets. Someone’s gonna be in trouble later, thought Jetdramon as he led the missile on, getting it a bit of a distance away from the jets while letting it track him for a few seconds…a dicey move, but he wanted to make sure he wasn’t putting them in danger when he did was he planned to do.

Once he was safely away, though, there was no holding back. Another sharp cut down, and he flung his hand out, the energy already gathered. “Jet Stream!” The beam of energy burst out and enveloped the missile, blowing it to smithereens safely, and carried on over the tops of the jets. A burst of expletives rang in his ears from that one, their panic almost a little too satisfying.

“What the good holy hell was that?!”

“I don’t know! Some kind of…beam of something, I don’t want to know what!”

“Don’t let it hit you! Watch it closely!”

“Wait…is it…doing something else?”

“It just grabbed something! And it’s glowing! Bank, bank!”

That was good to hear, giving Jetdramon the window he was looking for. He’d grabbed and extended his voulge, holding it in both hands as the head glowed brightly. “Be thankful this isn’t aimed at you! Gale Voulge!” Raising it high over his head, he slashed it downwards, launching off a streaking cutting wave of wind energy that left a shockwave in its wake. Aimed in the space the planes were vacating, the only thing they got was a bit of rocking from the shockwave trail, but that was enough to put a good bit of terror in them.

“Larks, respond! Did anyone get hit by that?!”

“Negative, Captain, but it nearly sent me into a roll! It was like the wind kicked up around that thing!”

“Just what the hell are we dealing with here?! Sykes didn’t tell us these things could do this kind of nonsense!”

“What’s even going on here? This thing can’t be real, who’s imagining some crazy jet-flying dragon with…is that a poleax?”

Jetdramon decided now was probably the best opening he had, and grinned a bit as he tapped into the other end of that signal. “Voulge, actually, but I’m guessing that distinction isn’t gonna mean much to you.”

He could swear he could HEAR the shocked silence, at least as long as it lasted before the captain of the bunch roared in. “Who the hell are you?! How did you get this frequency?!”

“I’m the guy you’ve been spending the last half hour trying to shoot down. Not sure I can answer that second question, just kinda happened, but it’s been pretty useful, I gotta say.”

“WHAT?! You…you’re that dragon?!”

“Eeyup. Appreciate how impressed you all are with what I can do, really I am, but if that appreciation could extend to NOT trying to turn me into dust, I’d rather like that.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?!” That was the fiery dude again, clearly speaking out of turn - Jetdramon had a feeling that wasn’t foreign territory for him.

The dragon rolled his eyes a bit, but tried to keep his voice even in response. “I think I’m one of the very few people around here trying to actually stop the creatures you’re terrified of from running roughshod over this city. Maybe you remember hearing about those crazy flying snake things a couple days ago? Yeah, I was helping out with that. That bird that started all this nonsense off? That was me, too. And you don’t wanna know how many others, trust me, that’s gonna keep you awake at night.”

“Absurd!” the older female voice stated sharply. “You expect us to believe you’re somehow different from all of those things?”

“Lark 2, don’t engage him!” reprimanded the captain.

“Bit late for that, captain,” remarked Jetdramon; he didn’t want to lose the moment, he had them not attacking at least, if they disengaged now he might not get another chance. “Here’s why you should believe it: you’ve seen what I can do, and you’re not dead yet. I can turn at sharper angles than your jets are physically capable of, to say nothing of you blacking out from the G-forces if you even tried, and I can command the power of the wind in ways you can only fantasize about. I’m not not shooting you down because I can’t, it’s because I don’t want to. I just want to keep you from swooping down and turning those missiles and guns on the city trying to find my allies, because we kind of need to live if we want to keep things from getting out of control.”

Silence greeted that, which didn’t feel like the best-case scenario for Jetdramon. But just as he was about to steel himself for another round, the younger female voice cut in. “That video with the giant bird…that really was you fighting it, wasn’t it?”

A bit of hope, he wasn’t going to let it float out of reach. “Yeah, it was. I’ve, ah, upgraded a bit since then, out of necessity. Trust me, there’s a lot of monsters that have been coming through that are as dangerous as they say, and there’s plenty more of them waiting in the wings for their chance. And if someone had been actually listening to us when we were warning them, maybe you’d be going after the right ones…well, someone other than the guys who set this whole thing up, anyway. Best thing you can do is try to get someone who can help us against them, rather than wasting ammo on me, because I’ve heard those missiles are absurdly expensive, and also I like having all my blood on the inside of me.”

“Kh! Can you believe this cheek?!” snapped the hothead. “Buddy, I don’t care if you’re a dragon, I’ll return you to not-existing so fast-”

“ENOUGH, Lark 3,” the captain cut in. Once silence was ascertained, another command came out. “We’re returning to base, immediately.”

“Captain?! Are you…are you sure?” asked the older female.

“Whether or not I trust this creature, we aren’t equipped to fight it like this. It can outfly us, outgun us, and hear everything we say. If we’re hanging in there by its good will alone, I’m not willing to test that any further, not until I hear the whole damn story. Sykes can go on this hunt on his own, I don’t care what he’s promising.”

“Your reluctant concession is deeply appreciated,” replied Jetdramon, relief flowing through it. “You won’t regret this, captain.”

“I’d better not, on there’ll be more hell to pay than you can afford, dragon. Larks, return to base!”

The jets swung off in another direction, retreating from the city and leaving Jetdramon alone up in the skies. Where he was not interested in staying - if his work up there was done, surely they could use his help down below. And while it was a lot more dangerous for him to throw out attacks down there than it was for Ionavimon, that didn’t mean he couldn’t do a few strafing runs to put the fear of god into them…he grinned to himself as he swooped down, eyes darting around for good spots to sweep and make a few soldiers think twice about moving forward.

———

Commandramon had never truly gone unconscious. That would have been a blessing.

Conscious didn’t mean aware of what was going on around him - his brain was a bit too preoccupied being in untold agony. The moment that blast had hit him, it felt like his body was on fire, and it only got worse from there. As the seconds ticked onto minutes, that fire only intensified, accompanied by what felt like the very fabric of his being trying to tear itself apart, meeting only enough resistance to keep him in pain beyond belief. He couldn’t think, couldn’t hear or see, couldn’t do anything except exist in that state of vicious torment…it threatened to break him multiple times, his resilience fraying more and more as the inescapable pain permeated his whole being.

When it vanished suddenly, it was like a bucket of cold water had been thrown on him. He let out a sharp gasp, and then started to breathe properly again, shakily but heavily, eyes blinking open as he could see again…somewhat, as there wasn’t much to see except a cylinder of off-white above him. He started to move around, only to hear a sharp shout from outside. “Oy! Stay still, that’s an order!”

Hearing that was a bit jarring, but the voice he recognized…Zetta Commander Salmandmon. He stopped trying to move around, laying as still as possible as commanded. Only now was he becoming aware that his armor had been removed…whether that was something the weapon did or something that happened afterwards, he still didn’t know. There was a lot he didn’t know, for that matter…

It felt like an eternity, but it was probably only minutes before whatever was making noise around him went quiet, and then he was slid out of the machine on some kind of table. He blinked in the light as he sat up, greeted by the human he’d just met that was with Salmandmon, as well as the lizard himself. “What…what happened? Where am I?”

“You’re just where you need to be, and you survived, that’s the important part,” Reyn said. “How are you feeling?”

“…Tired. And kind of cold…and numb, a little.”

“Rudy temporarily deadened your pain response, it’ll be a bit before it’s back,” stated Salmandmon. “As for tired, well, after that, I’m not surprised. Let’s get him to a better seat, Reyn.”

Commandramon was picked up off the table and carried over to the bench on the other side of the room, set down sitting up and leaning against the back. He could see his armor piled in the corner…at least it was there. “What, uh, what happened, sir?”

“You were hit with something called a Data Fracture Bomb. Didn’t even know those were a thing until they chucked one at us. It was trying to degrade your body to death, in the worst way possible. That machine was made to try to fix it.”

The saurian soldier looked understandably uncomfortable at that news. “Uh…did it?”

“We’ll have to wait and see.” Rudy stepped over, looking over some notes on a clipboard. “There’s still an ongoing effort in your body to propagate the failure, but it’s being counteracted by a rapid repair algorithm and counterfailure module. The hope is that this will be enough to eventually settle things back down, but we may need to do some further intervention. Fortunately, we have recourses, so I’m confident we’ll eventually get you completely patched up, but it might not be entirely smooth sailing. The better news: we were able to implement a data integrity preservation code into your body. This should provide a one-time protection against the effects of the Data Fracture Bombs, which can be reapplied after you’ve had another encounter. Hopefully I can tune this to be more lingering, but we need to know more about how those bombs do what they do first.”

“Hoping, of course, that you don’t HAVE to have another encounter, but better to be ready for it if you do,” added Salmandmon with a dark look. “Nasty things, whoever made them better not get close to me, to say nothing of whoever okayed them being used as is.”

“Sal, you should probably get protected too,” suggested Reyn. “You guys all should, really…even if it doesn’t affect us when we’re together, that’s no guarantee you’re not vulnerable when we’re not.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. Rudy, let’s maybe hit that now, you said it’s only a minute or two, right?”

Rudy nodded. “Yes, it’s a far faster process than trying to fight the cascading failures. Let’s get you in there and get that applied.”

No hesitation from Salmandmon, who was up on the table in a flash - he was in no rush to experience that horror first-hand. As Reyn was sliding the table in, though, they were interrupted yet again, as Neal Collins stuck his head in the door. “Sorry, I hate to be a bother, but, uh, we’ve got more soldiers forcing their way in…”

“Oh, for crying out loud…” growled Reyn. “What is this, the fifth time? When are these morons going to get the hint? And what’s Ionfalkemon doing out there, we can’t keep doing this!”

“She’s doing her best, Reyn,” Salmandmon said sharply from inside the scanner. “I know it’s frustrating, but there’s like a thousand of them to one of her, and it’s not her fault these idiots are stubborn as hell.”

“Maybe we should take care of this?” asked Agent Collins.

“No, you get back and keep everyone else in here safe. We don’t want to risk any bodies on either side if we can avoid it…hard as they seem to want to make that.” Grumbling, Reyn followed the agent out the door, letting Rudy get back to work with Salmandmon.

And watching all of this was a very awkward-feeling Commandramon. “Is…he going to be okay?”

“He’d better be, or I’m going to very strongly rethink trying to be merciful with them.” Salmandmon’s voice made no mystery of his tension - despite his words, he was feeling some ire with the leaky protection of the building as well. Which was mostly a function of the way they were trying to approach it - being careful was putting them in more danger than they would be if they used the power they had. Even if they had numbers, the human units here would have been far outmatched by their best…the problem was, they needed to send a message that they WEREN’T bloodthirsty menaces. And knowing that his vulnerable human partner was putting himself in the line of fire wasn’t setting him at ease any…even if he himself likely wouldn’t have fared any better against those guns, at least he was the battle veteran…Reyn was his responsibility, and Salmandmon’s stomach turned if he thought about what could happen to him.

Thankfully, Reyn was back in the room safe and sound after a couple minutes, though still looking annoyed. “This is just the rest of my afternoon, I guess…I’d really rather be out there, in here feels uncomfortable just sitting around waiting. Ebonvargmon had better pull through soon, or this could start getting messy.”

“How are you getting them out?” asked Commandramon.

“I’ve found out even soldiers tend to be cowards when they don’t have a gun in their hands. I’ve also figured out the melting point for whatever they make those guns out of is lower than what I can put out. Pyrokinesis is as awesome as I ever hoped, I just wish I wasn’t having to use it to save our skins without a bit more practice. Rudy, how’s it coming along?”

“…It’s not.”

Reyn did a double-take. “What now?”

“Can you get Salmandmon out of the machine, please?”

Not exactly a satisfying response, but Reyn did as instructed, knowing that if something was up, better Salmandmon heard it than not. The lizard was pretty confused as well as he sat up. “I felt like I didn’t really feel anything in there…I thought I’d get, you know, SOMEthing.”

“There’s a reason for that, although I’m not quite sure why.” Rudy tapped his clipboard with the back of his pen, looking puzzled. “There were errors coming up when I tried to apply the data integrity protection code. It wasn’t very clear what was going on, but the best I could glean was some kind of compatibility error…which doesn’t make sense, because you’re a digimon, and this was made for digimon.”

“Are we gonna have to go out and haul Rex back in here to explain things?” asked Salmandmon.

“I don’t think we should interrupt him for this, we may have to ask him later but what he’s doing right now has to take priority. But I did a brief scan, and there’s something…unusual about your data compared to Commandramon’s. Mismatches in output parameters, aberrant responses to certain inductions, the machine even hung for a bit doing a validation sequence. It’s like it had a hard time recognizing you as a digimon even.”

That got Salmandmon blinking blankly. “Hard time recognizing me as a digimon? Jeez, computers can be so fussy sometimes…I’m pretty sure no actual person around here has the same problem.”

“Is there a problem with Sal?” asked Reyn nervously. “I’m not really sure what all of that is supposed to mean.”

Rudy shook his head. “No issues with health, wellness, or other facets of him as far as we can tell. It’s just an odd response, and the machine wasn’t able to implement things meant for digimon because of that issue, at least I presume that would be the reason. I’d like to try to explore this further, but we have a lack of sample data to work with here…is there any reason you can think of why you’d be showing up different than Commandramon, Sal?”

Salmandmon rubbed his head. “I’ma just default to the usual answer: if there’s anything weird, it’s probably got to do with the whole merging thing. Maybe it’s affected Reyn, too…I don’t think I wanna shove him in there while we’re still under attack, though, given that he’s the one driving those folks away. Wait, if the machine’s not confident that I’m a digimon, do you think that those Data Fracture Bombs would know?”

“I doubt they’re smart enough to ‘know’ anything…hm…” Rudy contemplated that for a moment. “You’re wondering if you’re ‘weird’ enough that they wouldn’t affect you, aren’t you?”

“I mean, that WOULD be nice and convenient, you’ve gotta agree.”

“Of course. I can’t say for sure, but…it’s possible? I think, though, that I’d rather NOT test that.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely not. Let’s try to avoid running into those things at all costs. Well, if you can’t do anything more for me, I guess that means we figure out what we do next.”

“What we do next is sit and wait for more soldiers to show up, because they’re probably going to be annoying like that,” asserted Reyn. “And we might need to help with Commandramon more, too.”

“I’ll be fine, sirs, really I will.” Commandramon was clearly trying to pick himself up from the bench, though his body still wasn’t being very cooperative. “Get me in my armor and I can get out there and help…”

“Yeah, he definitely needs a supervisor.” Salmandmon headed over and hopped up onto the bench, pulling Commandramon back. “You need to relax! You’re still fighting off that stuff, don’t make it worse by running around when you’re trying to recover!”

“But, sir, there’s still so much danger around!”

“Yeah, trust me, we’re not going to have ANY shortage of that for a while. We’re trying to get you fixed so you can help us out in the long run!”

“Nnhh…isn’t there something I can do? I can shoot from windows, if there’s one that’s got a good angle! You can even put me on comms, if you need to get word out!”

“Sheeze…I’ll never complain about babysitting Cay and Alis again,” sighed Reyn. “At least they aren’t eager to open fire on things…”

———

“What do you mean the planes left?” Sykes slammed his fist against the armored vehicle, while one of his soldiers cowered in front of him. He was a man of considerable stature, nearing six and a half feet tall, with angry brown eyes, a thin curled mustache, and a distinct scar over his left eye; his uniform was much like a field general’s, except for the brown gloves and the broadsword sheathed at his hip.

“They were seen flying away from Braun, and the dragon’s been swooping over our forces! I don’t know what happened, they didn’t seem to be damaged, I didn’t notice anything, sir!”

“Grah! Traitors and cowards! How hard is it so stop just five creatures?! Where did the helicopters go? They were supposed to be providing covering fire!”

“What? Sir, we were told earlier that they were compromised at Jordan! Their weapons systems were damaged, they were forced to fly back to base!”

“What?! Why did this not get back to me?!” The rage of Malcolm Sykes was perhaps one reason why that had happened. Unseen from his hiding place, Darkvargmon couldn’t resist a grin - that had been a little bit of brilliance on his part, hitting those things before they’d ever had a chance to be a threat. They had enough to deal with the planes and tanks and soldiers, why add helicopters to that trouble?

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know who didn’t report that! They were talking about it all morning!”

“Rrrgh…I am NOT going to be humiliated by a bunch of subhuman…things! I don’t care how scrappy they are, we’re the mightiest military on Earth, they should be nothing compared to us! Are you even shooting at them?! There’s no reason all five of them shouldn’t be writhing on the ground, waiting to be executed!”

A rather disgusting sentiment, and Darkvargmon had to keep himself from getting too heated over it. Instead, he kept his cool as he spoke up. “Perhaps you didn’t know what you were getting into, ‘General.’”

Sykes leapt up, swinging his head around to try to find the voice, as the half-dozen soldiers in the area did the same. “What the hell?! Who said that?! Show yourself!”

“You want to see me? I’ll show myself to you…but only you alone.” Darkvargmon phased somewhere else, where none of them were looking, and tossed up a Blasting Darkness charge that hit the ground and let out a pulse, rocking everyone in the area - not nearly powerful enough to be a real threat, or to disable them, but meant more to throw them off-balance mentally. He then hid away and reappeared while they were scrambling towards the source of the blast. “This is but a taste of what I’m capable of. I’d rather not use my full power, it would be somewhat counterproductive to harm the people I’m trying to protect…although, for you folks in particular, it’s against my better judgment.”

“I…I can’t follow this thing!” panicked one soldier. “It’s like it’s everywhere!”

“Shut up!” snarled Sykes. “Don’t be an embarrassment! It’ll bleed like any other creature! Monster, what do you want with me?”

If I said what I actually wanted, you’d never show your face to me. “Simple enough, Sykes. I challenge you to a duel. A clash of blades, man to man. Win, and you’ll have your moment of glory. Lose, and you’ll call off this absurd siege. But try to have someone else intervene on your behalf, or bring a gun to a swordfight, and I can’t promise that limbs won’t be lost, if not lives.”

“Sir, we can’t let you-” started another soldier.

“Be QUIET! If I want your useless opinion, private, I’ll ask for it! Go back up the others, this is MY fight!” Although he wasn’t looking as Sykes directly at the moment, Darkvargmon could swear he could hear the bloodthirst in the general’s eyes. A predictable foe can be a useful asset…but I’d better make sure he holds up his end if he loses.

The scampering of footsteps away was a good sign, but Darkvargmon checked around a bit before being willing to commit to showing up. Sykes was certainly not the patient type, though. “Right, monster, it’s just you and me now! You gonna show your face, or are you just a coward who wanted to try to get the better of me? Because if you think I’m any less dangerous alone than surrounded, your degenerate allies are going to learn a painful lesson about crossing me!”

“Such a pleasant personality. Small wonder that Jonah Wheeler chose you.” Satisfied that they were indeed on their own, Darkvargmon shifted to Ebonvargmon and launched himself out of the shadows, landing in front of Sykes and making the man take a couple of steps back. Those blue eyes met the furious brown ones of Sykes fearlessly. “This is what you wanted, is it not? Face-to-face with one of us, with a chance to get the better of us, and prove your worth personally…I hope you’ve practiced with that blade of yours, because you’re going to need it.”

If Sykes was cowed, he certainly wasn’t showing it. “Feh…what am I even looking at here? Some kind of werewolf? You think you’re that scary? You’re just some generic fantasy monster, and clearly unprepared for the duel you challenged me to…I’m not about to run screaming from you.”

“I’m sure you’re not keeping score, but the ‘werewolf’ crack isn’t winning you any points.” A pit of darkness formed near Ebonvargmon’s hand, and he reached in and drew out his sword, swinging it with purpose in front of him, before pointing it at the human, who finally visibly reacted. “Is this more to your liking?”

“You…flashy tricks aren’t going to be worth anything in a swordfight.” Sykes drew his broadsword with a flourish, pointing back at Ebonvargmon. The canid had to respect one thing, the general seemed completely unjarred by the prospect of a sword duel with a creature seemingly out of a fantasy work…he really was as nuts as they claimed. “I’ll make sure you regret this…and if there’s enough pelt on that mangy hide of yours, a fur coat would make for an excellent statement.”

“Maybe you should focus on saving your own skin first.” Ebonvargmon made his move, jumping forward a bit and swinging, clashing blades with Sykes. The human held against the first clang of swords, but it was a bit of a ruse - Ebonvargmon wasn’t using his true strength, wanting to lull the general into thinking he had a chance. Another couple swings, each meeting Sykes’ sword at different angles, pushing the human back…the general for the first time seemed out of his element, on his heels as he tried to match and parry Ebonvargmon.

That didn’t last, as Sykes managed to get his footing and return the swings in earnest. While he didn’t seem like a ‘natural’ swordfighter, it was clear he had at least learned enough to know what he was doing. He swung with plenty of purpose and passion, and Ebonvargmon had to be careful both to not let him get any openings and also to not overcorrect…he wouldn’t have minding leaving a few gashes on Sykes, but not anything too severe. Fortunately, he had plenty of innate talent to draw from despite his limited experience in this body, and while he was fairly certain a more experienced digimon could give him trouble, a human was not on that level.

He didn’t want Sykes figuring that out QUITE yet, though.

Sykes was starting to get more confident as they continued to clash blades, swinging more fiercely and wildly; Ebonvargmon made a point of dodging some of the crazier swings, which were hard to predict as to the best way of parrying. He never let Sykes get too much on the offensive, though, counterswinging and forcing the human back here and there, then leaving himself just the slightest bit open for Sykes to get back into the groove. It was giving Sykes a bravado that he hadn’t earned. “Hah! You call this a challenge? No wonder you were hiding away, if this was the best you could do!”

“Who says this is my best?” replied Ebonvargmon evenly, only just tugging at the bait.

“Hah, what, are you going to say you’re not right-handed? A bloodthirsty creature wouldn’t hold back when they had the chance!”

“You seem to be adeptly proving that point, Sykes. You’re putting everything you have into this. I, however, am not so quick to shed blood. And neither are the rest of us. Has it not occurred to you how you aren’t getting reports of fatalities in en masse?” A slightly harder swing, making Sykes stumble backwards a bit and need to regain his footing. “Despite the fact that fire, electricity, and heavy weaponry are all readily accessible to us?”

“Shut your trap, mutt!” Sykes rushed forward and swung hard, making Ebonvargmon jump back a bit. “I don’t care what you and your loathsome ilk are playing at out there! The only thing that matters is that you’re monsters and you need to be destroyed!”

Ebonvargmon blocked the next reckless overhead swing, then kicked out, knocking Sykes backwards several steps, the human nearly tumbling over onto his rear. “Really now? Even if we’re the ones keeping this city from falling to dust from the real attackers!”

“Especially if you’re that!” That stunning line caught Ebonvargmon off-guard, enough that he almost got sloppy and had to scramble to deflect another blow. Sykes’s eyes were almost glittering with deranged malevolence now, he was feeling himself and attacking like it, slashing furiously at Ebonvargmon. “Can you IMAGINE the clout we’d gain if we showed our power to defeat even otherworldly monsters?! No human army would ever want to stand up to us again! We could use that to impose our will the world over! Throw our military might at anyone who refused to cooperate with us! Settle every conflict the way WE want! Keep the entire world in line, make OUR way the way of everyone, and they wouldn’t raise a finger against us! We could OWN this world like we were meant to, but you want to take that from us, steal our glory! You’re monsters just like them, you don’t deserve any of it!”

Sykes swing again, but this time Ebonvargmon blocked, and then before he could follow up, Ebonvargmon slammed his sword into that blade, almost dislodging it from Sykes’ grip and making him stagger backwards. “You’re demented! You’d see Braun in ruins just because you don’t want us ‘hogging the glory’? You think you should be bloodthirsty conquerors turning violence on everyone just to get YOUR way?! You’re just as twisted as the digimon we’re fighting against! The notion that they can impose their will on the world and kill anyone who doesn’t agree, that’s what the real monsters want!”

“I don’t take judgments from mongrels! Die!” Sykes rushed forward again, but Ebonvargmon had had enough. He met the human’s blade with his own, and then with a fierce burst drove far harder than Sykes was ready for, flinging the blade from his hand and sending it to the grass with a thud. Before Sykes could recover, Ebonvargmon flung his hand forward, eyes glowing black.

“If you won’t take judgment, take this instead! Nether Blow!”

A pit of darkness formed under Sykes, and before he knew what was happening, a rush of dark energy shot up from it, enveloping him and making him cry out as he was slightly lifted up from the force of it. When Ebonvargmon cut the attack off, he dropped the few inches he’d been lifted and fell back onto his rear, clenching his jaw and groaning and shuddering. “Wh…what…”

“Remember how I showed you a taste of my power earlier? That was a fraction of a taste compared to this.” Ebonvargmon pointed the sword down at Sykes, who glowered defiantly up. “The power of darkness is mine to command, bending to my will. With this power, I have sworn to defend people against raving madmen with ambitions to seize power and commit mass slaughter. Clearly, you’re one of those people, and you need to be stopped just as much as any digimon coming through. I could do far worse to you than I’m going to do, and even you must know it by now. You’ve lost the duel. Call off the attack.”

Sykes spat. “And what if I don’t?”

