Heya everybody. I am back with yet another oneshot for Movie-Brat. It was his birthday early last month, but since I was busy writing my own story and wanted to get it finished, I could not really write this until now. Still, I hope that everybody likes it and I apologise Movie-Brat for any inaccuracies in the villains you chose for the story.
This story takes place after Runaway Locomon and ignores the plotline of my main stories, which means that Terriermon and Renamon are not mated, the bunnies did not find out they're siblings and they never went to the Star Wars world. It also features an iconic character as he was played by David Tennant. Hope you all like.
Reviewer Requests
Oneshot 8:- What Lies Beneath
Rating:- T
Worlds:- Digimon Tamers, Doctor Who
"Hey, Henry, check this out," Rika called across the shop as she rifled through the Modify Cards that she had just acquired from the counter. "What do you make of this new one? Kinkakumon. She looks like she might be able to do some damage."
Henry turned his head from where he was examining a few action figures based on their own Digimon partners, and knowing full well that Terriermon was going to start both bragging and claiming that his looked unrealistic later on, and moved over to his fellow Tamer to examine the card.
"Yeah, I got to admit," he nodded. "She looks pretty badass. Wouldn't want to pick a fight with her."
Rika chuckled as she continued shuffling through the newest additions to her deck. "What do you think the chances of us running into one of them at some point in the future."
"Well, since there's a card for it now, I'd say pretty high," Henry smiled wryly. "Every time a new Digimon card is created the Digimon itself seems to appear out of nowhere at the same time. Hey, can I have this pack please?" he pulled a shining packet of Modify Cards from the front of the counter and presented it to the man behind it.
"Of course," the shop owner smiled. "Special discount as usual, Henry."
"You know, you really don't have to drop the prices of your merchandise for us," Henry pointed out. "We've all got enough to pay for the whole thing."
"Nonsense," the owner shook his head as Henry handed over the money. "I'm quite happy knowing that those cards of yours will probably be used to keep this city safe at some point in the future. Besides, you Tamers are my best customers."
"Well, if you insist," Henry smiled. "Thanks."
"No problem," the man grinned in acknowledgement, before he turned to the back of the store to re-organise some of his shelves.
So far things had been pretty ordinary for the Tamers over the last month or so. Ever since that incident with the Runaway Locomon and the swarm of Parasimon which had followed on as a result, there hadn't been any sign of Digimon activity whatsoever. Rika had been pretty quiet in the days following her birthday, no doubt still upset by the memories of her father that the Parasimon had brought to the surface, but she had slowly regained her normal attitude and no, she and Henry were surfing through their main store looking for upgrades to their deck.
Terriermon and Renamon were no doubt close by, although neither of them really knew where their partners were at this stage. But they were sure that wherever they were, Terriermon was probably badgering Renamon to do something fun while the fox politely spurned his efforts in favour of keeping an eye on things. The rest of the Tamers were no doubt somewhere at home, relaxing. After all, it was Saturday morning, and they were determined to enjoy the break from school while it lasted.
"Oh, look at this," Henry suddenly grinned as he shuffled through his own new set of cards. "Ginkakumon. The two of them must be related to one another somehow."
"They don't look much alike," observed Rika as they held the cards close together for comparison.
"Neither do me and Suzie but we're still brother and sister," chuckled Henry.
"Good point," Rika snorted.
"I would have thought you two were too old to be bothering with card games," said a voice from nearby. It was a friendly voice, but it came so suddenly that both Rika and Henry jumped and looked up, their eyes taking in the sight of the tall, gangly manwith mid-length brown hair, leaning against one of the shelves nearby. He was wearing a dark brown, pinstriped suit over and white shirt and red tie, with a long brown faux-suede overcoat on top of the suit. His hands were placed casually in his pockets and he had a friendly smile of his face, but oddly he also appeared to be wearing a pair of bright white trainers that clashed horribly with the suit, but he didn't seem to notice.
He looked to be in his mid-thirties, so Rika snorted and said, "Spoken like a true adult. I suppose that you gave up card games years and years ago then."
"Whatever gave you that idea?" the man looked slightly offended. "Can't get enough of them myself, though I must say sometimes I struggle to keep up with all the different kinds and genres. I mean things like Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic: The Gathering, Gundam War, Duel Masters, Spellfire… so many to choose from so I never really no which one to start collecting and then when I do start collecting I always end up by cards from other games as well just 'cause I can't help it." He sucked on his teeth a moment and said, "I really must get around to sorting out my collection one day."
"O…kay…" Henry murmured slowly, not entirely sure what to do about this man who had suddenly walked into their life. "Well… er… how big is it? Your collection?"
"Oh, s'got a couple of million cards in it," the man waved a hand airily. "I could probably sort that out in half an hour if I had the time. Still," he added brightly without pausing for breath and moving around. "I'm not from around here and I was a little curious about this Digimon thing that you two seem to be interested in. I haven't got anything from that set and I was wondering if you could tell me a little more about it?"
"You haven't heard of Digimon?" Rika raised a brow. "Seriously? But Digimon's spread practically all over the world. All the kids are talking about it. Surely if you were such an avid card collector you would have got something Digimon related by now."
"Been away for quite a long time," the man shrugged his skinny shoulders. "Not been around much civilisation for a few… years. And I don't usually associate with kids unless they're about to get eaten by something."
"What?" Henry blinked.
"So anyway," the eccentric man beamed. "Tell me more about this Digimon malarkey. Ooh, I like that word. Malarkey. Ma-laaarr-keeee. I should use that one more often. Now, where was I? Ah yes, Digimon."
Both Henry and Rika had been completely thrown off pace by this strange man. Ordinarily when a stranger approached them it was to ask them to sign an autograph or something, and the Tamers generally treated just about everyone with the same amount of suspicion that people naturally gave to people they didn't know who suddenly came over to speak to them.
But for some reason this man didn't seem to unnerve them in the same way. There was something about him which made them both just… trust him. And neither of them could put their finger on what.
Almost before she realised what she was doing, Rika was explaining the basics of the card game to him, and he seemed to be absorbing everything she said like a sponge.
"Really. Six different levels and all increasing in power," the man mused. "Interesting. Seems like quite a complicated system. Does individual strength not play a role then?"
"Well, there are a number of stats that each Digimon has," Henry nodded. "Like all the Digimon in each level vary in terms of attack and defence, hit points and the power of their individual attacks. And there are also a ton of Modify Cards that you can use to change the stats of the Digimon you have in play to give you an advantage over your opponent."
"Interesting," the man murmured with genuine intrigue. "I heard that there were a couple of incidents involving real live Digimon fighting in the streets here over the last few months. You guys ever seen one?"
Henry and Rika glanced at each other for a moment. The question seemed innocent enough, but neither of them could be sure if he was probing into their affairs or not to try and get a glimpse of their Digimon partners. The man did not look up as he kept examining the cards, taking a pair of thick spectacles out of his pocket for a moment to get a closer look at the Kinkakumon card that Rika had given him.
"Uh… well…" Henry murmured.
Before he could say anything else, the man jumped as though he had been shocked by electricity, startling both of the Tamers as he reached into an overcoat pocket and pulled out a small, silver, cylindrical device with a glowing, blue tip, which was bleeping at him for some reason.
"Oop. Got another transmission signal. Gotta go." He dashed towards the door, wheeled around without missing a beat and dashed back to Rika to give her back the Kinkakumon card before darting back without pause and hurtling out of the door. Henry and Rika stared at him in bewilderment for several moments as he pointed the small device down either end of the street and then immediately dashed off to the right and hared away and out of sight.
Both Henry and Rika stared out of the window for several moments, wondering if he would re-appear and run the other way again, but when he didn't they both just ended up glancing at each other.
"What the heck was that all about?" Henry murmured.
"I have absolutely no idea," Rika shrugged.
A few streets away and a woman with dark skin and even darker hair was strolling slowly down the side of the road with her hands in her pockets and glancing around slightly nervously. Great idea, Doctor, she was thinking to herself. Send me out on my own to do some investigating, and don't bother telling me what I'm supposed to be looking for. Wonderful plan.
Her name was Martha Jones, and she clutched the slightly-psychic paper that her companion had given to her when she pointed out that she didn't exactly have any identification on her. She hoped that she wouldn't need it, but being in a foreign country in the present day without it was probably a very bad idea. And now she was supposed to be just looking for unusual activity, but where the Doctor was concerned, unusual activity could be anything from a slightly strange gas which humans couldn't possibly detect in the air to an alien dropping out of the sky and trying to eat you.
She wondered briefly what she would be doing right now back at home in London. There might even be another her somewhere in this timeline at the other end of the world finishing her studies to become a fully qualified doctor. Her mother and father were probably arguing as her father's ditz of a girlfriend flounced around in the background and Harold Saxon was probably completing the final stages of his election campaign.
But at the moment, she was here, wandering the streets of Tokyo without a clue what she was doing.
She couldn't help but grimace slightly, as she had a sudden feeling that her predecessor, Rose Tyler, might be stuck to the Doctor's side like glue at this moment, following his every move. But of course, she wasn't. She was on her own while the Doctor was off doing his own thing.
She sighed. It was times like this where she thought the Doctor took her to these places just to fill the void that this Rose left behind. But she didn't want to be a void-filler. She wanted to mean something to him.
Lost in thought as she was, she completely failed to notice the little white creature that was standing on the dustbin in front of her and staring at her with large, green eyes until she walked up next to it and it said, "You look sad."
Martha yelped and backpedalled, but on seeing the small, harmless-looking and frankly quite cute little being with the purple-tipped feet and ear projections and a small red symbol in the middle of his forehead, she stopped and stared at him in astonishment.
"I don't like it when people are sad," the small creature whimpered. "It makes me feel sad too."
Martha was tempted to ask it what it was, but she managed to change the first word so that she ended up saying, "Who are you?"
"I'm Calumon," the creature replied, and then its little face suddenly burst into a broad smile and its ear projections shot outwards so it looked like it had small wings on the side of its head. "Hey! I've got an idea! Let's make you not sad instead. You wanna play tag?"
"Er…" Martha blinked at the sudden excitement from the tiny Calumon. "I… er…"
"Go on, it's loads of fun!" Calumon cried, bounding off the bin and tapping Martha on the arm with his tiny palm. "TAG! You're it! Now you've gotta catch me!" He immediately turned round and shot away, bouncing like a rubber ball down the street. Martha stared after him for several seconds before she realised that this might be the unusual thing that the Doctor had been talking about, as she had certainly not seen anything like this creature before.
"Hey! Hey, wait up!" she cried as she ran after it.
"Yay! We're having fun now right!"
"Wait!"
"Can't stop! You've gotta catch me first!"
And so the chase began as Martha ran through the streets, desperately trying to keep the lively creature in sight as it continued to bound away.
The weird incident in the shop now past them, Henry and Rika stepped out of the doors and began to walk down the street towards the park, where they had agreed to meet up with some of the other Tamers at their usual spot by the old hideout that had belonged to Guilmon a long time ago.
"I'm guessing that you intend to challenge Ryo to another card battle the moment you next see him, right?" Henry asked with a chuckle.
"You know it," nodded Rika with a smirk. "And this time I think I might have the upper-hand on him."
"That's what you said last time," Henry snorted. "And the time before that. And the time before that."
"I'll have you know that I won the game two challenges ago," Rika glared at him.
"Yes, by the skin of your teeth," Henry chuckled.
Rika elbowed him in the side. "Hmph. Well, we'll see how the game plays out this time now that I've got…"
A loud clattering sound erupted from the side-street that they were just walking by, causing both the Tamers to come to a sudden halt and looked to the right. The street was dark and narrow – exactly the sort of place that anybody with any sense would stay away from. But, of course, Rika was overcome by curiosity and she immediately stepped towards the street to peer into the darkness.
