I let out a whistle as I watched the whole thing unfold from the control room. There was no way Coach K was going to get away with this. With that many eyes on the screen, everyone in town would know about this by next week. And with all this going on, there was no way Coach K was going to get me expelled. I was in the clear.
"Feels like I'm forgetting something…" The satellite turned back to normal just as I heard a loud bang behind me. I spun around just in time to see Gazimon come flying towards me. I reached my arms out to try and catch her, only to get knocked backwards.
I landed on my back and quickly sat back up to see Kotemon standing at the doorway, seething in rage.
"How dare you…" Oh right, the crazy sword lizard who thought that American Football was some sort of holy ceremony. "To you who have gone so far to disrupt this ceremony, to you who conspired with a foul virus to bring chaos to this world… I dub thee virus, and enemy of order."
"You can dub me in whatever language you want, but can we go?" I knew what answer I was going to get, but hey, I had to try.
"You may leave to your grave and your grave alone!" He charged right at me as I brought Gazimon in close and rolled out of the way.
"Why did you even bother asking?" Gazimon demanded as I got back to my feet. Before I could answer, Gazimon jumped from my arms and landed on her feet. She raised her claws up and glared at Kotemon. "We got what we wanted, you run and I'll cover you."
Instead of charging at us… Kotemon narrowed his glowing yellow eyes before dashing out of the room. Was he letting us go? Gazimon raced to the door to watch him. He rushed down the stairs until he made it halfway until he reached the middle ring and then…
Oh so that was his game.
So what are we going to do now? He's blocking the only exit out of here," Gazimon grumbled as I searched around for any other large portal leading out into the wider network. It really seemed to be the only one.
"Well since he doesn't want to talk, and I think we have a time limit, our only chance is to fight our way through." I pointed out as I glanced back at the rest of the control room.
"What do you mean 'our way'? And also what do you mean by 'time limit'." Gazimon growled as I found one of the chairs that Kotemon had broken when he had stormed in. One of the legs was hanging on with a thread. All I needed to do was grab onto the leg and set my foot on the rest of the chair.
"The best way to fix a computer when something goes wrong like this is to turn it on and off again. And since turning the system down while we're in it would be hazardous to our health, we need to get out before that." I pushed with my foot, freeing the chair leg. I slid my hands down to the bottom and gave it a few test swings. Felt a bit awkward, but it was better than nothing.
"Okay I guess you have a point about that, but what are you planning to do with a chair leg?" I glanced out at Kotemon as an idea started forming in my head.
I did not like the plan, but Gabi was right, it was the best one we had. I crouched down in wait, hiding on top of a ring of seats and ready to run down at a moment's notice. From here I carefully watched Gabi as he approached Kotemon. He held his chair leg out at the other digimon.
"Just what do you think you're doing with that?" Kotemon demanded.
"Just evening the playing field a bit." Gabi explained as Kotemon scoffed.
"Your stance is terrible, your grip is sloppy, and your 'sword"," he almost choked as he said the word, "is as flimsy as your morals."
"Maybe, but it's still better than doing this unarmed!" He ran in, holding the sword up as he approached. Kotemon's eyes were locked onto Gabi as I saw my chance. I rushed out of my hiding spot above and made a beeline right for the annoying sword lizard.
Gabi swung, and I could see the plan coming together in my head. Kotemon would block the chair leg, and in that moment of stillness, I would finally get a good hit on him.
I was halfway there when the plan came apart. Kotemon swung before Gabi could, shattering the chair leg as Gabi was sent stumbling back. He took a step forward, sword ready to come down on him. I ran faster, desperate to get there in time.
"Gazi claw!" I jumped off one of the seats with my glowing claws reaching out. Kotemon took another step, got ready to swing at Gabi…
And turned on a dime, swinging at me like he'd always been planning to. I brought my arms back in at the last second to absorb the impact. I knew there was no point in trying to get in a hit, his reach was just that much longer than mine.
"Gazimon!" I heard Gabi cry out as my back hit the stone seat. In the corner of my eye, I could see Gabi start running towards me. Before he could get any closer, Kotemon barred his way with his sword. A tiny part of me was actually okay with that.
From my research, I knew humans were so much weaker than us digimon. We were tougher, faster, and able to do things they could only dream of. And yet somehow, how many times had it been Gabi helping me instead of the other way around? I could feel my pride taking a hit every time I ended up getting carried in his arms.
No this time I would stand on my own feet. At least Kotemon was arrogant enough to allow me to get to my feet.
"Still willing to face me, not going to run away?" I could just picture the smirk under his stupid helmet. Made me want to break it in two.
"You know, this whole place is probably going to collapse soon. If we don't get out of here soon, we'll all go down," Gabi pointed out even as Kotemon kept his eyes locked onto me.
"After what you two have done, I would rather die than allow you two to escape," He simply stated before running right at me. "Hot Head!"
I jumped to the side in time to avoid the flaming swing. The second my paws touched the stone, another swing forced me to jump back again. Kotemon was forcing me away from the exit. But at least this way, Gabi was in the clear to run away.
