Beast of Burden
By: Aubrie1234
A Few Weeks Ago:
"Team, there have been reports of a rogue BlackWereGarurumon attacking other digimon in the Digital World. I want you all to go there and subdue it." Sampson said. I was at Thomas' side, as usual, but this report seemed strange to me. I know that we've been taking on jobs in the Digital World, but why would an Ultimate attack other digimon out of nowhere like that? Thomas seemed to share my thoughts when I saw the look on his face, but Marcus and Agumon were raring to go, as usual.
"Don't worry, sir! We've got this, right Agumon?"
"Of course, Boss!"
"We're preparing the transfer now, Commander." Miki said, typing away with the PawnChessmon and Megumi. As they did, Yoshi brought up what Thomas and I were thinking.
"Commander, it doesn't seem right that an Ultimate is just attacking out of nowhere. I don't like this." she said.
"Yes, it is strange," Kudamon agreed, "But we must do our job first and stop the digimon before something else happens."
"Yes sir." Keenan said; his speech had improved after a while of staying with us and some lessons from Thomas.
"The transfer is ready, sir!" Megumi said.
"Have a safe trip, all of you." Sampson said, "And be careful, especially you, Marcus."
It didn't take us long, and we appeared in a large forest, similar to the one where we met Keenan.
"To be safe, we should stick together." Thomas said.
"C'mon, Nerd-stein!" Marcus complained, "All of us can digivolve to Burst Mode! What's there to worry about?"
"Plenty." Thomas argued, "If the digimon didn't digivolve fast enough, the BlackWereGarurumon could attack us. Digivolving the digimon gives us a window of vulnerability."
"Oh, you worry too much! Lighten up a little!" Marcus tried to give Thomas a noogie, which he dodged.
"Marcus, Thomas, stop." Yoshi got between the two of them, "Look, Thomas is right. This digimon is more dangerous than we think. Why would it just attack other digimon out of nowhere like it has? We need to stick together so we don't get hurt or even killed. Do you understand?" Both boys nodded, the seriousness of the situation showing on their faces. I suddenly got the feeling that a digimon was nearby, and Lalamon voiced the feeling.
"I sense a digimon in this direction." she said, pointing, "Maybe we should start there."
"And if it is BlackWereGarurumon, we should be on our highest guard." Falcomon said. We all nodded before starting off in that direction. It didn't take us long to reach an open field, where I could sense the digimon much stronger, but there were no digimon in sight. I looked around, my guard up.
"You sure there's a digimon nearby?" Marcus asked, looking around as well.
"Yes!" Falcomon answered, tense as I was.
"We should digivolve the digimon now, so that we don't have to later." Keenan said. I had to admit that it was a good idea, though Marcus wouldn't be able to digivolve Agumon until he punched a digimon. The others reached for their digivices, when suddenly-
"Full Moon Kick!" I grabbed Thomas' hand and pulled him out of the way of the attack, which barely missed the group and set us flying all over the place. I hopped to my feet and looked around once I was able to do so and saw the other digimon scrambling to their feet as well, with the humans sitting up and trying to figure out what happened. The attack had obviously come from the forest and a digimon of the WereGarurumon type, since those were the only ones able to use that attack, which meant that the BlackWereGarurumon had probably attacked us.
"What-?! Oh no." I heard Thomas say behind me. When I looked at him, I saw him holding the broken ends of the digivices leather cord, but the digivice was gone. It must have been ripped or cut off the cord somehow during the attack. I looked around and saw three of the four digivices on the ground, away from their owners, except Marcus'; it was probably a good thing he still had his, because we obviously wouldn't be able to digivolve without the digivices. After our fight against King Drasil, we weren't able to digivolve on our own anymore; it was just that one time, which meant that we had to go back and rely on our partners for help in digivolving us.
The BlackWereGarurumon then came out of the forest, growling at us, but something was off. I didn't know what it was, but I did know that this BlackWereGarurumon was different, and more dangerous than we thought. It looked at us and grinned before rushing and attacking.
