Infernal Machines
Fate Hedgehog[Time: About five days before the Digi-destined found Myotismon's castle and returned to Japan. . .]
Chapter Two: The Assembly Line
Cold. Dark. The room then slowly faded to minor colors as each of the Digi-destineds' eyes adjusted to the abrupt change in contrast. The room the group was in was rather moderately size but its boundaries were not clearly defined as walls gave way to openings to show pipes, gears and other intricate machinery - most of it shut-down and not moving. One wall of the room was actually a long arena like factory array hidden amid the darkness beyond which lay over ten meters below the actual level the group was on, a railing keeping them up there. Swaying of metal chains and clanking machines chimed off long into the distance of the factory. The drip of liquid hitting a puddle somewhere. Suspended metal walkways extended outwards in three directions from the 'platform' the group had landed on when they entered. Hissing steam to one-side and to the other at unset intervals made everyone slightly uneasy.
The Digi-destined had all entered the room and were already bracing themselves as if the worse would come from out of the shadows from it - probably a realization over time that anything that creates darkness can hide evil. But, in this meantime, they were also trying to administer any problems the storm had caused them.
"Whoa! That as cutting it close", Tai said as he stood-up - he had tripped over Joe, who had tripped when he entered himself. "Alright, everyone: roll-call!"
"Does an 'ow' count?" Joe sat up from being face-first on the metal ground. Gomamon was squirming about within his pouch trying to get out so Joe helped him by just opening the top. "Hey, watch where you're going! I'm no stuffed animal." Joe just said, " 'Watch where you're going?' Great. Now I'm being compared to a New York Taxi."
"TK? You okay?" Matt said brushing the top of his brother's hat off with the back of his hand.
"I'm okay, Matt. You, Patamon?" TK asked the form in his hands, still covered in his own wings. "Wake me when the storm's over."
Agumon walked over to where Gabumon and Biyomon were standing. "You guys okay?" Biyomon, flapping her wings to dry them, "Yeah, I'm fine but I don't think I like rain anymore." Agumon looked over at Gabumon: "Hey, Gabumon, your fur looks like I gave it a 'Pepper Breath'!" The wolf Digimon just look at what parts of his fur he could to determine the severity of the burns: "Oh, it doesn't hurt that much. When I shed I won't have to look at it anymore anyway."
Mimi had put Palmon down and rest her against one of the walls. She then took off her hat and started wringing it out. "Ooo. . .I don't think pink is supposed to look like this", she said commenting on the damaged condition of the top of her hat.
Sora walked-up to Matt, still holding tightly her lower arm. "Matt, turn around for a second." "Huh? Oh, okay." Matt did so and gave Sora a glimpse of the back of his sweater - it had two minor burn holes in it and the skin reddened and irritated within them and other parts of the shirt were warped various other colors, some weakened.
"Whoa, Matt! Was that shirt cotton?"
"Yep."
"Doesn't hold-up the best to acid rain for one thing."
Tai came up to Sora. "Sora, I almost forgot 'bout your arm. Still hurts?" Sora had forgotten about it too; when she looked down at it - now with traces of blood creeping through her tight fingers, the realization of the pain returned. "Let me see." Sora removed her hand slowly from the wound. Wasn't that bad but it stung like anything.
"Doesn't hurt too much, Tai. It's just. . ."
"Sora", TK said coming over to her around-side from Matt. "Let me have a look at it."
"Um okay, TK", Sora said sticking out her arm wounded arm in front of TK. Tai had stepped over to get Joe over here. TK looked at the wound, wiped it off with his hand as gentle as he could and then gave it a kiss - which Sora felt in the least comfortable sense of the way. "My mommy always did this to my cuts and bruises when I got hurt." Sora just smiled and Tai dragged Joe over to her.
Izzy, meanwhile, was once again segregated from the group over by the wall where the open door to the raining outside world was. He was looking mainly in an open panel of walling where he saw the pushed-in door and then a bunch of frayed wires and cables and a bunch of cracked or snapped metal bars. His laptop was still open and on to his side, although its internal hardware had taken some damage from the rain that had seeped in through the slots and keys. Tentomon came up besides him.
"Are you okay, Izzy?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, Tentomon, I'm fine. What about you?"
Tentomon just knocked his right claw back against the side of his shell in a loud 'Knock'. "Chitin."
"Oh."
"Hey, genius!" Tai called over; Izzy gripped his laptop tighter at another ad hominem nickname. "Let's close these days so no one else unexpected stops in. . .specifically any evil Digimon."
Izzy turned about to face Tai, who was now standing next to Sora and Joe. TK and Mimi were over by the railing out-looking onto the rest of the shadow-filled factory. "Don't think we can anymore, Tai."
"Why not?"
"Well, Matt, I've been observing these wires behind the wall. They run the pneumatics that would normally open and closes the door automatically via the two control panels - one inside and the other one that we damaged outside."
Matt came up to him and look at the wall too, clueless about where this was going. "Yeah?"
"The wires look to be connected so that if one part of the system were to go down, a back-up would go into effect. Say, we destroyed the outside panel like we happened to: the pneumatics then weakened and the secondary system that went into function is the inside control panel; not the very best orientation but that's still how it worked", Izzy said in a matter-of-fact way.
"Hm. You mean the door's stuck open?"
"Precisely. We damaged the pneumatics; and, if we hadn't, we could close the door using the inside console. But now even this inner console is damaged. (pause) Each system and sub-system in this entire factory must be built in a similar way for it all to be effective: there is no master system nor secondary system designation - instead, everything has equal value and what happens to even one effects the other."
"Uh-huh. When I signed-up for camp, I didn't know I was also going to get a crash-course in 'electronic engineering 101' too", was Matt's final comment as he stared at the bunch of damaged pipe and tubing that Izzy was motioning to.
Mimi and TK - Patamon now on his hat again - were leaning on the railing looking-out over the complex. It was all in the shadows but it was easy to make out the shapes of mechanical arms and numerous long assembly lines with products on them, frozen forever in place. There were some areas down there that looked like they were damaged and objects were toppled over or throw about. Everything looked to have a coating of dust on it.
"You know, they should hire a maid to clean this place up. It's, like, completely infested in dust as far as I can see" ,Mimi commented in her almost typical way.
"Maybe they can't afford it. Or maybe this factory is abandoned or sumtin", TK answered.
"It's creepy. The lights are on - red and dimly might I add, they might want to look into that because anyone who may stop by can barely see their hand in front there face and all - but no one's home."
"Patamon, can you here anyone doing anything out there?", TK asked, still looking out into the room.
Patamon on his hat lifted one of his ears (the other was still wrapped about him) and listened silently into the far end of the room for two seconds. Faintly, he could make something out amid the silence. "I hear something. It sound far away though; kind'of like. . .machines working."
"Well, I guess someone is at home after all. I hope they have a fresh change of clothes. Ooo…maybe something fresh and leafy-green to eat too. (Mimi was a vegetarian) Maybe even a nice relaxing shower…"
"Mimi!" Tai called.
"Okay. . .my bad. . .forget about the 'shower' ", she said. As an afterthought she was going to turn about and make a comeback but half-way she stopped and rested her eyes on Palmon - whom Gomamon and Yokomon were attending to with a cold-pack from Joe's bag. "At least something to help poor Palmon", she said aside and lower than before.
Tentomon was standing just inside the doorway looking out at the storm. "Doesn't look like it'll be passing anytime soon."
"I guess we're just gon'na have to ride it out in here then", Gabumon said coming-up behind him and stopping aside. As he stopped a bolt of lightning crashed down onto the dunes above, scattering sand about. "Oh yeah?", Tentomon said, "Well. . .SUPER SHOCKER!" He fired his attack at the sand beyond the wreckage of the awning and it made a similar burst as the lightning. "Ha!" And just as he said that, another lighting bolt crashed down right in front of them where Tentomon's attack had collided, but making an even more impressive eruption of sand.
