Just so's you remember, and I don't have to keep writing it: Margo = Margo Green, Bill = Smithback, Vincent = Lt. D'Agosta, and Ryan = Special Agent Pendergast. They're kids now, so they use first names. Happy?
The DigiDestined sat in horrified silence. Margo, Bill, Vincent, and Ryan had just finished telling them, in full detail, exactly what an Mbwun was. And it wasn't pretty.
"It eats people's brains??" Takeru asked for the third time. The others were in similar states of disbelief.
"But it's still long dead, right?" Hikari asked, worried. "I mean, it would have taken a long time for it to be fossilized like that..."
"Do you think these four would have been drawn here unless something was wrong?" Iori asked rhetorically. "I mean, they seem to know about this Mbwun; maybe it's come back or something."
"Nobody make referances to Jurassic Park," Miyako muttered, forcing a slight smile.
Daisuke, on the other hand, leapt up. "Hey, what's everyone so worried about? Even if the thing has come back, our Digimon can take care of it! Right, guys?"
The goggle-boy's boasting was met with unsure silence.
"Hey, that's the second time you've said that word. What are Digimon?" Margo asked, curious.
"We're Digimon," Gatomon replied from about a foot away, making the four newcomers jump.
"What the-- a talking cat?" Bill looked around. "Maybe someone spiked the punch, 'cos I'm pretty sure that cat just talked."
"What punch?" Margo asked, then shook her head. "Nevermind. I don't really need, or want, to know. But, waitasec, you're trying to say that cat thing can take on an Mbwun?"
"My name's Gatomon," the Digimon responded, not quite answering the question. "That's Patamon, Veemon, Hawkmon, Armadillomon, and Wormmon."
"And they can fight," Iori continued. "Really well, actually. They also Digivolve--"
An arrow cut him off -- it would have been perminantly if Armadillomon hadn't pushed him out of the way -- and almost immidiately everyone had hit the dirt.
"What the hell is going on?" Bill hissed fearfully.
"I don't know, but we'd better be ready for a fight," Iori responded seriously. Then he smiled, adding, "This is Digivolving. DigiArmor energise!"
The Digimon next to him -- Armadillomon? -- apparently knew what to do. "Armadillomon, Armor Digivolve to Drillmon, the drill of Knowledge!"
The other DigiDestined took the cue. The other four stared, dumbstruck, as the Digimon... changed.
"Patamon, Armor Digivolve to Pegasusmon, flying Hope!"
"Gatomon, Armor Digivolve to Nefertimon, the angel of Light!"
"Veemon, Armon Digivolve to Flamedramon, the fire of Courage!"
"Hawkmon, Armor Digivolve to Halsemon, the wings of Love!"
"Wormmon, Digivolve to Stingmon!"
"Hey," Bill elbowed Margo none to gently in the ribs, "why didn't the worm change the same as the others?"
Margo elbowed him back, slightly harder. "Like I'd know? This kind of thing doesn't happen every day."
"Around here it does," Ken smiled a little, then jumped on Stingmon's back. "All right, let's get this over with."
"Come out and show yourselves!" Daisuke shouted with his perpetual bravada. If he was the least bit afraid, he didn't show it.
For a frozen second, nothing happened. Then, several dozen people stepped from the woods.
"They're archers," Margo whispered.
Bill looked at her like she was crazy. "Margo, they're elves."
"Gentrymon!" Nefertimon warned, "Their Poison Arrows guarantee a killing shot, and their Bewitching Melodies aren't anything to laugh at, either!"
One of the Gentrymon stepped foreward. "Let us have the reliquiae," he commanded in a wheedling, melodious voice. "You have no need of it. Will the pretty ladies give us our reliquiae?"
Margo suddenly felt lightheaded. Of course, they didn't need the fossil. They really should let the Gentrymon have it. It made perfect, beautiful sense. But...
"No," she managed to say in a leaden voice -- a flat, empty sound compared with the Gentrymon's voice. "It's... not... yours."
The Gentrymon looked puzzled. "But of course it isn't ours, pretty lady -- not until you give it to us. You will give it to us, won't you?"
