Disclaimer: I own only the human characters.

9 ~Crash of the Goldens~

Ryosuke walked along the streets of Vertiro, with his partner, Floramon, following loosely behind. Was he mad? No. Angry? A bit. Frustrated? Certainly. As an act of defying his own personality he hadn't spoken a word since he'd left the group, and Floramon wouldn't dare to say anything.

The internal anger of the black-haired boy caused him to walk far away from the group for at least half the length of the city in no more than then minutes. 'It's getting a bit too far now.' The plant digimon mumbled lightly, for fear that her words should further anger the sensitive boy. Ryosuke, initially refusing to answer, figured out that he had no reason to be mad at his partner. She's always been supportive to him, even when his bad temper was taking over his brain, and that's why he replied. 'Just a few more minutes.'

Floramon, instantly relieved by the reply, said. 'Better be a quick few minutes, the others might get worried.' She walked closer to the eleven-year-old boy. 'Why are you even mad at them?'

Ryosuke didn't need to think before he answer, though he had done that a lot. 'I fought for them, and you even got yourself injured, at least they owe you a thank!'

'That's all you're caring about?' the plant digimon giggled. 'You've already used the recovery card. I'm perfectly fine now. Besides, plant digimon feels less pain then most of the others.'

'But they didn't even appreciate your effort.' The black-haired boy uttered madly.

'They're depressed at the time, of course they're gonna go the negative way.' Floramon said. 'The same way why you're mad at them.'

Ryosuke laughed. 'Why's my partner so…kind? It's like we're the perfectly opposite pair.'

'A few minutes has passed.'

Deciding to return, the pair turned around, trying to walk the same way reversed. That having lived in the extensively natural land of Kr granted Ryosuke a great ability of remembering routes. Very soon enough the two would have returned to the others if they hadn't been confronted by a menacing digimon in the way.

The digimon had the face of a skull, armor of gold, and the shape of a strong-built human being. 'Reapermon, mega, virus type.'

'I have a bad feeling about this, Floramon.' Ryosuke whispered to his partner. Having the same feeling, Floramon could only give a slight nod in return.

'Where is Magnamon?' Reapermon demanded. His voice wasn't as loud as the black-haired boy had expected. In fact it was at a quite pleasant volume, but that each word was pronounced so clearly and the delay between the three words simply made the sentence sound menacing along with the deep voice and the look of the digimon.

'When I say run, run.' Ryosuke whispered in a voice lighter than any sound he'd ever made. Reapermon approached the boy, saying. 'I'm not gonna ask again. Tell me where is Magnamon.'

'How am I supposed to know?' Ryosuke said, trying hard not to let his voice shake, obviously he failed, though. 'He only appeared before me and gave me Floramon's digi-egg and…'

'And?' Reapermon took a step closer to the boy.

'And he told me to…' the black-haired boy took a deep breathe, turned his head to give a signal to his partner, and then continued. 'Run!'

Reapermon allowed the pair to run. They weren't his targets. In fact, letting the boy go made the process of luring Magnamon out easier, unless he didn't care about the kids that had been put in danger by him. He chased the boy, though, ensuring that he's running fast and desperate enough to get his target's attention. Too focus was the golden armored mega that he never noticed that his shape was spotted by two other beings.

Ryosuke was running as fast as possible. However boastful he was, he wasn't stupid enough to believe that Floramon, a rookie digimon that had only been recovered from a battle, was able to take down the mega digimon on her own. Actually, I don't think that even the whole team was able to beat him. It seemed to him that Reapermon wasn't chasing him at full speed. No time to think of that. He thought while still pushing his legs' function to their maximum. Better get away alive than to die for silly questions.

A sudden voice surprised both the digimon and the human. 'Turbo gear!'

The attack hit Reapermon, but could hardly do any damage to the mega. Reapermon, getting distracted, turned to see his attacker: A wasp-like digimon with a human kid riding on his back.

'Kaoru? And Amy?' Ryosuke uttered in both rejoice and confusion.

'Meramon, do whatever you like with it.' Amy instructed her partner. 'Roaring fire!' the digimon made entirely out of fire shot multiple towers of brick red flames from his palms, holding Reapermon for no longer than five seconds before the girl shouted. 'Kaoru, watch out!'

The sound waves weren't transmitted as fast as the pulse of pale purple energy that was fired from the cannon on Reapermon's left arm, resulting in Waspmon's being hit directly and was forced to crash landing. 'Don't just stand there and do nothing!' Amy shouted as she ran to Ryosuke.

'Floramon, can you distract him for a moment,' the black-haired boy asked nervously, 'like throw some plants for Meramon to burn or anything like that?'

'Ok.' The plant digimon replied. 'Rain of pollen!' she spread the allergy-inducing spores from her arms, but the biological attack was not working out quite well against an armored opponent, which made Reapermon immure to the attack. Both Floramon and Meramon were swiped to the ground by a kick of Reapermon. 'Weak. Is that the quality of the ones he's chosen?' the golden armored digimon charged his cannon, ready to fire once more.

'Defense plug-in, connect!' a tiny digimon charged into the battle, attempting to protect the digi-destined with the force field surrounging him, only to be blasted away for a few tens of meters.

'Solarmon!' Takumi rushed to his partner.

'It's really a mess here.' Tsukaimon, along with Yuzuki and BaoHuckmon and of course his very own partner Eiji, who had just arrived, said.

'All six of you here,' Reapermon started to speak, 'and still he hasn't shown up. he must be either too stupid to trust on you or too cruel to leave you to die.'

'Teen blade!' BaoHuckmon leaped forward to strike, but was easily tossed aside by the sickle arm of Reapermon before he could even leave the ground for more then two meters. Tsukaimon didn't attack, knowing well that his attacks would just be single-handedly neutralized by Reapermon like the white dragon digimon's.