"Rika," Henry grabbed her shoulder quickly. "What are you doing?"
"Checking out what that noise was of course," Rika shrugged him off. "What the matter Henry? You lost your sense of adventure?"
"I'd rather stay back and evaluate situations even before we put our noses where they don't belong," Henry replied evenly. "That could have been anything from a cat knocking over a bin to a drunkard falling over a box and neither of those are good reasons to go plunging into a dark alleyway."
"We've survived worse than a drunk," shrugged Rika. "Besides, I just called Renamon. She says that she and Terriermon are not far off and are on their way. Now let's just have a look."
"But…" Henry started but Rika had already entered the street and was creeping along the side of the wall. Henry sighed and glanced to either side before following behind her, his body tense as he prepared to grab the other Tamer and split the moment something unsavoury happened. Assuming that something happened at all that is.
The two of them crept deeper into the side-street, peering around the old bins and piles of junk that cluttered the area. The whole place was dank and smelly and Henry was currently wishing that Rika's sense of adventure was much less pronounced that it clearly was and resolved to clean his shoes later.
Eventually Rika came to a sudden stop and Henry almost bashed into her. "Whoa," the redheaded Tamer murmured as she stepped back. Henry shifted around her to discover that she had narrowly avoided putting her foot down an uncovered manhole in the middle of the street. The cover itself was lying several feet away, propped up against the wall of one of the buildings.
"That's weird," Henry murmured. "Why would anyone leave a manhole in a street like this uncovered?"
"Probably some bum thinking it might be funny for someone to step down it and break their leg," Rika growled.
"Wait a minute, do you reckon it was that cover that caused that clattering noise?"
"If it did then that means somebody would have had to have thrown it," Rika rolled her eyes. "Manhole covers don't just pop up of their own accord, Brainiac."
"Yes, I am aware of that," Henry rolled his own eyes. "I was kinda implying that if that was the case we might not be…"
Both of them jumped almost completely out of their skins as a sudden large figure stepped away from the wall with a loud, thudding noise and filled the alleyway in front of them – a figure that had been previously hidden in the shadows somehow despite its large size. As it stepped forwards towards them, both Henry and Rika froze in shock and fear. It had the appearance of a man, but it was completely made of metal, like a robot, and on top of its head were large bars that extended horizontally outwards from the top and then bent vertically downwards to join with the side of the head.
It stared at them with round, blank eyes, the two Tamers rooted to the spot under its gaze, and then it slowly and mechanically lifted up a hand and moved to grasp Rika in its metallic palm.
Suddenly a hand seized Henry back of the shirt and a voice cried "OUT! OUTOUTOUTOUTOUTOUT!" as the hand pulled him backwards. Henry had the presence of mind to grab Rika in the same way even as he was hauled backwards himself, pulling the fiery haired Tamer out of the way so the robot thing grasped only at thin air. Henry was whirled around and spurred past their saviour, and as the Tamers ran passed they both saw, to their amazement, that it was the same brown-haired man from the store.
"What the…" Henry gasped. "You…!"
"RUN!" the man yelled, pushing them both in front of him as he dashed down the alleyway. The metallic man immediately stomped after and as Rika glanced backwards, she saw that it was not alone. There were two of them marching after them with a stiff but swift gait, one slightly behind and to the side of the other.
The brown-haired man immediately whirled around, spurring the Tamers ahead of him and pointed the small device with the blue light upwards towards the sky, activating the light and causing it to let off a strange, high-pitched whistling noise. For some reason, this seemed to cause a large, rusty fire escape to come loose from its moorings in the wall and tumble downwards, filling the street behind them and partially landing on the first of the two metal men. Then the man turned back around and dashed after the kids.
Henry and Rika burst out into the light and whirled around to see the man erupt out behind them and grab them both by their shoulders. "Who…" Rika started, but the man forced them to the side with a cry of, "I've slowed them down but that won't stop them! Get out of the way!"
A mere second after the three of them were out of the line of the alleyway, the fire escape was catapulted outwards and into the street, smashing through the spot where they had been and crashing to a stop in the road. The man whirled around, putting himself in front of the Tamers as the two metal men stepped out and stiffly turned around to face them.
One of them spoke in in a low, metallic droning voice. "Scans indicate binary-vascular system! Face not recognised in database but logic concludes you must be the Doctor."
"So nice to be recognised," the man murmured darkly.
"You will be terminated forthwith," the robot thing said as they stepped forwards again with their hands outstretched again.
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," growled a female voice off to the left, and all heads turned to see Renamon had appeared, standing on top of the busted fire escape. Her eyes were narrowed and before the metal men could do anything about it, she had suddenly leapt upwards and cried, "DIAMOND STORM!" throwing out her arms to generate a large horde of diamond shards which lashed down towards the two metal creatures.
They embedded themselves in the metal hides and Renamon landed with a smirk on her face, expecting them to keel over where they stood. She was rather surprised when instead they turned to face her fully and laser guns sprouted out of the sides of their arms to focus on her and fire, forcing her to catapult herself into a backflip to avoid the red blasts, which practically obliterated the fire escape.
"It didn't work," Rika gasped. "Why didn't that work?"
"They're tougher than they look," Henry murmured.
Something white and green suddenly shot overhead and Terriermon cried downwards as he circled around, "Then let's try a little brute force, Henry! Give me a boost!"
"Right," Henry nodded, whipping out a card and slashing it through the slot. "Digi-modify! Thor's Hammer Activate!"
Terriermon smirked as the enormous metallic weapon of Zudomon appeared in his arms, so large he didn't even look capable of lifting it. But he swooped downwards, dodging a laser which blasted in his direction and heaving the massive hammer at the first of the two men. The blow was so heavy that the metal man's face was smashed and its head was knocked clean off, revealing sparking wires where the neck had once been as the body collapsed to the floor. The second man turned to point its own gun at Terriermon, but Renamon whipped overhead and span about in mid-air to deliver a graceful Power Paw to the side of its own head and knock that off too.
As the two dead things collapsed to the ground, the two Digimon landed gracefully next to one another. "Well, that wasn't so hard," Terriermon observed brightly.
"Perhaps," Renamon murmured. "But I, for one, would like to know what those things were."
"I didn't get the opportunity to scan them with my D-Arc," Rika shrugged. "Still, at least we beat them."
"They were not Digimon, Rika," Renamon shook her head.
"They weren't?" Rika blinked.
"You see their bodies and heads disappearing into a cloud of data?" Terriermon pointed out, hopping up onto the chest of one of the metal men.
"Well… if they weren't Digimon…" Henry gasped. "Then does that mean they're genuine robots?"
"Not robots," the brown-haired man said tightly. "Cybermen. They're called Cybermen."
"Who are you?" Renamon growled, scrutinising the stranger suspiciously.
"That's pretty much what I was wondering actually," Rika folded her arms and glared at the man. "'Cause the way I heard it, those two things knew who you were."
"That's true," Henry nodded. "They called you a doctor?"
"Not a doctor," the man shook his head. "I'm The Doctor."
"Doctor Who?" Terriermon asked.
"Why does everybody ask me that?" the Doctor sighed. "I'm just the Doctor."
"The Doctor?" Rika frowned.
"Yes, I'm The Doctor. That's me, hello, hooray. But right now we've got bigger things to worry about like what are a pair of Cybermen doing here in the city of Tokyo? Cybermen from your universe no less. I followed the signal the TARDIS was giving me here expecting it to have something to do with you Digimon or some remnants of that D-Reaper program and instead I find two Cybermen from the planet Mondas about to attack a pair of Tamers. And come to think of it, what the heck were you two doing in that alleyway? I would have thought that a pair of Digimon Tamers would have had more sense?"
"Planet Mondas?" Rika asked. "Aliens? You're kidding, right?"
"I don't joke about this kind of thing. Well, mostly not. Well, occasionally not. Well, never when the situation is urgent like this one most definitely is. In fact, why am I standing here babbling about this? Yes, they're alien and yes, they're not friendly, but right now we've got bigger concerns. Has there been any unusual activity lately that might be linked to extra-terrestrial activity?"
"No… nothing…" Henry started, but the Doctor interrupted him.
"Then we have to assume that the Cybermen have been here for a while living under this city, and if I know them at all which I unfortunately do then those two will not have been the only ones and they will have been gathering intelligence for a while, specifically on anything that might be a threat to them like you Tamers. And now that they've seen you with me things can only get worse."
"But they're dead," Terriermon pointed out.
"Cybermen have the ability to broadcast what their eye-receptors see to screens and other Cybermen," the Doctor replied "If there are others and trust me, there will be, they know about this already."
"Wait a minute…" Rika tried, but she was cut off too.
"Hey, you kid, what's your name," the Doctor pointed at Henry.
"Um… Henry Wong… but…"
"Where do you live, Henry?"
"A… a couple of streets away in…"
"Right then, go home, gather your family and get them out of the house! The Cybermen will have been keeping tabs on you for a while and they'll probably try and kidnap your families to use as bargaining chips for a surrender, and then get clear of the buildings. Go!"
"But…!"
"Do it, Henry," Renamon suddenly interrupted. "I believe that he might be telling the truth."
"Hurry," agreed Rika. "We'll meet at Guilmon's hideout."
The urgency of the situation snapped into Henry's head and he murmured, "Alright. Come on Terriermon."
"Way ahead of you," Terriermon cried as he launched himself into the air and hurtled down the street towards Henry's house, his Tamer dashing along after him.
"That means my family are probably in danger too," Rika breathed. "Renamon!"
"Got it!" Renamon nodded.
"Wait," the Doctor cried. "Let me come with you."
"I don't think so," Rika growled. "You're the one who got us into this mess."
"This mess was going to happen sooner or later anyway," the Doctor countered. "And you might have been less prepared for it. I can help, if you'll let me."
"We should let him come, Rika," Renamon spoke out before Rika could object again. "He seems to know these creatures whereas we don't. His help in stopping them might be invaluable and we do not have the time to stop and argue."
Rika hesitated, but only for a second. "Fine," she murmured. "You can come. Renamon, prepare for an upgrade. Digi-modify! Digivolution activate!"
Renamon sprang into the air and yelled "RENAMON DIGIVOLVE TO…"
She dropped down to the ground, landing on all fours as she shifted into her Champion form, sprouting eight extra tails and her body shifting into an even sleeker and more streamlined form with flaming paws and tail-tips. "KYUBIMON!"
Despite everything, the Doctor's face lit up with almost boyish delight. "Oh, now that is stunning. And I mean that straight from the hearts! Oh, I've been imagining what digivolution must look like but that was brilliant – way better than anything I could have thought up and I've seen quite a lot of things. Just look at you… you're absolutely beautiful."
"Why, thank you." Kyubimon chuckled.
"Hello?" Rika cried as she bounded onto her Digimon's back. "Serious situation here! Mother and grandmother in danger!"
"Right, yes," the Doctor nodded, haring up beside the Digimon and whipping himself onto her back behind the young girl. "Allons-y!"
Kyubimon lurched forwards with such speed that the Doctor was almost thrown off, but he gripped her fur tightly as she flung herself down the road and towards the Nonaka household. He had to stop himself from whooping in delight as they whirled round a corner, and he realised there were few things in the entire Galaxy as thrilling as riding on a Digimon.
"Wait a minute," Rika blinked. "Did you say hearts? As in more than one?"
"I'll explain it later," the Doctor replied immediately as Kyubimon threw herself out into the traffic.
