A young woman with curly blond hair held her microphone close to her face, "This is Catherine Deneuve, reporting. The Digital Knights arrived in the Dark Ocean where Sora explained how Princess Hikari and the rest of the Dead kingdom had been trapped inside. Daisuke's Digital Army team arrived shortly after but a truce was called to defeat their mutual enemy. As Sora led them through a dark forest towards the castle, the group was attacked and separated. Ai, Iori and Miyako tried to find their way back to the others when they were captured by a group of Hangyomons.
The Tukaimon crouched behind the pillars of salt jutting up from the black sand, watching as the squad of Devidramons were easily disposed of by Aero V-dramon and Pailramon. The Kiwimon stood next to her human partner, trying to hit the devil digimon with the smaller birds fired from her mouth. He had never been outside of the Dark Ocean and was not accustomed for individuals to have unique names. Of the vampire humans he swore allegiance to, he knew only Princess Hikari, General Takenouchi and Lord Neo, though he was half sure that the human with the Guardromon was Kazu.
The one with the Aero V-dramon said, "Do they know we're here or was this just a good guess?"
"Or do they know we separated in the forest?" Paildramon asked.
"Either way we've got to keep moving," the Paildramon's human said.
The one with the Kiwimon spoke next. "Do we have any idea where we're going?"
The boy with the Aero V-dramon looked out across the ocean and then east along the shoreline. "The last time I was here we followed the shoreline to the castle."
"Then why did we go to that forest?" Kiwimon asked.
"We were trying to sneak inside," Aero V-dramon clarified.
They spoke for another few moments before starting east again. The Tukaimon waited until they were out of sight before starting his own flight towards the castle.
The Dead Princess
Chapter 33
Demonic Warrior
The Black Growmon in front of the group of identical digimon paled as he glanced at the pile of Nanimons on the brick floor. He looked up at the demonically white creature flexing its claws. "What are you waiting for?" Neo roared from the sideline, "Attack!"
The Black Growmon swallowed and waved his fellow digimon forward. The first three rushed at the incoming Arkadimon Perfect, claws slashing and teeth snapping. Arkadimon grabbed the first dragon's head within his hand and flung him into the other two.
The other three exhaled streams of fire that merged into a single vortex of swirling energy. The flames enveloped him and the demonic digimon laughed in a guttural roar. "Dot Matrix!"
His chest opened like panels and the flames were pulled inside like a vacuum. Arkadimon glowed with a red hue and he swung his fist through a Black Growmon's head before swinging around his other fist, unleashing a wave of tentacles that tore through the remaining digimon.
The room lay still and quiet as the data from the dead digimon dissolved into the air. "Damn it!" Neo screamed, staring at his Terran Digivice, "Nothing!"
"Perhaps a different way of thinking is in order."
He turned at the voice; sweet but with a touch of venom dripping from each syllable. Lady Hikari stood in the doorway with Black Tailmon at her side, blue dress hugging her features. Even he felt a tinge of disgust at that thought; she was only fourteen.
He dropped to one knee. "M'lady." She climbed back to both feet, "What do you mean?"
"Throwing Arkadimon again and again at waves of digimon will not make him evolve to a Mega, all you are doing is making him stronger in his current form. Emotions are the key." She pointed at his crest, "Yours is Pride."
He stared at the dark crest, emblazoned with a large circle surrounded by a group of smaller ones. He already was superior to Yagami! How could he be even better?
The door opened again and Makoto marched inside with Zoe trailing. They bowed at Hikari and then at Neo, which he noted with a growl was not as deep.
Zoe spoke, "I have received word that Taichi Yagami is heading up the coast to the castle with Daisuke Motomiya and Catherine Deneuve."
"Forget them!" Makoto snarled, "Ai's with a group of Hangyomons heading towards Celephais."
Black Tailmon hissed and Hikari snarled. "And I'm sure we all know why. They must be stopped at once!"
Makoto opened his mouth but Hikari spoke first. "Go and do whatever you want to her so long as none of them are left alive. No Chosen must go into Celephais."
She turned to Neo, "But Taichi is still out there."
Neo grinned. He had to be better than Yagami. There might be a way. It was risky but it may work. "Come with me."
Zoe bowed and Neo made for the door. "Remember," Hikari said, her eyes glowing dark, "Do not kill him."
Neo flinched as he felt his vampire blood burning, the same blood given to him by Lady Hikari. "Y-yes," he said.
Her eyes returned to normal and he gasped for air. "Good," she said, "I await your return."
"Be cautious with your rations," Sora said, "You don't want to eat any of the fruit around here."
Chika and her Piyomon stared at each other before she slowly returned her second helping of cheese to her backpack. "Is it really that bad?"
