Disclaimer: Seriously, you people at Bandai and Toei already know that I don't own Digimon, so why do I have to write this disclaimer?

The Four Seasons: Chapter 28

Third Arc: 03

Not as Seen on TV: Part 3

Ryo Akiyama slashed a card through his digivice as his partner, Cyberdramon threw down with a strange entity that appeared to be composed of, for lack of a better description, television static. Cyberdramon growled as he felt his strength increase exponentially and he used it to deadly effect as he slashed at his adversary, releasing bursts of energy that tore through the other creature's form as though it were paper. But Ryo knew that those injuries didn't mean a thing to whatever this monstrosity was. Previous attempts at destroying it, starting from their first encounter nearly two days ago had proven futile. All it did was regenerate what was damaged, and even if Cyberdramon hit it with enough firepower to completely overwhelm its defenses and obliterate it from existence, the strange being would return within the time space of a few hours and pick back up where they had left off. It seemed unrelenting, unstoppable, and Ryo had no idea on how to destroy it and make its deletion stick! Whatever this entity was, it was beyond anything that he and Cyberdramon had ever seen before, and at every encounter it only seemed to get stronger. Ryo wasn't even sure that it was a digimon. Digimon didn't act like this. They didn't regenerate unless they downloaded data from another digimon, and they certainly didn't come back from the dead, unless that is you counted his old enemy Milleniummon or the Primary Village that he had visited back in his earlier adventures but that sort of option wasn't available in the Southern Quadrant. Here, when a digimon died, they tended to stay dead. Defeat in the realm of the phoenix like digimon known as Zhuqiamon was brutal and very much final. Ironic yes, but a fact of that defined the nature of the Southern Quadrant of the digital world.

So why wasn't death working with this one?

Cyberdramon growled in pain as his enemy grabbed hold of him and slammed him to the ground. Bringing all of its weight to bear on the Ultimate level cyborg, the static entity pinned him to the ground and formed an image of Machinedramon's Giga Cannons on its shoulders, powering them up and aiming them at Ryo's partner. In desperation the Legendary Tamer dug through his deck box, searching for a card that could help him get out of this mess. No sooner then he pulled out the card though, the creature paused in its attack, looking up at the sky as though listening to a voice only it could here. A few moments later, it vanished.

Oookay… what the heck is going on here?

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John awoke, hearing some noise from the bathroom of the hotel room, and cracked open his eyes only to close them again against the glare of the sun through the hotel window. John groaned and rolled to the side, hearing the toilet to the bathroom flush. A second later the bathroom door opened and Ryan stepped out of it, looking a little groggy. Or maybe it was depression, John couldn't tell for sure. Ryan seemed to have accepted the fact that they were dying rather easily, though it was clear that he wasn't too happy about it. This may have had something to do with the fact that the brown haired OC had already been on the side of the grave once already, so he was prepared for death more mentally than John was. Of course, that didn't mean that he had to like it.

With a yawn John sat up and looked at Ryan as he slid on his green outer shirt over his red, not bothering to button it up, and then sat down on his bed and began to tug on his shoes. John raised an eyebrow.

"You going somewhere?"

Ryan nodded. "Yeah. Out. I need to get some thinking done, and I usually think best when I'm out walking."

"I see. Are you going to take Richoemon with you?"

Ryan turned to look at his saurian partner before looking at John.

"Normally I would, but with the Digimon Queen on the prowl and the rest of the world at large ignorant of the reality of digimon I don't think that I want to chance it."

"I don't know… what'll you do if you run into trouble, like a Wild One?"

Ryan snorted. "I checked my digivice when I woke up. We're still in episode three. From what you've told me about this episode the only person that I really have to worry today about is Rika."

"But this isn't the show," said John carefully. "And whoever set this up is bound to have noticed that we're here, so he or she may end up coming after us. You're going to need some help."

"We can go with him," spoke Daisuke from out of nowhere. John chuckled.

"No offense, but you and V-mon are disembodied voices. I don't think that you're going to be able to do much else except scream silently at any oncoming enemies. If you tried to stop Rika as she is now, you'll have the same affect as her conscience."

"She's listened to that before…" began V-mon, but John cut him off.

"But not this early in the season. Ryan, I think you should take Richoemon with you."

Ryan sighed. "All right. Fine. If it'll set your mind at ease I'll do that. But how am I going to keep him hidden? I mean it's not like anyone's going to believe that Richoemon's a guy in a suit…"

John smiled, and suddenly Ryan felt just a little bit nervous. Something clicked in Ryan's mind.

"No. There is no way that you're going to get me to try that excuse."

John just kept on smiling.

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Takato headed on out of the park with Guilmon by his side, a smile on their faces.

"Now remember," the goggle wearing boy said to his partner. "You're a guy in a suit."

