Digimon Re: Tamers Chapter 11:
While everyone else was sleeping that night, needless to say a certain bluish haired man didn't exactly choose to sleep this night; Henry is wide awake in the VIP club's secret room from which Big G had purified Taomon in, as Henry begins looking at different pieces of paper he had pulled out and connected together.
The first of which was a stylized question mark drawn in the shape of some kind of otter-like creature with razor sharp, deep sea fish-esque teeth, and several normal question marks surrounding itself as well. Henry holds a pencil in his hand, all the while he draws a line extending outward from the central entity.
"So here we have Enigma itself, or what we've been able to identify as it…" Henry murmurs to himself, as Henry begins to draw a picture of a shadowy, blob-like entity which has exposed ribs as wings, and blank red eyes and long, lanky arms with three digit hands. As Henry colors in the drawing, Henry labels this drawing as "Darigus".
Going back to Enigma's picture, he draws a line outwards and begins drawing a serpentine figure with a fiery aura around itself, with its body contained within various pots from which its head, tail, and limbs emerge from. Henry slowly labels this drawing as "Brondramon".
Moving to pick up a book beside him towards his right, he picks it up and opens it to examine the information inside; he pulls up the page on Darigus as since this was Big G's book of information, Darigus would be here just like the books Ryo had as well. "Displays sudden hostility towards those who have in some way disturbed it or have discovered something they shouldn't know…" Henry takes note on Darigus' warning pages, as Henry moves to think for a moment; all the while he focuses on the Enigma drawing again.
"Enigma has been known to disturb Digimon in the area for a long while now; maybe perhaps Darigus misinterpreted the signal and ended up being disturbed as well?" Henry asks himself, before focusing on drawing a relatively simplistic drawing of Ruki that he connects a line from Darigus over towards the sketch of Ruki. "Unless of course Ruki discovered something she shouldn't know… Interesting."
Henry moves to sketch on the sheet of paper again as he closes the book, small traces of a black ash substance leaking from it, which briefly causes Henry to cough a little. "Despite all of his efforts to wash up earlier today, no matter how uncharacteristic it may be, Martin still can't be bothered to clean his own stuff."
Henry begins drawing a sketch from memory; a Locomon being driven by MetalEtemon, as well as rectangular object in the appearance of a card.
As Henry begins drawing the insignia he knew from memory from it, Henry could feel the breeze pick up in intensity; a chill hits the back of his neck as Henry's eyes widen a little bit, as he looks around from his desk within Big G's secret chamber and looks around carefully.
Nobody else is present; the strange statues that fill the room, mostly of very ancient Digimon or even beings from which even Henry couldn't recognize that only Big G must've been aware of what they were. The statues didn't move at all from the last time Henry gazed upon any of them; the feeling of being watched had already crossed his mind the moment he stepped inside this chamber.
"… I need to ask Martin about these statues at some point…" Henry notes in a low whisper, as he hears his digivice ring, with Henry glancing over the screen and noticing its Ryo calling him. Henry checks the time before answering.
'8:31 PM; 10 minutes directly before its fully nighttime out, I wonder what he wants from me at this time.' Henry notes, as he answers his digivice and pulls up a holographic screen of Ryo, with Ruki resting on a couch behind Ryo; Ryo clearly sitting down in front of a light source aside from his digivice.
"Henry? By any chance could you gather Jeri and Takato for a meeting at my place? I'm planning on bringing down Rumiko's boyfriend after all of this time considering what he forced Ruki to do."
"Lemme guess… she's the cause of the appearance of Brondramon in the sky? Why am I not surprised…" Henry asks, as Ryo's eyes widen a bit.
"… Pardon?"
"Ryo you are aware at one point in winter Ruki used the Jade Card to summon a blizzard from Jadedramon just because she was pissed Jeri was being too overworked at school and figured she needed a day off or two?" Henry reminds Ryo, as Ryo's moves to raise a hand to respond, before Henry notices Ryo breaking a sweat at this point.
'Gotcha.' Henry thinks to himself, as he looks at Ryo with a sense of pride, "Or the time her grandfather wanted to see a solar eclipse on his final years of life and she uses the Cobalt Card to forcefully change the moon's orbit and-"
"Henry for goodness sake; at the very least Cobaldramon and Jadedramon didn't physically appear!" Ryo says in Ruki's defense, as Ryo begins sending over a visual feed of the encounter with Brondramon and Millenniummon prior in the day, as Henry's eyes widen as he notices Brondramon's physical manifestation.
"Woah... What led to Ruki using the Bronze Card in the first place if she should've known the risk was so high at this time?" Henry asks, as Ryo looks over towards Ruki; noticing a few strands of hair getting in her face, Ryo moves to, very carefully, brush the strands of hair off to the side.