“Then…I’ll kill you.” Ebonvargmon’s expression twisted maliciously as Sykes’ lost some color. “But…I won’t just kill you like this. I’ll disable you, make sure your body is as broken as I can make it while still drawing breath…and then I’ll take you to the place where the greatest number of your men can see you, can see your abject failure self beaten and broken, make you as obvious a display as I can…and then I’ll run you through, in sight of everyone, in the most painful way you can possibly imagine. You’ll writhe in pain as your vision goes dark, forced into the knowledge that everyone under your command will know that you were a complete failure, and history will remember you as nothing more than a fool who died to a monster. You’ll not be remembered for any deed or accomplishment, but for your utter uselessness…”

For once, Sykes’ countenance cracked, the promise of reputational ruin breaking through where no appeal to morality or sense had. “F-fine…you win for now, werewolf. But don’t think this is over…I’m not going to stop until you’re out of the way. I may have to step back, but I WILL be back…”

Ebonvargmon pulled the blade back and dispelled it into the darkness. “I’ll make sure to remember that, when the right people finally get involved. See to it that you comply, because I’ll be watching…” He shifted back to Darkvargmon and sank into the shadows, a display just clear enough that Sykes wouldn’t think nothing of it, he would have to know that Darkvargmon could make sure he enforced his victory, and comply lest he face ruin. Of course, there was no illusion he had put the madman down for good this way…that would only happen if he had to follow through on his threat. And he was trying not to think about just how easy it was to come up with such a dark idea and how easy it was to play up the savage monster image…he pushed that thought away, focusing on what mattered now. They had bought time, and it likely wouldn’t be long before there was another crisis that would have to put things in perspective for their attackers…

———

“They’re retreating!” Rudy pumped his fist as he set down the phone, having just gotten word from upstairs. “Finally, some good news!”

“Better news if they stayed away, but I’m not holding my breath,” sighed Reyn. “Still, any progress is good progress at the moment. I just wish I knew what kind of luck Mr. Katran and Mr. Conover were having trying to get in touch with someone who can stop this madness.”

“We’ll have to ask them about that,” agreed Salmandmon. “You think there’s any hope they’ll actually stay away now that they know what we can do?”

“If they’re even half as stubborn as Emperius, you know the answer to that question.”

“Crud, that’s what I thought. Well, at least we get a chance to regroup.”

“Maybe I’ll be able to help out next battle…” Commandramon was sitting on a chair against the wall, still looking weary but much more stable than he had been. He was still unarmored, as Rudy wanted to scan and treat him a couple more times before declaring him free of the effects of the Data Fracture Bomb. Unarmed and unarmored, he looked extremely out of sorts.

“You focus on staying alive and healthy, we’re going to need you for what comes next,” chided Salmandmon. “And that’s an order! Once you’re in better shape we’ll see about getting you involved, but we need to be able to get over to the digital world at some point and you’re our best chance.”

“I know, sir. I just…really want to be able to do more. I already feel dirty even pretending to have been doing Emperius’s bidding. The others at the KOL probably don’t trust me anymore, thinking I turned on them like Meicrackmon did…”

“Meicrackmon?” Salmandmon did a double take. “No way. She really got turned?”

“She did…I don’t know what caused her to turn on us, but she’s fully on their side now. That hurt a lot of us…and I fear they think I did the same, along with the others…we couldn’t tell them what we were doing, because we feared that the truth would get out, so we pretended that we were swayed by Meicrackmon’s reversal.”

“They’ll be set straight soon enough,” Reyn assured him. “Hopefully we find those other ones before someone else figures out what’s going on and turns on them. If they’re part of this assault force, we’ll just need to be on the lookout and be careful how quickly we fire. But I’m glad you told us about that, because now we’re better prepared…we just need to make sure no one else comes across Meicrackmon and thinks she’s here for support.”

“No doubt…hopefully they’ll be back soon, and we can tell them here rather than having to wander outside,” agreed Salmandmon. “We probably don’t have a lot of time, we should really get prepared for the next wave.”

“I think you’ll have some help with that,” said Rudy as he put down his phone. “Just got a notice from Elliot, there’s pizzas on the fourth floor. You should probably eat something before things get messy again, who knows if you’ll have any other opportunities?”

“Oh, sweet!” exclaimed Salmandmon. “I’ve always wanted to try that stuff!”

Rudy did a double-take, looking wide-eyed at the lizard. “You guys don’t have pizza in your world? What kind of tragedy is this?!”

“I know, right? I keep trying to get someone to ‘invent’ it! But there’s some issues with finding ingredients that work the same way on our end, and I’m not really the best one to try to figure that out. I’m hoping that we can get a culinary expert to look into it, but that’s kind of on the back burner due to the whole ‘a bunch of people want to erase you completely’ thing.”

“Well, we’ll have to fix THAT after we’ve dealt with this mess. But for now, at least you can enjoy it! Commandramon, you should go too, you’ll recover faster if you get some fuel in you.”

“Ah, but…I haven’t earned my keep yet-” the cyborg started to protest.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Salmandmon cut in. “You’re part of our support, you’re gonna be getting your meals as well! Now come on, let’s get up there before it’s all gone!”

“No, let’s not be in a rush, so that it’s NOT all gone by the time the OTHERS get there,” countered Reyn.

“C’mooooon…I’ll leave some for them!”

“Oh, Zetta Commander! Did you tell him about the time you beat a Tyranomon in an eating contest?”

Salmandmon glowered at Commandramon. “You’re not helping.”

———

“What do you mean, called off?!”

“Relax, Jonah.”

“Don’t tell me to relax! You’re throwing everything off!”

“JONAH. We aren’t pulling out. It’s a strategic temporary retreat. I wasn’t happy to do it either, but we’ll have our chance. One of our intelligence agents picked up on something from their chatter out there - there’s about to be an invasion force of monsters. A major spectacle, they’ll be quickly occupied trying to deal with them. Either they’ll be ended during that attack and we can clean up, or they’ll be weary and weakened and perfectly ripe for picking off after the fact.”

“…Yes. Yes, that will work. My apologies, General.”

“No worries, Jonah. I’ve also secured a little extra assistance against the sympathizers. They won’t be ready for what I’ve arranged. By the time you arrive, we’ll hopefully be ready to move again…and I’ll make sure the camera’s ready to capture our glory.”

———

Reyn and Salmandmon were actually the last ones of their group up in the big conference room on the fourth floor, with Commandramon trailing nervously behind. A few of the agents were already there getting things served up, and they were clearly expecting quite a few more with all the boxes there.

“Hey, look who finally showed his face,” remarked Isaac as the fiery duo approached. “You musta been a blur out there, I couldn’t even see you.”

“Sorry, things kept me busy right in here,” Reyn replied. “We wanted to get back out there, but soldiers kept getting here, after a while we just decided it was too risky not to have a dedicated guard.”

“They started spreading out a lot more than we were ready for after a while,” admitted Shockavimon. “We should’ve laid more Charge Fields. Lesson learned, hopefully we won’t need to use it.”

“At least they’ve retreated for now,” Datacarnomon said. “Maybe when they see the invading force that’s supposed to be coming, they’ll think twice about coming after us again. Provided we can repel them, of course.”

“Hopefully being fueled up by pizza will help,” snickered Reyn.

“It might help YOU, it won’t do a thing for me.”

“Dang, you’re gonna miss out!” exclaimed Salmandmon. “Everyone over here loves this stuff! Are you sure you’re not interested in getting a gastric processor?”

Datacarnomon shrugged. “Maybe after I retire from facing down death for a living. Right now I have to prioritize.”

“Talking about it isn’t the same as eating it, you know,” remarked Skylar, who was already at the boxes. “Also, Sal, you’re going last, I’ve seen you eat.”

“Why does everyone think I won’t save any for them?” protested the red lizard. “I have manners!”

“Your digestive tract is comparable to a matter disintegration system,” needled Blackcanismon. “Modern science has yet to discern its physical boundaries or capacity limitations.”

“Sky, while you’re over there, why don’t you tell us what they got?” asked Derek, trying not to laugh too hard at his partner’s jibe while Salmandmon huffed.

“Looks like a mix of the typical and some unfavorable looking specialties,” reported the white-haired boy. “Cheese, pepperoni, sausage, veggie lover’s, meat lover’s, hawaiian…ugh, whoever decided to put pineapple on pizza should be tried for war crimes.”

“It’s not THAT bad,” insisted Iris.

“I’ll respect your incorrect opinion as long as I don’t have to eat it. Uh…there’s a few specialty pizzas here that don’t have an ingredients list. Mom and Dad don’t order from here so don’t ask me, just decide if you’re feeling lucky. Oh, of course there’s a hot and spicy one, blech…mushroom lover’s, also blech-”

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN MINDS?!” All eyes turned towards Salmandmon as he stumbled and fell over backwards, scrambling away from the table in panic. “Y-you EAT that stuff?! WILLINGLY?!”

“…Um. Am I…missing something here?” asked Reyn. “What triggered this?”

“Gah! You…ugh, that’s the most…disgusting thing…why would you put that on ANYTHING?! Seriously, let me burn it, do the world a favor!”

“Ohhhhhh yeah…” Breezedramon said in sudden realization. “I forgot about Sal’s thing about fungi.”

“Thing about…what?” Skylar looked between the dragon and lizard like he was about to bust out laughing. “Are you kidding me? You’re seriously telling me the walking incinerator is afraid of FUNGI?”

“Hey, that stuff is EVIL!” Salmandmon insisted shakily. “It’s rot and decay in physical form! And mushrooms are chock full of the nastiest toxins you could imagine! Why would you ever willingly put that stuff inside your bodies?!”

“…Yeah, I think Sal won’t be having any of the mushroom lover’s special,” remarked Reyn with a fair bit of amusement, leaning down and pulling Salmandmon back to his feet. “C’mon, we’ll go get you the meat pizza, I’m sure you’ll like everything on that.”

“Okay, I can understand most irrational fears, but…how?” asked Iris as they followed Reyn up.

“Salmandmon has regrettably experienced unfortunate histories with the ‘mycological menace,’” Blackcanismon reported, with his own reasonable dose of cheek. “Albeit, his phobia preceded any encounter I have borne personal witness to. Although not all instances have been excessively amusing, the majority of them have been.”

“He doesn’t tend to be comfortable around digimon with a fungal background, either, though he doesn’t react as strongly to them as to regular fungi,” added Datacarnomon. “You can tell it’s an effort, though.”

“To be fair, fungi aren’t usually something you eat regularly in the digital world,” Shockavimon continued off of that. “At least, not straight up. For the most part, mushrooms and fungi in the digital world are there to cause trouble - they have usually unpleasant effects if eaten and the spores can contaminate food and deliver the same effect without warning. Sometimes their extracts are used in medicines, poisons, and the like, but they aren’t common foodstuffs and while there might be some examples that you might consider edible or even delicacies somewhere in our world, there definitely aren’t any on Tetraquaz. So usually, if you encounter them, it’s not a good thing…though, most don’t react like Sal does, that’s a him thing.”

“There’s plenty of nasty ones over here, too, for sure,” said Isaac. “But lots of mushrooms are edible and won’t hurt you if you eat them. I kinda like them myself.”

“I don’t, but I don’t freak out over them, either,” added Derek. “You’d think someone who could easily torch them wouldn’t be afraid of them like that.”

“You’d think so, but it’s almost like he forgets he’s made of fire when you put him around them!” Breezedramon chimed in with a giggle. “It’s kinda fun to drop them on his snout now and then and watch him freak out a bit.”

“That sounds kinda mean,” Iris said with a frown. “You shouldn’t take advantage of a fear like that, you don’t know what caused it.”

“It’s fine! Sal told us straight off that it wasn’t off-limits! Not like some other stuff. Like what he did before he worked for the Kaiser. He won’t talk about that.”

“So long as we don’t actually try to make him ingest anything, Sal doesn’t mind us poking him about it,” agreed Datacarnomon. “He wants to not react so strongly to it, so it’s also kind of a test to him to see how well he manages. So far…not so great, clearly. Guess he needs a few remedial courses.”

“I’m not THAT far away, you guys,” grumped Salmandmon from his seat on Reyn’s lap in a nearby chair.

“You’re also not that far away from the dreaded mushrooms,” Shockavimon jibed back.

“I’m trying not to think about that right now. Non-contaminated pizza is helping.”

“Seriously, why mushrooms?” asked Skylar.

“It’s not JUST mushrooms, it’s ALL fungi. And I don’t want to talk about it. I still think you’re crazy for putting it willingly on food, you have no idea what it’s going to do to you. It could make you itch uncontrollably, it could turn you to stone, it could make your muscles lose all control…”

“That doesn’t happen over here,” remarked Derek. “Pizza places don’t get poisonous mushrooms, for one thing. But even if someone did eat a mushroom, it could make you sick or kill you, but not have any weirder effects. Except for the ones people use as drugs, the ones that make you hallucinate.”

Salmandmon’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, that can happen, too…I don’t know why someone would ever willingly do that.”

“Same reason they would do any other drug, I would think. Because they like the experience, regardless of the other problems.”

“I certainly hope you’re not speaking from experience.” Derek jumped a bit as Elliot’s voice spoke up from behind him.

“Dad, jeez! No, I wouldn’t even know where to get that stuff for one, and for two, I very much like having my wits about me, thank you.”

“I have to check. I’ve heard the stories about musicians, and you’re apparently halfway on your way to being one already.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “I just like to write music, I can’t actually play an instrument to save my life. Closest I’d get is being a songwriter for some band somewhere, and I’m not holding my breath for that.”

“Who says you need to be able to play an instrument?” Reyn jumped in. “I listen to a lot of music that’s made entirely using some computer program or another. Even if it doesn’t totally sound ‘authentic’ that doesn’t mean it can’t sound amazing.”

“I can vouch for that, we make a lot of our music that way,” Datacarnomon agreed.

“He’s speaking for robots, not all of us,” Breezedramon clarified. “And he’s not one of the ones who does it, I’ve heard him try, trust me, you don’t wanna put yourself through that.”

“Oy, look who’s talking! All you do is bang loudly on things and not even on the beat!”

“Boys, be better friends than your partners are,” Shockavimon said, though she was clearly grinning.

———

The end of the meal brought with it an air of tension throughout the room. It was hardly unexpected - everyone was aware that someone was coming, they just didn’t know when or what. And it wasn’t sitting well with some folks more than others.

“Every interminable moment of dallying consternates me compoundingly…considering their inoccludable intentions, the singular purpose delay serves is our psychological disruption. An appalling dearth of consideration, indubitably…”

“You are muttering an awful lot of nonsense down there, BC,” remarked Iris. She and Derek were seated looking out the window, just in case there was a visual sign of something happening. Shockavimon was on Iris’s lap, while Blackcanismon was laying on the ground next to Derek’s chair, his expression less than content.

“Blasé reductionism of my erudition unto ‘nonsense’ provides scant upliftment of my emotional valence,” riposted Blackcanismon rather tensely.

“He gets this way when he’s nervous,” said Shockavimon. “He doesn’t talk to himself a lot when he’s in a good mood, but when he’s not…yeah, the joke is that either his tail’s wagging or his tongue is.”

“I approve of that line,” chuckled Derek.

“The veracity of the aforementioned observation can scarcely be rejected, yet provides no particular resolution of my disconcert,” huffed the canine. “Should you consider your verbal emissions superior to mine, they must provide dramatically enhanced alleviation of stress.”

“I thought you said he was the laid-back one?” Iris asked.

“Usually he is,” Shockavimon said with a shrug. “But I can’t exactly blame him for not being that way right now…I sure as heck feel stressed out, too.” Iris couldn’t disagree with that, she was certainly feeling the nerves, all of them were…though, Derek seemed, to her, less wound up than she would have expected of him. He never was great with stress in his own right, but he seems…at least somewhat at ease, at least hiding it better if he isn’t. Wonder what that’s all about…

“Iris? Derek?” Both of them turned, to see Heather approaching slowly. She looked weary, her eyes somewhat baggy and face somewhat haggard, and though she was trying to smile, there was clearly a weight behind it that belied the image. “Am I…interrupting anything?”

“Nothing that can’t be interrupted,” Iris replied quickly, motioning her closer. “Are you okay? I mean…well, maybe that’s a stupid question…”

“I…guess I’m doing as well as I can be.” Heather drew up a nearby chair and sat down, somewhat behind the two, making them turn towards her. She let out a deep breath as she put a hand on each youth’s shoulder. “I feel like I should be asking you that question…I was tucked away in here, and you were out there, in the middle of…nn, I don’t even want to say it…”

“How’s…Mom doing?” Derek asked hesitantly, no longer looking anywhere near at ease.

“She’s sedated. It was…too much for her. I did my best, but I couldn’t help enough for that. She always was one to get genuinely worried sick…I hope this helps.”

“…Am I to interpret that statement as the madame’s physical condition is severely diminished?” Blackcanismon asked, with a heaviness in his own voice.

“She’s not on death’s door or anything…I don’t think, anyway.” Heather sounded less sure of that than she wanted to, which didn’t alleviate Blackcanismon’s concern at all; the dark canid looked away, his expression growing even more uncomfortable. “I’ve got someone always watching over her, and she’s…at least, seems to be better now that she’s out. I’m not sure I wouldn’t be the same…”

“I’m sorry,” Shockavimon said quietly. “I wish I knew a better way…”

“…I know.” Heather bowed her head wearily. “All this has been…a lot to take in. When Emil told me everything last night…it was bad enough leading up to that, fearing that you were getting caught up in attacks like that…to hear that you were actually in…in the middle of battle…that you were doing this…and now some crazy army people coming after you…”

“I didn’t want to tell you as much for that reason as any,” admitted Iris, drawing closer to Heather and leaning into her to try to comfort her. “You and Dad both…you’ve always worried about me so much, and this is…something you have every reason to be worried about. I wish there was something I could do to make that go away…but there isn’t. Even if we stopped going out and fighting, none of us would be safe.”

“I know…your father made that clear to me…and I could tell he didn’t want to accept it either, even if he knew he had to. I don’t know how he’s managing to keep himself from falling apart today, running around all over the place and frantically trying to do so much…maybe he’s afraid if he stops he’ll have to think about what’s happening out there. And Elliot…he always tries to keep himself so detached and businesslike, but he’s been staring off into space far too much to not be thinking about it himself…”

“…with me out there, and Mom in her state…” Derek trailed off, looking downtrodden.

It was about the worst of moments for Shockavimon, feeling incredibly awkward and at a loss for anything to say. She was used to fighting alongside folks who were there on their own, maybe she heard about family here and there but they weren’t actively there expressing their worry. The reality of what burden she was imposing on people for doing what needed to be done…even knowing that it was the best choice they could have made among the feasible options, it still left a bad taste in her mouth. We owe them so much, for what we’re putting their kids through…and we owe THEM even more. We have to deliver, for all their sakes…failing them would be a slap in the face for everything they’ve been through. And looking over at Blackcanismon, just the expression on his face told her his thoughts were very much the same…though she had no idea just how much more the canine was reflecting on.

———

Meanwhile, in another part of the room, a damage report was being reviewed. Elliot and Elias were sitting with Salmandmon and Datacarnomon, going over information they’d picked up from a very handy source.

“Based on what Elias was hearing over the radio, they’re down several tanks and two helicopters, and the jets that were helping them have bailed out. They definitely aren’t in as good of a position as they were at the start of the day, but I’m not convinced it’ll be enough to get them to back off. No word yet on what kind of reinforcements they might get…I can’t imagine they’ll be able to prolong this siege for long, not when it’s completely unauthorized.”

“They’re going to try to strike again,” Salmandmon muttered. “I just know it. We need to make sure they don’t get any further than they did before. Did you pick up on any casualties?”

“Briefly. Six confirmed dead, seventeen injured badly enough to be forced to withdraw, a small but nonzero number unaccounted for but we didn’t pick up on specifics, so that could be more casualties or it could be desertions. From what we were hearing, there were instances of friendly fire, bad reactions to the shocks, and a few broken bones from that tornado, and two deaths from a grenade that blew up when the nearby soldiers were presumably stunned. Naturally, they’re trying to claim that every single one was a deliberate malicious incident by one or all of you…even the friendly fire is apparently your fault.”

“Figures,” grumbled Datacarnomon. “Making sure no one can question the narrative, and they all push again the next time with no doubts.”

“Still more than I’d hoped for,” sighed Salmandmon. “But given how chaotic it was out there, I don’t think it was realistic to expect it to be totally clean…we’re lucky the numbers were that small, if we’d had to break out our real power it would have been so much worse. But if they keep coming, that’s going to be more chances for danger for them as well, and more chances for them to spin it poorly. We need something to put a stop to this, period.”

“You don’t think them seeing a whole invading force will get them to think twice?”

“Maybe it will, but do you really want to take that chance? Agent Katran, have you had any luck getting in touch with anyone higher up? This commander woman they keep talking about, maybe?”

Elliot shook his head. “We’ve made efforts, but no success. Getting to her directly is impossible, but I was hoping to be able to contact someone who could get word to her…but there’s a total lockdown on communications right now. We’re cut off from internet access and phone lines…no doubt Wheeler and his crew wanted to make sure we couldn’t call out. Trying to send someone out of the city would be almost as good as murdering them, they aren’t going to let anyone past they think might be trying to stop them. A campaign like this can’t go unnoticed, but I don’t know how quickly someone will be able to act.”

Salmandmon nodded, his brow furrowed. “Of course they wouldn’t want to make this easy. We can’t wait and hope, either…we need a plan that we can enact on our own to try to get through to people, to the soldiers on the ground out there, since the people heading them are lost causes.”

“Maybe this should be our job,” suggested Elias. “You guys are so busy actually fighting out there, we’re sitting in here just trying to hold down the fort…we’ve gotta be able to do something more than just that.”

“I don’t think we should be putting you guys in more danger,” Datacarnomon replied. “Bad enough they’re hunting for us, they’re also condemning you just for being around us. It’s not fair to you the way you’re being treated already, I don’t want to make it worse by giving them more reason to target you.”

“…No. You’re wrong, Data.” The robot looked over at Salmandmon, who had a firm yet pensive look on his face. “I think it’s a good idea…in fact, I wish we’d thought of it before, because it makes more sense than anything else. Why is this something we think we can do better than they can? They’ve lived in the human world all their lives, we’ve been here for a few weeks at best. And that time hasn’t been getting a deep knowledge and understanding of humankind and the culture, it’s been mostly fighting against invaders…what little we know is what we’ve gleaned from our partners. If there’s an idea to be had to convince them to act more reasonably, it’s not going to come from people who barely understand humans, it’s going to come from those who are much more familiar with them.”

“…I’m not going to pretend I always understand them, either, even in spite of living around them for decades,” admitted Elliot. “But I have to think I understand them better than you do, as you said, and there are others here who understand them even better than I do. We’ll have to try to get some people together to see if we can come up with something…with more minds working on it, we’ll probably be able to get a few ideas together. Whether they’ll work is another story, but it’s worth trying.”

The lizard nodded. “Right. We’ll be the ones to hold down the fort in the meantime. Maybe we’ll be lucky and it won’t come to it, but I’m not in any hurry to trust luck these days, for far too many reasons.”

Elias rubbed his head. “Man…you know, when I first heard them talking about monsters, I had all sortsa ideas about what that was supposed to mean. All came back around to those old monster movies I used to watch as a kid. But it ain’t at all like that here…you guys are actually just…people who look different from us. You’d think that’d give some of them some pause when they talk about just…shooting you like you’re trophy animals or something.”

“They’re actually talking like that?” Datacarnomon asked, somewhat uncomfortably.

The dark-skinned human nodded grimly. “Some of ‘em have been talking about taking pictures, even. That was part of what got me bailing in the first place…I couldn’t stomach the idea of that, it was just so full of nastiness. And the way they talked about you and thought about you…it hit a little closer to home than I would’ve liked.”

“Some people really just want to latch onto an acceptable target,” Elliot said quietly. “Not that I’ve been totally innocent of that myself…”

“You at least had the excuse of seeing our worst examples much more prominently first,” Salmandmon said gently. “And we didn’t do the best job of trying to clear things up, either. Emil only figured it out because of a lot of circumstances coming together the right way, and honestly, I wouldn’t have blamed anyone for being skeptical of that. I put the blame partly on Emperius for that, too - if we’d had the time to actually put together a proper warning, maybe you would’ve gotten the idea a lot faster, but we didn’t get the chance, and they got to set the first impression. But then we were too nervous to try to get out of the shadows…especially because of what we were doing to actually fight against it. Other elements aside, it was a pretty flawed battle plan on our part, and we didn’t do enough to try to rework the problems with it.”

“Given the story you’ve told about what precipitated all this, I could hardly judge you that harshly for not knowing what to do every step of the way,” remarked Elliot.

“That may be so, but tactics need to evolve, too, and ours didn’t do that well enough. As Zetta Unit’s commander, that falls on me.”

“Willingly citing your position to someone?” Datacarnomon couldn’t help but snicker a bit. “Not sure when’s the last time I heard THAT.”

Salmandmon rolled his eyes. “Well, since a certain someone won’t accept the mantle himself, I have to endure it as long as I need to. And if I’m going to do that, I’d better do a better job at it than what I have been here.”

“I think that’s a sentiment I can relate to,” Elliot agreed. “We’ll get some people together and work on something. Elias, much as I get the sense that you weren’t…attached to the folks in that unit, you probably know them better than any of us, so I’d value your input as we try to figure out our approach.”

“Anything I can do, though I don’t know how much help I’ll be,” stated Elias. “Don’t have a lot of good things to say about them, but maybe the bad stuff can be helpful in its own way.”

“Believe me, sometimes the bad can be the most important info. Come on, let’s get a move on.” Both humans stood and headed off, while Salmandmon wandered off in a different direction, looking contemplative. Data stayed where he was at the moment, staring after the lizard. There’s a reason I don’t accept it, Sal…and you showed exactly why. You understood better how to approach things, exposed a flaw in my own reasoning, and communicated with them far better than I ever could, no matter how much I’ve got the basic facts down. One of these days, you’re going to have to understand why you’re the leader of us…and why no one else CAN do it like you can. With a near-silent sigh, he got up and went off to check up on Commandramon. Then again, I suppose it’s been four years, what’s a little while longer? So long as you do what you do, it’ll be fine either way…

———

“It’s honestly insane, I have no idea how you managed it.”

