Chapter Text
Sunset settled over the valley, painting the land in red and orange hues. Gallantmon flew on Grani’s back, enjoying the crisp fall breeze as they went. He directed Grani toward a gathering of clouds, his wing tip touching it and dragging the wisps along. Gallantmon giggled, adjusting the positioning of his feet as a new idea came to mind.
“Ready, Grani?”
“Wait, you’re not going to-?”
Gallantmon jumped off, launching higher into the air. He flipped backwards as Grani scrambled to catch him. His landing on Grani’s back was rather shaky, but it was still a success in his book. Gallantmon’s giggles evolved into full laughter. There was nothing like the freedom of the sky, was there?
“You really ought to take this more seriously,” Grani chided him. “We’re on a reconnaissance mission for the city of Salamander’s Rest, remember?”
“Oh, lighten up. We can enjoy ourselves a little bit during the trip, can’t we?”
“They sounded pretty worried on the comms. Maybe there’s-”
A knot of pain suddenly built up in Gallantmon’s chest. He knelt down, taking quick breaths. He looked down at the symbols on the back of his hands, his stomach lurching as he found them glowing.
“Gallantmon? It’s-It’s not the Digital Hazard, is it?”
“Take me back! Quickly!”
Grani drove him over to one of the cliffs, setting down on it. The glowing went away, and Gallantmon found himself breathing easier. He got off of Grani, peering over the rocks in the distance. From here, they could find some kind of crater within the valley, a dark miasma surrounding it. Gallantmon felt ill just looking at it.
“That doesn’t look like your usual Digital Hazard Event,” Gallantmon muttered.
“The normal ones don’t make your Hazard react like that. What if there’s-”
The ground suddenly trembled beneath them, putting them off balance. Cracks grew in the rocks, and strange creatures emerged from them. These ones took the corrupted forms of Digimon, spirals coalescing into something of a coherent shape. They surrounded the pair, hunger in their eyes.
"I definitely don't like this !" Grani shouted. "What are those things!?"
It was never a good sign when Grani couldn't tell him what something was. Gallantmon summoned his shield and lance, drawing closer to Grani. "Stick close!"
A stringy creature lunged at Gallantmon, but he destroyed it with his lance. Grani shot fireballs from his maw, destroying three gear creatures. A claw creature grabbed Gallantmon's foot, and he kicked it off. He hopped onto Grani's back as three stringy creatures lunged for him. Claw creatures grabbed Grani's wings, digging into his metal plating. Gallantmon fired a beam from his shield, clearing a path for escape.
They took to the air as more creatures filled the gaps they cleared. Gallantmon hacked the claw creatures on Grani's wings, pushing them off.
"Set course for Salamander's Rest," Gallantmon told Grani. "We'll need to call the others to help us-"
"Gallantmon, look up."
Gallantmon did. His heart dropped into his stomach, finding swarms of the strange creatures blocked the setting sun. They practically infested the valley. Gallantmon had never seen such terrifying creatures in his life. The people of Salamander's Rest hadn't mentioned anything like this when they asked for his reconnaissance.
Gallantmon turned his head to find the swarm from the cliffs chasing after them. He adjusted his position on Grani, turning around and firing another blast from his shield. Gallantmon told Grani to fly, and he continued firing at the creatures. They hurried back the way they came, fending off the creatures as they went.
But it was a futile effort. For every ten creatures that Gallantmon destroyed, twenty came to replace their numbers. It was all the pair could do to keep from being surrounded.
"We're going to bring the swarm to the city at this rate," Grani cried. "We have to try something else."
"Are any of your readings helpful for us?"
"I'm not sure. These readings… some of them seem awfully close to normal Digimon!"
Digimon? They seemed more like drones. They reminded Gallantmon more of the deathdorugreymons- or the mecha rogues. They certainly swarmed around like those two examples. There had to be a way to fend them off. They just-
Electricity arced over their heads, destroying the creatures above them. Gallantom glanced back, finding a brown-clad Digimon hovering behind them. Feathered wings sat by his shoulders, and his long golden mane flowed in the breeze. He looked like some kind of vigilant ronin.
“I thought it was farther away than this,” the ronin muttered.
“Huh?” Gallantmon asked.
“The Digital Hazard. That’s what the Spirals are looking for.”
Gallantmon fired another beam at the approaching swarm, placing a hand on his chest- over the symbol emblazoned on the front of his armor. “The… Digital Hazard, you say?”
The ronin fired more pulses from the tip of his sword, destroying a few smaller creatures. “They’ll back off if we either neutralize the Hazard or nullify it.”
Nullify it, huh? “Are you ready, Grani?”
“Not really, but go ahead.”
Gallantmon tossed his lance away, placing his hand on Grani’s head. Their bodies broke apart into pixels, swirling and coalescing together. Two became one, and a knight fully clad in armor took the lead. Six sets of wings sat on their back, and a lance of light fit into their hands. Their body burned with an intense heat, one that seemed to intimidate the swarm.
“Let’s clean up shop,” they said, Gallantmon and Grani’s voices echoing in unison.
They charged forward, slicing the creatures apart. Each one easily fell away with a single strike of their lance, and not even their sheer numbers could stand a chance against this powerful warrior. The remaining number of the swarm quickly fled away from them.
Which was a good thing- because the warrior could not maintain their form much longer.
Their body broke down, reassembling into Gallantmon and Grani. They plummeted to the earth, the last thing they saw being the ronin chasing after them.
