Up In the Sky: A Surprise Visit!
"Yang Xiao Long, let go of me this instant!" commanded Weiss Schnee, Heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, even as her busty blonde friend dragged her across Beacon's courtyard to the waiting airships.
Yang flashed a mischievous smile at Weiss, "Ah, c'mon Weiss. With Ruby back home for the next day or two, we should enjoy the fun while it lasts!"
Weiss dug her heels into the ground, to no avail. Once Yang had her mind set on something, there was very little that could stop her from getting to it. Though, Weiss could certainly be stubborn in her own right when the occasion demanded it.
"If that were true, you would have invited Blake! Not those two!" she jerked her head at their friends. Nora Valkyrie skipped merrily alongside Yang and grinned merrily at Weiss's acknowledgement. Opposite her Lie Ren walked solemnly, a man resigned to his fate.
Yang made a clicking noise with her tongue, the noise of a parent scolding a child, "Weiss, they're our friends too. Don't be mean."
"No offense," Weiss growled at them and then glared back at Yang, tugging hard on her grip until her hand finally slipped free of Yang's grip.
Yang stopped and turned around with her hands on her hips. She may have only been a little taller than average, but without her high heels, she was still clearly taller than Weiss; Yang knew, though, that trying to intimidate her was an exercise in futility. Like her, Weiss was a huntress in training at Beacon Academy, learning how to fight the monsters that lived outside the borders of the four kingdoms. This gave her a stubborn streak that was almost on par with Yang's.
"Blake is hiding in the library," Yang explained, slowly, " last I checked. Nothing short of the apocalypse will drag her out of there. That just leaves the two of us, and I'm not gonna' spend the start of our spring break cooped up in the dorm."
Weiss's eyes flashed as she rubbed her wrist, "Ruby said you went club hopping by yourself all the time before you came to Beacon. Why drag the three of us along?"
Nora wrapped an arm around Yang's shoulder, still smiling, "Actually, I decided to tag along on my own! Ren agreed to be the designated driver in case anything crazy happens!"
Weiss glanced at Ren, who shrugged silently in response. She sighed and looked back at Yang, "But why me? I'm fine at the dorm or on campus. A little R&R would be appreciated after the mess we made in Vale."
Despite what Weiss said, the 'mess' in Vale had been an almost disappointingly tiny breach in the city's defenses orchestrated by a surprisingly flamboyant criminal. It had taken less than ten minutes for the city defenses to clean up the mess, and even without help from the visiting representative from the Atleasian army, it would've been handled fine. Now Vale was safe and sound again, and travel from Beacon to the city was approved for any and all students, so long as they were back on campus by ten o'clock at night.
"Weiss," Yang pleaded. "You need to get out more. How much harm could a little harm actually do?"
The only response from Weiss, was an elegant raise of one snow white eyebrow. Yang frowned and poked her in the ribs, "Come on."
Weiss pushed her hand away, "No."
Another poke.
"Come on."
"No!"
Poke
"Come on."
"I said no, Yang."
Yang sighed and raised her hands in defeat, "Alright, fine. You win. If you're really dead set on having a boring night on campus, I won't stop you."
Weiss brushed off her glacial blue dress and said, "Thank you, Yang. I appreciate-"
It was at that specific moment that the sky over Beacon promptly exploded. Yang and the few other individuals in the courtyard staggered and covered their eyes as light brighter than the sun lit the horizon. Sparks streamed from the rapidly forming rift, showering those below in intense fire. In seconds, a tear hundreds of feet long and dozens across filled the sky overhead and blanketed the entirety of the academy in its blinding light.
"What is going on!?" Weiss demanded.
Nora answered the only way she could,"The sky is falling!"
Yang pulled her shades out from the pocket in her coat, even as Weiss made a noise of disgust, and slipped them on. Even with them though, the light overhead burned her eyes. She began to pull her gaze away, when something caught her attention. A dark speck in the center of the tear. A speck that was very quickly getting larger.
"Everyone move!" Yang yelled. There was no argument, they scattered back towards the academy.
They made it maybe a few dozen feet when a giant hit the ground with his personal sledgehammer. It bucked beneath Yang's feet, sending her tumbling end over end across the cobblestone pathway that cut through the center of the courtyard. She rolled to a stop at the base of the Statue of Heroes, a memorial for the lost built in the center of Beacon's courtyard.
When her vision stopped spinning, Yang was able to get a grasp on the situation. Beacon Academy was built overlooking a seaside cliff edge, around a massive central radio station that stretched well over a thousand feet high. Most of its structures were composed of a brick edifice, which stretched north and south along its eastern and western flanks. The side that faced the cliff's edge held a large open courtyard that lead directly to the tower itself, preceded only by the plaza where the statue was located and surrounded by a dozen towering marble columns on either side.