"Rumiko's boyfriend is holding her and her mother hostage, leaving Ruki's very own home to be unsafe for Ruki to return to; hence why she's spending another night at my place." Ryo tells Henry as he looks back at his digivice. "Literally had it not been for Ruki's anxiety levels hitting through the roof when I found her, I would've directly gave chase to Rumiko's boyfriend. I had ordered Jeri to investigate since I realized NeoDevimon would've been a safe bet, but oddly enough, that turned out to be the least of my concerns. You see…"
Jeri walked towards Ruki's house after all of this time; it was a rather simplistic house, almost a complete recreation of a more traditional Japanese household. Then again Jeri knew what to expect from this already; Rumiko was rich, and Rumiko's boyfriend is possibly after her money more than her body.
"So do I digivolve into NeoDevimon or are we going the stealth route first?" Impmon asks Jeri, as Jeri looks at him with an uncertain look; it just hits Impmon that after Takato had ran off in a hurry to attend to something, and Ruki and Ryo are not here, nor is Henry, means that Jeri is making decisions on her own here for now, not unless Impmon gives her input.
'Which considering the only reason I'm here is because I lucked out, that's going to be a problem.' Impmon thought to himself. Stealing that keycard would've been impossible for him otherwise had Raiga flat out faked her lose to him; he knew as Omnimon that Raiga's power would easily fluctuate and make her weaker than she actually would've been otherwise.
"Impmon?"
Jeri's voice snaps Impmon out of his train of thought; he got off of the subject at hand here with storming Ruki's household in search of Rumiko's boyfriend, considering if he's anywhere at this hour of the day, based solely off of his observations with Ruki, but then the realization hit him, as he glances over at Jeri.
"Stay close to me; I'll have to stay as Impmon for us to sneak inside unnoticed." Impmon tells Jeri, as Jeri nods, all the while Impmon moves to walk up to the side of the house, Jeri following him closely as Impmon can practically feel her breathing down his neck. Impmon ignores it as Impmon gestures for Jeri to get behind the wall away from the door as he hears somebody move to open the front door.
"́̕̕.͠.͜.̀͡"̴
Darigus' pulsations can be heard as his slimy, sludge covered body "walks" out of the door; sludge and grime dripping from Darigus' figure, as Darigus looks around while only tilting his head and neck, never his upper body, as he looks around, causing his head to turn to face directions it should not normally be able to do so for any other person.
Jeri covers her mouth as she feels sick listening to Darigus' dripping grime touch the ground, in addition to the sound of bones cracking as Darigus twists his head around to gaze around. Impmon's eyes widen as the red atmosphere begins to manifest around Darigus just like earlier that day; Darigus' ribcage opens up with an immense, thunderous cracking sound as his core pulsates with the sound of a heartbeat as Darigus absorbs the red atmosphere into his body.
As his entire form sinks into the ground until nothing but sludge covered shadow is left. Even the sludge bleeds through the pavement as Darigus' shadow disappears into the ground. Impmon shudders a bit as he calms down after Darigus having left, as he looks over to get Jeri's attention; which quickly became a problem in and of itself.
A very small, brown with a small white spot on its forehead bunny rabbit is patiently watching Jeri and anticipating her next move; Jeri's eyes are wide as she gazes upon the adorable bunny, all the while Impmon face palms from the sight of Jeri getting distracted.
"Jeri, you can look at the rabbit later; this is serious right now!" Impmon tells Jeri, as Jeri looks back at Impmon with not even a confused or concerned glance, more in a neutral bemused gaze.
"But nobody is home." Jeri tells Impmon, as Impmon raises an eye.
"Nobody is home? How the heck do you know that?!"
"The bunny told me so." Jeri says as she moves to stand up and walk towards the front door; Impmon nearly flips and freaks out, but that's not what disturbs him the most.
Jeri suddenly becomes a static coated figure as she flickers out of reality for a moment, as Impmon's eyes widen immensely, not even realizing the presence of someone behind him.
"Nobody is home." Jeri tells Impmon in a completely identical tone and expression on her face as before, as Impmon jumps from where he's standing and looks back at Jeri with complete bemusement. "The bunny told me so." Jeri says after a moment as Impmon observes and witnesses Jeri repeat her actions from just a minute ago as if time was rewound for her.
"Jeri?! How- What even happened just now?!" Impmon asks, as Impmon looks around and notices that Darigus has reappeared on the front porch of Ruki's house, but in a completely identical way to before, he sinks back into the ground; Impmon pays close attention to the drips of sludge-like material from Darigus and notices every single drop spilt hits the exact same spot they did prior as if Darigus was set to rewind for a while until he's back to beginning to leave.
Impmon is standing in plain sight now, but Darigus just did what he did originally and leaves despite the circumstances having changed. Jeri shakes her head a bit as she notices what Impmon seems to be getting at; something abnormal just happened to both herself and Darigus, and Impmon gestures for Jeri to follow him towards the front of the house.
As Jeri follows him, Impmon channels the D-Power from Jeri's Digivice to digivolve up into NeoDevimon, and then breaks the front door off of its hinges as NeoDevimon marches inside with all six of his eyes analyzing virtually every detail; eyes glowing like computer circuitry as data is transmitted to Jeri's Digivice as Jeri takes a look at the data she's receiving.
"NeoDevimon I hate to break it to you, but I can't read any of what you're analyzing here; I haven't taken those kind of classes to understand what these numbers even mean." Jeri informs NeoDevimon, as NeoDevimon looks around for something.