Suzie Wong was currently pulling the little pink dress off one of her life-size baby dolls with a wide smile of her face while Lopmon eyed her apprehensively from nearby, slightly concerned that the next thing that dress was going to be put on was her herself. The majority of the Wong family, including Janyu who was not a work due to the fact that it was a weekend, were gathered around the table eating a light lunch of sandwiches.
"Say, Suzie," Janyu looked up from his plate. "Weren't you supposed to be going and meeting with your other Tamer friends soon?"
"Yes," Lopmon replied immediately, looking for any outlet that might enable her to escape the coming dress-up games. "We really should be on our way, Suzie. We were supposed to be meeting Henry and the others… in about half an hour… but you never know – something interesting might be happening now."
"Don't wowwy, we'll get there on time," Suzie smiled. "But I want to see what Lopmon looks like when she's in this dwess. It's so pwetty."
"Oh no," Lopmon sighed as Suzie approached her with the clothes. "But Suzie, I've already worn that one three times, haven't I?"
"Yeah, but you look sooo cute," Suzie beamed. "Now let's put it on again."
Whenever she puts that dress on me, the diaper usually follows, Lopmon groaned inside her head, but as usual she merely held up her ears submissively, not wanting to hurt her partner's feelings.
"We've got trouble!" her saving grace cried as Terriermon shot in through the open balcony door and landed in the middle of the table, scattering plates. "We've got some serious trouble guys. As in the we've-got-to-leave-right-now-or-we're-in-even-worse-trouble trouble."
"Terriermon," Mayumi Wong frowned. "Look at the mess you're making."
"Mess? You… who cares about mess! Did you not hear what I just said?"
"What kind of trouble, Terriermon?" Lopmon asked immediately.
"Henry and Rika were just attacked by a couple of metal men who looked a lot like robots but actually weren't," Terriermon replied. "We managed to stop them but apparently there might be more coming to get you guys, so let's go already!"
"Terriermon, if this is one of your weird jokes, then…" Jaarin started, but then Henry burst in through the door.
"He's not joking," he cried. "You have to believe him! We're all in danger here and we need to get out of here now!"
Janyu reacted immediately, knowing that Henry would never willingly collaborate with a prank like this and he rose to his feet. "Alright," he said. "Let's move!" He swiftly grabbed Jaarin and Rinchei and steered them towards the door, while Lopmon and Terriermon took to the air and swooped past them and into the corridor, taking point as the Wong family dashed down the stairs and towards the main entrance of the building.
And not a moment too soon. Confused and scared, the whole family burst out into the street just as a pair of Cybermen stepped out from the alleyway next to the building and slowly turned round to face them. Suzie and Jaarin screamed and hid behind their parents, and Janyu gasped in astonishment.
But Terriermon leapt into motion straight away and Lopmon followed after him, grabbing each other by the ear and yelling "TWIN CYCLONE!" slamming into the front of the Cybermen and sending them hurtling backwards with huge dents in their chests, collapsing to the floor as they did so.
"Run!" shouted Lopmon as Henry and Janyu quickly shepherded the rest of the family across the street while the two Cybermen struggled to get back to their feet. Both the bunnies sprang forwards again, this time with their individual tornado attacks, ramming themselves into the heads of the metal men to knock them off, before they turned and wheeled after their Tamers.
"Head for the park!" Henry shouted as he fished his phone out of his pocket to call the other Tamers. "We'll meet up with the others there!"
Rumiko Nonaka was less fortunate than the Wong family. The first she became aware of the situation was when she was moving to answer the ringing phone, assuming it was her daughter or her agent to give her an update on something, when the door suddenly exploded inwards next to her in a shower of wood and paper. She shrieked as the force threw her off her feet and caused her to smack her head against the table leg.
She looked up blearily in time to see the metallic figure of another Cyberman step into her kitchen, looking down towards her and starting forwards menacingly. She sight alone was enough to spur her into motion and she screamed, rolling away and darting into the corridor to the rest of the house, barely evading the Cyberman's metal fingers.
"Mother!" Rumiko cried, darting towards Seiko's room and wrenching the door open. "We have to…" she gasped when she saw that the room already had two other metal humanoids inside it, one of which had a tight grasp on Seiko's shoulder in one hand and her mouth in the other, while the second was standing just behind the door and promptly seized her by the wrist and pulled her inside to clamp a hand around her neck.
"You are the biological predecessor of Tamer Rika Nonaka," the metal man droned. "Subject had been spotted in the company of the Doctor. You will be taken as hostage leverage and then converted."
Rumiko hacked as the tight metal hand caused her to black out slightly and the third Cyberman closed in behind her. But before it could reach her, Kyubimon sprang clean over the garden wall like a yellow, flaming comet and landed smoothly with four legs splayed.
"Get down!" Rika cried to the Doctor as Kyubimon's tails began to blaze.
"Yes ma'am!" the Doctor cried and ducked his head low.
"FOX TAIL INFERNO!" Kyubimon roared and slammed the Cyberman with a barrage of nine small fireballs that exploded on contact and hurled it straight through the wall to crash through Rika's bedroom and out of sight. Rika and the Doctor immediately jumped off Kyubimon and the young girl started forwards, with the older man straight after her as they bounded into the room where the other two were
"Mum! Grandma!" she shouted.
"Halt!" the Cyberman droned as both of them backed to the other side of their room with their helpless captives held right in front of them. "Or we shall terminate our prisoners."
"Release them at once!" the Doctor yelled. "They are not part of this, Cybermen!"
"You are the Doctor. Confirm, you are the Time Lord known as the Doctor."
"Yes, confirmed, acknowledged, established, whatever floats you boat. Now let those two go."
"Negative," the Cyberman replied immediately. "Stand down now or they shall die!"
"Rika!" Rumiko gasped. "Run…" the Cyberman immediately pressed the barrel of a laser gun to the side of her head, which shut her up and caused her eyes to widen in horror.
Kyubimon growled from where she was standing in the door, knowing that if she so much as moved, then Rika's family would be dead long before she could get to them. She did not like feeling helpless but in this situation that was exactly what she felt like. She flared her tails, looking for an opening, but she could not see anything.
"Wait! Stop!" the Doctor yelled. "You want me to surrender then fine! I surrender! Just don't hurt them! I'll do anything you want as long as you don't hurt them!"
"You agree to allow yourself to be destroyed?" the Cyberman asked.
The Doctor sighed through gritted teeth. "Yes," he murmured. "Yes. I agree. It is me that you want, not them! Release them."
"They will not be harmed," the Cyberman replied. "They will be taken for processing and…"
"No!" the Doctor cried. "No, they will not! That is my condition! If you kill me, then you are not to harm these humans or this Digimon in any way. That includes no death, no torture and definitely no processing. They are to remain as they are, not become one of you!"
The eyes of everyone else widened in shock at the Doctor's words, but the Cyberman stared at him impassively. "The Digimon is dangerous," it stated.
"More dangerous than me?" the Doctor growled. "I don't care if she is dangerous, you are not to harm her. I will agree to do anything you want if you allow them all to live unharmed."
The Cyberman said nothing for several seconds again. "Agreed," it hummed after a moment and then pointed is laser gun at the Doctor's chest, while the second Cyberman took a grip on Seiko's neck and pointed its own laser gun at Rumiko. "Do not move and they shall not be harmed after your demise."
Rika was staring at the Doctor open-mouthed as the man spread his arms out and closed his eyes. She didn't even know this guy and he was already willing to sacrifice himself to save her parents. He was either stupid, mad or the most compassionate person that she had ever met. And she was probably going to go with option three.
As the Cyberman prepped its gun, the Doctor was internally thinking, If there is a divine force out there, now might be a really good time to send another miracle my way.
"Terminate," the Cyberman stated.
BOOM!
The wall behind the two captors suddenly exploded inwards, showering debris throughout the room as a terrifying, snarling, raging dragon with four red wings and a metallic mask over its face tore its way into the room. Rika and Kyubimon started, wondering where the heck Cyberdramon had come from, but before anybody could react, Cyberdramon's had slammed his tail into the side of the Cyberman holding Rumiko and knocked it over, the shot from the laser gun going wide and hitting the ceiling, before pouncing on the one holding Seiko. He seized it from behind and fastened his jaws around the back of its head, plunging his teeth into the metal and yanking it straight off its neck to toss it aside.
The first Cyberman tried to get back up but Cyberdramon beat him to it and fell on him with claws and teeth in evidence, pulling the metallic limbs apart in the space of two seconds flat and scattering the Cyberman across the room.
He then span around again and roared, throwing himself into the air and hurtling towards the onlookers. Rika, Kyubimon and the Doctor all ducked in alarm as Cyberdramon shot over their heads, energy gathering his claws as he smashed through the doorway and fired a powerful Desolation Claw at the third Cyberman which had climbed its way out of the hole it had been knocked through earlier. The attack completely obliterated the metallic being and Cyberdramon landed with a thud, flexing his claws and roaring to the sky in victory.
"Is everyone okay?" Ryo asked as he pelted through the wall. "Cyberdramon said he heard a disturbance and he moved before I could… stop… him…" he paused as he took in the sight of the still-sparking Cybermen lying in pieces, the traumatised looking Rumiko and Seiko and the strange man standing next to Rika. "What happened here?"
"I'd quite like to know that myself," Rika murmured. "But, thanks Ryo. You sure do have a habit of showing up at the right time."
"More like my partner is super high-tuned to any potential threat," Ryo murmured.
"Pot-ay-to, Pot-ah-to," Rika shrugged. "Thanks anyway."
"Who's that?" Ryo pointed at the Doctor.
"A nutter," Rika responded. "But a friendly nutter nonetheless. All the same, Doctor Whatever, care to do some explaining? Those things definitely knew you. Who the heck are you, what the heck are they and what are they doing here?"
"I don't know the answer to that last question, but I'll tell you all on the move," the Doctor replied. "They're be more of them on their way here now and it would not be a good idea to stick around. Come on, let's go!"
"Units 1298, 1299 and 1300 have been terminated," a Cyberman droned from the shadows down in the sewers. "As have Unites 1064 and 1065. Attempt to stifle the news of our existence ended in failure."
"The Doctor is dangerous," another Cyberman agreed. "And the Digimon are powerful. Odds of defeating them together at full strength nil. How should we proceed, Cyber-Leader?"
Another Cyberman stepped out of the gloom and turned to face the other two. This one stood out from all the others in that the bars on the top of its head were black instead of silver, but other than that is was exactly the same in every physical appearance.
"Our plans face being compromised," it said. "We must ensure that does not come to pass. Awaken the Cyber-Army and close in on primary targets. We must accelerate our schedule if we are to stay ahead of the Doctor."
It took a minute, but eventually Rika and Ryo managed to get Rumiko and Seiko onto Kyubimon's back, and the whole group quickly moved through the gates and out towards the park. And then, the Doctor explained. "As I said before, those things are aliens from the planet Mondas, which was actually the twin planet to Earth before it drifted out of the solar system millions of years ago. The people who evolved there could only find a way to survive by integrating their bodies with machinery to cope with the increasing cold and harsh conditions, thus forming themselves into rudimentary Cybermen."
"Are you serious?" Ryo blinked. "We're dealing with aliens this time?"
"Doesn't end there I'm afraid," the Doctor replied grimly. "As Mondas grew worse, the Cybermen eventually began to take on more and more robotic forms, until they've reached the stage they're at now. They're still living things, but they operate on logic and programming as a robot would. Any semblance of humanity has been completely removed apart from its brain and its central nervous system. They have no emotions and no pity, and their sole goal now is to take over a planet more hospitable than Mondas like… say… this one, and convert all of humanity into Cybermen themselves."
