Chapter 24: The Battle of Death Road. Whose Side is Who On?
Me: I am proud to say that we've made it this far into the story!
Lunar: Prepare yourself for a battle of epic proportions! One in which-!
Dracomon: This isn't anywhere near as epic as a battle as what will go on in the Digital World.
Tsukaimon: He's not kidding. We fight for our lives there.
Lunar: Alright, I suppose it isn't the best battle we'll go through, but it is one of the better ones!
Me: Look guys, let's just start this chapter. OH! But I just remembered an announcement I needed to make! I actually remembered that I needed to say this about a day after I posted the last chapter, so I'll say it now. I made a forum! It's sort of like a Digimon version of Life in the way that it can be almost anything you want it to be! So yeah… The link's on my profile. We own nothing below!
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"What!? And this was done without my consent!?"
"W-well, you see Master, they wouldn't listen to me and-"
"SILENCE!"
The shaking black dinosaur bowing down before a massive creature almost fell over after hearing the monster's booming voice. Out of the three bindings holding the monster back, one of them was now unhooked, making its large arms and even bigger hands free to do whatever they wanted.
"You dare come into my presence to tell me that Dema, Dire, and Sabrina have decided to go along with our plan! And without my signal, even!" the monster boomed. One of the many strings on its back shot out from the others and wrapped around the tiny reptile. With a single flick of its elongated body, the thread threw him straight upwards and sent many more after him to whip him repeatedly, slapping him against the ground.
"I-I'm sorry, your Highness!" he whimpered and forced himself into a bowing position once more. "It wasn't my fault! Sabrina announced the activation anyways! She said something along the lines of Neko beginning to realize that she wasn't a sniffling little weakling!"
"Interesting…" the dark creature trailed off and brought one of its giant hands up to its chin to begin rubbing it. "Perhaps they should continue on with this plan of attack. If what they said about Neko is true-"it brought its hand into a fist and slammed it on one of the arm rests of the throne it was bound to, "-then we may have reason to take in another recruit to our army. But first-"
It held up one of its metal coated hands and spread out all of the fingers on it. Instantly a screen appeared before it with the silhouette of a dragon of some-sort upon it.
"What is it, my liege?" it asked in a rumbling voice that sounded like gravel.
"ExoGrimmon, we need more human recruits," the monster replied sternly, "Do whatever you need to, but get us at least two more."
"Yes, milady." It bowed and the monitor disappeared into thin air. The monster relaxed its tense muscles and leaned back in its cathedra.
"Now then, I do wish to see the progress that Dema and Dire have made over this short period of time. As do I wish to know if the Children are getting stronger."
"Tch, I doubt it!" the black dinosaur snorted in mockery. It crossed its clawed arms and grinned toothily. "Dema and Dire are right about those clowns; it's a wonder they rescued the Digital World their first time around."
"But it was not them who did it," the Master explained as the globe in front of her lit up, displaying the fight breaking out between her minions and their rivals, "It was the pesky Spirits of the Ancient Ten. Without those Spirits, they are useless."
"I-I heard from Dema and Dire that the Ancient Ten were responsible for the death of their friend, Dark, and that Lowemon stabbed Nightmaremon through the heart," the shadowy dinosaur trembled slightly as he reminisced the tales that the two demons had told him.
"Never mind the Ancient Ten, let's just watch the fight."
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"Dobermon X, bite her tail and yank to trip her up until Dema and Dire get here!" Sabrina commanded her wounded partner. The weakened dog leaped at Neko and sank his teeth into the cat-girl's tail, pulling her to the ground.
With a hiss, Neko jerked her tail to the side and threw the Doberman pinscher into another wall. He yipped once more and limped back to Sabrina. He was a very good fighter, don't get me wrong, but Neko was seemingly better. Much better.
"I… I can't take much more… of this," the X-Antibody infected Digimon panted as Red Data dripped from his side. It wasn't exactly blood, because it had much more of a Jell-O-y texture to it. "I'm… So tired…"
"Dema! Dire! Hurry up!" the fiery redhead shouted impatiently, or rather in a panic-filled voice. She wrapped her fingers around the muscular dog's collar and forced him behind her.
"I don't want to hurt you!" Neko growled and narrowed her eyes. Her tail lashed back and forth and her head lowered. "If you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone!"
"Or not!" someone cackled from behind the humanoid. She froze and slowly turned her head to face the figure standing behind her. Wolf ears, horns, devil tail, claws…
"Dema!" Sabrina grinned at the sight of the she-demon. Behind the possessed teen stood Lunar, who appeared to be rather brain drained.
"The one and only!" she smirked and shot the Tamer a thumbs up. Neko's ears flattened against her head and she stumbled away from the monster. "And my new sidekick, Lunar!"