All of this was left relatively intact by the colossal impact, though the courtyard grass was a little scorched. There weren't many people coming to and from Beacon at the moment, thankfully, only a few staff members and fellow students. They had had the good sense to book it back for the main campus when the rift had opened, so none of them saw what had landed.
But Yang saw, and she couldn't believe what her eyes were showing her.
It slowly rose until it stood over five stories high, covered in crimson red armor. It was bipedal, with digitigrade legs that ended in claws made of a shining steel. Its massive arms were nearly as long as its entire body, the left ending in a trident like claw and the right in a grasping hook. A pair of massive turbines rested on its back and a long armored tail ponderously twitched from side to side. Its head was half smooth plating and half angular armor focused along its lower jaws. Long fangs jutted from its mouth even when closed, and a long piece of crimson metal rose from its snout. A pair of sickly yellow eyes rested within its armored skull, highlighted further by the ugly green sclera that surrounded the irses..
This creature, unlike any that Yang had ever seen, began to slowly look from side to side, sending dazzling reflections from the rift dancing across its armor. That light was beginning to fade, but it was slow and still made Yang feel half blind. She felt a hand wrap around her arm, and a familiar voice called out.
"Are you okay?" it was Ren's.
"Yeah, thanks." She said. He helped her to her feet, where they both turned their attention back to the monster.
"What in the world is that thing?" Yang heard Weiss ask from behind her. Nora came up beside them at the same time, equally as puzzled. "I dunno, I've never seen anything like it. Think it's a Grimm?"
The creature took in a deep breath and exhaled, which sounded similar to a massive stage fan running at full power. Then, it spoke, in a voice of rasping steel and cold unfeeling machine, sending shivers down the spines of anyone that heard it.
"So, this is the human world... It smells delicious..."
Then it ploughed its hook straight into the ground. Stone and earth parted like water, which itself began spraying from broken pipes in geysers. It pulled its hook back, pulling cables from the ground in long strings, and twisted its arm.
"Wowza!" Nora yelped.
Yang looked at her with a raised brow. Every hair on Nora's body stood on end, turning her into a giant orange dandelion with attitude. There was a surprised and somewhat pleased expression on her face, that just made Yang raise her brow even higher.
"You guys can't feel that?" Nora asked, waving at the air.
"Feel what?" Weiss replied.
Nora pointed at the tower, then at the giant robo-lizard that seemed to be ignoring them, "The huge current of electricity going towards that thing. It's like Beacon is its own personal milkshake, and the power lines are its straw."
The machine let out a satisfied sigh in response, and a crackle of static lightning ran across its arm.
Yang quirked her lips, "Well then, let's have a nice friendly chat with the ginormous armored gecko, shall we?"
Around each of Yang's wrists was a golden bracelet that hung loosely around her fingerless gloves. When she clenched her fists, each one spiraled out into large gauntlets that covered her hands and most of her forearms. As a Huntress-in-training, Yang had been required to build a personal weapon to suit her fighting style. The result was a pair of shotgun gauntlets that she had named Ember Celica. Their range was limited, but Yang had always preferred getting up close and personal with her opponents.
She looked to see Weiss and Nora with their mobile phones, commonly called Scrolls, in their hands. In the distance, there was a distinct hiss of two missiles being launched, and a pair of pinpricks raced across the overlit sky. They came to a crashing vertical stop a few feet to the right in a shower of stone and exhaust.
The missiles were actually rocket guided lockers that Beacon provided for the students. Not everyone had weapons they could wear like Yang did, and so they stored them in an RGL until they needed them. Weiss slipped her phone inside her snow-white jacket right as the locker doors swung open in unison.
Nora pulled out a colossal silver and pink hammer, hefting it like it was a toy, while Weiss retrieved her delicate rapier, and spun the revolver chamber built into the hilt. Four lights ignited along the surface in unison, casting a faint glow across the blade's surface. Weiss gave it an experimental swing, and smirked when she saw Yang looking at her.
Yang did the same, and gave Ren a quick glance. He held his weapons ready, a pair of emerald machine pistols with sickle knives added to the end of the barrels, and nodded at her. Satisfied that their impromptu team was ready for action, Yang whirled back around toward their uninvited guest, and froze.
The machine was staring at them with one yellow-green eye, mouth hanging open in a sly grin at their antics. Now that they were aware of its attention, it slowly removed its hook from the ground, snapping cables as thick around as Yang's arm with almost contemptuous ease. It steadied itself on its legs, shaking the ground as it did, and lowered its head to be more level with the four of them.