“I’d tell you, but I’m not sure I really know how either.” Skylar shrugged a little bit. “I did help myself a bit by taking advantage of some principles behind tornado formation, but I wasn’t expecting it to work as well as it did. I guess the several hours of effort I was allowed paid off.”

“Maaaaan…” Reyn shook his head. “I’m still struggling with more than just super-basic fireballs.”

“Perhaps part of the issue is that wind is native in the environment, fireballs are not. I don’t have to spend as much energy generating the material, leaving more to actually do the manipetulamentations.”

“...Huh?”

Skylar rolled his eyes. “Come on, Reyn, don’t make me repeat myself. I just said that because I don’t actually have to create the air and wind, I can spend more energy on the manipulations.”

“Oh…sorry, I…I thought I heard, uh, something…different there.”

“What could you have possibly heard that was different?”

“Never mind. No need to get testy.”

“Glad to see YOU two are enjoying yourselves,” groused Isaac from the next chair over. “Must be fun getting to actually do stuff outside of being merged…”

“Your presence was not made a requirement if you don’t want to listen in,” Skylar replied unsympathetically.

“Where else am I gonna go? Like hell I want to listen to them talk about how many people got killed in that foolishness out there, and Iris and Derek are having a moment.”

“Well, maybe their moment will be all the better for you being there.”

“Skylar, remember what we’ve talked about?” admonished Reyn. “This is something where they shouldn’t be interrupted by anyone unless it’s actively an emergency.”

Skylar cocked his head a bit. “Is it? What are they talking about that’s so important?”

“Personal stuff. Don’t barge in, it’s not something you need to be part of.” Reyn looked over at Isaac. “And you, Isaac, I’m sorry that things haven’t manifested for you the way they have for us, but we can’t just NOT talk about it, this is kind of important.”

“I know, I know,” Isaac grumbled. “Just can’t help but feel a bit left out.”

“You’ll be fine!” Breezedramon very suddenly swooped in and landed on Isaac’s shoulders without warning.

“Gah! What the hell’re you doing?!”

“I just landed on you! Chill out, it’s not a big deal!”

“Breezedramon, I don’t think you’re supposed to use people as perches without their permission,” remarked Reyn.

“I’m willing to make an exception for him,” countered Skylar with a hint of a smirk. “Better that than all the bouncing off the walls he’s been doing.”

“Hey, I only hit two walls!” Breezedramon stated indignantly.

“That’s supposed to be a defense?” Isaac asked dubiously.

“Anyway, you’ll be fine, Isaac! You and Data’ll come up with something to make for yourself that’ll do just fine for you! I know Data’ll figure out something you can do with what you all are doing, he’s super smart about that sort of stuff!”

Isaac frowned. “I’m not sure it’s that easy, bud. We’ve talked about that before, but I don’t interface with that kind of digital stuff like Data or Andrexmon can. I might be able to make some weapons or gadgets, but that’s not the same thing as having that kind of access as part of ME. Weapons and gadgets can be gone from you in an instant.”

“But you can make better stuff! Stuff that won’t be gone until TWO instantses!”

“I think we need to be looking at something more reliable than THAT. Emperius isn’t going to stop after two.”

Breezedramon wasn’t deterred by this. “Well, I know Data’ll think of something! And you will too! I mean, you guys came up with that water module thing, that was super cool! So don’t get down, you’ll be on everyone else’s level before you know it!”

“…Well, maybe. But I sure wish we were coming up with it faster, the way things have been going.”

“You definitely seem out of sorts,” observed Reyn. “Don’t think I’ve heard you doubt yourself this much before.”

“You think he’s different from usual?” questioned Skylar.

“I just don’t like feeling like I’m falling behind,” Isaac insisted. “Especially when it’s something that’s pretty important. We haven’t had like any time to actually work on anything since we found out about this, which was literally yesterday. And somehow I don’t think Emperius is gonna hear about this and say ‘oh, that’s fine, we’ll wait for you.’”

“You shouldn’t be trying to take on Emperius directly with that stuff yet anyway!” exclaimed Breezedramon. “None of you guys is ready for that! They’re a heck of a lot hardier than humans are! That’s something you wanna still leave to us, in a ‘we’ll symbiotismatize with you to blow them to bits’ way.”

“Trust me, I’m not thinking about trying to turn my piddly little fireballs on a digimon any time soon,” agreed Reyn. “It’s gonna be the same thing for all of us, I think, we do what we can in what time we have, however much that is.”

Just as Skylar was about to respond, a loud buzz rang through the room - a warning signal from Rudy. In an instant everyone was on alert. “Well, crud…speaking of not having time…” Skylar muttered.

“They’re here…” Reyn balled his hands into fists. “Let’s go. I don’t want to give them even a moment more to prepare than what they’re gonna have.”

There wasn’t any dispute throughout the entire group, as they hurried towards the door. The mess of the day was a long ways from over…

Chapter Text

Rudy’s lab wasn’t really set up to have crowds in it, and it felt awfully cramped with all the symbiotes in there. But comfort was about the last thing on their minds at this point. At least the computer monitor was rather large, offering them all a vision of the map of the city. They waited with bated breath to see what would be pulled up, how many they would have to fight, how much of a challenge they were facing…all of them trying to prepare themselves for the worst.

And yet, they still weren’t ready for it.

“…Is…that it?” asked Reyn dubiously.

“Five clusters doesn’t sound like an ‘is that it’ situation to me, bud,” countered Derek.

“I mean, that’s not great, but Commandramon was saying this was supposed to be some pretty big strike force. This doesn’t seem nearly as large as that.”

“I’m certainly not going to complain about having to fight LESS than I thought I would,” agreed Breezedramon. “But no one said they were all coming at once, right?”

“Emperius holding back? That would be…annoyingly in line with the weird way they’ve been behaving…” Salmandmon huffed. “Yeah, I don’t like this at all. And they’re all spread out, too, that’s going to make taking them on difficult.”

Isaac nodded in agreement. “Trying to make things tough for us…wait.” He leaned forward, eyes narrowing at one of the clusters. “…Son of a bitch. That’s my house.”

“What?”

“I’ve had to look at that thing on a map too much these days. You have no idea how paranoid I’ve been since we heard about Skullsatamon going after Reyn directly…wait a second. Data, you have those pins I asked you to keep?”

“Yeah, I do. What about…” Datacarnomon trailed off, and then made a foreboding noise of discomfort. It only took a moment before he caught on. “…Shit.”

“Well, I haven’t heard THAT out of your mouth in a while,” Shockavimon said tensely. “What is it?”

“This isn’t an accident. All five clusters are near your houses.” Datacarnomon gave a growl. “This is a nasty ploy they’re pulling. Trying to force us to split up and take on the threats, hoping that they can catch us alone and take us out, and then the REAL force shows up to lay waste to the rest of the city. And the worst part is, we HAVE to try to play into their hands.”

“My family’s still at the house…” Reyn muttered, his stomach lurching a bit.

“So’s mine,” Skylar said grimly. “And Dad’s probably going to try to pretend nothing’s there…he won’t be ready for this at all.”

“Mine’re gonna be there, too,” Isaac rounded off.

“My parents are all here, and so are Derek’s,” said Iris. “Maybe we could help you guys?”

“Inadvisable,” disputed Blackcanismon. “That provides full latitude for the targeters of your domiciles to execute shenanigans aplenty following their initial campaigns. It is necessary to assail them forthwith.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be all right out there?” Rudy asked shakily. “None of those are single dots, you’re going to be outnumbered…we can’t afford to lose you.”

“We’re just going to have to do our best to make sure we do,” Salmandmon declared fiercely. “I don’t think we need to ask any questions about who’s got what. We each have one task, guys: protect them all and bring them here where they’ll at least be safer. They’re caught in the crossfire because of us. We can’t let them take the punishment for our resistance.”

“And we need to save our families from them,” agreed Reyn through clenched teeth. “There’s no time to waste. Everyone, move out! Show those assholes just what kind of mistake they’ve made!”

———

On an empty street, the air flickered and wavered, and then a flash arose. As the brightness faded back, Blazereptimon and Mecharexmon were steadying themselves. “Oof…I am NEVER getting used to that,” grumbled the red lizard as he shook off the dizziness. “How the heck do you get through that so easily?”

“Internal stabilizers and practice,” replied Mecharexmon. “Has to be better than trying to run all the way, right?”

“Can’t argue that. Be careful, Rex. You know they’re expecting you.”

“Same to you.” The two went off their separate ways, each heading towards their own residence, hoping that they weren’t too late. It was going to be a longer trip for Blazereptimon, but since he could move faster, they had agreed that it made more sense to come down closer to where Isaac’s family lived. Now Mecharexmon was pushing himself as fast as he could, his heavy footfalls echoing through the mostly silent streets. It was eerie just how dead it was out there…he could tell that it wasn’t as empty as it looked, there were still plenty of people holed up in their houses despite the recommendation for evacuation. Not that that’s surprising…they barely had any time to get ready, if they didn’t have someplace to go right away, they wouldn’t have gotten out before everything came crashing down. We have to make sure we keep them safe as well, as much as we can…

But at the moment, there was one house that was in more danger than any other. And he could hear he didn’t like in the distance…and see signals he didn’t like showing up on his internal map at that notable spot. Three of them…two in the house, one outside. Dammit, I hope I’m not too late… The human signals were coming in, and it didn’t look good, he could only see two outside, one inside. They were showing up as still alive, at least, but he didn’t know how long that would last…

As he neared, he could see the digimon outside the house, and that only made him more nervous. It was a draconic digimon with a somewhat spindly appearance, dusky gray scales covering its narrow torso and lean and misshapen arms and legs, each digit tipped with wicked red claws, its wings more leathery than scaly, curved horns off the back of its head, and an unsettling aura around it. Malicedramon…demon dragon digimon. Champion, but it’s a stronger one. It feeds off of the terror of its targets…dammit, it’s probably working its monstrous magic on some of them right now. He raised his cannon, firing off at Malicedramon, forcing him to break off whatever it was doing and dive away.

“Well, well…looks like the fun’s about to REALLY start, now.” Malicedramon seemed less than perturbed about the interruption, which wasn’t making Mecharexmon feel any better. He slowed to a stop in front of the house, facing down the demon dragon with his cannon outstretched. Not far from the doorway, he could see Alphonse and Lilith against the wall, looking rather haggard and terrified. No sign of Ashley, and he could hear something from inside the house…this was already going terribly. “Welcome to their doom. It’ll be a pleasure to be the one bringing it.”

“Only doom here is going to be yours…” growled Mecharexmon. He was tensing a bit as he felt something around him…something oddly familiar. “…Chaos energy?”

“Oh, you noticed, did you?” Malicedramon spread his wings, making himself look bigger and more imposing as he raised his hand, the eye-shaped markings glowing wickedly. “Then you must know what that means - that I’m more powerful than you! Nightmare Eye!” A large red beam of energy fired out at Mecharexmon, who stumbled a bit as he dodged to the side, counterfiring with a shot from his cannon. One of Malicedramon’s wings swung down to block the shot, the impact blunted against that thick surface. Oh, jeez, those wings can nullify a lot of punishment. I need something a lot more powerful than that. Power wasn’t something he was lacking, but he needed concentrated power, fast…

“Hrhrhr, I can already feel your fear. Your heart racing, your body keyed up…you’ll be a delicious meal, and the chaos energy will only make it easier to draw from you.” Malicedramon fired off another Nightmare Eye, forcing another rapid move out of Mecharexmon that wasn’t really his strength. “A pity that I can’t actually end you here.”

“You…what?”

“I have a greater purpose…and you factor into it. I’ve been ordered to make sure you stay alive.” Malicedramon’s grin got more malevolent, and Mecharexmon felt a chill down his spine - it wasn’t every day that being told you weren’t going to die felt like the more sinister option. “Still, I can drain you as much as I like up to that point…and there are plenty of others I can sate my bloodlust on here.”

“You won’t get the chance! Saur Blaster!” Mecharexmon fired again, this time not letting up as his chain gun burst out hot and hard. Malicedramon brought both wings to cover him, being pushed back by the shots, claws cleaving furrows in the asphalt as he was driven back little by little - but that wasn’t actually taking him down. I need to get around those wings! he thought in frustration as he ceased the assault. And he’s not even the only one I need to deal with! I can’t waste time, someone’s inside and Ashley might still be in there!

“Nice try, but you aren’t going to win this one! Ascending Chaos!” With a flourish, Malicedramon spread his wings back out, but it didn’t seem like anything was happening…until suddenly the ground got unpleasant under his feet. Without warning, a dark blast erupted from under Mecharexmon, making him roar out as his body was enveloped in pain. He dropped to one knee as the attack ceased, that had hit far harder than he was ready for…he heard gasps from the house, wasn’t sure who it was but it didn’t really matter, he needed to do something about this…

“Heh heh heh…now you know what a true demon’s power feels like.” Malicedramon’s voice dripped with smugness, grating against Mecharexmon’s ears. Ugh…they love to talk when they think they have the edge, because it helps reinforce the feelings of fear and allows them to drain more effectively…I can’t let myself be scared of this guy, I can’t help him.

He pushed himself back to his feet, trying to shake off the pain. Then an idea occurred to him…he raised his gun again, firing off again, and again Malicedramon blocked it, predictably enough. But that was exactly what he wanted…as soon as Mecharexmon stopped firing, he started charging. The power built in his cannon, a power that he was sure would be enough to get through even those defenses, and if he was lucky, Malicedramon might not even realize what danger he was in in time…

He should have known his luck wouldn’t be that good. Malicedramon caught on to what he was doing, and just as he reached full charge but before he could unleash it, Malicedramon threw a hand up towards the house, directly at his parents. “Ah, ah, ah…you’re not going to get that off before I get mine off. Even think about that, and you’ll find they pay the price.”

Terror seized Mecharexmon - it was a standoff moment now. If he fired, Malicedramon would get his attack off before he died, and it would be the end of Alphonse and Lilith. If he didn’t, Malicedramon would feed off them all, and he might just kill them anyway. He didn’t have any options that seemed good now…nothing he did seemed like it could keep them all alive. No…I can’t…I can’t let them…but I can’t… His internal warnings were getting louder, telling him the drain effect was latching on, but he couldn’t push the fear out this time…

“Hrhrhr…That’s right, surrender to your fear. I wonder if your power will make me stronger than an average digimon’s…the humans are certainly delicious, but not especially filling.” Malicedramon growled deviously, staring at the paralyzed cyborg. “You certainly seem to be full of it…I’m surprised these Emperius fools denigrate this power rather than coveting it. The rabble really are worthless…the true rulers of the world will be much more sensible. In fact, they already are.” Mecharexmon didn’t really want to know what Malicedramon was talking about, he wanted to figure out a way out of this and that yammering was not helping his focus. His mind was running at top speed, trying to problem-solve a way out of this mess without the wrong people dying…

A sudden sound from the house drew both their attention. Suddenly the door was blown off its hinges, a Fangmon driven through it by a powerful ray of electricity, vanishing into data as it and the door hit the road. A whirling blur of orange-yellow surged out of the vacant doorway, flying up into the air in a spinning ball. “Surge Wheel!” The spinning ball of lightning shot at Malicedramon, who wasn’t quick enough to get his wing up and get pasted, flung off a ways into the road.

The spinning ball bounced back and the figure landed on the ground. An orange-furred mammalian digimon, with a wild mane that extended down its back, limbs that seemed equally suited to being on two and four legs, a short muzzle with long fangs, crackling with electricity. Mecharexmon felt his heart leap. Entruenmon! One of those signals wasn’t an enemy at all!

“You okay?” Entruenmon rose up a bit; he looked a bit cut up, but otherwise fine.

“Better now that I know what’s going on. Draw his guard, I’m gonna end him!”

“You got it!” Entruenmon and Mecharexmon split off, the speedier electric being looping around and drawing the demon dragon’s attention. Malicedramon was clearly trying not to be outflanked, but Entruenmon wasn’t making it easy for him, as he formed a ball of electricity between his hands and let it loose in a concentrated ray. “Generator Beam!” Caught between guarding against one attack or none, Malicedramon brought his wings up to protect against the blow - but there was no way he could get to Mecharexmon behind him, who still had his charged attack lined up.

“This ends now! Saur Blaster!”

The piercing beam barreled out of Mecharexmon’s cannon, hitting Malicedramon square. The demon dragon’s body actually broke in two from the raw force, moments before it was deleted with an agonized, chilling howl. The breeze swept the data off as it dissipated into nothing, leaving just Mecharexmon and Entruenmon standing. For the first time, the cyborg felt himself settling down…the chaos energy fading away was probably helping with that as well, but most of it was coming from the fact that, as far as he could tell, everyone who needed to be alive was. He lowered his arm, letting it back to claw mode. “That was too close…”

“You’re telling me,” huffed Entruemon as he stepped up towards Mecharexmon. “They came at us without warning…I got walled in trying to keep Fangmon away from Ashley. These places are NOT made for fights…”

“Yeah, no kidding. They aren’t even made for guys our size. So maybe now’s a good time to get away from them.”

The two turned and hurried over towards the house again. Ashley had finally come out, and was kneeling next to her parents, who looked rather faint. At least, they did until they saw the two approaching, at which point Lilith let out a wavering scream. “Don’t come any closer! Don’t hurt us! We don’t…we don’t have anything for you!”

“Easy! We’re not here to hurt you-”

“Get away from us!” shouted Alphonse, though it looked like it took everything he had. “D-don’t you take…another step closer to us! We won’t…”

“DAD! Snap out of it!” shouted Ashley, shaking both him and Lilith. “These aren’t bad guys!”

“You…but they…”

“But they nothing! Seriously, Dad, that big metalhead, that’s Isaac and his goofy robot buddy! Trust me, I’ve seen them do this a bunch of times already.”

GodDAMMIT, Ashley! Mecharexmon came very close to facepalming with his metal arm once again. “Wouldja actually ASK before blowing up all my secrets, Ash?”

“You have to admit, it seems to have worked…er, kind of,” remarked Entruenmon. Indeed, Alphonse and Lilith weren’t freaking out about the monsters being close by anymore…though a different sort of freak-out appeared to be taking place.

“See? They aren’t dangerous at all!” Ashley declared. “Well, I mean, not unless you’re one of the bad guys, they’re apparently pretty darned dangerous to them.”

Both Alphonse and Lilith seemed to be at a loss for words, and Mecharexmon decided that now was probably a good time to try to get through to them. “Okay, yeah, listen, it’s me, Isaac. And…well, I think you’re going to need a LOT more explanation about all this, and there’s one place you can get it while I’m still actually able to do what I’m supposed to be doing out here. Besides that, it’s not safe here anymore, we need to get you somewhere where at least someone can help defend you. We’re kind of set up in the BICI downtown right now, that’s probably the safest place in town at the moment…not sure it’ll stay that way forever but right now we’re pretty limited.”

There was no response for a few seconds, and Mecharexmon was a bit worried that they weren’t able to process what was really going on…until Alphonse suddenly rose up a bit. “THIS is what you’ve been doing when you’ve been sneaking out of the house?! You’re in BIG trouble, buster! I never gave you permission for THIS nonsense!”

“…Nice to know our priorities are all in order here,” growled the cyborg, rubbing his head in frustration. “We need to not be wasting time. Ash, try to keep them focused and not flipping out over me…Entruenmon, scout around us just in case someone else decides to jump in and bother us, but keep close by because I’m pretty sure you don’t know where we’re going.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, I do NOT want to get lost out here again,” agreed Entruenmon.

“Can’t you just do your fancy robot teleportating thing?” asked Ashley.

“I’ve never used it with humans and I’m not taking any chances that it doesn’t work as well with them,” replied Mecharexmon, leaving no room for argument. “I think they need the time to get their heads in order anyway…”

———

Making an entrance was not a challenge for Jetdramon - when one moved as fast as he did, it rarely went unnoticed. Slamming into the ground, skidding along the pavement and kicking up debris as his claws dragged furrows in the asphalt, one hand already on his voulge, he was clearly looking for a fight. And he was about to get one, right after the Mystimon recovered from being startled half to death. “Damnation and curses! You twisted freaks are a menace to my sanity!”

“As opposed to just being a general menace like you?” spat back Jetdramon. “Get away from here!”

“Oh, are you the one we’re supposed to be going after? You’re a bit too late.” Mystimon huffed a bit as he brandished his flame-bathed sword. “My magician crew is taking care of things in there right now. You shouldn’t have tried to stay against us.”

“NO!” roared Jetdramon. “Cowards! Fight ME!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you. Blast Fire!” A huge gout of flame erupted from Mystimon’s sword, forcing a quick backwards hop from Jetdramon. He tried to swing around, but his leg speed wasn’t nearly as great as his air speed, and Mystimon’s flame forced him back. “Trying to get around me? You’ll never get to them. You want to have even a slight chance of saving them, you’ll have to go through me!”

“Grrrr…” Jetdramon clenched his weapon hard, snarling deeply. He didn’t want to deal with this nonsense right now, his family was in danger! “Fine, then, die quickly! Gale Voulge!” He slashed hard, loosing a cutting blade of wind at Mystimon, who parried it with his sword. Jetdramon followed that up by darting in and trying to connect directly with his voulge, again being parried, but that at least forced Mystimon back - the magus digimon was no weakling, but didn’t have Jetdramon’s raw power.

The problem was, he knew this, and another Blast Fire attack drove Jetdramon back, his scales feeling the heat as he was pounded with the flames. “Hm, simpleton dragon, you’re too easy to fight. If you think brute power is any match for my magical mastery, your last moments will be quite unpleasant! Core Darts!” He threw his crystal up, and it fired out sharp beams of raw magic at Jetdramon. The dragon reacted almost on impulse, spinning his voulge in front of him and deflecting the darts off in other directions. “…What?! Impossible!”

“Tch, if if worked for bullets, it’ll work for your stupid magic!” Jetdramon raised his other hand, which was already glowing. “Jet Stream!” He fired it off, the blast moving too fast for Mystimon to avoid and flinging him back almost into the house. He leapt forward, trying to follow up before Mystimon could recover, but the magus was back up far too quickly and the dragon was forced to scramble to block the blazing sword before it did a lot nastier to him. That ended up throwing him down to the side, where he tumbled a bit before collecting himself and unleashing another cutting attack that Mystimon deflected again. “Oh, come on, stop that!”

“No. Core Darts!” Another projectile attack from that crystal, but it was starting to bother Jetdramon - it wasn’t that hard to block the shots, but Mystimon was clearly wasting time. Even if he managed to beat Mystimon, if his cronies took out everyone inside, he still won in the end…he needed something to change the course of this battle fast! Fast was supposed to be where he was good, he didn’t like that he wasn’t getting it done…

A scream from inside the house, and Jetdramon felt his stomach lurch in horror. “Benny!”

“Oh ho, that’s a sound I like to hear,” laughed Mystimon. “Young child, is it? Too many of my colleagues are too protective of them, but rest assured, MY crew wouldn’t be so weak as to let them go…”

“Monster!” Jetdramon surged forward, then yelped as he got a faceful of fire once again. But he bore through it, driving his voulge down…Mystimon just barely managed to hold it back, but got knocked back almost into the door of the house. Jetdramon was forced back yet again by another fiery blast, which he wasn’t going to risk trying to endure again, his face felt like it was still burning from that.

“You’re testing my patience, dragon. Why don’t you be a good weakling and die already?” Mystimon raised his crystal again to fire off yet another time-delaying attack…but he didn’t get it off this time, as the door smashed off its hinges and drove the magus digimon forward. Something fell away from the side, but Jetdramon couldn’t think about what it was at the moment - he lunged forward, driving his arm forth to ram the blade of his voulge straight through Mystimon’s chest. A tortured cry rang out as Mystimon vanished into nothing, only a splash of blood on the ground and the blade to show that he had been there.

“What?! Boss!” Jetdramon looked up to see a FlameWizardmon looking stunned at the sight of Mystimon’s data blowing away. This proved to be its own undoing, as a large metal cannonball attack slammed into its skull, letting it join its master. Jetdramon jerked his head around to see Dorugamon on her side on the ground, panting hard and looking relatively scorched herself; in her arms was Benny, the boy clinging to her almost painfully tight.

“Benny! Is he…”

“He’s scared to hell, but I didn’t let that asshole singe him,” Dorugamon spat. “There’s two more in there! Ebondramon’s taking them on, help him!”

Jetdramon didn’t need to be told twice, holstering his weapon and barging inside the open doorway. The kitchen and living room were a mess, there were holes in one wall, and the door to the bedroom of Skylar’s parents was being fiercely defended by a sword-wielding black dragon digimon almost too tall for the room, who looked violently defiant even as he was assailed by electric and ice attacks. The new intrusion was an apt distraction for both Wizardmon and Sorcerimon, who jerked their heads around as Jetdramon barged in. “No! Where’s Mystimon?!” shouted Wizardmon.

“He can’t have fallen!” Sorcerimon gasped.

“You miss him? Join him, assholes!” The claws on Jetdramon’s right hand lengthened and glowed blue as he leapt at Sorcerimon, the confined space giving no room for him to dodge. “Shear Claw!” The claws violently ripped through Sorcerimon’s body, and he thumped down onto his knees before vanishing with only a short pained grunt.