"Whoa!" Tentomon exclaimed turning around and quickly moving back into the complex. "Okay, okay! You win!"
Gabumon could just snicker as he watched his comrade retreat. Another bolt crashing close-by again, however, stopped him from snickering and he too quickly moved inside to avoid being struck. "Oh!"
"You two had better stay as close to being out of the doorway as possible", Matt said as Gabumon ran up and stopped behind him.
"Ye-ah, lightning tends to strike at the taller objects foremost than anything else", Izzy said, almost not listening.
"Tai, does that mean we should continue further into this factory, away from the opening?" Agumon said down at Tai's side. Tai turned momentarily to answer: he was watching Joe as he bandaged up Sora's arm the best he could with the toilet paper he had taken-out before.
"Don't know. Might be better if we just crash right here until the storm ends."
"I think we should continue onwards inside. We don't know what else is here, maybe something we can use", Matt said.
"What if it's some evil Digimon?" Gomamon said. "Remember that we're not fully able to Digivolve this weak."
"What if it isn't? Whoever it is could provide us with help", Gabumon said.
"But what about the storm outside? If it starts blowing the rain through the front door…", Sora started.
"Since the door is open that means we'll be the first to know", Tai said. "I think, it'd be safer that way. Right, Izzy? (pause but nothing) Iz?" Tai turned about and - not much to his surprise - found Izzy determinedly staring at a console on the wall similar to the one outside. "Oh, okay. Never-you-mind me."
"Well, Tai? Your call again", TK said turning about, still leaning on the railing.
"Yeah, we need to change. We can't continue with damaged garb like this on", Mimi said coming-up from behind Joe.
Tai thought about it for a minute - any of their attention spans didn't permit any longer. "Okay, how 'bout this: we'll set-up camp here on this platform. We're by an easy exit if case need be and plus it may provide for us our only light source."
"What about our supplies? We're still running below our average low", Joe said, rolling another foot of paper about Sora's arm firmly.
"Gabu, Agu, Matt and I will go and check about another part of this factory for anything we can salvage; we'll meet back here later. The rest of you stay and set-up for the night." Tai said. "If we don't come back in an hour: we're still looking."
"And the evil Digimon?" Matt asked.
"Ok-ay. . .we'll. . .", Tai said slowly, looking about for some easy answer to this one. He passed over everyone and then stopped at Izzy, who was now rubbing his hand over the aforementioned panel. "We'll take Izzy with us. His Digimon Analyzer can help in that department."
"Huh? What about my Digimon Recognition Program?" Izzy asked turning about.
"Over here, Iz."
"But I thought I'd be staying with the others and. . .", he said, thumbing over his shoulder at the panel.
"Over here, now!"
"Okay, okay. Don't rush me." Izzy crossed the room to the group. He lifted his laptop up to chest height and rest it in his two hinged hands for support. He then remembered how damaged it had gotten by looking at it: parts of the plastic shell were burned-over, most of the keys had lost their designations - of course, he didn't really need them - and small traces of smoke were slipping-out from in between the keys. The screen looked intact although it flashed periodically in static. He showed it to the rest of the group.
Well, this might put a serious cramp in his laborious hours of doin' nothing, Mimi thought.
"Oh, I forgot that the rain also did that", Tai said. "But it still looks 'okay'. Does the Analyzer still work?"
"Give me a second." Izzy flipped the computer back around and began typing, pulling-up and turning 'on' the program Gennai had upgraded his computer with only about a week ago. "This also gives me a chance to see if my infrared port still works and is aligned clearly. (pause) Agumon, come closer."
As Agumon took one step forward, the red light that was his infrared Internet connection port on the back on his laptop's base lit up. Izzy aimed it roughly at him and pressed the 'enter' key. Onscreen came a picture of Agumon and then individual stats for the Digimon appeared on the side, one at a time. A digital-like voice then came from the computer's speaker: "Agumon. . .Rookie Form. . .Vaccine Type. . .Attack: 'Pepper Breath'."
"Everything appears to be in fully operational order. . ."
"That's good."
Matt leaned over to Tai, speaking aside, "Yeah but what are we going to so with it? Show the evil Digimon a picture of themselves and hope they get scared and run off?"
"You're crampin' my plan", Tai hissed over to him, aside too.
"I would still much rather like to find out what this place manufactures so. . ."
"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Tai said grabbing Izzy's hand and suddenly pulling him towards a flight of stairs leading downwards to the floor of the rest of the factory. Agumon just jumped-off in time to join them. Matt and Gabumon took a big stride after them, just missing catching-up with them as they left ("Hey, wait up!").
"Wait for me, Izzy", Tentomon said lifting-off.
"No, Tentomon", Izzy said as he closed his laptop up with one hand and stowed it away in his backpack, "You stay here and help out setting-up. (slowing down) I'll be okay. (jerked forward by Tai towards the stairs) I think!"
Tentomon slowly lowered back down to the floor and folded his wings and shell back over. "Huh? Well. . .okay. But be careful."
"Don't worry", Tai said pulling Izzy up to the steps, Agumon coming up from the inside of his next turn left. "He'll be O-K-AAAAAYYYYY!" Agumon had stopped in front of Tai while he was going towards the stairs, but Tai had tripped-over his foot and was thrown forwards down the steps. Izzy was pulled in tow. A second later, a metal clank confirmed their crash-landing at the ground-level landing.
"Tai?" Agumon could only ask in confusion, looking down the stairs.
"Izzy!"
"Don't worry, Tentomon", TK said looking downwards from his spot leaning on the platform railing at the two who had fallen. "Izzy's okay. He landed on Tai."
"Yeah and Tai didn't feel a thing: he landed on his own head", Matt said as he started down the stairs slowly followed by Gabumon who was, in turn, followed by a confused Agumon. Sora and Mimi with-held their giggling at this; Joe and the rest of the Digimon only looked their direction in the same confusion as Agumon.
At the base of the stairs, Izzy and Tai were just beginning to stand back-up. Tai was brushing the dust off himself; Izzy was just standing-up slowly. Matt, Gabumon and Agumon were just reaching the bottom step.
"Okay, 'Grace', let's get moving", Matt said as he stepped off the metal-paneling steps.
"Oh, 'ha ha' already", Tai said finishing brushing himself off as Agumon came-up besides him. However, looking once at the expression on Matt's face: "Oh, okay, okay! I'll calm-down a bit."
"Just so as long as I don't almost get flattened again", Izzy said.
"We'd better get moving. We only have an hour and we have even less time before night-fall."
"Okay, Gabumon." Tai turned about to a wall of perpetually frozen, dusty machines that had to be crossed to continue on with the exploration. Literally, the darkness of the room echoed the blurred colors of the machines. "Anyone?"
"Let's try going through here; it looks like a route in-between the machinery", Agumon said starting to push around one of the old mechanical arms, trying his best to avoid a needle-like tool on the end, to make room to pass. It creaked and groaned under its own rusted construction as it turned on ancient servos.
"Good, at least these things aren't stuck in place. Com'mon, Matt, give me a hand here", Tai said as he gripped onto another of the arms near Agumon and started to inch it out of the way too.
"Gabumon, you help Agumon."
Izzy on the other hand was looking closely at one of the machine arms over to one-side of them. He looked-over the metallurgical construction of it. The design looked to be Earth-like in origins but there was something else haunting about it. Noticing what looked to be a dust-dominated brass plate on the base of the main limb of the unit, he leaned down and started to brush-off the dust on the plate. When it was as clear as he could make, he coughed due to the dust and then read to himself:
"Ultimate Arm Number 42884, Property of Honda Factory: 'Odaiba' "
."What the heck?" he asked himself under his breath.