"You must be humans… I've heard quite a bit about you… I must say, I'm far from impressed." it said. Its voice was filled with a mocking laughter that made Yang bristle.
She took a threatening step forward, "Watch it motormouth, I've taken things way bigger than you. Far as I'm concerned, you're just a calculator with an attitude problem."
More of its mechanical laughter, and the machine rose to its full height, "Big words, from something so tiny… But can you back them up, human?"
Yang sneered, and before Weiss could even shout "Wait!", she was off like a bullet. Though she wasn't the fastest huntress in her class, Yang could still haul into action when the situation required it. In a few bounding leaps, she was at the machines feet. She thrust both arms behind her, and fired Ember Celica.
While a lot of the rounds she used had a lot of kick in them, Yang typically kept her gauntlets loaded with shells designed to move her faster and farther. They could hit hard if the occasion demanded it, but that took way more effort than it was worth. But as a set of personal rocket boosters, they were perfect.
The first round launched her a good ten feet into the air, and when her feet touched metal, she launched herself again. And again, and again she rose higher up the machine before it could move. Its large size was intimidating, but it took time to move all that bulk, and by that time, Yang was already up at its face.
She hit the monster across its oversized anvil of a head as hard as she could, firing a round for good measure. The kick sent her spiraling away through the air into gravity's clutches. The machine's head snapped forward with mechanical precision, bringing its massive jaws crashing down on Yang.
Or rather, it tried to bring them down on her. Through sheer luck, determination, and a lot of skill, Yang jammed her hands and feet in between its enormous fangs and pinned its jaw open. That effort alone shocked the strength from her limbs, and every second was an agonizing struggle against death. The putrid stink of its mouth odor didn't help. Go figure that was the one part of its body not covered in metal. Something slimy ran down Yangs forearms and dripped into her hair, and she gagged.
That wasn't even the worst part. When it started laughing at her, a slow, mocking mechanical laughter that shook its cavernous maw, Yang's blood began to boil with indignant anger. But she was stuck, she couldn't move an inch without risking being crushed, and some small part of her thought that the machine knew it.
Its laughter slowed to a stop, and it spoke, "I think that's enough playtime for now…"
Air rushed past Yang from behind into the massive gullet that waited to swallow her. She took a deep breath, and tensed for whatever was going to come next. An orange glow began to fill its throat a moment later.
-PYRO BLASTER!-
A wall of compressed heat smashed into Yang and knocked her free of her pinned position. A ball of superheated fire rolled through the air a moment later, missing her by inches and soaring for several dozen feet before exploding against the courtyard and setting it ablaze.
End over end, Yang began to fall to the courtyard below. It would have been too short a fall for her to adjust and land properly, but that was a non-issue. Before she even hit the ground, Yang felt someone grab her mid air before they both landed back on the ground a fair distance from the machine.
"Uh, thanks…" Yang blinked a few times and shook her head until her vision cleared. "Thanks Ren."
The young man nodded and helped Yang to her feet, "Next time, wait."
"We've fought big nasties before," Yang replied, and brushed ash off her shoulders. When she ran a hand through her long curly blonde hair, she felt the spit that had started to dry and tangle it, and sneered.
"And I'm going to teach this one some proper manners." she said in a low growl, before stalking forward. Ren grabbed her by the arm and said, "Yang, you need to back off. We can't hurt this machine with our weapons. Its armor is too strong."
She slammed her fists together with a sharp crack, knuckle to knuckle and snarled. It was frustrating to admit, but when Yang looked back at the carnage unfolding in front of the courtyard pillars, she realized that Ren might have a point.
During her little brush with almost becoming robo lizard chow, Nora and Weiss had been busy. Grenades soared in great arcs through the air, exploding into clouds of pink smoke with each impact against the cyborg's crimson surface. Nora quickly followed, bouncing between joints by smashing her hammer into them as hard as she could and using the impact to propel her to the next one.
Beneath its feet, the ground was ablaze with brilliant white glyphs that exploded into crystalline towers of ice that grabbed at its clawed feet. A dozen more glyphs, each a deep ebony, appeared across its body, where they hung as immovable cornerstones. Weiss stood stationary, waving her rapier in elegant gestures; a conductor of warfare, and this was her music.
None of it left so much as a scratch on its armor. They might as well have been pelting it with snowballs for all the good it was doing; it just walked through everything, Weiss's glyphs and Nora's barrage. With every step, it was drawing closer to Beacon Tower.
Yang admittedly wasn't the most up to date when it came to history or current events, but she was changing that and even she knew that Beacon Tower was vital for communication with the other kingdoms. If this thing, this cyborg lizard, whatever it was called, got its mitts on the tower, it would have no trouble bringing the whole thing down.