Sora's Piyomon pulled a dark green apple from a tree; a black liquid sprayed from the stem. The young girl pale and her partner shivered.
Ken splashed water onto his face from the spring at the base of the large tree they were using as their temporary shelter. "At least we have water."
He filled a cup and handed it to Ruki. She scowled. "Are we sure it's safe to drink the water?"
"We've been drinking just fine since for years," Sora said.
"And how are we sure it's not gonna hurt us?" the other girl asked, "You're not human anymore."
Sora winced and tried not to let the hurt show on her face. Did Ruki mean it as a direct insult or was she just being her usual, brash and blunt self?
The others were staring at her with cautious expressions. Ken cleared his throat. "Um, I don't mean to be rude, but I don't know another way to say this but…"
Her tongue ran over the two sharp fangs and she thought of the bottles in her pouch filled with blood. How long would those last? She wanted to promise the others that she would not feed on them; that she would let herself starve to death first, but she had felt that gnawing hunger for blood shortly after she and Hikari were banished here. She shivered at the memory of herself ripping apart Hangyomons and other Deep Savers in animalistic fury. Hikari had to exert the control she had over her as the Master Vampire and…
A cold feeling seized her stomach. Hikari was the one that turned her! Could Hikari seize control of her again? Hikari had nearly killed Neo shortly after he was turned simply by her control over the vampire virus in his blood. She had never done that to Sora because Sora had, up until recently, been a loyal servant. The fact that Sora was still alive, in some fashion at least, left Sora with two possibilities: either Hikari could not control her for whatever reason or the Dead Princess was just waiting for some opportunity.
The others were still staring. She swallowed and waved to the sea of trees stretching before them. "There's a village on the other side. Once we reach there we can, um, resupply."
She could tell by their shared expression they caught her double meaning. She added, "The fruit here is just as poisonous for them, so they'll have real food for you to eat."
"But Sora," Piyomon whispered, "That's the…"
"The what?" Ruki asked, raising an eyebrow."
Sora winced. "Right, I hadn't realized where we were until now. This is the Forest of Illusions. They say even breathing the air can cause horrific nightmares. The forest in the valley I led you to yesterday was the safe section of this forest. We were going to be through in less than a day but…"
Ruki groaned. "This gets better and better."
"How far until the castle?" Chika asked.
"Once we're through here and through the village?" Sora rubbed her chin, "A few days."
The preteen girl was silent for a moment before asking, "You think the others are alive, right?"
Ken gave a quick smile. "Since I don't hear fireworks going off in celebration, I'm going to guess that the Dead Princess doesn't have Taichi at least, which means there's a good chance the rest are alive too."
He placed a hand on her shoulder. "And General Motomiya's not the kind to go down easily."
Sora hoped it was the truth.
Ai pulled Impmon closer as the Hangyomon led them through the crisscross of mountains. Despite them being Deep Savers, they were able to handle the rough terrain with ease. "Where do you think they're taking us?"
"Could be anywhere," Miyako frowned.
Hawkmon added, "There's so much we don't know about the Dark Ocean. We're not even sure how big it is."
Ai looked over her shoulder. She could not even see the black waves anymore.
Iori lowered his voice and his eyes scanned the fish creatures encircling them. "Which brings up the question of why they're leading us so far from the sea. It must be very important."
"It is," one of the Hangyomon said, "Our true ruler awaits."
Ai thought of a dream she had while in Modem, or maybe it was a vision, of herself, standing in the waters of the Dark Ocean, a strange feeling welling up inside her. As she stared at the spot in the distance where the Hangyomons were leading them, that same feeling pulsed through her.
The clouds rolling over the black waves were thick, thicker than they had been last night. Would that hide their campfire or make the bright red stand out for miles? He hoped that the black cliff to the side would be enough cover. Dark rocks and salt deposits littered the area, along with the sand that seemed to be wet and hot at the same time.
"How long until we reach the castle?" Daisuke asked.
Taichi shrugged. "I don't know." He turned to his partner and Agumon shrugged as well.
"I think we walked there in a day."
The human searched his memories and then nodded. "Yeah. Sora must have led us on a different path somehow."
"You really don't know?" Catherine asked.
Taichi was not about to admit that when Sora led him to the castle the first time he was in the Dark Ocean, he had spent more time studying her then their route.
"Maybe the gate moves?" V-mon suggested, "We don't know anything about this place."
"Why didn't you send anyone inside?" Catherine asked.
"We didn't know the way out," Daisuke frowned.
She paled. "So we're stuck?"
"There's an exit gate," Taichi replied, "Sora knows where it is. Once we regroup with them, we'll get back to the regular Digital World."
Daisuke nodded. "And we should be taking notes for Lord Izumi once we get back."