Her last shreds of rational thought -- the part of her saying that, no, she couldn't let them have it -- dissapated. What a wonderful gift the reliquiae would make, a peace offering for the Gentrymon! Margo, entranced, found herself reaching for the fossil...
Then she was on her back, gaping at Bill, her hand flying up to her cheek. "Y-you slapped me!" she exclaimed, completely stunned. She glared; he glared right back.
"Backhanded, Lotus Blossom -- and you'd lost it. What the hell were you thinking??"
"Bewitching Melody," Takeru replied for her, grim. "Male Gentrymon. Females acting like puppets, doing whatever the guy says. What do you think?"
"I think we leave before a lady elf joins in," Iori said. "And, whatever happens, we don't let them have the fossil -- since it seems that's what they're after."
The other DigiDestined girls were snapping out of it. "I'm with that," Hikari agreed shakily. "If you guys go under, nobody'll be around to help the ones who are under Gentrymon control."
"So we just run??" Daisuke exploded, outraged. Miyako nodded vigerously.
"Uh-huh, we just run. Say 'ja' to the elves, everyone -- DigiPort, open!!"
And, with another falling sensation -- like the one they'd experienced when the four JTTs (Just-Turned-Teens) had first dropped into the DigiWorld not too long ago -- the ten kids were heading... elsewhere.
It was not a pleasent landing.
"OW!!"
For one thing, they had all shot out of a computer at high speeds, accidentally landing on another kid who'd been sitting at the keyboard.
For another thing, Iori had been holding the reliquiae -- and it had landed on half of them.
"We need airbags," Ken grumbled.
"Get off!" a muffled voice from the bottom of the pile shouted. "You could have given a slight warning!"
Everyone scrambled off, into slightly more dignified states of collapse. "Sorry, Koushiro-sempaii," Miyako was apologising to the red-haired boy everyone had landed on. "We needed to get out of there right away. It was kind of an emergancy; I didn't have time to call ahead."
Koushiro smiled. "Apology accepted, Miyako. I just have two questions. One: when you say that it was an emergancy, does that mean the DigiWorld's in trouble again? And two: who are those four?"
"Quite probably hai to the first one," Iori responded glumly, gesturing toward the reliquiae. "Take a look at this."
Margo, Bill, Vincent, and Ryan quickly introduced themselves, and explained once more that they believed the fossil was that of an Mbwun -- and what, exactly, an Mbwun was.
"Well," Koushiro said, taking a deep breath. "Does anyone mind if I call the others down here? You're probably going to need backup, at the very least."
"Hey, what's this?" Bill interrupted, staring down at a small, egg-shaped object in his hand. "And where'd it come from? I didn't even notice I was holding it till just now."
"That's a DigiMental!" Patamon exclaimed, grinning. "And you all have one -- you just haven't noticed it, yet."
Margo looked down. Sure enough, there was an object, the same kind of thing as Bill's, in her hands.
"What I don't understand is why your Digimon haven't come out of it yet," Koushiro mused thoughtfully. "They usually do so as soon as you pick your DigiMental up for the first time; then it becomes DigiArmor."
"Maybe we have to set it down, then pick it back up -- you know, since we didn't even realize we'd picked it up the first time," Margo suggested, feeling a little foolish. As an experiment, she set it down on one of the computer desks, then picked it up.
Nothing happened.
"Well, so much for that theory. We have defective eggs," Bill cracked. Margo was about to respond, when a bright green light suddenly filled the room.
"Gahh!" she yelped in shock, dropping the DigiMental. It hit the floor with an 'oof'.
Waitasec... oof??
"You didn't have to drop me. Geez," complained a voice near her ankles. The light faded. A small, whiteish fuzzball, with big button eyes and three fluffy, blue-tipped tails, gave her a slightly insulted Look.
"Sorry," Margo responded, her brain numb with a whole lot of shock. It was the only thing she could think to say. That and, "Um... what?"
The tailed fluff smiled. "S'okay. My name's Tailmon; I'm your Digimon!"
Margo then did something that she wasn't proud of. That, later, would really embarass her. She'd been dealing with the stress up till that point -- pretty well, actually very well, considering that she'd jumped two worlds in a half hour -- but at that point, she'd finally had enough.
She passed out.
THUD!!