Chapter 9: Angel in the Sky

"Fly, fly high
Maybe then you'll find
The answer to the riddle
You forgot to ask.

What moves in the sky
And on the ground
At the same time
Yet never moves an inch?"


Year: May 13, 2308
Location: Blizzard Island, Digital World

Zev had nearly dozed off when his digivice beeped, signally that they were recharged and ready. "Come on Time" he murmured, nudging her awake while he released kudamon and gabumon "You two ready?"
They both nodded, kudamon curling around his neck while he popped in his element token and digivolved gabumon "Let's go then"
Time was awake now and hugging cutemon again as Zev helped her onto garurumon's back before climbing up after her. "Let's find the nearest digiport and go home" he murmured, holding Time to keep her from falling as garurumon shot off.


Location: Rock Pick County, Americanus North Neutral

"What is it?" Strike grumbled, opening his eyes to see Rachel bending over him.
"Ray called, said they ran into trouble downtown again"
"Why's he out there? Who's with him?" Strike muttered, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and sitting up to take in the twins behind Rachel.
"Crystal's with him, she had a vision and they left" Rachel replied, shrugging "This is Lucy and Marcus, they're like us"
"Is Wild up yet?" Strike asked standing and stretching before grabbing his digivice "Where'd Flare go?"
"To check on Wild, he's up but still a little dazed"
"Hmm...We can't leave him behind though. Maybe some proper digivolution will snap him out of it" Strike muttered, waving for them to follow as he headed back towards the front room. He paused there to collect Wild and his partner before the whole group set off for the park.
It took half an hour to find the scene of wreckage caused by whatever had dropped out of the digital world and even longer to track Ryan and Crystal.
Grapleomon and skullsatamon were locked in a fierce fight with a giant snake-bird and something was wrong with skullsatamon's right wing.
Strike didn't waste a moment, he popped in his element token and climbed on firamon before they launched in the air to join the battle.
Rachel followed, biomerging to garudamon but the other three hung back, two new to the whole thing and one afraid to try.
"Stay back" Skullsatamon muttered, panting as he rejoined the fight.
"Ray you need to drop out" Strike ordered as firamon joined the battle on his other side, garudamon right beside him.
"Can't, not enough..." his gaze drifted back to where the other three were watching.
"Give them time" it was Crystal who answered, blocking an attack from the snake-thing's tail.
Strike glanced back at them then popped in his spirit token to biomerge to flaremon.
Wild just watched, his eyes wide and unfocused as Draco nudged his arm. "We can help, come on partner" the dragon digimon murmured. Wild shook his head and shrank back by the others.
"Are you afraid of me?" Draco growled, fed-up with his partner as he launched into the air to go help.
Wild watched him a moment, fingering the digivice "Partner?" His eyes hardened then and he popped the two tokens into the digivice "You're not going without me"
Draco paused a moment, smiling, then they were wrapped in a soft brown light as they bio-merged to Wingdramon.
Strike smiled when they joined the fight but didn't comment.
The fight dragged on until finally wingdramon beheaded it with his lance. Once defeated the snake thing dedigitized into data bits before vanishing completely.
Ryan was the first to devolve, hovering close to the ground before he collapsed. His partner rolled onto the ground beside him, reverted back to his in-training form yaamon.
Crystal dropped beside him, barely managing to stay on her feet as tsunomon dropped into her arms "Ray"
"Steady Chris" Strike muttered, devolving beside her and steadying her before walking over to check on Ryan "Poison?"
Crystal nodded, bending down beside him as the other two dropped down to join them "He took a hit for me, that's why he couldn't use his right side very well"
Before anyone else could reply the twins ran over, pointing at the sky. "Look, it's the angel!" Lucy shouted, pointing at a spot too far above to clearly see.
Whatever it was disappeared as Zev's garurumon suddenly leapt out of a digiport a few feet away, Zev and a strange girl on its back as it came towards them.