"To do what?" Taichi asked, "Conquer this place too?"
He shrugged. "Once Hikari's dealt with then…" He winced. "That was an insult, wasn't it? What do you want me to do? Pretend that I'm not the head of the Digital Army?"
"You don't have to be," Taichi protested, "You promised the other guy you'd…"
"Yeah, I know!" he snapped. He sighed and stared into the fire, "After you… he died, I had nowhere to go. I met Lord Ishida outside of Mainframe while he was fighting Hikari. He needed any Chosen to help so I joined him. Afterward, he wanted me to be in charge of the Digital Army." He glanced at V-mon, "We were only going to stay for a little while, but then…" He sighed again, "That little while stretched into four years."
He kept staring into the fire. "I guess I never really believed the other Taichi would come back at all, so me and V-mon just settled into our lives here."
Taichi's face was still stone. "You know that by doing that you've betrayed what the other guy was, right? Do you think he'd be happy with what his former friends did to the Digital World? And you helped them!"
"Taichi," Agumon said, "Maybe you're going a bit too far."
He hissed. Why was he so angry? He was not the other Taichi, yet why did he take Daisuke's actions so personally? "Well, hey, look, I made mistakes too. You know why Neo wants me dead so much, right?"
Daisuke stared at him. "You and he talked about some girl named Rei, right?"
Were they that open about it during their fights? "Yeah. I killed her. It was an accident, but if it wasn't for me she'd still be alive."
Silence filled the campsite. Taichi glanced at Catherine. "What about you?"
She waved her hand. "Oh, no, nothing like that. I was just a normal kid on Earth who wanted to be a reporter when I grew up. Then one day my computer started glowing and I ended up here." She smiled. "I guess I'm pretty boring after all."
Taichi rubbed his chin. "I just thought of something. You're European, right?"
"French, yes."
"Did you learn Japanese or…"
She shook her head but Daisuke spoke, "Another weird thing about the Digital World. We're speaking Japanese but Catherine's speaking French."
She nodded.
"And Michael's speaking English."
Agumon chimed in, "And we digimon are just talking like we always did."
Daisuke nodded. "Yeah, we just seem to be able to understand each other."
The sky suddenly shimmered and crackled like before a thunderstorm. A blast of energy appeared overhead that struck the ground, throwing up a maelstrom of sand and rocks. "Heat Wave!"
V-mon evolved to XV-mon in a flash and used his fists to pound away the incoming stones. Once the wind had died down, Taichi studied the sky and growled. A Hippogriffomon hovered above them with a blond girl on his back Taichi did not know and a teenage boy he did recognize. "Neo!"
He laughed. "Finally found you!"
The humans leaped from the digimon's back and landed on the sand. The girl gave a cool smile. "I don't believe we've met. You can call me Zoe."
"Is that your partner?" XV-mon asked, glancing at Hippogriffomon, "How?"
She flashed a familiar broken-hearted crest around her neck. "That's where Sora's went," Taichi muttered. He clenched his fist and stared at Neo. "What the hell do you want?"
He laughed. "Lady Hikari requests your presence and I'm here to obey." With a snap of his finger, Arkadimon Perfect appeared overhead and dove at them. Catherine and Floramon dove off to the side with the digimon pulling out her camera. Taichi knew that she was probably outclassed but she could at least try to help. He grabbed his digivice. "Agumon!"
"You got it!" he cried, "Agumon warp evolve to Ulforce V-dramon!"
Daisuke ordered XV-mon to evolve again to Paildramon and flew after Hippogriffomon. Taichi kept his own attention focused on Neo and Arkadimon. Taichi did not even need to call out attack commands to his partner; they had fought together for so long, it was as if Ulforce V-dramon could read his mind. His blue dragon man flew to meet Arkadimon Perfect, firing a beam from the v-shaped emblem on his chest. "Shinning V-Force!"
Even before Ulforce V-dramon finished declaring his attack, Arkadimon's chest opened and he sucked in the energy blast. "Dot Matrix!" He threw open his hands and a blast fired from his palms. The mega dragon twisted aside and tried to let off another energy strike, but Arkadimon appeared in front of him, striking him in the head with a quick blow.
Neo snickered. "I've studied your battles." He nodded slightly in Catherine's direction, "Thanks to your publicist! You start your fights with an opening attack and so Arkadimon was ready to suck that power into himself."
Taichi tried to ignore it; it was just taunting. Neo always did that, even back on earth during V-pet tournaments, he would talk shit to the other players until they made mistakes. It was just bull shit…right?
Ulforce V-dramon swung the sword on his wrist at the demon, but Arkadimon seemed to be ready before it happened. His Freeze Tentacles erupted from his wrist and curled around the dragon's arm, sending waves of crackling frost up his arm.