"Neko knew there was something wrong with Zoe," the female humanoid hissed as Lunar stepped up to battle with her. "That must have been you."
"Naturally," Dema sniggered and held up Zoe's D-Arc. The screen glowed black and sent out a beam of black light which enveloped Lunar.
"Renamon Evolve!"
Neko bolted out of the alley upon seeing what was happening. It was terrible. It was happening again.
No… Not again… Not another friend taken…
"Neko! There you are!" Shinya exclaimed as he ran up to the cat-girl. She skidded to a stop and immediately locked eyes with him. "What's wrong?"
"They got Lunar," she stated as dark energy exploded from the alleyway she had just emerged from. Two figures stepped out of it calmly. One of them seemed to be much bigger than it should be.
"Youkomon!"
A large, blue nine-tailed fox with orange flames licking her feet and tail tips snarled. Her eyes radiated with an evil red glow.
"Who's that?" Tsukaimon gulped and stared at the giant Champion Level. Shinya held up his D-Arc and read off the information that came up.
"Youkomon, a Champion Level Bewitching Beast Type of the Data Attribute. It brings destruction and misery wherever it goes and has the ability to run across the skies with its flaming feet. Its special attack, Jaenryū, coats itself in flames and launches a fiery dragon at the opponent, completely incinerating it."
"That seems a little harsh," a certain female imp joked as she flapped her way up to behind her Tamer. The two boys turned around, slightly surprised at her sudden appearance.
"What are you doing here?" Shinya questioned his second purple partner, "I thought you were with Zoe."
"I was," she clarified with a sigh, "But Zoe came here. The next thing I knew I was following some demon girl with Lunar as her mind slave."
"And I can explain that!" one of the silhouettes emerging from the dust of the recent explosion of dark energy exclaimed with a wicked look upon their countenance. "But first thing is first, time to dump this loser."
Next to the Youkomon was a very, very evil looking girl with rather wolf-like features that seemed to emanate darkness. Her eyes held an appearance of being glued on, as they didn't give the impression of being inside of her eye sockets.
In one of her clawed hands was the limp body of none other than Zoe. Though she was unconscious at the moment, it was moderately stunning that Lunar didn't seem to care. The demon girl let go of her hostage and allowed the figure to crumple to the earth.
"What did you do to her?" Shinya growled as his two partners realized they needed to prepare to fight. Tsukaimon and Petitmamon lighted down on the soil between the two groups and took on battle stances, though they were unintimidating due to their lack of height or claws.
"Well, I believe that Neko could explain that to you," the she-demon giggled as her forked tongue slithered in and out of her mouth, "Couldn't you, kiddo?"
Neko now appeared to be very pale. Her eyes were wide and her pupils were small. She sat down as her entire being began to shake and a sense of dread began to form inside of her. It started with what seemed to be a feeling of numbness against her skin, the spread to a torrent of pure cold rushing through her veins, leaving her with an overall lack of warmth.
"Well, what did she do to her?" the brunette beside her demanded. It was almost as if he was linking her to this dreadful occurrence.
"S-she… D-Dema…" Neko slammed her eyes shut as tears began to form on the edges of them. She dug her claws into the ground and flattened her ears to her head. "D-Dema p-possessed her a-and most likely d-drained at her en-nergy…"
"And?" He really was blaming her.
"And then she threw out her host, and probably convinced Lunar that she didn't need Zoe, okay?" the humanoid hissed aggressively. It was wrenching her heart out to see that something as little as a knocked out girl, who wasn't harmed at all, could turn him on her so fast. "Does that please you, your majesty?"
Dema smirked at seeing the two fight. This would make it so much easier for Dire to take over Neko if she believed that nobody cared for her.
"Why are you suddenly getting mad at me?" Shinya protested, enraged. "What I'd like to know is how you knew how that… that thing did that to Zoe?"
"Because she's done it to my best friend before!" Neko hissed back. She was crying now, and it was obvious she was probably ready to attack Shinya if he said anything else about the topic. "Look, why don't you stop pointing fingers and focus on the task at hand? You weren't interested in my life before, why the sudden interest now?"
Shinya wasn't sure which thing to be more shocked about: the fact that Neko had just yelled at him like a somewhat normal person would have, (obviously someone normal wouldn't have admitted to their best friend being possessed) or that she had figured out that he was beginning to believe that she had something to do with what had just happened.
"Well… I, uh…" He was speechless at the least. Here she was, finally starting to get used to living in the human world, finally getting closer to hi- er, all of them, and he was driving her away all because of some silly crush he was almost positive didn't exist anymore.