Wizardmon stood petrified, which was the wrong move for him, as Ebondramon made his own move. “Shatter Breath!” he roared, billowing a wicked dark breath attack which enveloped Wizardmon, a cut-off cry heralding his own demise. It added a bit to the mess inside the room, but at the moment, that was secondary consideration to everything else, as Ebondramon let out a heavy breath. “Glad you made it when you did, I don’t know how much longer I coulda held out.”

“I think I’m the luckier one…” panted Jetdramon. “When did you guys get to be able to evolve again?”

“I realized I could after Kirsten got that stuff off me. Must’ve been just wearing off around then.” Ebondramon stepped aside from the door, motioning towards it. “Get in there, the woman’s hurt, one of Sorcerimon’s ice attacks caught her. I couldn’t tell how she was doing.”

“Dammit…” Jetdramon hurried into the door, only to almost run into the pointy end of a kitchen knife. Kirsten was holding it right up at him, her eyes wild and fearful. “Jesus hell!”

“…Skylar!” Kirsten lowered the knife shakily. “What…what’s going on? Where’s Benny?!”

“Dorugamon’s got him, he’s fine! Where’s mom? She was hurt?”

“Ah! Y-yeah, she was!” Kirsten pointed to the bed, where Corrine was holding an arm across her stomach, looking to be in a good bit of pain. Near the window, Marcus was standing almost catatonic, not looking anywhere near them. “She got cut on the stomach by some ice thing! And Dad’s freaking out, I barely was able to drag him in here!”

“We gotta get them outta here…” Jetdramon hurried towards the bed, but Corrine shrank away from him in terror, letting out a wheezing cry as she tried to squirm away from him. “Mom! Settle down! It’s me, Mom, it’s Skylar. I’m getting you somewhere safe.”

“…Wh…S-Skylar?” Corrine’s eyes widened, fear twisting with new confusion. “Wh…what…how…”

“Someone’ll fill you in where we’re going, I literally don’t have time, we could be under a hell of a lot more attack at any moment. C’mon.” Jetdramon grabbed Corrine while Kirsten pulled at Marcus, the man numbly complying without saying a word or looking at anything.

Never was Jetdramon so glad to be outside his house…the mess in there wasn’t going to be fixed any time soon, and there was a bigger mess than needed priority. Ebondramon had gotten out there, checking on Dorugamon, who was still trying to calm Benny. “Ebondramon! I need your help. I want you to carry her while we take everyone to somewhere safer.”

“Got it.” Ebondramon didn’t even hesitate, taking Corrine from the blue dragon; she didn’t seem any less confused or uncertain about being in the arms of a different scaly creature, but there wasn’t a word of complaint from her. “I’m guessing you’re going to play escort, then?”

“Escort and scout. I don’t want anyone getting even near you, I’m gonna be sweeping around like mad to try to find anyone. Kirsten, take everyone to be BICI, I’ll watch over you guys.”

“I…o-okay…” Kirsten still seemed pretty shaken, but of all the humans there, she was still the most together. “Sky, what’s going on? Why did they attack us?”

Jetdramon clenched his jaw. “They attacked you because they were targeting me. They’re trying to go after all of us…and it’s not even close to over yet. So book it as fast as you can, because I don’t want anyone else in the line of fire when the next ones get here.”

“Okay…” Kirsten took a deep breath and started walking, the rest of the group following behind as Jetdramon shot up into the air again, scanning over the city in front of him for any activity he that might impede them. The ugly feeling in his gut over that vicious assault had him cursing Emperius harder than ever before…and hoping against hope that the others were all right, too.

———

Blood was pounding in Blazereptimon’s ears as he tore over the street, leaving trails of flame in his footsteps. Memories of Skullsatamon were flooding back to him, and he wasn’t there to stop it this time…if they had gone any farther than that skeletal fiend had, the result could be devastating. No other thoughts were on his mind other than trying to reach the house before the worst could happen…he knew his parents were well aware of the danger, but that didn’t mean there was much they could do about it. If any of them was even remotely hurt, ‘scorched-earth’ would seem like a mild bonfire.

It already wasn’t good as he started getting close, he could hear the sounds of attacks being fired off. NO! They’re already acting! I have to stop them! He hurled himself into an all-out sprint, taking aim at the first thing he saw - which, in this case, was a Harpymon that had just launched a wind attack and pushed itself back over the street. The creature screeched when it saw the reptile charging at high velocity towards it, firing off a Wind Seeker attack at him, but Blazereptimon barely noticed it as he leapt through it, delivering a punch square in the face of the Harpymon that snapped its head back viciously and made it fall to the ground before shattering into data. Whipping around, Blazereptimon faced down the rest of his foes…and then found himself in a moment of confusion.

Wait. Are they…fighting each other?

A Cyclonemon threw back a saurian digimon, sending him tumbling to the ground. He looked like a large raptor, colored green with streaks of yellow along his back, with bladed feather-like scaling all over his body, several longer bladed ‘feathers’ along its arms and head, and a particularly large sickle-like toe claw on each foot. He shook off the attack and leapt up as Cyclonemon tried to follow up with an Arm Bomber attack, slamming the ground and leaving an impression that was definitely better NOT left in the dino’s body.

This move, however, left the Cyclonemon vulnerable to another attack, which it got from a large cat-like digimon with goldenrod fur striped with dark brown, a bush of white fur around her neck, two short horn-like feelers on her head, and shimmering golden rings around each limb and tail. Said rings were glowing with an eerie power, and as she whipped around she kicked out with a yell of “Power Ring!” and launched ring-like beams off of them into Cyclonemon, sending him sprawling. “Watch yourself, Raptormon!”

“I’m fine, Panthermon! You take care of the dumb dog!” snapped back Raptormon, as he descended on Cyclonemon again before the odd-shaped reptile could get back up. “Slicer Kick!” Landing nearby, he let loose with at Cyclonemon, sending blood spraying out and hurling Cyclonemon away, the creature almost getting flung into a hastily-evading Dobermon - presumably the aforementioned dumb dog. That huffy, testy tone, almost brainlessly belligerent…no, that HAS to be Talomon. And that means that has to be Felismon. When did they get the ability to evolve back?

“Oy! Are you just gonna stand there and watch!” Raptormon’s voice snapped Blazereptimon out of his haze, and he jump in next to them, facing down the Cyclonemon and Dobermon, who suddenly looked to be even more out of sorts. “About time you got here, we already wrecked one of them!”

“In case you didn’t notice, he just obliterated that Harpymon that was haranguing us,” remarked Panthermon with some annoyance.

“Still late!”

“I came as fast as I could,” growled Blazereptimon. “Worry more about yourself if any of them got hurt.”

“They’re still inside, under as much cover as they can be,” reported Panthermon. “We knew something was going on before they got there, we’ve been doing our best on defense. I don’t think they were expecting us, because they haven’t been doing too well.” Cyclonemon and Dobermon did indeed look to be out of sorts, both bleeding and unsteady, and annoyed that the three were playing catch-up but not appearing to be in able to try to hurl themselves back into the fray.

The Dobermon opened his mouth, but a sharp look from Blazereptimon made him shrink away. “Don’t test my patience, mutt. If you want out, get out, or you’re going to be in a lot of pain.”

Both enemies hesitated, but before they could do or say anything, another voice popped up from nearby. “Tsk, tsk…I have to do everything around here, do I?” All eyes turned towards the new arrival, a bigger and more powerful-looking digimon, fiery and sinister in appearance, with a dark body and four muscular arms, and a head with multiple faces, though only the red-masked one was facing them. “I’d better not see any deserters or I’ll end them as quickly as I end these foolish traitors and tainted ones.”

“Some loyalty to your kind, Asuramon,” Blazereptimon spat.

“Cowards aren’t loyal, and deserve none. They can’t go far, anyway…this is a one-way trip for us. We will set up our stronghold here, and the rest of this pathetic world will be easily picked off.”

“Chatty one, aren’t you?” Blazereptimon had figured that Asuramon was trying to hide his apprehension to fight…but suddenly he got a weird prickly feeling, slowly picking up as he realized it. “What…chaos energy? You’re…you’re with those other demons?”

“Oh, you’ve cottoned on to that, have you?” Asuramon grinned in a rather twisted way. “Good, that’ll make things easier. You’ll surrender to me, right now, or I can make you give in the hard way - and I’ll be happy to introduce as much collateral damage as I can. These other worthless beings around here are of no interest to me.”

“You won’t touch any of them, you-” Blazereptimon’s anger flared again, but just before he got lost in it, he registered a sound from his left, and leapt up to avoid Dobermon’s Schwarz Strahl attack, the black beam sailing harmlessly off into the air.

He turned to face the canine, but Panthremon was already engaging. “We’re more than a match for these two! But Asuramon’s no joke, you’ve got a better chance!” Behind them, Raptormon was jumping at Cyclonemon again, and the creature seemed more than outmatched already…he needed to let them do their part, as long as he had the luxury of not fighting alone.

Blazereptimon turned to face Asuramon again, who seemed only too happy to be the lone target of attention. “Wipe that smirk off your face. You won’t be alive for long.”

“Bold words, lizard, but you can’t back them up.” One of the demon’s arms raised, becoming cloaked in fire. “But I’m glad you chose the hard way, that’s much more entertaining! Asura Ennetsuken!” He punched forward, unleashing a potent fireball at Blazereptimon.

The reptile reacted quickly, raising an arm to block the flame. “Throwing fire at a fire lizard? That’s your big-OOF!” Blazereptimon wasn’t ready for Asuramon to rush forward and slam a fist into his gut, and then another under his chin, knocking him backwards. He was up again quickly, growling and panting a bit. “Hmph, okay, fine, that’s how you wanna do things, is it?”

“Very much so! Asura Ennetsuken!” Another fireball punched towards him, and this time Blazereptimon didn’t fall for the bait, charging through it and lashing out with his own fists. And quickly finding that this was NOT a good matchup, as he did not have the four arms his foe had, which meant that Asuramon had two arms that could be dedicated to blocking and two to counterattacking. His swings were plenty hard, but Asuramon was also quite strong, and quite fast - and trying to get around all those arms was proving to be more trouble than he expected, as each jab and hook was parried and he was forced to duck and weave quickly to avoid taking more shots. He tried to change things up with a kick towards Asuramon’s legs, but the golden leg guards were more than capable of blunting that, and he got another crack to the jaw for his efforts. His rise was a little bit slower this time, though it didn’t reflect the intensity he felt inside…weirdly strong, but it reminded him of that Chrysalimon battle, the chaos energy was doing something to him, he didn’t want to know what.

“Rethinking your decision to fight like a fool?” crowed Asuramon. “I’m a match for everything you can do and more. Your flames won’t do much to me, and I can out-hit you easily. Give up now, while you still have some pride left!”

“Pride is overrated,” spat back Blazereptimon. “I have more important things to care about, like protecting people from you! Blaze Stoker!” The reptilian warrior flared with heat as he charged himself up, and then rushed back in to challenge Asuramon. With the rush of the technique amping up his speed and power, he came out swinging and started to push Asuramon back a bit, though the demon wasn’t faltering yet - the added advantage of extra arms was keeping him from being overwhelmed, even if he was taking more punishment from Blazereptimon’s strikes. But it was Blazereptimon changing up his tactics that was having more effect - when Asuramon’s swings forced him to move, he moved much more, swinging around to the side and assailing Asuramon from that angle, where he didn’t have nearly the ability to protect himself. Blows to the side weren’t quite the knockout shots that the face and gut were, but they were solid strikes that had Asuramon staggering until he managed to get around to fight optimally again. He was trying to get Asuramon to slow down, soften him up so that he could hit the most vital spots harder, and he seemed to be finally getting the demon on his heel, the rush of the fight not even close to dying away.

But in his fury, his vision narrowed a little too much - he got too focused on the damage he was doing, and not on Asuramon’s counterattack. A swing around got Blazereptimon’s tail into Asuarmon’s gut, and the demon made an exaggerated stagger backwards…Blazereptimon thought he saw his opening, and lunged forward, only to get clocked under the jaw by Asuramon with a loud yell of triumph. He staggered back, reeling a bit, and Asuramon didn’t hold back. A roar of “Asura Shinken!” was all the warning Blazereptimon got before the demon rushed forward, and suddenly he was being pummeled with four fists at top speed, his body locked in place by the move’s power as he was pummeled ruthlessly. Only when the last hard strike landed did he go flying back and smack the ground hard, bouncing and then tumbling before ending up flat on his back.

Blazereptimon’s head was spinning as he forced himself to lean back up into a reclining position, his arms shaking a bit more than he would have liked. He glowered up at Asuramon, who had one pair of arms folded as he stepped forward towards the downed lizard. “Not bad at all, for a pathetic non-demon. I see why they wanted you…but you can’t beat me. You lack the power to overcome someone of my caliber, especially when the chaos energy is with me!”

Blazereptimon growled and hacked, spitting up some blood as he forced himself back to his feet; his body didn’t feel like it was going to cooperate with trying to engage Asuramon again, though, and that was a problem he couldn’t let on. “I don’t care what you say…I KNOW I can beat you.”

Asuramon just smirked. “You can barely stand. Do you think I truly fear you?”

“Do you think I care?” shot back Blazereptimon, as he tried to channel a Blaze Stoker. The technique fizzled immediately, though; as he feared, it had a cooldown that hadn’t remotely reached its limit. He needed something more than this…Asuramon wanted him alive, but beaten to within an inch of death and forced to watch everything go to hell was a worse fate than death. He had to stand and fight, but anything he could do from a distance wasn’t going to amount to much…

“Raaaugh!” A roar from behind him made him whip around, just in time to see Cyclonemon get hurled into Dobermon by Panthermon’s blow. The canine digimon was crushed and vaporized, and Cyclonemon didn’t take long to follow on account of the deep wound in his neck that left behind only a lot of blood on the grass. Raptormon and Panthermon were swinging around to face Asuramon, both looking plenty worn in their own right…still, three on one seemed like a better prospect to Blazereptimon. He steeled himself and faced back towards Asuramon, but the demon was prepared for that, two fists glowing with flame.

“Hm, the rabble truly is useless. But three beaten-up weaklings isn’t going to make me any more worried. Do you think you can survive my fire, when it’s been strengthened to the limit? You traitors have one chance to reconsider your allegiances…though Emperius may not be as kind as I am.”

“I’d say go to hell, but I think you like that climate,” growled Panthermon. “I’m not listening to their lies anymore.”

“You tried to kill me once already, I’m not giving YOU a second chance!” snarled Raptormon. “Slicer Kick!” He flung himself into a backflip, kicking cutting energy crescents at Asuramon, who met them with fire from one fist while the second fired off at the vulnerable dinosaur. Blazereptimon leapt in the way, blocking the fireball with his body, but it took just about all he had and he barely managed to stay on his feet as he landed.

“Amusing insects…but it’s time to finish this!” Asuramon channeled the fire in his hands again, leering at Blazereptimon. “You think you can block both of these at once? I’d dearly like to see you try, your despair will be ever so pleasing to me. Asura Ennetsuken!” Two blazing salvos launched off at Raptromon and Panthremon; the former managed to leap back and over just in time, the fireball leaving ash and cinders on the ground as the grass was torched. Panthermon met hers with a Power Ring attack, but it only partly blunted it and she grunted as she endured a searing attack over her body. Blazereptimon knew that it wasn’t going to end well if he didn’t do something, but his legs weren’t cooperating…he wasn’t really going to have to watch them die without being able to help them, was he? Come on, I need more power…I need to get in there and make myself the target so they can get him!

Finally, he managed to get his legs working and ran back in front of Asuramon, fangs bared as he put up a defiant stance, though he didn’t know how much he had left in him. Asuramon laughed, and stood aggressively in front of him. “Still haven’t had enough, lizard? Maybe another hundred blows will put you down for good! I admire your tenacity, though…you’ll be a perfect servant for-HLK!”

Blazereptimon started as Asuramon’s eyes went wide, his fists unclenching and the flames going out around them. He pitched forward, and then slammed into the ground in a cloud of dissipating data. Standing behind him was a tall, muscular, red saurian with a single long horn, coated in steaming blood, looking a bit battered and unsteady on his feet.

“C...Ceramon? Y-you’re alive?!” gasped Panthermon.

“More or less…” Ceramon’s voice had a tightness in it that belied his fatigue. “No thanks to the guys hunting for me…you guys all-WAH!”

The question was cut off as Blazereptimon suddenly pounced on Ceramon, his eyes blazing red as he slammed the ceratopsian onto the ground, one hand coming down on his neck as the other raged with flames above him. “HOW ARE YOU ALIVE?! HOW THE HELL DID YOU COME BACK?!”

“Gah! G-get off! What are you, crazy?!” Ceramon’s eyes bulged out as he tried to force Blazereptimon’s hand off his neck, those angry red eyes striking terror into his core, just as much as that fiery fist that was threatening to cave his skull in. The words were barely registered, Blazereptimon had only one thought, which was that he was fully prepared to put the monstrous enemy into the ground a second time, however many it took…

Until a shout pierced the the haze of rage. “REYN! STOP!” He seized up hearing the voice of Cayden, full of shock and terror…he paused, blinked, the redness disappearing from his eyes, and registering properly the digimon under him…NOT the Ceramon he had fought days ago. That one had been green, this one was red…

Suddenly it clicked, and he let up off of him, his flames fading out as he pulled back. “Dammit…sorry, man. I…are you okay?”

“Y-yeah, I think so, though I think you took a decade off my life there,” mumbled Ceramon as he rubbed his neck. “What the hell was that?”

“…I think…maybe I’m not as over what your, uh…what your brother did to me, as I thought I was…” Blazereptimon rubbed his head, feeling an ugliness inside him. How could he have made such an obvious mistake? Of course this wasn’t the same one…but when I saw him, I just…immediately thought about that Ceramon and what he did to me, and what he was threatening to do…nngh, I think…that chaos energy got me all worked up last time, maybe it was that… He shook his head and stood up, helping to pull Ceramon to his feet. “I’m sorry, I think that Asuramon got into my head a bit…I owe you big-time for putting him down.”

“Call it even if you’re not gonna be taking any swings at me.” Ceramon looked over at Panthermon and Raptormon, who were coming cautiously over; behind them were Reyn’s family, all looking various degrees of terrified. “So…you two survived Ashinkaimon, huh?”

“Only just,” huffed Panthermon. “Where were you all this time? We all thought you bit it in that melee!”

“Locked up, for the most part. They wanted to send me back, no one was taking.”

“No shock there,” hissed Raptormon. “They woulda seen us dead before even thinking of bringing us back. Can’t believe you’re the one who jumped in and saved us…”

Meanwhile, Blazereptimon stepped over towards his family. Treylor and Minerva looked like they were struggling to keep it together, Cayden was torn between awe at Ceramon and Raptormon and horror at everything else, Alisin was clinging fiercely to Minerva, and Wally looked to be in a vacant daze, numb from shock. “Are you all okay? They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“They didn’t get to us, thankfully…th-those two got out there before it happened,” mumbled Minerva. “Are YOU okay? You looked like you got hit so hard out there…”

“I’ve had WAY better fights, that’s for sure. Wish I could say I hadn’t had worse…” Blazereptimon shook his head. “You guys being okay is what matters most to me, though, I’ll be fine as long as you’re all alive. But this was meant to draw me out…it’s not safe for you to stay here.”

“I had a feeling that might be the case,” Treylor said grimly; he was holding a rather large bag, which Blazereptimon had to presume had medical supplies inside, clearly he had been prepared to depart. “You have any idea where we should go?”

“Yeah. We’re gonna try to gather everyone at the BICI. I don’t think they know much about that building, they wouldn’t have had any reason to think it was important…it’s not like there’s anywhere that’s totally safe here, but things aren’t going to be quiet for long so we have to use the best available option now. And since I don’t know who’s gonna pop up or where or when, I’m taking you there.”

“If we’re going to have to hoof it, I’d definitely feel better about that,” agreed Treylor. “We’ll all stay together, as much as possible.”

“Hopefully it won’t require a heck of a lot.” Blazereptimon nodded and then turned towards the digimon. “You guys gonna help guard them while we’re getting them where we need to go?”

“Depends, are you gonna freak out on us again?” snipped Raptormon.

“Promise I won’t. I shouldn’t have the first time…”

“I blame that stupid Asuramon’s chaos energy,” harrumphed Panthremon. “It makes people act unpredictably. Hate ever being around it…”

“Same here.” Blazereptimon decided it wasn’t a good time to bring up that so far it had made him act a lot more predictably than unpredictably…he had to do a better job of keeping himself under control, he hadn’t forgotten what the first Ceramon had done to him and how he’d managed to do it. “Right, then let’s go. And let’s hope that the trip there is a lot quieter than the starting point. Ceramon…I don’t really have any right to ask you, but…”

“It’s fine,” Ceramon replied evenly. “I can’t blame you…he was good at getting under people’s skin. But, uh, he’s gone now, so…best if you don’t keep him alive by letting him stay there.”

Blazereptimon nodded. “I’ll work on prying him out, for sure.”

———

It was entirely quiet when Ionfalkemon set down from her flight, the city’s silence almost eerie. She knew she wasn’t far from home, but she didn’t know exactly where the enemies were…but her first order of business was catching up with Darkvargmon, who would have a better idea by virtue of scouting ahead. “What’s the good word, Wolf?”

“I can think of many, but none of them appropriate for polite company.”

“I don’t think I like the sound of that. Also, actually appearing might not be a bad idea.”

“I just wanted to get a better sense of their movements.” Darkvargmon popped up from the shadow of a tree and shifted to his advanced form as he stepped out onto the road. “Which are in our general direction…I think we may, however, want to meet them head-on before they arrive at your domicile, lest they commence another foul campaign of desecration.”

“Don’t tell me they trashed your house!”

“At the very least, I don’t think they bothered going inside, but the outside is a mess. Ice and mud everywhere, and some of that mud looked suspiciously not-mud-like…the siding was beaten on and the ground-floor windows were busted out.” Ebonvargmon’s expression was as foul as Ionfalkemon had ever seen it. “Vandalous miscreants. I’ll return upon them what they’ve done tenfold.”

“I don’t think they’ll survive that much, but I won’t be complaining if you try. Let’s go get ‘em.” Ionfalkemon took off again, but not high up, staying low in the air over the road as she flew towards the her house, Ebonvargmon hurrying under her with an agile step. She definitely wanted to try to stop them before they went any further…property damage could be fixed, but she doubted they’d leave it at that if they had half a chance. “What’re we looking at, then?”

“They number four. Fewer than we had seen, I suspect some of them may have broken off, but I couldn’t tell you where. BlueMeramon is the likely leader of the group, they scarcely put lower-levels in charge of higher-levels. The trio presumably under him are a Fugamon, MudFrigimon, and, inexplicably, a Nanimon.”

“Nanimon?” Ionfalkemon winced; now the insinuation of ‘not-mud-like mud’ was making more sense. “I would’ve thought Emperius would be above employing refuse-slingers in their army.”

Ebonvargmon huffed. “Considering the nature of their beliefs, I daresay it’s the opposite, they are merely manifesting the incarnation of their ideas in grotesque physical form.”

“True, but it’s not like THEY’D think of it that way.” As Ionfalkemon banked around the intersection, she spotted their bogeys not far off in the distance - and it was rapidly mutual, as the quartet let out excited shouts. “Oh, goody, they’re happy to see us. I think we’re going to have to rapidly change that.”

“Agreed.” Ebonvargmon drew his blade, readying for the engagement. “And emphasis on rapidly, if our time before the next wave is limited.”

They certainly didn’t have long to wait before they were greeted by the aggressors, who looked as eager for a fight as they’d ever seen. “Hah! It is them, just like we were told!” MudFrigimon exclaimed. “This’ll be a cinch!”

“Could you believe they’d be this stupid?” guffawed Nanimon. “So predictable! Those other idiots just couldn’t handle being as smart as we were!”

“I daresay I’m not convinced of your intellectual nature,” growled Ebonvargmon. “If you’re going to try to convince us we’ve fallen into some sort of trap, I’m afraid I’m going to have to respond with the utmost dubiousness.”

“Heh, not every trap requires setting up,” BlueMeramon replied with a dark laugh. “Sometimes the simplest things are the most effective!”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Ionfalkemon snapped, spreading her wings. “Let’s make this as simple as possible! Dervish Bolt!” The electric attack burst out from her, sailing right at the quartet - but just before it got there, a yellow aura surrounded each of the foes, and the electricity crackled around them harmlessly before falling dead. Ionfalkemon’s eyes widened. “Wait, what?!”

“An elemental barrier?” Ebonvargmon huffed. “I admit, that was unexpected…Emperius rarely employs such tactics as this. But it appears you concentrated too much on one! Shadow Bolt!” Four spheres swarmed up behind the canine, lengthened in shape, and fired out at the enemies - but, just as before, an aura rose around them, this one black in color, negating the shots on impact. That didn’t sit will with Ebonvargmon, who felt nerves rising in him. “I…what? How?”

“Heh, you like it? Of course you don’t, which is why we REALLY like it,” cackled BlueMeramon. “Active Elemental Barriers! Changing element to block what’s nearest to us! You can’t get through our protection, and you don’t have any! Our victory is assured! Boys, take ‘em down!”

“Hell yeah! Victory over the tainted ones!” roared Fugamon as he leapt at Ebonvargmon, the canid dodging hastily as he slammed his bone club into the road, sending asphalt flying. BlueMeramon tried to fire off an icy shot at him where he landed, but Ebonvargmon was fast enough to read it and leap up and out of the way, landing off to the side. He fired off a Nether Blow at Fugamon, but the barrier protected him as before. This is crazy…I’m going to have to get in with my sword, but I’m outnumbered, and I’ve got nothing to threaten them with!

