She didn't know what she was going to tell her husband, or how
She didn't know what she was going to tell her husband, or how. For years now, Sarah Mills had dreaded the idea of having to explain to her daughter why a man in military uniform had been to their house with her father's things, having to tell her that he had been killed, or captured, or any number of horrible fates that could befall a man in military service, never had she thought she would have to spend one of her too few moments talking with her husband over the phone, telling him how their precious daughter had disappeared without a trace.
"Sarah?"
Startled by the voice, Sarah almost dropped her mug of tea as her boss startled her out of her reprieve. But right now though, Mrs Bradford was here simply as Anna Bradford, an equally terrified mother who really needed to be with someone who knew just how terrified she really was.
"Sorry Sarah…I drifted…" Anna apologised.
"It's okay…"
The silence fell in again, disturbed only by the sipping of coffee, the noise of traffic filtering in from the street below as they sat quietly in Anna's small apartment.
Discussing the current problems seemed pointless, each knew as much as the other, and they had both spoken with the police and FBI numerous times, and neither could escape the news reports. Mass disappearances across the globe, thousands missing.
But neither mother could honestly admit to caring about the thousands, their hearts only bled for their own.
Tanya…
Bobby…
"They'll be okay…" Anna practically muttered the words as she gazed into her cup.
"They'll be okay…" Sarah repeated, equally unsure.
--
DIGIMON - Of Blood and Binary.
Chapter 37: My what big eyes you have! Part 2!
Like the moon, she will shine in the darkest of nights!
--
"LUPMON!" Tanya wailed from the battered restaurant, watching in horror as the vicious egg consumed her beloved partner, the inky force of the Nightmare Syndrome attack slid back into the hard armoured shell as the glowing eyes appeared once more, curved in presentation of a smile.
"Such a good haul…thee boss will bee pleased."
"Lupmon…" Tanya uttered, sinking to her knees as Digitamamon broke into a fit of self-satisfied giggles, "I've been a good, good boy."
"Ba…bastard…" GeoGreymon growled, the large dinosaur was slowly regaining colour after surviving the latest brush with Digitamamon's primary offence, but still felt exhausted.
"Let's see, let's see…" Digitamamon sang, sweeping his fluorescent eyes around the remains of the towns populace. "I think I'll pick some flowers!"
Once more, the darkness that lay within Digitamaon's shell lunged forward, sweeping out towards the battered inn, causing the Floramon and Tanya to cry out as the great shadow loomed towards them, only to stop short as Totemmon threw himself in the way of his staff, all of his arms raised in a defensive posture as he held the darkness back, the colour slowly sapping from his body.
"Run…" His heads managed to gasp, each out of time with the other, as his staff took the advice and began to scamper, pulling along any stragglers as the shadow succeeded in swallowing up the chef and resumed sweeping after the waitresses, swallowing up those who were too slow.
Throwing herself across the floor, Tanya covered her head with her hands as she quivered, sobbing, beneath a table, wishing for it all to go away. She couldn't take it, she wanted to be back home, just having fun playing the game…Lupmon, Liz, everyone was…
A roar startled her, looking up she could see GeoGreymon once more in the shadows grip, fading away, being drawn into the darkness to be imprisoned with the others.
It was all going wrong…
--
It was all going so well. The egg could practically sing as he took his time to roll the prone bodies of the villagers into heaps. Truly, his Nightmare Syndrome was a magnificent attack. The dark miasma still hung heavy in the air, poisoning the minds of the village and leaving them all catatonic, trapped within a personal nightmare. To use it on so many people at once meant the nightmares were a little generic, but no-one had a strong enough will to break out, or even realise what was going on.
And it was true, all about the villagers lay, looking as if asleep and trapped in a nightmare, fighting away against an unstoppable opponent. He wasn't too sure which were the ones his boss wanted, but he figured he wouldn't mind them all being brought along, new lab rats were always appreciated.