"Hey, Izzy!" Izzy turned about on his heels to find that the others had moved those two mechanical arms that they were working on before out of the way and had cleared a small opening to pass through to the rest of the assembly line. "Com'mon; we don't have too long before we'd have to get back."
Izzy stood again and then followed Tai and Matt through the newly-opened passage. Beyond the two arms was the first of many shut-down conveyor belts that they had to bound-over. Tai went first followed by Agumon whom was too short to make the leap. Matt helped Gabumon over. Izzy followed by jumping on the belt and then standing-up for another - perhaps a better - look about. Nothing different of the room they could see little of, let alone any solid walls.
Tai, holding onto another ultimate arm on the other-side of the belt facing them this time: "They come in pairs." He began to try and move this one as it groaned in defiance; it was a lot more stuck than the last one.
"This requires two people", Agumon said as he joined-in, the arm still sticking as bad as before. "Okay", he finally said, "more than two people."
"Here, move aside; we'll get it", Matt said as he and Gabumon stepped up and began to help. It very slowly budged but still not as fast as the first. Izzy jumped down to help them but then stopped as he saw a mess of wires connected to the bottom of each of the arms, one large dark blue one in particular with the word 'Fluid' on it. He moved-up to where the pipe connected to the base of the mechanical arm Tai and Matt were working-on and started to tug at it on a hunch. When he finally broke the pipe away from its connection, a short hiss was heard and the arm began to move against the other four's strength.
"It seems that some of these electronic construction appendages are still connected to a pressure-compressed source of liquid to power their hydraulics, guys. The ones that don't move initially have to be disabled by cutting off their source of compression."
Tai and Matt looked at him. "Well, thank-you very much, Professor. We'll have to make note of that."
"Yeah, Gilligan; you do that."
Both Matt and Tai were actually mildly surprised as they started on another arm to get it out of the way: they didn't expect Izzy to be 'culturally educated' to even that minimum.
*******
"Okay now, Sora. This is going to hurt a bit."
Sora nodded. Joe pulled tight the end of the toilet paper about her arm, attempting the best he could to keep pressure down to stop the bleeding.
"Ow!"
"Warned you."
Joe was just finishing bandaging-up Sora's arm with the paper. He had run it around her wounded-section of arm for the umpteen-billionth time and thought that it was as good as it will get; at least none of the blood stained through the last ten layers. "Okay, that should about do it. Mimi, can you get me the tape from my bag?"
Mimi turned about from watching the others stumble their way through the factory - which even this early was getting harder to see clearly. "Wha? Oh, okay Joe." Mimi walked over to where his bag was - over near Palmon who was still being administered by Gomamon and Yokomon. She reached into the bag and scrounged around for the tape blindly - she was looking worriedly at Palmon more-so than the bag's contents. When she finally found the tape ten seconds later, she stood and walked over to Joe, who was still holding the loose end of Sora's makeshift bandage down. Mimi held the ends while Joe taped the end down.
"Sora, just don't strain the arm until the wound heals. You not only took a seemingly deep cut but also one to a portion of your arm muscle", Joe said when he was done.
"Don't worry. As long as this place keeps as silent as it has been so far, you won't have to worry about me straining it", Sora answered.
"I wish I had remembered to sterilize the wound before bandaging it but then I must've been worried about us dehydrating first with what little water we have left."
"It's okay. Something has to cool these big machines around here down so here's hoping Tai, Matt and Izzy find a water pipe."
"Even if they do they still don't have anything to carry the water. . .", Joe trailed-off. He was just getting up with the tape and paper in one hand but immediately noticed that Mimi's hand was still tightly holding onto Sora's bandage. Following up the arm, Joe saw that Mimi wasn't paying attention to what was going on - she could've let go seconds ago - and was watching Palmon instead. "Uh, Mimi, you can let go now."
"What?" Mimi said turning back and then giving the situation a once-over. "Oh, sorry. That's probably just me off in my own little world again." She added the last part with a smile; everyone noticed that after the incident at the Geckomon Palace, Mimi had been acknowledging the fact she lives in a combination of a fantasy and the real world - with both sides always clashing.
"I'll go over and check-on Palmon right now if you'd like Mimi."
"Okay, Joe. Thanks."
Joe helped Sora stand - using her unwounded arm - and suggested that she start setting-up for the approaching night. Over at Palmon's side, first Joe then Sora went into his bag. Mimi sat down next to her friend Yokomon moved aside for her to do so. Joe looked Palmon over the best he could. What am I kidding? Joe thought. I'm studying to be a human doctor not a Digimon one. I must be a miracle worker!
"Well?" Mimi asked moving her hand on Palmon's forehead to rub the cold-pack on it about so she wouldn't get numb in one place.
"I can't definitely say. Looks like a fever of some sort considering how hot she is - especially given she's a plant - and it could also be the first signs of exhaustion from dehydration. We have been walking for long enough."
"If we had a thermometer we'd take her temperature", Gomamon said.
"That would work. . .if we knew what temperature would be normal for a plant Digimon, I mean."
Mimi removed her hand from the cold-pack wrapped in a cloth. "Oh my. I hope she's alright. . ."
"Well, as long as her fever breaks she'll be okay."
Yokomon had moved to the side of Palmon Gomamon was on - opposite of Mimi. There was a second cloth on Palmon, on her stomach, which Mimi probably figured was also cool or moist like the cold-pack-wrapped one on her head. Gomamon placed one of his paws on the cloth to check on it.
"Yokomon, bring some more water over here. The cloth is drying-up again and her stomach is still as warm as a hot-spring", he said exaggerating about the hot-springs. . .or so Mimi hoped, at least.
Joe turned to Yokomon as she bounced past him over to the open supplies behind. "Don't over-use that water. We don't have a lot of it left on reserve, if any."
"Don't worry, Joe. We won't." Yokomon took a much larger bounce when she was close and knocked the bag down to one-side as she shuffled through the contents, moving them the best she could. She was there for about five second before she came across a bottle. "Is this it? I can't tell."
"Might be." She bounced her way back over to Gomamon with a translucent green bottle. Somehow she had gotten it wrapped in the curl ornament that was on her head and that was how she was holding it. Gomamon removed it from the curl and fumbled his best to take the screw-on cap off with the claw-like three fingers on his forearms. When he had gotten it off he extended the 'palm' of his second hand (the one that had taken the cap off and was still holding it) and shook the bottle horizontally over it. A small sphere of blackness poured out of the bottle and fell onto Gomamon's hand.
"Nope, Yoko, it isn't. Keep trying", Gomamon said and Yokomon returned to the bag. "Say what is this gunk anyway?"
Joe looked at Gomamon's arm. "Hey, that's the stuff that I took from the tar-pits."
"I almost soaked a fresh wash-cloth with the stuff."
"I told you to label that bottle, Joe", Mimi said.
Joe took the bottle from Gomamon and Gomamon finished his balancing at on only two back-legs enabling him to stand. Joe waved his hand over the bottle, blowing some of the smell from it his way (trust me, it's a safer procedure) and wrinkled his nose when he got a sniff of it. "This doesn't smell much like tar."
"How would you know?"
"They were paving a street on my block when I was leaving for camp, Gomamon. The smell's been stuck in my nose since."
"Yeah, but what does paving a street have to do with tar?" ask Gomamon who admittedly hadn't been in the real world yet, let alone understood much about the activities there.
