Child 2.1

AN: I can't promise this speed will continue, especially as we get to September. Still, it's a hobby of mine. This chapter was a lot easier to write and be happy with then the last. I say that but I have no idea how to write action sequences. If my writing totally fails at a point or is confusing just point it out. My writing process is mostly me going, 'oh boy if I wrote this I would take it…' before realizing that is indeed where it is going because I am writing it.

Dinner went. The stew wasn't poison, since Wormmon ate some and didn't seem to be dying, so I felt safe stand-eating some. I offered to share some of my brown bag lunch with Mori, but it ended up getting everyone's attention. The Digimon were amazed by my sandwich, which I guess was fine, but I was uncomfortable with the focus Mori had given to everything. She couldn't recognize any of the brands, and I didn't want to admit that they were generic. Exotic to her only because they were region-specific to Brockton's chain grocery stores. Lucky silently fixed his hood, but he wasn't hiding his curiosity from me as well as he thought. Before Betamon swallowed it whole, I took the sandwich and tore it to pieces to let all of the Digimon try. Our conversation beyond my food was awkwardly stilted until Lucky and Mori began talking business.

"My Digivice is pointing to several signals this time," Mori held up the screen, which projected a flat, circular plane with several arrows, "do you know what this means?"

His glance darted between the arrows and the distance where the Firewall Digimon presumably were. At least one of the arrows was pointing towards a giant creature which I was going to term as a beetle, though I felt it also strongly resembled a flying ant. It was surrounded by smaller beetles, so I felt it was probably closer to them.

"One champion level Digimon hasn't been enough for a long time now. I think our enemies know that you're here Mori, and you lack the strength to push back a more concerted effort. Become stronger. I expect you to reach the Ultimate level soon." Pointing to the furthest arrow, he continued, "I can lure this one away, but then I will have to return home."

Mori nodded along, addressing me.

"We found a woman with a strange condition shortly before coming in this way. She was entirely blind and deaf, except she could see and hear me just fine."

"Much of my time since has been trying to cure her," Lucky explained, "she's something of an inspiration to me, and, despite being unaware of her presence, she's been prodigious in her partner's growth. Regardless, I still cannot leave her for long, as the World is quick to try and reject foreign entities, including and especially humons."

With that, Lucky pulled the hood of his cloak further over his head and handed me his bowl.
"Taylor, Wormmon, this world is not benevolent. I anticipate you needing a sixth bowl soon, but I think your caution might save you some day. You aren't one of the humons I would have chosen, but we will hopefully find good allies in everyone we ate with today," his next words were addressed to all of us present, "I've discovered that there were two chosen groups which were able to find their way here, and I came to warn Mori of strangers. Instead, I'll warn all of you. The first group is for us, and seeks to return home free, and stronger. The others the world is aware of, and it will try and turn them against you. Be careful."

The weight of his words hung in the air. Wormmon looked unsure, and Mushroomon seemed utterly disinterested, but Mori and Betamon both were staring at their radar in clear thought. Lucky took this time to pull his cloak furth over his head before leaving. I still wasn't sure what to make of him, but the fact that he was acknowledging that there was room for doubt made his serious tone and words mean more to me.

After some deep thought, Mori proposed a course of action I found unpleasant, but maybe necessary. We discussed it while using Betamon's water shot to clean our bowls and pot, with Wormmon drying and stacking them in my backpack.

"These Digimon could be anything from house-sized beetles with armor like tanks to more incarnations of fire like Meramon was," Mori took an authoritative tone, like a teacher, "Digimon are able to get stronger by defeating others, and then Digivolve with the Digivice."

All of the Digithises and Digithats were beginning to Digiwear on me.

"My idea is that we can try and take out one of these threats by surprise in the night. Even though we only have the force of one Champion in Coelamon, we should be enough to quickly end the fight and be ready to help whoever gets attacked tomorrow."

Mori caught a breath before backtracking. "Digimon fit into different stages depending on their power. In order, there's the Baby, Rookie, Champion, Ultimate, and Mega Levels."

I saw two flaws, one with the plan and one with that statement. To honor the ghost of my mother, I addressed the second one first.