It's all going egg-sactly to plan.' The egg chuckled at his own joke as he waded into the inn and began nudging around the unconscious bodies of he waitresses. Though theeese would bee faster if I had hands…'
A growl suddenly asserted itself to the eggs senses, and with a weary sigh, he looked up to see the battered form of Lupmon glaring at him from through the hole the wall. Her dress was ripped and torn from the prior clashes she'd had with the egg. Scowling, Digitamamon looked over at the wolf like Digimon, who had persisted in resisting the effects of Nightmare Syndrome. While all the town lay asleep, she still stood, throwing herself again and again at the ultimate level opponent. He thought that his last attack had buried her.
"Rrrrr….let….Tanya…rrr…go…" The Vaccine growled, her pupils fine slits, barely clinging to her sanity as she glared at her enemy, her whole body quivering as she prepared to attack. While she was not facing a virus type, the oppressive force of the miasma created by the Nightmare Syndrome attack had triggered her destroyer instincts, her feral state preventing the Nightmares from taking a hold of her.
"Why…why won't you sleeeeep?" Digitamaon hissed.
"Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrannyaaaaaa!!" Lupmon howled as she catapulted herself towards the egg, claws pushed forward to strike as she unleashed her Primal Claw attack, bouncing harmlessly off of the hardened shell, before being driven through one of the standing walls as Digitamamon rushed forward, tackling her through the wood. With splinters tearing off more of the pink waitress uniform, Lupmon rolled with the blow, skidding across the ground once she was outside and springing back to her feet.
"Howl Buster! Howl Buster! Howl Buster!" She bellowed, releasing blast after blast to bounce harmlessly off of the shell.
"Nightmare Syndrome!" Digitamamon called, summoning the Miasma in the air to focus upon Lupmon, surrounding her in a dark cloud as he mentally pushed for her to fall into the troubled slumber. With the will power she was displaying, he was sure that she was one of the ones who he had been sent to destroy, the problem was his offensive abilities weren't very impressive, so, in order to crush her head underfoot with the utmost ease, he needed to get her to sleep!
"Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!" The wolf roared to the sky as the vicious miasma crashed upon her.
--
What was that?'
A cry of some kind shook the girls soul, seeming to come from all around. Looking up from where she hid, she was forced to blink for a moment as the world seemed to have frozen. Digitamaon had Fugamon pinned, and the remaining Floramon were cowering about, then things jumped forward a little, then froze again, like when a scratched DVD starts to jump.
"Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!! Raaaaaaaaaaaaannyaaaaaaaaaaa!!"
"Lupmon?" Tanya's voice trembled, but she was so sure she'd heard her partner.
"Raaaaaaaaaaannyaaaaaa!!"
For a moment, the world flickered before Tanya, as if waking from a dream, everything was fuzzy but she could just make out Lupmon, wrapped in darkness and in so much pain.
"Raaaaaaaaaanyaaaaaaaaaaa!!"
"LUPMON!" Tanya cried, and everything went black.
--
Slowly, her eyes flickering open, Tanya awoke upon the ground. Around her lay the other waitresses and before her was Digitamamon, and a thick haze of shadowy air, a dark miasma, that contained her partner.
Had she…been dreaming?
As Lupmon cried out again, she decided that now wasn't the time to be pondering that. Scrabbling to her feet, she got ready to…to…to do she didn't know what. She wasn't strong and brave like Liz was; she'd frozen up before. Liz! That was it! Looking around the unconscious bodies that littered the town, she was quickly able to find her companion, lying as part of a heap that the vicious digimon had gathered up. All she had to do was wake the girl up, she she'd know what to do. She could be that brave, couldn't she?
Mentally willing herself forward, Tanya crept out of the shattered inn and towards the heap of bodies. In her mind, she chanted stealthy words like a mantra, quiet as a mouse, quiet as a mouse' as she trod slowly along, trying to keep from flinching every time Lupmon cried out, and froze in her tracks as Digitamamon suddenly turned to face her.
"I seee you." The egg grinned in a sing song voice, causing the girl's breath to catch in her throat as she gazed up at the vicious poultry product.