"Is that what they meant by processing?" Kyubimon asked.
"Yep," the Doctor nodded. "They were going to cut out your brains and put them into identical suits of metal. It's the same no matter what universe the Cybermen come from or how they evolved – it's always the same."
"I think I'm going to be sick," Rumiko retched. "Remove… my brain. Put it in that… hideous suit."
"That's about the size of it, yes. It's not pleasant, but at least it didn't happen to you. Tell me, has there been anything in the news recently about disappearances?"
"No, I don't think so," Rika murmured.
"Then anything about… say… homeless people?"
"I saw something once," Seiko piped up. "About how there seemed to be much less homeless people on the streets these days and some of our governmental representatives saying about how this was obviously as a result of their hard work."
"Yes, well I'm afraid your representatives might have been lying," the Doctor muttered tightly. "If it's anything like the last few times I've come up against Cybermen then they'll have been building their numbers by kidnapping people that won't be missed to convert them into more Cybermen."
"How many times have you seen these things?" Kyubimon blinked.
"Just wait a minute," the Doctor cringed as he tapped at his forehead with his knuckles. "Think, Doctor. Think, thinkthinkthinkthink. What could the Cybermen be here for this time? What might they want? What might their next… move… be… OH!" he suddenly shouted, making everybody jump. "The Digimon! You guys comes from an alternate reality tied to this one called the Digital World, don't you?"
"Yes," Kyubimon nodded. "That is where the majority of our kind live, but we stay here with our Tamers to defend the Human World."
The Doctor froze in mid-step, his eyes widening slightly as he murmured. "Exactly… how many Digimon Tamers are there out there?"
"If you include both of Impmon's Tamers and Jeri then there are ten of us," Ryo replied.
"You guys better get on the phones," the Doctor murmured gravely. "I don't think that your families are going to be the only ones in danger."
Martha was getting exhausted. She had been chasing Calumon around for about twenty minutes to half an hour, yelling at him to try and get him to slow down, but the tiny little creature was in a world of his own, mindlessly fleeing and constantly cheering and laughing as he bounded out of Martha's reach time and again, not listening to a word that she was saying.
Martha was beginning to get slightly fed up with the little creature constantly staying out of her way, and was just beginning to think that her time might be better spent just calling the Doctor so that he could use some strange alien contraption to catch Calumon himself, when the so-called game they were playing was brought to an abrupt halt.
By a large explosion that went off not far away.
Both Martha and Calumon froze, staring in the direction of the sound. It was not long before they saw what appeared to be a plume of smoke rising above the trees. Calumon abruptly gasped and cried, "That's coming from the bakery!" before he suddenly hurtled off through the trees towards the smoke. Martha was momentarily rooted to the ground, but when she realised that this might have something to do with the Doctor (explosions often did) she hurried after Calumon herself.
The bakery was a battleground, as the Matsuki parents pushed the few customers they had had at the time out of the door and hurried them into the streets and away, just as Guilmon was tossed over the counter and smashed through the front window, rolling into the street in a red, scaly heap.
"Guilmon! Get up, quick!" Takato yelled as he dashed out from the back room, a large Cyberman stepping awkwardly after him with hands outstretched. "You've got to get up! We can beat these guys!" Takato had received a call from Henry a few minutes ago, giving him a heads up on the situation, but he had still not been completely prepared for the metal men that had suddenly forced their way into his home. Fortunately, he had been able to warn his parents, allowing them to get the customers away, but that was about all he had managed.
Guilmon pushed himself to his feet as Takato hurtled out of the front door, only for another Cyberman to step out of the alleyway next to the bakery and try to seize him. Guilmon's eyes narrowed as he yelled, "PYRO SPHERE!" and blasted a large red orb at the offending Cyberman. Takato ducked down and allowed the attack to skim over his head and belt the alien in the chest, flinging it backwards with the sheer force of the blow.
"Yeah! Way to go!" Takato cheered. But he quickly regained his senses when the other Cyberman smashed its way through the door next to him.
"ROCK BREAKER!" Guilmon bellowed, dashing in towards him and slamming his heavy clawed hands into the Cyberman's flank and sending it spinning, sweeping around to knock its legs out from under it with his tail.
"Takato! Get back!" Guilmon snarled as another pair of Cybermen emerged from the alleyway with their guns very much in evidence.
"Yay! Yay! Go get 'em Guilmon!" came a cheering voice from the edge of the park, which turned out to be Calumon. Martha was standing next to the little Digimon and staring with wide eyes at the miniature dinosaur which was taking on the robot creatures.
Alright, she thought. Definitely unusual activity, Doctor.
The bakery was not the only place that was alive with activity at the moment either. In the suburbs of Shinjuku, another Cyberman was sudden tossed straight through the wall of the front of a house with an enormous blast-mark in its centre to collapse into the street beyond, and a few seconds later another one came catapulting through the window, a large black-winged Digimon with a foot planted against its chest.
Beelzemon flared his wings and took off as the Cyberman fell to the ground and span around to point Berenjena down at it and open fire. The pink blast of energy that followed completely annihilated the machine life-form and the Mega Digimon dropped to the ground with a growl.
"Nobody messes with the twins!" he snarled at the deceased aliens and he turned back to the window where the two small children and their parents were staring out at him. "But we should probably get going. If what Henry said was true there are probably more of those things coming."
A loud clanging noise drew their attention back to the street, where they saw a large manhole cover had been thrown away and another Cyberman was clambering up into the road towards them. Beelzemon readied himself, but before anything could happen, Behemoth streaked out of nowhere and twisted side-on to skid over the manhole ramming the top half of the Cyberman before its legs had appeared and flattening it into the road. Behemoth quickly rose over to Beelzemon and presented its seat to him.
It revved its engine, which clearly meant in motorbike speech, Want a lift? Beelzeon smirked and called, "Alright, let's move!"
"Oh no you don't!" Guardromon declared as he put himself between the Shioda family and their assaulters. The approaching Cybermen let off several lasers in the Digimon's direction, but the heavily armoured Champion took them on with ease and started forwards heavily, throwing forward a bulky fist which dented the chest of the first attacker and knocked him over backwards towards the other Cybermen, knocking one of them over and sending the other reeling.
"Yeah! You de mon, Guardromon!" Kazu grinned. "You show these silver losers who the real robot is!"
"It shall be done, Kazu!" Guardromon called as the third Cyberman lurched its way forwards and grabbed at the large Digimon. Guardromon brought up his hands to grab those of his opponent and the two of them pushed against each other for a moment, trying to gain an advantage over the other. Guardromon's eyes narrowed and he used his superior weight to force the Cyberman back and with a flex of his powerful robotic hands he crushed the metal fingers of the alien and tossed him backwards.
"GUARDIAN BARRAGE!" he cried, readying his attack.
"No!" Kazu and his mother both yelled. "Not in the house!"
Too late.
BANG!
Guardromon succeeded in blowing the Cybermen to kingdom come but he also practically vaporised the Shioda's living room and sent a shower of bricks out into the road.
"Oh man!" Kazu yelled. "What did you do that for, ye d…" He trailed off when the door behind them opened and several more Cybermen stepped in. "Never mind! Get 'em Guardromon."
"With pleasure!"
"KAHUNA WAVES!"
MarineAngemon whirled himself around and blasted more heart-shaped bubbles at a couple of Cybermen who were stepping after them out of the Kitagawa household. The large bubbles expanded and engulfed the large mechanoids, freezing them in place and vaporising their bodies, but MarineAngemon was not about to wait around for any more. He quickly hurried after Kenta, who was ushering the rest of his family ahead.
"Come on!" Kenta cried. "Henry said that those things might be coming after all of us! We've got to get to the park now! It'll probably be safer there."
"Kenta, what's going on?" his mother gasped.
"I wish I knew," Kenta replied.
"Kenta!" another voice yelled, and the bespectacled kid turned to see Jeri running towards them. "Are you alright? Did you get attacked?"
"Yeah, but we managed to get away!" Kenta nodded. "What were those things?"
"I don't know. I haven't see them yet – they didn't come after me. Or if they did then we left before they got there. You heading to the park?"
"Yeah," Kenta nodded. "That's where Henry said to meet."
"Your parents can find their own way there," Jeri said quickly. "We should check up on the others first and make sure they don't need out help. Kazu and Takato aren't far away, and I'm sure I heard an explosion from Kazu's direction a few minutes ago."
"Er… okay… See you later!" he called to his parents as he and MarineAngemon hurried after Jeri as she turned and ran in the direction of Kazu's house.
"Targets putting up stiff resistance," one of the Cybermen uttered. "Probability of overpowering them at current power level slim. Probability of success if digivolution occurs less than zero-point-four percent."
"Initiate phase two," the Cyber-Leader uttered. "They will not be able to fight us then."
Guilmon snarled and backed away as another pair of Cybermen stepped forwards. He'd already taken out six of them, but it seemed that they were just going to keep coming and coming until they wore him out. One of them blasted a laser at him, but Guilmon rolled aside and flicked the decapitated head of another Cyberman up at them with his tail to provide a distraction as he blasted out several more Pyro Spheres in response.
Takato frowned, wondering just how many of these things there were. He knew that Guilmon was strong and could keep battling for a while, but he was beginning to think that it might be better just to digivolved his partner and finish off the robots once and for all.
But, just as he pulled out the card to do just that, Guilmon suddenly roared in agony for no apparent reason. Takato gasped in shock as his partner keeled over, clutching at his stomach and clawing at his chest, howling in pain when there seemed to be absolutely nothing causing it.
"Guilmon! What's wrong?" Takato yelled, rushing over to him.
"Taka…to…" Guilmon moaned through gritted teeth. "Hurts… body… hurts… AAAGH!" he reared upwards and collapsed backwards against his partner and to the goggle-headed boy's horror, he saw his beloved partner's entire body suddenly fluctuate, as if his very data was apart to break apart. It was like he was on the verge of deletion and yet nobody had even landed a blow on him.
"What…?" Takato gasped but then the shadow of a Cyberman fell across him and with a swing of a heavy fist, Takato was clouted across the face and immediately knocked unconscious. The Cyberman grabbed him by the shoulder and turned around, dragging the out-cold boy back towards the sewers, while its comrades stepped over to the agonised Guilmon, the first one smacking him in the snout and sending him rolling over.
"Oh no!" Calumon cried. "What's going on? Guilmon! Takato!"
Martha bit her lip. She knew that she had to do something now, but what?
All across the city, the story was the same. In the middle of the park, by Guilmon's hideout, Terriermon and Lopmon both screamed in excruciating pain, doubling over and falling to their knees as they clutched at their stomachs, the former falling off the top of Henry's head to collapse by his female counterpart.
"What the…" Henry gasped. "What's happening?"
"Henry… make it stop! Make it stop!" Terriermon wailed.
"Oh, Fanglongmon, it hurts!" Lopmon yelped in unison.
Beelzemon abruptly bellowed from his place in the air above Behemoth as he brought his legs up and folded in his wings, causing him to plummet straight into the road and land with a crash on top of a car and roll off it and to the side, coming to rest against the side of a building where he shrank back down into Impmon.
Guardromon reared his fist back to punch the next Cyberman in the face, but before he could bring his fist forwards he let loose a yowl and collapsed straight onto his back, almost crushing Kazu in the process. Kazu gaped in astonishment and looked upwards at the Cybermen just as one of them stepped forwards to seize him by the throat and slam his head against the nearest wall, as the others stepped past the groaning Guardromon and made straight towards his parents.