"Not on my watch," Yang growled under her breath. Louder she said, "Ren, come on. We're all that stands in its path."
Ren went tight lipped, but he didn't protest what Yang was saying. He nodded, and Yang grinned. "All right! Lets-!"
Turbines roared overhead, and a pair of VTOL aircraft came screaming over the campus airspace. Beacon had been in a time of celebration when this sudden rift had torn open the sky, an international event called the Vytal Festival. Representatives from the four kingdoms had all come to join in celebration and memory of eighty years of general world peace. Of the three out of kingdom representatives though, only one of them had brought an entire armada with them.
General Ironwood, for whatever reason, had brought several of his massive military airships to Beacon, which included several Bullhead VTOLs. Yang had ridden in a few and seen them drop off troops before. She had never seen them engaged in combat like this though.
Both of them launched missiles from hidden compartments on their hulls in a flurry of smoke and fire. A dozen swarming rockets that smashed into the attacking monster's chest. It was enough to actually force it to stop, and even make it flinch in surprise, at the very least. Smoke quickly filled the air, hiding it from view.
Yang and Ren quickly recovered from the sudden interference, and went sprinting into the smoke. Covering her mouth with her arm, Yang went straight for the last place she had seen Weiss. To her relief, the pale faced girl hadn't left, but that relief quickly turned into worry when she saw Weiss on her knees.
"Are you okay!?" Yang asked, sliding next to her and carefully grabbing her by the shoulders.
Weiss coughed and brushed Yangs hands away, "I'm… fine. Just a little tired. I've never summoned that many glyphs that quickly before. Just give me a minute."
The ground shook, and the smoke swirled around them. Overhead, a shadow loomed, parting the smoke before its bulk with each ground-shaking step. Its scarlet chassis slid from their embrace, and to Yang's pleasure, she saw a few scuff marks on its chest. It wasn't much, but it was something.
That something must have struck a nerve, as the cyborg opened its mouth and unleashed a roar that could best be described as the revving of a hundred engines at once. The smoke cover vanished, and the Bullheads became visible again, painfully clear and outlined by the light of the rift.
Yang grabbed the rapier on the ground and shoved it into Weiss's hands, "Time's up!"
"Right!"
They both stumbled away even as the lizard whirled around to face the bullheads. They were circling around for another pass, the miniguns slung under their bulbous noses spinning up to unleash thunderous bursts. Twin linked machine gun fire raced across the sky and raked against its chassis, deflecting harmlessly off its body. Yang felt something hard slam into her back, but her natural Aura protected her from it, so that she only stumbled.
She and Weiss managed to get distance between them and the chaos unfolding, right as Ren and Nora linked back up with them. Nora was grinning like mad, but Ren had a grim expression on his face. Yang agreed with how he looked, things were going pear-shaped fast.
The cyborg roared another challenge at the approaching bullheads. They began to split up and apart from one another to prepare for another pass, but it wasn't going to let them go that easily.
-TRIDENT SKEWER!-
-CHAOS CRUSHER!-
Fire ignited from the grasping hook of its right arm, propelling the three pronged grabber through the air at ludicrous speed. Its trident shaped left arm was launched too, connected to its host by a retractable steel cable. The former tore the engine off the left side bullhead, sending it spinning out of control until it crashed atop a dormitory and slid off where it vanished in a scream of tearing metal. The latter found itself impaled by the trident arm through the main body, and pulled towards the machine.
"No, no!" Yang made a beeline back into the fray, ignoring the protests of the others.
Both hook and claw returned to their owner, gripping the newly acquired bullhead in its claws. It laughed again, even as the crew abandoned ship, "So disappointed… I had expected so much more, from humans."
Its yellow eyes flicked up towards Yang and the others, and its jaws parted in a sadistic grin. With a flick of its arm, the bullhead went spinning end over end, straight for the four students. Yang came to a skidding stop, and her legs slipped out from under her. She scrambled backwards, but it was no use. The aircraft arced high into the air and fell towards Yang as a plummeting ten ton missile.
And then suddenly, it was stopped.
The world had gone dark, there had been a crash of steel on steel… Yang blinked her eyes, and thought for a moment she was dead. The bullhead's mutilated remains crashed to the side, confirming that no, she was not dead. Her gaze went from the aircraft, towards the source of the mysterious shadow.
The first thing she saw, was a pair of large, kind amber eyes that practically glowed. They were all she could make out behind her rescuer's helmet, modeled after knightly headgear, like she saw in the movies. A red dragonhead had been modeled onto the helmet, and a silver plume fell off to the side.