Sheee woke up.' Digitamamon cursed himself. I pushed too much focus on that stu-pid pup.'
The fluorescent eyes widened for a moment as he remembered the torturous and resilient rookie, realising that he had shifted too much of his attention to the awake girl as the miasma behind him began to disperse, allowing Lupmon to launch forward again at his back, settling on top of the egg and pounding out blows with her Primal Claw attack, desperately trying to break through.
"Geeeeet off!" Digitamamon bellowed. "Swing Egg!" Retracting his stubby legs, Digitamamon launched into a high speed spin, sending the wolf flying off and into her partner, the two tumbling along the grassy ground before coming to a stop with the wolf on top of the scrawny girl.
"Tanya…" Lupmon gasped, thoroughly exhausted. "Bad eggy make you sleep…I was scared…I try to make him go away to wake you up…is bad eggy gone now?"
Looking up at her partner, Tanya could see that the poor dear was near to passing out from fatigue, her body was battered and her eyes were struggling to remain open.
"Oh Lupmon!" Tanya sobbed, wrapping her arms around her partner. She'd been fighting despite the odds, despite being scared, despite being…alone. That wasn't how it was meant to be, they were meant to fight together.
"Time for sleee-eeep." Digitamamon sang, stalking towards the prone pair. "Nightmare syyn-drome."
The miasma began to descend on the two, seeping out from within the egg and Tanya could feel her eyelids becoming heavy again, threatening to pull her back into the dream of that hopeless battle. Funny…' She thought. It's not that different from reality…'
She then hissed through clenched teeth as pain cut into her arm, shaking off the sleep that was threatening to consume her. Looking down, she could see that Lupmon's claw had cut into her arm as the wolf growled and once more struggled to fight against the effects of the attack, despite her exhaustion.
"Don't…wanna…" Lupmon panted. "Won't…let…you…hurt…Tanya!"
"SLEEP!" Digitamamon bellowed, kicking Lupmon and sending her sprawling. "Why. Won't. You. Sleep!" Each word was punctuated with either a kick or a stomp, causing Lupmon to cry out in pain, as her already worn body was beaten more and more, still clinging firmly to consciousness.
"Stop it…" Tanya murmured, trying to pull herself up. "Leave Lupmon alone…" There wasn't, she realised, going to be a rescue, she had to save Lupmon herself…she had to. "Lup-mon…" She couldn't sleep, Lupmon needed her. "Lupmon." She needed to help her partner. "LUPMON GET UP!" She cried; blue light surrounding her body as her digivice, tucked away with the folds of her apron, began to bleep in loud and furious tones.
"What?" Digitamamon called, startled, as he turned to face the very awake Tanya, who had now risen to her feet, surrounded by blue flames of light as she scrabbled for the round device, pulling it triumphantly out from the aprons pocket.
"Leave us alone!" She cried, the blue light suddenly pouring into the machine, words appearing upon the small LCD like screen as they were pulled forth from the girl's mouth. "ULTIMATE! EVOLUTION!"
An identical blue light erupted around Lupmon, toppling her opponent and dispersing the miasma that filled the area as new strength flooded Lupmon and purified the air.
"LUPMON DIGIVOLVE TO…OZLYKIOMON!!"
The shell of light was swept away in a twister like fashion, accompanied on its vanishing trip skyward by a lout howl, leaving only Lupmon's new form in its place.
Steam seemed to flow from her body as the warm air became visible as it ran against her cold body, a great obsidian wolf at least twice the size of Lykiomon, with sleek obsidian fur, bearing a white crescent that began on her forward left leg and arced around to settle on her back left leg. White rocks studded her body, their varying sizes and rough shapes gave the appearance of stars upon a living night sky, an effect only enhanced by her pearl white eyes and teeth. The long antenna of hair remained, but was now pulled into a sort of triangular arc, the edge looking to be razor sharp.
OZLYKIOMON
Level: Ultimate
Type: Vaccine
Attacks: Harvest Moon, Dark Side, Lunar Wail.
