Author's Notes: Here's the next part. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I'm just writing this story purely for fun. If I do get contacted from the owners of Digimon telling me to take this down, I'll do so right away.
Unions
Part 2: Party Time and Interesting Tales
She was absolutely bored out of her skull.
Okay… maybe not absolutely bored as she did enjoy talking with a lot of familiar faces and being able to see 'Mandy' and 'Karen' along with Hawkmon and Gatomon respectively after so many years was quite a surprise.
"Is that really you, Yolei?"
The purple haired girl who wore a pair of coloured contacts simply shook her head. "Nope! It's Mandy, remember? And Karen too?" She replied with a wink as the other young woman smiled as well.
Rika quickly shook off the awkwardness as she remembered the false names she had given to them so long ago. "Ah… right. Mandy…"
"Dabingo!!"
"……………?"
"Hah!! You weren't expecting me to say that now, did you?!"
It was a bit of a funny story about how they had been able to receive their invitations in the first place…
Gennai's library had extended far beyond his estimations and he realized that a new larger space would be needed to house the additional data. So just over a year ago, he started construction on a library extension above ground (since it was far easier to build rather than construct a new extension underground) and after months of hard work, the new data was moved into the structure and organized according to his category system. He stepped back for a moment to admire his handiwork…
"Look out!!"
CRASH
A look of horror replaced the proud one he had just moments before as a humanoid lion Digimon that looked like Leomon emerged from what's left of his library extension. After quickly dusting himself off, he noticed the human character and jogged up to him. "I'm sorry to have to bother you but do you know the Digidestined by any chance?"
Gennai could only nod mutely.
"Ah. Then would you please deliver this to them? I would do so myself but I have my hands full with Darkdramon." He handed over a box filled with invitation cards and sand before making a run for it.
"Giga Beam!!" A giant pink beam of energy shot downwards from the sky and tried to hit the lion Digimon but he evaded it and kept moving. Moments later, Gennai saw a blue cyborg Digimon fly through at high speeds and send the pieces of his extension all over the area.
At a time like this, there was only one thing to do really.
"AAAAUUUGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!"
Eventually, he did pass on the invites to the other Digidestined and while the older cast generally couldn't make it due to schedule conflicts, the younger group were able to squeeze in some time off from their normal routines to pay a visit to Azulongmon and get to the Southern Human World. Their timing was pretty nice as her mother had planned for a ladies' night out with dinner at a Planet Hollywood restaurant in Tokyo.
The turnout was pretty good with a number of close female colleagues from the DTF, some female family members and friends attending the party with their Digimon. Of course, the male Digimon would leave some space for the ladies to gossip while they stood on guard to prevent any male scum from lavishing unwanted attention on the girls.
Rika grew bored quickly of the gossip circulating around the table and went outside for a breath of fresh air. She wore a stylish blue jacket with a purple dress shirt underneath and blue dress pants along with a pair of black business shoes. "Ugh… way too much estrogen in there."
"I suppose you would rather be at the male bachelor's party?" asked Renamon in an amused tone as she phased partially into view with her head and part of her upper body hidden in the shadows.
"I bet they're having loads more fun than I am. You know, if Kari and Yolei made it, I bet Veemon's around as well. You should go talk to him."
"What's there to say?"
Her Tamer shrugged at the indifferent response. "If that's the way you want to handle it, fine. Just as long as you don't have any regrets later."
When Rika didn't hear a word from her partner, she turned around to find that the fox Digimon had vanished. She was about to head back into the restaurant when she saw Jeri just exit the doors. She gave a wide smile upon seeing the other woman. "Hi, Rika!"
The DTF Chief of Staff nodded in acknowledgement. "Jeri." How someone could really be as cheerful and energetic as her baffled her mind.
"It's been a while since we were able to just talk like this, hasn't it?" As she stepped forward, her business casual green dress ruffled a bit.
"Yeah. You have something you want to talk about?"
"Sort of… sometimes, I just wonder about things that could have been. For example… if I had more into Digimon before it all became real, would Takato have felt more comfortable around me?"
There was a visible amount of surprise in Rika's purple eyes but Jeri didn't notice as she spoke. "You know, whenever we were in school together, he always seemed a little conservative around me. In a way, it was kind of cute. I figured that one day he would be doing something great because he had that spark inside of him. Of course, I never really figured it out until…"
"Guilmon armour-digivolve to… Flamedramon, the Fire of Courage!"