“Feeling the heat, fuzzy?” BlueMeramon laughed. “I’ll help you cool off! Cold Flame!” A smattering of flame-shaped icy projectiles launched off of the elemental creature, swarming Ebonvargmon. He escaped the bulk of the swarm, but a couple of them hit, and they hurt - the chill was intense, leaving a lingering pain and tightness in his shoulder and side where they hit. Growling, he rolled his shoulder a bit to try to keep the blood flowing and warm him up, but that was making it hard for him to actually swing his sword…which, of course, was the point.

Ionfalkemon wasn’t getting any better results from her attacks, each electric shot being completely negated by the shields of MudFrigimon and Nanimon. She had her spear in one hand, but she couldn’t get in towards them - whenever she tried, she was assailed by either mud or dung, each of the two more than generous with the projectiles. She took a chance trying to get Nanimon, but a Mud Ball attack from MudFrigimon hit her square, flinging her to the ground. She flew up again, but the weight of the mud was slowing her, making it even less likely that she’d be able to outspeed them.

“Hahaha! How’s that mud taste, birdy?” laughed MudFrigimon. “Go ahead, try to shock me again, your moves are useless!”

“Ya wanna try ta come at me again? I can get ya smelling even fresher!” taunted Nanimon, a dung pile in his hand ready to be hucked. “Come an’ get it!”

“Ugh, hard pass,” replied Ionfalkemon with a grimace. This approach wasn’t working, clearly…they needed something else and fast. They knew we’d favor distance attacks, because they’re mostly better close-range fighters. All right, Active Barriers…they react to danger in the moment. In theory perfect protection, but they’re vulnerable if the attack comes out before they can react, or it overpowers it…but they’re designed to not waste power until it’s needed, so that’s harder to do. But multi-elemental…they have to be rotating elements in the moment based on what’s close by. Rotating means only one can be active at once…that’s right, Active Barriers can’t multi-task, they’re low-energy by design and they don’t have the juice to multi-protect. That’s the key, we need to get them hit with both our attacks at once!

The problem was conveying that to Ebonvargmon without letting them know…and also actually pulling it off, because the two were being kept apart by the quartet of assailants. Ebonvargmon was on his heels being double-teamed by Fugamon and BlueMeramon, while MudFrigimon and Nanimon were throwing their literal and figurative crap around just to keep her from playing support to him. The good news was that she had mostly flung the mud off of her, at least, but she still couldn’t get in on either of them. A spear throw would be more dangerous, but they would easily notice that…

…Wait. I’m thinking too narrowly.

She swung her spear around, grabbing it firmly and raising it in an obvious gesture, preparing to throw it. She could see Nanimon and MudFrigimon readying themselves to react and get out of the way, as she reared back…and then, at the last second, she turned and slung the spear at BlueMeramon. “Boss, look out!” Nanimon cried out, getting BlueMeramon’s attention as the spear sailed towards him; the elemental flung himself backwards and out of the way, but it was the opening Ebonvargmon needed, and he tore through it, bypassing Fugamon and diving and rolling under the hurled projectiles of the other two. Ionfalkemon landed down next to him, her spear reappearing in her hand as she put up a Static Arc to protect them as Ebonvargmon recovered.

“You okay?”

“Mmph…I’ve been worse, but I’ve been better. I can’t get in on them…BlueMeramon is too fast, and covers too well for Fugamon, and I can’t afford to get hit by that club…”

“We can wait alllllll day for you, wimps,” Fugamon taunted. “Especially because there’ll be a whole lotta backup coming for us…you think there’s gonna be any coming for you? I doubt it!”

“We can’t keep this up forever,” muttered Ionfalkemon. “We need to double-hit them. Their barriers can only react to one at a time.”

“You…know that for sure?”

“Had to work on strategies around them when I worked for the Kaiser. Now we just need the strategy for this one…”

Ebonvargmon grunted a bit. “They aren’t going to let us double-team any one of them, and I think if they notice both of us trying to attack from different angles, they’ll focus on disrupting one of us, knowing the other can’t do anything if they just stop one of us.”

Ionfalkemon didn’t doubt that…they couldn’t split up, for sure, but their attacks were different enough that it was unlikely they could successfully time them without being disrupted somehow either. If they could both attack at the exact same time…suddenly she remembered. When Skydramon and I took down Aquilamon…I charged his attack with my power. It took to him so quickly, it felt almost natural…could we do that again? “Wolf, do you think you can lend me your power?”

The canine looked up at her. “Uh? I…can try, certainly, but do you think it’ll work?”

“It worked once before, we might as well try it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?”

“I suppose not…” Ebonvargmon wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do exactly, but he focused on trying to send some dark power towards Ionfalkemon. He didn’t know what he was supposed to expect…but it certainly wasn’t feeling the tingle of electric power linking to him at the same time. “Ah…what…I thought you wanted me to…”

“No, I…I feel that too.” Ionfalkemon hadn’t even tried to - it was like when she felt Ebonvargmon’s power touch hers, her own reached out and linked back. But there was something in it… “Wolf…I think…”

“Yes…I think you’re right, Bolt!” Ebonvargmon didn’t even need her to finish - there was a rush through him that told him all he needed to know. “Let’s do this!”

The Static Arc was dropped, and the enemy group seemed more than ready to rumble, especially when they saw Ionfalkemon spread her wings again. “Hah, what an idiot! She never learns!” boomed Nanimon mirthfully. “Just give it up, your little shocks are worthless!”

“Laugh while you can, chucklehead, because that won’t be for long.” Ionfalkemon’s body felt charged beyond normal, though perhaps in a way that was true - she certainly never had anything like this in her before.

Ebonvargmon felt it as well, and added to it by leaping up and landing on the avian’s shoulders, strengthening the link between them. Electricity and darkness both swirled around them, as the quartet of goons suddenly found themselves sweating. “Your campaign is at an end!”

“Wh-what is that?!” Fugamon asked blankly. “No one ever said anything about this!”

“It can’t be…g-get away!” cried out BlueMeramon, but it was too late, as the two symbiotes flared with their unified energies.

“Synchro Strike! Twilight Thunder!”

A vicious barrage erupted from them, in appearance like Ionfalkemon’s Dervish Bolt, but several times larger and more powerful, and tinged with jet-black electric bolts cracking with streaks of yellow and black around them. And rather than just one salvo, it launched off in multiple rapid waves, cascading over the Emperius goons with no hope of escape. The barriers shattered as they were overwhelmed by the dual elemental burst, and they weren’t the only things to break down, as Fugamon, MudFrigimon, and Nanimon were rapidly deleted. When the attack ceased, only BlueMeramon was still alive, and barely standing.

“…No…that…they can’t have…” BlueMeramon raised his hand shakily, trying to form another ice attack to fire at them, though he could only manage a feeble blue flame. “We were…invincible…”

“You should’ve looked into why Active Barriers are rarely used in combat outfits,” snapped Ionfalkemon unsympathetically. Ebonvargmon launched off her shoulders, and she threw her spear dead at Bluemeramon, the weapon skewering him through. A moment later, Onyxvargmon’s Alux Blade cleaved through him as he landed in front of BlueMeramon, splitting him apart and shattering him into data.

The canid rose, banishing his blade away. “Timely knowledge once again…would that we had been aware of this earlier. The learning curve on these bodies leaves an immense amount to be desired.”

“We really are at a pretty dreadful disadvantage in that regard,” agreed Ionfalkemon. “But at least when we do figure it out, it provides its own advantages…I’m just glad we figured it out when we did, I was not looking forward to having to run off and get the others.”

“I daresay you’re more to thank than I am for that…” Ebonvargmon bowed to the avian. “You knew how to work around those barriers and how to unify our power, I could only follow along. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to be as quick in the head as you are, Bolt, but until then, I can only admire it.”

Ionfalkemon felt herself redden a bit. “Ah…uh, thanks, Wolf. Uh, we should probably check on the others, make sure everyone was okay.”

Ebonvargmon nodded. “Indeed, let’s make haste. I hope they’ve all made it through safely…”

———

The roads in front of the BICI had been blessedly quiet for a while, after the chaos of the earlier fracas. That was changing again, but at least not as badly as it had. Jetdramon was the first to set down, reaching the door and waving towards his cadre as everything looked clear. “Head’s up, we’ve got folks coming.”

The door opened, and Elias stepped out, looking around himself. When he caught sight of the group, his eyes widened. “Wait, there’s mo-er, digimon with them?”

“Unexpected allies. Sort of like yourself, and I’m not complaining, they probably saved some lives.”

“…I know the feeling. You, uh…you remember that helicopter?”

Jetdramon looked at him curiously. “Huh? Couldn’t possibly forget it, but I wouldn’t have expected YOU to know about it…I swear if you tell me you were on it…”

“Not me, but my brother. He’s alive because of you.”

“Oh…well, I’m glad I was able to help. Let’s hope we can help a lot more people…speaking of, can you go in and tell someone to set up a treatment spot? Mom’s hurt and she’s going to need to be looked at.”

Elias nodded. “I can let ‘em know…but I don’t think we have any medics in there.”

“They’re on their way.” Something Jetdramon was glad he could say confidently, having seen so from afar while escorting his own crew back. “I’ll keep the guard up out here for now. Oh, and, uh, let them know we’ve got…foreign friendlies, I don’t want them losing their cool.”

“Right. Give me a couple to make sure there’s no freak-outs.” Elias ducked back inside, and Jetdramon could hear his footsteps retreating. Hard to believe that connection…no, wait, that’s probably why he deserted in the first place. He already had a good reason to trust us. And if he hadn’t, then we might never have gotten that word from Commandramon about the coming attacks, he would have walked up to humans thinking they were allies and gotten gunned down immediately…and if we don’t know about that, we might not have been ready when they came for our families. Jesus, what would have happened if he hadn’t been there? Okay, I need to NOT think about that, this is stressful enough as it is…

Instead, he focused on Kirsten, who was still taking the lead with both parents somewhat out of commission in their own respective ways. “How are they?”

“Mom’s in pain but she says she feels okay. Dad still won’t talk. Benny’s a wreck but he’s calmed down a bit at least.”

“They aren’t gonna go nuts if we go in there, are they?” Dorugamon growled, clutching Benny to her protectively. “If they put him in danger, I already had to put one asshole down…”

“I had someone let them know that there were digimon coming. Hopefully that message will get around fast enough to keep anything bad from happening, but we’re gonna wait a couple minutes for the all-clear. At least you won’t be alone…”

“We won’t?! Who else is coming?”

“DORUGAMON!” An ecstatic roar made the humans jump, whipping around to see an overeager Panthermon rushing forward, a wide-eyed Alisin clinging fiercely to her back. “You’re alive! I thought you’d been wiped out out there when Ashinkaimon came through!”

“Oh, jeez, that was the scariest thing ever!” Dorugamon shuddered. “I was lucky I didn’t get in its sights!”

“You were SO lucky. I almost died, and in the worst way possible! I’m so glad you’re okay!”

“Nice to know SOMEONE gets some concern about them,” growled Ebondramon in annoyance.

Panthermon looked a bit chastened by that, as she glanced nervously at Ebondramon. “Oh, uh, I already knew YOU were alive, Ceramon told us about what happened to you two.”

“He…wait, he’s out here?” Confirmation was provided only moments later as the second batch came down the road, with Raptormon and Ceramon leading the way towards the BICI, the rest of Reyn’s family hurrying behind. “Guess even he can surprise sometimes…”

“Something tells me he probably didn’t have too many options.” Jetdramon wasn’t as interested in them as he was in Treylor and Minerva, though, hustling over to them as they approached. “Please tell me that bag has medical stuff in it.”

“Someone’s hurt?” Treylor was immediately all business.

“Mom is. I don’t think it’s, like, five-minutes dire or anything, but it’s bad enough she should be looked at.”

“Let me take a look…my goodness, this is a crowd all right. She’s in the arms of a…black dragon. Mm, I don’t want to hear one word about my stories being boring ever again.” Treylor hauled his bag over towards Ebondramon and Corrine, while Minerva was wrapped up with trying to get Wally to approach, the older boy shrinking away at the sight of so many otherworldly creatures. Cayden at least seemed to be entirely preoccupied with Raptormon and Ceramon, so for the moment things seemed to be getting under control.

Blazereptimon came by seconds later, looking rather frazzled. “Swear to high heaven, I can’t STAND feral cats…”

“Let me guess, you heard one and just had to make sure it wasn’t another digimon ambush,” remarked Jetdramon.

“Got it in one. You’d think with all the other crap we’re dealing with that ONE thing in this world could leave us alone. Your crew all right?”

“Not unscathed, but it could’ve been a lot worse. You look like you got pretty beat up.”

Blazereptimon rubbed his head tiredly. “Mmph, you should see how I feel. Asuramon actually kicked the tar out of me. Ceramon saved our bacon…and then I almost went and turned him into mush.”

“Wait, you attacked him? Why?”

“Let’s just say chaos energy and PTSD don’t play well together.”

“I don’t get it…oh, hey, there’s Bolty and Wolfy!” Jetdramon waved down Ionfalkemon and Ebonvargmon as they came around the corner and made their way towards the group. “Guess we’re just waiting on one more…of COURSE it’s going to be him…”

“Watch it,” growled Blazereptimon. “You’re not gonna be laughing if he’s pulling up the rear because a disaster happened.”

“It didn’t, I saw them making their way here. Very, very slowly.”

“Jeez, it’s kind of crowded out here,” remarked Ionfalkemon. “Are we waiting for permission or something?”

“More or less,” affirmed Jetdramon. “Probably best that a bunch of digimon they’ve never seen don’t just barge in without warning. How’d things go with you?”

“My house is trashed, but at least we paid them back for it,” Ebonvargmon huffed. “Would that I could bill Emperius for restitution, but I daresay none of them will be alive long enough for that at this point.”

“We found out something else, too,” added Ionfalkemon. “We were able to pull off some kind of unison attack thing. And it was no love tap, believe me, looks like they can pack a punch.”

“Why are we just now finding this out?” bemoaned Jetdramon. “Seriously, why couldn’t these forms have come with instruction manuals or something?”

“We haven’t had a whole lot of chances to find that out, though, have we?” mused Blazereptimon. “We’ve been forced to fight separately a whole lot more than I would’ve liked, and even when we were together, we didn’t have a lot of chances to experiment with things.”

“Better late knowledge we’re alive to try to take advantage of down the road than never finding out at all,” agreed Ebonvargmon. “I fear we’re still missing one of our team, though.”

“I think that’s him over there.” Ionfalkemon pointed down the other road, where indeed Mecharexmon was finally showing up, clearly hustling as fast as he could, while the others were able to keep pace pretty well. “Can’t he teleport? Why’d he take the slow way?”

“I’m sure he has his reasons,” Blazereptimon replied evenly. “Though, the way he looks, I kind of think he WANTS to teleport away at the moment…”

Ebonvargmon’s ears twitched. “Mercy…I would want to as well. Apparently they aren’t at all happy with him…”

“You can hear all the way over there?” asked Jetdramon.

“These ears are quite good, even in daylight.”

It wasn’t long before the rest of them could hear it as well, Lilith’s sharp voice carrying over the rest of the clamor. “And if you think we’re going to let you keep up this foolishness, you’ve got another thing coming, buster! I won’t let you just…throw yourself out at these creatures like it’s nothing! You have to be more responsible!”

“I don’t want to hear any more about you sneaking out and doing this, you’re going to have to be MUCH more forthcoming about where you’re going from now on!” Alphonse asserted harshly. “No more muddy vagueness from you, I want to hear crystal clear details, and you’d better not spend one minute more out there than you say!”

“They…do realize they’re talking to a ten-foot cyborg dinosaur with more firepower than some nations, don’t they?” asked Jetdramon.

“Right now, I think all they see is Isaac,” sighed Blazereptimon. “You’d think they’d have bigger things to worry about…”

Mecharexmon made a beeline for the group of symbiotes as soon as he could, Ashley pulling her parents away while Entruenmon joined the group of digimon to another round of relieved joy. “I don’t want to hear ONE WORD about how long it took me to get here,” he snarled before anyone could say anything. “And no, I did NOT want to risk that I couldn’t teleport humans safely.”

“I guess that’s as good an excuse as any,” conceded Ionfalkemon. “Were they reading you the riot act all the way?”

“ALL the way. I dimmed down my audio input volume for most of it, though, it’s more of the usual nonsense I get when they aren’t happy about something. This is why I wish Ash hadn’t blown my cover, I knew this was gonna happen.”

Blazereptimon blinked. “…You…didn’t tell them what was going on.”

“What’s the big deal about that?” asked Jetdramon. “It’s not like I told my parents, either.”

“…You didn’t think that MAYBE, informing your parents that we were about to engage in SIGNIFICANT PUBLIC WARFARE wasn’t a priority?” Ebonvargmon queried dubiously.

“Hey, I thought we were being on the down-low here! You only said something because they found out on their own!”

“That was back when we WERE trying to hide,” groaned Ionfalkemon. “The whole point of coming to this place yesterday was that we weren’t going to be doing that anymore! The whole idea was that we were going to get exposure! How the heck much longer did you think you’d be able to keep it a secret at that point?”

“You two were the ones who actually HAD the luxury of letting it out on your own terms!” growled Blazereptimon. “And yesterday, before you literally engaged the freaking ARMY, was the perfect time to do that! You know, give them notice that something big was going down today and MAYBE they wouldn’t be wondering where the hell you went on a day where you clearly weren’t supposed to be going anywhere if you had any sense in your heads!”

Mecharexmon rubbed his head. “…All right, maybe that one’s on me a bit. Not like they would have accepted it any more, though…”

“No, but they wouldn’t have been as ambushed by it, and would have been more prepared to protect themselves,” said Ebonvargmon darkly. “I’m betting they had no idea they had to be ready for danger. Even though you were the one keeping actual tabs on everyone’s houses, you neglected to take the vital step of preparing the RESIDENTS for that eventuality!”

“All right, all right, I give! I screwed up. Ugh, I’m so used to trying to avoid the lectures and whatnot, I guess I just kind of lost sight of that…”

“I guess I should have said something, too…” agreed Jetdramon contritely. “Then again, Dad wouldn’t have believed me anyway, and he might’ve actually put himself in more danger just trying to prove there wasn’t any…I guess I could’ve told Mom, though. I mean, Kirsten already knew…”

“You have to be more careful,” admonished Blazereptimon. “Things are already against us enough, we can’t afford to have unforced errors. My family was prepared but Asuramon still nearly had the opportunity to end them. They can’t be out of the loop anymore, Emperius is not at all above using them to try to get to us.”

“Well, they’re gonna find out everything at this point anyway, no way they aren’t all going to be talking in there,” said Mecharexmon. “But I’ll do better going forward.”

“I’m sure you will. Oh, hey, finally!” Blazereptimon’s exclamation came from the door of the BICI finally opening, and Elias allowing the very mixed group to enter inside. “Took them long enough. I’m starting to get what they say about the government moving like molasses.”

“Please don’t, one pundit is more than enough,” Ionfalkemon bit back.

“Sorry, I’m just getting antsy, I guess. Out here is too exposed, I’ve been jumping at sounds, I won’t rest easy until they’re inside and…well, safer.”

“A sentiment I can hardly fault anyone for,” agreed Ebonvargmon. “I won’t mind getting in and getting a bit of a break myself, before the chaos kicks back into high gear.”

“…Werewolf, you just HAD to open your mouth,” growled Mecharexmon.

“What are you…w-wait…” The wolf’s ears twitched again, picking up the sound of a low hum in the air. “…God dammit…”

“Next lecture’s going to be about not taunting Murphy, it looks like,” groaned Blazereptimon. He looked up into the sky, where there was a disturbing amount of waviness. “No rest for the good guys, it seems. Oy! Get inside, everyone! The next wave is here!” The reptile’s warning incited a much more vigorous scramble inside, which did not include the symbiotes as they steeled themselves for yet another round.

“They said it could be as many as two hundred…” muttered Skydramon. “We only fought, what, maybe 15?”

“Ceramon said he got a couple who went after him, but that only barely adds to the tally,” hissed Blazereptimon. “This is it, guys…this is what it’s been building to. This isn’t just a skirmish now, this is a full-on assault, and we’re outnumbered BIG-time. We’ve only got a few advantages - we know the territory, we knew they were coming, and they still think we’re weak because we’re fused together. The BICI’s got some defenders now, so we can focus on taking down these invaders and making them regret they came over here.”

“It’s not the first time we’ve faced a bad numbers game…we’ve made Emperius regret throwing bodies at us before, we’ll do it again,” asserted Ionfalkemon.

“I’d feel a lot better about that if I could throw out attacks like Cyclodramon had, but what I’ve got’ll have to do,” Jetdramon declared, clenching his fist.

“I gotta lotta attacks that’ll hit hard from a good distance, that’s always good when the numbers are a problem,” rumbled Mecharexmon.

“At least this time, we can throw our all at them…that’ll be a nice departure from that annoying army engagement earlier,” Ebonvargmon growled. “We shall leave them gravely wounded in body and spirit, and make them regret their invasion.”

“We’re as ready as we’re going to be. It’s time to make our stand!” Blazereptimon’s eyes were almost alight with determination. “Bolt, Skyder! The sky’s your domain! Everything up there is up to you! Hold nothing back, don’t let any big bodies land on anything! Rex! I want you scoping out the biggest ground-based digimon with priority, focus on small fry only if they’re around the big ones, you’ve got the weaponry to put them down fastest! And I need you to watch the river, you’re our aquatic specialist! Wolf! You’re our land speedster, use that to cover lots of ground and prioritize the quicker ones as much as possible! And remember, we’re all out in the open now, cast away any fears of being seen and let loose with all you’ve got!”

“RIGHT!” With that shout, the five dispersed, flinging themselves into the fray, forcing themselves to set aside the fatigue from the earlier fights and draw on everything they had. Blazereptimon had confidence they all could, though - they all had experience to draw from in handling situations like this, even when they weren’t at their freshest. When everything was on the line, that was where Zetta Unit had always shone brightest…they wouldn’t back down when tasked to call on it once more.

…Wait. Why were they all taking commands from me? Dammit, don’t tell me they’re making me the leader AGAIN…I’m gonna have to do something about this. Later, though.

———

“…! You’re here!”

“I’m here. And now that you know that, we need to get moving, ASAP.”

“Now?! There’s monsters all over the place there!”

“I’m well aware of that. Which is why we need to be ready once they’re gone. If we don’t act quick, we might lose everything. Get our forces ready to move on the double, I don’t care how apprehensive they are, this is too important for us to fall short on.”

“Y-yes, of course. We’ll prepare to deploy immediately. The primary target is the BICI building, right?”

“Yes, but we’ve got one other target. You’ve been tracking their movements, right?”

“As much as possible. We’ll be ready with two forces. We won’t let them go any further.”

Chapter Text

“Holy hell…”

“Good lord…”

“That…is a LOT of creatures…”

Emil, Elliott, and Rudy were all at Rudy’s computer, feeling a creeping unease at the many dots of red up on the scanner. Not just the number but the spread was disconcerting - they were all across the city, in the air and on land and even in the Militke River. About as wide a range as you could get while still being within the city limits, and they knew full well that there weren’t enough defenders to cover that much space.

“Do you think they can handle them all?” Emil asked nervously.

“Even if they have the raw strength, the numbers are a serious problem,” muttered Elliot. “They can’t be everywhere at once…who knows how much damage will be done before all is said and done?”

“And some of them look so BIG…” trembled Rudy. “If they get away from the fracas and start going on a rampage…”

It certainly felt like a daunting scenario…until a voice spoke up from behind them all. “Uh, sirs?” They all turned to see Commandramon; he was sitting on the bench again, looking tired but better than he had been. “I know it looks bad and all, but I think you should worry more about Zetta Unit than the buildings…”

“We’re plenty concerned about them, I assure you,” Elliot stated a bit brusquely. “We can worry about both at the same time.”

“But they aren’t here for buildings. They’re here for Zetta Unit.”

“…You think this entire force is out there just to hunt down our defenders?” Emil questioned. “There’s no way. They have to be planning more than that.”

Commandramon nodded. “They...well, someone’s planning more, for sure. But…listen, I was…I was pretending to be on their side so they would send me here and I could warn people. I got to hear a lot of the twisted things they were saying…this is supposed to be a show of power and a way to establish themselves in this world. But all the digimon who were going to be sent over there…what they wanted more than anything was to be the one to prove themselves superior to the ‘tainted ones.’ They aren’t thinking about anything else but Zetta Team until they’ve taken them down…”

“…So they probably aren’t going to split off, they’re going to focus in on them…” suggested Rudy. And Emil and Elliot exchanged a look, not sure that that new knowledge was actually the reassurance that they might have hoped for. There was a lot riding on a very small number of heroes…and they could only hope that they were up to the task.

———

Two of the symbiotes, at least, had a good idea of just what they were up against. Ionfalkemon and Jetdramon could both see quite a bit from up in the air…the problem was, they were going to have their hands full with how many of them were up there with them.

“There’s gotta be fifty or sixty of these guys!” Jetdramon bemoaned as they watched their enemies manifest in front of them in blurs of light. “How the heck are we gonna take all of these out?!”

“One at a time, if we have to,” replied Ionfalkemon steely, taking her spear in hand; Jetdramon followed suit with his polearm, still looking dubious. “Though if we can do a little better than that, it’ll probably be a good thing. And preferably take them out in the air, we don’t want any big bodies dropping on any buildings down there.”

