Chapter 12: The Battle for Blueport
Blueport was in ruins, but it was still standing. The forces that had been sent to pacify it had been defeated after an hour of determined fighting. The group now stood in a large circle along with the rest of the residents as they discussed what to do. Very few of the villages residents were still among the living following the surprise assault. Nanimon was among them, along with five of the rock like Gotsumon, a trio of flightless birds known as Kiwimon, two weedy Veggiemon, and a single seal like Gomamon.
They had been joined only a few minutes earlier by a trio of rat like Chuumon fleeing from the destruction of the nearby village of Sealeaf. Two of the Chuumon stayed long enough to tell them that Clockmon himself was coming this way with nearly his entire army before again fleeing; the other was still hanging around. None of the defenders of Blueport accompanied them.
"We're going to be surrounded." Lucas told the assembled digimon. "They'll also have massively superior firepower. Our best chance for survival lies in retreat." the assembled digimon began to mutter and complain but Lucas silenced them with a quick chop of his hand. "That however isn't going to work here." he told them. Therefore we need to do our best to keep them from being able to bring their full force to bear on us at any one time. Our best bet then is to use these ruined buildings and rubble to try to create some sort of fortifications to shield us from their fire."
"What about da digimon dat attack from up close an personal like?" Nanimon asked.
"They wait for them to come to us." Lucas told him. "We've already seen that Clockmon's forces prefer to close with an enemy before opening fire. In doing so they put themselves into our reach. We should make that initial advance as difficult as possible; I'm taking about anything we can do: dig holes, make booby traps, scatter broken glass around, and maybe even dig a bit of a moat around the village."
The entire gathering remained silent for nearly a minute before Carlos got to his feet, "Well let's not just stand here." he told them as he motioned Woodmon to follow him. "We're not going to do this sitting down."
Carlos' words were all that was needed to get everyone working. They supposed they had at most two hours of time to prepare for the attack. Woodmon worked alongside Skelemon digging holes and pits while Melissa, Demi, Gomamon Jack, and Richard gathered up and spread the broken bits of glass they could find around. Seadramon and Nanimon worked together to burrow a tunnel just under the surface of the ground all around Blueport with each end in the water. Lucas, Carlos, and the Gotsumon worked on stacking the rubble up into fortifications as Wendigomon and the Veggiemon broke apart the remaining buildings and brought all of the rubble to a central location. All this time the Kiwimon were busying themselves planting the Demikiwimon formed from their 'Pummel Peck' attacks just underground as makeshift landmines. They worked for an hour and a half straight before the Chuumon, who was on guard duty, warned them that the enemy force was approaching.
As the first rays of daylight began to filter into the sky the defenders huddled behind their makeshift fortifications. A moment later they caught sight of Clockmon's forces. They ringed the village, leaving only the polluted hell of the river empty. As they advanced the situation began to look bleaker and bleaker. The force was massive: in only a few moments the defenders were able to count a score of Mekanorimon, ten Guardromon, four Tankmon, and upwards of thirty Hagurumon, in addition to Clockmon himself.
Slowly the enemy began their advance on the ruins of Blueport the Hagurumon spread out moving in front of the main bulk of the troops. As Lucas had predicted they held their fire as they moved in and all the defenders had to deal with were a couple inaccurate 'Hyper Cannon' shells. Quickly those defending digimon that had ranged attacks began to fire on the attackers, 'Pummel Pecks' and 'Ice Blasts' cutting through the Hagurumon out front swiftly.
The attacks and losses did nothing to halt the enemy advance. Luckily however the Hagurumon floated right over the Demikiwimon mines causing them to be detonated by the heavier troops behind them sending them reeling and after a few hits eliminating some. The same could not be said of the glass which had no effect at all on the machine digimon.
Lucas grimaced as he saw the machines move through the glass without as much as flinching. His gaze was slowly drawn to the shaking form of Chuumon huddled beside him. "Take this," he said to Wendigomon passing the rat to his partner, "and put it right over there." he ordered pointing at a point to their south where the line was mainly made up of Mekanorimon. "And you get ready to run." Lucas told Chuumon as Wendigomon dutifully hurled the rat at the enemy.
The rat flew high and far as the other digimon of Blueport looked at Lucas in shock and astonishment. Finally Chuumon landed in the midst of the broken glass, as he landed the ranks of Mekanorimon buckled began to entangle each other as they brought their weapons to bear. The poorly aimed shots passed by Chuumon as he gained his feet and began to run, the lasers refracting around off the glass striking the Mekanorimon and further destroying the ranks. Most of the robots were damaged by the lasers, and some were destroyed, others were knocked back onto the mines, or into the holes they were attempting to avoid. As Chuumon ran back towards the defenses the entire south flank of the attack collapsed behind his fleeing form.
Meanwhile the other attackers had reached the area Seadramon had tunneled through earlier, their weight causing the area to collapse underneath them dropping the attackers into the water. Some managed to pull themselves out of the water, but the majority were shorted out or too weighed down by the water seeping in through holes caused earlier in the battle to continue. Two of the Tankmon especially were forcibly submerged and unable to get out because of their treads, the other two were stranded on the far side and forced to lob shells at the defenders from there.