"Shouldn't Ultimate be the highest level?"

Mori clearly was expecting more questions, but was knocked off balance by the semantics.

"What's so strange about Ultimate not being highest? Mega just sounds bigger than Ultimate."

"Ultimate means last, the stage should actually be penultimate."

"Ultimate can be last," Mushroomon added with an annoying lilt to his voice, "Then the penultimate stage is called Perfect."

This accomplished its goal in setting Mori further off.

"That makes no sense. If its perfect, it can't be better. I don't care if it means last; Ultimate is the second highest to me."

Wormmon laughed, and I found myself chuckling too. According to Wormmon, it was some kind of regional dialect. I gathered myself and gave my actual concern.

"How are you so confident none of them will be active at night? We lose the advantage if we get attacked while exhausted."

Betamon and Mushroomon laughed, but Wormmon listened. He thought on it for a moment before adding on.

"Even if the plan goes well, the Dokugamon and Owlmon are fierce fighters at night. There's a good chance of troublesome Digimon being active and causing a bigger fight than we bargained for."

"We will be fine! Let's see em tank a Variable Darts. I hear the really tough Insect Digimon have poor eyesight anyway," Betamon puffed his chest and bared his fangs with undue confidence.

Mushroomon shared in his bravado, "I haven't fought at all today. You'll find I'm as strong as Rookies come."

"If they have poor eyesight, their other senses will be better to compensate. Plus, if it's another Digimon like Meramon it's possible that we just won't be a good matchup to fight." I rebutted.

Mori crossed her arms and huffed, "So are you out?"

It was an annoying tactic, but I didn't want to leave them to just rush in. It just wasn't as stacked in our favor as much as they thought, and I wanted us on the same page. Still, I looked to Wormmon for approval. He looked away and didn't commit, but I trusted we could discuss it later.

"We're in. But we should be decisive and avoid attracting attention. If it looks bad, we run and try to return here."

With us mostly in agreement, I pushed off the aching in my legs and we looked at the map.

A few minutes and my resolve to go through with this plan was rapidly waning. Night fell, and the incredibly close Moon and ambient glow of everything left us with plenty of visible light. Wormmon and I were trailing behind, but many things came together to make me concerned. First point, several of the larger insect Digimon that had been in the direction Lucky headed were vaporized in a single shot. The death's were near instant, much like the fate of my smaller, nondigital insects sent his way, but I could almost feel a callous nature to the wounds. Second point, Mori had chosen the closest arrow to us. It was the ant-beetle hybrid I had felt earlier, I could tell we were outclassed. It was swarmed by beetles which were likely classified as Rookies, and ,while physically maybe weaker than Wormmon, there were nineteen of them. We would have to get there, let them reevaluate, and run, since I didn't want to reveal my powers and there were too many to deal with quietly. All I could offer was that I didn't feel good about choosing this direction. Lastly, there were both active giant spiders in the region, though none of them had spotted us, as well as some of those other giant beetle Digimon which took seemingly every waking moment to go on a mindless rampage. We walked in silence but I could sense Wormmon had something to say.

To be truthful, I could sense more than that. My power may have been unreliable at first, but I was becoming more aware of these insect-type Digimon. While they had gaps in their anatomy that I couldn't connect, things like eyes and the hydraulics of spiders still existed to an extent, and I could accurately measure how big or far away these creatures were. Relief came in equal parts to dread. I would be a lot safer if I could commandeer something like a giant beetle, but I didn't want to unwillingly Master Wormmon. I found him honest and trustworthy in a way I didn't really have in my life, so I was terrified to reach out and accidentally trap him in his own body. I could consciously not control insects normally, but it was a hair trigger. At a moment's notice, any insect in my range was liable to be taken in back home. It seemed like an evil use of my power if it applied here.

Pushing my potentially unnecessary power concerns away for now, it more immediately let me know that two of the giant spiders of the forest had spotted us. Rather than chase us, they had set three larva-ish worms to tail us and were laying spider thread tripwires and clotheslines on the paths back. I tapped Mori's arm and whispered.

"Hey, I stole a look back and saw a giant spider spitting something behind us. I think we should find a different way back."