"… and after that night, I would think to myself how he had created something so special and courageous that acted as a reflection of his real self. Maybe if things had been going better for me back then, I probably would have tried to get him to be my boyfriend at the time."
"……… did you honestly love him back then?" She wasn't sure what she would do if Jeri said yes. Come to think of it, perhaps she should have asked whether she honestly loved him now.
"I don't know. I did like him a lot but too much happened and those feelings never really got a chance to be explored. Before we knew it, we got to this point. I can admit that I'm happy for him and for you too. I know you two will take care of each other," finished Jeri with a serene smile.
Rika couldn't help but feel unnerved at how open Jeri was. "Why did you share this with me?"
"I suppose I just wanted to finish dealing with issues that bothered the old me… which is ironically the young me. Now I can think of what the future has in store."
"Like a certain Chinese young man with an annoying rabbit Digimon for a partner?" asked the Digimon Queen with a grin.
The red look on Jeri's face said it all. A few moments later, both young women were laughing heartily. After they got that out of their systems, Jeri was the first to speak again. "So what's new and exciting in the DTF?"
"Where should I start? Well, about three months ago, I ran a battle test with some Tamers who wanted to move up the ranks and got some rather interesting results…"
OOOOOOOOOO
Considering the amount of power that was being thrown around by the multiple Digimon involved in this battle, one would have expected that the training room would be nothing more than rubble. However, this room was specifically built with walls made of Chrome Digizoid alloy to withstand a lot of damage for higher level training purposes as Rika had specified.
At the moment, she was doing a battle administration test for two DTF agents who were trying to move up the ranks in the DTF chain of command. Both Tamers had good scores from the previous parts of the promotion examination so far so this test would be the determining factor in whether they deserve a promotion in ranks or if they should stay where they are.
The first Tamer is a young blonde girl with red eyes who simply went by the name Nanami. She preferred using a strategic approach in her fights and so far, it has paid off with good results at minimal cost. She often made good usage of the type of magic that her partner Digimon could perform since he was classified as a Magic Warrior.
Currently, he was in his ultimate form and went by the name of Mystimon. Armed with an enchanted sword that had flames coming from the hilt upwards and his crystal ball, he would be a formidable opponent indeed.
As for the second Tamer Epsilon, his involvement with a Digimon with an unusual characteristic and being able to nurture it all the way to this point played a heavy factor in allowing him to get this far in the testing since his own statistics were ordinary. The origin of his partner seemed fairly simplistic as the Digiegg had been found in a server that specialized in historic oriental data.
Had it been an ordinary Digiegg, the team that had found it would have left it alone for the Digimon to raise itself naturally in the Digital World. However, they found out that the code for the egg was a bit abnormal compared to normal Digieggs. The information was forwarded to Shibumi (who still continues to work with Zhuqiaomon on how to make the quality of life a bit better for the Digimon who inhabited this sector of the Digital World). After some thought, the Sovereign allowed the team to take the egg back to their world for careful study.
Just to explain things a bit further, not every member of the DTF is an active Tamer. Some members were people who were formerly Tamers due to a mutual separation (be it a temporary or permanent one) or a tragic ending for their Digimon. Epsilon's situation was that of the latter with a particular bad skirmish between his Kyukimon and a group of Hyogamon that was led by a Tekkamon that bio-emerged one night. By the time backup had arrived, the battle had ended and the enemy group had to retreat but Kyukimon had sustained too much damage and dissipated into data.
It was hard for him to deal with the loss, even though he tried to reason that he and his partner knew what they were getting into when they signed up as active agents. For a while, he threw himself into whatever work he could get his hands on back at his station and was later ordered by the Chief of Staff to see the in-staff counselor and find a better way to deal with the grief. It took a while to drill down to the root of his problem and it was his guilt of not being able to get his partner to digivolve to his final stage to fend off the enemy.
One must understand that because of Calumon's flighty personality, the DTF are unable to count on him as a reliable boost for digivolution. Would the guy really stick around for battles when there are leftover desserts to plunder? And he wouldn't take it so kindly if they tried to force him to become that type of resource. So it's very rare that a member of the new generation of Digimon Tamers that emerged after the infamous D-Reaper incident reaches mega level.