He was big, a good thirty feet tall. Unlike the rampaging robo-lizard though, he had a more human shape. Obviously he wasn't human though. Marble white armor adorned his body from head to toe, shiny and clean. His body was odd, in that while the proportions were right for the most part, his waist was too thin, his legs too long and his chest too wide. He had the body of some over designed video game character, Yang thought.
A pair of red and golden pauldrons rested on his shoulders, and a long red cape hung from his back and cloaked the both of them. Over his head, he held a colossal round shield that was nearly as large as he was. It was what he had used to block the descent of the bullhead, and he had done it faster than Yang had been able to process. That, or he'd been invisible.
The… man, that was the only appropriate descriptor, cocked his head to the side, as if he was examining Yang at the same time she was looking at him. He spoke in a soft tenor, and very eloquently.
"Are you unharmed, human child? Chaosdramon has done no harm to you?"
Yang blinked, "I-I'm fine. He got some drool in my hair, but I'm okay. And my name is Yang."
"Apologies," he said, bowing his head slightly, "You may call me Gallantmon, Miss Yang."
What kind of name was that? Yang said so aloud, and Gallantmon chuckled, "It is my name, simple as that. Now, miss Yang, I will ask that you return to your comrades. I imagine they are quite concerned for your current condition."
Yang got to her feet and brushed herself off, "Um, right. Thanks… Gallantmon."
Another bow, "The pleasure is mine, ma'am."
"Sir," she corrected. "Call me sir."
"Apologies again, sir." Gallantmon said. Then he stood as well, and swept his cape aside with his free hand. The rifts light shimmered along his armored body, and even as he stood with his cape gently blowing in the breeze, Yang was immediately reminded of the statue in the courtyard. A living legend come to life.
She was also reminded that she should probably back off for the moment, and quickly ran back to the others. Weiss was scowling at her, hands on hips, when Yang got to them, and jabbed a finger at her, "Yang Xiao Long! Don't ever do something that stupid again, okay!? The last thing I need is you getting hurt on my watch."
Yang nodded absent-mindedly, "Whatever you say Weiss…"
She, like Ren and Nora, was far more focused on Gallantmon and the machine, what he had called Chaosdramon. They stood a fair distance apart, but Chaosdramon had its head low and looked absolutely furious at the appearance of the knight.
Gallantmon held his shield tight to his chest, covering most of his body, and spoke. He spoke, and though he didn't yell, he could be clearly heard.. It sounded like he was standing among them, and not a few hundred feet away.
"Chaosdramon, you have committed crimes against the denizens of the Digital World, and of the Human World. The innocent have perished by your hand, and more live in danger by your mere presence. Yet, I am not without mercy. Surrender now, and you will be brought back to the Digital World to stand trial. I offer you this now; what say you?"
Chaosdramon scoffed, "Do you practice speeches like that…? Or is being that much of a pompous windbag programmed into you…?"
It glanced skyward, and its mouth parted in another grin, "Besides, the rift cannot remain open forever, Royal Knight… If I resist, will you be willing to risk being trapped here forever…?"
Yang and the others followed his gaze. To her surprise, she realized that Chaosdramon was right. The light was nowhere near as blinding as before, and while Yang could see nothing beyond the portal, she could see the sky of Beacon slowly eroding it away.
Gallantmon let out a sigh, "You sadden me, Chaosdramon. My duty is to the protection of the innocent, be they human or digimon. I will not allow you to run rampant against those that have wronged us. If you insist on being difficult, then know that what follows is your fault, and your fault alone."
He raised his free hand to the sky, and a bolt of lightning erupted literally from nowhere to strike it. In its place, he held a long lance, nearly as long as he was. Gallantmon's arm fell forward, and he took up a fighter's stance. Chaosdramon roared, and went low, baring his fangs in a rumbling snarl.
"Have at you!"
Gallantmon charged, and he was as fast as Yang thought he would be. A lance was normally used on horseback, but the knight moved with such speed and grace that it was unnecessary. Compared to him, Chaosdramon might as well have been standing still.
His lance took Chaosdramon in the shoulder, skidding off the plating in a shower of sparks. Gallantmon leaped past Chaosdramon, twisting midair to land behind it and thrust his lance forward. Chaosdramon turned in time for another blow to scrape across its midsection, and a third across its chest.
Another roar sounded from its mouth, and the fourth blow was intercepted by its long trident arm. Gallantmon dodged back in time to avoid the attack from its hook that reduced the ground to rubble where he had been standing before, and immediately counter attacked. Once more Chaosdramon blocked it, and countered.
For several long seconds it went like this, attack and counter attack. Gallantmon pressed hard though, practically dancing around any of Chaosdramon's counter moves. With each of his own attacks, he slowly forced it backwards, step by step.
