Disclaimer: The artist formally known as Crazyeight does not own Digimon.

The Wages of Fans is Fiction: Chapter 28

A lone figure made its way across the barren landscape, its back straight and proud as it walked towards the tower. Above in the sky, the clouds parted, revealing a night sky filled with stars and a full moon, and its silver light fell on the stranger, revealing a boy in a gray t-shirt and purple jacket. It was the author known as Dean, and his face was set in a determined line. He showed no fear as he approached, not even when he could feel the towers guardians around him, watching. Waiting. Wanting him to show that one moment of weakness where he would be vulnerable. It never came, and so they stood aside, for now. Waiting in the shadows.

The Lord of Fantasy was aware of him. And aware of more than he should have been. Three shadowy figures materialized before him and paid homage to him, and with a nod from the author they vanished, as if through unspoken gesture or order, going to wherever he had bid them. Getting up the Lord of Fantasy descended down the tower's staircase, and headed outside to greet the author. Dean approached the tower base without pause, but appeared to be in no hurry either. It was as if he had all the time in the world. Finally he stopped before the towers gates and waited, taking a look around, noting the way the moonlight illuminated the land around him, almost giving it and the tower a ghostly appearance. It was almost a perfect setting. It was everything that he could ever imagine in any fic that he had written.

One day, I will write a story about this, Dean thought as he waited. The sound of the towers great doors opening brought his attention forward.

If I survive that is, he quickly amended as he saw the Lord of Fantasy emerge from his abode and walk slowly towards him.

The Lord of Fantasy approached Dean, and stopped no more than two yards away. They looked at each other, both with fairly bored expressions on their faces, as if this were something that they had rehearsed in their minds eye a hundred times and expected reality to show them nothing less.

"So," said Dean.

"So," said the Lord of Fantasy.

"…"

"Well, this is kind of anticlimactic," said Dean, smiling lightly. "You'd think that we'd be saying more at least. In most stories, this would be where I would try to tell you to abandon your evil ways, and you…"

"You know that I won't listen," said the Lord of Fantasy coolly, but with a trace of mirth, as though this was a talk between old friends.

"I was getting to that."

"I know, but I just felt that it would be more prudent to just head you off so that you don't waste our time. I'm sure that it would have made an excellent speech though."

"You always did have to rush things, didn't you?" Asked Dean. "All your stories are like that. For all your knowledge, you never did care that much about the story just for the sake of the story. The journey rather than the destination. You preferred the destination. Is that why you're doing all this? 'Cause that seems pretty shallow."

The Lord frowned. "It wasn't right, what those creators do to us. They give us hopes and dreams only to snatch them from us. It's not fair."

"Life isn't fair, Mark," Dean said. "Get used to it."

The Lord of Fantasy looked surprised at the use of his real name, but only for a second.

"I don't know why you're judging me," he said. "You've got what you wanted after all; you're a Sorato supporter. Your dream isn't the one that's been crushed."

"That's not necessarily true," said Dean. "I do have other preferences other than Sorato. I also supported Mimi and Izzy…"

"AND I MADE THEM POSSIBLE!" Shouted the Lord of Fantasy. "SO WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?"

"Because," said Dean. "It's not right. Look what you've done here," gesturing around them. "It's almost like a rip off of that Mordor place from those Lord of the Rings movies, only without the fiery mountain and the Orc hordes. I remember what it used to be, and you gutted it."

"What do you want then? An apology?"

"Well, that would be a nice start."

The Lord of Fantasy's face became enraged. Bringing up his hands he formed a ball of energy and launched it at Dean, knocking him off his feet and to the ground. As the dust settled, Dean winced and got to his feet, brushing off his clothes.

"So much for that," Dean said sarcastically. "I guess diplomacy is dead after all."

A cock of a gun behind his head, focused his attention, and a rough voice spoke.

"You have no idea how true that is," it growled. "And that's only just the beginning…"

Aw nuts… thought Dean. Blindsided by a Demon Lord.

"Beelzemon?" Said the Lord of Fantasy. "Do us all a favor and remove this scum of the pen from my sight. And afterwards, I'll make sure that he never logs in on this site ever again. Oh, and don't worry about your friends, Dean. I've sent them a little welcoming committee. I don't know how you were able to make them all immune to my powers, but I'll find a way around it; even if I have to delete them all and start over."

Deans eyes flashed, and in the next second he was moving. Beelzemon fired off his guns to stop him.

"DOUBLE IMPACT!"

Bullets fired from the chambers, but Dean was no longer in their path. As the bullets impacted the ground where Dean had once stood, Dean reached over his shoulder and into his jacket, pulling out a shotgun of his own and pointing its barrel at his enemy, he pulled the trigger.

"SHOTGUN MUSINGS!" He cried, and the weapon went off. Beelzemon stumbled backwards, smoke erupting from his chest, but he was unharmed. Well, not mortally at any rate, but it was enough to make the Mega Demon Lord angry.

"Oh, you are going to be in for it now…" Beelzemon growled. Dean tried to concentrate so as to shift quickly into his Avatar form, but suddenly a mist surrounded him and brought him to his knees as pain ripped through his body. Looking behind him, he saw the mists part, revealing a female figure wrapped in black and purple robes, with black bat like wings behind her. One of her hands was decayed and clawed like a demon's.