Epsilon had been assigned to care for the egg and report any interesting and unusual data about it from the start. When it hatched, he reported getting an unusual fresh Digimon that could only be identified as Dodomon. About two weeks after the egg hatched, the fresh Digimon had digivolved to its in-training form Dorimon. What made this Digimon so special was that it had some extra lines in its code that the DTF scientists couldn't make heads or tails of. Eventually, Dorimon became an Agumon but with some altered features.
Agumon's evolution chain stayed pretty much the same (as in Greymon and MetalGreymon) except for cosmetic differences and combat ability changes. Energy attacks were slightly weaker than the normal outputs for Greymon and MetalGreymon but overall physical stats such as speed, strength and stamina were reported around 5 to 10 percent higher than the normal versions.
The DTF scientists were hoping that a duel against a powerful opponent would be able to trigger an observable reaction in the strange code and that factor also played in how Epsilon was able to move up to this point. The only reliable powerful Tamer that was amongst the DTF ranks was none other than the Chief of Staff herself, Rika Nonaka. She happily agreed to help out the scientists as going in for a battle definitely beat paperwork.
In the end, the battle test would be conducted as a two on one with Sakuyamon taking on MetalGreymon and Mystimon at once. Nanami for one was not too happy with this quick change in events as quite a number of her previously laid-out plans (based on the assumption that it would be a one on one battle test) went out the window. However, she could improvise easily. The main problem would be getting the other Tamer to do things her way as planned.
With an audience and recording equipment in place and all combatants ready, Sakuyamon lazily twirled her staff and smirked. "Whenever you're ready, come at me."
Epsilon smiled back cheerfully. "And who am I to resist an invitation from a lady? Digi Modify! Speed Activate!" With the effect in place, MetalGreymon burst forward for the initial strike. His metallic left claw quickly slammed down into the ground but hit nothing as Sakuyamon easily evaded it and prepared to make a counter.
"Spirit Strike!" Four coloured foxes emerged from the tip of her staff and flew towards MetalGreymon, striking him in the face. His metallic head did prevent the attack from causing major injuries that would impede his battle ability.
Nanami's outward expression remained blank although she was mentally cursing the other Tamer for starting off so quickly. "Mystimon, offensive maneuver Delta Two."
"Yes, my lady." Mystimon leapt into action as well while his Tamer prepared some cards.
"Epsilon, get your partner to cover mine!" ordered Nanami before she slashed a card. "Digi Modify! Crescemon's Nuova Luna Activate!" Mystimon's weapons were replaced with a pair of silver crescent blades attached to gauntlets covering both of his hands.
Sakuyamon used this chance to make an attack. "Amethyst Wind!" A fierce gust blew against the two Digimon with hundreds of tiny purple shards slashing away at their defenses. MetalGreymon moved in front of Mystimon to give better protection with his thick skin and metallic body parts.
The Magic Warrior transformed the blades into a bowgun and emerged from his cover to fire. "Dark Archery!" A projectile of dark energy erupted from the weapon, shattering all the shards within its trajectory.
"Giga Blaster!" Missiles were launched from MetalGreymon and forced Sakuyamon to put up her Crystal Sphere for protection.
The Nuova Luna blades dissipated and Mystimon got his normal weapons back. He focused on his crystal ball before calling out his next move. "Core Dart!" A miniature energy projectile was shot from the crystal ball and to Sakuyamon's surprise; it pierced her barrier to strike her in the chest. The shield shimmered due to the loss of concentration on her part.
Not one to waste an opportunity, Mystimon pressed his attack by using his sword for his next move. "Blast Fire!!" Flames burst around his magical sword as he flew in for another strike. Sakuyamon jumped back to avoid the flames and prepared to swing with her own weapon.
"Counter maneuver Beta Five!"
As soon as she made the swing, Mystimon hopped in the air to lightly bounce off the staff and get into prime position for a counter move. The flames on his weapon changed to icicles. "Blast Ice!" Three slashes later, Sakuyamon was sent into freefall motion.
"Mega Claw!!" MetalGreymon fired his left appendage towards the shaman Digimon and it connected, sending her flying to the opposite end of the arena. She quickly recovered in the air and landed gracefully on her feet. Other than a few scratches on her golden armour, she looked as fresh as a daisy.
'As expected from someone of her caliber,' thought Nanami as a drop of sweat rolled down her forehead.
"I have to admit that your combat display so far is pretty impressive," said Sakuyamon pleasantly.
Nanami slowly released her breath. "Well, your abilities are quite well known around here, madam. I've taken the time to prepare accordingly… can't say the same about him though."