Mimi looked up from Palmon at the bottle Joe was holding. Although she had been watching Palmon intently, she had been keeping up with the conversation over the bottle. It wasn't the most engaging one, she admitted to herself, but it was better than pure silence. "Here, let me have a smell and see if I don't know what it is."
"Got it!" Yokomon called over from the bag as she produced a transparent green with one of the pints of the remaining water in it and carried it over to Gomamon in the same manner as she had the first bottle. Gomamon tried to take it with his left paw so he could uncap this one too but when he lifted it, he found that the dot of 'tar' he had gotten from the other bottle had stuck to both his hand and the metal ground. Yokomon held the bottle as Gomamon tried in vain to clean the goop from his hand but just spread it worse.
Mimi took the bottle from Joe's out-stretched hand and took it to her nose. After just one whiff, she quickly pulled the bottle away, wrinkled her nose in a similar manner as Joe did and cringed at the smell, moving the bottle away from her face.
"Know what it is?" Joe asked.
"Yeah, I do. Crude, un-manufactured oil - perhaps #23 type - mixed-in with the tar."
"What?" Gomamon, still in the same predicament, asked.
"How'd you know that?" Joe asked.
"Well", Mimi said, handing back the glass container, "One of the jobs my father did once was inspect a business refinery - an Exxon, I think - that supplied his company with the oil it needed for its factory; it happened to be my luck it was 'take your daughter to work' day. There was this one room that was piping the oil out of a big docked ship to the rest of the factory. The room positively reeked of this stuff - lucky for me I was wearing extra strong French perfume that day."
"And I bet you can even tell me the name of the perfume as well. . ." Joe said aside.
"My Sin, I think."
Sora, who was starting to unroll some blankets and pillows with Tentomon's help, couldn't help but giggle at this.
Mimi continued: "Anyway, the worker showing us about gave us these weird face-masks to wear, he said that they'd help us breath in the thick oil-smelling air there. Although it helped a bit, and was probably just to help keep us in good health from all the fumes. I still remember that odor vividly."
"Oil, eh?" Joe took the cap from the place where the troubled Gomamon put it down, capped the bottle and then placed it down by the ground next to his foot. He also took the cloth off Palmon's stomach and held it in one hand. "That may still be of some use later. Now, Yokomon, let me have that bottle of water. We can't use too much of it."
Gomamon about now was stuck to the ground by both his front paws because he couldn't get the tar/oil off either of his palms, which he rubbed together to try and clean off. TK was the only person who wasn't doing anything at the moment and saw the white seal struggling there. He ran over the spilt contents of the supplies bag and took an already stained towel from the pile and then ran over to Gomamon to help wipe the gunk off.
"Thanks, TK."
"No prob`, Gomamon."
*******
"Keep silent and stick to the shadows."
"No difficulty in doing that; just tell us where we're going."
"I can't see any of my paws a foot in front of my face."
"Want I should 'Pepper Breath' us a light, Tai?"
"*sigh* How'd I recruit a reconnaissance group like this?"
"Ask the Digivices. They're what got us here in the first place."
Tai's group had crossed the room of inert assembly line machines - which was about a good seventy five feet blanketed in a mist or vapor. After that, they had crawled into an air duct system when they found that the room had no doors on the other-side. Currently they were inching their way through the factory's system using sparse light from bolted gratings below to see at intervals. The aluminum duct shined eerie glares from the light at times; machines and sounds could be heard all about. Mostly though the group crawled forward in darkness.
"It looks as if we're coming up to another grating, guys", Tai called back from the front of the queue.
"Let's hope this one can get us out of this vent", Matt called as the third person.
Agumon was roughly following behind Tai - 'roughly' because he couldn't see him most of the time - and Gabumon the same for Matt. Izzy followed the bunch. "Agumon, pal, is it just me or does the air about here seem hotter than usual?"
"You must be mistaken, Gabumon. That fur coat must provide too much insulation."
"True, Gabumon never does take it off", Izzy said from behind the group.
"But I do smell something hanging in the air", Agumon continued, "Nothing like I've ever smelt before."
"Corner - right", Tai said as his fingers rubbed-up against the perpendicular wall of the duct that signified a 'right turn'. "And we're getting closer to the next grating; I can see it's source of light right from here."
Once the group had turned the corner in the duct system, Matt looked past Tai's form up ahead of him: "Is that the grated area, there?"
"Yeah, let's hope this one is unbolted."
The entire group crawled up to the grated section as it spewed light upwards into the chamber. The actual grating was at the bottom of a circular, foot-deep indent in the 'floor'. Tai and Matt took opposite sides of the indent and reached-in to alternately push and pull at the bars. Agumon and Gabumon stayed on one side with Izzy. The light from the exposed outside lit up a bit of the duct section they were in. "Hey, this one feels like it's just stuck! Maybe just a few more pushes!"
"You mean 'pulls' ", Tai said, "Don't you, Matt?"
As the two tried to pull/push the grating out of it's lodging (they were still trying to figure out which) Izzy at the back of the group was waiting. He dark eyes were commonly used to straining to see thanks to his hours of endless work on his laptop, sometimes even at the worst of background lighting; but, even this was pushing his luck. He looked at one of the aluminum walls to his right just to give his eyes something to do so they wouldn't start playing tricks on him and that's when he noticed a weird barely centimeter deep, horizontal indent running along the wall of the duct.
Putting his finger on it and running across it, he found that it was not only parallel to the floor of the duct and kept at an even height but also ran over the complete wall of the duct and at the same depth everywhere. It was as if. . .something just a bit too big for it's own good had bullied its way through the duct system before them. Looking on the opposite wall, he found yet a similar - if not exact - indent running from one-end to the other.
"Uh…guys?"
"In a minute, Izzy; we're busy at the moment", Tai said as he pulled upwards on the grate along with Matt.
Matt stopped afterwards: "Let's move on. This grate may not have anything bolting it down but it's as stuck in place as my hair is."
"Should we try pushing. . ."
"GAH!"
The next event was almost instantaneous. Agumon threw himself forward in the small crawl-space and dropped his weight down onto the grating. The stuck circular panel of bars gave way and dropped both itself and Agumon's compact form down to the ground of the room. As soon as he landed, Agumon took a readied fighting stance. The grate clanked to the ground in one solid resonance.
"Er…uh…well, that is one way to get it un-stuck", Matt said.
Gabumon dropped through the hole too and landed behind Agumon. He stood and turned the other direction taking a similar 'ready' stance, guarding the other way. "Oof! Com'mon, you guys, get down here."
"Coast's clear."
Tai dropped down the opening and grabbed onto the edge - it was still a good four meter drop to the floor. The close-to-the-wall grate opening was accompanied by a metal bar ladder going down the wall alongside to the floor. Tai grabbed onto it and started his way down: "Thanks, Agumon, but did you have to remind me of water. I'm still dying of thirst here." Tai reached the floor and Matt and finally Izzy followed. They had to jump the last meter and a half down to floor because the ladder ended abruptly as if it were supposed to be used by something bigger than themselves.
Izzy was the last to jump down the four-and-a-half feet to the ground. He landed in a crouch due to the fact he was off-balance. The silver hallway had decided constructed, yet almost unexplainably smooth, panel walls and was lit by light sources from above. The floor was like the walls but of a darker shade of silver. The ceiling was a mesh of pipes and panels. To the direction Izzy faced, there was a T-shaped intersection; the opposite direction slowly arced into a turn. Overlapping, sporadic noises echoed about them - much more audible than before.
"Whoa. What do you think the electric bill around here is?" Tai asked as Agumon and Gabumon put their high-strung guards slowly down.
"Probably a lot more than you can afford", Matt answered.
"This looks very much different from that other factory on Vile Island", Gabumon said looking about.