"Kenta, where's MarineAngemon!" Jeri suddenly pulled to a stop and grabbed her fellow Tamer by the shoulder as he tried to run past.
"What?" Kenta blinked. "He's…" he looked back to see that the tiny Mega was not following on behind them as he had thought, and he frantically searched the street with his eyes, plunging his hands into his pockets to make sure he wasn't in there. It took him a few moments, but eventually he spotted the little Digimon lying in the middle of the pavement, little flippers wrapped around his front and whimpering.
"What's going on?" Kenta cried as he dashed back to his Digimon.
Not far away, Kyubimon suddenly howled and lost her footing, tossing both of her passengers straight off her back and sending them sprawling as the Champion level fox hunched over, eyes screwed shut and body shaking as it was wracked with pain. And she was not the only one – Ryo was flung straight off Cyberdramon's back as he lurched in the air, landing painfully on one shoulder as his partner spiralled to the ground with an almighty crash.
"Kyubimon! Ryo! What…?" Rika started, staring at the two Digimon in shock, as both of them suddenly glowed and reverted back to their stages, leaving Renamon and Monodramon shuddering and spasming on the ground as if several thousand volts were coursing through both their bodies.
"…the heck," Ryo finished for Rika as he scrambled to his feet.
"No!" the Doctor cried as he ran over to Renamon and knelt by her side. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! They can't be, they can't be, they can't be!"
"You know what's happening to them?" Ryo pressed as the Doctor scanned both Renamon and Monodramon with the small blue-tipped device. "And what is that thing?"
"It's a sonic screwdriver and yes I know what's happening. Digimon are composed of data aren't they, and the data of these two is fluctuating. The Cybermen must have found a way to broadcast a signal that deliberately disrupts the data of your partners, thus immobilising them and rendering them helpless."
Rika and Ryo shot horrified glances at one another.
"Ryo…" Monodramon moaned. "It hurts… so bad… ungh."
"How do we stop it?" Ryo shouted immediately, kneeling by his partner's side.
"I don't know," the Doctor bit his lip. "I'm sorry, but I don't know."
Guilmon opened his eyes slightly as he saw the Cyberman pointing its powerful laser directly at his head. Through the abyss of pain he managed one last growl, before a fresh wave of it overtook him and he curled into a ball.
I'm sorry Takatomon, he whimpered in his head. I… I failed you.
"Leave him alone!" a voice cried and out of nowhere Calumon threw himself into the Cyberman's face and started beating at its hollow eyes with his tiny fists. "Leave Guilmon alone you big bully!" he shouted almost madly.
His attacks had no effect on the Cyberman whatsoever other than to make it look up at the pestilence in its face. He lifted up a hand and swatted Calumon aside, causing him to crash painfully into a wall and fall to the ground like a little white lump.
Martha Jones dashed across the road, not sure what was possessing her to do something so dangerous but scooping up a large brick that had been knocked from the side of the Matsuki bakery and shouting, "Hey! Leave them both alone!" She hurled the brick with all the force she could muster and succeeded in striking the Cyberman in the face. The heavy projectile managed to knock it backwards a couple of steps, but it recovered itself swiftly and stepped forwards again just as Martha drew level with Guilmon.
Martha grabbed the dinosaur Digimon and tried to haul him away, but he was a lot heavier than he looked and she struggled to move him a couple of feet as the Cyberman stepped towards them. Calumon scrambled to his feet and grabbed Martha's jeans, trying to help pull and not really doing much in terms of assistance. Martha heaved Guilmon to the edge of the alleyway until the Cyberman and its two companions caught up with them. The leader stamped on Guilmon's tail, eliciting a fresh yowl from the Digimon and bringing the rescue attempt to a standstill.
"Digimon scheduled for termination," the Cyberman uttered. "Human female shall be taken for upgrading."
"Whatever that is, I don't need it," Martha cried, thinking quickly as the Cyberman raised their guns again. She hurriedly seized Guilmon by the sides of his head and wrenched it around to point it at the first Cyberman and cried, "Fire quick!"
Despite the cloud of pain, Guilmon caught on and responded, his mouth glowing bright red as the spat another Pyro Sphere which collided with the Cyberman's head and knocked it off. Martha quickly aimed his head a couple more times with the same result, until the three Cybermen were lying in sparking piles on the side of the road.
"Takato…" Guilmon groaned. "Must… find… Takato…"
"They got him, Guilmon!" Calumon wailed. "They took him down into the tunnelly things beneath the city that don't have trains in them."
"The sewers?" Martha asked.
"Yeah," nodded the little Digimon.
Guilmon hauled himself free of Martha's arms and crawled towards the manhole slowly, continuously stopping and shuddering as his data fluctuated again. Martha bit her lip and then finally decided that enough was enough. She needed to let the Doctor know about this now, so she immediately pulled out her phone.
"What?" Ryo yelled into his own phone.
"That was pretty much what I thought," Henry said gravely on the other side.
"What's happened now?" asked Rika agitatedly.
"Henry says he just received a call from Kenta and Jeri. MarineAngemon is the same but they can still carry him and now they're at Kazu's house. Apparently the place is a wreck, half blown-up with all the Shioda's missing. Guardromon's the only one still there. He's alive but badly injured and also in the middle of this data disruption."
"Great!" Rika growled. "Just great. You reckon those Cybermen got Kazu and his family."
"Probably," Ryo muttered. "What about you Doctor? Any ideas?"
"I can't just put in a new signal that will override the one the Cybermen are using with nothing but a sonic screwdriver," the Doctor grimaced. "It can't be done. If I'm going to get the Digimon back to full strength then we need to stop it at its source. Come on, Doctor. Don't be so thick! Think about this. Where could the Cybermen have set up something like this?"
Suddenly a phone in his pocket started ringing. "MARTHA!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, making everybody jump again. He whipped out the phone and answered it in a flash. "I really, really hope you've got something good for me Martha because I'm in a bit of a fix at the moment."
"Something big is definitely happening," came the reply. "I'm at a bakery that was just attacked by a group of strange metal men. The kid who lived here got taken but I'm standing here with this tiny white thing and this red dinosaur who's trying to call after the kid, but can't because he appears to be in agony for some reason."
"Oh… that's not good," the Doctor murmured, looking up at the Tamers with him. "Which one of your friends lives in a bakery?"
"Takato?" Rika blinked.
"Well, I'm afraid he's been nabbed as well."
"WHAT?"
"Doctor, what am I supposed to do. This dinosaur thing is still trying to get away and the small, white creature is in full agreement with him. He's bouncing around all over the place – he's practically gone hyperactive."
"What?" The Doctor shot to his feet as if electrified. "The small white thing isn't doubled over with pain?"
"Er… no… it can't seem to stay still…"
"What's his name? Tell me the creature's name!"
"Um… was it… Culumon… no, he says its Calumon."
The Doctor looked round at the Tamers and said, "Who's Calumon? What kind of Digimon is he? What makes him different to all of your own Digimon?"
Rika hesitated for only a moment before she reeled off, "Well, he can't digivolve, he doesn't have a Tamer, he doesn't have any attacks and he's at the In-training level…"
"TAMERS!" the Doctor cried. "Of course! Give me that!" he suddenly seized Rika's D-Arc and yanked it out of her hand. Before she could stop him, the Doctor had danced backwards and applied the tip of the sonic screwdriver to it. A few hasty modifications and a couple of second of buzzing later and both Renamon and Monodramon suddenly stopped groaning and looked up, blinking.
"Problem solved," the Doctor said brightly. "Well, mostly solved. And just one of many problems."
"What did you just do?" Ryo blinked.
"My friend just told me that your friend Calumon was not being affected by the signal like the rest of the Digimon were, so I guessed that he must be unique in some way. Then it hit me – your D-Arcs are constantly transmitting data to and from your respective Digimon, which is how you can use those cards of yours to give them upgrades like computer terminals. But the Cybermen must have found a way of transmitting another signal to the Digimon, using the D-Arcs as conduits so it would disrupt only them and not other data-filled devices… like their own computers."
"So you fixed it?" Rika asked.
"Er… well… not exactly," the Doctor grimaced. "You see… the only way to stop the signal completely is still to eradicate the source. What I've done here is place a firewall in Rika's D-Arc that blocks the signal and used interlinked system between them to transmit it to the other Digimon… but… well… without knowing the frequency of the original signal I can't put in a firewall that blocks out only it so… I've had to cancel out them all."
"All signals?" Rika's eyes bugged out. "Then… does that mean…?"
"Uh-huh," nodded the Doctor. "Until we can eradicate the original source of the signal… you won't be able to digivolve or upgrade your Digimon using any of your Modify Cards. They're stuck as they are until I remove the firewall, but if I were to do that now then they would just be filled with pain again."
There was a long pause.
"Well, at least it's something," Ryo murmured. "And at least we can fight back. We need to stop that signal completely."
"But we also need to find Kazu and Takato before they get turned into those Cybermen things," Renamon grunted as she pushed herself to her feet.
"I know, I know," the Doctor murmured. "But the best way to do both is to find their base of operations, but this is a very big city. Where could they be? Quickly, think. Even with the D-Arcs as conduits they would still need a transmitter capable of sending information to them, and those things are not connected to any random network are there. What facilities are there in this city that might be capable of broadcasting a signal like this to your D-Arcs?"
Rika and Ryo both answered at the same time – "The HYPNOS towers."
"The what now?" the Doctor blinked.
"Them," Ryo quickly pointed up towards the distant spires of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building. "That's where the signal must be coming from. That's where Yamaki and his team monitor the Digital World's activities. It's also where the guy who designed the first D-Arcs works."
"They don't really have any technology that can connect to our D-Arcs that we know of," Rika said. "But they have the closest thing to it."
"Then our best bet is that the Cybermen's main base is in the sewer system directly beneath those Towers," the Doctor nodded. "And if their plan is what I think it is… then we had better get there pretty quickly."
"Why?" Monodramon asked. "What do you think they're planning?"
"If that building has the facilities to connect to the Digital World," the Doctor murmured, "then the Cybermen may be planning to take control of it. If they were able to somehow to connect to the Digital World, which essentially acts like one enormous computer, and harness the raw amounts of data and power that it possesses… then who knows what they might be able to accomplish?"
"But what would happen to the Digimon in it?" Renamon asked, alarmed.
"They're part of the program," the Doctor replied. "It's likely that they too would be drained and possibly killed to feed the Cybermen's war machine."
"They have got to go," Renamon bristled.
"Doctor, I'm going after that kid," Martha said through the phone line.
"No, Martha!" the Doctor cried immediately. "No, don't! It'll be incredibly dangerous down there."
"Oh, like I've never faced danger before," Martha snorted. "That kid's the one in danger, not me. And besides, I've got a little fire-breathing dinosaur to protect me this time. I'm going and that's that."
"Wait…" the Doctor cried but Martha had already hung up. The Doctor groaned and said, "Ugh, why? Why do I always pick the ones who never listen to what I ask them?"
"Come on, Rika," Ryo turned around. "We've got to get to those towers and fast."
"What about those friends of yours?" the Doctor turned to face them. "The ones who found out that another of you Tamers had been captured? Can you tell them to meet at the bakery which your friend Takato was taken from?"
"Yes, but why?"
"Martha's right in that we need to organise a rescue operation as well," the Doctor explained. "If you organise the rest of the Tamers to defend those Towers, then I can follow the signal on Martha's phone and lead the other Tamers through the sewer system and towards the Cyberman base. We can then hit them from above and below."
"Alright," nodded Ryo. "Let's go! I'll call Kenta."
"I'll call Henry and Suzie!" Rika agreed as they ran off with their partners. "Bakery's that way, Doctor. And I hope to Fanglongmon this works."