Oh who was I kidding? Not only would Gabi not leave me behind, Kotemon was more than fast enough to rush back and black him off. No, if we wanted to leave I'd need to fight and win.
Just keep dodging, just keep moving back. Until he makes a mistake and you have a chance to exploit it. It would have to happen eventually right?
Who was I kidding, Kotemon was speeding up and his attacks were getting closer and closer. I ducked under a swing and jumped down a dew of the stairs, only for Kotemon to land a split-second after me.
"Gazi claw!" I cried out and swung with my claws, hoping to hit him before he could steady his feet. Instead, he caught my claws with his sword again. I was getting really tired of… what was that glowing?
I looked past Kotemon who glanced back as well. I would have taken the chance to get a hit in, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. The only thing I could think about was Gabi standing with his hand raised up to the sky, shining brightly. He had a wild grin on his face, like he had no idea what was happening, and he was okay with that.
The light faded away, revealing a rectangular object in his outstretched hand. Our eyes met and I braced myself for whatever happened next.
"Digi Modify!" He slammed the card down onto the Digital Rebel on his other hand as the two exploded in a burst of light. "Snimon Slicer, activate!"
I felt the change hit me all at once. My hand transformed, the three short claws from before replaced with a single long, familiar, one-sided blade. The only differences I could spot between it and the blades the snimeon had tried to end us with the other day were who it was connected to, and the angle of the blade. Instead of being angled sideways like a scythe, the blade was angled straight like a sword.
"So you have some sort of trick!" Kotemon growled as he brought his sword back. "It will never be enough to stop my experience and skill."
He swung forward as I felt information flowing into my grain. I brought the blade up and pushed it with my other paw. Kotemon's wooden sword was stopped with a perfect block. The dumb lizard was thrown back as I saw my chance. I stepped forward and swung my arm. It hit Kotemon's blade, slicing it in two.
At that every second, I saw it. All I had to do now was swing one more time, and it would all be over…
And in that same second, I caught Gabi's eyes as we both came to the conclusion.
I tilted the blade a bit and swung forward, making sure to hit Kotemon with the flat of the blade instead. He was sent flying back as I took the chance to run to Gabi.
"How did you even do that?" I demanded as I reached him and we both started running to the exit. We'd waited long enough, we needed to get out of here now.
"I have no idea!" He laughed like a madman. "I just thought about how short your reach was, and then thought about the snimon blade's from the other day. Next thing you know, this card was in my hand and I was saying a bunch of words and now you have that thing!"
He pointed at my new arm blade and I wondered if I was just stuck with it forever now. As soon as I did, a little voice whispered instructions to get rid of it in my head. All I had to do was will it away the same way I did my claws. Probably best to do so once we were clear. We might need it again.
And almost as though to prove me right, Kotemon started running after us.
"I will not allow you to leave this place!" He roared as he wildly swung his newly shrunken sword at us. I opened my mouth to yell back when I spotted something behind him. A single crack in the stone seats. A single crack that was slowly growing, expanding and oh look now there were more of them.
So instead of saying anything to him, I just ran faster.
"Keep going Gabi!" I yelled as we reached the portal. Neither of us paused, we just jumped into it. Once we were safely in the network, we looked back and saw Kotemon running after us as the ground under him broke apart. He gave one final roar before throwing his sword at us. The half-blade spun through the air, almost reaching the doorway just as it closed.
The two of us waited a few seconds with baited breath, before the door opened again. On the other side was the colosseum in perfect condition… without a single sign of Kotemon in sight.
"We gave him a chance," Gabi whispered. His hands were shaking and I was pretty sure he wasn't blinking. I turned the blade back into a paw and floated over to him.
"Yeah we did," he jumped as I put my paw on his shoulder. "He made his choice and dealt with the consequences."
We both just floated there for a little while. Gabi closed his eyes and took a couple deep breaths while I mostly just watched him. I'd seen some things in the digital world. It wasn't my first time seeing a digimon get destroyed, but I had learned to not think about it too much.
"Okay," Gabi finally said as he opened his eyes back up. "Let's go home."
I led him back the way we came, making our way through the network until we made it back to his laptop. We both went in at the same time, and that's when something went wrong. The second we stepped foot on the glass road, a bright portal appeared in front of us.
"What is this?" Gabi asked as we were both pulled in.
"I don't know, brace yourself," I called out as we hit the portal and everything went white.
When I opened my eyes again, I noticed a few things in a particular order. The first was that I was back in the library. The second was that I was on the ground next to the table. The third was that there was someone sitting on a chair in front of my laptop. And the fourth and last… was the warm weight on my stomach.
The person sitting in the chair was easy enough. Roxie was a friend of mine and had been the one who'd lent me the phone I'd tried to use to show Principal Verdren my proof. She kind of knew I had something planner, but I'd been tight lipped about things on purpose.
As for the warm weight… all I had to do was follow Roxie's gaze. My eyes drifted downwards and fell onto a gray blob with long floppy ears and red eyes. It took me a few seconds before it clicked.
"Gazimon?"