OzLykiomon felt calm…it was strange. The will and drive to fight were still very much there, but she was much more aware of the world around her than she normally was when a battle started. Her fur still bristled in the readiness for battle, but it was as if a soothing hand had been placed upon her back to keep her from loosing her focus completely. It felt…good.
Tanya didn't feel afraid anymore. She was still very aware of the danger of their current scenario, and of the odds stacked against them, but it was as if someone had pushed her fears to the back of her mind, to exist as a simple consideration of the consideration, like a confidence not of her own had entered her body. Looking down at the digivice in her hand, both still shrouded in a faint blue glow, she wondered…had Liz felt something like this when Agumon became D-Greymon?
"EGG SWING!"
With a howling moan, OzLykiomon was suddenly knocked flying as Digitamamon, in a rapid spin, crashed into the wolf. Calling out, Tanya collapsed to her knees as a blunt pain shocked her body.
Wh…what the hell?' She wondered, gasping on the ground.
Looking up, she could see OzLykiomon just getting back to her feet as Digitamamon, spinning like a top, came in for another attack.
"LEFT!" Tanya called, alerting her partner to the incoming attack. Without looking, OzLykiomon responded on instinct and faith, coiling her body and springing in the given direction, her body curling up as she began to rush straight at the egg.
"HARVEST MOON!"
With her body curled, her whole mass came under the shelter of the bladed antenna, as a rapid spin began, turning the wolf into a kind of circular saw. In a burst of light, the stones on her body shone, as if soaking up sunlight and in an instant her fur became bright white as her speed seemed to implausibly increase as the she shot forward, resembling very much the bright moon of her name sake, and collided with the spinning egg. Sparks flew as the blades grated against the armour of the shell, before Digitamamon's stability was compromised and he went tumbling off to one side, causing OzLykiomon to rocket forward, dropping out of her attack to skid along the ground as her fur returned to it's normal ratio of black to white.
"Uniuniuni." Digitamamon chuckled as he got up. "That wasn't too bad. But, eeet wasn't eeenough."
Looking at the vicious egg, Tanya almost gasped. His shell was barely even scratched, looking back to her partner she could see a lot of rough scuff marks along the antenna blades, so much so that some spots looked almost blunted.
"Among thee ul-tee-mit digeemon, I am known for having thee strongest deeefence!" Digitamamon gloated. "Pale yolks like you don't have a chance." His eyes curved upward into the creepy arc of a self-satisfied smile. "I weeel win. E-Nig-Ma!"
With a shimmer, Digitamamon suddenly began to multiply, copies of himself arcing out to form a large semi-circle around Ozlykiomon.
"Uniuniuni!" Digitamaon cackled. "Nightmare Syndrome isn't my only trick!" The eggs jeered. "E-Nig-Ma allows me to create as many copies of myself as I want, but of course, only one of them is the reeaaal me! Uniuniuniuniuni…"
"It's that one!" Tanya suddenly pointed straight at the genuine article.
"What?" The Digitamamon only took on the same shocked expression. "H-how did you know!?"
"Well, while you did create a lot of copies, you stayed in the same place. Also, when you spoke, you were the only one to make a sound." Tanya explained, slightly embarrassed while leaving the egg looking rather depressed before Tanya snapped back into the fight. "Quick, get him OzLykiomon! Use Dark Side!" Tanya instructed, and OzLykiomon responded, the white crescent of fur, and all white points upon her body turned to the obsidian black as the wolf launched herself forward, the steam around her body suddenly intensifying.
"DARK SIDE!" She cried, obeying the command of her partner, as she became a black blur, leaving a trail of ice in her wake. It began merely as a comet tail of crystals in the air, but then became spikes imbedded in the ground as ground and air began to freeze around the wolf. Striking against the startled egg, she bowled him over and left him imprisoned within a miniature glacier.