Most importantly, each attack had an actual impact on Chaosdramon. Though it wasn't much, where Gallantmon's lance struck, it left thin scratches in Chaosdramon's armor. Where the armor seemed to be thinner, those wounds widened into thick gouges. Unlike them, Gallantmon had the weaponry to hurt Chaosdramon, and Chaosdramon knew it.
Another exchange of blows, but this time Chaosdramon feinted his counter. He slammed his hooked arm into Gallantmon's shield with a bell-tolling, resounding impact. The force was strong enough to send Gallantmon soaring backwards, falling on his back. He quickly adapted and rolled back onto his feet, using his shield to steady himself, and once more went charging into the fray.
Yang felt antsy as she watched all this. As awesome as it was to watch Gallantmon beat the snot out of Chaosdramon, she hated sitting on the sidelines, there had to be something she could do, anything. She had considered convincing the others to go put out the fire Chaosdramon had started earlier, but it had burned itself out quickly, save for a few minor burners on the lawn. The festival hadn't quite begun, so the few civilians on campus would have already fled, and most of the students were either in Vale vacationing, or off taking contract jobs in the greater Kingdom as a whole.
As far as she knew, they were the only four huntresses in the immediate area. It would turn out though, that she was only half right.
"What in the world is going on here?" A baritone voice demanded.
Yang and the others whirled around to see General Ironwood approaching them, his stern expression quickly changing into one of confusion as he beheld the brawl between Gallantmon and Chaosdramon, who was wailing on the former's shield.
Ironwood was a tall man, dressed military neat with short black hair that was beginning to grey. He had a strong face and dark calculating blue eyes. It was normally hard to get a read on Ironwood, but it was obvious that he had not expected to see any of what he saw now when he woke up in the morning.
"Oh, General Ironwood!" Weiss said, surprised. She looked back at the courtyard and winced, "It's um, a long story."
Ironwoods expression went stern again, "Explain then, Miss Schnee."
She did, with help from Yang and the others. There wasn't too much to cover, and by the end, Ironwood had his eyes focused back on Gallantmon and Chaosdramon. They were locked together now, his lance twisted between the claws of Chaosdramon's trident, while it tried to use its hook to rip his shield from his grip.
"And my men?" Ironwood asked, without looking away. "I already helped with the bullhead that crashed among the dorms. What about the men here?"
"I saw them running off before Chaosdramon tried to flatten me with it," Yang said. "I think they're okay."
Ironwood nodded, "Very well. I'll have to ask the four of you to come with me then. The fleet shall monitor the situation as it unfolds, and according to you, standard huntsmen weaponry isn't effective against this… Chaosdramon."
Yang wanted to argue that there had to be something they could do to help, anything. But she knew Ironwood was right. Gallantmon was running circles around it, they would probably just get in they way if they tried to help. As much as it frustrated her, letting Atlas handle things for now seemed like the right thing to do.
Metal screamed against metal, and everyone turned their attention back to the fight. Chaosdramon raked his claws across Gallantmons chest in a vicious side hook that sent him rolling across the ground into the nearest building. Stonework exploded into a cloud of debris, and Chaosdramon fell onto all fours, opening its maw wide.
-CHAOS BLASTER!-
A needle thin beam of scarlet light lanced forth into the cloud. Gallantmon burst from it in a sprint towards the cliffside. Chaosdramon tracked him as he ran, carving a red hot trail of destruction in his wake, that detonated moments later into explosions that shook the campus. Gallantmon slid to a stop at the cliffs edge, and jumped. His leap took him over Chaosdramon's head in a single bound, cape flapping behind him as he landed crouched.
Lightning crackled along the edge of his lance, arcing faster and faster until the entire metal surface glowed as bright as the rift overhead.
-LIGHTNING JOUST!-
With Chaosdramon's back turned, it would be unable to defend against Gallantmon's attack, and it looked powerful. Just as Gallantmon lunged to strike though, the rift overhead suddenly exploded. Fire and light filled the courtyard, eradicating shadow. Gallantmon's shot went wide, scraping against the side of Chaosdramon's skull.
The scream of agonized fury that followed shattered windows and sent the five watching to their knees. Chaosdramon whirled, smashing its trident into Gallantmon. Once more he went soaring, farther than ever. He crashed into one of the courtyard pillars, which had remained miraculously untouched during the struggle, and the marble broke with a clear snap.
Stone broke free and shattered on the ground below, while the column itself slowly tilted and fell into the opening towards Yang, Weiss, Ren, and Nora, all still blinded by the light. There was no time for any other action, and though his vision was as useless as theirs, Gallantmon somehow managed to throw himself over the teenagers, using his own body as a shield.