"Me too," nodded the Doctor as he hared off in the direction that Rika had pointed, while Renamon grabbed Rika, Ryo and Monodramon in her arms and darted the other way, towards the business district and the distant towers.
Martha had to resist the urge to hold her nose and settled for merely wrinkling it instead. She had thought that the time she had walked through the sewers of New York in 1930 when the Daleks had been on the loose would be the first and only time she did something like this, and now she was walking past sludge underneath the city of Tokyo in the present day. It didn't get much worse than this.
The dinosaur creature, Guilmon, was walking in front of her and sniffing the air, while Calumon rode on her shoulder. Quite frankly, Martha had no idea how Guilmon was able to detect the scent of his human friend against the scent of all the foul waste down here but he was definitely moving with a purpose. He knew where he was going.
"This way," he murmured, running off down another side-tunnel. Martha followed, navigating a pile which contained things she didn't even want to think about as she ran after the strange animal.
"Pee-yoo," Calumon shook his head. "This place smells worse than those out-of-date cream puffs I ate last week."
Martha blinked but decided to ask about it. "How much further do you think it is, Guilmon?" she asked.
"We're getting closer," the dinosaur confirmed. "The smell's getting stronger."
"Tell me about it," Martha murmured under her breath. "It's absolutely horrendous. So, anyway, what did you say you creatures were again?"
"We're Digimon, which is short for Digital Monsters," Calumon grinned brightly. "Most of us have really cool powers that we can use to beat down our enemies or help others beat down our enemies, and we've been helping to protect the human world from other meaner Digimon for ages now."
Guilmon suddenly growled and he increased his speed, running straight through several disgusting piles of sewage and round another bend. Martha had long since lost track of how many bends they had gone round, but she quickly hurried after the angry-sounding Digimon and tried to keep up with his surprisingly fast pace.
"I think we're almost there," Calumon whispered.
They traversed several more large tunnels and bends before Guilmon began to slow and began to step forwards more cautiously and silently. Martha immediately slowed in response, recognising the need for stealth and the three of them slowly began to sneak along the tunnel until they reached the next bend. Guilmon slowly peered around that bend and Martha pressed herself close to the sewer wall and did the same.
The site beyond took her breath away. The Cybermen had definitely not been here for only a short amount of time. They appeared to have hollowed out a large section of the sewer system into a base of sorts. Several dozen Cyberman were standing in ranks in the middle of the room, in front of another Cyberman with black head-bars. Around the side of the room and into some of the tunnels beyond, Martha could see scores of more Cybermen lined up against the walls, looking dead and useless, but two of the Cybermen were moving around and flipping on a few consoles which caused the nearest inactive Cyberman to slowly come to life and step away to join its comrades.
In another section of the room, several computer terminals and screens featuring the footage from what looked like CCTV cameras rested against the wall, and beside them were several cubicles with open doors, and Martha shuddered when she saw numerous vicious looking instruments like buzzsaws and scalpels hanging from the ceiling in each one. And, standing in front of them and held tightly by more Cybermen were…
"Takato!" Guilmon breathed. "And Kazu. Both of them got caught."
"What are they going to do with them?" Calumon whimpered.
"Nothing if we have anything to say about it," Martha murmured back.
But then her eyes were drawn towards the largest section of the room, and that was the enormous machine. Martha could not make heads or tails of it – to her it just seemed to be a large mass of interlocking cables and wires, but whatever it was it had numerous pipes ascending upwards through the ceiling and it was humming quietly to itself. It was constantly being monitored by other Cybermen and there appeared to be another one sitting in a large metal throne at its base. This Cyberman also had black head-bars, but also had a black face. And it also appeared to be very damaged and was connected to the machine by an assortment of more wires.
"Who's that one," she muttered to herself, staring at the machine and the Cyberman hooked up to it.
Guilmon growled. "Takato. I'm coming." He immediately started forwards into the room, but Martha grabbed him and quickly pulled him back into the sewer corridor and out of sight.
"No, wait," she said. "Not yet. They're not hurting your friend yet so we can pick the best moment to do something. Besides, that guy over there is talking."
Guilmon shifted impatiently but he reluctantly agreed to wait, and the three eavesdroppers listened quietly as the Cyber-Leader addressed his troops.
"…take control of the towers above then we shall be unstoppable. Our disruption signal has proven effective, and the Digimon threat has been neutralised. All units will now converge on the HYPNOS towers and begin our invasion. Upon conquest, units will synchronise their technology with our own and begin power syphoning of the Digital World. We have calculated that its energy will be able to revive the Cyber-Controller and the rest of the army. We shall begin the conquest of Earth upgrade its human inhabitants to our superior design."
"You can't do this!" Takato yelled.
"Yeah, this is not your world," Kazu agreed. "Why don't you guys shove off back to where you came from?"
"Silence, child" the Cyber-Leader stepped around to face the three prisoners. "The only reason you have not been upgraded already is to provide potential hostage leverage if the Doctor learns of our location."
"Your world shall soon by ours to control. We shall remove all emotion and weakness of the flesh. You will all become part of our Cyber-army, which will grow with the awakening of the Cyber-Controller. Now, all units will head out and take the towers above for our own."
The Cyber-army that had already gathered immediately turned around and began to march of into several of the other corridors nearby in strict lines. Martha frowned as she murmured, "So we're beneath some towers? And I guess that machine there is the one that's broadcasting that signal."
"We have to take it out," Guilmon murmured. "But we have to get Takato and the others back as well."
"What are we going to do now?" Calumon whimpered.
"I'm sure the Doctor is on his way," Martha murmured. "The only problem is, I'm not sure he's going to get here in time."
The business district promptly began a screaming mass of panicked people the moment that the first Cyberman burst out from the sewer system and clambered out into the street. The pedestrians all automatically fled from the robotic creature, but many of them found themselves running into more Cybermen which were beginning to clamber up from other entrances and all along the road.
Through the confusing mass of panicked people, the Cybermen simply turned around to fact the middle of the street and the main entrance to the Tokyo Metropolitan Building. They had their orders. They would not both with the people as long as they did not interfere. They would be converted into Cybermen soon enough, but now was not the time for that. Now they had to ensure that they took over the HYPNOS towers and quickly.
They stomped down the street from both directions and from the opposite side of the towers themselves, and several of them began to emerge from just about right outside its doors. The staff in the lobby screamed as they saw the metal army converging on them and promptly fled the moment the first Cybermen reared his arm backwards, preparing to punch straight through the door and gain entrance to the practically defenceless building.
"BEAT KNUCKLE!" cried a voice from above.
The Cyberman looked up to see Renamon shooting towards him from above, having leapt a considerable distance from the roof of one of the smaller buildings. Rika and Ryo were both tucked under one arm, while the other had just flung Monodramon down towards the first of the army. The Cyberman's head was caved in by the surprisingly hard blow to the face from the small, purple dragon, his claws striking the metal with enough force to shatter the ground.
The useless Cyberman was tossed back into his comrades and knocked a couple of them over as Monodramon stood before the entire force with knuckles brandished, Renamon landing beside him moments later to deposit the Tamers not far away. "Get inside," she murmured. "It's too dangerous for you out here as long as we can't biomerge. We'll hold them off as long as we can."
"Good luck, you guys," nodded Rika as she and Ryo immediately ducked into the doors.
"Digimon presenting intermediate threat," one of the Cybermen droned. "Immediate termination necessary."
The assorted Cybermen began immediately pulled out several assorted weapons, including large handheld laser guns in several cases, while many of them had other weapons suddenly appear out of their helmets and chests. Renamon and Monodramon narrowed their eyes and separated immediately as the first shot was fired and the battling began.
Renamon bounded over to the nearest group of Cybermen and span herself around to avoid a volley of laser-fire from their chests, one shot passing through the tip of her tail but the rest of them missing completely. She seized the first Cyberman by the neck and slammed him into the one to its immediately right to knock them both down, landing on them heavily before she bounced up to kick the head clean off another one and punch another in the chest so hard that it went soaring backwards to bowl several other Cybermen over and onto their backs.
The nearest Cybermen on either side of Renamon immediately turned to face her and fired, but Renamon catapulted herself up into the air, which resulted in several of the Cybermen shooting their own comrades instead and causing them to keel over. Renamon landed heavily on the shoulders of another one to crush it into the ground and whirled about to seize the next in her paws, heaving it into the air and spinning it around to intercept the incoming fire of two other Cybermen before leaping up and kicking it down into the group with a graceful backflip.
Monodramon was not used to fighting in his current form, but he was certainly doing his best. He leapt up to pummel another Cyberman in the chest with his Beat Knuckle and slam into over, before falling to the ground and spinning about as laser-fire cracked into the road next to him. Scowling in annoyance, he flexed the wing-like projections on his arms and dashed through the legs of two more Cybermen with them outstretched, taking out their ankles with them in the process before he bounded up to another and land on its chest.
He then bit into its neck.
This proved to be surprisingly effective against the Cyberman, because his Cracking Bite attack was designed fragment the data of enemy Digimon and cause them to malfunction, and it was essentially doing the same to the machinery parts of the Cyberman. It collapsed to the ground, shuddering and defunct, and Monodramon immediately took shelter behind it as more lasers slammed into where he had been. He then bounded out of the shadows and grabbed a fallen manhole in his claws, heaving it around and tossing it like a discus to slam the heads off another two Cybermen.
But then, another Cyberman stepped up behind him. Monodramon whirled about to leap at him but, with a swift and decisive motion, the Cyberman lifted up its arm to intercept him with its silver hand. A sudden electrical pulse surged out of its fingers and slammed into Monodramon, causing him to cry out as he went tumbling away to land with a crack against the side of the HYPNOS building.
"Monodramon!" Renamon cried, spinning around to stare in shock. It was at that precise moment, during her break in concentration, that she was hit in the shoulder by one of the lasers and fell to the ground with a yell, landing on her knees and clutching at her shoulder as the assorted Cybermen converged all around her. She grimaced and surged upwards to continue fighting regardless, but without the use of one arm she was severely hindered.
Which was what allowed one of the other Cyberman to grab her by the tail. She span around, but before she could kick or punch it away, she felt more electrical power coursing through her body, with so many volts that a human would have died instantly. She screamed and collapsed back into a crouch, and the Cybermen gathered around her to administer the final blow.
"No," Monodramon groaned as he pushed himself back up.
"Leave her alone!" cried another voice.
The Cybermen looked up again, and this time they saw Terriermon shooting towards them, Lopmon flying just behind him. The two bunnies crashed into the Cyberman with a grip on Renamon's tail and knocked him away, releasing Renamon from the electrical attack, and then the two of them whipped themselves into individual windstorms and quickly circuited the fallen fox, taking out the legs of all the other Cybermen in the immediately vicinity. Renamon pushed herself back up to her feet, fur smoking but still very much alive.
"Thanks," she said.
"No problem. That's what friends are for," grinned Terriermon.
"Get back!" Lopmon yelled and the three of them immediately did just that as more lasers fell all around them. They launched their projectile attacks at the incoming Cybermen but their metal armour took them with ease. They quickly regrouped with Monodramon and stood before the doors as the Cybermen congregated all around them.
"No matter what happens, we have to keep fighting," Renamon growled.
"There's too many of them," Monodramon murmured.
"Not for me there's not," growled another voice. "CORONA BLASTER!"
A huge pink blast of energy surged in from above and slammed the frontmost Cybermen to dust and swept across the army, leaving nothing but rubble as it carved a line straight through their ranks. The Digimon all looked up with eyes wide.