"Shadow Claw!" I was hit by the attack and thrown father away, hurt badly. I struggled to stand through my pain and saw that Falcomon had also been hit by the attack, and Lalamon and Agumon had been hit by BlackWereGarurumon's Garuru Kick. That left our partners defenseless, even if Marcus, Thomas, and Keenan knew how to defend themselves. This just got a lot worse.
Thomas' POV:
When Gaomon and the others had been thrown away like dolls, I had frozen for a few seconds, letting fear overcome me. Would I survive this fight? Would any of us? The digimon had been hurt badly in just one hit. Without our digivices, we had no hope to win this. I did manage to overcome my fear, though, and try to figure out how Keenan, Yoshi, and I could reach our digivices without BlackWereGarurumon attacking us, which would be nearly impossible. The only way we could do it was if there was a distraction, and Marcus was the only one who still had his digivice, even if he couldn't digivolve Agumon. However, I wasn't about to let that stubborn teen sacrifice himself for us, even if he suggested it. But, when I looked at them, I could see that they were just as afraid as I was, even Marcus. That made me question again the possibility of surviving, which was quite low. How could we survive this fight without the digimon, especially if we couldn't digivolve them?
"The famous Digimon Police, here to defeat me, but you're all little more than newborn pups. How can you hope to even compete with me if you can't even digivolve?" I glared at the BlackWereGarurumon; we could digivolve, but I had been right in saying that we were vulnerable without digivolving, and even then we were vulnerable while the digimon digivolved.
"They can digivolve fine!" Marcus' temper had flared up, and this might just have been the distraction we needed, "You just attacked us before they could digivolve!"
"Oh really? Well, if you ask me, you're the weakest of the group, Mr. Damon. You're supposed to be the strongest, but how can you be strong if you need to hit another digimon to get the DNA Charge you need to digivolve?" Marcus tensed and looked away; it seemed even he had second thoughts about himself.
"Boss is strong! He doesn't need to digivolve me whenever he needs to! His punches make up for that!" Agumon voiced, standing up for his partner, even if he literally couldn't stand right now, "Boss was the first to digivolve me to Ultimate and Burst-Mode before anyone else, and he even got me to do Burst-Mode as a Rookie! Boss is special, even if he has his own flaws!"
"What a noble speech, but it still doesn't change my mind." the BlackWereGarurumon drawled, "Mr. Damon may be the strongest human fighter in Japan, but he isn't strong in the Digital World. The Digital World is harsh, cruel, unforgiving; it's a fight for survival every second. Humans don't belong here because they're pampered, they don't fight for themselves."
"What did you say?!" Now Marcus was standing and was ready to fight BlackWereGarurumon for insulting him; the digimon didn't just insult him, it insulted all of us, but I couldn't dwell on that right now. As they distracted the digimon, I leapt for the digivices.
"Look out!" Keenan's cry came too late as I was suddenly stopped short by a great pain in my arm and something pinning me to the ground, making me close my eyes in pain. I managed to open them through the pain to see BlackWereGarurumon, having clamped onto my left arm with its jaws and pinning me to the ground with one paw, still grinning; but, now that it was closer, I could see how blank its eyes were, instead of the usual brightness. This worried me, but I noted to think about it later, when I wasn't in a life-or-death situation.
"Nice try, but nothing gets past me." it growled, though muffled because of my arm, before clamping harder. I hissed in pain, but stretched my free arm to grab one of the digivices, which was Yoshi's, and threw it to her. She understood immediately and had Lalamon double-warp digivolve to Rosemon.
"Then what about that?" I shot back after seeing its outraged face. In response, it used a Shadow Claw on my chest, nearly making me black out in pain.
"THOMAS!" Now the others were really mad, and I hated to see what Rosemon would do to the BlackWereGarurumon. However, they couldn't make a move as long as the digimon had me in its grip. I blinked through the pain and focused of the digimon's face, trying to think of what to do, but I couldn't; it was hard enough focusing through the pain. Relying on instinct, I raised my leg up and kicked at the digimon as hard as I could. I managed to get him off, but not without him tearing some skin out of my arm with his teeth, which hurt even worse and made me black out.