“You say that like it’s gonna be so easy…” muttered the dragon as he scanned over their challengers. A mess of flying digimon were up there to make their lives miserable…a flock of mixed Birdramon and Saberdramon, a swarm of smaller insectoid digimon - Flybeemon, Honeybeemon, and Butterflymon, led by a pair of Flymon that brought some less-than-lovely memories back - and a few larger insectoid digimon in Kabuterimon and Kuwagamon, multiple Harpymon, and the huge and imposing figure of a Megadramon manifesting behind them all. “If I see ANY Galedramon pop up I’m gonna go haywire.”

“Keep yourself in check, we can’t let them get the better of us in any way, that includes our tempers.” Easier for Ionfalkemon to say than do, not with the unpleasant number of birds and bugs, each of which repelled one of her halves pretty fiercely. “Don’t let them get settled in! Strike while they’re trying to get their bearings!”

“Right!” The two broke off, swinging out wide and splitting apart to try to keep from getting penned in. Jetdramon swung high, unleashing a Jet Stream at one of the Flymon, wiping it out before it even had a chance to wonder what hit it. That got the swarm of bugs scattering, they were in disarray but they still had one Flymon to rally them, he knew he couldn’t settle in with that as his only victory…unfortunately, there were far too many to draw his attention, and he had to rush away from the electric attack of a Kabuterimon that came from his side. He countered with another Jet Stream but the big bug managed to swing out of the way, and Jetdramon was forced to zip out of the fray and try to regroup, now with plenty of pursuers.

It wasn’t going much better for Ionfalkemon, who was getting more of the attention of the Harpymon and mixed firebirds. A wide-spreading Dervish Bolt hit several of them, but it wasn’t nearly enough to take any one of them down - the wide spread reduced the raw impact. She had to flap away to avoid their counterattacks, with several fireballs being launched in her direction - she flew above them to try to direct most of them up into the air, though she could see a couple sailing towards the ground. There was no chance they’d be able to avoid all damage, but she hoped those wouldn’t do much…worse, though, was that she was drawing the attention of Megadramon, and there was a maliciousness in those eyes that sent shivers down her spine. He’s the biggest threat here…and he knows it. He wants us dead, by his hand, but he’ll gladly let us wear ourselves down before he goes in for the kill. And we can’t do anything about it but play into his plot!

She had to keep drawing the attention of that one…well, either her or Jetdramon would. And they were doing a darn good job of it, with all of the fliers zeroing in on one of them. We’re the first focus for their invasion…they want us out of the way before they turn the city to dust. Our only asset, and some asset that is! She pumped her wings hard, trying to keep in front of all her pursuers as she flung Charge Fields in her wake, zapping some of them and throwing them off. It kept them from approaching too close too quickly, but she knew that that was just inviting them to try to flank her. Already this was off to a bad start…they needed something else, and fast. But what else was there?

———

Blazereptimon was ready for just about anything. A potato was, admittedly, lower on the list than most.

The Yakiimon engaging him didn’t care what he was ready for, though - despite her bizarre appearance, that of a potato with arms and legs partly wrapped in some kind of paper or foil, she was clearly giving it her all. “Beniazuma Uppercut!” The smaller digimon flung herself into a high-rising uppercut, which Blazereptimon flung himself back from in a backflip, planting his hands on the ground to draw himself into the landing. As Yakiimon tried to recover, he surged forward and slammed his fist into her, sending her flying back and tumbling onto the ground. “Yowch! No fair, you can’t hit harder than I can!”

“Go ahead and ask me how much I care about ‘fair’,” growled Blazereptimon. He rushed forward, but Yakiimon was on her feet quickly enough to force him to pull his attack, as she flung herself into another punch that he blocked - but it was definitely stronger than it looked like it should have been. He managed to shove her back again, but she wasn’t about to quit, flinging herself into a Beniazuma Straight that required the reptile to duck and roll. He saw her tumble at the end of the attack, and something clicked. She’s throwing everything she has into those blows. Overdoing every one of them…unleashing more power at the cost of control. I can use that.

“You’re going down, lizard thing!” Yakiimon yelled as she charged forward again, steam billowing off of her as she flung herself into another furious flying fist. “Beniazuma Straight, HA!” Blazereptimon didn’t try to dodge this time, instead taking the hit and trying to block it…he managed to keep the blast from hitting anything other than his hands, but the raw force at the end kicked him back and off-balance. He could see the glint in Yakiimon’s eye as she noticed that, and she barely landed before she flung herself into a Beniazuma Uppercut, intent on clocking that reptilian jaw with a vicious blow.

Just as Blazereptimon had hoped. The exaggerated off-balance pose was a ruse, maybe the only good thing he’d picked up out of that Asuramon fight - his tail kept him up exactly as he wanted. He swayed back just outside the range of that uppercut…and now it was Yakiimon’s turn to see the glint in his eye as her vulnerable body was an easy target. “Inferno Claw!” he roared out as he swung upwards, blazing claws tearing through Yakiimon’s body in one quick motion. She was flung backwards, disappearing into a cloud of data before she hit the ground.

“Tch…like I’m gonna let some baked potato be the death of me.” Blazereptimon smirked a bit. “Then again, I guess she wasn’t really baked until I got to her.” Something in the back of his head poked at him as he said that…he ignored it entirely as he turned and hurried down the road, trying to pick up on the next enemy. The Yakiimon had been number five, and he was certainly glad they were more spread out down here than they were up in the air like Ionfalkemon and Jetdramon had to deal with. Wish there was more I could do to help them, but best thing I can do now is make sure that no one down here makes things worse for them.

The sound of something hot sizzling in the air reached his ears…he might not have had the hearing Ebonvargmon did, but he could pick up the sound of fire anywhere. He hurried towards it, hoping that someone hadn’t gotten bored and started torching houses while they were waiting for him…

Instead, he found himself forced to admit that he was not, in fact, ready for absolutely everything.

“G-get away from me! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“The fact that you live is the only thing that’s wrong! Death to the Frigid Souls!”

“Aagh!” The well-chilled body of an icy dragon was almost steaming from a clearly unwanted application of heat, unhelpfully provided by means of a flame-maned mammalian digimon. And Burnreptimon was momentarily thrown by the sight of the Flaremon trying to hunt down the Paledramon, with almost no concern. Wait…they’re…fighting each other?

Paledramon was the first to notice the new arrival, but it only seemed to make him more frightened. “Aagh! Th-they’re here, they’re here!”

“What?” Flaremon paused momentarily, casting a sidelong glance at Blazereptimon. Then, to the reptile’s continued surprise, a wicked grin formed on that muzzle. “Well, well…perfect timing. And just the one I hoped for! You, fire lizard! Prove yourself against this heretic and maybe you’ll have a chance to do something worthy with your life!”

“The hell’re you talking about?” growled Blazereptimon.

“The ice is unworthy of life! They do nothing but torment the fire! And the Frigid Souls are the enemy of all fire-kind, intent on sending the digital world into an endless ice age! We of the Order of the Flame are the ones who will destroy them all, and end all ice to preserve the heat forevermore! Show your allegiance and maybe you’ll convince me that you’re worth keeping alive!”

The Order of the Flame…uh-oh… The name twigged a vague memory from one part of him…he didn’t know much about them, except that they were an order of Fire-elemental digimon located in the Dzempher Caldera in Northern Tetraquaz, and that there was talk of them starting to get a little nuts. Maybe more than a little, if this sort of fanaticism was on display…as if anyone in Emperius was lacking for fanaticism to begin with. “I think you’re going to have to convince ME of that for YOU…if you’re that keen on murdering your own teammate, I don’t think it’d be a wise idea to be the next one in line.”

“That wretch? Pah!” spat Flaremon. “Useless, worthless ice digimon shouldn’t be on Emperius anyway, they aren’t worthy! YOU would be worthy, if you proved you were one with the flame!”

“H-he’s crazy!” stammered Paledramon, who’d scrambled back against a tree. “I didn’t even do anything to him!”

“Your existence is offense enough! Perish in the flames! Guren Juu-ARGH!” Flaremon’s attempt to loose a vicious fire attack on Paledramon was cut off by Blazereptimon shoulder-checking him hard, sending him tumbling along the ground. He still didn’t know what all was going on around here, but two things stuck out to him - Flaremon sounded like a real nasty sort that needed to be taken care of NOW, and Paledramon didn’t sound like the kind of aggressive digimon that he expected to see in this kind of fracas. And whatever questions arose from that second matter, the first commanded immediate action.

“Grragh! How dare you!” Flaremon was panting a bit as he rose up, but the fire was flaring on his body. “Striking one of your fellow fire-bearers instead of the true enemy! You’re not one with the flame at all! That human taint has caused you to turn your back on your kind!”

“Yeah, you just keep talking, pissing me off is gonna end REAL well for you.” Blazereptimon’s eyes were garnering that red glow again. “I don’t care if you’re fiery, I’ve got enough power in these fists and claws to put an end to you!”

“Worthless scum! You’ll fall easily to a true master of fire! Guren Juuouha!” This time Flaremon got off the intended attack, a fiery projectile that looked like a lion’s head fired straight at Blazereptimon. The reptile countered with his Solar Wave, meeting the attack in mid-air and neutralizing it, though it ate up his own attack. Not that that was a huge deal as far as he was concerned, Flaremon wouldn’t react much to it anyway.

“Rrrgh…fine, you want to play that way, let’s dance!” roared Flaremon. “Red Lion Dance!” He came out swinging, fists and claws and feet flung at Blazereptimon, who raced to block each one before they could do real damage to him. It was not easy, Flaremon was definitely a hard hitter, and one of those claw swipes opening furrows in his shoulder was more than enough for him to know he couldn’t let that happen again. He kicked out himself as Flaremon’s attack paused, catching the mammal in the muzzle and drawing some blood of his own. “AGH! Miserable creature!”

“Oh, I’ll make YOU miserable, that’s for sure,” snarled Blazereptimon, brandishing his claws as he charged in swinging. “Inferno Claw!” Now Flaremon was on the defensive, trying to parry with his own claws; but although he was no slouch, he was also no Asuramon, and the workout that Blazereptimon had gotten against a superior opponent was giving him the edge here. Orange fur went flying here and there as gashes formed in Flaremon’s arms and chest, and some of that mane was clipped by one errant swing before Blazereptimon caught a foot to the gut and got flung backwards. He rolled his hit into a backroll, getting his balance in an instant, ready for Flaremon’s follow-up…which didn’t come as Flaremon saw the opening slam shut.

Both of them were bloodied and bruised, but Flaremon looked the worse for wear. “How dare you…betraying your element like this…it will be an honor to end your worthless life here…”

“Pah, that was gonna be MY line,” spat Blazereptimon. “Except I’m the one who can actually pull it off.”

“Cocky lizard! You don’t look like you’re that far ahead here!”

“Sure, I don’t. But you’ve been putting everything you have into your attacks.” Blazereptimon raised his arm, flame swirling around it as his body glowed. “While I’m just going to start with that! Blaze Stoker!” Clenching his fist shut, he sent that energizing power through him, flaring up a bit with heat that Flaremon wasn’t ready for and was putting him at unease. Blazereptimon didn’t give him a chance to recover mentally, surging forward with speed the beast wasn’t ready for and delivering a straight shot right to the nose, making him roar out in pain…and drop his guard.

And Blazereptimon wasted no time going in for the kill. A forceful right jab to the gut, getting through that light armor to wind Flaremon, a left stab with his Inferno Claw into Flaremon’s chest following by a forceful tearing, and then an uppercut with his right to the beast’s jaw, cracking his head back and exposing his neck, which Blazereptimon suddenly lunged for with blazing jaws. Flaremon tried to stop him, but he clamped down hard and then pushed with all his might away, jerking his head back and tearing out Flaremon’s throat. The creature’s eyes glazed over as he crashed back, finally disappearing into a cloud of data.

Blazereptimon spat a bit, letting the piece of Flaremon he’d kept in his jaws join the rest of him before turning back to the other creature in his vicinity. Paledramon was latched onto a tree, looking wide-eyed at him, trembling at the sight of the bloodied form and glowing red eyes, the latter at least fading away as Blazereptimon settled back down. “Right, then…you didn’t try to backstab me while I was busy with that asshole, so that’s a point in your favor. But you still came here with Emperius’s strike force, and I don’t have time to play games while my city is under attack. Make your defense QUICK.”

“Nnh! D-don’t hurt me, please! I…this wasn’t my idea! I didn’t want to be here! The general ordered me…I didn’t have a choice!”

“General…hmph. One of those ones who sealed us…” Blazereptimon’s eyes narrowed at Paledramon; he certainly didn’t look much like a fighter, at least at first glance, but if he was with the Frigid Souls…that was another name part of him knew at least in passing, and if the Order of the Flame was sinking into fanaticism, the Frigid Souls were thoroughly mired there - nutty as Flaremon’s ramblings were, he was right about what the Frigid Souls’ ambitions were. “You. Are you with the Frigid Souls?”

“I…I…n-not…I mean…”

“Truth only. Lies won’t help you.”

Paledramon went plenty pale at that vague threat. “I…I was sent to Emperius by Zerodramon, the Frigid Souls’ leader…b-but I’m not…I was never part of them, never wanted to be…he…he sent me to punish my sister…she’s his b-biggest opposition on the Kalarnos Glacier, and…and he wanted to…to use the fact that I was with them to underm-mine her support there…”

It was a story he couldn’t verify, but…Blazereptimon was finding it believable. As much because Paledramon’s fear was coming off as entirely genuine to him. “Fine. You get a pass. Get back to the digital world and get away from Emperius and we’ll call it even.”

“…I…I can’t…”

“Why not? Don’t tell me they didn’t give you some way to, I know they can.”

Paledramon shook his head. “They…they said…they wouldn’t do that. That they wouldn’t risk anyone…c-cutting and running. That we would…do what we came here for or not come back at all. And…wh-when she…put me with Flaremon…I…I heard that…they were trying to…get rid of some, some people they thought were dead weight…”

Blazereptimon let out a growl that shut Paledramon up, even though it wasn’t directed at him. Of course. He’s clearly not the right mold…they knew what they were doing putting him with a member of the Order of the Flame. And they must know we were showing mercy and letting people back if they didn’t go back to Emperius, they wouldn’t want that to happen with their real attack. “Right, of course, can’t ever be easy…you go hide somewhere and lay low until we figure out how to get you back there. I have things to do and I can’t be babysitting you all day.”

“O-okay…” Paledramon slowly got to his feet, still trembling a bit. “S-sorry about all this…”

“You’re one of the few people I’ve met today who hasn’t been trying to kill me, you don’t even fall on my trouble list right now. Don’t do anything that’ll get you on there.” Blazereptimon didn’t wait for a response this time, leaving Paledramon as he started off down the next road, looking for his next foe. There was an outside chance he was making a terrible mistake, but he didn’t think that was likely…not with someone who hadn’t even made the feeblest attempt to attack him. Trust is in short supply here, but I’m giving a little to him…let’s hope he doesn’t abuse it.

———

“Saur Blaster!” A beam of energy ripped from Mecharexmon’s cannon, slamming into the Troopmon he had been targeting. It fell backwards onto the ground and dissipated without a sound, and Mecharexmon didn’t even pause to acknowledge it as he tromped towards the Glikke Field area. Never liked the mindless version of those things…mass-produced undead soldiers should never be a thing, it makes it too easy to think of others the same way.

He hadn’t gotten too many digimon so far, but that sort of volume wasn’t his focus - it was a different type of volume, that being one of single containers. And now he was facing down two such oversized containers - DarkTyranomon and Vajramon. Outnumbered and outsized was not a good position to be in, but he didn’t really have a choice here. Both of them were clearly waiting for him, as well…he could see their grins as they saw he was alone. “Oh, this is rich, a lone tainted one thinks he can best TWO of us?” rumbled DarkTyranomon with derisive mirth.

“You’ll be a crushed can under our feet before you know it,” huffed Vajramon as he drew his sword. “Flat as the rest of this pathetic city once we’ve done our duty, and the rest of this world once Emperius has claimed it for glory!”

“You’re not the first to underestimate me, and you won’t be the last,” growled Mecharexmon as he charged up his cannon. “Take this! Saur Blaster!” He fired off his charged blast, but of course the two of them got out of the way of it before it could really do any damage…but it did accomplish what Mecharexmon wanted to do, separating them a little bit and allowing him to run for in between them, activating his speed program - finally working, though of course only for a limited time. But hopefully it would be for long enough to take care of these two.

Vajramon was the first to counterattack. “Pathetic! Fall to my Deva Blade!” He swung and unleashed an energy wave at Mecharexmon, who ducked and rolled under it, the pavement tearing up behind him from the attack. He fired off at Vajramon’s head, trying to peg his eyes, but not getting them as the bull brought his blades up to protect himself. Mecharexmon couldn’t keep up the pressure as DarkTyranomon belched a Fire Blast attack at him, catching him with the fiery salvo until a burst of cannon fire to the mouth forced him to cut it off. Not pleasant, but Mecharexmon had had far worse.

Vajramon seemed intent on changing that. “Terra Blade!” Slamming his swords into the ground, he projected spires of earth up from the ground, throwing Mecharexmon down even if he avoided the brunt of the attack. DarkTyranomon tried to catch him unaware again, but Mecharexmon didn’t give him the chance, unloading his Swarm Missiles at the dinosaur, forcing him to back off and cover his face. He lowered his arms just in time to see Mecharexmon unleash his charged shot, and didn’t move out of the way fast enough, getting a large wound opened up in his left leg as he let out a pained roar.

“Step it up, you useless lizard!” Vajramon roared, slamming his swords down to try to hit Mecharexmon directly, the symbiote vacating the earthen protrusions just in time as one of them was cut down. Vajramon wasn’t waiting for him to catch his breath, though, leaping forward and rearing up to try to stomp down on him just as promised. Mecharexmon steeled himself and took a chance, activating his defense program and his claw arm and lifting it up as those hooves crashed down on him…

The impact was NOT fun, sending a surge of pain through his body and a warning through his head…but his body held out, and accomplished what he wanted to do, essentially being a rather sizable caltrop that had speared right through Vajramon’s hoof with his Plasma Claw. The bull roared and staggered back, clearly limping as its right front foot was damaged badly. If only the rest of him was, but Mecharexmon couldn’t rest, and returned to arm cannon form and started firing at Vajramon’s head again. This time he hit success, catching the bull’s right eye and making him bellow out in point as he was partly blinded.

He couldn’t follow up, though, as DarkTyranomon tried to swing down at him with one huge claw, requiring another roll away. His speed boost wasn’t going to last much longer, and he couldn’t re-up it now, it needed a bit of time to recharge. Both his enemies were hobbled, moving more slowly than they would have, but they were still more than able to cause trouble for him…

…But if I play this right, I can have them make trouble for each other.

He kept just in DarkTyranomon’s range, goading the dinosaur to come at him with his claws. DarkTyranomon threw a bit of a curveball at him by trying to swing around and launch an Iron Tail attack at him instead, but the range on that wasn’t much better than his claw attack, especially with how much more time it offered Mecharexmon to react. All this while he had to keep Vajramon’s attacks in mind as well, as another Deva Blade came at him whole he was herding DarkTyranomon…the bigger reptile didn’t seem to pay much attention to how close he was to being hit, though, a good sign for the cyborg as he led the big lug closer to Vajramon.

Of course, the bull was trying to distract him more, thinking they were getting the edge. Mecharexmon was unloading Swarm Missiles and Saur Blasters continuously, and was starting to get warnings about energy drain. I’d best pull this off fast, or I’m gonna be in a lot of trouble… He slowed a bit as he got to a point between the two, feigning exhaustion, making himself look like an easy target, hoping that both of them were a bit too tunnel-visioned to pay attention to what was going on around them…

He almost miscalculated, expecting DarkTyranomon’s Iron Tail first but Vajramon’s sword was actually the first to come down over him. He dove fast, his tail getting clipped by the sword but not thankfully not entirely severed as the blade plunked into the ground. But his ruse met with success - DarkTyranomon’s tail slammed into Vajramon, and then into the sword, and that one DID get fully severed, making DarkTyranomon overrotate and stagger, an earsplitting roar of agony tearing from his throat. And that wide-open maw was a wide-open target, which Mecharexmon took advantage of and fired his charged Saur Blaster into. It pierced out the back of DarkTyranomon’s skull moments before the reptile burst into data.

“What…dammit, no!” Vajramon was struggling to get up, charging another Deva Blade as he struggled to right himself. But it was too late for him, as Mecharexmon’s charged blaster was ready before he was.

“The bigger they are, the harder they fall! Saur Blaster!” The deadly beam crashed right through Vajramon’s lower chest between his forelegs, traveling most of the way through his upper chest, obliterating him from the inside out. He let out a howl as he crashed back to the ground and disappeared into data. Finally, Mecharexmon could lower his cannon, panting and whirring as he tried to dispel the fatigue…that had been a lot, even for him, and he’d nearly had a couple of major disasters.

I gotta get better…I can’t risk faltering here. Even if this was a bad situation, I still could have done that a lot better…I need to think faster and act faster. Shaking his head, he brought up his internal scanners, frowning at just how much still seemed to be around. And it’s not getting much easier from here…oh, jeez. The river. Guess that’s where I’m going next, they aren’t gonna be able to handle it like I can…I hope I can afford a few minutes to recharge at least, because I don’t wanna go in half-armed.

———

At first, things had been going well for Ebonvargmon. He’d put a couple of Ninjamon in their place, dueled a Shurimon to his victory, and caught an Ogremon by surprise and cleaned him up before he had a chance to do much of anything. But now it was his turn to be ambushed, and he wasn’t exactly enjoying being on the receiving end…especially given the number of foes.

BlackGargomon and Gorillamon were on his left, one on front and one behind him. DarkLizamon and Hyougamon were to his right, again one in front and one behind. Covering all four corners, leaving him very little space to escape. I’m getting a little bit tired of being teamed up on today. Who would have thought that nasty general would be the only cooperative one…

“Better not move, wolf-boy, or you’re gonna eat bullets!” BlackGargomon guffawed.

“…Surely you can do better than wolf-boy. Descriptivist insults are among the weakest.” Ebonvargmon’s response brought an unexpected snicker from the Hyougamon, which caused Blackgargomon to glare at him.

“Oh, you think you’re a smart one, huh?” Gorillamon snorted. “You’re gonna get to see what we do to smarties like you!”

“I dare say I won’t be threatened by blank stares and grunts of confusion, but you’re more than willing to try.”

“Huh?” Gorillamon stared blankly at the wolfman. DarkLizamon cackled, making the monkey growl and glare like Blackgargomon had. Ebonvargmon was starting to get the feeling that these were not Emperius’s finest…but dumb idiots could still be dangerous. However, that didn’t mean they had to be necessarily dangerous to him…

“You know, I’ve noticed a distinct lack of my agonizing death, despite the fact that I’m outnumbered badly here,” he remarked, trying to sound as casual as he could. “Has Emperius truly fallen so weak that they can’t even handle me by my lonesome? Truly, any notion that you were superior to humanity is entirely a fiction, if this is the best you can muster.”

“How dare you! Eat gun, asshole!” Blackgargomon and Gorillamon both fired, trying to catch Ebonvargmon and prevent him from escaping…they were not ready for the wolf to jump UP, catching a tree branch and swinging from it over the group to land down on the road several yards away. They also weren’t ready for their shots to sail through the air right at their comrades, Hyougamon getting the brunt of Gorillamon’s blast and DarkLizamon getting peppered with BlackGargomon’s shots.

“HEY!” hissed DarkLizamon angrily. “The hell’er ya doing?! You’re supposed to fire at the dog, not at me!”

“Well, maybe get out of the way, moron!” fired back Blackgargomon. “You wouldn’t know common sense if it shot you in the chest!”

“Idiot monkey!” Hyougamon snapped angrily as he picked himself up off the ground. “How’d a dummy like you ever get into Emperius? You’re not superior to a loaf of bread!”

“Says the guy who didn’t even move outta the way!” bellowed back Gorillamon. “You’re dumber than all the Ogremon knockoffs put together!”

Words soon became blows, as the quartet began squabbling between each other and throwing out punches, kicks, and the occasional attack. Ebonvargmon seemed to have been completely forgotten…and he was perfectly happy about that, retreating to the side to stay well out of the fracas as long as he could. He had to at least remain close enough to take action if they calmed down, since they could still be dangerous…though, they were not quite the most dangerous folks he’d seen on their side. I might find this a bit more amusing if the situation wasn’t so dreadful…

“Oh, dang, are they doing their job for us?” Ebonvargmon started a bit as he heard an unfamiliar voice from behind him. Cursing his inattentiveness, he whipped around to see a pair of digimon coming through the yard of the nearest house - a Strikedramon with a wide and carefree grin, and a Leomon with a stern and determined expression. And he was considering himself lucky that he wasn’t already walking wounded trying to play defense - the commotion had drowned out the sounds of their already less-than-noisy footsteps. “Easy there, fuzzball. Dark-types shouldn’t be jumping at shadows, yanno!”

“I daresay you two are considerably more solid than shadows,” replied the canine, keeping his guard up but lowering his sword. “And I’m disinclined to be too congenial with an army of invaders coming for me and my home.”

“And we relate to that entirely too well,” said Leomon tensely. “You have nothing to fear from us - we are on your side.”

“Those idiots aren’t, of course, but they won’t be anyone’s problem soon enough,” chuckled Strikedramon. “We’ll mop up whatever’s left after they’ve torn each other apart.”

Ebonvargmon was still wary - could he simply just trust these folks? On the one hand, they had come with the Emperius strike force…on the other hand, they could have gotten the drop on him but didn’t. “You’ll have to forgive me for questioning your allegiances…I’m well aware that precious few allies could be counted among the ranks of Emperius, and fewer still would have the means to arrive independent of them.”