"Beelzemon!" Monodramon cried as the Demon Lord Digimon winged his way overhead, with Henry, Suzie and the twins all held under one arm.
"So nice of you to invite me to the party," Beelzemon grinned.
"Of course!" Renamon almost laughed. "You don't rely on the D-Arc to digivolve do you? You could do it even before you got your Tamers."
"You got that right, Fox-face!" Beelzemon grinned as he landed in front of the group and dropped the remaining Tamers for the floor. "Now who wants to see which of us here has the best laser-gun, huh?" he yelled at the assorted Cybermen.
"Guys!" Rika suddenly yelled from the door. "They're coming up through the floor in here!"
The Digimon whirled around to see Rika and Ryo backing away from a growing splinter in the floor of the lobby, which promptly burst open to allow another Cyberman to climb up from within.
"You guys get in there and make sure none of them reach the stairs or the elevator!" Beelzemon roared. "I'll deal with this lot!"
"Got it!" Terriermon nodded as the four Rookies bounded inside to pile-drive the Cyberman as a united force and group around to hole for anymore, while Beelzemon leapt into the air and twisted around to avoid a fresh salvo of laser-fire and blast three Cybermen to shreds with quick bursts of Berenjena. The battle was on in earnest now!
At approximately the same time as the battle started, Kenta, Jeri, MarineAngemon and Guardromon were already standing by the mess that had once been Takato's bakery, waiting for any sign of their incoming guide.
"Where is this guy?" murmured Kenta. "Shouldn't he have been here by now?"
"Maybe he got lost," Jeri murmured worriedly. "Oh, Takato, if anything's happening to you…"
"Hello!" the Doctor yelled as he dashed out seemingly nowhere and made them all jump. "I take it that you're the group who's been waiting for me!"
"Are you this Doctor man?" Guardromon asked.
"Yep. The Doctor – that's me, hello. Sorry I'm a little late but I had to stop and do something but trust me it was important. Now, you – you're Jeri aren't you?"
"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm Jeri," the young girl nodded. "And this is Kenta, MarineAngemon and Guardromon."
"Yes, I know but I'm afraid that we don't have much time. Jeri, I want you to listen to me carefully as this is very, very important but it's going to sound completely and utterly bonkers to you. I want you to take this key," he quickly handed her a perfectly ordinary-looking silver door-key. "Go that way two streets, then go left, take the first right and then the second left and you should see a large blue box with the words POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX on it. This key opens that box and I want you to go inside it. I want you to take this phone and then wait for my call and then follow my instructions carefully."
"But… what…?" Jeri protested.
"No time for either!" the Doctor cried. "Come on, Jeri. The fate of the city and your friends might depend on you doing what I say now, so please go and do it."
Jeri hesitated, momentarily torn between the Doctor's words and her desire to go and help Takato, but after only a moment she nodded and took both the key and the phone. "Okay, if you say its that important then I'll do it."
"Good girl," the Doctor beamed. "I should warn you though that the box is an alien spacecraft in disguise, and it is much, much bigger on the inside than the outside. Yes, I know that sounds confusing and impossible, but don't be surprised when it is. Now go. Two streets, left, first right, second left. Go, go, go!"
Jeri, bewildered and confused, but nonetheless resolute, immediately hurried off to carry out the Doctor's wish. The Doctor then turned to the others and said, "Right then. Into the sewers."
"Allow me," Guardromon said as he hurried over to the manhole and pounded his heavy bulk straight through the tarmac and into the large space beneath. The Doctor and Kenta immediately clambered down after him, and the former pulled out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it down the corridor, zeroing in on the signal from Martha's phone.
"This way!" he called, as he dashed away with the screwdriver pointed ahead.
"I hope you know what you're doing!" Kenta cried as he and the two Digimon hurried in pursuit.
"It seems some of your Digimon allies are fighting against the troops up above," the Cyber-Leader turned to face the captives as another distant explosion rocked the base. "The Doctor must have found a way to disable our disruptive signal."
"Hah! That means victory is not yours yet, Robotboy!" Kazu yelled.
"Silence," the Cyber-Leader toned and another Cyberman guard yanked on Kazu's hair and caused him to yelp. "You are foolish, as are all your kind. Your smugness and your pain are weaknesses that will be removed once you are converted to Cyber-form. Your friends will not last long and we shall still take the city by…"
"Hello everybody!" a cheerful voice cried. The remaining Cybermen wheeled around automatically at the sound and the whole room beheld a small, white creature bouncing around in circles in plain sight right behind them. "You're shiny," it said.
"Calumon!" Takato yelled. "Run!"
"Identified as low-level Digimon, designated Calumon," the Cyber-Leader droned. "Threat level zero. You are inconsequential."
"I don't even know what that means," giggled Calumon. "You wanna play! Come on! Let's play! Let's play!"
He began to bound in circles around the legs of the Cybermen, who slowly revolved around on the spot, keeping their eyes on the tiny creature as they stared in mechanical bemusement at his antics.
"Your desire for play is yet another weakness," the Cyber-Leader stated. "Cybermen have no need for play. We shall eliminate all forms of play and run solely on intelligence and logic. You and your Digimon kind cannot be converted to Cyber-form so you shall be eradicated."
"You think emotions are weak?" Calumon suddenly stopped dancing around. "You don't like play? What is wrong with you? If we don't get to feel happy then there's no point to anything, is there. What's wrong with feeling happy? Feeling sad is a bad thing, but what is wrong with feeling happy?"
"Emotions are distractions," the Cyber-Leader uttered. "Feeling happy is not necessary for survival, therefore it shall be eradicated."
"You're all big dummies!" Calumon yelled. "Feeling happy is the best thing in the world. Except for cream puffs. Cream puffs are even better."
"Cream puffs and all other congestibles will no longer be needed either. Cybermen do not require food."
"No cream-puffs?" Calumon gasped. "You're all monsters!"
"We are human-point-two," the Cyber-Leader replied.
All the time the attention of the Cybermen had been focused on Calumon, Martha and Guilmon had been slowly moving around the sides of the wall in the direction of the large machine which was slowly humming from behind the throne of the Cyber-controller. Calumon was only providing a diversion, and even the Cybermen who had been manning the machine itself did not see their approach until it was too late.
The first of the three was seized by Guilmon from behind and had his head pulled off before it realised what was happening, its body lowered carefully to the ground.
The second of the three was grabbed by Martha and pulled to the ground, where she tried to pin it down and allowed Guilmon to slam his claws into its chest and pull out several important wires.
And the third was pushed by Martha until it clattered off the machine and fell to the ground with a loud thud. The Cybermen immediately turned to see Guilmon landing on the back of the throne of the Cyber-controller and launch a large Pyro Sphere at the fallen Cyberman to blow its head to shrapnel.
"Guilmon!" Takato cried. "You're alright!"
"Hold on, Takato!" Guilmon yelled, spitting three more Pyro Spheres with astonishing accuracy, pummelling the three Cybermen holding the captives in their chest one by one, felling them on the spot. As the captives broke free, the remaining Cybermen immediately pointed their weapons at the errant dinosaur.
"Halt!" the Cyber-Leader almost shouted. "Do not fire on him. We must not damage the transmitter."
"You're luck's just about run out!" Guilmon grinned, as the captives immediately ran over to stand next to him, knowing that the safest place to be standing was in front of said transmitter at this point.
"Not completely the case, Digimon!" the Cyber-Leader intoned, and with a burst of speed, he suddenly whirled around and grabbed Calumon from his spot of the ground. Calumon screamed as he was hoisted into the air in the tight fist, the metal fingers constricting around him like metallic snakes.
"Another weakness of emotion is mercy," the Cyber-leader replied. "If you do not surrender now then I shall destroy this little one."
The whole group immediately froze, staring at the struggling Calumon with abject horror. It seemed they had already reached a stalemate – none of them were willing to risk harm to something that the other side seemed to have control of – the transmitter and the Catalyst.
"What shall it be Tamers?" the Cyber-Leader asked.
But, out of sight of the metallic men, Martha Jones was already at work. She was very slowly and carefully, trying to work as silently as possible, unplugging various sockets and cables from their allotted places in the machine. She grinned as she felt the thrumming of the machine going down with every wire that she pulled out, until she seized a large cable in both hands and wrenched with all her strength.
The was an audible groan from the machine as it immediately lost all power and died. Martha beamed and had to resist the urge to whoop as the signal that was supposed to be disrupting the Digimon's data was completely shut off at the source.
The Cybermen looked up at the machine with the mechanical equivalent of alarm. "Scans indicate transmitter non-functional," one of them stated.
"What have you done?" the Cyber-Leader demanded.
"We've ruined your plans!" a voice yelled, as the Doctor plunged into the room from nearby. "Good work, Martha Jones! Always knew there was a reason that I picked you after all."
"Doctor!" the Cyber-Leader began, turning to face him. "Your arrival has been anticipated."
"Yeah, I know," the Doctor winked at him cheekily. "But it looks like you were foiled before I even got here? And you've allowed my arrival to distract you completely, haven't you?"
A Pyro Sphere suddenly thudded into the Cyber-Leader's side and he stumbled, losing his grip on Calumon, who immediately soared to freedom. Guardromon suddenly rushed out of the tunnel on his jets with eyes narrowed and cried, "I'll show you who's the superior machine!" as he belted the Cyber-Leader in the chest with a hammer-blow from his fist to send him catapulting into the wall.
"Guardromon!" Kazu cheered. "You're okay too!"
The remaining four Cybermen immediately turned their attention towards Guardromon and raised their large laser weapons, but MarineAngemon suddenly appeared over the robot Digimon's head and giggled as he span in an abrupt circle and released a salvo of Kahuna Wave bubbles, the first few of which intercepted the lasers and popped while the second few expanded to engulf the Cybermen completely and disintegrate them from within.
"Yeah, you go, MarineAngemon!" Kenta cried.
The damaged Cyber-Leader hurriedly peeled himself from the wall and clambered unsteadily to his feet. "Your victory is not yet assured, Doctor," he stated, before he turned around and grabbed a large switch on the side of the wall and flipped it. There was a mechanical whirring sound as the hunched and deactivated Cybermen in the corridor beside it automatically began to twitch and move.
"He's activated another portion of the Cyber-army!" the Doctor cried. "Kenta, quick! Pass me your D-Arc."
"Right!" Kenta cried, having already learned that this man knew what he was doing and tossing the little device to him. The Doctor seized it and pressed the sonic screwdriver against its screen, buzzed for a few seconds and grinned. "Done," he added.
Each of the D-Arcs throughout the city then gave off a mechanical beeping noise. Back at the HYPNOS towers, the Tamers all immediately looked at their devices with wide eyes.
"Was that what I think it is?" Henry asked.
"Must be," Ryo cried. "They did it! They shut down the signal and the Doctor has restored our D-Arcs to their original settings."
"Which means we don't have to hold back anymore!" Terriermon grinned. "Let's go get 'em, Henry!"
"You got it, Terriermon!" Henry smirked as he and his partner dashed outside. "Come on, Lopmon!"
"On it!" Lopmon lifted herself into the air and followed the two of them out. "Now, Suzie!"
"Okay!" Suzie nodded, seizing a card and turning it blue as she had been taught by her brother. "Digi-modify! Matrix digivolution activate!"
"Biomerge activate!" Henry added as soon as he and Terriermon were clear of the doors.
Both of the bunnies were engulfed in light as they shot into the street. Beelzemon was just finished carving another sweep through the masses of Cybermen with Berenjena when he looked around with a smirk on his face to see the two Digimon and the one Tamer expanding outwards.