"Is there a connection port we can hook the digivice in to? Because to put this bluntly in plain English…"
"'Nobody is home', is what he had told Jeri and then myself later on at that point." Henry finishes telling Ryo, as Ryo sighs.
"So you have the access codes that Jeri must've retrieved from NeoDevimon?" Ryo asks, as Ruki shifts in place on the couch behind him; Henry shakes his head yes as he pulls them up on his own digivice.
"Oh I have every possible detail we could have regarding what NeoDevimon had scanned the entire household for you; all of the possible endings towards each given route this data decodes as all points to, as NeoDevimon said, nobody is home whatsoever; no traces as to where they could've went, and also no explanation for Darigus and Jeri experiencing some kind of anomaly back there either." Henry details to Ryo, as Ryo sighs.
"So what do you suppose we do?" Ryo asks, as Henry looks at the charts he's examining in Big G's secret chamber, as Henry looks back at Ryo.
"Tell everyone to keep a very low profile unless they're specifically tasked with guard duty; keep their profiles so low and just pretend we have no idea what's going on as to whatever Rumiko's boyfriend has in store for us."
"So in other words the more we actively try and seek the information the more Rumiko's boyfriend is aware he's being chased and thus harder to catch red handed?"
"Correct."
"So then just pretending we're no longer interested or going about our daily lives, as we see with Enric and Darigus and, according to Renamon, Rumiko's boyfriend himself, the more likely we are to be able to ambush them in the act."
"Precisely." Henry says as he folds his arms together as he smiles a bit. "Trust me, all of us kind of need the break from the tension going on anyways; everyone is so busy getting worked up over all of this that it's clouding our judgment on how to best handle the situation." Henry tells Ryo, as Ryo is about to say something only to pause when he feels a hand touch his left shoulder, as he turns around and sees Ruki waking up slowly.
"Besides, I think it would be wise we play innocent civilian for a while; too much stress is going on if we continue to just hunt down our adversaries with no breaks, and then our adversaries are much more likely to ambush us just like how Henry is saying we could ambush them by beating them at their own game." Ruki tells Ryo and Henry, as Henry nods.
"Exactly what I'm aiming to have happen; so far as from what I have managed to decipher, the local mob seems to have an influence over Rumiko's boyfriend and that much I more or less know because Darigus has been sighted both at Ruki's household, and then earlier today at Enric's side; Enric seems to be using Darigus for his own agenda, and Darigus seems to be aware of who is on its side and who isn't." Henry tells Ruki, as Ryo nods.
"So whenever they're off relaxing and enjoying themselves, we're too busy relaxing ourselves for the most part. With members we currently don't know about, they have the resources to jump us during this." Ruki says, as Ryo nods.
"Precisely; I'm going to be doing my best to keep Cyberdramon's ferocity in check by keeping him as Monodramon as much as possible; if so much as any of the mob gets caught in our sites, just give me the signal and Millenniummon will have them answering our questions whether they realize they're trapped or not." Ryo says, as Ruki moves to lay her head down again; closing her eyes as she does.
"Meanwhile I'm going to try and get some sleep; I'll be heading out with Jeri tomorrow because Jeri wants to hang out as we usually do; for now I recommend Takato is informed of our plan so that he can be warned to keep Guilmon's Digital Hazard in check." Ruki says as she slowly lets out a small yawn, as Ryo looks over towards Henry and waves goodbye for the time being, as Henry waves back.
The transmission ends with Ryo on his end moving to lay against the couch on the floor just to rest at slight ease now; sure there has been urgent stuff to deal with, but Henry is right so far; the deck is stacked against them because they have had little room to breathe and relax, and Enric's crew has had plenty of time to do both because of members he had under his control that they didn't know about just yet; for that matter they don't even know the name of Rumiko's boyfriend yet despite all of what has been going on.
Now Henry deems it time to wait things out and wait for the proper time to ambush one of Enric's associates with, if not potentially bag Enric himself. Cyberdramon and Guilmon will be kept in check, as Ruki plans to spend the day with Jeri and hopefully ease her mind off of this stress while they work on playing dumb to catch their enemy off guard at the right time.
As Ryo rests against the couch, he opens his eyes and looks at the clock on the VHS player hooked up to his TV at the top; 1:24 AM. Realizing the time, Ryo moves to shut his eyes again, and tries to fall back asleep as he doesn't realize the blanket place over him just yet.
That is, until, a loud "thunk" is heard being dropped off into the mailbox directly outside of Ryo's front doorstep; Ryo's eyes snap open a bit, before hearing someone walking away and driving off away from here on what appears to be a motorcycle. Ryo at first considers trying to check things out immediately; the snoozing Ruki behind him, and the equally dead asleep Monodramon, makes him recall his conversation with Henry.
After all; how do they know for certain they're just getting too stressed out over mundane situations and allowing themselves to be ambushed because of it? They don't; perhaps they need a reminder of someone else who currently has no knowledge on the plan so far.
Let them sleep and relax as far as they please, for tonight is only just beginning for me.