"You are such a cruel lady," moaned Epsilon in a melodramatic fashion.
"Now that we're all properly warmed up, let's kick it up a notch." Sakuyamon held out her left arm and a ball of transparent blue energy appeared in the palm of her hand.
"Execute… Slide Evolution!"
Before Epsilon or Nanami could react, the blue energy ball expanded to form a wall in front of Sakuyamon. As she stepped forward, her golden armour changed into dark purple armour and her golden staff became silver instead.
"… Kuzuhamon!"
"Madam… aren't you taking this too far?!" asked one of the observers from above.
"You did want to see them up against a powerful opponent, right? Might as well pull out all the stops," said Kuzuhamon with a dark little smile. "Don't worry… I won't be deleting their Digimon and absorbing their data. Probably not worth it anyway…"
'The infamous uber-bitch mode… this could get ugly,' thought Epsilon. He snapped out of his thoughts as Kuzuhamon phased out of view and right in front of his partner's face.
"Dragon Helix!" A powerful fox spirit emerged from her silver staff and slammed itself into MetalGreymon's metallic chest. The damage was severe enough that it would prevent him from using his missiles until he changes back to Agumon and digivolves back to MetalGreymon.
'How is that type of speed possible for a Digimon of that category?!' Nanami quickly whipped out a new card that will certainly push her partner to the limit in terms of being able to handle the power. "Digi Modify! Phoenixmon's Life Force Activate!"
"Good idea but you're too slow!! Womb Mandala!" Kuzuhamon created a ring of silver energy that encircled Mystimon faster than he had expected. Upon the completion of the circle, she snapped her fingers and the circle imploded, causing Mystimon to take heavy damage and change back to his rookie form of Kotemon.
"Kotemon!" Nanami rushed over to her fallen partner and cradled the small warrior in her arms while Epsilon grabbed all the contents in his uniform right jacket pocket and started to fumble through whatever cards he had left just to give his partner a chance at survival. The same feeling of helplessness and fear that he had experienced during Kyukimon's last fight started rising up in him again.
Before he could find a card, Kuzuhamon went on the offensive again. This time, she leapt in the air and used several powerful strikes from her staff to shatter the metallic head piece that covered MetalGreymon's head. He couldn't do anything to fight back as the recoil was too much for him to handle. Within a few seconds, he was down and changed back to Agumon.
The sole mega Digimon in the room leaned on her staff casually. "I suppose I should apologize. This isn't really a fair fight. I'm just too strong for the average Digimon to handle!"
Her ego flaunting was getting on the young man's nerves but the fact is that as they were, they really had no chance against her. But he kept looking through his cards frantically just as he did on that fateful battle against the Hyogamon.
Zudomon… 'No.'
Frogmon… 'Hell no.'
Hi-Speed Plug In B… 'Useless at this point…'
He was on the edge of a mental breakdown until he spotted a small piece of paper with the artwork that his printer mysteriously printed just as his Digiegg hatched six months ago. The picture was of a pair of swords with the right one looking somewhat like a scimitar and the left looking quite jagged. The kanji written underneath read 'Kiku Rin'.
'Are these weapons for my Digimon? Can I even scan them?' He had been planning on doing more research about these weapons when he had a chance but it kept getting pushed back further into his mind as he raised his Digimon until he promptly forgot about it.
Kuzuhamon pointed her staff at the fallen Digimon. "I will only say this once. Yield."
"Don't count us out yet, bitch! Digi Modify! Kiku Rin Activate!" As soon as he slashed the paper through his Digivice, the print from the paper vanished as new data got transferred from the page to his Digivice. Then the two swords appeared in front of Agumon, who was struggling to get up. Upon seeing the new weapons, he grasped his claws firmly around their hilts and his body started to glow in sync with Epsilon's Digivice.
MATRIX XENOVOLUTION
"Agumon matrix-xenovolve to…!"
The shape of Agumon got replaced by a familiar dragon man shape such as WarGreymon but black and golden samurai armour formed around the chest, shoulders and legs instead of the standard WarGreymon armour. There were no Dramon Destroyers on his arms and he had black skin, spiked out silver hair which could be seen from the back of his helmet and golden eyes hidden underneath it. If anything, he looked like a samurai version of BlackWarGreymon minus the Brave Shield and Dramon Destroyers.
"… Gaiomon!!"