"You think an Andromon lives here?"
"Wouldn't doubt something like that, Agumon."
"Okay, Iz", Tai started turning about to face Izzy, who hadn't yet stood from his landing and was looking about. "Can we get a scan of this place or what-not?" Although the terminology was very sketchy, Izzy got what Tai was trying to say. He pulled his laptop out from his backpack and opened it up. He started typing and within a few seconds the tiny light alongside his infrared port began to blink; Izzy's screen, however, showed nothing but an open window of static.
"Well, Iz?" Matt asked.
"There's too much electromagnetic radiation being emitted from the machinery around us; it's blanketing out my infrared signal", Izzy said, still typing and now standing up. "I'd need a precise target for my port to focus on to work correctly in this environment."
"Super: that means we'll have to find trouble first", Matt said nonchalantly.
Agumon sniffed the air: "That weird smell's close…it's an old smell too."
Gabumon looked over past Agumon and saw Izzy walking off down the hallway towards the intersection slowly, eyes on his screen. "Matt, should we let him go off on his own?"
"Com'mon, Gabumon", Tai answered for his owner. "He's barely a few feet away as it is."
Izzy took a few steps forward trying to clear his signal up if it were possible. Anywhere he went there was a solid wall of static on his screen with the faintest blip every now and then that quickly vanished as it appeared. Izzy stopped walking only a dozen short steps or so away from the others when he heard low hums coming from the walls about them. He looked-up just in time to catch a glimpse of numerous rectangular panels in the walls sliding downwards and intricate pipe-like tubes extending an inch from the wall. On sight and as reaction Izzy yelled, "Guys, hit the dirt!"
Tai and Matt were just dumb-founded in place when Izzy's warning had informed them that numerous of those pipes had also opened around them from the walls. Luckily for them, Agumon and Gabumon tackled and knocked them to the floor just as the neon-green energy bolts fired from each of the tubes at intervals. On the ground, the five covered their heads and ears; amazingly, the pipe-like cannons were only positioned at what would be their head and chest heights. Also as eerie, the only sound the shots made were the 'Fooms' of the pulse as it left the tube and then a slight crackle when it collided with the other wall. After ten seconds of this aimless firing, the cannons stopped and retracted into the walls.
Tai was the first to look-up from on the floor: he had a minor ache in his back where Agumon's claws had landed and the goggles that were perpetually plastered to his forehead had slid down over his eyes when he fell. "Everyone okay?" When his dizziness passed, he noticed he was looking at the soles of Izzy's shoes. "Hey, you four: speak-up!"
"I'm okay, I'm okay. I think", Matt answered as he pushed himself up. "Gabumon where'd you learn to tackle someone like that? You should've been a football player."
" 'Football'? Is that anything like the sport soccer that Sora was teaching us?" the wolf Digimon asked as he started to get-up.
"We must've set off some sort of trap, Tai. I say we were being expected", Agumon said as he stood-up. Izzy was doing likewise - although, he had landed with his head forward giving it a nasty bump on impact. "Maybe, Agumon, but it wasn't like we had a choice in the matter of coming…here?" The last part of Tai's sentence was stretched-out when he saw some sort of faint bar of light crossing the floor just behind Izzy's shoe. "Hey, Izzy, watch how you back-up and look at this."
Izzy turned about when he sprawled on the ground to face Tai who was pointing at - as far as Izzy's eyes were concerned - blank air. "What are you pointing to, Tai?" Tai shook his finger at the point as to stress his point: "This! The red bar of light right here." "But, Tai, there isn't a 'red bar of light' right there", Izzy answered. Tai fixed the goggles on his forehead again and looked again: it WASN'T there, just as Izzy had said.
"No way, I just saw it."
"Tai, let me see your goggles."
"Okay, here." Tai took-off and handed Izzy his goggles, which he immediately put on. He took one note about Tai's head size: they both wore the same hat-size and then looked at the ground where the supposed 'bar' was. To his surprise, he could plainly make out the faint outlines and fluxes of a red light bar going across the hall.
"You're right, Tai. There is a light here."
"Told you."
"The blue tint of your goggles must be picking-up the red color of the beam in a similar way that a third dimension is drawn into a picture with red and blue inks - an optical illusion."
"What do you think it's for?" Agumon said crouching over, looking suspiciously at the light that 'wasn't there'.
"Don't know", Izzy said as he moved his palm into the path of the beam and cut it off from completing its circuit from one side to the other. Almost as soon as he had done this, the numerous wall panels opened up above them - luckily no one was standing yet - and started letting off round after round of shots for ten seconds. "It's a defensive trip-wire!" Izzy yelled before the guns started firing. The group stared upwards to get a better look on the weapons firing at what would've been them but none of them could make out what kind they were, not even Izzy. Ten seconds later, the defenses shut-off and closed-down. Tai and his group could now stand with ease.
"Well, at least we know that no one in particular was expecting us", Tai said as he got his goggles back from Izzy, who was just leaning back over to pick-up his computer.
Gabumon: "So which way do we go?"
"I think we should head down to that T-intersection and then split into two there, meeting back-up in a few minutes", Matt said pointing the direction Izzy initially wandered.
"No, too complicated. It's obvious someone doesn't want anyone going either of those directions for some reason and we have two paths and only one set of goggles there. If there are anymore trip-wires, I mean…", Izzy said.
"He has a very good point. Who know what other kinds of traps are that way?" Agumon said, looking up to Tai.
"Okay then: we'll go the other way - there's only one path that way", Tai said as he started walking, goggles on and over his eyes. Fortunately, there weren't any if only a scattered few trip-wires that direction as he could see.
"We might as well. We've gotten this far", Matt agreed and followed Izzy who was following Tai and Agumon down the one-way corridor.
After about five minutes of marching that direction, the group stopped out on the top of a grating balcony above a room. In the room were about three assembly-lines similar to the ones in the room they had first entered except for the fact that these were actually working. A red glow of molten metal illuminated the room. The conveyor belts, instead of having machines on it, had globs of some sort of black liquid on it and various shaped and sized parts on it at intervals. Machinery was audible but not too loud not to be heard over it easily; sweat-breaking heat was present, as in contrast to the cool hallway they had just left.
"Prodigious!" Izzy exclaimed.
"I hope this production-line isn't as useless as the one back at Vile Isle", Matt said leaning on the metal guard rail and looking down at the bay. There didn't look to be any humans nor Digimon about; just the machines working on their own. Tai knew what Matt meant: he meant that the machines didn't just put some unknown device together only to take every copy of it apart in a fit of perpetual energy.
"This must've been what I felt earlier", Gabumon said.
"And what I smelt. Look you can see the bottom of the air-duct up there", Agumon pointed upwards at the ceiling where a twist of rafters, pipes and other bars hung in tangles.
"Well, this is a start. So far there isn't anything in this room that should worry us any", Tai said. He side-glanced at Izzy to see if he was amazed; he looked rather controlled actually. Tai then looked back at the conveyor belt which slowly turned along the contents on it. There was something peculiar about the design of it, with all those weird struts supporting it but then almost everything in the Digital World had some peculiarity to it.
"This must be a main section of operations for the factory", Izzy said. "That black liquid looks to be fresh as if burnt but with all that still solid metal, their furnace must be broken."
"Who knows if they even made the stuff melt? But that would explain the heat", Matt said. "It's getting almost too hot in here for me", Gabumon said down near the ground.
"Yeah, even for me, Tai", Agumon agreed. "There's no one here; we should keep looking before we almost bake again."
"Yeah, you're right. Let's. . ."
Izzy hissed, "Duck!" Once again, the present company hit the dirt - or rather, the metal grated balcony - not wanting a replay of the previous event. But after a second, Tai and Matt uncovered their heads again; Agumon and Gabumon were still in position and Izzy was looking out into the factory.