“Your skepticism is warranted, but rest assured, every part of this campaign is a vicious offense to all honor,” growled Leomon. “As it always has been with them…we never wanted to be here in the first place. They assaulted our peaceful village two years ago, and forced us all to serve them or be destroyed. I would have fought to the last, but too many others gave in…I could not conscience having to kill them or forcing them to kill me. There has been precious little avenue for escape since then, but even when there has been, we have been shuttling out others instead, to try to rescue as many unwilling conscripts as we can…yet, there are always more.”

“And I think someone cottoned on, since they sent us out here,” added Strikedramon. “Probably a couple dozen or so of us they sent to get us out of the way, expecting us to cark it to you guys - or maybe giving orders to someone to finish us off if we didn’t. Those four clowns were definitely in that group as well, but obviously for different reasons.”

It could have been a story, but Ebonvargmon was used to hearing stories…this didn’t sound at all false to him. Especially the way Leomon carried himself, he definitely had that ‘honor above all things’ air about him, something Emperius really wasn’t all that concerned with in general. “I see…unexpected allies are always more welcome than the alternative. Goodness knows the numbers are unpleasant enough as it is.”

“Don’t worry, we’ve been thinning the herd a bit,” Strikedramon cackled. “Amazing how many of them think just because they’ve seen us there for a while that we’re totally on board. Must’ve been probably a dozen or so we’ve cut down already, feels REALLY good to get that drop on them and get some payback for all the crap they’ve spat at us and everyone else.” Ebonvargmon’s eyes widened a bit - they HAD been busy! Then again, they probably had more opportunities than he had, with most of the forces having scattered about by the time he could engage. But if that was cutting down the number of enemies HE had to deal with, he’d take it no matter how, or how many. “Course, Leo here’s slower because he’s gotta say it to their faces and all.”

“I will not stoop to stabbing them in the back rather than facing them honorably, whether they deserve it or not,” huffed Leomon. “I fight with pride, unlike them.”

“Y’see, that’s why you need me, ‘cuz I’m not all hung up on this ‘pride’ business. Then again, I guess a lion WOULD be…uh?” Strikedramon suddenly looked over at the fracas, getting everyone else’s eyes towards it as well. The fighting had suddenly came to a perilous pause, everyone looking in terror at Gorillamon’s cannon, which was scorched with telltale dark fire marks from DarkLizamon…including on the inside…

The blast nearly knocked Ebonvargmon off his feet, forcing him to brace himself as he weathered the shockwave - probably the most impact any foe had had on him so far, despite being apparently entirely accidental. When the light and dust finally cleared, there was a fairly blown-out spot in the road, and no sign of any of the four of them, though the glitter of fading data in the air told enough of the story of their fates.

“Well, dang. I was almost looking forward to getting rid of ‘em,” remarked Strikedramon with a shrug. “Ah, well. Emperius will mourn their loss…almost a shame to miss that party, too, but something tells me we wouldn’t be invited anyway.”

“I’ll take fewer of them no matter how it comes about,” stated Leomon.

“Entirely relatable,” agreed Ebonvargmon. “Your assistance is most appreciated…stay safe out there, and I hope we have the chance to meet again.”

“Likewise. You carry yourself with honor…it would be welcome to have a chance to duel with you.”

“Oh, jeez, the warrior’s duel thing again…” groaned Strikedramon. “Can’t you find some way to bond with people that doesn’t involve swinging deadly blades at each other?”

Now it was Leomon’s turn to shrug. “Clearly he doesn’t understand.”

“Quite clearly,” agreed Ebonvargmon, with a slight grin at the annoyed dragon.

———

It was too much. Even for a situation where everything seemed to be too much, this was TOO MUCH.

Jetdramon’s flying was even starting to get HIM turned around, but he couldn’t relax for even a moment. The insectoid digimon were focusing on him, and they were pretty quick in their own right - but the problem was that they were so NUMEROUS, probably a good three dozen in total between them all. And blind swipes with his voulge weren’t cutting it…he wanted to use his more potent ranged attacks but he was too worried about flinging them off in dangerous directions and creating a risk below them, and when they were in position he wasn’t ready.

And they weren’t letting up on the pressure, they clearly knew they had the advantage. A Flybeemon flung himself into Jetrdamon’s face, unleashing a Lightning Sting attack that forced him to shoot upwards…right into the face of a Honeybeemon that tried to jab him with its Paralyze Sting, forcing him to scramble around and get out of the way…right into the waiting path of a Kabuterimon whose Electroshocker winged him. And it was far from the first attack that had even somewhat connected…and that wasn’t even counting the multitudes of noxious toxins being spread all over, which he was having to drive away with his Psycho Squall, and hope that it thinned out or dissipated before it caused the ground to become contaminated. All of this left him very little time to counterattack, and he’d maybe downed three of them at most since the first Flymon. Not nearly enough, not nearly fast enough.

Ionfalkemon wasn’t faring much better. Her antagonists numbered about a third of Jetdramon’s, but she had only gotten one down so far, and even she would have chalked that up more to luck than anything - an errant throw of her Shock Spear had somehow lodged in the eye of a Birdramon, despite being meant to deter a Harpymon. She wasn’t as fast or evasive a flier, and though the attacks being launched at her weren’t as precise, they didn’t give her a moment’s rest as she swooped and weaved around them. Several fires had already started below from errant shots, thankfully they didn’t seem to be spreading too far but the fire crews couldn’t come out while things were still as chaotic as they were.

A Harpymon suddenly kicked at her, trying to skewer her with his deadly talons. She twisted away from it, just barely avoiding him, only to find herself right in the path of his fellow Harpymon, who barraged her with a Wind Seeker attack, drawing blood as she felt multiple small cuts get made in her body, making her screech out. She tried to fly up more, but the two were doggedly following her, weaving around her Dervish Bolt…they flanked her again, and she was caught in between them and a Saberdramon readying a Meteor Wing, it seemed like she couldn’t escape…

And then a loud screech from the first Harpymon rang out, and it burst into data. The second Harpymon and the Saberdramon both cut off their attacks, flying back in panic, while Ionfalkemon whipped around in equal confusion. What the hell? What just happened?!

———

“You’ve NEVER used one of those in active combat before?!”

“No. But I’ve done some practice with them. It’s not too difficult, so long as you have a steady hand, good aim, knowledge about bullet trajectories and wind patterns, some predictive modeling about behavioral and movement patterns…”

Rudy was staring dumbfounded at Commandramon, who pulled the trigger and let out another shot from the sniper rifle. “And you just KNOW all that?!”

“Well, I’d better, if I’m going to defend my Ace Marksmon credential! Good aim is so important, particularly when you have a weapon that has a high rate of fire - those shots can go all over the place, you know! This’d probably be even easier if I had my armor on, I have extra modules built in that would help…”

“Not until you have a clean bill of health! I still need to make sure those repair algorithms are doing their job so you don’t start falling apart on us, quite literally.”

“I’ll be even better if I know that I can help them out up there.” Commandramon pulled the trigger once again, as thankful as ever that Ceramon had brought in a weapon that allowed him to do just that. Elliot sending someone out on weapon collection duty was a stroke of brilliance. He’d already pegged a couple on the ground, but the skies seemed a little bit hairier at the moment…all he needed to do, though, was give the Zettas a chance to turn the tide.

———

The skies were suddenly a chaotic mess, as a Honeybeemon was the next to get wiped out randomly. Suddenly the aerial assault was in disarray, as they tried to figure out the source of the anonymous attacker.

Which allowed Jetdramon to get closer to Ionfalkemon so they could regroup. They couldn’t rest too easy, as Megadramon was still tracking them and letting loose Darkside Attacks their direction, but those were easier to pay attention to when they weren’t under a constant swarm. “Bolty! What the hell is going on up here?!”

“I don’t know, but I’ll take it, it’s got them completely flummoxed! We need a different plan, though, this isn’t working!”

“Tell me something I don’t know! I don’t know how much more I can handle up here! You got any brilliant ideas, though?”

Ionfalkemon had to pause to bolt another Darkside Attack out of the air, while Jetdramon let out a Jet Stream to push the Megadramon to retreat. “We need something big, something that’ll hit a lot of them at once. Neither of us has the spread for that, or the power…”

“What, do we need a cruise missile or something? I think Rexy’s a bit too occupied for that!” Jetdramon’s words were almost starting to run together in his frenzy.

“No, but…” An idea came to her suddenly. “Skyder! Combine your power with mine!”

“Huh? You mean like with Aquilamon?”

“Yes! Quickly, before they catch on!”

“All right…” Jetdramon wasn’t totally sure, but he went for it, flying over her and trying to project his energy towards the avian…and then yelping a bit as he felt that electric surge hit him as well. “Yow! What the hell is this?!”

“That’s what I was talking about before! The combined attack!”

“Whoa…you think this’ll do the trick?”

“It can’t hurt to try!” The glow around the two intensified as their respective powers swirled wickedly around them. “Give it your all, Skyder!”

“Hah! I’ll give it all I got and then some!” cackled the dragon, feeling keyed up by the rush. The bugs and the birds were taking notice of them again, and they were trying to rush towards the two, but it was too late now, they were only putting themselves in the crosshairs.

“Synchro Strike! Surge Storm!” A furious horizontal cyclone erupted from where Jetdramon and Ionfalkemon were flying, enveloping the majority of their enemies; even those who weren’t in the direct path were sucked in by the vicious whirlwind. And once inside, they were not only buffeted by relentless cutting winds, but fierce bolts of electricity that jumped from one side of the cyclone to the other, tearing through bodies with ruthless abandon. Clouds of data were being scattered every which way as their enemies were defeated by the brutal attack, shredding the sky force far more efficiently than their previous efforts.

They were forced to break it off as Megadramon launched missiles their way, but the damage was largely done - a couple of Birdramon and a couple of Kuwagamon had managed to survive, but they weren’t looking to be in good shape, and the numbers were a far more even match. Weapons in hand, the two air fighters rushed back into the much less chaotic fray, the fatigue not gone from their bodies but the balance of battle pushing them to shunt it aside, with an end now in sight - and with a private thank-you reserved for whatever it was that gave them the chance in the first place.

———

Mecharexmon had his sensors tuned to scan the river, but he didn’t need them to see what the biggest problem was - the MarineDevimon stuck out like a sore thumb. On the one hand, it’s not exactly hiding…on the other hand, I’m getting tired of all the big guys. With his water module equipped, he dove in, and started jetting towards the oversized threat, which was currently marching towards the upstream bridge. If it gets that down, it’s going to make a real mess of things…not as bad as the downstream one, at least, but I don’t doubt it’ll go for both of them if it gets a chance.

The problem, though, was that there were plenty of other signals in the water as well. And they were all zeroing on him as he tried to zip up the river…three Piranimon, a Huankunmon, two Ebidramon, two Dragomon, and two Seahomon, all lining up to track him. And in charge of all of them was a MarinKimeramon, clacking its pincer claw threateningly as it led the charge towards Mecharexmon. “Death to the tainted one! Show him that dry-land machines are no match for the power of the oceans!”

We’re not even in an ocean…I don’t think that matters to it, though. Mecharexmon turned up the jets, but he was fighting the current, and his pursuers were gaining ground on him. He banked as an attack came his way, an Ice Crash from the Huankunmon that tried to trace him for a bit before cutting off. Dang it, this is NOT as good as Lake Idle…they’re at full speed and strength, and they’re not gonna come at me one-on-one. But if I stop to try to take care of them, that bridge is all but toast, MarineDevimon needs to be distracted before he gets there!

“Take this! Aqua Viper!” A furious beam shot out from MarinKimeramon’s horn, forcing Mecharexmon to dodge hurriedly again…every movement out of the way was slowing him down, they were barely a dozen meters behind now. And it was only getting worse, as he saw another signal circling MarineDevimon. Some kind of defender? Great, he’s probably going to come at me so I can’t reach that big lummox…

Of course, as soon as he thought it, it shot off in his direction. He banked low, trying to approach lower than the enemy would, hoping that it would just rush over him and join with the rest of the pursuit, which was getting annoyingly close…a burst of Swarm Missiles made them back off a bit, but Mecharexmon needed to be judicious with them, he hadn’t fully recovered from the first battle. As the new signal approached, he braced himself, readying for it to meet with him even after his evasive tactics…

At first, it seemed like he was lucky - the figure shot over him, too fast for him to identify. What Mecharexmon really wasn’t ready for was a roar from one of the Dragomon, followed by the telltale sound of a deletion. MarinKimeramon roared out angrily. “What the hell are you doing?! Surfimon! You hit the wrong target!”

“Gonna have to dispute you there, ‘chief’,” came a somewhat growly and metallic reply. “I hit exactly what I was aimed for.”

“Y-you! Traitor!”

“Traitor? Hah, that would require me to be on your side in the first place.” Mecharexmon gasped - that voice! That wasn’t a strange voice at all…Surfimon was one of theirs! A KOL fighter, with them for almost three years…he’d been on the Elite Force, he must have been one of the many of them captured in their failed attempt to put an end to Emperius. And while he remembered Salmandmon’s words of warning about trusting anyone who came through, so far Surfimon was making quite a good case for himself.

“No! You turned! You turned on them! You pledged yourself to us!”

“Ain’tcha ever heard the phrase ‘talk is cheap?’ Have some action instead! Lightning Cutter!” Surfimon surged through the aquatic assault force once again, shredding through one of the Piranimon. He came up even with Mecharexmon, tapping into a deeper comm link. “Datacarnomon! Or whatever it is you are now, I’ll get the full story later! I can handle the small fry just fine, but that big lug is gonna cause some damage, and I’m not built for that kinda skirmish!”

“Right! Go get ‘em, Surfimon!” Mecharexmon shot off towards MarineDevimon again, readying his weapons systems. One big guy was a lot easier to deal with than a whole swarm on top of that, but Surfimon was FAR speedier, he had the edge there.

“Gragh! All of you destroy that traitor! I’ll handle the tainted one!” Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be completely one on one, as MarinKimeramon broke away and kept following Mecharexmon. But at this point the cyborg at least had enough distance to engage MarineDevimon before he could be reached - and he did so with an emphatic burst of his Saur Blaster, pelting MarineDevimon with potent shots that opened some small wounds in him. A screech from the demon was the sign of his success, as it slowly turned to engage him, forgetting about the nearby bridge.

Unfortunately, that was all he could do for the moment as MarinKimeramon struck again, this time with a whirling vortex that started to suck Mecharexmon back. “Poseidon Vortex!” The waters sucked and swirled, throwing Mecharexmon off - the natural current from the river was being disrupted, but not completely, throwing him for a loop as he frantically tried to correct, keep his distance from MarinKimeramon, and NOT shoot too close to MarineDevimon. Clenching his jaw, he chanced another burst of Swarm Missiles, which split between back and forth, halving the impacts to each enemy but at least throwing off MarinKimeramon and stopping the vortex. But an internal warning told him that he was very low on charges for that attack…he would be lucky to have enough energy for two more in short order. I need to take one down so I can focus on the other…and mostly with my Saur Blaster. Great.

He dove down a bit, then shot forward as he sensed movement from behind him - not a moment too soon, as one of MarineDevimon’s tentacles slammed down into the water where he had just been. This propelled him right into MarinKimeramon, and he hurriedly shifted to his claw arm and slashed as he zipped past. The blow was parried by the chimera’s spear, but it at least forced MarinKimeramon onto the defensive, giving Mecharexmon a bit of breathing room. “Rragh! How hard can one idiot robot be to destroy?! He’s tainted, he’s impure, a worthless amalgamation!”

“You’re one to talk, buster,” growled back Mecharexmon as he switched back to cannon mode, then fired another chaingun burst at MarinKimeramon. The foe flung itself through the water to avoid the shots, taking a few with a growl but mostly staying ahead. This was starting to get to be a problem, and worse, he could see MarineDevimon turning back towards the bridge. Another volley of fire at the demon got his attention again, but he had nothing he could afford to use against MarinKimeramon, and he was forced to break fire as another Aqua Viper winged him, sending a searing pain through his left arm and side. Fatigue was creeping up on him, if he didn’t end this fast it would be HIS end.

MarineDevimon was trying to make that happen as fast as possible, unleashing a Dark Deluge from his mouth right at Mecharexmon. The cyborg braced himself, and…paused, as the soaking ink came down over him, obscuring him from view.

“YES! Finally! Taste death, land-dweller!” MarinKimeramon surged forward, lunging with its spear to skewer Mecharexmon while he was covered in the ink and unable to see it. The spear sailed into the ink…and then smashed into something with a potent electric crackle. MarinKimeramon roared out as its arm seized from the force of the impact, it was like slamming into a lead wall, and it dropped its spear and grabbed its arm, which was starting to get numb.

Too late, it realized the fatal error, as Mecharexmon shot out from the ink with a roar. “Plasma Claw!” The claws stabbed directly into MarinKimeramon’s chest, making its eyes bug out as it was viciously skewered. A sharp cry was cut off as it burst into data, ending its days as a threat.

Not a victory Mecharexmon could revel in yet, though, as MarineDevimon was turned back towards the bridge. And while his quick-thinking shield program had protected him from the worst of the Dark Deluge, the burst out at the end had required him to expose himself, so his movements were more sluggish than he liked. He jetted towards MarineDevimon, firing off again, but one of those tentacles crashed into the bridge before he got the creature’s attention again, taking a chunk out of the side. Growling, Mecharexmon unleashed one more charge of Swarm Missiles, adding his Saur Blaster to the barrage to get MarineDevimon off of his target…but it wasn’t working this time, the creature seemed to be single-mindedly fixated on the destruction now, as tentacles bashed the bridge again.

There was no helping it, he had to take a chance. Mecharexmon pulled his cannon in front of him and charged up his deadly laser. Please don’t fall on the bridge, please don’t fall on the bridge, please don’t fall on the bridge… With that mantra running through his head, he closed his eyes and fired, the beam driving right through MarineDevimon’s head, making him seize up with a screech. He started to topple, forward into the structure…and then his body dissolved, dissipating before his weight could come down on the bridge. It was in far from pristine shape, parts of the wall were taken off, but none of the load-bearing parts seemed to have been hit.

Still…any damage felt like a faint victory for Mecharexmon. I should’ve done something different…maybe I could’ve kept the bridge from being damaged at all if I’d been more efficient at this fight. Ugh…they paid for my trick to get MarinKimeramon down. If I’d been more precise with the Plasma Claw the first time and tried going right for him, maybe it would’ve been enough…

A buzz from behind him made him whip around, raising his gun defensively. But he quickly lowered it as he saw Surfimon bank and slow in front of him. “Whoof, it’s been a LONG time since I tried to take on numbers like that! You okay, sir?”

“I’m…fine. Bridge isn’t as fine as I’d’ve liked, though.”

“Looks like it’s still standing to me, that’s about as much victory as you can hope for sometimes. Hey, you ARE Datacarnomon, right? And one of those humans? They mentioned something about combining, but maybe I’m way off-base?”

Mecharexmon shook his head. “No, you’ve got it right. Call me Mecharexmon…I’ll get you up to speed on more later. Right now, I need to get out of this river and take a LONG rest, if I can afford it, because I’m running on empty.”

“Yeah, you look like you’ve been through hell, I can almost hear your systems wheezing.” Surfimon gave Mecharexmon a salute. “Don’t worry about a thing, sir! I’ll scout the river and make sure no one escaped to cause more trouble! The waters’ll be in safe hands with me!”

“You have NO idea how much I appreciate hearing that. Stay safe, Surfimon.” Mecharexmon fired up his jets and headed for the riverbank, hoping that other areas were just as under control - because for the moment, he was going to have to withdraw from the fight. And try to get the sting of even a partial failure out of his head, if he could…he’d just have to figure out how he could be better.

———

“Petra Fire!” The Kokatorimon launched her dangerous attack at Ebonvargmon, who leapt over it hastily. Dammit, I hate these guys. Turning to stone is NOT something I can afford here.

He landed to the side, and acted before Kokatorimon could turn back towards him. “Nether Blow!” The ground under the big chicken glowed with an ominous darkness, but Kokatorimon felt it and flapped back out of the way before it erupted around her. Ebonvargmon was already prepared, though, the follow-up was the same either way. “Shadow Bolt!” The quartet of projectiles lanced into Kokatorimon, making her screech out painfully. The distraction was enough for Ebonvargmon, who leapt into the air and came down with his sword through the bird’s head, snapping the blade and deleting her in rapid fashion.

Panting a bit, Ebonvargmon got his footing and banished his blade back into the darkness - a couple minutes in the shadow and it would be good as new. How many more are there? I’ve taken down well over a dozen now…the force can’t be that much more considerable at this point. We may have to hunt down the remainder in more thorough fashion…

A terrified wail made his ears twitch. A voice in peril - and it sounded unexpectedly familiar. Is that Reggie’s voice? What on earth would he be doing outside at this time in this danger?! He didn’t have time to dwell on that, rocketing off in the direction he heard it from, hoping that he’d be in time to prevent a nasty fate…

The haste, as it seemed, wasn’t entirely warranted. Ebonvargmon skidded to a halt at the scene laid out in front of him: a Sepikmon standing blankly in front of Grits and Reggie. The latter was doing the somewhat more sensible thing and cowering back defensively. Not so Grits, whose voice was slurred and ornery as he jabbed a finger towards the Sepikmon. “I don’t wanna hear a word outta you, monkey man! You jus’ take yer weird little tribal mask thing’r whatever and git! I got bigger things ta worry about!”

“…Huh?” Sepikmon looked entirely confused, maybe over the fact that a human wasn’t even remotely cowed by his appearance.

No, Grits, no do you NOT. Sighing, Ebonvargmon approached with caution but resolve. “All right, that’s enough. Sepikmon, I’m going to give you one warning: touch them once and you’ll find yourself in a world of pain.”

“…What in the world are you?” Sepikmon took a step back as Ebonvargmon approached, raising his boomerang defensively. “They said there were weird digimon-like creatures here but you don’t feel like one at all!”

“There may be reasons for that.” Ebonvargmon looked over at Grits, who was staring at him. “And you…what on earth are you doing out here? Did you somehow not notice the massive amounts of calamity going on?”

Grits didn’t reply immediately, staring at Ebonvargmon, perhaps futilely trying to blink away the drunkenness. After several seconds of silence, he suddenly burst out into a roaring laugh. “Oy, lookit that! Werewolf’s finally gone and revealed his fur! Goddamn, took ya long enough!”

Now it was Ebonvargmon’s turn to be stunned. …How? I mean, I know he has paranoia perception, but he barely needed to THINK about it. He looked over at Reggie, who was staring wide-eyed, but with the same sense of recognition in his eyes…either he’d already picked up on it or he bought in completely when Grits mentioned it. Oy…well, we’re technically not hiding it anymore, I guess. “Sure, let’s go with that. That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I told ‘im not to!” Reggie didn’t seem entirely all there either, though more than Ebonvargmon would have expected. “All sortsa nasty big ugly creatures out here, an’ those soldiers and all, but he wouldn’t listen ta me!”

“PAH! Who carezabout a buncha yahoo monsters an’ nitwit army dogs?” snapped Grits irritably. “I’m outta my GOOD booze, I need my GOOD booze!”

Oh, for crying out loud… Ebonvargmon facepalmed; clearly he was just the unfortunate one to run into CHARACTERS today. “Grits, the liquor stores are closed anyway, you’re not getting anything from anywhere.”

“Closed?! It’s the middle of the day!”

“It’s the middle of a day with a goddamned military invasion and MONSTER INVASION.”

“Tch! Excuses! They’ll be there, I’ll be able ta get my good booze, you’ll see!”

I am NOT playing escort for his futile beer run. Ebonvargmon turned his attention back to Sepikmon, who had been inching away. “You can leave any time, you know.”

“No way, I’m not running from some weird creature, they’ll have my hide!” countered Sepikmon, though he didn’t sound as bold as he wanted those words to make the wolf believe.

“I can be the first to take it, believe me.”

“Just try! Spirit Boomerang!” Sepikmon hurled his boomerang at Ebonlupimon, and by extension at Grits, who toppled over just in time - whether by intent or in an uncoordinated stumble from his soused state was anyone’s guess. Ebonvargmon leapt over it and flung himself into a kick at Sepikmon’s face, bouncing off of the mask and disorienting the simian, then landing and ducking just in time to let the boomerang come back and collide with the monkey, knocking him over. “Yeow!”

“You’d think a boomerang user would know how they work,” snarked Ebonvargmon. “That was literally the least effort I could put in. You don’t want to see more of it.”

“Hnnngg…” Sepikmon looked very torn between not wanting to give up and not wanting to keep going. Ebonvargmon got the impression that he wasn’t exactly one of Emperius’s most fervent stalwarts. Finally he stood up and reluctantly stepped back. “Don’t think you’re not going to get it eventually…you’re nothing compared to what Emperius has to offer. They’ve got power like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I happen to have enough familiarity with that not to underestimate them on balance. GO.” Ebonvargmon’s eyes narrowed at Sepikmon, who flinched and then started to walk away. …Wait, walk away? He should be leaving this world entirely. This isn’t nearly good enough.

He opened his mouth to say something, but never got the chance. Without warning, a much bigger primate digimon with rocky protrusions on his face and limbs suddenly slammed down in front of Sepikmon, snatching him up by the head as he howled in agony. “Pathetic! I knew you were useless! Emperius has no need for cowards!”

“Baboongamon! No! Don’t-” Sepikmon’s plea would never be realized, as Baboongamon lifted him up high and then savagely slammed him headfirst into the pavement, crushing his head under his mask. The Sepikmon’s data flew off in a rush after the impact, leaving behind bloody cracks in the ground. Ebonvargmon’s stomach turned. Not even a thought towards mercy…such hideous savagery!

