Summary: The life of a Royal Knight is not an easy one. Every day, another swarm of viral threats arise and haunt the continents. Every day, they are dispatched to protect the sanctity of data and vaccine life, as ordained by Yggdrasil's first laws. And every day, they chance an encounter with the lesser gods and fallen angels that could ignite the sparks of anarchy and another war of succession. They are but servants to the duty they were founded to complete.
Prologue - First meetings amongst madmen.
Within a crystalline hall lit from beneath in luminous glow, beneath the silent purview of a central monitor and an array of hollow columns that could deport any of the figures nearby to the many servers of the world, argument flew from the gathered holy figures like thunder amidst a storm. They rued and vied over origins, hierarchy, attribute, and vainest of all each others own looks. They raged and they swore and they threatened, and standing at the head, boiling within at the mockery being made of the titles so recently awarded, the commander-in-lieu, Omegamon dared pose two questions to the mute creator that he might once have called blasphemy.
Is this what you envisioned, my master? Is this what your ordained founder believed would come of your will made manifest?
It was clear to him now that this inability to see past their differences and cooperate together without an exacting-order from the destined Alpha-of-the-pack would destroy them from the inside-out.
The maw of his left-hand clenched so tightly as the cacophony rose that the sudden crack of that armor breaking before the release of the Grey Sword from within drew in the attention of his lessor fellows. Scraps of fractal code dripped off of the ends of the immaculate blade with the power to cut through all.
"Will we know no measure of trust upon this world?" His voice echoed with the hardened flavors of those who had joggressed together, two equally disgusted tones overlaid with righteous indignation into a single decree. "Those who you decry within this sacred antechamber are your sworn brethren, or has our oath before founder and lord proven to be naught but an ideal? All the rest who fill in this world are our enemies or else fall beneath our range of protection! If we will not put aside our differences and come together, than I disband these Royal Knights by the authority of our founder," and here he lifted his arm and leveled his sword at Examon, Gankoomon and Dynasmon, then toward Craniummon and Lord Knightmon, to Duftmon and Dukemon, and lastly to Magnamon and Ulforce V-dramon. The only member to avoid his blade was Sleipmon, who had also held his tongue to that point.
And now he replied, trotting forward. "Would you now?" his question was mild, eyes examining the others around them without judgment. "And what would you do in the absence of our supposed-order?"
Omegamon's eyes glimmered as a shine began to radiate outward from his body, as if the light beneath the hall were being transferred into his being. It pained him, horrified him, to cross such a threshold before those who he was meant to respect and be respected by in turn, but this course of action could not be averted. There would be no further altercations between them all; if his brethren-in-title would not set aside arms willingly, then he would show them a power to bow even the fiercest spirit... and run it through afterward. The Omega InForce suffusing his body awoke, that hidden genome tainting his core, and he suddenly expanded upward another six inches, sharpened, hardened, refined his figure in whirlwind and light, until there could be no more denying the evolution undertaken.
"Omegamon X," he breathed out in a heavier, striking note.
Sleipmon hastily stepped back as that faultless blade, sleeker and reflecting a deadly gleam, thrust forward again and slit the very air. The radiant runes etched into its surface read out a single ominous warning - All Delete.
"I would eradicate all who would stand in our way - and if I must forge alone to exact the orders passed down by Yggdrasil, than I shall expand my focus to you all in the aftermath to come," he swore with complete honesty. "Be done of your issues when I return, or else flee now in my wake."
A wide path split open before him as the other Knights stepped aside, and silence hung in the air as he departed through the column to the Deep Savers server to hunt after their absent founder. Only once he had vanished in a brief static-y hiss did the glow of the hall return to where it belonged, and an ominous silence now clung where virulent noise had been so prevalent.
Magnamon was the first to break the uneasily quiet after several eternally long beats. He whistled appreciatively. "Whoa. I wonder what kind of figure we'd have cut in Paladin Mode with that kind of Omegamon in the fight against Armagemon?" Heads turned to focus upon him and a number of expressions stared, from doubting to dismay, haughty and grave, and even into open hostility at his words. The enhanced-Armor II shrugged. "I wasn't always this way, y'know. The suffusion of power maintaining my evolution was only awoken with the aide of Daisuke and Ken, and Wormmon too."