Mori nodded. Though Wormmon looked confused, he added, "that sounds like Dokugumon. I've heard the Kunemon of the forest follow a particularly nasty one, if we see them we should rush forward. Digimon which choose to retreat find themselves trapped in a pincer by a much more dangerous mon."

We cut our chat short since we were approaching the Firewall. My ability to sense its size didn't soften the impact of seeing it with my eyes. I knew intellectually its legs were about the length of a car, but seeing the brutally blue-grey creature be the size of a house still caught me by surprise. Calling most Digimon Digital Monsters was kind of cute; this thing grotesquely fit the bill. It was sleeping lightly, and six of the small beetles were staying awake on watch. Four were set up each facing different directions, with the other two closer to the titan, angled to be able to see two of the other watch-insects. Each beetle was only knee tall, physically weaker than other insect Digimon that I had seen, and were colored like ladybugs with tan underbellies.

Mori started breaking down a plan of attack, taking cover behind a tree which didn't really exist. Hindsight set in 20/20; this plan was flawed from the moment we agreed to come here, and I hated the excited expressions that Mushroomon and Betamon shared. Both were advocating for essentially a frontal assault, striking hard and fast to eliminate the sleeping Digimon before they could attack back. Nevermind that our tails had managed to pass us and were also discussing something, or that we were all physically and emotionally drained, this was clearly a bad situation and we were unprepared to deal with it.

Wormmon looked like he felt more uneasy than I did. While he gathered up the will to argue, I voiced my thoughts.

"We can't take this fight. Even with surprise and luck, the size of that thing alone is enough to crush us effortlessly, and I don't think our trip home is safe."
Betamon huffed.

"We're strong enough. I could do this with just me and Mori."
"Yeah," Mushroomon smirked, "feel free to sit this one out."

"No," Wormmon said quietly but forcefully, "It doesn't matter if we can or can not. It's that we shouldn't. Um…"
He trailed off, looking to me for support, so I nodded for him to keep going.

"That's Kabuterimon. She isn't our enemy; her and the Tentomon protect the weaker forest Digimon from the many who would prey on them. If we tell them Dokugumon is waiting for us, I'm sure they'll help us get back in the morning."

"It's a Firewall Digimon. It's going to try and fight us," Mushroomon explained as if it was as natural as breathing.

"It's true Wormmon. Every Digimon the Digivice has identified has tried to kill either us or our friends. I'm sorry, but we should strike before they do." Mori's words seemed to have the opposite of their intended effect, as Wormmon went from mildly uneasy to actively uncomfortable.

"No, no, there'd have to be some good reason for them to attack somemon. She's brutal to her enemies, but she's always been kind and patient with me. If you feel justified blindly attacking them, maybe good Digimon should be wary of you."
Wormmon's adamant stance seemed to make Mori question her judgment, but I could tell Betamon and Mushroomon lacked any sympathy.

"Mori, it'll keep us safe. We know it will attack eventually. Let me digivolve! Be strong!" Betamon gnawed on Mori's leg, but it's simpleminded schtick seemed sinister to me right now. My face fell as Mori seemed to have steeled herself and stuck out her digivice towards Betamon, beginning the transformation. I felt Wormmon quickly aiming towards the one watch-Tentomon while Mushroomon, realizing what was about to happen, produced two of the poison mushrooms he was tossing around earlier and dove towards the shot. I leapt myself and shoulder checked, and his small frame wasn't able to stop the momentum as we both tumbled to the ground. Tentomon shouted in surprise as Wormmon hit him glancingly in the eye. The rest of the guards sent out an electrical burst lightly from their antenna, waking up the camp while also conveying a rough message of danger.

The mushrooms burst, releasing a yellow cloud which made my arms go rigid. Mushroomon seemed unaffected by his own spores, but my limbs had locked around him tightly. Despite the brute strength many Digimon seemed to have, Mushroomon didn't have enough to break free.

Coelamon ran ahead, throwing darts towards Kabuterimon, but a ball of energy formed and swallowed the attack while growing. Wormmon fired a silk strand onto my back, and reeled sideways, rolling Mushroomon and I with him uncomfortably.