The pair strode forth confidently, as though they had every reason to belong in the madness that was the real world, even though the strangeness of the red dino's appearance was drawing quite a number of stares and comments. As they walked, a small child holding onto the hand of what looked like his mother crossed their path, and his eyes widened in amazement.

"Hey! Look! Check it out, it's another digimon!"

Takato tensed up slightly. It was time to put his idea to the test. In the brief second of the child's exclamation, and his own response that Guilmon was really a costume that he made, something came to his attention.

Hang on. Did he just say 'another digimon'? Oh boy…

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I can't believe he talked me into this… thought Ryan, aware of the numerous stares that both he and his partner were getting as they walked through the streets.

"Well," said V-mon from inside his head. "You gotta admit that it worked, right?

"Yeah," said Daisuke. "That kid like, totally bought your story!"

"Like it matters," said Ryan, though it looked like he was talking to no one in particular, earning him a few more strange stairs from the people around him. "A kid that age will believe just about anything at face value and the kid's mother looked too busy to even bother to see if our story is true."

"Uh… Ryan?" Said Richoemon. "You do realize that you look like you're talking to yourself right?"

"You can blame Daisuke and Veemon's invisibility for that," grumbled Ryan as he frowned.

"Hey! It's 'V-MON!' How many times do I have to say it?!"

"I don't know. Twenty?"

"Daisuke, you're not helping!"

Richoemon sighed. "You know you can just talk to them with your thoughts."

Ryan scowled. "No, I didn't know that. How come no one told me I could do that earlier?"

"Maybe if you weren't so fixated on getting my name wrong…" said V-mon.

Oh, you're a noisy one, thought Ryan irritably.

"What did you say in response, Ryan?" Asked Richoemon. Ryan just groaned.

"Forget it. It's not important…"

"He called V-mon noisy."

"So much for the privacy of my own thoughts. And here I wanted to get away from this sort of thing. I mean, John and Tapirmon didn't want to tag along because of this plan that they were cooking up, so why did I have to get stuck with two voices in my head?"

At this, Ryan got a few more stares, and people began to go out of their way to avoid getting too close to him. Ryan just sighed and his thoughts drifted back to the conversation that he had with John back at the hotel.

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"Fine, fine," said Ryan in defeat as he finally agreed to John's advice. "So what are you going to do while I'm gone?"

"I've been toying with an idea on how to get us home faster. It's a little bit dangerous because it uses up a lot of energy."

"Maybe you shouldn't do it then and," said Ryan. "If it's risky enough for you to be worried about it because of our current predicament then maybe you shouldn't even bother. I'm sure that we can take the long route home…"

John shook his head. "I'd rather not have to wait. Too much is going on, and I don't feel like getting sidetracked with this storyline right now. We've got to get to the digital world so that we can find Fanglongmon, but we can't do that at this point. The rules of this season don't allow it for some reason."

Ryan sighed. "All right. Fine. But don't get yourself killed, got it? Otherwise I'd have to find your spirit and kill you again just for messing up."

"I'll keep it in mind," chuckled John. "Anyway, aren't you going to be going out now?"

"I suppose so…" said Ryan uncertainly. "Yeah. I might as well. How will I know when you've got this plan of yours ready to kick off?"

"Don't worry about that," said John. "It'll be pretty obvious once it happens. Now before you go, I've got something that I should do for you, just in case you run into trouble."

Ryan cocked an eyebrow. "You know that I won't, remember? Even Richoemon says that I shouldn't have anything to worry about, and he's watched the show. That's a pretty good reason for me to feel confident already."

John stared at Ryan blankly for a second.

"You're saying that you're partner watches the show more than you do?"

"Um… isn't there something that you wanted to do?"

"Oh, right. Here. Bring out your digivice."

"Okay…" Ryan unclipped it from his belt and held it out to John. He placed his hands above it and concentrated for a few seconds. A sphere of light materialized out of thin air and then sunk into Ryan's digivice, leaving him stunned.

"Wha… what did you do?"

"Added a little modification that should help you in case you get stuck in a situation where you're partner's Champion and Ultimate forms won't be any good. Trust me; it'll be useful for you in a city like this."

Ryan just stared at John suspiciously before clipping his digivice back to his belt, wondering just what it was that John was getting at.

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Ryan shook his head. Man, I hate flashbacks. The flash of white; the weird dreamlike memories, the italics… It's enough to make my head feel foggy.

Richoemon stopped suddenly and sniffed the air. Ryan looked at his partner worriedly.

"You okay, buddy?"

Richoemon looked over his shoulder.

"Guilmon and his Tamer are somewhere behind us," said the little orange dino.

"So much for a low profile," said Ryan. "This was exactly what I wanted to avoid. Oh well, I made the bed and now I have to lie on it. C'mon Richoemon. Let's find a place to lose them in!"

"May I point out that Guilmon is an expert tracker?"

"Dude, don't crush my hope already, okay?" With that, the pair took off.

This is so stupid, thought Ryan as they ran through the streets. Why doesn't John want us interacting with the Tamers? It's not like we're going to be affecting them or anything!