Gaomon's POV:
Thomas managed to get the digimon off of him, but I think it hurt him so much that he blacked out, because he wasn't moving. Rosemon used her thorn whip to pull the BlackWereGarurumon away as Marcus, Agumon, and I ran to Thomas. Quickly taking off his jacket, Marcus wrapped it around Thomas' arm while Agumon cut off Thomas' jacket with his claws and used it to try and stop the bleeding from the wound on Thomas' chest. Seeing how badly he was hurt, I could see why they had done what they did; I hadn't noticed it before, but when BlackWereGarurumon had been kicked away, he had ripped some of Thomas' skin with him, and the wound to his chest looked just as bad. Suddenly, Marcus handed me his communicator.
"Call the Commander." was all he said, but I knew what he meant. Quickly, I pressed the button, waiting anxiously for the Commander's voice; I hated not being able to do anything else to help Thomas, but Agumon and Marcus were doing the important stuff right now.
"Hello? Marcus?" The com was answered and I quickly went into an explanation.
"Commander, it's Gaomon." I said, "We found the digimon, but it got to us before we could digivolve and it badly hurt Thomas." Looking over, I saw the Rosemon had just finished defeating BlackWereGarurumon and was giving Keenan his digivice while Yoshi and Falcomon rushed over, "And Rosemon just defeated the digimon."
"We understand." Kudamon's voice came in, and it was serious but worried, "We'll call you, Thomas, and Marcus in first. How badly is he hurt?" I looked back at Thomas and swallowed the sick feeling I had.
"Very badly to his chest and left arm. BlackWereGarurumon accidentally tore out some skin from his arm, too, but Marcus and Agumon are using jackets to stop the blood flow. Will we have to take him to a hospital?"
"I don't know." Kudamon said, "Just have hope that it isn't as bad as it looks, Gaomon. You're also about to be transported."
"Thank you, sir." I hung up on them and handed the com back to Marcus.
"You and I are going with Thomas first." I told him, and he nodded.
"Okay. And Gaomon?" he gently laid a hand on my shoulder, "Thomas is strong. I'm sure he'll make it through this."
"Yes, he will." I sighed, though not convinced. I wasn't able to protect my partner; how can I forgive myself for that?
Thankfully, Kudamon was right. It wasn't as bad as it looked, but Thomas still had to stay at D.A.T.S. until he woke up. I stayed by his side, hoping he would wake up, and almost never left. Everyone was worried about me, I was sure, and they always tried to get me to leave, walk around, at least use the bathroom once in a while, but I never did. All of them tried, except Marcus; I'm positive that he knew how I felt because of his experience when Agumon was turned into a DigiEgg.
It had been around 8 in the morning when we had left for the Digital World, and now it was almost six. I was in a chair beside Thomas, watching over him, when Marcus came in. Agumon was no where to be found.
"Hey." he said, bringing up a chair on the other side of Thomas. I only nodded.
"Look, Gaomon, I know you're worried." he sighed, "But if you just sit around like this and do nothing, you won't get much done. Have some faith in Thomas and let someone else look after him for a while."
"But what if he never wakes up?" I asked somberly.
"Gaomon, stop blaming yourself." Marcus said, "Trust me when I say it'll only make things worse. When Agumon was turned into a DigiEgg, I worried so much about him and blamed myself because I knew I was the one that caused it. Because I did nothing and never left, the DigiEgg didn't do anything. Only when I forgot my worries and went out to stop Kurata and Belphemon did Agumon hatch. So, please go out somewhere and have faith in Thomas; have faith that he'll wake up and everything will be normal again." It was rare Marcus talked about his feelings, if ever, so I knew he was serious.
"All right." I sighed, standing, "But could you please take my place?" Marcus nodded, and I finally left.