Leopardmon barely caught the knight and zero arm before they hit the valley floor. With his meek frame, it was rather difficult for him to hold them both. He lowered them to the ground before collapsing onto his knees, gasping for breath.
He looked up at the cliffs, finding the Spirals retreating back there. He thought that they would have stuck around for a little longer, especially if there was a Digital Hazard nearby. Leopardmon had found data for a Hazard Event forming several miles away from this site, but maybe he was wrong.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
But then he glanced over at the knight, noting the symbols on his armor. Those couldn’t be a coincidence. And the knight demonstrated considerable power when jogressed with his mount. They were almost as powerful as…
Leopardmon balked, staring down at the unconscious duo. No, there was no way he saved members of…
He let out a sigh. They still needed his aid, whether they were with… them … or not.
Leopardmon dragged them into the nearby woods, setting up camp there. The sun had fallen below the horizon by the time he was done, and the stars were beginning to come out- though the canopy made them hard to see. The growing darkness of the woods was comforting for Leopardmon. He had excellent vision at night, and without a campfire going, nothing could find him out here.
He tapped a key on his wrist, bringing up his Digi UI- a special hologram system that let him scan and record data. Leopardmon scrolled through the files he had recorded, searching for the information he had gathered from this region. He thought he had found traces of Hazards in this valley, ones that matched his previous quarries. He didn’t make a mistake somewhere, did he? Perhaps he accidentally logged something in the wrong file, or…
Leopardmon’s eyes threatened to close. He picked his head up, rubbing his eyes to try and wake himself up. He thought the cold air would keep him awake, but it seemed to be having the opposite effect. The heat of late summer was also lovely at trying to knock him out.
Or maybe it was just because he was tired all the time.
He heard a groan behind him. Leopardmon turned around, finding the pair waking up.
“Rrgh… Grani?” the knight grumbled.
“Right here, Gallantmon.”
The knight glanced over at his mount before clutching his head. “Ugh, I’ve never enjoyed the crash after the high.”
Leopardmon cocked his head at them. “Are you feeling alright?”
The knight- Gallantmon- nodded. “Yeah. Th… Thank you, by the way. For not leaving us.”
The mount- Grani- hovered up. He nudged his way toward Leopardmon, his eyes curled up in a sort of smile. “Ah, my scanners are still working. You are a leopardmon!”
Leopardmon could only give him a curt nod. “And I believe you are a zero arms unit. I didn’t think there were any still in use.”
“Hm, I suppose you’re right about that. This is probably the first time you’ve ever seen one.”
Leopardmon looked back at the knight. “You’re not… Royal Knights, are you?”
“What would you think if we were?” Gallantmon asked.
“The details don’t interest me. I just know there are a myriad of ways I could get in trouble if I overstepped my bounds with them.”
Gallantmon sat up, stretching. “You don’t have to worry about that. We appreciate you coming in when you did. What did you call those things before? Spirals?”
Leopardmon nodded, pulling up the file on his UI. “I’ve only started seeing them recently myself. Me and a few others who’ve visited the Frames, anyway.”
“You mean… the Frames between Old and New Ymir?”
“That’s right. The working theory is that the Spirals were once Digimon that got trapped between versions of this Server after the Reboot that ended the X Crisis- but that doesn’t really work for me. The Spirals would have to carry the X Virus in that case, and I’ve never encountered one that did.”
Grani poked his nose at the hologram screen. “And you do this with these… thingies? What are these for?”
“It’s a Digi UI. You haven’t seen it?”
“Apparently there’s a lot we haven’t seen recently.”
“They’ve been developing them in the bigger cities across the Server. Mine is just a prototype, but it lets me scan and analyze data like a zero arms unit, as well as organize the data it’s collected for easy use.”
Grani scoffed. “It can do all that?! I hardly think you were that interested in seeing any zero arms, then!”
Gallantmon chuckled, patting him on the head. “Don’t worry, Grani. That shiny thing couldn’t replace you. I mean, it doesn’t even have any offensive capabilities.”
Leopardmon shook his head. “Unfortunately. It would certainly be easier for me to travel alone like this if it did.”
“And… what are you doing out here, exactly? Something tells me you’re not just studying Spirals.”
How much should he tell them? Leopardmon’s quarry was the exact kind that warriors like the Royal Knights would snatch up. He could see it now- Gallantmon would say something like ‘this is too much for you’ and chase him out. Or worse, keep him on only as a consultant, and then bench him once the action started.
No one else could take on this foe except for Leopardmon.
His redemption depended on it.
Leopardmon pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. The Royal Knights weren’t the kind of Digimon he could chase away with a few excuses. They had to be here on a mission already- and perhaps their missions were linked. It wasn’t worth the energy to chase them away.
“It’s… Spiral research is incidental,” Leopardmon began. “I’ve noticed that Spirals tend to gather near sites with developing Digital Hazard Events. I’ve been tracking and eliminating such events, all in an effort to track down something terrible.”
Grani backed away, blinking in surprise. “That miasma in the valley. You don’t think it was…?”
Leopardmon looked over at him. “Show me.”
Grani brought up a hologram, depicting the valley from earlier. A dark miasma filled a crater deep within. Leopardmon drew his own hologram over it, scanning the depicted environment to track down its coordinates. It pinged him with a response.
The same site he had predicted earlier today.
He hadn’t been wrong after all.
“No, these coordinates…,” Gallantmon gasped. “This was where Belphemon’s Tower once stood."