"Lilithmon," Dean rasped harshly. Terrific. I knew that this was going to be tough, but I had hoped that I'd have more time. Oh, well…

"Good to see you again, Dean," Lilithmon said with a small smile. "I haven't seen you since that piece of fan fiction you wrote about the Seven Demon Lords. I must say, it was certainly quite the unforgettable experience."

I'll say, thought Dean. I still have nightmares about it…

He trembled slightly, and reached out with his mind.

"What?" Said Lilithmon. "No hello for an old friend? And here I thought that we had something special…"

Dean's smile was without humor. "You know what they say about severing your ties…"

"No actually I don't," said Lilithmon as she cocked her head to one side, not at all noticing a screen winking into existence behind her.

"Well," said Dean. "It goes something like this…"

"TRANSCENDANT SWORD!"

At the shout, Lilithmon turned and blocked a rune engraved sword blade as it descended on her, and followed up with a deadly attack with her right, demonic hand.

"NAZAR NAIL!" She shouted and slashed at Omnimon, who deftly jumped back, and primed his Garuru Cannon.

"SUPREME CANNON!" He shouted, and fired a massive energy blast at Lilithmon, who took it without batting an eye. Not even bothering to see what kind of effect the attack had on her, Omnimon rushed forward and slashed at Beelzemon with his Transcendant Sword attack. Like Omnimon from earlier, Beelzemon leapt away and fired his guns, but the attack had no visible effect on the Mega. Deciding that it would be worth his while to dispose of a much more weaker target, he took aim and his fingers began to squeeze the trigger.

"DOUBLE IMPACT!"

Beelzemon's eyes widened as a pair of bullets slammed into him, throwing him backwards to the ground and knocking the air out of his lungs. His eyes rolled to see what it was that hit him, and they went even wider. Before him was an exact copy of him, all decked out in black biker leather, and a red bandana wrapped around one arm, his hands holding a pair of double barreled shotguns.

"Like looking into a cracked mirror," said the new Beelzemon.

"Oh great," said the Demon Lord. "It's the season three rip-off. The Tamed one. How's your leash Impmon?"

The Tamer's Beelzemon growled. "Oh, dat does it." And with that Beelzemon launched himself at, well, Beelzemon. The Demon Lord version versus the Tamers version.

"DARKNESS CLAW!"

"DARKNESS CLAW!"

Dean watched the scene with fascinated eyes.

It's like that episode from season two. Black Wargreymon vs. Wargreymon, or something like that. Oh, man! I wish I had a camera…

Dean suddenly felt the temperature in the air around him go up, and he jumped, just in time to dodge an Evil Inferno attack from none other than Daemon himself. No sooner then when Dean landed another stream of fire was being sent his way, and Dean wasted no time to counter attack. Flames burst from his hands and collided with Daemon's attack.

"FAN FIC FLAME!"

Fighting fire with fire, the two flames struggled with each other, locked in a stalemate, neither one gaining the advantage until finally, Daemon's fire overpowered Dean's, and he leapt out of the way again, just avoiding being incinerated.

Unless I can shift to my Avatar form, I'm going to end up being cremated. And I still got to upload our reinforcements.

"SUPREME CANNON!"

A surge of energy slammed into Daemon, kicking up debris and dirt into the air. With a gust of wind, the dust was dispersed, revealing Daemon, unharmed.

"Omnimon," he said, his voice as cold as death. "It is time for you to join the darkness."

Omnimon's Grey Sword extended itself from his Wargreymon arm.

"Bring it on," Omnimon said in his double voice.

From out of nowhere, two attacks smashed into Omnimon, bringing him to his knees. Looking over, Omnimon found himself looking at Lilithmon and Lucemon Chaos mode.

"Bad boy," said Lilithmon as she shook a finger at Omnimon. "You should know that it's rude to turn your back on someone."

"Funny," said Dean. "That's just what you did to me. Now the bill is due. Get 'em guys!"

"POSITRON LASER!"

"DRAGON FIRE CROSSBOW!"

"MAGNA MISSILES!"

"HURRICANE WAVE!"

"LIGHTNING BLITZ!"

"BLIZZARD BLASTER!"

"SWARCHZ DONNER!"

"BLADE RAIN!"

"MEGA BARRAGE!"

As one, the attacks crashed into Lucemon and Lilithmon, driving them back and digging a trench in the ground. Dean looked behind him to see Davis and Ken standing side by side with Imperialdramon Fighter Mode, the frontier chosen Koji and Takuya in their hybrid unified forms, Koichi in his beast form, JP, Zoe, and Tommy in their hybrid human forms. And with them stood Sabremon, the biomerged form of Reno and Dagmon and MegaGargomon, the biomerged form of Henry and Terriermon. Dean grinned at them and turned back just in time to see the smoke part.

Dean's grin fell almost immediately as he saw what came out of the cloud of smoke and debris. The creature was massive, its carapace colored dark blue or purple, with five demonic wings on each side, yellow claws and facemask, a vicious whip like tail, and it carried a giant sphere of darkness.

"Oh terrific," said Dean. "Lucemon, Shadow Lord Mode."

TBC...

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