The observers were having a field day, looking up the data that the recording equipment had given them from the new burst of digivolution while down in the room, Kuzuhamon had a startled look on her face. Epsilon could only smile at that look. Even if he and Gaiomon lost, seeing that look of surprise on her face made this battle worthwhile. "Let's do this, Gaiomon!"
With a barely noticeable nod of agreement, he made the first move. "Rinkazan!!" He dashed forward to slash Kuzuhamon but she blocked the two swords with her own weapon. What she didn't know was that tracks of light were trailing the slashes of the sword and those tracks of light exploded at point blank range. She gave a shout of pain as she flew back.
Gaiomon was far from done. He placed his blades together and swung them down in a crescent formation for his next attack. "Rinkageki!!" A powerful arrow of light was released from the energy he had channeled through his blades and flew towards Kuzuhamon.
She barely dodged it in midair and landed on her feet before vanishing from sight. Seconds later, multiple clashes between the Kiku Rin and her staff were heard as Gaiomon held his own against her fast assault. Then she backed off and twirled her staff while powering up for her next attack.
"Time for a power boost! Digi Modify! Dragon DigiMemory Activate!" Gaiomon felt a new surge of energy flow through him but realized it was only temporary so he would have to make good use of it. He brought his swords together above his head and started forming a large ball of energy.
The charge up only took a few seconds as Kuzuhamon fired first. "Dragon Helix!!"
"Terra Reactor!!!"
The explosion from the collision of the two attacks practically knocked all recording equipment offline and the training room quickly filled up with smoke so that none of the observers can see. Medical personnel were being assigned to stand by in case of serious injuries to the human Tamers. When the smoke started to clear out, they could all see Kuzuhamon gripping on to her staff tightly to support her damaged body while Gaiomon slowly fell backwards and reverted back to Dorimon, his in-training form. Epsilon rushed over to retrieve his fallen partner.
"Unreal… if this were a real battle, both sides would be forced to retreat," murmured one of the observers above. Then he noticed the condition of the room and freaked out. "Look at all this damage!! How the hell are we going to cover the repair costs for this?!?"
The remaining mega Digimon slowly caught her breath and spoke. "I've got that covered. First, someone make a note to set up a formal ceremony date so their ranks can be updated in the books."
Nanami's heart skipped a beat. "You mean…?"
She stood up and slowly walked over to the Chinese Tamer who cradled Dorimon protectively. "The both of you have performed admirably. Therefore, I hereby promote Tamer Epsilon to the rank of Captain and Tamer Nanami to the rank of First Lieutenant. Considering how well they did in their first team up effort, I'm going to assign Nanami under Epsilon's command."
'Not exactly a bad outcome but what's the catch?' thought Epsilon.
"Your first assignment will be to prepare a presentation in four days for the budget committee on why we need an extra 700 billion Yen to repair this room!" said their commanding officer cheerfully before making her exit.
Had there been an Olympic event for synchronized mental cursing, Epsilon and Nanami would have easily taken the gold.
Kuzuhamon paused right before the door. "Whoops! Forgot to mention… for that slip of the tongue back there Epsilon-taichou? Three months of KP duty."
It was only after she left that he screamed in frustration. "AAARRGGHHH!!!"
OOOOOOOOOO
"Damn… you called the boss lady a bitch in front of her face? That takes guts, brotha!" exclaimed BlackTerriermon as Epsilon finished his story.
The Chinese young man grinned sheepishly as he sipped his cocktail. "Well, it was a spur of the moment thing. In any case, I'm glad KP duty is over. I never want to see another raw potato again!"
"Well, that's quite a story," admitted DC as he sat back to enjoy the atmosphere. Several coolers with beer were stacked in one corner of the bar (one of the first bars to open up in the Southern Section of the Digital World once the citizens started to get the concept of currency and trade) and in the outdoor patio, Papa and Mama Burgermon were cooking up a storm to feed the multiple guests that had arrived. "Xenovolution… what could that mean?"
"Man, I really hope we can get to mega form one day." BlackTerriermon quickly shook off the thought and dove into his burger. Just as he took a bite, he heard some rather arrogant chuckling as the bar's front doors were opened roughly.
Epsilon gave a light frown as he briefly analyzed the newcomers. "Is it me… or did the atmosphere in here just take a nosedive?"
End Part 2
And that's all you're getting for now. Next up… the Big Bar Brawl!