"Hey, Iz! What gi. . .Htmph!
"Shhh", Izzy said with one finger on his mouth, using the other hand to block Tai's. "I did that for a reason. Look." Izzy pointed forwards towards the side of one of the bigger machines that was there, a non-moving one. Then Tai saw what he hadn't the first time: something was there moving! The thing levitated in mid-air and had a elliptical silver body with cracks that exposed red eyes and a wavy slit that obviously was a mouth. On either side of its body were two gears held on by a connection behind. The gears were a dulled, obsidian black. The machine was seemingly checking-out the unmoving machine that it was hovering next to.
"What is that? A Digimon?" Matt asked, now directing his attention to the creature Izzy had seen.
"None that I've ever seen", Gabumon answered. "Then again, I haven't really seen that many machine-type Digimon myself."
"Let's try and get closer", Tai said as he slowly began to get-up in a way so as not to make too much noise. Izzy, Matt, Agumon and Gabumon slowly got up and crossed-over to one-side of the balcony area where there was a stairway going down to the base level. They walked trying not to make too much - or any if possible - noise with their steps. After some twenty steps, the group found themselves at ground-level and hiding behind a rather large horizontal pipe, coupled and supplemented by a few smaller ones and gauges. They all looked over at the machine creature as inspected the other, dormant machine with a scrutinizing eye.
"Tai, should we attack? Or take it as a friendly thing?" Agumon asked.
"Don't know. I'm not even sure if that's a real Digimon. Izzy, what does your Analyzer say?"
Izzy lifted the flap of his laptop up and started typing, starting-up the Digimon database that Gennai had programmed into it. When he was ready, he aimed his laptop at the creature when its back was turned and pressed 'enter'. A green light next to the infrared port started to blink again, meaning that it was working.
Just a second after the port began functioning, the silver thing snapped erect in mid-air - it was leaning forward just a second ago - and spun around in their general direction. The group ducked further behind the pipes out of the line-of-sight of the machine before it was completely about; Izzy covered his infrared port just for extra assurance. But that wasn't enough for the machine: it had definitely sensed something that had not fit and slowly hovered its way over their direction.
"Oh man, that thing detected your infra, Iz! It's coming this way", Matt said, peering through cracks in the pipes. "Hope you know what it is."
"I do. The port was exposed long enough to get a signal back", Izzy said as he typed on his computer, taking his other hand off the port. "Well, then get it up already", Tai said then turned to Agumon who was still wondering if he should attack.
Quickly, Izzy got a profile of the creature up onto his screen. "Okay…it's a Geardramon: a data-type, Rookie Digimon. Those two gears on either side of him aren't just for show; they can spin perpetually, feeding off the constant energy about them. They also help him perform his signature attack - 'Gear Strip'."
"Swell. It's only a Rookie, right?" Tai asked.
"Yeah."
"Good; then two champions shouldn't have any trouble with it."
"But remember the Digimon are too tired to Digivolve", Matt said.
"Yeah, although I'm good for fighting at the moment, I don't think I could Digivolve on my energy", Gabumon said.
"Then we'll have to settle for two Rookies versus another", Agumon said.
"Shh. You four keep it down", Izzy said silently as he looked-up from his screen. "This also a good time to note that machine-type Digimon can be much more powerful than up to four organic-type Digimon at the same level!"
"What?!" all four of them said in a low unison.
Just as they exclaimed that, the Geardramon rose from the other-side of the pipes that they were hiding behind and took them all by surprise! It was spinning both its wheels like fan-blades. "Unwarranted intruders have been sighted; targets in range. Locked!" the Geardramon announced in a monotone but human-like voice as it spotted the five and moved an internal target sign onto each of them.
"Huh? Gah!" the five said almost instantaneously as they turned and found themselves staring into the crimson-red pupils of the Geardramon.
"GEAR STRIP!" the machine cracked as its right-rapidly spinning gear flew off the triangular supports holding it in place and flew towards the children and their Digimon. Izzy ducked just in time for the flying gear to go over his head, but not before slightly ricocheting off the larger of the pipes they were hiding behind. Tai and Matt fell aside to either direction and bumped their Digimon out of the way too. The gear clanked against the metal ground - breaking a huge chunk off the part it hit into - rebounded up off the wall - taking a piece of it too - before spinning back to the stationary Geardramon. Before, when the gear had crashed into the pipe, it had broken a crack of it open and steam was now pouring out of it onto the Geardramon, although it looked un-bothered physically by the heat.
"It just ripped the ground to rubble!"
"That can't be, Matt! Metal is malleable, not brittle!" Izzy said as he landed on his side.
"Whatever that means", Agumon said as he regained balance.
"Alert! Visual lost. Optic sensors have been inhibited", the Geardramon announced in a drone-voice as its gear landed back into place as smoothly as it had left. The Geardramon was registering a blank reading from the 'intruders'.
"PEPPER BREATH!"
But it registered that. With a spin in a complete circle, the Geardramon used its own whirling gear to disperse the fireball and blow away the steam clouding his sensors and the Digi-destined. Tai and Matt were just starting their assent on the stairs again, Izzy was about to follow them and the Digimon were standing ready. "Intruders reacquired."
"BLUE BLASTER!"
"PEPPER BREATH!"
The Geardramon dodged the attacks left then right and then returned to its original position. "Target's persistence continues. Avail you not, it will. SUATERING POMMEL!" The spinning gears aside each of its body then started firing off in large quantities what appeared to be inch-long glowing red pulses at the two Digimon. They jumped to the left and right of the attacks, accidentally leaving the path open for the attacks to strike at the three humans climbing the stairs. "Gah!" Izzy said, jumping as one of the pulses just barely missed him on the stairs; but that jump also threw him off-balance backwards.
"Got'cha, man", Matt said as he quickly turned about and grabbed Izzy by a flailing wrist, stopping him from falling.
"Com'mon, Izzy let's go! Let's go!" Tai called from the top of the stairs. The pommel attack continued to rip the supports under the stairs apart was Matt and Izzy were both almost at the top.
Then the supports collapsed. Matt made a jump for the top along with Izzy from their place at about half-way up. Matt grabbed onto the ledge of the balcony section by his fingers and Izzy had hold of Matt around his legs and hanging tightly. He was still about four meters above the ground. "Uh. . .little help here!"
"Hey, hold on! I can't pull you both-up at the same time!" Tai said kneeling over the edge of where the stairs used to be. "Izzy, grab hold; then you, Matt." He reached down with his hand and Izzy shifted his weight from Matt to a now straining Tai. Within moments he had both of them on the balcony again - they were all sitting and breathing heavily.
"Man, you two have to go on a diet if I'm gon'na have to be doing that", Tai said. Both Matt and Izzy were going to rebuke when they were interrupted. Namely, a gear sliced through the center of the balcony and just missed nicking Tai's forehead. "But, first let's get out of here!" Tai continued and started getting-up after the gear past completely over him, bounced off the wall behind and back to the Geardramon.
"Hey, you leave them alone!" Gabumon said down on the lower level.
"If I were you, I'd listen to us, Geardramon. We didn't mean to intrude. We. . .", Agumon started but never got to finish.
"Intruder negotiations do not compute. GEAR STRIP!" The gear flew off the support and Agumon jumped backwards, just as it crashed into the ground before him. Unfortunately, it bounced upwards and then ricocheted off Agumon's forehead - knocking him backwards - before returning. Agumon was luckily caught by Gabumon who was behind as he fell backwards. "Agumon! You alright?"
"That thing packs a whollop!" he said and then stood back-up on his own, looking at the machine.