Heh, I was right.' Tanya practically smiled to herself. OzLykiomon seems to have a really low body temperature, and with the moon motif, a name like Dark Side had to have some relation to making things colder, given the sub-zero temperatures on the dark side of the moon. When I'm like this…' She looked down at her dimly glowing self. thinking is so much easi…er…' Sagging, Tanya suddenly became aware of the fatigue settling on her body, before the memory of the exhausted Liz came to mind. The ultimate stage must have a sever drain on the human body too…we have to stop this now! I just hope I was right about the last attack too…'
"OzLykiomon, listen. Use Lunar Wail on the ice!"
"Rrrright Ranya!" The wolf growled, once again back to the black and white mix as she began to inhale.
Lupmon's always had a wind based attack.' Tanya thought. But a name like Wail' means it's likely have some kind of sound element as well. I'm right, this should…'
"LUNAR…WAIL!"
The last part of wail' surged into a high note as OzLykiomon released the devastating howl, the stones on her body vibrating along with the attack, causing Tanya's ears to ring in pain as they amplified the noise all around. But that was nothing compared to what the ice and Digitamamon experienced. Lowering her head back down, the antenna of hair stood up straight, becoming a sort of tuning fork as the howl became a focused stream of sound, the antenna vibrating fiercely as they acted as both director and amplifier. With a mighty crash, the ice shattered and Digitamamon tumbled out, and lay prone upon the ground, deep cracks decorating his shell as he moaned in pain.
"H…how?" He gasped. "Y…you broke my shell…"
"Just a little science." Tanya modestly confessed to her foe. "Even the strongest of metals can become brittle in extreme cold, and the ice also made a great resonator. So with your shell weakened, and the Wail's effect amplified…well…" She drifted off, nervously scratching at the back of her head as OzLykiomon crouched growling, awaiting further instruction. This, the wolf remembered was how they fought best. Tanya was smart, while she was strong; it was what made them so great a team. "Now please," the human girl begged, "stop fighting and wake everyone up. I don't want to fight."
"Oh…Oh-kay…" The data typed gasped, pulling himself upright, the action causing a string of grunts and moans of pain as he toppled into a standing position. "I…I surrender. I'll remove the nightmares…" As Tanya gave a sigh of relief, she missed the broken bits of shell quiver. "DREAM EATER!"
A chill ran up Tanya's spine as the dark miasma that hung in the air suddenly began to move. In a great swirl, it all began pouring into the Digitamamon, who shuddered and cackled his Uniuni' laugh.
"Wh…what is this?" Tanya gasped.
"This is a speeeci-al treeaaat my boss gave to meee." Digitamamon laughed. "It lets meee dee-vour all theee lovely nightmares stored in my miasma! And grow…" There was gut wrenching cracking noise as the majority of the shell shattered, allowing the darkness within to pour out, angular limbs sprouting like branches from the shadowy mess as Digitamamon's new form towered over the pear, and as he spoke, his voice had dropped much deeper. "STRONGER! NIGHTMARE SYNDROME!"
The arms lashed out fast, grabbing onto OzLykiomon and pulling her into the air, the long spindly fingers began to melt and blend, wrapping and smothering the wolf as she struggled.
"It's no good! Soon you will be trapped in theee foulest of Nightmares!" The egg jeered. "I'm sure my boss won't mind if I break your mind a leetle! Uniuniuniuniuni-UGH!"
"Geh…it's like punching tar…" A voice, tempered with irritation and suppressed rage spoke out.
"LIZ!" Tanya cheered.
"What! How did you wake up?" Digitamamon bellowed, a yellow sphere of an eye appearing before the girl, her fist still lodged in the darkness as the orange flames over ran her body.
"Heh…Luppy woke me up with that noise she was making. Now…" Pulling her hand free, the temporary waitress and private in the Nightmare Soldier private, revealed her digivice. "I think it's our turn again. LET'S GO, ULTIMATE EVOLUTION!"
"What?" Digitmamon brought another eye up as a bellowing roar went out. GeoGreymon was awake again too, and charging straight at the black monstrosity, orange light surrounding the beast as evolution took place.
"GeoGreymon Digivolve to…D-GREYMON!"