"That's what I thought…" the female humanoid sighed and laid down with her face to the ground. "You're all the same… You say you care, then you trade me away to the nearest freak show you can find…"
"That's the most I've ever heard out of that girl in a month," Tsukaimon exclaimed as he diverted his attention over to the arguing couple, "Shinya, I really don't think you should be poking at those scabs you just opened up."
"What?" he deadpanned, not sure what he meant at all. With a sigh, the purple hamster turned around completely, only to be snatched up by one of his ear wings and flung into a building.
"What the- Lunar!" Petitmamon shouted and smacked the giant fox across the head with her staff. Lunar snarled and lunged for the wooden item, snapping it in half easily with her powerful maw. "Shinya… I'm scared now…"
"Well, we wouldn't be having this problem if Neko wasn't overreacting!" the brunette yelled back and dug around in his pocket for his Evolution card. If they even wanted a remote chance at beating Lunar they were going to need more firepower.
"I'm overreacting? You're the one saying that I'm in cohorts with one of the Digimon that tried to execute me and laughed and joked while doing it!"
"Neko, I don't have time for this! We're kind of being attacked right now!"
"So I'm suddenly not important?"
"I'm not saying that! I'm just saying that I think we can talk about this later when our lives aren't at stake!"
"Would you both just shut up! You're bickering like a married couple!" Tsukaimon screeched as he narrowly dodged a bite from the blue fox. Shinya blushed while Neko seemed to be quite satisfied with Tsukaimon's words.
"Lunar, burn them all to a crisp!" Dema commanded and pointed at Shinya and Neko. The she-demon cackled and folded her arms. "Especially the humanoid!"
"Jaenryū!" the fox snarled as she leaped into the air. Twisting around like a wheel, fire coated her body. Out of the flaming orb, a giant dragon's head emerged and surveyed its opponents. It dove at its two targets, Shinya and Neko, crashed into the ground in front of them.
For some reason, Neko seemed to be unfazed by the attack. Shinya jumped to the side, but the humanoid remained where she was and glowered at the Bewitching Beast.
Something isn't right here… Dema thought to herself with anger as she watched Neko and Lunar begin to fight each other. It seemed as though Neko was fighting just as… just as…
"Dire, get your lazy derriere in gear before I rip your head off and throw it to the SangLoupmon!" Dema growled in Neko's direction, knowing full and well where her teammate was at.
French now, huh? Classy.
"Fine," a figure sighed as it floated out of the humanoid's shadow. What little color covering his body spread out over his bones and he landed on the ground with a soft click. "I was havin' fun, Dema! Who do you think it was getting those two to fight?"
"Well, aren't you clever?" the she-demon snickered and brought her arm out beside her, "Now I say we trash these clowns like the Warrior crap-"
"What is it with you lately?" Dire snapped half-way through her statement, "Father would be ashamed of you!"
"It's these humans, okay? I had to be stuck inside the mind of a female teenager! That really messes with an adult's mind!"
"Wait, you're an adult?" Shinya shouted with his eyes wide. Though he was still trepidatious after hearing Dire's explanation of Neko's sudden outburst, he was still surprised that someone as childish as this imp was older than him.
"Naturally. I'm like, what? A few millenniums old? It's hard to keep track when you're locked inside of a tomb wrapped in enchanted bandages."
"Never mind that!" Dire interjected suddenly lunged for Neko, grabbing her by the nape of her neck. "We've got things to kill, places to blow up!"
"Put Neko down!" the humanoid hissed, as she normally would, while flailing madly and clawing at the human-ish skeleton dangling her above the ground.
"Oh how right you are, Dire!" Dema cackled and clenched her hand into a fist. The one attached to the arm currently extended beside her, that is. "Mindy, let's do this."
"Who the heck is Mindy?" Petitmamon exclaimed while dodging Lunar's jaws snapping shut dangerously close to her body.
"That would be this," the she-demon responded with a cocky grin. In her balled up hand, an elongated torn blade formed out of dark energy. She brought the machete down to her side and glowered at her target, Neko. "Well, it wasn't nice knowing you, Wings! Splintering Blade!"
The girl-like Digimon charged forward with her ancient blade coated in literal shadows. With a single swing of her arm, the blade clanged against another. Dema seemed shocked slightly at this, until she noticed what was going on.
Neko had somehow transformed her own tail into a blade, one that looked mysteriously like that of KendoGarurumon's, and used it as a blockade. Using Dema's momentum, the humanoid flipped Dire over and threw him into his partner. She growled and dropped down on all fours.
"Alright, I've had just enough of this!" Dema snarled and flew up to her feet. With her sword, apparently named 'Mindy', she skillfully maneuvered around Lunar, Petitmamon, and Tsukaimon, then somehow managed to pull Shinya's arms behind his back and press Mindy's blade against Shinya's neck.