As Antylamon formed out of Lopmon, she immediately morphed her hands into axe blades and charged through the Cybermen ranks, flipping the axes around so the flats ploughed straight into their bodies and piled them into one another as she passed before heaving upwards to fling them into the air, bounding up as she did so to land with a four limbed thud among several more.
"Alrighty then!" MegaGargomon cried as the light dissipated from the humungous mechanoid form he had taken on. "Time to get a-squishing, I'd say! Let's see you guys stand up to this then!" he roared as he ignored the blasts of the Cybermen weaponry and simply stepped casually into the street, flattening close to twenty Cybermen with a single step, then lifting up his other foot to bring it descending on another bunch. It was like a game of whack-a-mole, except the moles never vanished back into the ground and never popped back up once you hit them.
Beelzemon smirked and dropped to the ground, bashing another Cyberman aside with a swipe of Berenjena and firing another huge blast straight between MegaGargomon's huge legs to take out another enormous bunch. It seemed that the rest of this battle was going to be an absolute cakewalk.
Back inside the tower, Rika and Ryo had already biomerged with their partners, the injuries of the two of them having ebbed with the transformation. Sakuyamon held her staff in front of her and summoned a Talisman Sphere around her, before hovering over the hole in the ground and dropping into it, the force-field crushing any Cyberman that was climbing through as she dropped into the sewer system below.
She was faced with row upon row of yet more Cybermen, who immediately fired on her, though her shield took the shots with ease. Justimon then barrelled down in front of her and slammed the ground with a Thunder Clap, obliterating countless numbers of the Cybermen in front of them and knocking over all the others with the shockwaves. The two Megas then stormed down the sewer, laying about with staff and Voltage Blade alike, Sakuyamon's fox spirits swooping out to add to the maelstrom of destruction at the same time.
The Cyber-Leader turned around as the army behind him continued to mobilise, only to find Guardromon sweeping towards him and plunging his metal fist straight through his thick chest and into the wall beyond it. The Cyber-Leader rattled and sparked as he collapsed to the floor, completely dead.
"We've got the full power of the Digimon back!" Kenta cried as the Cybermen in the corridor stepped out into the middle. "But now what are we meant to do?"
"You guys hold them off!" the Doctor pointed. "I have a plan, but I'll need a few minutes."
"On it!" Takato cried as he and Guilmon stormed towards the oncoming Cybermen, merging into Gallantmon without a second's thought. Martha stared in amazement as the kid and the dinosaur merged into the Knight, which slammed the first few rows of Cybermen with his shield and then advanced down the corridor, shield raised to take the laser shots and lance slashing out the side to impale the Cybermen the moment they got too close.
"So, what's the plan, Doctor?" Martha cried as the Time Lord sprinted over to the machine.
"Well, I'm very glad you decided to deactivate the machine instead of destroying it, Martha," the Doctor responded. "Because I'm going to turn the technology of the Cybermen against them. They're trying to take over the Earth, but they've made a whopping mistake trying to take a place where Digimon live, and not just because the Digimon are so powerful."
"Isn't that sort of technology supposed to be way better than anything that humans can produce?" Kazu asked.
"Yep," the Doctor nodded as he flipped and switched and fine-tuned the machine with no-stop precision.
"Then how can you know how to change its settings?" Kenta asked.
"Because I'm a genius, okay?" the Doctor replied immediately. "Now, Martha, when I say so, I want you to plug that main socket back into the machine. And pass me your phone."
Martha could see that the Doctor was in technical mode now, so asking him any questions now would be just about pointless, so she immediately tossed him her mobile. The Doctor seized it almost without looking and his the first number on speed-dial, lifting it to his ears as he adjusted more settings on the machine with only one hand and danced about from section to section with non-stop motions as if he did this sort of thing in his sleep.
As soon as the phone was answered, he called, "Jeri, did you make it?"
"Oh yeah," Jeri breathed, still totally flabbergasted as she took in the inside of the TARDIS, running a hand across its central console in wonder. "This… is… incredible."
"Yes, it is, isn't it? But I need you to listen to me now. I've already primed the ship to do what it needs to do. I just need you to carry out the final phase, okay?"
"Okay!" Jeri nodded. "What's the plan?"
"First, do you see a large lever sticking up from next to the central console from the left if you face it from the doors?"
"Yes," Jeri replied. "I see it."
"I want you to pull that lever down as far as it'll go, and then hold tight. It will get bumpy."
Jeri didn't wait to question it. She immediately pulled the lever down. She was almost thrown off her feet immediately and grabbed hold of a nearby railing as the entire ship lurched. Engine parts began shifting up and down in the large, transparent pillar sticking up from the central console and a loud, groaning sound like several elephants trying to trumpet with blocked noses filled the room.
Yamaki and the other members of the HYPNOS staff were standing by the windows in the top of the towers and watching as the Digimon laid it to the hordes of Cybermen outside, when a strange wind picked up behind them and they quickly whirled around, as the room was filled with the same, strange groaning sound. They watched in absolute astonishment as the TARDIS faded out of nowhere into existence right in the middle of the room.
"Good work, Jeri!" the Doctor cried as he jiggled a lever once more, tossed the phone into the air and keyed several things into the transmitter with both hands before catching the phone again and pressing it back to his ear. "Just one… last… adjustment… aaaannddd… BINGO! Now, Martha!"
Martha seized the large mains cable and slammed it back into the socket that she pulled it out from. The machine whirred back into life, but this time they Digimon did not keel over in complete agony.
This time, the TARDIS up in the tower above began to whir as well, as Jeri looked around her to see various machine parts start flashing and bleeping all around her.
"Okay, Jeri, one more thing," the Doctor cried. "I've calibrated the machine down here to broadcast a signal to the ship you're in which will disrupt and overload the internal processors unique to the Cybermen as soon as you link it up with the terminals of the HYPNOS tower. I've already calibrated it to do just that as well. All I need you to do is hit the great big, threatening-looking button under the television screen to open the frequency."
Jeri's head shot around and she immediately spotted the button in question. She dashed around the console and hammered her fist down on it. "Done," she cried into the phone.
The TARDIS immediately whirred and sparked in several places, the large blue light on the top of it flashing on and illuminating the entire room as it broadcast the signal from the machine down in the sewers into the active computers all around the room. As these machines were constantly on and scanning the city for Digital activity, the TARDIS hijacked its function instantaneously and switched its purpose to transmitting the signal right across the city instead.
The effect was immediate. In the streets and sewers alike, every single Cyberman still standing began to convulse and shudder wildly, their hands shooting up to grasp their metal heads. The Digimon paused in their fighting to stare at the spasming machines and, after about ten seconds of flat out juddering and uncontrollable shaking, the heads of the Cybermen simply began to explode, followed by their bodies. Their internal computers which allowed their brains to control their bodies overloaded and blew, and within a matter of moments, every single Cyberman in the city of Tokyo was no more.
The Cyber-controller, sitting slumped and dead to the world in his throne was the last to go. The surge of energy into his computer activated him for a brief moment, giving him enough time to look up and cry "NOOOO!" before he too went kablooey.
"Yes!" Martha cried.
"Alright!" Kazu and Kenta yelled at the same time.
"Woop woop!" MarineAngemon agreed.
Gallantmon lowered his lance when he found himself free of adversaries.
"HahaHAH!" the Doctor yelled. "I told you I was a genius. And Jeri, well done to you. Very well done. Now, just one last thing. Step outside, lock the door and please don't let those scientists waiting outside in. The technology in there is waaay to advanced for humans to get their hands on just yet."
"Will do, Doctor," Jeri smiled. "Will do. And thank you so much. You saved us all."
"Well," the Doctor murmured. "Maybe. But without you guys, I'm pretty sure that I would have failed."
Jeri chuckled and hung up. The Doctor tossed the phone back to Martha and reached down to unplug the machine once again. He smiled and then stepped away, guiding Martha down with her and saying, "Right then. MarineAngemon. Would you like the honour of destroying this device completely?"
MarineAngemon smirked and flitted up before it to cry, "SMILING FACE!" and lanced a pink beam of energy forwards with cut straight through the machine, and reduce it to piles of junk almost immediately.
"So, Doctor," Martha grinned. "Did you see any of this unusual activity you were looking for today?"
The Doctor chuckled. "I reckon I've seen more than my fair share of unusual things today, Martha. But apart from the fact that the Cybermen tried to take over the world today, the only thing I have to say about today was that it was brilliant. Just brilliant."
"So, what are these Digimon creatures anyway?" Martha asked.
"Molto bene," the Doctor snorted. "That's what they are. Molto bene."
"That's not an answer."
"Course it is. It's one of the best answers there is."
Martha rolled her eyes.
The Digimon, Tamers and assorted allies had regrouped about half an hour later at the top of the towers, just outside the TARDIS. The Doctor was leaning against the door with Martha by his side and said, "Well, I can't really stay for long, I'm afraid. I never do hang about after this kind of thing happens."
"Happens often to you then?" Rika asked.
"Often enough," the Doctor nodded.
"Sometimes twice in one day," Martha sighed.
"Yeah, I might find myself in something similar before supper," the Doctor grinned. "Well, I guess that this is goodbye, but I can safely say that it was a huge privilege to work with every single one of you. Tamers and Digimon alike. I shan't soon forget it, and if trouble ever brings me down to the shores of Japan again in the near future or in the past then I hope to work with you again?"
"Nothing you say makes much sense, does it?" Terriermon snorted.
"Who wants to make sense?" the Doctor asked.
"Good point," the bunny grinned.
"Just one thing, Doctor?" Renamon asked. "Who exactly are you? The Cyberman back at the Nonaka house called you a Time Lord if I remember correctly? And you said you've fought them before, even though they're alien."
"And you have an alien spacecraft of your own," agreed Jeri.
"And a sonic screwdriver, whatever that is," Monodramon added.
"And when we first met you," Henry nodded. "The Cyberman said you had a binary vascular system. But that's impossible surely. That would mean that you have two hearts."
"Yeah, you did say that you had two hearts earlier, didn't you?" Rika remembered.
The Doctor smiled and said, "Yes, I did. And yes, I do. And I'm pretty sure from all that that you've figure out what I am. See ya," and he opened the door of the TARDIS and disappeared inside.
Martha took one last look at the group and said, "I know. I didn't believe it at first either," before she vanished inside too and the door close. The assembled group watched with amazement as the TARDIS began to flash and it slowly faded completely out existence, hair and fur swept back by the wind which whipped out of nowhere until the blue box had completely vanished from sight and the sound of its engines faded away.
"A real genuine alien," Henry murmured. "Oh my God. He was an alien?"
"Oh dear," Terriermon murmured. "His geeky side is going to be freaking out about this for the next fortnight."
"Terriermon."
Terriermon was about to say his patented word, when a wind suddenly picked up again, and with another set of loud groaning, the TARDIS suddenly reappeared. Each of them stared at it in bemusment and the door opened to reveal the Doctor, who pointed at Henry and said, "Momentai," before he shut the door again and the TARDIS faded away once more.
Five seconds of bemusement passed.
Then:-
"HEY! THAT'S MY WORD!"
Well, that was the longest oneshot that I've done so far. I just couldn't fit it all in to the usual oneshot length that I have. This felt like an entire episode of Doctor Who, but I thoroughly enjoyed writing it and I hope you all like it too. I tried to give every one of them a slight role in the plot if nothing else and I very much hope that you enjoyed this Movie-Brat. Once again, if there are any inaccuracies in the design and behaviour of the classic Cybermen then I apologise, and I hope that you can forgive it all the same. Happy late birthday.
WhiteWolfPrincess95 – I shall now start on your oneshot.
Fergus Flamacron, signing off.