"You fu-" Mushroomon's scream was cut out by different scream followed by a static-y buzzing sound.

"Mega Blaster!"

The humming ball flew quickly, emitting a flickering blue glow. Coelamon dodged sideways before continuing to charge, while the ball crashed into the forest and melted a hole where we just were. The blast knocked Wormmon airborne and kept Mushroomon's and my momentum, causing us to roll some more, while Mori had grabbed a sturdy stick and looked like she was about to hit something with it. Scratch that, she was about to hit something with it. With a cry of pain, the nearest Tentomon took a heavy blow on the head. The skull-like structure was pretty well developed, but the hit disoriented it and allowed for Mori to follow it up with more blows.

While Mori seemed to be winning against that Tentomon, there were still eighteen others, three Digimon which were probably Kunemon, the Kabuterimon in front and the Dokugumon behind. Wormmon had said he could resolve this peacefully, but the fight had become incredibly hectic and Mori and Mushroomon looked downright pissed with us right now. I doubted now was a good opportunity to explain that the giant fish trying to kill them didn't really want to kill them. The clashing of Coelamon's claws onto Kabuterimon's arms was fierce enough to produce sparks. While the giant Bug was being steadily pushed back for now, Coelamon was visibly tiring from the assault, and five Tentomons were congregating around to launch their own attacks at Coelamon. Ten of them were headed towards where we were, spreading out and readying their charges.

Feeling returned to my limbs and I scrambled up, causing Mushroomon to groan. If he was human I would expect him to have been pretty bruised from our tumbling, and I could feel mine already forming.

"We can explain," Wormmon shouted, "we don't want to fight!"

"Speak for yourself," Mushroomon got to his feet, producing more of the paralyzing mushrooms, "I sure as hell do."

I ran over to Wormmon as the tossed mushrooms collided with bursts of electricity, exploding midair. While no one was paralyzed, the floating spores deterred the Tentomons from coming any closer. The fight stalled as their "Super-Shockers" weren't too accurate or powerful at range and Mushroomon's firing rate was too low to push them back.

"Wormmon, what were you thinking?"

"They were making a mistake Taylor! I couldn't let them sneak attack someone who's been kind to me in the past."

"However kind they were doesn't matter right now if they think you're trying to assault them. How do you think we'll calm everyone down?"

"I don't know! I have no idea what I'm doing. She's a good Digimon and I don't want to fight her."

A second and third Tentomon were focused on Mori now, and Kabuterimon had successfully held her ground, slashing at Coelamon's arm-fins with her massive horn. The giant beetle electrified as Coelamon tried to execute some kind of shoulder throw, and Mushroomon was steadily being corralled by the Tentomon towards a small cliff face.

After this, I couldn't imagine our group sticking together. Still, if things kept going this way, someone was bound to get seriously injured. There was only one way I could see this dissolving, and I would need Wormmon on board. Mentally, I noted the position of all of the insect digimon around, and then I knelt next to Wormmon.

"Look, I think we can get out of this with no one getting hurt still." Maybe not no one, but I needed to console him and technicalities wouldn't do that.

"What I need is for you to trust me, and we'll all pull through alright. Jump into my arms, I'll carry you."

Wormmon looked at me seriously for a moment before hopping into my arms.

"First things first," I pointed Wormmon towards where the Dokugumon's minions were congregated, "there's three Kunemon on a branch right there. Hit them with your net attack and we'll pull them down."
A little confused, Wormmon shouted "Sticky Net" and launched it where I pointed. After a surprised yelp came from above, we reeled back together like we were fishing and tossed a few yellow worms with black electric patterns on them towards where Mushroomon was.

The Tentomon and Kunemon were thrown into total disarray, with the structured encirclement devolving into a brawl. I could feel electricity being thrown all around while several insects found themselves tagged and paralyzed by Mushroomon. I broke into a light run towards Mori, with Wormmon's Silk Thread knocking the Tentomon away.

"Get Coelamon and Mushroomon and take the long way back to the camp we made. We're just going to get hurt like this."
Punctuating my point was Coelamon, flying past us into a tree before morphing back into Betamon.

"Go."