"W-woah, how did this happen?" said brunette forced himself to say as he felt the several jagged edges of the obviously battle worn weapon. Dema simply giggled back and continued to hold him captive.
"Now listen here, anymore funny business and this boy's head'll make it to Dire and I's head wall," Shinya's captor explained as a light of mischief entered her eyes. "Then again, we don't have any humans yet…"
"Ha ha! What now, kid?" Dire taunted happily with a swish of his rat-like tail. Neko immediately stood still, being rewarded to a harsh kick to the side from the skeleton beside her. "Today is such a great day! I don't think anything could wreck this moment!"
"Strike Bomber!"
A thick, blue tail smashed into Dema's back, pushing her forward and causing her to lose her hold on both Mindy and Shinya. The she-demon surged forward, grabbing her blade and flipping back up to her feet to face her attacker.
Dobermon X protectively leapt out in front of his Tamer, baring his teeth and lowering his head. Sabrina flinched upon seeing the massive dragon that had flown in to Shinya's rescue. Its heavy brow made it seem to show hate to all around him.
"Coredramon! Thank goodness!" Shinya sighed with relief. The winged reptile grinned then hastily turned his attention towards the three enemy Digimon and single Tamer.
"Sorry it took us so long to get here!" Takuya apologized while alighting down from his partner's back, "It took Fetchmon awhile to get to us, then we had to go find you guys."
"Well, I suppose it's better late than never," his brother replied and looked back to his two partners who were struggling to keep away from Lunar, "But for now, we need to focus on fighting Lunar and these two imps."
"Wait, that Kitsune is Lunar? Then where is-"the goggle-head stopped himself upon seeing Zoe out cold at the outermost corner of the battlefield. "How much happened while I was gone?"
"Not much, actually," Shinya stated sarcastically and listed off everything that had happened in the short amount of time Takuya was absent for.
"Shinya! Seriously, just Evolve us!" Tsukaimon exclaimed as Lunar finally managed to get ahold of one of his ear-wings. His Tamer jumped slightly at the reminder and rapidly pulled the Evolution card from his pocket.
"Alright, alright! Don't rush me!" the brunette complained and held up his D-Arc. With a quick swipe, the card went through the scanner. "Card Slash! Duo Evolution Plug-in!'
"Thank you!" Petitmamon growled as both her and her brother began glowing.
Cue: EVO from Digimon Tamers
"Tsukaimon Evolve!/ Petitmamon Evolve!"
The two's bodies shed their skin Data and warped. Their core Data continuously changed shape until they were much bigger, then was re-covered with different texture Data.
The draconic Digimon Petitmamon had Evolved into elegantly took a few steps forward. She spun her staff around once, causing dark embers to spiral around her almost like rain.
The demon dragon Tsukaimon had morphed to swiped forward with his claws three times and roared. He closed his mouth and lowered his head into an intimidating position, freezing in that spot after doing so.
"Zmeyamon! / Devidramon!"
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It was dark. Dark and cold. That was all she could know and all she could feel.
Something told her that it could have been different. If only she had just waited for… What was her name? She didn't know…
A small Viximon lay on the ground shivering out of the nightmare that enveloped her. And the thing that led all of it was the one Digimon that said that she could trust her. Her name eluded her at the moment, but she knew it was important.
The darkness promised it would leave, but under one condition. The humanoid had to die. The Viximon had nothing against the cat-girl, but she did not want to live inside the horrible agony and misery that currently filled her soul.
And as the she-demon continuously sneered and jabbed at her, the small fox Digimon could barely make out a glimpse of light. Within it was the essence of a long forgotten past; something important she had left behind. But then again, what did she know? No one had ever liked her before. She was the most hated- no loathed Digimon she was sure existed. Why else was she trapped inside of this eternal captivity of torture? A microcosm of hell…
But even as she lost all hope, one thing still stuck to her. A name that she couldn't seem to connect with anything, but she knew was very, very close to her somehow.
Zoe…
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Whew! I finally typed this thing up! We just got some 4-H turkeys, and they sure are a handful… We've already lost two of them; one to drowning(as in one of their waterers flooded and it got to wet and died) and another to trampling. UGH! So I've been busy with them. Bleaching the feeders and waterers like every other day, changing the TOWELS they're on at least once a day(they eat any other kind of bedding), and making sure they don't die.
And then there was my piano recital on Thursday, so I couldn't type at all at my Nana's house. It's just been a really, really busy week. Oh yeah! And about the forum really quick, my sister and I have been discussing it, and we've decided to take it down and have it fixed and such by the end of the day. So if you want to join, wait a while, 'kay?
But I've finished it and I suppose that's all that counts. So thanks for reading, now REVIEW! The button is right below this; it isn't too hard to find.
Pandamoniam