3. Fires of a New Doom
"Greymon!"
The large dinosaur lashed its orange tail, knocking the table aside and shaking himself. He looked at his claws, the rush of air from his tail sending PicoDevimon spiraling. "What… what's going on?"
Hikari's shoulders sagged and she slumped in her chair. The headache was gone, but now she could barely keep her eyes open. The Digivice slipped from her fingers and clattered to the ground, the light still shining from its screen.
"How..." Takeru mouthed.
"Cool..." Tokomon said, black eyes wide. Then he turned on PicoDevimon. The bat picked himself up from the ground, golden eyes narrowing into slits. Any pretense was ripped away, replaced solely with wild rage. "What was that about, huh?"
Takeru couldn't even find the words to scold him; he was still busy staring at Greymon. Greymon took two steps forward. That was about all he could make without crushing PicoDevimon. As tempting as that was, they needed answers. If he really had seen Yamato, then he should have helped Takeru get there. That was the right thing for a friend to do. He hadn't done that. Instead he had filled Takeru's head with a lot of words that probably didn't mean anything when you came right down to it and it fit too neatly. So even if Takeru didn't consider PicoDevimon a threat, Tokomon did and that meant he had only one job right now, like it or not: protect his Takeru.
Tokomon, deciding on this, leaped from his safe perch on another table and glowed, evolving to Patamon and tackling PicoDevimon before he could even get a word in. Patamon lifted himself up in the air, hating the weakness of newly evolved wings. That was what he had missed when he had died. It had taken him the whole time to get good at flying. Now he had none of that.
Remembering would just have to be enough!
He landed and took a running leap, aiming for the face. PicoDevimon jumped away just in time, eyes wide. He reached into seemingly nowhere with his talons, dropping the mushrooms entirely, and pulled out large syringes. Takeru stepped back before he could stop himself. He hated needles. "Patamon! PicoDevimon, you're not gonna hurt him on you?"
PicoDevimon scoffed, a crooked smile lighting up his features. "Of course I am, Takeru. He wants to hurt me, I have to defend myself."
Patamon managed to wheel around, sucking air into his lungs. "Leave Takeru alone, you ungrateful creep! Air Shot!" The bubble of air smacked PicoDevimon, but the bat righted himself with ease, elbowing Patamon with his wings. He snatched him from the air and gave him a rough toss to the ground. Patamon coughed, shaking himself as PicoDevimon moved towards him.
The bat had forgotten about Greymon, however, and was thrown aside with a swipe of the large tail. Greymon loomed over him and PicoDevimon swung a spray of darts. Each sttabbed nto Greymon's hide, one stuck in his thigh. The dragon swayed where he stood, making a woozy lumbering step.
"greymon!" Hikari made to move over, ignoring how tired she was. Her steps wobbled but she managed to make it over to him. She made for the needles, wrapping her hands around them. She winced and tried to pull, standing on her toes and gripping the middle of the plastic in both hands. These things were stuck!
"Hikari, be careful..." Greymon croaked, trying to stand. "There's something weird with these things..."
Hikari bit her lip. "Yeah, they're stuck..."
Takeru moved over, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Got ya!" He found himself grinning with excitement. He had no idea why but his head felt clear. "Ready?"
Hikari nodded and they both started to pull. Greymon winced and then let out a sigh of relief as the syringe popped out, blood sloshing inside. Hikari and Takeru wrinkled their noses.
"Gross..."
Takeru jumped suddenly and ran off, eyes locked above his head. "Patamon!"
Patamon and PicoDevimon circled each other over the roller coaster. PicoDevimon lunged forward and Greymon belched a fireball. Hikari froze, barely able to watch PicoDevimon scramble away, shrieking in terror.
The bird wasn't afraid, she thought absently as Patamon chased his enemy.
"Get him Patamon," Takeru cheered.
"Gah!" PicoDevimon righted himself and smacked Patamon out of the air. "Takeru, you traitor!"
"Takeru's not a traitor!" Patamon shouted. "You're just a creepy jerk! Air-" He sucked in a breath.
"Well, that's enough of that." A voice interrupted in a sneering hiss.
A cat leaped from a nearby tree and kicked Patamon hard into the side of the roller coaster. Takeru ran after his fallen body, tears in his eyes as the cat landed easily on the ground. She looked at PicoDevimon and sniffed. "I can't believe you're having this much trouble with a few humans. You're supposed to be good at this, PicoDevimon."
He bristled, alighting onto a near by umbrella stand. "What are you doing here, Tailmon? This isn't your job."
Tailmon swished her purple and white tail, golden ring shining in the sun. She didn't pay him much mind at first, eyes focused on Greymon as he moved between the fallen Patamon and herself. Then she looked up at him and sneered. "We see how well you're doing at yours, don't we?"
His wings went up in rage and he hissed. "I've gotten more accomplished for Vamdemon-sama than you ever could."
The cat rolled her eyes. "And that's why you're here, getting beat by your double blowing you out of the air." She turned away from him and looked over at Hikari. She smiled as the girl made to scurry behind the dinosaur. "Well, at least you found something interesting in your failure. I'm sure Vamdemon-sama will love to hear about it." She began to move forward, noting the way the human girl had something clenched tightly in her fingers. "Now, little human. You did something interesting a few moments ago. Do you think you could do it again?"
Hikari frowned. "Again?"
"Hikari, stay back!" Greymon turned completely to peer at the tiny cat. He shifted into a better fighting position. "Nova Flame!"
Tailmon smirked and dodged, avoiding a narrow swipe of the large claws. She somersaulted, righting herself to punch him between the eyes. Greymon stumbled and crashed, narrowly avoiding stepping on Hikari. Well, that wouldn't do, she thought. No need to kill the specimen before it had even made it home. She turned back to Greymon. The other human was concerned about his own partner. She could leave it. But this…
She pounced. "Neko Punch!" Her fist collided with his horn and he barely stumbled before she kicked him into the fence.
"Greymon!" she heard the girl shout, and turned. The human was stumbling as she ran. This would be simple enough. Tailmon bolted to stop her and punched the girl square in the stomach. The human coughed, choking on air, then crumpled like a stone. She hadn't even gotten out a scream.
For some reason, seeing that filled her with dread and something else, something she didn't know.
Then, the cat shrugged it off, ignoring the frantic shouts. She lifted the girl (who was barely taller than Tailmon herself come to think of it), and grinned at PicoDevimon. "See you back at base."
And then she was gone, Hikari with her.
From her hiding place, Sora began to panic.
A/N: I love how everyone was like: this is probably bad. Hahaha, that was fun. Anyway, please read and review!