"And then you resort to standard physical attacks," Neo continued with a smirk, "You've become so easy to read!"
Taichi struggled to respond while his partner's sword swing was caught by Arkadimon and thrown backward. His partner was a Mega! He was strong enough to defeat Alphamon, a Super Mega!
Ulforce V-dramon swung his other fist around but Arkadimon's massive arm was in his way before completing his swing. "You're so predictable!" Neo sneered, "What happened to the great Taichi Yagami who got to the finals of the last D-1 Grand Prix."
He hissed, remembering facing Neo in the finals. Everyone had said he was a real tactician; that he fought outside of the box.
His anxiety seemed to have swept into his partner. Ulforce v-dramon swung at Arkadimon with a wild fury, always a second behind where the demon had been. Finally, Ulforce V-dramon managed a hit to Arkadimon's head. The demon used the momentum of the punch to drop into a circle of black stones and salt pillars.
Taichi's fingers curled around his digivice. "Come on!" he cried to his partner, "Don't give up! You've got him on the ropes now! Finish him!"
Ulforce V-dramon threw open his arms and the emblem on his chest blazed. "Shinning V Force!"
His v-shaped beam sailed at his opponent, but Arkadimon threw a black rock into the path. It exploded and he used it as cover to sail back into the air and threw both of his fists into the mega's gut.
"And you don't even use the environment to your advantage!" Neo laughed, "Ever since your partner evolved to Fully Evolved, you've only relied on your brute strength to win! And yeah, you've got a Mega, but levels alone aren't enough to win! My Arkadimon's a top-tier Perfect and by out-thinking you, I've won!"
Taichi stared at his digivice. Was Neo right? He thought of Alphamon. The giant digimon moved slow but treated Ulforce V-dramon and Sakuyamon almost like flies. All the two Megas had needed to do was dart around and attack. Arkadimon moved so fast, so unpredictable. Alphamon was like a mindless statue, but Arkadimon moved in mindless frenzy. Only he was not mindless; he had never spoken, never made any sounds aside from grunts and squeals, but he listened and remembered whatever Neo had told him!
"T-taichi…?" Ulforce V-dramon questioned as he hovered overhead.
"There has to be a pattern!" he cried, "Arkadimon has to move in some kind of pattern!" But how long would it take to figure it out?
Neo's laughter cut through the air. "I'm so much better than you!" A black light shown from his chest and his laughter was deeper, maniacal. "And see, see! You need all the energy from your pitiful Digital Knights! I don't need any! My crest glows because of my own power!"
Taichi turned to Arkadimon, who glowed with the same black light. His body twisted, limbs growing sleeker, his bat wings splitting into four, wasp-like wings. "Yes!" Neo laughed, "A Mega!"
Before either Taichi or his partner could react, Arkadimon Mega shot back into the sky, his tentacles twisting into a sharp spear that ran through Ulforce V-dramon's chest. "No!"
Arkadimon leaned close to the dragon man and a growling voice said, "I'm going to suck you dry! Dot Matrix!"
"Elemental Bolt!"
Paildramon's attack rained from the sky into the top of Arkadimon's head. The demonic Mega was not in pain but did not appear to be able to stop his body from shaking. Ulforce V-dramon pulled away and fell from the sky, landing in Taichi's arms as Koromon. "Oh buddy," he said, "I almost got you killed again!"
Catherine and Kiwimon ran before him and Taichi stifled a laugh. They came now to help when the bird digimon's attacks would be little more than gnat bites. He saw that Hippogriffomon was lying on his back near the shoreline with Zoe standing over him. Then Daisuke was at his side, "Get ready to run. Paildramon!"
The dragon man ceased unleashing lightning bolts into Arkadimon and turned his attention to the black cliffs looming overhead. "Desperado Blaster!"
His barrage of bullets ripped across the side, unleashing a landslide of dark rocks and boulders. Neo cried out and his partner crouched over him. Paildramon swooped down and hoisted the small group into his arms before darting back into the sky over the collapsing mountain.
The pile of rocks blew apart as Arkadimon stretched to his feet. Neo darted out of the hole and twisted his head; there was no sign of Taichi or the others. "Damn it!" he screamed, "Damn it!"
Zoe and her Muchomon called from the bottom of the pile. "They're gone, but if they're following the shoreline…"
"Get another Devidramon patrol after them!" he cried, his fingers tightening. "I want them found!" He licked his lips, his tongue going over his vampire fangs, "I'm going to drink him dry before I drag him back to Lady Hikari!"
Next: Ai's group arrives in the sanctuary of the Hangyomon, where the digimon want them to free their master. As they decide what to do, Makoto arrives. Can Ai overcome her own demons?
Chapter 34 The Lord of the Dark Ocean
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