"Hold thy troublesome tongue, agent of Miracles," Dukemon exclaimed wearily. "We've enough ire ere false pride clouded us yet further."
"I dunno, your highness. I think we could use a bit more discussion, actually." Magnamon inclined his head with an unseen smirk - he could feel something in the environment that encouraged him to continue speaking. "I'm inclined to follow actual talking through to blows if that's what it takes to establish our pecking-order at last. Probably be easier than risking a snicker-snack from his vorpal blade in a bit."
A soft whistle barely warned him of the stroke before Lord Knightmon's first hardened ribbon struck at the back of his head. A violent clang echoed along the walls as the blow struck true, and his head and body rocked forward, sending him stumbling a few steps before crashing into a wall and leaning there, his arms slack around his sides.
"What say you now, child?" She demanded haughtily.
A rough laugh answered, starting in the pit of his gut and climbing steadily into his throat, where it grew in intensity before rushing out in a wild burst of cackling. "Ahahahah! Ah, that hurts!" The darkness around his eyes vanished as he blinked them back open again, and as he turned around he spoke up around his fit of ill humor. "Ah, but doesn't it help to get your tensions out?"
By the time he had finished his sentence and was facing her fully, the rigidity of her stance warned of the abrupt seven-ribbon strike an instant before it erupted through the air. His laughter quieted but did not fade away as he was slammed up against the crystalline panes over and over again. For seven seconds her assault drove into his figure without halting, until Craniummon finally stirred and slashed a spear drawn forth from the ether through the ribbons between them, sending the tattered shards to crash along the ground. Fragments of Magnamon's own armor met them on the way down. Blood dripped off of his lips, and several slash marks that ran deeply into his lower abdomen and stomach spilled even more.
But he choked out a rasping chuckle, shuddering as it agitated his wounds. "Ahahahah! Ah, Qinglongmon beyond!" He spat a dollop of crimson past his lips, wiping his exposed mouth on the back of one shaking arm. "Do you feel any better now?!"
Lord Knightmon was breathing harder than he was, tensed to continue her attack if that was what it took to shut him up, but Craniummon reached out to grip one wrist tightly even as Dukemon warily positioned his Aegis shield to defend him. "Are you mad?" the latter Ultimate asked sharply.
Before their eyes a flash of faint, golden light illuminated the Crest of Miracles ingrained into Magnamon's armor. The same light flickered like a thousand tiny motes across his gashes and resolved them into faint, puckered scars wherever they passed, before finally settling into perfectly replicated plates of armament again. Dukemon retreated a step amidst a quiet rustle, the sudden intake of several masked-breaths throughout the room. With a final mouthful of blood spilled across the previously-immaculate floor, Magnamon spoke up with the subsiding of his laughter.
"Mad? Do you see what happened thanks to mere words?" The glow suffused the depths of his pupils and gave an unearthly, magnanimous presence despite his hunched over posture. He slowly stood upright and smiled again before the motes of energy spread over his face and repaired the last piece of armor. "That's no less than two of us willing to take action for the sake of another, and I'd say that's a pretty good start on unifying our differences."
/END Prologue.
Afterword: As referenced at the top, the Knights mostly stem from different origins. Zeromaru the Ulforce V-dramon(of the V-Tamers manga), Daisuke's Veemon/Magnamon, Omegamon/X from the X Evolution movie, and further. Not all of them come from the anime/manga/games, however. Dukemon for example is just a mode-changed MedievalDukemon out of the Witchelny dimension rather than Guilmon and Takato out of Tamers, and neither Dynasmon or Lord Knightmon are from the Frontier universe. Sleipmon, Craniummon, and/or Duftmon may have come from Savers, however that is currently still being decided on which - if any of them - it would be. The founder is of course an Imperialdramon Paladin Mode, who evolved in the early, heavily chaotic years of this digital world before Yggdrasil found him and enlisted him to acquire the services of the Royal Knights.