'Maybe I should just kill you off one by one and let your screams summon him.' Reapermon said, aiming his cannon at the nameless humans (to him). None of the digi-destined was capable of fighting back, or even dare to cry for help. Just when it seemed that all hope was gone, another ray of light shot through the giant shadow of Reapermon. 'Plasma shot!'

'There you are.' Reapermon, despite finally getting damaged by a digimon attack, let out a laugh of satisfactory and starred at the other golden armored digimon.

'You want me,' Magnamon X said as he approached the mega digimon. 'Here I am.' He then turned to the digi-destined before engaging full combat with Reapermon. 'I've seen your performances, you didn't let me down.'

With that finished he immediately fired another blast of plasma from his palms at Reapermon. Reapermon responded the attack with a slash of his scythe, which Magnamon evaded by swiftly leaping over the mega and landed behind him, and then he fire numerous missiles from his armor. Reapermon wasn't stopped by that. He aimed precisely each and every of the missiles and took out every single one of them with one shot of his cannon. As a consequent, a thick layer of smoke was generated, suspending midair. The mega digimon chased into the smoke without hesitation, not willing to let his target escape.

Sounds of metal colliding were sent out from the center of the smoke, and soon the two golden digimon were seen fighting their way out of the smoke and all the way to the other end of the city, away from the children.

The digi-destined were speechless, either too frightened by the might of Reapermon or too shocked to see Magnamon's appearance to save them.

'We're saved.' Ryosuke mumbled as the tension was lowered.

'So what are we gonna do now?' Amy asked, walking to her battered partner. 'Feeling fine?'

'Use this.' The black-haired boy said, taking out a card. 'It's used for healing purpose.'

The group quickly recovered their digimon. Only when the battle was over could they realize how severely the surroundings were damaged. Most of the floor panels were roasted black while the rubbles were nowhere to be seen, most likely destroyed in battle.

'Who's that one?' Yuzuki uttered. 'The one Magnamon was fighting.'

'He is my enemy.' Kaoru said while Waspmon helped him to get up from the crash site they were shot down to. 'He's the only one that worth me killing for.'

'What are you talking about?' Eiji, confused by the circumstance, said.

'Actually he is called Reapermon.' Ryosuke said, 'and he said that he wanted to find Magnamon, probably for some sinister reasons.'

'So he's our first target?' Tsukaimon said. 'Do we chase him down?'

'Of course.' Kaoru answered immediately, then turned around to Amy, who seemed to be looking for a way to stay out of this. 'Remember our deal.'

'What deal?' the others were a bit surprised to hear that. Kaoru has always been a loner while Amy was a total mystery. It's a bit beyond imagination that those two were actually working together. 'You don't have to know the details, just know that I'll be on your side, for the time being.'

Takumi, having been silent for most of the time, mumbled. 'Sorry, I wasn't helping, again.'

'It's not your fault, you're the one that led us here.' Yuzuki said.

'And without Solarmon's force field we'll be boiled by now.' Ryosuke said. 'Though more likely that Floramon would catch on fire.' Despite not being pleased by the hidden insult in the joke, Floramon still giggled for his partner's humor which helped lower the tension a whole lot more. 'It seems that you're not angry at each other anymore.'

'They're never really mad at each other,' BaoHuckmon said, 'just not gotten used to each other yet.'

'And what do you suggest us to do to get used to each other?' Amy, being one of the more outgoing kinds in the team, asked.

'It's getting dark now, what do you suggest we can do?' Eiji pointed out immediately. One drawback of living in Vertiro was that the city was surrounded by walls. Even with the glasses that allowed sunlight to pass through and the light-amount regulation, it's still hard to tell time.

'Just get some good sleep, we're going to have a lot to deal with for the next few days.' Yuzuki said. 'I've the feeling that I'm not getting home for some time.'

The president was satisfied with the information told to her by Piedmon.

'So he's here.' She muttered. 'And he'd let him slip away, again.'

'He's always done that.' Piedmon said. 'Maybe it's time for us to take action as well.'

'Not yet.' The president said. Her mind was working so fast and restlessly that wrinkles seemed to have reappeared upon her pale face. 'What do we have left?'

Piedmon focused his mind for a minute. He never needed a computer to gain access to any kind of information, all he ever needed to do was to focus and filter the strands of information flying past his mind, and it's getting a bit frustrating for him that he had to keep doing this so many times a day. 'Two murderers, both ultimate, scheduled to be banished tomorrow.'

'Then we can use them.' The president said. 'But how do we use to ultimates to lure that Magnamon out?'

'He doesn't need to be,' Piedmon explained, 'he'll keep an eye on the kids, and he'll eventually trace back to us, and he'll knock our door to present himself to us.'

The president smiled, once again satisfied.

(I feel like talking to myself, or my only reviewer, setting up this corner.)

Waiting is surely a good means of torturing. (I've to wait to upload the chapters weekly while I'm already writing chapter 20 at this point of time.)

Anyway, here's the first wave of the soundtrack list, packed from... wherever I feel like packing soundtracks from. (A bit embarrassing actually. This is the moment when I'm glad not too many people view my work)

Intro (The first chapter with the same name): Story introduction (Bionicle: Piraka animation)

Common battle theme: fight (Bionicle: Voya Nui online game)

Character themes

Magnamon X: The ninth Doctor's theme (Doctor Who series 1)

Reapermon: The Winter soldier (Captain America: The Winter Solider)

Digi-destined: I have still got 3 of theme undecided...

Some of them you might not find on Youtube, go visit BioMedia Project.

That's all for the 'cheat-a-bit list' for now. Hope you enjoy.