Mori threw her stick at one of the Tentomons before turning back and running to pull Mushroomon from the electric melee. He seemed to be coming out on top, but looked exhausted.

Wormmon and I rushed towards Kabuterimon, who was charging another ball of electricity. I could tell it was aiming high, much like its previous attempt at this attack, hoping to vaporize us and then catch our retreating allies all in one blast.

"Wormmon," I held him down as I performed my best softball slide under the blast, then rolling right as some Tentomon tried to electrocute us. Wormmon returned fire with some rancid smelling silk, which effectively deterred the Tentomon and gave us room to speak more, "if we can't calm down Kabuterimon, we're going to run ourselves. It's possible something else is going on."

"S-something else? What do you mean?"

"We don't have time right now."

Sure enough, we had made it within spitting distance of Kabuterimon. It was still rampaging with attacks, throwing out arm thrusts and swipes with reckless abandon. Wormmon tensed up, throwing out silk strands in an ineffective attempt to either blind Kabuterimon or pull us away, but we were fine. I was able to read Kabuterimon like an open book. Every swing was telegraphed, the electricity took a few seconds to accumulate. I played the highest stakes game of double dutch, jumping in and out of, sidestepping and ducking blows which would have snapped my bones like twigs. Eventually, we fell into a rhythm of blows and electrical shocks, but I was feeling almost invincible, narrowly dodging attacks from all sides. I was doing this so smoothly, Wormmon even calmed down to a small shudder. He was repeating "We don't want to fight!" like a mantra, but to no effect. I began backpedaling, solidly having stalled Kabuterimon and given Wormmon his chance to stop the fighting. As we made it to just beyond Kabuterimon's maximum reach, I had to contest with the air-blades her attacks let off. Still, I turned my back on them and began running away. My power sense could dodge the attacks much better than my eyes; my eyes could help me not trip and die if I could see the ground I was about to step on. There wasn't any need to face Kabuterimon anymore.

As Wormmon and I had passed enough trees to cover us from the cutting winds and bolts, our pace drastically increased as Wormmon began slinging us by attaching silk to trees and reeling. His urgency was appreciated; the Kunemon had seemed to have split, allowing the Tentomon who weren't busy dissolving to follow Kabuterimon in her mad dash after us. We headed back on a straight line towards our camp, jumping and ducking over and under threads before I came to a complete stop and turned back around. Kabuterimon had almost caught up to us, but there was no point in running any further.

Her horn was leveled in a charging crawl taken straight out of a horror film. The trees were barely shaken as the thick legs grabbed them and pulled Kabuterimon's massive form through at a breakneck pace. Just as it felt like momentum would carry it through us, Wormmon sharply pulled us sideways as I kicked with my remaining strength.. Kabuterimon's mass crashed into the massive web the Dokugumon had prepared to trap us with on our return trip. All of the tripwires it had careened through in chasing us and the massive amount of bagworm silk covering it left Kabuterimon hopelessly tied up and weakened as two horribly ugly spiders climbed over with apparent surprise.

Neither had looked my way, and I didn't sense that the Kunemon had returned here, so I took this as our golden opportunity to lose the fighting and get back to our camp. I could feel the Tentomons clash with the Dokugumon as Kabuterimon thrashed violently, getting progressively more tangled but still managing to defend itself. My adrenaline rush began to fade, everything hurt, but we made it back to our camp without any of the Digimon we fought successfully following us. The death match ended with both Dokugumon missing limbs, half the Tentomon dead, and Kabuterimon moving much slower, intact but poisoned.

Mori and Betamon were still awake, keeping watch. Acknowledging us, Mori gave a defeated exhale.

"Get some rest. We'll talk in the morning."

The ground was hard and I felt like I was sitting on something, and it aggravated my forming bruises. Reaching around the ground and not finding anything, I stuck my hand onto and then into my back pocket. It closed around a palm sized device which glowed when I observed it.

My recognition of the piece of Tinkertech fell to my total exhaustion. I fell asleep holding onto it and Wormmon for dear life.

AN 2: My take on Taylor's power working like a combat thinker ability here I equate to how she could still sense bugs when her powers were overrode by Leet's Famine Engine.