The column crashed against him, knocking Gallantmon off his knees flat onto his face. It was only then that the light subsided. When their vision returned, the four of them saw Gallantmon facing them pinned beneath the rubble with his eyes shut tight.
"We should help him, right?" Weiss asked.
Chaosdramon's shadow fell over them, "I would advise against it…" it snarled. Part of its armored skull had been chipped away on the left side of its face, exposing pale wrinkled skin to the elements.
It reached down with it's hook and grabbed Gallantmon by the head, lifting him and the rubble up with ease. The mocking, mechanical laughter returned when Chaosdramon pointed Gallantmon's head to the sky. The clear, empty sky. Only bits of debris remained, falling to the academy below in bits and pieces.
"All that effort for nothing… You've lost, knight…"
Gallantmon started to retort, but Chaosdramon squeezed hard, its hydraulic muscles whirring. Whatever Gallantmon might have said, was quickly replaced with an ear piercing scream.
"What was that?" Chaosdramon asked after loosening its grip. "I couldn't hear you."
It squeeze again, before smashing Gallantmon into the ground face up, and pinning him there with its hook, and squeezing hard. Though Gallantmon's armor remained strong, it began to groan under the strain. He grabbed at Chaosdramon's hook with his hands and pulled, to no avail. It was far stronger than he was, on a purely physical level.
Chaosdramon made its toothy grin, and said, "Your armor may be nigh impenetrable, but I wonder how much force it can take before I crush you like an egg."
That was enough of that, as far as Yang was concerned. "We need to do something, anything!" she told the others.
Nora hefted her hammer, "Fun as it is wailing on it, that thing doesn't even react when we attack it. What could we possibly do to hurt it?"
That was true, it would take more than what they had at their disposal to hurt Chaosdramon. She looked around the battlefield, around the ruined cobblestone pathway, ice covered fields, and ruined landmarks. Then she looked at General Ironwood, and grinned.
"General, I have a plan I think you're going to like."
His brow went up, and the edge of his lips twitched, "Is that so?"
Yang explained her plan, and while she may not be the strategist that Nora and Ren's leader was, or as spur of the moment creative as Ruby could be, she wasn't above a little innovative planning when the occasion called for it. By the time she finished, everyone save Ironwood shared her grin.
They broke into action almost immediately. Ren and Ironwood worked to scale one of the still standing columns, while Nora and Weiss circled Chaosdramon. While they did that, Yang carefully scaled Chaosdramon, who seemed oblivious to their presence. Its armor was covered in dents and gashes now, no longer the impenetrable shell it had been. It also made plenty of handholds for Yang to use.
As she climbed, she spared Gallantmon a glance. His eyes were clenched tight in pain, but something caught his attention, and he opened them long enough to see Yang scaling Chaosdramon. A quick expression of understanding filled his eyes, before it was replaced with righteous fury, directed at Chaosdramon.
"I say… again, Chaosdramon." Gallantmon gasped, "Surrender yourself… and face fair judgement… It doesn't have to end like this."
Chaosdramon just snarled a response and squeezed even harder. He paid no mind to Yang, or Nora and Weiss. Not even when Nora used her hammer to clear the debris covering the still leaking pipes and cables, or when Weiss used her ebony glyphs to redirect them at Chaosdramon, his hooked arm in water. This wouldn't ordinarily be an issue, but the many dings and bits of damage Gallantmon had inflicted, left plenty of entry wounds.
Odds were good he would notice it if his arm became waterlogged, which was where Yang came into play. It was time for her to do what she did best; Namely, blindly charge at the enemy while absolutely frothing mad. She grabbed onto her anger and frustration that had built up all day, and tapped into her semblance.
While some, like Nora, could use their semblance to absorb electricity, Yang's functioned a little differently. She could absorb any force inflicted on her, store it for a time, and inflict it on her opponent. Chaosdramon had tried to hurt her, but the few hits it had landed were hardly enough for Yang to really go full-bore. Luckily for her, she didn't need to go full ham, she just needed one clear shot.
Yang crouched, coiling her leg muscles like springs, and shot off Chaosdramon's shoulder. She smashed her fist into its exposed eye, and fired Ember Celica pointblank. Flesh tore, and Chaosdramon's scream of agony was legendary.
It whipped its head into Yang, sending her crashing into the nearest marble column and onto the floor, and roared at her, absolutely furious. "Stupid human, I am beyond you! What did you think you could do attacking me like that!?"
Yang pushed herself up and blew a hair out of her face, "Mostly, I was just trying to distract you."
Chaosdramon's good eye blinked, "What?"