"How about we try together at once?"
"Worth a try, Gabumon."
"Targets are stationary. Locked!" Geardramon said.
"BLUE BLASTER!"
"PEPPER BREATH!"
"SUATERING POMMEL!"
Matt, Tai and Izzy were just running into the hallway again when they heard all three of those simultaneous attacks announced. The next thing they knew, they were thrown to the floor of the hallway for about two feet. A massive fireball had erupted right outside from the lower level and the force had knocked Izzy flying and his laptop skidding to a stop about a foot from where he fell. Tai and Matt didn't fall as much from the force as they did from the weight of having their Digimon thrown upwards from the lower-level, into the hallway and landing on them when the they had turned around.
Tai was the first to turn-over, gently pushing Agumon's weight off of him to look back out into the room. He was met with the doorway being blocked by a wall of light gray steam and smoke, probably from blast. Matt then did likewise with Gabumon, whose fir was still none the better from the blast. "Gabumon, buddy, are you okay?"
"Ooo. . .my horn hurts."
"Agumon, you okay? Did you get it?" Tai said looking over his companion who was just sitting-up straight.
"Don't know. . .the blast blinded me from seeing", Agumon said wiping his eyes with his fists.
His question was answered when two glowing red lights and then the form of Geardramon hovered out of the mists and entered the hallway. "Targets have relocated. Reacquired."
"Er. . .I guess that means 'no'."
Izzy turned about from his stomach-first position on the floor and saw the Geardramon too. "Guys! Given the circumstances, I'd say this is the best time for a tactical retreat!" He then climbed to his feet and reached for his fallen laptop in front of him.
"Whatever he said, I'm with him!" Tai exclaimed as he got up and help Agumon to his feet. "Ditto", Matt called back as he helped Gabumon up. Izzy reached down for his laptop as the Geardramon began to hover forwards into the room. He grabbed the laptop's edge but stopped in place when his ears picked-up the familiar sound of panels sliding open on the walls from both sides. He muttered a curse to himself and then said aloud, "Trip-wire!"
Everything after that occurred like a blur.
The room was lit-up with the glow of green plasma firing from wall to wall like a shooting gallery. Tai, Matt, Izzy and the Digimon ran back down the hall like a fury, jumping and dodging plasma shots; this time they set the device off, the cannons fired diagonally, towards the floors and ceilings too. At the same time, they had to dodge the 'suatering pommel' that the Geardramon shot at them from behind. It too was in the shooting gallery and was doing its best to maneuver about the randomized energy bolts.
"This is not good!" Tai yelled from the front of the darting queue.
"Oh, who's now sound. . .Yeow!" Matt began but then skidded to a halt, and Gabumon behind him, as an energy bolt reflected off the floor, almost hitting him. He then continued running and talking: ". . .sounding like Joe?!"
"I know a retreat needs cover-fire, but this is TOO much!", Izzy exclaimed in his run, covering the group's back.
"Then let's get rid of some of it! BLUE BLASTER!"
Gabumon's attack struck one of the cannons' nozzles in the walls somewhere in front of him and it exploded, beginning to spew smoke from it's ruined circuitry. Unfortunately for the group, once this was done more panels opened on the ceiling and began to fire likewise attacks down at the floor. This made the situation even worse for the group.
"That wasn't the best thing to do, Gabumon!" Agumon called back to his companion as he jumped over a low shot.
"Indeed!" Izzy stopped abruptly within inched of another shot that would've ripped through his head. "Gabumon's attack gave the system a catalyst to upgrade its defenses!"
"Believe me, I'm glad for it!" Tai yelled in sarcasm. He then looked ahead down the hall as some of the gun-ports began to close on the walls and ceilings. But the 'pommel' attack from the Geardramon was still firing at random like some deranged machine-gun with the trigger locked-down. He looked back to catch a glimpse of it - it was close - and then he looked forward to see the metal ladder to the duct above that they had used. "There's the ladder! We're almost home-free! (pause) Agumon, give us some cover."
"I'll try, Tai!" Agumon stopped and almost turned on a dime to face the approaching Geardramon. He then took a fighting stance - none to fancy, just one that sort of said 'I'm ready'. "Com'mon, Gabumon, let's get the guys some cover!" Gabumon stopped alongside Agumon when they reached and turned to face the Geardramon too. As Izzy passed by, the two Digimon heard: "Good luck!"
The Geardramon stopped firing after a few seconds and then stopped moving altogether. The auto-guns had also ceased after their full ten seconds were up. "Two of the targets in proximity. The rest are still moving", it commented.
"GEAR STRIP!" Agumon jumped to one-side as the flying gear flew past him and the rounded back. The Digimon then jumped back into his original place as the gear boomeranged back into place on the support.
"SUATERING POMMEL!" The attack was directed towards Gabumon this time. The pudgy wolf Digimon couldn't move fast enough to dodge to one-side of the attack so instead he hit the dirt and the energy shots flew over his face-down form.
The shots continued onwards until they came towards the ladder that led to the vent opening. Tai had been the first there and had given Matt and Izzy a leg-up to the bottom of the ladder. Tai grabbed hold of Izzy's hand after he was on the ladder and Izzy helped pull him up. "Thanks."
"Look out!" Izzy said as he pointed down the hall and the random shots began to riddle against the wall and about them. "These quarters just get closer and closer!" Tai and Izzy began climbing again, Izzy into the duct opening with the help of Matt and Tai up to the opening. Once Tai got there he took a quick-look at the Geardramon still firing at random and their Digimon dodging there best.
"GEAR STRIP!" The attack caught Tai off-guard at first: he was surprised greatly to find the large black gear hurtling towards him and the ladder.
"Whoa!" Tai exclaimed at the attack. He was only a bit more than three-fourths of the way up the ladder so he just jumped for the lower edge of the duct, hoping to catch into it. But, much to his dismay, the gear collided with the ladder first, ripping it to shreds off the wall and then rebounded off the wall, colliding with him right in the ribs. The blow knocked the wind out of him and hit him away from reaching for the edge of the opening.
That gave him about five meters to fall. . .
Or not.
"Huh?" Tai looked-upwards just as his hand was snatched by Matt who was leaning out over the opening from above. "Got'cha! Here let me give you a lift." He reached down with his other hand and Tai soon found himself inside the duct with the other two.
"Let's try to corner this Digimon, Agu?"
"Why not, Gabu. I'll take the rear."
"Non-Digimon intruders have fled into the service ducts. SUATERING POM. . .", the Geardramon began as it rotated itself upwards to fire its weapons at the duct. But he was cut-off before he could finish by Agumon: "Hey, Geardramon, heads-up!"
"What?" Geardramon quickly leveled out again to center on a charging Agumon that was closing in on him. "GEAR STRIP!" Just as the gear flew off its support, Agumon jumped with all his might - or what it was at the moment - and cleared both the Digimon and its flying gear. The gear continued on and flew without an exact direction but headed towards Gabumon. The wolf Digimon followed an unusual urge he had, ran forward and also jumped upwards toward the gear. When he came back down, the gear was clamped stationary in his mouth. "Yeech! It tastes like oil!"
"Input does not compute! One primary weapon is disabled", the Geardramon crackled. Then in a less-computerized tone he added, "Give me back my gear!"
"PEPPER BREATH!"
Agumon's blast struck the Geardramon right on the opposite gear's supports, igniting their middle-points a red metal glow. The dinosaur-like Digimon grabbed onto the support in a cooler place and was capable of pulling the now weakened metal bars off of the Geardramon's body, plus a quickly spinning gear, as it mechanically shrieked. "There, that should clip your arsenal."