“Hah…ready to be the next one to meet that fate, mutt?” Baboongamon turned a sneer on Ebonvargmon. “It’ll be justice to our world to take one of you tainted ones out…abominations like you don’t deserve life! Mount Rock!” He swung his hand forward, hurling jagged rocks at Ebonvargmon, who was forced to duck and roll out of the way. He couldn’t go too far, though, because Grits and Reggie were still sitting ducks…unfavorable as it was going up against such a heavyweight enemy without a solid strategy, he couldn’t afford to waste time. He needed his sword, but he needed just a little more time for that…

“Hah, this was what they were so afraid of? You’re useless! Meet your fate, tainted one! Glide Rocks!” Baboongamon rushed forward, swinging his heavy rocky tail around dangerously at Ebonvargmon. He had to get quite low to avoid it, but the wild move had Baboongamon off-balance, and he saw his chance. With a burst, he rushed forward, unleashing a noxious energy around his little-used claws and slashing upwards at the ape’s arm.

“Necro Claw!”

Blood and fur flew as the claws met flesh, getting a furious pained howl out of Baboongamon. He whipped his arm back, smacking Ebonvargmon and sending him tumbling painfully across the pavement. The canine’s head was spinning and vision blurring a bit as he righted himself, needing to get back on track to deal with Baboongamon’s ire. “You mangy cur! How dare you! I’ll crush you! Mount R-AGH!” The attack was cut off as Baboongamon seized up, grabbing his wounded arm. “What…what the hell?!”

“Mmph…I wouldn’t count on using that arm much for a bit…or ever, as it might well be.” Ebonvargmon couldn’t have hoped for better…the fell energy of the Necro Claw was meant to cause persistent debilitation and constant damage. And Baboongamon wasn’t quite strong enough to blunt that effect, it seemed. Even better, he was able to summon his sword to his hand once again, giving him the weapon he needed to truly put a quick end to this. “You might want to say a prayer, Baboongamon, if there’s an equally odiferous simian deity you worship.”

“Ragh! How dare you call me a smelly ape! Mount Rocks!” Baboongamon had one working arm still, and used that one to launch the attack, but this time Ebonvargmon was ready, charging up a Shadow Bolt attack as he slunk under the attack, and launching it right at the ape’s face. All four shots hit square, making Baboongamon stagger back and lose focus, teetering back wildly and leaving his body open for a strike…and Ebonvargmon didn’t waste a moment launching forward and slashing multiple times with his Alux Blade, the last one going right through Baboongamon’s neck. He wasn’t even able to cry out as he burst into data, leaving nothing behind but a slightly earthen foul odor.

Rubbing his aching head, Ebonvargmon turned back towards Grits and Reggie; both of them were wide-eyed at him, and he got the sense that they had both sobered up in quite a hurry. “Right…I’m not saying this more than once. INSIDE. NOW. And don’t come out for ANYTHING until someone gives you the all-clear. Because next time, no one might be around to conveniently protect you.”

Nothing but hurried nods from the two of them, and Ebonvargmon wasn’t interested in waiting around for anything more, turning on his heel and rushing back to business. Although, not all of that ire was reserved for the drunken fool…his thoughts were just as much on Sepikmon. How many others have we granted mercy to who didn’t get long to enjoy it? Emperius’s foulness seems almost boundless…there’s nothing we can do but try to end them as soon as possible, so they can claim no more lives, even among their own.

———

Even the energy of fire had its limits without fuel, and Blazereptimon was certainly feeling the drain as he trudged the roads of Braun looking for more enemies. His conservative pace was only justified by the fact that things were definitely quieting down - the chaos in the sky was dimming down, he was pretty sure Mecharexmon had been responsible for the commotion off in the direction of the river, and he’d taken down a significant number of Emperius goons on his own, with varying degrees of difficulty. But he didn’t trust that they were done yet, and he needed to make sure he had enough to take on whatever stragglers he managed to encounter…eating it right at the very end would be such an enormous waste of all that effort, on top of everything else.

Still, there were things keeping him wary. Why do I feel like the numbers are thinner than they should be? Is someone else offing some of these guys? Commandramon did mention they had a few people trying to pretend at being on their side…but they can’t have gotten THAT many, could they? Unless they’re a lot stronger than they let on…

That train of thought never arrived at its destination, though, as a scent in the air caught Blazereptimon off-guard. Slightly sweet, airy, a little ‘fuzzy’, the way a thickly-pelted animal might smell…but what caught him most was that it was familiar. And there weren’t too many that should have been familiar in the first place, but this one was distinctively so. He let himself follow it, trying to track it down, despite not quite having the sniffer that Ebonvargmon had. Fortunately, it wasn’t a hard trail to follow - almost like someone was hoping he would find it.

Soon enough, he saw her - a luxuriously-pelted bipedal feline digimon with ribbons off of her pelt and a scorpion-like tail. She had a demure smile on her face, one that almost radiated peace and calm, and stood peacefully with her arms behind her. “Oh, my…I heard that there had been some unusual things going on, but this wasn’t one I expected…you must be Zetta Commander, aren’t you?”

“…Meicrackmon? Is that really you?”

“In the flesh. It’s been a hard time getting here…I ended up pretending to go turncoat in order to get over here. Having to play the role of Emperius lackey has been enormously stressful. But that’s over now…I’ve finally made my escape. They can’t keep their grubby claws in me over here.” Meicrackmon gave a slight bow, one arm in front of her and the left arm behind. “By the way…I love the new look. It suits you well, Zetta Commander.”

Blazereptimon cocked his head. Commandramon’s words were on his mind - he had said that she had turned, and he didn’t think the soldier was being false - at least, not about what he thought he was seeing. But Commandramon had been playing the facade himself…could Meicrackmon have just been doing it better? “It…does? Do you know how I got it?”

“Oh, yes, they say you’ve been…combining with a human. I never thought such a thing could happen, myself…but I suppose a new world means new surprises. And it looks like you’ve been putting yourself through the wringer…I’ve been taking care of what I can, but they weren’t sparing much effort here. I’m impressed, though, you and the rest of Zetta Unit doing all this all by yourselves…it’s small wonder you’re the ace of aces among the KOL, I don’t think I could have managed. To take on so many digimon foes all on your own…”

“You don’t know the half of it. It’s good to see a familiar face…I’ve been fighting all day long, and it hasn’t gone well every time. Emperius is trying to run us ragged.”

“Well, soon we’ll be able to get you the help you need. I’m going to bring some data back to the KOL and help them upgrade their PTM…I don’t know how Emperius got theirs working better than ours, but we’ll catch up with them very soon. In the meantime, though, let me help you out, we’ll hunt them down together…I’ll lend you some of my energy so you can get charged up.” Meicrackmon held out her right hand, beckoning to Blazereptimon.

“That sounds good…I could use some of that.” Blazereptimon stepped forward towards her. His weary body certainly could have used a pick-me-up, and Meicrackmon had often offered to assist them in that way in the past. As he got close to her, he raised his hand up to meet hers…

And then raised it higher, right towards her face, the readied Solar Wave going off before she could react. Meicrackmon yowled and recoiled, instinctively bringing her left arm out to protect herself - and revealing the glittering black-and-purple dagger she’d been hiding. She suddenly lunged, trying to catch Blazereptimon off-guard through the flames, but he’d already seen that trick today and caught her as she reached him, kneeing her in the gut and then slamming her arm down on his leg, making her drop the dagger. He then shoved her back and whipped around, slamming his tail into her and sending her sprawling.

“…It really is good to see a familiar face today. It’s just a shame that that’s not YOUR face I’m talking about.” Blazereptimon picked up the dagger. “A degradation virus? Trying to ensure I couldn’t effectively fight back even if I survived your stab…clever, and also cruel.”

“Grrrr…” Meicrackmon was getting back to her feet, and she was no longer looking like the demure figure she had before - she had entered Vicious Mode, red claws extending off the backs of her hands and her ribbons and tail emitting dangerous dark wisps. “How…how did you know?! I had everything perfect, I practiced that for ages!”

“You practiced too much. It didn’t sound natural, it sounded like you were reciting it. That, and I already know the KOL was compromised.”

“…That scum-sucking gun lizard,” Meicrackmon hissed murderously. “I KNEW he couldn’t be trusted! Fine, we’ll have to do this the HARD way. I would’ve given you a quick death, but now it’s going to be long and messy! Berserk Thinking!” She leapt at Blazereptimon, swinging her claws in a cross at him and forcing him to leap back. He was keeping a hold of the dagger, not wanting to let her get her hands on it - the last thing she needed was another weapon, she had plenty of them already.

He unleashed another Solar Wave at her as she was caught in her motion, making her yowl again, her fine fur getting badly singed. “Hard to believe you of all people turned on us. You were one of the ones all over me after I put Craniummon in the dirt.”

“Well, you and the KOL had to go and ruin it by trying to protect these worthless humans!” fired back Meicrackmon and she charged again, slashing rapidly at Blazereptimon and keeping the pressure up as he quickly danced away from each swing. “Turning your back on our kind by putting their lives on the same level as ours?! I joined them just to put these useless creatures in their proper PLACE! All those fools who looked up to you, and you betray them like they meant nothing! I’ll show them who REALLY cares about them!”

She swung again, clipping Blazereptimon’s chest and drawing some blood from the light gashes. But she paid for it with a fist right to the muzzle, making her yelp as she staggered back and grabbed her face. Blazereptimon’s eyes were getting that glow again as he snarled at her. “You’re PATHETIC. You act like I’M betraying our kind, when you turned your back on them just because you couldn’t give up your idiotic hatred of humans? If you can throw all that supposed goodness away just to cling to hate, the hate was all you really cared about in the first place.”

“Shut up! You’re the pretenders, acting you care SO MUCH about digimon when you’re really just interested in putting us second to a world we never should’ve found!” Blazereptimon ducked and rolled quickly as those ribbons suddenly fired at him, and then again as the stinger on that tail tried to lance into his chest. “Emperius may be full of assholes, but they know who to put first! And they’ve changed for the better, while your stupid cult just gets worse! Die already!”

“That’s my line! Incendiary Ring!” Blazereptimon channeled the energy of his fire into those rings that compressed around Meicrackmon and burst out, sending her flying backwards. She slowly stood, looking haggard and taking raspy breaths, though still looking no less incensed. “Did you really think this slapdash rushdown garbage was going to be enough? Or were you just hoping that disabling me would make up for the fact that you couldn’t even make it to the Elite Force? I have no patience for those who choose hate when they can turn away from it. Last chance - renounce your evil or I’ll make your death quick.”

“Screw you! Cursed Claw!” Meicrackmon ran at Blazereptimon, ready to try to dice him to ribbons once more. She only got one swing in before freezing as Blazereptimon planted the dagger in her chest. The weapon quickly dissolved into data that was drawn into her, making her seize up and yowl in pain as the nasty virus rushed through her. Blazereptimon didn’t let it linger, ending her with an Inferno Claw before the effect could fully permeate; it was only accelerating the inevitable, as there was no doubt he’d hit something vital.

He felt little joy from that victory, though, as the red faded from his eyes. …Even our own aren’t immune from this foolishness. We fought side-by-side for years, trying to do the right thing…and she threw it all away just because she couldn’t accept humans. The wages of hate are death, one way or another…bad enough in humans, digimon rarely have the chance to redeem themselves before they destroy themselves with it. Sighing, he turned away and walked back towards the road, almost hoping for another fight to take his mind off of this one.

———

The last Kuwagamon in the air vanished with an agonized cry as Jetdramon’s Shear Claw ran through it. He couldn’t waste time celebrating, though, as he banked hard to try to avoid the Darkside Attack missile homing in on him, which was a lot more persistent than those airplane missiles earlier had been. Megadramon was far from done, swooping around and trying to engage more directly now, slashing with his claws as he got close to either Jetdramon or Ionfalkemon, harassing them beyond the barrages of missiles he was sending out. It was clear by this point that he’d been holding back - perhaps expecting to be playing clean-up after the rest of the air force wore the two of them down to their limits.

And that wasn’t the only problem.

“Dervish Bolt!” Ionfalkemon had just enough time to launch the attack before she had to break and fly off, taking out a couple of stray missiles in the air - but the brunt of the impact was meant to be on Megadramon, and the big dragon shrugged it off like it was nothing. Cursing, she pumped her wings to get some speed and get away from the threats, even though at this point it felt more like they wanted to fall off than cooperate. Come on, he’s the last one up here, we can’t falter now…

But even as she thought that, she was getting frustrated. Her Dervish Bolt did nothing, the Charge Fields she was laying did nothing, and like hell she was going to try to get in for a Lightning Talon. It seemed likely that he was strongly electroresistant - bad news for her attempts to attack. And she didn’t have a lot of other options available to her…

Not that Jetdramon was faring much better. “Jet Stream!” he roared out as he flung his all into the attack, the beam of wind energy scoring a direct hit on Megadramon’s hide - yet, for all the good it did, it might as well have been a tickle. Only the trailing missiles caught in the crossfire blew up, and that wasn’t going to get them any closer to victory. “Come on, what the hell?”

“Hrrhrrhrr…Just fall already, tainted ones. You can’t defeat me.” Megadramon sounded pretty cocky, but at this point Ionfalkemon wasn’t sure he didn’t have reason to be - neither of their attacks were doing much of anything. At this point, it seemed like only a matter of outlasting them, and Megadramon had been proving he could. While Jetdramon was drawing the dragon’s attention, she put up her Static Arc and let the trailing missiles hit against it and blow to smithereens - though she could still feel some of the blast, it was at least dulled. If only the shooter were as easily blown up as these missiles…how’re we gonna get out of this one?

The answer came to her in a flash. Wait…the missiles! He generates them in his arms, and shoots them out at us…but there’s a moment where his arms are open where they could be destroyed from within! Even if his body resists our attacks, the missiles blow up without any trouble…all of them stored in there would be severely damaging if they went off! But how to get him to not realize that we’re targeting that? He’s always keeping those ports closed when we’re on the offensive, he waits until we’re retreating to fire the missiles…

Still, it was something, and she needed to get Jetdramon in on it. Easier said than done, Megadramon wasn’t letting up on him, and despite being a speedy flier he had to contend with the missiles intruding on his airspace. She sailed back into the fray, unleashing a wide-spreading Dervish Bolt to try to hit both Megadramon and as many missiles as she could, hopefully without hitting Jetdramon in the process. It did clear out the air a little, but it also had the unfortunate effect of getting Megadramon’s attention on her - and it was a lot harder for HER to evade him. She flapped away as he swung his claws at her, trying to take her out of the air in one fell swoop. As she got away, she heard a deep growled “Darkside Attack!” and cursed, of course he wasn’t going to make this easy…

“Psycho Squall!” Suddenly the wind around Ionfalkemon shifted, making her squawk in surprise as she was buffeted by a powerful gale. It took her a few seconds to escape from being thrown for that loop, and she got her bearings just as she heard several explosions and an angry roar. As she swung around, she saw Megadramon trying to carefully rub at his eyes, where dark smoke was wafting up.

“Woo! I didn’t know if that was gonna work!” Jetdramon swung in, cackling a bit. “Guess those missiles need to work on getting some wind resistance like their shooter, huh?”

“You could have WARNED me,” grumbled Ionfalkemon.

“Sorry, no time! Needed to get that off before big ugly realized what I was doing! Maybe we oughta see about getting him to smack himself with a few more of those, eh?”

“I think we need to make this LESS work. We need to wreck them as they deploying! If they blow in his arms, he’ll definitely be history, but if we have to fly around like idiots trying to goad them into him, he’s gonna catch on in a hurry!”

“…Ohhh. Yeah, that’s a way better idea! But I think he knows that’s a weak point already, he doesn’t let us target them.”

“Yeah, I know! We need to figure out how to do that…” Ionfalkemon trailed off as she saw a devious smile form on Jetdramon’s face. “…What are you doing? What are you thinking?”

“Oh, I think I’ve got an idea…”

“Is it one that’s going to end in our messy deaths?”

“Maybe! C’mon, follow me!” Without giving Ionfalkemon a chance to protest, he jetted towards Megadramon, forcing the avian to trail behind with the weight of her many reservations. Megadramon’s vision still seemed to be blurry, he was trying to follow them but couldn’t, and that was getting him quite pissed off, his growls getting louder and more vicious.

Just what Jetdramon was hoping for. As he swung around behind, and saw Ionfalkemon getting there as well, he went in for the kill. “Oy, you big dummy, behind you! Whatta clown, who fails at shooting friggin’ HOMING missiles? You couldn’t hit the broad side of a Shakkoumon if you had fifty of ‘em!”

“What the HELL are you doing?!” squawked Ionfalkemon.

But Megadramon went for the bait, roaring angrily. “You want fifty?! I’ll give you insects a HUNDRED!” He raised his arms, opening them to unleash his payload - either forgetting or not realizing the danger in letting those vulnerable points be exposed. Neither one wasted time, Ionfalkemon hurling her Shock Spear and Jetdramon unleashing a Jet Stream right at those open ports as the missiles started to emerge. They passed right through the first ones coming out and went deep into those arms, meeting the near-hundred left that Megadramon had promised…

The combined explosion tore straight through Megadramon’s arms and a good chunk of his body, making him screech in agony just before he dissipated into a cloud of data. The energy from the blast sent a shockwave out that knocked both hybrids for a loop in the air, though they were at least far enough from the blast zone that it was merely disorienting rather than damaging - though, Ionfalkemon’s head was spinning a bit more from having gotten disoriented multiple times recently. “Ugh…and here I thought the air was supposed to be STABLE…”

“Dang…it’s actually over…” panted Jetdramon. “The skies are clear again! We finally took them all out! Man, I wasn’t sure we could actually do it…”

“It was definitely not the best battle situation we could’ve had,” agreed Ionfalkemon. “Next time we have to deal with a mob, we definitely need a better strategy going in…at least we made it through. And hopefully the ruckus on the ground is getting to its end, too.”

“We should probably help, huh?”

“…Yeah, we should, but…I think we should also check and make sure things are okay back at the base. Why don’t I do that, and you scout around and provide some help for the others if they need it? You can zoom around a lot faster than I can, it’ll probably be more effective if you do it.”

Jetdramon nodded. “A’right, I’ll take care of that! Hopefully they don’t pull any more Megadramons out, though, I’m not in shape for that.”

“I think we’d already know if there were any others out there. Watch for the smaller guys, and see if you can get a bead on the others and have them join in if you see anything…it’s about time we had the numbers advantage again, I think.”

“Can’t argue with that! I’m off!” Jetdramon’s wing jets fired up and he zoomed off over the city, allowing Ionfalkemon to break off and head back towards the BICI. Leaving behind them a blessed silence in the air, with the fight finally having settled down in their favor - teamwork, ingenuity, and a little luck securing their skies once more, and hopefully for a decent while.

———

Ionfalkemon would have liked to have pretended she only had noble intentions for heading inside…the truth was a lot less convenient. Weary as she was, she was looking forward to getting a bit of a break. Sure, it was probably true that Jetdramon was run down, too, but he still WAS the better one to scout at the moment. She’d make it up to him if she had to.

Inside, the main office area was kind of a mess - it was clear there had been a lot of activity there. All of it old, though, she remembered it being like that when they came in prior to the digimon intruding. She wouldn’t have minded someone coming to greet her, just for the little bit of reassurance that would provide, but they were probably all busy as well…she decided the best thing she could do was head up to Rudy’s lab and at least do a cursory check of the state of things outside.

And it turned out she wasn’t the only one who had the idea of ducking out, as Mecharexmon was already in there. He was checking on Commandramon, who’d been convinced away from the window now that the airborne threats were gone. “You still need to take it easy, your body’s still fighting that crap. The algorithm’s keeping up but I’m not sure it will if you keep exerting yourself.”

“I was just sniping from the window, I wasn’t doing THAT much,” protested Commandramon.

“Still more moving around than you were supposed to be doing.”

“Nnngh…I want to help SOMEHOW.”

“You did,” Ionfalkemon noted as she stepped towards him. “That was you plugging those jerks up there? We were toast if you didn’t jump in there. You did a great job, I can see why you got the Ace Marksmon badge.”

Mecharexmon looked up in annoyance. “Really, Bolt? I’m trying to keep him in check here and you’re encouraging him?”

“Truth is truth whether you like it or not, and maybe hearing that he HAS been a help will help settle him down. Especially because I think we’ve pretty much cleared things out out there, so you can afford to take a break now, Commandramon.”

“I’m…just glad that I could help.” Commandramon sounded much more happy about that than the words let on…though, there was a definite fatigue in there, he clearly wasn’t all the way better yet.

The lab door opened, and Rudy scuttled by, making a beeline for the computer. “How does he look, Rex?” he asked without even looking in the cyborg’s direction.

“Still hanging in there.” Mecharexmon made no note of this behavior, something Ionfalkemon thought would have been far harder for her. She certainly hoped Rudy had been watching over Commandramon better than this while they were out. “We need to make sure he rests a bit, though. I don’t want to push him harder than we have to.”

“At least maybe we’ll have a moment for that now…though I’d like to verify that before I say anything for certain, since they’ve been pretty good at being inconvenient. This scanner module really is something, I never would have thought it would be possible to detect life-forms like this without a whole rig of hardware and a dedicated facility! We could learn a whole lot about efficiency from digimon, for sure!”

“That’s something we can focus on when we’re not under the threat of imminent death. You picking up on anything?”

“Ummm…” Rudy hesitated, and Ionfalkemon could see why. The screen was showing up some kind of error message - she didn’t know what from her angle, but it certainly didn’t look like what they were looking for.

“Looks like you were too quick to sing its praises, huh?”

“I don’t understand, I didn’t change anything and it was working fine earlier…but now it’s saying signal interference?”

“…Ohhhh. Yeah, that makes sense.”

Rudy looked over at Ionfalkemon quizzically. “It does?”

“Yeah. It’s because of all the digimon we eliminated out there. Their data’s interfering with the signals.”

“Wh…that’s…that’s a thing that can happen?”

“Yup,” confirmed Mecharexmon with a sigh. “When digimon perish, their data dissipates into the air. In our world…er, in the digital world, that is, the data gets pulled into the grand data cycle, which recycles it into material that gets drawn up by other life forms. Very little data ever actually disappears, and what fraction of it does is outpaced by the amount of new generation there is, though both of those are on very small scales comparatively - on the ten-thousandths of percentage points. So yeah, there’s a standard reuptake process that occurs, drawing the data back into the cycle over time.”

“But when a LOT of digimon die in a concentrated area and a compressed period of time, that process gets bogged down, and the air gets saturated with chaff data,” added Ionfalkemon. “Especially if they’re larger digimon, and there were a few of those out there. That causes a lot of signal disruption, and there’s nothing we can do about it - they’ve been trying at CA, but no dice. It’ll clear out as reuptake happens, or as the data gets spread over the wind. There’s not really a definite timeline for that, but the wind’ll probably be faster than anything else, so…20, 30 minutes?”

“Oh…” Rudy didn’t sound totally easy with that. “That’s a long time to not know what else is out there…”

“That’s why more than half our group is currently still out there, scoping things out. Though Jetdramon’s the only one who probably KNOWS he’s specifically on scout duty, but details.”

“I see…uh…what’s going to happen to the data of digimon over here? I don’t even know if we have a ‘grand data cycle’ or anything…”

“Someone’s going to have to look into that, if we get to that point,” replied Mecharexmon. “Could be lots of things…could end up staying in the atmosphere indefinitely because there’s nothing to pull it out. There could be a force that DOES pull it out, and basically starts up a data cycle of its own, though with so little material that it might not even be practical. Or, it’s possible it could find its way back to our world through some inscrutable process. I’m not even going to pretend I have any idea, or that I care enough about it at the moment to spend processing cycles on it.”

“I guess it’s well down on the list of priorities…but is it going to affect your guys’s cycles at all, losing that data?”

“Not remotely. We’ve barely dented the mass of available data in the cycle - no estimate is over 5%, and this is with a pretty well-established population and advanced society. The cycle wouldn’t risk being strained until at least 50% saturation, and I’m not even sure it’s possible for us to get to that point without running into much more granular resource limitations. To put it another way, if every single digimon on our world died over here, it wouldn’t have any appreciable effect on the data cycle…though, some divine beings would be pretty pissed off at having to rebuild things.”

“Tangenting on hypotheticals, Rex?” chuckled Ionfalkemon.

“My mind is not at its most focused right now. I need a break.” As if to emphasize that point, Mecharexmon retreated to his base form and then split apart into Isaac and Datacarnomon. Ionfalkemon took that as as good an excuse as any to follow suit, separating back into her component beings as well. The fatigue hit like a truck as soon as they got their senses back - if their first unmerging had felt wearying, this was about an order of magnitude worse, and with far less guarantee of time to recover.

“Ugh…one of those times I wish I had a good way of replenishing my energy,” groaned Datacarnomon. “I guess I just have to hope we have time to re-energize for a bit.”

“I could probably stand to eat something, but I think the pizza got totally wiped out, and I doubt anyone else’s busy bringing anything in,” Isaac sighed. “Might have to hit the vending machines…ugh, I do NOT want to go to my parents for cash…what’s with you?” That was directed at Iris and Shockavimon, who were looking at Isaac with very strange expressions.

“…Isaac…what’s going on with your arm?”

Iris pointed to Isaac’s right arm, and the boy looked down and started at the sight - what had, only hours before, been a normal arm was now no longer. The entire arm from the wrist almost all the way to the elbow appeared to be covered in some kind of metal, mostly smooth but with little blocky protrusions here and there. “What…what the hell’s going on?!”

“Did something go wrong with our separation?” Datacarnomon asked in a panicky voice. “That’s never happened before! Nothing felt any different!”

“Not to me either…Rudy! Scan me!”