Behind him, Weiss pointed her rapier at Chaosdramon's waterlogged arm. Ice immediately erupted from its many cuts. As water was turned to ice, it was left with nowhere to go but out. Metal groaned and creaked, and Chaosdramon bellowed with more pain, staggering to the side as his arm began to contort under the pressure.
Plating burst open into miniature icebergs, exposing the delicate circuitry within. Its grip on Gallantmon loosened, and it released the knight onto the ground. Gallantmon gasped for air even as Chaosdramon lost its mind. Its eyes ignited with red fury, all of it turned on Yang.
It paid no mind to Ironwood as he shone a laser on its weakened arm and contacted the airships floating high overhead. "All ships, I have marked the target, do you copy?"
'Roger General, we have visual.'
"Fire on my mark," he said.
"Three, two, one. Mark."
There was a brief pause, before ordnance from powerful cannons designed for ground bombardment slammed into Chaosdramon. The shots that hit its body did no more than stun it, but several smashed into its damaged arm. The bombardment was brief, only a handful of seconds before Ironwood sent the all-clear command.
When the smoke cleared, Chaosdramon was back on all fours. Or rather, all three of its remaining limbs. Its hook arm lay on the ground in shattered pieces, and the stump on its body sparked uselessly. Chaosdramon's glowing red eyes were filled with fury.
But it paid no mind to the humans, whirling instead skyward where the airships were, "I will end you humans! You understand me!? End you!"
"You shall do no such thing, Chaosdramon." said Gallantmon.
It looked down at the knight, and snarled, "I've had enough of you too."
Gallantmon rested the tip of his lance on the ground and shook his head, "Chaosdramon, you sadden me. Again and again, I have offered you mercy. Yet you pursued me across the digital realm for no purpose save wanton destruction. You are capable of so much more."
Something about his words struck a chord with Chaosdramon. It made an odd chuffing sound, like an old engine failing to startup. "Here's what I think of your mercy, Gallantmon!"
The turbines along Chaosdramon's back sputtered to life, sliding forward until they rested on either side of its head. Light began to coalesce around their ends, sending crackling static electricity running along the courtyard.
-HYPER CANNON!-
Crimson energy balled into twin orbs, and erupted towards Gallantmon. Even as all this happened, the Knight could only shake his head in disappointment.
"So be it."
-SHIELD OF THE JUST!-
Finally, Yang saw the surface of his shield as he brought it forward. A series of eight golden triangles circled a larger group of red four triangles in the center. As he spoke aloud, each one ignited with a golden fury, clockwise, until they met at the beginning. The red triangles hissed to life, and golden energy erupted from his shield.
The beams collided mid air, sending a shockwave racing throughout Beacon. Windows shattered, damaged buildings collapsed, and even an airpad along the cliffside groaned and began to give way under the strain. Light greater than the rift could have ever produced blinded anyone foolish enough to look at it.
And just as quickly as it began, it was over. Gallantmon's attack overpowered Chaosdramon's, engulfing the mechanical lizard. When the light cleared, Chaosdramon lay on its back, armor shattered and ruined, smoke rising from its scorched body. Gallantmon stood over it, with his lance resting on its chest.
"By my power as fifth of the Royal Knights, servant to King Yggdrasil, and protector of the Digital World, I, Gallantmon, sentence you Chaosdramon, to atonement. May you find peace, in your new life."
He pressed his lance into its chest, the armor crumbling under the pressure. Chaosdramon made a sound of disappointment, and then its head went limp. Its body slowly evaporated into thousands of tiny lights. They danced in the air, spinning around the center of where Chaosdramon had once laid, until its body was no more, and a single grey egg the size dotted with cogs hovered at Gallantmon's eye level. His lance simply vanished as he held out his hand and carefully took hold of the egg.
Once he was sure he held it secure, Gallantmon turned Yang and the others, and approached them. That was when things got even stranger.
With each step he took, his size dwindled. In a handful of steps, Gallantmon shrank from thirty feet, to eight feet tall. Though he still towered over them all, it was far less intimidating than before, though Yang had honestly never felt intimidated by him.
He stood before all five of them, then brushed his cape aside and knelt on one knee before them, "To you five, I owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude. I, Gallantmon, can say with one hundred percent certainty, that is an honor and privilege to be the first Digimon of the Digital World to make contact with humanity."
A/N: Here's how the schedule of updates is going to work. Every Wednesday, I'm going to upload something for this story. It won't always be a chapter, it may be a few hundred word short comedy bit, or a lore based codex entry for something I couldn't feasibly explain in story without damaging the narrative for whatever reason.
I had a lot of fun with this story, I hope you all enjoy it as well. Please, review and let me know.