As Clockmon and his remaining forces advanced Gomamon surfaced from beneath the water of the new canal drawing the attention of the Tankmon as Seadramon rose up behind them and smashed them into the canal with a sweep of his tail, before they both dove back under to avoid any return fire.
The forces of Guardromon and Mekanorimon had finally moved in close enough to fire accurately and lasers and grenades began to thump against the defenses with increasing intensity. Two of the Gotsumon and one of the Veggiemon were killed before they could get down behind cover. Nervously they waited as the enemy approached closer spreading out to fill in the gaps that were left from the almost total collapse of the southern flank which had only now reached the canal.
"We can't keep hiding in here like rats." Melissa complained. "We need to keep hitting."
"Just a little bit more." Lucas said, speaking mostly to himself. He watched the enemy advance through a small hole in the wall. "Now!" he yelled up at Wendigomon as they continued approaching.
Wendigomon rose up from behind the wall immediately. "Cable Crusher!" he yelled slinging his cables out at the enemy before jumping out himself. The two cables wrapped around a pair of Guardromon and he smashed them together before spinning around using them as flails. The other digimon followed him out. Nanimon ran ahead with a roar smashing head long into the nearest robot, Woodmon burst out from the defenses firing bark and smashing the enemy with his limbs, Skelemon moved quickly between the enemies as quickly as possible slashing as he went, Seadramon rose up from the river alongside Gomamon and the two began to pummel the enemy with 'Marching Fishes' and 'Ice Blasts,' the trio of Kiwimon darted around subjecting enemies to concentrated 'Pummel Pecks' and leaving before anyone could return fire, and the remaining Veggiemon and Gotsumon as well as Chuumon teamed up to avenge their friends deaths. Only Demi remained behind guarding Melissa and the rest of the group.
The digimon were lucky, and determined, and brutal, and took the enemy by surprise. In a short time they managed to take out the majority of the enemies that faced them though Clockmon eliminated the trio of Kiwimon and a massed barrage of lasers had dedigivolved Seadramon to Betamon and forced him and Gomamon to flee under the water.
Leaving the remaining forces to the other defenders the group's partners turned their attention to Clockmon. "Cable Crusher!" Wendigomon yelled again firing the cables at Clockmon this time they were accompanied by a barrage of bark from Woodmon.
"Chrono Breaker!" Clockmon cackled, the hands on the clock spinning around wildly as the attackers slowed to a stop. Suddenly Clockmon appeared in front of Skelemon and smashed him with an underhand blow that sent him flying up into the air and smashed him into the ground forcing him to dedigivolve. By the time Skelemon had landed Clockmon had appeared next to Woodmon and hit him with an overhand smash that put him into a crater as Mushroomon in much the same way as he had done to Kuwagamon the day before. Finally Clockmon turned to Wendigomon and hit him with a smash that would have made any Major League slugger jealous, sending Wendigomon flying into and through the defenses finally breaching the wall.
"How futile." Clockmon commented as he entered the fortifications. "It doesn't matter how hard you digidestined struggle, I'm going to kill you all anyway and dance on your corpses."
"Is that your best threat?" Jack asked incredulously struggling to remain strong in the face of certain death. "In that case let me tell you what we'd do to you if you weren't going to shatter into millions of tiny particles. You see we're going to slice off your arms and legs after pulling off each of your fingers and toes, then we're going to pull your spine out through your ribs and-" he was cut off by Clockmon swinging the mallet at him furiously and was barely able to be yanked out of the way by Carlos and Richard.
Clockmon's attention was drawn away from them by a rock and a syringe hitting him in the back of the head. "You really think it's over yet?" Melissa asked as she tossed a rock up and down, her voice filled with false bravado. "You still have Demi and me to deal with."
Clockmon stalked slowly over to where Melissa stood unmoving; either defying him to the end or frozen to the ground in fear. He knocked Demi out of the way with a contemptuous gesture and raised his mallet to bring it down on Melissa's still motionless form.
Suddenly Clockmon was drawn away from his plans by a sudden surge of light behind him. "Demidevimon digivolve to Devimon." a low voice declared. When Clockmon finished turning he found himself confronted by a tall black smirking digimon with long arms, tattered wings, and a horned head.
With a yell Clockmon swung his mallet at the smirking devil only to have his foe vanish and appear behind him. "Chrono Breaker!" Clockmon yelled in anger the clock hands spinning wildly, then he struck but once again Devimon vanished and appeared behind him.
This time Devimon took the offensive, "Touch of Evil!" he yelled thrusting his hand through Clockmon's body in an explosion of dark energy as Clockmon roared in pain. Then he with drew his hand and with another "Touch of Evil!" thrust it through the face of the clock.
Clockmon stumbled away as he began to disintegrate. "You think you've won?" he ranted as the few remaining members of his army fled the field. "You've won nothing; I'm but an advance officer of a much more powerful force. And you have no chance of beating him." he declared as he finally finished disintegrating.
"Well I'll be…" a bruised and battered Nanimon said as he and the others, along with Gomamon and Betamon, approached the group and a newly dedigivolved Demi. "Yer rilly da Digidestined." he said his voice filled with awe.
There, done with the whole first arc and before the end of September too. Thus I hate to break it to you all, but it's unlikely that I'll be posting another chapter before mid-October. School and work and all. Hope you enjoyed.