"I may not have the energy left to fire at you anymore, but I'm not powerless yet", Gabumon said just after he took the gear out his mouth and took it in his right paw. He then wound his arm backwards and then threw it forward, throwing the gear in the similar manner of the Geardramon's attack. "Try some of your own medicine!"
The collided with the Geardramon right in the face and, even given that it was a metal one, the machine cringed on its collision and let out another mechanical yelp. Where the nose should've been on the rounded face there was now a crack that spewed minor sparks. "Warning: tolerance levels at fifty percent!"
"Make it even higher then!"
Agumon had run-out of the energy to perform another of his attacks too so instead used the gear he also had. He slashed the still rapidly-spinning gear across the back of the Geardramon's form, leaving an even bigger gash there which more electrical sparks crackled out of than the front one. After the slash, the gear flew loose of the broken-off supports and flew off somewhere; Agumon dropped the broken metal pipes.
The Geardramon was thrown forward at this hit from behind, which made it lose it all of its mobility control. It flew towards Gabumon uncontrollably only to be vertically smashed by one of wolf Digimon's fists when it came near. The smoking form of the Digimon crashed backwards again, down to the floor and when it hit on the ground it deleted from all of its damage in a discharge of static. The fight was over.
"Com'mon, Agumon, we'd better not wait around for the clean-up crew to show themselves!"
"Right, Gabumon. Let's get out of here while we still have the energy to move!"
The two ran over to the spot just underneath the opening to the service duct above. "Hey up there, a little help down here!" Tai appeared over the ledge and then reached downwards for his companion.
"Hey, good going! Is it gone, Agumon?"
"He's toasted!" Gabumon answered of him as Agumon stepped out of tai's view to get a running-start. Gabumon gave him a leg-up and he was able to grab onto Tai's grasping out-stretched hand. Unfortunately, Agumon weighed just a bit more than Tai could handle and Gabumon's weight added to Agumon's took the three children to heft back into the duct.
"Okay, so where do we go now? Continue onwards?" Matt asked.
"That would be suicide", Izzy said. It came-out deadly blunt but that really wasn't the mood Izzy was trying to project. "The Digimon ran out of energy to use their attacks so they'd have limited effectiveness at being able to protect themselves, let alone us, if we should come across anymore temperamental locals. I'd say that we should head back to the room we originally entered and recuperate."
"Yeah, there really isn't much more we can do at this rate", Tai said as he crawled back around Matt and Izzy to get back to the front of the queue. Agumon followed him.
"Let's get moving before our one-hour limit is up."
*******
Two minutes after the Digi-destined had made their way around the service duct's corner and were back on their way to the main room they started this adventure in, another machine Digimon was passing through the hallway from the opposite direction. His numerously segmented steel legs moved along uniformly and precisely to avoid stepping on any of the laser trip-wires in resounding 'Clanks'.
The creature's upper body was like two steel-gray blocks stacked on each other. Its head was nothing more than a single, plain blue-glass dome on the top of its head. On what should've been its shoulder unit was it's only visible eye - an organic one; the eye inlet - which looked as if it had been cracked to make an opening although it was natural - was alongside a grating that had a broken section in the center. Two massive, multi-segmented steel arms with three large cone fingers protruded from each shoulder. A jet-pack was on its back.
The machine stopped and looked left and right at the burn marks that had been scorched onto the otherwise immaculate wall panels. It then turned again and its eye passed from the metal grating lying on the floor to the parts of broken ladder weakly hanging onto the wall to the opening duct entrance above.
"Number 16, report!" a scratchy male voice crackled over the internal communicator, although it was loud enough to be audible to the room.
"Negative visual readings on the intruders Geardramon 44 reported before he lost contact", the machine said to the other voice over the phone. It spoke in a slow, high machine-like voice. The voice was much different than a Geardramon's voice in that this one didn't have any emotion in it nor did it even sound remotely 'human'.
"Of course, you dummy! Do you actually think that anyone would stand around and wait for a clean-up crew?!"
"Question does not compute. Please rephrase inquiry."
"Oye!" the voice exclaimed. It then started again, in a lower, almost aside voice: "I'm working with mindless rejects from Star Wars here. (in a full voice) What about Geardramon 44? Where's he at?"
The machine took a few steps forward and then reached down with one of it's extending hands to grab at a gear that was lying aimlessly on the ground.
"Unit 'Geardramon number 44' ceases to function."
"Give me a visual of ground zero."
"Affirmative; activating optic transmission circuits." The machine's one eye then began to glow red as it recorded the scene about it and transmitted pictures back to the person on the other end of the communications.
"Looks like a Tankmon came through there! Nothing serious, though; right?"
"Scanning", the machine said as it put its hand with the gear down to its side and the blue dome on its head blinked accompanied by digital clicks and beeps. When it stopped: "Scanning complete."
There was a pause between both side of the communications.
"Well, give me your analysis then!!" the voice exclaimed enraged over the communicator at the machine. "There are times when you ARE trying. . ."
"All machinery within a ten meter radius in fully functional condition", the Digimon machine answered.
"Finally, number 16! I'd get rid of you and find a unit with some brains, you know, but then the boss might get testy. . .and I hate always getting on his bad side. (pause) Do a DNA scan of that open service duct."
The machine safely positioned itself under the opening to the duct and lifted its arm skyward. The arm continued to extend on its segmented joints higher and higher until the end of it was completely in the duct. "Engaging deoxyribonucleic acid scan."
"Yeah, yeah. Just do it already! Ya' don't need to un-acronym it; I know what it means. Well?" the voice said. It acted this bossy on a normal basis and its tone told that.
"Scans are positive", the machine said retracting its hand. "The DNA of a Agumon and of a Gabumon are present here; three other DNA types are present as well. Those three miscellaneous types appear to be non-digital in origin."
" 'Non-digital in origin'?! Darn it! That means the Digi-destined are here!" the voice shouted.
"Insufficient analysis. The Legend of the Digi-destined is a myth created by the prophet Oramon."
"Oh, shut-off!"
"Affirmative. Going into 'stand-by' until further instructions are provided."
"Wait! I didn't mean it that way!" the voice yelled and the machine stopped before he did turn itself off. "Geez! Did I have to get such a literal machine? Even this big lug next to me is more intelligent than you! (long pause) And that isn't saying much for him!"
"Awaiting further instructions."
"Are there any other gears lying around anywhere?"
"Negative", the machine answer after a quick sweep left and then right. "There aren't any others. Just the one I have in my hand."
"Okay, then. Mekanorimon unit number 16, get back here this instant! As much as this sounds like a joke, I have another assignment for you to do."
The Mekanorimon turned about to face down the hallway towards the T-shaped intersection with a grace that only a machine could achieve. It then began to walk forward towards the intersection, avoiding all of the trip-lasers with its exaggerated step. "Affirmative, Demimon."
"It's Demi-devimon!" the creature barked from the other-side of the communicator. "How many times must I tell you that I changed my name long ago before you figure that out!?"
"That remains to be seen."
"Shut-up and get back here already. Geesh!", Demi-devimon said and then cut the transmission. Internally, the Mekanorimon was thankful that he did: it couldn't stand another minute of processing that annoying Digimon's orders and voice. The Mekanorimon continued down the hallway and turned left at the intersection, disappearing around the corner.
[Legal Mumbo-Jumbo: I don't own Digimon nor any of their characters so don't flame me on this one. . .I don't own Fanfiction.net either so don't flame me on that one either. . .Yaddy yaddy yada. . .]
Sorry for the delay between chapters but I've been busy. I'll get Chapter 3 out as soon as possible. It will hopefully be easier than this one and the last. Has anyone figured out yet what this factory constructs (I've done almost everything but out-right tell you, I think)?
--Fate--