"Nightmare Syndrome!" Digitamamon cried, shadowy arms lunging for the divine beast.
"Cursed Innocence!" D-Greymon responded, propelled forward by mighty wings, the great silver arm flared up and tore through the shadows, piercing into the main body itself, causing Digitamamon to release an unearthly wail, his grip on OzLykiomon vanishing as the wolf was allowed to drop to the ground.
"Heh…looks like it wasn't just your shape that changed." Liz smirked, aiming her Digivice at the altered Digimon.
DIGITAMAMON
(Nightmare Mode)
Level: Ultimate+
Type: Virus
Attacks: Nightmare Syndrome, Swing Egg, Enigma.
"Now that you're a virus…we have the type advantage." Liz's smirk became sinister. "So say good bye."
"Harvest Moon!" OzLykiomon cried, whipping herself once more into the buzz saw as D-Greymon backed her up.
"Cross Fire!" Wings spread wide, the divine beast unleashed the purifying flames, the blast surrounding the spinning wolf and creating a torrential force that raced straight for Digitamamon.
"Wait!" Tanya cried, but too late as the dual attack tore straight through, obliterating the main body as what was left became consumed by silver fire, Digitamamon wailing in agony as what remained burned away, the stray data floating into the air before being absorbed by D-Greymon until all that was left was a blackened spot upon the ground. There was then a flare of light as D-Greymon and OzLykiomon suddenly shrank back down, and Liz and Tanya found their legs practically disappearing from beneath them as all the strength just went out as their lights faded.
"Damn…guess I wasn't as recharged as I…" Liz started before fainting.
"You didn have to…" Tanya began, but swiftly too found herself in a dark, dream free sleep.
--
Raven: (walks in to dusty office, throwing down a suitcase and turning on the lights before opening the intercom)
Eve! Erase all our answering machine messages and hold all our calls! We've got Authoring to do!
So yeah, sorry for the delay folks. We've been real busy doing…um…important stuff…like…world domination! Yeah, totally been getting ready to overthrow the world and stuff. We've also been raising gas prices for you folks in America. We need the funding for our plot to take over the world. But don't worry folks, we should be back to stay!
For any of you who might have remembered my notes from the last chapter (or for those of you who feel like being smart-alecs and hitting the "previous chapter button"), you might remember I had a contest set up for this chapter. I still intend to offer it, so without further ado, I announce the first "Name That Reference" contest! We're awarding a cameo to anyone who can correctly guess how we came up with the name "OzLykiomon". You must give a full reason for why, including any indirect links it might have. I'm rather proud of this name, so that's why I'm offering a cameo to anyone who can get the answer exactly correct.
That being said, I'll end these notes saying that it's good to be back, and…have you seen Dynasmon X? Holy crap that guy is awesome!
Keyo: (settles back into his chair and hits the intercom)
'Eve, believe it or not I've got filing work that needs to be done.'
Mien gott it is good to be able to slap a new chappie up again! And look! It's on time! If you don't count the several months of inactivity…
I never intended the hiatus to take this long, it was meant to be a two-week gap, but then I had essay after essay and then exams. Ugh…In the end, I think it did worse for me to stop writing than if I had kept going, it seemed to help me remain in some kind of state of organization.
This chapter panned out really well actually. Though it led to Eight pointing out that I mistyped Lupmon's attribute waaaaaaaaay back in chapter 1 as Data rather than Vaccine, so I'll be fixing that at some point.
Initially, I was really unhappy with how the 'Bad Egg' story was going, largely because I botched the first part and didn't do enough character development for the town. The battle was also a bit dodgy to me and I was having a hard time enjoying it. Then I got the idea for changing how Nightmare Syndrome worked and I was able to work out a nice win for OzLykiomon.
Well, see you all next week (I've already started on 38.) and take care.
WE'RE BACK!!
Eve: (sits at her desk and begins sorting files.)
What? I'm a muse and secretary, and an imaginary one at that. I have fictional papers to file.
KEYO & RAVE (& EVE)