"Maybe it has more to do with their developing personalities," spoke up Daisuke. "If we're in their lives on a regular basis without finding a way to bring out their original memories, they might become wholly different people that we won't recognize."

Wow. Congrats Daisuke. That actually made sense! And it came from you of all people. I'm impressed. What do you do for an encore? Use big words?

"Very funny! You should get a job as a comedia… Hey! Wait! Don't go in there, dude!"

Ryan was just about to ask why when suddenly he saw a flash of words replace his vision for a second, and the next thing he knew he was standing in a parking garage with one angry looking Rika Nonaka standing in front of him.

"What the…? Richoemon? Tell me that's not who I think it is…"

"Er… maybe it's her double Ruki come to give us a hand?"

"Since when have we ever been that lucky?"

"Shut up, Daisuke!" Shouted Ryan, and then a second later realized that he had just spoken out loud.

"Heh, heh. Got ya dude."

Ug… somebody kill me now…

Rika looked around before returning her gaze to Ryan and his partner.

"Don't tell me; you gave a name to that wimpy pet of yours?"

"HEY!" Cried the little dinosaur vehemently. "WHO YOU CALLING A WIMP?!"

"Whatever," said Rika waving off Richoemon's outcry. "I had originally been planning to go after other prey today, but seeing as how you're here now, you'll have to do, especially after what happened yesterday. I don't know how you got your digimon to digivolve but…"

"Give us a break, Rika," growled Ryan. "And remind me again why you're fighting us? I'm sure that there's more useful things that we could be doing in our spare time…"

"Like what?" Shot back the fiery Tamer. "Is this your way of trying to ask me out on a date? Sorry. I don't baby sit annoying losers like you!"

Walked right into that one didn't I? Thought Ryan as he looked over at Richoemon.

"You just had to say that to her yesterday, didn't you?"

"This would be where Terriermon says Momentai…"

"Never mind," said Ryan as he turned towards the exit. "Let's just get out of here before…"

Ryan's eyes widened as Renamon materialized at the exit, calmly awaiting Rika's order to attack.

"… Terrific. Looks like we have no choice but to fight after all," said Ryan as he pulled out his digivice. Rika scoffed.

"Give me a break. You're trapped with no way out. You can't even risk digivolving in this place, so what're you going to do?"

Ryan looked at his digivice thoughtfully as he remembered what John did for him before leaving the hotel earlier. And something else as well that the Avatar had told him yesterday.

"Stories and shows have a way of fixing themselves to get back on track and avoid a paradox." John… did you know that this was going to happen?

Ryan shook his head, and once again words from that annoying script aura that he had flashed in his brain.

What the heck… Never mind that! We've got something to take care of right now!

Ryan raised his digivice, and looked at the girl's hard, violet eyes. She was clearly waiting for an answer.

"The same thing that every would-be hero does when the odds are against them," said Ryan. "Improvise."

Words then involuntarily formed on his lips and his digivice burst with bright light as a white colored sphere shot out from the screen and connected with Richoemon.

"DIGI-ARMOR ENERGIZE!"

"RICHOEMON, ARMOR DIGIVOLVE TOOO… TALONMON!"

The light died down, revealing a thin-limbed digimon with silver armor covering its entire body. Spikes protruded from its back, and elbows, and its claws were blade-like and razor sharp. The new digimon's head was flat and broad, curving up in a half moon shape before ending with two blade like spikes at the top, and behind it a long whip like tail swung back and forth slowly, a curved blade at its tip. Ryan raised his digivice to get a read on its stats.

Talonmon

Stage: Armor/ Light

Type: Vaccine

Special Attacks: Razor Edge, Tail Blade, Spear Throw

Jeez, thought Ryan. When John makes an Armor digimon he doesn't kid around…

Rika just hmmphed as she drew a card from her belt, and Renamon got into a battle position. Ryan decided to make at least one last attempt to talk his way out of this, but before he could do he heard a shout coming down the ramp of the parking garage.

"GUILMON, STOP!"

"Grrr…"

"I need to stop cutting out of gym class…"

Wha…? oh no…

A door slammed open on the other side of the parking garage, revealing a boy wearing an orange vest with a long eared digimon sitting on the top of his head.

"WHAT'S GOING ON IN HERE?"

Shortly after Henry Wong and Terriermon made their appearance a flash of light burst in between where the Tamers stood, and everyone shielded their eyes from its intensity. Once it died down Ryan took a look at the cause, and his eyes widened in surprise once more as he caught sight of what looked like a digimon composed completely out of TV static. It looked around almost uncertainly before finally settling on him and Talonmon.

In that moment, before events could proceed any further, Ryan had time for one last sarcastic thought.

Why does it seem like the fun wagon is always five minutes behind me?

Shortly thereafter the creature attacked with a burst from two shoulder mounted cannons, and then all hell broke loose.

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